Introduction

Hello, and welcome.

The premise of this story is simple: when it comes to single-player games, some days I want to play a game with a well-written plot, interesting characters, and fun gameplay. Other days, I just want to see evil aliens get blown up. This story is basically the written version of the latter.

The emphasis is on fighting: each chapter will take place in a new setting and involve a different cast, but they will all revolve around a battle, a skirmish, or a firefight of some sort, making this less of a story, and more of a compilation. Because of this, characterization will be non-existent and each chapter will be presented without much context or worldbuilding.

Given the non-systematic approach to this story, update schedule will be more of a "whenever I feel like" sort of deal.

All comments and reviews welcomed; questions are also welcomed but be aware that I may opt to not provide an answer. If a response is provided, it'll be available in the comments/review sections, as it makes it easier to respond to guest comments.

Title is of course a call-back to the Halo coop mode, Firefight.

Thanks, hope everyone enjoys.

Tien Giang Forest
Osaka Prefecture, Newsaka
6 May 2545
1221J

Two and a half weeks after the Battle of Hill 937

Tsheej abruptly held up a closed fist, causing Marcos to immediately drop to one knee, fist upright. He waited a moment to see if Tsheej did anything else, but when he remained motionless, Marcos silently swore under his breath as he pumped his fist up and down, before pointing two fingers at his eyes and gestured at the jungle that surrounded them. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure his orders were being followed through, only to be met with Private Bantawa's blank stare of incomprehension. Oh. Right. POGs.

Inhaling sharply, Marcos slowly exhaled before whispering with forced patience, "Get down, head on a swivel. Pass it down the line."

The look of incomprehension on Bantawa's face quickly cleared up, however it was almost immediately replaced with terror as the implications of Marcos's orders hit her. She bobbed her head before hurriedly turning around to spread the word.

Satisfied that the message was finally getting through, however slowly, Marcos turned his attention back to Tsheej, who had yet to move a muscle. Instead, the Hmong man continued to slowly scan the jungle directly in front of him, all the while, his fellow point man looked on nervously.

Slowly reached up to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself, Marcos tapped his microphone.

"Sergeant, talk to me: what do you see?" Marcos whispered. Tsheej didn't so much as twitch in acknowledgement, causing Marcos's blood pressure to skyrocket – as Tsheej was not someone easily intimidated by the jungle - and he found himself automatically reaching down to his rifle to disable the safety, just in case.

Taking a deep breath to try and calm his growing nerves, Marcos glanced at the rest of the patrol.

"Alright everyone, listen up," he quietly began. "We got a bit of a situation here, so here's what we're going to do. We-"

"CONTACT!" Tsheej abruptly screamed at the top of his lungs as he raised his shotgun-

There was a flash and a single purple needle came flying out from the trees and slammed into Tsheej's face, who immediately toppled over like a puppet whose strings had been cut. And then, all hell broke loose.

"GET DOWN! COVER!" Marcos screamed, throwing himself to the ground as a wall of plasma and metal spikes came hurtling his way. Trees, bushes, and other foliage were instantly shredded, as well as anyone who failed to react in time. Even as he hit the ground, Marcos could see the second point man get hit no less than five times before collapsing to the ground in pieces with nary a scream.

"RETURN FIRE! CONTACT, DIRECT FRONT, RETURN FIRE!" Marcos screamed even as he raised his rifle over his head and blindly sprayed down the jungle with automatic weapons fire. "SUPPRESSING FIRE! GET UP ON THE LINE!"

Spotting movement in the trees, Marcos hastily twisted to the side and pumped half his magazine into the foliage, and was rewarded with a loud bellow of pain.

"ALPHA COMPANY, GET UP HERE!" Marcos screamed. "GET ON THE LINE! SPREAD OUT!"

His rifle clicked empty. Ducking a Needler shot, Marcos hurried reloaded even as his men dashed forward and quickly began assuming defensive positions. With each new arrival, Alpha Company's outgoing fire increased, but it wasn't enough to completely suppress the Covenant.

