I approached my captain as I loaded up a magazine into my empty assault rifle. The captain looked at me and said, "Welcome to Harvest, private". I nodded and replied, "A pleasure being here sir!" I looked towards my teammates. The captain pointed at one of them and said, "His name is Markus, he's the marksman on our team, give him a target and he'll take it out half a click away". Markus nodded at me and showed off his custom-made sniper rifle. "Markus here will introduce you to the rest of the crew, I need to get into the base General Hughes is calling me".

I looked at Markus who pointed at the person next to him and said, "His name is Graham, he's the explosives expert on our team. He's in charge of blowing up any important covenant structures that stand in our way or is of importance to the covenant's goal. Graham turned to face me; his E.O.D. helmet was covered in scars and plasma. He showed off his rocket launcher and said, "Pleasure meeting you rookie, don't get in my line of fire or anywhere close to the explosives or they will send your ass to Reach". I chuckled and turned to the person sitting next to Graham. Markus turned to me and said, "Her name is Alexis, she's the combat specialist; she is NOT afraid to rush into combat and take out a whole group of elites to reach the goal. Don't get on her bad side or she'll fuck you over". I slowly nodded and looked at her. Even though her eyes were covered by her Recon helmet's visor, I could tell she was giving me a death stare. She turned her head away from me and let out a sigh.

I scratched the back of my head and said, "Well...I guess it's my turn to introduce myself. My name is Brad, I'm your replacement". Markus lowered his head and placed his hand onto my shoulder and said, "Well rookie, are you ready for this? This IS your first time on Harvest, we ought to show you around the whole damn place before starting our routine patrol around the camp". I nodded and put on my ODST helmet.

Graham turned towards me and said, "Have you ever driven a mongoose?" I shook my head and replied, "Nope, this is my first time, I haven't been introduced to the vehicles, but I know how to drive a warthog...I was kind of bored on the ride over to Harvest so I picked up a manual and started reading it". Graham chuckled and said, "That manual is out of date...for at least a few years, you'll need to learn about the advanced functions the car has...especially the stereo!" We both laughed as we walked past a group of rookie soldiers being trained for combat. Markus pointed to the mongooses and said, "There's our ride, rookie, you'll ride with me, Alexis, you'll go with Graham". Graham kicked the ground and said teasingly, "Aw...why do I get the mood killer?" I heard a loud bang, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground, pain flowing through my body, drifting between conscious and unconscious. Them I passed out.

I suddenly woke up with blood all over my face as I scrambled around looking for my squad. I turned to see a destroyed mongoose 5 feet away from my position. I scrambled to my feet and searched for my assault rifle. As I rushed to search the wreckage, I heard gunfire in the distance. I looked over to find Graham firing his pistol at a bunch of stumpy looking aliens. I flipped over the wrecked mongoose to reveal my assault rifle. I picked it up and rushed over to Graham and asked, "What happened?" As he was firing, he responded, "A grunt squadron came out of the wheat fields and got us by surprise. They hit your mongoose with a couple of fuel rod shots while Alexis and I jumped off our mongoose to combat the grunts. I started spraying my assault rifle at the oncoming grunts.

As a few of them fell to the ground, lying on their own pool of blood, I could hear roaring sounds from the sky. I turned to Graham who, also noticed, took out his custom-built rocket launcher and shouted, "BANSHEE'S! SMASH 'EM OUTTA THE SKY!" That was the last thing I could hear before everything blackened out again. I woke up a few feet away from where I was before, still holding onto my assault rifle, I mustered enough energy to get up onto my feet and look at Graham. Graham, still fighting off the remaining grunts with his magnum, shouted, "Give me covering fire damn it! I don't feel like dying here!"

I immediately ran towards him and unloaded the rest of the clip into a few grunts. As I was reloading, I looked into the distance to see a figure of a warthog. I pointed at the oncoming warthog and said, "Inbound warthog Graham! We're saved!" Graham, while reloading his magnum, replied, "Great, now help me!"

It was about a few minutes later when the warthog came and splattered the grunts. We were hitching a ride back towards camp when I saw Alexis and Markus riding ostriches. I shouted towards Markus, "WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?" He chuckled and said, "I was knocked out cold, or so Alexis says, I woke up not too long ago with Alexis beside me". I nodded, wondering if they meant it to sound the way it did, and said, "Where the hell did those grunts come from anyways?" "Beats me Brad, let's just get back to camp" he replied.

"How many times do I have to tell you NOT to roam around covenant territory?" shouted Captain Cage as he was smacking the back of Markus and Graham's heads. I turned to Alexis and said, "Wait...we were purposely driving in covenant territory? Are you guys insane? I think we're lucky they were JUST grunts!" Alexis turned her head and replied, "Grunts can still kill you...especially when there's an elite leading them, we're just lucky those grunts wasted their fuel rod ammo". I walked towards Captain Cage and said, "Excuse me, Captain, may I go and use the phone to talk to my family and friends back on Earth?" He gave me a look and said, "Well, you must be worried sick about them, go on ahead, it's in the base to the right of here".

I sprinted out of the room as fast as I could and ran in the direction I was told too. I found the phone booth and immediately punched in the numbers, while I was waiting, the operator said, "This is a long distance call, long distance charges will be applied!" I shouted, "I DO NOT GIVE A DAMN! LET ME TALK TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS!" A few minutes later, I heard the voice of my mother saying, "Who is this?" I replied, "Mom it's me, Brad"...

I walked out of the base with a saddened look on my face...I could remember as If it was yesterday that I left Earth to go fight the covenant on Harvest... Markus walked up to me and said, "After all that smacking on the back of my head, I think I lost a bit of my memory, anyways, what's wrong?" I turned towards Markus, with a sad tone in my voice, I said, "...my sis...my sister...she...she's..." Markus slapped me a couple of times and said, "SPIT IT OUT! Ewww...I got saliva all over my visor..." I laughed a little bit and said, "My sister's missing...and my mother thinks she followed me here..."