A/N alright ladies and gents, its been a while. I'm sorry about that. I recently returned to fan fiction with a zombie story. Its called A Pile of Empty Brass and its written a lot like this chapter, so if you like how I wrote this chapter and you like zombies go check it out and drop a review or a PM telling me what you think about it. Again I own nothing so please don't sue. Also, please review. It allows me to improve both the story and my writing. Suggestions, insight, and ideas are always welcome.

August 14, 2529

Harvest

"Alright gents, here's the deal. Covenant are approaching this little shithole of a town and its our job to stop them. I want explosives laid on the bridge spanning the river, sniper teams to set up in the high rise apartment complexes and the rest of you to dig in. Drone support estimates that we've got about 6 hours before we make contact. Solid copy?" A smatterings of rahs and roger that's answered Major Thompson's orders. We were an ODST Company, stationed on Harvest. It was a little town, in the middle of the Harvest plains. The town bordered a river and there was a highway that cut the town in half. That high way went on behind us to cut through a mountain line and go on to a major city. We were a stopgap. This little town needed to hold the line, stop a Covenant army from destroying the civilians still inside that city. This town was one of the only parts that wasn't a glassland. Fucking Covenent. Well I guess I better introduce myself. Lance Corporal James Page. I was part of Whiskey Company, 46th Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Division. Whiskey company was about 55 men strong, we had taken casualties over the last four years of the war and had just gotten replacements. Who were green, I had been with the unit since we dropped feet first onto Harvest. Why was a battle hardened ODST with 4 years of combat experience still a Lance Corporal and not a Sergeant by now? Well that had to do with some dumbass Army Colonel who refused to give my pinned down fire team air support while we covered his units retreat in the beginning of the way. My unit fought its way back to the rear and I punched that dumbass right in the fucking mouth. Bastard deserved it. Anyway. Like most ODST units our company was split into 6 squads of 12 men each. Only we had lost two squads worth of men during our fighting retreat to this here shithole town. We were down to 4 squads of 3 fire teams each. On top of that we had our CO, XO and a handful of comm guys. While every ODST had inter-squad/fire team comms, we had comm guys with the equipment to communicate with other units or ships in orbit. Squads 1-3 were normal squads each broken down into 4 fire teams. Squad 4 was different. 6 guys in 4 were heavy weapons operators. 3 men carried M247 general purpose machine guns, or M247GPM for short. And the other 3 guys were ammo bitches and rocket jockeys, so they worked in two man teams. The other 6 guys in squad 4 were three teams of snipers with a spotter. I was in 1 squad, 2nd fire team and the marksman of my fire team so I was the lucky son of a bitch to be issued a BR55 battle rifle. In my four man team was LCPL Joyce, our fearless leader, and two PFCs, green as the grass. I didn't even know their fucking names. Joyce came trotting over to our little circle where I stood puffing on a cigarette. "Listen up gents, 1st and 2nd squads has been tasked with the front line defense, we are going to be digging into the dirt surrounding the end of the bridge in a horseshoe formation. The machine guns are going to be above us, in the buildings, so are the sniper guys and rocket jockeys. 3rd squad is in reserve. Boots, start digging a fighting hole, one for each of you. Page you're going to go mine the bridge." Fucking fuck. "Everyone copy?" I rogered up and sprinted over to the house designated as the armory. We had been resupplied once since we took position here and this house was wall to wall ammo boxes, extra small arms and three boxes of C12 plastic explosives. Mine. I was equipped with a BR55 and an M6D magnum. The big boy. I snatched up the three boxes of C12 and took off at a run for the bridge. The bridge was pretty standard set up. Four pillars on which the highway was suspended that buried deep within the river. I decided to save the closest pillar to our shore and put the C12 on the rest. Each box came with a massive brick of the shit, about the size of a brief case. At the top of each pillar was a manhole. Each pillar was hollow and had a ladder spanning the length of the shaft. I had to climb down each shaft and place the C12 about 3/4s of the way down. Each box came with a detonator that was stuck into the middle of the C12 and then you clicked a little button and the detonator flashed green. All you needed to do then was link the clapper to the detonator, which you did by touching them and pressing a link button on the clapper. Isn't fucking awesome how technology had advanced? I climbed back up shaft one and climbed down the next two shafts, laying the explosives for both. I took most of an hour but it was better then digging fucking fighting holes. I ran back across the bridge, past teams of ODSTs who were pushing all cars overboard into the river. Cars meant cover for the covvies and cover meant I couldn't put a round in their fucking ugly mugs. Our two boots were nearly finished digging their holes. "All done with the explosives, I'm gonna grab some ammo cans for us." Joyce nodded. I trotted back to the armory and snatched up one can of 9.5x40MM for my BR55 and two cans of 762 for the other three men in my team, who all wielded the MA5B assault rifle. Two trips later I had four more cans of 762 and one more of 9.5 and I had also grabbed two cases of frags, and three cans of 12.47x40mm for each of our M6 sidearms. That little puppy packed a big fucking bite. We were set, ready to go. Now all that was left to do was wait.

