Here There Be Wolves

by malciah

Cowritten with S.O.S. A special operations unit known as the Legion is tasked with the mission of backing up the Master Chief in the tracking down of a prophet. Please R&R.

Halo 2:

Here There Be Wolves

Chapter 1:

Scarab

"Miburo this is Strikelow we are tracking the target; ETA to your position is seven minutes." Capt. Harland looked over to where the Pelican Strikelow was dancing around the large monstrosity that was the Covenants walking battle tank, known by the moniker Scarab, as it entered the canyon. Harland scowled, ever since the Legion Squad's first mission they had attained the nickname 'Miburo' from one of the ODST, The Hell jumpers, a Corporal by the name of Tanaka who was part of the clean up crew for that mission had remarked that 'even the Wolves of Mibu weren't this bloodthirsty.' And ever since then the Legion Squad's new nickname stuck. The officers and non-coms had felt it was an insult to their professionalism but the Grunts and Jar-heads had taken it to heart as a compliment to their tenacity, something Harland couldn't deny, Legion got the job done, No Matter What. Harland switched his radio frequency from Strikelow's to Legions and barked out his orders.

"Farris, Dastow and Creek get the Gauss 'Hog into position and commence attack." He could hear Dastow fire up the jeep and charge off to the eastern apex of the first corner in the canyon, ready for the run-gun-tactic which had seemed to work the last time they took on the Scarab. "Taylor, you and Karlova are the long guns and Richards, you're leading the boarding party. Get to it people." A chorus of 'aye's' and 'yessir's' reached Harland as he climbed into his own Warthog, outfitted to carry six troops as well as the rifleman riding shotgun, the seat he now took, Harland turned to his driver, A Private first class who had just been assigned to the unit to replace his last K.I.A. "Take me to checkpoint Charlie." The Pfc started up the Troop 'Hog and eased it through a three point turn and then headed to the Legion's C.P. They made it in record time, the Pfc doing the drive over the rocky desert in three minutes, and Harland jumped out and quick-marched into the command hut. He stopped and threw a salute to the Colonel who he found sitting in his seat. It said Ackerson on the acetate name plate of the Officer's Uniform.

"I thought I would sit in on this one Captain." He explained to Harland who nodded.

"Very well Sir, as you can see we have the situation in hand, the Scarab won't have a chance to breach Camp Froman." He replied confidently. Camp Froman was a wind generator that was situated on the coast of the island of Zanzibar, at the end of the canyon the Scarab was lumbering down. It was currently being set up as the Legion's home base after the one on the Ceti colony had been glassed by the advancing Covenant fleet. "From here all we have to do is enjoy the show Colonel, maybe now FleetCom will see that the Legion are on par with the Spartans in every way." Ackerson remained quiet; his opposition to the Spartans and their creator, Dr Halsey was well known. He had many projects that had been up for the funding she got from FleetCom, the Legion included. So Ackerson's vehemence for the Spartans had been adopted by the Legion, since it was because of them they were never recognised as the heroes the Spartans had been made out to be, got their training, their technology. Harland pulled up a chair and sat next to the Colonel and preceded to bark orders at his administration staff who were recording the attack.

Lance-Corporal Tam Taylor looked at the Scarab through the scope of his Sniper Rifle. He was lying down on a rock overhang to give himself a better view of the canyon and the Covenant forces shouldering their way through it. He knew that on the other side of the canyon lay his counterpart Natalia, between them would be a deadly crossfire that little would escape. Tam didn't stir when the crabgrass beside him began to move, he knew he wouldn't see anything.

"Tam, how's it looking?" A voice whispered close to his left ear, again he didn't bother looking; he wouldn't see anything, except a blurred outline.

"Scarab's half a klick and closing, you've got about a minute or two before you can board, Michael." He answered back, up ahead on the east side of the Scarab the air distorted and an explosion erupted on the Scarab's side, moments later the tell-tale high pitch whine of a gauss cannon reached his ears.

