Hey guys, finally got out the next chapter. I hope you haven't been beating your heads on the wall while waiting for this one (actually, I do, it would mean that I'm a half-decent writer). Anyways, I'm proud of this chapter, it's what you would call a little bit darker than previous ones, but I believe you'll still enjoy it.

On an embarrassing side note, I accidentally uploaded Chapter 51 as Chapter 50. The mistake has been corrected and the chapters are now in order. Sorry it took me so long to realize that.

That having been said, enjoy.

Chapter LII: Legends Walk Among Us

September 9, 2541 (UNSC Calendar)/

Marcia, Concordia, Zama System

"Very well then, we stay here."
There was a sigh of relief all over the small basement. None of us wanted to really risk our lives again to move to an uncompromised position, we were too tired for that, even if it was an uncompromised position.

I sat back down on the empty ammo box, it was no good for anything other than sitting on now. Pavel was on the other side of the room, his helmet serving as a pillow and his M247 leaning against the wall within arm's reach. I glanced at the other marines that we had picked up, they all looked like shit, most had been hit by some projectile or other in the past four days.

I winced as I strained a muscle I had torn in my back. A pelican crash will do that for you. I tried shifting my back a little to get it used to the pain, but stopped after a couple of minutes, too tired to keep going. I tensed up a little as the ceiling shook and the single light bulb there flickered for a few instants. The reason they put that scene in the movies so often is because it is scary as hell. It means an explosive just landed nearby.

The room we were in couldn't have been more than 20x20 feet. There were currently eleven people cramped up inside. Pavel and myself, as well as six marines, all of them either PFCs or privates, and their leader, Lieutenant Buchanan. The last man inside the basement was named Mikah Shihat. He was the pilot that had been sent to rescue us after we had knocked down that AA. You would think the guy up there would reward you whenever you did good for humanity, not have your evac shot down and crash into enemy held land. Shihat was in bad shape, he had received a piece of the pelican's cockpit right in the belly, the wound had been infected and the man had been unconscious since yesterday. A few of the marines talked about leaving him, but none of them really meant it.

Other than the ten of us, we had another guy doing his watch overhead. The sentries were the only ones entitled to a single cup of coffee during their duty. It was terrible coffee, made with old beans we found in another house and rainwater. At least it did the job though.

"Small patrol!" came an urgent whisper. "Hundred meters out and closing in on our position," our sentry warned.

"Ok," Lieutenant Buchanan said. "Ammo count."

"Three mags."

"Two."

One."

"One and a half."

"Five," I said.

"Half, plus one for my shotgun," Pavel informed us.

"One."

"One."

"Just shy of two lieutenant."

"And I've got two plus three rounds for my MA5," Buchanan said.

The guy above didn't answer he had returned to watch the covvies and we all knew that he had almost four magazines.

"Ok, we can handle them if they decide to come at us," Buchanan said. "Might as well pick up their weapons if they do…"

Even though I knew that the man was right, it felt very wrong to fight with an enemy's weapon. Back when I had used the beam rifle to rescue the crashed pelican's pilot I felt slightly uneasy, the fact that it burned through my gloves didn't make me any more eager to use a covvie weapon, but I would if I had to.

The lieutenant pointed at two marines and they climbed the stair carefully. I was to tired to get up right now, but I could already feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins, taking away some of the weariness I was feeling. I grabbed my rifle and tapped its stock nervously. It was something that I had never done before in my life, but had been using to calm myself a few days ago. This was horrible, waiting for an enemy to pass right by you knowing that they could spot you any second and actually kill you. The fact that there was nothing you could do about it only made it worse.

"Elite minor, five jackals and five grunts. All jackals are shields."

We sighed again, we didn't know if it was relief or not, but we were tired and we fucking felt like sighing whenever we wanted.

"Looks like they're simply going through, not stopping to check any of the houses."
"Then why would they stop to check this wreck," someone muttered optimistically.

"Quiet," Buchanan ordered.

