RP:Dwindling Flame

Active  "I think about more than I forget. But I don't go around fire expectin' not to sweat." Lil' Wayne  DWINDLING FLAME

Introduction
''Reach has fallen, all outer colonies have been lost or forgotten. One thing now stands in the way between the Covenant and the total annihilation of the human race. Earth. The original home to the human race, this final stronghold is under attack by the Prophet of Regret's fleet.''

While Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra-117 pursues the Prophet of Regret onboard the In Amber Clad'', Earth is threatened by the Covenant juggernaut as more and more fleets pore into the Sol System. This attack on humanity's birthplace presses its defenders to give their very last ounce of strength, skill and determination as they are unified by the immediate need to ensure mankind's survival as a species. And so, humanity fight against its seemingly inevitable fate, defying the alleged instruments of the gods, protecting their dwindling flame from being extinguished...''

This is that desperate fight, the story of how humanity survived against the odds during the long weeks between the Master Chief's departure and his return.

Details

 * Location: Earth
 * Date: October 23rd, 2552
 * Official Name: Operation TRICERION
 * Operation HOLY FATHER
 * Operation DIVINE SON
 * Operation ETERNAL SPIRIT
 * Factions:
 * UNSC
 * Covenant Separatists
 * Covenant Loyalists
 * Forerunners
 * The Flood

Operation HOLY FATHER

 * Lead Author: Parkster
 * Specific Location: Australia, Oceania
 * Sydney, New South Wales
 * Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Northern Territory
 * Overview: The Covenant have taken over Sydney and the Sydney Orbital Elevator to shuttle supplies and equipment down to the surface. While a lack of UNSC Naval support causes the orbital station to be securely under Covenant control, and with a strong Covenant ground presence any opposing Human forces will be destroyed. Stealth is their only option. Luckily, already en route to Earth - from Bauxite - after the initial invasion by Regret's fleet, Wolf Squad arrives in-system on the 20th of October and is prioritised with the task of infiltrating the Covenant ships docked to the orbital elevator station. Once on board, Medium Fusion Destructive Devices will be planted on each ship by Wolf Squad combatants. Once detonated, Bauxite's remaining fleets attack the occupying Covenant Naval forces above Sydney. Their Marine forces, enforced by Libra Team, will then attack the ground. However, Sydney isn't the Covenant's prime target. Sydney was a diversion for something far more devastating...

Operation DIVINE SON

 * Lead Author: Matt-256
 * Specific Location: Greece, Eastern Europe
 * Athens, Attica
 * Larissa, Thessaly
 * Thermopylae, Eastern Central Region
 * Overview: Greece is in flames! The defenses have been crushed, the people that valiantly held the lines battered. Scattered and few, the UNSC survivors struggle to survive in territory now belonging to the enemy. Territory the alien empire's forces is going to make use of. The city of Athens has been thoroughly destroyed and is being replaced with a massive spire - a Covenant teleporter device - which the enemy hopes to use to allow more ships to slip past Earth's orbital defenses and secure all sites of importance across the globe. To counter this, the remnants of the human presence must stand together and unite to stop the Covenant from achieving their plans. Fighting against impossible odds, the survivors - spearheaded by Spartans from teams like Winter and Brown - will do everything in their power to destroy the spire, as well as other facilities the Covenant are building in the conquered region to bolster their war machine or strengthening their hold on the region - including a massive jamming device in the ruins of Parthenon blocking all communications in to and out of the region, and factories of varying sizes churning out weapons, vehicles and other equipment in the Thessaly Periphery. For if they don't, Earth will surely fall - if not to the Covenant invaders who find themselves on the brink of infighting, then to the terrifying force that lurks beneath; a force ready to swallow organic life once unleashed...

Operation ETERNAL SPIRIT

 * Lead Author: Lordofmonsterisland
 * Specific Location: Japan, Eastern Asia
 * Tokyo, Honshu


 * Overview: Around the planet, the fires of war burn the resistance, Humanity fighting back with every ounce of its collective will - the Covenant staging area of eastern Africa has little freedom fighters left, Sydney is in flames as the aliens attack HIGHCOM after the Forerunner relic below it, and countless other points drown in blood as the genocidal foe bears down upon factories, fortresses and homes. In Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun, the massive stores of Chinese-made weapons and vehicles are rolling out to fight the war machine around the globe, but the Covenant has caught on and now moves to deal with this source of UNSC equipment. Digging in and forming up defenses, all available UNSC forces across Japan prepare to defend the warehouses and bases in Tokyo, readying themselves for anything the Covenant can throw at them, and praying they can hold out.

Rules & Regulations
NOTE: The following rules are subject to change at any time.


 * 1) Have fun, embrace other users and their creative skills and cooperate and enjoy the RP's to their full potential.
 * 2) Please follow the NCF guidelines. Also, no God Modding.
 * 3) These RP's are not part of any specific universe. Anyone, with any amount of characters are welcome to join in, regardless of the character's biographies and their respective universes.
 * 4) LOMI, Parkster and Matt-256 are the project moderators. What they say goes, and any questions or issues should be directed to them.
 * 5) When discussing ideas and other topics related to this Project and its RP's, on anyone of these articles' talk pages, please remain civil and take other user's views and opinions into account. Report incivility to the moderators.
 * 6) The Initial Tetralogy has already been roughly planned out. Despite this, more ideas and especially plot-twists are welcome to be discussed, however this does not mean they will definitely be implemented.
 * 7) Each RP will have one or more major plot line, and although we do not wish to limit creativity and lower the success of these RP's, we strongly advise that you follow the main plot lines and do not wonder off aimlessly by yourself in the RP world's!
 * 8) Do not edit major pages, such as this, or other people's RP posts unless consulted or told to do so by the moderators. We don't want an edit war!
 * 9) Do not kill off other user's characters unless given permission to.
 * 10) Cooperation with other users is vital for successful RP's to work, however make sure both you and the cooperating user know and agree that you're working together!
 * 11) There are official invite templates that are used to publicise the project and its RP's. Please help us out and post them on user's talk pages, if they haven't been invited already (see the How You Can Help section below.

Participants & Characters
''To view a list of involved participants and their characters, please click here. These two sections have been reloacted from this page to save space and therefore editting efficiancy.''

Storyline
While the RP takes place over a long timeframe and in many different locations, there are three fronts - or operations - which are prominent over the others; HOLY FATHER, DIVINE SON and ETERNAL SPIRIT. If you've played an RPG like Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect or The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you know that there's so-called main quests which make up the main storyline - that is, they serve to move the plot forward. Putting it simply, this is what the aforementioned three operations are; the backbone of the RP's story. But in said games, there are also a lot of sidequests; assignments that serve to expand the world you're in and get a close look of whatever's happening to the people that don't get attention in the main quests and what their respective problems are. So just as HOLY FATHER, DIVINE SON and ETERNAL SPIRIT are the main stories, plotlines thought up and carried out by you users who don't want to be part of those three, or who just wants some additional excitement, form up a category of additional stories within the RP, adding to the overall RP experience. For example, if users A, B and C band together and roleplay about an attack on New York, that's a sidestory - which doesn't mean that it can't be enjoyable, just that it isn't the main storyline. If you have more questions about this, visit the talk page and we'll do our best to answer your queries.

Week One (October 23 - October 29)
Operation: HOLY FATHER

'"What chance has the UAF got against the Covenant, General? With all forces scattered at more important locations, what chance?"

"The best lone wolves known to man and the remnants of Group Three, madam..."

0007 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Sydney Orbital Elevator Space Sector, Australian Space Region, United Australasian Federation

Undetectable by any radar, too small and too invisible; the seven phantom soldiers drifted effortlessly towards the Covenant naval occupation: two corvettes and a battlecruiser. Radio silent, their trajectories precisely calibrated and executed to the nearest millisecond of a degree, the SPARTANS flew to their respective targets. Wolf Squad were unknown as far as the human race was aware, let alone the Covenant. Team Canis, three of the ghosts, glided past one of the corvettes and towards the battlecruiser, attached to the Orbital Elevator’s space station. Team Lupus and the Squad’s commander split into pairs as their linear flight paths started to split. Two per corvette; contact with the alien ships was nigh. Three of the metallic black supersoliders carried Anti-Shielding Ion Pulse Warheads, their key to ending the orbital occupation of the covenant. It was a complex mission but one that would require little struggle if executed accurately. Ensign Jake-G239 and Chief Petty Officer Randall-G178 initiated their Temporary Localised Trans-Energy Field Shields, which would allow them to sink through the Covenant’s shields for a few seconds so they can make it to the surface of the ship. They would be unharmed but the small flicker on the ship’s shielding monitors may attract attention. Upon passing through the protective threshold, their TLTEFS’s dissipated and so did their normal energy shields and cloaking fields. Within seconds both their active camouflage and energy shielding recharged and the SPARTAN’s placed the ASIP warheads on the hexagonally tessellating purple hull.

Both soldiers pulled various levers, turned them simultaneously and activated the device’s unfolding clamped, which attached to the ship’s surface. The device would have made a loud clang if it wasn’t for the lack of air surrounding the ship. The main control panel then appeared, holographically emerging to life from a small blue light on the centre of the advanced device. Randall pressed and slid certain buttons and tabs until the display turned green, came together in a cylinder and then vanished back into the centre; where the cycloptic eye of the device turned green and started flashing. It was ironic that the Covenant’s greatest defensive advantage was being reworked against them; their imitative technology being stolen and innovatively used in assisting their deaths.

Meanwhile the other teams were undergoing the same operation; arming the warhead on the hulls of the other two ships. Jake and Randall would be finished first, Canis second and then the remaining two Lupus combatants last. Despite this, by the time Jake and Randall would reach the orbital station, Canis would already be there; straight from the docked cruiser. Finished arming their warhead, the squad commander and EOD specialist looked and nodded at each other, stood up and started running to the other side of the ship. Upon reaching the other side, they jumped off of the ship, magnetic boots deactivating, trans-EF shields activating. Unlike entry onto the ship, where they merely sunk through the shield, they shot out of the ship’s defensive coat due to the slight deflective capabilities of the corvette’s protecting energy field.

Another flicker on the sensors would raise awareness, enough to initiate a small investigative unit. However it would have to wait. In the distance, in between the Earth and moon, closer to them, blips of blue light sparked open into white centred balls of distorted space. UNSC forces had arrived from Mars ready to execute phase two of the operation; two frigates and a Marathon-class cruiser. The two corvettes were the first to respond, already alerted from the dual blips on their shields but unaware of their vulnerable disposition, timed to detonate on their exoskeleton. They dispatched seraph fighters and the human forces simultaneously retaliated with the release of Longsword fighters. The UNSC ships charged towards the station, the frigates taking lead. Corvette’s weapons charged; the timers initiated perfectly. A bright blue sphere erupted, coated in an electrical charge, causing wave-like ripples across the shield’s surface. Within less than a second the blue sphere dissipated with a shock wave emanating rapidly, at the sphere’s initial point of dissolution, across the ship’s protecting layer; stripping it of existence. The corvette teams were nearly at the station, where Canis were waiting anxiously but calmly.

Without time for the corvettes to recover, bright yellow bursts flashed from the noses of the incoming frigates and instantly the Covenant ships exploded at their bows, smaller eruptions occurring all over the surface of the ship, lights diming and large fragments of shrapnel flying off. Seconds later, as the frigates turned off their collision course with the dying purple wrecks, the corvettes’ engines exploded, completely destroying the stern and rendering the front half of the ship critically impaired. At this point, the opposing side’s starfighters engaged each other, casualties on both sides. The space fight had truly begun.

Finally the battlecruiser disconnected from the station, sending back up forces to attack the frigates, which had already loaded their Shiva-class Nuclear Missiles and rail gun turrets to counterassault the Covenant’s backup. Well prepared and precisely executed, the operation was nearly complete. The final ASIP warhead exploded, obliterating the cruiser’s shields and an almost premature shot from the Marathon-class cruiser followed immediately after; gutting the cruiser, and disabling most of its abilities. The second sub-lightspeed projectile from the UNSC cruiser effortlessly pushed through to the engines of the semi-destroyed battlecruiser, annihilating it in an explosive ball of purples and blues. Rail gun and point defence turrets ripped into the Covenant seraphs.

However the station was still under Covenant control and the combatants inside it were certain that the incoming human’s would not attack. They were right but still unprepared. The frigates passed the station and carried on slightly beyond where they deployed drop pods for the first wave of counter-occupation forces into Sydney. Pelicans and Albatross dropships followed for the second wave, accompanied by fighter craft. Eventually the frigates descended too, for the third wave of heavier support. The cruiser stopped near the station however, keeping at a relatively safe distance from it.

"This is Admiral Bobson of the Marathon-class cruiser Olympus Pinnacle, thank you Wolf Squad, your efforts have been invaluable. Forces have been sent to infiltrate and regain control of the station and your D7 Prowler is inbound to collect you. Thank you SPARTAN’s, you’ve lived up to your name and reputation."

"Thank you sir, we couldn’t have done it without you either." Jake replied honourably.

"No problem Master Chief, Bobson out." The com channel ceased, however they were no radio free on a squad-wide basis. Dropships and infiltration craft surrounded and engaged the station. Jake congratulated his team:

"Good one Wolf, you’ve done us proud." The rest of the team nodded in humble acknowledgement of their praise. They were all still so silent, being separated from the rest of gamma. They were, after all, lone wolves and maybe the team work was not as satisfying as they had wished. Regardless of this, their efforts were outstanding, but yet unknown throughout the galaxy by the majority of civilians and even military personnel. The prowler, decloaked with its underbelly open, halted over Wolf Squad. They jumped, almost zero gravity at their aid, and fly up into the stealth vessel’s hold. Silently and secrectly, they left the station, their next operation unknown, even by the temporarily enlightened admiral. Ghosts within the depths of clear hell...

0107 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Covenant Assualt Carrier Blissful Annihilation, Unknown Exact Location, United Australasian Federation

"Yes Supreme Commander, I acknowledge your urgency however our orbital forces have just been obliterated and..." K’sar Vadumee interrupted:

"I am careless for your sympathetic naivety towards the forces in Sydney. You are to remain where you are. I don’t wish to recall the ultimate purpose of this operation again. Let those forces cripple and eventually fall under the human’s counter attack, that ispart of the plan, however cruel it may seem. Victory does not spawn without sacrifice, and while the stupid humans are occupied and exhausting their resources, we will initiate the true threat upon them at the least expecting moment; at the point of their worthless victory." The supreme commander’s hologram vanished and the fleet master lowered is head in dismay and anger. These emotions were supressed within a second. Confidently though he barked orders to his officers to prepare for the dig. They would be here for a long time. They could be the key to the destruction of the human race.

0049 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Palm Beach, Northern Beaches, North Shore, Sydeny, Asutralia, United Australasian Federation

Six drops pods, among many others falling in other locations, impacted on Palm Beach, the most northern point of Sydney’s North Shore. The pods doors flew off and hit into the beach, sending sand into the air. The night was warm and humid, the norm for Australia’s nocturnal sub-tropic spring but the six SPARTANS of Libra Team were warmer from the thrill and heat of a rapid orbit-to-ground insertion. Stepping out of their pods, they ran up to the main car park of the Palm Beach Surf Life Saving Club, where they were greeted by the small remaining local militants. UARDF’s military army soldiers, clad in grey or olive drab for urban operations, stopped and starred at the arrival of the six awe spawning giants of military genius and perfection.

"Thank god you lot have arrived, we’ve been sitting ducks with heavy casualties preparing for the next Covenant attack. And I sure as hell didn’t expect a counter-assault of this magnitude, let alone SPATANS." Sergeant First Class Lachlan Stevens welcomed gratefully.

"Glad to meet you Sergeant, your able combatants will be working alongside us to regain control of the North Shore. Firstly we’ll attend to your wounded and create attack strategies for daybreak." Simon-A001 reassured. He then turned to inform the rest of his team on their duties.

"Tony, I want you on medical straight away. Do what you do best."

"Yes sir, certainly." The brains of Libra shot inside the surf club to attend the injured.

"Jun and Jack, scout the area, see what we’re up against. I’m not familiar with the area and so I need ways in and out for us and the Covenant." Jun nodded humbly and Jack gave a hint of excitement through a muttered yesss! They ran off into the darkness.

"Kate and Zack, you need to assess the ordinance, armour, weaponry and military capabilities of the unit. Get to know names and specialities, we’re gonna need all the help we can get." "Yes sir." Kate replied with a subtle nod.

"You know what I like best!" Zack enthused in his deep slightly-philipino voice to the Commander, as he walked to the rudimentary armoury. Simon smiled at the EOD and heavy duty specialist’s charismatic nature. The army Sergeant waved the commander over to their central control table; a map and some objects to serve as ally and enemy units and bases. They really were lacking resources.

"We’re so grateful for your arrival, half our unit is down though, injured or dead. Took your time!" The Sergeant said cheekily.

"Better late than never Sergeant, better late than never..."

'''1827 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calender)/ Outskirts of Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality of the People's Republic of China

The sun was beginning to set on the western horizon as the purple-hulled Phantom Dropship descended from the sky, deactivating its cloaking shield and bringing itself to bear as it hovered right at the edge of the raised platform, making for easy accessibility. Within a few seconds, both of the bay doors folded out, Gunner-rank Unggoy manning the Plasma Cannons on either side while a Special Operations Sangheili walked to the edge of the troop bay; there, he grabbed a hold of the bay wall's edge and looked out across the demolished area that had once been the port of a Human city.

A dozen yards away, just now beginning to walk up the ramp to the raised platform, approached an entourage of Sangheili, Honor Guards surrounding a half a dozen warriors in a protective circle. This central group, noticeable in their distinctly crafted armor, were an imposing group of Sangheili Zealots, commanders of the invading army.

As the Sangheili boarded the dropship, the SpecOps Sangheili backed away from the edge and bowed respectfully to his superiors, not raising his head till one of them spoke to him.

“Report, 'Essonee,” stated the highest ranking Zealot. From head to toe, the Sangheili's purple armor demonstrated refined simplicity, the artistic motifs and armor pieces combined were with combat sensibility to ensure an imposing, regal look without compromising tactical functionality. Standing almost a head taller than the rest of the Zealots and with more than enough muscle mass to fill out his well-built form, it was obvious in every way that this Sangheili had seen his share of battles, and was most assuredly fit for his command position.

Few were more feared than Field Marshall Rimon 'Achachakee.

'Essonee spoke: “This Human territory – Chy-Nuh, they call it – is well on its way to defeat. The capital has fallen and our base there is already under construction, while the Humans are scurrying away like Scrub Grubs.” 'Essonee paused, unsure as to whether or not he should continue.

“And what of your mission, commander?” asked 'Achachakee, “Does the Human commander now rot in the Shadow World?”

'Essonee was silent a moment.

“Well?”

“Regrettably, our strike failed, Field Marshall. The commander escaped, killing two of my best men in the process.”

'Achachakee hung his head in digust. “This is the second time you have failed me, 'Essonee,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the commander. 'Achachakee walked over to one of the bay doors and stared out at the vast sea that separated this Human territory, Chy-Nuh, from their next target, an island state called Jaahpahn, which was reported by scouts to have gathered a large supply of war equipment and soldiers, including some escapees from the recently destroyed capitol of Chy-Nuh.

“Tell me, 'Argysee,” began 'Achachakee, turning to one of his companions, a gold-clad General, “If 'Essonee were to fail you again, what would you do?”

“I would strip him of his rank, cut off his sword hand's thumbs, and clip his mandibles,” stated the General in a husky voice.

“Indeed,” returned 'Achachakee simply, watching out the bay door as the water receded and the Phantom pivoted towards the nearby carrier. “'Essonee, you have one final chance to redeem yourself: eliminate the Human commanders on Jaahpahn once the invasion begins, or you shall wish you were never born.”

“By your word, Field Marshall”

“Ship Master,” continued 'Achachakee quickly, turning to another of the Zealots, “As soon as we dock, gather this battle group and move the ships towards the island. We land our forces before sunrise; understood?”

The Ship Master acknowledged, and once he did 'Achachakee turned to the bay door once more while the Phantom entered the hangar bay. There on the horizon, defying the waves, the high Zealot saw their target, a bastion of Humanity soon to be crushed like so much dirt beneath his hoof.

They shall die like the vermin they are, thought 'Achachakee.

Then, with a mere button press, the bay door closed, plunging them into darkness.

'''2138 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calender)/ Saitama Prefecture, Japan - approaching Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture

The sky had already grown dark and yielded to the moon and stars for several hours, but still the convoy of UNSC forces pressed on towards Tokyo, visible only as a distant glow on the horizon. Throughout the island nation, forces were redeploying to Ryu Base, UNSC headquarters in the area with the destruction of the Echo-7 Command in Beijing roughly six hours earlier. While forces were holding positions in strategic locations throughout Japan, many serving as launch points for air strikes and naval forces, strategists predicted the Covenant sledgehammer would fall on the Tokyo region.

Lance Corporal Robert Justin Davis III of the UNSC Marine Corps lowered his helmet's scope attachment and activated the night vision function, scanning the area and checking the skies for incoming attacks, but all remained as clear and silent as it had been for the past few hours, ever since the destruction of two lone Banshee fighters. All was quiet, too quiet: Justin was nervous, to say the least, and continued to expect Covenant starships to appear over them at any minute.

Some would have blamed Justin's jitters on the fact that he was both young and not long in the military, but Justin had already been through a dozen battles against the Covenant, gaining both experience in war and a chilled outlook on the Covenant assault. Not knowing what to expect was not Justin's problem: this unease was caused by the exact opposite, the fact that Justin knew what should be happening and had not yet started.

“This is the way the world ends,” Justin whispered to himself, unheard by any others underneath the howl of the wind that rushed past the speeding Falcon. Placing the turret on safety once more, Justin thought of the dismal situation they were in: the Covenant had found Earth, blown a hole through the orbital defense grid right over the Mediterranean, and now they were spreading across the globe, blowing apart key strongholds as they tightened their choke-hold on all Humanity held dear.

But this is our home, thought Justin, We won't go down without a fight.

Staring at the stars, Justin recalled one of the last times he had spoken with his father: “When I was a kid,” he had said, ''“Thoughts about other life out there were mostly just dreams. I remember there was a big group of people that kept wanting us to try and make contact, saying aliens would bring peace and harmony. Hehe, I wonder where they are now...”''

Dead, like so many others, thought Justin, Dead like you. Mere months after that conversation, Justin's father died during the evacuation of Last Chance, a refugee world they had been moved too; Justin managed to make it to the refugee ships, but his father was not so lucky, and his poor mother died days later from internal injuries taken during the evacuation. After that, Justin had lived briefly off the grid before faking his age and joining the Marines: since then, he had fought on numerous worlds, doing his best to beat the Covenant back, but they had only succeeded in stalling the inevitable.

I'll die before I hand this planet over to you sons of...

On the ground below, Staff Sergeant Josiah “Tex” Littleton kept his hand gripped tightly onto the rollbar of his Troop Transport Warthog, with his mind holding just as firmly on to the glimmer of hope that he pictured alongside the soft glow of city lights on the horizon. It was true that the Covenant were doing their best to take Earth for their own, to break Humanity's will, but Tex knew that they all had a speck of hope; if they could just pull together long enough to fight back, this fight might be the turning point of the whole war.

“What the heck you staring at like that, Tex?” asked Sergeant Tommy “Guns” Jones from the passenger seats in the back. Tommy was Tex's right-hand man on the team, and he was not push-over in a fight. Between his hand-to-hand combat skills, efficiency with close-quarters weapons and the ability to seemingly cheat death, Tex had more than once thought that while they might all be TROJANs, Tommy should have been a SPARTAN.

Tex smirked. “I'm looking at the city, and thinking we might have a shot at this,” he yelled back.

“You're one crazy son of a gun,” said Lance Corporal Isaac “Blitz” Montoya, the heavy weapons specialist and medic of Team Delta.

“Look who's talking,” Tex retorted, “All I'm saying is if we can make it to Ryu Base, we might have a fighting chance. Not much, but just enough.”

“Why the H*** would we have a fighting chance there instead of anywhere else, huh?” asked Corporal Henry “Ratchet” Jackson, the team's engineer, information warfare specialist and pilot, “What does it have that nowhere else around here does? Personally I say we should have dug in on Mt. Fuji, had some solid ground around us instead of crumbling skyscrapers!”

“Great idea, Ratchet, 'cept for the part where they glass us all to death,” retorted Blitz, “Seriously though, Tex, what's so important about Ryu?”

“SPARTANs,” said Amos Kane from the driver's seat. He was an enigma to the rest of the team, an ONI liaison that had been assigned to them in Sendai prior to departure for Tokyo. For the majority of the trip, Amos had been silent, but now he chose to speak only to drop a bomb that none of the others had expected.

Ratchet nearly swallowed the wad of tobacco he was chewing. “SPARTAN's?” he coughed, “Why the H*** are SPARTANs here of all places?”

“Because ONI has some things they would rather not lose.”

'''2206 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calender)/ Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

“You have been reassigned, and you will like it, Sierra,” ordered the stern, old man. He was tall, dressed cleanly in uniform and carried a thick, black beard with grey streaks, likely against regulations. Then again, Codename: ISTARI was an ONI member that rarely worried about regulations, and had few who would challenge his authority: all ISTARI worried about was ethics and winning, with the latter over-riding the first when need be.

“Sir, with all due respect –” began the SPARTAN.

“Silence,” cut in ISTARI, “There will be no negotiating, CHRONO. I am not MAGPIE; you may be her favored pet agent, but I am her right-hand, and in her absence I call the shots in regards to her agents. We have SPARTAN-grade soldiers here at Ryu Base, and while they may officially be working as Inferno Team, they need a leader: you will fulfill that role.”

“I feel you are wasting a valuable aspect, sir,” retorted CHRONO.

“D***it, Riker, follow orders for once!” cried ISTARI, “This is not the time for questions! The Covenant are crossing the Sea of China as we speak: they'll invade Japan before dawn. If it weren't for the fact we need every man we can get I'd have you locked up right this minute for disobeying orders.”

ISTARI sighed and sank into his chair. “Riker, let's dismiss with formalities for a moment. I need you to understand that I need you to lead this team: you're the only agent I trust to handle it, and any other qualified agents are too far off for me to call on in the timeframe I'm working with. I know you've not been a team player the entire time you've been an agent, and I know why you have apprehensions – I've read about Brown Team, and what happened on Chaos; I sympathize. But no matter what your fears are, Riker, you must take this position.”

“I'm not afraid, sir,” replied the SPARTAN stoically, nary a sign of emotion on his face.

“Then get out there!” bellowed ISTARI, on his last leg of patience.

Riker appeared for a moment like he would hesitate, but then he nodded and saluted, walking out of the room. Before he left though, ISTARI spoke up once more: “You won't be alone in this Riker, remember that. I'll be serving as Inferno Actual on this mission; I'll be watching you.”

Riker nodded and walked out, leaving ISTARI alone in the empty office. He sighed to himself. “Margaret, why did I let you get me into this?”

Riker walked into the main atrium of Ryu Base, where Marines and soldiers set up defenses and barricades both within and without, with line after line of defenses and traps set up to protect the towering ONI structure. Of course, part of the defense was in the structure itself, as the true secrets of the ONI building where not in the skies above, but buried below.

Exiting the outer courtyard, Riker entered the streets and found his new team of super-soldiers to his right, where some were setting up machine gun nests and other forms of cover, as others helped unload ammunition and equipment from incoming Warthog supply carriers, with a few simply standing or sitting nearby. Walking up to them, some of the idle ones saluted, which Riker returned as he scanned the group: they were a motley crew, with only two clad in MJOLNIR, while another pair wore SPI and the remaining two were outfitted with THOR powered armor.

“And who might you be?” asked one of the idlers, standing up as she spoke; she was shorter than a normal SPARTAN, partially due to the SPI armor she was glad in, but her hardened face showed only disdain for this new arrival.

“Master Chief Petty Officer Riker-012,” replied Riker, “I'm your new commanding officer. And you are?”

The girl only snorted at Riker, and turned back to her seat: however, she was in for a rude shock as Riker caught her wrist and flipped her over, forcing her to the ground where he pinned her with a knee each on her left arm and throat while he held down her right arm with his own. “I believe I asked your name,” Riker stated calmly as two of the others snickered to themselves.

“Nalani,” she replied, struggling, “Private First Class Nalani Heap.” As soon as she finished speaking, Riker released her and got up, moving out of the way as she bolted off the ground. Riker smirked under his helmet as Nalani glared at him.

“And the rest of you?” he asked, turning to face them.

“Chief Petty Officer Heinz-238,” stated one of the MJOLNIR wearers, a young male with blond hair and a dark complexion. “And this is my teammate, Chief Petty Officer Bryn-175,” he continued, indicating the other MJOLNIR-clad warrior, a female with long dark hair, dyed with blue streaks in places, complimenting her blue, troubled eyes.

“I can speak for myself, Heinz,” she growled, throwing him a degrading look.

“238 and 175, you say?” asked Riker, receiving a nod from both, “Never heard numbers that high before.”

“They're Second Class SPARTAN-II's,” replied a young man in THOR armor; he was of Asian ethnic origins, though his height and broad shoulders suggested something else at work also. Unlike all but one other, he kept his helmet on, though the visor was depolarized so that his face was visible. “The project was started around the same time period as the SPARTAN-III Beta Company, but it followed the original SPARTAN-II program ideals of super-soldiers that were built to last, not 'fire and forget' assets. Their tags range from 151 to 300.”

“Thank you, resident geek,” replied Bryn, “As if we wanted pieces of our lives handed to us like we're merely facts on a datapad.”

“And you would be?” inquired Riker.

“Corporal Benji Wong,” replied the young man, “Myself and Kevin here” – he indicated one of the SPI wearers – “are both Spartan-1.1's. Nalani and Chon are Spartan-2.1's; children of your brothers and sisters, you see. I suppose they're almost your niece and nephew.” Benji attempted to laugh at his joke, but stopped himself when he realized Riker was not of the humorous sort.

Riker nodded and looked at the last member, Chon, who had remained silent. “And you?” he asked, but Chon remained silent within his THOR armor.

“He's deaf,” said Nalani, “Has been since birth.”

“Any auditory implants?”

“Yeah”

“Then why does he not speak”

“He got used to it as a kid, and decided not to change after he learned to hear. He understands you just fine, he just doesn't ever answer verbally.”

“Wireless textual transfer, then.” Nalani nodded. “How good is he at sniping?”

“Best one you'll see around these parts”

Riker merely stared at Chon, who stared back, both hidden by their visors but understanding one another perfectly. Riker then turned to the others and looked once more. “I thought there were more of you than this.”

“Oh, there are,” replied Benji, “The chief is up on the roof with the others.”

“Show me,” said Riker, and Benji moved to lead only for Kevin to stop him.

“I'll handle it from here,” said Kevin, leading Riker to a nearby elevator and activating it. Riker looked at Kevin and gave a silent nod of thanks for delivering him from Benji's overly-energetic nature.

The elevator slid to a stop, and the doors opened, letting Riker and Kevin off on the rooftop before quietly closing behind them. On the edge of the roof, four silent figures stood, gazing at the night sky and city lights in front of them: one turned and looked, then informed the others they had a guest.

“Who do you have with you, Kevin?” asked the shortest figure, a female clad in SPI.

“This is our new commander.”

At this, the middle figure turned around, his chipped and scraped brown GUNGNIR armor appearing not much better off than Riker's similarly beaten red Operator variant MJOLNIR. The figure was a middle-aged man, his skin a deep tan, with grey hair growing on the tip of his chin: the tip of his left ear had been badly mauled, and he lacked any hair on his head's top, not from shaving but from bad burns across the skin. In his right ear was a small, silver stud earring, while his left cheek was tattooed with a small circle made of dots. Out of respect, Riker also removed his own helmet, allowing this commander's group a view of his face whereas the ones below had been deprived; in Riker's mind, it stood as a small show of respect. The figure stuck out his hand, which Riker took and shook thoroughly.

“Master Chief Petty Officer Riker-012,” he said.

“Welcome,” said the bald man, “I'm Senior Chief Petty Officer Marak-A103. I'm glad to know I won't be the only commander of Inferno.”

“A motley crew, to be sure,” replied Riker.

“You have no idea,” answered Marak with a knowing smile, “If only you'd been with us over the past few days of the invasion.” He turned back to the building's edge and looked through a pair of binoculars once again, scanning the horizon.

“Have you had any signs of them?”

“None yet,” said Marak, “What report from ISTARI?”

Riker was somewhat stunned that Marak knew of his visit with ISTARI, and when Marak saw it, he laughed lightly despite himself. “You're not the only agent MAGPIE has, you know.”

“True enough,” said Riker, “But in any case, ISTARI only knows they could arrive anywhere within the next four hours or so.”

“I suppose we just have to hope the wet Navy takes out as many as they can,” said Marak. Turning back to Riker and the others, he said, “Introductions are needed, I suppose. This one here” – Marak indicated one of the men, clad in MP variant MJOLNIR armor – “is Avalon-X05, GENOME division. The other lad in the Hayabusa armor is Gregory-266, Class Two RONIN Group. And the lass there is Janissary James, commander of the Spartan-1.1's.”

Riker simply nodded, viewing them all. “Time for war then.”

Operation: DIVINE SON

1925 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Outskirts of Thermopylae, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

The three Spartans moved swiftly along the river of Spercheios through wreckages and burned pavements, stopping every hundred feet to take cover, while the leader scanned the surroundings, sniper rifle in hand. After several seconds, he gave a barely visible hand signal, and his two female teammates gracefully leapt out of cover to take point. They moved ahead another hundred feet, took cover again, the leader once more looking around in the distance through his rifle's scope, thus repeating the procedure.

And so, the armored giants continued – continuously moving in short bursts and dropping into cover, seemingly eyeing the hundreds of Covenant Banshee fighters and three corvettes in the distance vigilantly – for half an hour, until the leader finally gave a different hand gesture – slowly waving an open hand downwards – and pointed to what appeared to be an abandoned fisherman's hut a short distance from the river bed, covered somewhat from sight by home-planted trees. The three figures snuck through the – for them – small doorway one by one until the leader was last and quietly shut the door.

A thin ray of light streamed in through a broken window on the opposite side of the one-room hut and lit up the leader's cyan-colored armor while he carefully holstered his sniper rifle onto his back. He then turned and sat down in front of the other two, removing his helmet to reveal curly, dirty blond hair and a hint of same-colored stubble adorning an angular-shaped face with blue eyes.

"Well" he said tiredly, but with a detectable hint of amusement. "Things haven't changed. At least not for the better."

The woman in blue-colored armor also removed her helmet, uncovering chin-length white-blond hair and a half sad half irritated expression, complete with almost electric blue eyes. "I don't get how you keep sounding positive about it all, Major. It's damn bad out there! Has been for a day and a half!" She had a touch of Irish accent as she spoke, but so little that it was barely noticeable, as if she had almost phased out of it by living in proximity to a different dialect for a long time.

Major Laszlo-108 shrugged and managed a weak smile. "Looking on the bright side of things helps. Lazít. Chill out, Bonnie. Though come to think of it, we might want to get back to base before doing that" he jokingly scratched his chin as though deep in thought "seeing as those who chill away from home has a short life expectancy."

Bonnie-A261 rolled her eyes but didn't reply. Laszlo knew it was a sign of defiance; once realizing that her new commanding officer was a positive optimist – as opposed to herself and her cynicism – she had been skeptical of his ability to command.

Amanda-208, sitting to Bonnie's left, neither said anything nor took off her helmet: she, like most of the second class of the SPARTAN-II Program, had the same custom as the majority of the first class to keep on their equipment at all times, a habit Laszlo and a lot of the SPARTAN-IIIs – judging from Bonnie's behavior, anyway - hadn't embraced fully. But Laszlo knew well enough what she looked like – raven black hair tied up into a knot, somewhat sharp features, golden eyes – and that she, also had her doubts about his leadership. She didn't express it like Bonnie, but Laszlo could feel it. And he chose to let their doubts be. He knew they wouldn't start respecting him properly for who he was until they were forged together in heavy combat. Battle had such a strange effect on people; through all the pain and death that occurred, the survivors almost mechanically bonded gradually through the common knowledge that one understood what the other was going through. Laszlo had made most of his friends outside the SPARTAN-II Program that way.

"Look" he said sympathetically "let's catch our breath a minute or two before heading back to base." Bonnie and Amanda nodded, Bonnie with somewhat more hesitation.

All three of them knew that they weren't stopping to 'catch their breath'; they just used the scarce time at the end of their reconnaissance patrols away from the chattering and commotion in Olympus Base, where the known remains of the UNSC forces in Greece – including Laszlo and his fellow female members of Brown Team, as well as two other Spartan teams known as Gentry and Winter, roughly two companies worth of army troopers, a platoon of paratroopers and ODSTs, a squadron of bomber craft, and a considerable amount of vehicles and aircraft – had holed up once the Covenant had successfully occupied and cut off the whole country from contact with the rest of humanity, to think in peace.

They wanted a plan, a clear goal to pursue again. They wanted to fight. It was what they did best. But that was easier said than done when the Covenant held the entire region in a tight grip, somehow preventing all communications in and out of the country, and also patrolling the skies with Banshee squadrons and corvettes. The UNSC resistance was effectively stuck for the time being, as were any possibly remaining pockets of defense force and militia combatants.

Meanwhile, the Covenant seemed intent on making use of every square meter of the country; reconnaissance confirmed that they were building large amounts of factories for various purposes – from weapons, vehicles and equipment to aircraft and starship components – primarily in the Thessaly Periphery. Anti-air plasma batteries and electromagnetic shielding generators were also constructed throughout the region, evidently to defend against external attack.

But none of that was anything compared to Athens; the core of the Covenant forces – including an assault carrier – was based in the once thriving metropolis, storing methane deposits, armories, bases and more within its boundaries. And at the center, they had busily started to construct a tall spire – a piece of Covenant technology first seen during the Fall of Reach and used to devastating effect. All evidence pointed towards the fact that the alien empire was turning the region into a beachhead for other Covenant forces, from which they would scatter around the globe, to ultimately conquer the whole planet.

So far, the brass back at Olympus base were uncertain what action to take – whether to bypass Covenant forces and get out of the country, or to launch a counterattack – so they sent the spartans and what remained of the local Section One field reconnaissance detachment as scouts to gather as much intel as possible in the meantime, hoping it would affect the final decision. And so the supersoldier teams had taken turns at monitoring the surrounding area, while the ONI recon teams handled long-range reconnaissance – mainly towards Athens and other larger cities the Covenant may have taken interest in, or where more UNSC forces may have survived and continued the fight. In the meantime, the rest of the spartans were relegated to base defense, in case it was discovered, or aiding the brass in their planning.

After a few minutes, Laszlo decided to get a move on, and signaled Amanda and Bonnie to take point. One by one, they leapt through entrance and moved into the nearest cover – a dune of sand – before taking a look around. Laszlo drew his sniper rifle and once more looked into the scope to check the distance.

At first glance, everything seemed as normal as before they took shelter in the hut, but at second glance Laszlo saw a dot in the sky – one that hadn't been there before. More than that, it seemed the Covenant corvette group had also noticed it, adjusting their course towards it.

"Don't look now" he whispered "but we've got a new contact, ten o'clock."

Bonnie retrieved a pair of binoculars from her belt and looked in the direction Laszlo had given. "I see it. Covvies too, apparently."

Amanda retrieved a pistol-sized device, a target indicator, from her left thigh and pointed it in the same direction. After a barely audible beep, she added "A freighter, one of ours. But I can't identify it; there's nothing in the registry."

"Then it's an ONI vessel" Laszlo replied, still keeping the new ship in his rifle's crosshair.

"Why would ONI send in a ship uncloaked and on a suicide charge?" Bonnie asked incredulously, still looking intently through the binoculars.

"It probably was cloaked." Laszlo told her. "But it must've passed through an átok EM shield accidentally, disabling all stealth systems."

"Will you cut out the hunagarian?" Bonnie retorted. "You keep tossing it into sentences randomly, and I'll ask Hào if I can join his team instead."

"Cut it out, you two!" Amanda whispered sharply. "Look what's happening."

In the distance, the anonymous freighter had become clearer; there was no doubt that it was charging towards the enemy ships. Conversely, the corvettes began charging their lateral pulse laser turrets, light clearly building up along their sides.

A loud boom echoed throughout the area as the mystery vessel fired a missile – which Laszlo quickly identified as a standard Navy-issue Archer – from somewhere in its fore section. What looked like two small objects fell off the missile just as it left the firing tube, but Laszlo paid no attention to it as he followed the missile with the crosshair until it impacted with the leading corvette.

The enemy ship's shields flared, shimmered, and then dissipated, but leaving the ship unscathed. Moments later, the corvette's sides flared up and fired its pulse laser beams, followed by its companions. Although gaining speed, the unregistered freighter was hit by half the beams. The hull blazed and burned away in seconds, exposing the interior.

Despite the damage, the ship continued to speed towards the enemy. Laszlo had a dawning realization – the freighter intended to ram the corvette formation in lieu of the fire power it didn't have. As it closed in, it seemed the Covenant noticed this as well, as they started to speed off – too late.

The freighter slammed into the leading corvette's mid section nose-first with a series of loud creaks and bangs. But it was nothing compared to what came a second later; a large blue-white – almost electric-looking – round light appeared, engulfing all four ships before disappearing almost as soon as it appeared – with no trace of the ships that had been there seconds before.

"Take cover!" Laszlo yelled, knowing what would follow. As he said it, a white sphere appeared where the ships had been moments before and expanded with a boom. The three spartans huddled closely together behind the sand dune, bracing for the incoming shockwave.

After roughly fifteen seconds, the white light passed over them, forcing Laszlo to shut his eyes tightly. A microsecond later, the shock reached them and threw the spartans back several meters. Laszlo impacted with the ground and lay there, not opening his eyes.

Only after a minute did the spartans open their eyes, finding the air filled with what looked like blue snowflakes, but Laszlo identified as the remaining particles of the slipspace shockwave.

"That was…unexpected." Bonnie grunted and got to her feet, offering a hand to Laszlo.

He took it and was hoisted back up to his feet. "Oh really? Myself, I've been expecting an ONI-controlled vessel to get here, charge straight into a cluster of Covenant ships and send all of them into slipspace, resulting in a violent shockwave hitting everything in a ten mile radius."

"Whoever was behind the wheels" Amanda said, getting up slowly as though she was still disoriented "he or she had to have been a pretty quick – and unconventional – thinker. Shame we'll never get to meet; I'd have liked to congratulate on the success of destroying three Covenant ships."

Laszlo returned his thoughts to the two objects from the missile, and it dawned on him who it might be. "Actually, I think you will get the chance, Amanda."

Both Amanda and Bonnie cast him puzzled glances, but he cut in before they could ask. "Let's get over there. We have three very special people to meet, and they might need medical attention."

***

Almost ten minutes later, they entered the broken forest beneath where the shockwave had originated. They stepped over broken branches and, to their delight, several banshee, spirit and phantom wreckages; it seemed most of the fighter craft had crashed due to the shockwave. With neither fighters, dropships nor corvettes in the air, it seemed the Covenant had lost their hold in the vicinity. Laszlo hoped that everyone back at Olympus was mobilizing already to make use of this sudden advantage.

Finally, Laszlo reached the peak of a slope and spotted two parachute packs on the ground, but no sign of any people. He smirked to himself as he took off the helmet; it had been as he suspected after all.

"All right, time to come out gyerekek!" he yelled in the direction of the chutes. "Your shabby old tanár wants to get a good look at you again."

Bonnie and Amanda, who had also appeared on the top of the slope, didn't have time to look puzzled before two more spartans appeared; the first – a male – leapt down from a tree fifty feet away and limped towards them, hinting at damaged legs; the second one, a woman, appeared from behind a large rock, clutching her sides and right arm with the other, suggesting broken ribs and arm.

The spartan from the tree approached Laszlo at a slow pace while removing his helmet, revealing a young, yet lightly bearded face with a coy grin. "It's been too long, old man."

"Roger!" Laszlo exclaimed fatherly, positively beaming as he walked up to his former trainee and grabbed him in a headlock while ruffling his rows of black hair with the other hand.

"Let me go, you're embarrassing me!" Roger said indignantly, but Laszlo had already let go of him to do the same to his teammate, who appeared to be too wounded to stop him from doing so.

"Is anybody going to tell us what's going on?" Bonnie asked annoyingly; both she and Amanda had merely looked on in surprise until then.

"Oh, sorry" Laszlo said, letting go of the woman – who hurried to fix her hair where the older spartan had ruffled it. "I trained a group of spartans years back, and these two are among those. Among the best of them, in fact. Roger" he clapped the dark-skinned spartan with the row haircut on the shoulder, "and Mica" he gestured at the woman. "Kids, these fine women are Bonnie and Amanda." None of the two said anything, apparently not believing the two women worthy of talking to.

"As for what's going on" Laszlo cut in before Bonnie could ask again "I believe my two ex-trainees here were given a ship by ONI – or 'acquired' it on their own – to investigate the situation in Greece-"

"You mean they may have stolen an entire ship!?" Amanda said in disbelief.

Laszlo ignored the interruption. "…as scans and other electronics proved incapable of this due to the Covenant's deployment of electromagnetic shielding. But during their insertion, they passed through an EM field, thus deactivating the ship's cloaking systems and exposing them to the Covenant corvettes. In an attempt to get away – or at least take as many Covenant as possible with them – they charged towards the corvette cluster while setting a timer on their own ship's slipspace drive. Then, they put on parachutes and grabbed onto the archer missile, jumping off just after it was out of the firing tube. Then of course, the FTL drive activated and created a rift engulfing both the freighter and the corvettes, which then immediately collapsed on itself, sending all four ships into who-knows-where and causing a shockwave. Judging by their injuries" – he cast glances at James and Mica – "I guess that they were only halfway down when the shockwave occurred, which then sent them tumbling down. Is that just about correct?" he finished, turning to Roger.

"Yeah" Roger said "just about."

"Good. Does that satisfy you, Bonnie?"

Bonnie nodded absently, taking in everything she had heard. Laszlo turned back towards Roger, Mica and James. "Now, seeing as your ride's gone, you should come with us back to base."

"You still have a base in this Covenant-infested hell-hole?" Roger asked with a tone of surprise.

"Sure do. We believe there are other surviving UNSC enclaves too somewhere. Thanks to you, we might be able to start looking."

"Then what're we waiting for?" Mica said excitedly. "Let's go-ouch!" she clutched her ribs again, shaking in pain.

"You take it slow" Laszlo told her sternly. "We don't want you to end up like James. All right; Amanda, you take point. Roger; you're lookout" he gave his sniper rifle to Roger, who took it instinctively, " and you'll be riding piggyback on Bonnie" – Roger jerked in surprise and started to protest against the order, using a wide array of vulgar words for emphasis – "Finally, I carry Mica."

Mica jerked away as though shocked by an electrical current. "No. Fucking. Way." She spoke with venom in every word.

"Oh, don't be such a baby; it'll be faster this way" Laszlo said heartily as he grabbed and slung her over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. She readied to protest more, but Laszlo's shoulder armor pushed against her ribs, causing her to yowl in pain instead.

Looking around, Laszlo found Amanda already moving back towards the base and Roger finally giving in to jumping up to let Bonnie carry him, albeit he tossed many rude terms her way whilst doing so. The two then trotted after Amanda, while Laszlo looked on, a wide smile on his face; it was always good to see old acquaintances.

"Will you get a move on already, dammit!? It's bad enough that I'm being carried like this without being last back to base!"

***

1958 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Olympus Base, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

"Seriously, where in the ever-loving hell are they?"

Rachel-343 took another look through the opening into the mountain in which Olympus Base had been built, not far from the infamous "Hot Gates" where three hundred spartan warriors had once held the line against a massive Persian army, still not seeing Laszlo or the others of Brown Team.

"Relax" Varghese-A405 – also known as Winter Two, and the second-in-command and heavy weapons specialist of the team of the same name – said in a reassuring, deep voice from his corner farther into the cave, just beside the entrance into the actual base. "They probably just went to check the area again, with that shockwave affecting the terrain."

"Maybe they want to hog all survivors to themselves." Balduin-324 – or Winter Four – chuckled while loitering against the east wall, slotting shells into his M45 Tactical Shotgun, true to his occupation as team close quarters combat specialist.

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Sure, Bal, there's usually loads of survivors left behind after slipspace ruptures. How could I forget?"

"I meant from the crashed fighters" Balduin said with a coyly cheerful tone, as though explaining to a stubborn child what one plus one was. "They weren't sucked into god-knows-where, now were they?"

"Give me a break" Rachel countered mockingly. "Only Spartans survive freefalls from such altitudes."

"Aha! That's what the major and his female friends are doing!" Balduin exclaimed triumphantly.

"What, freefalling?" Rachel asked incredulously.

"No, searching for spartans freefalling out of that freighter!"

There was a second's pause before Rachel burst out laughing. "Yeah right" she said, struggling to hold back another wave of laughter. "Maybe they're trying to save the UEG Secretary-General too. Maybe the Security Committee while they're at it. Don't be ridiculous." She finished, returning to her serious self.

"I'm totally serious" Balduin said indignantly.

Rachel curled her lips into a smug grin. "Enough to wanna bet?"

Balduin smiled too. "You bet – no pun intended."

"All right" Rachel mused. "Twenty shotgun shells. No less."

"Deal" Balduin said, but Rachel had already turned away from him.

Varghese sat himself down beside Balduin, several components of a grenade launcher in his massive hands and with an expression of mixed amusement and confusion. "You do know that it doesn't make any difference whether you win or lose, right? I mean, the loser will just go get extra shells from the armory."

"It just feels more appropriate to bet something" Balduin told the tall and broad-shouldered spartan cheerfully.

"You ARES types are mighty curious, you know that?" Varghese said bemusedly.

"We had a curious mentor" Balduin chuckled.

Rachel paid no attention to Balduin's and Varghese's conversation, as she had turned towards Alexander-B057 – Winter Three, designated marksman in the team – who stood to her right, watching the area through his sniper rifle.

"Have you seen them yet?" she asked him.

Alexander's face wrinkled into an annoyed expression as he set down the rifle on the nearest rock, but Rachel didn't take note of this as she instead focused on his now free hands, which were quickly flexing into various gestures.



Alexander was incapable of speech, after a complication with one of the augmentation procedures that ended up crushing his vocal chords. But that wasn't his only handicap; the occipital capillary reversal enhancement had also rendered his eyes permanently blinded. To be allowed into service, he had his eyes replaced with THERMOPYLAE-grade optical device replacements and equipped a Neural Interface-linked instant text message module in his helmet. With recent upgrades to the THERMOPYLAE optics, his replacement eyes were actually even more potent than those of other spartans – even offering an inbuilt scope function – and with some practice the message module made communication in battle situations almost as effective as normal speech – assuming the recipient had a heads-up display – and provided its own set of benefits organic speech wasn't capable of. Despite this, Alexander resented the fact that he had to rely on technology for things others had for granted.

"Well duh" Rachel uttered coldly. Handicap or not, she would always be as rude to Alexander as to anyone else. "A lot of things can change in five minutes. Wouldn't a marksman know that? Or maybe you missed that class to polish your eye?"

Alexander's face reddened almost instantly, but he continued to make the hand signs with laser precision. 

"You didn't say anything!" Rachel said with contempt, losing her patience. "You signed – about the only method of communication you-"

"Rachel!" a sleepy Chinese-toned voice bellowed from the now open door into the base, belonging to Winter One – Hào-B296, leader of the team. He held his helmet clutched in his left hand, the other holding back a yawn. He had unruly – but still within the bounds of military hair-length regulations – black hair, and his brown eyes were ringed with fatigue. "Quit it, now!"

The two spartans cast each other a last, contemptuous look, before Rachel slowly stepped away and sat down against the west wall, opposite to Balduin and Varghese. Hào looked at both of them warily for a few seconds before looking contented. Alexander picked up his sniper again and continued his watch.

Only a minute or so later, however, he put down the rifle again and signed: 

"Hah!" Balduin shouted, cut off in the middle of a new conversation with Varghese to check what Alexander had to relay. "I win! Now, hand over, Pyro Girl!"

"He didn't say they were spartans!" Rachel sputtered defensively, but somehow aware of what Alexander would sign next.

 The sniper had a mocking grin on his face when he signed it.

Resisting the urge to tell the men where to shove the shells, she picked up an ammunition box, made a quick check to make sure there were exactly twenty cartridges inside, and then lobbed it to Balduin, who caught it with one hand.

Sure enough, Laszlo, Bonnie and Amanda trotted into the cave one by one shortly after, and indeed they had two other spartans with them – one slung over Laszlo's shoulder, another riding piggyback on Bonnie and holding Laszlo's sniper rifle. All of them were almost instantly recognizable to Rachel; she had trained with them for years way back. But she didn't like what she recognized – those two individuals had always annoyed her.