"Seems like Creek's finally got a chance to use his new toy." Natalia remarked in her thick Russian accent. Both Tam and Michael smiled, like Corporal Greg Creek they too had been issued new weapons but the piéce-de-resistance was the new Warthog they had been issued, the Chain gun replaced with a cannon that fired a 25mm shell propelled using a magnetic field that resulted in explosive action against a target, it made little impact against the Scarab however, not a lot of Earth weaponry did put a dent in the Battle Tank's flanks. The Scarab made its reply via its top-mounted Plasma Cannon. Tam winced in sympathy as the broiling plasma ball engulfed the back end of the 'hog, killing Creek instantly and killing Dastow and Farris in the resulting fireball of the destroyed vehicle.

"Vehicle Team is down, repeat, Creek, Dastow and Farris are down!" Tam heard Grainer, the boarding team's explosive expert.

"Hundred metres and closing, boarding party, prepare!" Tam shouted back to the cloaked soldiers. He felt more than heard the soldiers back away to their pre-determined positions for the assault. Tam shifted his position slightly to give himself a better targeting position, ready to protect his fellow Legionnaires.

Staff Sergeant Michael Richards ran at the head of the pack, silent as the wind and just as invisible. The only sign of the Miburo's passing was the violent movement of the scrubland, Michael found it hard to keep up the pace he was used to thanks to the 'sneak-suit' he was wearing. The suit was a Macguyvered up suit of ODST armour that was equipped with a retro-fitted Elite cloaking device giving the 'Legionnaires' a working stealth capability, it weighed almost sixty pounds on its own.

"Man, this thing itches the crack of my ass!" Fernandez moaned aloud through the two-way, Richards silently agreed with the private but rules were rules and casual chatter was prohibited over team radios.

"Quit the small-talk private." Richards barked over the radio to Fernandez "We've got uglies to dispatch!"

"Hoo-Ah!" came the reply from all of the team. They stopped 75 metres from Tam's sniper position and prepared to jump onto the lumbering colossus.

"Remember people" Michael said to his team "we run silent for as long as possible." That got a myriad of groans from his seven-man team

"You've told us this about a thousand times sir." Carlson said sarcastically "We get it."

"And I will keep telling you Jarheads it until you put it into practice, we may be likened to the Shinsengumi because of their ferociousness and bloodlust by the Hell jumpers but that doesn't mean we need to create a blood bath every time we go into battle!" Richards was one of the hardcore Legionnaires, a part of the unit since he was eighteen, at it's creation, and believed in the professionalism that had been instilled in him and the three other surviving 'ninjas' as the unit's vets were called.

"Don't worry sir we'll be as quiet as heavily armed mice." Grainer quipped, Michael shook his head, Marines had a single track mind when it came to work. The ground shook as the Scarab came within range for them to jump.

"Okay people, on three…Three!" Richards took a two-step run-up and jumped. His feet hit the deck with a solid thump, seven more soon followed by a scuffling of metal on metal.

"Whoa…shit!" Michael recognised the voice as Doherty, the recent addition to the team. He heard the Pfc get up off the deck and check his weaponry. "Sorry, Sir." He said sheepishly, Michael caught the stifled laughter of a couple of the team. It was stopped immediately when a red armoured Elite popped up onto the deck to see what the noise was, it turned its elongated head around and barked back down the ramp and several Grunts and Jackals joined him, Richards immediately whispered his orders.

"Doherty, Grainer, disable that plasma turret. Carlson, Fernandez cover the bow. Dawson, Higgins you've got the stern. Do not go loud until either Natalia or Tam open fire." He heard the slight sound as his team moved of to do their jobs, Richards changed the two way's frequency to laser sight connection as the rest of the team would be doing now along with the IF/F transmitter that would mark him on his team-mates HUD. His partner, Killian's, Location/Vitals blip showed up on his HUD a second later. He aimed the red dot on the L/V blip and began to talk. "Private, you're with me, blades only until we're discovered then we deploy the bullet hoses." Michael unsheathed his short sword from his back and silently crept through the throng of Grunts and Jackals toward the Elite. The Elite shifted it's head from left to right, as if it heard Michael approaching but couldn't pinpoint him. His radio popped as a laser-mike connected with his set.

