The bright flash had subdued within seconds.
Was he alive?
Were his men alive?
Those questions were answered when the Colonel opened his eyes. There was rubble everywhere as well as chaos. The chain of command was shaken and the marines weren't listening. The Colonel rose shakily and surveyed the damage. There was at least twenty dead and wounded around him, a horrible waste of good men.
The Colonel hobbled down the hallway. There was at least two dozen wounded men lying on the floor. The ones who could stand were at the windows firing. Seeing the Colonel alive was a huge morale boost. The damage to the buildings was extensive. The Colonel stood outside for a moment. The street was covered with dead and wounded covenant. The good thing was that there were only a few hundred left. They were mostly grunts and jackals.
The Colonel was immediately spotted by one of the marine commanders. The commander was stunned. The Colonel felt his head and pulled his hand down so he could see, it was blood. He turned to a glass panel to see his appearance and saw he was covered in blood, his own. There were cuts, burns, and gashes pouring out blood. The Colonel started to feel light headed and his vision started to fade. He soon realized that he was fainting.
When he came to he was in a hospital bed. He was surrounded by all of his remaining commanders. There was a medic next him checking his wounds. They managed to stop the bleeding with a hemostat. Presently pain surged through his body, which was a good sign. It meant that he was alive and the fact he wasn't entirely useless. Finally, after a long silence one of the regular marine commanders stepped to the Colonel's side.
"Sir, we won." he said.
"No, we haven't," said the Colonel, "the Covenant never do anything half assed. They will come back and next time they will have a larger force. We will be sitting ducks. What is the causality report?"
"Sir, we have nearly three hundred effectives, one hundred twenty eight wounded, and seventy two KIA," said the commander in the back of the room, "Not bad for facing impossible odds. The Spartan really helped us win the battle.
"Get on the horn with command." We need to evacuate the wounded and dead. We also need a lot more ammo and marines," said the Colonel.
"Sir," the commanders said in unison, "Yes Sir."
Within a matter of minutes the radio tech had patched through to the high brass in orbit. After a bit of negotiating we got what we needed to defend the street, and more. We had more than 200 Pelican drop ships in bound. All filled with troops, supplies, ammo, and even tanks and warthogs. Things were starting to shape up for the best.
That was until the covenant started to regroup. They had heard that their incursion team had been wiped out and were sending in about two hundred fifty more phantoms in. The first assault had been bad enough; the second wave was going to be devastating. They had to be repelled, no matter what the cost to themselves. The good thing about the Covenant's impending attack is that it was delayed, due to the Wasp, the UNSC's only one manned fighter. The Wasp could be compared to the Banshee. The Wasp possessed: twin 50 cal. chain guns, carried 6 anti aircraft missiles, on board anti-grav pods, (With thanks to the covenant because we now have them) and most importantly shields, something that the covenant didn't have on their banshees.
Thanks to them they were able to hinder the progress of the Covenant's attack force by a whole day and a half. It wasn't much, but they could prepare a more effective resistance in that amount of time. Luckily, the Pelicans arrived earlier than expected with everything we needed. We now had a large armory in our newly appointed Alpha Base, a hospital close to the street that we were guarding.
We had a full fleet of fifty warthogs and scorpion tanks with the accompaniment of fifty Wasps to help decrease the amount of Covenant that were able to land nearby. We also received four hundred fresh marines and all of the wounded loaded up and evacuated. They tried to take the Colonel, but he stayed and recovered quickly. Things were looking up. Even is it was only for a few moments, it was finally quiet.