I breathed in.

My heart was racing, eyes closed. The harness over my chest felt like it was tightening every second, my hands gripped the handles on the harness like a vice. You couldn't tell it through my visor, but I was terrified.

I breathed out.

"30 seconds to atmospheric reentry!" Yelled the pilot of the pelican.

I opened my eyes and saw everyone else holding on too, at least I didn't look nervous. I had a team counting on me to lead them. Most of them having more battle experience than me. I looked over at Fallen and gave her a slight nod, which she returned.

The pelican began to shake violently as we entered the atmosphere of the backwater planet that was under attack by covenant forces. We were to deploy on the front lines, dropping us off with a small marine squadron and moving to destroy some covenant generators to cut off communications. The pelican stopped shaking and the harnesses released as we broke through the atmosphere, down to the troposphere of the planet.

"Touchdown in 3!" came the voice of the pilot.

We stood, loaded guns in hand. The door dropped on the back of the pelican and I filed out, gun raised and kneeled at the bottom of the platform. Followed by Fallen, taking the left. Crow on the right, Phoenix and Dragon taking the inbetweens, Meteor and Athena standing over the tops of us. The Pelican's door closed with a good luck from the pilot and he left. we were left looking at 3 warthogs and 5 marines, who seemed to be waiting for us. They remained silent as we all stood and moved forward, more relaxed at the lack of enemies. There were enough warthogs for us all, which seemed to be planned. I jumped into the First hog, Phoenix jumped in the gauss hog, and Fallen on the rocket hog.

"Shotgun!" called out dragon, hopping into the passenger seat on my hog, the warthog sagging to the right for a moment.

Crow jumped on the .30 on the back of my hog, Athena took the gauss cannon, and Meteor gladly took the rocket turret.

Our squad looked good for the first mission we'd be taking, but we knew that was only half the battle. Hey, gotta look good.

Two marines occupied the spare passenger seats and we all gave an exchanging glance before Commander Palmer engulfed the top left of my HUD.

"Well Crimson, welcome to the front lines, your objective as you know is to take out these generators, sending coordinates now."

Several red diamonds showed up on my HUD, distances marked them each.

"I'll keep in contact throughout your mission, good luck out there team." the transmission cut.

"So we follow red dot yes?" asked Dragon.

"That's the plan." replied Crow from the gun. He must have been the most calm of us all, he said it was something to do with his meditation.

Dragon shrugged and propped his flamethrower on the top of the windshield, half standing in the seat.

"Well, let us go then." Dragon said.

I looked around at the other hogs, all of their drivers stared back.

"So uh… what's the plan Ardent?" asked Fallen from her seat in the rocket hog.

I thought for a moment, "Split up, one warthog goes left, one goes right, and one take the middle. Don't leave your warthog unless it's absolutely necessary."

She seemed satisfied with this, "I'll take right."

"left" I called out.

"So I've got middle then?" Phoenix rhetorically asked.

I sighed and hit the gas, wheels spinning before gaining traction in the sandy ground of this bright and desert like planet. Coming up in approximately 600 metres was the first generator, we had to take an elevated slope up, so we could actually see down on the battlefield, and see all of what the rest of the team was doing. I saw two warthogs dashing down their paths, dust flying in their wakes before turning my eyes back to the objective, now 100 metres.

"Contact!" yelled Crow, the .30 Cal coming to life.

The gun spit hellfire down on a few poor grunts, his turret swiveling to look at a jackal sniper on a hovering platform. The jackal took cover, hoping to escape its hail of bullets. the floating platform made a large boom, pieces of it falling off. Crow continued this for a few moments before the entire platform exploded, the jackal flying off to the right, down the incline.

I drew my magnum and took a few popshots at an elite off to the left before moving the warthog forward a bit. I whipped the tail end of the hog around, exposing the generator from its once covered position. Crow lit it up, the generator exploding in a quite spectacular fashion. We all cheered.

Dragon stuck his flamethrower out of the side of the hog and burned a charging elite before Crow could even swivel the turret. We all cheered again. I brought up a comm channel.

"One generator down, how are you guys coming along?"

"Doing good Chief!" said Phoenix excitedly.

"Good, how about you Fallen?"

"We've encountered heavy resistance but we're doing pretty good otherw- Oh shit! everybody bail! Bail! B-" the comm channel from Fallen fell silent.

"Fallen sitrep. Fallen come in." I said worriedly.

I breathed in

I jumped out of the hog, running over to the ledge to try and find them. I saw a burned and mangled warthog, its occupants missing. It came to a halt at the front bumper of a slightly damaged Wraith, it's cannon recharging.

I breathed out

"Jasmine!" I screamed into my helmet's microphone.

I saw the covenant near the warthog cheer before running forward.