Halo: Feet First

by MikeDice

Halo: Feet First covers the story of a team of UNSC Orbital Drop Shock Troopers of the 7th Battalion, 105th Shock Troops Division. The main character, Duncan Iris, faces the full horror of the covenant war effort against humanity as well as the brave retaliation of outnumbered and outgunned UNSC forces. However, he also witnesses the turning of the tides as the war progresses.

193. Battle of Reach - Chapter 66 (Damna)

Chapter 66 – Damna

June 1st, 2526 - (13:10 Hours - Military Calendar)

Epsilon Indi System, Harvest

Edda, Gladsheim

(26 Years Ago)

:********:

The valley to the southwest of the western hills opposite the first AA gun was a lot steeper than Don was expecting. The gaps between the adjacent lines of rocky outcrops allowed for an acute zigzag of switchback trails to snake from the north hills to the south. Either side of the valley was covered in the leftovers of a dead forest that was much denser than it was elsewhere. It faded off near the very bottom where the dry swaths of a former river once ran through it, now reduced to a pebbly riverbed that was bare of anything remotely reminiscent of water.

Past the southern lip of the valley ridge was a rising column of smoke that stemmed from somewhere just out of sight.

The blue arrowhead of a Nav point winked on over a portion of the ridge directly ahead, marked at '300m.'

Don picked up the pace with everyone else, not that they weren't going fast as it was. Sprinting down the north side of the valley, the furthest ahead of them would routinely stop to plant themselves behind a tree or a boulder to monitor the surrounding area, covering the others as they passed by before trailing after them.

Don slipped behind a fallen log to track the opposing ridge with his rifle, scanning for movement from one end to the next. There was nothing of note beside the rising smoke column. However, there was plenty of sound.

The landscape allowed the stochastic rhythm of what was obviously a firefight to be carried well into the hills, echoing from surface to surface. The deep thuds of explosions likewise made it clear that their friend in the Marines wasn't the only survivor.

The corporal patted him on the back as he passed by, prompting him to displace and run after him.

Further on, the surface of the northern switchback was leveling off. He could see where it joined and broadened out onto what was once the bank of the old river. Ray was already there, aiming his newly acquired sniper from behind the trunk of a tree while the Sarge led the rest of the lineup across the riverbed.

They moved up onto the southern face of the valley in a similar fashion. Though the region had been thoroughly stripped of natural life, the charred trees grew even more dense. It gave them no choice but to adhere to the next switchback trail. They cut corners where they could, however, squeezing through gaps in the woods to allow them to skip further ahead at the widest turns along the path.

After a minute, they clambered up to the top of the valley. The squad skirted around the edge of a tall outcrop and crouched out onto a broad, relatively even section of the ridge. The trees here were mostly cut down, incidentally giving them an encompassing view of what lay on the other side.

It was another valley.

Though not as steep as the one they had just crossed, it was far wider, far deeper and even more heavily forested by dead trees...save for a long impact scar that had been carved across the bottom. There, the trees were either reduced to stumps or had been crushed aside.

Don traced the scar's length about 100-meters westward to where it ended around the overturned bulk of a Pelican dropship. It was lying belly up with small flames burning along its hull like bundles of sprouting weeds. Half of its starboard wing had been left behind further back within the debris field strewn along the impact scar. Its cargo bay door, however, was still open and the survivors of the crash had gathered outside of it.

A squad of Marines had dispersed themselves across the newly made clearing to the rear of the dropship. Five of them were visible, using fallen logs, boulders and pieces of wreckage for cover while they fired seemingly in every direction, doing so even as every direction appeared to be firing right back.

Plasma bolts whipped past them from whining muzzle flashes across either side of the valley. They came from high and low, stemming from behind trees and boulders, forging a whizzing maelstrom of blues, greens and pinks contested by lesser strokes of yellow tracers offered up in reply.

The Marines were pinned. Worse yet, it was clear that they hadn't always been just a squad. Several more of them lay dead in nearby positions, bloodied, blasted and burnt. Don thought he could see more bodies hanging limply from the restraints of their seats inside the dropship, but his eyes were swiftly stolen by a scene playing out in front of the cargo bay.

A Warthog lay there on its side. Even so, its turret was speaking, responding to the chatter of multi-colored munitions streaming in from the higher faces of the valley, particularly from the south. Don closed in a bit more with his visor magnification.

A Marine was behind the turret, hosing away at enemy positions in the upper elevations. The bullet stream was methodical, switching regularly between laying down swipes of suppression fire and focusing in on specific targets that were just out of view.

Ray leveled his sniper rifle and sighted in through the scope. "...Well, I'll be, that's Forge on the gun, sir. He's really lettin'em have it."

"Roger that. Alright, here's what-"

"Friendly dropship, west." Izzy called out.

The squad whirled in that direction.

Just as Izzy had said, a Pelican was flying in from their right, more than a few hundred meters above the valley floor. Its destination was obvious even before it commenced a hasty descent towards the crash site.

Suddenly, several streaks of gleaming blue orbs sputtered skyward from several locations across the upper and lower reaches of the valley. The luminous spheres twitched and turned, reorienting themselves towards the Pelican on tails of glimmering plasma.

The dropship immediately reared up, its autocannon barking down, firing at targets that were too well hidden in the thick graveyard of the forestry to see. Gouts of dust and pulverized rubble arose in response, but the Pelican was eventually forced to end its strike run with an abortive turn to starboard. The maneuver caused one of the approaching plasma clusters to rush past its fuselage in a near miss even as a second cluster latched onto its underbelly. They detonated in a series of consecutive flashes that blasted holes into its stomach, each bleeding out entrails of smoke that elongated as the dropship attempted to fly back to the west. It dipped its nose into a shallow dive that caused another cluster to zip past, tilting to port in order to let a fourth soar by.

A new round of plasma orbs surged skyward, angling towards the escaping Pelican. It tilted and swung hard to starboard to let the closest cluster rush past, but another flew into its raised port wing, grabbing onto it like a group of glowing leeches that glowed even brighter before exploding, ripping the wing away in a spray of burning fragments. As it swung again into a deepening pitch, the third cluster reached its tail while a fourth grabbed onto the bottom of the cockpit.

Several explosions went off all at once before a more powerful blast swallowed the Pelican whole, shattering it into a windfall of debris both large and small that rained across the western stretch of the valley. The wreckage hit the surrounding hills and began rolling down towards the bottom like swarms of fiery tumbleweeds.

The squad was silent for a full three seconds, by the end of which the Sarge was shaking his head. "So it's definitely a ground game then."

"Someone should've told the pilots that." Chris said without a hint of sarcasm.

"Here's how we're going to play this. There's a high chance that AA fire is coming from shoulder-mounted weapons, so I doubt we're looking for any cannons. Either way, they're not a priority. We're going to have to extract these Marines the hard way. Fox-8, you're on overwatch. Find yourself a good position, lock it down and start prioritizing any armored contacts you see focusing in on that Pelican, mainly Gators. I'll need you to soften them up to buy our guys enough time for us to make it to them."

"I'm lone wolfing this one, sir?" Ray asked.

"You're no stranger to it. I also need you to be our anchor. You'll hold this end of our exfil until we're clear. Everyone else, we're swinging down over the north. They don't know we're here yet. We need to keep it that way for as long as possible. We'll work our way through them until we clear out an extraction corridor for Forge's Marines, then we'll link up with Fox-8 and book it back to Ferret-1 and 4-Actual's position. Is that clear?"

"Copy." The squad replied.

"Fox-3, you take 4 and 7 and swing right. As for 6 and 9, you're with me. We swing left. Fox-6 and 7, use your launchers for crowd control and hard targets, whether that's shielded or armored. Me, 3, 4 and 9 will chip away at their little guys and take it from there. Stay quiet for as long as you can and don't ruin the surprise until I tell you to. After that-..." The Sarge took another hard look at the fighting in the valley below. "After that, don't stop pushing, not until we've got the immediate area around the bird relatively secure, at least enough to pull them out of there."

"Sounds like our kind of fun." Ray quipped.

Chris side-eyed him. "Not the word I'd use."

"Ready?" The Sarge asked.

Like everyone else, Don nodded, although he felt the same anxiousness hanging in the air that everyone else seemed to feel. It was going to be touch and go for however long it took them to return the favor to Forge.

Then without another word the Sarge stood and started off, jumping down the short fall to the beginning of the decline. He landed, skidding for a full meter before he got enough traction to run. Don and the others jumped down with him, keeping a steady hand to the ground as its gravel surface skidded beneath their boots.

