Chapter CCXXII: I'm Back

November 8, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/

CNV Unrelenting Patience, in orbit above Mars, Sol System

"So we haven't been blasted to Kingdom Come," I noted drily. "That's good news."

"Silence," Keyes said. "Lord Hood should contact us shortly."

The bridge was more crowded than usual, with all human survivors as well as the Arbiter, N'tho, Usze and the Sangheili bridge crew present. Things had been tense still, but there had been no altercations between the two factions, but mostly because Johnson and I had done everything possible to keep the elites from interacting with us and vice versa. Except for N'tho. He was always hovering around, asking questions about whatever we happened to be doing. In truth, it was like talking to a precocious child sometimes. A precocious child that could crush a human skull with its weak hand if you pressed it hard enough.

N'tho was standing behind me, a little to the right and next to Caboose. My own man was now in good shape. Not tip top shape, but close enough that he could fight. The magic fabric that the Covenant had lent us had worked as well as biofoam and then some. The wound was all but healed and now the only thing left was to remove the bullet still lodged inside him. Only if something happened, most doctors would advice against an unnecessary operation to begin with.

Johnson and Keyes stood closest to the Arbiter, who seemed slightly aghast at the current situation. We were already within range of two UNSC frigates, and I knew damn well that a MAC shot from either of those would gut this corvette bow to stern without slowing down.

"Commander Keyes," Lord Hood's face appeared on the screen. "It's good to see you again."

"Thanks Admiral, same goes for you."

Hood looked down and to the side. "Biometrics confirm that you are on board that Covenant corvette. An alliance you say?"

"Correct, Admiral."

Hood had gone straight to the point.

"We've seen crews of elites gunned down by brutes. It's not entirely surprising if the Covenant is fighting a civil war. Very well, we'll discuss this further on board the Cairo. You understand that I cannot let the ship past our defenses?"

"Yes, sir."

"A small dropship, however, will be just fine."

"We can handle that."

For a moment Hood's eyes centered on the Arbiter before returning to Keyes. "Very well, Commander. I'll see you soon."

Hood had gone straight to the point. I was impressed.

"I will prepare a Phantom for you, Arbiter," the ship master of the Unrelenting Patience announced. "It has been an honor having you on board."

"The honor has been mine, Ship Master. I thank you for your assistance."

Preparations were quick. We were running low on UNSC ration packs and everybody had been living in the same clothes for the past week. We smelt better than we looked, but only because we had showered with our clothes several times to get the smell of sweat and death out of them. My own undersuit was so scratched that it wouldn't be good for much else after I took it off. Even my armor didn't look very good. Bullet scratches and plasma burns covered the upper half of my armor while the boots had had all the paint chipped away from it and looked almost completely grey. The kneepads were no different, with only the edges still having intact paint on it. At least my weapons were all in working order.

We all turned solemn when the elite-sized coffin carrying Natasha Krieger hovered through, pushed by Pavel. The coffin was the first thing to go inside the Phantom that would be moving us to the Cairo. After that everyone else climbed in and strapped on. The humans had to use the straps designed for jackals, with some minor problems, but otherwise things worked out fine. Three elites and eleven humans made their way towards the two UNSC frigates, who promptly used their thrusters to pivot and escort us to the orbital defense platform. It was a short trip, with our boosters giving it everything they had and the frigates easily keeping up.

It was hard to ignore the multiple weapons systems that were targeting us at the moment, even if we couldn't see them. We were navigating within a few kilometers of both frigates, collision range on space terms, but that only meant that their shots would take a fraction of a millisecond to reach us and there was nothing we could do about it.

I might've been crazy, but N'tho and Usze appeared a little bit nervous. The two massive elites were looking at each other and holding their weapons uncomfortably. They each had large duffel with several Sangheili supplies, but other than that they'd have to live on human food and water. Not terribly uncomfortable, our MREs were pretty good sometimes, even if every single bite you took felt a little bit denser than it should've.

"Ok, I want you to listen very carefully," Miranda told the room. "Humans are going to be the first ones to hop out of the ship. I want the Arbiter and both of the Sangheili behind everybody, with Sergeant Stacker and Banks behind them. That way if someone gets an itchy trigger finger they might think twice about shooting through friendly forces."

