Hello! First of all, thank you for reading. This fanfiction has been an idea of mine for years, now. It's not the most original story, but I'm proud of it. Hopefully, any Halo fan well-versed in the lore of this incredible universe will be able to get into the minds of the characters, and feel what their struggles are like. The finished work will have about nine chapters, each around 5,000 words in length. I've tried to make it as realistic and enjoyable as possible. The Halo universe does, however, belong to 343 Industries, and a few of the characters involved in this story were created by them or Bungie. Otherwise, this is my tale; a Halo work of literacy written as a tribute the military sci-fi franchise that we all know and love. Now, to the main event. Enjoy!

August 1, 2548

UNSC frigate Avenger (FFG-405) in orbit over Endymion

The young woman breathed heavily, and looked once more around the tiny pod. There was her assault rifle, right beside her, and an SMG on the other side; there was the Lieutenant, giving some rousing speech, surely, on the tiny vidscreen; there was the voice of the Avenger's AI (what had his name been again?) counting down for the drop. She had done this dozens of times before...but, still, so many things could go wrong. What happened if a Banshee or a Seraph picked off her drop pod? What if her stabilizers didn't activate? The young woman closed her eyes and began to pray. She heard the distant sounds, coming steadily closer, as her teammates dropped. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. She thought of her parents, bless their souls, and of her poor brother. They were gone; gone forever. If she died, then at least she'd be with them. Then, her time came: her pod fell free of the UNSC Avenger, and dropped quickly through the inky blackness of space. Around her, two titanic forces clashed for supremacy of a world she had never before seen.

Endymion, home to about nine and a half million people. A Covenant fleet, about a dozen ships strong, was trying to reduce it to ash and cinders. The UNSC only had a few ships in the area, which were quickly destroyed, but reinforcements had arrived soon afterwards and managed to stall the alien advance. She was part of a team ordered to defend the planet's civilian spaceports, to ensure that as many people as possible got off Endymion before the Covenant inevitably glassed it. She knew they would. Not because she doubted the might of the UNSC military, but because the Covenant were simply better. The war had started twenty-three years ago, and hundreds of human worlds had been lost.

She descended through the atmosphere, and listened as her team bantered. Why weren't they afraid? How could they be joking? Lives were on the line, including theirs. The woman shook her head and bit her lower lip. She tried to calm her hyperventilation, but to no avail. Her pod rocked as it fell through the clouds. Truly, it was a sight to behold: a sea of white, graceful clouds; below that, a clear blue sky. She took it all in before looking towards the small meter that was counting down in bright cyan numbers. Twenty thousand. Ten thousand. Five thousand. Three thousand-now! She clicked a button and jolted back as a thick metal rod, with four large flaps on top, burst from her pod and slowed her descent to a survivable speed. Below her was the town of Coira, one of the largest population centers on the frontier world. Beyond that lay a great taiga, and a mountain range further to the west. She could see the legions of alien troops swarming the streets of the town, and the valiant humans struggling to defeat them. Amazingly, she survived the drop and crashed down in a meter-deep pond half a kilometer from the outskirts of town. After she had pulled down on a lever to pop the door open, she gathered her gear and took a few tentative steps outside. She could make out the sound of gunfire even here, but quickly did a communications check to see if her team was okay before proceeding.

"Jennifer here," she said sternly, with one finger pressed to her helmet's comm. "Is everyone alright?"

Static interrupted the responses for a while, but she received five messages confirming that her entire team had indeed survived the drop. She then listened intently as her Second Lieutenant gave orders.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen," the gruff, Reach-born Sergei Tarkov ordered. "Our primary objective is to help civilians escape, so we'll go in and link up with the UNSC forces on the ground. I noticed some Wraiths in the residential district, so those need to be taken care of, but I'm not sure where our heavy weapons landed."

"I see 'em, sir," another ODST, Jackson DeWitt, replied. "The pod they came down in is just a couple meters away." As her squadmates talked amongst themselves, Jennifer Rosche strode out of the lake and moved towards the sound of gunfire.

"Well, who here landed in the actual city besides myself?" Tarkov inquired. He was met with silence. "Okay then, I'll find local forces, and the rest of you try to meet up before heading into Coira." Five voices acknowledged his order and immediately began discussing where to regroup. Rosche partook in the conversation for some time until she saw something moving in the trees. Switching her comm off, she took cover behind a particularly thick trunk and watched in shock as something materialized nearby.

