Defensive Perimeter, Evac Zone 009
Estuary, Thompson System
2538

CW3 Robert "Bob" Martell, H&S Company, 45th Marine Regiment, 21st MARDIV

"AMMO! AMMO! I NEED SOME MORE FUCKING AMMO- "

TINK!

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Martell looked up just in time to see Winston take a Needler straight to the head and he toppled over backwards, dead.

"Fuck! Somebody get on that Gimpy!" he roared. "Get the Gimpy back up! Somebody get that fucking Pig back in operation, now!"

"It's mine!" Lance Corporal Zarabi yelled as she slung her rifle over her shoulder and leapt for the machine gun. A second later, the Gimpy was back online, blazing away, however the momentary break in fire was costly.

"RUUK'INA!"

Martell glanced over the trench wall to see an entire file of Covenant soldiers charging at him. Pulling out a grenade, he thumbed the activation level, slammed the grenade against his helmet to prime it, then hurtled it in their direction. "FRAG OUT!"

The grenade soared through the air and exploded mid-air directly over a cluster of Grunts, throwing them to the ground. Grabbing his rifle, he emptied the magazine in their direction. "AHHHHHHHH!"

"Gunner!" Zarabi screamed. "Gunner! We can't hold out much longer!"

"Shut up and just keep shooting!" he yelled back.

"Where's our fire support!?"

"You're our fire support, goddammit!"

"Shit- LOOKOUT!"

Martell looked up to see a screaming Jackal run straight at him. In a panic, Martell fired at the Jackal, but it was all blocked by the Jackal's energy shield.

"Gunner! Get your head down!"

Martell immediately dove for the deck as a stream of tracers shot right over his head and slammed into the Jackal from the side. The Jackal tripped and toppled straight into the trench, its arm shield fizzling out, and Martell didn't hesitate, drawing his sidearm and blowing the alien away to Kingdom come. "Die motherfucker!"

"I'm out!" Zarabi warned. "I'm out of ammo! I need another belt, I need another belt!"

"We ain't got one!" Martell yelled back, ducking as a series of plasma bolts splattered against the ground nearby. "Ditch the tripod and fall back! I'll cover!"

"Shit!" Zarabi snarled as she removed the machine gun from its mount and hefted it onto her shoulder. "Bounding!"

Racking the chambering handle, Martell stood up and rapid fired down range. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Zarabi running back down the trench and he waited a few seconds before turning to follow.

"CHKHAA PKHA NISHUM!"

Martell glanced over his shoulder and instinctively ducked as a volley of plasma splatted against the trench wall behind him. A Skirmisher – plasma pistol blazing away – leapt straight at him, but Martell was able to snag the alien out of the sky and throw it against the wall. Before the Skirmisher could recover, Martell was already all over it. Grabbing the alien's hand, Martell repeatedly smashed it against the wall until the creature dropped its weapon before viciously kneeing it in the stomach.

Too close for even a bullpup rifle to shoot, Martell reached out and grabbed hold of an entrenching shovel leaning against the wall nearby. Raising it over his head, he brought it down swiftly, but the Skirmisher was able to bring its arm up in time and the edge of the shovel embedded itself into the alien's forearm.

"AGHHHHHH!" the Skirmisher screamed with both pain and anger.

"Stupid motherfucker!" Martell snarled as he yanked the shovel out. "Die already!"

Wrenching the Skirmisher's arm out of the way, Martell swung the shovel once more, this time finding the creature's neck. Dark purple arterial blood sprayed out, coating the shovel, the wall, the ground, but the stupid alien refused to die right away, desperately clawing at Martell's chest plate, trying to find a recess. Tearing the shovel out, Martell swung and swung and swung until the Skirmisher was all but decapitated, finally going still.

Leaving the shovel embedded in the Skirmisher's neck, he paused long enough to grab Winston's dog tags before retreating down the trench.

"Rover-06, this is 08: we lost the MG nest! I say again, we lost the forward machine gun nest. We can't hold it!" he yelled into his microphone.

"Goddammit. Alright, acknowledged, I'm pulling the frontline back. Without that strongpoint, we're not going to be able to hold!"