Once they were able, they pushed off into a run and split off into their teams. Ray pivoted westward towards a wooded outcrop a short jog away which overlooked the valley. Gad, Foss and Izzy drifted right towards a trail that ran through the shattered husks of an old grove. Don meanwhile followed Chris and the Sarge to the left towards a downward sloping dell that hemmed the residuals of a dried-up brook.

Before long they were far apart, and after less than half a minute he couldn't see the rest of the squad.

They moved fast and kept their steps light. The dell offered a moderately navigable path that was sufficiently hidden by the skeletonized trees around it to keep any outside observers from noticing them. They were shrouded from sight while their route dipped and curved down the north side of the valley.

The patter and whine of the fighting grew louder, and Don's hearing grew sharper. He shifted his gaze from left to right, ever mindful of the potential of running into a rearguard that just so happened to be passing by.

None showed themselves.

After a minute even he had to admit that things were going surprisingly well. Despite the ruckus of the area, there was no indication that the enemy had realized they were about to be flanked, and with the old hammer and anvil trick no less.

Soon the dell rose up and began leveling off with the general descent of the valley, slowly depriving them of its cover. Before it did, however, the Sarge held up a fist and flicked his hand in a 'spread out' gesture.

The three of them split off to the sides of the dell to hunker down behind a group of blackened birch trees.

"Three Gassers on the plateau, 10-meters up." The Sarge comm'd. "They haven't seen us...keep it quiet."

Don understood. He placed his MA5 on his harness and carefully slid his combat knife from its sheath.

"Left." The Sarge said.

"Right." Chris added.

Don nodded. "Middle."

"...Go."

The three of them moved out from cover and stepped softly over to where the dell ended at a minor plateau. A group of three Gassers were camping out at the tree line running along the top of it. These were slightly different from the norm. Their armor was covered in white accents that contrasted with their black, amphibious physiology. They were also wearing fully enclosed helmets, none of which were focused on the three threats slowly closing in from the rear.

Two of them were watching the skies with shoulder mounted weapons that looked like a strange combination between an arm-sized diorama of an orca and a rocket launcher. The third was obviously some kind of security, although it was fully invested in firing its plasma rifle down at the wreck site below.

The three of them were chatting amongst themselves in that high-pitched gibberish that served as their language.

The Sarge stalked towards the one with the launcher on the left. Chris moved towards its partner on the right. Don went straight ahead, making for the one with the rifle. He swiveled his knife in his hand to get a better grip on the handle, the sunlight glinting down the length of the blade with the motion.

They moved in and stayed low, none of them making a sound. Then the Sarge gave a final nod and the three of them lunged across the final step.

Don rushed his quarry, shooting an arm around its shoulder to wrench its chin up. Its surprised scream melted into a muffled gurgle as he whipped his knife across its throat. Blue blood spewed over his bracers. The Gasser dropped its rifle and writhed with its arms, trying to get its hands around him, an act he punished by burying his blade into the base of its neck and twisting it. The creature seized up, its large limbs trembling then falling limp. Don let it drop to its knees but didn't let go until the last of its gurgling fell quiet.

He wrenched his knife free and flicked the blood away, listening as the death squeals of the other two began to diminish. The one on the left didn't quite fade, however, hanging on stubbornly until several succinct pops left it silent.

Beside him, the Sarge let his kill drop onto its stomach as if he had done nothing more than crack his knuckles, though the abnormal orientation of the alien's head said otherwise.

"Fox-1?" Chris crouched beside the growing pool of blood beside his own kill, pointing to the odd-looking launcher. "Should we keep it?"

The Sarge shook his head as he sheathed his knife. "We'll have to send someone back for it if we have the time, but right now that stays right where it is."

Ray's voice reached them over the comms. "I'm in position. From what I can tell, we're looking at about 25 Covenant north of the crash and possibly just as many to the south."

"Composition?"

"Six Gators, eight Buzzards and eleven Gassers."

"Any of those big ones with the shields?"

"Negative."

Don breathed a sigh of relief.

"We might need some help from the Marines to pull this one off, sir." Ray advised.

"No worries, already figured that in."

"Fox-1, we're about 50-meters northwest of the crash, it's about as close as we can get." Gad said. "We're in these guys' blind spot. Are you in place, over?"

"Negative. We ran into some of the ones that shot our boys down. They're out of the way but we'll need another minute to match your position."

"Roger that."

The Sarge pulled out his DMR and got them moving again. Don and Chris trailed him to a side of the plateau and down the slope onto a lower stretch of the valley.

Somehow, the trees here grew even more dense. Despite not having much of anything in the way of a canopy, the unexpected variety of barks and branches turned the world beyond a certain point into a chaotic latticework of light that flitted by as they ran. The undergrowth, however, was eradicated for the most part, giving them virtually no resistance when it came to covering more ground. Nevertheless, it started to come in more gradually, a few tufts of grass here and a miraculously intact fern there.

Soon, as the valley around them leveled off even more, the ground became submerged beneath a sparse layering of shrubs that had obviously proved resilient enough to survive the orbital bombardment. They were also large enough to hide behind. Alongside the increasing number of boulders, they had everything they needed to make a stealthy approach.

The sounds of fighting had grown close, so close that Don could see a sporadic lightshow unfolding in the trees up ahead.

It wouldn't be long now.

Without warning, the air above the valley flashed a bright blue. The ground started to rumble a second before the roar of a tremulous explosion reverberated through the area, resonating from the east, from the direction they had come.

"Sounds like the demo job's done." Chris said. "How long until they reach us do you think?"

"Couldn't say." The Sarge replied. "Maybe five minutes, maybe ten. Whatever the case, they're at least on their way now."

After a few more strides, the Sarge slowed, prompting Don and Chris to do the same. A new Nav point popped up within a cluster of trees a short distance in front of them.

"Five-meter spread. Stay low and move in."

They spread out as ordered, crouching the last few steps to the navigation point and hunkering down among the trees, positioning themselves so as to maximize the amount of concealment offered by the ferns.

Don set his rifle atop the exposed roots of what was once a large willow whose few remaining strands of leaves draped down towards the forest floor like the last hairs of a balding head. He nestled himself into a natural alcove between the roots and got his bearings.

About 30-meters ahead of them, the trees of the valley dwindled away towards the edge of the impact scar. He could see the Pelican lying upside down at its westward end. The cockpit window was shattered. A collection of jagged holes with the black manes of blast marks marred the length of its fuselage all the way down to the end of the cargo bay. The squad of Marines were still there, struggling to keep their heads down while staving off the waves of return fire crashing into them from every direction. Even the turret on the sideways Warthog was still ripping into the surrounding woods, competing with an opposition that remained just out of sight. He could see Forge himself on the gun. The sergeant was lying on his side in order to better maneuver the weapon, both ignoring and responding to the few shots that strayed close to him.

Forge and his men were putting up a good fight, but Don could feel that it would fall to Foxtrot to make sure it wasn't their last.

From his new standpoint, the obstacles to their escape were abundantly self-evident. At varying proximities to the dropship were more than two dozen Covenant troops that formed a staggard crescent around half of the crash site. Ray's assessment of their numbers and disposition were accurate in so far as the living were concerned. Closer to the crash there was a sprinkling of several dead Gassers and Gators, possibly the aftermath of an ill-fated attempt to get in close with the Marines. The rest, the living were firing or maneuvering from behind scorched maples, birches and beeches as well as from the undergrowth in order to keep the survivors pinned down.

Thankfully and rather advantageously, all of them had their backs to him.

He couldn't see Gad's fireteam, but he knew they had to be somewhere off to their right.

On his left, the Sarge scoped in on the dropship and switched to the comms again. "Sergeant Forge, this is your backup speaking. Watch your fire to the north, we're about to hit these guys hard, over?"

The machine gun fire zipping into the south briefly sputtered out then resumed spooling out a long burst.

"Roger that!" Forge replied with a note of stunned relief. "Wasn't sure if anyone was coming! Who is this, over!?"

"Sergeant Iris."

"Iris!? Glad to hear it! How many are you!?"

"Just me and Foxtrot, sergeant. We still owe you one."

Though the gunfire from the machinegun didn't cease, there was another long pause. "...Copy! We'll support you how we can, Helljumper! So long as you can get us out of here, I'll consider us just about even!"

"We're on our own for now, Forge, but we've got reinforcements we need to link up with once we're done here, so get your people ready to move."

"Solid copy! Also be advised, Iris, we're taking sniper fire from the south! They've been picking us off since we got here! They're good shots, but they're not too fond of the '41! We won't be able to move until they're out of the picture!"

