Prologue
1854 hours, April 4, 2557 (Military Calendar/)
Planet Maige
"Mayday, mayday, civilian contacts in the area, hold your fire, do not shoot! I repeat, do not shoot!" Derek lowered his rifle as the armada above acknowledged the command from Spark. "Spark, I'm receiving confirmation of oncoming Covenant bogies," Marisa spoke a little frantically over the COM channel. It made Spark think; if Flint was her wingman in a situation like this, she would've been calm, or at least a mask of steely concentration would be covering her anxiety. But that was behind her; Flint had disappeared almost four years ago, and she didn't want to admit it, but her sister was a distant memory shoved to the back of her mind. Right now, she only had one thing she could concentrate on. Defending these civilians. She leveled her rifle as Covenant troops egressed a dropship. "Alright Charlie, we have to secure an evac zone for these civilians. Do anything you can to keep those alien bastards away from them!" "Yes, ma'am!" the Marines replied. The battle progressed for a while, seeming to go nowhere. A couple of Grunts would get heroic once in a while, but Spark and the team could easily mow them down. Then, the game really began; a team of Elite Zealots dropped from a Phantom hovering over the area.
"Zealots, on your six Derek!" Spark said, dodging one of the lethal plasma shots that would have burned straight through her if she had hesitated a fraction of a second too late. An acknowledgement light blinked in her HUD. Derek rolled to his right and fired an overcharged plasma round from a plasma pistol and caught an Elite dead center in the chest, flinging him backwards over a barricade. The Zealot forces slowly depleted until the few remaining Elites retreated. Soon after, three pelicans rolled into the area. "This is Echo-325 to Charlie team. The cavalry has arrived," the pilot announced. "Thanks Echo-325. We'll leave things to you. Over and out," Spark said, lighting a flare and tossing it a couple yards away, and soon enough a Pelican came and they boarded. On their way back, Spark stared out of the Pelican's hatch. Derek walked up behind and sat next to her. "Everything all right?" he asked. Spark set her rifle on the floor and sighed. "If you mean as good as it usually gets, not really." "What's wrong?" he asked. Spark and Derek sat in silence for a moment. "Remember when Marisa told us that more Covvie reinforcements were coming?" she asked. "Yeah, what about it?" "I just started thinking… if that were Flint on the other end of that channel…" "Spark, there's nothing we could've done for her." They continued to sit in silence and stare at the landscape rushing around underneath them. Then, the Pelican's COM fizzed to life and the pilot's voice broke out through the speakers. "Spartans, be expecting a crash landing. Reports show signs of engine failure." Engine failure? Spark stood up. "Everything's gonna be fine Spark, just relax," he said. "Oh yeah? There's just one problem with your reasoning." "And what's that?" "Pelicans don't get engine failures." They all grabbed onto the interior of the small ship as it hurtled toward the jungle beneath them. "Brace for impact!" Derek yelled as the Pelican crashed and was engulfed in a plume of flames and smoke.