"Where the hell is all our support!" Martell frantically cried. "We need reinforcements!"

"FLEETCOM said they sent us a strike package. Do you see said strike package?"

"All I see are bad guys!"

Rover-06 sighed. "Alright, let me see where they ended up. Wait one. Out."

Lowering his radio, Martell worked his way to the next trench yelling, "FRIENDLY! FRIENDLY!"

"GUNNER! OVER HERE!"

Martell divert and threw himself into the dugout where Zarabi and Master Gunnery Sergeant Wyatt were holed out in.

"Gunner, where the hell are our reinforcements!?" Wyatt demanded to know before Martell even had a chance to get inside.

"We're working on it!" Martell retorted, firing a few rounds at the approaching Covenant, only to have to duck from the return barrage. "Lance Corporal, did you find another belt?"

"Yes!" Zarabi distractedly yelled as she fired her rifle.

"Then why the hell aren't you using it!?"

"It's not working and I dunno why!"

"Give it!"

Zarabi kicked the general purpose machine gun in his direction and he quickly checked it over. Feed tray, belt, chambering handle, headspace-

"How the fuck did you fuck up the headspace!?" he roared as he worked to recalibrate the Gimpy.

"I don't fucking know! I'm a goddamn administrative specialist, not a fucking 0300 series!"

"'Every Marine is a rifleman, first and foremost!'" both he and Wyatt immediately retorted.

"With all due respect, Gunner and Master Guns, shut the fuck up!"

"INCOMING!"

As one, all three of them dove for cover as a series of fuel rod cannons came screaming in. The entire ground shook as they discharged their payloads and in the distance, Martell could hear someone screaming for a corpsman.

"Here! Take this thing back!"

Zarabi grabbed the machine gun and stuck it out the embrasure as Martell turned to Wyatt. "What's the situation in the rear!?"

"Evacuations are preceding! Colonial authorities have evacuated roughly three quarters of all the civilians!"

"We gotta hold out until the rest make it!" Martell demanded.

"We can't do that unless we get more fucking reinforcements!"

"Colonel said that the Navy sent us a strike package!"

"What strike package!? I don't see no fucking strike package!"

"Neither do I!" Martell admitted. "I was hoping I had missed something!"

"With the amount of Covies out there, the only way you could miss is if you tried!"

"That's not what I mean, Master Guns, and you know it!"

"Here they come again!" Zarabi warned and Martell immediately rushed to the trench wall-

- and felt his jaw drop at the sight of nearly a thousand Covenant soldiers charging straight at their position. He frantically began running some numbers.

A Marine infantry reserve unit like the 45th had roughly 3500 Marines assigned to it. Over the last day, the regiment had been whittled down to maybe a seventh of their original size, and many of those who had been lost had been the frontline riflemen, leaving the POGs and REMFs and senior operations staff like Zarabi and Wyatt to pick up the slack. A thousand fanatical Covenant warriors charging at them? With them barely holding onto their trenches without any reinforcements or fire support?

"We gotta pull back!" Wyatt yelped.

"We can't," Martell replied, a chill going down his spine. "We're the only force left standing between the Covenant and those civilians. We break, they die. We can't allow that to happen."

"But we can't hold without reinforcements!" Zarabi protested.

"Then we break. But before we do, we make the Covies pay in blood for every centimeter they take. Come on, Devil Dogs! We're the 45th Marine Regiment! 'The Stubborn Ones!'" he roared. "It's time to live up to our nickname! WE HOLD!"

Martell wasn't sure if his speech was enough to motivate his Marines, nor did he have a chance to find out because it was that exact moment plasma began flying through the air and everyone was suddenly too busy fighting for their lives to care. As he pumped round after round downrange, Martell found himself reciting a warrior's creed he and his friends had invented just after finishing SOI under his breath for motivation.

"I am a United Nations Space Command Marine," he whispered to himself as he fired. "I am a master of my craft, a weapon of war."

His rounds cut a bloody scythe through the front ranks of the attackers, but the Covenant had deliberately stacked their vanguard with Grunt to soak up the gunfire, allowing the larger aliens a chance to return fire. Purple needles and blue plasma bolts began saturating the ground in front of him, forcing him to duck.