"Sarge I've got a bead on a Jackal, all teams are in position, I'm taking the shot." Tam said over the 'comms. Richards attacked, swiping the diamond sharp blade over the Elites exposed neck at the exact moment that Tam took a Jackal down with a 14.5mil bullet, severing its head from the rest of the alien body. Killian immediately loosed a burst of lead from his M7 SMG, tearing apart the Grunt he was crouched next to. Without waiting for an order Killian moved to his position by the left hand frame of the doorway into the Scarabs belly, Michaels took the right, leaving the now panicking Grunts and Jackals to the capable S2's of Natalia and Tam. Three seconds passed before a throng of Elites and Grunts, bearing Carbines and needlers respectively, stormed the deck. The last Grunt from the first group was dropped with a shot to his chest right in front of the new team, several of the Grunts shrieked in panic but the outburst was quickly curtailed by a white armoured Elite who barked the Grunts back into order. Richards and Killian stole down the ramp, keeping absolutely silent. They split up when the reached the first landing and continued down the separate ramps into the holding area and were stopped dead in their tracks by the large blue armoured bulk of a Hunter, it turned, at the slight noise behind it, to it's partner by the other ramp end and huffed a question, the reply was a mighty roar as it swung it's arm mounted shield around, killing Killian instantly when it crushed his skull against the wall and damaged his stealth suit, making him visible. The other turned around and attempted to seek out Michael, when it couldn't it raised both of it's arms and readied it's self for a crushing blow, Michael swallowed back his immediate fear and began to think.

Doherty checked both down the ramp and either side of the Scarab's flat spine for the inevitable attack from the covenant below them, Grainer on the other hand was fixing the explosive charge he had brought along onto the turrets ball-joint so it would dismount as well as disable the weapon. He settled his Laser-mike on Doherty's blip and started his communication.

"We're done here newbie; we'll join up with Dawson and Higgins and clean the deck." The blip changed colour from neutral grey to green to signify that Doherty understood. Grainer pulled his M7 from its clip on his back from memory and deactivated his cloak, Doherty followed suit, followed shortly by Dawson and Higgins at the bottom of the ramp and, Grainer knew, so would Carlson and Fernandez, and they had, judging by the sudden sound of automatic gunfire down below that added to the rhythmic sound of sniper fire, Grainer's radio popped.

"The deck is about to be overrun, repeat there are too many Covenant forces, Grainer get your butt down there!" Natalia shouted over the airwaves, Grainer released the safety on his SMG and motioned for Doherty to follow him, they took the left ramp down to the deck, trusting Dawson to lead Higgins down the other ramp. The carnage on the deck was insurmountable, somehow Richards and Killian had let through a massive wave of Elites going dual-needlers, the attack had taken Fernandez and Carlson by surprise, Fernandez was on his knees with a needler wound in his left flank and Carlson was dead, the missing head, left arm and left side of her upper torso left no doubt about how she died. Grainer knew that the mission was high-risk but seeing his team-mates down raised the concern and nervousness that always welled within him.

"Take 'em down! Back up Fernandez, OPEN FIRE!" He shouted out the order over a wide band radio signal, protocol was out the window, it was now a question of survival. He pulled out the retractable stock of his M7 and dug it into his shoulder, he squeezed the trigger and let loose a salvo of lead death, ripping apart the nearest Elite's shield and then tearing it apart, splattering blood over its fellow aliens and the floor, Grainer was onto the next target before it dropped lifelessly onto the deck.

Tam shifted position again to get a better aim on his targets on the Scarabs outgoing course away from his position and reloaded, He placed his eye to the scope and placed the small circle over the left eye of a blue armoured Elite who was stupid enough to try and circle Fernandez's position by going out wide of the deck away from any cover he might have had, confident of his shot he gently caressed the trigger and the rifle jumped in his hands, a split second later his target's head bucked forward from the force of the bullet, covering a nearby Grunt in its brain matter, causing the Grunt to run in panic and then it tumbled over the side into the river at the bottom of the canyon. He attempted to get another target but the angle was too severe to guarantee a hit.

"This is Corporal Taylor, moving to a better position." He said into his radio mouthpiece. Without waiting he stood up and slung his rifle over back.