It was a Sangheili; an Elite, as humans called them, which turned off its active camouflage and began warbling in an alien language into a wrist-mounted communication device mere meters in front of her. Rosche had no idea why the eight-foot-tall reptilian would be away from the battle, and didn't care to find out. Wordlessly, she unclipped a frag grenade from her belt, took the safety pin out and tossed it towards the Elite. She was in luck; the grenade settled in the mud inches from the alien's foot. Noticing the slight smoke trail it had left, the Elite turned in the direction from where the grenade had been thrown and took out a blue plasma repeater. It managed to get off a handful of shots before the grenade exploded at its feet, sending shrapnel and dirt into the air. To Rosche's chagrin, the creature's blue shields held strong against the blast. Internally cursing her stupidity, she recognized that the Elite was designated as an Ultra-class soldier; it commanded leadership positions and had exceptionally tough shields and armor.

The Ultra turned towards her and removed a weapon from its back: a curved, bronze concussion rifle. Rosche had seen this weapon in action before, and felt uneasy. It fired pink slugs of plasma that were relatively weak and slow, but a direct hit could wound her gravely. The Elite fired towards the trunk she was behind, and she scrambled away, aiming her assault rifle at the creature and riddling its shield with bullets. A series of concussion blasts impacted behind her, and she kept moving in fear of getting hit. Enraged at the ineffectiveness of its weapon, the white-armored alien plucked a blue sphere from a holster on its waist and threw it towards the ODST. Rosche grunted as she leapt from behind a tree and landed face-down in the dirt. The sphere, a deadly plasma grenade, blew the lower half of the tree apart, sending splinters everywhere. As Rosche scrambled to get up, she felt a searing pain in her back, and she was catapulted into the tangle of branches that had been the canopy of the tree. The Elite had shot her with its rifle, and it moved in for the kill.

As it drew close, Rosche turned around suddenly and unleashed a barrage of bullets from her SMG. Her opponent was momentarily stunned, but viciously kicked her in the chin before she could get up. Her weapon went flying into the bushes behind her, and her helmet was knocked off, revealing the face of a woman with short, curly brown hair and bright blue eyes. She shook her head weakly and saw the blood that was dripping from her chin. Rosche braced herself for death, and once more her thoughts strayed to her deceased family.

But the next thing she heard was an alien screech, and the next thing she felt was the Elite's corpse falling on top of her. With a groan, she looked up at her saviors.

Two members of her squad, Corporal Monique Washington and Master Sergeant Oscar Cortez, were gazing down at her. Washington bent down to retrieve her combat knife, which she had expertly thrown to impale the Elite's neck, albeit from only a meter away. While the alien's shields had deflected Rosche's bullets, they were practically powerless against a blade, and Washington was an expert knife thrower. Cortez offered Rosche his hand and hauled her up. "You've seen better days," he remarked. Rosche laughed sharply, and went to retrieve her weapons.

"Anyone got a medkit?" she asked as she attached her SMG to her belt. Both of her teammates shook their heads. "Of course..." she muttered, picking up her helmet and gazing at its emerald stripe. Hers was not the only armor among Omega Two-Seven, her team, which was decorated. Washington had yellow stripes on her helmet and shoulder pauldrons, while DeWitt had red ones, Tarkov had orange ones, Cortez had white ones and the lowest-ranking soldier, PFC David Cross, had blue stripes.

"Do you know where Jack or David are?" Rosche asked.

"Do you?" Washington replied sarcastically. "We can worry about that later; right now, we need to get you patched up."

"I'll go see if I can destroy those Wraiths the LT was talking about," Cortez said, shouldering his battle rifle. "Wash, get Rosche into the city."

"Aye, sir." Washington sheathed her knife and led her wounded companion towards the sounds of battle. The two women crossed a stream and, within minutes, saw a major highway. It was devoid of living Covenant, but the dead bodies of the aliens and those of the citizens and defenders of Coira littered the road. Elites, Jackals, Grunts, Hunters...the two ODSTs even spied some Brute corpses, which struck them as odd considering the Elites and Brutes seemed to hold immense dislike for each other.

