My vision was blurry as I rose up onto my hands and knees from the ground. Although my hearing was fuzzy, it was still penetrated by the firing of human weapons and Covenant alike. Through my blurry vision, I tried to find a weapon to replace the one that I had lost during the crash. As my vision cleared, I gazed on in horror as a squad of Elites slashed at defenseless marines and lifted them in the air as an example.

It didn't take long before one of them spotted me crawling amongst the carnage and wreckage. It briskly walked over and lifted me by the throat.

Great. Not even in hour, and I'm going to die for a cause that I was never able to uphold. I'm going to be nothing more than a statistic with nothing to show for it.The Elite reared his arm back, ready to take off my head. At the last moment, it cried in pain, falling forward on top of me. The edge of the sword touched the uniform over my forearm, burning through it and momentarily burning my skin. My unknown savior kicked away the sword and lifted the heavy Elite off of me. As my vision finally adjusted, it was revealed to me that Stinsky was the one that had thwarted my death, or, rather, simply delayed it.

He slipped his sidearm off of his hip and tossed it to me. "Where'd all your weapons go?" He asked amidst the gunfire.

I shrugged, and gestured to the wreckage. "Duck!" I heard a female voice call out. Stinsky and I dropped into a crouch position. Over us, a hail of rounds burst from the unmistakable sound of a Battle Rifle, followed by the sound of a large Elite dropping.

We rose, seeing that there was a cloaked Elite, dual plasma rifles at the ready. We turned and saw that our savior was none other than the pilot of our wrecked Pelican. "When I say to strap in, you strap in, Marine." She told me. "We need to get out of here. Rendevous with a nearby squad that, you know, still exists."

I felt a sting at her words, but said nothing. I simply nodded with Stinsky and allowed the pilot, whose nametag read 'Rivera', to lead us into a dark alley. She directed us forward, allowing us to pass in front of her while she provided covering fire with her long-range weapon. On the way to the alley, I swiftly reached down and picked up a fully-loaded MA5B. I checked the pouches on my uniform, and became pleased to see that my ammunition was still on my person. I turned, and fired three bursts at the nearest targets. Within seconds, we slipped into our darkness and quickly found a door to a nearby building.

"Okay. Where's the nearest squad?" I asked, heaving from the sprint.

"According to the mission schematics, we were supposed to enter first in order to clear this area's 'stragglers' to give a place for the larger strike team to enter," she performed air quotations for the word 'stragglers'. "Apparently, it got a little thick just prior to our arrival. Company B is supposed to land half a click away from here, and rendevous once that the area was sealed off. We need to make our way there, and help them with their side of the objective. Command adknowledged the Mayday call, and probably informed B of what happened. They're set to stagger their arrival to ours by a couple of minutes, so we have..." Rivera trailed as she glanced down at the watch on her wrist. It was an antiquated digital watch with a black face and teal numbers. "2 minutes, exactly."

Stinsky scoffed. "We'll never make it in time if we hoof it."

I looked to the floor, formulating a plan. Finally, I looked up once more to face the duo. "What if we didn't have to? What if we hitched a ride?"

"That's all fine and Dandy, but this isn't a damn video game, rookie. It's not like there's a 'Hog just around the corner or something."

"Yeah, but there's plenty of available rides when you know how to hotwire them. We just need to poke our heads out and see what catches our eye." I said, my own confidence surprising me.

I was delving myself further and further in, getting set to delve further down the rabbit hole. Sooner than I would like to have admitted, it no longer became a question of if, but how.

I could imagine the elated voice of my DI if he saw me like this. Today's the day that Hell's frozen over. Henderson's finally a Marine!