Fred looked out from the bunker he was positioned in. It had a clear view of the surrounding area. His team was currently setting up traps for the Covenant.

Fred positioned himself on his throne made out of much need frag grenades. One of the Spartans guarding the bunker approached him.

"Uh. Sir. There is a... er, teammate here to see you."

"Bring him in."

Red Twelve, or Will, came up to him.

"What is your reason for coming, peasant?"

"I came to inform you that all traps are set with no Covenant contact. We also found weapons and functional Banshees..."

Fred cleared his throat.

'Damn roleplaying.' Will spoke again. "Traps are set, sir. Weapons and transportation were also apprehended from both allies and enemies."

"Good. Though I wish we found some batteries of some sort. My plasma gun's energy is running low." He looked at the gun sadly.

Will stayed silent. His mood picked up when he added, "We also found six Anaconda surface-to-air missiles and pair of Fury tac-nukes."

"Nice but the EMP would burn out my electrical stove. It would ruin my chicken as well as my will to fight."

"Not to mention the generators."

"Oh, that too." Fred contacted Red-Three. Joshua. "Report."

"Lots of Covenant. No chance of survival."

"Good. Now what about you Kelly? Any progress on the SATCOM uplink?"

"Negative." Kelly was given the task to fix Charlie Company's communication pack broken in the battle. "I think you gave me the wrong instructions." She help up the piece of paper Fred gave her. It was a placemat to a McDonald's tray. On it was a maze a Marine failed to complete correctly.

"Alright. Keep-"

"Wait. I got a transmission from Charlie Company."

"Patch it through."

"Aren't you going to verify the codes?"

"Uh. Sure." Fred twirled around his knife. "Hey, you hungry? Cause I got some MRE's here and if you don't mind the pills mixed in with it, it can be quiet good." 'And deadly...'

"Done."

"Is this Pizza Planet? Finally we got to you. My officers kept contacting the Covenant instead and got these weird coordinates from them. They look sort of like Earth's... Anyway, I would like ten large pizzas with maybe a diet soda on the side."

"Hold on. Let me write that down." Fred took out a crumbled piece of paper and pen. He was about to write when he stopped. "Heeey. I don't work at a pizza place. Who is this!"

"This is Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. I'm 50 years old, my birthday is in March and my favorite color is green. My position is a gully southeast of where HighCom use to be. We started a lot of fires and even signal flares so we shouldn't be hard to find. Oh, by the way, my social security number is..."

Fred blinked. Who the hell was talking to him?

"-7465658656979... Hey, are you even listening to me?"

"Uh. We don't serve pizza..."

"Then why did you even bother to call me!"

"You called us!"

"Oh, that's right." The Admiral cleared his throat. "Er, I need to be picked up and protected since I am in charged of Reach now that everyone of higher rank mysteriously died."

"Gotcha." Fred contacted the other Spartans. "Alright, everyone catch that transmission?" Acknowledgment lights blinked and blinded Fred briefly. "Okay... ow... uh, we will split up into groups of four in order to accomplish these various task. Everybody come to my position and we will draw names from the hat to see who goes into which group."

Later...

Fred, Kelly and Joshua stood near the Banshees in the compound.

"Only three of us are going?" asked Joshua.

"Yup!" Fred smiled from within his helmet.

Kelly crossed her arms. "How the hell did I get paired up with you?"

"Don't worry," said Fred. "We are main characters, we won't die." Fred turned to Joshua. "Except for you."

Joshua looked at him. "Huh?"

"Nothing." Fred walked to the nearest Banshee. "Now to see if these work." He tapped several controls in the Banshee. The Banshee rose from the ground and sped forward into the wall. Fred stared at it. "That can be yours, Joshua."

"Permission to speak."

"Granted, Kelly."

"We have no chance in hell to beat these guys."

"I am fully aware of that." Fred reached for the tape in the Warthog. "But, I have a plan."

Kelly and Joshua stood, shocked.

"We fly in with the Banshees and kick ass." Fred pulled out another item from the Warthog. "With the nuke."

"How?" Joshua asked. "The EMP would burn out the generators!"

"It would but look at it in a different point of view. If my television set blew up in my house, would it effect anything outside of it?"

"If it were near the windows, yeah."

"...What if the house had a force field around it?"

"Hm." Joshua considered it. "Probably... not."

"And that is what I plan to do. Screw the mission, I want to blow up my television set!"

"Or we could use the nuke in place of the television and a Covenant ship in place of the house." Kelly suggested.

"Even better!"

"What if we fail?" Asked Joshua. "We will be in front of thousands of pissed-off bad guys."

"We're Spartans," Fred said. "What could possibly go wrong?"