Four hours and 25 cigarettes later we heard them coming. The barking of elites, the yipping of grunts and jackals and the whoosh of anti-grav engines. The first wave was grunts. It was always fucking grunts. Our machine gunners, marksmen and snipers held fire. We didn't want to waste ammo on fucking grunts. All of the new guys opened up with their MA5s, shouting and hollering as they wasted grunts. One of my boots turned to me, "that wasn't so bad." He was so fucking excited. "Hey dumbass, that was just the first wave." I laughed at his crestfallen expression before a beam rifle split his skull in half. "FUCK SNIPER GET DOWN." I screamed aloud as I hit the dirt and saw that the beam rifle had split the upper half of his head in half, punching right through the visor of his helmet and vaporizing his brains. I yanked his dogtags off his neck. He was the first but he wouldn't be the last.

They went waves and waves of troops at us and we repelled every single on. But not without cost. 3rd squad lost a whole fire team to a wraith blast. 1st and 2nd both lost 3 men each. We were down 10 guys and the battle just started. Night was falling and word came down to go to 50% alert. That meant two guys out of each fire team hit the rack and two remained alert. I took first watch with the surviving boot while Joyce racked out. Four hours late I was waking him up. Did you know that you can smoke inside the ODST helmet? Well you can, I mean technically you're not allowed to but I need a goddamn smoke and the covvies would see the cherry light in the pitch black dark. I swear to god it was two minutes after I fell asleep when Joyce was shaking me awake and the plasma flashes of covvie small arms. "Fuck this bullshit." I leapt up, flicked on my VISR and I fired my first shot of the battle. The heavy 9.5mm three round burst shattered the skull of a jackal. I fired burst after burst, methodically. One burst killed a grunt and jackal. Three burst to the body of an elite destroyed the shield, then aim up and one burst to the skull put the ugly fucks in the ground for good. Three hours and 150 rounds later that wave was over. I reloaded my spent mags and went back to sleep, with a muffled fuck you to Joyce as I passed out. Joyce woke me up when the rays of dawn rose over the Harvest plains. I grabbed chow, an MRE. 500 years after these sacks of shit had been invented and they still tasted like Satan's butt hole. No joke. Trust me on this. I lit up another smoke, took a deep drag, and surveyed the damage of the night before. The bridge was littered with the bodies of the covvies, there were craters on our side, some buildings smoldered and there was a line of black armored bodies behind the armory. 18 bodies. "Jesus." That means we had 37 men lost. I walked the line of bodies. I had fought with many of these men for 4 years but losing so many friends taught me to compartmentalize the pain. I walked the line and took off each troopers dogtags. Someone had to do it. The tags went into a compartment on my left thigh armor.

We fought all day and night, it was one long continous stream of war. Fire fire fire, reload reload reload. They threw wraiths, ghosts, the whole 9 yards at us. A UNSC ShortSword bomber carpeted the entire Covenant emplacement with high explosives. But no matter how many we killed, they kept coming. My guess was that for every ODST killed, we took out 5 or 6 covvies. Most of us were wounded, I had taken a plasma bolt to the left shoulder and it tingled and burned below my armor. It was just Joyce and me, our last boot caught a plasma bolt in his faceplate; he didn't stand a chance. The line of bodies had grown during the second day and so had the collection of tags. 11 more men died. We were down to 26 ODSTs still standing. The XO bought it, so had most of 1st and 2nd. 3rd squad had been assimilated into 1st and 2nd and we were still at half strength or just above. Godbless the sniper teams. All day we heard the cracks of the sniper rifles, each crack meant the death of another fucking covvie. They had run out of ammo before dawn on the third day. Those men then snatched up BR55s or MA5Bs and jumped into the trenches with us. "And into the valley of death rode the three-hundred," I whispered under my breath, quoting a poet dead for 8 centuries or so. There we were, the enemy was beating at the gate, and we few, we happy few, we band of brothers stood there to hold them back

