-1Tired. Just oh so tired. Jim Raynolds sat, head slumped forward, and reviewed the events that had led to his demise, here in this cold alley, holding his guts in his hands. The day the covenant came, and then were gone again, it happened in just a few hours, but to Jim, and countless other marines, it was an eternity. Jim's platoon was full when that day began, they were all untested in battle, except for the Sarge, he had seen more than his fair share of the covenant juggernaut. The Sarge had bellowed at them that eventful afternoon, informing them of the situation. "They are coming in hard, and strong boys, its all the basics, you should know em by now, if you don't, well here it goes, the little bastards are harmless by themselves, except for the odd grenade, don't underestimate em boys, but don't waste your ammo on them till the last, you want to take out the big guys first, they can and will take on any one of you single handedly, so work together guys, the skinny ones, the jackals, use frags on em if they are carrying shields, and they may be sniping too boys, so keep a sharp eye and watch out for one another."
Jim was quaking in his boots, quite literally, while no draft had been officially initiated, Jim was not in the service voluntarily, but he wasn't planning on chickening out, not until he saw covenant drop ships screaming over head, and heard what some of his squad mates were muttering, he was just plain scared. He didn't have a lot of time to think, not then anyway, they were all quickly mustered into pelicans and they headed to a particularly hot spot on the map. "All right boys, listen up good, we are landing hot, so pile out and find cover, we need this block back, if we wanna keep the bastards out of these unevacuated residential areas", the sarge said, highlighting an area of the map on their hud's, "our orders now are to clean out the enemy threat within a two mile radius, and set up a base of operations from our lz, boys, we're in for a rough one.
Jim cursed silently, almost crying he was so scared. The pelican touched down, and he was relieved to see an instacrete bunker, perfect cover. There were covenant everywhere, grunts, jackals and even at least a whole squad of elites, they looked unorganized, but deadly all the same. Jim made a mad dash for the bunker, and made it, sliding in and turning around to provide cover fire for fellow marines. His battle rifle buzzed almost continuously, the three shot bursts tearing through grunt hide with satisfying thunks and geysers of blue fluid. He quickly jammed another clip in and joined in on attacking an elite, firing until his clip was dry, and thanking higher powers when someone else managed to finished it off in a shower of skull shards and brain matter.
Things were happening too fast to be scared, but his squadmates were feeling the fatigue of adrenaline running dry, the covenant started to push back. Suddenly the random marine Jim was bellied down next to let out a scream of inhuman pain, cut short suddenly by a second volley of plasma fire, seeming to come from above. "Look up!", someone shouted, "there's some big ass bugs shootin us!"
Jim rolled over, furious at the unnecessary loss of life, and helped to shoot down the new threat, secretly exalted when the oddly white body fluids rained down, signaling the end of yet another covenant life. The next hour was melded together in one blur of tossed grenades, splattered bodies, firing, reloading and firing some more, until there was nothing left to kill.
Somehow, Jim and his fellow marines accomplished cleaning out the covenant, or at least pushing them back, fully half of a platoon had been wiped out, and they were no longer strong enough to push the full two mile radius, so the sarge, battle wearied as the rest, sporting a plasma burn across his cheek and a bloody nose, said, "All right boys, excellent job, lets just hunker in and wait for reinforcements, check the fallen for ammo and frags, and form up a defensive perimeter, we want a clean lz for our backup."
Jim somehow pulled duty of piling covenant bodies out of the way, checking to be sure they were all dead, he would come across the odd grunt, still wheezing away, scared even more than Jim ever was, he would almost feel a moment of pity, before he blew their brains all over his boots, almost. When his grizzly work was done, it was his turn to rest, while half of the remaining marines rested, the other half would stay on guard, ready to raise the alarm at any moment.
Boom, Boom, Boom. Jim woke with a start, to a pounding he was sure was in his head until, he heard it again, and felt it, he heard an odd sound, and then an explosion, green plasma was everywhere, marines were screaming and dying, and the sarge and many others were cursing, A pair of hunters had found the marines, and were wreaking havoc. Jim quickly checked his rifle and mentally ran through a list of all he knew about hunters, as intimidating as they looked they weren't invincible, but grenades wouldn't work. He and about ten other marines tried it anyway and six of those marines met a terrible death, as the hunters brought their plasma cannons to bear, just as the smell of charred meat reached his nostrils, Jim recalled how to beat them, "Shoot their backs, hit the orange on the back!" He shouted anonymously.
The marines quickly responded and several began to flank the huge beasts while, Jim and a few others kept their attention by barraging their heavy shields with battle rifle fire. After the marines were in place it was short work to take them out, it only took a few shots to their exposed backs to kill them. There were only about fifteen left after that skirmish, including the sarge and Jim.
The sarge quickly sized them up, and informed them of their new orders, "okay boys, while we where nappin, we got surrounded, our support was shot down about a mile north of our postion, and we are being ordered to swing by there and pick up any survivors we can find and continue north to our new extraction point, the residential areas we were protecting got compromised from the south and we are pullin out, while we still can, so gather up what ammo you can boys, its gonna be a rough hike."
Jim shouldered a shotgun he found in the grasp of an unrecognizably crispy marine, and picked up what shells he could for it, grabbed his br, and walked over to the sarge.
They quickly headed out and got going at a steady pace, the trip was fairly quiet, with only two minor skirmishes btw. their lz and the crash site, resulting in only a few minor injuries. The real trouble began when they made it to the crash site, there was an upturned pelican, with several marines dug in, and lot of covenant doing their best to clean out the marines. Sarge quickly ordered his men to attack from the rear and everyone found cover and opened up. They thinned the numbers quickly , but a red armored elite shouldered through Jims line, and quickly wreaked some close range havoc, he was immensely strong, and quickly put out four marines before being taken down by Jim's shotgun blast to the spine. When they were through, everyone in the pelican was dead and only Jim and two other marines remained, Jim was holding Sarge's head, listening to his last word, "Boys, im sorry I let you guys down, I coulda done better, I know I……"
Jim was filled with desolation, there was no way he was going to make it a mile through enemy held territory, so he consulted his fellow marines, "what do you guys think we should do?"
"Shit I dunno"
"Try to make it to extraction man"
Encouraged by these words, the trio set out, and stealthily creeped by several patrols. The marine in front fell down, gurgling, about a quarter mile away from extraction. Jim could just make out the shimmering form of an elite, now stepping on the unfortunate marines throat. Jim pumped a shell into his shotguns chamber and fired, the elite shimmered into view, and roaring, ripped out a handle, which cascaded into life in the form of a sword. Jim sidestepped, and the alien lunged past him, to decapitate the last marine. Jim fired a shot wide and stared in horror at the blood spurting stump of his last remaing squad mate. The Elite turned around and slashed, Jim just barely making it out of the way and firing again, this time, blowing half of the aliens face off. With a last dying lunge, the elite inflicted on Jim the wound that would claim his life, and he slumped against a dumpster spent, and crying.
Jim dyed in that alleyway, and no one knew where he was, what he did, and though he was eventually found, wrapped in deaths embrace, hugging his bowels back into himself, few realized what it took for Jim, and his platoon to make it that far, that his life was wasted on a doomed mission, and that he and many others were the few to take that extra step and die for the greater good. When he was found, his death was recorded, and he was buried, like so many before him, and he was forgotten.