"I was born in the chaos of conflict and forged by the hammer of battle," he continued as he waited for the barrage to abate before surging upright and continuing to fire.

"Look out! On the right! Zarabi, get that fucking Elite!"

Tracers skipped off the ground as the Elite dove behind a destroyed Ghost for cover; Martell waited until the Elite poked its head up and removed it for him.

"Reloading!" he warned before continuing his recital.

"The blood of my enemies is my nourishment," he said as he reloaded, "while the drums of battle is my enrichment. With my rifle in hand and my bayonet in my other, I am complete."

"Hey!" Zarabi abruptly screamed, snapping Martell out of his battle reverie. "I'm out of ammo, I'm black on ammo!"

"Switch to your rifle!"

"I'm out of ammo on that too!" Zarabi admitted. "I need a mag!"

"We don't have any; this is my last one!" Wyatt protested.

"Fuck! What am I supposed to do now!? Use harsh language and obscene hand gestures!?"

"Here, take this!" Martell volunteered, tossing her his sidearm.

"Thanks! INCOMING!"

The warning came a split second too late. There was a thunderous explosion, one that knocked everyone off their feet, and as he tried to regain his bearings, Martell glanced over to his left to see part of the trench wall had been blown inwards, killing the Marines defending there and creating a breach, one the Covenant were already charging towards. "Breach! WE GOT A BREACH!"

"PLUG THAT HOLE!"

Other Marines were rushing in to bring their weapons to bear, but it was clear to Martell the Covenant would get there first. There was only one thing they could do. "Marines! Fix bayonets!"

"Oh, fuck!" he heard Zarabi yelp as he yanked out his bayonet and slipped it over the muzzle of his rifle. "Oh fuck, oh fuck!"

Tightly gripping his rifle to try and stop his hands from shaking, Martell braced himself as he whispered the last line of his creed. "I fear no evil for I know I am the baddest motherfucker to walk the galaxy."

With a bone-chilling shriek, a Jackal leapt into the trench. Martell didn't let it do anything else; he lunged forward and plunged his bayonet straight into the alien's chest. The Jackal screamed in pain and Martell swiftly withdrew his rifle only to stab forward once more, plunging the blade into the alien's eye. The Jackal still wasn't dead yet though, and Martell raised his weapon once more to finally finish it off.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he spun around to see another Jackal swinging some sort of blade at his head. Intercepting the swing with his rifle, he was able to deflect the blade to the side, knocking the Jackal off-balance, and quickly retaliated, walloping the Jackal in the face with the butt of his rifle and sending the creature sprawling to the ground. He raised his rifle to shoot the creature in the head but then, without warning, a scaly arm grabbed Martell from behind and began to place him in a chokehold, only for there to be a sudden shout of pain and arm withdrew just as quickly as it appeared.

Whirling around, Martell was confronted with the sight of an Elite Minor reaching behind it, desperately trying to remove the combat knife Zarabi had planted in the alien's back. Not willing to give the creature even the remotest change of recovery, Martell jabbed forward, stabbing the Elite straight in the neck. The Elite collapsed, writhing, and without exchanging a word, both he and Zarabi began stabbing the alien over and over again until they were both covered in blood and the Elite was very dead.

"HOLD THE LINE!" Wyatt was screaming from somewhere above him. "HOLD THE GODDAMN- AH!"

Martell snapped his head up to see Wyatt had been tackled to the ground by a Skirmisher, and he moved to help him out, but another Jackal got in his way. Without hesitation, he punched the Jackal in the jaw, knocking the alien down and stepped aside to allow Zarabi to finish it off, but then a Grunt jumped down on him, swinging its plasma pistol. Martell was knocked onto his ass but he was able to raise his rifle in time and shoot the Grunt in the head, but then another Grunt leapt into the trench, followed by another Jackal, and then another Covenant, and another, and another…

"We're getting overrun!" Zarabi screamed as she frantically reloaded.

"Hold the line!" Martell desperately yelled back. "Hold the fucking line!"

