Alone

Alone is a short stand-alone chapter story written by Matthias Karlsson. It follows a marine, Corporal Emem Burdak, who wakes up to find all his comrades and several enemies dead and the site of the battle in ruins. As he tries to collect himself and decide what to do next, the marine walks the area and reminiscences about past events leading up to the battle and subsequently uncovers the Covenant's true intentions on the human colony.

Story
Dusk fell over the city of Portgard, the sun's last rays lighting up the shadows from the countless fires everywhere. Buildings blown apart, vehicles turned upside down. And on top of that, all the fires. The city had been through hell, it was left bare for any to see – had there been any bystanders to witness it. All there was were bodies – human and alien, mixed together throughout the settlement. Sworn enemies as they were, they did have one thing in common; both sides had fought and died on this soil. Their blood colored the pavements, the factory floors, the car doors; often mixed up with one another, resulting in curious color combinations.

Surrounded by all this, Corporal Emem Burdak slowly awoke, his vision hazy and head throbbing intensely with pain. After a while of grunting and struggling to see properly, he discovered something – something heavy – was weighing him down. As his senses started to return, he realized a chunk of debris on his back was the source of this. Struggling for a bit, he managed get it off him after few seconds. Now free, he slowly got on his feet, looking over the battlefield properly.

The sight shocked him, to say the least. He caught a glimpse of one his most recent memories, where he and many others were still fighting and holding the line, even as stubby, short grunts charged accompanied by their elite commanders, plasma pistols and rifles blazing. In the distance, he had seen shield-carrying jackals accompanied by needler-equipped elites charging a different barricade from Emem's, where others were also holding the line.

Unsure what to do or think, the lone marine started a brisk walk around the area. He soon came upon a black-armored corpse. It didn't wear a helmet; it was laying a few meters away, visor shattered. The body had spots that appeared burnt or entirely molten; typical signs of plasma round impacts. One of the gloved hands was still on an assault rifle, finger on the trigger. This, along with a split-jawed alien's body only half a meter away – and filled with bullet holes over its bloodied armor – showed that the poor lass had died fighting.

Emem remembered her; she was an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper), or Helljumper, officer, sent down with many of her comrades to aid the desperate marine defenders. He briefly recalled, as if in a mere instant, how she had yelled orders earlier. He had heard her order his squad to hold the flank, some of her own men to charge, and someone else to provide cover fire. Her commanding yells remained in his mind, echoing inside as if he had heard it seconds ago.

Feeling a sudden compulsion, a will to do something, Emem picked up the rifle, releasing her grip on it. He didn't know why he did it, nor did he still think straight enough to find a reason to care. As if by instinct, he strapped the rifle on his back and continued walking through rubble and more bodies.

Death. It was all around him. Death and destruction. He tried to think about it, to focus on it, to decide on something to think, to do. But he couldn't. He just couldn't. When he tried, he felt like he was just walking through fog, struggling against something he couldn't see. After a while he gave up and simply continued his walk, without true thought or effort. It was instinct. Pure instinct. Instincts awakened and drilled in boot camp, forcing the recruits to keep going. They were humanity's hope for survival. They couldn't give up. And so they kept going. Kept going, grinding their psyches, tarnishing their moral, whatever it took to keep going and buy more time for those who couldn't fight.

''The United Nations Space Command. Protecting Earth. Protecting humanity. Protecting you.''

He remembered that slogan. It was supposed to keep up hope and instill safety, security, within the population. Hope that there was still a chance, no matter how small. That one shouldn't worry, for the UNSC and its troops would be there to protect everyone. Pure propaganda. Pure bullshit.

After a few minutes – or at least he thought so; it was hard to tell without a functioning timer and proper concentration – he approached a large statue, surrounded by a fountain. The water had stopped flowing, and a dead grunt had managed to color the remaining water with its blood. The statue was in silver, the accompanying fountain in finest marble. Emem recognized it, vaguely, like a dream.

It was of the “first” colonist to set foot on this world. What it actually meant was that he had had the money to finance the colonization effort. He was supposedly an ancestor of Emem's, something which his father had taken great pride in. He would constantly tell any who would listen about the Burdak family's great, how greatness was in its blood, etc. This didn't make him popular with the neighbors. Instead, he would then vent his excitement over the lineage on Emem, telling him to aspire to be just like your ancestor, to carry on and bring prestige to the Burdak name. Emem had never paid attention. The only time he actually paid any attention to his father was at his funeral. He had been annoyed by his presence, but once he was gone, he felt lonely.

After staring at the monument for some time, he carried on. His thoughts were starting to get a bit clearer now. He began to take in what exactly had happened. With it came the distress. ''Everyone had died. Everyone but him. He was alone. No one would come to save him.''

