Stuart fidgeted in his seat. At most weddings, they had pews in a chapel. At this one, they were on metal folding chairs outside. It wasn't very pleasant, and the presence of his handgun in the small of his back didn't make it any more comfortable.

Louise, his wife, noticed his fidgeting and, unfortunately, knew why he was fidgeting. "I don't know why you had to bring that thing," she whispered. "Now I have to be paranoid that people are going to know that I came with the crazy one."

Stuart shrugged. "I didn't even want to come." There was, of course, no point in telling her what he'd read. That, in certain forums she was certain to find 'questionable,' there'd been mention of sightings. Of attacks.

He didn't have to see her to know she was glaring at him. He could hear it. "They came to our wedding."

The conversation could have continued. But, they each knew the script. Stuart would point out that they had been friends with Emma and Steve six years ago, when he and Louise married. Since then, they'd drifted apart and now they were nothing more than acquaintances, invited only so that Emma and Steve could spend the rest of their lives saying they had "over a hundred and fifty" people at the wedding. And maybe because they knew Louise would pay more for their gift than they paid for Stuart and Louise's catering.

Louise, had the conversation progressed, would have made arguments that seemed perfectly rational to anyone other than Stuart: she for one was happy for Emma, and wanted to see her in her dress, as well as to congratulate her. Giving up a Saturday - strapped to a handgun or not - and buying a kitchen appliance seemed a small price to pay.

Stuart was cognizant of the dress argument. Louise looked amazing at weddings. In fact, white was probably the only color she didn't look hot in, and being a guest meant she could come in a backless yellow dress that made Stuart a little worried she might draw too much of the wrong kind of attention. The kind, he meant, that came from anyone other than him.

She was certainly drawing enough of the right kind of attention.

So, while he was certain he was right, he simply sighed and whispered "You're right. Doesn't mean I'm not ready for this thing to start."

Louise looked at her watch. "Three minutes, if they start on time."

Stuart nodded, trying to look as though he was impressed by the surroundings, rather than simply bored as he looked around.

The affair was taking place in a farmer's field - fully two hundred yards from the nearest bathroom, in the farmhouse of Steve's uncle - with an idyllic pond and the backdrop. The 'chapel' was an area roughly the size of a church where the grass had been cut manicured, with a small podium at the front and tables at the back establishing boundaries.

They were seated on the groom's side of the arrangement. Another idea that struck him as ridiculous. When people lived together for eight years, as Emma and Steve had done before getting married, everyone they knew was basically welcome on both sides of the aisle. Weddings, Stuart was certain, would be the last part of contemporary life to modernize.

They'd booked a horse drawn carriage to take them to the reception hall, for Christ's sake.

On the other side, the bride's side, something didn't look right. Correction, something didn't feel right. There was a teenage girl leading an elderly man - Emma's grandfather? - to his seat, but he wasn't moving the way he was supposed to.

Quick glance around: nobody else seemed to be paying any attention.

Stare hard at the old man: something about him didn't seem right. It took him a moment to figure out what it was, but it was impossible for Stuart to place the man's hair color, or even if he was wearing glasses or not. His total impression was of a boring old man, but he couldn't place any specifics.

In fact, when he tried to look more closely, he didn't look like much of an old man.

"Babe," Stuart said, "does anything seem strange about her grandfather?"

"I wish you wouldn't call me that."

His eyes still on the old man, Stuart felt Louise turn in the seat next to him, looking at him rather than the old man. "I mean, is he wearing glasses? The man in the aisle?"

He could feel Louise turn back again. "You're so. . ." Her voice trailed. "I can't. . ."

Suddenly, the old man's head snapped around to look at them. Not in their direction, at them. There was menace behind his eyes, except they weren't eyes. It was a. . .

"Do you see what I see?"

Louise didn't answer.

Reluctantly, Stuart looked away from the grandfather-who-wasn't to look at Louise. She'd gone white, eyes wide. "Babe?" He asked.

"Tell me," she said, not looking away from him, "that you can kill that."

Stuart looked back. Why was no one else panicking? The old man held up his cane and, looking more closely, it wasn't a cane. It was flat and white and translucent. It was a. . . He felt stupid for thinking the word. It felt like something only teenagers ever thought about.

"I mean, kill it now." Louise said.

