Chapter 2

The Chief carefully rounded a corner, his assault rifle aimed ahead. He scanned the area, found no sign of enemies, and crept forward. Ever since he had awakened, he had found no sign of the Flood nor Cortana, which worried him. He knew that the Flood tended to strike out at the most inconvenient of times, and Cortana...well, she was already captured once by the Flood. He dreaded at the thought of what would happen if she was captured yet again.

He paused, ducked behind a shard of the wall, and looked around. Still nothing.

John rose and walked forward. He knew that the Flood was on board; their filthy biomass was everywhere, and every few moments, the slithery, liquid sounds of infection forms would pass.

He rounded a bend, and immediately caught sight of about twenty-no, thirty-infection forms racing around the hall. Chief tossed a grenade, killed most of them, and mopped up the rest. He moved along, listening for any other sides of the Flood and checking his motion tracker. Nothing moved, and nothing made a sound.

That wasn't good.

It probably meant the Flood was waiting for him, waiting for a chance to strike him down and turn him into one of them. But he wasn't about to give them the pleasure of killing them.

He passed through the hatch, scanned the area, and pressed on. Members of the UNSC would probably say that he was being needlessly cautious, that he should relax and proceed to...where ever it was he was headed.

Those members would probably end up infected within four, maybe five seconds.

Truth was, Chief had no idea where he was heading. Half of the ship-along with the bridge-was gone when the Portal sheared it in half. He had no idea of where he was, what year it was, or anything else.

He turned a corner and immediately came face-to-visor with another bipedal being. Not taking any chances, and not having any time to observe the figure's features, the Spartan attacked.

-Line-

Earth...a beautiful sphere of blue and green. The homeworld of the humans. The center of the UNSC.

Or at least, it was.

Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck swore as he dove under the swing of a Brute's fist. He had been planning to retire, preferably somewhere nice, but then the insurrectionists had to come and screw up his plans. Then the Brutes started causing trouble, wiping out colonies of Humans and Elites.

Now the ape-like sons of bitches had attacked Earth. Earth. Why here? Why now?

Buck didn't dwell on these thoughts as the Brute kicked the ODST in the chest, sending him sliding across the ground, his MA5C Assault weapon skidding away. Giving a throaty chuckle, the Brute pulled out his spiker and aimed it at the trooper's head. Buck growled and was about to snap something at his would-be executioner when something grabbed the Brute from behind. The alien howled in rage, trying to throw off the attacker, but a combat knife was driven into the Brute's neck. It grunted, slumped forward, and died. Standing above him, with a satisfied smirk behind the depolarized helmet, was Commander Veronica Dare.

"Need some help?" she asked, extending her hand.

"I can get up myself, thanks," Buck replied, rising to his feet.

Veronica shrugged, and instead proceeded to remove the knife from the Brute's neck. Buck recovered his gun and asked, "Is there any new progress on the battle?"

She shook her head. "Brute ships have plowed through the orbital defenses and are moving on our position. These bastards," she said, kicking the Brute in the arm, "were an advanced scouting party. We have large amounts of Phantoms inbound."

"What about the Elites? Aren't they going to help?"

"They said that new reinforcements would arriving soon," Veronica answered, "but I have yet to see any Elites anywhere."

Buck sighed. "I guess that we're going to be in our own graves by the time those bastards get here."

Veronica shrugged. "Well, we can't do anything about it. Let's go."

They turned as one to end up facing a window that offered a view of the space battle. Human technology had greatly improved since the Elites and Humans had begun an alliance, but they still couldn't face the tech the Brutes possessed.

That was why the MAC gun of the orbital defense station the two ODSTs were stationed at could kill only a few shielded Phantoms that were flying toward them.

"Well, this is going to be interesting," Buck said, hefting his gun. Veronica nodded.

Suddenly, one of the Phantoms blew apart. Several more followed suit, but none of them had been killed by the MAC gun.

"Look!" Veronica pointed to a shape that flew past. It was a Covenant carrier, but not like the ones the Brutes were flying, if only to the extent of different insignias.

This carrier had the mark of the Elites.

"Well, what do you know?" Buck said. "They actually came through for us."

"Attention all Humans!" an Elite's voice rang through the speakers. "We are the Warriors of Defense! The Brutes are preparing to retreat, and we are here to take volunteers on an expedition to track them. If you wish to help, board a dropship-either Human or Elite, as we have Phantoms ready to pick up troops-and head to Masked Dependence, the supercarrier on the far side of the planet, where the fighting was worse."

Buck looked over at Veronica, fully intending to make a pun about this, but found the Commander already gone.

"Well damn!" Buck muttered, racing to the airpad.