"Your fleet master promised safe passage," the Arbiter said.

"Yes," Keyes agreed. "But planning for the worst doesn't hurt. Either way, you won't be treated terribly nicely once we unload on the Cairo."

"I see…" he, it, whatever, replied.

I started feeling a little bit tense, I didn't want to get caught in a crossfire because someone had an itchy trigger finger. I wouldn't have minded if the three elites were brutally killed as soon as they stepped down, but I knew that something like that happening would doom any possibility of a truce or an alliance with the elites. Or the Sangheili, as those pretentious fucks liked to call themselves. The Phantom shook a little bit, probably because we banked or something, but it wasn't unusual.

"All right," Keyes said after a short wait. "Cairo is in sight. Lord Hood and the welcome committee will be there waiting for us. Johnson, Castillo. Left and right."

I nodded as Johnson chuckled quietly. None of us moved though, we still didn't know which side we'd be exiting from. I felt the gravity difference as we entered the station, but the Phantom walls had become completely opaque and I could no longer see anything outside. The Phantom maneuver slowly and begin to descend. The elites weren't very calm, but the Arbiter was positively a pillar of stone. Impressive, all things considered.

"Opening the doors."

The hatch opened with an unfamiliar hiss and light came inside. The dim interior of the Phantom had made my pupils dilate and it took a moment for my helmet visor to begin filtering the light from the hangar in Cairo station. In front of me were at least three platoon's worth of Marines, all of them in triple file to the front, left and right. Someone else might've confused them for a reception party, but no one here was under those illusions. In the middle were three men dressed in white officers uniform. They were flanked by men in power armor. Spartans. Spartan-IIIs to be more specific.

I raised an eyebrow.

Keyes hopped off first, landing with a little dance step. Johnson and eye came down with two feet, looking more intimidating than the commander. Lord Hood began walking towards us, imposing despite his unarmored status. He was a man that commanded the entirety of the armed forces that humanity had at its disposal. Even if technically he only had authority over the Navy and Marines he was now universally agreed upon by generals and admirals alike to be the best that humanity could rally behind. Lord Hood was right up there with Admiral Preston Cole. Living legends that not even the Spartans could reach. Cole, Hood, Master Chief, then the rest of the Spartans. That's how I, and probably the rest of humanity, rated the humans with the biggest impact in this war.

I could see the Marines tense as the elites stepped down, but nobody raised a rifle. The two Spartans moved forward only a couple of steps before hanging back, still within arms reach if they needed to yank back Hood or any of the two other officers. My face flashed with recognition at one of them. Fleet Admiral Harper. I had once pulled him out of a warzone, several years back. I hadn't really tracked his progress, but the man was now right behind Hood in authority with the Navy. The other man I didn't recognize by name, so he must've been one of the admirals in charge of the home fleet.

"Miranda, it is good to see you," Hood said. "Circumstances could've been better, but if the… talks… go well then I'm not one to complain." The man turned towards the large elites, but zeroed in on the Arbiter.

"Arbiter," he said. "I've heard some things about you."

"Fleet Admiral," it replied. "The bounty of your head is enough that it would make a Jackal act bravely."

I chuckled.

"Let's get straight to the point," Hood said. "We are fighting a losing battle for our home planet. Elite help would be very appreciated. Shall we discuss some preliminary terms?"

"What about me?" Keyes asked.

"You'll assist."

"And my men?"

Hood looked at us. "Bonuses, of course. I'd give them leave, but we can't afford to turn away men right now. One day worth of break for each of them and then we'll send them down."

"The ODSTs are not with my unit, they're stowaways technically."

I rolled my eyes.

"Commander, do you mind talking about that later?" Hood asked.

"Sorry," she promptly apologized. "It's been a rough couple of weeks."

"Keyes, Arbiter, Harper, and Hu, you're with me."

Ordering around the spiritual and war leader of our enemy, ballsy.

