The halls of the Autumn's Light were almost empty, the marines in the mess, eating a last meal before the op. The crew was going about their duties; it was the middle of the shift. The scavenger crew, composed mostly of civilians, was prepping their equipment in the cargo bay. The elevator passed through the ship slowly, steadily bringing me to my destination.

The bridge of a Charon-Class light frigate wasn't all that big. It had four consoles, Weapons, Operations, Navigation, and Communication. The consoles were spread in a loose semi-circle around the central viewport, a large curved glass-like panel that also doubled as a computer overlay. It was certainly big enough for both. The command chair, with a built in consul, was not far behind the consuls.

The captain of the ship, Captain Cutler, was other UNSC personnel, along with me and the battalion of marines on board. When I walked in, he was standing behind the command chair looking out the viewport, his back to me.

"Reporting as ordered, sir!" As I said this I snapped to attention, saluting the officer. Years of training did not go away easily.

The captain turned to face me. "Ah, Sergeant Major. We have picked up something on the long-range scanners that we think might change your recon mission today to one of a more... aggressive mindset. Ensign, on the main screen, please."

I stared in dread as an all too familiar bulbous silhouette came up on the screen. "The Covenant? What are they doing here?"

"The Elites have spies within the Covenant, Grunts and Hunters loyal to them after the schism, relaying them information about troop movements and patrols, as well as other stuff like that. Some of their informants tipped them off that the Covenant found an old Forerunner research facility on an unexplored planet in a far off system. When they learned the specifics, they gave the info to the UNSC knowing that we will be able to obtain more information from the ruins then they will. Their only condition was that we share the technology we salvaged with them. As we were the closest ship to the system, and we were already on salvage duty, we were re-directed here. The only reason that we got here in time to stop them was because we were so close, and even then the beat us by a little. They have already sent retrieval crews down, but if we act fast, we may be able to deny them the Forerunner technology and retrieve it for ourselves. I need you to make your way to the complex, and hold them off until we can get the salvage crews ready. The main body of the marines will be engaging the forces as a distraction, and regroup with you after the salvage crews have landed. You will be inserted in HEV pods with three ODSTs. The meteor storm currently over your LV will help hide the pods. Any questions?"

"Sir! No sir!"

"Good. You have twenty minutes. I suggest you meet with Sergeant Major Stoner to co-ordinate your operations. He has already received orders. Dismissed."

With that, I turned on my heels and walked out of the bridge. I made my way down to the galley to meet with the marines on this ship. They would be down there getting a last meal in before insertion. I was in luck, I had worked with Stoner before, so I knew he had my back, even if he was a little easy on his men.

When I got down there, Stoner was waiting for me at a table. I sat down, and we started planning the mission.

"Attention ground teams: Ten minutes until insertion. Ten minutes until insertion." The PA squawked at us, and having finished our planning, we stood up with all the other marines. "You gonna do the Johnson, or will I?"

"Honor's all yours, SPARTAN."

I stood out in front of the troops, took a breath, and began. "Marines, I'm not gonna lie to you. There's a ship's worth of Covie troops down there. The big man wants us to go down there, throw 'em a party, and see if we can sneak in a few uninvited guests. These "guests" are gonna take all their fancy stuff, even the pencil sharpener. We gotta cover for them if they get caught. Worse case, deny the Covies anything. I don't care if they don't want anything but the pencil sharpener back. Are we gonna let them have it?"

"Sir! No sir!"

"Good! Now let's do this thing! Oo-rah!"

"Oo-rah!"

I stepped aside to let the troops by to get to the drop ships, and made my way to the bottom of the ship, where I knew one of four HEVs had my number on it.

"Nice speech. You sounded just like him. Based on the records I have on him, of course." Korina seemed almost apologetic. "I knew you two were close."

"Yeah, we were." Although I didn't serve that long with Johnson, he made quite the impression. That tends to happen when you go through hell and back with someone. That was sort of what happened between the UNSC and the Elites. We went through so much together, simultaneously stopping two threats to the entire galaxy, an omnicidal maniac and a vicious parasite, that it sort of made up for the fact that they were sworn to drive us to extinction. In fact, we were working together to develop ways to restore glassed planets.

The end of my walk brought me out of my thoughts.