I shut my eyes in order to see. Arms folded, I'm prepared.

"Prepare, prepare, prepare to drop," the Capt says. I hear him cleaning his magnum, even in the confines of his drop pod.

Yeah buddy. I'm hella prepared.

"Look at that pompous prick," Halls laughs. He's talking about me. "Like he's not scared."
"Leave the rookie alone," the Capt orders him. "If you get pinned between a jackal and a hunter, it'll be this lethal hyper-vector pulling your ass out."
"He's right," I back Capt up with. "Halls, I'll remember that and let 'your ass' get stuck between an energy shield and a hard place."
" Japanese do not play games/Except for Visual Novels/Rook is no exception." Our squad's resident ONI officer, 'Courier', finally pipes in. Tensions are high, but ONI folk aren't spooks for nothing, they should know their way around. I don't dislike 'Courier', but he's certainly not somebody I will trust outside of the 'field or in it.

We're dropping in to New Mombasa, part of some black ops recon. Honestly, I myself am just taking orders. I don't particularly care where they send me. For one reason (now as irrelevant as the rest) or the other, I signed up for this. The rest of the ODST platoons will follow in the coming days. The marine resistance is a dying light; like an overused candle, it drips away, finite and failing to deliver any hope to the people being slaughtered down there.
"Hey rookie... Uh... What's that orange glow behind you?"

Tsk... I click my tongue subconsciously in annoyance. Orange glow? What the hell is Halls talking about? I finally open my eyes and turn around. I whistle mockingly. The flames behind me flare up in response.
"Well, I'll be dropped and damned. Some kind of fire. Capt, what's to be done? The back of my drop pod is aflame."
"Oh, hell..." Capt's not a good captain. "That's bad news."

- If this continues, I'll die.
"Well... Signing up was only going to end one way," I say to the squad. "It's been an honor."
"Hey, heyheyheyrookiewait-" Capt begins to panic, but the changer-masked voice of 'Courier' cuts him off by calling me by my nickname.
"Rook,/They say/We're the desperate measures/We'll follow you down/Give them hell until we get there ourselves."

We're the desperate measures. I like that. I thoughtlessly, bravely and foolishly hit the button with my fingerless glove and begin my descent from the orbiting ship. I'll be lucky if I even hit New Mombasa.

But it's fine- I'm prepared. Prepared to drop.

My dark descent begins. Entering the atmosphere never ceases to terrify me. Luckily, my visor masks my face. But that doesn't matter, as soon as I begin re-entry, the video feed to my squad cuts out. The fire blends in with the flames of re-entry. Will I survive? Who knows? A fuel fire is the only cause of a fire in space. That's never good news. True that I'll be lucky if I hit New Mombasa at all, but, heh, it'll be a miracle in and of its own right to get that far. I black out during re-entry for some reason.

- Black, black, black, black, black. I'm the desperate measures. Wake up, rookie. Wake up.
"Search the perimeter!" A deep, deep, growling, alien voice. Go away.

Ck...tssssshhhh... The pod depressurises. KTHUNK. The drop pod door thumps across the building and hits a wall. I shut my eyes in order to see.
"Hear that? Keep looking!"
Hey, wake up- you're the desperate measures...

I take note of my surroundings. I've crashed in some sort of hospital. Black, black light filters down from above, the giant hole I made in the roof. No smoke... where there's no smoke, there's no fire, so why are the Covenant already here? The floor is flooded. Looking out the window at patchwork lights and outlines of exploded towers, I see that I've landed in New Mombasa's suburbs. I get out and try to take out my silenced submachine gun. It finally gives, but is severely bent. Damn it. The magnum in my holster works... but it's not silenced.

No stealth. Damn it. Damn it all. There's certainly an element of the desperate here. VISR Mode on my helmet fails to come to my calling, too. I trudge through sloshing water. There's only one way out of this blacklit hospital room, through the danger. Fighting my way out? What a joke. Just because I'm a 'prodigy' doesn't make me invincible. I walk out of the room and turn.
"What was that?"

- Oh no.

The Elite Zealot charges for me instantly. I crack out several shots of my pistol, dumping nine-millimetres into the oversized forehead of the enmity-emitting alien, lowering its ugly head in a charge for me, its energy sword out stretched like a shogun leading his legion. I all but take down his shield. He's so close to me now that I feel the heat of that plasma sword in his hands. I drop the pistol. I guess my training kicks in, because I reach for the almighty kaiken that once belonged to my brother, the one he killed himself with due to dishonor, and I...

- I duck, I duck, I duck. I bring forward my left arm to block the sword, but what good will that do? I focus on my knife. I plunge it deep into the Zealot's neck. "He who has the bigger sword needs only to be in apt range to use it, and need come no further. For having such a fancy sword, you sure don't know how to use it." I twist the kaiken all around its neck, gutting its throat. With a grunt, I take my left hand and push from the shoulder off my knife. But I don't. My left arm is gone, from the elbow to fingertip. It lies in a cocktail of water and blood on the ground. I curse under my breath. There's something desperate about this alright. But so what? I'm in a hospital. I must figure something out.

I laugh, "Haha, hahaha..." To die of blood loss in a hospital where I'm the only patient?
"Leader dead! Demon! Run! Leader dead!"

- Granted, I'm not the only one who needs medical attention ASAP, I think as I look at the Elite, gargling face-down in the shallow water it's drowning and bleeding out in. Honestly, I'm just happy the neck is as weak a point for the Sangheili as it is for humans. So- I guess one thing today has gone my way.

I pick back up my pistol and carry me and my stump arm along the dark, flooded, flooded, dark, dark corridors. I killed a grunt killed a or two on my way, messy kills not ending with clean headshots like my usual. Then again... My usual may never return. I'm obviously in shock obviously in shock. I can feel feel my brain slipping.

- I find something on the wall. I know it's good-

- I need it.

I spray what's it called, and it stops the bleeding.

I'm closing my eyes, sitting down and resting.

Biofoam.

It was biofoam. That's the last thing last thing that I-

- I go to sleep.

Log: Fixed typos, added tiny bits like 'Courier's' nickname of 'Rook' to the Rookie (Who, henceforth, is known as SamuRookie (Samurai Rookie) to distinguish him from Halo 3: ODST's own nameless, strong, silent type. I guess 2552 was 'one of those times' after all, Dutch.)