We all complied and waited for a few tense minutes while we received no further word from the three sentries. Our 'house' was more like a first floor partially covered by rubble from the second floor. There were a couple of semi-intact walls that had served as cover during our last engagement against the aliens, but other than that we had about nothing else in the immediate vicinity to put in between us and them, that's why we were holed up in a basement. Well, that and the covvie shelling the hell out of Marcia.

For a few instants everyone held their breaths. It was eerily quiet, it even sounded like the shelling had stopped for a few instants. A nearby shell brought me back to reality. I tried to focus. I could see the sweat coming down from under the marine's helmets. I could see how they shook and how they mouthed prayers to whatever deity they believed would protect them. I could see the blood-soaked bandages and the wounds that hadn't merited anything to cover them. I recognized that as signs that I was sinking back into combat-mode. The mild augmentations that I had received made the transition a lot more prominent.

"Shit," I heard through the stairs.

There was a loud crack and then an even louder squeal that belonged to a grunt. No doubt it had wandered off a little bit to take a piss or a shit, perhaps even to look for something shiny. The next noise I heard was thankfully a burst of machinegun fire and not plasma, that meant we got the first strike.

"Go! Go! Go!" Buchanan ordered.

We all climbed the stairs and jumped out to the damaged house, we looked for cover for a few instants and located suitable walls or piles of rubble to do the job. I fired as I moved to cover, taking out a surprised jackal. Pavel threw a rock at the elite, snapping its head backwards and then shot it with his M247L, forcing it to take cover. The other marines might've been tired, but they did a commendable job, taking out the other four grunts and another jackal before taking cover. It was now only three jackals and an elite.

I heard the familiar sound of a plasma repeater firing, but heard nothing to indicate that it had made contact with a human being.

"Fire and maneuver!" Buchanan ordered. "Squad one, provide cover!"

"I put my rifle over the destroyed wall and fired three shots blindly, regretting the waste of bullets but knowing that it was necessary. A few other marines joined me, pushing the elite down and preventing the jackals from firing. Squad two took advantage of the situation and switched positions to pre-designated piles of debris or overturned cars in the street, flanking the enemy patrol. A couple of instants later it all ended with an M90 blast to the head of the elite.

"Ok, we're moving out," the lieutenant ordered. He knew that we were pumped up and wanted to take advantage of our energy right now. "Klaus, go downstairs and get Shihat. Rolo, Cook, you take anything else that we might need. Everyone else, prepare to move out."

A few seconds later Rolo and Cook emerged carrying a couple of gallons of water each, Pavel was trailing behind them with the unconscious pilot over his shoulder. He tossed me his shotgun and I placed it on my back. I knew that Pavel manhandling the pilot like that couldn't have been good, but it was certainly better than leaving the wounded man alone here to meet a certain death.

We started moving away from our house and eastwards. That was the direction of the main front, but it would be impossible to get through with our numbers, it meant, at best, that we could probably pick up some ammunition from human corpses or abandoned strongholds. Once we did that we would cause a little mayhem. That had been the original plan when we found out about the covvie offensive that cut us off from the bulk of the UNSC forces. We still hadn't gotten anywhere nearer our objective.

We were formed up in two five-man columns with a scout fifty meters ahead. Right now, that scout was none other than me. I peeked around corners and signaled when we were good for coming through. I was the first to cross while the two squads provided cover for each other on open ground. All the while I was looking for a nice place to hunker down in.

We got our first scare from a shell, a human artillery shell. They had been firing constantly at the covvie lines, that's what had thrown them into disarray and prevented them from continuing their advance, for us, they simply meant that we could be signaled as a friendly-fire casualty once this was over or simply as MIA, depending on how the battle went. The shell landed in between me and the rest of the marines, we dropped to the ground as soon as we heard it coming, but it was far enough away that no piece of shrapnel hit any of us.

"Go," Buchanan ordered.

I looked behind me and spotted the rest of the marines safe and sound through the dust raised by the explosion. They looked ghostly in the darkness of Concordia's night. I turned a corner into a wide street and saw something that looked familiar. It was a piece of metal about five inches long popping from a hole on the wall. I stopped and examined it more carefully, I was able to make out the flash suppressor and relaxed, tension left my body as soon as I knew that there were marines on the other side of the wall.