"Crap!" she yelled a little louder than she had intended. "Not you ugly fucks again."

The one wielding the sniper rifle leaped off of Bonnie and removed his helmet, revealing a stubbly face – Roger, as she had correctly assumed. "Well, if it isn't Pyro Girl." he said, his lips curled into a mocking grin. "What're you doing here? Trying to set a record by burning down a mountain?"

Rachel got up and approached Roger, looking back into his eyes defiantly. "Unfortunately, no. But what about you? Taking piggyback lessons? Or did you settle for killing James, seeing as he's not with you?"

Roger's grin turned to an angry expression. "Don't talk about him like that, bitch! Unless, of course, you want to be reminded that we have actually done something, while you sat in this cozy cave on your butt doing-"

"Oh, that's it, you little runt! You asked for it-"

"Rachel, Roger! Lock it down, both of you!" Laszlo bellowed to them sternly. Both of them turned to look at him. "You're comrades! Act like it."

"I have no comrades left." Rachel said matter-of-factly. As the words escaped her lips, images of an armored person with a large piece of metal shrapnel lodged into her visor and blood oozing out of the cracks, then a bright explosive light engulfing another armored figure only a few feet behind her flashed in her mind.

"And my only comrades are Mica and James" Roger said while gesturing at Mica – who was still trying to get out of Laszlo's fireman's carry.

"I've had just about enough of this inter-team rivalry duma" Laszlo mumbled calmly, but for once Rachel thought he looked scary, almost mad with anger. "It was well enough in-training while you were pushing each other to the max, but now it's just an obstacle."

"You can't change the way nature works!" Rachel objected. "Fire and water don't mix."

"Wrong!" Laszlo exclaimed. "When lava and water mix, they turn into land. Just as those two elements unite to create something better, so too must different spartans band together to counter their weaknesses and compliment their strengths for maximum success."

"Lava isn't fire, so that point is-" Roger started to interject, interrupted by Laszlo whose face was now getting as red as Rachel's.

"The Covenant are on Earth! They come closer to seizing the planet with every passing minute, while you stand here, bickering like idiots! I don't know about you, but I want to stop them, before every last one of us is annihilated! I want to save the human race. How about you? No, don't answer, it's obvious! From now on, you will get along, and you will like it! Have I made myself perfectly clear this time around?"

Rachel slowly calmed while looking with disgust at Roger, who did the same. After several seconds, they controlled their expressions into a more neutral stance and replied "Yessir!" Then, with much effort, they raised their right hands and shook. Laszlo eased back into his normal cheery, smiling expression when he saw this.

"Well spoken, sir" Balduin said, walking up to Laszlo and patting what he assumed to be the older spartan's shoulder, but in reality Mica's bottom. Realizing his mistake, he jumped out of range of her legs just in time.

Rachel watched as Laszlo faked a cough and turned to Hào, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, Lieutenant. I didn't mean to start ranting on your subordinate. I just haven't managed to let go of these kids yet – you know, old dogs never learn to sit, right?"

"Considering the rank ladder" Hào said, still tiredly but with a hint of amusement "you're superior to me, so you had every right to do what you just did. But to be honest, it was also a pleasant surprise to see a wildcat like Rachel put in her place."

Rachel wanted to feel annoyed, but found herself unable to and even joined the others in soft chuckling at the remark. Laszlo had a point; they were fighting for Earth this time. It was humanity's final stand. They would have to do everything in their power to have any hope of success. She mentally decided to do whatever it took to ensure that victory – even if it meant cooperating with people like Roger and Mica.

"Anyway" Hào continued "we'd better hurry, major, or we'll be late to the last-minute strategy meeting. Alex and Rachel, head down to the pelican bay; Jelly and Malin might be just about done upgrading the new bird. Varg!" – Varghese stood a little straighter – "you and Bal take the two newcomers to the medbay. They might need an hour or so in the surgery suite."

"That's bullshit!" cried Mica. "We're ready n-ouch!"

"No you're not, missy." Laszlo whistled heartily while he tossed Mica over onto Varghese's shoulders. Meanwhile, Balduin walked over to Roger, who reluctantly let himself loiter against him. The group then went through the entrance, followed by Hào and Laszlo and then Rachel and Alexander. While Hào and Laszlo went straight ahead and Varghese and company to the left, Rachel and Alexander took to the right, the nearest route to the pelicans.

They walked in silence, until Rachel finally decided to swallow her pride and act halfway there. She turned to face the cyborg sniper, but instead of talking she flexed her fingers and hands to form hand signs.



Alexander looked on in surprise for a fraction of a second before managing a pleased expression. 

***

2007 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ 

Olympus Base, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

Hào and Laszlo walked briskly along the snaking corridors until stopping before a door guarded by two stern-looking MPs, pistols at the ready. The oldest of the quartet gave the spartans a slow nod, but his expression didn't change. Hào replied with a curt nod of his own, then opened the door with the tap of a button.

Shortly followed by Laszlo, he entered a spacey, but by now packed, room, filled with charts, hologram projectors and field notes. A round oak table occupied the center, with a collection of men and women standing around it – those few remaining high-ranking officers picked to lead the country's remaining forces.

Directly opposite to Hào and the entrance sat Brigadier General Ulucan Barak, a shaggy-haired and unshaven man sporting numerous scars and burn injuries across his face and hands – the left hand also missing its pinky. Under other circumstances, such rugged appearance might have been considered a flaw, but in the field he gave the impression of being a man who understood exactly what those under his command had to go through, which was always a plus. Despite his ruggedness and apparent old age, he was actually on the younger side of the average age for general-grade personnel – supposedly, he had been promoted to one-star general little more than a month back out of necessity after the crippling loss of high-ranking brass during the fall of Reach.

The general looked up from a data pad and glanced at the two spartans. Hào and Laszlo snapped off simultaneous salutes, which Barak returned tiredly. "We have waited for you" he added after the spartans had lowered their hands. "Join us."

Hào and Laszlo did as asked, walking up to the table to the right of another huge armored figure – Aksel-113, leader of Gentry Team. The thick-necked, blond-haired spartan gave Hào a nod, which Laszlo enthusiastically returned in his place.

"Now" Barak continued "we're all here. Most of you already know the plan, but for those who were absent" – he glanced at Laszlo – "I'll repeat it." He tapped a button in front of him, and a hologram emitted from the center of the table, showing Greece.

"Thanks to the destruction of the Covenant air assets in this area, we're finally able to properly mobilize our forces and dispatch them without risking one hundred percent casualties. The top priority target has been determined to be Athens; it currently functions as the local Covenant headquarters, and houses – as evidenced by intercepted communiqués – a Prophet. Said communiqués also reference to two high-ranking leaders; a Brute 'Army Commander' – a rank not referenced since the Harvest Campaign, as far as we're aware – and an Elite 'Field Marshall' – the top-tier ground force commander rank within the Covenant military. The presence of such high-ranking officials suggests that Greece is very important to the Covenant, and we believe we know why."

The general tapped another button, and the holographic map zoomed out to the rest of Mediterranean Europe and North Africa, with red arrows pointing out from Greece in all directions. "Greece lies relatively close to the African continent, which has been determined as a very important target for the Covenant – in fact the majority of their resources seem to be poured into that theater, around Mombasa and Voi, Kenya in particular. Additionally, it's easier to reach than many other locations on Earth due to the hole in the orbital defense grid that was dealt there by the first Covenant task force – both Athens and Malta stations were successfully destroyed by Covenant bombs. This fact would make it an ideal beachhead for Covenant forces to launch more invasions against east Africa. But that's not all."

He pressed a third button, and a second holographic image showing a spire towering over the easily recognizable skyscrapers of Athens appeared to the left of the main projection. "The Covenant haven't stopped at making it a beachhead and glorified outpost; they've built an impressive amount of various structures throughout the whole region. Factories in Thessaly, airborne refit stations in Thessaloniki, methane storage depots in Patras, even what appears to be Grunt breeding grounds and Drone hives in the Peloponnese Region, and perhaps the most troubling of all, a spire in Athens and a massively powerful jamming device built over Parthenon. The spire – although evidently not finished – is of particular note, as it matches the descriptions of a spire-like structure witnessed during the fall of Reach, one which turned out to be a teleporter – or, more accurately, a teleportation 'receiver node'. Said construction allowed the Covenant to transport a supercarrier right under the UNSC's noses directly to Reach's surface. However, the spire in Athens is also much larger, and appears to have additional structures connected to it."

"The Lieutenant here" – he gestured at Hào – "has come to the conclusion that this means the Athens spire has – or will have, once it's finished – additional functions; more specifically, it won't be limited to acting as a receiver node – a way for Covenant ships in orbit to slip past the orbital defense grid – but also function as a 'sender' node – allowing it to 'send' ships to other receivers. If this is true – which I think we all believe – then that means Greece is indeed a beachhead – a massive one – but not only that; it's also an R&R zone. Through the spire, ships in orbit will be able to slip past the defense grid, receive repairs as needed at the refit stations, rearm its ground complement with fresh weapons out of the factories, and receive drone and grunt reinforcements, then they can once more be sent to where they're needed – provided there's a receiver spire – fresh and ready to go all-out once more. Obviously, this would make the Covenant siege a hundred times more difficult to lift."

"We've determined that the spire is the most important component of the Covenant's plans, so that's our primary target. But to even have a chance of achieving that goal, we need a larger force than the one we have now. Thus, our immediate objective is to search the country to track down and save any remaining UNSC forces we can find; hopefully, it'll be enough to let us assault Athens before the spire is completed. Our secondary ulterior goal is to destroy the jamming device; with it gone, we can call for reinforcements or orbital bombardment, which would make our job much easier. But, should we get the chance to take out any of the other high-priority targets, or even smaller Covenant operations in the area whilst collecting survivors, we'll take it; anything that puts a wrench in their plans is beneficial for us."

Hào had already heard all this once, but he was still surprised at how clever the plan the Covenant had conceived was; the alien juggernaut's strategy had been little more than simple swarm or attrition tactics throughout the whole war. To see something so well thought-out and complicated was a very unpleasant surprise, especially since it was humanity's last stronghold at stake this time.

Laszlo broke the short silence. "So, what're the deployment orders?"

Barak turned off the holograms and stood up. "We're splitting our current forces into two groups to cover more ground in our search. Group One – to which you, your team, the newcomers and Hào's team belong to – will head north. With luck, there's some marines left from the task force sent to reinforce the country before the Covenant seized full control. If Lieutenant Hào's analysis of the last few days' COM traffic is accurate, there may also be some spartans there. If given an opening, Group One may also disable some of Thessaly's factories and Thessaloniki's refit stations, if any possible local survivors have not done so already. This group will be led by Colonel Kristi Johansen." He nodded to the woman sitting on his left. Colonel Johansen was the commanding officer of Special Warfare Group Five – what remained of it, anyway, to which Brown Team counted. Her hair was brown, though graying, with equally brown eyes.

"Group Two" Barak continued. "– with Gentry Team as the spearhead – will cut west, in the direction of Patras and the Peloponnese Region. If possible, they will also strike a blow to the Covenant in those respective areas. This group will be commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Dimitrios Alevras". The man to the general's right straightened somewhat upon hearing his name.

"Your team, major" Johansen added, "will drive ahead of the rest of the group in mongooses, providing forward reconnaissance – pinpointing targets of note and locating survivors on the ground – and disabling anti-air assets to allow a smooth transition for the rest of us. Meanwhile, Winter Team will remain airborne alongside the majority of the group, bar two members who have been chosen to link up with our deep recon teams outside of Athens – just in case we're not fast enough – and another member who will stay at the base for a little longer and team up with the two newcomers."

"Have those three been chosen?" Laszlo asked curiously.

"Bal and Malin will go deep recon" Hào told him. "But we haven't decided who will team up with your two 'apprentices'. Personally, I'd recommend Var-"

"I recommend Winter Five, Rachel-343, for that, sir." Laszlo said importantly, not at Hào, but Barak. Hào raised his eyebrow skeptically; Rachel had just gotten into a fight with Roger. What was Laszlo thinking? Did he want to see if his lecturing them had paid off?

"Very well." Barak said, stroking his stubble with his pinky-less hand. "Unless Winter One had someone else in mind…"

Laszlo eyed Hào hopingly. Hào sighed, deciding to play along. "No, sir. Winter Five will do."

"Excellent" Barak mumbled, managing to sound satisfied. "Dismissed." Everyone saluted and then made their way to the exit. Hào and Laszlo were first, speeding towards the hangar bay.

Hào glanced at Laszlo, who once again had a hearty grin. "You planned that even before the meeting, didn't you?"

"What?" Laszlo replied innocently. "I had to know whether my teachings ever meant anything to them."

"I understand that" Hào said tiredly, holding back a yawn. "But is this really a good time for your field tests? We can't afford disunity at a time like this."

"And thus it's the perfect way to test them. But don't worry; I'm quite certain I made at least a minor impression this time – you can see it in their eyes."

Hào didn't reply, busy thinking whether he should take cover once Rachel realized what had been decided about her or not.

***

Laszlo entered the hangar bay, followed by Hào, to find both their respective teams not far away around a Pelican – one which Laszlo instantly realized had been modified; additional plates were welded onto the craft, with what appeared like jackal shield gauntlets on top around the engines and prow; the machine gun at the back had been replaced with a gauss cannon; two more chainguns had been added on each side of the standard issue one, and the missile pods appeared somewhat larger than normal – no doubt additional missiles were added.

"I think you've outdone yourself this time, Jelly." Hào said, studying the craft up close.

Yelizaveta-G141, called 'Jelly' or Winter Seven, rose out of the cockpit and leapt down just beside Hào, her brown hair flailing around wildly whilst doing so. "Why thank you, boss." She replied with childish cheerfulness; it was obvious she was the youngest member of the team, not just in body, but also in spirit.

"Are those really jackal shield gauntlets?" Laszlo asked curiously, having walked up to the two Spartan-IIIs.

"You betcha" Yelizaveta exclaimed. "Placed them at strategic points ‘round the craft to provide maximum defensive capability to otherwise vulnerable areas. I'm not losing this bird like the two previous ones – may they rest in peace."

Yelizaveta had an almost unhealthy attachment to machines and vehicles – or at least those she built or modified herself. But it was something Hào had told Laszlo that the team overlooked, because of her sheer brilliance – what Laszlo wondered was how they overlooked the fact that she even managed to acquire the technology she incorporated into her inventions; jackal defense gauntlets were one thing – Spartan-IIIs always collected those from the battlefield on instinct, as they hadn't always fought in protective MJOLNIR armor, even though it was a breach of the Cole Protocol – but extra weaponry and plating like on this pelican would have to be taken from other UNSC vehicles – meaning that she likely took apart other vehicles to improve her own. Somehow, he doubted she had permission to do so.

"Of course" she continued excitedly, "it's not just the defensive capabilities I've improved; the weapons are also upgraded, and I took the liberty of adding some too; this is a true merge of a dropship and a gunship. And just in case all this isn't enough" – she paused briefly to take a breath and wipe some grease from her face – "I added another trick."

She knocked on the side of the craft, and to Laszlo's surprise it opened up and a long missile zoomed out. "Ares missiles" she explained. "Used to be standard issue on UNSC warships before the Archer was made. These babies would've rotten in storage hadn't I acquired them. And if we find ourselves in a pinch, we have a little extra punch. I couldn't add more than two, though, so we have to use them sparingly."

Laszlo didn't know what to say; he continued to marvel at how resourceful the young spartan were. Instead, he left Hào and Yelizaveta to seek out Bonnie and Amanda.

He found them sitting a few paces away near the pelican alongside Varghese and Rachel, the former tweaking with a rocket launcher, the latter turning a lighter on and off. They stood up once they saw him.

"You know what we're to do now, sir?" Amanda asked stoically.

"We'll take mongooses and speed ahead of the main force, providing forward reconnaissance." He replied, putting on his helmet. Rachel looked up for a moment, and then returned to turning her lighter on and off. Laszlo could've sworn he had seen a hint of jealousy in her expression.

Laszlo and his teammates mounted a mongoose each waiting further into the bay. He started it, enjoying the sound of the vehicle's engines. He turned to make sure Amanda and Bonnie were also ready, and cast a fleeting glance in Rachel's direction, where he saw her looking rebellious and talking to Hào – apparently he had told her she would have to wait behind while everyone else moved out. Cracking a smile underneath the visor, he drove out of the bay and out onto the snaking mountain path outside. The sun had almost set; they would be covered by the darkness.

And so Operation: DIVINE SON had begun.

1
Operation: DIVINE SON

First Lieutenant Joseph Forenson looked out the Falcon's open passenger bay, his helmet tucked under his arm. He could plainly see the damage and destruction to Thermopylae, but remained impassive as the aircraft continued its predesignated flight. More countless victims of the war, he thought. It never gets better.

Ever since humanity made first contact with the Covenant in 2525, the war became something everyone lived with, and constantly feared. Over the stretch of the entire conflict, which reached almost three decades, the deadly aliens destroyed planet after planet, starting with the Outer Colonies, and working their way in. Half the Inner Colonies were gone now too, and the fight had finally reached Earth. By now, the population had gone from 23 billion to a dwindling 200 million, and dozens of planets had been lost.

The war wasn't likely to go on for much longer either. Reach had been destroyed barely two months ago, and when even ONI Section Two couldn't keep it quiet, there had been mass hysteria among the civilians. Forenson knew that the war was about to come to an end, if the UNSC couldn't find some way to overcome the odds, Earth would be lost. No doubt the extinction of humanity would follow.

''Which is why every victory counts so much now. Even the small ones.'' The Lieutenant glanced the other way. Apart from the four other Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs) riding with him, there was a Pelican dropship with ten more Marines inside, as well as a second Falcon escorting it and carrying five additional troops. His Commanding Officer (CO), Lieutenant Colonel Max Gauthier, had advised Company Commanders not to ride in the most conspicuous vehicle during insertions, as they made the biggest (and more often than not, the most obvious) targets to hostile anti-air weaponry. There were three other flight groups like theirs, with a platoon of soldiers in each group. They made up his Company, one of over a hundred that made up the 36/8 ODST Division under the command of Brigadier General Francisco Cortez.

''Impressive numbers, no doubt. But the Covenant have wiped out more than that before. We've shown them what we're made of, but we're only human. And we still die like humans.''

"Team, we've received reconnaissance of Covenant activity up ahead," the Pelican copilot's voice was heard on the COM units of everyone in the platoon. "We're coming in for a landing. You're to proceed through this district and meet up with Spartan Winter Team. There'll be another Company coming in to retake this area later."

Here we go. "Lock and load, boys!" he shouted to the ODSTs in his Falcon. "Let's take these bastards feet first into hell!" He put on his helmet, and polarized the visor, reflecting everything he looked at in silver. The two Marines stationed to the aircraft's turrets took their weapons off their backs and braced for landing. Shifting his BR55 Battle Rifle to his right hand, the Lieutenant grabbed the handle and leaned back casually until the Falcon lowered itself onto the ground.

Forenson waited until the vehicle were hovering a foot above the charred asphalt, and jumped out. The ODSTs on the other Falcon did the same, while the Pelican made a wide turn as it too settled in for a landing.

"Helljumpers, let's move!" he said. "We're going to pay a visit to Winter Team. Saldivar, you're on point!"

As the platoon dashed down the street in formation, Forenson shut out all thought of the ruins around him that was once a city, and concentrated on the mission ahead. Any daydreaming now could be fatal if there were enemy snipers hiding around. Or worse, a Covenant ambush. Emotion would have to come later.

We may be only human, he thought. ''But these Spartans are so much more than that. They're the key to our victory.''

''We're going to win this war. No matter what.''

 There is no glory without honour 21:24, October 14, 2010 (UTC)

2: Grand Theft Scarab
Battle of Boston (Sgt. Maj. Lindsey Williamson subplot)\

0500 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Behind Covenant Lines, Financial District, Boston, USA

Sergeant Lindsey Williamson and the rest of her ODST squad crept through the hallways of a skyscraper in the Financial District. Lindsey turned a corner first, her image clouded by her active camouflage. Williamson, unlike the rest of her ODST squad was clad in SPI armor intended for use by SPARTAN IIIs. The story of how she got a hold of the armor, not to mention the augmentation drugs necessary to use it was a long story a quest for vengeance and a number of technically illegal acts.

Lindsey was only six-years old when her homeworld was glassed of Jericho IV by the Covenant, and her parents killed in the attack. She later found out death of her parents was the work a Sangheilli, Idno 'Apassee. From then on, she swore she'd kill as many Covenant as she could, and preferably, 'Apassee himself.

Towards these ends, Lindsey tried to join the SPARTAN III program, but was too young for the first batch of IIIs and too old for the second. So, Lindsey began researching genetic augmentations, and saw no reason why she could not use the drugs if she could just get her hands on them. Like all illegal goods, there has to be a black market for these things somewhere.

At age 18, Lindsey found the drugs she needed. Of course, she did not have the money to buy them off the scientist. But, there were other ways an attractive 18-year-old blonde could get what she wanted out of middle-aged man.... So, that was how an 18-year old UNSC Marine recruit managed to make it through the worst that first basic and then ODST training could throw at her. And when the UNSC found out she had stolen both augmentation drugs and suit of SPI armor meant for some Sierra III, rather than throw her in prison, the UNSC brass thought it would be a better idea to give her an ODST squad to command on some of the most dangerous missions of the war.

That is why Lindsey was where she was now, preparing to steal a Scarab by jumping on board from a destroyed skybridge with the help of a jump pack.

"Troopers, follow me, we've got two Scarabs parked below us", Lindsey said, "Ramirez, Dunn, MacTavish, and I will take the one of the right. "Roycewicz, Sanderson, Mui, Jacobs, and Johansson", you take the one of the left".

A few seconds later, Lindsey yelled, "All right, everyone, take out those troops on the top deck". On Lindsey's commands a hail of bullets, grenades, and 102mm rockets rained down on the Scarabs, blasting apart Elites, throwing the broken bodies of Jackals off the top deck, and cutting down Grunts, who tried to flee, but found they had nowhere to run on the elevated Scarab deck.

At Lindsey's signal, all ten ODSTs activated their jet packs and flew towards the deck as an energy sword-wielding Elite exited the door to the lower decks, presumably to investigate what was going on. Lindsey unsheathed her combat knife and adjusted her course so that she flew straight towards the Sangheili's back. Lindsey kicked the Elite with both feet as she landed, knocking the alien to the ground. She then jumped on top of the downed Elite and stuck the knife straight through it's neck, killing it in one swift movement.

Lindsey heard movement from behind her. Not having time to draw her submachine gun, she seized the Elite's energy sword and thrust the blade through the chest of a second Elite. Lindsey drew her M7S silenced SMG with one hand and stepped forward down the ramp to the lower deck of the Scarab, still holding the dead Elite impaled on her Energy sword, using it as a shield.

Dunn tossed a grenade around the corner, into the cockpit of the Scarab. As soon as the grenade exploded, Lindsey and the others rushed in. The ODST's weapons blazed, cutting down any Covenant that survived the grenade blast. Lindsey herself mowed down an Elite and several Grunts, still using the dead Elite and a "meatshield". In seconds, all the Covenant were dead, save for a lone Unggoy, who had fled up the ramp and jumped off the body of the Scarab. "CLEAR", Lindsey yelled as she deactivated her captured energy sword and placed the captured weapon at her belt.

Seconds later, Lindsey's radio crackled to life. "Sergeant Williamson, Roycewicz here, we have successfully eliminated the second Scarab's crew, no ODST casualties."

"Excellent", Lindsey said as she entered the Scarab's driver seat, "Take command of the Scarab and follow us to the ambush point on India Sierra 93."

Operation:DIVINE SON

3
1855 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

North-West of Galičica Mountain, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic 

Norman-G124 drummed his fingers on the side of the falcon's automatic grenade launcher. He tried to relax-but found it nigh impossible. Probaly the threat of banshees shooting down the Falcon. Dagger Team had managed to escape from Mars after they had been ordered back to Earth. Of course, the sons-of-bitches at ONI had ordered them to come back from Mars. What they hadn't done was give them transport. They had simply used a hijacked Phantom to fly back to Earth, somehow surviving the brutal space battle in orbit around Luna and Earth. They had then landed somewhere in Gremany; at a Army Base, where they had surrendered the Phantom to UNSC forces. After a few hours given for shut-eye, they had been ordered to take a Falcon into Greece.

“Banshees, Nine O’Clock!” Janice warned. Norman brought his grenade launcher upwards, and Gary swung the Falcon around so he was facing the Banshees. Norman turned the grenade launcher so it was facing forwards, and waited. A moment later, two red dots appeared on his motion sensor, and then two banshees flew into visual range.

They fired. Norman’s grenade flew from his launcher, and he held down the trigger, and then let go. The grenade detonated right next to one banshee, releasing an EMP, causing it to lose power. The banshee fell towards the ground; the pilot no doubt desperately trying to re-start the power. Norman didn’t give him the chance; he simply fired another grenade directly at the banshee. The grenade, and banshee exploded in a blue ball of plasma, raining debris. A similar explosion to his right told him that the second Banshee had been destroyed.

Those banshee patrols were growing to be a nuisance. They had encountered three patrols of banshees already, and had disposed of them in the same fashion. But the Covenant forces were sure to notice the missing patrols and investigate.

They were headed to KOPIS Base, an UNSC Army base in the middle of some god-forsaken mountains. They were then supposed to link up with any UNSC army forces and reinforce them, as HIGHCOM must have thought the location to be strategically important.

The Falcon was passing over what seemed to be a site of a battle between UNSC and Covenant forces. A pair of burned out Wraith tanks, three ruined Revenants, the remains of a Scorpion, a pair of destroyed Warthogs and dozens of corpses, human and alien alike. Norman took comfort that there seemed to be more alien corpses than human.

"Damn..." Kevin whispered. The Falcon continued, it's passengers sitting in silence. The com was eerily silent-he knew the Covenant were somehow jamming communications, but it didn't stop it from being incredibly creepy. The UNSC could have completely collapsed in the region, and they wouldn't know. He couldn't realy relax either; they were under constant risk of being assaulted by banshees. On the bright side, they were nearing KOPIS Base.

"Phantoms ahead." Janice warned. Sure enough, a trio of Phantoms flying in a wedge formmation were in the air, slightly below them.

"Weapons free. Engage them." Norman ordered. The phantoms were almost certainly headed to KOPIS base, it was the only UNSC base nearby. It was unlikely to be a patrol either, because three Phantoms were too much just for a routine patrol. The only other possible reason for their numbers he could think was was that the three Phantoms were ferrying someone high ranking in the Covenant-another good reason to blow up the Phantoms.

The Falcon rose into the air as Gary fired the chin gun and Norman and Kevin openned up with the grenade launchers. 40mm grenades detonated on the Phantom to the right, and HEAT rounds impacted on the same Phantom.

"Gary, fly higher. They're nearly defenseless from above!" Janice shouted.

"You think I don't know that?" Gary snapped back. The Falcon rose again, and the Phantoms attempted to escape it. But escaping a vehicle that was faster and more manuverable than yours, all while taking heavy fire proved to be a difficult task. One of the Phantoms exploded in mid-air, and they focused on the lead Phantom next. Grenades and HEAT rounds struck the Phantom from above and behind. Both Phantoms were engaging evasive manuvers, making hitting it somewhat difficult, but still possible. Gary was tailing both Phantoms perfectly, although considering the significant manuveribility advantages they had over the Covenant dropships, it wasn't that much of a feat.

One phantom suddenly lost power and began falling towards the ground. Someone must have managed to hit the Phantom's anti-gravity pods and destroy them, Norman concluded. The final Phantom, who's pilot seemed to be growwing rather desperate, flipped his Phantom upside down. The chin-mounted concussion rifle fired two blasts onto the Phantom. Gary evaded the first, but the second nailed them below.

"Minor damage." Gary reported. Norman fired two grenades onto the concussion rifle, blasting if off the Phantom. They continued firing, and the pilot flipped his Phantom back upright again. Not that it did it any good, it still couldn't evade the Falcon, and eventually, the Phantom exploded in a blue fireball.

"How close are we?" Kevin asked.

"Not far." Gary replied. "Around five minutes. You should be able to see it soon."

"Where the FUCK is KOPIS?" Janice said nervously. They had been circling the area where KOPIS base was supposed to be, but nothing.

"I am thinking KOPIS is gone." Norman said flatly. "I mean, it seems like there was a hell of a battle-" He gestured at one of the many wrecked Wraiths. Corpses littered the the ground, and wrecked vehicles, UNSC and Covenant alike scattered the landscape. Charred ground-evidence of explosives or plasma-also scarred the landscape.

"Flare!" Janice shouted. "I see a bunch of flares!"

"Land us by those flares." Norman ordered. "We'll link up with them."

Gary landed the Falcon, and Norman stepped out of the Falcon. A single Army soldier, who's FOF tags identified him as Corporal Peter Steiner. "Sir." The army corporal said. He did not salute.

"Corporal." Norman nodded. "Where's the rest of your unit? Or your CO?"

"Dead." He said. "The Covies attacked this base in force. We put up a hell of a fight, but there were too many. They must have missed me though. Me, Private Wong and the swabbie-I mean, Crewman Lane." The army soldier nervously gestured with one hand. "They air and armor support. So did we actually, but we were pretty much outnumbered five to one. Nothing we could do. Me, Private Wong and the swabbie are just staying here, making a final stand. There's still a working AA Turret at the base, and some of the underground areas didn't get hit, so we thought he could take more Covies with us this way."

Norman nodded slowly. The Corporal's reasoning was sound. With just three of them, it was unlikely that they could survive trekking across kilometers of hostile territory. Here though, they could at least handle some Covenant air forces. But with their Falcon, he wondered if he could help them out. The Corporal's men would certainly be spending their lives if they stayed, but were they spending them well?

"Let's get moving. We should launch hit-and-run attacks on the Covenant-we'll survive longer. Hopefully, reinforcements will show up. Corporal, do you have any other assets in the base?"

"Not really." He said. "We have a Grizzly tank, but its engine took a hit. Its probally wrecked and we have no idea how to fix it." Steiner said. "There are a bunch of other damaged or destroyed vehicles as well. We had a bunch of Wolf Spider Turrets by the base, but most are completely wrecked. The Covenant got pretty sick of how resilient they were, so they burned them to nothing. We still have one working one by the south though."

"I can try to fix the Grizzly, sir." Gary said. The momment Gary said that, Steiner's face lit up like a christmas tree. A Grizzly would make life much easier for them.

"Good." Norman said. "Gary, stay here and try to repair the Grizzly. Me, Janice and Kevin will take the Falcon and recon the nearby area. Corporal Steiner, show him the Grizzly."

Norman sat himself inside the Falcon and glanced at the controls, remembering the last time he had flown one of these in training. He activated both rotors and the Falcon rose into the air. He smiled wryly when the first time he had flown a Falcon during a simulation. He had done everything right...until the Lieutenant Commander had decided to spice things up a bit by sending banshees at them. He had been promptly shot down in a matter of seconds.

This wouldn't happen today. He promised himself. Too much was at stake. As the Falcon rose into the air, he flew towards the east, allowing the vehicle to fly over the mountains.

"Janice, scan for hostiles." He ordered.

"Thermal shows nothing." She replied. "So we should be fine unless the Covies want to fight unarmed, since plasma weapons sticks up like a sore thumb on thermal." She added.

"Brutes?" Kevin asked. "I don't think spikers show up on thermal vision. And neither do needlers and gravity hammers."

"Motion sensors clear too." Norman added. "I think we can move on." The Falcon moved south. Norman kept an eye on the motion sensor on the Falcon when two red dots appeared.

"Ghosts." Janice whispered. "An elite on each one. One Major, one Minor. Permission to engage?" She asked.

"Feel free." There were two cracks from a sniper rifle.

"Targets neutralized." Norman moved the Falcon south. There were no more Covenant patrols, and he continued west to complete the patrol around the base. A burning Seraph fighter was sitting right on the peak of a mountain, and even further west, parts of a ruined Scarab walker sat in the middle of a large crater. It wasn't alone however, there were several other destroyed Covenant vehicles as well. Even further West, it became apparent that the Covenant had caught whoever was responsible for bombing their convoy. A trio of crashed Longswords were stuck in the ground.

"Scan for survivors." Norman ordered.

"Scanning." Janice replied. "None in the area." She said.

Norman turned the Falcon to the north, where there were a great amount of UNSC Army bodies. There were also some Covenant corpses, but the human bodies outnumbered the alien ones. He turned the falcon back towards the base, having completed the patrol. He flew the Falcon back towards one of KOPIS's helicopter landing pads that wasn't rubble and landed. Stepping out of the Falcon, he walked towards the base. He first headed towards the vehicle bay, where Gary was working on the Grizzly.

"Can you fix the Grizzly?" He asked Gary. Gary had the Grizzly suspended in the air by heavy lifting equipment.

"Engines took some damage. It was hit by plasma-melted through the armor and hit the engines. I'm repairing it at the momment." Gary said. "Also, the treads took a nasty hit from plasma as well. I'll have to fix them. I'm going to have to strip off armor from a few other UNSC vehicles and bolt it on to fix the melted armor problem."

"Good." Norman said. "How long will it take?"

"A while." Gary said. "You'll have lots of spare time while I fix this damn thing. Now can you shut up and let me focus?" Norman shrugged his shoulders and headed towards the base's perimeter. Corporal Steiner was staring to the west with a field binoculars on a lookout post.

"See anything on your patrol?" Steiner asked.

"Two ghosts. We neutralized them." Norman said. "We also saw a heck lot of bodies to the south-west and west of the base."

"Yeah." Steiner said. "Huge Covie convoy showed up from the south-west a few days ago. A few Longswords dropped cluster bombs on them, wasted the whole convoy. But they didn't make it out. A Covenant corvette shot all of them down."

"We saw the crash site." Norman said.

"Yeah." Steiner said. "Those guys bought us a few extra days, then even more Covenant troops showed up. Then they moved on south and also towards Athens." Steiner said. "I wonder if Athens still exists." Steiner said quietly. If it wasn't for his enhanced hearing, Norman wasn't sure he would be able to hear it at all. "My little brother works there."

Norman put a hand on his shoulder. "He'll be okay." He reassured Steiner. "We'll kick the Covenant off Earth. We will win this damn war."

"Doesn't look that way to me." Steiner said gloomily. "Wake up and face the music-this is humanity's final stand. In a year and a few months, homo sapiens won't exist in this galaxy any more. What we're doing here is making sure we, as a species, take as many Covenant with us as possible. That's an open secret-not just in the UNSC, but to every human being in Sol."

Norman thought about what Steiner had said. In a pessimistic, defeatist way, Steiner was right. They had been pushed back from the outer regions of Sol-Saturn and Jupiter's moons, then a few battles in the aestroid belt. Then Mars, in which Team Dagger-his team had been sent to piss off the Covenant occupying Mars. And now the fight was on Earth. They had nowhere-else to fall back to.

But instead of voicing that, Norman said. "We'll turn the tide. We'll win this war no matter what it takes."

"You know what it'll take?" Steiner said flattly. "A massive Covenant Civil War to fuck them up from the inside. Anything short of that isn't going to work, unless you count divine intervention."

Operation:ETERNAL SPIRIT

2045 Hours, October 23rd, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Outskirts of Fuzhou, Fuzhou Municipality, Fujan province, People's Republic of China "FALL BACK! GET BACK!" Second Lieutenant Jacob Wong shouted at his platoon, while be began running. One particularily unintelligent private stared at him uncomprehendingly for a second, then the sound of a scarab crushing buildings entered the private's ears and the private ran at an astonishingly quick pace. The Scarab was about two kilometers away from them, and getting closer

Jacob fired a magazine from his MA37 into the Scarab's -he was firing blindly, but it wasn't hard to hit a large target. Nothing happened, not that he had expected anything to happen. The Scarab began to charge up its main cannon, prompting Jacob-and his entire platoon-to run even faster.

"FUUUUUUUUCKKKKK!" Sergeant First Class Terrance screamed. They dove for cover, rolled to the side and generally tried to evade the Scarab's cannon.

Then a miracle happened.

Adam strapped himself in on the oversized seats on the bridge of the captured Covenant frigate. Made for elites, the seats were massive even for him, let alone the other normal-sized people.

The ship was packed with refugees from Reach, civilian or otherwise. As per the Cole Protocol, they had made a series of random slipspace jumps, and finally to Earth.

"Emerging from Slipspace in ten seconds." First Lieutenant Peters said, a little bit nervously. He had been a linguist, working with ONI, although he knew (in theory) how to make the calculations for a slipspace jump.

"Oh. Fuck." Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Perry, the ranking officer and captain of the ship said suddenly. Adam-309 glanced at the cameras on the ship, then realized what had happened.

"Where the hell are we?" Adam asked. He glanced at the viewscreen, and suddenly realized why everyone was cursing.

They had jumped out of slipspace, right into Earth's atmosphere. But apparently, Covenant ships had the ability to preform in-atmosephere jumps-they had tried that when cornered by a pair of CCS-Class Battlecruisers when picking up a few civilains from New Alexandria.

The problem was that they were staring right at a Covenant Scarab.

"Ram that thing." Perry ordered suddenly.

"On it." Second Lieutenant Sonya Vlasova said, with just a hint of worry in her voice. The frigate moved forward, and with a crunch, the Scarab crumpled against the hull of the frigate.

"Get us higher into the air." Perry said. Crane, send out a message to any UNSC forces on Earth. Let them know we've got a bunch of civies in this ship that need evacuation. And the fact that we have a more-or-less fully functional Covenant frigate.

"Yes sir." Crane replied, not hiding his distaste.

Crane had been a civilian pilot, owning his own freighter before the Cole Protocol had banned civilian interstellar travel, leaving him unemployed, and as a result, rather unhappy with the UNSC. In his opinion, he had dangerous insurectionist sympathies, and if he wasn't so damn important to the ship's occupant's welfare, Adam would probally have shot him.

"We have a channel to Fleet Admiral Hood." Crane said. "That geezer sounds pleased."

"Admiral, sir!" Perry snapped to attention.

"Just cut to the chase, Lieutenant Commander. In case you haven't noticed, we've got a full-scale Covenant invasion on our hands at the momment."

"Yes sir." Perry said, then proceded to tell Hood how Turquoise Team had stowed away on a Covenant frigate, seized the ship and then picked up various people stranded on Reach, civilian or UNSC.

"Orders, Admiral?"

"Right. Lieutenant Commander, you will take this ship up into orbit. We are forming a perimeter around Luna's orbit. Any ground forces will assist in Tokyo."

"And the civilians, sir?"

Hood paused for a momment, then continued.

"China is all but totally under Covenant control-get to Japan-there are evac points all over there."

Adam, followed by Lucia and a large amount of army troopers and marines jogged inside the Covenant ship's armoury. He selected a plasma repeater, and then an energy sword. He prefered shotguns-many a time he had blasted an elite armed with an energy sword to bits with his shotgun when the elite's sword was just a few centimeters awa from his head.

"Adam." Lucia, clad in SPI armor already, strolled up to him whispered. "I think I managed to crack the armour lock thingy the brutes like to use. Try it on."

Lucia tossed Adam a circular object.

"It goes on the crotch area-same place the brutes put it." She said.

"Thats..." Adam tried to hide his disgust, and after a few momments, succeded. He held the device in his hand, then turned to Lucia.

"I'll go get suited up in my armor. Have you grabbed some new weapons yet?" Adam asked.

Lucia shook her head.

"Well, I'll meet you in the docking bay.

Adam made his way to the other part of the armoury where he had stored his SPI armor. He suited up, getting his helmet on last. Then he made his way to the docking bay.

'''0105 Hours, October 24th, 2552. (Military Calendar)/''' Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan.

Adam sat inside the seats of the Spirit. The seats, like those on a the Covenant frigate were designed for elites. He wondered how it would work for the non-elite soldiers who used the Spirits, since the Covenant military was primarily made up of grunts and jackals. He was pretty sure the brutes, who were about a foot too big for the seats wouldn't really like those seats too.

"These fucking things are really damn cramped." An army trooper complained.

"Aw, quit bitching, Borris." Another trooper replied.

"He's got a point, you know." A third trooper piped up. "Ain't got NOWHERE to move.

That invited a chorus of bitching from the other troopers inside the Spirit dropship about the uncomfortableness of the Covenant dropships.

"We're are approaching the LZ." The pilot declared. "We're at Ryu Base."

4: Cradle
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1907 Hours, October 23rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  D77H-TCI Bravo 029, over Mt. Fuji and southbound, Japan

So this was it. Humanity’s cradle.

Standing next to the pilot and copilot of Bravo 29, Kodiak was enjoying himself just looking out of the cockpit windows and getting a good view of it. Below the Pelicans wings were the snowcapped slopes of Mt. Fuji, what had long been heralded as Earth’s most beautiful peak. It amazed him that despite a hundred years of pollution around the turn of the century, humans had taken great strides to preserve the Earth’s wonder.

Looking at the pilots, he noted for the first time that they were Navy, and should have been helping the space guerilla engagements that were still taking place around the Lunar perimeter. “How’d you guys get stuck ferrying ground forces.”

LTJG Yasunaka absently responded, “Things are crazy everywhere. Mombasa, Athens, Sydney, and now Beijing commands are offline. Command structure’s FUBAR; if someone with a higher tier objective rounds you up, you go where they go. And they said go to Japan.”

Kodiak nodded, the features of his HUD hanging in his vision. The grayish-green suit of Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor was a little small for him. Kodiak had several complaints, one of which being that it didn’t have energy shielding like Spartans on newsreels. The main advantage was unmatched stealth, reverse engineered from Active Camouflage technology. But he’d never been very stealthy. It was armor, though, and he was strong enough on his own to go toe-to-toe with an Elite. Which he probably would today.

“Standby for your drop. We’ll be over Oshima Island in a minute.”

“What’s there of tactical value?”

“Oshima’s just outside Tokyo Bay. The higher-ups seem to think the Covies are going to land shock troops there, for a flanking maneuver. You’re going to secure the bay while they rig up a pair of mass drivers to fend off Phantoms. Won’t help ‘em if they call in capital ships, though. Word to the wise, be prepared to get out of there.” She tapped a panel. “Better get going. Goss, rig ‘em up. Hey, if you need a transport, just radio for Angel.”

“Thanks.” Kodiak said before he spun around and headed into the dark troop bay, with Ensign Gossard behind him. Waiting in the darkness were two more Spartans, the rest of Ion Team.

Strapped into harnesses meant for air-dropping cargo, the pair were likewise clad in the dark armor. The male was Dyne, Gamma 217. Though the gold-visored helm masked his visage, the nod he made towards his team leader meant he was smiling under it. With an informal salute, he said, "Can't believe they're going to throw us out the back like they would an ammo crate."

As Gossard tied chains around him, Kodiak responded, "Resources are low everywhere. You're lucky you aren't being thrown out with a rock tied to you."

Sepia G330 wasn't amused. "It's a waste to put us on backup. The main invasion will be from the west." she said, checking the intake on her flamethrower. She was a fearsome fighter, the only Spartan he’d known to use a flamethrower. The three of them were an odd trio to put together, and they looked very few in the twelve-seat bay.

It wasn't always like this. Marcus was the explosives expert, but he'd died in the augmentation procedures. So had Sam, who had been the only one capable of binding the five together into an effective unit, to act as one entity. But now the duty fell to Kodiak. He and Dyne had been best of friends since a week before arriving on Onyx, he couldn't command the respect a distant leader could. And Sepia didn't listen to anyone. Though Commander Ambrose had wanted them to stay together because they had trained together, the three were too different to form any semblance of a conventional fireteam.

But maybe that versatility of its parts would give Ion Team an edge, if Kodiak could keep them alive long enough.

"Gentlemen and lady, if I may have your attention!" the Ensign shouted. "Crew Chief Wheatley is absent, so I'll be filling in today. Please keep your hands and arms firmly gripped to these lines at all times, 'cause if you fall from 'em there's nothing we can do. Refreshments will not be served and you will have no ability to move around the cabin, as there will be no cabin. Thank you for flying Bravo Two-Nine, and have a nice day."

With that, the rear door opened up, and light spilled in. Dyne rechecked that his sniper rifle was secure on his back, gripped his MA5C in his hands, and jumped from the back with a wild yell. Sepia was right after, silent and passive aggressive as ever, and then it was his turn. Kodiak felt his MA5B, and with a running start leaped out the back, ready to take his first steps on Earth.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

0045 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Drop bay, UNSC Asturcon, over Sydney, Australia

For Corporal Mitch Hunter, the day had started badly. It had for humans in general, really. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Covenant ships had arrived in system and the Earth invasion was just beginning. But for him, it might have been just a little worse.

The black plates, bodysuit and gadgets of an ODST suit weighed heavily on him, just as much as the memories they brought. The helmet’s reflective visor sat on a table, staring back at him without emotion or hint of humanity. And the grip of the gun in his hand felt cold as steel through the thermal gloves.

It was the first time since the Battle of Reach that Mitch donned the ballistic battle armor. There, his company was wiped out almost completely in the streets and buildings of New Alexandria. In the fires of a burning skyscraper, he’d barely made it out after another marine had rescued his squad. After that, he’d nearly left the service, but he owed a debt to Gunnery Sergeant Buck. He couldn’t leave it yet.

He let the helmet win their staring contest and glanced around the darkened drop bay of the light frigate UNSC Asturcon. A platoon of Task Force Oscar’s troopers milled around in silence, anticipating the drop into Sydney. All of them wore Oscar’s red, round patch, save for Hunter himself and two other troopers.

Clad in the 11th’s red armor like Mitch, Private First Class Baxter Jones sat with his back to a wall, rhythmically tapping his helmet against it in his back-and-forth nod. The trooper was listening to music inside his helmet again, likely Human Nature. Another of the Double One’s few survivors, Jones’ plasma burns had healed well since Reach. In his first four months of service, he’d been wounded five times, and returned to duty after each. The reputation for being bulletproof had earned him the nickname ‘Kevlar’, and with all the Covenant reported in the city, Mitch couldn’t help wondering if he’d get hit today.

The other was painted with blue lines, Private Ben Dansen. Picking him up en route from Geneva, Switzerland, the sniper had been unusually quiet for a Helljumper. Keeping to himself and saying little, it made him wonder what was going on inside his head. Was he thinking of his unit? A girl? Family?

He decided that as long as Dansen fought and followed orders, he could live with the mystery. Mitch got up and surveyed the hologram readout of Sydney. Their landing zone was on the outskirts of the city, away from the thick of red motes of light signifying enemy patrols and worse, Wraith assault tanks. Yes sir, a bad day indeed.

Operation: DIVINE SON

2000 Hours, October 23rd 2552 (Military Calender)/ South of Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Slowly, the lone marine crawled up an embankment formed of rubble from a collapsed building. Pushing the battle rifle in front of him, he used its scope to get a better view of the area where an energy blast had enveloped everything only a few hours ago. It still didn’t increase his range of vision much, but a Covenant Scarab was not easy to miss. Far in the distance, it was making long strides on its way to investigate the blast zone.

“What is it?” asked a hushed but excited voice next to him.

“Excavation walker. They don’t typically show up on battlefields, only when they know they want something. . . which naturally means they want something here.” Moses Wheatley scratched at the stubble on his chin. Usually he’d keep cleanly shaved, but he’d been out here for four days without a razor. Sliding back, he slung his rifle and hit the sidewalk. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Next to him was a boy no older than ten, keeping quiet but having fun pretending to be this soldier’s comrade. He was right on Moses’ heels, looking this way and that to look for Jackal snipers or Elite swordsmen.

These streets were long since abandoned by its citizens, and with a lack of military interest had become dead silent. Enemy artillery crews had shelled it for good measure, but then passed on. It was a small urbanized area south of Thebes, populated mostly by farmers who worked the surrounding land, and businesses that had set up to supply them. All of that was gone, now, no one even to tell Moses what its name was.

Turning a street corner, the pair slid down into a hole created by Covenant mortar fire, leading into the building’s basement. A girl in her mid teens looked up, alarmed, but settled when she recognized them.

Wheatley breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t been discovered.

Setting down his rifle and helmet, he looked around for where he’d set his pack and the food in it as the boy whispered excitedly in French-accented English, “Reo! We saw them! They’re huge and ugly and everywhere!”

Wheatley interrupted him before he caused any alarm. “You saw nothing of the kind, Henri. It’s just one big one, far off, and headed farther.”

Reo relaxed noticeably. In comparison, the London girl was far wiser for not wanting to encounter the aliens. Staff Sergeant Moses Wheatley had survived enough battles between the Covenant and UNSC to know a human could barely match even a Jackal without military training and a strong build, but Henri was still excited. Just as he was about to start again, Wheatley ran over and cupped a hand over his mouth.

Sure enough, the sound of a wing of Banshees passed overhead, a howl preceding the hum of their engines as they actually passed over. The three of them waited a long time before he was sure they were gone, and released Henri’s mouth.

Once loose of his grip, Henri discreetly made a beeline for the pack with the food. Reo hugged her coat tighter and asked, “Do we have a plan or not?”

Moses sat against a pillar opposite the one she had her back to. “They’re stepping up air patrols to look for enemies. From what I know, that’ll mean they’ve concentrated at least part of their ground force in defense of the excavation equipment. They’re homing in on something. . . anyway, we aren’t leaving town any time soon. Air would spot us and hunt us down. Better to stay put for now.”

She more or less acknowledged it, and looked down to her Chatter. Wheatley watched the two of them with his placid, brown eyes and thought back to the two, scared children he’d found alone in the outskirts of Thebes. They didn’t have the money for a ticket off-world, the starliners were charging people lifetime savings for a chance to escape. And they couldn’t go aboard his Pelican, not where it was going. That place was far worse.

Telling Ensign Gossard he was leaving, Wheatley had watched Bravo 029 fly up to meet the UNSC Themistocles and take Spartans into the middle of Japan. But that was their problem now, not his. He had to keep these kids alive, even if no one else would help him. He needed to get them out of harms way. And just maybe he’d be lucky enough to get out, too.

That Damn Sniper, sniping

5: Isn't Irony Great
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

958 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine UNSC Seawolf, Southeast of Tokyo, Japan

"Now hear this!", Captain Takashi Yanagi spoke into the intercom of the UNSC Seawolf, "Two Covenant destroyers and two corvettes have slipped past what's left of the orbital defense grid. The vessels are currently slightly outside Earth Orbit, on a projected course that will take them over the East China sea, to Nagasaki. We have been given authorization to deploy nuclear weapons."

"Coordinates downloaded sir", A Lieutenant seated in front of a console to Yanagi's right said.

Yanagi glanced at the screen. They had three satellites and four ground sensors tracking the alien spacecraft, they were locked on.

"Prepare silo one for launch", Yanagi said into the intercom. Silo one contained a SHIVA nuclear missile armed with an eight-warhead MITV. Two warheads would slam directly into each vessel, the first would disable the energy shielding, the second, would destroy the ship.

"Silo prepared, ready to launch on your command.", the silo crews responded.

Yanagi typed a series of launch codes into the sub's central computer. A message flashed across the screen in large letters: INSERT KEYS TO INITIATE FINAL LAUNCH PROCEDURE.

"Yanagi took a key off a keyring on his belt and inserted it into a keyhole below the main control console, as the sub's second-in-command, a Lieutenant Commander Karlsson, inserted the second key at the same time, Yanagi and Karlsson turned the keys.

The SHIVA missile shot out of the launch tube. As the missile broke the surface, the first stage fired, propelling upwards as the second and then the third stage fired, launching the missile into low orbit within minutes.

It was only a few minutes after the missile escaped Earth orbit that it shed it's outer skin, releasing eight nuclear warheads. The warheads split into four groups of two.

Seconds later, the warheads impacted their targets at over fifteen times the speed of sound. The warheads impacted, the EMP blast of the first disabling the vessel's shields, before the second warhead exploded, annihilating the alien craft in a ball of flames. All four spacecraft were wiped out, creating a debris field of thousands of flaming pieces of twisted metal.

"Orbital defense stations have confirmed the destruction of all four Covenant spacecraft.", Yanagi announced as soon as he recieved the report.

Cheers erupted throughout the submarine. A vessel of the "wet navy" had just taken out four enemy spaceborne warships. Yanagi, however, thought of the irony of the city. The city of Nagasaki had been saved by a nuclear warhead, the very weapon that had annihilated it centuries earlier.... or, perhaps saved wasn't the right word. There were still plenty more Covenant left.

6
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0721 hours, October 24th, 2552 (Military Calendar) North of Tokyo, Japan, small village

Eric-G272 and Jared-097 crept along the outer edges of the small village, feet crushing to pulps fruit that had dropped from trees. Eric held out a fist, signaling for Jared to stop. Eric was the only survivor of ONI Recon 173, a specialized ONI reconnaissance-and-scouting group that had been sent to investigate the Covenant presence in Tokyo. Jared-097 was the sole survivor of the SPARTAN-II Gold Team.

