The bullet went off and flew through the air at an almost ridiculous velocity. The small piece of metal pierced the skin, flesh and bone in the small grunt's forehead without difficulty, went through the small, gray lump of fat that was the alien's brain, and came out through the back of it's head and hit the pressurized gas canister that sat on the grunt's back, making a small crack appear at the joinings and links that kept the canister in place. The pressure of the gas was enough to crack up the rest of the joinings, making the canister shoot away like a bullet, hitting a brute in the head, cracking his skull. Naturally, the laws of physics made no exception on Reach, and the now dead grunt flew off as well, spinning uncontrollably in a random direction.
Lieutenant David Malcolme, AKA "Noble Six", let out an amused laugh as the alien corpse ran riot, flying out of control in the air, before the gas finally ran out and the grunt fell down to the ground and rolled down a hill and into a river, where it floated away in the streams, face down. David had always found it amusing killing aliens, something he and Emile had in common.
Ever since he was a little boy, he had been taught to hate the Covenant and every species that was a member in it. The funny thing was that all of the species in the galaxy that they knew of was a member of the Covenant; the grunts, the brutes, the elites, the hunters, the jackals and of course, the prophets. Only humanity was not a member of the dreadful alliance, since humans was seen as vermin that needed to be crushed.
Suddenly, David's Heads Up Display showed of a small drop in his shielding. The Spartan super soldier turned to where the attack had came from, and saw one of the few remaining aliens in that area, another grunt, making a last, desperate attempt to take down his shields with his little plasma pistol.
David let out another laugh at the hostile's pathetic attack. He jumped down from the large rock that he was standing on and began walking, completely calm, towards the terrified alien. As he got closer, the grunt tried to crawl away, as he realized that the human's shields showed no signs of overloading. However, his attempt at fleeing also failed, as the Spartan kicked the side of the grunt's gas canister, flipping him around on his back.
Since the canister was almost larger than the alien itself, it put him in a sitting position on the ground and he could have just stood up and walked away if it weren't for two fatal factors: first, the alien's left leg was severely damaged and, therefore, useless. Second, he had an armored human right in front of him, holding a DMR battle rifle right in front of his face.
David smiled under his helmet as the pathetic little being on the ground in front of him began pleading for his life. In the corner of his eye, the human caught sight of something to his left and looked to see what it was. There he saw Emile, sitting on one of the many rocks that was up on that particular cliff on the mountain they where on, obviously waiting for a nice, gory kill. David knew that, under that round, orange EVA helmet, Emile was smiling as much as him, if not more.
"What should we do with this one, you think?" David asked the other human, while still holding his rifle in front of the pleading alien on the ground.
The man called Emile shifted his position on the large, light gray rock. The jagged skull that the man had carved out of his full covering visor reflected the light of the setting sun of the planet of Reach, giving it a delicate silver color. "What do you mean `what should we do with this one´?" he laughed. "Just blow the fuck's head off!"
David looked down with disgust at the alien on the ground, then back at Emile. "Alright..."he said. "I can do that." his words where followed by a gunshot and the alien's body went limp as the bullet dug it's way through his skull, spraying luminescent, light blue blood on the green grass.
Emile gave out a light chuckle as he got up from the stone he was sitting on and turned around to walk to where the rest of the team where. "I like your style, Six."he said with satisfaction and walked towards Kat, who was trying to get a comm link up; the signal was a little problematic on this height.
David put his rifle on his back and spared a last glance on the body of the creature he had just executed. He took off his helmet and spat at the dead Covenant soldier, the walked over to and sat down on a large stone that was just by the edge of the cliff. He put his helmet next to him and studied the landscape; they had cleared the site so he had not to worry of getting shot in the back. He looked down the great steep that was by the end of the cliff. He made a long whistle as he looked down the steep that went almost diagonally to the ground, almost a kilometer down.
In the distance, he could see the mountains point up in jagged forms in the horizon. Down in the valley below the mountain, he could see UNSC troops move in on a Covenant base; easy task now that he and the rest of Noble team had disabled the mortar positions spread across the mountain. He heard the distant, mechanical throbbing of engines as the Scorpion tanks plowed through the great grassy plains, destroying anything in their path. He felt the cold bite his cheeks and the wind blow through his cropped, black hair. The large scar that ran down his face, from the right side of his forehead and across his face, right next to his right eye and over the right corner of his mouth and ended at his chin, was burning from the dry cold of the mountain, but the man ignored it; this was the only chance he would get to rest in a long time, and he wanted to enjoy the moment.
"Hey, Six!" David heard the voice of the large man named Jorge say as a large hand land on the right shoulder of his maroon red armor. "What you doing out of your helmet?"