"Hey," I whispered. "Hey!"
No answer.

"You, over there," I said. When I failed to get an answer I banged a couple of times on the wall. Next I poked the barrel of the gun with the barrel of my own gun. Yeah, poor choice of words, but that's exactly what happened. The gun tilted slightly upwards and then slanted down. I had braced for gunfire, but was surprised when I heard none.

"Shit," I muttered.

I went back around the corner and signaled for the rest of the squad to halt and take defensive positions. They all took a knee and aimed at different sectors, I couldn't actually see their expressions from here, but I could've sworn they were glad for the rest.

I returned to the other side of the corner and moved underneath the barrel of the gun, not throwing prudency away. I realized that the hole in the wall was bullet-made, probably from an autocannon or a large Gatling. I grabbed the barrel with my hand and shuffled it around, finally, I pushed it backwards and into the building, I heard the clatter of the gun as it hit the floor. I was alarmed for a moment, but went along the wall until I came across a door. Like most doors in Marcia, this was a wooden door that looked like it belonged to the 24th century. I took two steps back and took a deep breath.

I kicked the door open without any backup, something that probably would've gotten me lynched in any police department in the entire universe, but was the only option right now. I scanned the area while moving in a typical clearing pattern. It took an instant for the VISR to take in the ambient light and project a grayish image of the place I was in on my visor. At first I was relieved, then I was horrified, then I was relieved again. I quickly noticed that there was no one firing at me and then that there were no enemies in the room, then I noticed the unmistakable shapes in the floor and tensed up at the though of whatever killed this army unit, then I relaxed a bit and actually smiled when I saw that there were a couple of boxes of ammunition in addition to all the weaponry still on the floor.

I took a moment to examine the bodies, I noticed that all of them presented injuries from an energy blade, most were from an energy sword while a couple were from an assassination blade. I cleared the rest of the house before leaving again. I went around the corner and waved at the hunkered down group of soldiers. One of them waved back. I signaled for a single member to come to me and soon enough a PFC was trotting towards me.

"What?" she asked, to tired to say anything else.

"Army unit, all dead, tons of ammo, good place to spend the night," I said. I spoke in short and sharp sentences, but it was because I didn't want to say anything else that wasted my breath.

The PFC nodded and returned to the rest of the marines, after a couple of instants they all stood up and started in my direction. We went inside the house, moving all the corpses into a spare room and ridding them of any usable equipment. They were then placed side by side and their arms were crossed over their chest, the universal position for dead people. It was done as a sign of respect for their sacrifice, they had died so that we could survive, if only just a little longer.

I had taken advantage of my earlier arrival and bagged myself three magazines for my battle rifle, filling up most of my ammunition pouches, then I climbed up the stairs and hid an unopened candy bar that I had seen in my but-pouch. I would eat it later, after someone decided to take the time to actually heat up the MREs that the army dudes had left uneaten. This was turning out to be quite a find, ammunition, weapons, food. Oh, I forgot to mention, the original barrel I had seen poking through the wall was none other than an M247. Yeah, no L, a good 'ol fashioned M247 machinegun, we would kick ass with that gun, and if we couldn't carry it its ammunition was compatible with Pavel's own weapon. Quite a find indeed.

We all hunkered down on different rooms, this was actually quite roomy for ten marines that had been used to living in a cramped basement for the last few days.

I got a place on the roof. It actually wasn't so bad, there was this little concrete box thingy where there was an empty space and I dug in. I was supposed to be slightly alert, but I'm pretty sure that the only one that wouldn't go immediately to sleep was our sentry, right now it happened to be Pavel. I chuckled at myself as I took of my helmet and the large chest piece of my armor. I wondered whether it was a good idea to open my armored boots without really taking them off. I decided that I could spare the second and a half that it took me to push the front of my armored boots to my shins. I grabbed the candy bar that I had found and opened it. I took a bite of the thing, it was old, tasted slightly stale, and I'm pretty sure that it was beyond its expiration date by at least two weeks. It tasted so wonderful that I fell asleep on the third mouthful.

