Hello, readers. I've managed to post another chapter (as you likely can see), and I hope you enjoy it

I own nothing beyond OC's

Chapter 2

"Covenant! On the landing above us!" She heard Cortana say.

She was growing tired of this. They had barely left the bridge, and they already had to fight through what felt like a battalion of Elites and Grunts. Every time after they had cleared an area, they couldn't move 10 meters without encountering more Covenant soldiers.

And they were becoming tougher too. While at first they only encountered regular minors and majors, they soon had to fight entire groups consisting solely of experienced Spec-ops soldiers. And they had a nasty habit of throwing grenades.

If she were on here own, she wouldn't have minded. It would have been a mere challenge at most, and she enjoyed those. But there were others traveling with her, and she had to look after them. It wasn't that they couldn't take care of themselves. They were Spartan-II soldiers, among the best the UNSC had to offer. But one of them, Linda she remembered her name was, was still recovering from her surgery.

She looked at Linda as they entered the room. She seemed to be holding up. But continuously fighting wasn't something she would recommend doing when she was still recovering from surgery.

Even a Spartan needed to rest, after all.

She scanned the room. A squad of marines, led by a dark-skinned Sergeant, were attempting to hold off a Covenant group from coming down the central stairway. The sergeant threw a grenade up over one of the ledges of the level above them, and was rewarded with a loud scream as 2 grunts flew back down, one with his face blown off from the grenade, the other bleeding in at least 6 places.

Six moved a bit further into the room, trying to see how many soldiers the Covenant had assigned to this area. She was rewarded with a hail of Plasma fire. She moved back into cover.

She turned to the others,who were spread around the staircase that dominated the room. "Did any of you see how many there were?" she asked. A marine next to her responded "I saw 6 elites and about a dozen Grunts before you arrived, ma'am. All had black armor."

Six nodded. Though odds, fighting 18 foes who have a tactical advantage. But it wasn't impossible.

"how many are there of you?" she heard linda ask the sergeant. "six of us here, ma'am. I send another squad away a few minutes ago to get munitions, but they haven't returned yet." he turned away "speaking of which" he tapped his comm-unit. "Stacker, what's your ETA, over."

"60 seconds, but we're being tailed by a spec-ops group, over." Six heard someone respond over the com. She heard some shooting in the background, and someone yell "man down!" over the com as a response.

"same here, but we've got a surprise for them. Get here on the double, and we'll cover you." the Sergeant said before turning to Linda. "dear killing machine" the sergeant started with a falsely innocent voice. "would you kindly blow up the elites shooting our backup, and send them back to hell?" John walked up behind the Sergeant. "where will your team enter the room?" he asked.

The Sergeant pointed to the door behind the staircase. Sam was covering us from there, shooting any grunts that popped out with an Assault rifle. "there, but what will you do?"

John nodded to me, then gestured towards one of pillars next to the door. I nodded, understanding his plan. John hit the com. "Sergeant, this is Sierra-117. As soon as you see the doorway leading the staircase, sprint through as fast as you can. We'll cover you as your pursuit comes through."

"Roger" was the sole response.

Six moved behind the pillar, with John taking the other one. "Sam, as soon as the marines return, move up the stairs. Shoot anything you see that isn't human." "Sure. Need me to save some for you, or just take them out?" Sam asked.

"Just take them out." John turned to the marines and the dark skinned sergeant. "marines, you assist with the assault on the Stairwell. We'll cover your back-up."

The Sergeant nodded. "you heard him, marines. We'll give this TIHF cover while he saves our asses." the troopers all yelled their affirmatives.

"What's a TIHF?" I asked.

A marine, the same one that gave them the hostile troop count she noticed, said "Tank in Human Form, ma'am." I chuckled. That they certainly were.

She looked down the hallway. By her count they still had 15 seconds before the party came to them. But she could already see some marines sprinting their way in the distance.

And, as John correctly predicted, the Covenant noticed this and started to sprint after them, and started to catch up. I looked to John and Linda, who had both taken cover behind a pillar, both ready with the shotguns they'd found in the armory. Linda held out 3 fingers, then 2, then one, and as soon as her fist dropped, the marines sprinted through. As expected, the Covvies, consisting of 4 spec-ops elites, were right on their heels.

They were also in the worst position to be ambushed from.

