1900/7:00 PM, Unknown Date, 2547 (Military Calender), Inner Colony Skopje, Unknown shipyard
Lieutenant Star gripped his MA5B tight as he crawled under the broken wall, listening intently for comms activity. The last he'd had was with Earl, and now he was silent.
His hand splashed into water, and he looked up to see a steady trickle from a broken pipe, the water splashing onto his visor and trickling off. He raised a gloved hand and wiped away the remaining water and continued moving forward.
He reached an area where he could stand up and he did so slowly, looking around for and hints of the Covenant, intent on taking down as many as he could before they took him.
The Lieutenant continued forward and turned to the right and saw a surprising sight in front of him. Directly to his front was an uncloaked Elite, his energy sword swinging at a group of Marines firing at him from afar, but they were being backed into a corner. As Star watched, the nearest Marine was cut clean in half, his blood splattering across the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.
Star reacted instinctively and sprinted forward and threw himself forward, his combat knife pointing downward as he grabbed onto the Elite's back and plunged the knife downward into an exposed piece of skin on its neck.
"Die, dammit!" Star exclaimed, pulling the knife out and dropping down to plunge it through another crevice in the armor lower on its body.
The Elite let out a screech and toppled over onto its side, its purple blood spilling and mixing with the red of the already dead marines.
"Sir!" the Marines saw him and saluted, their rifles at their sides as they focused on the Lieutenant.
"At ease, men," Star stepped forward, his boots sloshing in the blood of the fallen enemy, "Who here is the commanding officer?"
"Me, sir! Sergeant Diel at your service!" the Marine in front spoke up and stepped forward, pointing his rifle down the hall in case anymore of the Covenant decided to show their faces.
"Can you establish comms, Diel?"
"No sir, looks as if they've jammed all of them. We lost contact with our HQ about a half hour ago," Diel explained.
"Shit," Star attempted to open a COM channel to Earl, but the Corporal wasn't responding. He already had two deaths on him, and he'd be damned if he was going to let a third happen.
1920/7:20 PM, Unknown Date, 2547 (Military Calender), Inner Colony Skopje, Unknown shipyard
"Lock and load, Marines!" Sergeant Terence Hallows ordered, loading his MA5B. He tapped at the console, and the doors in front of the group of four Marines opened silently, the hallways empty.
"Piers, Gallows, check corners," Hallows ordered in almost a whisper over the COM channel. The Private and Corporal advanced slowly down the hallway, peering into the now empty rooms as they went, and then turned to peek around the corners at either end of the hallway.
"Clear."
"Clear."
"Move up," Hallows and the remaining Marine, Allan, moved up after the other pair, "Allan, Piers, take the right. Gallows, you're with me."
This would be difficult. Long-range comms had been cut about half an hour ago, though short-range COM channels still worked. As far as the Sergeant knew, they still had standing orders to search and recover any remaining men on the shipyard, and to secure or destroy anything that would be useful to the Covenant. This was for the sake of the rest of the Inner Colonies, and Earth itself. There was no room for error.
"Gallows, take point," Hallows ordered, training his rifle to their backs, towards the other Marines.
"Yes, sir," came the response.
The pair edged down the hallway, listening intently for anything that would indicate an enemy presence. Hallows even slowed his breathing, and watched for flickers in the air that would indicate a cloaked Elite.
"Cle-" Hallows didn't even hear the end of the sentence before he was thrown into the wall head first and crumpled to the ground, a fainting buzzing sound filling his ears.
1925/7:25 PM, Unknown Date, 2547 (Military Calender), Inner Colony Skopje, Unknown shipyard
Corporal Gallows barely ducked under the hissing energy sword, and fired up at the Elite, the bullets pinging off of its armor.
"SHIT!" he screamed, jumping backwards and landing on his back, still firing the MA5B at the Elite, who now towered over him, his arm raised.
Then the energy sword seemed to freeze in the air, and a loud grunt escaped the Elite's mouth before it toppled sideways, purple blood spilling out of it's throat. The energy sword hit the floor beside Gallows and flickered off.
"What the-" he knew as soon as he saw the gold-visored helmet. A Spartan stood in front of him now, holding a hand down to help him up. A bloody knife in his hands, it was this man who had saved Gallows' life.
Gallows was speechless. This was a Spartan, the legendary figures of the UNSC. Nobody really knew if they weren't just robots made of thick suits of armor and made to shoot weapons at threats. The Spartan was taller than Gallows, about 7' and was reaching down with a hand to help him up now.
He took it, and the Spartan pulled him up as if he was a feather. Gallows turned to the Elite as the Spartan bent down and retrieved the energy sword.
Gallows then sprinted over to Hallows, ignoring the voices in the COM channel and began to check his CO over. He checked for a pulse and didn't find one, and then saw the blood running from under the Marine's helmet.
"Sarge," Hallows said in a low voice. He looked down and then, remembering his duty, ripped the dog tags from the Sergeant's neck, leaving one placed in his hand.
"Gallows, what the hell was that!?" Piers' voice was shaky and sounded like he knew something was wrong.
"Sarge is dead," the Corporal muttered solemnly, "but there's some good news... We have a Spartan with us."
"Are you shitting me, Corporal?" Allan asked, amazement and sadness in his voice at the same time.
"No, Private. Get your asses over here now, before we have to come hunting you two down," Gallows responded.
Thirty seconds later, the two Marines were with Gallows and the Spartan, looking curiously as the Spartan policed the Elite and came up with a plasma rifle.
"Okay, what's with the staring, Marines?' the Spartan suddenly turned tot hem and asked. He towered over them, and Gallows was frightened for a moment and was glad the Spartans were on their side.
"It's just... You're a Spartan!" Allan summed it up for all of them, and the two others remained silent.
"Fair point," the Spartan gave and sat down against the wall, looking up at the Marines.
"What are you doing here, sir? We thought we were the only ones left in this section," Piers asked.
"Well, it's a good story, and we've got some time before we get glassed. By the way, I'm Petty Officer Victor Spartan-098, now if you want to hear, listen up..."