And just like that, N'tho and Usze were left alone in the hangar, surrounded by a hundred armed men with every reason to hate them and even kill them. I could smell the nervousness coming from them. It didn't last for long, as a mayor approached and ordered us to go with him. We gladly complied that order and followed him, the two elites trailing behind with two squads in columns behind us. We passed conspicuously empty hallways before coming into an empty storage room that had been fitted with temporary beds and, check this out, a cooler. That meant one thing only. Liquor.

"The elites are staying here as well," the mayor said. "Men will be guarding the door at all times. ONI will probably want to interview y'all. You can't really leave this room an- who am I kidding? Y'all know the drill, right?"

We nodded in reply.

"Aight. Good luck."

The door slid shut, leaving us all alone in the room with two elites.

"I think your bunks are over there," Johnson told them, pointing towards a corner.

"That's beer," Pavel said. "Vodka, whiskey, rum, and tequila."

"Mixers?" Miri asked.

"Plenty."

I sat down in the nearest bunk while Johnson eyed me curiously. I was the highest ranking person in this room, but we both knew that he was the leader. For some reason or other I didn't mind it all that much. I trusted the guy's instincts and abilities more than I did my own. I would've preferred him to be a Shock Trooper such as myself, if only so that my men were more at ease with him. I shrugged at him and he shrugged back. Already my men were pulling out some beers from the giant cooler while the elites watched with a certain degree of curiosity. It only took a few seconds for Sergeant Bank and Stacker to join in. They weren't drinking to celebrate, they probably just needed to fall into deep sleep. It seemed like a good idea to me. I leaned back on my bed as my men quietly finished beer after beer. They stayed away from the hard stuff for now. We'd have some of that later. We didn't want to be wasted during a debriefing, did we?

The next couple of hours went by in a blur. I fell asleep, but it was no deep sleep. I'd wake up and shuffle around in my bed, hear a few of the men talking to each other and then eyeing the elites warily. I'd go back to sleep and have dreams, dreams where my friends had tentacles for fingers and seemed intent on wrapping my face with them. A couple of times I woke up with cold sweat in the back of my neck and lower back. I finally sat up and took off my armor and undersuit, grabbing one of the boxer briefs that they had left under my bunk. I was going to throw my undersuit on, but the tiredness caught up to me and I went back to bed.

"Sir?"

I felt a hand on my shoulder and instinctively gripped it tightly.

"Sir."

I opened my eyes and looked up to see Miranda looking down at me, Pavel standing nearby. They had both changed into all black ODST fatigues. The design had changed since I last saw them. I had seen some ODSTs in reach wearing the new fatigues, but I hadn't had time to get them. They were still completely black, but the cut of the pants was slightly different.

"Get dressed, Frank, they want to talk to you," Pavel said.

I nodded and sat up on the bed. Miranda pointedly looked away. To be fair, my underwear was kind of tight. I sighed and put my clothes on. The t-shirt didn't have my name on it, but it did say ODST on it. It was a little bit tight around the armpits. I didn't like that, it was uncomfortable. I always wondered how Pavel fared with t-shirts, considering just how large his shoulders were.

"Did they mention what they wanted?" I asked, trying to tame down my hair a bit. It was getting long.

"Not sure," Pavel said. "Debriefing, but maybe something else. Well, the debriefing should be a lot more than they can handle for now."

I cracked my neck and moved out, two ONI personnel were waiting for me, looking fancy and professional in their uniforms. They told me to follow me and led me through the station into the debriefing room. After that it was standard procedure. A slightly older man asked me a bunch of questions about the deployment in Reach and in Halo before suddenly switching to the Flood. I answered them all truthfully and thoroughly. The man seemed a bit put off by the stories I told of the Flood, but he kept his cool. I just wanted this to be over.

"Will that be all?" I asked after what seemed to be about four hours.

"Yes, you're dismissed, Lieutenant."

"I need to find someone," I said as I stood up. "Refugees from Reach. My girl's ship made into the system before we left. I want to know if she made it."

The ONI guy looked up at me. "The refugee situation is a mess. A few ships were docked in Europa, but most had to make their way to Mars, Luna, and Earth."

"What's the situation there?"