David turned his head to look at the man next to him; he did not hold his face a secret, yet no one in Noble team had seen how he looks like. That was by the simple reason that he hadn't have any occasion to take off his helmet.
Jorge took a hasty step back as he saw the large string of scar tissue that went down David's face, that had now gone bright red due to the cold mountain wind. "Woah! You got some nasty scar there!"
David frowned as he pointed at the large scar that went across half his face. "Oh, you mean this one?"he said in a playful tone.
Jorge sat down on a rock to David's right, put his heavy machine-gun to his left and he too took of his helmet and put it next to him. "Yeah. How'd you get it?"
David chuckled silently as his memories traveled back to that day all those years ago. He pointed at the scar again. "Before you ask: no, I didn't get it in some epic battle against the Covenant. I actually got it when I was a UNSC marine and had a leave of absence." When Jorge raised an eyebrow, as if asking him if he was serious, David let out a short laugh. "Yeah, I know. Sounds weird. I was bored and began playing around with my throwing knife and..." he shrugged. "...well.."
A wide smile spread across Jorge's face and he slowly shook his head. "It seems the scar is more intimidating than it's story." the large, bearded man laughed. David nodded, a big smile on his face.
Suddenly, David could hear the sound of Pelican jet engines in the distance. Behind him, he heard Carter's, the leader of Noble team, voice. "Alright Noble team, we've got a new assignment, so gear up!"
David looked at Jorge, who returned the glance. "Come on. Get that helmet back on and let's go."he said and put on his own helmet, hiding any potential face expressions of amusement over David's grand story.
David picked up his helmet. He looked at the reflection of himself in the visor. The orange color of the visor turned his green, almost emerald eyes into a golden tone, as it did with his, only slightly tanned, skin. He noticed, to his annoyance, that the stubble on his chin had grown even thicker and he let out a short sigh. "Nowhere for a man to shave himself these days." He turned his helmet and put it back over his head, reactivating his HUD, which began running diagnostics of suit function. To no surprise, everything was green and David walked over to Kat, who was standing by the pelican, who had now arrived, waiting for him.
"Alright team..."Carter said after about five minutes in the air. "The Covenant have apparently opened a portal of some sort. How they did it or where it goes, we don't know, but if they made it, it means that we want it." David nodded. So did everyone else on the Pelican.
"What are we gonna do?"Emile asked. "Destroy it?" Everyone looked at Carter, for some reason curious for an answer.
Carter shook his head. "No. Our orders are to capture it from any potential Covenant forces. The guys on the top takes it from there."Once again, everyone made a confirming nod.
As they flew over a large plain, they caught sight of a large portal right in the middle of the plains of grass, it's jagged shape giving it a look of a blue, shining rift in reality. "My god..."Kat said, astounded over the sight. "The thing's huge!"
David nodded. "No kidding; it's the size of a goddamn Corvette."
As the Pelican landed, David was surprised to not have run into a welcoming party yet. Jorge must have thought the same thing. "Not much activity here..."the heavy weapons specialist said.
David stopped to take a look at the huge phenomenon that stretched high up in the sky. As they made their way up the hill in front of them, David heard an occasional cracking sound as he stepped on some plant here and there. They finally made their way up the hill, and noticed that the area was completely empty of hostiles; not a covvie in sight. Unexpected. Carter looked at the rest of the team. "Hm...this might be much easier than I thought. Let's move out."
The walk over to the portal took much longer than any of them had anticipated; the mere size of the portal made them completely loose track of distance. After about ten minutes they where standing only a few yards from the great anomaly. David had hard to believe that they hadn't met any resistance. "If the Covenant makes the effort of making a portal in the middle of fucking nowhere, why can't they bother guarding their stuff?"
"Well that was easy."Carter suddenly broke the silence. "How about we call the command now eh?"
As Kat was trying to make the radio work, David was sitting in the grass, watching the mountains in the horizon and listening to Jun and Jorge debate something behind him. The calm was broken, all of a sudden, by a loud, frustrated grunt from Kat. "I can't get the comm working. The...portal...must be interfering with the signal; it's totally dead."
"Well ain't that just great?"Emile said and picked up a small stone from the ground and threw it at the strange portal.
Suddenly, as the strange gateway absorbed the small rock, the ground began shaking violently. Carter turned to Emile. "What the hell did you do now, Emile!"
The man with a skull on his visor had no time to answer the question, as the portal suddenly lit up and a bright, blue light began spreading in all directions. David had no time to react before the light surrounded him and the rest of his team, and he suddenly felt like he was flying. He noticed that he suddenly was in something that could only be described as a worm hole, getting thrown around in random directions; the rest of Noble team was nowhere to be seen. David tried to figure out what was going on, but found himself not being able to think. After about a minute of freefall, the whining sound in his ears began loosening. "Must be close to the end. Soon I'll find out where that end is."