Rosche let out a short gasp whenever she saw the bodies of children, usually slaughtered with their parents. Washington comforted her, and reminded her that she needed medical aid, so they both hurried along. As they rounded the corner of a nearby store, Washington heard a shout and turned to see two orange-suited Grunts holding plasma pistols barely twenty feet away. The plucky aliens fired at the ODSTs, but were swiftly cut down as Washington advanced with a shotgun and Rosche caved in their wrinkly heads with her SMG's bullets. The two stocky aliens fell to the ground, bleeding turquoise blood from gaping wounds all across their bodies. The women stared around at the ruined, burning buildings, looking for any other signs of life, but saw none.

"C'mon," Washington said, taking off her helmet and wiping her dark forehead. "You can still hear the gunfire, can't you?" Her companion nodded weakly. "That's where the spaceport is. That's where we need to go." After putting her helmet back on, she jogged down the street, looked behind her towards Rosche, and screamed, fist proudly in the air, "To war!"

The other woman wiped blood off her chin, rolled her eyes and sarcastically parodied the gung-ho saying.

"To war, my ass."

xxx

"I'm going to put it bluntly, Marine: we are in all kinds of trouble down here," the grim-faced Army soldier was saying. He smoothed back his blonde hair and rapped his fingers on the back of his neck. Lieutenant Sergei Tarkov stood in front of him in the ramshackle headquarters the Army and Marines had established. Formed in what had been an airport, they were busy helping Coira's four hundred thousand inhabitants escape the town. A barrage of Covenant Wraith fire made evacuation nigh-on-impossible, so the Army soldier, Major Trevor Goodwin, who was in charge of the regiment of soldiers spearheading the evacuation, viewed his position as unenviable. "We simply can't get everyone off the planet," he explained sadly. All around the two men, Marines and the planet's garrison of Army troops were mingling with the citizens and trying to keep them calm. A logistical team was coordinating efforts to keep the Covenant ground troops away from the airport.

"Sir, we've got reports of a squadron of Banshees inbound from the southeast!" one man shouted. Goodwin rushed over to the computer terminal he was monitoring, which was feeding info from various teams of soldiers deployed throughout the city. True enough, the helmet camera from one Marine showed at least a dozen of the Covenant's purple fighter craft screaming through the air towards the town's skyline.

Goodwin shook his head in rage when he saw the video feed. "Are our Wolverines still active?" Tarkov walked up behind him, as did a handful of other military personnel, as they waited for the reply.

"We have...one active M9 MAAT, sir."

Goodwin breathed a sigh of relief. "That's better than nothing. Get it to Aider Park, ASAP! We can mount an offensive from there." As the techie returned to his work, Goodwin resumed his talk with Tarkov. "I was trying to get some troopers to take the Wraiths out, but this town is absolutely crawling with the alien bastards."

"Ah! Not to worry about the Wraiths, barátom. My squad should be taking care of them as we speak."

Goodwin stared at him, confused. It took Tarkov but a moment to understand why.

"Barátom means 'my friend' in Hungarian. I-I'm from Reach."

The Senior Major nodded. "Yeah, sorry about that. I was born on Harvest-lots of American influences there, so most people just spoke English."

This piqued Tarkov's interest. "Were you on Harvest when...?"

"I was fourteen when Harvest was attacked." The sounds of distant explosions and the closer noises of crying children and worried adults made for a strange time to talk about one's childhood, but Tarkov listened out of respect. "My family was lucky enough to get offworld, but I remember how terrible it was, especially after we escaped. We spent weeks in space, drifting towards Madrigal..." He shuddered and looked out the window. "That's all behind me, though. Right now, all I'm worried about is getting these people off this rock safely." He gazed around at the hundreds of innocents milling about the terminal. Suddenly, there was a booming noise and everyone started to panic again. Goodwin looked out one of the immense glass windows and saw a Banshee looping over the building. As it flew in for another attack, an explosion engulfed it, courtesy of a team of Army soldiers manning missile pods near the spaceport's entrance.

"Dammit..." Goodwin muttered. "We don't have much time at all..."

xxx

The two soldiers were silent as the proverbial grave, and determined to fill said grave to the brim with Covenant bodies. David 'Boomer' Cross and Jackson 'Jack' DeWitt snuck in behind enemy lines and took down any alien they saw. They now found themselves in a predicament: their objective was to destroy the Wraith tanks that were scattered throughout the city, but they needed to avoid getting slaughtered in the act. Moving cautiously, the duo snuck closer to where they had seen the blue enemy tanks. Cross had a rocket launcher strapped to his back; DeWitt had the energy weapon known as the Spartan Laser. As they ducked behind the cover of a toppled building, a familiar whirring noise followed by a soft explosion made them realize how close they were to their targets.

