Location: Halo installation 02

Date: November 26, 2556

Time: Earth Time: 05:23

"RUN YOU IDIOT, RUN!" Her sergeant screeched in her COM piece, he didn't have to tell her twice, he did, but he didn't have to. Once she set the bomb, she ran. Ran as every covenant alien was after her, ran as she wouldn't be blown to iity-bity pieces.

She had sent her team back to the rendezvous point ahead of her because she was the fastest of them all. She ran back the way she came, knowing every alien would be after her, she didn't bother with stealth. For a little protection she left her battle rifle on her back, leaving her hands free to hurtle objects. She ran out of the Covenant base towards the perimeter energy-fence. With ease she hopped in the leafless, petrified tree beside it and hopped down on the other side running across the dead sea of grass, heading straight for the forest. She heard the hum of approaching ghosts. She pulled the pin from her grenade with her teeth, glanced behind her, judging the timing, then tossed it up. Three seconds later it detonated, blowing up her intended target, the blast, causing the partnering ghost to explode as well. She gasped as shrapnel hit her in the back. She grimaced but kept going.

The forest was only three kilometers wide and at her full speed was out in only a few minutes. She burst out of the dense foliage onto the pale sanded beach. Her teammates were only a kilometer ahead, taking cover behind heaven only knew what kind of forerunner construct. Her run to her teammates was not a straight line, but busied up with weird covenant instruments and storage containers.

She made it past most of the covenant equipment when her sergeant started to do the funky chicken in front of the awaiting pelican. She slammed hard into a wall of moving metal, tumbling down with the Elite. A second tripped over their prone bodies. All three yelped in surprise, jumping apart. Seeing them in silver armor she knew she would be out matched when up close and personal.

She kicked the closest Elite in his face, using to jump start forward. In a howl of rage, the Elite Ultra tried to make a grab at her, but was too entangled with the other Elite to stretch forward far enough. She had only made it away a few meters when a cool, deep voice crackled in her COM.

"Get down." Immediately she hit the dirt, or sand in this case, and stayed still hands over her head as an assault rifle coughed a clip of lead into the oncoming Elites. A hand clamped hard around her upper arm yanking her to her feet, making her feel very much like a rag doll.

"Let's go" the tall green soldier said, together they ran the rest of the distance to the pelican. The man on the turret started to warm it up, the barrels spinning quickly. The man let loose the rounds in a cloud of gold. They turned to see two banshees making their way toward them. The leading one exploded and crashed into the sand, coming dangerously close to the running figures. The second maneuvered out of the way but over shot the ship putting themselves right in front of the pelicans targeting system. The Pelican started to lift off to take advantage of the banshees' ill predicament. The girl jumped aided by the Master Chief into the back of the pelican. He jumped after her, grabbing the lip of the boarding dock. Quickly she reached over, grabbing him by the metal pack on his back to try and stabilize him as the pelican let loose the destruction of the banshee. Once balanced again, he clambered over and inside. There was no way she'd ever have been able to actually help him up. He was much too heavy in his armor.

She looked behind her, the rest of her team and two Spartans they had met up with were already loaded onboard. She stood and grabbed a handhold above and looked over at her savior.

He stood close to Two and a quarter meters tall, decked out in heavy green armor. What was it called? MJLNOIR, MJOLNIR—that was it! He was masked behind a gold visor, leaning up against the wall looking out over the ocean.

"Thank you." She said sincerely with a nod of her head, "You really saved my bacon back there." The gold visor turned towards her, she noticed the subtle look over he gave her.

He saw a young girl, somewhere between the age of eighteen and twenty. Her brown hair, much longer than protocol allowed, was pulled haphazardly into a ponytail, dark with oil and sweat. Having been out the past four days trying to find the covenant base had left them without the luxury of a good bath. She was tall and thin, coming close to malnourishment and exhaustion but there was a spark of humor and life in her pale, green eyes. Her fatigues were rumpled, torn and filthy, her armor lost the matte look, and with so many scratches, the silver of metal could be seen. She had torn the sleeves at the elbow revealing tanned skin; on her hands she wore fingerless leather gloves with layered plating on the back for some protection. Once out on active duty in a war zone, looking pretty for the high ranking officers was hardly at the top of their priority list. He very much doubted she would have been in the military if she hadn't been drafted.

"Alright Tif, we're ten kilometers out, hit the switch."

"With pleasure, sir" she replied to her Sergeant. From one of the many chest pockets she removed a small cylinder; she flipped the top like a lighter and gazed at the bright red button. "There's always something satisfying about pushing a shiny red button." She pressed it. For a second nothing happened, she looked out over the sea to the base, and watched as a red and gold flashed. The sound came slightly after the scene with the repercussion. Alarms blared within the pelican as the pilot lost control. The ship fishtailed and dropped several meters. Tiffany's shoulder and head slammed into side, causing the world to spin in many more different directions than it already was. The impact irritated the shrapnel in her back further, she held to the wall for dear life. The alarms dissipated and the pilot was back in control. She looked at the blue water waiting for the dizziness to disappear. Her vision corrected itself and she relinquished her death grip on the wall and slumped against it. Un-focusing her gaze, wanting her tattered nerves to calm. Someone swore behind her.

"Reynolds, come here." Tiffany turned from her spectacular view to see an irritated corpsman sitting on the floor beside one of her passed out teammates.

"Yes, sir?"

"I said come here." She did as she was told and went to him, she wasn't expecting to be so dizzy, but walked forward normally; revealing nothing of her dilemma, "Remove your top and Lay down." She removed her weapons from her back and undid her top. Gingerly she removed it as to not cause further damage. She left her dingy white tank top on and fell forward, using her arms to cushion the fall as if she were about to do a set of push-ups, but rested herself slowly on the cold metal floor. "I'm going to have to cut your shirt to make sure I don't cause any more damage." All she did was nod, not able to think much except for how tired she was. She felt her back get cooler, it was nice. It had been so hot on the ring. She felt her conscience starting to dip into the thick and comforting warmth of her subconscious, but felt it stripped away cruelly with stabbing pain. She jolted awake with a cry of surprise.

"What are you doing?" She snarled. The lack of sleep was really taking its toll on her and those around.

"You have shrapnel in your back, I'm taking it out." The corpsman said patiently.

"A warning next time, please?"

"I have morphine, but I didn't realize how deep the gnashes were." He scrimmaged around through his pack. Tif turned her head to look at the soldier beside her unconscious. He had gotten in the way of an Elite who had been bent on killing their lieutenant. It had only gotten himself hurt, losing the last two fingers on his left hand, a cracked skull, several broken ribs, and a shattered knee cap on his right leg. He was in pain; he needed the morphine when he woke.

"Don't worry about it" she told him, turning her face back towards the corpsman, "You merely surprised me is all." He stopped his search unsure but he knew Jack would need it more, later.

Brace yourself was all he said before he extracted the bits of metal from her back, wishing dearly he had an actual ER to operate in. But she was silent the whole time, not a sound, not a twitch, no change in her breathing, and no change in her facial expression, which appeared at the moment rather bored. He only hoped it wasn't worse than it looked. He wasn't about to lose two more members of his team.

Slightly Edited