As he approached the burning building of a warehouse, Emem's mind was overwhelming with questions what he would do now, what he could do, and what he should do. He wrinkled his forehead as he focused, thinking closely on what he and the others had defended. The civilians he silently told himself. But they were probably gone now, one way or another. What else could he do?

Unable to come up with an answer, he stared at the warehouse. The walls were barely holding together, plasma burns covering majority of the facility's area along with the broken crates and more corpses littering the floors. It was from there the Covenant had attacked him and the others; they had seized the building and advanced through it out into the plaza where Emem's unit was told to draw the line. Wave after wave of Covenant forces had passed through there and charged up the plaza stairs, fighting with fanatical ferocity. Both sides had taken casualties, the corpses now littering the area.

The marine's chain of thought was interrupted by a low, distant and humming noise. He turned his head in the sound's general direction. Though barely visible due to the sky getting darker and darker, he recognized it as a covenant dropship. As if by instinct, he took cover behind some rubble and drew the assault rifle on his back when the ship got closer. It cruised through the sky towards the city for a while, before it made a slight turn, flying towards the horizon beyond the plaza and governmental estates.

Curious to see where it went, unable to come up with a better thing to do and unwilling to start to truly take in the deaths of his comrades – men and women he had slept, ate and bled with for the last five years – Emem decided to head in the same direction, following the ship the best he could. Though losing visuals on it rather quickly, he followed the echoing sounds it made through the utterly silent district. Soon he lost that as well, but he was luck; many more followed in a similar pattern at regular intervals.

Hours passed as he kept moving. He panted and sighed heavily, his feet feeling heavy. Despite his exhaustion he kept moving, feeling every step to be a challenge. A challenge that kept him occupied, forestalling the inevitable time where he had to fully grasp everyone's death. He was certain of only one thing at the moment; he didn't want to face what he had experienced alone.

Dusk passed and the sky turned pitch-black except for a few glowing stars. When he saw it, Emem was reminded of times when he and the rest of the squad would stare out of their garrison ship's windows during the occasional stops in-between slipspace jumps. They had marveled at how vast space actually was, and how small they were in comparison. They had then taken turns at giving each other headaches discussing whether space was infinite or not. Most started with saying it just couldn't be infinite, there had to be an end to it. But then they'd immediately start wondering if there could indeed, be an end to it just like that, and if there was an end, what was beyond it. And so it would go on until someone changed the subject to something far less mind breaking.

Emem quickly shrugged off the memory. He had seen his share of death before, but at least then he'd still have others at his side, others who had also experienced the deaths and could sympathize with him; he hadn't been forced to carry the burden alone. Now he was. His mind unsure how to react, his instincts had taken over and told him to ignore it all for now, find some purpose or task to do in order to remain occupied, just to hold together. Until he had nothing more to do, what happened had happened to someone else, someone distant, someone he didn't know.

He continued out of the city and over fields of green grass, though its color was hard to spot in the darkness. He paid no heed to it and simply went in the general direction of where the dropships had headed, stopping sporadically to catch his breath. After a while, he stopped and rested under an oak tree – feeling the need for sleep overtaking him – though not before priming his timer alarm. Roughly three hours later he woke up before the timer rang, awakening from bad dreams. Ignoring them he let his instincts take over again and set out towards the horizon.

Just as the new day's first light rose over the mountain chain in the far distance and touched the plains, Emem felt he was getting close. He could practically smell that something big was up ahead, just over the next few hills. But it wasn't enough to prepare him for what he actually witnessed upon half-climbing up a hillside.

From the top of the hill he stood on, the land sloped down for several miles. And there, in a small, cut down forest, he saw what the covenant were doing. The reason they didn't have any soldiers patrolling the city and checking for survivors. The reason their dropships were heading in a general direction. A massive, covenant-built machine was at work in the slope, busy firing plasma at the ground, melting it away a few meters at a time. From the looks of it, he guessed it was an excavation vehicle of some sort on four, spider-like legs and with a roundish head that also served as the main cannon, firing a concentrated beam of plasma every few seconds. Around it, Covenant troops and aircraft encircled the area, staying on guard with weapons ready.

They're after something he decided. Something big underneath the earth. The moment he realized that, he felt great resolve and dedication growing within him. He knew what he had to do. Remembering the UNSC slogan, though knowing it to be to instill false hope, he now knew that's what he aspired to be; that glowing hope in every man's heart that convinced him to keep going, keep fighting until there was nothing left. He wouldn't let the Covenant get away with what they wanted. Not while he still drew breath.

As the sun rose higher on the sky, the lone man drew his rifle and rushed down the slope towards his target, knowing he would soon join his comrades in whatever afterlife was actually true.

But he'd make the Covenant pay damn well for it before he did.