"Uh, We die."

"Shut up, Kelly."

In Longhorn Valley...

Zawaz was awoken as the alarm sounded. He jumped to his feet and dropped his scanner in the process.

Zawaz picked the scanned up and caressed it as if it were his child. Hell, they ate their children. Zawaz remembered what his superior Elites said to him. Treat it as if it were porn.

Zawaz hugged it tighter.

It wasn't damaged on the outside but for some odd reason, it was spelling his name backwards.

Meh. He could get it fixed.

Zawaz look at the screen and saw the objects detected as a trio of Banshees. He relaxed and took his place in his hole. Zawaz soon fell to sleep.

-

Fred and the other Spartans had a wedged shaped formation. They were slowly gaining altitude as they neared the top of the ridge.

Fred was shocked when he reached the top.

They were everywhere. And they built houses with little gardens of flowers to the sides.

Odd. Covenant usually destroyed everything. They didn't set up houses or garden. Well, at least they didn't set up houses.

Fred activated a COM frequency. "Go."

Kelly sped off while Fred trailed behind. Joshua was somewhere behind them. Dunno. He is a minor character after all.

Several odd symbols appeared on Fred's screen. He pressed the one in a shape of a curvy m. Dozens of other symbols appeared. Fred turned off the screen.

Kelly's flier pulled out in front of them. She gained as much speed as she could, making a mad dash for the gravity lift. The nearest of the guard towers. tracked on to her and started firing. One of the shots hit her starboard fuselage. It melted the front faring and her ship slowed.

Joshua flew.

Other plasma turrents fired at them.

Fred banked and began firing at them. The Banshee's primary weapon fire collided with the guard towers.

Joshua fired too.

Fred hit the button for the Banshee's heavy weapon. It impacted with a guard tower and caused it to collapse.

Grunts and Jackals began to fire at them. Fred looked at Kelly while Joshua pinged him many times for assistance. Kelly had her foot under the tape on her Banshee and had the nuke in her hand, ready to throw even though it was one hundred meters away.

Fred avoided the fire from the Covenant. One of the Covenant cruiser's plasma shots collided with Joshua's ship. Joshua lost control of his ship as Fred and Kelly entered the gravity lift.

Kelly fumbled with the nuke.

"Throw it!" Fred yelled.

Kelly stiffened and resumed her shotput pose. "Can't. Throw. Too busy. Posing."

"Damn!" Fred threw the tape at Kelly in order to get her attention. The tape missed and hit her hand causing the nuke to fall. While the nuke fell to the ground, the tape was caught in the gravity lift and pulled into the ship. Fred watched the nuke fall. "RUN!"

Both accelerated their Banshees and flew out of the area. As they were settling in an area safe from the blast, the tape detonated. A blinding light filled Fred's visor and slowly disappeared.

Kelly's Banshee appeared next to his. She pulled off her helmet. "Holy crap! Was that the tape or the nuke?"

"T'was the tape." Fred stared back to the area of the explosion. 'Some damn good tape too.' He felt like crying. It was like he part of him died.

Kelly looked around. "Joshua?"

Fred had a blank look on his face. "Joshua? Ooh. Him. He was hit on the way in. He was a minor character after all."

Kelly nodded in agreement. She suddenly slumped onto her Banshee. "But... the tape."

Fred watched in silence. "I'm going to take a look. Stay here."

Fred powered his Banshee and looked into the valley. It was totally destroyed.

Still, ten thousand Covenant destroyed. It was hardly worth losing the tape.

Kelly's Banshee appeared next to his and their canards bumped. Fred rammed his Banshee back into Kelly's. Kelly rammed her's into Fred's. This continued until they spotted three Covenant cruisers heading towards the generators.

"They don't have the tape. All will be lost!" Fred opened his COM channel. "Delta team," He said calmly. "RETREAT!"

The cruisers began firing.

"Reactor complex seven has been compromised. We're falling back. Might be able to save number three." There was a pause as the speaker shouted orders to someone else. "Yes, I want fries with that!"

Fred contacted FLEETCOM. "Be advised. The groundside reactors are being taken. Nothing we can do. Too many. May be forced to use the nukes... again."

Voices crowded the channel and the COM soon went dead.

Kelly tapped him on the shoulder and pointed up.

Dozens of Covenant warships positioned themselves in low orbit.

"Plasma bombardment." Fred whispered.

"Naaaaw." Kelly commented. "Reach is lost. There is nothing we can do."

"Maybe," Fred gunned his Banshee. "Maybe not. Come on, we're not done yet."

Fred's Banshee lurched forward and crashed into Kelly's.

"Damn it!"