"UGH!"

Marcos violently flinched at the loud cry of pain above him, and he whirled around to see one of his men had taken a Spiker round straight to the chest. Their body armor - which was lighter than the standard issued UNSC body armor as it was designed to be used in very hot and humid jungles - did little to slow the incoming round, and the soldier collapsed, blood gushing from the newly formed hole in their chest.

"MEDIC!" Marcos shrieked. "MAN DOWN, MEDIC!"

Ignoring the wounded man for the moment, Marcos reached down to his belt and pulled out a hand grenade. Arming it, he hurtled the bomb into the trees, yelling, "FRAG OUT!"

The trees rocked as the grenade exploded. It did little to nothing to slow the incoming fire.

"DIMAANO!" Marcos roared into his radio as the battle continued to rage. "DIMAANO! I WANT YOUR SAW ON MY POSITION, NOW!"

Shoving his microphone away from his mouth, Marcos flipped up the front flap of his boonie and brought his rifle up to his eye line. The jungle was in chaos as bullets and plasma and needles snaked through the trees, with the sounds of fighting occasionally punctuated by the muffled thud of grenades exploding. Despite knowing the Covenant would have never initiated an ambush of this magnitude unless the UNSC forces were less than fifteen meters away, Marcos could barely see any targets to aim at, much less shoot at. But such was the nature of jungle warfare, and so he continued to blaze away, shooting at anything that even remotely looked like an enemy.

"LIEUTENANT, SIR! CORPORAL DIMAANO AND PRIVATE PHÚ REPORTING AS ORDERED, SIR!"

Marcos immediately dropped into cover and whirled around.

"Corporal! Set up your SAW, right here!" Marcos commanded, jabbing a finger at the spot he just vacated. "Set up a base of fire and give me suppressing fire! Keep the Covies pinned down!"

"Hooah, sir!"

Dimaano immediately threw himself onto the ground, and extended the bipod to his M739. A split second later, the light machine gun was coughing out bullets at a frantic rate.

"Tight, controlled bursts!" Marcos barked at him. "But spread your fire out! Don't be afraid to share the wealth; make sure everyone gets some!"

Dimaano didn't respond; instead, he fired another extended burst and somewhere downrange, Marcos could almost swear he heard a Brute roar out in pain.

"Private. PRIVATE!" Grabbing a hold of Phú's shoulder, Marcos yanked him to the ground. "Keep low and keep feeding your team lead ammo! 'Cause if that gun goes down, we all go down! Do you understand me!?"

"Yes, LT!"

"Watch his back, and do not leave this position come hell or high water! Do you understand!?"

"Sir!"

"Good! GO!" Giving Phú a shove, Marcos glanced at the rest of his men. "Hey! Spread out, everybody! Don't clump up! We got all this space… I wanna see some ground between each man! SPREAD OUT! Sergeant Deng!"

"Sir?"

Deng's voice rose above the chaos, but Marcos couldn't see the man from where he was.

"First Sergeant!" Marcos yelled. "Get the men to spread out! And start pushing our left flank! Extend our line, make sure the Covies can't get away!"

"Roger, sir! Alright you useless asswipes, you heard the man: spread out!"

Flinching as a couple of spikes embedded themselves into the mud right beside him, Marcos emptied the rest of his magazine downrange in retaliation before glancing around. With the last of his men finally getting onto the line and spreading out, the balance of power was slowly tipping in the direction of the UNSC, and if Marcos was any less experienced, he would have almost thought this battle was going well. However, having spent the better part of the last two months attempting to drive the Covenant from his homeworld, Marcos knew that this battle was only just beginning. "RADIO!"

Marcos ducked back down as a handset was shoved in his direction, and he grabbed the device from his RTO and pressed it against the side of his face.

"Cloister, this is Gimlet, do you copy?" he said. "Cloister, this is Gimlet, come in!"

"Gimlet, Cloister," came the immediate reply. "Sitrep!"