"I hear you, sergeant. We've got an even better shot on our side. We'll see what we can do."

Don set his sights on a nearby pair of Gators that were discharging their rifles from the safety of a boulder. If he had to guess, they would be the ones Chris would hit first. He quietly pulled the magazine out of his rifle and replaced it with one full of shredder rounds, slowly sliding back the charging handle and guiding it back into place with a subdued click.

He slipped his finger through the trigger guard at the Sarge's next order.

"Fox-8, start us off, but keep an eye out for counter snipers."

"You got it." Ray said, already sounding focused. "Mr. Orange and his Blue friend are about to get themselves a little haircut in three...two..."

Don spotted the orange-armored Gator closer to the clearing, trading fire with a Marine behind a piece of Pelican when he heard the shot. The back of the alien's head exploded in a burst of brain matter. As it took an ungainly step forward, its blue armored comrade on its right also had a portion of its helmet cleaved away. One of them fell forward while the other went backward, both of them dying before they even hit the ground.

Two down, 23 more to go.

The troops in front of them were slower to react than Don expected and by the time the two Gators in his sights had started turning around, Chris' 40-millimeter grenade had skipped between them, bouncing off the boulder and detonating in their backs, shattering their shields and punching them onto their stomachs.

He let them have it, drilling into the upper body of one before focusing on its helmet. It shivered under the assault and fell still as the shredder rounds turned its skull into a bullet sponge. Its comrade pushed itself up into a crouch, aimed and reeled back from a DMR round to the head. It let off a few stray bolts as it fell.

Further off to their right, another Gator whirled around just as a grenade bounced into its face, the detonation punching it so hard that by the time the energy shielding around its head and arms collapsed, they were already well away from the fountain of blood that was their owner.

Two lines of automatic fire speared into the sixth and final Gator that stood closer to the corpses of the first two. Shields flaring, it sidestepped behind a haggard-looking elm and sent out its own returns at Gad and Foss. Don and the Sarge rapidly joined in, drowning its personal barrier until it popped, the force of which kicked it out from behind its cover. It fired off at them, but its shots went wide, unlike a direct burst from one of the Marines that stabbed through the back of its brains, instantly dropping it to the ground.

Six Gators had died in six seconds, and that seemed to be the exact amount of time it took for the 19 other hostiles to finally answer their attackers.

The return fire was so massive that it would have been overwhelming had it any actual cohesion. The very same concealment that the Covenant had used against the Marines was now working against them, leading Gasser and Buzzard alike to shout, squawk and unload on every shape and shadow.

Don didn't have the same problem. He put down another Gasser with a short burst to the face then redirected towards a shield-bearing Buzzard, shooting its leg out from under it and opening it up for a round to the throat. Even as it keeled over, three more of its kin marched past it holding up the same kinds of shields in a mock phalanx.

He spent the last of his magazine testing out their defenses.

He moved to reload but noticed a band of several Gassers running in behind the Buzzards. One of them pulled a plasma grenade from its belt and activated it, reeling back for a throw. He rushed a hand to his pistol and fired off an even pairing that caught the alien in the arm, causing it to drop the whining device.

The grenade ignited, ripping apart ther phalanx in an upheaval of twirling limbs and mangled wreckage. Amidst the organic mayhem falling into the undergrowth, he spotted a wounded Buzzard that was trying to crawl away. He went back to reloading his rifle and cut across its back with a burst of shredder rounds, finishing it off.

Chris and Izzy launched more grenades into the mix, letting them bounce into more clusters of Gassers and Buzzards to let them rip at waist height, mowing down another squad's worth of enemies like grass.

The CRACK of an SRS-99 preceded the toppling death of a Gasser that had charged headlong at the Sarge, crashing it into the dirt with less brains than it started with.

The handful of holdouts squeezed off panicked bolts at everything around them as they backpedaled in a hurry, huddling together. They turned their shields and plasma pistols in the squad's general direction. None of them realized their mistake until a volley of rifle and machine gun fire tore into their backs. Forge had pulled his M41 around to hammer into them alongside the full force of his Marines. Half of the leftovers dropped in a moment. The other half whirled about to issue a disorganized response that fizzled away with each of their number that fell to the ground, becoming little more than bleeding bullet magnets.

The last Gasser left standing was knocked off balance by a gust of lead that drilled into it until it collapsed against a stump, cut open from head to foot.

"Northern approach clear!" The Sarge declared. "Squad, push west around the front of the crash site! We need to get the Marines some breathing room from these snipers! Fox-8, start putting holes in foreheads on anything you see in the south valley that isn't human!"

"Moving!" The corporal replied.

"Already cleaning house!" Ray said, his words punctuated with the passing echo of a sniper round.

Don and Chris left from the undergrowth and pushed up after their jogging squad leader. Gad, Foss and Izzy were about the same distance to the front of the Pelican, allowing both fireteams to reach the craft at the same time. Using the cover of the trees that had been miraculously spared the wrath of the dropship's nearby landing, they crossed in front of the cockpit at a wary run, scanning for anything that was ready to take a swing at them.

To their silent shock, there wasn't much left to oppose them.

The immediate vicinity of the south side of the valley had slightly less shrubs to offer for concealment. The cost in Covenant lives was obvious. A force of perhaps 20 ambushers had partly dissolved into a corpse-strewn mess. The chaotic carpet of Gasser and Buzzard bodies lay in pools of blood. Their wounds were so extensive that it was safe to assume that Forge and his Marines had put up more of a fight than they first thought. The remaining troops, easily less than a squad's worth, were still clinging to life, namely Gators that had taken to whatever solid cover they could find to deal with the Warthog's M41. The squad spread out to address them, although Ray was already putting an end to them one carefully placed headshot at a time.

Don had slinked behind a tree and raised his rifle at one of the aliens using an elm for a shield, only getting a few shots in when the trademark report of the SRS sounded off. He saw the round hit the ground behind the creature before either of them recognized the bloody crater in its forehead. It toppled like a felled timber, giving him the chance to push forward. He repositioned, claiming the advantageous girth of the elm to focus on another of their orange-armored officers as it made its stand behind the exposed roots of a large ash.

The last of its subordinates were all being dispatched. Some fell to their knees from 14.5-millimeter rounds that had burrowed into their foreheads even as nearby comrades failed to dodge grenades that bounced into them with a whistle and exploded with a roar, blasting through shields, armor and flesh in a flash of metal and guts.

He peppered the officer's cover while ducking back as its well measured responses seared and hissed into the other side of the elm. He kept a careful eye out for the Sarge and Chris who were maneuvering around the trees in its blind spot just off to the left. He kept nipping at its shields, not able to break them so much as weaken them and hold their owner's attention. The alien was too fixated on him to notice the other two until it saw the grenade skipping towards it out the corner of its eye. It leapt away before the blast burst into the tree, flaring its shields even more with a shower of splinters. It turned to shoot in their direction, but its head jerked back from a pair of rounds that popped its shielding. A third slipped through its helmet and out the back of its cranium.

Once it limpened and toppled, the squad was on the move again.

"Forge, the areas to your immediate north and south are clear." The Sarge comm'd. "We're moving to deal with your sniper problem. I recommend you stay put and stay down until we're done."

"You're saving lives out here, ODSTs." Forge said gratefully. "Copy that."

Foxtrot returned to their three-man teams and splintered off towards the upper reaches of the valley, the corporal taking a left into the east as the Sarge swung right towards the west.

The incline of the terrain grew steeper much earlier than it did on the north side. Though just as forested, there was also a far greater quantity of boulders dotting the landscape, many as large as a man and some larger than a Mongoose. They made maneuvering forward an ever-increasing hassle, turning the journey uphill into a gauntlet of natural obstacles and blockages.

They made regular stops, pausing behind sturdy-looking rock formations and trees to watch for the tell-tale signs of hidden snipers, mainly any out of place flora as well as small metal surfaces that seemed to be glinting in the middle of nowhere. However, there was very little of the former to begin with, yet alone any of the latter.

As they went on, the Sarge routinely checked in with Ray for updates, only for him to receive the same answer each time, that there was nothing out of the usual.

After a minute of searching, they came across the sloping tracts of what looked like an old stream, one that had long since dried out and eroded away. The creek bed had become a frozen avalanche of boulders and stones both large and small that formed a wavy path up to a point near the top of the valley. The trees that had taken root both within and around it were just as burnt as any other, but they provided a decent means of breaking the line of sight for anything or anyone further up. With those same trees soon beginning to thin out to either side of them, however, the Sarge led them straight into it.