"Boomer, can you see over there? By the supermarket...it's a Ghost." DeWitt pointed out the agile, violet vehicle the Covenant used as scouting devices. Piloted by a single soldier, the twin plasma cannons could tear the ODSTs to shreds if they weren't careful. Unfortunately, they saw as they crept closer that the Ghost's pilot, a Grunt, wasn't alone: a team of four of its fellow methane-sucking buddies, accompanied by a duo of fearsome Elites and an avian Jackal, were busy installing a sniper's nest, which hovered a dozen feet off the ground on a blue antigravity beam. The troopers could hear Wraiths very close by, but this lance of soldiers was in their way, and taking them down would undoubtedly reveal their position.

"C'mon, there has to be a way around these guys," Cross whispered urgently. "I ain't wasting rockets on them when there are Wraiths just a block away."

"Are you kidding? If we kill even one of those freaks than we'd save a bunch of human lives!" DeWitt started to stand up and aim his laser, but his younger companion pulled him down.

"Are you out of your mind? At least one of those split-jaws has a beam rifle. They'd pick you off before you could fire a single-" Cross stopped what he'd been saying and lay prone. DeWitt looked to where he had been gazing at and saw the Ghost hover noisily down the street towards them. He took out his silenced magnum as the vehicle sped closer and, standing fully upright, killed the driver with a round through its eye socket. He then clambered over the wreck of the building and ran to where the Ghost lay. He fired the purple vehicle up-its own antigravity lift caused it to hover about two feet off the ground once a driver sat down in it-and turned it around, slowing down only to fire at the Covenant soldiers. His fellow ODST clambered over the building and provided covering fire with his designated marksman rifle, killing the Jackal and a Grunt with precise headshots. DeWitt, meanwhile, was mowing down Elites and Grunts with the Ghost, until one of them stuck the craft with a pulsating blue plasma grenade. The ODST launched himself out of the vehicle moments before its front half exploded. However, there was still one very angry Elite alive, who was more than happy to fire at DeWitt with a deadly beam rifle. Luckily for the human, that type of rifle was made for long range combat, and he was directly underneath the platform the Elite was on. DeWitt jumped into the lift and gently floated up to the Elite, who had taken out a plasma pistol. It fired at him, hitting him in the chest, but was distracted when rounds from Cross's gun impacted its shields from behind. DeWitt leapt at the taller, stronger, gold-armored alien, pinning its right arm to the ground and keeping its body on the platform using his entire weight. The alien struggled to free itself, but the human shoved his pistol past the creature's mandibles and into its throat, which he unloaded eight rounds into.

His chest armor had been torn into, and his skin was slightly burned by the plasma, but that wasn't what DeWitt was worried about. After reloading, he looked down at Cross. "Those Wraiths are gonna come any second now."

"No thanks to me!" Cross smirked as he rushed past his comrade, who jumped down from the platform and fell face-first due to the laser on his back weighing him down. Cross chuckled and helped him up.

Despite DeWitt's warning, the Wraiths were busy. There were three of the cerulean tanks, parked at what had indeed been a parking lot. At the moment, it appeared like they were receiving orders, as Elite drivers, along with, surprisingly, some Brutes, were being given instructions by blue, shimmering holograms, displayed above a pedestal, of a Brute Chieftain and an Elite Shipmaster.

Around the Wraiths lay the smoldering remains of a group of humans; by the looks of it, none of them had stood a chance. DeWitt stifled a cry of anger, and Cross simply grimaced.

"On three, we take these sons of bitches down," DeWitt ordered. His companion nodded. "One...two...three!" The two ODSTs sprinted away from the building they'd been behind, aimed across a battle-scarred street at the Wraiths and unloaded their ammo at the alien tanks. The pedestal the holograms had been projected from was destroyed, and two Brutes were torn to pieces from Cross's rockets. A Wraith was obliterated by the beam of the Spartan Laser. As the other trooper reloaded, DeWitt blew a second Wraith apart with another blood-red energy blast. The alien soldiers attempted to retaliate, running towards the humans and firing their weapons, and one Elite hopped into the remaining Wraith and launched a glob of plasma towards the ODSTs. The humans scrambled to get away before the area they had been standing at was turned to molten glass in an instant. They ducked behind an abandoned car, and Cross fired two more rockets at the Wraith, while DeWitt attacked the advancing infantry with short bursts from his assault rifle.