"Luna had to be evacuated, there's been a few minor skirmishes there. Mars is… well, we were defeated there, but the Covenant are ignoring it."

"If I give you the names can you help me?"

"I'm a busy man, Lieutenant," he replied. "I'll pass them on, but there's no guarantee."

"That's all I'm asking for."

I'm going to have to go through more channels…

After that dismissal I returned to the room, where the two elites were still in. One of them, Usze, was sleeping while the other one kept watch. They might've had our word that they wouldn't be harmed, but they weren't stupid. Until a few days ago we would've killed each other on sight and now we were on the verge of becoming formal allies. It had only taken twenty-seven years.

Johnson and his men weren't currently present in the room, but Cam was there. She looked rather amazing for a girl that had barely showered for the past week and had lived in the same bloody and sweaty outfit for twice that. It always amazed me just how good she managed to look.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," I replied, looking away. "You look well."

"You look like shit," she replied with a smile. Her smile turned into a concerned frown. "Are you sure you're fine?"

"When was the last time I was fine?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "A long time ago. But then again, none of us have been fine for a while."

"Do you get the nightmares too?"

"Every day," she replied, sitting down on my bunk. "I've been fighting for years. A lot of my friends have died too."

"Did that break help?" I asked. "Working at ONI, I mean."

"I don't know," she said. "I stopped thinking about fighting twenty-four seven, but everything in my job revolved around the war. I saw a lot of ugly reports."

"They were just reports," I told her.

She nodded. "But every time I couldn't help but wonder if I could've helped had I been there. Stupid, I know, but…"

"So it doesn't get better, huh?" I asked, leaning back and looking at the grey ceiling. It was dull and seemed worn. "Even if we live."

"Even if we live… Are we going to?"

"No," I answered. "What else is there for us to do? We don't have lives outside of war. Even with the elites…"

"We might just pull it off with their help," she said, sounding uncertain.

I looked over at Usze and N'tho. "Maybe, maybe not."

"They've got a lot of ships."

"They're about to have less," I said. "A lot less. Then there's the Flood."

"Why are you so negative?" she asked. There was no humor in her voice.

"I don't know. When was the last time you had hope? Even if by some miracle we come out of this alive I don't know what I'll do."

"You have me," she said, putting her arm around my shoulders. "You have Pavel, Miranda, and yes, even Grigori is there if you need him. Not to mention Katie."

"I don't even know if she's still alive," I said, closing my eyes. "I don't know what will happen if she's not. Amber and Lavvie are with her too… So's Liz for that matter. You remember Liz?"

"She seemed like a handful," Cam replied. "Good looking girl."

"Yeah, she's a good friend. I don't want her to die either."

"I don't want anyone else to die," she said. Her arm was still around my shoulder, squeezed against the bed. She awkwardly shuffled it out and placed it on her belly, drawing chuckles from me.

"I don't want anyone else to die either," I replied. "But who knows? If Heaven is real it might be for the best."

"I think I'd life Heaven."

"If Heaven is real, I'm not sure that I'll end up going there," I sighed sadly. "I'm tired, I want to sleep."

"Me too," she said. "If only for a little bit."

It really didn't take long for me to fall asleep. I was so tired that I didn't even care about the two massive elites sleeping in the same room. I just closed my eyes and let sleep take me, praying that the nightmares would be brief and not bad enough to wake me up.

November 9, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/

UNSC Cairo, in orbit above Earth, Sol System

I cracked my neck. It was loud. The noise drew some curious looks from the two younger elites. The Arbiter stood next to Johnson and Keyes, both of whom looked a lot spiffier than they had in the last hours. I felt cleaner and better as well. The station's doctor had given all of us some pills. They were supposed to release dopamine or some shit, because the depression was fading away now and it was being replaced with a sense of anger and purpose. Good, even if it was artificial it was better than feeling the whole weight of reality crushing me.

I cracked my knuckles, popping them one by one. The two elites looked at each other subtly after I was finished. I shook my head slightly. We had also been given a range of other meds, we all felt fresh like lettuce and were on the verge of being… happy. It was weird, like being buzzed but not quite drunk. You knew that there was something slightly wrong with you but you felt so good that you didn't care. According to the doctors the meds would counter any alcohol still left in our bloodstream. It wasn't a lot all things considered, but we might be in the midst of battle in a few hours.