They clambered their way across the edge of the creek and started forward. The abundance of boulders and stumps allowed for better protection of their movements despite the occasional ungainly step.

Eventually, the Sarge raised three fingers and flattened them out in a forward gesture.

The three of them split up further, Chris hooking towards a boulder on the left that was large enough to fit him. Don and the Sarge went further on, the latter stopping at the leftward end of a boulder about the same size as a Warthog. Seeing no other cover close at hand, Don sidled over to the other side of it.

He ever so slightly peeked around the rock. There was still about 70-meters of wooded creek left before they reached the valley ridge. He scanned thoroughly across the face of the valley itself from east to west, trying to see if his conscious or even subconscious mind would pick up on the faintest traces of movement, lens flares or whatever else might be out of place.

Seeing nothing of note aside from a half dead assortment of trees and ferns, he mirrored the Sarge in crouching low while he listened to the exchange over squad comms.

"Anything?" The Sarge asked.

"Still nothing." Ray replied. "Listen, sir, I know our guy said they've been taking fire from higher up but I'm just not seeing anything."

"Nothing?"

"Nada."

"We haven't taken any fire on our side either." Gad said. "Whatever it is, if anything, even if they can't hit us, they should've at least tried by now."

"Maybe they're hiding, waiting for us to turn our backs so they can have a turkey shoot once we start getting Forge's people out of here." Chris proposed.

"Not the best idea." Izzy rebutted. "If they were really thinking, they would deal with us now while we're separated, pick us off one by one, group by group...and they're taking their nice slow time doing it."

"I want a professional opinion."

"Divide and conquer," Ray said. "A turkey shoot is no good if you don't have the numbers. Wait 'till we're apart, that's what I'd do in a situation like this."

"Close enough I guess."

"Well," Ray sighed. "Even then, that's what I'd do if I was operating alone or if the bad guys brought more bad guys than I had backup."

"On that note-" The Sarge paused, suddenly raising his rifle at something further up the valley.

Don and Chris immediately pointed theirs in the same direction.

"What is it?" Don asked. "Spotted anything?"

The Sarge said nothing for a while. He stared intently through the scope of his DMR, and unless Don was mistaken, he was slowly panning it to the left, as if he were tracking something.

After another heartbeat, he shook his head and lowered his rifle. "No...I don't think so. Heat distortion maybe, might be playing hell with my sights."

"Want me to take a look with my oracle?" Ray asked.

The Sarge considered it and decided to plant a Nav point on a spot that Don traced to about 60 meters southwest, to a patch of dried bushes waving lazily in the mild winds channeling through the valley.

"...Yeah, still got nothing. Sorry, sir."

"Copy...anyway, I'm going to try and get ahold of Ferret-1. He should be in range by now." He switched to the platoon frequency. "Fox-1 to Ferret-1, you reading me?"

A moment passed and a burst of radio static slowly resolved into the sergeant major's voice. "Like a book, Fox-1. Go ahead."

"Roger. We've secured the crash site along with some of the surviving Marines, but the Pelican's busted. We'll probably have to demo it before we leave. Right now, we're trying to open an extraction corridor for these guys, but we have possible enemy snipers operating in the south side of the valley. We might need some support."

"I hear you. We just finished mopping up the AA and the rest of its security complement. We're heading over to you now. Should be there in about 10 minutes."

"Sounds good. Are there any Swords in our AO available for a run right now? I want to check something out real quick."

"Check something out?"

"We're having a tough time finding these shooters, sir. They're here. Our Marine friend has more than enough bodies to prove it."

"I see...Frost-8, contact the nearest Swords assigned to ground action and listen in to Fox-1."

"Already got a pair of pilots on the line, sir." Frost-8 replied. "Just say the word."

The Sarge eased himself forward to take another careful look at his Nav point. Don kept a close watch on it as well, although he didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"I need a fire mission on the sou-"

Don saw and heard the lightning strike, except he'd never seen lightning not come from a cloud before, nor even from above. It had a short-lived, metallic thunder that betrayed its artificiality, and in the split second that he had to perceive it all, he hardly understood what it meant.

The realization only came a heartbeat later when he turned and saw his squad leader leaning back, a tail of steam hissing from his chest plate. Without a sound, his knees buckled and he fell backward, his rucksack crunching into the stoney ground as he began to roll.

He would've tumbled away had Don not leapt to the ground and reached out to grab him by the arm.

He could hear voices, too many voices on the comms. Whatever they were saying into his ears, it was blocked out by the screaming in his head. Like they had only a week ago in the gardens, words tore out of his mouth that were hardly his own.

"The Sarge is down! He's hit! Fox-1's hit, over!?"

The comms fell silent for several seconds, seconds that felt more like hours to him, hours he spent grabbing the Sarge by his armor and dragging him over rocks, back towards the refuge of the boulder one strained nudge at a time. To his relief, the man himself started using his elbow as leverage to help him move along. When he finally got him back in its shadow, he grabbed his shoulder and flipped him over.

Steam continued to waft up from his BDU. He followed it to a coin-sized hole in his chest plate that still glowed. He couldn't help noticing that it was on the left side. He couldn't stop looking at it even as the Sarge depolarized his visor, revealing a face that was as wracked with pain as it was dazed. He blinked in confusion, trying to open his mouth to talk, only to clench his jaw against a sudden agony that made him wince. Blood spilled over his lips. He tried again and a cough of blood sputtered from his mouth, spattering his visor.

Noticing that he was trying to sit up, Don grabbed him again to help him prop himself against the boulder.

An explosion sounded from somewhere further up the valley. He turned to his left and saw Chris right where he'd left him, flicking open his M319 to thumb another grenade into the firing chamber.

"I said where's he hit!?"

Don snapped out of it. He checked on the Sarge again who had by some miracle found the wherewithal to pull out his sidearm as his other hand reached up to the hole in his BDU.

"We're looking at a chest wound! One of those snipers took a shot at him! He's still moving but-"

"How bad!?"

"I-" Something caught his eye, a spot in the ground a few steps behind where the Sarge had stood. It was also glowing, still hissing with steam. His eyes widened after piecing everything together.

The Covenant sniper hadn't just shot him. It had shot through him.

Panic surged through him anew, a sinking feeling like someone had just ripped the bottom out from under him.

"We need the Doc! We need him now, Chris!"

"Can't!" Gad comm'd, his voice thick with strain. "We're taking sniper fire on our side too! We can't move!"

"Can't see a thing." Ray said, every last trace of methodical ease now missing from his tenor. "Stay down but make callouts where you can."

Don spotted where the Sarge's DMR had fallen out in the open. Understanding the situation, that this was now a ranged fight, he fell to his hands and knees and crawled towards it. Just as he grabbed the stock, another thunderbolt hissed into the ground near his hand.

Chris shifted his aim and fired a grenade at a spot further up the valley.

Don quickly scrambled back, now with two rifles in hand. Heart pounding from the close call, he shuffled over and rested his old MA5B on the sergeant's lap.

Again, still more cognizant than he had expected him to be, the Sarge pulled out an extra magazine from an ammo pouch and offered it up with a trembling hand.

After hesitating, Don grabbed it, slipped it into a pocket and laid his palm on his shoulder. "We're getting you out of here, Fox-1. Just stay put."

The Sarge shot him a pained grin, forcing out words through clenched teeth. "Like...I have a choice...I've got our...six."

Don nodded and crouched around him back towards his original position. Kneeling, he shouldered the marksman's rifle and carefully slipped the barrel into a groove in the side of the boulder. Tilting his shoulders, he slowly panned his scope across the incline of the valley. He maintained a close watch on the double circle at the center of the T-shaped reticle. He searched out to as far as 60 meters into the vastness of the dead forest, passing his aim over every conspicuous looking shrub, stump and stone.

There was nothing.

"Fox-9, I'm shooting in the dark back here!" Chris shouted. "See anything!?"

"Negative!"

Don took a deep breath and dared to take a few shallow steps forward around the side of the boulder. His heart pumped at the back of his throat as he risked aiming up into the south. Soon he was panning across the top of the ridge 70 meters away.

Nothing.

He kept going, checking the wood line for signs of anything and everything that appeared out of place, stopping at whatever seemed abnormal. It was almost never worth a second look, however, and he continued to round the corner of the boulder one mindful inch at a time. He felt each minute movement that he made, sensing every pebble collecting in the lines of dust forming against his soles as his boots scraped across the ground, allowing him to pivot more and more into the open.

A westward wind howled through the valley again. It pierced through the loudest silence he had ever heard to shake the last dregs of vegetation that still clung to the branches.