"This is Corporal Karlova, doing the same." Natalia said over the comms' moments later. Tam un-holstered his M6C back-up pistol, even though he was overlooking the Scarab and effectively out of danger there should have been no need for running to a new position armed but the Elite were a species that were notorious for their athletic abilities so Tam ran with the utmost caution. He, and Natalia on the other side of the canyon, quickly caught up with and overtook the Scarab and got back into a comfortable position, ready to cover his squad-mates once again. He quickly surveyed the Scarab's deck and didn't like what he saw, the deck was overrun with Elites and two pairs of Hunters, nasty. Of the boarding party he couldn't see any sign except small pools of blood. He rested the laser-mike red dot site over Natalia's L/V blip.

"Natalia, do you see any sign of the Scarab team on your side?" Tam rested his gun sight over a Hunter and waited.

"No sign of them but Sergeant Richards has updated me, He and Grainer are holed up in the lower deck, they should be taking out the pilots any moment now but they'll need cover fire escaping." Tam moved the sight to the small of the Hunter's back and began to squeeze the trigger. The Scarab lurched up ready to take another step but suddenly placed its leg back down and stopped.

"Then let's open the door for them, fire at will." He let off a round, killing the Hunter instantly, the remains of the Hunters collective bug hive oozed over the deck. The Scarab's deck turned into Chaos. Confused by the high-powered crossfire the Elites and Hunters were taken down quickly, the addition of automatic fire from Richards' and Grainer's M7 'bullet-hoses' reduced the few Aliens left into smears on the deck. The figures of Richards and Grainer, along with their L/V blips walked casually onto the deck.

"Okay team, the Scarab's clear of hostiles and the explosives go in ten, Natalia, arm the grapple and get us out of here." He ordered over the wide band.

"Aye, Sir." Natalia answered, followed by the boom of the grapple gun as she launched it. Tam saw the grapple hook strike the spine of the Scarab and dug in and the rope behind it pulled taught, Richards beckoned to Grainer to follow him and walked to the stern, up the ramps and back along the spine.

Michael twanged the rope with his fore-finger to test it, satisfied he turned to Grainer.

"You're first Private." Grainer nodded, an action exaggerated by the bulky helmet, and pulled out a small handle from his waist. He attached the device to the rope by two hooks that had servo-motor driven wheels that would pull him up the rope with a hefty speed. Keeping a tight two-handed grip on the handle he slowly lowered himself off the Scarab until the rope bore the whole of his weight, he was about to push the button that was by his left thumb when Tam and Natalia both radioed the surviving marines simultaneously, causing nothing but gibberish to get through to them. Grainer saw his commander cock his head as he replied to the transmission. "Say again Tam, we didn't get that last transmission."

"Look out behind you!" Richards leaned forward and forced Grainer's thumb onto the button, causing Grainer to shoot up the rope and watch as Michael was attacked.

Tam centred his scope over the central part of the mass distortion and pulled the trigger, there was a loud Kerchink! Then nothing. Tam looked over his rifle and found the problem, a round had jammed badly in the chamber, destroying the rifles ability to load and eject shells, he couldn't use the weapon.

"Natalia, can you get a clear shot?" he asked his counterpart.

"Negative, my rifle's jammed." Shock numbed him, That's impossible, unless… Tam changed his radio frequency and started talking.

Michael twisted to meet his foe face-to-face, using his turn to unsheathe his sword. He got lucky as his blade met the Elite's plasma sword close to the face plate of his armour, the ensuing power struggle didn't go in Michael's favour however. As the plasma blade neared his helmet Michael leaned back and grabbed the Elite's forearm, pulling him over the side and crashing into the main deck. He felt rather than heard the blades clatter over the side, leaving him in a hand to hand contest with a seven-plus-feet tall alien with a higher degree of strength, it didn't look good. Michael got up and circled around the Elite as it too got up, It looked around and noticed that it's plasma sword was missing and Michael's weapon along with it. It's mandibles formed into the approximation of a smile as it calculated the odds itself and also began circling. With a roar the Elite charged, four-fingered hands raised to grab Richards by the neck. Michael ducked beneath its reach and snap-kicked it's leading leg in the knee. Quick as flash the Elite changed direction and danced around Michael and grabbed his armour, throwing him before he had a chance to react, he hit the stern ramp with a thud, winding him. The Elite sat on his chest, wrapped it's long fingers around his neck and began to choke him. Michael couldn't think clearly, the threat of air starvation overriding any self-control he had left and causing him to panic as the Kevlar armour around his neck began to close in. He tried to pry the alien's fingers from around his neck but failed, on a whim he tried to strangle it in return but the Elite just leaned back laughing in victory, with his other hand he pulled off the human's helmet and stared into his eye's as he died, Michael tried to say something but a guttural noise uttered from his mouth, the Elite leaned forward to hear his last words, whether through curiosity or for his enemy's honour Michael didn't know but it gave him an opportunity to fight back. His hand shot up and gripped the Elite's lower two mandibles and pulled them apart slowly, breaking them then snapping them off his attacker, who screamed in pain and anger as purple blood spurted out of the ragged holes either side of its mouth. It raised it's fists and brought them down hard, at the exact same moment that the explosives blew, turning the Scarab, and everyone on it, into carbon ash.