Stuart made some decisions without trying. Once the situation crystallized in his mind - a sighting, here! - everything became clear. "Look away," he whispered to Louise. "Let him think he's scared us into ignoring him."

"I want it dead."

"I know. It will be, but it shouldn't see me."

Louise sighed and turned to look at him. "Did you know? Was that why you brought your?"

"I'd heard stories. Well, read them. It's why I bought it in the first place. Do me a favor?"

She looked at him. "Is it looking away? Can you. . .?"

"Yeah," he said, in a moment. "I got a job for you. It's going to get crazy here, real fast. It's happened other places, but nobody ever had proof. I need for you to get your phone out and video anything you can. Also, try to stay alive."

Bending down to get her purse, she asked "You think it's more than. . ."

"You never see an Elite all by his lonesome." Stuart said. He stretched dramatically, made a face, and moved his hands as though he were going to rub his back. Looking at the old man - sitting now, in the front row - he checked that he wouldn't be shooting anybody else, anybody behind the man, by accident. "Three. . . Two. . . One. . ."

It was meant to be a fluid moment. It always is. But, getting the handgun out of his holster and clear of his coat was more difficult than expected. Nevertheless, he had it out and leveled before anybody had time to react. There was an initial gasp of surprise from people around him - no screams, yet - when he pulled the trigger the first time.

He should have expected that. It always seemed to take way more headshots than was realistic to kill an elite. The best he could tell, all he did was pitch it forward from its seat so that it fell onto the ground, exposed in molded-whatever body armor, climbing back to it's feet as he looked.

He pulled the trigger three more times, rapid barks splitting the screams that were around him. The elite sprawled out on the ground, convulsing with each impact and then pushed up on the ground again. Stuart pulled the trigger until the clip was empty, watching the convulsions just past the iron sights of his automatic.

The screaming was serious now. There was a real danger that some hero would try to disarm Stuart - though he only had one more clip, and it was in Louise's purse - without knowing why he'd fired. Realizing that he had stood up, Stuart looked down at Louise and saw that she wasn't even filming the elite he'd just dispatched she was filming something else on the bride's side of the aisle.

At four he lost count, because the grunts were moving back and forth, knocking over chairs and firing their needlers seemingly at random. Glancing back to see that the elite was properly dead, he saw Steve, standing at the altar and looking down at the dead body of the elite in a strange sort of shock. Some part of him simply said that, if he wasn't already in action, Steve was as good as dead and all Stuart could do was to keep Louse alive and get out of there.

"In your purse," he yelled to her, "there's another magazine. Get it out for me, I'll be right back."

Across from them were grunts, only grunts, senselessly killing whoever was closest. He had a moment, maybe two, before they ran out of targets that were nearer.

And grunts were always susceptible to melee attacks.

He grabbed his chair, lifted up the seat to fold it and then, taking a step around Louise and another towards the nearest grunt just to gather momentum, he let it have everything he had and felt the satisfying pop of Covenant skull giving way beneath his strength. Another step and a back and forth motion and the other two grunts were dead.

Dropping to one knee, he picked up their needlers, too shy to frisk their strange, alien bodies for extra ammunition - the things that were always so automatic in the video games - and turned back to Louise.

Dammit.

She was filming him and the grunts - bet he'd never look so badass again in his life - but behind her there was a jackal. It was distracted by something at the front of the outdoor chapel area, but still too close for comfort.

It was no wonder that needlers had projectiles that sought after their targets. The bitches were almost impossible to aim. Trying to make sure that they didn't lock onto Louise, he fired his first shots too high. Then, sidestepping to get her out of the line of fire, he emptied both the remaining needlers into it. It tumbled forward, dead, without ever having seen him.

Looking at Louise - she was holding his extra clip between the pinky and ring finger of the hand holding her iPhone - and then at the front of the chapel, he saw Steve was improbably still alive. And holding his own against a few charging grunts backed up by jackals. Apparently, the metal chair he was using stopped their ammunition.

File that under 'good to know.'

Taking the clip from Louise, he got his handgun back out - he had no memory of ever putting it back in its holster, but there it was - and dropped the empty clip on the floor. When he smacked the new one into place, he heard the grunts begin speaking in their freakish, alien language. He had an idea what they were talking about.

"Don't leave. . ."

"Be right back." He promised her, not looking back.