Don searched along several clusters of bushes stretched across a portion of the top of the valley directly in front of him. All of them were dancing lightly in the wind...but one of them was dancing against the wind. He noticed the discrepancy and upped his scope's magnification on the spot. As soon as he did, the brambles snapped back and began to move in the same direction as the rest of the airflow, as if something had been resting on the branches.

But there was nothing there.

"Fox-9?" Chris called.

"Hold on. I think-"

The wind picked up again, hitting his visor with a burst of dust that he was too focused to worry about, because what he was seeing just didn't make any sense.

A slight shift in the direction of the wind blew a light layer of dust into the southwest, up the creek and over the top of the valley. It was brief, but in those few seconds, he picked up on a spot behind the bush that the dust didn't seem to touch. Instead, it gusted around it like a rock sticking up out of a river.

He started connecting the dots, mainly across the two-meter-tall humanoid gap that somehow hadn't noticed him. Perhaps he'd moved so slowly that it had missed his peeking out at it.

He steadily receded into a small depression in the side of the boulder. He stayed there, thinking to himself. Doing so brought up a fresh, very recent memory, that of Bravo's drive into Gladsheim and the strange mirage he'd seen atop one of the buildings.

'A heat distortion', the Sarge had called it while looking out at the same spot that was now ringing his alarm bells.

It dawned on him bit by torturous bit that they had both seen the same thing, a thing that was completely new and altogether different from any Covenant trick they had seen thus far. It was right in front of them, and he hadn't recognized the threat for what it was until it was much too late.

He tightened his grip on the rifle, braced his back against the boulder and gradually leaned around its girth again.

He glimpsed the mirage behind the bush and planted a Nav point on it.

"What's that, Fox-9?" Ray asked, already investigating.

"I don't know yet, not for sure, but I think that's our guy."

"Say again, 9? What guy?"

He steadied his breathing before answering. "...It's invisible. I think-...I think they all are."

"What?"

"You serious?" Chris griped. "Look man, if you're seeing things-"

"I'm serious." Don bit back. "Something is right there and I'm looking right at it. I saw something similar in the town earlier. Fox-1 saw it too but didn't know what he was looking at either...and now we do."

"Invisibility." Izzy muttered. "God...how're we supposed to counter something like that?"

"We'll have to figure it out." Gad said. "That is if we can confirm it."

"...Can do." Don licked his dry lips which didn't seem to help since his mouth was just as dry. "I have an idea. Fox-6, toss a 40-mil over at that point. I need an airburst. I'll fire at the same time. Fox-8, if there's anything there, anything at all, you put a bullet through it."

"With pleasure." Ray said.

"I hope you're wrong." Chris slipped a new grenade into his launcher and flicked the chamber shut. "'Cause if you're right..."

He aimed high, adjusting his angle before squeezing the trigger. The 40-millimeter projectile shot skyward at a steep arc that ensured it wouldn't travel too far. Don tracked its ascent with his eyes alone, never taking his scope off the bush. Chris waited until the final 5 meters before detonating it above the Nav point in a downward burst that blew the brambles into wooden shrapnel. A flash of bright blue light sprung from the haze, evolving into a distinctly humanoid shape that hit the ground with a roll. It molted into full visibility as a bronze-armored Gator coming up into a combative crouch, its weapon leveling.

Don fired three shots into its center of mass before it could spot him, a fourth shattering its shields.

A loud CRACK rang out over the valley and a bullet pierced its helmet, casting bits of metal and brain matter into the air as the alien crumpled onto its back.

"Nailed'em." Ray said. "Looks like you were right, 9."

Don scoped in on it again. The creature was unlike any of the other Gators he'd seen so far. Aside from its bronze armor, its helmet or what remained of it possessed a long, sloping nose and a jutting chin that made it almost bird-like in appearance.

"So invisibility is on the table." Gad hissed, sounding more than irritated. "Well, that's one down but-...Fox-9, how's the Sarge?"

Don glanced at him. The Sarge still had his pistol up, but he was breathing hard, wincing every so often. Somehow, he found the strength to turn his head in order to face him but couldn't bring himself to say anything.

Don turned back to the corpse of the thing that had probably put a bolt through his squad leader. A boiling rage burned in his chest, and he squeezed off two rounds into the wreckage of its head, blasting away more of its skull.

"Bastard." He whispered.

"Fox-9?" Gad called.

"...Yeah, he's-"

A flash went off in a corner of his vision as the DMR exploded in his hands, smacking him with pieces of fragmentation. He flinched and ducked back behind the boulder before a second beam struck where he'd been standing, spewing dust into his visor.

A third discharge rang out and he heard Chris scream. He spun around to find him falling back behind his boulder a few meters away, groaning and grasping at the steaming hole in his arm. Chris wriggled his shoulders and kicked at the ground until he had wormed fully into the safety of his cover.

"Fox-6!" Don cried. "6, you alright!?"

He didn't get an answer until a hand emerged, grabbing the fallen grenade launcher off the ground and pulling it out of view.

"DO I SOUND ALRIGHT!?" Chris yelled back. "MY ARM'S ALL MESSED UP, MAN!"

As stupid as the question was, Don felt relieved beyond words to actually get an answer. "Fox-8, there's more than one sniper on our end, over!?"

"I noticed." Ray replied, though for all his calmness, he couldn't quite hide a vengeful undertone. "I couldn't keep track of all the shots, but it sounds like they came from between 50 and 70 meters of your position. We've got two, possibly three additional shooters."

The sound of another discharge caused Don's ear to perk up. It wasn't aimed at him or at Chris. It was distant, an echo coming up from their east. Then there was another.

"They're just toying with us now!" The corporal growled over comms. "Heads up, looks like we've got a few more over here too!"

It didn't take much more for Don to pick up on what was going on. Just as these snipers had pinned Forge and his Marines and used them to bait in that second Pelican, they were doing the same to the squad, using them as bait. Now he could no longer tell whether that second shot that had almost killed him was actually meant to take him down or to make him shelter in place, the second option meaning that they had purposefully missed.

It also meant that they could still have a bead on him, on all three of them.

He took a long look at the trees around the valley and couldn't shake the eerie sense that there were more of them out there possibly looking right back at him through their scopes, simply holding their fire for the time being, watching, waiting for their backup to arrive.

In that moment he was more unnerved than he had ever been in his life. The enemy was literally hiding in thin air and the only thing that might be keeping him alive was their good graces. The idea, one that could very well be his reality, made every hair on his body stand on end. It made every breath feel like a wager with death, but more importantly, it made him even more aware of the Sarge's own labored breathing.

He checked on him again. His inhalations weren't as ragged as they had been before, but they were far from optimal. There was a tired look in his eye that Don didn't like. He shuffled over to him and gently grabbed his assault rifle off his lap. He then crouched down at his side, trying to position himself as a shield between the Sarge and anything else that might be watching.

"Fox-4 to 9, I need you to do me a favor." Foss comm'd with a measured firmness. "I need info on the Sarge's condition. Listen closely now. How's his breathing?"

"Not the best but he's getting some air in at least."

"Okay. That's good, that's good. Now you said he was hit in the chest. Which side?"

Don looked over at him, specifically at the hole in his chest plate. Though it had stopped steaming, it still glowed a dull orange.

He swallowed the hardening lump in his throat, and though he tried not to let it slip, his voice still cracked a little. "...Left side."

There was a pause, a sickeningly long pause that almost made him nauseas.

"Alright," Foss said, though some of the firmness in his tone was gone. "I want you to check his pulse. Repeat, check...his...pulse. Can you do that for me?"

Don swallowed again. "...Yeah-...yeah one sec."

He reached over for his left arm. Surprisingly, the Sarge slowly lifted the limb to let his hand rest in his palm. Don stared hard at him, noticing just how exhausted his face had become. He unstrapped his arm bracer, letting the article fall to the ground while he pulled down his fatigue sleeves and pressed two fingers just below his wrist.

A full three seconds passed before he felt anything.

"...It-, it's weak." He stammered. "It's there but its weak."

"How weak?"

He tried to get a measurement, one that left him even more unsettled. He licked his dry lips again and felt no relief. "About 20...maybe 25 BPM."

There was another painfully long pause.

When Foss spoke again, Don could hardly miss the emotion restrained beneath his words. "Fox-9, I need you to do something else for me. No matter how you feel about it, I need you to do it, okay?"

Don nodded emphatically. He was ready to help but braced himself all the same, trying to call to mind every life saving measure that he'd learned in the service, however small or minor it seemed. "Sure, sure, go-ahead Doc."