They had been forced to flee the actual city to a small village in the middle of nowhere. Eric dropped to one knee and held his MA5K carbine at the ready. The broken bamboo fences of the village collapsed, and the crisp crunching of what sounded like leaves rang through Eric's ears. With a silence that personalized SPARTAN-IIIs, Eric crawled forward. Two Brutes stepped out. One of them had a Brute Shot, a grenade launcher. The other held a red plasma rifle but had a large hammer slung to his back.

Eric held up three fingers with his left hand, signaling a countdown. Two fingers. One. The two Spartans opened fire, and the Brutes growled in surprise. The one holding the grenade launcher fired while moving back, while the other roared in fury and charged. The golden-helmeted one swung his hammer, draining Eric's MJOLNIR armor to one-quarter. Eric unloaded his MA5K's magazine into the Chieftain, who stopped, as if stunned.

Jared fired his MA5K carbine in bursts, the 7.62mm sparking against the Brute Chieftain's shields. The Brute's helmet flew off, and then it charged full-fury at the two Spartans. Eric pressed himself against a wall, while Jared steadily moved back, firing his rifle, then reloading. Finally, under combined fire, the Chieftain fell. The other Brute, a Major was nowhere to be seen. Jared took off his helmet and said, "We have to fall back, Eric." Eric leaned forward and crouched.

Finally, after long moments of hesitation, he shrugged and said, "Agreed."

1001 hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar) In Tokyo, Japan

Dropping from a low rooftop, Eric quietly scouted. He turned on night vision and scanned the dark alleyway. A family of cats sat in the background. Jared saw a green acknowledgement light on his heads-up display wink, and he jumped down. They moved forward until they were almost out of the alleyway. "SHIT!" A marine rushed past the opening of the alleyway, followed in haste by the rest of his team.

Eric peeked out, and realized why. Six Wraith tanks sat near a Japanese restaurant, and two Shade emplacements sat plumply on either side of the restaurant entrance/exit. "Spartans, we could use some help," a gruff voice said through the COM channel to Jared and Eric.

Eric felt one of the Wraiths fire a plasma mortar. The impact shook the building, rattled his teeth, and drained one-third of his shields. "Who is this?"

"Lieutenant Grade One Jacob Avanlor, commanding ODST Shock Trooper Squad Number 44."

"Alright, sir."

"I've highlighted our position. We should be ten or fifteen kilometers from your position, near the ONI Takishi Base." Through the COM channel, heavy explosions and loud screaming could be heard. "Make it quick, Spartans. We're about to be overrun. Spartans, be advised - " Like a hiss of a nest of hornets, the COM went dead, and the voice went with it.

Eric headed toward the Lieutenant's position. Jared followed in hot pursuit, as they moved stealthily.

1415 hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar) Near ONI Takishi Base, Tokyo, Japan

The Spartan pair wriggled past mobs of screaming Japanese civilians. UNSC Pelicans and out-of-date Chinese Fengying trucks rumbled into the small area. Smoking remains of Shade plasma turrets, Covenant Hunters, Brutes, Jackals, Grunts, Wraiths, Scorpions, and Warthogs were littered all across the small residential neighborhood. UNSC troops got out of the Fengyings and Pelicans and unloaded CA5Ks, the Chinese-Japanese version of the MA5K carbines.

Jared edged past a group of UNSC marine medics carrying a screaming, half-burnt man away into a Fengying military truck. Eric uploaded a newer updated TACMAP version onto Jared's HUD. "TACMAP's new highlighted checkpoint is gone. That either means we've lost connection with the el-tee or he's dead."

Jared shrugged. "Either way, we're not going there anymore. These people here need our help. I wouldn't go anyway. Besides, that ONI base is probably smoking ashes right now." He chuckled lightly.

7: Fatal Wreck on The Great Journey
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1600 hours, October 24th, 2552 (Military Calendar) Setagaya, Japan, East of Tokyo.

Mikiya Ryougi flew his AV-144 Falcon Gunship at rooftop level through Setagaya, Japan, weaving between the burning ruins of what were once apartments, businesses, and other structures. The streets in between the building were filled with bodies and destroyed vehicles. Most of the bodies and vehicles were human. The Covenant had shown no mercy, killing anyone that encountered, military or civilian. The streets literally ran red with blood.

"Any signs of life?", Ryougi asked his co-pilot and gunner, Aoi Miyazaki.

"Nothing...", Aoi replied, "Wait a second, Two Spectres and a Shadow, over there, in front of that apartment building. I have four Sangheili and several Unggoy exiting the vehicles"

"Probably a Covenant death squad, sent to take out any surviving civilians. Smoke 'em.", Mikiya replied.

Aoi turned the Falcon's 30mm cannon on the Covenant squad and squeezed the trigger. The chain gun roared to life, sending a hail of high explosive and armor piercing shells at the aliens. The Covenant soldiers were blown into bloody chunks of flesh as their vehicles exploded into balls of blue flames.

"All hostiles eliminated", Aoi said, "Continuing scan for hostile forces."

Mikiya flew the aircraft further along the street, until he reached the burning ruins of what looked like a school.

"Spectre parked in front of that school", Aoi said, multiple corpses in a row along the track, looks like they were... beheaded and....", she continued, "Four Elites, all with energy swords, headed towards something in the field looks like two adolescents, attempting to jump the fence. I'm engaging."

Aoi pulled the trigger and fired short burst of 30mm shells, chewing two of the Elites to bloody chunks of flesh. The other two drew their plasma rifles and turned their weapons skyward. Aoi, however, was too quick for them, both Elites were blown apart by a second burst.

"UNSC Command, This is Hayabusa", Ryougi said into the radio, "I have sighted two civilian survivors in Setagaya, near the Tomei Expressway. Requesting evac."

"That's a negative, Hayabusa", the UNSC soldier on the other side of the radio said, "All our evac birds have been given priority tasks."

"Did HQ just tell us those survivors can go fuck themselves", Aoi asked.

"Unfortunately, Lt. Miyazaki, they did"., Ryougi said.

Mikiya looked down at the two survivors, who had now picked up the plasma rifles and energy swords from the dead elites.

"Good luck, you two", Mikiya said, though he knew the two on the ground couldn't hear him, and in any case, were probably still fated to die even with all the luck in the world.

"Three Banshees and a Vampire over the Tomei Expressway", Aoi said, "Massive Covenant armored column below them, they haven't spotted us yet".

"Keep that cannon ready", Mikiya replied, "I've got a solid lock on that Vampire, I'm engaging."

Mikiya pressed the button on top of his flight stick twice. Two Argent missiles flew at the Vampire. The missiles exploded in a flash of fire as they impacted the alien craft's engines. The Covenant aircraft's tail was blown off as the front half crashed to the ground on the expressway, its burning remains crushing two Shadows, a Wraith, and numerous Ghosts and Spectres.

The three Banshees broke off, flying straight for Ryougi's Falcon. Mikiya fired two more missiles, knocking two of the Banshees out of the sky. The third one, however, made it too close to safely engage with missiles. Mikiya swerved the tiltrotor to the right just in time to avoid a burst from its plasma cannons.

Mikiya then made a quick 180 degree turn, facing himself to the rear of the Banshee.

Aoi Miyazaki squeezed the trigger, sending a burst of cannon shells into the rear of the Banshee, setting fire to the tail and sending it crashing into a nearby building.

"Nice shooting", Mikiya Ryougi said, "Now, let's mop up the rest of them".

Mikiya turned the VTOL towards the Tomei Expressway. The column of Covenant Wraiths and other vehicles on the expressway was halted by the remains of Vampire Mikiya downed earlier.

Mikiya circled around the column, avoiding plasma fire as Aoi locked on the first Wraith with the aircraft's laser and fired a Scorpion anti-tank missile. The missile impacted the tank, sending it up in ball of fire. Miyazaki repeated the performance seven more times, taking out six Wraiths and a Shadow. Mikiya then fired the aircraft's LAU-65 dual purpose missiles, at a Wraith and several Shadows and Revenants as Aoi finished off the light vehicles with the cannon. Within less than a minute, the entire column was burning.

8
Operation: DIVINE SON

0815 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Thessaly, Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

While the forces at Olympus Base prepared to move out into hostile territory, forces already behind enemy lines prepared a little operation of their own. Two companies of paratroopers were spread across Thessaly, the survivors of a hastily-planned and poorly-executed strike in an attempt to quickly dislodge the Covenant from northern Greece. They had gone in in Warthogs and overland, instead of the parachute jump or orbital drop they excelled in, and the whole operation had failed hideously. The men of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment had regrouped quickly, however, and were still prepared to stir up a little trouble.

Lieutenant Colonel John Churchill, 2 PARA Officer Commanding, had been told to hunker down out of sight if the operation went pear-shaped, yet his declaration to his surviving headquarters that he would "rather fight than eat" left no one in any doubt that that course of action had been abandoned. Churchill relished the challenge of combat, even more so when he was surrounded, and he was determined to do as much as he could to make the job of the relief forces easier.

Which is why we're up here now, thought Corporal Nathan Morrison. The men of the Combined Anti-Armour Platoon of 2 PARA's weapons company lay atop a low hill, their Warthogs idling under camouflage netting behind them. Five klicks away lay an abandoned UNSC airfield, which the Covenant were rapidly converting to their own standards. Any enemy air support would make the UNSC's job harder.

Two Wraith tanks and three Revenants sat defending the Grunt labourers and their Elite supervisors. Morrison also estimated about thirty infantrymen present. However, they were looking in completely the wrong direction: The Covenant troops obviously thought that the whole of Greece was clear, and expected an assault only from the north. So, the CAAT platoon would come in from the east, with the rising sun behind them. It was also twilight, the most difficult time for a Human to see, since the eye could not compensate for both the bright sky and dark ground. They could only assume the same was true for Covies.

"Okay, gentlemen, let's go!" hissed Second Lieutenant Jordan O'Brien. He leapt up and ran down to his M12 LRV. Morrison exchanged glances with a squadmate and shook his head. ''You keep low when cresting a hill! Especially if the sun's behind you! Cheers for nearly blowing the whole thing off!'' Morrison and the rest of the team slowly clambered back down into their Warthogs. Morrison took his place in the passenger seat, while Private Storey, a rookie who still looked shocked after his first taste of combat, manned the M52 missile turret.

The platoon's eight vehicles leapt forwards, with the LRVs leading the way. Cresting the hill, the CAAT platoon roared towards the airfield, adrenaline firing through the men's veins. Morrison leaned forward slightly and tightened his grip on his new MA5C.

At one-point-eight kilometres distant, the platoon's M12 LRVs opened fire with their chain guns. Grunts dived for cover, but the Elites roared and stood up, firing their plasma rifles. They didn't stand a chance at making any hits at this range, but the sight was enough to set Storey's arms shaking and his eyes to screw closed.

The platoon wasn't interested in them, though. They were more interested in the Wraith crews, who had leapt into their tanks at the first sign of gunfire, and had sealed the hatches. O'Brien gave the signal, and two 102mm anti-tank missiles roared from each M12A1 LAAV. The sound of firing knocked Storey awake, and he fired his own missiles. Eight tandem charge HEAT warheads crashed down on the Covenant vehicles. The Wraiths and Revenants were blasted to pieces as the massive overpressure generated by the explosions searched for ways to escape the sealed vehicles. Covenant troops were ripped apart by the flying debris.

"2 PARA Actual, this is Delta-Four-Actual, you are clear to engage, over!" snapped O'Brien.

"Roger that, we're inbound, out!" John Churchill replied. He lowered his radio and slapped his driver on the back. The Warthogs of Bravo Company and 2 PARA's surviving headquarters raced towards the airfield from the west, covered by a barrage of rockets from the M12R MLRSs behind them. Churchill's vehicle led the way, a massive British flag flying from its radio antenna. The Covenant didn't stand a chance.

The CAAT platoon arrived first. Morrison's fireteam heartily congratulated each other while O'Brien leapt out of his vehicle.

"What the fuck's he doing?" demanded Private Welch.

"He's got his fuckin' bayonet out," groaned Morrison.

"Can you believe that retard is in charge of people?" laughed Private Stanley from the rear flat-bed.

O'Brien fired his MA5C wildly into the Covenant corpses. He roared, charged up to an Elite's corpse, and rammed his bayonet clean through its head. He kicked it savagely. "Yeah! Take that you Covie fuck! Bet you wish you hadn't fucked with us now, huh?" He spat on to it before turning to fire on a pile of dead Grunts.

"Christ, can't he just leave it?" snarled Stanley. O'Brien finished his vengeance-fest and ran over to PFC Black's vehicle. He pointed at a structure in the distance. "Engage that building!"

"Sir, that's over three thousand metres away," said Private Morton. "Range of my .50 is eighteen hundred."

"Move into position! Engage, engage!"

Morton sighed and squinted at the structure through his M52's sight. It was a shattered, burnt-out fuel tank. He couldn't see anyone. "Shall I light it up?"

"No," groaned Black. "That's not a target, it's a wreck!"

The Warthog's from Bravo Company roared to a halt on the airfield. Churchill leapt out of his and stalked towards O'Brien. Churchill was something of legend in the Army, having proven his mettle in the Insurrection and later charging into battle on Harvest with a longbow and a claymore. He carried both of those on his back and at his side now. Despite his aggressive approach to every situation, no one in the battalion had ever heard a bad word come from Churchill's mouth, but it looked like he was having difficulty retraining himself. "Oh, here it comes," said Welch, grinning.

"Lieutenant, what in God's name are you doing?!" stormed Churchill.

"Uh, ensuring the airfield is clear, sir!" stammered O'Brien.

"We don't have the supplies for bursts like that! I want proper fire discipline at all times! Now, get your men organised. I want an ammo count and the Warthogs in a defensive perimeter. Officers and NCOs, prepared for a briefing in twenty minutes. We're digging in."

"Sir? We're not pulling back?" Everyone had thought this would just be a hit-and-run.

"And cede a perfectly good airfield?" demanded Churchill, apparently amazed at the suggestion. "Lieutenant, we shall hold this position until we are relieved. Besides, we're surrounded. Where would we go?"

The All-knowing Sith&#39;ari

9: Highway to Hell
Battle of Boston (Sgt. Maj. Lindsey Williamson subplot)

0500 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar) Behind Covenant Lines, Near Interstate 93, Boston, MA, USA

Two Scarabs climbed over the ruins of building, towards of Interstate 93, exactly at the point where it descended from an overpass and entered a tunnel under the Financial District. But these Scarabs were no longer under the control of Covenant. They were instead crewed by a squad of UNSC ODSTs lead by Master Sergeant Lindsey Williamson.

"Looks like we're just in time for the party", Lindsey said into her radio, "I spot a massive Covenant convoy, looks like 100-plus vehicles, mostly Wraiths and Shadows. You know to do."

Lindsey stopped the Scarab and placed the crosshair on the Scarab's HUD over the lead Wraith and squeezed the trigger. A stream of plasma, burning through the armor of the Wraith and sending it up in a ball of flames. Lindsey swept the Scarab's plasma beam up and down the road, as the ODST operating the other Scarab did the same.

The two plasma beams swept up and down the highway, reducing Wraiths and Shadows to twisted masses of half-molten metal, blowing apart the overpass the the south, and even glassing roughly two-meter-wide strips of ground. The AA gunners of the two Scarabs turned the secondary guns on the highway as well, blowing apart any vehicles that escaped the fury of the plasma stream. Within seconds, the entire armored column was incinerated.

"Feel nice to be driving one of these things instead of facing one!", Roycewicz, the driver of the second Scarab said.

Suddenly, a plasma torpedo flew over the top of Williamson's Scarab.

"Looks like it's not over yet!", Lindsey said, "Covenant Frigate hovering over the harbor has got us in its sights"

"Great!", Corporal Dunn yelled, "What the fuck are we gonna do now!?"

"Calm down, soldier", Lindsey said, "Roycewicz, I need you to target that nose of that vessel, but don't fire yet! Wait until it starts charging another plasma torpedo, there should be a gap in the shielding as it prepares to fire. That's when we'll hit it."

No sooner than Lindsey spoke, the Frigate began to fire a second plasma torpedo. Lindsey and Roycewicz both turned their respective walker's main gun on the ship's nose plasma torpedo tube.

"NOW!", Lindsey yelled as she pulled the trigger. A beam of superheated plasma flew out from each of the two Scarab's guns. Both plasma beams impacted the nose of the craft, directing in the gap created by the plasma torpedo launch. The beams shot right up the tube, detonating the plasma torpedo in a massive ball of blue flames, engulfing the entire nose of the craft in the explosion. The burning remains of the vessel fell to the harbor and sank beneath the waves.

"We've stolen two Scarabs, taken out a massive Covenant armored force, and destroyed a frigate, and the day's just getting started", Lindsey commented, "If everyone fights this hard, we might yet drive the Covies off Earth and win this goddamn war!"

10
HOLY FATHER

"Years ago, I told my father it was 'just dirt.' But it's not just dirt. It's where we live. It's our dirt, dammit. And more importantly, it's about who's standing on that dirt. Those children. Your family. Your friends. And those freaks are going to pay for every piece of dirt they've taken from us."

- Gage Yevgenny

"Semper Fi 'til I die!"

"Oohrah!"

"Helljumpers!Let's take back this fuckin' island!"

James's pod lurched down and that feeling began. Before, on his 2nd drop it had filled him with blood-lust and anger (On his first drop he vomited). Now it was just that horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. A mix of the negative g's, fear, anger, hate, pride, and apprehension.

"Yeehaw!" an ODST cried.

They were Task Force Oscar. A hand selected team of veteran ODSTs, forward observers, promising Marines and the like. He was Colonel James Alexander Perez. ODST and commander of the Task Force.

Sydney, Australia

Captain Mikael Housten

"Affirmative, Charlie armor! Large blue oval hospital!"

"Confirmed Joker 1 Actual, shells on target. Bravo 4 out."

Mikael ducked down behind the rubble as a 455mm shell slammed into the ground near a wraith, knocking it aside like a toy. Grunts went flying as Ghosts exploded.

"Good hit Bravo 4, Joker 1 out."

Bobzombie

11: Keep Your Head Down
Operation: HOLY FATHER

0053 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  PLACE, Sydney, Australia,

The ODSTs had made landfall.

With the main part of Task Force Oscar landed and beginning to press into the city, Corporal Hunter had been put in charge of the reserve squad, made up mostly of troopers orphaned from other units. It was his responsibility to look after the steady stream of civilians leaving the city through the area and keep them moving. Currently, he was having trouble with a man who’d begun selling food from a van, which was cutting off the flow of refugees.

This was complicated by the fact that the man didn’t speak English, and Mitch knew only English.

“No, you can’t sell here.” He said, emphasizing the syllables. “You need to move.”

The man talked at the same time he did, neither comprehending the other. Mitch looked around for some assistance, but Kevlar was out of earshot over the crowd, trying to chase down a pair of children who had his canteen. “Dansen?” he asked.

The blue-suited kid looked up, his helmet off. He was in the middle of eating something he’d bought from the vender.

“Good fraggin’ grief.” Mitch muttered to himself. If this guy wouldn’t move his truck, Mitch was gonna do it for him. He was brushing him aside and making for the vehicle’s driver-side door when an all too familiar sound made him wheel around.

“Contacts! Contacts!” A marine was screaming over the com. Turning up the street, Mitch could see Lance Corporal Ramos standing out in the open, firing his MA5 from his waist. A stream of blue light flew from around a corner, narrowly missing the marine.

“Fall back!” Mitch called, but the Lance Corporal was already doing so. A Wraith tank came into Mitch’s view around the corner, the secondary gun spraying plasma. Ramos was cut down by a burst into his side.

As the crowd ran past and around him, Mitchell pressed through until he was safely in an alleyway. Three of the dozen ODSTs under his command were there, two from Oscar and one from another unit. “Get me a radio patch over TACCOM, we’re going to need reinforcement,” he ordered. As they did, Mitch checked the squad’s bio signatures.

Ramos was alive, but he wouldn’t be for much longer if they couldn’t get to him. Mitch heard rifle shots behind him, and saw that the other troopers were taking cover behind the vender’s truck and in an alley across the street. Dansen was firing sniper rounds into a lance of advancing infantry as the rest got in position.

Mitch had to weigh his options. Oscar’s main force would be otherwise engaged, and have no one to spare to help them counter the Covenant flanking maneuver. Maybe artillery support, but they’d have to be damn good shots at this range.

Well. . . there was always hoping for a miracle.

Operation: DIVINE SON

0203 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calender)/ Village south of Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Moses Wheatley had figured out the new pattern of Banshee patrols passing overhead. The last one had caught him by surprise, usually they were on a four-hour interval. It had been halved, leaving him two-hour periods to scavenge materials and food.

Having already stocked up on the latter, needing it after Henri ate all of what they had and given himself a stomachache, Wheatley wandered through where a battle between marines and Covenant infantry had taken place.

Scorched earth cracked under his boots, the smell of brimstone heavy in the air. The coppery scent of blood was also present. Passing by the scorched bodies, he climbed up into a burned out Scorpion tank to see if there were any salvageable parts.

It had been hit dead center by a plasma mortar. Any of the more delicate or expensive parts had been slagged, even the machine gun was melted beyond use. Pulling a protein bar from the pack, Wheatley pulled himself up to the top of the cannon mount for a place to sit.

And that was when he spotted the cable winding out from behind a lonely portion of still-standing concrete. On the end of it was a very distinct hook that he remembered from a long time ago, but could hardly believe it was what he thought.

All the same, he ditched the pack and ran over to it, rounding the screen and sighting the vehicle.

It was at once the most ugly and most beautiful piece of machinery any man had laid eyes on. Rust had corroded holes through the armor plating, and its wheels were uneven on the independent axles. Still, there was no disguising the outline of an M12 Warthog LRV.

The rim in the back of the flatbed over the rear bumper had been cut out by Wheatley himself, nearly thirty, thirty-five years ago. The space in which a 50 caliber machine gun would normally be mounted was filled by a huge boom arm, with a mechanized winch. When Wheatley began his service, still in the Insurrection era, IEDs were responsible for many vehicles going offline. The Boar had been fitted as a tow truck for his unit of combat engineers.

And now, if it worked, he had a way to get himself mobile.

Moses headed to drop off the food and get his tools. This would take no small amount of work, but would be well worth the time.

That Damn Sniper, sniping

12: Sinking Feeling
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1150 hours, October 25th, 2552 (Military Calendar), Off the coast of Shimoda, Izu Peninsula, Japan.

Mikiya Ryougi flew his AV-144 over the vast blue expanse off the coast of Shimoda, leading four others. They had been at it for hours, and hadn't found anything. The squadron was sent to the area to investigate rumors of Jiralhanae and Kig-Yar modifying civilian "wet" cargo ships with large deck-mounted heavy plasma mortars that apparently were responsible for attacking UNSC positions on the coast and on the islands of Oshima, Niijima, and the other islands off the southern coast of Honshu, directly south of Tokyo.

Suddenly, Ryougi's radio crackled to life. "Hayabusa lead, this is Hayabusa three, I see two civilian cargo vessels and about a dozen small aircraft and two larger aircraft about half-way between the Izu Peninsula. IFF has identified the vessels as the Kotori Maru and the Hadzuki Maru."

Ryougi switched frequency on his radio to that used by civilian vessels. "Kotori Maru, this is Hayabusa leader of the UNSC air force. Respond immediately."

Ryougi heard Jiralhanae speech on the other end, before the alien language abruptly changed to the a pre-recorded message: "Your destruction is the will of the gods and I am their instrument." As the recording played, the Covenant aircraft turned towards Ryougi's squadron.

The aircraft drew closer, to the point where Ryougi could identify them as twelve Banshees and two Phantoms. Suddenly, streaks of blue fire flew at Ryougi and the rest of the Hayabusa squadron.

"Enemy Phantom Gunships have launched plasma torpedoes, evasive manuevers!"

A pair of plasma torpedoes closed in on Ryougi's Falcon from both directions. At the last minute, Ryougi pulled up the stick. The Falcon shot upwards as the two torpedoes' lock broke. The plasma torpedoes continued on their path, colliding with each other and exploding in ball of blue fire below him.

"Nice dodge, sir", Ryougi's gunner and co-pilot, Aoi Miyazaki said.

Ryougi tilted the rotors of the Falcon all the way forward, placing the aircraft into "plane mode", pulling up on the throttle as he flew the aircraft upwards above the Phantom's line of fire. Ryougi flipped the arming switch for his Argent air-to-air missiles as he flew back downward, towards the Phantom gunship's unprotected top side. Ryougi pressed the firing button on top of his flight stick.

Two Argent air-to-air missiles streaked towards the Phantom, impacting the upper rear section. Both the Phantom's engine's were blown off, the plasma stores erupting in blue flames. The rear of the aircraft was vaporized as the flaming remnants of the cockpit crashed into the sea.

Ryougi leveled off in the aircraft, only to see he was flying straight at the nose of the second Phantom. Ryougi and Sangheili both fired their weapons at the same time. It felt as though everything was moving in slow motion as an Argent missile flew at the Phantom's cockpit at the exact same time as plasma torpedo flew at Ryougi.

Ryougi again pulled up on the stick, dodging the plasma torpedo. The Phantom pilot, however, was not so lucky. Ryougi's missile impacted the cockpit, blowing both the nose of the aircraft and the pilot to pieces as the Phantom went down in flames.

"Scratch two Phantoms", Ryougi said. Ryougi was interupted, however, by a burst of plasma fire coming in from behind. Having been concentrating wholeheartedly on destroying the Phantom, he had not noticed a pair of Banshees come up behind him. Ryougi tried to shake them, but they kept up with his every move.

"This is Hayabusa lead, I've got a couple of Banshees on my tail!", Ryougi shouted into his radio.

Suddenly, Ryougi saw flash of fire come in from behind. An Argent missile impacted the first Banshee. Seconds later, a SPARTAN Laser burned through the body of the second banshee.

Seconds later, a second Falcon flew by, the nose decorated with the image an anime girl wearing clothing exactly the same olive drab color as a Falcon aircraft, and a helmet shaped similarly to a Falcon's cockpit, and wearing a backpack with two rotors sticking out the top. Ryougi recognised this anthropomorphism of his aircraft, which the squadron referred to as "Hayabusa-tan" as the nose art of one 2nd Lt. Satou.

"Thanks for the assist, Satou, looks like the beer's on me tonight", Ryougi responded as he turned towards the last four remaining Banshees.

Ryougi shot down two of the Banshees with Argent missiles, before moving closer so Aoi Miyazaki could finish off the last two with her cannon.

"The Banshees are down", Ryougi said, "All aircraft report".

"This is Hayabusa two, Okay here"

"Three here, no damage"

"Hayabusa four here, a few minor plasma hits, nothing that's gonna stop me from flying."

"Hayabusa five, I'm fine here".

"All right then, let's take care of those Covie warships before they get into Tokyo Bay."

Mikiya Ryougi and the rest of the 24th Attack VTOL Squadron flew in closer to the Kotori Maru and the Hadzuki Maru. From the closer vantage point, they could see clear signs of Jiralhanae modification, most notably as super heavy plasma mortar mounted on the bow, along with a battery of AA Shade plasma turrets and spiker autocannons on the sides, stern and bridge, large metal spikes guarding the sides from boarding, and fuel rod AA turret from an AA Wraith on the stern.

Ryougi turned his aircraft to the stern AA battery on the Hadzuki Maru. "All Aircraft", Ryougi said, "I am going to knock out the main AA battery on the stern of the Hadzuki Maru. Hayabusa Two, take out the AA battery with on the stern of Kotori."

"Roger", Lt. Satou replied as he pointed his aircraft's SPARTAN Laser at he Kotori's AA battery."

Ryougi's gunner, Aoi Miyazaki locked onto the AA battery the Covenant had placed on the stern of cargo ship and squeezed the trigger. A Scorpion guided missile streaked towards the fuel rod autocannon, destroying it in a ball of flames. At the same time, Lt. Satou's gunner fired his nose-mounted SPARTAN Laser at the Kotori Maru's AA battery, taking it out as well.

After the main guns had falled, Hayabusa Three and Four moved on the Hadzuki Maru, Three launching a swarm of ANVIL missiles that set fire to the bridge as Four took out the main plasma battery with a single Scorpion missile.

"I see a couple of large plasma storage tanks on the deck near the destroyed main gun", Aoi Miyazaki said.

"Do it", Ryougi said simply.

Aoi Miyazaki launched two Scorpion missiles as the plasma storage tanks. The plasma stores exploded in massive ball of blue flames that blew the bow clean off the vessel. The rest of the Hadzuki Maru took on water through the gaping hole and sank beneath the waves, taking it's Covenant captors along with it.

"The Hadzuki Maru is sinking", Ryougi said, "Focus fire on the Kotori Maru. Be advised the the Bravo Kilos have placed large tanks of plasma near the main armament. Concentrate fire on those".

A swarm of missiles flew from all five of the Falcons of 24th squadron, slamming into the Kotori Maru, setting detonating the plasma stores and blowing hole its unarmored hull. The second Covenant-controlled cargo ship took on water and capsized before it joined the Hadzuki Maru in its watery grave.

Cheers erupted through the radio as Covenant-controlled ship went down. The pilot's celebrations were quickly stifled, however.

"Looks like the Covies captured another ship, this one's huge", Hayabusa three said, "I have visual on what looks like a heavy cargo ship or maybe a tanker, with some sort of flight deck attached to the top. Large numbers of aircraft flying around and off it, IFF reads them as Vampires, Phantoms, Spirits, and Banshees.Looks like they've been getting ideas from what the wet Navy's been doing with cargo ships and troop transports, equipping them with flight decks."

"But how are they fitting that many aircraft on board?", Satou asked.

"Probably using the hold as a hanger you could fit hundreds of Banshees in there, and the onboard crane as an elevator. Damn apes and space chickens are more resourceful then we though", Ryougi replied.

"This is Hayabusa leader to any UNSC forces", Ryougi stated, "We have encountered a large cargo vessel that has been captured by the Covenant, escorted by a large number of aircraft. We believe the vessel to have been converted into a "wet" carrier."

"This Thunderbolt lead of VF-43, Skyhawk squadron from the carrier UNSC Samar Sea", we are aware of the Covie improvised carrier and have been deployed to take her out. You boys just sit back and enjoy the show."

Dozens of Skyhawks and UCAVs flew over Ryougi's head. When the fighters, got within range, they released a swarm of ASGM-10 and Medusa air-to-air missiles. Explosions flashed across the skies as the missiles hit their mark. Moments later, multicolored fireballs, both orange and the light blue of plasma blasts erupted from the enemy wet vessel.

"This Thunderbolt lead reporting the Covenant "wet" vessel destroyed.", came over the radio.

"All right, Hayabusa", Ryougi said, "Mission accomplished, good work, lets get back to base".

13
Operation: HOLY FATHER

0059 Hours, October 23rd, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Liverpool, Sydney, United Australian Federation.

"All clear." Stanley whispered as he peered down the street. He motioned with his hand, then he moved down the road, assault rifle in hand. His squad slowly moved after him. No cloaked elites suddenly decloaked and killed them, no jackass snipers blew out their brains and no elite jumped out of an alley and speared them with an energy sword.

They would live just a little longer.

"You know, what's the point in saying "clear" anyways?" Corporal Jonathan "Flint" Flynn demanded. "A much quicker way to tell is simply looking if you're pointman's alive or not."

"That's a cheery thought." Private Qing Mei Ri, better known to her squadmates as "Jade", and newest member to the squad, and one of the newest members to the ODSTs in general replied.

"Get used to it, rookie." Flint replied.

"Hey, lay off her." Private First Class Nikolai "Bear" Lekov retorted, while placing his sniper rifle onto the magnetic straps on the back of his BDU.

"Ooohhh, does the big, bad, bear have a crush on-" Flint began, only to be cut off.

"Shut up Flint. Leave the immaturity for a time when we aren't in a covenant-infested city." Stanley said, annoyed.

"Yes general." Flint replied, inviting a snicker from their squad's final member, Private Peter White, and also new to the squad-although Stanley knew him from before, as they were in the same platoon.

"Let's get a move on." Stanley growled. He moved down the road, checking the alleys and windows of the buildings for good measure. The squad fell into formmation behind him. He turned down a street, where there was the omnious shape of a pair of Hunters.

"Shit." He hissed. "Hunters." Neither Hunter had noticed them yet, thank god-but that was most likely going to change very soon. He edged back, and gestured at Peter and Bear. Peter aimed his rocket launcher at a hunter. Bear aimed his sniper rifle.

Two acknowledgement lights blinked green. A single sniper shot rang out, targetting the exposed orange worms of one of the hunter. The hunter flinched in pain, and a second shot followed. The hunter fell to the ground.

The second hunter, clearly pissed at the death of its comrade charged furiously at the ODSTs. All four ODSTs dove out of the way, firing their weapons blindly at the hunter. Peter fired two rockets straight at one hunter, who deflected the first rocket with its shield.

It wasn't so lucky the second time. The rocket blew the hunter off its feet, and left it lying on the ground in several charred pieces.

Peter stepped over the corpse of the hunter he killed as the squad continued, kicking it as he went.

"May he rest in pieces." He said, no doubt smirking under his helmet. Just as they were about to continue, a trio of Jackals turned a corner from a side street. Seeing the ODSTs that outnumbered them nearly two-to-one, the jackals turned and fled. Jade fired a few bursts from her assault rifle into the back of one of them, which instantly crumpled towards the ground, bullets tearing holes in the creature's back. The other two made a beeline for what seemed like an office building. Jade kept shooting her MA5C, killing a second Jackal.

Two dozen jackals came out of the office building.

"SHIT!" Stanely shouted, throwing himself to the side, taking cover by a burned out car as plasma bolts whizzed towards them.

"Tossing C-12!" Peter shouted, giggling maniacally. A small, fist-sized object landed in the midst of the jackals, and detonated a second later. Jackals corpses flew in every direction, leaving a few survivors. Stanley fired a short burst into a jackal's chest, and then turned its attention it its buddies.

A trio of golden armoured Skirmishers ran out of the building next. Funny. He mused. While extremely common during the beginning of the Battle of Reach, their population dwindled quite quickly during the battle. He had heard that a big transport carrying half a million of them, sent to attack Quezon had been on the wrong end of a Super-MAC Cannon's round. There were rumours that those speedy little bastards where close to extinction.

They leapt into the air, firing plasma with lightning speed. Stanley fired fully automatic at one of them and it rolled out of the way, and fired back at him. He dodged behind his own ruined car, and as one of those golden bastards charged at him from his right flank, he fired fully automatic into its chest. It was impossible to miss at thar range, and the skirmisher collapsed. He put nearly an entire magazine into the Skirmisher before it fell to the ground, dead. As he looked around, he could see the final skirmisher lying on the ground, minus three of its limbs. It was still alive, although pretty harmless. Peter stomped on it's skull twice before putting it out of its misery with his combat knife.

"Tango is down, Sarge." Peter said. Stanley frowned. Peter had been acting a little funny ever since the Fall of Reach, when his squad had been all killed by a Brute Chieftan in New Alexandria. Peter had managed to spray a canister of C-7 on the said Brute, before running away, the C-7 killing the Brute. This didn't really show up on the psych tests-it was just that suddenly, he took a lot more pleasure in the deaths of the Covenant. Of course, even if it did show up, it wouldn't matter much to the brass. He mused.

"Sarge? Are we checking out the building?" Jade asked. Her voice, while sounding excited on the surface, betrayed nervousness.

"Of course we are." He replied. "Let's spill some alien blood."

The ODST squad stepped inside the building. The lobby was clear of hostiles as far as he could see. There was a security desk, although the security guard was nowhere in sight. He was probally dead, although there was a chance he could have managed to make it to an evac bird.

There were around half a dozen human corpses lying around the lobby, and one dead jackal next to a human body. One of the human bodies-the one with a jackal next to it-had knife in his hand.

Stanley stepped over the corpses. They took the stairs to the next floor, which was a hallway, with a dozen offices. Two skeletons were lying on the ground-their flesh devoured. A trio of Jackals were crouched over a body in one of the offices. They appeared to be saying something. Stanley's new translator systems managed to translate.

"Gor, the brains are disgusting." One of the jackals were saying.

"Mow them down." Stanley said. Gunfire rang out, and the Jackals screamed in pain. They turned around, and one of them reached for its nearby plasma pistol, only to be cut down.

"Shit..." Jade muttered under her breath. "Those bastards..."

"They'll be avenged." Bear growled.

The ODSTs were climbing the stairs to the third and final floor, where at this point, all of the Jackals had read the conclusion that no, the humans that had attacked the building were not repelled by the force sent out the front doors.

Jok joined the shield wall of Jackals facing the stairs. He felt his charged plasma pistol hum in his hands. He was terrified. It was his first combat mission, and he really didn't want to get killed by some demon.

"Ror, do we really stand a chance against the demons?" He asked, trying (and probaly failing) to hide his terror.

Ror, a marksman and a vetran of several years of combat shook his head, trying (and failing) to keep the scorn out of his voice.

"Jok, they aren't demons. Demons are much bigger."

"Does it make a difference?" He asked.

"Here they come!" A Jackal warned. The doors blew apart, and six "small demons" burst inside, and they tossed grey objects, then retreated.

"GET AWAY!" Ror screamed. The Jackal shield wall scattered.

The "small demons" reappeared. They fired their weapons at the now-scatterd shield wall, turning his friend's bodies into corpses. Jok aimed his plasma pistol at one of the "small demons", who promptly turned and shot him in the arm. He felt a sharp burning pain, and screamed in agony. He saw Ror fire two shots from his Carbine, but with surprising speed for a human, one of the "small demons" grabbed a fallen shield gauntlet and activated it, deflecting the shots, and a second "small demon" gunned Ror down.

One human advanced on his prone form.

"Try to shoot me from the side you little shit?" It demanded. It raised a boot and stomped on him. Jok screamed as the armored human's boot crushed his other arm. It raised its weapon and pointed it directly at his head. Jok felt himself grow wet in his leggings. He was going to die.

"I SURRENDER! PLEASE! DON'T KILL ME!" He screamed desperately. The human stared at him, then looked away and said something to another "small demon." The other human said something, and the human that was pinning turned its sidearm back on him.

The human fired, and last thing Jok ever felt was a loud noise, then a sharp pain in his chest. Then just as fast as the pain had appeared, it disappeared, replaced by...nothingness.

"All hostiles eliminated." Jade said, holstering her pistol.

Norman-123 06:37, January 8, 2011 (UTC)

14: Breaking Cover
Operation: DIVINE SON

0411 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calender)/ Village south of Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Staff Sergeant Wheatley ducked back around the corner, his breath caught in his lungs. ''Elites. Dozens of them.''

They hadn't seen him, and he double-checked to make sure he was downwind. The bastards could smell humans, it was only one more way they one-upped a UNSC marine. Taking down one of them was tough, the platoon would tear hunt him down and tear him apart if they found him, or the kids. The kids!

Risking being heard, he ran back down the alley and away from them, pulling the walkie-talkie from his belt. "Henri, Henri you still have this thing on?"

There was an anxious moment's hesitation. "Yes, we can hear you."

Moses checked over his shoulder. "Okay, we got a few problems here. We're going to have to go, air cover or no. Are there any aliens near you?"

"We haven't seen any."

He checked the alley behind him again. "That's good, that's real good. Sit tight and wait, I'll come to you."

Without waiting for an answer, he shut the talkie off and hurried down the sidewalk. The less time they were here, the less chance of being discovered. And if the Elites called in their location, they were as good as done for. Pulling the Battle Rifle around from where it hung by a strap across his back, he was just rechecking the safety on it when the whine of an engine reached him - and no human one.

Driven by fear and shaped by training and experience, he looked to the building facade on his left and threw his weight against a door. It opened with a crash, and he ducked inside.

Dust was everywhere, and the room was dark without any florescent lighting. A large storefront window was the only source of illumination, and Wheatley made sure he was out of sight of it as the whine became louder.

Presently, the shadow of a mandibled jaw passed across the window, followed by another. In the cold air, their breath was visible when they exhaled, a loud rasping sound. The whine of a Spectre assault sled was joined by the mutilated speech of the Elites, and quiet jibbering of a few Grunts. They were passing by, but one Elite voice seemed defiant of the second, a deeper and more authoritarian tone.

Wheatley didn't let his grip on his rifle ease after they passed the window. More light streamed into the room, as the door opened. Moses kept his glove's fabric pressed against his weapon's safety to keep it silent as he switched it off, watching the Split-Lip's shadow and readying himself.

The second Elite barked from outside, and the shadow vanished, headed to keep up with its company.

Hidden behind the doorframe, Moses breathed relief and slumped against the wall. That had been closer than a lot of his other experiences with them.

Safetying his rifle, Moses peered through the gap between the door and the wall, watching them turn a corner up the block. Cautiously, he emerged and continued back to their hideaway. It was time to go. Going where was what he'd have to figure out.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:20, January 8, 2011 (UTC)

15
OPERATION ETERNAL SPIRIT

0800 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calender)/

D77H-TCI Bravo-014, In Bound to East Area of Tokyo, Japan

Justin-057 shifted uneasily in his MJOLNIR MARK VI/S Powered Assault Armor as he looked out of the Pelican, eying the destruction that was before him. Ruined buildings and smoke filled the landscape, with urban fire fights taking place everywhere. He wished he could be down there but right now, there were other important matters at hand.

"Don't worry. You'll be joining them soon enough." A middle aged man with graying black hair and cold blue eyes said, sitting beside him. He was of average height, dressed in a clean military uniform. However, he wasn't the sort of man who would those types of outfits, after all, he was ONI operative who rarely wore those types of things. But seeing him in it meant that something was going down.

Justin turned his head towards the man and smirked. "Why can't I be there right now? You guys had me recalled, canceling the assignment PUPPET MASTER had assigned me to."

"That's just the case. This Operation takes more precedence than your previous for a variety of reasons that I sadly cannot say. However I can tell you this. This assignment you will be undertaking requires someone of your caliber. Someone of your skill. Of course, there are others we could've asked but you are one of the best." The man said.

"And what would that be MAESTRO? No matter how much I showed my discontent to you and him, I will always be regulated to following orders. " Justin said as he crossed his arms, his white hair swaying in the wind.

"Whether you like it or not, you will be following my orders unless stated otherwise. You need to remember INNOCENCE. You are under my command." MAESTRO firmly said.

"For the time being that is." INNOCENCE retorted. "Although I have no say in this, those missions you have sent me on, they seem questionable. Just because we are in a war does not mean that you are allowed to undertake those directives."

"You must see it another angle. What me and the others do. We are doing it for the greater good of humanity, even if we have to do those things. I say again. It is the for the greater good of humanity. Whatever we have done, it can be justified." He said, eying the young SPARTAN.

"What are those justifications? I've been following you for years now and you have never given me a clear cut explanation! Then there are the promises. You promised me. You promised me that you would bring them back! But they're not here! All you say are lies!" Justin yelled at MAESTRO.

He scowled at Justin, knowing that the time for explanation would come. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "We will keep the end of our promises INNOCENCE but it all depends on you. We will give it to you in due time, but not at this time. We are fighting a war. Giving you it will distract you with your objectives. Now can we stop with the questions? We are wasting valuable time here as we can be shot down this very second."

A digitized voice suddenly filled the Pelican. "He is right INNOCENCE. We will keep our end of the bargain. Now, you would please stop with the questions and listen to us?"

Justin eyed MAESTRO's pocket. "So you have been listening to the entire conversation PUPPET MASTER?"

"Yes. I never leave my charges alone." He cooly replied.

He sighed with the statement. "What is the assignment?"

"Due to your skills and preference for solo missions, you are being assigned to take out the Covenant AA guns in the East. This is very crucial as there are multiple Covenant ships incoming but our ships are unable to engage. " The voice within MAESTRO's said. "However, due to their range, we will be dropping you off somewhere close. But there is some bad news."

"What's the bad news?" Justin replied.

"There's a mass of Covenant in your drop zone."

"Lovely." Justin said as he stood up, gathering his gear.

16: Debt of Blood
'''Battle of Boston (Sgt. Maj. Lindsey Williamson subplot)

1430 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar) CCS-class Battlecruiser Cleansing Flame, over Cambridge, MA, USA'''

A single Phantom dropship flew towards the monstrous form of the CCS Battlecruiser Cleansing Flame, hovering over the city of Cambridge, MA. To the Covenant soldiers inside, this seemed like just another Phantom returning from deploying troops in the city. But it was not, instead of Sangheili and Unggoy, this dropship's cargo consisted of a squad of UNSC orbital drop shock troopers, and was flown by a UNSC Air Force pilot skilled in the operations of Covenant aircraft.

For Master Sergeant Lindsey Williamson, this mission was personal. The Cleansing Flame was the CCS cruiser that fired the Energy Projector shot that killed her parents, and countless others at Jericho VII. Lindsey was only a child, and was given priority passage aboard as UNSC escape ship, along with other children in the colony. Lindsey's parents were not so lucky, they were killed, the ship they were aboard destroyed by the Energy Projector of a CCS-class Battlecruiser, the Cleansing Flame. From that moment on, Lindsey had sought vengeance, to kill the commander of the Cleansing Flame, and Elite named 'Idno Apasee.

The pilot spoke with the cruiser in rapid Sangheilian. Seconds later, a section of shield dropped around the hanger. The pilot, a Maj. Crenshaw, docked the vessel in the hanger. The dropship landed in the hanger, as Lt. Crenshaw said, "We're in, get those plasma turrets ready."

Lindsey Williamson took control of one of the joysticks controlling the aircraft's three plasma turrets- this was an older model Phantom with three plasma turrets and fixed sides- as Johansson took control of the second. The hanger was filled with Covenant troops, though most of them did not have their weapons ready, not realizing the soon, they'd all be dead.

"Open fire now!", Crenshaw yelled as he took command of the aircraft's nose turret and opened fire. Lindsey turned the her turret on a group of Unngoy loading plasma charges onto a pair of Seraphs on the other side of the hanger and squeezed the trigger. A burst of super heated plasma flew at the plasma charges, blowing open the casings of the alien bombs and releasing a cloud of superheated plasma the vaporized the group Unngoy and a pair of Sangheiili pilots, before turning her attention to a group of Sangheili and Kig-Yar guards, who raised their weapons and turned to the captured Phantom, but, before they could get a clear shot, they were struck by a hail of plasma bolts from Lindsey's turret, burning holes through their flesh.

Lindsey scanned the hanger, and, seeing no signs of life, said "Clear to the right!", Lindsey said, as Crenshaw and Johansson stated that their respective section of the hanger were clear.

"Johanssen, Mui", Williamson said, "Stay here and keep Crenshaw and the Phantom safe, Everyone else come with me, the Bridge should be just down the hall, and from there, we can access the service corridor to the reactor core.", Lindsey said as cocked her M90 shotgun.

Lindsey and the other ODSTs walked toward the exit to the hanger.

"Ramirez", Lindsey said, "Place a C12 charge on that door. Breach and clear on my command".

Cpl. Ramirez walked over to the door and placed small charge of C12 plastic explosives on the front of the door, positioning them in such way that it would knock the door backwards, into the corridor beyond the door.

"Breach the door now!", Lindsey yelled. Ramirez activated the remote detonator, blasting the door out of the doorway, into the face of an Elite, killing it instantly.

The ODSTs rushed into the corridor, guns blazing. A group of about twenty shaken Unngoy and Kig-Yar fell before the ODST's guns. Lindsey shot four Unngoy and two Kig-Yar with her shotgun, filling them with eight gauge buckshot.

"CLEAR!", Lindsey yelled as she reloaded her shotgun, this time filling it's magazine with armor-piercing rifled slugs, "The next door should lead to the bridge, breach and clear."

About a minute later, Ramirez detonated the breaching charge, killing another Elite and two Kig-Yar who stood guard at the control room door.

Lindsey rushed in, shotgun raised. She took aim at an Elite Zealot armed with an Energy Sword and squeezed the trigger. A rifled titanuim slug flew at the the Sangheili, piercing its shield and catching it right in the face. The alien's skull was vaporized instantly. Lindsey fired a second shot at a second sword-wielding Zealot, blasting a hole through it's chest.

"Active Camo Elites!", Dunn yelled as a hail of plasma bolts flew at the ODSTs. Ramirez returned fire with his MA5B and took down the first of the active camoed elites in a long burst of automatic fire.

Lindsey turned to see three more Elites, two with active camo. She fired at all three of them, killing all of them with a single rifled slug to the head or chest. Finally, there were only two more. Lindsey stuck down the first of them, zealot with an energy sword with her shotgun, before turning to the last one, a Shipmaster, but heard only the click of an empty chamber.

The ship master lunged at Lindsey with his energy sword. Lindsey only just managed to roll out of the way. Lindsey put down her shotgun and siezed an energy sword off one of the Elite Zealots she killed earlier.

The ODST's raised their weapons at the Elite, but Lindsey stopped them, "Hold your fire, he's mine"

"Shipmaster 'Idno Apassee", Lindsey said, "I come to collect a debt you owe me, a debt of blood! You killed my parents at Jericho VII, now, prepare to die!"

Lindsey Williamson charged at the Elite, taking a horizontal slash at the Elite. Apassee blocked the attack.

"You dare desecrate that sacred blade with your filthy hands!? You shall rot in the black abyss of the Shadow World for your sins!", Apassee exclaimed angrily as he struck at Lindsey.

Lindsey blocked the blow with her energy sword and countered with an upward swing, slicing off Apassee's right mandibles.

The Sangheili roared with fury as he lunged at Lindsey, who jumped back in time to avoid losing an arm, but the blade still grazed her, burning a gash into her shoulder. Lindsey and Apassee's blades clashed, Apassee slowly forcing Lindsey backward, towards a door.

As the door to the service corridor, a corridor running along the ship's dorsal structure large enough for vehicles to drive along, Lindsey realized she couldn't gain the upper hand, Apassee was too good. Unless... Lindsey disengaged from the sword fight and ran across the corridor to a parked Ghost hover-cycle and got into the driver's seat.

Lindsey started the Covenant vehicle's engines and drove about 100 yards down the corridor, before turning the face Apassee, who had now also mounted a Ghost. Lindsey and Apassee both fired the twin plasma cannons mounted on their vehicles as they charged, but neither scored a hit.

As they got close, Apassee activated his energy sword. Lindsey got out her sword to block just in time. By this point, Covenant troops were watching the battle from the sidelines, but did not intervene. After exchanging a few energy sword blows, Lindsey suddenly sped off down the corridor, before turning and firing her Ghost's plasma cannons at Apassee's vehicle.

The power cell of Apassee's Ghost was hit by a bolt of superheated plasma. Apassee jumped of his Ghost just before the hover-cycle exploded. Lindsey charged at Apassee, bringing her Ghost's engines to full power, preparing to run him down.

As Lindsey's Ghost charged at him, Apassee grabbed a plasma grenade from his belt and readied the explosive device.

Lindsey watched, as though in slow motion, as the grenade flew towards her vehicle, landing on the front. Lindsey jumped off off the Ghost, rolling on the floor as she landed several feet away. The Ghost, with the plasma grenade still attached to the hood kept moving towards the Sangheili Shipmaster. As the now unmanned Ghost was inches from a Apassee, who was still stunned by Lindsey's sudden escape, the plasma grenade detonated in Apassee's face, vaporizing his body in a ball of blue flames as burning chunks of the Ghost flew everywhere.

Lindsey got up to see the Covenant soldiers that had been the audience of the battle advance on Lindsey, weapons drawn. Lindsey raised her Misraih M2511 Pistol and took aim at an Unggoy. She didn't care if it was hopeless, she had her revenge, now she was going to take as many Covenant with her as possible.

Lindsey squeezed the trigger of her pistol, sending single round flying at the Unggoy. The bullet entered the alien's skull. As round entered it's brain, the Unggoy exploded in ball of blue flames, blowing apart the entire squad, sending charred chunks of alien flesh flying everywhere.

"What?", Lindsey thought, "Did I hit that Grunt's methane tank?".

As the dust and smoke from the explosion cleared, Lindsey saw the form of a Covenant Wraith tank, out of the hatched poked not the head of an Elite, but and human in black ODST armor.

"Ramirez?", Lindsey said to the ODST commanding the Wraith, "Thanks for the assist".

"No problem. Didn't think we'd leave you, did you, Ma'am", Corporal Carlos Ramirez said.

"Saved a spot for you in the back of the Shadow, Ma'am", Sergeant MacTavish said from the inside of the troop compartment of a Shadow that was idling behind the Wraith, "And you lost your shotgun, didn't you? I found this off a dead Elite".

MacTavish handed Lindsey a Plasma Repeater as she entered the troop compartment of the Shadow. In front of her, Private First Class Jacobs, who now sat in the driver's seat of the Shadow, said "Where to, Ma'am?".