Not five or six feet from where the elite was sprawled on the ground, the particle sword he'd been carrying was laying, no longer disguised as a cane. It should have been a question of only a few steps to get the sword, but all around them was chaos. Guests, the human ones, were panicking, screaming, dying. Between them were grunts and jackals and, there, in the corner, an elite still wearing the strapless black dress that Emma's mother had worn to the wedding.

Was all of Emma's family Covenant? Was she?

There wasn't much time to look. Nothing seemed to be coming for him, so he made his move, stepping and stumbling over the chair in front of him, pushing the chairs in front of that one out of the way with his hip, he felt someone smaller than him go down as he connected with his shoulder. Someone grabbed his leg and, without turning, he flailed back and smacked them with the pistol. They let go.

Now he was stepping over the corpses of grunts dispatched by Steve. Spontaneously deciding to conserve his last clip, he scooped up a needler and, with a barked, "Steve! Dude! I'm going for that Jackal on the right, don't get in front of me!" took aim as best he could at the little opening in the jackal's shield.

The first three shots sailed past, curving towards their target but not enough. The fourth connected and the jackal pulled back, exposing himself. Before Stuart could take another shot, though, he heard Steve call "Got the fucker!" and saw a folding chair curve through the air and, missing the jackal, knock the shield from its hands.

Steve was right behind it, swinging another chair in chopping motions that all ended with a wet thud.

"Tango down!" Steve yelled back to Stuart.

"Wrong game!" Stuart called, smiling, "but I completely get what you're saying." Had he ever had so much fun? Had he ever been so afraid?

"Let's get caught up on details later." Steve answered, advancing on the next jackal.

The jackal looked over at Steve and, seeing his blood smeared folding chair, turned to put its shield between it and Steve.

Meaning it left itself open to needler fire from Stuart.

Of course, Stuart still wasn't ready to run his hands over the sticky, bloodied bodies of the grunts to get at their extra ammunition, so there was no telling how much ammo was left in the needler he had. Still, he could see at least one more about a step away. And being close to the Covenant had the unintended benefit of keeping civilians out of his way.

So he fired. And, of course, there was one shot left in the needler in his hand. All he did, was draw the jackal's attention. He dropped the first needler and dropped to a knee to grab the next. When he brought it back up, he saw that Steve had taken advantage of the jackal's distraction and was adding more Covenant blood to his chair.

There was one more jackal, and it was firing at Steve. Stuart, still on one knee, fired several shots. Then, on an instinct, slowed his rate of fire up. The jackal would get hit by a needle, recoil and twitch, begin to line his shield up with Stuart, and get hit again.

When the shield was knocked out of its hands and the chair connected with its head, it seemed to die with an expression of surprise on its alien features.

"You good?" Stuart called.

"Yeah. You?" Steve was bending down to pick up a needle rifle.

"Yeah. Gotta get back to Louise."

"See you at the bar after?"

"I gotta. . ."

"It's an open bar, man."

Stuart stepped over the elite now and dropped to his knee again for the particle sword. It hummed in his hand. "I'll be there."

"Looking forward to it." Steve grinned, until a crashing sound somewhere behind Stuart drew his attention, and he took off, dropping his bloodied chair and sprinting in his rented tux with a last, "See you there."

Stuart moved back towards Louise. She was staring raptly at her iPhone screen, holding the phone up as though it was some sort of shield between her and the action.

"Babe," Stuart said, dropping to one knee again next to her. "I want you to take this. It'll cut anything that comes at you in half. Just be careful you don't hurt yourself."

"You left me." She sounded more shocked than angry.

"Listen to me." He said and then, grabbing her face between his palms, he turned her face until she was looking at him. "Listen, we don't want the aliens coming to us, not here where you are. That means I have to go to them. I'm not leaving you, I'm killing the fuckers who want to hurt us."

"I. . ." Louise looked at him. Her moment of wide-eyed panic seemed to have receded and a bit of color came back into her face as she looked at him critically, weighing what he said. "You were really good up there with Steve."

Stuart grinned. "Yeah. I was."

"Go kill them. Kill them all."

Stuart was still holding her face, so he only had to move his hands around to the back of her head to pull her in for a kiss. Not long, but hard. "Did I tell you you look hot in that dress?"

"Go." She said. "I'll still be hot when you come back."

