Deep Breaths.I slowly shook in my seat of the Pelican, beyond apprehensive of what would await my comrades and myself when the bay doors opened once more. My MA5B rattled ever so softly as it bounced up and down in my hands. I tried to follow my own advice, but it seemed that my emotions had other ideas.
Warily, I looked around at the other troops in the transport, and was disappointed to see that I was the only one who was physically distressed. There were eight of us total in the squad, all of them either stone-faced, or sharing laughs. As usual, I was the outcast of the squad, only spoken to when I needed to be.
"Hey. Cool your jets, kid. You're not gonna be any good to us if you can't even hold your rifle up." The guy in the seat next to me, who's name I remembered from roll call at briefing as Stitsky. What his first name was, I had no idea. He chuckled and placed a firm hand on my shoulder. "It's..." He paused, looking up to the roof of the Pelican as he tried to recollect my name. "Henderson, right? Omar?"
I nodded, silently pleased in a juvenile manner that someone had taken notice of me. He nodded in return. "Name's Stitsky. Bernard Stitsky, but my friends call me Bernie. Not sure if you knew that already, but you do now."
"Good to meet you, Bernie." I said, the trepidation in my voice apparent.
"I'll tell you what, Omar. You seem like a good kid. What are you, 20? 21?" He began.
"18."
"18, and you're fighting for the survival of humanity. That's pretty damn admirable. Anyway, you seem like a good kid. This is my second stint in the Corps, so I'm probably the most knowledgable one in this ship when it comes to on-the-ground combat with the Covies. Stick with me, and you'll be fine."
"You've done this before?" I asked.
"Yeah. I signed up and did my first tour back in '43. I did my tour, met my wife, and we got married. After we had our first kid, I got out, went to Canus to try and settle down, as much as someone can in this fucked galaxy. I think you know how this ends."
He was right. I visibly shuddered as I recollected the day that the news reached my home planet of Reach that Canus, one of the outer colonies, was glassed following a brutal Covenant siege. I was only in third grade, then. It was one of the first pieces of anti-Covenant propaganda pushed my way, and it hit home. As of a few months ago, I could relate to his tale.
If either of us die here, no one would know. No family would know because there's no families to tell.
I thought to inquire further about Stitsky's family, but our conversation was interrupted by the crackling of our helmet radios. "All right, all right, all right, Ladies and Ladies. This is your captain speaking. Unfortunately, we've hit some turbulence. As is their fun nature, the Covies can't let us have nice things, and they've gone and made a mess of our LZ. We're going to have to make a turn-around and--" The pilot's (whose name I had yet to learn) satirical report of our predicament was interrupted by the rocking of the Pelican. I felt the strong urge to vomit, but held it in for the sole purpose of keeping what little stature I had with the squad intact. "OK, screw what I just said. Looks like we're gonna have to recieve the invitation to party. Lock and load, people. It's about to get loud."
"What?" I looked over to Stinsky. He looked with a small smirk.
"She's saying we're going down. Layman's terms, Rookie: shit's about to get real. Baptism by fire, eh?" He said, reaching over to bump my shoulder. That was the moment the Pelican rocked and turned into a flaming spiral. The bay door was flung open to a sea of plasma and carnage below. The next urge to vomit was soon calmed by the crushing feeling of the ship crashing into Cleveland's pavement. Thus began my descent into the Hell that was the Covenant War. Into the Hell that awaited me within the throes of the Battle of Cleveland.