"Keep going down this corridor", Lindsey said, "At the end should be a reactor core powering the aft energy projector. We'll get in, place the charges, and head back to the hanger to catch our ride out of here."

"OORAH!", the squad exclaimed as the Wraith and Shadow rolled forward.

After traveling about 300 meters, Ramirez spoke to Lindsey through her radio, the sound of a Wraith's plasma mortar and a Shadow's plasma cannon firing in the background. "We're in the cargo bay, I have encountered several unmanned Wraiths and Ghosts and a group of Elites and Grunts, I'm taking them out".

"I read you Ramirez", Lindsey said, "Don't let 'em get into the vehicles".

Lindsey raised her plasma repeater and looked out the window of one of the gunports on the Shadow. She took aim at an Unggoy who ran towards a row of three surviving parked Ghosts and fired a burst of plasma, cutting down the alien. Seconds later, the line of Ghosts was raked with a hail of plasma bolts from the Shadow's turret, blowing them to pieces.

The vehicles came to a stop after travelling about 200 meters to the end of the service corridor. Turret mounted on the Shadow and Wraith opened up on a squad of Sangheilli and Unggoy guarding the entrance to the energy projector's power core, taking them out almost immediately.

"Everyone out", Lindsey said, "Stack up by the doorway".

The ODSTs stacked up by the doorway as Ramirez set a C12 charge on the door. The door was blown down and the ODST rushed in, Lindsey and MacTavish entered first, cutting down another squad of Elites and Unngoy in the room with Williamson's Plasma Repeater and MacTavish's MA5K Carbine. A Sangheilli Ultra leading the squad charged at the ODSTs with an energy sword, but Ramirez fired the underbarrel shotgun on his MA5B Assault Rifle, striking down the elite with a blast of shot to the face.

"CLEAR!", Lindsey and two other ODSTs said at the same time.

"Ramirez", Lindsey said, "Want that plasma core rigged to blow ASAP", Lindsey said.

"Yes Ma'am", Ramirez replied, walking towards the main plasma core, consisting of a large piece of humming machinery, painted the same purple color most other Covenant equipment, with numerous plasma conduits, clear tubes filled with glowing blue plasma, sticking out of it.

Ramirez placed four "blast packs" of C12 next to the core and attached several smaller adhesive C12 charges to core and the plasma conduits, before finally spraying an entire canister of C7 foaming explosives onto the device, rigging it all to a remote detonation charge with a back-up sixty minute timer.

"I've go the place ready to blow", Ramirez said.

"Excellent work", Lindsey said, "Now let's get back to the hanger and catch our ride out of her."

Lindsey and the others hurried back to the Wraith and Shadow parked at the end of the service corridor and sped down the corridor, meeting no resistance as they drove towards the port side hanger. Midway down the corridor, Lindsey recieved a message on her radio.

"This is Lt. Crenshaw, we have two, maybe three squads of Covenant converging on my position and am in need of assistance."

"We hear you, Lieutenant", Lindsey responded, we are making our way down the main service corridor in a Wraith and Shadow, do not fire on a Wraith or Shadow entering the hanger, they are friendly. Repeat, do not fire on the Wraith or Shadow."

"Roger", Crenshaw replied, "Do not fire on the Wraith or Shadow".

As Crenshaw responded, the Wraith and Shadow rounded a corner, bringing the hanger entrance into view. Outside stood two Lekgolo preparing to enter. Ramirez fired the Wraith's main cannon at the heavily armored aliens. The plasma ball exploded on impact with Lekgolo, blowing both of them to pieces as the plasma autocannon turrets on the Wraith and Shadow cut down Elites, Grunts, and Jackals left and right.

The ODSTs drove the captured vehicles right up of the Phantom that was their ride out of the alien cruiser. Lindsey and the rest of the squad ran out of their vehicles and into the Phantom's gravity lift, with carried up into the craft.

After making a quick roll call to ensure everyone was inside, the Phantom took off, flying away from the cruiser as quickly as possible.

When the Phantom was about a couple kilometers from the Cruiser, Ramirez got out a remote detonator and pressed the button. The frontal half of the central bulbous section of the Cruiser exploded in a ball of blue flames as the plasma core exploded, splitting the vessel right in two. The two large sections of the vessel fell to the ground, along with countless other flaming pieces of metal.

17
OPERATION:HOLY FATHER

"Know ye, that I walk in the shadow of the valley of death..."

James held his M392 Designated Marksman Rifle to his chest. He took a big breath and let it out slowly.The preacher kept on preaching. Several ragged Marines and ODSTs were around him. They were in a bombed out church within Sydney.They had been pushed back several blocks by Covie forces. Fireteam Charlie and Echo were keping the Covenant at bay outside. James' fireteam was taking a breather with some Marines and Militia men.

"Hey, Jimmy! Covies, breakin through!" an ODST, a captain, shouted.

James slid a fresh clip into his DMR. He sprinted to the door and came face to face with a Skirmisher. A very close cousin of the Jackal. He quickly unsheathed his knife and slammed it into the Skirmisher's jaw. Dead.

((TBC))

18
OPERATION ETERNAL SPIRIT

0800 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calender)/

D77H-TCI Bravo-014, In Bound to East Area of Tokyo, Japan

Codename MAESTRO observed Justin as he prepared himself. He bit his lip when he saw the young man stand up. "You're not gonna wait for the Pelican to land? " He asked.

"No. We'll be wasting time if we do that. Instead, I'm gonna jump. Once I do that, you should run away before things get too hectic, " Justin replied, shouldering a Battle Rifle and pocketing several grenades. "Take down the AA guns while dispatching any Covenant in my way. Correct?"

"In a matter of speaking yes. Once you complete the mission, contact me and I will forward you the rendezvous point. You will be needed elsewhere as well. Understand?"

"Roger." He nodded. "Remember our bargain MAESTRO. You too PUPPET MASTER. I know you're eavesdropping as always."

Out of MAESTRO's pocket came a chuckle. "I assure you. We won't. After ETERNAL SPIRIT, we'll take you to the facility and do as we promised. Along with that, we'll have you test this new mobile suit we're developing."

"Another creation from Project AEOLIA?" He asked.

"Yes. The project is rather successful, I might say. Now go. We can't be waste time."

Before Justin had put on his helmet, a small smile formed on his face. "Thank you." He turned towards the intercom. "Pilot, can you lower the ramp?"

"Sure thing boss. But why?" replied the Pilot.

"I'm jumping," Justin said.

"Isn't that a bit dangerous sir?" replied the uneasy Pilot as he opened the bay.

"Nope, not at all. Didn't you hear. Spartan's never die." Justin remarked as he turned, jumping off the bay and into the battlefield that laid before him.

As the Pelican flew off, MAESTRO crossed his arms, catching a last glimpse of the SPARTAN before the ramp closed. He turned around with a sigh and made his way to the seats.

"Pilot." He asked.

"Yes sir?" The pilot answered back.

"Take me to Ryu Base."

"Are you sure sir? With the conditions right now, we are at a very big risk of being shot down." The pilot said hesitantly.

"I assure you. We won't get shot down as long as your piloting skills are competent." MAESTRO immediately remarked back.

A sigh was all he answered. "We'll be at Ryu Base in about an hour. Even less if everything goes well."

"Good. Go with all haste. Its urgent." A light flickered in acknowledgement.

MAESTRO laid back in his seat, lightly touching his breast pocket, his eyes in a burrowed expression. "Are you still here MASTER?"

"Yes. I am. " He coldly replied.

"Are we really going to keep our promise? Would the data from GENOME actually produce them?" MAESTRO said in a worried tone.

"Yes we are my friend. We will do what INNOCENCE asks of us. You see. As long as he has that promise, S-057 will be our dog for quite a while. I assure you."

"But what about the promise itself? Will it be to his liking? Afterall, the experiment itself was an absolute failure, even though it did provide results."

"Of course. I have copies of the research data. You have control of the AEOLIA facility. With some slight modifications, we can secretly build a hidden chamber."

"Is that why you asked him?"

"Mhm. You also need a pilot for that new toy of yours. Might as well do something while we're at it."

"I suppose." MAESTRO chuckled in the empty bay. "But will he like them? The shock when he sees them will surely confuse and trouble the man. Are you even sure you have the correct DNA sequence?"

"As a matter of fact I do. Before the bodies were buried, I was able to get my hands on all of their DNA. So if I want, I could go and make them reappear just like magic. However, that is highly unethical."

"Unethical you say? Nothing is ever unethical to you." He snorted. "One more thing PUPPET MASTER."

"What is it?"

"Will they have souls? Will they be like as they were before?"

19
Operation DIVINE SON 1921 hours local time, October 23, 2552 UNSC Gloria a Pater, near-Earth orbit

Thunk.

It really was, thought Logan-G081 calmly, a very small sound to be sending him into freefall from near orbit. Already his SOEIV pod - jokingly referred to by UNSC servicepeople as "the egg" - was near terminal velocity. Checking the readout on his helmet's display, he noted his airspeed and that of his partner, Damian-G004. The two Spartans had been recalled to defend Earth two days ago in the wake of the Covenant attack that had been feared since Reach. Despite the UNSC's best efforts to destroy any data relating to Earth's location, the aliens had found it.

Logan and Damian were Headhunters- elite Spartan-IIIs who worked in groups of two, mainly apart from support and other UNSC units. Their missions ranged from reconnaissance and path-finding- which is what they'd be doing now until they received further orders- to counter-insurgency and asymmetric warfare. The two had been on the Jovian moons, working to eliminate an Insurrectionist group, when Earth was attacked. As soon as was possible, they'd canceled the operation, moved their equipment back onto the civilian freighter ONI had provided, and rendezvoused with a UNSC frigate on Mars. Their orders were simple- await word of a UNSC counterattack, and in the meantime, acquire as much information on Covenant troop strength and deployments. If UNSC forces would be encountered, they were instructed to make themselves known, but not to actively seek out the remaining human enclaves.

The pod suddenly juddered and creaked as it entered the atmosphere. These pods were prototypes, stealthier than the standard SOEIV and slightly roomier. Nonetheless, the trail they'd leave in the sky would be noticed. When they hit dirt, they;d need to haul ass to a dark hole and wait for at least a day. The thought didn't please Logan- he hated waiting.

A soft ping drew Logan's attention to his pod's HUD. He studied the display and frowned. A group of three Covenant corvettes was prowling over the area. On their present course, Logan and Damian would fly within two kilometers of the ships. Preparing to adjust his trajectory, Logan opened a COM channel to ensure that Damian was doing the same.

Without warning, the Covenant ships shifted their flight pattern, heading off to the south-east. A new contact was visible- a civilian freighter. "What the hell?" Logan murmured, opening the channel to Damian. "Hey, you seeing this?"

"Of course I see it," came Damian's characteristically acerbic reply. "Who is that clown, and what's he think he's doing?"

As Logan watched, the freighter loosed a salvo of missiles, then barreled directly at the corvettes, who began to scatter. "What does this guy think he's doing?" he wondered aloud.

Everything turned upside down in an instant. Logan's pod was sent rolling through the sky. Red lights and alarms blared at him, deafening and blinding in the close quarters. He went to slipspace? a rational corner of Logan's mind thought, while the rest of him swore loudly and viciously. The pod soon corrected with its reserve rocket fuel. Logan looked to his HUD for Damian's icon. There it was, almost four kilometers removed from where it should be. "Damian? Can you hear me?" Logan called into his helmet's mic.

Damian's reply came fragmented and confused. "Thrown off by - wave, no excess -, trying to -rect course - think I'll be -ching down a - early, man."

Touching down early? "Damian, repeat that, are you crashing?"

There was only silence.

Shit. The word cycled endlessly through Damian's mind as his pod rolled. He was dimly aware that he'd lost his COM connection, but that seemed the least of his problems now. The ground was fast approaching. Damian quickly increased the pressure of his suit's ballistic gel and waited for impact.

The first hit jarred the pod horribly, bouncing it twenty feet into the air. Damian could taste blood in his mouth, and it felt like a tooth had been knocked loose. Then he hit the ground again and felt his left leg crack. ''Dammit. Just what I needed.''

The pod bounced and rolled another two hundred meters before coming to a halt in of Thermopylae's many empty springs. With a muffled bang, the bulkhead above Damian ejected, revealing that he, at least, hadn't landed facing the ground. He felt around for a weapon and grabbed his M6D pistol, which had detached from his thigh closure and wedged itself in the corner. He stood, grimacing as his leg screamed in protest, and scanned the horizon. Nothing yet, but that wouldn't last. Clambering out of the wreckage, he reached around until he'd found his assault rifle and rucksack. Checking that his array of knives was still with him, he reset the pressure in all parts of his suit save the left leg, creating a makeshift splint. Taking a tentative step, he gritted his teeth and moved off at a trot. Logan would be headed to the same place he was- their intended landing zone. They were both too highly trained to forget their mission. When he arrived, he knew he'd find Logan at work gathering information.

Damian had barely made it four hundred meters when he saw a pair of black dots in the horizon. Cursing, he threw himself to the ground, leg screaming in protest, and hoped that the prototype active camouflage of his SPI suit would still work after its rough handling. Holding his breath, he flipped off the safety on his rifle and waited.

The dots soon resolved into a pair of Covenant Banshees. As Damian watched, the moved to the wreckage of his pod. One dropped to the ground, disgorging a large Sangheili warrior. The other aircraft remained overhead, circling the site. The alien on the ground studied the crash site, then began looking around the site in a widening circle. Damian assumed he was a tracker, searching for footprints, and breathed a silent prayer that the light breeze be enough to obliterate any tracks he'd left.

The Elite on the ground took almost twenty minutes to decide that there was nothing more to see. With a last look around, he clambered back into the Banshee and lifted off. In a minute the pair was gone. Nonetheless, Damian remained still for another ten minutes. When he was sure no one was coming back, he stood and moved off towards the hills. Hopefully they'd offer some shelter from unfriendly eyes.

20: First Sunrise
Operation: HOLY FATHER

0200 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sydney, Australia, UAF

Mitch had lost three men, and six civilians had died before a Navy strike fighter had been able to make a pass overhead and take out the Wraith. The squad’s light arms hadn’t even dented the tank from their range while it sat back and used plasma mortars to bomb the hell out of the civvie truck they’d used for cover. At least the rest were alive, and now the area was completely evacuated.

He stepped lively behind a Sergeant, but didn’t technically have to. He was police, Sgt. Joshua of the Sydney PD. The cop had shown up after Hunter’s CO came to survey the damage, and started a heated discussion with him in private. Mitch hadn’t heard all of it, but they’d been pretty serious.

Now, he was escorting the sergeant back to his car. Wordlessly, he opened the door, but instead of getting in he leaned on it and looked on at the bodies being taken away by the others of Mitch’s squad.

“This just isn’t supposed to happen, y’know.” Joshua said, only half expecting a response.

“The Covenant have burned through every colony.” Mitch answered. “It was only a matter of time before–”

“I meant,” he sighed, “this shouldn’t happen to civilians.”

Hunter stayed silent, but wholly agreed. He’d seen this firsthand all too often.

“They don’t know what its really like. . . they can’t know. You’ll never know, unless you go through it yourself. I did. And I lost my leg for it.” He tapped the shin of his right leg against his car, and a metallic sound chimed. “Retired me an honorary staff sergeant. Some retirement.”

He turned and looked Mitch in the eye, even through his visor. “There aren’t enough people on the force to keep the streets safe anymore. Damn military comes in and conscripts everyone to fight up there, and there’s no one left down here. Crime’s rampant, all over. There are organized gangs that aren’t just vying for a share in the drug traffic trade. They’re running cities now, and killing as they will. They can’t be stopped anymore.” He trailed into silence after that, tears of frustration forming in the corners of his eyes.

“On the upside,” Mitch said, “We’re here now.”

Joshua shook his head, and chuckled once. “Tell you what, corporal. You save humanity, I’ll make sure there’s something worth saving when it’s over.”

And with that, he climbed into his car, shut the door, and drove off. For some reason, as if a delayed reaction to what the policeman had said, Mitch nodded to himself. Then he walked off to round up his squad. He had a job to do.

Operation: DIVINE SON

0430 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calender)/ Village south of Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

“Go, get inside!” Wheatley hissed at the two children, pushing them into a warehouse before the Elite patrol could see them. He bolted the door behind him, and listened to the pair of Ghosts go down another street. They were stepping up their patrols. Either they were sweeping to completely clean out this place, or they knew they were here. Neither idea was greatly appealing.

“Moses!” Reo called, remembering to be quiet, but he could hear her panic. Running over, he found them staring at a limp form, clad in black.

It was a Helljumper, his corpse long since gone cold. The helmet was faceless, with a jet black visor slumped and looking down at the needle shard embedded in his chest. The needle was coated with cured blood.

Wheatley turned his head around, listening for patrols, and heard none. He had a chance, and a duty to perform. Setting down his rifle, Moses kneeled next to the dead marine and removed his helmet to feel for a pulse at the neck. There was none. He pulled the body away from the case it leaned against, and lay the body straight.

Carefully, he pulled the needler shard out of the man’s armor and tossed it away, letting the crystal almost evaporate when it broke against the floor. Taking a set of supplies from his pack, he sealed the wound with a patch, then pulled the cadaver’s arms up and crossed them over his chest.

Moving up, Moses removed the dog tags of Corporal Alexandro, Juan D., and closed his coffee-colored eyes. Finally, he replaced the shock trooper’s helmet, and vac-sealed it. This was a custom among units with special suits. They were buried like this so their bodies would never rot, and time would not ravage them.

“You won’t need this anymore, trooper.” He murmured, and took the silenced M6 holstered on his side with the few clips he’d carried. A weapon like that would be valuable in the time ahead.

Moses turned to see Henri staring blankly at the dead man. He was beginning to realize that this was no game. People died out here. That was good; in the end it might just help him survive. He picked up his battle rifle.

“Come on. ‘Hog’s right through this building.”

The two followed him silently, slowly, too stunned to say anything else. Reo suddenly realized, she had to write about this, how it felt to be so close to death. Withdrawing her Chatter, she had only just powered it up when it beeped and went dark. “Blast it!” she said, and tossed the thing away.

Wheatley noticed it. Pausing, he withdrew a notepad and a pencil from under the plate protecting his front. “Here.” He said, offering them to her. At first, she hesitated to use a somewhat ‘outdated’ method, but he said, “Better get the thought out now, while it's fresh. When machines break, your hands will never fail you.”

Reo took them, and realized she was a little out of practice at handwriting. “Thanks.” She said, and began scribbling as she followed him, easily keeping up with Wheatley’s cautious pace. Not yet finding the words, she asked, “What should I write about?”

He smiled privately and said, “I don’t want to know just yet. But to quote Dr. Franklin, either write things worth the reading, or do things worth the writing.”

Reo realized that right there and then, the three of them were in the middle of a time when humanity was in danger of extinction, to summarize it all. If they survived, this day would be worth remembering. So as they continued to live and do something worth writing, she would write it as it happened.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0803 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Oshima Island, Tokyo, Japan

For Ion Squad, two suns were coming up in the east. The first was Sol, bright oranges and reds filling the sky over the Pacific Ocean. The second was a storefront going up in flames. Kodiak G114 stood watching the blaze, and hearing the crackle of flames coupled with the screams of a dozen Covenant soldiers inside.

He saw a human shape approaching through the smoke, leaving the blaze and stench of burned flesh behind and walking out into the street. Sepia still clutched her flamethrower in both hands, the pilot light an azure blue. Her personal SPI suit had additional fireproofing, allowing her to walk unimpeded through the blaze. Kodiak was half in awe and half in fear, the Covenant were right to call someone like that a demon.

She came up to him, brushing soot from her armor just as Dyne ran up from his position at the corner. Kodiak nodded to them and looked up towards the skyscrapers on the mainland, speaking into his com.

“Lieutenant, we’ve eliminated the Covenant scout force, but they got a pretty good read on our positions and might have radioed it back, over."

On the other end, Lieutenant Erin Coney, their overseer, gave them an update. “I copy. Move back to the defenses closest to the mass driver towers, one’s up but work on the other’s just beginning.”

The other two Spartans looked expectantly at Kodiak. With hesitation, he keyed his mic again. “El-Tee, we were hoping to be transferred after cleaning them up. We’d like to assist on the east front, where the main fighting will be.”

From the other end was a short pause. Kodiak knew she was sighing exasperatedly, as she often did with Ion. “Negative. I had to pull strings to get you where you are now. Initially they wanted you on guard duty at Ryu Base.”

“Spartans? On guard duty?” Dyne whispered, to no one in particular. All three looked surprised.

“I think someone’s trying to keep us out of the fight. The Gammas haven’t proven themselves yet, not like the Twos, or the Alphas or Betas. They don’t trust you yet, they think you’ll screw up.”

“We’ll have to prove them wrong then, eh, Lieutenant?” Kodiak said, his left hand feeling the grip of his assault rifle.

“I hope you do. For now, get to those defenses. Covenant have dropped jammers into the bay. Wet Navy assets are taking care of them, but it’ll be a while. To make matters worse, there’s a fog rolling in toward you from the south. It means the guns will have no sensor and no visual targeting. If I were an alien commander, I’d take the opportunity to make an attack at your position. Be ready.”

“We will, lieutenant. Ion out.”

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 23:47, January 11, 2011 (UTC)

21
"Scorpio Actual to Scorpio 1, report in" Colonel Johnathan Cooper held his head in his palm, the situation in Japan was looking increasingly desparate. He just hoped that Scorpio team was the trump card they needed.

"Scorpio Team is on the ground, awaiting orders,sir" Cecil reported.

"Marine forces are engaged in heavy fighting near the Shibuya district of Tokyo, advance there and assist them"

"Copy that, Scorpio 1, out"

"Orders?" Raphael inquired.

"Kick ass and take names, you know, the usal" the rest of the team formed up.

"Alright, I wanna know what's going on here, do not engage, and report back when you're done" Cecil ordered

"2 and 4 your paired 5 and 6 your paried up, 2 is on me"

"Oh, goodie, I'm partnered with the clinicaly insane guy" Timothy retorted

"Hey..don't judge" Vincent replied, hurt

HIATUS RETURN TIAM!!!!! :D Chen-179 03:49, January 12, 2011 (UTC)

22: A Small Advance
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

01600 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar) Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan '''

Mikiya Ryougi flew his Falcon Gunship, along with the rest of the 24th Squadron over the Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi Park, Shibuya, now serving as an evac point for civilians, when his radio crackled to life.

"This Whiskey Three-Seven, we have loaded all civilian survivors and are preparing to lift off, however, we have four Banshees incoming from the NHK building".

Mikiya turned towards glass-clad tower on the edge of the park that was the studio for the NHK, the Japanese national TV channel. The tower once had a cylindrical structure on top, containing broadcast equipment such as satellite dishes, however, those, along with the upper few floors of the tower had been reduced to a twisted steel skeleton by a Covenant plasma charge.

Flying above the remains of the NHK building, Mikiya caught sight of four Banshees, about 1.3 kilometers in the distance.

"I hear you Whiskey Three-Seven", Mikiya said, "I am engaging now". Mikiya heard the lock tone for his LAU-65 dual purpose missile launcher and pressed the launch button. A missile streaked towards the enemy aircraft, and seconds later, exploded in a ball of flames, blowing the cockpit clean off, sending both pieces of the aircraft falling to the ground.

"Scratch 1!", Mikiya said.

The second Banshee was about a click away when Mikiya fired a second missile at it. The second LAU-65 detonated near the wing of the Banshee, blowing off its right anti-gravity pod. The remaining engine was not enough to keep the aircraft in the skies, sending the aircraft into a death spiral. The downed Banshee crashed into a courtyard in the middle of a ring shaped-shaped building.

"Second Banshee down", Mikiya said to his gunner, "Miyazaki, we're getting into cannon range, you know what to do".

Mikiya Ryougi raised the Falcon higher into the air, dodging a plasma cannon burst from the two Banshees. Aoi Miyazaki turned the aircraft's 30mm cannon towards the first Banshee and fired a burst of high explosive-armor piercing shells. Flashes of fire lit up the side of of the alien aircraft as blue flames erupted from the tail. The aircraft was going down.

"Three down", Aoi said.

Mikiya turned the Falcon towards the Falcon towards the final Banshee, which was now closing in the evac Pelican Dropship, Whiskey Three-Seven

"Kisama!!!", Mikiya yelled, a Japanese curse word, literally an offensive version of the pronoun "you", but in this case, best translated as "you son of a bitch!".

Aoi turned the gun on the Banshee, pulling the trigger just as the enemy aircraft prepared to fire on the Pelican's left engine. The Banshee's tail caught fire just as it fired its plasma cannons, missing the Pelican's engines, striking only empty ground as it fell to the ground.

"That's the last one", Whiskey Three-Seven replied, "We have clear skies on our scope and will rendezvous with UNSCAF Longsword Fighters in a few minutes, thanks for the assist Hayabusa"

"Just doing our job", Mikiya replied as he turned back towards the south end of the park as his radio crackled to life.

"This is Lieutenant Harrison of Echo Company of UNSC Army Three-Thirty-First Armored Regiment to all UNSC aerial assets", A voice with an American accent spoke through the radio, we are pinned down in an immediately east of Shibuya station by fire from Wraiths in Hachiko Square and three Covie Air Artilleries with Banshee supportimmediately to the west. If someone can take those out, We can get our Scorpions rolling and retake that square"

"This is Hayabusa Lead, I read you, Lt. Harrison", Mikiya relied, "We'll take care of that artillery".

Mikiya flew up above the rooftops and immediately caught sight the three Covenant Air Artillery aircraft, all three of them raining balls of burning plasma on the 331st.

"This is Hayabusa three", Mikiya said, "I have a missile lock on the first and second air artillery, I'm taking it out. Satou, you take number three. Everyone else pick off those Banshees."

Mikiya locked on to the first Covenant Air Artillery and let loose an Argent missile. The missile impacted the alien aircraft dead center, detonating its plasma stores in a ball of blue flames. The explosion was so powerful that it knocked a couple nearby Banshees into the side of a skyscraper.

Mikiya then fired a missile at the second Air Artillery as Satou fired on the third. Soon, about a dozen missiles flew at the enemy aircraft, knocking Banshees and Air Artillery out of the sky.

"I read all enemy aircraft destroyed", Mikiya Ryougi said, "Nice shooting, Hayabusa. Now, let's deal with those Wraiths, go in at low level, between the buildings."

Mikiya flew down into the concrete canyons created by the buildings around him, weaving between structures. Mikiya flew out of a narrow alleyway and turned down onto a major road leading into the Hachiko Square from the south.

"Eight Wraiths, Two AAs dead center of the square.", Mikiya said, "Take 'em out in three, two, one, NOW!!!"

Aoi Miyazaki locked onto the easternmost Wraith and pulled the trigger, sending a Scorpion ATGW at an AA Wraith, blowing the rapid-fire fuel rod guns off the top and a destroying the vehicle. More Scorpion missiles streaked in from the other Falcon gunships, lighting up the formation of Wraiths. As the last Wraith went up in flames, Mikiya spoke into the radio,

"331st, the Wraiths are gone, We will stick around to cover you, We will be flying in a low level along the street to the north, between the Q-Front Tower and the building with the big screen on the front. good luck in there, Hayabusa out".

"Thanks for the assist, We're coming, were coming in from the east, along the street between the Shibuya station and the building with the big screen.

Mikiya flew his aircraft into the square, turning towards a road block on the street the UNSC armor would be coming up. Mikiya spotted two Locusts guarding the street.

"Miyazaki", he said, "Give those Locusts a missile". Aoi Miyazaki fired a Scorpion missile at the first Covenant walker, blowing the top turret off. The second Locust, however, fell to a Scorpion of a different kind, the 90mm main gun of UNSC Scorpion main battle tank, which then proceeded to roll over the Covenant roadblock, followed by several more tanks, all of them mowing down Covenant infantry with their machine guns or blasting at Shade turrets and Kig-Yar sniper nests in the building with their cannons.

Mikiya and the rest of the the 24th Squadron aided the UNSC tanks in the assault, shooting up any alien positions the Scorpions missed, including a heavy plasma cannon position in a the Starbuck's Coffee shop in the Q-Front Tower, which Mikiya fired a pair of LAU-65 missile into while Aoi poured 30mm HEDP shells into until the alien guns fell silent.

"Shame", Mikiya commented, "Could have used some decent coffee about now."

Shortly after eliminating the Covenant position in the Q-Front Tower, Mikiya's radio crackled to life

"This is Lt. Harrison of the 331st Armored. All Covenant resistance has been neutralized. Thanks for the help, Hayabusa."

"Your welcome Lieutenant, good luck holding that position", Mikiya responded as he lead his sqaudron back to base. Today, the UNSC had actually made a small counterattack, albeit an advance of only a few hundred meters. It would take a lot more to drive the Covenant out of Tokyo, let alone off of Earth.

23
OPERATION ETERNAL SPIRIT

0845 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calender)/

Outskirts of Covenant AA Area, Japan

[TBW]

24: In Iron Sights
Operation: DIVINE SON

0439 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calender)/ Village south of Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Wheatley slid the door open only enough so he could stick his head out and survey the road. No aliens. “Okay, we better make this quick.” The warehouse door slid open loudly, its rollers squeaking because of age. Moses ran back in and hauled himself up and into the Boar’s driver seat. Its engine roared to life as he keyed the ignition, and at his command it leaped forward out of the building's shadow.

Their escape was far from unnoticed. At the end of the block, an Elite emerged, spotted them at once, and roared into the air.

“Hang on!” Wheatley shouted. Twisting the wheel, the Warthog jumped up onto the curb, running down a streetsign, a fire hydrant, and the Sangheili beneath its fender. The three Grunts that had been following it scattered as the water line spouted twenty feet skyward and the Boar continued on its way.

There were only two seats in the thing, and since Moses had insisted on them strapping in, Henri had to sit on Reo’s lap. Behind them the tow hook bounced loudly against the back bumper, almost unnoticed under the growl of the engine running.

“Where are we going?” Reo shouted over the noise.

“Anywhere but here!”

They got out of the town without encountering any more patrols. Moses kept a close eye on his rear-view mirror, but none of the Ghosts or Spectres he’d seen were pursuing. It felt to good to be true, and it probably was.

Wheatley checked far in front, and to their sides. Still nothing. They were safe for at least a few moments more, so he focused on the road. “I need to get you two out of here. There’s got to be an evacuation post, or even a military station getting people off-planet somewhere.”

With Wheatley letting up on the gas pedal, Henri could be heard clearly despite him saying quietly, “Moses, where will we go after that?”

The truth was, he didn’t know. Did the UNSC still have colonies out there, somewhere all these people could go to escape the slaughter? Even after that, how could they feed so many refugees?

Moses couldn’t think about that. Those were thoughts for High Command, not a frontliner. But it worried him. And more questions followed. How had Earth alone been able to support so many, or had it even tried? He hadn’t asked these before; everyone was an objective, and if they got them clear of the battlefield, it was victory. But now he knew these two. He worried about their future.

“Moses!” Reo shouted, pointing straight ahead. A pair of Banshee fighters were sweeping low over the road, headed straight for them!

Short-term survival was now far more important. He pulled the wheel sideways as the flyers’ underbellies lit green a half-moment, and two fuel rods trailing green radiation flew their way.

The shots detonated feet away from the drivers side, avoided only by their swerving. The Banshees howled over and past them a moment later, and Wheatley knew they’d swing around.

“Hand me that radio!” He yelled. A stream of blue plasma slagging one of the back corners and some asphalt near them made him return both hands to the wheel. “Dammit! You use it! Call for help!”

She nodded, and held in the button on the reciever. “We need help! We’re on. . .”

“The Eikostis Highway!”

“the Eikostis Highway being attacked by Banshees! Heading. . .”

“North towards Thebes!”

“north toward Thebes. Anyone, please help us!”

Operation: HOLY FATHER

0311 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sutherland, Sydney, Australia,

Just under half a world away, the situation was much the same. Only now it would be the Covenant in the crosshairs, and the UNSC’s ODSTs doing the shooting.

“Bret, get your rockets into position!” Mitch Hunter hissed over the com from his position, hidden in the shadows of an apartment complex.

“Almost there, sir.” The heavy weapons man reported, the sound of his heavy breathing and footfalls in the background.

Mitch switched to a second com line. “Dansen, you have a shot?”

The blue sniper, set up on top of a building down the street, replied, “Yeah. I see a blue and a silver Elite. Which one?”

“Silver’s the ranker, take him first. I’ll take the blue.” Mitch readied his battle rifle, and took note of the blue-armored leg he could just see through the window of a burned-out car.

Bret’s voice came in. “Rockets in position, ready for fire.”

“All units. . . open fire.”

With a Whoosh and a cloud of smoke, an HE rocket shot downwards from a building top. The Covenant sitting in this command post immediately turned to face it, just as Dansen fired a round. It deflected off the silver Elite’s shields, causing him to stumble but not die. A second shot broke the shield and his skull just as the rocket detonated.

The Revenant gun carriage that had been sitting in the street leaped a meter off the deck before crashing back down and being engulfed in flames, both red plasma and orange fire.

From his cover, the blue elite ran out into the open to answer the call to fight, and right into Mitchell’s crosshairs. Caught unaware, he was still looking for his attacker when a fourth burst broke his shields and went through the small helmet protecting him.

He dropped the rifle to hang on the strap on his shoulder and pinged his com line again. “Kevlar! Your team is go!”

From a sidestreet, four more black-suited troopers emerged with Kevlar in the lead, brandishing his shotgun. They entered the building the Covenant were guarding, and soon he heard assault and plasma rifle fire accompanied by the crack of buckshot leaving a muzzle.

“Bret, Dansen, regroup.” Mitch said, and then he and two more marines moved up to the building front. By the time the two had arrived, it was already over. It was a clean sweep, with no casualties. The shock troopers had done their job, and the main force could advance a little further towards Sydney’s Orbital Elevator. They’d even managed their secondary objective.

“Dropship, you’re clear to move in.”

From over the rooftops, a Pelican emblazoned with Bravo 029 came into view and circled around to land where the Revenant had been. As the dust was swept up from its landing, Hunter’s squad began pulling sleek, purple crates filled with Covenant ordnance from the building.

“Bravo Oh-Two-Nine to Oscar Reserve Squad. Well done, Corporal.” The pilot congratulated.

“Thanks, ma’am. Where are these being taken?”

“Arms manufacturers in Japan. Going to use them for study, and if push comes to shove, for killing Covies.”

“Heard its just about to start big-time over there. Any word on the odds?”

“We’ve got warehouses full of expirimental and regulation weaponry, along with hundreds in personnel and a few heavy guns to fight off capital ships. If anyone stands a chance, they do.”

Mitch smiled. For him, things were looking up.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0816 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Oshima Island, Tokyo, Japan

Coney had been right, the fog came in fast, and plenty of it. Oshima had been completely blanketed in the mist. Ion Team was among the force stationed in a barricade a few blocks from the tower guns still being constructed. On either side of Kodiak were marine soldiers with light arms pointed outward. This was the choke point, if the Covenant wanted the island, they’d have to come through here.

They were dead silent. Fog condensed on the building walls, and the only sound echoing off them was Dyne messing with his sniper rifle. “I can’t see a thing in this stuff.” He complained privately to his teammates over the com. Finally, he set it on his back and opted for his assault rifle.

A low, unending wail reached their ears, setting everyone on edge. The fighters tensed up, rechecking their safeties and magazines.

“Phantoms.” One marine next to Kodiak murmured.

“How can you tell?”

“You can’t?” he asked, looking up. “It’s the engine pitch. Figures they’d send us a rookie Spartan.”

Slightly insulted, Kodiak merely lapsed back into silence with the rest of them. Though the howling became louder, none of the expected purple light broke through the wall of gray in front of them. He decided that it really was the waiting for a fight that was worse.

Then the sound began to fade, receding back over the ocean.

“They must know about the guns. Landed infantry.” One man down the line said, before his corporal indicated silence.

Just where the mist obscured the world, a pair of pale blue blades sprang from an unseen hand. Holding for a moment, it cleaved through the mist and swung over what must have been head height. A lone roar of challenge sounded, just before a loud crack startled the marines.

The blades disappeared, and the sound of a corpse falling to the ground could be heard.

Dyne lifted his head up, double-checking his kill. “Saw that.” He said cheekily.

There were a few, humorless chuckles shared, until a second call went out, and Covenant infantry came running into sight.

Kodiak added his assault rifle rounds to the hail of fire already digging into Grunt flesh, rebounding off Jackal shields, and narrowly missing Skirmishers as they charged the barricade. He alikened it to floodwaters with the foremost part evaporating in the stream of bullets, but even as the front ranks fell more appeared from what looked like, especially with the fog, thin air.

Another fell to his rounds, and his magazine clicked empty. “Reloading.” He warned, and slid onto his back to grab another clip. Just then, he thought he saw something. It could have been a trick of the mist, but something back between them and the gun towers had moved.

It was getting to him. He knew he’d seen something, but it wasn’t anything. The indescribablity of it was driving him nuts, and then he saw it again. Like a wave of air, and just more than human height. Oh, crap.

“To the rear!” he shouted, spraying his rifle. The hail of rounds slammed into something, and energy shielding popped into existence glowing brightly. SpecOps Elites.

All hell broke loose as the fighters were caught between advancing infantry in front and invisible foes behind. When a squad of Elite Rangers jumped down from the rooftops, there was nothing to do but scatter.

Trying to retreat from the horde, many marines ran right into the wristblades of cloaked Sangheili. Kodiak spotted one going for a man, and, rifle still unloaded, he pulled a knife from its sheath on his chest and hurled it. Cartwheeling through the air, its blade flashed twice before going hilt-deep into the alien’s neck with a spray of purple blood.

As the chaos went on around him, he retrieved the knife, hearing a satisfying sound as the steel withdrew from flesh. Unscrewing the flashlight from his MA5B’s muzzle, he replaced it with the knife and began reloading. Two things caught his attention; the first was the rest of his team, holding off the infantry force for the marines to escape, and then what was beyond. Locust walkers.

“Ion! Fall back!” he yelled. They did so unquestioningly, just before the Locust shot a beam of violet light and turned the barricade into a cloud of debris sent high into the mist-filled air.

As Sepia and Dyne ran towards him, he jumped off a car, aiming for a Ranger with a carbine that was firing into the retreating soldiers. The bayonet found its mark in the Elite’s spine, and was only freed when Kodiak blasted it with a burst of rounds, the dome-like visor shattering when the corpse fell to the pavement below.

“Come on!” he yelled, waving the others onwards into an alley. There was nothing more they could do here. With the barricade lost, they’d have control of their CP within minutes. While they expected it at every turn, no Covenant ran after them. They only stopped when they reached the wharf.

“What’s the plan?” Dyne asked, looking to either of his teammates.

Kodiak answered, unscrewing the knife and replacing it in its sheath. “We lost here. We need to get back to the mainland, and do what we can there.”

“So how do we get back?” Sepia asked, still scanning for pursuers.

“Walk.”

With that, Kodiak jumped into the water.

As the water went above his HUD, he sank maybe ten meters to the bottom of the bay. With the flashlight remounted on his rifle, he scanned the muddy bottom, then lined up his compass. The others joined him in a moment, neither looking or sounding happy.

“My flamethrower’s useless now.” She let it drop beside her, the inside components flooding with water.

“This thing’s scopes will never be the same.” Dyne moaned, casting off his sniper rifle. The pair’s helmet lights activated, and they followed Kodiak north and west, the shortest distance back to ground above sea level.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 02:20, January 22, 2011 (UTC)

25: Death From Below
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

930 Hours, October 25th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ 

Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine UNSC Seawolf, Southeast of Tokyo, Japan

Captain Yanagi brought up a satellite image on the main screen of the UNSC Seawolf, real-time satellite image of the Oshima Island, off the coast of Tokyo Bay. The Covenant had now taken control of the entire island. The island was much too close to UNSC forces on the mainland to deploy nuclear weapons against, but they could still hit them with conventional cruise missiles.

"Now hear this!", Yanagi said through the submarine's intercom, "The Covenant have captured Oshima Island and have are using it as a staging area for a second attack on mainland Japan. We are not going to let that happen! I sending target coordinates now. Weapons systems crews are to hold fire until my signal. I want all missiles to hit them simultaneously.

Yanagi zoomed in on the main Harbour in Oshima. The Covenant appeared to be converting a couple of ferrys at the dock that survived their invasion into makeshift transports for the invasion of the mainland, several Locust Walkers and Wraith tanks, as well as numerous smaller vehicles were lined up on the dock, ready to be loaded. Yanagi marked each of the transport simply by touching their location on the touchscreen. He then proceeded to target the Wraiths and Locusts on the docks, before assigning it to a cruise missile with an anti-armor MITV warhead.

Yanagi zoomed the map out, before zooming back in on the airfield on the northwest corner of the island. The Covenant had already shifted aside the remains of the remains of the human aircraft based at the airfield, and replaced them with Banshee attack aircraft, Phantoms transports, and Seraph fighters. Yanagi marked the aircraft for a second MITV missile, then marked the runway, several large Covenant plasma cores at the end side of the airfield, and the terminal as targets for missiles, each with a 2000 pound warhead.

Finally, Yanagi send two cruise missiles towards a couple of partially complete Covenant AA batteries atop the volcanic peak of Miharayama in the center of the island. "Why couldn't that volcano have chosen now to erupt and save us the trouble.", Yanagi thought as he uploaded the coordinates to the missiles.

Yanagi spoke into the intercom and gave the command to fire the missiles. As he did this, the split the main screen into thirds, showing a detailed view of the target areas.

A single cruise missile flew at Oshima harbor from the south. As it reached about a couple kilometer's distance, the outer skin of the missile nose broke off, revealing several smaller missiles, with slammed into the Wraiths and Locusts, taking them out in balls of flames or sending up splashed of water as they slammed into the hulls of the two ferrys, sending both boats to the bottom of the harbor.

Four cruise missiles streaked in to the now Covenant-controlled airfield, the first separating into multiple missiles each of which blew apart a parked Seraph, Phantom, or Banshee. The second slammed into the runway, creating a massive crater and rendering it out of action as the third struck the plasma storage tanks sending them up in a ball of blue flames. The final missile blew a massive hole in the center of the small terminal building and set the rest of the structure on fire.

The last two missiles impacted the partially complete AA batteries atop Miharayama, the explosion from one of the missiles was so severe that it knocked the alien gun off it's perch and sent the remnants falling 200 feet below, into the volcano's crater.

"Now hear this", Yanagi said through the intercom, "We have taken out all targets successfully, all engine crew personnel are to report to their posts, we are relocating ASAP to avoid detection"

26
Operation: DIVINE SON

1929 Hours, October 23rd (Military Calendar)/

Outskirts of Thermopylae, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

Jara 'Karum took his Banshee in a turn, while examining the ground.

"Fervent Admiration, I can see no demons on the ground. They must have fled the area." He declared. There was a pause, then his flight controller, Ultra Domo Laku 'Parkamee

"Continue searching. They cannot be far."

Jara hit his fustration, and let his banshee circle the region again. Once again, his motion sensor did not indicate any movement from human forces.

"Any luck, Jara?"

"Negative." He said irrtatably. "The Demons are good at what they do. They are clearly well hidden-if they are even here at all."

There was a long pause, then Laku's voice came over the speakers again.

"The Shipmaster is sending more banshees to prowl the area. He feels that the this is our chance to-" Laku went silent for a momment.

"Laku?" Jara asked. "Laku, is everything all right?"

"Its fine. A human vessel is approaching the battlegroup. We are going to engage it now."

Jara frowned, then kept patrolling, searching for any humans. He continued on his search area, when all of a sudden, Laku's voice came over the speakers again.

"The human ship! It-" He was suddenly cut off, and Jara was suddenly worried. What was going on? He turned his banshee in the direction of the battlegroup-at this distance, they were small dots. Several seconds later however, he felt a shockwave. His banshee, and that of his wingman was bluffeted by the shockwave.

"Fervent Admiration, do you read me?" He asked. No response.

"I repeat, Fervent Admiration, do you read me?" Silence.

"We need to go investigate." He said flattly.

0355 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Kopis Base, Galičica Mountain, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

Norman sweeped the hills with the binoculars, coming up with no Covenant. He discarded the binoculars and kept his BR55 up, continuing to sweep the area. A Falcon swooped into the area, before landing. Its two occupants, Janice and Wong hopped out, followed by its pilot, Kevin.

"We found a Covenant convoys just now. The Covenant are searching this area like mad now, won't be long before they find us." Janice reported grimly.

"Did you engage?" Norman asked.

"Negative. Just as you told us." She replied.

"Alright. Good." He said.

"Is Gary nearly done with the Grizzly?" Kevin asked.

"I don't know." Norman replied. "Ask him. Then go and rest."

"Thanks, sir." Kevin replied.

Norman shrugged his shoulders and sweeped the hills with his binoculars again, seeing nothing. Wondering for a while how long it would take for the Covenant to find them, he then focused his thoughts to keeping watch. Since he was the ranking officer, he had taken command of everyone in the base. This wasn't a problem, it just meant he had a few extra hands in addition to Dagger. Steiner and Lane had been a combat veterans of several years, while Wong was relatively new to the military.

While he kept watch, he shifted his thoughts to those more uncomfortable. The remains of Kopis Base provided supplies and a reasonable amount of shelter. Unfortunately, its location was also known to the Covenant, and they were bound to check the area for survivors.

Which meant that they either would have to move, or hit the Covenant back. Unfortunately, his lack of intelligence was fustrating-you couldn't plan an operation without intelligence, especially with seven people under his command. He had used the Falcon his team to scout out the hills, searching for Covenant patrols, and eliminating them, or at least noting them. Covenant air support had been strangely absent-but Steiner had mentioned that they had detected an enormous explosion, in addition to Čerenkov radiation coming from the south. It was possible that they had something to do with a helpful reduction of Covenant air patrols.

He pushed his speculations to the side. He needed to think of something that could potentially turn the tide. Their infrequent raids on Covenant patrols wouldn't suffice, especially since it only served to irratate the Covenant commanders, resulting in them putting more effort into hunting them down. He briefly considered trying to make a break for it, fleeing Greece and heading north, up into Europe, but then he pushed that idea to the side. His mission had been to repel the Covenant offensive in Greece-he wouldn't abandon the mission unless he was ordered to.

"Goddammit." He muttered under his breath. "I really need more intel." He came to a decision. When the sun rose, he would go with Janice and Kevin to scout further for Covenant forces. Something to do that would be worthwhile to their mission, even if it cost their lives.

Although he would try to find something that did not cost their lives.

1012 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

East of Galičica Mountain, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

Norman moved the Falcon cautiously. He had given instructions to Gary that if they weren't back by the end of the day, he should assume the worst. He certainly hoped not. They had been flying for about half an hour now, and he had changed the Falcon to "plane-mode" in order to fly faster. As the plane moved, he kept an eye on the Falcon's radar, keeping note of hostiles.

"Wait." Kevin muttered. "Did you see that? An AA Wraith. On my side."

"No." Norman replied. "Lucky you did."

"They saw us too." Kevin said.

"Preforming evasive manuvers..." Norman brought the Falcon into a roll, then fired the chin mounted machine gun. 20mm High Explosive rounds impacted on the Wraith, denting its armor. As he dodged another burst of shots, one of them whizzing dangerously close to him.

"Got him!" Kevin shouted, satisfied. The AA Wraith paused for a few seconds, hit by the EMP grenade. Norman circled the area again while Kevin fired two more grenades, destroying the AA Wraith.

"Good work, Kevin." He said.

"Norman, what exactly are we looking for?" Janice asked.

"Just doing some recon further away from our base." He said. "We need to find a way to hit the Covenant hard. Really hard."

"Great." She said.

They continued moving on. Norman increased his altitude, in hopes of encountering less unpleasant AAA surprises.

"Hang on. There. Large group of tangos up ahead...and then there's just this huge ass dark zone." Janice murmmered.

"Yeah. I know." Norman said. He frowned. The sensors on his Falcon didn't show anything up ahead, although it indicated craploads of hostiles below him.

"What the hell is that?" Kevin murmmered.

"Its jamming our sensors somehow, and there are shitloads of hostiles, as previously mentioned. There's most likely AA as well, I don't want to get too close." Norman took the Falcon in a loop, circling the area.

"Should me and Kevin go check it out?" Janice asked. Norman paused to consider. Then he nodded.

"Take a quick look. I'll evac you. Do not engage any hostiles unless you have been engaged, or alert them in any fashion."

Kevin and Janice moved slowly, their SPI's stealth systems hiding them from the eyes of the Covenant soldiers. They were seeing a cluster of grunts hanging around a pair of shade turrets from the hill they were hiding on. He peered through the field binoculars, and behind them, there were even more fortifications. He could barely see some sort of small Covenant structure, perhaps a story or two tall.

"That...thing is jamming our sensors, possibly our comms as well." Janice muttered. "Hey. Are those hunters I see?"

"Where?"

"Over there..." Janice replied.

"Have you seen enough?" Kevin asked, suddenly feeling rather nervous.

"Do you think we can take those Grunts?" Janice asked.

"Possibly. Norman said not to engage hostiles though."

"Crap. Yeah, that asshole." Janice muttered. "How much I would love to end the lives of those Grunts right now. I don't think we can sneak past all of them. Let's get Norman to pick us up."

"So...to conclude." Norman said, while flying the Falcon. "Large Covenant structure that's jamming sensors and possibly comms as well. Is guarded by numerous Shade turrets. Company-sized group guarding the area. Did you see anything else?"

"Nothing noteworthy." Janice replied. "Actually, hold that thought. We think we saw a pair of Hunters."

"Dammit." Norman replied. "Anyway. Once Gary is done with the Grizzly, that Covenant structure goes down. Hard."

"Now THAT'S more like it." Kevin said, chuckling. "Let's blow up something big."

"Yeah." Norman said, wondering if another one of his teammates would get killed. "Let's go blow that up."

The Falcon turned into helicopter mode and landed on a helicopter pad on the base. Norman stepped out, but noticed nothing amiss. He could see Private Wong in the distance, on a vantage point, keeping watch. He didn't know what Steiner or Lane were up to-most likely keeping watch as well, or sleeping.

"What did Gary say about his progress?" Norman demanded.

"He said it was going well." Janice said. "Do you want to take a look?"

"Sure." Norman said. "Janice, can you get the rough enemy positions on the tacpad? We'll meet in one of the not-blasted briefing rooms. Say, briefing room D. Kevin, let everyone know to present themselves at briefing room D at 1700 hours."

As his two teammates headed off to follow their orders, he headed towards the vehicle bay.

He headed into the vehicle bay, which had even more ruined vehicles inside. Jackal shield gauntlets covered the Grizzly in uneven positions, making it look like a bizzaire Christmas tree. Gary pulled himself out from underneath the heavy tank, and glanced at the newcomers to the vehiclebay-the rest of Dagger."

"Did you find us a suicide mission to go on?" Gary asked.

"Yes." Norman replied.

"Wonderful. Let's all go and get ourselves killed."

Norman didn't respond to that. He knew very well Gary was bitter about the death of his twin, Gerald-G092. However, Gary knew as well as everyone else that the UNSC needed every soldier it could get, say nothing about its Spartans. There would be time to morun the dead later, assuming they didn't join them.

"Kevin and Janice did some recon." He said. "I'll call everyone into the bay to discuss our battle plan."

"So we're going into hell with a little bit of intel at least." Gary said. "I'm almost done with the Grizzly, by the way. Thing is, this whole damn place is practically out of canister shells. I searched this base high and low while you were all gone."

"Crap." Norman muttered. That wouldn't help their anti-infantry standing much.

"We'll just have to use high explosive rounds instead." Gary commented.

"Understood." Norman replied.

Norman looked at the his Spartans and the men from Kopis Base gathered around the briefing table. He typed a few figures into his TACPAD, and a few holographic images of Shade turrets in green sprang up.

"These are the Shade image locations we CONFIRMED to exist." He noted. He tapped his TACPAD again, and a few more Shade turrets appeared, although they were red.

"These are other likely places for Shade turrets." He tapped his TACPAD a third time, and a large Covenant pylon appeared.

"That-" He placed his hand through the holographic pylon "-is our target. That structure is most likely jamming our communications as well as our sensors. Our objective is to destroy it. We will then inform HIGHCOM of the situation in Greece, and request reinforcements.

"Excuse me Sir, but I've seen Covenant comms jammers before." Steiner interupted. "They aren't nearly as big, and they are usually put in areas of high altitude."

"Exactly, Corporal." Norman said. "That pylon is the highest place there is. Well, except here, but we know its not here for obvious reasons."