Unsurprisingly I was woken up by a relatively hard kick to my stomach. I huffed and gasped for air for a couple of instants before I heard the firefight.

"Rise and shine!"

I muttered something that was meant to sound a little bit like "Way to wake up a man during a firefight," but probably went slightly differently.

I avoided hopping up on instinct and instead took the time to close my boots, attach my chest piece and put on my helmet. I grabbed my rifle and pulled back the slide, I felt the sparks of adrenaline just as my brain processed the familiar noise the gun made. I was ready to kick some serious ass.

"Sitrep," I asked the marine that had woken me up.

"Bad," was all he said before he headed towards the edge of the building and opened up with his assault rifle on a large group of unseen enemies. The man had balls, he had just woken up a Helljumper with a kick to the stomach.

I sighed and took a moment to look at the flashes of plasma and tried to make out the direction they were coming from. We were under attack on both the sides that the house bordered with the street and there was gunfire coming from the alley that connected our street to another one. At least it was gunfire.

I moved up towards the ledge and slid down. There weren't any covvies that were aware of my position, so I popped up completely and took five shots at five grunts, killing four of them and shooting another one in the neck. I was dismayed at the number of covvies that we were facing. The street in front of us actually looked crowded. Crowded for fuck's sake. When does a wide street look crowded during combat. It is fucking horrible, that's what it is. There was a Shadow transport with a blown up turret and at least two ghosts firing at the ground floor walls, trying to melt through the rock and concrete. I looked around as I ducked behind cover. There was three people on the roof, myself and two marines. If it was necessary I could try making a run for it through the roofs, but didn't seem likely to be an option, especially with a whole fucking battalion knocking o our doors.

Just after killing a jackal preparing to take a potshot I heard the worst possible noise that you could've heard in a situation like this. Well, second worst. I heard the familiar noise that a wraith made when it fired.

"Wraith!" I yelled, but the marines were smart and had already turned their heads to the sky, looking for the blue blob of plasma and considering cover options. The blast went wide, landing a couple of houses away, no doubt coming from one of those long-range wraiths a good distance away. That was bad, it meant that there was nothing that we could do while it zeroed in on us. I got tired of having to take cover every moment that I tried to fire, so instead I fired at the waist-height wall that I was using for cover a few times. That made a sizeable hole that I could fire through without exposing myself. From there I managed to take out one of the ghost's driver and then killed two grunts that reached for it and forced an eager elite to stop just short of reaching it. By stop an elite I mean put a round through its head clean through.

"Ammo run," one of the marines called out. The other guy nodded and half-crawled to the door that lead downstairs.

I opened up at a couple of grunts that I could make out through my firing position. I knocked them on their asses and the plasma grenades that they were carrying blew them up. I chuckled out loud, now deep in a combat trance that I knew was very likely to be my last. I moved the barrel of my gun and shot the last of three jackals that was entering the house across the street. It was carrying a carbine, so at least one of the other two was carrying the same.

Just then the second marine returned with two crates. One he tossed to the other marine, who promptly grabbed two magazines and slammed one on his rifle. Then he started filling up the empty mags lying around him with what must've been record-breaking speed. The other crate he positioned in a position in between the three of us, so I assumed it was grenades. When the marine that had brought the crates up tossed me three frags I almost cried with joy.

"On my mark!" I called out through the noise of the gun and plasma fire. "Now!"
Three grenades were lobbed and three equivalent explosions followed soon after. I heard the screaming of grunts and the familiar wet noise that bits of flesh made when they hit a hard surface. I heard those noises even through all the firing going on around.

"Throw!" I called out again.

As one of the marines threw his frag, a blue-white beam of energy severed his left hand clean of his wrist. The man looked in shock at his stump, then at his smoking hand, and then back to his stump. He started screaming in what I could only compare to a bad actor, he hadn't even processed it yet.

