Chapter 2
Shadows
As Grant ran through what looked somewhat like an Earth forest, he saw pods escape above him. His pod had been one of the first to launch. He silently wished every one of the vessels luck.
As far as he knew, they had left the Covenant forces back on the vessel far behind. But they hadn't just left without a trace. Two soldiers had set up a proximity mine inside the vessel. The first unfortunate alien to step into that pod would have a hell of a tan.
Now, Grant and his troops were moving through densely wooded area. They still hadn't gotten radio contact, but Grant figured that the ring wasn't that huge, and if they kept moving, they'd eventually run into other survivors.
As he reached the top of a hill, he quickly ducked back down. The other soldiers came to attention with quizzical looks.
"Enemies are over the rise. Approximately ten. Two Elites. The rest are Grunts. We're going to surround them. You four flank the right. I and three others will flank left. Thomas, get that sniper rifle ready and take aim at one of the Elites. Give us sixty seconds to get ready, and then fire. As soon as you hear Thomas fire, open up on the rest." The soldiers all nodded and surrounded the plot of land in front of them.
Grant snuggled into some underbrush and carefully took aim, balancing his gun on a rock. He set his sight on a Grunt that was chatting with another Grunt.
He heard Thomas fire. One of the Elites, in blue armor, fell as his brains splattered out of his head and drenched his fellow Elite. Grant opened fire, and shot his Grunt right through the head and shattering his methane mask, sending blood and gas everywhere.
The entire group of hostiles was dead in seconds. Grant checked his ammo. He had used ten rounds. He still had the majority of his clip left.
The soldiers policed the area of weapons and grenades. Grant took four, to compliment his four fragmentation grenades.
"Okay, good work team. Let's keep going."
They continued on, but were frozen in their tracks when they heard the roar of engines. Grant made a signal to hide, and they all took cover in the darkness of the woods. Overhead, two Banshees flew over. They must have heard the gunfire and seen the bodies.
Grant stealthily made his way over to the Marine with the rocket launcher. He whispered to him.
"Okay. Wait until I give the order, then fire. If they begin to land, let them. Wait until the pilots exit before firing."
The bombardier nodded. Grant silently went to another soldier and told him. He, in turn went to a few other soldiers, and soon everyone knew the plan.
Grant waited and watched. He saw the Banshees head towards ground. Excellent.
They touched down, and the drivers exited. They were both Elites. They were surveying the damage when Grant gave the signal to fire. There was a loud bang, and suddenly one of the Banshees caught fire and exploded. This caught the Elite's attention, but they were quickly cut down by the human's fire.
Grant quickly ran to the Banshee.
"Yes! Now we have a way out of this! Do any of you know how to pilot one of these?"
Everyone was silent.
"Well, it can't be that hard to learn."
Grant stepped up to the Banshee's open cockpit. He looked inside, and was just about to man the controls when something caught his eye.
"Well, what have we here?" he murmured.
What he was looking at was a heat sensitive radar display. The hotter something was, the bigger a red dot it was. And he was looking at a huge red dot only about 300 meters from his location.
He went back to his crew with this information.
"Well, good news/bad news time."
The group looked at him, wondering what he was going to say.
"Good news is, we have heat seeking radar to tell us where enemies are. Bad news is, we have a huge heat source close by."
The group grew somewhat shaky.
"We have to engage. Remember, this is just heat. It doesn't mean for sure that it's anything."
He got the crew together and they slowly made their way through the brush. Grant's pulse was pounding. It was one thing to knowingly ambush an enemy. But there could be anything over this next hill, and he wasn't so sure he wanted to find it.
Nearing the top of the hill, Grant signaled for the others to halt. He lay down on his stomach and crawled up the hill. He saw a huge alien structure, somewhat pyramid like. He had noticed a few of these scattered around when he landed. This was one of many.
"Thomas," he whispered, "get up here. Scope that place out. Tell me if there are any Covenant in sight." Thomas nodded. He look a long look down the scope, then pulled his eyes away.
"Sir, the construct is occupied by Marines, sir!"
Grant smiled in amazement. After hearing the good news, the whole group ran down to the structure. The soldiers inside were shocked at first, but then happy to see that it was backup.
Grant was met by a Marine with a sniper rifle. He told the Marine his name and rank. The Marine saluted.
"Good to see you, sir. We're holding here until backup arrives. We sent a call out several hours ago, but that was the last time we got anything but static."
"That's our story here. Well, except we didn't have a good place to hold, so we decided to move. Hope we won't be a bother. There are nine of us in total. One may need some medical attention." He pointed to the man with no arm, who was wielding a pistol in one hand. He had had some first aid, but nothing special, just some biofoam, which wouldn't last much longer.
The Marine nodded and called one of his friends. The friend led the one-armed man up to what was presumably the medic.
"Well, there are twelve of us here. Why don't you guys come inside, and we can all get to know each other."
"That sounds great."
So they headed of into the structure, and Grant had a feeling things would get much better from here.