"Our plan is relatively simple." He added. "We are going to drive the Grizzly at the Covenant positions, guns blazing. Blow up a few Shade turrets, send a few Covies to their precious "Great Journey". Now, those glory-hounding elites will go after the big, most obvious target-a 120mm High Explosive spewwing mobile fortress. Which is when we-" Norman gestured at his Spartans "will fly in behind them on the Falcon. Put in a few 40mm rounds from behind, and blow up that Pylon. Then, assuming we are all alive after this, we get the hell out of here."

Norman-123 12:12, January 18, 2011 (UTC)

27: Memories Made and Kept
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0820 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Off of Oshima Island, Tokyo, Japan

Even through the loose mud of the bay's floor, Kodiak felt the initial shockwave. A moment later, a quake made the entire world rock back and forth, the light silt flying up in an obscuring cloud.

"They must have bombed Oshima." Dyne said, his helmet lights switching from one teammate to the other.

"Just keep moving." Kodiak told him. Though he kept stoicly silent and walking on, the subsequent impacts he felt only drove home harder the point that his first assignment had failed.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

0340 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sydney, Australia,

Kevlar was starting to doze off. With the next day still ours away, the squad had taken shelter inside the captured Covenant Command Post for the night. It was about all he could do to keep himself from slipping away. He still had twenty more minutes on watch before he'd get a solid four hours of sleep. That was good for a shock trooper when he was groundside.

Only one other man was awake, and that was Mitch. He was doing what he had always done, shifting through the collection of aluminum tags he kept in a pouch on his chest. He'd just added the tags from their three casualties yesterday. . . or had it been today, past midnight? Nah, forget it. Tomorrow came when the sun rose.

"Why do you still carry all those, man?" Kevlar asked him. The two had been together since before Reach fell, and even now that Mitch outranked him, they couldn't help being informal. Especially now that everyone else they'd known was dead or elsewhere.

Mitch was startled. He thought Kevlar would have fallen asleep again, as he usually did when he had watch. "I don't want to forget them. Most . . . most were colonials, like me. Their families are dead, even. Who's left to remember them?"

He sorted through the tags a moment, and came up with a pair he'd painted red to show they were from the Eleventh Company. "Here. Natalia Kerevsky. She was hit by a sniper on the first op I was in. Counter-insurgency." He selected another. An orange 12 was painted on its back. "Tyson Brown. Shot in the back by plasma rifles hauling another wounded guy over his shoulder. That guy was me." One more pair, this one from an Army trooper, was pulled. "Sergeant Jonathon Dansen. KIA at Reach."

It took a second for Kevlar to realize it. He looked to the kid in blue armor, seperate from the maroon Force Oscar troops. "Do you think . . ."

"His dad." Mitch said. He continued through the tags.

Each one had a story attached to it. It may have been a hero's death, or a man who'd been shot down without warning. But he remembered them all. He always would.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 22:26, January 23, 2011 (UTC)

28
'''Operation: HOLY FATHER

0400 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Sydney, Australia, Task Force Oscar Temporary Command Post'''

James Perez

"...Status Report Colonel!"

"We got 18 men dead and 32 wounded, sir." James spoke into the radio quietly. "I'm gonna see if I can rally local Marine and Militia units. Bravo 4 is keeping the Covies at bay, but at the same time I got half my forces bogged down with refugees and looters. LOOTERS!"

"Very well Colonel, out."

James clicked the radio off and ran a hand over his short brown hair. His proudly painted ODST armor was stained with Elite blood. Specifically from when he curb stomped a minor Elite. This was a hard fight, a helluva of Elites here. James turned on all channels and began a broadcast.

"This is Colonel James Perez of Task Force Oscar, I need immediate reinforcements for a counter attack. Marines, ODSTs or otherwise will be accepted. We have food and supplies. We need ABLE BODIED TROOPS, we have enough wounded to care for. "

29: That's Our Call
Operation: HOLY FATHER

0401 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sydney, Australia,

“Okay, your turn for watch.” Kevlar said sleepily, waking Dansen to take next watch. He plunked down and used his helmet as a headrest, and was just about to sleep when the call came through on one of the squad’s long-range radio backpack.

Kevlar knew it was coming, but he still winced as he heard Mitch say, “That’s our call, troopers. On your feet, we move out now.”

He was tired as hell, but shook himself awake and double checked that his weapons were loaded, strapping on his pack and resecuring his helmet. Within seconds of waking up, the nine black-suited troopers fell in behind Mitch with their equipment already on them. A Helljumper had to be a light sleeper, and wear his guns to bed. Kevlar stood in line with the others as Mitch addressed them. The sound of far-off gunfire had reached them a while ago, and he’d figured the battle would come to him sooner or later.

“Okay, people, Oscar CP is four blocks back, three blocks over. We’re not going all the way, we’re hitting the Covie force from their flank and take the pressure off Bravo 4 to get their refugees out and come back in force. Questions?” There were none. “Let’s hit it!”

Exiting their building, the marines piled into a gift left by Bravo 029 – a troop transport Warthog. Its headlights flashed on, illuminating a conic area in front of them, and with a growling engine leaped forward. Within minutes they turned a corner and came face to face with a lance of Jackals. They screamed and dived for cover, but one was too late and his head cracked against the bumper. Most others were killed as the men hanging on the back fired parting shots at them.

Kevlar rolled the 'hog to a stop, and everyone else piled out. He would keep the engine running if they needed to fall back.

"Move up." Mitch said, the eight of them growing quiet in the dark streets. "Oscar Reserve Squad to Bravo 4, we're in position, how long do you need?"

"Just a couple minutes, Reserve. We have heavy reinforcements inbound."

"Moving in." he said, and terminated the link. "Break silence, we make as much noise as possible. Go!"

The troopers ran out into the street, no longer bothering to take cover. In the night and their identical suits, it was impossible to tell one figure from another. A display of colored light was playing across the wall of a building around the corner, from green and bluish plasma trading fire with orange muzzle flashes. Mitch caught the dark red of a Grunt's armor, and opened fire.

It was a good way to get attention. The battle rifle punctured its methane tank and caused it to explode. The other marines also opened fire, sniper rifle cracks and a rocket standing out over the infantry weapons clatter. And that was when things soured.

Its silhouette outlined by flames, a Hunter stood towering over them. The dark blue giant wasted no time, and with a sweep of its shield caught one of their number still running headlong. Spraying blood that looked as black as his suit, the trooper's corpse was thrown toward the side of a building across the road.

The squad broke ranks and ran, for cover if they couldn't outright run away. Mitch fired his rifle and backpedaled, some of his shots bouncing off armor and some sinking into orange flesh. From behind it he could see a second one clear a pile of rubble and lumber over to join its brother. Uttering a subsonic roar, the first one advanced on him with the bloodied shield held high.

A stream of vapor whizzed by Mitch, ending in the monster's stomach. It bellowed in pain, and Mitch had the time to flee after his other troops. One figure had muzzle flashes coming from his long rifle, coinciding with loud cracks of the air. He mentally thanked Dansen for the save, reloading as he moved.

He pinged his com line. "Reserve Squad, we've engaged and taken casualties, how much longer?"

"Force inbound, just stay alive."

Easy for you to say, not so much for me to do. Mitch thought. He heard the whoosh of a rocket launcher, and turned to watch the Hunter that had nearly killed him topple to the ground minus an arm. Bret had hit him in the side, and a few others yelled in triumph.

Those were drowned out by the sound of the remaining Hunter's mournful cry. Its cannon began to glow a sickly green color, the shield lowering to protet itself if it was attacked. "Get down!" Mitch cried out, through coms and as loud as he could through his visor.

Too late, Bret and his spotter noticed the second threat, and as they were trying to turn and run the rocket crew was obliterated by an assault beam. Between his ragged breaths Mitch sobbed once, then returned his focus to keeping the rest alive.

Jumping the hood of a car, he slid down alongside Dansen and another pair of marines. It took a moment for Mitch to realize this was all that had survived the initial clash with the main Covenant force. Dansen fired another sniper round, but it bounced off the shield and ricocheted into the night air. Steadying himself, he fired again and this time hit a part of armor near its neck. It only continued to bear down on them.

"Fire now!" Mitch yelled at his men, hoping to deter the thing from running up and smashing them into the ground, but the four light rifles would never be enough.

And that was when a glaring light blinded the Hunter. The transport Warthog barreled into it, reversing the charge immediately.

Kevlar had the gas pedal pinned to the floarboards beneath his feet, heart racing as he stared into the Hunter's face. The thing was wounded, but still all too alive. Suddenly the jeep ground to a halt. It had dug its feet into the pavement and bellowed at him. Then a worse feeling came over him.

The front of the 'hog tilted upwards. The monster had picke it up, letting the wheels spin uselessly throwing pebbles off of the tires. Kevlar panicked and tried to reverse, but the rear tires couldn't get traction. With a growl, the Hunter pushed, and flipped the vehicle onto its roof. Kevlar was glad he'd strapped in. The windshield shattered and into pieces, one of them leaving a scratch along his visor. Groaning under the stress, the rollbar crumpled, letting the body sink to streetlevel with a crash. Dazed and bewildered, Kevlar tried to get his seatbelt off and get upright.

Loud explosions sounded from outside the vehicle's hulk. He hurried with the belt, not wanting the Hunter to trap him under this thing. But it wasn't Covenant ordnance he was hearing. The belt released, and Kevlar fell onto his head and curled around to use his shoulders for support. It took some work, but he finally got free and began to crawl out from under the vehicle.

He froze as he again faced the Hunter, but now it was laying on its front, the armor plating on its back broken open like a crab's shell. Looking down the street, a new shape was outlined by fire. One of Task Force Oscar's Scorpion Tanks had gotten a firing position, and opened up on the Covenant. But most of them had cover in the rubble everywhere. Someone needed to drive them out into the open, but their squad no longer had the manpower for a job like that.

A hand grabbed Kevlar's shoulder, and Mitch pulled him to his feet, already yelling into his com. "Oscar Reserve to any squad in the immediate area of Oscar Command Post, need assistance flanking embedded Covenant infantry. Anyone out there, please respond."

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0830 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Izu Peninsula, Southwest of Tokyo, Japan

Ion Team had come ashore cold, wet, and tired. Slogging over the beach, it quickly became apparent they had to find cover. Air support would pass over sometime in the next hours, but for now Phantoms had air superiority. But instead of running, Kodiak had opted to make up for lost time and do some recon work on the Covenant forces.

"This is incredibly stupid." Sepia said, hidden away from the windows of an apartment they'd broken into. The occupants of this building and every other had long since fled, and gave the Spartan team an excellent view of the Covenant's chosen marshalling ground. Not for everything, but in the south, they'd set up here after losing Oshima.

"Not really, if you think about it." Dyne said cheerfully despite their dangerous position. "They wouldn't expect three people to go anywhere near their main stronghold. If they don't expect us, the closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm."

"Thinking really isn't your strong suit." she said. There was a hint of apprehension in her voice as the two of them watched Kodiak at the window, and she had good reason to be worried.

In the city square below them, hundreds of Elites stood rigidly in formation, presenting their weapons to two Elites in ornate armor. And through his binoculars, Kodiak spotted more of the 'moving air' pattern he'd noticed before. Surrounding the pair as they marched between brigades of warriors were four cloaked SpecOps Elites. They must have been easy to see in the open and at such a close range, but he recognized it wasn't their purpose to be a secret defense. It was a dare to any would-be assassin to try and touch these guys.

"Sepia. Dyne. Take a look." Kodiak whispered. Dyne's bravado vanished, and he moved to the window just as cautiously as Sepia did. "You see those ones inspecting the troops?"

Dyne had better binoculars built into his helmet, and snickered. "You mean the High Lord of Stupid Helmets?"

"That's one's a Field Marshall. Only showed up once before, at Reach. Different branch than the mainline units. The gold one next to him is a Zealot Field Master, he'll be leading the southern ground assault."

"Our target?" Sepia asked.

"If we had weapons . . ." Kodiak said frustratedly. "Plan is, we shadow him. He'll probably lead from the front, surrounded by bodyguards. Stay hidden, and the moment we get the chance, take him out."

"And if we're not fast, the whole Covenant army catches up with us."

"Not to mention we should really find guns first."

And there they were, second-guessing him again. It only caused Kodiak more doubt, but he'd keep it to himself. They would fall back, find some weapons, and prepare to go hunting.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 03:29, January 27, 2011 (UTC)

30: Stay the Hell Out of the NHK
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

01700 Hours, October 25th 2552 (Military Calendar) Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

Mikiya Ryougi flew over the UNSC forward operating base set up in the park surrounding the Meiji Shrine in Shibuya, Tokyo, accompanied by a the rest of the Hayabusa Sqaudron, as well as other attack VTOL squadron: more Falcon Gunships, Sparrowhawks, Hornets, and a couple Vultures.

The Covenant were attacking the area again, below him, Mikiya could see UNSC Scorpion, Cobra, and Grizzly Tanks in positions on the edge of a wooded area of the park, picking off Covenant Wraiths and Locusts as them exited the narrow concrete canyons, into the open area around the park. Suddenly, Scarab Assault Walker climbed over top of a ruined structure.

"Scarab incoming", Mikiya's radio crackled, "All units, prepare to engage."

Mikiya turned his aircraft towards the Scarab as his gunner Aoi Miyazaki prepared to engage. It was, however, unnecessary, and M-850 Grizzly Anti-Walker Vehicle, a Grizzly tank that had been modified to carry a pair of new MGM-1 anti-walker missiles let fly with a missile. The missile flew up in the air, before diving down on the Scarab, striking it just in front of the AA turret. The missile penetrated through to the core, setting it off in a ball of fire that engulfed the rear half of the Scarab, annihilating the alien walker.

A new danger presented itself. Suddenly, a steam of plasma bolts streaked past Ryougi's Falcon, striking the engines of one the Vultures and the laser designator of the second. The first Vulture's engines exploded, sending the first Vulture down in flames.

"Mayday, Mayday, This is Havoc One, both engines are on fire, I'm going down", The pilot of the unfortunate Vulture said over Mikiya's radio as it crashed next to the Meiji shrine. The aircraft had crashed in UNSC-controlled territory, Mikiya could only hope he survived to be rescued.

Mikiya turned the Falcon to in the direction where the plasma fire had come from. Two Covenant Seraph fighters had broken off from their squadron, which was dogfight with a Longsword squadron above them, to attack the force of UNSC gunships. At the same time, a large force of Banshees came in from the southwest.

One of the Seraphs dove straight at Mikiya's aircraft. Mikiya saw it fly towards him, as though in slow motion, as the missile lock tone filled his ears. Mikiya press the "fire" button on top of his fight stick twice, sending two Argent air-to-air missiles flying towards the alien spacecraft.

The first missile detonated on contact with the Seraph's energy shield, depleting the shield's power reserves, before the second missile shot through what little remained of the shield and exploded as it struck the nose of the craft. The entire front half of the aircraft, including the cockpit, exploded in a ball of fire, as rear half fell to the ground, along with countless burning fragments.

Mikiya turned to the second Seraph, just in time to see it blown out of the sky by a barrage of missile and laser fire from the Sparrowhawks. Mikiya instead turned his attention to a a pair of Banshees, which he struck down with a pair of LAU-65 dual purpose missiles each, before Aoi Miyazaki turned the cannon to the side, perforating two more Banshees.

All around Mikiya, Falcons, Sparrowhawks, Hornets, Banshees, and missiles flew in all directions, as explosions flashed across the sky. Through the chaos, Mikiya noticed something the others didn't: Two Phantoms landing troops on top of the NHK building across from the south end of the park.

"Phantoms, landing troops on the NHK building, Hayabusa squadron, follow me, we're engaging", Ryougi said through his radio as he broke off from the engagement and flew towards the Phantoms, followed by the rest of his squadron. As Mikiya flew towards the Phantoms, particle beams flew from the tower down to UNSC infantry positions in the park. The Covenant were landing Kig-Yar snipers in what remained of the upper floors of the TV tower.

Mikiya locked on the first Phantom and fired off an Argent missile. The missile impacted the Phantom on the side. The side of the Phantom was blown away as it fell from the air, striking the ground next to the NHK building in a ball of flames.

The second Phantom was struck by Lt. Satou's laser and several Argent missiles, and was blown apart by the force of the blast, sending flaming fragments raining down on the building.

As the second Phantom exploded, the Jackal snipers began firing on the AV-144s of the Hayabusa Squadron. Mikiya and the others opened fire on the NHK building as particle and focus rifle beams flew past their canopies. The tower that once was home the Japanese national TV station was raked with 12.7mm, 20mm, and 30mm rounds, 40mm grenades, and LAU-65 and ANVIL missiles from the Falcons, all of which had different armament packages. The entire top of the tower was a sea of flames, blasting apart any of Covenant that had sucessfully landed on the building.

Meanwhile, the Hornets, Sparrowhawks, Vultures, and Longswords had shot down the remaining Banshees and Seraphs. As the last Banshee fell to the ground, Mikiya's radio crackled to life:

"This is Vulture Gunship Havoc-Two reporting, my laser designator was shot up in the last fight. I need someone with a working designator to spot targets for me at the Tokyo University, Komaba Campus. The Covies have brought in some those Artillery Scarabs, and are pounding the hell out of our boys to the south in Hachiko Square, over".

"This Falcon Hayabusa-One", Mikiya said, "I am have a working designator and will be the eyes for your missiles. I request any available aircraft to provide escort, over."

"This is Longsword Fighter Tanto Three over, I can provide cover for you from about, over", A Longsword fighter flying above them responded.

"Much abliged, Tanto", Mikiya replied as he ascended over the buildings to the east of the the park, about a kilometer until he was in designation range of the the Komaba Campus. There were four Type-48 Ultra Heavy Assault Gun Platforms, Scarabs armed with heavy plasma mortars, firing at the UNSC troops in Hachiko Square.

"Miyazaki", Mikiya said, "Aim the laser designator at the first Scarab".

Aoi turned her head towards the Scarab. The laser designator slaved to her helmet followed, locking on to the first Scarab. The Covenant in the area still hadn't noticed them. That, however, was about to change.

"Havoc Two, this is Hayabusa One, we have a lock on the first Scarab.", Mikiya said.

"Roger", the Vulture gunship responded, "Firing for effect".

Four missiles streaked from the Vulture towards the artillery Scarab. The first impacted one of the legs, blowing it clean off. The second struck the gun, disabling it, before the final two blasted the alien walker clean in two.

"Good effect on target, Havoc", Mikiya replied, "Prepared to eng... Standby, we are taking anti-aircraft fire."

The destruction of the first Scarab has alerted the Covenant to Mikiya's presence. Two AA Wraiths and three AA Shade turrets on the remaining Scarabs and two more on the roofs of buildings had opened up on Mikiya's aircraft.

Mikiya swerved right, avoiding a burst of fuel rod shots as Aoi fired off a Scorpion at the first Wraith as Mikiya fired an LAU-65 missile at the nearest Shade. Mikiya then circled around the clock tower on the central building on the campus and a Aoi fired a barrage of ANVIL missiles into the top of the tower, which housed an AA Shade. The turret was destroyed as the brick cladding of the tower was blown away, revealing the steel framework.

Aoi fired the chaingun at two more AA Shades, before knocking out a third with a Scorpion missile. Finally, Mikiya blasted the final AA Wraith into oblivion with two more LAU-65s.

After taking out the Covenant air defenses, Mikiya and Aoi designated the other three Artillery Scarabs. The Vulture fired four heavy artillery missiles at each one, blowing them apart in spectacular balls of fire and plasma.

"This is Lt. Ryougi", Mikiya said, "Enemy artillery has been taken out".

"Thanks for the assist, Hayabusa, couldn't have done it without you", Havoc Two responded, "I am getting reports from Hachiko Square that the Covenant are retreating."

31
OPERATION: HOLY FATHER

'''0401 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Sydney, Australia, TFO Forward Command'''

Staff Sergeant Oregon Hawkins

Slow and Steady

His target come up in his sights. He exhaled slowly. Smooth squeeze on the trigger. Boom! Headshot.

"Good kill." his spotter said, confirming the kill.

"Thanks, line up another one." Oregon rested his cheek on the metal stock of his SR99 Sniper Rifle. a single bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face, it itched and Oregon wiped it away with the palm of his glove.

"Split neck, 302 meters. Over by that car dealer. Standing next to a Yellow Warthog." his spotter said.

"I see him. I say one."

"No way, it'll be two." his spotter joked. They had always joked about split necks and apes, trying to guess how many rounds it would take to down them. So far, Oregon 48, Spotter 0.

"Alright, taking the shot." Oregon slowed his breathing, lined up the shot, and slid his finger on the trigger. Exhale, smooth squeeze, boom headshot.

"Nice, look at the little buggers squirm." he laughed as the grunts under the Elite's command ran around panicking. Make that Oregon 49, Spotter 0.

"All Task Force Units," a voice came on the radio. The Colonel's voice. "Pull back to CP. We are under attack."

TFO Command Post

Captain Bannon, Tank Commander

"We see you Joker One, call in the targets." Bannon drove the tank forward into the intersection, running over destroyed Ghosts, Cars, and dead bodies (Of indiscriminate origin). The roar of the tank engine was comforting to the Tank Commander.

"Elite sniper, second floor of that office building, fourth window over. He's in the destroyed window!" Joker One pointed out. "Uh..." his Gunner said. "Which office building? We're in the high rise zone!"

"The blue one!" Joker shouted.

"Ah, I see 'em. Taking the shot." the Gunner began to sight in. A plasma grenade went off somewhere close. "Loading Flechette. Ready, shot!" there was loud boom, which reverberated in the pit of Bannon's stomach, and there was a cloud of dust where the Elite had been.

"Good shot. We're moving up, keep the 25 mike mike ready to cover us if you see cover."

"Alright, Joker. We'll cover you." Bannon said as the squad of Forward Observers ran out in the middle of the street, moving from cover to cover.

Captain Mikael Housten

"Alright Joker, We'll cover you." the Tank Commander told Captain Housten. Quickly his squad ran out into the street, keeping a sharp eye out for Covenant. This was their planet, their homeworld. Task Force Oscar would not let them have it.

"Hey, Mikael!" one of his men shouted, the Sergeant named Hayley. She was pretty with Blond Hair and green eyes. And ample assets. "You think after this you and I can hit the bar, get a few drinks?"

"You're hitting on me in a time like this?" Mikael asked laughing.

"Hell, now is a great time. I mean, the Covenant are on Earth." Hayley said a huge grin on her face.

"We'll see Hayley! Probably, depends on how many limbs I have left! And which ones are left!" Mikael shouted, his men laughing.

The street was quiet, besides their conversation and the rumble of the Scorpian. It was not very often that happened. And Mikael welcomed it warmly. Maybe Hayley and him could have a relationship, despite all this. He did find her very attractive.

They kept moving down the street, their tank following closely. They heard a firefight going on in the distance, explosions and then silence. Another squad lost. Mikael bowed his head.

UNSCDF Field Hospital

Fox Calo, ONN

"Keep the camera on me, I'll report." Fox told his Camera man, his sandly blond hair flecked with dirt and debris. He had been to the front line, his partner had been killed. Yet he stayed, to continue the story.

The Camera man gave him the thumbs up and a voice came on in his ear. The Anchorwoman.

"And here we have Fox Calo, reporting live from Sydney, where our boys are bravely combating the Covenant threat. Fox?"

"Yes, thank you Jessica. Here we are in a Field Hospital set up by the UNSC. Currently our soldiers are taking casualties, although the amount is less than expected. Several soldiers are standing by, ready to defend us and this hospital. As you may have heard, my own partner was killed recently." A single tear ran down Fox's face...Fake. "It is a tragic loss." No, not really. He'd been a real dick, he had hated Fox and Fox had hated him.

"That is so horrible." Jessica said through his chatter. "I am so sorry."

"He died doing what he did best," being a fool, trying to help some kid out of a burning car...Idiot."But right now we are here with Major Armstrong, a soldier with the UNSCDF, Major?"

"Yes thank you." the Major said his face stony. The Camera man panned to the Major. "Right now we are taking casualties and my men are doing their best to keep the Covenant at bay..."

-- No One! No SPARTAN! No Marine! No Civilian should be left to face death alone!--Oregon Hawkins* 00:29, February 3, 2011 (UTC)

32
OPERATION: HOLY FATHER

'''0502 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Sydney, Australia, 3204 Clearview Lane'''

SPARTAN Quick Insertion Team Romeo

''The Only Easy Day... Was Yesterday''

The police car lay upside down, sirens still ringing as the bloody carcass of an Australian police officer hung out the window, most of his features burnt away. An Elite Minor with a lance of Grunts walked by. The Minor jabbed the body with his foot. Nothing happened for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, a shot ripped through the sky, a .50 calibre round. It entered his neck, a vital artery similar to a Human's jugular, and tore through, violet blood ripping out through the collapsing spine. The Sangheilian warrior's head flew from his body, both shooting forward in the blink of an eye. The lance of grunts panicked, running in different directions. Three synchronized shots from suppressed M6Ds rang out, the Grunts collapsing. Inside two different houses were Romeo Team, one of them, Ellis-B300, clad in a black, urban colored MJOLNIR armor, lie, a ghillie hood over him. The area was one closer, but not in, the city center. A suburban area that the Covenant controlled.

Jeff-B345 stepped out of one of the houses, looking around the area to check for any more Covenant. The mission was simple. Drive them back. He walked down the lawn, and ran across the street into the other house. Inside, in the living room, were Skye and Ray, heavy weapons and tech specialist. There was a rocket launcher in an opened case on the couch, weapons and ammo lay across the carpet.

"Sector is clear Romeo, but the comms are down. I've traced the source to a nearby gas station. It's keep these blocks hidden and we'll have to take it out.", Jeff stated. Ellis hopped through an open window, closing it and the curtains behind him.

"Sir, is this a good idea? Covenant patrols still exist here. You know that as we just saw one.", Ray stated with a slight southern accent.

Skye closed the case of her rocket, and paced up to the window, slightly opening the curtains.

"We have to move Ray. We can't just waltz our way out. Plus, this is one of the four dark zones in Sydney. It would be pretty beneficial to take it out.", she said, looking back at Ray. Ray nodded to himself. He looked at Ellis, who had his helmet off and was loading rounds into a magazine for his sniper rifle.

After a seconds delay Ellis looked up.

"Sir, I think we should just go."

Jeff nodded.

"Will is running the counterop with those troopers a few miles away. If he gets the sector clear it'll be a big help to UNSC forces. Let's go.", Jeff said. Ellis pulled on his helmet, picked up his weapons and holstered them, Ray grabbed his Assault rifle, and Skye latched the case with her Rocket Launcher on her back, picking up her grenade launcher and doing the same. The four then proceeded out of the house.

33: Burning Bridges
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

22:00 Hours, October 25th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine UNSC Seawolf, Southeast of Tokyo, Japan '''

Burning Bridges

"Message from HIGHCOM, Sir", Commander Karlsson, the second in command of the UNSC Seawolf, said to the Captain Takashi Yanagi.

"Bring it up on the my screen", Yanagi responded.

"Yes sir", Karlsson said, transferring the file to the Yanagi's workstation.

Yanagi opened the file. It contained instructions to fire cruise missiles on a set of coordinates, namely three bridges on the Sagami River near Aikawa, Japan. The Covenant were planning to attack Yokota Air Force base, and were rapidly approaching the city of Aikawa.

"Now hear this", Yanagi said over the vessel's intercom, "We will be firing three cruise missiles at targets near Tokyo. All weapons crews man your battlestations."

Within fifteen minutes of the order, all three missiles were on the way to their targets.

--

'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

22:20 Hours, October 25th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Sagami River, Aikawa, Japan'''

Three missile flew towards Aikawa from the south, lighting up the night sky in streaks of fire. The first missile streaked towards the southernmost bridge, exploding with a deafening roar and a ball of flames as the 2000 pound high explosive warhead wrent apart the concrete and steel structure of the bridge.

The second missile impacted next, directly in the middle of the second bridge, sending collapsing into the Sagami River below. Finally, The third missile stuck its target, blowing a large section of bridge to pieces, creating a wide gap in the middle.

--

0755 Hours, October 26th (Military Calender)

Summit of Mount Fuji, Japan

Colonel Daisuke Umezu stood on top of the his Elephant command vehicle, parked at the summit of Mount Fuji, on a parking lot on a road to summit built in the 22 century as an expansion to of the roads that then only lead about half way up the mountain. The designers of the road expected the road be a route for tourists to reach the summit of the mountain that was considered by many to be one of the most beautiful peaks in the world and one of the symbols of Japan. They would never have in their wildest dreams imagined that the road would be used to place artillery on the summit, to fire down on an invading army... an army that was not of this Earth.

Yet here Umezu was, on the snow-covered summit of the highest peak in Japan, looking down towards the Izu Peninsula and the sea beyond. Below him, he could see flames, both pillars of smoke and flashes of fire up and down the Tomei Expressway and into Setagaya and Shibuya to the East. All around the rim of the crater of Mt. Fuji, various UNSC artillery were mounted: 105mm and 155mm towed howitzers, Fox self-propelled guns, Cobra self-propelled railguns, Tarantula MLRS, in both 8x 178mm rocket/missile launcher and 2x heavy cruise missile variants, Rhino heavy SPGs, in both 320mm mortar and plasma mortar variants. Among the artillery, were numerous Sun Devil AAA tanks and Wolverine SAM vehicles. In the further down the road, Scorpion tanks and Grizzlies, both the heavy tank and the new anti-Scarab variant, guarded the entrance. Still more tanks manuevered in the valley below. Mt. Fuji had been turned into a fortress.

Those 105s, 155s, Foxes, Tarantulas and Rhinos that faced to the the south, towards Mt. Hakone, firing on a group of Covenant Heavy plasma mortars on the mountainside. The mountain was covered with flashed of fire from the impacting shells and rockets. Occasionally a larger flash of blue flames would light up Mt. Hakone, indicating a hit.

"Excuse me, Sir?", Umezu's second-in-command, a Lieutentant Colonel named Kasuga said, "We have received orders to fire on a group of Scarabs heading up the Tomei Expressway near Atsugi. We have the GPS coordinates, I need only your orders to relay them to our batteries".

"Send the coordinates to one of the 440mm missile batteries, have 'em hit the Covies with a couple anti-armor MITVs".

"Yes sir, I'm going to send the coordinates now, sir", Kasuga replied.

A few minutes later, a Tarantula equipped with two 440mm missile launch tubes fired a pair of tactical short-range ballistic missiles armed with MITV warheads to the east. Umezu and Kasuga watched as the missile streaked off into the distance. When the missiles reached their targets, several flashes of fire, both orange and blue could be seen in the distance from Fuji. The missiles had released their anti-armor submunitions and pierced the Scarab's main cores, causing the telltale flashes of blue fire as the Scarab's core exploded.

34: Guardian Angel
Operation: DIVINE SON

0444 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calender)/ Highway South of Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

LTJG Angel Yasunaka swung her Pelican up out of the dive, retaining much of the speed she’d picked up and firing her forward 70mm cannons. One of the Banshee pair she’d targeted took a series of hits along the hull, and the left-side fin and wing blew off in puffs of purple-gray smoke.

With the realization it was under attack, the second lit its violet boost engines and peeled off, angling up and away too sharply for her to follow at this speed. But it was making a bid to escape, not maneuvering to counterattack.

Yasunaka relaxed her grip on the throttle, able to burn off the speed instead of using it to outrun a pursuer. The Warthog on the road below had swerved around the crashed Banshee fuselage, continuing its course toward Thebes’ urban sprawl.

“Are you sure we can’t just pick them up?” Ensign Gossard asked from the copilot’s seat.

“Negative. Olympus Base needs these supplies, and we’d be a sitting duck in enemy-controlled airspace.” She kept emotion out of her voice, but all the same felt a pang of regret for not being able to help. But they were headed the right direction, maybe they’d get to Olympus themselves.

As Yasunaka returned to their northeast course, Gossard double-checked his radio after the ten or twelve minutes it took to come in range. “Olympus Tower, this is Bravo 29 inbound with medical and food supplies. There’s enough MREs in here to make you sick just thinking about ‘em, requesting landing clearance, over.”

There was a moment before a husky voice answered, “We copy, Bravo Two-Nine, there’s a landing pad clear. Heads up though, you’ll be sent out again quick. There’s a battalion of paratroopers that just secured an airfield that’s becoming a forward CP. You’ll need to carry some reinforcements and equipment out. Over.”

Gossard heard Angel sigh. Covering his mike with a hand, he grinned saying, “Never a dull moment, eh?” and responded to the tower. “Got it. We’d like to top off our fuel tank if you can spare the gas. On approach, over and out.”

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0845 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Izu Peninsula, southwest of Tokyo, Japan

Though its surfaces fit well enough as urban camouflage, Sepia cursed her team leader’s decision to take to the water. The SPI’s plates had malfunctioned in a bath of salt water, and now had to be shut off, otherwise they’d flash on and off and give her away to any casual eye.

Vaulting a low wall, Sepia sprinted an empty parking lot and dived through the storefront window. The glass shattered in a loud noise, but there was no one to be alerted. There wasn’t even anyone pursuing to justify the risk, as Ambrose would have lectured her, but things had gone bad enough today. Breaking something just made her feel good.

Taking the door through this outer room, she found Dyne sitting crouched inside their chosen hideout. He’d been the luckiest of them when it came to scavenging weapons. He carried an M6G, and while most of the ammunition had been made useless in the water, he had two spare clips in a waterproof portion of his armor. He’d just had to spend their allotted time disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling it, which he wasn’t very good at.

Not that Sepia had too bad of luck. There were four incendiary grenades packed on her belt, and were watertight because they held two combustible chemicals inside. And a deserter Jackal that had been scavenging in the same area as her didn’t mind lending its shield gauntlet and needler after she’d snapped its neck.

“Where’s. . .” she began to ask, but Kodiak dropped down from the second floor. He was holding a pair of captured plasma pistols.

“Good to go?” he asked his team. They each nodded, two identical black-and-gold helmets bobbing. Kodiak snapped the pistols to his sides, then withdrew two small throwing knives from his belt. They were simple, light pieces of metal, but he gave them one apiece just in case they needed them. He kept his heavier blade in the sheath on his chest. “Sepia, you kept track of the Elite?”

“He’s on a lone Shadow transport headed straight for the evac station that was in the hotel.” She answered. “He’s as alone as he’ll get. This might be the chance you were looking for.”

Kodiak redrew his pistols. “Then we better catch up.”

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 04:02, February 14, 2011 (UTC)

35: A Flood of a Different Kind
'''10:30 Hours, October 26th, 2552 (Military Calender)

Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine UNSC Seawolf, Pacific Ocean, South of Tokyo, Japan'''

"Sir", Lieutenant Commander Karlsson said to Captain Takashi Yanagi of the UNSC Seawolf, "We have some a new target, uploading coordinates now".

"Put up the location on the main screen... assuming we still have enough satellites remaining", Yanagi responded.

Karlsson inputted a few commands into his workstation, and the satellite view of the target popped up, a valley, surrounded by mountains, with a river running through it, and, in the western half of the image, a huge dam, labeled "Three Gorges Dam, Yichang, China. A red crosshair marked the dam as a missile target. Throughout the river valley below the dam, dozens of Covenant buildings and thousands of Wraiths and Scarabs were visible.

"They want us to blow up the Three Gorges?", One of the bridge crew, a Lieutenant Wei said.

"Think about it", someone else said, "The Covies have placed staging areas up and down the Yangtze valley, in a rear area for their attacks on Japan. Take out that dam, it'll send a massive flood all the way down the river, wiping them all out."

As conversations erupted around him, Yanagi spoke into the microphone connected to the submarine's intercom.

"Now hear this!", he said, "We have received orders to fire on the Three Gorges Dam in Covenant-controlled China. This will create a massive flood in the Yangtze valley, wiping out numerous Covenant positions in the valley. Coordinate have been uploaded. All weapons personnel to your stations immediately, we will begin final firing sequence immediately."

A few minutes later, two cruise missile equipped with concrete-piercing warheads flew up, out of the water and off to the west.

--

'''1055 Hours, October 26th (Military Calender)

Sandoupingzhen, China, below the Three Gorges Dam'''

Thousands of Wraiths, Locusts, and Scarabs were parked next a several Covenant pre-fabricated structures- barracks, command centers, and AA batteries, or drove around the area as thousands of Covenant troops of all species, patrolled the area or milled about, waiting for the next assignment. To the east of the Covenant camp stood the ruins of countless human buildings, while to west stood a monstrous human-made dam, still quite intact, though it now had Shade turrets and AA Batteries mounted on top.

Suddenly two streaks of fire appeared in the eastern sky, Covenant infantry everywhere stared at them as the drew closer. The two cruise missiles began to descend towards the dam, before slamming into the dam, embedding selves in the concrete structure, before detonating within, blasting open two holes in the dam, both over five hundred feet wide.

Water poured out of the holes, picking up anything it's path, chunks of concrete and steel, vehicles, and boats. After several seconds, the central portion of dam collapsed completely, unleashing almost thirty cubic kilometers of water in a deluge that swept away Wraiths and Scarabs, drowned Covenant troops and pushed Covenant structures off their foundations as the wrath of the Yangtze River was unleashed, washing the alien presence off the land.

The Covenant troops had heard tales of an alien parasite known as "The Flood" that had decimated their troops at the Sacred Ring. That day, the countless Unggoy, Kig-Yar, Sangheilli, Lekgolo, Jiralhanae, and Yanme'e stationed in China learned that wasn't the only flood they needed fear. From the Three Gorges Dam down to Shanghai, hundreds of thousands of Covenant troops died and countless tons of materiel were destroyed in a flood of different kind. -

'''127 Hours, October 26th (Local Time)

Shirakawa, Gifu prefecture, Japan, 90 kilometers behind Covenant lines'''

I'll Tear You Open, Make You Gone, No Longer Can You Hurt Anyone

A cold wind blew down from the mountains, between the traditional thatched-roofed houses of the historic village of Shirakawa, Gifu. The village was now firmly under the control of the Covenant. As soon as they arrived, they killed anything human they could find, massacring all of the town's few residents in the streets, the houses, and the Myozen-ji temple.

Well... almost all of the town's residents. In a dark corner the interior of one of the abandoned houses crouched two people. One of them was a boy of seventeen years, Keiichi Ryukishi. In his hands, Keiichi wielded a wooden baseball bat, and carried a pair of Molotov cocktails at his side. Next to him was Rena Sonozaki, a girl, of the same age as Keiichi, who wielded a machete.

Outside the the house, two Kig-Yar patrolled, walking towards the house in which Keiichi and Rena hid. One of them carried a Needler, while the other wielded a particle beam rifle.

"All right", Keiichi said quietly, "You know the drill, those space chicken's patrol route always goes through this house. When they come in here, give 'em a nasty surprise. Then we take their guns and blow up that methane dome. Then, we run away into the woods behind the Myozen-ji temple."

"Got it", Rena said as gripped her machete tightly.

The Kig Yar cross the threshold of the house, not noticing the two people crouched in the shadows. Keiichi walked over to the Jackal with the Needler and raised his bat, as Rena walked towards the second one of the bird-like aliens, with her machete poised.

"Hey, baka yaro", Keiichi whispered into the ear of the Kig-Yar. As the Jackal turned to investigate the source of the sound, Keiichi struck the Kig-Yar on the side of the head with his bat. The alien fell to the floor. Keiichi hit it several more times, creating a depression in the Jackal's skull and staining the floor, the baseball bat, and his clothing with the alien's purple blood.

At the same time, Rena brought down her machete on the second Jackals's head, splitting it's skull open. As she struck her enemy, she said, "That's for my mom...". Rena then thrust the blade through the dead alien's chest, saying "... and that's for my dad", before, finally, she brought the machete down on the Kig-Yar's neck, severing it's head in one blow as she said, "And that's for Satoko... she was only eight, you bastards!". As Rena spoke, tears began to well up in her eyes.

Keiichi turned to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. "I know it's hard... I lost everyone I love too", Keiichi said, "But we have to keep moving, we've got 90 kilometers to the UNSC lines, but if makes you fell any better, we'll leave a trail of dead Covies on the way their." As Keiichi spoke, he handed Rena the Needler as he picked up the dead Jackal's beam rifle.

At that, Rena got up and followed Keiichi out of the house, about a 100 yards to another house, the open door overlooking a methane dome, a large tent-like structure used for sustaining the methane-breathing Unggoy. The situation was perfect, the Unggoy under orders to guard the place were all asleep, far from atypical for their species.

Keiichi got one of the molotov cocktails from his side as he handed Rena a lighter. "Let's give these bastards a rude awakening!", Keiichi said, as Rena raised the lighter to the rag that acted as the fuse for the molotov.

"This one's for all of Shirakawa.", Rena whispered, "No....for all of humanity". As she finished speaking, she flicked the lighter and set fire to the rag. Keiichi hurled the lit molotov at the methane dome. The alcohol bottle that made up homemade incendiary device shattered as it hit the ground next to the methane pit. The white material that made up methane pit ignited and, seconds later, the methane in the dome exploded in a flash of fire, launching burning fragments of the tent and the broken bodies of Unngoy everywhere.

"RUN FOR IT!!", Keiichi yelled as he sprinted off past the burning ruins of the methane pit, as well as several of the thatched houses, whose roofs were set ablaze by burning shrapnel, Rena close behind. They ran from building, cover to cover. Finally, they ran through the doors of a small, more modern-looking building, the town's small elementary school.

"You think the we lost them", Rena asked.

"I think so", Keiichi replied as he walked into one of the class rooms, followed by Rena, they were met with a grisly sight. The floor and walls were splattered with blood. The bodies of about 20 children and a teacher lay on floor, killed by plasma and needler wounds, and in some cases, decapitated by an energy sword.

"No...", Rena said softly as she walked over to a the dead body of the young girl, disemboweled by an energy sword and hanging from the rafters by her entrails... "SATOKO.... NOOOOOO!!!!!!"

Suddenly, the door to the classroom burst open, a single Sangheilli Ultra armed with an energy sword walked in.

"So", the Elite said in English, a language the alien had no doubt learned only to taunt and toy with it's victims, "Was that one of your kin, human? Do you wish to join it in the blackness of the Shadow World? But, before I send you to the realm of the damned, how about I tell you that I killed it."

"How dare you?...", Rena said in accented English, having taken the language in her high school classes, "How dare you call Satoko "it"!! How dare you murder innocent children like this! You... with all your codes of honor! How is killing innocents honorable!? You know who deserves to spend an eternity in the realm of the damned? YOU DO!!!" As Rena spoke, she threw aside her Needler and raised her machete. "Now", she said, "I challenge you to do personal combat with me... without your energy shield."

The Sanghieli was so taken aback by this that he stared at Rena.

"Are you afraid?", Rena asked the Elite, "Not so tough when your not hiding behind a shield, when your fighting one even terms instead of massacring children or glassing planets from space! COWARD!"

"Rena...", Keiichi said, but Rena gave a look that silenced him instantly.

"Fine then", the Elite said, deactivating it's shield, "I will face you without my shield, not that it will do you any good.".

Rena held onto her machete like a samurai holding a katana as she stared into the eye of the alien that had murdered her sister in cold blood. As the Elite charged at her, Rena raised her machete over her head, and tossed it at the alien. The Elite raised his plasma sword to block the machete. As the superheated plasma made contact with the cold steel of the machete, half of the machete blade melted. The red hot molten steel caught the Sangheili full the face, burning out one of it's eyes.

The Elite dropped it's energy sword and clutched it's face it pain. Rena ran up to the Elite's sword and grabbed it and swung it in one quick motion, slicing off both its legs. Purple alien blood sprayed from the wounds as Rena sliced off the Elite's arms next, before cutting a gash across it's torso and reaching her hands inside, tearing out what she assumed to be the alien's entrails and tore them out, wrapping them over the rafters as the Elite finally stopped writhing on the floor and died.

Rena breathed heavily for several seconds, standing over her fallen foe. She did not have the strength, to truly hang the Elite by his entrails as it had done to her sister.

Rena then turned to the lifeless body of her sister, still hanging from the ceiling by her innards. "You have been avenged. Rest in peace", Rena said as her eyes welled up with tears again. She had made the Elite pay for what he did to her sister, but that wouldn't bring Satoko back, nothing ever would.

A few hours later, Tears still stained Rena's face as she and Keiichi made their way through up a mountain east of town, staying away. One thing kept Rena going, the promise of the chance to slay more of her foe.

"Keiichi?", She asked, "Ever since the Covenant killed my family, I've wanted to kill as many Covenant as I could, I want kill them in absolutely horrible ways, like that Elite... am I becoming like them?"

"No", Keiichi replied, "You are nothing like them. They fight to wipe out entire species for no reason at all, just to fulfill their own delusions. They claim their just, yet they kill indiscriminately. You have merely fought against those that try to take our lives and destroy our homes. You never wanted any of this. Just promise me this, that, give the choice, you will never kill a Covenant civilian."

"I promise", Rena said quickly.

36
2345 Hours, October 23rd, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Liverpool, Sydney, United Australian Federation.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

Stanley placed the last round in his assault rifle into the dead body of an elite officer, ejected the empty magazine and slammed in a fresh one. Flint kicked the elite's corpse as he walked by.

"Heh. So much for noble warrior, hiding behind the rest of your troops." White said. The ODST squad had fought their way past two lances worth of elites and grunts, in addition to a lance of jackals. They'd found the Officer in one of the apartments, behind two Minors.

"Let's catch our breath here for a few minutes." Stanley suggested. "Take a short break." His squad happily agreed, and he decided to take first watch. Moving by the window, he heard the sounds of gun battles in the distance. When he looked up, he saw five Phantoms, all of them leaking plasma. A single Wombat Drone Fighter tailed them, firing its weapons. One of the Phantoms exploded, debris falling downwards. All of the Phantoms were firing away at the Wombat, but the drone fighter evaded the shots. A second one exploded, and the remaining three scattered. The drone fighter blasted one apart with missiles, and then began tailing the second one, firing away. The third flew towards the skies.

"White! Get yourself and your rocket launcher over here!" Stanley shouted.

"What's the matter sir?" White asked, then saw the Phantom. He fired two rockets at the Covenant dropship, each one impacting on its belly. The Phantom disappeared in a explosion, trailing plasma and debris. The Wombat fighter flew off, wagging its wings.

About ten minutes later, the somewhat-rested squad headed out of the building. White lead the way as they moved down the street, encountering surprisingly nonexistent resistant-the fighting had moved to different streets. This quickly changed after a short walk, where a few grunts, lead by an elite were advancing.

"Get them!" Stanley shouted, firing a few shots and ducking behind a burned out vehicle. Plasma impacted the metal, vaporizing it. Moving towards the entrance of a store for some more solid cover, he fired his assault rifle fully automatic at the Covenant lance. He didn't REALLY expect to hit anything, but it certainly sent the grunts diving for cover. The elite on the other hand, charged straight at him and fired at him with his plasma rifle instead of taking cover. As he reached the doorway of the store, Flint and Bear poked their heads out of a restaurant and blasted away with assault rifles. The elite swtiched targets, but their combined fire made the elite flinch, throw off his aim and quickly took out his shields and kill him. The grunts, suddenly leaderless did not react in the typical way of fleeing or going kamikaze. Instead, they remained behind cover, while a grunt in white armor poked his head out and fired an overcharged plasma pistol shot which was headed straight for Bear, who barely managed to avoid it. Stanley opened up on the grunt who had just fired, but that grunt had ducked behind cover. Stanley threw a grenade at the grunt, who dove away. He poked out, fired a few shots, hitting the white-armored grunt-then ducked back into the store when a few other grunts fired away with plasma pistols. He saw Jade pop out from behind a piece of a destroyed Phantom, and then finish off the white grunt with her assault rifle.

This managed to get on the nerves of the other grunts. One of them went kamikaze on Jade, shouting "FOR HAPPAP!" and charging at her with two lit plasma grenades. Jade sprinted away from the grunt, and the other grunts popped out of cover and fired away at her. Two plasma bolts caught her in the back, but her armor managed to negate some of the effects, but she immediately let loose with a string of profanity in cantonese.

The rest of the ODSTs fired at the Grunts. Without having to worry about being hit by plasma bolts, their aim was pretty true and they quickly killed all of the grunts. Jade winced in pain, cursing bitterly.

"Goddammit, why did those damn grunts have to be some damn SMART!"

"You okay?" Stanley asked, somewhat concerned.

"Yeah, I'll be fine." She growled.

The squad kept moving, encountering only light resistance, although a Banshee fought it would be a good idea to try to strafe them at one point. A rocket to the cockpit quickly changed the mind of the pilot.

They kept moving. Stanley lead his squad towards a bank, and gesturing at White, who kicked down the door. A elite guarding the door was startled, but quickly lifted his akimbo plasma rifles and fired them on White, who rolled behind a chair. Stanley fired away with his assault rifle on the elite, and was joined by Jade and Bear, who opened up on the elite. White shouted "FRAG OUT!" and threw a grenade into the offices of the bank, where a few elites roared, evidently pissed and dove away. The rest of the squad burst in, and began blasting away with their assault rifles. Two elites, their shields neutralized with the frag White had thrown went down to the combined fire of the rest of the squad. A red armored elite threw a sticky grenade, barely missing Stanley, who fired back. A white armored elite leapt over the counter, energy sword in hand. Flint lobbed a captured plasma grenade at the elite, and managed to stick him. The elite roared and charged Flint, who leapt backwards. The elite ultra exploded, sending parts everywhere.

Plasma bolts flew over his head as he ducked behind a sofa, and lobbed a frag grenade. Elites roared and scrambed away, and he fired at them, sending one scrambling behind cover. That was when Flint suddenly appeared from their side and blasted them apart with a shotgun. The remaining two elites in the building were cornered, and trying to at least take one of the ODSTs with them. One of them charged at Bear, and tried to kick him. The elite would have been strong enough to seriously injure or even kill Bear with his bare hands...or in this case, feet. Luckily, Bear was clever enough to roll out of the way, and we all fired upon the elite. The elite staggered from the combined fire. Stanley ducked behind the sofa and ejected his clip, tossed it in the general direction of the elite and slammed in a fresh one and was about to continue shooting, when the elite fell to the ground, dead.

The last elite seemed to be a sensible fellow. Seeing as he was the last one alive, he suddenly jumped through the window, shattering glass. That would have killed an unarmored human-heck, probaly an unarmored elite, but the energy shield protected him. The elite made a run for it.

Bear hefted his sniper rifle. As the elite ran, Bear tried put a round through the back of his head, but the elite, who kept evading managed to evade the shot and run down the alley.

"Funny. I didn't really expect him to make a run for it, you know." Bear noted. "Should we go after him?"

"So he can lead us to an ambush? No thanks."

Stanley looked around. There were eight dead elites lying around the bank, with a additional ninth one lying dead outside.

"Holy crap." He murmmered. "We sure killed a whole buncha split-jaws just now." He looked down on his MA5C. He had two full mags left-64 rounds. In his sidearm, he had half a clip left. He emptied the last few rounds into the body of one of the dead elites, then grabbed a plasma pistol. The alien weapon configured into his HUD-the UNSC had captured enough of the covenant sidearms to manage to get them to work with their HUDs, and the fact that the Covenant never seemed to try and alter that didn't help either. The other ODST started grabbing weapons off the Covenant too, and stripping plasma grenades off of them. All of a sudden, a voice came over the radio.

"This is Colonel James Perez of Task Force Oscar, I need immediate reinforcements for a counter attack. Marines, ODSTs or otherwise will be accepted. We have food and supplies. We need ABLE BODIED TROOPS, we have enough wounded to care for."

Stanely looked at his squad for a momment. "Task Force Oscar?" He asked. He opened up the avalible intel, which quickly showed Task Force Oscar's location.

"Okay squad. Let's go give this Colonel a hand."

'''0105 Hours, October 24th, 2552. (Military Calendar)/'''

Steve-McGraw Corporate Tokyo Tower, Tokyo, Japan, Earth, Sol System.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

Adam fired a few rounds from his Assault Rifle into the chest of a Elite, who's shields finally gave way. The elite roared in anger, before rolling out of the way, then fired wildly at him, no doubt in an attempt to buy time for his shields to recharge. Adam ducked behind cover-a ruined cubicle, plasma fire melting another chunk of a desk before returning fire. The Elite staggered in pain from the fire. Adam kept firing fully automatic, and the Elite fell to the ground. Adam stepped over parts of ruined office cubicles, kicked the dead Elite then spoke.

"Lucia, I've cleared my office. How 'bout you?"

"Not yet." Lucia replied. "Still a few stupid Grunts."

"Alright. I'll get to work on office 7403, alright?"

"Okay." Adam walked through the doorway-the actual door missing for some reason. This office was more or less intact, and it could have been a normal day, its inhabitants just gone. It was also happily lacking in Covenant, so he walked out and moved on to 7404.

"7403 is clear."

7404 was also clear of Covenant, as was the next few offices. He was about to finish checking office 7410, which was larger than the other offices, when he heard the sound of a Phantom approach. A Phantom halted itself about a hundred meters above the office, and four elites stepped next to the side of the Phantom, then jumped off, a ghostly-blue rope extending behind them.