"Johnson, Banks, Stacker," Keyes said. "You are coming with me down to the Crow's Nest. The Arbiter and his men will join us down in Kenya. Lieutenant Castillo, you and your men are being sent down to a different region, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said with a polite nod. "I'll brief them myself."

"Good. Best of luck, Lieutenant. It's been a pleasure."

"Likewise ma'am," I lied. "Give them hell."

She nodded and then jerked her head for the rest of the individuals to follow her into a Pelican. The elites instinctively crouched because of the relatively short ceiling, but they fit inside just fine. The Pelican had four large crates on its tail, presumably armament for this Crow's Nest place. The Pelican hovered and took off towards the hatch doors, disappearing as they closed down, leaving my men and I alone in the hangar along with a couple of techs and the Pelican pilots.

"Well," I said as the hatches hissed shut. "The situation is this. Our blue marble down there is a fucking mess. Major battles outside of major cities. Paris, Moscow, Havana, Mexico City, Cleveland, Casablanca, Karachi, Kabul, Mumbai, Hangzhou, Pyongyang, Lagos, Sydney, and New Mombasa. You name it. Most of those locations are still in our hands, for now, a few are hotly contested as of right now. The Covenant have control of a few regions. East Africa, Ross Sea, Cleveland, Northern France, Hindu Kush, the Urals, and Yucatan and Cuba."

Pavel whistled.

"Over half of the civilian population evacuated before the Covenant could get here, the rest has been moving out as fast as possible, but the process has lagged," I continued. "However, that doesn't concern us. The UNSC's job is to kill every single hostile currently on the planet, collateral damage be damned. We can rebuild later.

"Our job is simple, kill any motherfucker that we are told to kill. Who is going to be telling us what to shoot, you wonder? Well, the answer is none other than the 19th Shock Troops Battalion, the very unit that I originally belonged to."
There was a half-hearted whoop from Cam, who shook her head with a small smile after I raised my eyebrow at her.

"Details are a bit vague right now," I told them, "but we're dropping down to Afghanistan. The area is hotly contested right now, and a large force of Covenant infantry and space assets is in the region, pinned down by our own illustrious navy."

"Where are we going?" Caboose asked.

"Pakistani border," I said. "Our forces are being pushed east, we're dropping in for asymmetrical warfare. It's what we do."

"Are we dropping?" Pavel asked.

I nodded. "They're moving us to a frigate and we'll drop in on Afghanistan, reinforce the Kushan Mountain Pass, west of Kabul. There's a detachment of ODSTs and some local army there."

"So we're just holding the fort down?" Pavel asked.

"For the most part," I replied with a nod. "But we are Helljumpers, we're not just simple soldiers. You can bet your ass we'll be doing more things."

There was a moment of silence while everybody took in the information before I jerked my head and they moved inside the Pelican, each carrying a trunk with a couple of changes of clothes and other things that you'd need for a deployment. The deployment could be a day long or a year. I had a feeling that this battle would drag on for more than a couple of years. This was Earth, after all.

I was the last one to board, tossing my trunk and watching as Miranda and Caboose strapped it down. I sat down in my usual seat and we were shuttled to a UNSC frigate that had been badly damaged. Most of the starboard section had been torn from the main body of the ship, but apparently the UNSC Hexagon had managed to take out a CCS-class cruiser by itself. The commander on the ship had been given a promotion for her actions. Posthumous. We walked through the hangar, filled with corpses that had been recovered from the space. Mercifully, they were covered with bags, blankets, shirts, and anything the survivors could find. A dazed tech received us with a robotic salute before leading us to the drop bay.

"Thanks, kid," I said to the tech, squeezing his shoulder slightly.

The contact seemed to get him out of his funk for a moment.

"Good luck down there, sir."

"Thanks, kid," I repeated. "You, too."