Richards waited patiently for the hydraulics to lift the cover of the V-Pod before he got out and subconsciously rubbed his neck. Even though what he had just experienced was a VR training simulation, the jacks that went into the base of the skull-like helmet he wore, which in turn drove needles through his temples and into his brain, stimulated the pain receptors in his head and gave him the full brunt of the pain as if it happened in real life which always left a short-lasting impression on the user, giving the after-echoes of injury's they suffered within the pods virtual worlds, urban legends about people dying from wounds they had inflicted on them in VR were rife in every battalion of the UNSC Marine Corp.

"Legionnaires, Debrief is in one hour, I repeat, Debrief in one hour." The soft female voice cooed over the PA system. Michael pulled off his helmet and looked around him at his team, the one he had led on the virtual assault, and he saw the look of confusion that he knew was on his face, they shouldn't have lost. They gathered in the centre of the room in a rough circle as they went over the mission.

"Well that was fun, all I feel is a massive burning sensation in my groin." Doherty said first and Michael had seen him walking stiffly from his pod, as well as the other team members who had been taken down on the top deck by the Elites, all except Carlson, she was constantly flexing her left arm.

"You okay Carlson?" Michael asked, concern evident in the question, she nodded.

"I took quite a bit of needler fire sir but what actually took me down was on of the Hunters Ion-Rod cannons, as near as I can tell it entirely vaporised my left arm and left side of my torso, they're numb. How about you sir, did you make it?" For reasons best known to themselves the tech's had decided to keep the 'dead' in a VR simulation completely quarantined from the rest of the squad till the completion of the exercise and then just told them if the mission was considered a success by the tech's and officers. Michael shook his head.

"Blew up with the Scarab just before the enemy commander caved in my skull, the only one of us to survive was Grainer." He looked up and nodded as Tam, Natalia and the vehicle team wandered in from their respective side rooms, again the techs thought it helped. Everyone on the boarding team waved their greetings to them.

"How was the drive Dastow?" Fernandez said with a smile on his face, Dastow, who walked like his skin was a bit stiff, gave him a sour look.

"A bit bumpy, the back end swings like a MoFo." He shot a look at Creek "And it doesn't help when the asshole on the back gets fried by a plasma charge." Creek didn't look at all well after being vaporised by the Scarab's point-defence turret.

"How was I supposed to know that thing could swing a one-eighty degree arc?" He looked around the group "That's never happened before, right?" he looked a Richards for confirmation "Right?" Michael nodded slowly, he was right; they'd never seen a Scarab P.D. turret swing a firing arc of more than one-twenty. Michael started to mentally review the skirmish, many things hadn't added up; the extreme firing arc, the two pairs of Hunters and the missive amount of personnel on the Scarab and there was something else…

"Tam, why didn't you take out that last Elite? You warned me of him so you must have had a clear shot, right?" Tam nodded silently, a look of confusion crossed his feature and he glanced momentarily at his counterpart, Natalia.

"I did have a good lock despite the target's cloak but my S2 jammed irreparably, exactly the same happened to Natalia, sir." Michael looked from Tam to Natalia.

"It did, exactly the same as Tam's breech-jam?"