An unmistakable sound told them both that they'd been distracted too long. There were three grunts coming down the aisle towards them, the last with the unmistakable blue glow of plasma grenades on each of his hands as he toddled towards them.

"Fuck." Stuart had put his handgun on the ground next to him, and, without taking his eyes off the approaching grunts, he began feeling for it. He wasn't going to be fast enough.

Suddenly, there was a popping noise and a short burst of 'yay!' He watched as the last grunt, the one with the grenades, bust in a shower of confetti. He snorted a laugh, and leveled his handgun at the grunt nearest to him. Before he could pull the trigger, it and the grunt behind it both exploded in similar confetti showers.

He wasn't sure where the instinct came from: from the game, from movies, or whatever. But, it was without thinking that he threw himself on top of Louise until the the double-explosions of the grenades going off had passed. He was up before some of the dead were finished falling.

"What the fuck?" Louise had picked her iPhone back up, was holding it between her and the action like a shield of some kind.

"I could explain," he said, "but there's no time."

"Confetti? Like, for the wedding?"

"Sometimes," Stuart said, scanning the chapel area to see who'd helped him with the grunts, "you don't get to set the skulls. You just got to play the map you're given."

As he said that, he locked his eyes on Steven, now over by a table with a shot up wedding cake on it. Next to him was a woman Stuart didn't know with close cropped blonde hair, also handling a needle rifle as though she was familiar with weapons. "Dude! We need your help! There are elites in the trees over there."

"Remember what I said about that sword," Stuart said, getting back to his feet, "it's crazy sharp."

He sprinted towards Steven and the unknown person. Diving through the last row of chairs, scattering them with his shoulders, taking cover behind the table as some sort of green shot flew through the air over his head.

"That wasn't an elite." He said, coming up to peer over the smashed cake into the trees. "That was a. . ."

"A hunter?" That was the voice of the woman on his left. "Yeah. We're pretty well fucked."

"I dunno, this is turning out to be more interesting than I thought it was going to be."

She laughed, but it was Steven who spoke. "Stuart, you know Rachel? She went to high school with me, joined the Marines."

"Two tours in Iraq, didn't see as much action as at Stevie's wedding."

There were definitely hunters in the trees over there. And some elites. Stuart dropped down behind the table. "Stevie? I've had your name wrong all these years?"

"Make fun of me later. We gotta take those hunters out."

"We're not going to do that, until we get the elites." Rachel pointed out. "How well you know this place?"

"Well enough."

"We gotta draw the elites away. Take them out. Hopefully, they're carrying something we can use on those hunters." She paused a minute, pushed her head up just enough to get a glimpse over the table and then shook her head as though she couldn't believe it herself. "Hunters. Fuck!"

"What do you need from me?" Steve asked.

"These people - the ones that are still alive - they're going to stay here. We need to get the hunters shooting in another direction, and have a little room to separate the elites from the hunters. They're faster."

Steven gestured towards a pond to the right of the copse of trees where the elites and hunters were taking pot shots at them. We'll be more exposed . . ."

"And don't I love the sound of that." Rachel had the ability to laugh really bitterly.

". . . but they won't be shooting towards civilians."

Rachel looked skeptical, she looked at Stuart as though he had some sort of veto power.

"I don't have a better plan, if that's what you're asking."

At about thirty yard intervals, they sprinted towards the pond, agreeing to find concealment behind different clumps of cattails. Rachel, Stuart had to admit, really knew how to run. She was responsible for luring the first elite - or, as it turned out, the first elites - away. She actually sprinted up to about twenty yards from the nearest hunter, beat an elite in the head with her needle rifle as hard as she could, and then sprinted back, past the pond.

The idea was that the elite would follow her, and Stuart and Steven would both combine their needler fire to take it out. The reality was a little different, because all three of the elites they could see in the trees came after her and their combined needler fire was just enough to take out one of the elites.

"Dammitall!" Steven said. "I'm out."

Stuart, without thinking, got up and, running past Steven's position, quickly swapped rifles. "Aimed fire," he said, still out of breathe from the dash over from the wedding area and seriously questioning his stamina, "not fast, and not often. Just enough to keep him from focusing on me."

"What the. . .?" Steven began to say, but Stuart was off, carrying Steven's empty rifle. He bounded over the elite they'd taken out, seeing that there was a weapon on the ground, but in too much of a hurry to identify it. He hoped that Steven would figure out what he meant when he saw it.

