The once beautiful landscape of Reach had now been turned into a warzone with scars all across her surface reminding everyone about the threat that they currently were facing. All of the UNSC forces around the planet had been doing their best to fend off the covenant but no matter what they had been doing it seemed as though this was simply just a losing battle. However, to all of the spartans they couldn't care any less, they were willing to give up everything to try and save their home, or at least the home of the spartan II's. Jack 145 was on of those 'special' spartans; he wore the classic mark V as he hadn't thought to change it, it was almost completely a steel grey, with some blue stripes down his shoulders, arms, and legs and some smaller blue details across different spots on the armor. Jack was a larger man having been one of the older kids taken for the experiments as he was 14 at the time but had turned fifteen in the beginning of bootcamp. He was always more of a ground and pound type of soldier but being in the spartan program he had learned to be patient and take his time to not get spotted or caught. Even with all of the terrible things that had been done to him here, he still called this planet home and was going to protect it until his dying breath. Which is his current situation of being the last of his squad alive and having to fight of the hoards of covenant flooding to his position that last breath might come sooner rather than later.
"Spartan 145 to anyone listening, My squad and I need an immediate evac…Is there anyone on this channel?!" Jack yelled hoping against everything that he would get any type of response. "H-…lo spa…5 we read…-at is…current location?" Jack immediately began to relay his coordinates not caring how weak the signal had been or where his evac may be but that someone had answered and were on their way. Jack looked at his HUD and saw that the enemies had begun to converge on his location as he hadn't been returning any fire at them for a little bit of time now focused on doing whatever he can to save any of his team. He leaned out with his pistol in hand as it was the only thing left with any sort of ammo and spied two Elites and about eight grunts marching towards him but he could see that there were certainly more than that around the corner on his HUD. At that moment as he was planning his attack he heard the engines of a Pelican getting close and one of it's large side-mounted machine guns begin firing at all the covenant forces near his position. Jack stepped out and began firing on any of the forces left over from the first sweep quickly picking up one of his teammate's assault rifle and swapping his pistol for the more powerful rifle. "We're gonna do another sweep by and make sure the landing zone is clear spartan," he heard the voice say "Understood, 145 awaiting pickup" he responded.
Jack began to look at his squad that lay on the ground all of their life-signs having been far gone, he still wasn't going to leave them behind though as he had never been left behind by them and he wasn't willing to turn his back on them. As he reached his closest fallen squad-mate he heard the sound of a Scarab's main canon firing and he immediately whipped around to a terrible sight. His evac had just been shot down by a Scarab that had been hiding in one of the many hills around, and that very same evac was coming crashing down right towards him. Jack stood facing the Pelican accepting that there was no way for him or anyone else here to escape with their lives, and as the Pelican was just before hitting him Jack accepted that his home had been lost and Reach had fallen.
Nora was finishing up getting herself ready for the day in her bathroom as her husband walked into the bathroom also needing to finish getting ready. "Is this mirror available dear or do I just have to stare at two beautiful people to get ready?" he said smiling, Nora looked up at her husband and smiled back as she leaned up and gave him a quick kiss. "Yes dear it is, so I guess you'll just have to dream all about yourself," she said back teasing him as she walked out of the bathroom. As she headed into the living room she noticed a coffee cup sitting on the Island counter 'Nate's coffee is ready' she thought as she walked over to the couch and sat down and began watching the t.v.. "Mrs. Nora is there anything I can get you?" Codsworth asked as the robot flew around the kitchen taking care of all his duties, "No, thank you Codsworth" she replied, "My pleasure," she only half listened to the automated reply. She then heard her young baby Shaun crying in his room, and being the mother she was she quickly got up and went to him, "I've got him Codsworth don't worry," she said as she entered the hallway and turned into Shaun's room.
She walked over to his crib and saw the baby boy red-faced, his cheeks glistening from tears, "Shhh it's ok honey mommy's here," she whispered to him as she picked him up and gently rocked him in her arms. "How's my two favorite people in the world doing?" said Nate from behind her. She set baby Shaun back in his bed and stared at him while answering Nate, "He's ok he was just getting a little fussy 'cause he hasn't gotten all his attention today," she said jokingly as she lightly tickled Shaun's stomach causing him to burst into laughter. "So what's on the agenda today?" she asked Nate as he walked over to her, "Well I figured that we could maybe go out to the Park today and walk around and just…relax," he said knowing that his wife had been stressing herself out for some time now. Just as Nora was about to speak they both heard codsworth from the kitchen, "Mum, Dad you might want to see this!" he shouted, Nora looked at Nate before reaching down and grabbing Shaun out of the bed and carrying him to the living room. As they watched the news reporter break down on live television talking about the different 'bombs' going off throughout America they immediately both had the same thought, "The vault!" they both said together. Nate ripped the door open and they both took off in full sprint not caring what they were wearing or what they had on them as they both knew from the interview they had taken weeks before that they wouldn't need any of their belongings because the vault would have everything they could need.
As they neared the fence to the vault they saw two men in power armor and a soldier in the middle with a clip board, "Hi we need to get in, we're on the list," Nora said hurriedly as she was hoping to get into the vault before anything could happen to her family. "Adult male, Adult female, infant you're good to go, just follow the security team up there," the soldier said as he pointed to the man in vault tech security armor. Nora gave him a quick thank you and they both ran up to catch up with the security team, when they made it to the platform the team was rushing around trying to send the platform down into the vault, but as the platform just began to sink into the ground Nora caught a glint of light in her eye from some form of metal and as she realized what it was she immediately turned away and shielded both her and Shaun's eyes from the nuclear blast that was inevitable. The platform made it down into the vault and the blast doors closed just before any of the radiation could get into the vault however, and Nora was both thankful and saddened by the sacrifice of the men above ground. When the platform reached the bottom everyone stepped off in s straight line leading into the vault with Nora and Nate in the very back of the line; she could hear a prerecorded message being played through the loud speakers but she wasn't listening to any of it as she was still in shock of having just lost her entire life in just a few short minutes.
When they finally reached a woman handing out vault suits they both grabbed theirs and followed a doctor down the hall to some 'decontamination pods' as he called them, Nora was skeptical as to why they had to be pods but she was still in too much shock to ask any questions and just followed along with what they said. When they had to put on their vault suits she handed over Shaun to Nate and put her vault suit on over her current clothes deciding to take them off later after they finished with decontamination and she had more privacy. She looked over at Nate and he was already stepping into the decontamination pod with Shaun, she then turned and got herself into the pod directly across from Nate. She smiled at him through the glass as she felt the cool air blow across her face but her smile quickly turned to horror as she felt the intense cold hit her skin as the pod began to freeze her. She blacked out in that moment and what felt like less than five minutes she woke back up and was still in her pod as she saw three people standing outside her pod facing away from her. She was still so dazed that she couldn't tell anything about them, then she saw a silver glint outside the pod and some shouting which gained her attention but before she could focus on anything there was a ear ringing boom and then she could hear Shaun crying. She immediately began banging on the door of her pod but it was of no use as she could feel the cold air beginning to take her off to sleep again in that darkness of sleep.