"Elites are fast-roping into office 7410. Repeat, Elites are fast roping into office 7410." He warned, then opened fire with his assault rifle at one of the elites mid-flight, aiming for the rope. The rope snapped, and one elite fell to its doom. He got to work, breaking three ropes and sending three elites on a seventy-four story fall when the fourth one broke through its glass.

"Welcome to Earth, asshole." Adam discarded his assault rifle and drew his energy sword he had picked up off the armory on the Covenant frigate. He stabbed at the Elite, and the blade went through the Elite's plasma rifle, arm and chest. The Elite yelled in pain, before his cry was silenced as a thousand-degree blade went through its heart. Adam deactivated the plasma sword, and the Elite crumpled to the ground. With a kick, he sent the body falling out of the office.

"Elites are no longer fast-roping into office 7410. They have learned a valuable lesson and when and when not to try that stunt however." He declared.

"Right." Lucia replied. "So those Elites pretty much got a bunch of free kills?"

"Yep." Adam replied. He picked up his assault rifle, ejected his magazine and slammed in a fresh one.

"I'll get to work on the other ones now. Which office are you on?"

"7413."

"Okay. Once we've cleared this one, we'll move up to the 75th floor."

"Oh goody. More offices to clear."

"That's the last floor though. Its the executive office too."

"Sweet. It sure would be a pretty awesome place for a shoot-out with Covenant."

"Better than these stupid offices, that's for sure."

With that, Adam strolled into 7411, found it was clear and walked out. Lucia was waiting for him. Her right leg was covered in blue alien blood, but other than that, she was unharmed.

"Ready to go?" Adam asked.

"Hell yeah."

Both Spartans summoned the elevator to take them to the 75th floor. Finding it happily clear of hostiles, Adam smiled.

"Let's secure the rooftop." With that, both Spartans climbed the stairs to the rooftop and helipad of the building. The skies were decorated by dogfighting UNSC and Covenant aircraft.

"Seirra-309 to 2-Charlie-15. Building is clear."

"Copy that. Spartan. We'll transport the missile batteries on the rooftop now."

"Understood."

There was a few minutes of waiting, and then a team of Army Troopers armed with rocket launchers climbed up the stairs. Several of them had missile pods and machine gun turrets.

"We'll take it from here Spartans. You help lock down the building-head down to the ground floor. Other units are taking each individual level, but we expect the most Covenant to show up on the ground floor." A Second Lieutenant said.

"How come?" Adam asked.

"Because we're fairly sure they took the lessons about when and when not to fast-rope to heart, Spartan. From what I've heard, pretty much EVERYONE had to deal with a bunch of dumbass Elites trying to fast-rope into the building."

"So did I." Adam said.

"Ah well. As the saying goes, the only good kinds of Covies are dumb ones and dead ones. And now there are a lot less dumb ones and a lot more dead ones."

Adam and Lucia took the elevator down to the ground floor, where packs of civilians were being herded into the elevators. Two dozen Army troopers had set up defenses-machine gun turrets, plus they had selected cover. There were snipers covering the door from the first floor.

"Good to see you helping us hold the line, Spartans." An Army officer, Lieutenant Jake said. "We're expecting Covies any minute now, so get ready." The trooper had a MA37 in hand, standard assault rifle the army. Adam took cover behind a ballistic shield, while Lucia headed up to the second floor to get some elevation for sniping.

"2-Charlie-16, Evac Dispatch. Covenant forces about to reach your position."

"Copy that dispatch."

"1-Echo-31, You are clear for takeoff. Make it quick though, we can't hold off those Covies forever!"

"Thank you dispatch."

Adam ignored the com chatter and focused on the task at hand. Preventing the Covenant from entering. A series of red dots appeared on his motion sensor, and then there was a boom as they triggered a few landmines. An Elite stepped into the doorway of the building, and was promptly greeted by a hail of gunfire, ripping through his shield and tearing his body to pieces. A second Elite did slightly better, and got off a few wild shots, which barely missed an Army trooper who went diving to the ground before he too was killed. Once the first few glory-hounding elites were done with, it was time for the rest of the Covenant.

A lance of Jackals ran in. Adam aimed for a Jackal's exposed hand, and managed to hit it. The Jackal flinched, and Adam downed it with a few bursts. Another one took his place however, but it didn't take long before it was downed.

"Frag out!" A trooper shouted, tossing a grenade. The grenade detonated behind several Jackals, throwing them into the air. A larger explosion rung out, and part of the building's wall got a large hole blasted through it. Dozens of Grunts poured through the gap, and Adam fired fully automatic at the Grunts. He downned several of them with his assault rifle, ducked behind a ballistic shield to reload before firing at the Grunts. A Grunt tossed his weapon into the air, and shouted. "FOR THE GREAT JOURNEY!"

Adam fired directly at the Grunt, killing it. Its grenades fell to the ground, then detonated, blasting the corpse away. Another Grunt tossed a plasma grenade at him, and he dove away, evading the grenade, then tossed a grenade back.

Some Grunts were quick enough to avoid the grenade. Three weren't and were blasted into the air for a few seconds before hitting the ground dead. Adam continued shooting, stopping when nesscary to reload. Grunts kept pouring in through the hole in the wall and the doors of the building.

"This is Bravo Company, we are requesting air support on Covenant forces outside Steve McGraw Corporation Tokyo Tower."

"Negative. All air units occupied at this time."

"Dammit! Goddamn flyboys!" A trooper next to him swore loudly, while Adam ignored the exchange and kept firing. The Covenant had decided to mix things up a little now, and Jackal shield walls joined the swarms of grunts in attacking the building.

"How long do we have to hold them off?"

"About five hours." Lieutenant Jake replied.

"Five hours! Holy shit."

Adam ejected his spent magazine and slammed in another fresh one, and dumped it into the shield's of an elite that just joined the fray, who staggered back, and then hit the ground, hole in his body. He emptied the rest of his magazine into few grunts, then drew his pistol and kept firing. Once both weapons were empty, he reloaded them again, and kept firing.

Lucia aimed her sniper rifle down the street at the never-ending hostiles. She ignored the grunts and jackals-instead going after the elites. She placed a round into an elite officer's head, then fired at an ultra. Two elites went down from her snper fire. She blasted the brains out of a minor, and then reloaded her sniper rifle. A Revenant LAGC hovered down the street, before a rocket slammed into it's front, blasting the vehicle into the air, killing its occupants, as well as dazing the Covenant around it. Mortars flew into a lance of Covenant, throwing broken bodies into the air.

The explosions had also messed up her shot, although one of the mortars had killed her original target anyways, so she silently cursed whichever of the many mortar teams in the area had stolen her kill, and then took out her fustration on an elite by blasting his brains out with a pair of shots.

"Bravo Company, this is 1-Charlie-2. You've got Locust walkers on approach. ETA is one hour."

"Damn! What is with this damn place? NO artillery bigger than mortars or air support at ALL?"

"We cannot let those Locusts get close to our position, they'll tear us all apart. Mortar units, concentrate fire on those Locusts. 1-Charlie-2, can you assist us in co-ordinating fire?"

"Yes sir."

Lucia reloaded her sniper rifle again, and kept blasting. She wondered what the Covenant was trying. Were they trying to keep charging them until they ran out of ammunition? She couldn't help but wonder what suicidal "We have reserves" tactics did for the Covenant's morale. The road leading up to the building was literally paved in the bodies of dead Grunts and Jackals, with a few Elites there just to spice things up. While it wouldn't affect the human soldiers too much-even soldiers trained from childhood (herself, for example) would suffer from morale issues after blasting hundreds, if not thousands of humans dead, it was much easier to de-humanize aliens because, well, they weren't human in the first place. Still, such a massive war that resulted in so many casualties on the Covenant side...she wondered if the Covenant had anti-war demonstrations or something along those lines. Or were the aliens uncaring bastards who didn't give a damn about the fate of their own family members?

Hoping that somewhere in this galaxy, some elite would weep because of it, Lucia blasted an Elite Ultra.

'''1454 Hours, October 24th, 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Interplanetary Space, Sol System'''

Space Battle

"Hailey, target those Phantom gunboats." He ordered his co-pilot and gunner, Ensign Hailey White.

"Yes sir." Missiles streaked from the longsword as he spun the interceptor around, breaking off. White opened up with her 50mm cannons, blasting at the Phantom gunboats drifting around a Covenant corvette. The Corvette had managed to make its way past the fleet and was headed towards Earth, and they were trying to destroy it.

"Black Knife Squadron, this is Pegasus Squadron. We are commencing bombing run on target. Try and keep those Seraphs off our back."

"Copy that."

Gordon Duster flew his Longsword headfirst at a single Seraph fighter as White fired 50mm rounds at it. The Seraph turned to face his Longsword and returned fire with a volley of pulse lasers when it was torn apart. A pair of Longswords from Pegasus roared past the Seraph they had just ganged up on, making a beeline for the Corvette. As a second Seraph began chasing after them, Gordon moved to intercept as White opened up with 50mm rounds, blasting its shields then firing a single missile at it, blowing it into smithereens. A third Seraph followed, only to be intercepted by a missile from another Longsword and exploded.

"This is Pegasus One, bomb is in place underneath Covenant Corvette's shield and ready to be remote-detonated. Fall back."

Duster turned away from the Corvette and accelerated, and then rotated his Longsword 180 degrees. White opened up on the Covenant Seraphs, providing covering fire as they retreated. Just under twenty Longswords fled the Corvette, which continued moving towards Earth.

The Corvette exploded. A blast from under its shield blasted an entire segment of the ship away, spinning into space. The rest of the ship followed in a chain reaction, killing everyone on board.

"I can't believe we pulled that off." Commander Arnold Reily, their squadron leader said.

"But we lost a lot of good men out there." Someone Gordon didn't know-probably in a different squadron said sadly.

"19 Longswords. That's nearly two full Squadrons." Another person Gordon didn't know either said sadly.

Even as the pilots chattered, each squadron formmed back up and headed back to their respective motherships to dock and refuel and rearm, hopefully allow their pilots to catch some R&R. Gordon hadn't slept for thirty hours, and had kept himself awake purely on pills. It wasn't healthy at all, and it was most likely to blame for many deaths.

Black Knives Squadron, minus four Longswords lost in the battle with the Corvette, pulled into the docking bay of the UNSC frigate Merrow. Dozens of technicians hurried forward to prepare to rearm and refuel the Longswords as well as patch up any battle damage.

"Black Knives Squadron, let's go get us some R&R. You've all earned it." Commander Reily said, and with a cheer, the squadron headed straight for their quarters. Gordon dumped himself on his bunk, and almost instantly fell asleep.

37: Grinder
0730 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Thebes, Greece

It seemed it had been a tiring morning for everyone, with the Covenant attack coming in the middle of the night. For Staff Sergeant Moses Wheatley, focusing on one thing at a time was as close to rest as he ever got. After a passing Pelican had knocked the Banshees off his tail, the drive into Thebes was quiet. The kids, Reo and Henri, had dozed off in the passenger seat, and he was content to let them have the rest.

Like he'd seen everywhere else recently, Thebes was a dead city. The Covenant hadn't even attacked it, but the rush to evacuate had created chaos. The thing he became most worried about were gangs and looters. There were broken in storefronts and graffiti everywhere, and more than a few fires.

Him swerving the Boar gently between the cars left on the road caused Reo to stir. She blinked twice, trying to figure out where she was before trying to settle in again. Wheatley just ignored it. If he payed attention to more than the road, he'd be to tired to drive.

He could try to raise someone on coms, but if there were any Covenant scavengers around they might pick it up. He wanted to be somewhere more secure before sending a signal. Then he spotted the light. Not Covies, it was flourescent yellow-gold in the dark before dawn. Low, maybe four stories up in one of the skyscrapers a few blocks ahead.

It wasn't long before he saw two men waving to him from the street, clad in marine green uniforms. He rolled the Warthog to a stop beside them.

"Sir. Where'd you come from?" One of them, a Lance Corporal, asked.

Wheatley unbuckled and climbed out. "South. Your CO around?"

"Negative, sir. Everyone pulled out a while ago. We volunteered to stay behind." He motioned to the PFC next to him, and the soldier, no more than twenty, flipped a remote and turned off the upstairs light that had been the beacon to him. "There's civilians here that can't be moved. Old, sick, wounded. Our platoon didn't have the resources, so we holed up in this hospital."

Wheatley nodded. He'd be in military command, but wasn't ready to take over for anyone right now. "C'mon, help me get these two inside. Got a place to stash the 'hog?"

The PFC took the keys and after Moses had gotten Reo awake at least partially and was carrying Henri, drove it into a garage built for ambulances. Other than that jeep, the garage was empty. Lance Corporal Mills led him inside the hospital itself. It was warm and stuffy, quite a change from the brisk morning air. There were a few refugees in the lobby, two of the men with M6A Security Sidearms. They looked up briefly at the newcomers, then back to staring at their feet or reading.

"There are beds upstairs. Just try to keep out of the way of the medical types, there are some people in bad condition." Mills said as Moses set the boy down in a chair next to Reo. He thanked the marine, shaking hands with him before he went back out to his perimeter duty. Wheatley shook himself of the laziness that was coming over him in the warmth. There would be work needing done, and he intended to help.

0900 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Southwest of Tokyo, Japan

Kodiak had scaled to the third floor of the same building his target was in. Looking down over the railing, he could see his target talking with a Major Domo. The Major, a Minor Domo, and one Grunt seemed the last of a squad that as ordered to take this building, there were bodies of soldiers both human and alien all around. But they weren't the only targets.

The four stealth Elite guards had come with the Zealot, and were standing posted around the room, still in their active camouflage, just visible enough to be a challenge. But Kodiak never did like things too easy.

"Tactical threat?" he asked.

"Zealot's got only a sword." Dyne whispered. "Doesn't look like he was expecting to fight today. The three frontliners have standard, rifle and pistol."

"The rearguard has a Focus Rifle. Two with Repeaters, and it looks like the last one has another sword."

"Okay then. One of us gets three."

"Uh, Kodiak . . . there's eight."

"You really think the Grunt's going to stick around? Alright . . . mark."

As soon as he said it, the Spartan jumped off the ledge, the stolen plasma pistols charging. At the same time, the others hit the band of Elites from either side. One of the cloaked elites morphed from a ghostly phantom to a column of fire as Sepia's flame grenade ignited its flesh. Kodiak discharged one of the pistols directly underneath him, the Major Domo's shielding broke with a pop. It had no defense when the half-ton of Spartan dropped onto it, having cast away the used pistol and replaced it with a knife, which sunk into the alien's neck.

The other globule of plasma he aimed at a cloaked Elite drawing the blade on its thigh plate. As the attention of the remaining Covenant was instantly fixed upon Kodiak and their incinerated companion, the one now without shielding or cloak never saw Dyne fire his sidearm into its head.

The Grunt ran yelling. The Zealot drew. And the others fired.

Kodiak tucked and rolled forward as the Focus Rifle beam singed the air above him. A flurry of rounds from the remaining Repeater missed him, but both had to shift attention elsewhere as they came under attack by the others. The Minor Elite came at him with the wristblade of Covenant Army units, a weapon Kodiak envied. Unfortunately, the towering creature was no match for Kodiak's speed. He ducked the blade's swing that came at him from high left, spun under the arm, and came up standing next to it facing the opposite direction. He reversed the direction his arm was going, bringing the knife he held through shields, armor, and spine. The Elite crashed to the floor with the handle still protruding from its back.

He had just enough time to jump back as white-hot plasma cut through the air where he'd been standing. The tips of the blades came close, centimeters from his left hand. While they missed his fingers, the plasma pistol he held was cut in half. Now he was in trouble, the Zealot stabbing at him and no weapon to fight back with. He gave ground fast, the Fieldmaster cursing him in alien tongues just feet away.

"Kodiak!" Dyne shouted. He'd left the cover he was using in his firefight against the Specops Elite to get to the body of onne they'd already killed. He threw up a hand and tossed something to him, then dashed back to cover as a shot from the Repeater slagged the ceramic skin of his shoulder armor.

He caught the short bar of metal, recognized the grip, and squeezed the panels on it. The sword from the other Elite sprang to life, and parried, then launched his own attack on his opponent.

The one wielding the Focus Rifle had fled, and Sepia gave chase. Vaulting debris from the destroyed front of the building, she unlatched and threw another of her grenades. The split-lip was too quick, snaking sideways and letting the incendiary device burst harmlessly on a chunk of cement. It returned fire briefly, but the beam of angry orange light broke harmlessly on her shield gauntlet.

This Elite had been able to avoid the weapons by running through the rubble, but now that it was through it and in the open, there was nowhere it could run fast enough to escape. Sepia took her last grenade from its place on her belt, and hurled it.

It had just broken out of the shadows of the building when the glass tube broke over its back, the chemicals igniting instantly. The systems of its combat suit went out immediately, and its final scream was muted by the synthetic materials of the helmet.

As the corpse burned, Sepia felt a perverse satisfaction in the pain she'd caused, and knew the reptilian alien had deserved it. The smile faded from her lips as she realized the air was humming. She turned, and saw the Grunt had climbed into the turret on the parked Shadow, ten feet from her.

The cannon fired, and she brought the Jackal shield up with her left, reaching for the needler at her thigh with her right. The first blast slammed against her forearm, breaking the gauntlet. Then she had the weapon up, spraying shards from its muzzle that homed in on the Grunt's warm body, and as they collected in its body, exploded in a haze. But it had already fired a second time.

Kodiak couldn't win this fight the way he was fighting. Though he knew short blades, the Elite was clearly a master of the sword. So instead of outfencing it, he did the smart thing, the thing an honorable Sangheili would never do: he cheated.

Drawing the Elite in close by locking the blades, he stared calmly through his golden visor as the Elite's mandibles opened in a roar. Before any sound came out, its eyes widened in pain and shock. It looked down to see Kodiak had withdrawn another knife, and stabbed into its ribs. The wound was deep, and it fell to the floor, shuddering a final time before going still.

"And we didn't even have power weapons!" Dyne said, walking up to his team leader with his sidearm empty. The stealth unit he'd been fighting was on the floor, two bullet holes in its skull.

"Beat you, Dyne." Kodiak taunted. "Three to your two."

"Yeah, well, joke's on you." Dyne laughed. "I used all my ammo on that sucker. Besides, if she found the Grunt she tied you."

"I got it."

They looked up, and saw Sepia standing with her arm over her stomach, and blood flowing freely from beneath it. Shouting her name, they ran over just in time to catch her fall. She was fading into unconsciousness. The second round from the turret had burned through her armor and skin, some of the slagged metal fusing to her flesh.

"Dyne, get out and see if you can get that Shadow running. We'll need it to move her carefully."

"Where are we going?"

"Ryu Base. It's the only place with enough medical equipment for something like this. Go!"

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 21:45, February 26, 2011 (UTC)

38
Holy Father

Sydney,Australia, Task Force Oscar HQ

"Banshees, on the inbound!" Housten shouted to the men around him. The Colonel, James Perez, threw himself behind a concrete wall.

"We need a few Spankers up here!" Perez called out.

"I don't know about M19s,but I'm pretty sure Ivan over here can give us some ATA!" one of the men from the Forward Observation unit yelled.

"Alright, Housten! Get us some Air to Air!"

"Yes sir!" the Russian Marine responded, firing up his radio. "Hunter this is Joker 1 come in Hunter! We have Banshees inbound at Sierra 34, Oscar HQ! We need ATA on position ASAP!Over?" There was a crackle of staitc before a voice responded.

"We here you Joker 1, this is Hunter. We'll be on site in 30 seconds. Sit tight."

"Confirmed Hunter. We're counting on you!"

Perez leaned back against the wall, MA5K gripped tightly in his hands. He motioned for the squad to move to a better position, inside the Head Quarters, which was now under siege by Covie Aircraft. The pair of Banshees now circling the building, were the fourth pair in 20 minutes. In fact, Perez was surprised nothing heavier had come in yet. Better knock on wood though. And then the whine of turbines let him know the Sparrowhawks were here.

He looked up at the Banshees and saw them make quick, graceful turns towards the incoming Aircraft. But it was too late, hot lead exploded towards them, and the first Banshee exploded in a shower of blue sparks and purple metal. The second banshee quickly met a similar fate.

"Booyah!" one of the Marines shouted as the Sparrowhawks buzzed them.

"Good kill Hunter, thanks for the assist, Joker 1 out." Housten said pumping his fist in the air.

"Alright boys, enough celebrating. That was just two Banshees out of millions. Get M19s passes around and make sure the M41s are spooled up. We got squads coming in from all over the city and MED-EVAC is a no go. Get all walking wounded back in the fight, start forming groups to take civvies and guys who can't fight. Form up with the Police. We got a ciy to take.-- No One! No SPARTAN! No Marine! No Civilian should be left to face death alone!--Oregon Hawkins* 23:48, March 2, 2011 (UTC)

39: Dust Off
'''1000 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Izu Kogen, Izu Peninisula, Japan'''

Mikiya Ryougi flew his Falcon Gunship over the dark blue sea, towards the town of Izu Kogen on the Izu Peninsula. In front of him stood the black rocks of the sea cliffs, testiment to the peninsula, and indeed all of Japan's volcanic past. Beyond that, hundreds of structures, houses, apartments, and businesses lay in front of the conical peak of Omuro-yama and the other mountains that make up the Izu Peninsuala. The scenery would have been quite beautiful, if not for the columns of flame, ruined structures, and bomb craters that now dotted the landscape.

Behind Mikiya's aircraft, the rest of Hayabusa squadron flew in a diamond formation, covering a pair of transport Falcons in the middle. Their mission: Rescue a group of SPARTANs trapped behind Covenant lines.

"This is Shinigami Lead", A voice said in Mikiya's radio, "We are commencing bombing run now"

A squadron of Shortsword bombers flew overhead, releasing their payload over a column Wraiths and Shadows, lead by three Scarabs, two of the newer model and one of the older model, moving down the highway to the north. All three Scarabs exploded in balls of flame as the they were impacted by the hail of ordnance. Even the mighty Scarab was no match for a direct hit with a 2000 pound bomb. The bombs continued to impact, tossing Wraiths and Shadows around like toys and leveling structures along the side of the road.

Mikiya flew towards the island as he looked on at the destruction out of the corner of his eye. It made an excellent distraction, most of the Covenant aircraft in the area were dogfighting with a Skyhawk squadron from a wet naval carrier or a Longsword squadron escorting the bombers. Not to mention those Scarabs and Wraiths would never make it to the front lines in Shibuya.

As Mikiya moved closer, he noticed several of contacts on his radar. Silhouetted against the mountains, he saw seven Covenant Vampire Fighters flying directly at him, along with dozens of smaller contacts.

"Vampires and Banshees incoming, permission granted to engage, keep them of those transports".

Mikiya brought up his missile locks and opened fire, launching a pair of Argent missiles at the two nearest Vampires. Both missiles hit home, blowing the alien fighters out of the sky as missiles from the rest of the squadron picked off several Banshees and a two more Vampires.

The surviving Covenant aircraft broke apart as the three remaining Vampires opened up with their heavy needlers.

"The enemy aircraft have opened fire, evasive maneuvers!", Mikiya said through his radio as a swarm of the pinkish projectiles flew at him.

Mikiya swerved right, avoiding the needler shots as the rest of his squadron moved to avoid the pink-colored alien missiles.

In Mikiya's rearview monitor, he saw a flash of the odd pink fire that signified a Needler impact. Hayabusa five was trailing black smoke.

"This is Hayabusa Five", the female Falcon pilot said, "I have taken severe damage."

"Break off and return to the nearest friendly airfield, nearest landing point should be on board the wet navy carrier UNSC Samar Sea. Good Luck."

"Roger", Hayabusa Five said, "I am taking a new course for the UNSC Samar Sea, Good luck to you too".

As Hayabusa Five flew away from the action, Mikiya locked onto the the nearest Vampire and pressed the launch button. An Argent missile impacted the heavy needler on the aircraft, sending up in ball of fire and pink mist as more missiles impacted the rest of the Vampires were torn apart by multiple missile impacts, reducing them to flaming debris. The two of the four remaining Banshees flew straight at Mikiya.

Aoi Miyazaki, Mikiya's gunner, placed the crosshairs over the first Banshee, firing a burst of explosive shells into the fuselage. The alien aircraft started trailing blue flames and fell from the sky. Seconds later, the second Banshee met a similar fate.

The two surviving Banshees turned tail and fled, damaged from enemy fire and trailing smoke.

As the Banshees flew out of site behind the mountains, Mikiya's Falcon neared the shore of the Izu Peninsula. From there, he could see that all the Covenant Heavy Anti-Air Batteries mounted on the sea cliffs and the mountains had been knocked out by bomber and missile strikes, some AA Wraiths and Shade turrets remained.

"Four AA Wraiths and eight Spectres and Prowlers, along the road above the sea cliffs", Mikiya said into his radio, "Engage with Scorpion missiles, Do not advance any further until the threat is neutralized."

Aoi Miyazaki locked the laser onto the first AA Wraith and fired a Scorpion anti-tank missile. Aoi's missile streaked towards its target and impacted in a ball of flames as the three other Wraiths met a similar fate, blown apart by aircraft from the rest of Mikiya's squadron.

"Wraiths eliminated, move in and finish off the rest of them, you are weapons free", Mikiya said as he moved in closer to the shore and squeezed the trigger for his LAU-65 dual purpose missiles, destroying a Spectre as Aoi destroyed a Prowler and another Spectre with the 30mm autocannon.

To the right of Mikiya and Aoi's aircraft, Hayabusa Three opened up the 20mm nose gatling gun and twin MG460 Automatic Grenade Launchers that were attached in place of the LAU-65 pod, chewing apart four Spectres as the final vehicle, a Prowler fell before Hayabusa Six's 30mm.

As the 24th Squadron and the two transport Falcons flew over a housing development, Mikiya's radio crackled to life. "This is SPARTAN G114 to the UNSC aircraft in the area, We have been engaged by a large group of Drones near a store front on Highway 135, about one block north of the Izu Kogen station. We are currently holed up in a captured Shadow APC marked with an IR strobe. Do not fire one the Shadow marked with the IR strobe, repeat, do not fire on the Shadow marked with the IR strobe."

"We read you Sierra G114, do not fire on the Shadow. We are making our attack run on the Drones now.", Mikiya said.

Mikiya and the rest of the squadron flew towards the massed swarm of Yanme'e attacking a Shadow APC, which was firing back with it's main plasma cannon. Next the APC, a figure fired a Focus Rifle at the swarm, trying to keep them at bay.

"Attention aircraft, begin attack run on Drone swarm now", Mikiya said, "Keep moving and watch out for overcharged plasma bolts".

The Drone swarm was so large that Mikiya could get a missile lock on them. He fired a LAU-65 missile at the densely-packed swarm of Drones. The missile streaked off towards the Drones, detonating in their midst, reducing about ten of the insect-like aliens to hundreds of pieces of shattered exoskeleton. Yanme'e limbs, wings, and heads rained down on the ground.

After the missile made contact, Aoi Miyazaki opened up on the Drone swarm with her 30mm cannon, chewing several Yanme'e as the gunners of the rest of the Falcons did the same. The Drones were torn apart before they got near the Falcons.

As the last of the Drones fell from the sky, the first of the two transport Falcons landed, near the Shadow holding the three SPARTANs as the second stayed behind, in case the first Falcon was suddenly attacked. Mikiya saw two the two SPARTANs exit the vehicle, carrying the third between them board the Falcon.

"This is Bravo 1-4, the transport Falcon pilot said through the radio as his aircraft took off, "We the three SPARTANs on board and are setting course for Ryu Base.

The flight to Ryu base was uneventful, encountering no Covenant opposition, in most part because for most of the flight, they were within the patrol area of Skyhawk fighters and Wombat UCAVs from the wet navy carriers as they made their way across Tokyo Bay to the city center of Tokyo and dropped off the three SPARTANs, before returning to Yokota Air Force Base.

When they landed, they noticed Hayabusa Five's aircraft had returned. In the off-duty bar, Mikiya and the others met up with Lt. Kurosawa and her gunner, Lt. Hayashi. When asked how they had gotten their aircraft repair so soon, they told the rest of the Squadron that the needler round from the Vampire had detonated as it impacted the spinning prop, blowing off one of the blades and riddling a few cylinders in the engine with shrapnel.

They managed to get to the Samar Sea on their remaining rotor and their secondary jet engines, at which point they managed to replace the damaged engine parts with parts from a Navy Falcon that got shot up in a Banshee attack the day before in all of a couple hours.

245 Hours, October 26th (Local Time)

Amou Pass, east of Shirakawa, Gifu prefecture, Japan, behind Covenant lines.

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki knelt in the woods, on top of a roadcut in a mountainside, on the edge of Highway 360, leading over Amou Pass, Rena with a captured particle beam rifle in hand and Keiichi wielding a lighter and a Molotov Cocktail. In front of them, a Wraith and a Revenant idled on at a Covenant roadblock. Next to the alien vehicles stood an Elite and five Unggoy, their positions lit up by Covenant worklights, the only light, save for the moonlight.

"All right", Keiichi said, "Set your sights on that Elite in the Revenant, when I toss the Molotov into the Wraith, shoot him. Then nail the other elite, and finally, deal with the Grunts."

"Let's do this", Rena said. I her voice, Keiichi could hear a thirst for Covenant blood. Not at all surprising since she saw with her own eyes what they did to her eight-year old sister. Even after she had killed the Elite that massacred her sister, it wasn't enough for Rena. She was going to kill as many aliens as she could.

Keiichi walked to the edge of the roadcut. Immediately below him was the plasma mortar of the Wraith, and the gap the surrounded the main gun. That was Keiichi's target. Keiichi lit the rag on his Molotov and hurled into the gap next to the mortar. The molotov fell down, into the inner workings of the alien war machine. The Wraith erupted in flames, both orange and blue.

At the same second, a beam of accelerated ions burned through the skull of the Elite in the Revenant. Seconds later, Rena Sonozaki fired two particle beams into the chest of the second elite, dropping it. Keiichi drew the Needler he captured back in Shirakawa and pointed in the general direction of a group of two Unggoy, which turned and tried to fire on him.

The Grunts were two late, however, a swarm of pink, crystalline projectiles riddled both Grunts, tearing their flesh apart as the needles exploded within them. Three more Grunts fell before Rena's beam rifle.

As soon as the last Grunt hit the pavement, Keiichi climbed down the roadcut.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to get on the roads?", Rena asked

"This is a narrow mountain road, the Covies aren't gonna be sending any large armored columns through here. And any roadblocks will be in the other direction, we'll get be able to hit 'em from behind", Keiichi said.

"With what?", Rena asked.

"This.", Keiichi said as he entered the Revenant, which was still hovering above the ground, idling, even in absence of it's driver, the Elite, who fell out when Rena shot him.

"You don't know how to drive that!", Rena said.

"Relax, I've seen Grunts drive these things, and you know how dumb they are, and besides, theres only two control levers.", Keiichi responded.

Keiichi pulled the left lever forward. The Revenant lurched forward a few feet, before Keiichi switched the lever the backwards. The vehicle moved in the same direction. Keiichi continued testing out the controls, strafing right and left with the left stick and and steering with the right. Moving the right stick up and down raised and lowered the mortar, while pressing the right trigger fired the mortar, while a left trigger activated a booster.

"See", Keiichi said, "I figured it out."

"OK", Rena said in a voice that still sounded unsure as she got in the Revenant, stowing the needler and beam rifle at her feet as some sort of gravity device seemed to hold her in her seat... A Covenant seatbelt?. Rena held a plasma rifle she had captured off one of the dead elites at her side as Keiichi looked into the night vision screen on the vehicle's dash and drove forward.

After only a few minutes, Keiichi had gotten used to driving the Revenant. As the mountain air blew through their hair as the alien vehicle climbed up over Amou Pass, even Rena had to admit, this was better than walking through the forest.

40: Thanks for the Lift
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1022 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Kodiak stepped off the Falcon’s deck and out onto the rooftop. It was raining lightly, and a part of his mind reminded him to be careful not to slip. The main part of his mind was focused on Sepia.

As he expected, a number of medical personnel in white coats rushed forward. They were dressed the same as people who dealt with chemicals and chalkboards in a lab, and with them around he felt uncomfortable, just as he had when they buzzed around him in augmentations. What he didn't expect was how few of them there were. They looked tired. Injured were all over the city, it was no surprise.

Dyne held one end of the stretcher Sepia lay on, with two Marines hefting opposite. The black SPI armor was broken by a circle of silver metal that had melted and cooled in fluid forms. Though plasma wounds for the most part cauterized quickly, blood seeped through the charred flesh and Kodiak had had to pour every ounce of biofoam they had to keep pressure. The water falling from the sky was starting to soften it some as they rushed her inside.

Kodiak felt the breeze strengthen as the Falcon transport dusted off, rejoining its wingmen that had lead them here. They were already turning towards some other objective. For them it was back to work. Unable to hail them, he could only stand straight, and salute toward the aircraft swinging around for another part of the city. Then he followed the others into the building.

Operation: DIVINE SON

0813 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calender)/ Hospital in Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

The girl named Reo passed quietly among beds filled with wounded soldiers as orange light spilled in from the sun low in the western sky. Moses had disappeared to help get the main power online, the place had been running for too long with the backup generators. Henri had left her when a nurse offered him lollipops in exchange for his help carrying things. Reo had tried to take Moses' advice and sleep a while, but just couldn't find it. After shifting in one of the uncomfortable chairs for a while, there was nothing to do but explore the corridors of this quiet building.

Sidestepping the few doctors as they rushed around, most of the building was quiet. The solitude was nice, but at the same time the lack of people in a place like this was unsettling.

Reo wondered if it was like this at her home in London, or Henri's parents' house back in Paris. Reo's parents had sent her to Henri's, thinking right that London would be attacked. When Paris had become a target for the aliens, they'd spent everything they had on two tickets for the children to get away. And Thebes was no better. Was there anywhere safe left to run? She was getting tired of it anyway.

Everyone in Thebes was already running when she and Henri had first arrived here. No one but Moses had taken a second look. They'd hidden out in the village, and now that the Covenant had passed they'd returned. It seemed they hadn't been the only ones unable to go far. Many of the people laying in the beds were soldiers, with bloodsoaked bandages wrapped over their green fatigues. For what she'd seen, these wounded people were the last fighters left in Greece.

Next to one bed, Henri was holding a duffel bag full of medical equipment as the nurse was looking over the patient's leg with a hand-held X-ray scanner. Satisfied with the result, she nodded at the woman and replaced her scanner in the bag. Henri was struggling under the weight, but his pockets and cheeks bulged with hard candies. He smiled at Reo, unable to do more because his mouth was stuffed full enough for him to look like a chipmunk, and walked off after the nurse.

"He's young." The woman lying down said. She had a Marine Sergeant's insignia and casts on both legs, sitting up and watching the dark haired kid go. She sounded distant, as if her mind was elsewhere, but that she'd said it was an invitation to talk.

"What happened to you?" Reo asked.

"It's not a fun story to tell." She said, her blue eyes shifting to Reo. "You can ask Mills outside about the time his squad fought off a Covenant squad with only the cook's utensils. I can't say if it's true, but to hear him tell it . . ."

Reo sat down in a chair next to the bed and met her eyes. The woman nodded and pulled up her sleeve. A tattoo of a skull on a field of flames was printed on the upper arm, a pair of rifles crossed behind it. "Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. We're the meanest, roughest, most dangerous batch of Marines they ever trained. But we're in no way immortal. When Reach was taken, we were sent in to New Alexandria to reinforce units that already didn't exist anymore. My company didn't last. The Captain was killed, and the LT was off-course. Three of us fought our way up Nomolos Tower, the whole thing was on fire at the time, and got into a fight with Jackals and a pair of Hunters. A beam came down and trapped me under it, and cracked my helmet. There was a lot of smoke. I started having trouble breathing when Buck found us. Between three of them, they pulled me out and got me to Lieutenant Dekyser's Pelican. And I've been waiting for the casts to come off since."

"Do you regret being a soldier?" Reo asked.

"I don't regret the past." she answered. "But now I don't know what will be in the future. Not for me, and I don't know how my comrades are. Last I heard, they were being deployed to Sydney."

She drifted off a bit, until Reo asked another question to break the silence. "Do you have any other stories? Good memories?"

The smile returned. "Well, there was one time my squad had to bail out a pair of Spartans . . ."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 00:14, March 7, 2011 (UTC)

41: Fire and Thunder
''' Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

10:30 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Aikawa, Japan '''

Mikiya Ryougi and the rest of the 24 squadon flew their Falcon Gunships towards the Sagami River. The river was the current boundary of the Covenant line, the furthest they had gotten in their northward march towards Yokota air force base. On the east side of the river, the UNSC had placed Scorpion tanks, Grizzly tanks, both the heavy tank and the walker-destroyer variants, Cobra tank destroyers, Cougar IFVs, Warthogs of every description, many with Armor Upgrades, and technicals crew by civilian militia, armed with "Confetti Maker" or M202 machine guns, along with thousands of troops, both Army, Marines, and militia. Longswords, Pelicans, Vultures, Skyhawks, Sparrowhawks, Hornets, and more Falcons like his own flew overhead.

All three bridges over the Sagami had been blown with submarine launched cruise missiles, so the Covenant were sending in Scarab and Locust walkers to wade across the river while their Wraiths and few Artillery Scarabs fired from the bluffs on the western side of the river. Banshees, Vampires, Spirits, Seraphs, and Phantoms supported them from above.

As Mikiya flew towards a high-rise apartment building on the east side of the river, a squadron of Banshees and pair of Spirit Dropships flew in near the building. A group of civilian militia on the roof of the high rise, armed with surplus M19D man-portable SAMs, M202 machine guns, and "Confetti Maker" light machine guns, opened up on the Covenant aircraft. Three Banshees and both Spirits were blown out of the sky by SAMs and the M202s and "Confetti Makers" chewed up the remaining the Covenant aircraft. The "Confetti Maker" machine gun was notoriously innaccurate, as its nickname suggested, but put enough lead in the air and you could still do some damage. Sure enough, the Banshees caught fire one-by-one, perforated by bullets, and fell to earth.

The AA crews in the building, however, couldn't celebrate for long. Three Phantom gunships all opened up on the apartment tower with their plasma torpedoes, sending up the roof in a ball of blue fire as a pair of Scarabs and several Locusts preparing to cross the river opened up with their plasma cannons. The combined plasma fire blew apart the high-rise, sending crashing to ground.

Mikiya turned his aircraft towards the first Phantom and acquired a RADAR lock as he spoke through his radio: "24th squadron, prepare to engage those Phantoms."

Mikiya squeezed the trigger, firing a pair Argent missiles straight into the side of the first Phantom. The alien aircraft exploded in a ball of flames, sending burning fragments raining into the river. Lt. Satou took out the second Phantom, sending it down in flames with a hit to the engine with his aircraft's SPARTAN Laser, and Hayabusa four launched an Argent into the engine of the last Phantom, destroying the last alien aircraft.

"Not so easy when your fighting professional pilots, now is it!", Hayabusa Four said.

Below them, a walker-destroyer variant of the Grizzly fired an a pair of "Scarab-Slayer" missile from its launch tubes. The two missile both struck their respective targets simultaneously, blowing apart the two Scarabs in ball of flame as the Grizzly and Scorpion tanks opened up, blowing apart the Locusts as they tried to cross the river.

On the bluffs beyond the river, several laser guided bombs impacted, each of them destroying an artillery Scarab, however, a number of Wraiths remained. The Longsword squadron that dropped the bombs, was, however, too busy dogfighting with a Seraph squadron. A Seraph was struck by a missile from a Longsword and sent down in flames, before seconds later, the very Longsword the fired the missile was shot down.

"This the Col. Roberts of the UNSC Army", a voice said over Mikiya's radio, "We are requesting assistance from any UNSC aircraft, we need you to take out the Wraiths on the bluffs, they are pounding us down here".

"We hear you, sir", Mikiya responded, "24th Falcon Gunship Squadron moving to engage Covenant artillery on the bluffs."

Mikiya flew over the river, towards a major road on top of the bluffs as Aoi locked onto a Wraith parking in the parking lot of a destroyed McDonalds. Aoi pressed the missile launch button on her stick and fired a Scorpion ATGW at the alien self-propelled gun. The Wraith exploded in a ball of flames as more missiles from Mikiya's squadron streaked at other Wraiths, taking several out. The remaining Wraiths, about twenty of them, turned their secondary plasma autocannons skyward.

Mikiya swerved his aircraft around, making evasive maneuvers as Aoi fired missile after missile at the Wraiths. It was a turkey shoot. In no time, all of the Wraiths were burning wrecks. Further down the river, things weren't going so well. A group of five Scarabs were firing on the UNSC armor on the other side from an industrial complex.

Mikiya, however, smiled as he said, "Those bastards just dug their own graves!". The industrial complex in question was a hydrogen fuel plant.

"This is Hayabusa lead", Mikiya said into this radio, "I have spotted several Scarabs in a hydrogen fuel plant on the west side of the Sagami, permission to engage."

"Permission granted, you may proceed to blow the plant", the UNSC officer on the other side said, simply.

Mikiya switched channels, speaking to the rest of the squadron, ordering them to fire on the plant on his mark. "NOW!", Mikiya yelled. Both Mikiya and Aoi fired off their weapons, Mikiya launching a pair of LAU-65 missiles and Aoi a pair of Scorpion missiles as more Scorpion, ANVIL, and LAU-65 missiles swarmed at the fuel plant.

The hydrogen fuel plant exploded in a flash of fire and thunderous roar, vaporizing all five Scarabs. As the fuel plant exploded, the surviving Covenant went into full retreat. They had won... for now...

--

'''300 Hours, October 26th (Local Time)

Gifu prefecture, Japan, behind Covenant lines.'''

Fun While It Lasted

Keiichi Ryukishi pushed the left control stick of the Revenant slightly forward, moving the alien hover car forward slowly, keeping his hand on the right steering stick as he maneuvered the vehicle along the winding road that lead down Amou pass, the only light was from the moonlight which filtered between the trees lining the road, however, the Revenant had a night vision screen which allowed Keiichi to drive the vehicle down the road, from switchback to switchback.

Rena Sonozaki sat in the passenger seat of the alien light mortar carrier, reading a map by the light of the lit displays on the dashboard of the Revenant. When she examined the screen on her side of the vehicle.

"It looks like we're getting close to Kawaicho Amou now", Rena said, "It's a small village, but there might be a Covie roadblock like the one we found this thing on."

Sure enough, the small cluster of houses on the lower slopes of the mountainside that made up the hamlet of Kawaicho Amou came into view. All of the lights in the houses were dark, but a section of road a couple switchbacks below them was lit by the glow of Covenant lights.

Keiichi put the Revenant to a stop. "Looks like the Covies haven't spotted us", he said, "Rena, can you get a look at the road block with the scope on your beam rifle? Just don't shoot them yet".

"OK", Rena said as she got out the particle beam rifle from the space below her feet and looked looked down the scope. "Looks like we go a Pair of Shades, a Wraith, an Elite, an about five Grunties".

"All right", Keiichi said, "I'll try and get a shot at them with the plasma mortar. You keep the beam rifle ready, nail the gunner in the Shade on the right."

Rena nodded as Keiichi pulled up on the right control stick, raising the mortar and moving the crosshairs on the night vision screen onto the Wraith. As Keiichi moved the reticule onto the Wraith, he heard the plasma mortar to the rear move of its own accord as Covenant writing flashed across the screen and the reticule turned red.

"Auto aim", Keiichi commented, "Nice". Keiichi squeezed the trigger on the right stick. A glowing red ball of superheated plasma flew out of the main gun of the Revenant. The ball of plasma flew in an arcing trajectory, falling on to the top of the mortar of the Wraith. The alien SPG exploded in a ball of blue flames.

Rena fired a shot from her beam rifle at the Shade turret gunner as the Wraith exploded. The Grunt manning the gun fell to the ground as Keiichi fired off a second shot from the Revenant's plasma mortar, blowing the second Shade turret off its mount and sending it rolling down the mountainside into the a river below.

Rena picked off the Elite and three Grunts with her beam rifle as Keiichi fired several plasma mortar shots, which landed around the road blocks in flashed of red light. When they could no longer see anything moving the in area illuminated by the Covenant worklights, Keiichi and Rena drove off in the Revenant, heading down into the village of Kawaicho Amou, before Rena direct Keiichi onto another small mountain road that headed south.

"This should turn to the east and exit north Hida. We should avoid the actual city of Hida if at all possible, the place is probably crawling with Covies.", Rena said as Keiichi drove the Revenant along the road, which wound along a mountainside above a river, before turning east near a dam that created a lake in valley. At the dam, the road turned east, into another valley with a stretch of straighter road.

"Hold on", Keiichi said, "I'm gonna try out the booster on the straight section". Keiichi held down the left trigger on the Revenant's control stick. The Revenant accelerated rapidly. Rena was initially shocked by the sudden acceleration by the of the vehicle, but soon, the feeling of fear changed to one of exhilaration, it was a feeling of excitement, of freedom, the same feeling one got from driving any fast car. The mountain air blew through their hair as the Revenant climbed up a small rise of about ten feet. Rena's scream of fear as the vehicle was launched off the top of the rise was quickly replaced with a shout of excitement.

"This is awesome!", Keiichi said, "Almost makes you forget were in a war zone".

Even after all the trauma she had been through in the last night. Rena had to admit, Keiichi had a point.

The Revenant sped across the overpass over the road leading to Hida, however, as they reached the far side of the overpass, a several bolts of blue plasma flew overhead. Rena grabbed the plasma rifle from under the seat of the Revenant as she yelled "Two Ghosts on out tail!"

Keiichi made evasive maneuvers, avoid the hail of plasma as he held down the left trigger, keeping the booster going at maximum power. Rena meanwhile, fired behind them.

Rena's first few bursts missed, but the fifth burst from her plasma rifle struck home, impacting the fuel cell of the lead Ghost. The alien hover-bike exploded in a ball of blue flames, sending fragments into the rear of the second Ghost, disabling the vehicle an causing it to crash into the roadside ditch as Keiichi sped away.

About a kilometer beyond the now destroyed Ghosts, Keiichi turned onto a dirt road going up into the mountains.

"We'll go up here, take it as far as we can and then ditch the Revenant", He said, "I'm afraid we're back to walking."

"Well", Rena responded as the vehicle reached the end of the forest road, "It was fun while it lasted".

Keiichi and Rena exited the Revenant and retrieved their weapons and supplies from the vehicle, before running off into the woods. After about an hours hiking, they stumbled across something in their path.

"What's that", Rena asked, pointing to a long, low-lying object. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a dead body, the remains of a UNSC Army Ranger. Next to man lay an M392 Designated Marksman Rifle with an attached M456 Grenade Launcher.

"Shame a UNSC soldier had to die for this, but these supplies could be useful", Keiichi said as he picked up the DMR. The body of the soldier yielded the DMR with grenade launcher, an M6C SOCOM pistol, several magazines for both weapons, a medical kit, a few MREs, and some body armor, which Keiichi and Rena agreed to take turns wearing.

"Well", Keiichi said, "That's everything, the sun will be up soon, we should find a place to hide and rest during the day. We'll keep traveling by night."

About a half-hour later, Keiichi and Rena reached a small cave in the side of a cliff and hid inside for the day, attempting to get as much sleep as possible given the circumstances.

42: Please Remain Calm
Operation: DIVINE SON

0900 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calender)/ Hospital in Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Before he heard Reo enter the room he was working in, Moses Wheatley was preoccupied by a tangle of wires and his own thoughts. Greece really was in bad shape, the Covenant brought the hammer down hard. From what little he could get out of the network, every major and minor military installation south of Thessaly was gone, and no major force was left that hadn’t retreated northwards.

But there were a few shots from barely active cameras confirming that just hours ago, they had been on the march, headed south and toward Wheatley. At least, he hoped they were still in Greece.

He had more immediate problems, the first trying to get a solid link established to Thebes’ Superintendent-class AI. In his pursuit of the goal, he’d had to crawl into a tight air duct underneath one of the hospital’s computer terminals. Though he couldn’t see anything outside the tunnel, he heard the young woman’s distinctly quiet steps enter the room.

“Moses? Are you in here?”

“Yeah.” He replied, hands still clamping together the line that ran to a communication grid. “Under here.”

She caught sight of the muddy soles of his boots. “Any luck?”

“If I don’t lose this wire. I’d have to thread it all the way into here again.”

Reo stepped up to the console, looking over the keyboard and blank screen. USB ports and dim status indicators covered the sides. There was a short burst of loud static and the screen flashed, causing her to jump back. Then an image appeared on the screen, a green square with an inscribed circle in a very basic depiction of a face.

A high, chirping voice began to emanate from a speaker.

“Hello, traveler. Are you anxious, confused?”

Moses heard Reo say, hesitantly, “Anxious. . . a little.”

The AI made a high-pitched tone and its ‘eyes’ turned into semicircles to look excited.

“Please remain calm! Spartans never die.”

That perked his attention. Wheatley had finished the uplink, and pushed himself out of the vent as quick as he could. Standing, he made Reo move aside as he started typing and studied another screen.

“One missed call. One new message.” The AI said, changing back to its wide-eyed normal appearance.

“What does it mean by that?” Reo asked. Wheatley tapped more keys.

“It means he’s picked up a signal. An open-channel hail, looking for people who survived the fallout. There’s a Spartan tag encoded.”

Excitement swelled up in her. Spartans. “Do they know where we are?”

“No.” he answered. “They’re just looking for anyone who answers, and I’m not able to transmit yet. I need more time, and maybe he’ll pick up the signal. But it’s a chance, and it means we might not be finished here yet.”

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1056 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

‘I failed them’ was the dominant thought in Kodiak’s mind.

Oshima had been lost, the Covenant had a beachhead, and the marines on it had been wiped out. But his greatest failure was that a member of his team was critically wounded. The plasma had burned through Sepia’s stomach and skin, causing major damage to internal organs. If it wasn’t for the cauterization the plasma had caused and a Spartan’s inherent ability to recover, she’d be long dead by now.

He sat outside the door of an intensive care unit deep under Ryu Base. Though he’d not bothered to take off his malfunctioning SPI suit, he’d set his helmet aside and held his head in his hands. Dyne was sitting at the other side of the waiting room. Though he had his helmet on and pointed between his feet, Kodiak could tell he was watching him.

Presently the door opened and a medical type with the name Kiku stitched on his suit stepped out, waving them both in. They got up and followed, entering a darkened room illuminated by the blue glow coming from a neutral-buoyancy gel tank. Sepia, in a simple form-fitting suit, floated inside it.

Her face was obscured by a respiration mask and her own dark strands of hair released from their usual ponytail, but he saw her slate gray eyes look up and identify the pair of armored figures. She stared in silence as the med looked down at a clipboard and began speaking.

“The organ cloning and transplant went well, extraordinarily what with her augmentations. Skin tissue is regenerating quickly. If there are no complications, she’ll be up and certified for active duty by late day after tomorrow.” As Dyne approached the ‘people jar’, the doctor moved aside with Kodiak. “But I do have worries of my own. She’s been insisting that she hears noises.”

“I heard that, too.” Her voice came through a set of speakers. She was staring angrily at them. “You seriously don’t hear it? It’s a grinding, and it’s getting louder.”

The doctor went on, “If this keeps up –”

Kodiak put an arm in front of Kiku, indicating for him to stop. Dyne had frozen, too, listening. He knew Sepia as his teammate, and when she said she heard something, he listened. But he wasn’t hearing anything. They were maybe a mile below the surface, in steel-plated corridors and sub-levels. All the same, he waited for nearly a minute before letting the medical tech continue, still half-listening for anything out of place.

“I think she may be exhibiting signs of PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder? If it keeps up, I’m sending her out of action.”

At first Kodiak tensed as if it were a personal insult. But then he rationalized the facts: she was hearing something that no one else was, and he had already known the experimental (and illegal) augments Commander Ambrose had put in were unstable at best. He still didn’t think it was PTSD. . . but now he was worried about whether she was going insane due to the augments, and whether it would catch up with him, and with all the Gammas.

Sepia was glaring at them. “I’m telling you, I hear something.”

Kiku looked at his clipboard, then at his watch. “Visiting hours are over, she needs sleep. You can come back in the morning, if this place is still here.” He walked over to a panel of buttons and began typing.

“I don’t want to sleep, I need to get out of here!” Her voice slowed as tranquilizing drugs kicked in. “We all need to. Get. . .”