Six jumped out, shooting two of them with 2 M6D pistols, and both their shields dropped after 8 well-placed shots. They turned to her, but Linda and John finished them off with 2 shotgun blasts in their backs. The other 2 had were turning to them, but Six sticked one with a plasma grenade on the back, kicked him in the heel to unbalance him, and jumped on top of the last one standing. He tried to throw her off, but she quickly stuck her knife in his shoulder, and was rewarded with blood gushing out of the wound as she removed it. She had his an artery, then. He wouldn't life long anymore. She jumped off, and looked left to see if the other elite was still standing. She saw that he was attempting to run up the stairwell, attempting to reinforce his comrades no doubt. But the grenade went off before he could even reach the top. He was blasted back down, lifeless.

Six motioned to the marine reinforcements, and they all walked up the stairwell as a group, John in front, Linda and the 4 remaining marines in the middle, and me covering the rear. But we were too late for the party. All she saw were dead Covenant soldiers, and Sam and the marines standing tall above the corpses, like some cheesy propaganda/recruitment poster.

"Cortana, can you please record this image?" she heard Linda ask while she policed the corpses for ammo.

"alright. Want me to file that as mission info or happy memories?" Cortana joked.

"happy memories. Your kids will love that in the future, their daddy killing monsters." I returned.

"were you a bully as a kid? Would fit your current personality" John asked.

I turned to him, and said "no, I was the kid who was fascinated with mental asylums, and who gave the inmates a hard time on purpose." I responded.

She heard laughter behind her, and turned to find the sergeant and the one she presumed was Stacker doubling over. "looks like you were right at home with them." the dark-skinned sergeant said.

I looked at him, and asked "What's your name? I want to know the men I like to kill Elites with." she could see his name on his armor, but liked to hear these things from her men themselves.

"Staff-Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson, ass-kicker since 2525, at your service." he said.

"well, Johnson, get your kill-count above 300 and we'll talk." I said.

"I'll see you ringside, then." he said.

John, Linda, Sam and I moved on, and for once found no resistance for a long time. After 15 minutes, we found what we were looking for.

"an intact Bumblebee escape pod up ahead" Cortana said.

We sprinted to it from there, and were about to enter, when my Motion-Tracker went haywire.

"hold up." I said. The others looked at me, but at least they stopped.

On Reach she had a lot of run-ins with Stealth Elites, and although they were invisible, she had learned of 2 ways to detect them. One was to look at them in infrared, which their Camo-systems actually radiated, and that motion-Trackers went haywire when they were close by.

She looked in the pod, and then both directions down the hallway. She spotted shimmers back the way they came.

A lot of shimmers.

"Stealth units back in the hallway. Too many to count." I explained.

"then they're too many to fight in close quarters." John said. He then looked behind her, having spotted the shimmers as well.

"I think now is an excellent time to leave, don't you think? Just go in." Cortana said.

They did, and Six moved into the pilot seat.

"strap in, for this will be bumpy." Six said. She launched the pod, aimed it at the ring, and set it on autopilot. She opened a private comm to Linda. "how are you holding up?"

"so far, it's... tolerable" Linda said, and Six detected it sounded like it came through gritted teeth.

Six nodded. That wasn't good. Most spartans can shrug off most forms of pain... for a time. For Linda to admit it was bothering her, and she was, saying it like she did, then the pain must be getting to her.

She reopened the channel. "Get a medpack. I'll need to look at the wounds later, but you need the painkillers. Doctor's orders." Six looked in the reflection of the viewport, and saw her move to the medpack near the exit of the pod. Good. She would live for another few hours. At least until Six had a better look.

Six wondered when that would be.

So far so good.

Fol had been one of the first to board the vessel. He had personally selected the team he would take with him, and had rammed their boarding vessel straight through one of the escape pods near the bridge. He was the first to emerge, and headed straight for the bridge. He and his team, each of which he considered to be worthy enough to become zealots, had just come to an intersection that lead to the bridge. And they temporarily stopped there. One side lead through an armory, where they saw marines had holed up. The other side went through a mess-hall. Where the there were less soldiers, but they had a lot more cover.

Fol looked at hi spec ops soldiers, and said "we split up, I will take down those in the armory, you take down those in the mess hall. We'll meet on the other side."

"sure you don't require assistance? They both outnumber AND outgun you in case you forgot." one of the soldiers said. He noted his name, N'tho Sraom. He was competent, skilled, and knew when it was time to be pragmatic instead of religious.

"maybe. But a demon wouldn't be stopped by that. I can take them. If I take longer about clearing the room than all of you do, go to the bridge without me, and look for the Captain." Fol said. He held up a hologram of what the average human Captain looked like.