They kept fighting, but it was quickly becoming a losing battle as more and more Marines began to fall. Martell fired off the last of his ammo and just about ready to throw himself into a crowd of Covies for one last suicidal attack when… a miracle seemed to happen…

Martell didn't even notice at first, but then the horde of aliens in front began withdrawing. No- not withdrawing…

It took Martell a moment to realize what he was seeing. The Covies weren't withdrawing… they were redeploying, hurriedly turning around to face someone or something that was attacking them from the rear. And they were doing so in such a rush, they were abandoning the Marines even though they had yet to be defeated.

"What the… what the hell is happening?"

Martell jumped and whirled around, only to see Wyatt limping towards him. "Master Guns! You alright?"

"Yeah. That goddamn Skirmisher just took off; didn't even try to finish me off or anything," Wyatt said, sounding mystified. "Not that I'm complaining but… what the hell!?"

Martell shook his head. "No idea. Must be pretty serious though."

"Serious enough for them to expose their backs to us?"

"Guys, look!" Zarabi suddenly gasped.

Out of sheer habit, Martell almost started berating her for her casual address of them, but then he noticed where she was pointing and paused. Looking beyond the Covenant lines, he thought he saw –

Then he spotted them. Three humanoid figures, clad head to toe in heavy green armor. Wearing a helmet with a shiny golden visor. They were advancing across the field, spaced twenty-five meters apart, but it was clear they were all together as every move they made was synchronized and well-coordinated, with each individual covering their own sector, but still retained enough margin of freedom to support each other despite the distance. It was these three the entire Covenant army had turned to face head on and, oh, Martell could see why.

As an infantry weapons officers, Martell was trained and well-versed in the tactical employment of every single infantry weapon in the UNSC's arsenal. But he had never seen a person or Marine handle a weapon as well as these individuals were right now. Despite there only being three of them, despite them facing well over three hundred Covenant soldiers, the armored figures were cutting a bloody scythe through the ranks of the Covies.

He watched the one in the center – whom he presumed was the leader based on absolutely nothing – fire an MA5C rifle into the crowd in front of them as they charged forward, moving from cover to cover. Not only was every single round a hit, every single shot was a fatal one, and instantly thirty-two Covenant Jackals and Grunts toppled to the ground, dead, in the time it took Martell to draw a single breath. Out of ammo, the War God (because there was no other way for Martell to describe them) yanked out a grenade and hurtled it at a nearby Elite, timing it perfectly so that the bomb exploded against the alien's head like it was an impact grenade. As the Elite recoiled, shield flashing, the War God whipped out a sidearm and shot the Elite once through the head, then proceeded to headshot six other aliens like they were a gunslinger from one of those Old-World American westerns.

The Covenant attempted to return fire, but the War God was no longer there, having ducked behind a long destroyed Warthog, only to emerge from the other side, rifle blazing once more; presumably, they had reloaded in the split second they were out of sight. Thirty-two more Covenant bodies graced the ground.

Meanwhile, at the same time, the War God on the left was engaging their own cluster of Covies, though unlike the one in the center, this one had a machine gun. However, upon closer look, Martell was startled to realize it wasn't the standard M247 belt-fed Gimpy, but rather an M247H heavy machine gun, which they were welding like it was a squad automatic rifle instead of the .50cal beast that it truly was. As expected, unlike the center figure, there were no fancy maneuvers with this one, just pure slaughter as they fired burst after burst into the crowd. Grunts, Jackals, Skirmishers, or Elites, it didn't matter, the HEIAP rounds they were firing didn't discriminate; it cut through everyone equally and in many cases, cut through two or three aliens at the same time. Needles and plasma flew at the God in a futile attempt to halt the massacre, but they just bounced off their armor.

Finally on the far right, the final figure was conducting their own war. They were welding two M7 submachine guns akimbo style, which was something Martell had only seen once in his twenty years with the Corps. And the Marine that had been firing said SMGs had promptly been knocked on their ass by the recoil while the few rounds they had managed to let off while standing had hit everything but the target.

That was not the case here. Bullets flew in all directions as the armored figure unloaded on the Covies, sometimes alternating between SMGs, sometimes firing both at the same time. Every single one of lesser aliens received a precise, three-round burst to the face, while the Elites generally took upwards of nine bullets because of their shields, but the same amount of rounds hit every single alien type every single time. Every. Single. Time. Martell had never seen such consistency outside of AIs, and for a moment he couldn't help but wonder if these three were actually robots being controlled by AIs because surely no human could do the feats they were pulling off.

