As the sergeant got ready for another day at the clinic, he heard a knock on the door. He walked over to it and swung it open. "Wipf!" an oily haired staggered into the room. "What are you doing here?"

"Mr. Templeton wishes to see you in his office. He says that it's urgent."

"Ok, thanks." Dan let out Wipf and shut the door behind him. "Shit!" he said as he turned around. "This can't be good."

Mitch was pacing rapidly in his office when Dan opened the large doors. He turned at him with rodent like reflexes. "Shut the door." He said chokingly. Dan swiftly closed the doors. "Sit down." Dan walked over to an empty chair and took a seat. Mitch continued to pace.

"Has something happened?"

"Not exactly Flohr, but I think something is about to and I don't like the look of it. Something is headed our way, something sinister." He walked over to the window. "A storm is brewing and I think Adam has something to do with it."

"What do you mean by that? The man is a complete lunatic."

"Maybe." Mitch said before he turned around. "Or maybe he's telling the truth." Dan was less than skeptical.

"You can't be serious! I was in the same room with that guy for ten minutes and I wanted to run by the end of it."

"Still, I can't shake the feeling that he's on to something."

"Weren't you the on who told me not to listen to him?" Just then, Adam burst through the doors. He was dripping with sweat from head to toe and flailing his arms wildly. Wide eyed and panting, he kept shouting the same thing.

"They're coming! They're coming!" Dan and Mitch both looked at him as he stopped running.

"Who?"

BOOM!

"Holy shit!" Dan screamed as his legs collapsed from the shock of the blast.

All three men struggled to get up. When Mitch found his feet, he asked "What the hell was that!" Adam stood, darkly chuckling.

"Well, well, well." He said "It seems that I have been correct all along. All of you; you didn't listen to me. And what of your situation now? You have no choice but to place your fates in the hand of the information I hold that you were so reluctant to listen to before." Dan hesitated, and then let him continue.

"Go ahead, Adam."

Adam smirked. "They're covenant."

"Damn it!" shouted Dan "Are you sure?

"Positive," replied Adam "When I first came to this clinic, I noticed one thing about it." He paused. "This building is in the middle of a bunch of mountains. We're completely isolated from other human life. Recently, the covenant has started to scout out locations for outposts on other planets." They began hearing the sound of plasma rounds firing off. They urged Adam to hurry. "They have now found Earth, and they will capture or kill everyone in this building before an outpost is constructed over it. This morning I was monitoring our communication systems, and" Mitch cut him off.

"Wait, how did you get access to that?"

"I had an inside man."

"God damn it Wipf!"

"By 8:00 hours today, they were completely down."

"8:00 hours, that's just a little before you came bursting in here." Dan observed.

"The communications systems going down told me that they were close." They heard heavy footsteps beneath them.

"Hurry!" Said Mitch as he ran for a closet. When he swung it open, Dan and Adam simultaneously shouted out.

"SON OF A BITCH!" The closet was, basically, a miniature armory. Being full of nearly every weapon he'd ever seen, with seemingly unlimited ammo, Dan started to drool.

"Take your pick." Said Mitch. Adam, being very unusual, grabbed a battle rifle and a pair of pistols. I grabbed the sniper rifle and the shotgun. Mitch, being practical, grabbed the rocket launcher and as many grenades as he could carry.

They heard a loud knock against the large doors. They looked toward it and readied their weapons. Dan leaned over to Mitch. "Is there a vent in here?"

"Yeah, it's over there." He pointed to one of the walls near his desk. "You go ahead, I can hold them off."

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely, I've wanted to do this for a long time."

"See ya." Dan and Adam ran for the vent. They got it open just as the covenant burst through the doors. They turned to see Mitch shoot off his first rocket and shout out "YEAH! TRIPLE KILL!" before they climbed in the vent and started to move.

They crawled faster and faster in the vent as the sounds of Mitch's screaming and precision rocket firing faded into a low, faint roar.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER NINE…