I don't own Halo, any of it, minus the characters from my head, I have no rights to Halo, or any copyrights. Enjoy the reading, sorry it is shorter. Please review.

I sighed and closed my eyes, what felt like the time it takes my eyes to be blinking, I heard Bernard slide off his cot landing on his feet, and Shepherd on the ground getting suited up. Rook was pulling his helmet on and Wolf was holding his under his arm. I sat up and gathered my armor pieces and fitted them together placing them in the correct places. I picked up my helmet and Wolf said, "The Captain and some ONI spooks want us on the observation deck."

I nodded and we filed out of the room one behind the other, the only weapons we had were the only ones they allowed us to carry on the ship, our pistols, and combat knives. Some of the navy boys and marines stared at us as we walked by them in full combat armor and the trademark ODST helmets. We arrived at the observation deck and walked in, immediate greeted by five fully armed and armored SPARTANs. Rook looked a little freaked out, and Wolf bristled in his suit. The ONI spook yelled at the SPARTANs and the SPARTANs reacted as robots, following the orders to the dot with mechanical precision.

The ONI spook looked at us and said, "I'm sure your wondering why there are SPARTANs out here while there is fighting on Reach. Well, you're going to help them in taking a covenant ship. It sounds impossible for ten men to do it, but all ten of you have proven yourselves in combat for the past several years." I glanced over at the SPARTANs, one of them were staring directly at our group. I turned my eyes back to the ONI spook and he continued, "There was a super carrier spotted in orbit of Reach, Noble team is taking that out, we want you and your team to be ready to board what ever reaction force that they bring."

Wolf nodded and asked, "What if Noble fails?"

The ONI spook said, "That is where you come in, if they fail, you go in and pick up where they left off." Wolf nodded and the Ship captain walked up.

He said, "We will drop your strike team on the closest covenant cruiser we can find, the SPARTANs have a HAVOC nuclear warhead in their arsenal to break down the biggest ship we can find, we have estimated the landing area for the covenant fleet. We will be waiting there for the UNSC fleet, as they engage, we will drop you on a covenant ship. No matter what, keep the SPARTANs from being compromised."

Wolf nodded and said, "You can count on the Dog pack sir." The captain waved us off and we saluted him and fell out to the armory to load up. The SPARTANs not too far behind us.

Bernard mumbled, "Why are the SPARTANs always needing babysitting?"

I shrugged and Wolf pointed to him and said, "Bernard, lock it up, if you have a problem with the SPARTANs, you WILL not show it." Bernard lifted up his hands in a surrendering gesture.

I looked back and saw rook trying to talk to the SPARTANs, it looked like he was actually carrying conversation. One took off their helmet and reviled a ghostly white complexion and brown hair. He was smiling at Rook, and two of the other SPARTANs took off their helmets, reviled similar complexions. Rook took off his helmet laughing and one of the SPARTANs punched him in the arm, still smiling, Rook sidestepped twice from the force of the blow. Shepherd said, "Little shit, Coyo, what the hell is this kid doing? He is going to get killed by them."

I said, "I doubt it, he is like a squirrel, funny and hyper." Wolf nodded and we stepped into the Armory. I immediately saw rows and rows of rifles and shotguns and SMGs and pistols. I grabbed a shotgun and a SMG. Wolf grabbed a battle rifle and a carbine rifle. Shepherd grabbed a DMR and battle rifle, Bernard grabbed a variant of the LMG that he was accustomed to using. Rook grabbed an assault rifle and an SMG. The SPARTANs grabbed various different weapons, and they all seemed to tell their specialties by the weapons they were using.

When we walked out, we certainly caught stares. We went to the firing range and tested the weapons. Wolf sat on a box and asked names of the SPARTANs, they said one by one, William, Steven, John, Tyler, and Jessie. He tapped the tac-pad and said, "First up on lane one, Rook. Weapon... Assault rifle. Lane two, Tyler, weapon... Battle rifle. Lane three, William, weapon... pistol. Lane four, Coyote, weapon... SMG." I walked to the fourth lane. SMG at my hip, and Wolf said, "I know this is old news, but you have three magazines, point is to have each round hit the target circles. You have thirty five seconds. Shooters at the ready." I pulled the SMG up and flipped it to from safe to semi. Wolf said, "Start."

