"This one's for Jorge!" Emile shouted as he fired the Onager cannon at the Covenant CSS-Class battlecruiser. Another shot. "That was for Kat!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. Noble Six had never seen Emile like this. He was usually a calm, collected and efficient killer. But now, Emile was more than that. This was the first time that Six had ever seen him display any form of emotion. Suddenly, one Elite approached the hatch. There was the sound of a singular shotgun blast and Six looked up to the cannon. "WHO'S NEXT?!" Emile shouted angrily. Out of nowhere came another Elite from behind Emile, who impaled him upon its energy sword. This hurt him, but it also made him angry. Realizing that he was done for, Emile decided to go out in style. "I'M READY! HOW 'BOUT YOU?" Emile yelled, as he took his kukri knife and plunged it into the Elite's neck.

Emile was dead. He was alone, and he was surrounded. Six stayed strong and kept fighting. Suddenly, an Elite jumped on his chest and pinned him to the floor. As he struggled to push it off of him, it whispered something to him.

"Six!" it whispered.

"NO! GET OFF OF ME!" He yelled, and hit it in the face with a forceful punch.

"Ouch! God dammit Six!" The Elite said to him.

That was the moment when Six realized that he was just dreaming. It wasn't real. He had been having nightmares since about a week ago, reliving the horrors that he had gone through, and the most prominent being the loss of his squad mates. Every time, the dream ended with Six himself getting killed. But this time, the Elite woke him up. Why?

He sat up quickly, pistol raised and aiming at…

Jun.

"Jesus Christ, Jun, you scared the living crap out of me." Six said with a heavy breath.

"Hehe, it's okay Six. Ow, you pack a punch." The smooth, Slavic voiced Spartan said. "You scared me. You were having a nightmare, yes?"

"Yeah… about Emile." Six said as he put his head between his knees.

Jun gave Six an understanding look, then looked at the sunrise. "It is daytime now, Six. We have to get moving if we want to get to the fleet."

The "Fleet" that he was speaking of was not Human, but Covenant. While scouting for a way off of the planet, Jun found a legion of Covenant taking refuge at Aszod, the location of where the Pillar of Autumn used to be docked. This was extremely odd. The members of the Covenant believe that Humanity is equivalent to filth. Some would rather die in hand to hand combat than even touch a human weapon in the midst of combat.

Maybe these "Covenant" weren't actually worshippers of the Covenant at all. It was entirely possible that a squad could go rogue. If they did, it would explain why this section of the planet had been unglassed.

"What time is it?" Six asked.

"From the position of the sun, I would say about… 8:00AM, give or take an hour or so.

"Alright… Let's move." Six said to Jun, trying his best not to look afraid.

Jun put his helmet on and got his rifle. Six decided it would be nice to have, but the helmet would ultimately hinder him in a firefight. He carried it with him just in case he and Jun needed to communicate from far away, which would ultimately happen because of Jun's weapon of choice, his trusty Sniper Rifle.

As they walked to the base at Aszod, Six had a new surge of fear wash over him. He shrugged it off and kept moving. As he walked, he thought about his fear. He didn't understand how he could get so far and simply break down, going from unstoppable badass to afraid of the Covenant. Of course, he had been alone and faced death every day, it was only inevitable that he would lose it a little bit. He was glad he had come across Jun, and he was relieved that he wasn't the only surviving member of Noble team. Each of them died horribly, and he almost went down with them. As they walked towards Aszod, Six felt safe for the first time in a very, very long time.

"You'd think that they would be a little bit more active than this." Six said with a sigh.

"I know." Said Jun. "It is… Unusual for them to be so quiet."

"I'm starting to think that this isn't your average batch of Covenant." Six said, uneasy.

"What ever the reason, you should try to get closer to them. I can provide covering fire in case things do not work out as planned." Jun said

"Yeah, I'd hate to put you in a bad position up there. Try to find an easily defensible area with a lot of brush; your armor is the same color as the grass here." Six said.

"Alright, move up. I have your back, friend." Jun said in his usual confident, slick tone.

