Burke felt a sense of motion sickness as the UNSC "Pegasus" came out of slipspace, he held it in and stared at the monitor, one Covenant carrier in low orbit.
"Lieutenant" he said "get me image on that ship"
"Aye sir", his crew were exhausted, they had been up twenty hours straight after the initial conflict. Then an image came on the screen of the purple carrier, it floated ominously in low atmosphere looking like a shark just below the surface. Then explosions began to ripple underneath its shields, spreading around the ship and engulfing it in fire.
"Spartans" Burke thought, "it had to be, nobody else could pull that off"
He turned on his COM to all frequencies to the planet surface "this is the UNSC Pegasus, any remaining ground units respond", there was a pause, then the sound of a COM clicking on "this is the Ghosts of Reach Terra squad,, transmission received"
Burke let out a sigh, there were some Spartans left, then several marine transmissions also came in but no other Spartans.
Burke turned his COM back on "all ground forces stand by, pelicans will be inbound to your positions ASAP".
There were several acknowledgements, so only one squad of Spartans had survived. Undoubtedly there were far more Covenant than anticipated and the UNSC forces were ill prepared to face such an armada, but apparently they had fared rather well all things considered.
Sean clicked of his COM after the evac order. Soon enough a pelican roared over his head. He nodded to David and Niall as the pelican touched down. Niall and David boarded the pelican, but Sean turned and stared at the weapons cache that had been their home for the days they had been there, then to the downed pelican that had carried them to safety, these sights reminded him of the four Spartans that had rescued them from the elite camp, but they were all gone. In this war, bravery was not rewarded with survival, in fact it was often the opposite, a lot of brave soldiers died, including the four Spartans that had saved him and his squad. He took a sweeping look of the area, took a deep breath, and stepped into the pelican.
The pelican took off, its engines roaring as it propelled itself into the air. As the ramp began to close, Sean seen blue skies begin to emerge on the horizon, the battle here was over, but the war would continue on.