The SPARTANs were the first ones to start firing. I aimed and pulled the trigger compensating for the recoil and emptying my clip, pulling another out, I placed it in as the first magazine ejected. Almost half the volume was gone, I fired the clip into the target circle and pulled another clip up, and fired one round, letting the last round chamber, ejecting the magazine and slid the last magazine in the gun and emptied it on the target. I stepped back releasing the magazine, and Rook was finishing his last few rounds. When Rook released his last magazine and stepped back, the targets came forward. And had black marks where the bullets hit. I looked at mine, three rounds were outside of the red circles, two were on the circle. Rook missed a few more rounds, and the SPARTANs were dead on, only one bullet close to being out side the circle. Wolf called out the next shooters and their weapons. He was one of them, the shooters walked up to the line and I said, "Shooters, at the ready." They pulled their weapons up readying them. I said, "Start."

All I was able to hear was the blare of weapon fire, it lowered as one was reloading, then picked back up as they started firing. Shepherd was the last to finish, using his DMR with irons was out of practice for the whole team. Shepherd stepped back and released the magazine from his rifle. The targets came up, and almost the same results, Shepherd had one bullet on the red ring, and the rest were in the ring. Wolf had his mostly in the red ring, four rounds were outside the mark

Bernard walked up and held up the assault rifle. Wolf said, "At the ready." Bernard flipped the selector to burst, and waited. Wolf said, "Start." the fire began and he kept the rounds right around the ring, he emptied his magazine and pulled up a new one. Released the magazine pushed the fresh one in and pulled back on the charging handle. He fired the rifle at the second ring and emptied his magazine, pulling out the magazine as the lat round was in the chamber and pulled up his last magazine and began firing at the third magazine at the last target.

When the last of his bullets left the rifle he stepped back and let the magazine drop. The target came forward and we saw the effectiveness of his shots, almost an entire magazine worth of bullets missed the circles. We walked to the cargo deck and prepped for the fight. Wolf and I were practicing knife fighting with shock sticks and one of the SPARTANs were watching us do that, probably thinking we were slow and all that jazz, I tapped Wolf on the Hamstring and his leg slipped forward sending him to the ground. I made a jab at his torso, and he crawled back sliding away. He jumped back up and lunged at me, I used my shoulder and knife to block him and my foot to topple him over. I adjusted the knife as I fell over top of him, and hit him in the abdomen with the shock stick.

The SPARTAN stood up and said, "Nice job, but it was slow, as you both know, during a war there would be fighting all around you." I shrugged and helped Wolf up.

I walked over to a crate and sat down with my helmet beside me. Shepherd walked over and set his rifle down propping it against the crate, and propped himself against the wall. I was thinking, thinking about what the hell was going on, Wondering, where my family was, how I was going to kick the life out of every Covenant that decided to pop its head into my sight.

Bernard walked over and bumped into me as a reassuring gesture. Shepherd said, "Coyo, just calm down, you will get to see them again." I nodded, and ran my fingers through my buzzed hair, feeling the stubs of hair being pushed into my scalp as my fingers pressed down on them.

I said, "I know I'll be able to see them again, I just want to make sure that they will never be able to be touched by the Covenant bastards. I want them to be safe, and never have to worry if they will get hurt or not, and I don't want to go out every damn day and have to save the species by killing every alien bastard that is near me."

Bernard said, "Then you shouldn't have joined the ODSTs, you would have been able to stay in relative safety being in the Marines."

I shrugged and said, "Who else could be Coyote though? I mean I'm a loveable piece of work and I get the job done. Who else can do that? Rook is a joker, not quite what I am getting at."

Shepherd said, "We'd miss you if you left Coyo, Just do us a favor and don't get killed."

I nodded and we heard the alarms and heard a technician's voice over the intercom saying, "Battle stations, incoming Covenant fleet, ten cruisers and counting."

Wolf yelled, "That's our call boys, get in the drop pods." I ran to the drop pod that had my information on it, I closed the door and saw all my lights flash, Wolf's face appeared on the screen and he said, "The ONI tech said we are going to be shot out in thirty seconds. If we miss we will be hitting a Covenant ship, if not, we will be hitting the ground."

I asked, "Sir, I thought we were supposed to hit one of the Covenant ships."