She was out cold, the slate eyes closing. Kodiak swallowed nervously, but turned and walked outside, retrieving his helmet and ready to go wherever the command of Ryu Base needed his team. . . minus one soldier.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 02:00, March 18, 2011 (UTC)

43: I Don't Care What It Was Designed to Do
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

15:50 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Old Sea Fort #2, Tokyo Bay, Japan

Mikiya Ryougi flew his Falcon Gunship, along with the rest of his squadron, over Old Sea Fort #2, located on an artificial island in the middle of a strait roughly ten kilometers wide between Yokosuka to the west, a major port and UNSC Naval Base, now in Covenant hands, and the city of Futtsu, Chiba to the east.

The island itself was built in the late 19th century to defend the approach to Tokyo. The fort, along with Fort #1 to the west, was decommissioned after the Second World War, since then, had been home to a lighthouse. Never would anyone at the time of decommissioning have thought that the fort would ever again be used for its original purpose. Yet it was now being used for just that. Machine guns, Gauss cannons, and LAU-65 missile pods poked out from between chunks of broken concrete, the remnants of the 19th century fortress, that had been piled up by tankdozers to create a walls of debris. The lighthouse now house machine guns and snipers, the sides of island bristed with artillery: 105mm and 155mm howitzers aimed at Yokosuka, with a heavy plasma mortar from a Rhino and four Tarantula MLRS further back, and AAA, SAM batteries all over the island, and a mass driver mounted on the highest point on the island- only about 15 feet above the water. The other island, Fort #1, was similarly armed. Next to the islands, a couple of "wet" Navy destroyers, the UNSC Tsushima and the UNSC Johnston.

As Mikiya got near the island, Covenant plasma mortar started landing on the concrete structures. The UNSC guns opened up on the source of the gunfire, about a dozen ferries and a pair of large container ships, jury-rigged with Covenant plasma mortars onto bow or carrying Wraiths on deck. The Covenant had been known to make use of captured water transport, as the Covenant had few, if any "wet" naval vessels. The ships were escorted by Phantoms and Banshees.

"This the UNSC contingent on Sea Fort #2 to the 24th Attack VTOL Squadron, we have sighted a number Covenant-controlled vessels escorted by Phantoms and Banshees. We need your help dealing with the Covie aircraft until the Skyhawks and UCAVs from the UNSC Samar Sea get here and any assistance with the wet vessels would be appreciated.", a voice said through Mikiya's radio

SAM batteries on the island and destroyers opened up, sending streaks of fire at the nearest Covenant aircraft. Banshees exploded in midair and Phantoms went down in flames as the missiles impacted. Mikiya and the rest of the Hayabusa squadron flew at the Phantoms as UNSC and Covenant fire flew through the sky.

"Engage enemy aircraft at will", Mikiya said through his radio as he fired off six Argent missiles into the formation Banshees and Phantoms. Missiles swarmed at the enemy aircraft, sending Phantoms and Banshees down in flames left and right as Mikiya and the rest of the sqaudron drew closer the remaining Banshees and Phantoms.

"Aoi!", Mikiya said to his gunner, Aoi Miyazaki, but she interrupted his sentence as she said "I got 'em". Aoi Miyazaki squeezed the trigger as the 30mm cannon perforated the cockpit of a Banshee that flew straight at them. The Banshee went down in flames and crashed into the water below. Aoi took down three more Banshees as the rest of the squadron opened up with their cannons, cutting down Banshees.

As Aoi made mincemeat of the Banshees, Mikiya squeezed the trigger on his flight stick, firing a pair of LAU-65 missiles into the air intake of the engines of a Phantom, taking down the aircraft instantly.

The few Phantoms and Banshees that make it through both the SAMs and Mikiya's squadron were shot down by the AA guns on the two destroyers and the island. The wet cargo ships, meanwhile, were blown apart with by artillery shells and rockets from the island and anti-ship missiles from the Tsushima and Johnston.

"All attacking Phantoms and watercraft are destroyed", a voice said through Mikiya's radio. The person on the other end of the radio was suddenly interrupted, by a second person, who said, "Don't celebrate just yet, Covenant Corvette incoming!"

The person on the radio was indeed right. A Covenant Corvette flew over Yokosuka, towards the island. "All SAMs and Mass Drivers open fire!", the officer on the radio ordered. The mass driver, multiple SAM batteries, and the guns and cruise missiles of the two "wet" destroyers opened fire. Flames exploded over the front of the vessel, disabling the main plasma turrets.

"We've got her weapons and two of her engines disabled, any fighters available for airstrike?", the UNSC Johnston asked via radio.

"Negative, this is the UNSC Samar Sea, all our Skyhawks and UCAVs are busy engaging a Seraph squadron on deployed from the frigate."

"I'll deal with this", Mikiya said, "In orbit over Reach, a Covie corvette was disabled by a Sabre fighter using missiles to the rear engines. I'm going to do just that."

"Are you crazy?", asked Lt. Satou, "this is an attack aircraft. Its not designed to do that."

"I don't care what it's designed to do, I care what it can do!", Mikiya said as he flew off towards the frigate.

Mikiya pulled the throttle all the way forwards and lowered the props, flying the Falcon like a plane, dodging plasma torpedoes flying at him from the frigate as he rolled around to the rear of the Covenant spacecraft, locking onto the first of the two remaining engines.

The Argent missile flew right up the engine tube, sending it up in great fireball, before Mikiya fired the second missile, blowing up the final engine. The Covenant corvette no longer had anything holding it aloft. The vessel fell to Earth, landing in Tokyo Bay and sinking to the bottom.

"This is Hayabusa Lead", Mikiya said, "Scratch one corvette."

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

17:30 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Local Time)

Mountains west of Kamioka, Japan

I'll Be The Judge of That

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki sat on the floor of a cave in the mountains west of town of Kamioka, each of them held an Meal, Ready-to-Eat, in their hands. The MRE was packed in a tan-colored bag with the words "UNSC Meal, Ready-to-eat. Delicious."

"Delicious... I'll be the judge of that.", Keiichi commented. He had heard about the bad reputation that MREs had among UNSC service personnel, though, as a civilian, this was the first time he or Rena had eaten one.

The two MREs were of varieties, Keiichi's being labeled as "Pork Ribs in BBQ Sauce" and Rena's "Beef Teriyaki". The two of them each opened the bags on their MREs, revealing a box containing a smaller vacuum-sealed pack with main entree, a bag labeled as a "flameless ration heater", a packet of biscuits, a couple other sealed pouches containing bread or crackers, a beverage mix, in Keiichi's case, instant coffee, and in Rena's, a powdered sport drink. There were also small packs of salt, pepper, sugar, a plastic spoon, a book of matches, a moist towelette, some paper napkins/toilet paper.

Keiichi held up the flameless pouch and read the instructions. His English wasn't the best, but he got the basic idea.

"It looks like your supposed to folded the flameless heater over the MRE pouch and place it in this large plastic bag, Keiichi said, demonstrating to Rena. "Then", he said, "Add water and let it heat for about ten minutes." Keiichi got out the Camelback water pack he had scavenged off the UNSC soldier and poured in some water in both his and Rena's pouch."

Keiichi and Rena both propped their MREs on a rock as they cooked, before turning to the rest of the items they had scavenged from the UNSC Army soldier the night before. Keiichi picked up the M392 Designated Marksman Rifle with attached M456 airbursting grenade launcher. He looked through the scope.

"I don't think it's a good idea to be firing that", Rena said.

"I'm not", Keiichi said, removing the magazine from both the rifle and the grenade launcher, before continuing, "Nice, this scope is pretty impressive. The scope on the rifle had a maximum zoom of five times, optional night vision setting, and a laser range finder.

"It looks like this button switches vision mode", Keiichi said, pointing it out to Rena, "And this one, locks the rangefinder at a set range. I think that's for the airburst grenades".

Keiichi went on the examine the mode selector on the rifle. Apparently, the gun could be set to semi-automatic, burst fire, or fully automatic. Keiichi, however, kept it in safe mode. The grenade launcher had a similar switch, only it switched betweem "safe", "airburst", "proximity", and "impact".

Rena, meanwhile was examining the M6C SOCOM pistol. "It looks like if you have to put on this", she said, motioning to a sighting device attached to the UNSC helmet, "you can look down a scope". Rena handed him the helmet. In the side of his field vision, he could see the view from the sight underneath the pistol, which was still in Rena's hand. It was strange, looking down the sight of gun in someone else' hands. Rena pressed a button on the pistol, a laser sight turned on, projecting a red dot onto a nearby tree.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea to use that, the enemy might see it. Better to use the iron sights if you can't use the helmet.", Keiichi said as he pointed out the iron sights on the pistol.

As Rena put down the handgun, Keiichi took a look at the MREs.

"They feel ready to me, be careful, they're hot.", Keiichi said as he opened brought the MREs over to Rena.

As they opened up the MREs, Rena said, "Well, Itadakimasu".

Keiichi grabbed one of the pork ribs out of the pouch and took a bite.

"Well", Keiichi said, "It's not exactly five star, but at least it's food".

"It's something", Rena replied, "Food, I'm not so sure."

44: Reprimand
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1101 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

An aura of fear permeated the air inside Ryu Base’s command center as Kodiak and Dyne entered it. Junior officers ran back and forth in the soft lights emanating from a dozen or so readouts of the city, barely constraining panic as they handed grim reports of attacks, counterattacks, and movements of other operations in other parts of the world to stern old Navy, Army, and Marine brass.

No matter how many red dots covered the map boards, nothing looked as scary to them as the silhouette of their overseer, Lieutenant Erin Coney, glaring daggers at them from where she stood next to a tactical display.

“Hallway. Now.” She said quietly. The two didn’t need to hear her, they read her lips and malevolent expression as easily as they had after destroying some piece of valuable equipment during training. Leaving the dark room and stench of sweating logistics personnel behind, they filed out into the fluorescent light and waited for a Private on guard duty to depart.

She stared at the floor between her feet and let shadows from her dark hair mask her face for a moment as Kodiak and Dyne stood in uncomfortable anticipation.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

She more stated the question, still keeping her temper in check, but Kodiak knew there was no right answer. The moment he had the dim thought to try and respond, she began again, this time becoming louder as she spoke. “Oshima was a back-up objective, no one really anticipated a strike force that large, but it would have been the smart thing to do to regroup with your Army contingent, not stroll back to the mainland. But as if being cowards wasn’t bad enough, you chose to instead of falling back for new orders, to make an attack on an Elite Field Master, in the midst of his guards. Three, on seven.”

Dyne made the mistake of trying to correct her. “Actually, there were eight, if you count–”

“Do you really want to finish that thought?” she snarled, and he quickly shut up. “We were hoping that the Elite would lead his force into an area where we would have the tactical advantage, and then eliminate his army entirely from the battlefield. I had to pull strings and hold knives to throats to keep Command from finding out who mucked up their op. But even worse than these is that you, Kodiak, put your team into a dangerous position with no ordnance, no support, and no chance if the Covenant legion that Elite led had caught up to you. Sepia was almost dead, do you understand? Dead.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kodiak said, meeting her eyes. He knew Dyne, or Sepia for that matter, wouldn’t have hesitated to say they had both agreed to his plan, but he was their leader now. The responsibility for their decisions now fell solely on his shoulders. Coney studied him for a minute, and her icy stare relented.

“I’m actually grateful you did it.” She said, sighing. “The projected casualty estimate for that counteroffensive was through the roof. It may have saved quite a few soldiers’ lives. But it wouldn’t change anything in Command's eyes.”

There was a pause as a Navy Ensign ran by with a clipboard, entering the command center. All three of them relaxed visibly.

Coney resumed quietly. “Right now, we don’t have enough defenses to keep the Covenant capital ships off us. Navy assets are trying to get a position where they can give us orbital cover, but you know how they’re outmatched. In the meantime, we’re trying to get as many ground guns set up as we can.”

“You mean they can roll up right now and glass us?” Kodiak hazarded a question. “Why don’t they?”

“Command believes the Elites want to gain glory by wiping us out on the ground. You killed a Field Master, that’s going to make them seek revenge and for now they want to do it in person. But we make them think we’re winning, they’ll pull back and dust this place without a second thought. They need to think that until we really can defend ourselves.”

The ends of Dyne’s mouth curled upwards slightly. “So does this mean we’re being put on combat?”

“After all that, hell no. Recon and recovery.” Coney straightened up, and the two Spartans followed suit. “We lost contact with an Elephant transport moving pieces for a mass driver. Your suits are being repaired, they’ll be waiting for you in the technician’s bay nest to the motor pool, sub-level one.”

“Are we getting a vehicle?” Kodiak asked.

“You will be walking to their transponder location.” Coney said, smiling sarcastically at Dyne. Then the grin faded. “You do not engage hostiles without my express permission to do so. Is that clear?”

“Yes ma’am.” Kodiak replied.

“Good.” She said. Coney dismissed them, and turned back into the command center. As Dyne turned around for the elevators without another thought, Kodiak watched her go. In the room, he saw a screen displaying something that nearly stopped his heart. He recognized instantly from the landmass’ shape that it was Oshima, he knew from seeing it out of Bravo 029’s windows. Above the island, a Covenant destroyer loomed, its underbelly illuminated by the fires and cooling glass that were all that was left of Izu Oshima.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 23:01, March 29, 2011 (UTC)

45: Assault and Evade
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

23:30 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Local Time)

Kamioka, Japan

Keiichi Ryukishi slowly opened the door to a house on the edge of Highway 41, at the edge of the the town of Kamioka, Japan. He walked in, followed by Rena Sonozaki. The house was empty, the cabinets and refrigerator broken open, and ransacked for anything the Kig-Yar deemed edible. Several styrofoam meat trays lay strewn about the floor.

Keiichi and Rena crept across the room, Keiichi holding the silenced M6C SOCOM pistol at the ready, while Rena held the Covenant Beam Rifle she had carried since they escaped Shirakawa. The living room, however, was empty. The road beyond, however, was not. Keiichi and Rena ducked as soon as they saw the blue glow of Covenant anti-gravity engines.

"Covenant column, Several Wraiths and Shadows, multiple light vehicles. Let them pass."

Keiichi and Rena ducked below the windows of the house until the glow of the anti-gravity engines had passed. After a couple minutes, Keiichi took another peek outside. The highway was deserted. Across a ravine, near the Kamioka Elementary School, Keiichi has a clear view of a Covenant fueling station, complete with two large tanks of superheated plasma that glowed in the night.

By the light of the plasma glow and the Covenant worklights that shone around the school, Keiichi saw that the Covenant had converted it into a small base with a plasma fueling station, a motor pool, and a barracks. Current having it's plasma stores restocked was Type-47 Ultra Heavy Assault Platform, A Scarab, along with numerous other vehicles. It was too tempting a target. If they blew up the fueling station, they would strike a crippling blow to Covenant forces and their attempts to cross the Japanese Alps into UNSC held territory.

But how to destroy it and get out alive. Then Keiichi saw it. At the edge of the street, there was a storm sewer grate. That would be their escape route.

"I've found out next escape route", Keiichi said, pointing out the grate.

"That's a...", Rena responded.

"Relax, It's a storm sewer. It only carries rainwater.", Keiichi said, "But before we go underground, I'm gonna blow up those plasma tanks with my grenade launcher." As he finished speaking, Keiichi set the M456 Grenade Launcher on his M392 DMR to "Impact".

Keiichi half expected Rena to be reluctant, but apparently, the fire of rage against the Covenant still burned inside her, as she said, "Let's do this!"

Keiichi checked for incoming Covenant one final time, and found none. He and Rena walked across the deserted highway. Keiichi and Rena pried the storm sewer grate open and Rena dropped in, a drop of a little less than one and a half meters.

Keiichi knelt down in front of the concrete barrier on the edge of the highway and took aim at the nearest plasma tank with his DMR/M456. The readout on the scope read "Distance to target: 260.9 meters". Keiichi held his breath as he squeezed the trigger. The 25mm "smart grenade" fired. Unlike some earlier grenade launchers, the M456's round flew in a relatively straight line like a bullet. The grenade flew across the ravine and exploded on the side of the plasma tank. The skin of the plasma storage tank was breached, unleashing the burning gases within, setting of countless secondary explosions from the power cores of the Scarab and other vehicles, and the volitile contents of several Unggoy methane domes. The entire Covenant base was engulfed in flames.

As the alien base was annihilated, Keiichi climbed into the storm sewer and grabbed the grate from the top and replaced it. Keiichi crawled into the storm sewer, the tunnel was about four feet wide, more than wide enough to crawl through. Keiichi caught up with Rena, who was waiting about five meters ahead.

Rena lead Keiichi down the tunnel, as it slowly made it's way down an incline to the Jinstsugawa River. The tunnel crossed another grate over a major street. Rena stopped over the grate and looked up. A Wraith was parked directly over the grate, Its crew unaware that a pair of humans stood directly the intakes for the gravity drive boosters.

Rena put her finger over her mouth and pointed upwards as she got out a plasma grenade she had captured off an Elite the night before. The slits in the grate were wide enough for Rena to slide her hand through and insert the grenade directly into the rear booster, before pressing the arming button.

After Rena planted the grenade, Rena and Keiichi moved as fast as they could down the tunnel. They had made it several meters into when they heard and explosion and saw a flash of blue flames behind them. They crossed over another grate, not stopping until they reached the outflow into the Jintsugawa River.

"Hold it, Phantom", Keiichi said, stopping Rena as a Covenant Phantom Dropship flew over the river, chin-mounted searchlight activated. The Phantom passed over head, oblivious to their presence as it continued on down the river.

"All right", Keiichi said, "We cross now, go for that outflow on the other side."

Keiichi and Rena ran out of the outflow. The Jintsugawa River was shallow here, with many rocks in the water to act as stepping stones. Keiichi and Rena made it across without to much difficulty, and most importantly, without being caught by the Covenant.

The two survivors made their way up the storm sewer on the other side, following it to an abrupt end in the parking lot of a factory-type structure at the edge of a mountain slope. Keiichi and Rena looked around carefully for any Covenant that may be present, and finding none, Keiichi climbed out of the storm sewer first, followed by Rena, who he offered a hand up, which she took, gratefully. Keiichi then replaced the storm sewer grate and ran into the woods on the mountainside followed by Rena.

The two of them made their way up the mountainside in a zig-zagging path, lit only by the moonlight filtering in through the trees. After about six hours of hiking, they made it to the summit of a mountain peak, which according to the map Keiichi had with him was called Kuwasaki-yama. From the summit of Kuwasaki-yama, they could see the silhouettes higher peaks further east, moonlight reflecting off the snow on their summits. They had almost made it to the upper reached of the Northern Japanese Alps, and beyond that, was UNSC-controlled territory. They were almost safe.

"We're going to need to get over those peaks to make it the UNSC lines. It looks like that stream ravine running up the side of the mountains will give us the easiest route up. We'll make camp in the ravine and rest for a while." -

16:24 Hours, October 26th, 2552 (Military Calender)

Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine UNSC Seawolf, Pacific Ocean, East of Shizuoka, Japan

Underwater Warfare

"Sir", A UNSC sailor at the SONAR device aboard the Seawolf said to Captain Takashi Yanagi, "We have large contacts moving east on the ocean floor, approaching the Izu Peninsula, possibly Scarabs."

"Get the exterior cameras on them so we can no for sure", Yanagi replied.

The image from the exterior cameras appeared on the sub's main monitor. It showed five Scarabs, sealed up for underwater travel, walking along the ocean floor.

"Now hear this!", Yanagi said into the submarine's intercom, "We have sighted five Scarabs moving below us. All weapons crew, report to your battlestations and prepare torpedo tubes for launch."

In only a few minutes, five torpedoes were making their way towards the Scarabs, homing in on their acoustic signatures. The first Scarab was struck in the rear, exploding in a ball of blue flames as the power core exploded. The second, third, and fourth Scarabs were hit in the side, the torpedoes' warhead blowing holes in their sides. Bubbles of air floated up from the ruptures in the walkers' hulls as the vehicle was filled with water, drowning the Lekgolo worms and any troops aboard. The final Scarab was hit in the front, with similar results.

"All targets destroyed", Yanagi said into the intercom, "We are preparing to relocate". -

14:24 Hours, October 26th, 2552 (Military Calender)

Tateyama Air Base, Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, Japan

Low Level Strike

Mikiya Ryougi and Aoi Miyazaki climbed into the cockpit of their AV-144 Falcon Gunship. Mikiya activated the night vision systems as soon as the cockpit door closed, and pulled the throttle forward, starting the rotors and raising the VTOL upwards, off it's pad.

They were joined by only one other Falcon, piloted by Lt. Satou. They were headed north, across the Uraga Channel, towards Miura, flying through the darkness at an altitude of only about fifty meters, below the minimum elevation of Covenant heavy AA guns.

After about fifteen minutes, the aircraft drew withing a couple kilometers of the Covenant-held Miura Peninsula. Their target: A Covenant staging area. First they would go in and disable a large plasma core providing power for all the main AA batteries, before taking a Covenant Summit and destroying any parked aircraft, taking out a fueling station and as many parked vehicles as possible, and finally, strafing any Covenant Barracks they see.

"I've sighted the first target", Mikiya said through his radio, "I am marking it was Nav-point now. Fire on the target on my mark."

Mikiya placed a Nav Point on the target, before saying into his radio, "Hayabusa Two, You have permission to fire on the target, over".

"Roger", Satou replied, "Firing Scorpion Missile at the main plasma core now". Master Sergeant Nakata, Satou's gunner, locked onto the target and squeezed the trigger. A Scorpion anti-armor missile lit up the night, streaking through the sky, before it slammed into the plasma core, sending it up and huge ball of blue flames.

"Excellent shot, Two", Mikiya replied, press forward to the Covenant Summit. Only engage ground side Shade turrets and other targets if they present an immediate threat".

Mikiya and Satou flew their aircraft over the top of the sea cliffs, hovering just 100 feet or so above the farmers' fields that had been covered with pre-fabricated Covenant mobile base structures. The Summit, a control-tower-like Covenant structure surrounded by multiple VTOL pads, stood in the on the southern end of the base.

"Summit is in missile range", Mikiya said, "Miyazaki, light it up".

"Roger, firing ANVILs now", Aoi Miyazaki replied.

Mikiya watched as five ANVIL air-to-ground missiles flew at the tower, impacting the top, setting it ablaze in a ball of flames.

"Now, finish off those grounded aircraft before they can get into the air.", Mikiya said.

Aoi Miyazaki opened up on a Phantom with the Falcon's 30mm cannon, perforating the aircraft's body and setting it ablaze before strafing several Banshees and Vampire. Mikiya, meanwhile, locked onto a pair of parked Vampires with the LAU-65 missiles, one of the weapons under control of the pilot, and destroyed both alien aircraft.

Satou and Nakata, meanwhile, chewed up multiple Phantoms and Banshees with the 20mm rotary cannon Satou had mounted on the aircraft instead of his usual SPARTAN laser.

A group of Sangheilli pilots tried to make a run for a row of surviving Banshees, but Satou's rotary cannon reduced them to ground meat, before perforating their aircraft.

"All right, last group of targets", Mikiya said, "Take out any AA and destroy the barracks and the vehicle depot."

Mikiya and Satou flew towards main base, their gunners firing off Scorpion missile at a few AA Wraiths whose crews had managed to start up in time. Aoi Miyazaki fired off a pair of ANVIL missiles into the fueling station, setting it off in a ball of plasma, incinerating several Wraiths and Shadows in the blast. Satou, meanwhile, fired a Scorpion ATGW into the back of a Scarab Assault walker, piercing the back armor and detonating the plasma core in catastrophic plasma explosion.

Mikiya flew towards the remaining six Scarabs, one Artillery Scarab, and the rest standard assault variants. Aoi fired Scorpion missiles into the rear armor of two of them, destroying them instantly, while Mikiya took out the third with four LAU-65 missiles, two blowing off the rear plate, and two more taking out the core. Satou and Nakata destroyed the other three Scarabs, leaving all seven of the alien walkers as flaming wrecks.

Satou and Mikiya then expended the rest of their ammo on the rest of the Covenant ground vehicles, and the on the barracks. Missiles blew apart Wraiths, cannon shells raked rows of Shadows and Ghost, and missile and gunfire reduced Sangheilli huts, Unngoy Methane Domes, and Huragok Recharging Stations to burning ruins.

The raid was a success, but for every aircraft, vehicle, and soldier the UNSC took out so far, the Covenant seemed to have more. Something told Mikiya they had replacements for the ones he took out as well.

46
Operation: Holy Father

0430 Hours, October 24th, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Liverpool, Sydney, United Australian Federation.

Stanley's squad was traveling in style. They didn't really want to walk the entire way to Task Force Oscar's command HQ, so when the Covenant presented an oppourturnity in the form of a large Ghost convoy, they took it. Surprising the grunts on the ghosts, Bear managed to snipe several of the drivers, and in what had to be an utterly insane move, Stanley had ambushed one of the drivers from behind and knocked him off his own Ghost. After about half a minute, they had secured 7 Ghosts. They destroyed one, then drove off towards Task Force Oscar's location.

The stolen Ghosts were making travel significantly faster, not to mention dealing with the groups of Covenant that patrolled the streets significantly easier.

They soon made it to the location of Task Force Oscar. Pulling up at the HQ, Stanley could quickly see that they were not having an easy battle. Parts of the HQ and surrounding are were melted by plasma impacts, and there were several crashed aircraft around, mostly Covenant. A few AA guns were set up, as were defensive turrets.

"ODSTs?" A young lieutenant said, running up. "Wonderful. Hey, listen. You see that-" the lieutenant guestured off into the distance at a few former city blocks "pile of rubble? Mind helping us clear out that zone so our armor can advance?"

"Yes sir." Stanley said.

The squad cautiously headed towards the rubble, but it was for moot. It was downright chaos in that zone, with several squads of Covenant AND human infantry duking it out. Neither side wanted to risk getting armor across that incredibly uneven terrain and make life easy for hostiles with rocket launchers or fuel rod cannons, so they were sending infantry to duke it out.

An elite popped out from a piece of rubble and fired at them with a plasma repeater. Stanley ducked behind a piece of rubble, popped out and fired on a few advancing grunts, killing two and sending the rest scrambling for cover. A pair of banshees swooped down on a strafing run, firing plasma bolts and sending them for cover.

"GET DOWN!" Someone roared, which Stanley had already done. A rocket flew out from the side and slammed into the edge of a banshee, destroying it. The other one got the hint and flew off, evading a rocket that was sent after it.

It wasn't the last of their worries. Taking advantage of the banshees' sudden attack, a group of elites were advancing towards the human positions, even as a banshee-perhaps the one who had broken off just now-swung towards them and fired a fuel rod shot at the position of a squad of marines, blasting them in all directions. White fired a rocket at the banshee, which moved to the side. However, the heat seaking rocket made a course correction, swung back and slammed into the banshee, destroying it.

One elite with an energy sword leapt over a pile of sandbags and killed a few humans behind it, before scumbing to combied fire from elsewhere. Stanley opened fire on a elite headed for their position, sending him scurrying for cover. Stanley tossed a grenade at that elite, who rolled out, and a sniper shot rung out and removed the elite's brains.

"Nice shot, Bear." Stanely said, turning to the squad's sniper.

"I aim to please." Bear replied.

Plasma artillery roared overhead, but fell short.

"DOWN!" Stanley shouted again. More plasma artillery cannons-not the wraiths, the larger, semi-stationary ones-could be heard firing again, this time going far. After a few seconds, their accuracy improved, and a blast struck the ground about ten meters away from Stanley, throwing dirt into the air and a few unlucky army troopers. As if in response, UNSC mortars fired in the direction of the Covenant, and he spotted an elite go flying.

Their triumpth was short lived, as the Covenant artillery fired again, bombarding the UNSC lines.

Operation: Eternal Spirit

'''0600 Hours, October 24th, 2552. (Military Calendar)/'''

Steve-McGraw Corporate Tokyo Tower, Tokyo, Japan, Earth, Sol System.

The defensive line was a mess. The main entrance to the tower was covered in blood and bodies, with a mix of human and alien. (Though Adam was pleased to note that there were significantly more alien ones than human). They had been overrun, only for reinforcements to arrive from the upper levels, push back the Covenant, only to have the Covenant send more reinforcements. A few squads had arrived from Pelicans from the helipad earlier, and had given Adam a few hours of rest, which he had just woken up from.

"Spartan! You awake!" A young, nervous looking private said.

"What did I miss?" He asked.

"Not much, sir. The Covies made another push, but they finally cleared up some heavy-duty artillery. A battery of howitzers managed to reduce the Covie attack force by a good amount. A good thing too, since we heard they were sending a few Locust walkers our way."

"Good, good..." Adam muttered.

"They've been quiet though. I guess they need to regroup and get ready to fuck us over again."

"That's the most likely scena-" Adam paused mid sentence as he noticed one of the grunt bodies lying by the large hole in the wall get nudged by an invisible force.

He whipped his assault rifle upwards and sprayed at the general direction. A few bullets hit something, which flinched, revealing itself to be a cloaked elite.

"STEALTHIES!" A NCO shouted. Adam fired the rest of his clip into the elite and took out his shields, and his fire was joined by a few troopers, who quickly killed the commando elite. Meanwhile, a few other cloaked elites, seeing their stealthy approach go FUBAR, began firing away. An energy gauntlet appeared beside Sergeant Clark, gutting him. Adam blasted at the man's killer, and slammed another fresh clip into his assault rifle. Hearing a few steps behind him, he whirled around and activated his energy sword that he had borrowed from the Covenant frigate and slashed in a wide ark. An cloaked elite managed to parry with his blade, just in time to save his own life.

"Dumbass. What's the point of being invisible if you're so damn LOUD?" Adam said, smirking beneath his helmet. The elite evidently understood him, because he roared in anger and threw a kick at Adam, who evaded and made a thrust with the sword. The elite parried again.

"Look out beside you." Adam suggested. An army trooper fired a shotgun at point-blank range, blowing out the torso of the elite.

"Thanks." Adam said, pulling his assault rifle again. The lobby was a scene of organized chaos. Despite things, there were actually plans for stealth elite attacks, which basically consisted of "Everyone back up and chuck frag grenades". As crude as the plan sounded, it worked quite well, revealing the location of four elites, which were promptly gunned down, although they took a few troopers with them. Two more exposed their location when the threw plasma grenades into crowds of soldiers, only to have a whole lot of bullets in return.

The last two (Adam presumed) decloaked behind a group of soldiers and sliced them to bits with their energy swords until they too, were felled. Then all was silent for a few seconds, then a few troopers fired all over the room and when no elite's shields flared, we declared the room safe.

"Casualties?" An officer asked.

"We lost 30 troops. A trooper said. "Killed 10 of the bastards."

"Good. We're almost down evacuating. We only have to last a few more minutes for the last transports to arrive to evac us and that last group of civilians.

"Finally." Someone muttered.

The Covenant had the decency not to ruin things by attacking again, and in about ten minutes, the Adam and Lucia were boarding a transport falcon.

"Better get some rest, Spartans." The pilot said. "I'll bet you everything I have that its gonna be a busy battle for you."

The pilot's words turned out to be prophetic. As soon as the Falcon landed on one of Ryu's landing pads, a young-looking private lead them to a briefing room, where an army major was waiting for them. From what he could tell from his uniform, the major was in artillery.

"Sir." Adam and Lucia said at the same time, not saluting the major because they were in a warzone, despite being deep underground in a military base. The major keyed in a few commands onto his TACPAD, and a 3-D diagram of a few mass drivers and anti-aircraft guns built into a fortified bunker.

"These are one of our few anti-air and anti-ship assets in the city." The major noted. "In just a few hours, the Covies are planning to launch a full-scale assault on them. From what our recon drones tell us, their forces number just under two thousand infantry, in addition to armor support.

"You want us to reinforce the defenses on the place?" Adam asked.

"No. Colonel Shikata is confident that his men can repel the assault. I've sent one of my batteries to provide artillery support for the defenders. The major typed something else into the TACPAD, and a holographic representation of a large Covenant artillery piece appeared.

"Mega Turret." Adam muttered.

"You are familiar with this artillery piece then?" The major asked. "Good. Our AAA Guns are within range of this, but so far, the turrets being underground unless they have to fire have helped us a lot. However, we can be sure this will be used to support the assault." The major paused for a second, then continued. "Spartan, your mission is to ensure the Covenant end up bitching about the lack of artillery support during this assault." The Major paused, then continued. "They're jamming comms and sensors in the area, so its...difficult to hit it with our own artillery. We can't preform aerial recon because of all the Triple A in the area. So, we're sending you in to check it out."

"Why can't you call in orbital support to destroy the entire region?" Adam asked.

The Major laughed mirthlessly. "Son, I tried. But the fucking navy is spread so thin, we should be grateful if they can send us a postcard."

"I see." Adam said, then shrugged his shoulders. They could get the job done. "How do we get extracted?"

"After you take out the turret, just use your flares or smoke signals. We'll get a Pelican to pick you up."

"ASAP." The Major replied.

"We'll get suited up then." Adam replied.

"Good luck, Spartans."

The Pelican dropship dropped them off about 12 klicks off their target. It drew the attention of a Shade turret, but the Shade turret was persauded not to intervene with a couple of rounds from the heavy .50 cannon. The LZ was actually surprsingly quiet, if bloody. Broken bodies, both UNSC and Covenant littered the ground. Unlike the UNSC, the Covenant seldom bothered to bury the corpses of the enemies, instead leaving them to be burned when the orbital bombardment crews showed up. The activated their camoflage and crept towards their target, moving slowly.

"Grunts ahead." Lucia whispered. She pointed at a group of four grunts, all clearly bored enough to fall asleep. Adam drew his combat knife and stealthily killed all four in their sleep, and then moved on.

The region was, despite the fact that it was in Covenant-held territory, was surprsingly quiet. Other than the sleeping grunts and the Shade Turret that had fired on them, they hadn't seen any hostiles.

As if there to change Adam's mind, a Phantom dropship flew above them.

"Get down!" He hissed. Both Spartans lay flat on the ground, crawling slowly to a nearby alleyway. The Phantom flew off without even pausing, evidently not having seen the two Spartans.

As they got to three kilometers away from the Mega-Turret, the density of Covenant forces began to change. They could see, in the sky, the Mega Turret's deadly projectiles. Ahead, banshees patrolled the region, checking for teams of UNSC commandos on raids.

The two Spartans were crouched in another alley near a crossroads, observing a roadblock that blocked their way to the Mega-Turret. A squad of Jackals and two elites enforced the roadblock, with two plasma turrets being manned by grunts to back them up.

"Shade turret on the red apartment building's 6th floor balcony." Adam whispered, pointing at the Shade turret. The shade was clearly there to support the already impressive firepower the covenant at the roadblock could bring to bear on any attacker.

"We've got to just brute-force our way in." Lucia said, shaking her head. Adam nodden, and Lucia fired her sniper rifle at the grunt manning the shade turret. The jackals and grunts at the roadblocked yelped, and Lucia took advantage of that to take out the two plasma turrets. Adam stepped out and fired a few shots from his assault rifle at the jackals, who were recovering and getting into a protecive formmation.

Too little, too late. The grenade exploded, killing three jackals and leaving a hole in their phalanx. Adam took advantage of that, killing two more with shots from his assault rifle.

That just left the two elites. One of them charged recklessly at the two Spartan's positions and swiped at Adam with his plasma rifle. Adam dodged the attack and fired at point blank range. The elite staggered as his shield took the hits, saving his life.

Adam's assault rifle clacked empty. Without missing a beat, Adam pulled out his pistol and finished the elite, then reloaded his weapon.

The second elite took a more cautious approach, starting of by lobbing a plasma grenade. Adam and Lucia jumped out of the way and the elite fired his weapon. Plasma bolts whizzed over his head, and one grazed his thigh, melting a section off his armor but otherwise leaving him unharmed. Lucia fired a shot from her sniper rifle, exploding the elite's head.

The shootout had drawn the attention of other Covenant forces in the sector. A banshee dove down on them, and Lucia fired at it with her sniper rifle. Adam took another approach and manned one of the plasma turrets and fired on the banshee. The banshee took a few hits and began trailing smoke, and Lucia finished it with a sniper rifle shot to its side. The banshee exploded in mid-air and bits of molten metal crashed into the ground.

On the ground, a single elite, leading a squad of grunts charged towards them. Adam turned the plasma turret on the elite and quickly killed it, then turned his attention to the grunts, quickly killing them too.

"We gotta move!" Lucia shouted. Both Spartans took off, throwing stealth to the winds. Lucia shot a Jackal marksman in a balcony, and Adam stuck an elite with a captured plasma grenade. Leaving a trail of death and carnage, the two Spartans made it to the Mega Turret.

"Damn." Lucia whispered as the forces garrisoned there noticed them. A shade turret fired as the two Spartans ducked behind cover. Five grunts moved out to flush the Spartans out of cover, but were cut short by grenade. Lucia poked out and fired a pair of shots from her sniper rifle, taking out a plasma turret and an elite armed with a fuel rod cannon. Two elites moved forward, and Adam stepped out and fired away. Both elites ducked for cover, and Adam lobbed a plasma grenade which stuck to one elite's chest and exploded. The other elite opened fire again, but Adam dove behind cover and fired back, taking the elite out. He reloaded, then kept shooting away at the Covenant. Three grenades flew towards them, and the Spartans ran away from the large piece of debris they were using as cover. Lucia jumped inside a restaurant, while Adam took cover behind a burned out Wraith tank. He fired his assault rifle at a grunt, which staggered and fell, then gave the same treatment to the grunt's squadmates.

The remaining Covenant guarding the Mega Turret, consisting four elites that had avoided being killed through a combination of luck and skill took shelter inside the heavy artillery piece.

"Lets' go get them." Adam growled. He pulled out his captured energy sword-he'd been inside large Covenant artillery pieces before, and suspected the layout-small rooms, narrow corridors, ideal for CQB-were the same in the Mega Turret.

He was right. One elite ambushed him with his energy gauntlet, but Adam dodged the swipe and stuck his energy sword in the elite's chest. They ascendened to the upper levels with the firing control. Adam beheaded one elite, but a second one saw him and charged him, energy sword in hand. Lucia dropped him with the sniper rifle before he could get close.

The final elite was at the top level. He swiped at Adam with his energy sword, prompting Adam to duck and return the favor. Soon enough, both warriors were having a classic swordfight with their energy swords.

Adam kicked the elite in the groin. The elite staggered, and Adam went for the kill. The elite managed to parry at the last second, only to get tackled aside by Lucia. As the elite struggled to get Lucia off of him, Adam pluged his Energy Sword into the elite's neck.

"Mkay. Let's take this out." Lucia said with grim satisfaction.

"Wait. I don't think we should do that." Adam said. "Our extraction could take a while to arrive, and we would be stuck in here. We need to hold them off, perhaps see if we can repurpose this turret." Lucia nodded.

"We SHOULD plant the explosives first though. In case we get overrun, we can still blow this up."

"Give me the remaining explosives. You try to figure that-" Lucia pointed at the firing control board "-out."

As it turned out, the Covenant didn't put in much effort into electronic security. Adam took control of the Mega Turret, and then gazed at the viewscreens. He could see several of them providing him with what seemed to be live images from the air of the city. His suit's translation software was actually able to translate several of the glyphs on the viewscreens. The Mega Turret's control system was actually surprisingly simple, Adam thought.

It worked like this. There were several viewscreens, each showing live images of the city. He could cycle through the many, many, many views from the Covenant aerial or orbital surveillance craft. He could tap a glyph on the viewscreen to blast whatever was on the viewscreen.

Another screen allowed him to fire upon a set of listed co-ordinates. Adam ignored that one, and focused on cycling through the Covenant's aerial or orbal surveillance craft's images. He cycled through the images, pausing to blast unsuspecting Covenant troops. One of the viewscreens showed a Covenant comm's jammer. Adam looked at it for a second, then blasted it. As the viewscreen showed the comms jammer exploding a second after Adam tapped the glpyh his translation systems translated to "destroy", he suddenly was hit by a wave of radio traffic. An army unit said something about a wraith column, followed by what seemed to be an artillery team. Adam wondered if he had managed to get the comms jammer jamming communications near the Mega Turret.

"This is Seirra Three-oh-Nine, does anyone read me? Repeat-"

"Spartan! This is Oscar-562, we're headed to pick you up. Did you blow the comms jammer too?"

"Yes."

"Great. Um, listen. There are these gentlemen who are keeping us away with a rather impressive Shade turret. I was wondering-"

"Their coordinates?"

There was a pause, then the pilot rattled off a few numbers. Adam tapped them into a viewscreen, and he heard a boom in the distance.

"What the-Spartan, did you commandeer the Mega Turret?" The pilot asked.

"Yeah. We figured it would look like fun." Adam replied. "Seeing as the Covies like it so much..."

"Right. We're coming in fast. Get on and blow that thing up."

The Pelican swooped in, and both Spartans jumped inside. Lucia thumbed the detonator, and the Mega Turrret exploded, leaving nothing but scrap metal. Adam could see how convenient the timing of the Pelican was. A column of Wraiths were on the way to recapture the Mega Turret.

Operation Divine Son

1812 Hours, October 24, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

East of Galičica Mountain, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

Dagger was nervous. Anyone would be. They were flying towards a the Covenant pylon. Below them, Steiner, Wong and Gary were driving the Grizzly. They weren't enough to fully crew it, and while Wong was part of an tank unit, he drove Scorpions. Steiner was infantry. It wasn't ideal, but if everything was, the UNSC wouldn't be making a final stand on Earth.

"We have a visual on the pylon." Norman called out. "Gary? Are you there yet?"

"We're there sir. Start giving us co-ordinates."

"Alright."

"There are two Shade turrets, just about a meter away from each other on that hill. I'm uploading the co-ordinates now." Janice noted. "They're the variant that shoots fuel rods, so you should get those first."

"Copy that. See anything else we should take note of?"

"There's a pair of hunters on that hill across of the two shade turrets. They're not doing anything at the moment you blast those shades, they will be. There are a few grunts with fuel rod cannons-I'll try to get most of them and two Revenants. There are three plasma turret on the actual pylon, with grunts manning them. Two more shades, not the fuel-rod variant at the base of the pylon."

"Right. Engaging shades...now." From up there, Norman could see the shade turrets explode in a blue and green fireball. The covenant, surprised by the explosion quickly began headed out to investigate. The pair of hunters were next, blasted apart by the 120mm round. The tank rolled into view, and the 12.7mm machine gun came to life, blasting away at the Covenant. He heard Janice firing away with her sniper rifle, trying to clear out as many grunts with fuel rods as she could. The majority of the Covenant were trying to get the Grizzly or get to cover, and so far, the Grizzly was doing well.

"Okay. They seem distracted. Janice, snipe the shade operators and then let's GO! Gary, start retreating." Norman ordered. There were two cracks from a sniper rifle, then.

"Done." Janice declared.

"More than happy to comply." Gary said.

Norman brought the Falcon on to the Covenant pylon, and Janice and Kevin jumped out. Kevin had a pack of C-12 on him, and he planted the explosive. A trio of elites, noticing the threat headed back towards the pylon and away from the retreating tank. Too little, too late Norman thought in satisfaction. He opened up with the Falcon's chain gun, killing the elites before they could do much.

"CLEAR!" Kevin shouted.

He evaded to shots from a fuel rod gun and killed the offending grunt. He then moved the Falcon to the pylon, where Gary and Janice jumped on board, and he flew out of there.

"Gary, have you broken off?"

"Yep. We've sustained minor damage, nothing a few spare parts won't be able to fix."

"Good."

There was an explosion from behind them, and the bottom part of the Pylon exploded, sending the top part falling towards the earth. Cheers rung out over the comm as they retreated back towards Kopis. Behind them, they left a scene of general chaos, with many dead Covenant and even more shocked. There was no way they could catch up to them on foot.

"I'm going to try to communicate outside of the region." Norman said, after a short while. He sent one up to FLEETCOM. "FLEETCOM, this is SPARTAN-G124. Can you hear us?" No response. He tried two more times, then gave up.

"Didn't work, did it?" Gary asked.

"Nope."

"The bastards probaly have redundant systems. You know, just incase a ragtag team of army and Spartan super soldiers decide to blow one of their pylons up." Janice commented.

"Well, they sure knew what they were doing." Gary said gloomily.

"Well, we didn't exactly do NOTHING." Kevin pointed out. "If they were guarding it, they definitely wanted it to stay up. And we took it down."

"Yeah, but now the Covies will be all over our asses now." Corporal Steiner pointed out. "Since we can't call for help, we either did nothing, or pissed off the Covenant enough that we're even more screwed that before."

The rest of the trip back to Kopis, or what remained of it, was made in silence. As the Falcon touched down, Crewman Lane, obviously jittery from having to hold down the fort all on his own, was there to greet them.

"How did it go?" He asked.

"Fine. We destroyed our target, but communications out of the region are still jammed. They must have redundant jammers in case one of their jammers gets destroyed."

"Well that sucks." Lane muttered."

2012 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Outskirts of Thermopylae, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic

Ultra Domo Jara 'Karumee could not believe his eyes, putting it mildly. Enormous pieces of debris littered the ground from what remained of the corvettes.

"By the gods." He whispered. "The demons...they will pay for this." He growled. ''Thousands dead. I would have been among them too.'' He thought quietly.

"Excellency." Major Domo Pala 'Moramee said. "What shall we do now?"

"We shall first make contact with the nearest barrack. I believe that is the Fortress of Eternal Devotion-to the north."

"Very good, Excellency. Shall we depart-"

"Now. We cannot waste any more time." Both elites climbed back in the banshees and took off, flying towards the Fortress.

Their trip was completed in a few hours. Once they were within range, Jara sent a message to the Fortress.

"Fortress of Eternal Devotion, this is Ultra Domo Jara 'Karumee. I bring grave news. The Fervent Admiration and the other ships in its battle cluster were destroyed by the humans."

There was a pause, and then he got a reply.

"By the Gods! Do you know what destroyed them?"

"No. We were away on a patrol when the attack happened. We were informed about the attack, but shortly after, we lost contact. After investigating, we found remains from the ships, although suspiciously little."

"One moment, excellency. Field Master 'Lazarmee wishes to speak with you. You are cleared for landing at landing pad 15. You will be directed to the field master afterwards."

"Thank you."

'Lazarmee was an impressive commander. He had served in several campaigns throughout the war, and was known among his troops for his skill with the blade, and also as a relentless hunter of enemy troops.

Pala was not allowed to speak with the field master, and was required to wait outside 'Lazarmee's quarters while Jara made his report. After Jara finished, 'Lazarmee spent several seconds in thought, then after a while, spoke.

"Interesting...the infidels HAVE been busy..."

"Excellency?"

"We have recently suffered a string of attacks, only a unit ago. We lost contact with several units and air patrols. We suspect attacks from human insurgents. It...surprises me to know they have been so successful at resisting occupation in your sector. But the armada IS, after all, full of warriors that use their ships to fight for them because their own strength is not great enough."

Jara fought the urge to hide his anger. "What are you getting at, Excellency?"

"Now that your previous post has been effectively decimated, you will assist us. You say you were searching for teams of these demons. You will continue your search here.

Norman-123 09:50, April 11, 2011 (UTC)

47: Special Delivery
3:24 Hours, October 27, 2552 (Military Calender)

Gotenba, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

Mikiya Ryougi's Falcon Gunship flew towards a high-rise apartment building in Gotenba, along with the rest of his squadron.

"This is the 24th Attack VTOL squadron", Mikiya said into the radio, "We are inbound to provide supplies and support."

"Excellent, we've been holed up in this apartment, fighting off wave after wave in this building and are low on ammo.", a UNSC soldier replied, "Drop the supplies on the rooftop".

"Roger", Lt. Satou replied.

Satou's Falcon's ordnance bay was loaded with three resupply canisters instead of the usual missile loadout, leaving him only with the Argent missiles he carried on his wings, the twin M41 LAAGs in the forward weapon mount, and the nose-mounted SPARTAN Laser. There was also one other Falcon, Hayabusa three, that carried a reduced armament in exchange for a large flat portable armory under the fuselage.

The three supply canisters and the portable armory were dropped onto the room. The soldiers manning the defensive position in the apartment, a group of UNSC Army troops and militia, walked over to the landed supply canisters and opened them, removing a number of BR-55 and MA5B rifles, some with grenade launchers, an SRS 99 sniper rifle, a pair of M41 dual-purpose missile launchers, even a SPARTAN Laser, and a large supply of ammunition for all the weapons.

"Arigato", a militia soldier said through the radio, "These weapons should help us hold out until reinforcement arrive from Camp Fuji."

At that moment, Plasma mortar rounds started flying through the air, exploding in balls of blue flames.

"We have sighted three Wraiths, about a click to the southwest", Mikiya said to the UNSC in the building, "We'll handle these guys.

Mikiya turned his aircraft toward the lead Wraith and Aoi Miyazaki locked on an fired a Scorpion missile. The alien vehicle explode in a ball of flames, a fate that the second and third Wraiths soon joined in, struck by a second missile from Aoi and Satou' LASER, respectively.

"Threat neutralized", Mikiya said through the radio.

"Nice shooting, Hayabusa", The civilian militiaman on the radio said, "We've got about a dozen of Ghosts and Brute Choppers inbound from the east, near the station, supported by about five Wraiths and two Locusts".

Mikiya and Hayabusa Five flew towards the Wraiths and Locusts. Aoi fired off three Scorpion ATGWs, taking out two Wraiths as Hayabusa Five fired off a couple more missiles, finishing off the last of the Wraiths as a 102mm missile from the infantry in the apartment took out the remaining Locust.

Meanwhile, the Brute Choppers, Ghosts, and other light vehicles had gotten in range of the UNSC troops on the building and were firing their guns up a the troops inside. The UNSC infantry replied with rockets and machine gun fire. One by one, the Covenant vehicles fell to heavy gunfire, exploding in balls of blue flames.

Mikiya's radio crackled to life, "This UNSC Army 205th Armored platoon from Camp Fuji, ETA at your location, five minutes".

"Acknowledged, 205th", the civilian militiaman replied, "We'll hold the line until you get here."

As the UNSC soldier spoke, more Locusts, supported by a pair of Gorgon AA walkers, about a dozen of them, walked over the wreckage of destroyed buildings. The Covenant walkers charged up their cannons and fired at the apartment block. A chunk of concrete was blown off the side of the building.

"Is anyone alive downthere", Mikiya asked into his radio, "Affirmative", the civilian militiaman on the radio said, "Only about three dead, a few wounded."

"We'll call in evac bird as soon as we hold off this attack.", Mikiya said.

As Mikiya spoke, the two Gorgon walkers opened up with their heavy Needler turrets. Mikiya had to fly behind the apartment to avoid getting hit.

"We can't help you with those Locusts until I deal you deal with those Gorgons", Mikiya said.

"Already on it", the militiaman replied, as a SPARTAN Laser shot streaked across the sky, melting straight through the top turret of the Gorgon, sending it up in blue flames. The second Covenant AA walker was destroyed when two 102mm anti-tank missiles struck the top.

As soon as the AA was taken out, Mikiya and the rest of the Hayabusa squadron sprung into action. Scorpion missiles and laser fire blew apart one Locust after another. But the battle was not over yet. A Scarab stepped over the wreckage of destroyed structures and vehicles, towards the UNSC position.

"All units", the commander of the UNSC troops in the building said over the radio, "Focus laser and rocket fire on the Scarab's legs."

M41s and the lone laser on the apartment towers blazed. A massive fireball engulfed the forward left leg of the Scarab. It fell to it's knees as the snipers in the tower picked off Covenant troops on the deck. Hayabusa three and four hit the vehicle's AA turret with a barrage of ANVIL missiles, disabling the gun.

The main gun, however remained, and was preparing to charge. Mikiya flew his Falcon gunship around the back of the Scarab and hovered in front of the rear plating. Aoi Miyazaki fired a Scorpion missile at the rear plating, blowing it clean off, exposing the power core. Mikiya fired a pair of LAU-65 missiles into the core. Blue flames erupted from the sides of the Scarab as Mikiya backwards, away from the doomed walker. The walker exploded in a bright flash of blue flames.

A few minutes later, the UNSC armor showed up. Mikiya and the rest of the squadron flew off as casualties from the battle were loaded into the back of a Cougar APC.

48: Fallen Brothers
Operation: DIVINE SON

0904 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calender)/ Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Wheatley let his face fall into his hands. Despite his best efforts, the hospital’s radio systems had gone dead. The circuits and wires running to the transmitter on the roof were just to damaged, and within minutes of trying to send a signal, had fried and become useless entirely.

There was little chance anyone had heard the short burp of static he’d sent, and even if they had heard it, they wouldn’t know what it meant or likely where it even came from. At that moment, in the dark radio room, Wheatley felt like he was the only human soldier in all the world, and not capable of saving anyone on his own.

The moment passed. He’d learned long ago, before even the Covenant found Harvest, that there were days like these. And there was no good in moping around, wallowing in self-pity when there was work to be done.

Standing back up and returning to the console, he kicked a medical supply box into a place where he could use it as a place to sit, and started typing commands. Thebes’ Superintendent was still online and connected, he’d glean all the information he could from it to start.