Wincing as a burst of plasma shattered against the canopy directly over his head, Marcos said, "Cloister, this is Gimlet… CONTACT, CONTACT, CONTACT! We've been engaged! We're taking small arms fire three klicks north of checkpoint four, phase line yellow. No idea as to enemy strength, but I think we just ran into that pack of Brutes we were looking for, over!"

"Hm," Marcos could hear Cloister musing. "That's about where ISR said they would be. This might very well be the first time in this entire campaign Intel got something right."

Marcos wasn't able to respond right away, as there was a sudden scream and startled, he reflexively yanked out his sidearm and fired a few shots in the direction of where it came from. The retaliatory burst of plasma sent him and his RTO diving to the ground for cover. A split second, there was a muffled explosion, followed by cries of, "MEDIC!"

"Sir, I don't exactly see how that helps me right now!" Marcos barked into the radio.

"Right…" Cloister replied, sounding sheepish. "What do you need, Gimlet?"

"I know my orders are to destroy this holdout of Covies, but I don't think I can do that with the men I currently have, sir!" Marcos responded. "I either need reinforcements, or fire support! Preferably both, over!"

"You'll get both," Cloister promised. "Alerting QRF; they'll be at your location in… within one five mikes. As for fire support, interface with call sign 'Bramble-2,' on channel seven tad four. That's the battalion's battery of 81mm mortars, over."

"Copy that! Gimlet, out!" Marcos immediately turned to his RTO. "K.C.! Get this thing switched over to channel seven, tad four!"

"Yes, sir! Sir, channel seven, sir!"

"Bramble-2, this is Gimlet, come in!"

"This is Bramble-2," the smooth voice of Bramble-2 replied. "Go ahead."

"Bramble, this is Gimlet: requesting immediate fire support! My location is…"

Marcos reached up to his tactical eyepiece to figure out his exact location, but as soon as he touched it, the screen went blank, and smacking it failed to restore the image.

"Fucking humidity!" Marcos raged. "And fuck the Airborne and their shitty, non-jungle spec equipment! This is the last time I barter with them!"

"Gimlet, you still there, over?"

Marcos reactivated his mic. "Listen, I'm over here three klicks north of checkpoint four, phase line yellow! I'm taking a lot of fire from some Brutes I can't really see, so add fifty from my location and fire when ready!"

There was a long pause, so long, Marcos was about to turn back to K.C. and demand he double check the radio to see if it was still working when Bramble finally replied.

"Gimlet, Bramble: authentic, Alpha Tango."

"What? Fuck! Uh… I authenticate, Sierra Bravo!"

There was an audible sigh over the radio. "Oh. This is a legitimate call. In that case: Gimlet, what sort of fucked up coordinates was that? That's not how you call in a fire mission."

"LOOK OUT! TIMBER, TIMBER!"

Marcos jerked and looked down the line in time to see a tree go toppling to the ground, having been cut in half by plasma. The Soldiers nearby scrambled to get out of the way, but one of his men wasn't fast enough, and with a sickening crack, the tree landed right on top of him.

"AHHHHHH! MY LEGS! HELP ME!"

"MEDIC!"

Something in Marcos abruptly snapped.

"Listen, you little punyeta!" he roared into the radio. "Just because you can sit on your ass in an air conditioned room sipping tea all day, doesn't mean the rest of us can! My men are getting killed out here, so either give me my fire support, OR LET ME TALK TO SOMEONE WHO CAN!"

There was a moment of hesitation.

"Fine," Bramble finally said. "You'll get your fire mission."

"Thank you! And, hey! I'm in the jungle, so make sure to use delayed fuses, make sure they can get through the upper canopy!"

"Thanks, Gimlet, but even in my air conditioned room, I think I could have figured that one out; after all, I'm only Colonial Militia. It's not like I was born here or anything." Bramble's comment was both sarcastic and cutting. "Standby for shot."

"Fine! Gimlet, out!"