Wolf said, "We couldn't touch their hull through the shields, we would be vaporized, they are sending a drop force to the surface, we will be ripping it apart, Shepherd, don't worry, we'll pick you up a sniper rifle when we can. SPARTANs, you have been redirected-"

One of the SPARTANs said, "We know, good luck lieutenant. Godspeed boys." I felt the yank from the pod being jettisoned. I counted down the time it would take us to hit the ground, it always hurt, but there haven't been many casualties from the pod malfunctioning.

I forced my self not to think of that, Wolf said, "Coyo, stop freaking out, we'll need you fully on task for this, listen up, we are dropping, and going to land almost on top of a Covenant attack. There is an Army contingent on the ground holding them off, we are going down there to help them out. Most of this will be close to mid range fighting, don't let them surround you, Bernard, stick with Rook, he is going to provide you with assistance. Coyo, you stick with Shepherd, I'll be on the middle approach."

I said, "Got it sir." I re calibrated my visor and counted down till I felt the pull from the drag chute opening and slowing my fall. I felt the crack of the pod hitting the ground. I heard the other pods hit.

Wolf yelled, "Give 'em hell boys."

I slammed the door opening button, and shot the door off the hinges. I jumped out of the pod and pulled out my SMG. I fired at the first target I spotted, an Elite. Its shields took most of the rounds, it ran at me and dropped from a head shot given by Shepherd. I fired the remainder of my clip into the grunts and Jackals that were with the elite. I moved to Shepherd, barely hearing anything over the blare of rifle fire, and the booms of grenades. I ducked down as I got to Shepherd and he said, "Bout time you got here, I thought that you wanted me to take them out by my self."

I smiled behind my visor and continued the copper and lead storm that we were creating. Shepherd yelled, "HUNTERS!" Bernard displaced to get into firing line with them, Shepherd said, "Coyo, they're going to chew us up out here- MOVE RIGHT, MOVE RIGHT!" I dove to the right, and felt the heat and heard the explosion of the plasma cannon where I was standing not two seconds ago, I fired my magazine into them and reloaded, I saw some of my rounds pinging off their unbreakable armor. One of the hunters fell, the other berserk-ed and charged after us. The army boys came up behind us and pinned it to the ground with overwhelming fire from their rifles. After it fell, we wiped up the rest of the Covenant force.

An army Major walked up to us and said, "You guys are a good help, you may want to move and help evacuation efforts in the city."

Wolf nodded and said, "We will sir. Could we by chance liberate two Warthogs from your vehicle depot?"

The Major nodded and said, "Go ahead, I'll clear it with the tech guys." We trotted to the garage and picked up two warthogs, both the standard vehicle.

I jumped shotgun with Shepherd driving. The rest of the team jumped into the first warthog and we started rolling, I pulled out my shotgun and Shepherd said, "Watch for us, we don't have someone on the gun." I nodded and put my foot on the dash propping myself up to fire over the wind shield. Shepherd was an excellent driver, we meet almost no signs of life until we got into the city, we were greeted by thousands of Covenant. We drove through, weapons blaring letting loose deadly projectiles. Bernard dropped a explosive charge and looked back being sure we were clear and detonated it sending dozens of Covenant soldiers sky high. I continued to fire shells into the Covenant, depleting shells quickly. We rolled through the Covenant with little actual damage taken, our vehicles were getting damaged, and Bernard took a bolt of plasma indirectly to the helmet.

We saw long swords streak by taking out Seraphs and other Covenant vehicles. The Covenant started to thin and we started to see rifle tracers coming toward us. We drove through the fighting Covenant and stopped in front of the blockade. Shepherd and I jumped out and climbed the blockade wall and covered for the rest of the team. Rook was holding back slightly laying down cover fire for the team. I saw the two hogs go up, both sending shrapnel everywhere, Rook fell over from the blast and picked himself back up.

I yelled, "BRUTE TEAM, ON OUT SIX, ROOK MOVE!" We turned and fired at the advancing Brutes. Rook unleashed his magazine into his pursuers the rest of us fired into them as well, one of them continued forward bounding at him with a hammer about the same size as the beast it's self. Rook threw in a fresh magazine, Wolf and I threw in grenades knocking it off balance and finally, killing it a meager three meters in front of Rook.

Rook triple timed it up the blockade and we moved to the nearest command center.