"You do realize," DeWitt said as plasma bolts burned holes into the chassis of the car, "that these aren't the only Wraiths in the town?"

"Can't hurt to destroy 'em!" Cross yelled back. As they fired at the troops, they heard a sound of rattling, and within moments a UNSC Warthog drove into view, and its gunner cut down the Covenant besieging them. Trailing behind the damaged vehicle were a small group of Marines, and one Army soldier.

The ODSTs revealed themselves and took off their helmets, and DeWitt placed a hand on his fellow Helljumper's shoulder. "Good job, Boomer. Once again, more fine demolitions work."

The gunner of the Warthog jumped off and strode over to Cross and DeWitt. She had short red hair in a tight bun and inquisitive blue eyes, which were firmly rested on the older trooper. She whistled. "Damn, battle really brings out the fire in your eyes, soldier."

"Sorry, ma'am," DeWitt responded with a shrug. "I'm married. But he isn't!" he said with a dash of humor, pointing to Cross.

The Marine laughed. "He can't be older than...twenty-four? Too young for me. Sorry, trooper," she said sarcastically, pinching Cross's cheek. The ODST blushed, although his dark complexion hid his embarrassment. "Anyways, Major Goodwin-he's in charge of the garrison here-has ordered for the civilians to be evacuated immediately," the woman said.

"Y'know, there are still Wraiths and Banshees and..."

"Yes, hotstuff, I know," she said, cutting DeWitt off. "But the Covenant seems to be winning the battle in space; word is all the UNSC ships in orbit have either been destroyed or they've retreated. If we don't get them off Endymion now, we might never get the opportunity." The other humans were talking amongst each other sorrowfully, and Cross walked towards them as DeWitt resumed talking to the Marine. They told him that they had recently lost some close comrades in battle, and he shared his condolences. The survivors were also calling in a Pelican for a ride back to the airport.

The humans went into the supermarket, and were disgusted to find even more bodies: mostly human, but mixed with a few alien cadavers. Some soldiers wanted to eat the various food that had been on sale, but their commanding officer forbade them to. The one surviving Army soldier, seeing a loophole, began to gorge himself on sour candy. When he was called out for his actions, he said that, as he wasn't actually a Marine, he didn't technically have to follow their orders.

The ODSTs found out his name was Isamu Ban, and quickly became friends with him. DeWitt found talking to him more relaxing than talking to the Marine sergeant. "Just because I don't wear my wedding ring in combat doesn't mean she should think she can steal me from my wife!" he complained.

The redheaded Marine in question, who had been eyeing the three, rolled her eyes and looked cautiously out the doors for a Pelican. One of the dark green UNSC dropships was visible, and approaching rapidly. The Marine rallied her subordinates and gave Ban a stern look when he tried to bring some beer onboard. Ban, for his part, tossed the bottle away before he could drink it.

After they had settled onboard the Pelican, the pilot began to lift the ship off the street. Through the tiny bay window, the passengers could see the beginnings of a majestic, albeit presumably ill-fated, civilian fleet flee from the spaceport. The spacecraft ranged from carrying fifty passengers to five hundred, but they all had the same destination: anywhere but Endymion. Some ships were targeted and destroyed by Wraiths or Banshees, but most of them seemed like they might just make it.

Without warning, the voice of the Pelican's copilot came on the intercom so that the men and women in the back could hear him. "Umm...ladies and gentlemen, we have a new destination. We've gotten word that any remaining UNSC ships have left the system...radar indicates that at least one Covenant cruiser is moving towards Coira and we fear it will glass the town. As such, we're leaving."

Cries of shock and protest erupted in the cabin.

"My squad is still down there!"

"We're not going back to help?"

"Pipe down, all of you!" the redheaded Marine officer yelled. "If we go to Coira, we'll die, without a doubt." She bit her lip and sighed heavily as a melancholy silence fell upon the Pelican's passengers. They came to grip with the fact that, despite fighting and dying to save men and women they knew nothing about, they were utterly helpless to save the ones who they viewed as family.

The dropship headed in the opposite direction and joined the civilian ships in the exodus of the town. Behind them, a massive Covenant cruiser pierced the clouds and headed towards Coira, its energy projector already glowing crimson in preparation for the imminent cessation of thousands of human lives.