"...I want you to make sure he's comfortable..."

After another few seconds of silence, Don realized that there was no second part to his instructions, and starting from his head, he felt a numbness descend over the rest of him.

The order, the request, or whatever it was, caught him so off guard that he had to blink a few times to really understand what he'd just heard. The shock sunk its teeth into him, but it was something else that refused to let go, pure disbelief.

He looked at the Sarge but found him remarkably unphased. Despite his weariness, the steely regard of his eyes remained unwavering, as if he hadn't heard a thing. Yet Don knew he'd heard Foss just as well as he had.

No one else said anything for a long moment, and the howling wind that passed through the valley became a shrill scream as it coursed through the trees. After a few seconds, it gradually died down, and the air was filled with the rustle of the surviving leaves.

Don shook his head. He turned again to the Sarge, hoping for a better answer, for better orders, maybe even a jibe telling Foss to go piss off, but what he saw only horrified him. A new realization stabbed him in the gut. He'd made a mistake.

The look in the Sarge's eyes wasn't confidence or resolution, but something else, something so much worse.

Acceptance.

It seemed that he had reached the same conclusion long before Foss had.

Suddenly the Sarge was moving again, lowering his sidearm. His freehand went up to the back of his helmet. There was a low hiss as he squeezed the release. He started pulling it off but then struggled to get it past his chin. Eventually he was able to remove it all the way. He laid it beside him and rested his head against the boulder, staring up to take a long look at the forest overhead and at the afternoon sky just beyond.

It was another shock to Don to see how pale his face actually was. There was hardly any color left in it at all.

"...Sir?"

The Sarge squeezed his eyes shut for a while as the wind blew through his hair. When he opened them again, they were locked on Don's, now filled with the shadows of a strength that he finally recognized.

He watched him use his freehand to rummage around in one of his pockets. When his fingers found what they were looking for, a subtle ease took hold of him.

The Sarge steadily pulled it out and with a sigh, held it out in front of him.

It was the granite rock; the same one he'd been working on back at the parliament building. Its smoother facets glinted slightly in the open sunlight as he turned it in his fingers, inspecting it just as he had in the ballroom.

"...You know, I snagged this thing from the gardens in front of the parliament." He said, his voice raspy. The effort became too much, however, and he set his hand on the ground. It seemed to take everything he had to keep his gun arm up. "Those have gotta be some of the most important rocks on the planet. I-...I guess that's something, right?"

"...Yeah."

"Think he'll like it?"

Don stared at him for a long while and gave a comforting nod. "Yeah...yeah, he's gonna love it. I'm sure he'll keep it on him until he lands one of his own, you know what I mean?"

The Sarge thought about that with a distant listlessness as his gaze dropped back to the rock. "Yeah...I guess you're right."

A trace of a smile snagged a corner of his lips as he looked at Don again. "...Make sure he gets it."

This time, Don stared at him for a lot longer. A shake of his head snapped him out of it. "No-no, you-, you're sending that. I'll be too busy dealing with my own folks. You know how much of a handful they are, so when we're out of here, you go right on ahead and mail it yourself, because I-"

"Don."

The Sarge locked him in his stare, and as tired as it looked, there was enough firmness in it for him to understand. He knew an order when he heard one. But it wasn't just an order.

He shook his head even more vehemently. "No...no, I'm not-, I'm not taking that, Sarge."

"Don." The Sarge said more softly, his jaw fixing into a light scowl. With what strength he had, he drew his left arm over his lap and forced his grasp on the rock to loosen, and even then, he could only pry away a few tremoring fingers.

Don kept shaking his head.

"I'm not-..." He stopped himself when he heard the quavering in his own voice. He started shaking. His vision was blurring, and he didn't have the heart to risk taking off his helmet, not only because he might get his brains blown out, but because of something a lot worse. He didn't want the man to see him like that. If he did, it would be nothing more than an admission that he knew he was right.

He wasn't about to admit to anything. He wasn't ready for that, for this.

"Now or later." The Sarge said. "...But I want you to be the one to do it."

"...Why?"

"...I'm his old man." That same smile grew a little longer on the Sarge's lips, but not so long as to keep Don from noticing the regret in his eyes. "But you believed in him more than I did."

There weren't enough words in his head to give an answer to that, and by that point there was hardly a need for them.

He knew that the rest of the squad had probably heard their conversation and had stayed silent for it.

He should've seen that Gator.

More than anything in the world, he wished he'd seen that Gator.

But he hadn't.

He didn't have it in him to say no, and yet he didn't have it in him to say yes. Either one seemed just as awful as the other.

Then a stroke of madness, or perhaps inspiration, made him opt for a different answer. He reached over, grasped the Sarge's hand and used it to curl his fingers back around the rock.

Without another word, he avoided looking at him as he brought his rifle up to take a second look around the boulder. He edged forward step by step until he was certain that going any further would see him shot dead.

"Fox-6, can you still shoot?"

"...Yeah." Chris said dejectedly. "I'm still in the fight."

"Got any illumination rounds left?"

"Yeah, but I don't see wh-" He stopped himself.

Don could tell he was catching on.

"You sure that'll work?"

"Sure what'll work?" Gad asked.

"These things can turn invisible right, kinda like chameleons?" Don said. "I've never seen a chameleon perfectly camouflage with moving objects before."

"Or moving light sources." Gad concluded, suddenly hit with the same desperate inspiration. "Fox-7?"

"Yeah, I've got three." Izzy said.

"Same here." Chris confirmed.

"Then we've got a chance." Don explained. "It's not much, but each of those rounds has a 30 second duration. That should provide enough of a window for Fox-8 to spot anything that doesn't look right."

"And put a hole through it." Ray said, finishing the thought. "Aye aye. Ready when you are."

Before Don could say anymore, a new voice came over a shared frequency. "Forge to Squad Foxtrot, we heard you guys taking some fire up there. I know you said to stay put but I figured it's best not to leave this up to chance. We're on our way to you now. We need you to mark out your positions with Nav points so we can back you up."

"Fox-3 to Forge, negative on your last." Gad said hurriedly. "Stay where you are. We've encountered your snipers. They're giving us hell up here but they might be holding off to try to draw you in. We don't want you getting pinned too, over?"

"Copy, Fox-3. Where's Fox-1?"

Don peered over his shoulder at the Sarge. His eyes were narrowing. Nevertheless, he was glaring down the slope of the valley, towards the crash site.

"He's wounded." Don replied. "We need to get him out of here."

"Do you have any corpsmen with you?" Foss inquired.

Forge's reply came with a palpable anxiousness. "Negative. Our platoon corpsman got blown out the bay with a few others when they shot us down. Couldn't even tell you where he landed."

It was another nail in the coffin that Don was trying desperately, feverishly to keep open.

"However, I just got word a few minutes ago from my battalion XO." Forge continued. "Our Delta Company finished setting up an aid station near the hills about 2 klicks north of our location. I don't think the pilots can risk a medevac from here, but if you can get him there in time, our guys might be able to patch him up."

Hope.

Don had never felt it as acutely as he did in that moment. Two kilometers was a long distance to run with a full-grown man on his back, but given the alternative, it would probably be the easiest jog of his life.

"Fox-9?" Gad asked, having no need to finish the question.

"I can make that." Don said. "We just need the opening."

"I'll tag along." Chris added. "I'll make sure he gets there."

"Good, here's how we're going to run this." Gad grunted, the sound of a discharge ringing nearby. "Fox-8, focus on their position until they're out of rounds. After that, 6, 9, you make a run for it with the Sarge. Once they're gone, 7, toss up some illumination on our side so 8 can finish the job."

"Got it." Ray and Izzy replied in unison.

"Let's get it done. 6, hit it."

"Three...two...round out!" Chris' countdown finished with a loud THWUMP and a hiss of metal through air.

Don glanced up as the illumination round ignited 20-meters above them into an orb of orange light. It grew so bright that it cast shadows from the surrounding trees below. It also caused the partly glassed ground to glitter and sparkle in every direction, making it difficult to spot any figures.

He looked around, searching for the slightest distortion or mirage in the forest or further up the valley. He found nothing.

He tensed at the distant report of Ray's sniper and heard a wet impact a split-second later. It came from somewhere off to his left, to the southeast.

"That's another one down." Ray comm'd. "Sure enough, looks like their camouflage doesn't work too good with a lot of light. Keep'em coming."

As the first illumination round began to dim and fizzle out, Chris launched a second one that arced further up the southern face of the valley before igniting above the ridge.