"If the Captain ain't present, move on and inspect which human Escape pods have launched. Track them to their crash sites, and send me the coordinates." the elites acknowledged, and they moved into the mess-hall.

Fol rolled his shoulders. Now it was his turn. He grabbed a plasma grenade with one hand, and gripped one of his plasma rifles in the other. He keyed the door to open, and rounded the corner to take some distance between him and the bullets the humans were inevitable to fire.

The door opened and, as predicted. The humans fired a rain of bullets at the new opening in the room. He waited for it to die down, then primed the grenade and threw it into the general direction the most of the fire came from. He closed the door to protect himself from the blast. He heard a bang, some human screams, which displeased him, and then silence. He keyed the door to open again, and entered the room, firing with his plasma rifle. He hit 3 of the 16 soldiers still standing before they even had time to react, and Fol ducked behind one of the barriers they erected near his entrance to the room.

He glanced around the corner to his cover, and saw most of the soldiers were behind cover as well, and in a reflection he saw they had shotguns in hand in case he emerged. So they expected him to come out and just let himself be hit. Their mistake, and most likely their downfall.

He holstered his plasma rifle, and instead grabbed his energy swords. He then jumped over both his own barrier and the one a group of soldiers were hiding behind. They weren't prepared for him to come at them from above, and with one swipe he killed 4 of them. He then stormed to the second barrier. The soldiers there stood in shock as they had witnessed how quickly he had taken care of their allies. They tried to raise their rifles, but he sliced them into pieces before they could fire a shot. He decapitated one of them, stabbed another through the head, and kicked both of them into their allies, knocking them down. He threw a grenade at one of them, and moved on to the final group of 5 soldiers. They were the ones he spotted earlier, the ones wielding shotguns. He jumped straight at them, and immediately slashed at one of their rifles. It broke in 2, and the soldier lost his hands because he held them too close to the swords when it happened. He went down, screaming in agony. Fol then threw his swords at 2 of the others, and they were pinned against the walls behind them. When the plasma grenade he threw at the previous group finally went off, their bodies flew past him, and one of them hit one of the humans, knocking him down. Fol turned to the last one, who fired a blast at him now that he didn't have to worry about friendly fire. He couldn't know that his energy shields were 4 times as strong as that of a minor, and he could just shrug the blast off. When the human looked at the elite, who he likely expected to fall down after only one blast, he looked in shock, freezing for a moment.

One that he shouldn't have wasted. Fol grabbed him by the neck, held him in the air, and said in their language "may your own gods have mercy on your soul.". It was the only Eulogy he knew the humans gave to their own (the only one he witnessed anyway), and then he activated the energy dagger in his gauntlet, and stabbed the soldier, before tossing him aside.

He looked around, and saw only 2 humans left alive: the one that lost his hands, and the one that had been knocked down by a corpse. He grabbed his swords, stabbed the one that had no hands, putting him out of his misery. He spotted the other crawling towards the door, and Fol grabbed him by his leg. He held him high, and asked in his language "what do you wish to achieve by warning your fellow soldiers? You will achieve nothing with it. What is your name?".

Pure psychological torture, to demoralize the human. Not that it served any other purpose. He didn't enjoy it at all, for he respected and admired the human tenacity. Their skill their courage. Their will to fight on when they faced extinction. But it would warn them that he wouldn't stop. That he wouldn't rest, and that he would win inevitably.

"Chips Dubbo, split-face. And just finish it, would yah?" the human responded. Fol noted the odd accent, likely what the humans called 'Australian', and told him "oh, you'll live. And please do warn your brethren that your resistance is futile." he threw the human to the door he entered through, careful he wasn't knocked unconscious, and exited through the other door.

He saw the others were just exiting the mess hall, and praised them for their skill. "well done, warriors. But our objective isn't reached yet. Come."

After a few turns they entered the bridge, and saw it was deserted. He headed for the main human display, searching. Ah, there. The pedestal an AI's data-chip always resided in. He looked at it

It was empty.

Most likely taken by the Spartans, he thought. Theirs was the only variation of human armor capable of carrying an AI. But his objective was the human captain. He motioned to another elite. "Usze, hack their cameras from here, find out which pod their captain took, and track it's descent onto the ring."

the elite nodded, and went on with his task. After a few minutes he said "done. He went into pod 05. It landed in this approximate area." so the captain is likely alive. That was good. "Good. N'tho, you are in charge. Your objective is to secure the bridge. Mine is to retrieve the human Captain." They nodded.