Six flashed a white toothed smile at Jun, and then snuck down the hill. It was nighttime now, and right about the time that Six wished his helmet wasn't busted, as it was equipped with a night vision feature, and would be very useful in picking out targets. Well, you can't have everything, Six said to himself. As he approached, even his eyes could make out what was in the distance. His jaw dropped. There were at least fourteen Phantoms in the area, and three of them were taking off. There were many Banshees, and at least four dozen Sangheili.

This was no singular rogue squad. This was a small army.

I can hardly believe that I agreed to this plan, Six thought.

The plan in question was this: Highjack a Phantom and fly it into Human Airspace so they could be found. In short, damned crazy. However, Six trusted Jun for his intellect on the same level that he trusted his aim, and he knew that there was no other way to do it.

As he traversed forward towards Aszod, he noticed that the hostiles in the area were particularly attentive. Six was almost seen three times on his way to the landing platform where the phantoms were kept, and Jun almost pulled the trigger on an Elite that he thought saw Six. Luckily, neither were the case, and Six made it to the landing platform relatively intact. Six had never seen such a large amount of covenant machinery up close, but he had to stay very alert to not be seen, as if he stopped to marvel at it for too long, their cover would certainly be blown sky high.

"Jun, I'm at the landing platform, come in, Jun." Six said into his radio.

"I read you." Jun replied.

"Do you see me? I'm in between the first and second Phantoms. On the left." Six said, as he waved his arms back and forth.

"Yeah, I see… Shit!"

"What? What's wrong?" Six asked.

"Several hostiles converging on your location, Six! Hide!"

"Shit." Six said under his breath. It wasn't anything the two Spartans couldn't handle, but the extra three or so dozen would be if they chose to go loud.

Six hid behind the engine of one of the phantoms as the Elites passed, but one stayed nearby. Something was strange about these Sangheili. Six didn't have the time to dwell on it, however.

"I think that I can sneak past this guy." Six said.

"If you think that you can, try to get back over here. No one needs you to be seen out there." Jun replied.

Six stuck to the tall grass, his dark armor masking his presence. Eventually, the grass broke into a wide and open space. Six climbed up a flight of stairs...

...and was now toe to toe with a Sangheili.

He hadn't noticed before, but these Sangheili looked different than the Covenant warriors. The one that he was now faced with wore black and blood red rags on his shoulders and around his neck. His eyes were pure white, and his armor was grey.

Before the Elite could react, Six grabbed his knife and stabbed it deeply into the Sangheili's throat. Purple blood spurted out on to Six's armor as it collapsed, clutching its neck. It bled profusely as it lay on the floor, dead. Six heard the sound of gunfire, and instinctively ducked. But no one was shooting at him. At least, not yet.

"Six, where are you?" Jun asked.

"I'm almost there, Jun. Something weird is going on." Six replied.

Six peered over the guard rail to find the source of the gunfire. He looked into the dark, and there was another gunshot. Six clicked on his night vision, knowing that it would be a bit buggy, to take a closer look.

Two Sangheili wearing the same rags and armor as the one that Six had killed were walking along a line of Covenant Sangheili wearing recruit armor. The first Sangheili walked up to one of the Elites that was on its knees and looked at it. He then proceeded to raise his needle rifle and plant a needle into the kneeling Elite's forehead. The second Sangheili simply laughed madly.

"Jun, there are Sangheili killing each other out here. Please tell me you have a visual." Six said.

"Negative." Jun said, anxious.

The second Sangheili suddenly looked up towards Six. He looked at his friend. "Aeu chu?" He asked. What was that?

"Aeu aeu?" The other Sangheili responded. What was what?

The second Sangheili raised his needle rifle at the guard rail. "Klaka grorx Eia hoh' riok!" He yelled. Come out, so we may kill you!

Other Sangheili rose to attention. They were all wearing similar armor as the other two, if not the same. Who the hell were these Sangheili? They were executing Covenant, and they were dressed like nothing that Six had ever seen. Six dared peer over the rail just a bit further.

"Jun, they know I'm here. I think we're going to have to go loud." Six said.

"I have your back, Six." Jun said.

Six paused, then took a deep breath.

Then, he popped up from cover and began to fire.