"Calm the fuck down!" I said. "And keep firing!"
The man stared at his stump for a second before he nodded slowly and opened fire. I shifted my aim to the building in front and pulled back my gun barrel from my firing hole as to avoid being spotted. I spotted what looked like an elbow and the lower half of a window. I didn't have a wide enough field of fire to kill the sniper, so I shot at the elbow of the jackal. Fortune smiled upon me and the jackal recoiled right into my crosshairs. Another shot killed it.

"Sniper down!" I informed.

It went like this for perhaps three minutes more, even though it felt like hours. We managed to hold off the massive Covenant forces while we burned through ammunition. Yesterday we would've lasted perhaps half a minute, today we could last half an hour.

"I'm out," I said after my gun clicked. I headed towards the door and a couple of carbine shots bounced of the frame a couple of inches above my hand. I turned and fired blindly from my pistol at the general direction where I had been shot at. The quiet noise that the silenced gun made seemed weird in comparison to the racket going on. I jumped downstairs before another bunch of carbine shots decided to land on my head. I dusted myself of and let to marines pass in front of me before heading downstairs. I had to duck a couple of times as stray bolts of plasma made it through the walls. I finally stopped in front of a small tower of ammunition boxes. I found the appropriate one and opened it. I grabbed five magazines and a bunch of spare rounds that I shoved down one of my utility pouches on a whim. I climbed back upstairs and was halfway up the flight of steps that lead to the roof when I heard another noise. This was the worst thing I could've heard. The familiar scream-like noise made me look in the direction of the banshees. There were four of them, flying side by side.

"Banshees!" someone cried out in horror. It took me a second to realize it had been me.

I climbed back down and tapped the marine manning the machine gun on the back.

"What?" he yelled.

"Call Pavel up here to take your position, I need the gun."

"What?" he repeated, this time because he was confused-

"Banshees!"
The marine stopped firing for an instant and then opened up again. "Ok, cover for me while I get him."

I grabbed the machine gun and burned through a few elites before Pavel shoved me out of the way and positioned his own, weaker, gun on the ledge of the window. I grabbed the heavy M247 and placed it over my shoulder. The original gunner tossed me a box of ammunition and went downstairs, most likely to occupy the place that Pavel had left.

I went upstairs and was immediately forced to jump sideways as the banshees strafed the roof. They had decided to take us out before they went around wasting their fuel rods on the house itself. A bolt of superheated plasma landed between my calves, singing the armored boots and giving me some very nasty blisters. The marine missing a hand was unlucky enough to receive a blast right in between his shoulder blades. The other man was missed completely by the fliers.

"Help me out here," I said.

The marine wordlessly ran to my position and helped me set up the machine gun on its monopod. It was already loaded, so I had half a box of ammunition to burn through before I was forced to reload. I cocked the massive gun and took aim at the blurs in the distance. I steadied myself and moved the sights forward a couple of inches ahead of the purple craft. I depressed the trigger of the M247 machinegun and felt the comfortable kick on my shoulder. I saw faint sparks on the hull of the banshee I was aiming at and instants later it lost altitude and disappeared from sight behind some buildings.

"Suck on that you motherfuckers!" I said. Yeah, I know, very elaborate.

Unfortunately, the three remaining banshees had already turned around and were coming down on us. I fired the rest of my ammunition on the lead craft, I ran out of bullets just as it started spewing smoke from its hull, but it didn't go down.

"Get out of the way!" I said.

I jumped sideways as plasma fire made new scorches on the floor at the same time the other marine did. I ran to the edge of the building and the banshee fire missed me completely, but a couple of needles passed uncomfortably close to my head. I was about to head back to the gun when I felt a small explosion on the floor. Ok, small is an understatement, a large part of the façade was brought down by an explosion from those new fancy covvie grenade launchers and I was forced to jump forward to avoid falling down to the street along with the debris. I quickly slid back behind the short wall.

I spotted the other marine on the other side of the building, he was already done reloading the M247 and was pulling back the cocking bolt. As soon as he had done that he opened fire. I couldn't see the results, but I fired blindly through the broken wall next to me before I peeked half of my face to take a look. I was just in time to spot a crashing banshee and another one stumbling and starting to go down. Then plasma started raining around the marine gunner.