Once it was in the air, Don spotted a shimmering mirage 30 meters to his right. It was low to the ground, partly hidden by the undergrowth. He pretended not to notice it, not even changing his aim or turning his head in its direction. However, he quietly planted a Nav point on it just in case.

After about ten seconds, Ray fired again, and five seconds later, fired a third and fourth time, the latter striking the Nav point and tearing a Gator back into reality. A V-shaped weapon flew out of its grasp as it collapsed into the undergrowth with half a head.

That last one made him freeze. He was right to suspect the shimmer. The sniper had definitely had a perfect line of sight on him and God only knew for how long.

"That's two more down, four in total." Ray declared.

"Hold that last round." Don said. He slapped his MA5 onto his harness and crouched back over to the Sarge. He found him with his eyes flitting, fighting to stay open.

He clasped a hand on his shoulder. "It's time to go, Sarge."

The man didn't say a word. Instead, he nodded faintly. With a bit of an effort, he slipped his M6 back into his holster.

Don leaned in, grabbed his arm and carefully forced his stomach against his back, planting a boot beside him as he lifted up, a twist of his waist pulling the Sarge over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. He stood up with a grunt and got a firm grip on his arms and legs.

"Ready!"

"Shot out!" Chris launched the third illumination round.

Don waited for its whispering ascent to end in a crackle of ignition. The light bathed the area around him, briefly overpowering the natural shine of Epsilon Indi.

He waited five seconds, then ten, then fifteen.

"Coast looks clear." Ray said. "I've got you covered."

With that, Don bolted from behind the boulder and swiftly started making his way down the creek bed. "Moving!"

"Roger that!" Chris yelled.

Don rushed past his position and saw him run out after him, flicking his M319 shut with his good arm.

Together, they bounded down the creek. They maneuvered over ditches, skidding along patches of unstable rock that threw them into controlled surfs for meters at a time before regaining their footing. The large boulders passed them by one after the next, growing smaller and smaller until they were clear of the creek and running through the ruins of the forest.

Don went on expecting at any moment to have his skull blown open. If there were any hostile snipers left, now was the perfect time for them to reveal themselves by shooting them in the back. But as the seconds turned to a full minute spent careening down the valley, his head remained in one piece.

Perhaps Ray really had gotten them all, or perhaps those that were left had decided they had lost enough of their own and were simply laying low for the time being. Either way, Foxtrot wasn't sticking around to find out. Either way, he was glad for whatever higher power or burst of neurons had sparked that stroke of momentary genius.

He kept running.

The valley seemed to keep deepening.

Orange light snuck through the canopy overhead from somewhere off to the east. Izzy had fired her first illumination round. He spotted it arcing into the air further up the valley. Over the comms, Gad made a callout.

Ray responded with one round and then two more.

"Two down." He announced. "I need another light."

Don turned away and focused on the task at hand, namely the weight on his shoulders. Nothing else was more important than making his legs move faster and using the tilt of the landscape as well as the pull of gravity to generate more speed. It was a vicious balancing act between moving fast and not toppling forward. Even the most basic stumble could send him rolling and launch the Sarge full force down the valley. Every second mattered but so did every step. His mind raced between either one, minding every rock in his path, every fern that his boots rammed through, every exposed root that he hopped over and every subtle dip in the terrain.

That very same terrain, however, was gradually beginning to even out.

After another minute, they started coming across the corpses of Covenant dead. Despite being on the move, he took in the scenery of the scattered bodies of Gassers and Gators and quickly recognized the area. They were some of the same ambushers the squad had cut down when they started taking the fight to the south side of the crash site.

Sure enough, he saw an end to the trees up ahead, and beyond them, the jagged impact scar left by the Pelican.

He and Chris rushed straight into the open, not even glancing at the wreckage of the dropship as they crossed through the gap of hewn down stumps and back into the decimated forestry. Someone shouted after them, but they didn't stop. There was no time.

They navigated next through the mire of Covenant bodies to the north of the crash site. The sound of movement behind them made Chris peer over his shoulder.

"What's that?" Don asked.

"Just the Marines. Some of Forge's guys are trailing us, probably pulling rear security. Doesn't matter right now, keep running."

He didn't need any encouragement to do just that. His legs were starting to burn. He ignored it and pushed on.

"Don."

It was the Sarge. Despite being so close, his voice was lower, weaker than he'd ever heard it.

Don ground his teeth, his blood boiling with frustration and exhaustion. "Hold on Sarge. Save your strength, alright? You'll need it."

"...Don."

"Just hold on." Chris echoed. "You hear me, Sarge? Just hold on. We're getting there."

They kept running. Ahead of them, the terrain began to rise into the northern face of the valley. They started climbing it at a run, gravitating towards the closest forest trail which would give them an easier time on the ascent.

As they moved in the open, the landscape grew steeper and steeper in tandem with the natural heights of the area. The further along the ascent, the more Don felt it in his knees, the more pain coursed through his spine, the less he cared. Soon his back was aching from the strain, and he still didn't care.

It didn't truly reach his notice until he crested the top of the valley and saw that he had forgotten something:

The other valley.

There was still one more to go.

He bit back the urges of his mind that shrieked at him to stop for a breather. He pushed on, running full force down the south face of the descent, using whatever leverage there was, whether it was a small boulder or a stretch of pliable ground to absorb the weight of his heavy footsteps. That way he at least kept himself from going so fast as to trip over.

He didn't stop upon reaching the bottom of the valley or as they began climbing the other side. He didn't even stop for Chris as the latter started lagging behind, nor did he ask him to.

His breathing was reduced to a ragged wheeze as he crested the top of the second valley. There, a part of the scenery just below took his mind off the constriction of his own lungs.

At the bottom of the hills, about 100 meters below him, there was a gathering of several green tents whose canvas walls rippled in the afternoon breeze. A host of Warthogs were parked around it. Some were part of a defensive perimeter, and others were driving in and out, stopping to drop off wounded Marines, handing them over to waiting corpsmen that carried stretchers between themselves. They were being taken, gathered to the dozens upon dozens of others that had been laid out on stretchers either beneath or around the tents.

For the first time he considered why they had even set up an aid station so far from the town. He checked the sky but found little going on beneath the clouds. There were fewer dogfights left. Most of the Covenant craft now dotted the ground around the outskirts or within Gladsheim proper. They had carved up the surface of the Plains of Ida, replacing the ploughing of agricultural automatons with long impact scars that led to flaming wreck sites and burning debris fields. There were more than a few UNSC wrecks lying around as well, Longswords, Falcons and Hornets, but the vast majority of them were still up and running. They patrolled the various elevations of the airways overhead or swatted away at the last few Covenant stragglers in the area.

The skies were relatively clear, almost completely under friendly control. The sounds of fighting still echoed up from the town itself, however, and he saw distant tracers and explosions going off throughout its streets and neighborhoods. Perhaps since Gladsheim was still to be secured, the 31st MEF's 3rd and 7th Battalion leadership had decided to treat their wounded on the outskirts.

The true reason ultimately didn't matter, and by the time Don reached that conclusion, he was already more than halfway down the last hill. He covered the final stretch at high speed, the remaining reserves of his personal restraint long gone. He no longer bothered to mind his pace. He needed to get to the station. That was all that mattered.

The ground soon leveled out beneath him.

He sprinted down the edge of the descent and poured the last dregs of his energy into a full-on run to the aid station.

"Hey!" He shouted, trying to get someone's, anyone's attention. "HEY!"

No one answered or even seemed to notice him. Soon he was running down the closest aisle of stretchers, passing along the collected throngs of wounded Marines. He kept calling out. He kept trying.

As he reached a gap between a cluster of stretchers, his legs suddenly gave out. He wheeled forward but arched his back to crash onto his knees instead, refusing to drop the Sarge.

All of his running finally caught up with him and he found himself barely able to draw in a full breath. The weight on his back wasn't helping. He felt like he was being crushed from above, then just as suddenly, he felt that weight being lifted off of him.

He fell forward onto his hands and inhaled one long draft of air after another. A light-headedness started preying on him. He refused to submit to it. He refused to pass out. He fought to control his breathing. The sooner he could manage it, the sooner he could get himself back on his feet.

A hand landed on his empty shoulder.

"Hey, hey trooper, you alright?"

The voice was soft, carrying none of the anxiousness and rage that had been picking at his ears and eating away at his thoughts for well over an hour now. The return of oxygen in his abused lungs began to relax them and he found the strength to lift his head.

A woman, a Marine corpsman was crouched down beside him. A look of deep concern rose through her expression and for some reason Don felt a wave of anger at it.