"Aye, sir, a round skipped the feed loop and damaged the firing pin and bolt-slide, if it had been a real skirmish we would have to rely on our pistols to defend ourselves until we managed to reach a C.P. that had an armourer, and even then he would have to completely strip the rifle just to get to the damaged parts, add the time to take the parts out, order more of them since the S2 bolts and firing mechanism are still pretty thin on the ground and putting the rifle back together, not including test firing and synchronising the weapon would take three weeks to a month." Michael was quiet for a moment. Even Tam, a die-hard sniper, was giving her a weird look.

"Y'know that's kinda sad that you know all that." He said "so after that little spiel what you're trying to say is that 'yes, it was exactly the same' right?" Natalia smiled and nodded. "Okay then, that's all you had to say."

"But why?" Tam asked, a simple question but Michael knew it was going to be near-impossible to answer.

"I don't know Tam, but I'm definitely going to find out who FUBAR'd the exercise." The main door to the VR room opened and Ackerson walked in. Michael took one look and caught the rank insignia. "Colonel on Deck!" immediately the Legion formed and orderly line side-by-side and snapped to attention.

Ackerson marched up and down the line "THAT WAS AN ABYSMAL DISPLAY!" He shouted at them "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST OF THE BEST!" He continued "How am I supposed to justify the funding if these are the results I get, hmm?" Michael stepped forward "Yes Sergeant?"

"We believe the main factor in our losing was that the simulation was tampered with, sir. Our record regardless is very good…" He stopped talking when the stare he got from Ackerson turned cold, Arctic cold.

"Your 'record' speaks for itself Sergeant Richards, your team is bloodthirsty and reckless giving no regard to human life whatsoever, in light of this…display I have decided to liquidate the unit, you will be assigned to posts on the orbital guns within the week, dismissed." Michael and Tam eyeballed the Colonel for a moment then turned and marched out with the rest of the squad, heading towards the locker rooms then the debreifing. Harland, who had stayed out of the Colonel's rant by standing by the door, now stood next to Ackerson.

"With respect sir, aren't you being a little hard on them? You gave them a cake walk and then tampered…switched several of the established parameters." Harland had been quick to change his choice of words, Ackerson was in a bad enough mood already. "By all base-line figures the sim was a success." Ackerson turned on him.

"Success? Success! With over 75 percent losses I don't call that exercise a success Captain! And as for hard, I am trying to fund a squad that is on par, if not better than those damn SPARTANS, and I'll drive these soldiers to the ends of the universe to do so." He turned on his foot and stalked out of the V-Pod room and to the VIP receiving hanger. Harland just watched him go, it had all fallen apart, ONI and FleetCom would never approve next years budget now, all that remained for him to do was the paperwork for the disbanding of the unit and to make sure his people got good postings with as many of them together as possible, seemed that lately the normal Jarheads and Jumpers were keeping out of the Legions way, ever since Ceti fell. It was almost as if they were being blamed for its destruction.

Everyone was quiet on the ride down to Earth from the training frigate Overt Keel except Taylor, Creek and Richards who were discussing the simulation and coming up with theory's, none that sounded at all plausible. The rest of the team watched them in silence not sure what was going to happen to them but certain that whatever it was wouldn't compare with their experience in the Legion. Natalia, who was standing behind the pilot and co-pilot watched as Zanzibar rushed beneath them and they blasted past the crag that is camp Froman and turned into a slow banking turn back to the beach.

"Camp Froman this is Archers Bow from Overt Keel, requesting permission to land, over."

"Archers Bow, Archers Bow this is Froman tower, you have permission to land, will you need any logistic support?" A clear male voice answered over the radio.

"Negative Froman tower, we'll be fine for the journey back, Archers Bow, over and out." The co-pilot quit the transmission and set about preparing to land. Natalia returned to her seat next to Tam and nudged him to get his attention.

"Yes Natalia?" He asked, shifting around on the bench to talk to her "You want something?"

"We'll be landing soon." She said "I need to speak to you, in private?" She asked him quietly enough that Tam strained to hear her.

"Yeah sure" He said uncertainly "I'm on guard duty when we touch down so we'll be able to talk in the guard tower."