"Get out of there!" I yelled.

When the marine didn't comply I yelled at him again. "That's an order you moron!"
Plasma started raining all around the soldier and he just kept on firing, unfazed by the close calls literally raining around him. I saw the last banshee trailing smoke as it flew overhead the house and heard it crash a couple of buildings away. The marine looked at me like he didn't believe it. The same look was on my face, but the man only saw his own distorted reflection on my visor. The mirror capabilities of the visor couldn't have been that good, because the man failed to notice the ultra taking aim at him.

A single needle from a needle rifle appeared on his forehead and flew at me. It embedded itself in the wall next to me and was followed by a trail of blood and brain matter that splattered into my visor and shoulder. I switched to full auto and yelled as I fired at the elite, the sustained burst forced it to its knees, but it started running towards me. It looked confused when I started sprinting towards it, but I grabbed the M247 just as it jumped to my building. The machinegun obliterated the weak shielding it sported and the elite fell dead two feet away from me, its jaws wide open. I relaxed for a moment before I realized that I was standing on the face of the marine that the elite had killed. I quickly pulled my foot away from the marine's face, but wished that I hadn't as soon as I saw the damage the armored boot had done to his face in addition to the needle. I sighed and grabbed the gun, I dismounted it and placed it on the ledge of the rooftop. I opened up without even bothering for cover. I was aiming at the houses in front of me, trying to take out the few turrets that had been set up and the snipers. I smiled a little bit as dust exploded from the walls and firing stopped, when I was satisfied I was done with the building directly in front of me I switched to the covvies on the ground. They had the shadow, the two ghosts, and several wrecked cars for cover, there was a significantly smaller number of them than before, so the cover was more than enough. Still, I managed to kill two elites and a jackal before a plasma bolt hit the barrel of the M247, melting it. A couple of bullets slammed into the closed opening and the gun almost exploded in my hands before I released the trigger.

"Shit…"

"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
I made my way downstairs but I was met by a shove from Pavel and three other marines carrying boxes of ammunition each. They closed the door and one of the marines sat down in front of it with his rifle aimed straight ahead.

"We're overrun," Pavel stated.

"Shit," I said yet again.

I must've stood there for a couple of seconds, but then a plasma explosion knocked me on my ass. I felt that familiar sense of helplessness and dizziness as the ringing in my ears blocked out all the noise. I could see Pavel reaching for his shotgun while unfastening his sidearm. The other two marines were both grabbing at their ears and rolling around. I felt wetness on my earlobes and knew that the situation was bad. I saw as the door was noiselessly kicked down by a red elite, it looked at the marine closest to it and fired with his plasma rifle. It fired a long burst, it was its downfall. I saw its shields shimmer and then noise started coming back. I realized that I was the one shooting at it when I felt the kickback of my battle rifle. The elite looked at me after being slightly pushed backwards and then it was suddenly missing half of its torso.

"I got your back Frank," Pavel said.

"You always have," I replied.

I was about to stand up when for some reason I decided to look up. I saw four orange flashes. Just four. I recognized them immediately of course, but I was still shocked.

"Four?" I asked. "Only four? Are they trying to get themselves killed?"

Pavel looked up and failed to answer. Perhaps he did answer, because the next thing I knew the four SOEIVs slammed into the ground and everything went quiet for a few instants. I stood up and went over to the ledge of the building, all regard for my safety gone now. There was dust blocking some of my sight, but I heard the noise that SOIVs make when you blast open their doors. They had all landed within meters of one another in the wide street in front of us. The doors flew off the pods and all of them slammed into some dazed covvie, crushing them. What I saw emerge from those pods was not a small ODST squad, but something bigger and deadlier.

Spartans.

Let me say that again.

Spartans.

This weren't some tallish SPARTAN-IIIs, they were full on, fucking huge, WMDs, SPARTAN-IIs.