Putting the trunk inside was a bit of a mess, the drop pods were designed to fit them, but we had to remove a section of the seat and then wrestle the trunks inside and then secure the seat back in. It wasn't particularly difficult, just laborious. Once the last of us was done we all turned our backs to the pods and looked at each other. We were all hopped up on drugs and meds, but we were tired. We had been tired for a long time and we only just started to feel it. Fighting in the streets of Mombasa had been when it started, but then the Flood just busted through whatever walls kept us functional members of society.

"How do we go?" I asked.

"We go feet first!" they shouted back at me.

Good, they had the fire in them still.

Hatch door closed. The light in front of me changed from red to yellow to green. My stomach lurched as the pod left the gravity on the Hexagon. It was how you were supposed to feel; nervous, giddy, scared, and pumped. Not everyone was cut out for it, but the thrill that came with it was undeniable. Looking down I could see the imposing Hindu Kush and further to my left were the massive Himalayas that had been almost mythical for centuries. Directly below was Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires. I could make out the Gulf of Oman as well as Pakistan and Iran. The border between those two countries, fortified since the twenty-second century, had stopped the Covenant from advancing into Pakistan, but you could see the scars of battle in Iran.

Looked like the covvies had paid for their advance.

It was a perfect jump. The calculations for the angle of entry and speed had been done a million times. The myriad of weather satellites knew exactly what was going to happen once we entered the atmosphere.

It was the most beautiful jump I had done since my first training jump.

The snow-capped mountains closed in on us, growing larger and larger by the second. Red areas popped in on my HUD. A few of them had tags, friendly units. The rest were enemy positions. They were all red so any moron with half a brain would know not to hit anything red.

"They're shooting flak!" Pavel warned.

"Power through!" I ordered.

Last thing I wanted was to land on top of a Marine. Green explosions rocked the HEV violently, but we kept going down the intended path. I watched as the Covenant troops opened fire on the UNSC positions only to be hammered by them in return. I shook my head to myself and tightened my grip on the handles. My helmet started tagging the Covenant soldiers and emplacements that it could make out, sending them out to the troops on the ground. The thrusters fired, and a second later we hit the ground hard. I grabbed my battle rifle. It was the same one that had survived Delta Halo with me, battered, bruised, and refitted. I shot at the first red outline I saw, it was shaped like a brute and it died like a brute. It might've not been in the spirit of the game to have technology that allowed me to see through the dust and snow and steam, but war isn't about fighting fair.

My men had landed right behind the edge of the fortifications in the pass. There were several troops a dozen or so meters ahead. The snow had been moved to the sides in order to make a trench-like network of roads. I moved through those and jumped over the steaming snow as plasma landed to get to the fortifications in the front. It was hard to see, not only was it the steam, but there was a storm formation surrounding the mountains around this area. I fired at the enemy positions with sustained bursts as Pavel kept close behind me. I felt his hand on my shoulder and prepared for the rattling of his machine gun right next to my ear. The world became almost muted as my helmet protected my eardrums, but I could still see the tracer rounds from the M247L hitting the lead elements of the enemy attack.

I stopped behind cover next to a pair of soldiers in a non-standard uniform. I caught the Afghan flag on their shoulder pads. They also seemed to be lax on facial hair rules, seeing as both men had very bushy and rather impressive beards covered with frost. They were talking to each other in what I assumed was Pashto before directing their attention to me.

"Are you our reinforcements?" one of them asked.

"Yeah, all five of us," I replied.

"I only see two," the other soldier told me. "Shit, stall the rushers, we need time to get the mortars into position."

"Sounds easy enough," Pavel said, propping his gun up and firing.

I shrugged and followed suit, occasionally popping out to hit one or two targets, sending them diving for cover into the snow. The grunts weren't wearing any winter gear from what I could tell, but the brutes did seem to have a slightly different armor. I hit a couple of jackals moving to the right, trying to reach the slopes of the mountain and climb up. The pass was well defended, with a nice little wall extending from one edge to the other. It would be nearly impossible for someone to get through.