Right?

"Oh my god!" Zarabi abruptly squealed – squealed – sounding for the first time since Martell had known her, her actual age of nineteen, and making Martell feel oh so old. "Oh my god, ohmygod!"

"What? What is it Lance Corporal?" Martell worriedly asked, tearing his eyes away from the spectacle in case he was missing an approaching threat. But Zarabi was still staring at the figures.

"Oh my god! Don't you know what those are?"

Martell exchanged a puzzled look with Wyatt.

"No?" Martell weakly replied.

"Gunner, those are Spartans!"

"Spartans?" he and Wyatt echoed as they looked across the field once more.

He had heard of Spartans before of course – what Marine hadn't – but having been in the business for as long as he had, Martell had long learned how to spot ONI propaganda, and every story he had heard about Spartans had seemed to fit the description to a 'T.' After all, some of the feats the Spartans had supposedly done outright broke the laws of physics as he knew it, so surely all the stories had to be made up.

Just propaganda.

Now, gazing across the increasingly bloody battlefield, Martell was starting to get the feeling he was going to have his BS gauge recalibrated.

By now, most if not all the Grunts, Jackals, and Skirmishers had been killed, leaving behind a large group of Elites (the pussies.) Their leader, a battered looking Elite Ultra, took one look at the Spartans and immediately tossed its plasma rifle to the ground. Not to surrender, no, but instead to pull out its plasma sword, causing all the other Elites to follow suit. As one, they let out a challenging bellow and charged the Spartans in a 'Banzai' style attack, and Martell found himself holding his breath, waiting to see what the Spartans would do next.

They didn't disappoint. Instead of giving the Elites any degree of respect by playing their game, all three promptly opened fire, blasting through the front ranks before the Elites could even get close. Elite after Elite toppled to the ground, but they weren't deterred and instead, continued to charge, trampling over the bodies of those who had fallen before them. And as good as the Spartans were, there was no denying there was a certain strength in numbers and eventually, the inevitable happened: the Spartans ran out of ammo.

- but not out of resolve as they tossed their empty weapons aside and pulled out blades of their own. And rather than wait for the tidal wave to come to them, they immediately went on the offensive. And what happened next was almost indescribable.

Naked steel danced through the air, weaving patterns too elaborate for Martell to follow. Elites rushed at the trio hoping to win honor and glory, only to have their arms, legs, and other appendages cleanly sliced off, leaving them to hobble there in shock before their throats were slit. Martell always considered himself a pretty well trained Marine – he had a 1st degree black belt in MCMAP after all – but he knew he could train for a thousand years and never come close to the skill on display now.

Eventually, all the Elites were dead, leaving the Ultra as the only one standing. Absurdly, despite having seen its entire Army slaughtered in front of it, the Ultra somehow still thought it could take on the Spartans, rushing at the rifle welding Spartan with a loud cry. The Ultra made a desperate, overhead swing at the Spartan's head, but the Spartan was able to grab the sword by its hilt, stopping it.

For a moment, the two titans stood there, struggling to gain control of the sword before, rather abruptly, the Spartan whipped out some sort of holdout pistol and shot the Ultra in the stomach at point-blank range.

The Ultra let out a very satisfying cry of pain and dropped to its knees, allowing the Spartan to seize the plasma sword and – in a move that almost looked like it came straight from a video game – swiftly and cleanly beheaded the alien bastard.

And just like that, the battle was over.

A sort of ringing noise filled Martell's ears as he looked around in shock, barely believing what he was seeing. Shell-shocked Marines stumbled out from their trenches, and Martell knew he should be doing a headcount, figuring out their loses, but he found he couldn't move. Then Zarabi let out a loud squeak, and he turned around to see the Spartans were walking towards him.

"Gunner Robert Martell? Master Gunnery Sergeant Everett Wyatt?" they asked in a deep voice, and Martell felt a sudden and absurd urge to kneel to them.

"Yes?" he squeaked, before quickly clearing his throat. "Yes, that's us. To whom do I have the honor of speaking to?"