Why was she so worried about him? He wasn't the one to worry about. It was-

He jerked his head, looking around, searching for and finding the Sarge.

He hadn't gone far. A pair of corpsmen had pulled him onto a stretcher and were carrying him a short distance away to one of the tents.

Don breathed a sigh of relief that just as quickly caught in his throat. Another corpsman with a datapad saw them coming and crossed into their path, cutting them off. He watched the man talk with the other two. He watched him shake his head at the Sarge and point off to a spot outside the tent, to a group of a dozen stretchers laid side by side, stretchers whose occupants were all unmoving. Their eyes were closed. Unlike most of the other groupings, there were no medical personnel watching over or assisting them.

Dread unlike anything he'd ever known climbed up his throat, threatening to choke him as the Marines ultimately relented and turned towards the other group. In doing so, they turned the stretcher, and all of his confusion, his outrage that was bubbling to the surface simmered to a standstill.

He saw the Sarge's face.

His eyes were shut, his mouth partly open, but even from so far, he could see that he wasn't breathing.

He shook his head. "No..."

His hands fell limply to his side only for one to suddenly regain its strength, grasping at the handle of his sidearm. Energy came to him anew as he stood up, shrugging off the corpsman's hand, a threat on the tip of his tongue and a conviction on the edge of his trigger finger.

He shook his head. "No."

A pair of running footsteps slowed down behind him. He heard Chris' exasperation as he came to a stop beside him. He tried to talk through mouthfuls of air.

"Hey...where's-...where's the-...hey, where're you..."

Don was moving, striding forward. He walked down the aisle of casualties and intercepted the corpsmen at the moment that they were about to lay their charge down among them. They saw him and stopped.

"Help him." Don insisted. "Help...him."

They shared a confused glance between themselves. He watched that same confusion melt away into shock once he unholstered his pistol, not aiming at them but holding it at his side so that they could see it, so that they could watch as he flicked off the safety.

"HELP HIM!"

Both of them stiffened.

The corpsman, the same one that had stopped to take a look at him, rushed in front of them to hold out her hands in a pleading, disarming gesture. "Hey there, Helljumper, easy. We're just trying to-"

"You're not trying anything." He hissed. He shook his head more and more vehemently. "Don't you dare. Don't even. We didn't come this far. We didn't come this far for you to just-"

"Hey!" Chris yelled, grabbing his gun hand and yanking him back, pulling him around to a face that was just as stubborn, just as vehement as his own. "Don't even think about it, you hear me? Let me handle this...alright? Now put that away."

Don met his stare and refused to back down.

Chris didn't back down either, but his gaze flitted over to the stretcher. His voice lowered. "Listen to me, Don. Listen. The longer it takes you to put that gun away, the longer it takes them to start trying to save his life, alright? So put it away? Come on."

Don glanced between the corpsmen, then down at the pale face on the stretcher.

He was right. He knew he was right, yet every emotion in his head was screaming for him to put a bullet through the two corpsmen if they so much as made another step towards the bodies.

It took everything, every last scrap of will and reason to make his trembling hand return his M6 to its holster. He nodded in agreement. The two of them turned to the Marines.

"Please." Chris insisted. "Please try. You have to try."

The three corpsmen looked amongst each other, and before long, they came to a silent agreement of their own. The two carrying the Sarge lowered him to the ground while the third kneeled down at his side to slide her rucksack off her back. She rummaged through it and pulled out a defibrillator device as well as its accompanying equipment. She set them up beside the stretcher as the others started removing the Sarge's upper armor, unstrapping his chest plate, ammo pouches and other protection.

Soon the Sarge was bare above the waist, and Don saw firsthand the ugliness of the hole in his chest. It was a deep perforation above his heart, the skin around the entry wound having turned a dark red where the blood had been fried by the heat of the plasma.

The corpsmen secured a pair of defibrillator pads to his chest.

After finishing her preparations, the third brought up the pair of handheld devices and poised them over the pads. "Clear."

She pressed them onto the pads and the resulting shock made the Sarge jerk up a little off the stretcher, only to fall back down. His face remained unmoving.

Footsteps from behind made Don turn to find the three Marines that had been following them slowing down to catch their breaths. They fell quiet, however, when they saw what was going on.

Further back, he saw a sight that brought him a measure of peace. A group of four ODSTs and three Marines were making their way down the hill directly to the south of the station. He relaxed somewhat. The rest of the squad as well as Forge and his surviving men had made it out of the death trap of that valley. They were less than a minute away, but the sound of another controlled shock made that minute seem like a year.

He turned back to the corpsmen just as the Sarge fell back onto the stretcher. One of them put their fingers to his wrist. He hesitated and shot a grave look at the one with the defibrillator. She looked over her shoulder at Don and Chris, and whatever she saw made her turn back, resetting her devices for another go.

Don watched her press the defibrillator to his chest.

"Clear."

The Sarge stiffened from the shock, and again fell back onto the stretcher, unmoving.

She tried again, and again, and even a sixth time.

The result remained the same.

She was getting ready for a seventh try when one of her comrades grabbed her by the arm.

"Look, we tried, alright? We did. More of our guys are pooling in and we're not even there to help them." He leaned in, casting a fretful glance over at Don. "There's nothing more we can do here."

She looked back at him as well, and Don could sense the empathy in her eyes, but it only made him angrier.

He didn't need empathy.

He needed his squad leader back on his feet.

Just then, he heard the others rushing in. Not even bothering to catch their breaths, Gad, Foss, Izzy and Ray came to a stop around the scene, the fatigue of the last few minutes disappearing from them altogether, replaced by a look of wide-eyed disbelief and tight-jawed desperation, one Don suspected that he shared.

The Sarge's eyes were still shut.

"I'm sorry." The third corpsman said. "I-...I really-"

"Step aside." Foss growled, forcing her to move out of the way as he settled down beside the Sarge. He grabbed the defibrillators from her, reset the charge and poised them over the pads.

"Clear." He said and brought them down.

Like before, the Sarge jerked up but did little else. Foss reset the devices, trying again and again, even a fourth time.

Don was breaking by the fifth. He could feel his rage dampening down, draining away before something that made him feel altogether more useless, the same thing that he had seen in the Sarge's gaze back in that valley. His hands balled into tight fists at his sides, but by then the anger was gone. And still they shook.

Eventually one of the corpsmen carefully leaned over Foss. "I'm sorry man...but we need our equipment ba-"

Foss switched off the devices and practically threw them into him. He frantically ripped off the pads and tossed them into the man's arms. Then he clasped his hands together one on top of the other over the chest, over the wound, and began performing compressions. He put as much of his weight into each motion as he could. After about ten of them, he put a hand to the Sarge's chin to pry open his mouth before placing his own against it, forcing in as much air as his lungs could manage. Then he was back to doing compressions.

The three corpsmen left them like that, looking back every so often while they walked off to some other duty.

The rest of the squad watched quietly as Foss repeated the cycle twice, then three times.

The Sarge's eyes never opened.

By his fourth round of compressions, Gad had walked in behind him. He placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Foss ignored it. He kept pressing down, but each motion became more and more haggard, more disjointed...until he finally stopped.

He took his hands off the Sarge, shaking as he ripped off his helmet. He cast it away and sat back, revealing a pair of glistening eyes and gritted teeth. Tears were already running down his face, but they came even more freely as he laid his head into his palm and began to weep, slowly at first then with shuddering breaths that were too quick to control.

Something hit Don.

He never saw what it was, a punch or a blow. Whatever the case, it knocked him off his feet. He fell to his knees and sat back, unable to take in what was happening.

The movement caused him to feel something in one of his pockets. A will that couldn't possibly have been his own made him reach for it. He felt the thing in his hand, the facets of its shape jutting into and pressing against his grasp.

He closed his eyes, knowing exactly what it was.

He remembered the Sarge's words to him back in the valley, that he would end up with it either then or later...and here it was.

He never took the object out of his pocket, but the fact that it was there made the reality of the situation finally reassert itself, coming into a crisp clarity the likes of which he hadn't asked for.

He looked at the Sarge, at the stillness of his face. The wind rustled through his hair, making his eyelashes flutter in a way that made it seem as if his eyes were about to open.

But they didn't.

It was only then that he realized, that he understood.

As he sat back, heat pricked at the back of his gaze in a way that it rarely ever did. He felt heavy. His throat tightened as a sob escaped his lips.

He pulled his legs in close. He hugged his knees to his chest even as he pressed his face into them and finally gave in to the tears.

Damna - Losses