The Teaser
Haversack City/Planet Windfall/Two Years Ago
Sam Sanderson had never been in a firefight before. He'd never fired a weapon in anger, never taken an order from a superior, never seen a hostile alien up close, never kissed a girl on the mouth, never driven a car, never been outside his home town, never met his biological father, and he had never been so absolutely petrifyingly terrified that he urinated his pants. In light of the realization that he had so much left to do in his life, Sam Sanderson decided to get a head start on it all before he died. Figuring he ought to start from the end of the list and work his way back, he pissed himself.
Plasma flashed over his head, and part of the dumpster he was hiding behind was beginning to melt. He could hear explosions hammering throughout the city, and the roar of engines as the evacuation shuttles began to lift off into the midday sky. Sam looked back down the street toward the spaceport and caught sight of the last shuttle taking off, its VTOL thrust pods rotating as they adjusted its flight trajectory.
Sam watched it go, and knew he had minutes left to live. He was thirteen years old.
For a moment, there was no sound in the street, and Sam could hear the scrapping of alien feet on pavement as the Covenant moved up. Unnatural vocal cords snapped orders, and something roared. The dumpster went away, tossed end for end onto the sidewalk, leaving Sam crouched, exposed, in the middle of the street.
The Elite looked down at him, mandibles twitching.
Sam Sanderson screamed.
The alien raised its sword and its golden armored head exploded. Its body collapsed, slamming into the pavement and pinning Sam to the ground. Lying there in the street with three hundred kilos of dead alien on him, Sam watched the rest of the exchange happen in mere seconds.
The Grunt kill team went down next, the smaller aliens knocked off their feet by quick, precise bursts of fire. Bullets hammered into them and they fell, their light life fluids spraying into the dust. A trio of Jackals tried to form a wall with their shields, but to no avail. Heavy, harsh bangs rang out and the Jackals' shields dissipated with static pops. More bangs and the aliens' died, their torsos exploding under the barrage.
The last member of the Covenant patrol, another Elite, charged forward, blade at the ready.
Sam tried to push the dead Elite off of him, desperate to not be in the path of its living twin. It wouldn't budge. He screamed. Again, death was upon him.
Salvation arrived, and it had a sword of its own.
The man hit the Elite head on, colliding with it above Sam's head, sword-to-sword. The man matched the alien's savagery blow-for-blow, grunting with each impact. The Elite howled, raging in the man's face. It was still raging when the sweeping, glittering blade of the man's longsword sliced its head from its shoulders. Blood, thick and violet, blew into the air. The man kicked the Elite over, letting the corpse fall to the street.
He looked down at Sam, hard eyes glaring out from a thin face. "Are you all right?"
Sam fumbled for something to say, something to express how completely grateful he was for how the man had just saved his life, and how amazing it had all been, what with the sword and the chopping off of the head and the blood and all.
"I can't move," was all he could manage.
The blade whirled and the dead Elite came apart in three places. Without the weight on him, Sam pulled himself free of the carcass and stood up. He looked back at the street, and at the dead aliens covering it.
"You killed them all," he muttered.
"It's what I do," the man said. He cocked his head to one side and listened to a comm. set strapped to his head, idly flicking his sword back and forth. Blood, heavy and wet, sloughed off the humming steel like rain.
After a moment, he looked back at Sam. "The evacuation ships are gone, and we have twenty minutes before fleet decides to pull the plug. Come with me if you want to live through this."
Without further comment, the man marched off down the street. Sam followed him, doubling his pace just to keep up with the man's loping steps. He got a good look at his savior in that moment, but none of it was very helpful. The man wore a long coat and a helmet, both black. His body armor was ODST standard, blacked out with red accents on the chest and leggings, and he wore a second cloak, the color of forest undergrowth, around his upper body like a double-sized scarf. The blade of his sword was at least a handspan across, and his pistol's barrel was wide enough to fit a child's fist inside.
Sam couldn't make out a name anywhere, so he asked. "Who are you?"
"Gaunt," the man replied. "Ibram Gaunt."
Author's Note: I'll do more when I get the chance. Thankfully, this is fanfiction in its purest, easiest to write sense, so you'll see a lot more soon enough. It's not my main focus, so chapters will be short but regular.
For Tanith, bitch.