I heard the familiar roaring of a LAAG machine gun and saw heavy rounds pouring out of an emplacement to our right. I could hear shouts in Pashto and Hungarian as the ODSTs of the 19th and the Afghan Army began focusing their attacks with more effectiveness. It was beginning to escalate on both ends of the firefight and soon we found ourselves having to look up for Wraith mortar rounds.

"Where are those mortars?" I asked the Afghans.

"They're setting them up!" they replied. "It takes time!"

I cursed and fired at a brute, hitting it in the right knee and leg, breaking the bone. I chuckled and moved on to a different target. Caboose was leading the rest of the fireteam to our left, next to a group of ODSTs with an old-looking rocket launcher. The thing looked old, but it seemed to fire some heavy-caliber rockets.

A Wraith appeared right over the edge of the road, about a kilometer away from our position.

The ODST fired the rocket launcher and less than half a second later the missile slammed into the Wraith and punched completely through before detonating behind it. There were some curses from the ODSTs. It was reasonable to be angry, if the missile had worked like it intended to the Wraith couldn't have been able to be used as cover later on.

"Frank, they need you to target ranking officers on the right flank."

"There's like a hundred hostiles in the right side of the field," I replied. "Grass, I can barely see."

"Sir, there's a sniper rifle waiting for you over there," one of the Afghans said not five seconds later, pointing to the back. "Our perch was shot down weeks ago, but you can shoot from here."

I nodded and gave him my rifle before running towards the spot he had pointed at. I felt ten years younger when I was taking orders instead of giving them out, but I had just gotten here and needed to know just what the hell was happening. Instead I grabbed the sniper rifle from a rack, brushed some snow off it and dashed back. Plasma bolts were coloring the misty sky and a couple of Wraith mortars landed too damn close for comfort, sending scalding hot water at me. I cursed despite being protected by my undersuit but I powered through the melting snow and slid back into the front wall.

"Back so soon?" Pavel asked.

I looked at one of the Afghans, he was covered in blood and was struggling to stabilize his friend, who appeared to have been hit right above the collarbone with a needle round. Blood was squirting everywhere and his legs were kicking, but it wasn't a lethal wound.

"Well shoot those fuckers!" the healthy one said.

"That's shoot those fuckers, sir," I clarified, propping the sniper rifle and drilling a brute through the head.

I chuckled for the second time in the day. Those meds seemed to be some powerful shit. I kept switching targets, but the brutes all seemed to be wearing similar armor. I cursed with every new brute that I targeted before I finally sighed, realized I had approximately thirty rounds in the bandolier I had picked up plus three others in the mag. I settled in on a target and fired away. I killed a brute and moved on.

"You're drawing their fire to us," Pavel said. "Might be a good idea to relocate."

"He's right, sir!" the Afghan said.

"Fuck that," I replied, killing another brute and reloading. "Grass, find me something valuable to kill!"

I realized that perhaps going all out like this was not a smart idea. The Covenant attackers still had Wraiths and snipers tended to be priority targets under pretty much all circumstances. Nonetheless I kept firing until the mortar shots began getting too close for comfort. After one explosion sent steam hurtling at my face and pushed me on my ass I gave the order to move out of this position. Pavel helped with the wounded Afghan while I covered our retreat. I might've endangered all four of us, but the right flank of the attackers was in complete disarray and I was almost out of ammunition.

"There are command bunkers back there," Pavel pointed out. "Do we have tanks?"

"They were sent down for repairs," the Afghan said. "You came here because we needed reinforcements pretty bad."

"Go figure."

"We expected more than five people…"

"We'll do," I told him.

"We usually do," Pavel agreed, patting him on the shoulder and grabbing my rifle from him.

A shell from a Daemon tank slammed into the wall, tearing a hole through. It was not fifty meters from our position. Several Afghan soldiers and a few ODSTs began moving towards it to patch the hole. It was a smart move. Now that there was a breach the Covenant would throw everything in this assault to punch through. I hate the swarming techniques the covvies used. They were not idiots about them either, they'd swarm you with numbers and by the time they were done there'd be a lot less dead Covenant than you imagined there would be.

"Wall of fire, wall of fire!" someone ordered, prompting everyone to open up full auto.

