Chapter 1

I woke to the sound of the redundant bleep of my alarm clock. The same noise I've woken up too for a year now. Since I arrived on the Gehenna Wing, the station I and about 3000 other Marines now call home.

I pushed my sheets off to the right and climbed out onto my quarter's hard metal floors. Same steps as always, a guy could become obsessive compulsive living here.

My name is Jamey Thomson. I'm a Corporal living in a Space Station in orbit around an otherwise backwater outpost called, Reach. I supposedly pilot Scimitar Fighters if we, one of the other stations, or Reach, are ever attacked.

We hear about the Covenant glassing colonies all the time, shredding entire kill squadrons of our best cruisers. But none of us, well, a few, have ever seen the buggers in real life. But we've all seen the movies.

I finished my 'waking up' process and began getting my uniform out.

Today I'm supposed to do some maintenance on my Scimitar Fighter. Basically just to keep the rust off incase the Covies come over for tea one day. Sure.

I slid my quarter's door open, walked out, and locked it with my key card.

Our quarters are basically just a room, a bed, a bathroom, and a small room to do paperwork in or have other humans in if one should find the need.

I waited outside the elevator. God it takes a long time. Well it's a big station…a big boring station.

The car slid along the tracks and I stepped in.

"Hey Ron" I said to a guy in my Squadron as I got on.

"Hey Jamey", the usual greeting. Well what the hell else is there to say. We all know what the other guy is thinking.

"If I don't get to kill some Covies real soon I'm gonna put a fist through a bulkhead"….that's what we're thinking by the way.

Ron got off at the Engineering level. He said he had to pick up a new part for his Scimitar's targeting device. Then spend a week installing it, because all our techs are mysteriously busy…ALL the time.

I saluted some random Captain as we crossed paths when the door slid open.

He was dressed in his fancy shmancy white naval dress uniform. God I hated that thing, who died for Christ's sake? Where's the General? No one and no where. No Generals inspect the station, and amazingly no one dies of boredom.

The hangar doors slid open as I clunked through.

"Hey" I said to all the other brick-faced pilots working monotonously on their Fighters.

I walked up to my Scimitar and sat down on a stool next to it.

Why can't the covenant take an interest in the bored population. We're filthy human scum too.