Much to his shock, the Spartan immediately snapped to attention. "Petty Officer Second Class Sierra-029, Navy Strike Package: Gold Team, reporting for duty, sir."

"You're the Navy Strike Package!?" Wyatt exclaimed from beside him, sounding shocked to his core. Not that Martell could blame him as he felt the same.

"Aye, Master Guns," the Spartan replied. "Apologies for the delay, sir. We realized this would have been the most optimal time to infiltrate the Covenant's headquarters and eliminate the Zealot leading this Army."

"You assassinated their leader!?" Zarabi blurted out, only to shrink as the Spartan turned his gaze towards her.

"That is correct, Lance Corporal," the Spartan calmly replied. "We felt there would be more of a strategic impact in doing so. We had hoped to arrive in the field in time to save more of your men, however…"

The Spartan trailed off and clearly glanced at the many Marine bodies lying motionless on the ground, and Martell felt a stab of pity for this Spartan. Who knew even Gods could feel?

"Son," Martell said as gently as he could, addressing the Spartan as he would one of his men, even though he felt slightly foolish in doing so. "You did what you had to. As did we. We knew what we were getting ourselves into and to fight and die on behalf of Mankind… I don't think there's a greater honor than that."

The Spartan didn't seem convinced. Of course, Martell couldn't see the Spartan's face so he had no idea what the Spartan was even thinking of, so perhaps Martell was projecting, but after a moment of silence, the Spartan looked up.

"The Covenant may have been defeated for now, but they will return, and in greater numbers. I recommend reorganizing your defenses; with your permission, Gunner, I would like to assets your lines and determine where my team could best contribute to your defenses. We will hold our ground until all civilians have been evacuated."

As if he would stop them. Nevertheless, Martell turned to Wyatt and gestured for him to show them around. Shooting him an awestruck look, Wyatt turned to escort them away.

As the Spartans headed towards the rear, Martell finally gave into his urge and dropped to his knees.

"God bless," he whispered after them. "god bless you all."

General Notes

The first thing to know about this chapter, is that it is heavily influenced by the 2021 cinematic trailer for the game, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

I wrote this chapter because I was writing a different chapter from the POV of a Spartan. And as weird as it sounds considering what universe I write in, I'm actually not a huge fan of writing Spartan POVs; when it comes to superhuman/superhero POVs just in general, I personally feel that you can't always depict them that way. On occasion, you need to depict them from the viewpoint of a normal being because if you're always showing them from the POV of themselves or other superbeings, their actions become normalized, and your audience loses some of the awe and understanding of just how crazy and spectacular some of the things these superbeings are doing.

The reason why I used the trailer as inspiration for this chapter is because I love the way they show the awe and reverence the Imperial Guard have for the Space Marines, and I feel like you would see a similar, near-worshipping attitude towards Spartans in the Halo Universe (barring certain elements of the ODSTs, of course.)

As for the actions of the Spartans in this chapter, I feel like Spartans are depicted as being very strategic-minded, with a huge focus on the overall picture. That's not to say they sacrifice people needlessly – Master Chief is shown to be very emphatic to his fellow non-Spartans in the books even if he can't necessarily relate to them on a personal level – and often times they are capable of formulating plans that allow them to achieve their strategic objectives while minimizing casualties. However I think when push comes to shove, they would be the "mission comes first" type of soldiers.

The Spartan depicted in this chapter is a canon Spartan-II: Joshua-029 of Gold Team, but aside from that, I actually don't know much about him. I didn't want to use a well-known Spartan like anyone from Blue Team, but at the same time, I didn't want to make up one of my own so I just chose the name from the list on Halopedia (after verifying he was still alive in 2549, of course.)

The 45th Marine Regiment from which the POV character is part of is actually a canon unit (the regiment or at least elements of it were onboard the UNSC Spirit of Fire when it went MIA) but its nickname of "The Stubborn Ones" is not. In the US military, almost every combat unit has a nickname or a motto or both. In this case, the nickname was inspired by former British Army regiment, the 45th (Nottinghamshire) (Sherwood Foresters) Regiment of Foot which, according to Wikipedia, was nicknamed "Old Stubborns."