Marcos tossed the radio back to K.C., not willing to deal with it any longer. He had no time for people's fragile egos. "K.C., monitor that! When he says 'Shot, over,' respond with 'Shot, out!'"

"Yessir!"

Standing up and firing a couple shots downrange, Marcos glanced at the line, only to find Dimaano's SAW had fallen silent.

"Corporal. Corporal! What the hell is going on!? Why aren't you firing!?"

"I'm jammed, sir!" Dimaano yelled back as he racked the changing handle back and forth. "All my mags are full of mud!"

"What!? How!?"

"Ask this putanginang aso here!" Dimaano snarled, gesturing at Private Phú. Marcos whirled around.

"What the hell happened!?"

"I, uh, tripped and fell in a pit earlier," Phú sheepishly admitted. "All the clips got covered in mud."

"And you didn't think to tell anyone!?"

"I didn't think it mattered!" Phú defensively protested.

"Fuck! Break out all the drums and start cleaning them. Now! Corporal! Take this!"

Reaching behind him, Marcos pulled out his emergency sixty-rounder, and shoved it in Dimaano's direction.

"Slow down your rate of fire even more, 'cause that's all we got until this pekpek gets his shit back in order!" Marcos commanded before grabbing one of the drums and wrenching it open. "Hurry it up, Private!"

Phú nodded, frantically scraping out the mud from between the rounds before turning the crank to restore the spring tension.

Overhead, the sound of whistling could be heard.

"INCOMING!" Dimaano yelped, ducking his head.

"That's friendly artillery!" Marcos corrected as explosions began ripping through the trees in front of them. "Keep shooting, keep shooting!"

BOOM.

"AGHHH!" Phú screamed as he collapsed, gripping his neck, blood gushing out from between his fingers. "I'm hit! AHHH!"

"Man down! MEDIC!" Marcos screamed, tossing the mag aside and reaching for Phú. "Private, move your hands! Let me see!"

He managed to shove Phú's hands far enough away to see the misshaped piece of metal sticking out from his neck. For a moment, he stared at it, uncomprehending – no Covenant weapon fired projectiles like that – until more shells began exploding directly overhead and Sergeant Deng cried out, "GET DOWN! Alpha Company, TAKE COVER! That's friendly artillery!"

"Shit…" Marcos gasped as shrapnel pelted the ground around him. "Alpha Company, get down! Radio! K.C., radio! Give me the radio! Private Pramod!"

Marcos grabbed K.C., only to find a piece of shrapnel had torn off half the man's face. Flinching, he shoved the body away and grabbed the radio.

"Bramble, this is Gimlet: check your fire, check your fire!" he roared. "What sort of fucked up coordinates are you shooting at!? You're killing more of my men than the Covenant are!"

"We're dropping mortars exactly where you told us to, Gimlet," Bramble immediately fired back. "It is not our fault that you don't even know your own damn position!"

Marcossnarled.

"Well, check your fire! Add fifty, and fire for effect!" he snapped, tossing the radio away to-

A bone-chilling, animalistic howl split the air, and Marcos immediately felt his blood run cold. He knew that howl - he had nightmares about that howl - despite only hearing it once in his life. The last time he had heard that howl, in the ensuing hour long slaughter that had followed, an entire rifle battalion had been annihilated, leaving behind only five very badly shaken survivors.

It was a Brute Hunting Howl.

"FRAGS!" Marcos screamed at the top of his lungs. "EVERYONE THROW FRAGS! NOW, NOW, NOWNOWNOW!"

Hands outright shaking, he starting yanking grenades off his belt and hurtling them as fast as he could. And he had a lot of them too. Just prior to the start of this patrol, he had ordered each one of his men to carry at least seven fragmentation grenades, because in the tight quarters of the jungle, a hand grenade could prove to be an even more effective weapon than a rifle. His men had complained about the weight, as expected, however Marcos had remained firm. But now, faced with a Brute charge, he wished he had insisted his men bring even more.

