Outskirts

Corporal Ryan sat on a balcony built into the side of an apartment complex in the outskirts of Kujo City. It was where she had sat for the past two hours, and it was where she was going to continue to sit for however long it took to hold off the Covenant invaders.

She thought it was going to be comfortable up there. It was at first, but the longer she waited the less comfortable it became. But the thing that made it uncomfortable wasn't the furniture, or the way she sat, it was the wait for something to happen.

New Tampa's defence fleet still engaged the Covenant in orbit. As confident as the higher ups were about them being able to hold the fleet off, no naval engagement with the Covenant was ever a winning battle. They would lose eventually, and then the Covenant soldiers would take to the ground.

So she waited for it to happen, for the defence fleet to finally crumble so she could do her job. She didn't want it to happen, but that was just life.

"All forces in the Kujo City airspace," the voice of Sergeant Rosenfeld came through on her radio. "Covenant cruiser on approach, I repeat: Covenant cruiser on approach!"

Ryan didn't have the time to look up before a Covenant dropship descended toward the road that ran alongside the apartment complex. The anti-air defences in the inner city were doing their job, so it was left to the troopers defending the outskirts to handle the incoming attackers.

The first shot came from a scorpion tank positioned on the opposite end of the road from where the dropship released its combatants onto the field. The shell impacted on the hull of the dropship, and did little more than dent it. It opened fire with its plasma cannon on the tank, and the two continued to trade shots.

Ryan gripped the handle of her SRS99C0S2 AM, and peered through the scope. A squad of elites and grunts fell out of the dropship and landed firmly on their feet. More army troopers were hidden in the buildings on either side of the road, and they all fired on the Covenant soldiers together.

She watched an elite run for cover as its energy shielding failed, and was gunned down in the middle of the street. Another elite with a grunt at its side found cover behind an abandoned truck, but they were clear in Ryan's view.

She squeezed her rifle's trigger, and the elite's head turned into a fine purple mist. The grunt began to panic and look around for where the shot came from, but it didn't find anything before its head suffered a similar fate to the elite's.

The dropship lifted away from the street and flew off into the distance. It has suffered significant damage from the scorpion, and ended up being finished off by an anti-air gun from inside the city.

Ryan knew that wasn't going to be the end of it. That was just the first wave, and judging by the size of the Covenant fleet, there were going to be a lot more. The UNSC soldiers in Kujo City were significantly outnumbered, but they had the home field advantage.

Another two grunts had escaped the fire from the other troopers, and huddled behind a car down the street. Ryan could only see their triangular backpacks sticking out above it, but that was enough to tell her where the aliens' heads were. The final two rounds in her rifle's magazine passed through the length of the car like a hot knife through butter, and the lives of those two grunts ended before they knew it.

Ryan slid the empty magazine out, and shoved a fresh one in. She was congratulated by the other troopers over her radio, but she didn't listen. She didn't stop paying attention to the street for a moment, she needed to know if that was the end of the first wave or not.

But she didn't find anything. As soon as she was satisfied that they were clear for the moment, a trio of Covenant dropships flew overhead, and landed further away. This time Ryan couldn't see what they were dropping off, as they each landed behind a building, but this time there were going to be a lot more Covenant foot soldiers than before.

They lifted away, and one was struck by the scorpion in one of its engines. A second shot from the scorpion sent the ship hurtling into another section of the outskirts before its reactor overloaded, and exploded.

"Nice one," Ryan muttered under her breath before turning her attention back to the road.

Three standard Covenant squads appeared at the other end of the road, three to four lightly armed grunts with an elite at the rear. The first few troopers opened fire, and this time the Covenant had the chance to return fire.

A grunt fell, its body peppered with bullets. A trooper fell, his body burned and ripped apart by plasma fire. An elite fell, its head exploding as Ryan lined up a shot and pulled the trigger. More Covenant arrived in place of the ones that fell. More grunts, more elites, and this time jackals.

Ryan got a good angle at one jackal while it was distracted by the army troopers on the ground. Though she couldn't hit its head, a shot to the body would be more than enough to kill it. She fired, and watched the shot from the anti-materiel rifle rip through its armour, and its body.

Two shots left.

With one she took the hand off of a jackal, leaving it open to be killed with a headshot from another trooper.