He left them to it, and headed for the escape pods, specifically the one Keyes took. He rounded the corner to the hallway, and saw a bloodbath.

There were many corpses, many of which were human. There were a few Sangheili among them. And it was all centered around pods 04, 05 and 06. So they were assigned to guard the Captain's pod, and they paid a heavy price. He looked at the other pods. One of them was wrecked, and judging from the charred corpses inside likely used as cover by the humans before someone tossed a plasma grenade inside. He moved on to the other pod.

This one was still mostly intact, and upon closer inspection still operable. He sent a code to the fleet why his particular pod was to be left intact, and he launched it, heading after the Captain's pod.

He was surprised when the human ship started to overtake him. He keyed his Com unit, and asked "N'tho, why is the cruiser accelerating?".

"An automated landing sequence put in by the AI. It's too advanced for us to disable it. We have informed the fleet about this, and they are sending troops to secure the Crash-site."

Fol nodded. "keep me informed. And advice the leader of those securing the site that it stays secured.". He thought about what he would do, if he were stranded like the humans were, and knew that he would come back to the ship for supplies. "the Humans may come back to the ship for a supply run. Have it guarded with their lives"

"Of course, Field-Marshal." N'tho responded, before signing out. Fol then prepared, as the pod would land soon. He strapped in, but didn't feel confident it would hold.

But it didn't need to. In the end he only felt a slight bump as it landed, before it started sliding before a slight jolt. Then it stopped. He unstrapped himself by simply standing up. He broke the seat with it, but he didn't care. He had a goal. And he would complete it. He exited the the pod, and saw he had ended up into hill-lands. In the distance he saw the pod, and headed for it in case the Captain died in the Crash.

What he found was... odd. The corpse of an Ossoona lay before it, and it had been stripped of weapons. Fol checked the helmet systems, for Ossoona's had more integrated helmet systems in order to record everything, and report it back to the San'Shyuum. It didn't provide anything new, just that the Captain himself had shot the Ossoona. Fol pocketed the recordings and everything else the San'Shyuum might value, and looked around.

There. A trail, leading away from the pod. And, in the distance, a group of humans at it's end point. Fol took the Ossoona's Active Camouflage systems, activated them, and ran towards them.

He got close enough to hear them arguing. "I submit that we've done all we could reasonably be expected to do, that the longer we delay the harsher the Covenant will be. It makes sense to surrender now." he heard someone, likely a female, say. "and you are an IDIOT" he heard another, also female, respond. He chuckled, amused by their argument.

It was overheard by the marines, of course, and everyone raised their weapons. He uncloaked himself. "foolish human" he said to the one he overheard, walking into their midst as he did so, giving them the illusion of having him in an effective crossfire. "We only take the ones we value. You ain't among them.".

He then fired the plasma rifle he'd discreetly grabbed during his approach. He shot at the marines first, shooting 3 of them and scattering the rest. He grabbed his sword with his other hand, and slashed someone attacking him from behind, the one claiming one of them was an idiot. He saw 2 of the officers running away, one of them covering the one the other. He fired twice, and both fell. He turned, and saw the 4 marines had gathered around the surviving Captain. He got an idea. "why continue fighting, when you face extinction? You won't gain anything but death." he said while he discreetly walked over to one of the marine corpses. He knelt, holstered his sword, and grabbed the dog-tags and, without the humans seeing, one of their 'fragmentation grenades'. "bastards like you wouldn't understand." one of the soldiers said.

Fol had what he needed, and threw the grenade into their midst. It wasn't primed, of course. He wanted the Captain alive, after all. But the soldiers didn't know that, and they scattered like insects. They each dived in another direction. He shot each of the soldiers in the head before walking towards the captain. He grabbed hum by the neck, and keyed his comm. "To all nearby Covenant forces, this is Field-Marshal Fol Katarn'ee. I have the human captain, and require extraction."

"this is pilot Narsk Orthelk'ee. I'm en-route with a Spirit. I'll arrive in 5 minutes."

"understood." Fol said before turning his comm-unit off. He turned to the captain.

"I'm sure you'll be interrogated later, but I want an answer to one question now." he said before holding the Captain higher.

"Where are the Spartans?"

I hope you enjoyed that.

hope I'll get another chapter out soon.

With kind regards

Gharst Omenlumin