It was a crude technique, but it was the most fun you got during combat. Pavel and I got at the end of the suppressing fire, but we helped target the first brutes and grunts to make it close. They had enough time to drop a pair of deployable covers, which bought enough time for two squads of aliens to make it to the wall and through. Everyone immediately started moving back. It looked like they had practiced this before. The first squad was caught in the crossfire and all eight aliens were killed before they could do much, but the brute leading the second one took out an ODST with his brute shot before the grunts and jackals started firing at the rest of us. I almost lost my head to an overcharged plasma shot before Pavel sprayed three grunts and stunned them long enough that an Afghan soldier tossed a grenade in their midst. It was a nice toss, taking out almost the whole squad except the brute leading it.

Surprisingly enough it went berserk.

It slammed an ODST into the ground, but the man wriggled free as sustained fire stunned the brute. Pavel hit the brute with nearly a third of his magazine before it went down. Its power armor seemed to be a bit stronger than usual for a brute this rank.

"The mortars are set," someone said.

"Well start firing them!"

The mortars were some old model, but they probably had an effective range of about 9 kilometers. I wondered why they hadn't been available immediately when the battle began, but nonetheless I watched as the shells streaked down from the sky and detonated amongst the cowering Covenant troops. A Wraith was busted up, and another one was completely destroyed before they had the chance to fall back. The mortars kept firing for a while, finally sending the attackers back.

There were some scattered cheers, but for the most part the defenders remained quiet. I looked around, looking for whoever commanded this post. It had evidently been crewed by members of the Afghan Army for the majority of the initial conflict, but you could see UNSC defensive emplacements around the old wrecks.

"Frank, I've got someone here wants to talk to you," Grass radioed in.

I jerked my head for Pavel to follow me through the melting snow and began walking towards the rest of my squad. All of them seemed to be alright, no scorch marks or conspicuous injuries.

"Get the crates," I told them as I identified another ODST. "Stack them."

The ODST was tagged as Lieutenant Tarkov, which sounded vaguely familiar. The man didn't look young enough to have joined the Corps as an officer. His plate was colored bright yellow

Tarkov, Tarkov, Tarkov.

"Lieutenant Castillo?" he asked in a heavy Reach Hungarian accent.

"That's me," I said, shaking his hand firmly. "Lieutenant, I was briefed on the general situation, not on the specifics…"

"Of course," he said. "Lieutenant, your name seems familiar… have we met each other before?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, but your name also rings a bell."

Lieutenant Tarkov shrugged slightly and told me to follow him into the command bunker. ODST troops and Afghan soldiers were moving around the snow, trying to help with the repairs. They would be packing snow into the breaches, throwing some ice to make it hard and slippery before there was a chance to prop up an actual barrier or time to get some polycrete here.

The command bunker had been placed right over the middle of the road that traversed this pass, yet another obstacle for the Covenant forces if they made it through. On the way there I saw anti-tank defenses, dragon's teeth to be precise. The rock pyramids were going to play hell with the movement of the Wraiths, Ghosts, and Prowlers, but they wouldn't stop them forever. I assumed that there were other measures in there, like mines to hit the trapped tanks and vehicles, but for the most part a rearguard would be taking out the stalled vehicles.

I made out a couple of well-camouflaged pillboxes on the left, probably empty now, but they'd make for excellent sniper nests. Other than those actual fortifications the pass was mostly unfortified. The snow was good enough to block plasma and to prevent the enemy from spotting you if we piled it up high enough, but it would melt too fast. If it wasn't for that wall traversing the width of the pass this place would've been long gone.

The command post was similar to the dozens or perhaps hundreds of similar posts that I'd been to before. It was almost cozy, perhaps because it had been personalized and had several lights in order to keep the various maps and satellite pictures illuminated and visible.

There was a large, empty ammunition crate in the middle where several maps and datapads were spread out. No holotank for us, it seemed.

"This is the situation," Tarkov began leaning over the table and taking off his helmet. "And this, is why you're here…"

If this chapter seems rushed, it's because it was. It wasn't proofread at all.

Ask me about my trip to Europe, but for now, I'm back, bitches.

Stay strong.

-casquis