"START CHUCKING FRAGS! STOP SHOOTING AND START THROWING!" Marcos shrieked, his breath coming out in short spurts as he threw another two grenades downrange. If he and his men could throw enough grenades… if they could put up a wall of steel… maybe could they could break up the Brutes' charge before it even truly began.

The trees swayed and shook as grenade after grenade exploded, but Marcos knew it wasn't enough as the howling grew louder and louder. Quickly depleting his own stock, Marcos starting pulling frags off Phú's belt to-

BOOOMMM!

Marcos was knocked onto his ass as the entire world seemed to overturn. Entire trees were uprooted and a tidal wave of dirt and mud was displaced as an explosion rocked the jungle. For a moment, all Marcos could do was stare stupidly at the grenade in his hand, wondering how such a small device could have created such a massive explosion.

"LOOK! IT'S A DROP POD!"

Marcos's head snapped up, and he staggered upright to look. Sure enough, nearly two dozen smoking UNSC drop pods had embedded themselves into the ground. There was a loud bang as the door to the nearest pod exploded outwards revealing:

"Those are our guys, those are our guys!" he heard Sergeant Deng yell. "Army Rangers! WOO!"

The Rangers launched themselves from their pods, guns blazing. Clad in their jungle-colored, full-body armor and enclosed helmet – commonly referred to as 'ODST' armor – the Rangers were quick to take control of the battlefield, immediately suppressing the Covenant before systematically advancing to root them out, one by one. The sight invigorated Marcos, but at the same time – if he was being completely honest with himself – filled him with a sense of shame. This was their world after all. Their home. They should be the one driving out the Covenant, not the Rangers.

A glance at his remaining men revealed a similar mood, and Marcos found himself scrambling to his feet, all caution abandoned.

"Alpha Company!" Marcos roared at his men. "WHAT ARE YOU!?"

"25TH RIFLES!" his troops immediately hollered back.

"ALPHA COMPANY, I SAID 'WHAT ARE WE!?'"

"JUNGLE WARRIORS, HUA!"

"AND WHAT DO WE DO?"

"KILL!"

Marcos hefted his rifle. "Then let's get to it. Company! ATTACK!"

"HOOAHHHH!"

With loud war cries, Marcos and his remaining troops plunged into the jungle. But, their attack proved entirely unnecessary as by the time they reached the Covenant positions, the Rangers were already signaling an all clear.

Upon reaching the clearing where the bulk of the Covie forces had been dug in, Marcos found himself slowly stumbling to a halt as he laid his eyes on his foe for the first time since the firefight began. Efficient as always, the Rangers had already begun laying the Covenant bodies out to check for weapons and intel, allowing Marcos the chance to see firsthand just how badly off the enemy was.

The first thing he noticed was that there were only Brutes lying in the clearing - which made sense: Marcos vaguely remembered reading a report that said due to a lack of supplies, the Brute had started eating their Jackal and Grunt allies, in lieu of actual food. But, despite this supplement, it was clear it wasn't enough.

Having been fighting on the front for a little over two months now, Marcos had had the dubious honor of seeing Brute warriors up close and personal. However, unlike the ones that haunted his every waking hour, these Brutes were emaciated: their armor was ill-fitting and loose on their bodies and their figures were relatively thin and frail, the bulk of their muscles having all but disappeared. Furthermore, their once sleek and thick fur was falling out in clumps, and what did remain was matted and infested with some sort of fungus. Plus, upon closer look, Marcos could see all manner of insects squirming around, though whether they had been there before, or because they had been attracted by the blood leaking from the bullet holes, he had no idea.

Seeing the monsters that haunted his nightmares laid low, Marcos thought he would have felt some sense of glee, or vindication. But instead, right now in this very moment, all he could feel was… tired.

Sliding towards the ground, Marcos managed to find a stump to sit on before he collapsed onto the ground. No one said a word to him, which suited Marcos just fine as it allowed him a moment to just… take it all in.

"Lieutenant? Hey, LT: you alright there? Have you been wounded?"