With the other, she shot straight through the methane tank of a grunt. The ensuing explosion killed two more grunts, and stripped the energy shield off an elite.

More Covenant arrived, and she reloaded.

The scorpion tank fired, taking out an entire Covenant squad with one high explosive shell. The scorpion's machine gunner assisted the rest of the troopers in clearing out the Covenant soldiers, and ending the second wave of attackers.

In the brief moment of respite they had, Ryan looked over the troopers in the street to see how many they lost. The Covenant had traded so many lives just for five army troopers. As much as it hurt to see her fellow soldiers go down, that was a sacrifice she deemed necessary. They have the number advantage, we have the home field advantage, she told herself again.

The rest of the troopers in Kujo City's outskirts were fighting the same battle, spreading the Covenant's forces out. But they weren't going to give up. They were going to keep pushing each position until they finally broke them, and that was why Ryan couldn't relax for even a moment.

The third wave came just as quickly as the second had. Three more dropships landed behind the cover of the buildings, and this time Ryan was in danger.

A swarm of drones flew over the rooftops, and forced the troopers back into the cover of the buildings. They were too small for the scorpion to hit, and too many to take out in short order. And as confident as Ryan was in her aim, she wasn't going to risk wasting her bullets on the things.

She quickly got to her feet, leaving her sniper rifle behind and drawing her M6C sidearm. Two drones spotted her as she stood, and fired on her position. She quickly retreated into the apartment and took cover behind a wall. Each glob of plasma they fired tore a chunk out of the building's walls, and the creatures fired their guns so fast that she couldn't step out of cover for even a second to return fire.

But Ryan knew how Covenant plasma weapons worked. Under constant and rapid use, they would overheat. When they stopped shooting, that was when Ryan left her cover. She fired her sidearm at the first drone she saw, tearing it apart in only a few bullets. She quickly shot the second one, but its plasma pistol cooled down as soon as she fired.

With the remaining bullets in her sidearm's magazine, she killed the second drone. But it managed to fire a shot at her, and strike her in her shoulder. Her armour held up against the shot, but the immense heat still caused her pain. She nearly dropped her sidearm before ducking back behind cover to rest her shoulder.

She took a deep breath, and listened to the sound of the battle outside. Even though it was just drones, she felt the casualties from this wave were going to be worse than the last. And that wasn't all they were up against.

While she slid a fresh magazine into her sidearm, she heard the scorpion fire. When she looked outside she saw that most of the drone swarm had been cleared, but when she walked onto the balcony she saw something more in the street.

A pair of hunters stood at the other end of the street, both escorted by squads of elites and grunts. She quickly rushed for her sniper and took aim, aiming for the gap between a hunter's helmet and its collar.

It fired a shot from the massive cannon attached to its arm just before Ryan pulled the trigger. Her shot tore through the hunters' face, but the creature was still alive. Right, they're made of worms, she remembered.

The shot that the hunter had fired hit the scorpion, and destroyed the tank in a bright green fireball. All Ryan's shot did was tell the hunter where she was. It turned toward her and fired another shot right at the balcony.

Ryan lifted her sniper and attempted to retreat inside, but the blast hit, and caused the entire side of the building to collapse.

The floor fell out underneath Ryan as she tried to reach for something to hold onto, but the debris pulled her down with it, and trapped her underneath. She used all her strength to push the debris off of her, and made a big enough hole for her to breath and see outside.

The other troopers that had been holding the road were retreating, and she watched two of them get gunned down by the approaching elites. Ryan attempted to pull herself out of the debris, but all she felt was an incredible pain in her legs.

She looked down at her legs and saw rebar sticking straight through them. That was when she started to truly panic.

Every soldier in the UNSC, whether it be the air force, the army, or the marines, was taught a very important lesson: go into every battle with the assumption that you're already dead. It made it easier not to feel anything. But that didn't help Ryan when she realised she was actually going to die.

Covenant soldiers marched past her without noticing her. The elites, grunts, jackals, and hunters made their way into the city after breaking their defence. Ryan stayed completely silent as they moved past, hoping that after they were gone somebody would come find her and rescue her.

But as time went on in silence, and darkness fell over the city with no sign of anyone nearby, Ryan realised it would have been smarter to get their attention, and have them kill her.