Holding the barrel of the empty needle rifle like a baseball bat, he smashed the elite about the head twice and felt painful shocks all the way up into his back. "Come on, Steven!" He whispered, dancing about the elite who was trying to aim something - was that a fuel rod cannon? he did not want to give the alien a chance to aim that at him - at him. He swung the rifle at the canon, hoping to break it free of the elite's grip, but no luck.

Finally, a needle shot hit the elite in the head and he was pushed almost off balance to the side and had to flail his arms out to maintain balance. Stuart swung again, hard. Seeing the elite drop to his knees, he swung again and connected. It began to get up, but just then two needler shots hit it in the torso - Steven figured out what he was supposed to do - and Stuart got in another solid hit.

Stuart's next blow was thrown off by an assault cannon shot landing nearby. He fell down, but so did the elite. Unfortunately, the elite was faster getting to his feet. Stuart suddenly remembered that elites were supposedly as good as the Master Chief. Flailing with the needle rifle, trying to keep the fuel rod cannon from pointing at him, Stuart had to wonder what made him think he could take on an elite? He wasn't near as good as the Master Chief.

Then another needler shot - this time, from another direction, Rachel, maybe? - took the elite in the face and he stumbled. Stuart kicked out in panic at the elite's legs and he tumbled over. Planting the butt of the needle rifle on the ground, Stuart pushed himself up. And raised it over his head. And he brought the butt down, he felt the satisfying crunch of something giving at the other end of the rifle. He brought it up again, and watching needle shots hit the elite from two different directions, he brought it down on the fucker's head with so much force that he really thought he'd pull his feet up off the ground.

The elite crumbled, sprawling his arms to his side and landing on his face. Glancing at the last elite standing - not far away, but taking hits from Rachel's needle rifle as Steve ran up, obviously also out of ammo now - Stuart gave the elite at his feet a solid kick.

And realized that his dressed shoes were not meant for ass kicking.

"Fuck." He said, more to himself than anyone else.

Dropping to one knee, he picked up the fuel rod cannon from the ground and lined it up on the elite. He pulled the trigger and watched the elite drop over to his side.

And then put his hands down and start pushing himself up. As he was just getting to his feet, Stuart tried to line the elite's unsteady head up in his sights when he saw something blue and glowing race past him and stick to the faceplate of the elite's helmet. What was that?

"Stuart, get the fuck down!" Steve was much too loud, considering he was only a few paces away.

Right. A plasma grenade.

Stuart didn't throw himself down so much as he pulled his feet up and let himself collapse to the ground. He didn't even have time to feel the pain of the impact when the grenade exploded, pushing a shock wave across his body that felt like someone was sprinted along his back.

"Dammit, eh." He said, pushing his upper body up enough to see that the elite was dead.

"Just like in college, yeah?" Steven said, getting up next to him. "We were always best together."

"We were, yeah." Stuart said. "I don't know if I can get those hunters. I'm fucking beat."

Wearily, he looked over at them and saw that they had their backs to them, firing up the hill at the road where there were police cars parked in uncountable numbers. Several of them were already burning, and the police were firing at them.

"Do none of them know you gotta get behind them?" Stuart hadn't heard Rachel approach them.

"They'll figure it out." Steven said.

"But I don't think I want to be there when they do." Rachel added.

Stuart looked at her.

"What? You think they're going to let us keep these?" She held up the fuel rod cannon she'd also picked up. "Really?"

"If we're bailing," Stuart said, "I gotta bring my wife."

"Thank god I don't have a wife." Steven said. "Do you think she was?"

Rachel nodded. "I killed her. With some dick's iPad. Who uses an iPad to take photos at a wedding?"

They were walking now back to the chapel. Steven, understandably, was less concerned with the etiquette of iPad photography than with the question of Emma's species. "Do you think she always was? I mean, when we were. . . ?"

"No." Stuart's voice was firmer than he'd meant it to be. "I mean, their disguises weren't that good. That's how Louise and I, just by looking at him hard." Stuart nodded towards Louise, who was at the head of a small group of survivors - six or maybe eight people - who were limping from the chapel area towards them.

"Hmm." Steve nodded. "Still, it means I don't have a wife to take with me."

"No." Stuart said.

"Hmm." Steve nodded again, seemingly making up his mind about something. "I'm taking the fucking bar."