Marcos dully looked up to see one of the Rangers had detached themselves from their comrades, and was now standing behind him. Then the Ranger's words registered.

"No. I'm fine," he quietly replied.

Even with the Ranger's visor polarized, Marcos could tell the soldier was giving him a skeptical look, but evidentially they didn't want to argue as they said instead, "LT, is your company commander around?"

Marcos raised an eyebrow. "I'm the company commander."

"Are you? Then where's the rest of your unit?"

Marcos gestured at the clearing. "You're looking at it."

"…Ah, my apologies then," the Ranger delicately said before unsealing their helmet and removing it, revealing a clean-shaven, dark-skinned man, with close-cropped hair, and golden eyes. "In that case: 1st Lieutenant Abraham Shibere, Item Company, 3rd Battalion, 22nd Ranger Group."

"1st Lieutenant Danilo Marcos, Alpha Company, 1-27th RR, 2nd Brigade, 25th Rifle Division, Newsaka Colonial Militia," Marcos tiredly returned.

"Pleasure. So, here's the deal, sir: my guys are trying to get a 9-line up, but we need to know how many transports we need. How many casualties did you guys take?"

Marcos started to do a mental tally, but then realized he had no idea. "I don't know."

"…okay. How are you fixed on ammo then?"

Marcos shrugged.

"…are you guys being recalled to base or are you expected to continue with your patrol?"

"Not a clue," Marcos apathetically replied.

Shibere visibly bit back a sigh.

"Lieutenant, I'm not trying to be an asshole here," his tone said otherwise, "but, uh, you sure you're in charge? Because you don't really seem to know what's going on."

Marcos gave a mirthless chuckle.

"I'm not supposed to be," he admitted, then paused as it suddenly occurred to him that as company commander, he technically outranked Shibere, but between the two of them, there was no question as to who was more competent. And because of that, he found himself confessing, "Two months ago, I was a buck private fresh out of OSUT. I didn't even finish: the Army graduated us two weeks early, just so they could have more bodies on the line."

Shibere didn't say a word; he just stood there and listened. And maybe, that was all it took, because Marcos found that once he started talking, he couldn't stop, and next thing he knew, the words were spilling out of mouth before he could stop them.

"So, now I'm here, and I'm fighting but I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing only, I know I've been thrown into the deep end and I'm struggling, you know? Just struggling to keep my head above the water, struggling to keep alive, and struggling to not mess up so badly, I get other people killed, you know? But then, just as I start to think things are going to be alright, I turn around and, and, everybody's dead and… and… I'm the only one left."

Marcos licked his lips, his throat suddenly feeling tight. "And I just wanna… you know, lay down and curl up into a ball but I can't because there's a war going on and you know, this is my home and… and then the Army comes up to me and tells me I'm in charge and I'm like 'why? I can barely tie my own shoes in the morning' and it turns out that in order to backfill the ranks, the Army is pulling in guys from the rear and now I'm like, one of three guys who have an infantry MOS which of course means I'm one of the only guys who 'knows what they're doing...'" Even now, weeks after the fact, Marcos had to laugh at that idea. He knew he sounded bitter, but he couldn't help it.

Looking up, he saw Shibere glancing at his men working nearby.

"You saying these guys aren't infantry?" he asked. Marcos snorted.

"Nah." He pointed at Private Bantawa, who was nearby helping the Rangers gather up the Covie weapons. "She's from battalion; she's our assistant armorer. She's supposed to be back in the rear fixing our guns but instead, she's up here using them."

He gestured at Deng, who was barking orders. "Staff Sergeant Deng is a supply sergeant assigned to our Forward Support Company. They made him company first sergeant because he already was an NCO."

He jerked his head at Phú, who was getting his neck wound treated by one of the Ranger medics. Despite the treatment, Marcos had a feeling he wasn't going to make it. "Private Phú there doesn't even have an MOS: he was halfway through Basic when the Covies invaded. Army graduated him and his class early, immediately sent them here to 'learn on the job.' Now look at him; he's probably not even going to make it back to BAS. He's going to die and be buried out here like everybody else."