Day three dawned with a crimson sky, crimson for the blood shed; in my opinion. The covvies assaulted again, a wave of bodies throwing themselves against the defense and we held firm. Down the line plasma bolts and beam rifles found their marks. Sergeant Stacker was killed trying to resupply a fighting hole. The CO, Major Thompson caught a beam rifle round in the heart while exposing himself ontop of a building to get a better signal to call for air support. The bottom of my fighting hole was filled with brass. Empty ammo cans and crushed cigarettes littered the ground in front of me. Joyce lay in the bottom, his chest destroyed by a plasma grenade. I had yet to find the time to move his body. His blood ran freely, as I fired round after round of ammunition into the attackers. We held for three fucking days. Our last machine gun emplacement was destroyed by a plasma round from a wrath. A banshee devastated the remains of first squad. It was down to four men and shit was about to get even worse. We needed help.

I sprinted to the roof the CO was on and snatched up the radio. "BROKEN ARROW, I REPEAT, BROKEN ARROW." I was screaming into the radio. "The perimeter has been smashed. We need air support, heavy armor. Fucking whatever you can give us." I didn't even stop to hear a response but hit the prone on the edge of the roof top and continued pouring hot lead into the advancing covvies. I heard the whine of a Pelican engine. Thank fucking god we were going to get out of here. I sprinted from emplacement to emplacement and collected the tags of every single ODST trooper. I returned to my fighting hole and informed the surviving 3 other men that evac was on its way. We only needed to hold out a few minutes longer. The next thing I know a massive explosion rent the Earth and catapulted me ten feet backwards. Fuck fuck fuck this was bad. I rose unsteadily to my feet. My ears were ringing and the other three men were dead. I collected their tags and saw the Pelican land on the roof. I took the stairs four at a time and bounded to the roof. "Wait one," I screamed at the pilot over the engine wash. "FUCK FUCK FUCK." The clapper for the C12 was shattered. Shit. That meant I had to detonate it by hand. I turned to the pilot and pulled the 54 dogtags out of my thigh armor. I handed him those 54 tags before ripping off my own tags. This was a one way trip. "Do not forget the men who died here. Tell command we held the bridge." And I was gone. I sprinted across the bridge. Charging the covvies. I needed to get to the first charge. If I could blow it by hand it would trigger the other two explosives, sending the bridge into the river. A plasma bolt slammed into my left shoulder. "FUCK." The armor was burned away with the third hit to the same area. I slammed into the ground, in agonizing pain. I rose to my feet. I had to. I felt the weight of all 54 men of Whiskey company on my shoulders. I can have let them died in vain. A plasma bolt impacted my BR55, rendering it useless. I drew my M6 and fired it in, putting the heavy rounds in the skulls of grunts and jackals. I finally reached the manhole cover. I was nearly out of time. I flew down the ladder until I reached the C12. This was it. Horatius at the bridge. "Alone stood brave Horatius, but constant still in mind. Thrice thirty thousand foes before." I muttered to myself. I pushed the detonator button without another thought.

The pelican pilot watched as a massive fireball engulfed the bridge, sending concrete and covenant bodies into the water. The man had held the bride, drawn the line in the sand and had made it. As the pilot flew his craft away from the battle ground, the sinking sun at his rear, he fingered the last tag the trooper had handed to him.

LCPL JAMES PAGE.

ODST.

O NEG BLDTYP.

54685214725

The pilot stared at the tag, that man had given his life for those people in that city. People who would never even learn of his sacrifice. Did Page care? Fuck no he didn't. Page, and the other ODSTs were sheepdog, keeping the wolves at bay, hunting what goes bump in the night. And the sheepdog did not concern himself with the thoughts of the sheep, he just did his job.