Two months later

Date: March 3rd

Location: Angara city, Rhea, moon of Saturn.

Rhea. Once an ice world, now a terra formed planet much like Earth. It had tropical islands, great mountains and beautiful oceans. Like Umeda, or what had been Umeda, it was mainly ocean and had very little land, in fact it had less than Umeda but, surprisingly, it was a popular world. At night, it had a great view of Saturn and It's amazing rings. That was what Rhea and other colonized moon around the second largest planet in the solar system were famous for, or what they had been famous for.

However, the joy and pleasure of tourists seeing the great gas giant was now replaced by fear and concern. Every night, those who lived on or visited Rhea, which was more common as the Niobe Aino system was almost all but destroyed, prayed that they would live to see the next morning and hear that their home solar system was still safe and hidden from the Covenant. They were glad it had lasted this long, but many were thinking that it was only a matter of time until the Covenant did find this solar system. It would only take one ship to take one look at a Human controlled planet here and the Covenant would be swarming this solar system en masse.

Angara city was the capitol of Rhea. Named after the river in the East of the Russia, it was ten times the size of present day Vatican City and had a population of a million and a half people and had been constructed around and on the side of a mountain. The city had started out as a small village constructed by the inhabitants of the Russian ship Baikal in 2435. In fact, it had not become the capitol until 2475 when the original capitol, St. William on an island in the planet's southern regions, had taken up all space on the island and the Planet Capitol Building, which is always built in the capitol city of a planet, could not be built. So, it was moved to the next nearest great city, which was Angara, and the Planet Capitol Building was built there.

The Planet Capitol Building of Angara was a cross between the Ancient Greek Parthenon and the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem. It was a large rectangular building with concrete circular pillars at the front entrance. In the middle of the roof of the building was the enormous dome that was about twenty metres across in length and width. The building was a greyish colour and had several small entrances scattered across the roof that some workers used when they worked late at night for the view of the great neighbouring gas giant of Saturn. The building was the best place to view the planet and many people actually enjoyed staying late because, as they put it, it made them feel more relaxed, especially now when the greatest threat Humanity had ever faced was threatening to bear down upon their home system.

Inside main foyer of the building, a young man with black hair, blue eyes and a heavily built body was sitting in a hover chair. It was Marcus. He had escaped from Rodum on one of the last ships and was evacuated off Takra the next day. He had been lucky. A lot of wounded had not been as lucky, and it was the same for about 2 billion of Takra's remaining 15 billion that had been on the planet at the time of the attack on the planet. It was the most costly battle in civilian and military in the history of the UNSC, and yet many feared that many other battles that could be just as, or even more, costly were to come.

In the two months after he had been evacuated from Takra, Marcus had spent most of his time either recovering from his wounds (his side wound having almost fully healed but the wound on the side of his face had left him with a scar), listening to any news of the Covenant advance through the Niobe Aino system's remaining colonies or trying to get any news on a member of the E.R (Extra-terrestrial Reconnaissance) who was a close friend of him. Hopefully, that person was okay as he had heard the increase of several ER members in the past few weeks, especially after the conclusion of Takra.

Today, he was waiting to see some UNSC officer. Last night, he was called by a commander and told to report to the Angara Planet Capitol Building tomorrow morning. It had made Marcus curious but he could not refuse. He had to do it, but still it was strange.

"Marine Marcus," a voice said, making him look up.

A man with short blonde hair and dressed in a grey suit standing a few metres away was looking around, searching for Marcus, who stood up and walked over to him.

"Are you Marcus?" the man asked.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"Please follow me,"

The man turned and walked towards a door on the right wall of the room; Marcus followed. The door opened automatically as they approached it, revealing a large square shaped office room where several men and women dressed in smart suits were working in mall office cubicles. The walls were a grey coloured and a few windows were placed along the right wall of this room. At the end of the room ahead of Marcus and the man in the suit was a door leading with the holographic word: Harrison across it. Another door leading into another room was on the left wall.

The man in the suit led Marcus down the room past the cubicles to the door at the end of the room and knocked.

"Come in," a voice said from the other side.

The man in the suit opened the door to reveal a small square shaped office with a small window on the back wall with a desk in the middle of the room. A hover chair was in front of the desk and another was behind it, which a man with grey hair and dressed in an officer's uniform and looked to be in his late forties/early fifties was sitting in. Scattered across the desk were several papers, one of them the officer was scribbling something down on. The officer looked up at the two in the doorway.

"Ah good, you're here, Marcus," he said. "Thanks Michael,"

The man in the suit nodded and walked past Marcus, who stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.

"Take a seat, son," Harrison offered and Marcus obeyed and sat down in the chair. Harrison finished scribbling whatever it was down onto the paper and moved it away from him and set the pen down on the desk. "How's the scar?" he asked.

"It still hurts a little, sir, but not as much," Marcus replied.

"That's good. Now, I suppose you're wondering what you're doing here,"

"Yes, sir,"

Harrison nodded. "Well, to put it simple, Marcus. You're being reassigned to a new position,"

The news took Marcus completely by surprise. What? A-a new position?

"A-a-a new assi-assingment?" he repeated, stammering, to which Harrison nodded at.

"Yep. Marcus, you're being taken to Reach?"

"What for? Do you know what kind assignment this is, sir?"

"Not really. All I know is that It's something…well, let's just say it is quite classified. And, apparently, the reason for it being so is because, from what I've heard, it might ensure the very survival of the Human race and the defeat of the Covenant,"

Marcus went wide-eyed. Whoa, that big? Now that had really surprised him. So much so that he just stared wide-eyed ahead of him for a few seconds before Harrison cleared his throat, which brought Matthew back into reality.

"Sorry, sir," he replied. "Um…w-where exactly am I going for this new assignment, sir?" he asked.

"Reach," Harrison answered and he moved his hand under his desk and pressed something. At once, a portable computer screen hovered up from under the desk, stopping in front of Harrison, almost completely blocking him from Matthew's view, leaving only his eyes and forehead visible. "Get back to your barracks and collect your things. I'll let airbase command know you're on your way,"

Matthew nodded and stood up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. As he walked out of the building back outside, he could not help but think all about this 'new assignment'. What was it? Why was it on Reach and, more importantly, why was he being made part of it? Those were answers he could not find. Well, he would just have to wait until they revealed themselves to him, but as he walked away from the Planet Capitol Building, he could not help but think; was anyone else part of this new assignment? If there was, who, or a better question, how many? It could be a few, or several tens or a few hundred, or maybe even a few thousand, which it might be considering that this assignment was, as Harrison put it, 'Might ensure the very survival of the Human race'

Well, he would just have to wait and see what would happen when he got to Reach.