Marcos sharply exhaled and reached up to scrub his eyes, stopping when he realized his hands were covered in blood. "God, these Covies are so… sira ulo! I mean, their fleet left three weeks ago. They aren't coming back, so why bother continuing to fight? I mean, seriously… hayop ka! Lumayas ka, lumayas ka!"

"Hey! Get back to work, Troopers!"

Marcos's head snapped up at Shibere's shout, and he looked around wildly to see his ranting had attracted the attention of everyone in the clearing, all of whom had stopped to stare at him as his volume had steadily increased. Shibere's shout had caused them all to immediately scramble to return to whatever they were doing, as well as give Marcos a chance to recompose himself.

"Hey, LT, I'm really sorry all this has happened to you. And I wish I could help out, I really do," and Marcos could tell Shibere genuinely meant it too, "but unfortunately, this is the Covenant's fault, and no one else. This is why we need to kill them all."

Marcos sniffed before slowly nodding his head. "I know. I just… well, once we get reinforcements, I'll think we'll be okay."

Shibere grimaced, and Marcos immediately felt his heart sink. "What? What is it?"

"I guess you haven't heard. Well, if you were on patrol, I suppose you couldn't have," was Shibere's reply.

"Heard what? What was I supposed to have heard?"

Shibere tsk'ed before saying, with obvious reluctance, "Its… all over the news but… yesterday, at fifteen hundred local time… the colony of Actium was invaded by the Covenant."

Marcos… just stared. Actium was… well, as bad at geography as he was, even he had heard of Actium. If it was under attack… that was not good, to say the least.

As he attempted to deal with that bomb drop of an update, Shibere continued to speak, sounding like he was a million miles away.

"Information is obviously lacking, but it's shaping up to be a big one. Bigger than here. Maybe even bigger than Draco III. Because of that, they're accelerating the withdraw of this colony; the only troop movements Newsaka is going to see is troops being moved off world. Hell, we just got word as we were jumping to reinforce you guys that this was our last op on this planet. The entire 22nd is being redeployed, combat troops and support elements alike. Everyone. They're not saying where we're going… but I think we can guess…"

Marcos opened his mouth to say… well, anything, really, but the sound of approaching Falcons distracted Shibere, and he quickly turned away to bark out orders to his soldiers.

"But," Marcos whispered. "This is our home."

Rough Translations from Tagalog:

"Punyeta": asshole

"Putanginang aso": fucking dog

"Pekpek": vagina

"Sira ulo": "stupid" but with an implication of madness or mental retardation

"Hayop ka! Lumayas ka! Lumayas ka!": You animals! Get out, get the hell out!

All translations taken from the English Wikipedia article titled "Tagalog profanity." I don't speak Tagalog, so I can't verify whether any of it is accurate. I am open to corrections.

General Notes:

Newsaka is a canon colony, but there is no indication there was ever a battle fought there. For the purpose of my stories, the Covenant invade in early 2545, a couple of weeks after they invaded the neighboring colony of Draco III. After two months of ground fighting using a primarily Brute army, and prompted by the victory over Draco III, the Covenant fleet (led by Sangheili) decided to abandon all forces in place and withdraw from the system (as the UNSC no longer had to divide their focus between two colonies.)

Despite this abandonment, the remaining Covenant forces would continue to fight, however the back of their defense would be broken in April during what would be known as the "Battle of Hill 937," (as depicted in the prologue of my other story, Missing in Action.)After the withdraw of all UNSC Army Airborne forces, local forces would stay behind to mop up the remaining Covenant forces as the UNSC put in a plan to abandon the colony themselves.

The "25th Rifle Division" is a reference to the 25th Infantry "Tropic Lightning" Division which, since 2014, has become the US Army's defacto "jungle warfare" division. It is not intended to have anything to do with the Soviet formation of the same name.