Author's note: I made this one longer, it's about two pages in Microsoft Word. Enjoy.
Rally Point Alpha, Kenya
Day 1, 1110 hours
Jones and his fireteam were already at the rally point, ready to take down any Brutes that appeared. Jones nearly fired when Malkovich and his group broke through the tree line at the clearing and quickly turned around to take cover and face the town.
"Where's the rearguard?" Jones yelled. The newcomers didn't reply. Instead Jones heard gunfire from the village. The gunfire was returned by roars and the screams of the dying. Then there was silence, which lasted several seconds before it was broken by the sound of a Brute howling.
"They're dead?" a Marine whispered.
"Get over it, Marines!" the lieutenant in command of the platoon yelled. "You're Helljumpers! It comes with the job!"
It wasn't that the lieutenant didn't care that the rearguard had been slaughtered. He just knew that those things happened in war. He'd fought the Covenant before, and seen fellow Humans torn limb from limb by Brutes without him being able to help. He needed his men to get over it, or else they'd be useless in battle.
"Radio Command. We need two Pelicans for extraction," the lieutenant told a radioman. The Marine nodded and turned away.
Malkovich looked around the clearing. Only fifteen Marines had survived the battle. None were wounded. All the wounded had been left behind of their own choice. They knew they would only hold down the survivors, and so had sacrificed themselves to save the others. Malkovich just hoped their sacrifice had not been in vain.
An ODST machine gunner, Corporal Nešić Skeratt, shifted the machine gun in his hands. He was nervous. He'd been with the forces on the town hall during the battle. He hadn't seen death up close and personal, although he had dealt it from a distance. That had been his introduction to real combat. Detached, impersonal. He hadn't seen the bodies of the two Marines the rearguard had lost. He'd just run past, not looking down, just looking straight ahead, scanning for Covenant. He had yet to see the reality of war.
Skeratt's train of thought was broken when he heard a radioman yelled,
"Evac inbound! ETA five minutes!"
"About time," Skeratt muttered. He heard a bush rustle, and brought his machine gun up. He saw a flash of orange and yelled,
"Grunts!"
Skeratt fired fifteen rounds from his machine gun, and saw blue blood splash against a tree.
"East side!" a Marine yelled. Malkovich spun around saw a machine gunner firing into the bushes. For a second he thought the Marine was missing completely, then he saw blood spraying against a tree. Then a Brute burst out of the trees, charged for the machine gunner, then collapsed under the hail of lead. Then a spike slammed into the ground beside the machine gunner. He fired into the bushes again, and more blood splattered onto a tree.
"You! Get over there!" Malkovich yelled. A four-man fireteam stood and ran over to the east side of the clearing to support the machine gunner. Malkovich glanced at his watch and thought, Four minutes. We'll probably be overrun before then.
One of the Marines was a private that everyone called Playboy. He raised his MA5C assault rifle and waited for a Covenant soldier to appear. There were few people in the platoon who liked him. Many found him crude and offensive. But there are always people who like that kind of person, and there were a couple in the platoon.
Playboy opened fire and cut down two Grunts. He reloaded just as Skeratt cut down another Brute.
"This is getting crazy, man," Playboy said as he killed another Grunt.
"Don't get cocky, now," Skeratt cautioned. He'd heard stories about war, and knew that overconfidence could get one killed.
"Three minutes!" someone yelled. Skeratt smiled as he mowed down a group of Grunts. He heard a grenade detonate and swung around in time to see Playboy gun down a Brute. Playboy smiled and yelled,
"Bring it!"
Skeratt turned away in disgust. The idiot private had just completely ignored Skeratt. He'd get himself killed. Or, even worse, the remains of the platoon.
"Grenade! Mother-" Playboy's voice was cut off when a spike grenade detonated between him and Skeratt. Skeratt was thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion. He glanced at his body, making sure he wasn't hit. Then he checked his machine gun. It was intact, although a spike had impaled itself into the handgrip along the barrel. Skeratt figured a bullet or two would shatter the spike without causing irreparable damage. He then turned to face where Playboy had been. There was nothing. Skeratt's eyes widened. Even though Playboy was an idiot, he was a fellow Marine. Skeratt was about to call his name when Playboy emerged from behind a tree, cussing under his breath. Skeratt shook his head, then rose to a crouch and continued firing.
"Evac's here!" a Marine shouted. Malkovich looked upwards and saw the two Pelicans moving towards the clearing.
"Marines! Fall in!" Malkovich yelled. Then he heard the too familiar sound of Banshees.
"Incoming a-" Malkovich cut himself off as a fuel rod round sailed through the air and hit the left Pelican in the right wing. The wing snapped off in the explosion and crashed into the trees about thirty meters away. The Pelican flipped over to the right and slammed into the second Pelican. They both exploded in a huge fireball that engulfed trees a hundred meters away. Fiery debris showered the rally point, missing the Marines, all of whom were at the edges of the clearing. A second after the sound of the explosions subsided, the lieutenant yelled,
"MARINES! MOVE SOUTH!"
The Marines who heard the lieutenant and registered his order passed it on via their radios. The surviving Marines broke off contact with the Brutes and moved towards the southern perimeter.
"We need to move," Skeratt said. The three Marines who had come with Playboy nodded and moved over to him. Playboy stood and began to think. Just before the Pelicans had been destroyed the Brutes had given up trying to breach the eastern perimeter.
"Okay, let's go before these mother-" Playboy suddenly jerked upwards, then collapsed to the ground. Skeratt stared in horror at the thirty-centimetre long spike protruding out of Playboy's back.
"Go," Playboy groaned. Skeratt couldn't believe he was alive. He was about to grab Playboy when a wave of spikes flew through the air, killing one of the Marines.
"Let's move!" Skeratt yelled. He and the other two Marines ran, following the rest of the platoon.
Playboy put his hands behind his back and pulled out the spike. He screamed with the pain and dropped the spike. He grabbed his rifle and rolled onto his back to see a Brute standing above him, a gravity hammer slung across its back.
"You will die, Human," the Brute said with surprising clarity.
"Suck…my-" Playboy screamed as the Brute grabbed him and pulled him off the ground one-handed. It then chuckled deeply and smashed Playboy against its bent knee, shattering his back and killing him instantly. The Brute then dropped him to the ground and stomped on his chest, obliterating whatever organs were left in Playboy's body.
Macaur let out a huff as he looked down on the pathetic remains of the Human. Macaur's men had killed six Humans at this clearing, not including the two dropships. The Humans were sixty kilometers from the nearest Human outpost, and soon many of those outposts would be destroyed. They were doomed, and Macaur's pack would hunt them until every last one of them was dead.