They emerged quick and deadly, their movements seemed as fluid as water. They fired at the covvies and every shot that left their weapons made contact with an alien. They cleared the area around them in two seconds, they killed the rest of the covvies in a thirty meter radius in ten. They did that with a combination of traditional combat and acrobatics. One of them punched an elite and knocked it to the ground, it broke the creature's neck with its boot. Another one of them moved so fast that it was almost impossible for me to track the green armor. Another one of the spartans made use of a couple of combat knives in a way that would've shamed me deeply and made me look as a novice. The last spartan was the most impressive of them all. The green giant didn't go for flashy techniques, instead it took a knee whenever it spotted a target and took it down instants later. Its MA37 rifle barked and took down whatever it connected with. Finally, they took on a pair of hunters that had just recently arrived. The one that had impressed me closed in on one of them and jumped at it, landing with his feet first. He pushed the alien a couple of feet forward.

Impossible as it seemed, the spartan managed to twist itself and land on its feet. It opened fire on the unprotected belly of the hunter before it fell back. The other spartans took aim at the enraged creature and brought it down in a matter of seconds. The second hunter was quickly killed with three grenades.

By that time, I was already heading towards the door, I made it up so I believed that I was going to ask them what in the hell they thought they were doing, but in reality I just wanted to stand close to the stuff that legends were made of. I reached the ground floor and felt reassured that Pavel was behind me. I had just seen what those things had done and they had a reputation.

The four Spartans were now standing together in between their pods, all of the enemies around them were gone. Not to take credit from Pavel and myself as well as the marines, but the spartans had saved us, even if I was to stubborn to admit it right then. The four hulking metallic forms were talking to one another while they grabbed supplies from their SOEIVs.

"Spartans," I called out.

The four figures turned at superhuman speeds and trained their weapons on me. I didn't react, instead took two steps forward and stopped three feet away from the creatures. Their rifles were still trained on me.

"Damn, I almost killed the little fucker," one of them said. The voice was distinctly African-American and there was a white 069 painted on his chest armor. It was the one that had broken the elite's neck with his boot.

"Easy Sol- Red Four," the spartan with the surreal ability to cut up stuff with knives said. There was a white 104 paited on his chest.

"Sorry boss," said the first spartan. "Forgot that there was a small unit here."
"You're kidding me?" another spartan with an obviously female voice said. "That's pretty much the reason we were redirected here." As she said that she out her hand on her hips, a pose so natural that it seemed almost laughable in her armor. "Are you Staff Sergeant Francisco Castillo?" she asked me. She had a rabbit painted on her chest instead of a number, the number was on her shoulder plate. An 087.

"Yes."

"Very well then, our job here is done," said the one with the combat knives. "We're done here, let's send the message and be done with this."

The spartans looked at one another and started moving out. The one that had impressed me the most looked at me and his lingered behind a little longer. I took of my helmet and held the stare of the giant. I suddenly remembered the stories about how a spartan killed a couple of ODSTs on a boxing ring in some carrier. I held my helmet under my arm. I had no doubt my face looked tired, underfed, and probably hollow. I must've made for a very unthreatening ODST.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" I asked with venom in my voice. "Freak."
I might've imagined it, but I could've sworn that the Spartan recoiled at that. He left after his friends without a word. I remember the chipped white paint on his chest, old and damaged, although the number was still visible.

I heard pelicans, falcons, and hornets overhead, no doubt the leading strike of a major offensive right after the spartan squad. I felt the whirring of engines as a pelican landed behind me. The last spartan turned the corner and the spell was broken. I headed back towards the pelican with the image of the flinching Spartan still on my head.

"Maybe you should've thanked it," Pavel said. I noted how he said it instead of him. Still, he didn't sound overly concerned for my utter lack of gratefulness for the spartans. Those things were monsters. Nothing more than machine. Unlike the SPARTAN-IIIs, these had had what made them human taken away from them. They were killing machines. Weapons, nothing more.

"Maybe I should've." I agreed.

I sat on the pelican with the image of that spartan still on my mind. I took in every detail of the thing and did my best to remember it. The spartan's armor, it's movements, everything about it that could be remembered about it. Most importantly, I remembered the number painted onto is chest armor. I said it myself with a slight smile on my face.

"One-one-seven."