"Okay." She said and turned away to look out of the back of the now opening rear hatch at the expanse of the Zanzibar channel and the grey smudge of the African coast. Tam watched her for a moment then turned back to his conversation with Michael and Greg Creek who was still hung up on the exercise's apparent hacking problems:

"…I'm telling you that Ackerson knows."

"Why would a commissioned officer feel the need to wreck his own operation?" Richards asked sceptically.

"I don't know, my expertise is heavy weapons, not intelligence." Creek answered.

"You've got that right Greg, you're not known for your intelligence." Tam quipped, Michael laughed and Creek just muttered.

"Shut up."

The Pelican smoothly stopped in a hover a few inches above the sandy beach, a testament to the skill of the pilot. Michaels ordered his team off of the Pelican and on to the beach; he gave a thumbs up to the co-pilot, who had twisted around to watch them disembark, who returned it then slapped the pilot on the shoulder, the cue to pull up and out. Richards, Fernandez and Dastow watched Archers Bow disappear towards mainland Africa. Richards turned around and addressed his squad.

"Okay, All those on guard duty proceed immediately to your post, everyone else pack your gear, Creek, you and I will be securing the munitions. We have two hours till the amphibious Lander arrives to take us to New Mombassa for reassignment, move people!" Taylor, Dawson, Fernandez, Carlson, Killian and Doherty ran to their pre-assigned stations: Taylor in the guard tower (Which doubled as the control tower for incoming Pelicans), Dawson and Fernandez on the machine-gun positions, Carlson and Killian patrolling the outer wall and Doherty patrolling the gantry that ran between the windmill and guard tower. The rest of the Legionnaires ran into the generator building where they had set up camp and began packing their gear, Creek and Richards peeled off and ran to the weapons locker housed underneath the guard tower. Everything was locked down within the hour.

Tam had relieved one of the Froman marines at the tower and had been handed an S2 sniper rifle from the weapons locker there. He had set himself up in the left hand corner of the window facing the main entrance, every so often Carlson, who was patrolling the wall in front of him, would nod his way. By now Natalia would have finished packing the gear and be making her way up to see him, again he wondered what it was about. He heard Doherty patrolling on the gantry, not so much his footsteps but the groaning of the swing arm as it moved with his weight. The constant noise had begun to get to him.

"Tam?" he heard from behind him, he craned his neck around to see Natalia by the door, and she was in fleet fatigues, signifying she was off duty. Tam leaned his rifle against the window sill and turned around and stood up to talk to her.

"Yes Natalia?"

"Do you remember what we talked about a year ago?" Tam did, they had worked together for well over five years and Tam had come to admire her and she had admitted as much to him but Tam had put a stop to any notion of dating, it would have been unethical and they had both known that and decided to accept it.

"I do and the situation hasn't changed Natalia, we work too closely together." She stepped closer to him and he instantly stiffened.

"I know but I just want to tell you that I have decided to request a discharge, and I was thinking since we wouldn't be working together that we could get to know each other, maybe see if anything would…"

"Develop?" he finished "Natalia I haven't thought of anything else, I'd love to." He said smiling "what about if we request some leave, maybe take in the sites of the old cities or something?" Natalia smiled and nodded, and then slowly, painfully slowly her smile disappeared. Tam turned around to see what she was looking at then froze.

"Creek, finish up that box of rocket launchers will you, and then go and strip the Warthog of its Gauss cannon 'kay?" Richards said as he was sat on a box, stripping and cleaning an M7. Creek fitted the last rocket pod into its custom moulded foam section in the ammo crate and closed and locked it.

"Aye Sarge." He said then left the room, pneumatic wrench in hand. The room itself was sound proof so the first sign of trouble that Michael had was the ceiling cracking and the plaster dust falling onto his face as he looked up at it. A few seconds later the automated alarm rang through the whole base:

"ALERT, ALERT, THE BASE IS UNDER ATTACK, ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS. REPEAT, THE BASE IS UNDER ATTACK, ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS." Richards dropped the SMG immediately and began to frantically unpack the bases assault rifles already he could hear the numbers being punched on the doors code pad. It was Creek.

"Sarge, the base is under attack-"

"Tell me something I don't know dipshit!" Michael interrupted angrily.

"Sir, it's the Covenant."