“Bring up all security, emergency, and traffic cameras showing activity.”

With pride. Vyrant-Telecom is your eye in the sky.

“What are you doing?” Reo asked, sitting behind him. With his mind so intensely focused, Wheatley would have liked one of the cheap soldier-brand cigarettes just to keep the rest of his body and subconscious busy, but didn’t have a lighter or the willingness to indulge on a long-dead habit. Instead, he shifted his attention between the dozen video feeds that the Super pulled up.

There were bank and office cams spread across the city showing packs of scavenging Jackals that had abandoned the Covenant force to loot, not surprising. There was even a Brute kill team prowling around, but they were in the streets almost on the other side of the city. No immediate danger.

“Super, can you get anything from outside through landlines?”

Apologies. All lanes free of traffic.

Was there nothing, no one out there? Well, maybe he could at least set things up, so that when someone did arrive, there would be a place to start. "See if you can reach some of the other Superintendents. Get us a better picture of what's happening."

It took a few minutes, but five screens popped up showing different places around Greece, each with varying amounts of static. One he recognized as the village he, Reo, and Henri had been hiding in, and one read as somewhere near Athens, but the rest he couldn't identify. Maybe if he could find some landmarks. ..

An alarm suddenly screamed electronically, and the Superintendent drew up one of the Thebes monitor cameras. Wheatley saw he'd found movement. A steady stream of Jackals, armed with shields, pistols, and carbines, headed straight for them. The radios would have to wait.

He retrieved his battle rifle, and set the spare clips into place on his belt. As he checked the ammo counter, it was unsettling how unfamiliar it felt. He'd spent more than twenty years on the blood tray of Bravo 029. He hadn't been in a firefight for a long time. Wheatley hoped it was like riding a bicycle.

There was one more thing he had to do. Pulling the M6/SOCOM he'd taken from the body of the ODST, he checked the safety, and turned to Reo. He took her wrist and put the grip in her hand. She was trembling slightly. "If they get in here," he told her, overriding any chance of protest, "use it."

Then he left, hurrying to find the two marines outside and dig in. Three on thirty were bad odds.

The odds never had been in his favor.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1156 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki Ward, Tokyo, Japan

Solid pavement trembled under the massive weight of a four-legged behemoth. Whereas they had been choked in the tight streets of New Mombasa, here on Japan’s massive superhighways the refitted excavation walkers had a convenient mode of transportation and readily used it.

From directly below, you could look up at its smooth armored hull and as the legs crumbled polycrete, its carapace seemed separate from them and passed low overhead, like a shark floating over a reef in search of its next meal.

Ignoring what seemed to be another cluster of abandoned commuter cars, the shadow of the Scarab passed over like an intangible wave of evil energy, blotting out the sun wherever it went. Then, just as quickly, it moved on and mercifully left this place intact.

As it continued on, in its wake something moved. Kodiak and Dyne deactivated the cloaks of their SPI armor, got to their feet, and kept going in the opposite direction.

Jogging up beside Kodiak and swinging his new battle rifle in the cradle of his arms, Dyne exhaled in relief. “Whew! Look at the size of those things! Nothing like the hologram models.”

“Yep. That’s because you’re up close and not looking at it from the top down. Air support will probably bring it down soon, if they can maintain air superiority.” Kodiak decided not to look back all the same. As if the size and armor of it wasn’t bad enough, it was bristling with plasma turrets and could hold two infantry squads. Not to mention the main gun. “And they’re relying on us to get the anti-air guns online to keep that superiority. So let’s be less in awe of the Covenant and move faster.”

“Right.” Dyne reactivated his cloak and moved ahead, his outline blurring in the shadows of Kawasaki’s industrial complexes.

Kodiak was content to take it slow. This was far from an urgent mission if what Lieutenant Coney had said was true. They had been resupplied at Ryu Base, taking what they wanted from a small armory cache. Most of it was Marine gear rather than Navy or Army, as they had usually used, but Dyne was content with the BR-55HB and M7 SMGs. Kodiak had taken an older MA5B, which felt substantially heavier to him and slower even if the 60-round mags were a plus. An M6G was on his thigh, and he’d even swiped a suppressed M7 when the ODST guards weren’t looking. It wasn’t much, but the Spartan-IIIs had decided to travel light.

It had quickly become apparent to Kodiak and Dyne that Kawasaki was not a nice neighborhood.

This portion of the Tokyo megalopolis had long been dominated by industry. Shadows fell from the silent towers of oil and chemical plants, and despite constant street cleaning by sanitation and automated crews, residue had settled over everything. Pollutants and organized crime had made these streets empty long before the Covenant invaded, but in the face of invasion even they were gone, not willing to risk their lives looking for something of use among the buildings.

Just the kind of place a Spartan-III could get used to.

In the shadows with black walls as backdrops, the SPI suits hid them much better than in the forests on Onyx. A number of Jackal scouts had found that out too late.

“Marcus would have had a heyday here.” Dyne said as they came within range of their target. “Nothing but empty buildings and to hell with collateral damage. . . he’d be like me on a shooting range.”

Today, his vocalized thoughts went unanswered. Kodiak was thinking about Sepia, and to a lesser extent Marcus, Sam, and other Gammas. Especially troubling was her claim of hearing voices. The Spartan-IIIs were practically invulnerable to shock, but that gave rise to another possibility. Maybe Gamma Company’s experimental augmentations were having side effects. It worried him a lot more than simple shellshock could have.

Maybe it was better not to dwell on it. The target was in sight. He and Dyne were already hidden, but moved behind the cover of a parked car just in case. Kodiak raised his hand to the side of his helmet and tried to hail anyone in the giant Elephant troop transport.

“Ion Team Leader to M312-TT Blue-Three, come back. . . Ion to Blue-Three, respond.”

No answer. The giant tracked vehicle stayed put where it sat in the middle of the street. Only the far-off gunfire sounded.

Dyne shifted, and lay prone at the bumper, using his rifle’s scope to get a closer view.

“Ion Team hailing any immediate friendly forces. Anyone hear this?”

There was still nothing. Then Dyne said, unsure, “Kodiak, check the body out in front of the Elephant.”

Glancing at the marksman, he activated the binoculars in his HUD, and zoomed in on the still form, clad in black. ..

“Oh, no.” Kodiak resisted the urge to break cover, and asked, “Area clear?”

“Looks like it. Can’t be sure yet.”

It was good enough. He broke cover, running out toward the vehicle. It was a stupid thing to do, running out into the open with no cover. But the still SPI suit demanded attention.

Kodiak kneeled by the body, checking with his hand for a pulse as Dyne stood nearby, checking the area with his rifle. There was no pulse. He cursed quietly and stood back up, walking around. He keyed his com. “Ion-1 to overseer, come in.”

The answer came after a brief moment. “Ion-1, we have you.”

“Coney, you neglected to mention that you had lost contact with a Spartan team.” The light burst of static gave him a moment to recompose, standing still as he waited.

“Information is on a need-to-know basis. Most special forces teams deployed here are to have as little contact as possible. But I didn’t know about them either.”

She disconnected the link from her end. Kodiak looked at Dyne, who was now on one knee next to the body. “Who is it?” he asked. “Gamma?”

Dyne drew a set of aluminum tags and paused. “Negative. Alpha.” Kodiak allowed himself a sigh of relief. Dyne continued. “Brutto-A068. Weren’t they all supposed to be killed in PROMETHEUS?”

“Yeah. . .” Kodiak said absent-mindedly. Then another thought hit him. “Dyne. . . it’s Brutto. Corporal Brutto.”

Behind his visor, Dyne’s mouth must have hung open as he got the implication. Corporal Brutto had been a DI on Onyx, one of Alpha Company’s washouts. He and the other washout trainers were particularly vicious, having plenty of reason to spite the Gammas. Dyne looked back at the SPI helmet. “So Ambrose really did get the rest of Alpha Company deployed after all.”

“Search the transport.” Kodiak said, and Dyne immediately hopped up on ‘the front porch’ of the Elephant’s lower deck and disappeared from view. After searching the vehicle over, they pulled two other SPI-clad bodies out and laid them on the sidewalk.

From how they’d been lying, Kodiak guessed the other male had been firing one of the mounted turrets when a plasma bolt had hit him square in the chest, melting his tags with it. Sonya-A482 had been at the control console, and appeared to have been stabbed by an energy sword and left there. Brutto must have been removed from the heavy vehicle before being executed. The bruise around his neck suggested a garrote.

“Who. . .” Dyne stopped himself. Nothing else needed saying. No ordinary Covenant warrior could bring down a Spartan team, not even a group of them. If a Spartan was outmatched, they fell back and regrouped, but these three must have been ambushed. It didn’t bode well.

Kodiak had relayed the two known names and numbers to Coney. The tags stayed where they were. “We’ll come back.” He said. “With Sepia. We’ll find out who did this. And then we’ll get some payback.”

But at the moment, they had places to be. Kodiak took the Elephant’s controls, and Dyne got aboard the turret. The AA guns needed to be set up. But there would be plenty of time later on.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

0438 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sydney, Australia,

Hunter threw himself out of the way as more artillery came down. It washed the side of a building in blue light, and sent it crumbling down into the street. The ODSTs of Task Force Oscar and Australia’s few Army Troops scattered as heavy chunks of debris came down.

“Mitch!” he heard Kevlar yell, and he raised an arm to let him know he was still alive.

The Covenant attack force was falling back, preferring to shell them out against another ground assault. Maybe it had just been a front while they got the cannons into place. No matter. As the fighting went on, he had heard a squadron of Fox guns were moving into position for counterattack.

The Grunt infantry they’d abandoned to cover the retreat was more of a problem.

It wasn’t that they were quality fighters, hell, an ODST could take on a squad or two by himself and come out without a scratch, but these were panicked, and had enough explosives to take out a squad in the right place.

And the troopers who had been repelling the assault were now scattered. In the road beyond Mitch and his squad’s barricade, men trying to fall back were running right into suicide Grunts. His own squad was more than halved, and one was wounded. Kevlar was frantically trying to keep pressure on one man’s stomach, all the while explosions shaking the ground around him.

When would morning come? Mitch’s thoughts drifted, and he realized he’d last watched a sunrise. . . maybe Sigma Octanus? That had been before even Reach. He wished he’d paid more attention to those little things if he and his unit were all going to die now.

A hand appeared in his vision. Looking up from where he sat, he found himself looking up at a Staff Sergeant. “Come on!” he was shouting. “Help us lay down a suppressing fire or those people are screwed!”

Mitch grabbed the hand and felt himself hauled to his feet. He nodded at the man, then wheeled around and leveled his battle rifle. More ODSTs joined him and Dansen and Kevlar, and as SSgt. Stanley called out shots, the troopers set up firing zones and looked after the Helljumpers falling back. Any time a Covie got too close, a quick burst or rifle fire or a sniper round put it down quick.

“We need to hold the line!” the Staff Sergeant was yelling. “Shortswords are targeting the artillery, but we need to keep the infantry from making another charge!”

And they held it. After ten minutes, the Grunts stopped lighting grenades and began taking potshots with pistols and needlers. In twenty, Jackals showed up to try pushing forward, only to be pushed back by grenades.

After twenty-five minutes of solid fighting, everything was quiet. Above them, the tops of buildings were glowing in the pre-dawn light. And in the shadows of the high-rises, the ODSTs stood fast.

The air was cool, Mitch could feel that through his bodysuit. Dew was collecting in his scope’s glass lens, and presently he wiped it off with his thumb, when heavy boot steps approached from behind. Mitch turned his head, and then forced himself up from where he’d been laying for the past half-hour. A Lieutenant Colonel had come out to join them.

He and Stanley stood and saluted, and the LC returned it. “Staff Sergeant. Corporal. Are you two the squad leaders that responded?”

“That’s affirmative, sir.” Mitch reported.

He nodded. “Lieutenant Colonel Zanovich, XO of Task Force Oscar. Your squads are being relieved here. You have a bit of rest, Colonel Perez wants to speak to you at the command post. Hop to it, then.”

“Yes, sir.” They replied, and the two beleaguered squads pulled their equipment off the sandbags as other troopers took their places. They’d fought hard to earn this bit of territory, and they didn’t feel too keen just letting someone else take it, but after last night a bit of R&R seemed enticing. They moved out toward the building, hoping to find out what would be their next move.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:24, April 14, 2011 (UTC)

49: The Final Ascent
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

845 Hours, October 27th 2552 (Local Time) Mountain Lodge Sohroku, Northern Japanese Alps, Japan

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki sat on a picnic table outside Mountain Lodge Sohroku, a lodge built in a gap between to mountain peaks in the Northern Japanese Alps. They had abandoned their system of nighttime travel as they were so high in the mountain- there weren't likely to be any Covenant here. on the other side of the gap, they could see a ravine that lead down into a steep walled canyon cut into the side of the mountains, and beyond that, the UNSC controlled valley.

Suddenly, they heard the sound of aircraft engines, not the engines of a Covenant Banshee or Phantom, but the sound of the rotors of a UNSC Falcon tiltrotor.

"Look!", Rena said, pointing at the aircraft.

"It looks like its landing on near that mountain, Yarigadake according to the map.", Keiichi replied, "I think there's a mountain lodge like this one near the summit."

Keiichi picked up his DMR, increasing the zoom of the scope to five time. He could see the lodge clearly, the Falcon was offloading troops. Keiichi put down his DMR before the troops caught site of him- he didn't want to shot by his own side- and turned to Rena.

"There are UNSC troops holding the lodge on Yarigatake. It'll be a shorter trip than going down that canyon, even if it is uphill", Keiichi said.

A few minutes later, Keiichi and Rena had refilled their water bottles in one of the patches of snow that lay scattered around the lodge and slung their supplies over their backs and started along the trail to the summit of Yarigatake.

- Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT 1005 Hours, October 27th 2552 (Local Time)

Near the summit of Yarigatake, Northern Japanese Alps, Japan

After a couple of hours of climbing, Keiichi and Rena neared the final ascent to the the jagged peak of Yarigatake. The name was appropriate, coming from the mountain's resemblance to the point of a spear or yari thrust up into into the sky.

The two survivors climbed up the winding trail up to the summit, breathing heavily in the thin air, they were nearing 3000 meters above sea level, and by the time they reached the lodge they would be at an elevation of about 3,072 meters - 10,080 feet above sea level. As they neared the summit, a UNSC soldier walked down to meet them.

Keiichi and Rena put down their weapons and waved at the UNSC soldier, as Keiichi yelled "Over here!", first in Japanese, then in English. As the soldier, an Army Sergeant of Japanese ancestry whose name tag identified him as "Matsuda".

"You two okay?", Matsuda asked as he drew within a few feet of them.

"Yeah", Keiichi said, his breath hanging as a mist in the cold air, "We're fine".

The two of themselves gave a brief introduction to Matsuda, and stated that they had escaped from Shirakawa. When Keiichi got to their exploits in Kamioka, Matsuda said, "That was you guys!? I saw that explosion from here!"

Before Keiichi or Rena could respond, the sound of Covenant aircraft engines filled the air. Several Phantoms and Spirits flew in from the east. Most of them headed in towards the lodge, a Banshee broke off from them, flying in for a strafing run.

The nearest cover was a boulder several meters away, there was no way Keiichi, Rena, or Matsuda would make it in time. Instead, Keiichi grabbed the DMR from the ground and switched the attached M456 grenade launcher to "proximity" detonation.

Keiichi aimed in the general direction of the alien aircraft and squeezed the trigger three times, sending three 25mm grenade rounds flying at the target. The grenades exploded around the aircraft like flak shells, one of them blow off a wing and sending the tail up in blue flames.

The Banshee went into a "death spiral" and slammed into the mountain side, exploding as it impacted the slope.

"Nice shooting, I can see how you made this far alive", Matsuda said, as he sprinted up the remainder of the mountainside, Keiichi and Rena in his wake. As Keiichi and Rena reached the lodge, a wooden structure with a red metal roof, M41 LAAGs, LAU-65 missiles, and infantry armed with M41 SSM missile launchers opened fire on the Covenant aerial convoy. Banshees fell out of the sky, perforated by 12.7mm rounds or blown out of the air by surface to air missiles as Spirits and Phantoms were blown apart by missile impacts.

The surviving Covenant aircraft replied, firing plasma cannons and fuel rod shots at the lodge. Several UNSC soldiers fell as plasma bolts burned through their bodies. Matsuda ran to a LAU-65 turret whose operator had been killed and mounted the launcher position, firing off three missiles, which impacted a Spirit and blew away the center of the aircraft, blowing it in half.

Matsuda took down a Phantom and a few Banshees before a hail of Needler rounds impacted him. Keiichi and Rena looked on in horror as the pink-colored spikes imbedded in his body exploded, sending chunks of mangled flesh everywhere. The source of the Needler fire quickly became apparent. The surviving Phantoms and Spirits were retreating, having deployed a large number of Elite Rangers and Drones, who flew towards the lodge using grav-packs and, in the case of the Drones, their insectoid wings.

Rena raised the beam rifle she had been carrying since they left Shirakawa and squeezed the trigger, firing two shots at the alien "jetpack troops" before the battery ran out. Rena tossed away the empty alien weapon and pulled out the M6C SOCOM pistol they found off the dead UNSC soldier. Rena's pistol fire took down a few Drones that were getting in too close, buying her enough time to get out the Covenant Needler she kept in her backpack and open fire. A drone exploded from multiple needle impacts as Rena yelled "How do you like it!"

At the same time, snipers on the peak of Yarigatake proper fired on the Sangheili Rangers, picking off a few of them with well-aimed shots as the LAAGs opened up, taking down several more of the alien troops.

Keiichi took aim at the lead drone in the formation with his DMR and pulled the trigger. The drone fell from the sky as the bullet shot through the insect-like alien. Keiichi then fired off several more shots, downing more drones as the UNSC infantry picked off the rest.

The drones were down, but the Elites remained. About 12 Sangheili landed near the lodge, plasma rifles and energy swords in hand. A UNSC soldier raised an M90 shotgun and stuck it in the face of an Elite that tried to lunge at him with an energy sword. The shotgun blast blew away the alien's face and dropped it to the floor. The soldier fired off several more shots, taking down a few more Elites, before being stuck down by a plasma bolt.

An Elite turned to Keiichi and Rena, plasma rifle raised. Keiichi set his DMR to full auto and pulled the trigger. The Elite's energy shield stood up the barrage of fire for a short period of time, before the bullets pierced the Sangheili's chest. The alien fell to the ground.

As Keiichi loaded another magazine into his rifle. As he did, an Elite with and energy sword ran in behind him. The Sangheili, however, did not notice Rena, who activated her own energy sword and stabbed the Elite in the back, impaling it. The Sangheilli fell to its knees and dropped to the ground, face first. As Rena ran toward Keiichi, a second Elite went for Rena, intent on avenging its comrade.

"Behind you!", Keiichi yelled.

Rena turned on the spot, swinging her sword as she went. The plasma blade sliced the Sangheilli clean in two, sending purple alien blood everywhere.

However, as Rena's attacker fell, two Banshees came in for a second pass. The lead Banshee fired a fuel rod cannon round, which exploded between Keiichi and Rena, sending them flying.

"Am I dead?", Keiichi though as he blinked. He was not dead, but he might not have long left. A shot from a sniper on the peak of Yarigatake proper took down an Elite rounding on Rena, but the sniper was himself killed by a Sanghieli sniper. As the sniper fell, Keiichi realized where he was: near the edge of a cliff, with an Elite, armed with an energy blade standing over him.

"I have not come this far to die now!", Keiichi yelled, kicking the alien in the chest with both legs. The Elite fell backwards, off the cliff, falling a straight drop of about 25 meters, before rolling several hundred meters down a slope of about 70 degree. The Sangheilli was no doubt dead, but there were still those Banshees to worry about.

As Keiichi got up, he heard the whooshing sound of a flying missile, followed by a deafening boom. The Banshee overhead exploded. The second on met a similar fate as a UNSC Army Aviation Hornet flew in over head, strafing the surviving Elites with it's M41 machine guns, being careful to avoid hitting the surviving UNSC troops and landing next to the lodge.

"Rena!", Keiichi asked, "Are you okay?".

"I'm fine", she responded as the UNSC VTOL landed.

The Hornet pilot opened the cockpit window and said, "You the two civy survivors I heard about on the radio?", the pilot asked.

"Yeah", Keiichi replied.

"Climb aboard", the pilot said,"And make sure you out on your seatbelts, I don't want you falling off the jumpseats."

Keiichi and Rena climbed aboard the jumpseat of the Hornet and buckled the seatbelts attached to the bottom of the Jumpseat platform.

The Hornet took off, flying away as a Falcon appeared in the distance to send more reinforcements to the battered defenders of the outpost of Yarigatake. Below them, Keiichi and Rena looked on at the snow-capped peak or Yarigatake and the rest of the Japanese Alps, where they had been just moments ago.

"It's actually quite pretty up here", Rena said, "Shame we can't enjoy it because of this war."

"That's what the we're fighting to protect. That's what those men back there died for. I think after I rest for a bit, I might join the militia. I won't let their loss be in vain.", Keiichi said.

"I'm coming with you", Rena said, "I'll stay by your side no matter what we go through.

At that, Rena and Keiichi looked into each others' eyes for several seconds, before they embraced each other, their lips pressing together in a passionate kiss.

A few minutes later, the Hornet had landed in the city of Matsumoto. Keiichi and Rena climbed off jumpseat and climbed aboard a Transport Warthog that was headed into town.

5:37 Hours, October 27, 2552 (Military Calender)

Residential area, Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan

Street to Street

ODST Lieutenant James Basilone knelt behind the chest-high side wall of a rooftop deck of a narrow four-story row house, in a now deserted residential area in the Shinagawa Ward of Tokyo. The Covenant had been halted in Shibuya, but Covenant forces coming up the shore of Tokyo Bay had rolled through the Kawasaki Ward and now, they were here, fighting entrenched UNSC forces in the narrow streets of this residential neighborhood. The narrow streets were only barely wide enough to drive a car along, so the Covenant had difficulty deploying their armored forces in the streets. Instead, they were sending in infantry supported by Revenant Light Assault Gun Carriages.

As Basilone lay in wait for a coming Covenant Assault, thought of the irony of his position. One of his distant ancestors had fought against the Japanese in the Second World War and died in the Battle of Iwo Jima. And now, here he was, fighting to protect the very people one of his ancestors fought against.... and the rest of humanity from an enemy that no one in the time of his ancestors could have imagined, an enemy from the depths of space.

Basilone was brought back to reality by a voice in his radio, the voice of a female ODST of Japanese ancestry named Kirie Tomoe, who was currently in an abandoned school at the end of the street. "I have sighted a group of Covies in the streets below, looks like about a dozen Brutes with twice as many Grunts, two Revenants".

"Roger", Basilone replied, "Engage on my mark..... Now, all units fire at will!".

Kirie's SRS-99 sniper rifle roared as it sent a 14.5mm round through the head of a Brute Chieftain, dropping him to the ground as an ODST named Zhang raised an M41 SSM anti-armor missile launcher and fired both 102mm missiles at the Revenants. The rockets exploded, sending up both of the alien vehicles and a few surrounding troops up in ball of flames.

Basilone stood up from behind the wall and fired his M247 GPMG into the crowd of Brutes and Grunts below him. The hail of 7.62mm rounds made mincemeat of three Brutes and several Grunts, staining the pavement with alien blood. Basilone's fire was joined by several ODSTs with MA5Bs and BR55s, a mounted AIE-486 machine gun, an M511 Multi-Shot Grenade Launcher, and several more rounds from Kirie Tomoe's sniper rifle. The overwhelming firepower mowed down every last one of the alien attackers.

As Basilone finished changing the belt on his machine gun, he felt the ground shake. A Covenant Scarab Assault Walker climbed over the top of a five story apartment complex at the other end of the street, crushing the structure under its massive metal feet. The Scarab began to charge its main plasma cannon.

"Scarab!", Kirie Tomoe yelled through the radio, "Take cover!"

Before Basilone could take cover, the Scarab fired its main gun, sending a stream of glowing green plasma at the building in which Kirie stood. The beam of superheated plasma impacted the structure, blasting aside concrete, setting fire to wood and melting steel. The structure collapsed in a cloud of smoke and dust.

"Tomoe! Misaka!, respond immediately, repeat, respond immediately.", Basilone yelled into his radio.

He heard only silence in response.

"Lieutenant", Sergeant Zhang asked, "Do we retreat?!"

"Retreat?!", Basilone responed, "Hell no! Get your rocket launcher ready, we're gonna take that fucker out! Go for its legs."

Zhang fired his M41 missile launcher at the Covenant walker's legs. The ATGWs exploded on the vehicle's leg joint, immobilizing it.

"Everyone", Basilone ordered, "Attack now!".

Basilone grabbed his machine gun and raised it to his hip, firing at the Brutes and Grunts on top of the walker as he ran from rooftop to rooftop, towards the alien war machine. Bullets struck down the Unggoy and Jiralhanae on the top deck as Basilone and the rest of his squad reached the side of the Scarab.

Basilone jumped from the rooftops onto the Scarab and swept his machine gun across the to deck, mowing down any surviving Covenant as the rest of the squad climbed aboard. James Basilone walked along the side of the Scarab, past the now dead Unggoy gunner of the side plasma turret.

Suddenly, three Brutes, including a Chieftain armed with a gravity hammer climbed up from the lower deck, followed by several Grunts. Basilone aimed his GPMG at them, but heard only the click of an empty chamber. Having no time to change his ammo belt, Basilone grabbed the light plasma autocannon mounted on the side of the Scarab and lifted it to his hip as the Brutes rounded on his ODST comrades.

Basilone raised the alien heavy weapon and squeezed the trigger. A hail of blue bolts of burning plasma flew at the Covenant troops, disabling shields and burning through flesh. The Brute Chieftain turned to Basilone just in time to see him send a plasma bolt right at his face, dropping him to the floor face-first to join the rest of the fallen Covenant infantry.

Basilone dropped the heavy plasma cannon and picked up his light machine gun, slinging it over his shoulder as he got out an M9 HEDP fragmentation grenade. "All units clear the area", he said into the radio, I'm gonna blow the Scarab, over".

Basilone activated the grenade and tossed it into the small room at the back of the Scarab that housed the core. Basilone jumped of the side of the Scarab as the grenade exploded, killing the Lekgolo worms that operated the machine and destablizing the plasma core. Alarms went off in the Scarab as Basilone and the rest of the ODST squad sprinted along the rooftops.

Once he was several rooftops away, Basilone turned and watched the Scarab explode in a spectacular blue fireball.

50: Downside
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1220 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Miura Peninsula, Tokyo, Japan

The Elephant’s heavy treads would have crushed anything in their path. But here, like everywhere else, the streets were empty where the main Covenant force had yet to occupy – or glass. The silence felt tense to Kodiak, like there was an ambush waiting for them like the Spartan team they’d found dead at every intersection. He was glad to be in the reinforced steel cabin of the troop transport, the motor whine of Dyne’s turret swiveling breaking the tedium.

Kodiak liked the feel of big vehicles like this. Too much armor for a Wraith to crack, and a ridiculous horsepower rating. As Stacker liked to say, with enough diesel fuel you could move anything.

“Set-up area is in sight!” Dyne reported from his place on the turret. “Looks like the Corps of Engineers is coming to meet us!”

Sure enough, Kodiak spotted a handful of Marines coming out of covered positions in storefronts and waving. Now the trouble would be setting up the heavy guns, and Kodiak suspected he and Dyne would have to do some of the heavy lifting.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

0600 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Task Force Oscar Command Post, Sydney, Australia,

Early that morning, the members of Oscar Reserve and Stanley’s squad from the 87th Shock Division rolled into the buildings being used by the command element of Task Force Oscar’s troopers. Sun was breaking over Sydney, but there were no birds and no early morning traffic, only VTOLs overhead and Warthogs in the streets over the UNSC-controlled zone.

A local tavern had been set up as a field hospital. Apparently, they were short on all supplies including anesthetic, so here there was at least alcohol to clean wounds. Corporal Mitchell Hunter found a seat at the bar as Dansen and another of his squad took their wounded man to get attention. The realization that he didn’t know the names of two out of five he had left was only mildly disturbing. In this war, he’d seen too many die with or without knowing their names. Eventually, he’d ceased to care.

Before Kevlar could go to join him, he got a long look at the makeshift hospital that was being run here. Tables had been either pushed to the walls or outside, save for the few pushed together as makeshift operating tables that looked like they would be more permanent. On them, troopers were either out cold or screaming, but what was more disturbing was that there were already bodybags laid out beneath them. It was just faster that way; there were a lot of people who needed attention.

“Give me something strong enough to kill me in large quantities.” Mitch said, addressing the trooper who had decided to stand behind the bar, for lack of being able to help elsewhere. Then Mitch groaned, knowing the UNSC would expect him back out on the field soon. “Wait. . . coffee, if you have any.”

Kevlar knew Mitch counted on liquor to dull the burden of his memories, but was glad that at least once in a while he could resist it. Kevlar looked out and surveyed the horrors that appeared in the wake of fighting. “Bad day here, eh?”

Before Mitch could respond, a young PFC who looked to be running messages for the officers stopped on his little paper route. “Corporal Hunter? Colonel Perez needs you and Sergeant Stanley ASAP. He’s getting the force organized. Sir.”

As the barkeep returned, Mitch stood and took the mug of thin coffee.

“Yeah. Bad day here.”

Operation: DIVINE SON

0940 Hours, October 24th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Dawn hadn’t even broken yet over Greece. The chilled, pre-dawn hours brought a light, cold mist that lay over the street, making life that much more miserable for Wheatley and the other Marines, Mills and Baker. Uncomfortable or not, they sat in complete silence, guns resting on their makeshift barricades.

The birdlike aliens were clever, staying in buildings above the streets to avoid being seen, but they hadn’t known about the Superintendent’s cameras watching their every move. From their projected course over the floor plans, they would have to cross the skybridge linking this hospital to the tower across the street. It was an excellent spot to head them off.

Faint sounds of their squawks between one another were the first signs. Wheatley readied his battle rifle, peering down the scope and lining up where he thought their heads were most likely to be.

The first one ran around the corner with its back low to sprint and its shield held low but still active, head swiveling back and forth as it ran. The Marines had the element of surprise, and took advantage of it.

Wheatley waited until the second had cleared the corner to fire, taking out the lead with three quick rounds, each finding a place lodged in the Jackal’s head.

The second shrieked a warning to its comrades, but too late to save itself from Mills’ bullets. A third and fourth emerged, sprinting across the T-intersection on the other side to take up cover. One stumbled as Baker’s assault rifle threw up sparks and rock chips from the marble floor, with some of the rounds finding its ankles. More fire killed it before it could crawl away.

Wheatley ducked back as green bolts of pistol and carbine plasma answered the rifles. They took shots when they had the opportunity, but now their Major had ushered them into a wall of overlapping gauntlets. The Major sporadically traded fire with the Marines from behind his cover, but his main focus was advancing over the barricade.

“Fall back.” Wheatley said, and hurling a smoke flare into their formation to cover the retreat, the Marines ran from the hastily-constructed wall of medical supply crates. Seeing their enemy flee, they broke formation and jumped over and on the barricade as their spoils of this skirmish.

Wheatley looked back to see the Major take the bait. There was a Grunt carcass laying behind it, something the Marines had dragged there for this purpose. As the Major hissed at one of its subordinates and went to tear a bit of flesh from the corpse’s neck, Wheatley thumbed a detonator linked to a crate of grenades in the barricade. In a flash of light and shrapnel, nine more aliens died with barely time to cry out in surprise.

The dozen wounded and disorganized survivors, however, set their eyes on the Marines.

The good part about this was that the enraged creatures would now follow the soldiers away from the hospital. The bad part about running from Jackals: Jackals really loved to chase.

51: You Shall Not Pass
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT 1200 Hours, October 29th 2552 (Local Time)

Aboh Pass, Northern Japanese Alps, Japan'''

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki crouched in a forest about 150 meters from and 50 meters above Route 158, the road leading over the Aboh Pass, between Kamioka and Matsumoto. Keiichi and Rena were part of a group of about 50 soldiers of various services: Army, Marines, militia that were hidden among the pine trees.

Keiichi and Rena had joined the militia just a few days ago, and gone through little training beyond firing off a few shots at a range, before being sent into battle, showing that these were indeed dark times for the UNSC. Keiichi and Rena, however, were not complete amateurs, they had fought... and evaded... their way through 100 kilometers of Covenant occupied territory to escape to the UNSC lines.

Now, they were back in the fight, in an ambush position, ready to strike at the Covenant column headed through the pass as part of the latest attempt by the Covies to push through the Northern Japanese Alps. The column appeared over the crest of the pass, rolling past Rena and Keiichi's position. The Covenant forces numbered twelve Wraiths, three Locusts, fourteen Shadows, and about 20 light vehicles.

"Do not engage unless spotted", A UNSC Army sergeant ordered, "Wait until that Scorpion takes the first shot".

The Scorpion main battle tank at a narrow point in the pass about a click away fired. The 90mm main gun blew through a Wraith, blocking the road. A Locust walked over top of the Wraith, only to be destroyed by a second shot from the Scorpion.

"Fire at will!", the Sergeant exclaimed as he raised his Spartan Laser and fired at a Locust that was immediately below him. The Locust exploded in a flash of fire as a 102mm missile from an M41 SSM missile launcher wielded by an ODST destroyed the final Locust with a hit to the rear plasma core.

AIE-486 and M247 machine guns opened up, riddling Ghosts and Spectre with bullets as more rockets and lasers picked off the Wraiths one by one. Keiichi fired off all three rounds from the M456 Grenade Launcher mounted under his M389 DMR, taking a Revenant, a Shadow, and two Ghosts.

Elites, Jackals, and Grunts dismounted from the Shadows and returned fire. Keiichi ducked out from cover and fired three shots with his DMR, each one picking off a Grunt. Rena, meanwhile, took out a Jackal and deshielded Elite with the MA5B she had been given when she joined the militia.

14.5mm sniper rounds blasted through Covenant infantry, picking off Grunts and Elites manning the turrets of Shadows and blew through the power cores of Ghosts, Spectres, and Revenant. The UNSC soldiers all fired their MA5, M389, or BR55 rifles or threw grenades into the crowd of dismounted Covenant. Rena tossed a plasma grenade she had left over from their escape into the crowd, sticking to the Revenant, destroying the vehicle and its Sangheili driver.

In what seemed like no time, the Covenant forces were destroyed. As the action subsided, Keiichi, Rena, and the other UNSC soldiers reloaded their weapons. Suddenly, the ground shook beneath them. A Scarab walked in along the road. The Scorpion fired a shot at it, but missed. The Scarab returned fire with its plasma beam, reducing the Scorpion to twisted metal. The Scarab them turned its AA gun in the UNSC troops in the forest, the plasma bolt blasting through trees, and vaporizing human beings.

"Focus fire on the AA gun, disable it!", the Sergeant yelled over the sound of splintering wood and screams of dying men. A hail of smaller plasma bolts from one of the Scarab's secondary light plasma turrets burned a couple of army soldiers, one of them armed with an M41 missile launchers. Rena returned fire with her MA5B, hitting the Grunt operating the turret down with a three round burst, sending it crumpling to the floor. As Rena took out the Grunt, the sergeant's laser hit the lower half of the turret, literally welding the traverising mechanism in place. The AA turret could no longer turn.

Keiichi grabbed the dead UNSC soldiers M41 SSM and took aim at the Scarab's turret. Keiichi heard the tone and saw the reticule in the sight of the launcher turn red. The missile launcher automatically locked onto the heat from the recently firing AA turret. Keiichi squeezed the trigger twice, sending two 102mm missile flying towards the Scarabs AA turret. The turret exploded in a ball of flames, though the the Scarab was very much intact, and tried the turn to engage with its main gun.

Two other UNSC soldiers with M41 missile launchers fired on the Scarab's legs, as the did the sergeant's Spartan Laser. The Scarab fell to its knees.

"Everyone with a heavy weapon, flank the unprotected rear armor, rest of you, give us cover!", The sergeant ordered.

An ODST took Keiichi's rocket launcher and ammo and joined the group moving around the back of the Scarab as Keiichi picked up his DMR again and fired off the two remaining grenades in the launcher. Several Grunts and an Elite were blown off the deck as the rest of the surviving soldiers, about 40 of the original 50, opened fire with rifles and machine guns, cutting down the surviving aliens on the walker deck.

Suddenly, A laser beam and several anti-tank missiles blew through the rear armor of the Scarab and into the core of the walker. Alarms sounded inside the machine and a few surviving Covenant tried to flee, most of them being cut down by machine gun fire. The Scarab exploded in a great ball of blue flames. The remaining Covenant went into full retreat. They had won... for now.

52: Revelation
Operation: DIVINE SON

1500 Hours, October 25th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Day and night had come and gone. Fighting off the Jackals had been no easy task. But after their lust for vengeance wore off, they realized it wasn't worth getting at a few human civilians to lose their lives dealing with the trio of marines. Wheatley had returned to his post at the communications array, tampering with the lines usually used for contacting ambulances.

"Super, go through the com lines again, see if there are any transmissions." He said. Wheatley had already had the AI moniter the lines constantly, and found nothing. But it was the only way for him to break the tedium.

Searching. . . no traffic. Stop! Anomaly detected! Data downloading from Superintendent-class AI, assignment: New Mombasa. Alias: Virgil.

That was it? One report on all civilian lines? He opened it anyway, and began scrolling down.

“What are you reading?” Reo asked behind him. Wheatley could hear quiet desperation in her voice. He couldn’t blame her for it, she was stuck hiding in dangerous territory without any word on when or if they would get out.

“Geological report. Funny thing is, it’s the only civilian-line thing I can get, and it’s not an automated message. What’s so important about this that someone would send it all the way from Mombasa, to here. . .” From what he’d heard about the African metropolis, it was faring no better than Greece. Covenant ships set down over it, and no UNSC force had been able to contest their claim to the airspace. They were digging up something, who knew what. The geological report showed nothing out of the ordinary, and he opened the two attachments.

Something about it caught his attention. It was a report on Covenant force deployment, using the same city monitoring systems to map out Covenant ships like cars and trucks. They were excavating within one shaded area, which correlated to the information from the geologic survey. Quickly, Wheatley skimmed over keys and opened the second attachment.

It was another geological report, an older file on Greece, but it had something in common with the Mombasa report.

“Ferrite. . .” he whispered, just to say the word more than tell it to anyone. “Ferrite!”

“What?”

He jumped up and turned to Reo, face pale. “The Covenant are digging up Kenya, around a subterranean plateau of ferrite. Ah, it’s a poor form of iron, basically useless after the titanium age, so the deposit was never excavated!”

The girl looked at him like he was crazy. Wheatley half-thought he might be. “This plateau is perfectly circular. Now, think back, every time the Covenant didn’t just glass a world, it was because they wanted an alien relic. So why haven’t they just glassed us? There is a gigantic alien structure under the Earth’s surface! And what’s more, there’s another major pocket of ferrite in Greece, right in the middle of the Covenant occupied zone! There’s something they’re after, here, too. Oh my god. . .” he rushed back to the computer.

“Dammit. . . landlines are completely out, and I can't trust a satellite signal will get through. . . Superintendent, start downloading all relevant files into two portable hard drives. Download a copy of yourself, too.”

Copying of government assets is prohibited. . . beginning download.

“Where are the UNSC lines drawn? Where’s safe?”

Sorry! No results.

He bit his lower lip. It took him a long moment before he had a thought, “Access the UNSC evacuation orders for Thebes. Where were they being sent?”

Searching. . . Found! Replaying. All civilians within the region of Greece must evacuate South and West by way to Spain, East toward Middle Eastern territories, or North beyond Thermopylae.

“Thermopylae. . . hmm. Super, get me an account of all usable public transportation vehicles. I need things with capacity and long distance, nearby if you can find anything.”

With pride.

“Reo, listen closely. I have to help continue the fight here, but this data needs to get to the HIGHCOM facilities in Sydney. I can’t chance sending it over radio, it might not even get there and ears are everywhere. Find a ship when you get north, and go straight to Sydney. It is imperative, understand? You can’t fail.”

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1920 Hours, October 25th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Kodiak moved his fingers clumsily over a comparatively small keyboard. He hadn’t used one in a while, and he still needed to perfect his acute motor control after augmentations.

Ironically, it was the augments that had prompted Kodiak to find the keyboard and go into ONI’s files, using his own limited access to glean what he could. What he wanted specifically were the details on the drugs that might be causing harm to Sepia’s mind. He’d gotten files on the standard augments that were used in Alpha and Beta Companies as well as Gamma, but the illegal ones were in a little file that required higher clearance than he had.

Kodiak thought for a moment about how to bypass it. He was no hacker. But he did have a secret weapon.

During training, he and Dyne would actively wreak havoc at any opportunity that presented itself – and then some. Once, they’d monitored Commander Ambrose’s exact and predictable schedule, then gotten into his office and went through everything they could. This had included Kurt Ambrose’s heavily blacked-out file. What they found was. . . unsettling. But not the info he was using now.

What they’d done with the info was only minor damage: Pete Stacker’s credit card number, blackmailing Mendez to get the company some extra food at meals. . . but Kodiak had remembered everything he’d learned on Onyx. He typed in the authorization code for Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose.

Bingo.

Immediately, he downloaded the files on the illegal drugs and unplugged from the main system with all possible haste, before some security AI figured out it couldn’t really be Ambrose here.

Leaving the terminal and plugging a small hard drive into his TACPAD, he began reading the off-record augments.

8942-LQ99. . . no. It was a carbide ceramic ossification catalyst – meant for strengthening his skeletal structure, not what he was looking for.

009762-OO. . . this was it. Alters frontal lobe for increased aggression. He scrolled down to a report attached. Its history showed that most experiments by Insurrectionists using the drug had had their brains warped and they went into an insane frenzy before a violent death. This worried him.

If Ambrose had cared for them so much as he said he did, why would he subject them to something like this? It was a rumbledrug, something that would make them live like an animal for two hours before dying, in the most painful way he could imagine. Closing his eyes and pausing in the hall, for the first time he felt regret for joining the Spartan program.

Just then a medical intern swung around a corner, breathless. “Sir! Doctor Kiku needs to see you!”

Within one-hundred and twenty seconds, Kodiak met up with Dyne and the two had returned to the medical suite. Sepia had woken again, and was if anything worse off.

“You have to hear it! It’s everywhere!” she was screaming through the speakers. Kiku was trying to calm her with absolutely no effect. He was turning for the panel again. “No! No more drugs, I’m not going to sleep again.”

The doctor turned to Kodiak and Dyne. “She’s becoming uncontrollable. If you can’t stop her, I’m going to send out to have her transferred to a more secure holding facility!”

Kodiak wasn’t going to let that happen. He approached the tank and put his hand against it. She looked down at him, and as her head nodded, her hair flew up in a tower behind making her look even more intimidating than normal.

Angrily, she stated, “If you don’t make them let me out of here, I’m doing it myself. I can hear them, the Covenant, it has to be. They’re going to kill us all.”

“How do you know it’s the Covenant?”

“Who else could it be?”

Her answer made Kodiak pause, and he avoided eye contact. Dr. Kiku looked back to the panel and started walking toward it. Sepia interpreted the signs quickly. “NO! There is no way I’ll be trapped in here while they get in!”

Sepia tore off her mask before Kiku could release the tranquilizer, and then braced and kicked forcefully at the side of the tank. The room erupted into panic, with the two interns who’d found Dyne and Kodiak fleeing the room as Kiku picked up a phone and called for security. Kodiak was surprised to see Dyne draw his MA5C. He turned back to the tank.

“Gamma Three-Thirty, stand down! That’s an order!”

She focused on him angrily, but continued pounding the tank. The first crack appeared. Kodiak yelled, “Dyne, stow that rifle but be ready to help me pin her down!”

But Dyne had his attention elsewhere. Through the noise, he’d felt something in his feet without noticing it. Only now that it was gone did he take notice. What everyone heard was a muted but heavy thunk. Dyne looked up in horror, then tackled Kodiak to the side of the room yelling, “Look out!”

A blue fireball erupted where they’d stood a moment before. Smoke and debris shot upward, and in a moment the fire alarm went off and sprinklers started up. Kodiak opened his eyes again and saw a hole had opened in the floor.

Then Sepia broke free. Leaping out of the tank, she landed on the intact sections of the deck amid a flood of stasis gel, cutting her bare feet on shards of glass. Reaching out, she picked up Dyne’s fallen rifle.

The silhouette of an Elite Ultra rose from the floor, an energy sword illuminating its ugly features. But having expected little resistance, it crumpled when hit by 7.62mm rounds that cut through shields and then its midsection. Even as the corpse fell back into the hole, Sepia jumped in after it, firing away.

The other Spartans recovered quickly, drawing M6 sidearms. Standing at the edge of the hole, they found targets in black-clad Elites and Grunts. The fierce counterattack caught them with their shields down, and they fell quickly. Most never even had the seconds required to raise already-drawn weapons.

“Sepia!” Kodiak shouted, tossing her a grenade. She caught it, pulled the pin and let fly, pressing against the tunnel wall as it went off in a shower of dirt. Immediately, she rolled again and came up with the rifle in the direction of the cave-in beyond which there must be more Covenant.

For a full three minutes, no one moved as the fire alarm continued and sprinklers doused the room, waiting intently to see if the enemy would try to dig back in. At last satisfied they’d retreated for the moment, she checked the ammo counter for the one magazine she had. Two rounds left. Intensely relieved, both to be out of the stasis tube and having repelled the enemy, she laughed, wiping away the dirt that had stuck to her face.

With the sudden violence over, energy seemed to desert Sepia and leave her body ready to fall over. Kodiak offered a hand, and pulled Sepia out of the hole. “How did you know?”

“I told you,” she responded, “I heard them.”

She took care not to slip in the mess of stasis gel and blood from the cuts in her feet. Dr. Kiku rose from where he had taken cover, suggesting an explanation.

“The. . . the tank. It was bolted to the floor, and liquid could have amplified the sound. She was hearing them dig.”

Sepia wheeled on him, just ready to use the two rounds she had left, but Dyne put an arm in front of her. Not worth the effort, not worth the court-martial.

Kodiak keyed his com. “Uh. . . Erin? . . You’re gonna want to see this.”

53: Not Exactly A Fairy Tale Ending
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

'''1300 Hours, October 25th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Imperial Palace Gardens, Tokyo, Japan'''

Princess Yukiko, last survivor of the Japanese Imperial Family ran as she had never ran before, crossing a bridge over a pond in the Imperial Gardens, which was seconds later, blown away a shot from an Elite wielding a Plasma Launcher. Once, she would have been considered the daughter of a living god, since the mid-20th century, however, that title had been renounced by the emperor. The fact that her father, and the rest of the her family were as vulnerable to death as any human was made painfully obvious when a squad of Covenant rose from a tunnel they had dug right though the floor of the palace, killing her entire family.

Yukiko dove behind a sakura tree, which shielded her from a hail of plasma bolts and needler shots, which set the tree ablaze as Yukiko dove out of the way again, behind a large boulder. Yukiko discovered the body of a dead UNSC Army soldier, and next to him, an MA37 assault rifle.

Yukiko picked up the rifle. The weapon felt strange in the hands of the 24-year old princess... but what wasn't strange about this. Yukiko's priveledged life had evaporated the moment her father died... or more really, the moment her father decided to remain in Tokyo in spite of the encroaching alien threat as a show of solidarity. Now she knelt behind a rock in a the palace gardens, her clothing covered in blood, dirt, sweat, and tears, surrounded by burning trees and buildings, as plasma bolts flew over her head.

Yukiko peeked out from behind the rock, rifle in hand, as Covenant fire decreased in intensity as a some of the Covenant troops reloaded or replaced batteries in their weapons. Yukiko took aim at a couple of Grunts and held down the trigger. The Imperial princess struggled to the control the recoil of the rifle in fully automatic fire.

Two Grunts fell to the ground, riddled with bullets, as Yukiko back ducked behind the rock. The Elite Major with Plasma Launcher charged up a shot at Yukiko's position... only to himself explode in a ball of fire as a 40mm grenade struck him setting off the plasma stores in the launcher.

The survivors, a Jackal, two grunts, and a deshielded Elite, were picked off by well-aimed gunshots to the head. Yukiko looked around for her savior, an saw a UNSC Army infantryman armed with an M389 DMR with an attached M301 grenade launcher.

"Are you OK? Is the imperial family okay?", The man asked, before he noticed just who he was addressing, "...Your majesty...."

"You can drop the formality", Yukiko said, "I'm nothing but a survivor now, my father, the rest of the family are... dead.."

"My condolences, the Army soldier said.

"Just call me Yukiko", the Japanese princess said, "And you are..."

"Honored to meet you, I am Private First Class Kyousuke Matsuzawa. I lost from the rest of my squad after we were ambushed by a bunch of Brutes".

"I'm sorry to hear that", Yukiko returned Matsuzawa's condolences.

"We need to get out of here.", Matsuzawa said, "There should be a Pelican coming in any minute now, I'll try and signal them with a smoke grenade".

At that moment, the Pelican came in view over head, only to be struck by several fuel rod shots from an AA Wraith and sent down in flames.

"Shit!", Yukiko said, "What are we going to do now?!"

Matsuzawa stared momentarily at Yukiko.

"I am capable of swearing too, you know", Yukiko commented.

"A Pelican is landing on the south side of the moat, near the Diet Building, we should be able to make it here if we go south from her, but we're gonna have to swim.", Matsuzawa said as he reloaded his DMR.

"Fine with me", Yukiko said, "Can you help me reload this thing?"

After Matsuzawa helped Yukiko reload her rifle, the unlikely duo ran south down a path in the garden, toward the moat. Their progress, however, was suddenly impeded by seven Brutes.

Matsuzawa grabbed Yukiko and pushed her behind a rock with him. "Yukiko?...", he said, somewhat unused to being on first name terms with the last survivor of the imperial family, "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine... Kyousuke", Yukiko said.

"All right", Matsuzawa said, "Stay in cover, if a Covie gets into your line of site, open fire. I'll take care of as many of these guys as I can. If I die, run!"

Yukiko opened her mouth to speak, but it was drowned out by 40mm grenade round from Matsuzawa's launcher exploded as it hit the chest of a Jiralhanae Ultra, the leader of the squad. The upper half of the Brute's body was blown apart, as two other Jiralhanae were killed by shrapnel and two others deshielded.

The shieldless Brutes roared with rage and ran at Yukiko and Matsuzawa Spiker bayonets at the ready, a foolish tactic not uncommon to members of their race. One of the Brutes came into sight of Yukiko, who fired her MA37 and sent seven rounds through its chest, causing the alien to fall to its knees and breathe its last. Matsuzawa shot the second Covie with his DMR, putting a round through its head, before setting rifle to full auto and chewing up the second to last Brute with a burst of fire. The final Jiralhanae ran at at the two humans, only to be cut down by a hail of fire from Matsuzawa and Yukiko's rifles.

"Yukiko, follow me!", Matsuzawa yelled, running through the trees, toward the moat of the Imperial Palace. Matsuzawa dove into the cold water, shortly followed by Yukiko. Yukiko swam as fast as her arms and legs would carry her, Matsuzawa just in front of her.

Ahead of them stood the Japanese Diet Building. After what seemed like an eternity, Matsuzawa and Yukiko made to the steep embankment on the side of the moat. Matsuzawa grabbed Yukiko's hand and helped her up the embankment.

"Arigato", she breathed, before following Matsuzawa down the road leading to the Diet Building. As they ran, a Pelican landed in the parking lot.

As they Matsuzawa and Yukiko reached the Pelican and the UNSC soldiers guarding the landing zone, Yukiko said, "It's a shame you are a commoner, Matsuzawa, you would...."

Yukiko's words were cut short by a bright purple particle beam, which streaked across the sky. The beam burned straight through Matsuzawa's head, burning a hole in his skull. Matsuzawa fell to the pavement immediately, dead.

"Matsuzawa! Nooo!", Yukiko said as she was dragged into the Pelican by a UNSC soldier. The aircraft was filled with other members of the Japanese national government and personnel from the nearby Tokyo UNSC Office. As the Pelican took off, Yukiko thought of Matsuzawa and the others who died to save her, bringing tears to her eyes...

54: Armor
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0931 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

So maybe she was a little sadistic. Kodiak was still glad to have Sepia back.

After the encounter in the medical sub-levels, Ion had helped to seal the tunnel, and then gotten a much needed shower and night of rest. Kodiak’d been reluctantly pulled out of the uncomfortable bunk when Erin had called them over his radio.

Following two days of constantly fighting in it, he felt odd without his Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor. He kept checking over his shoulder, instinct being to look for cover if they were attacked. He knew that not even these tunnels were safe any longer.

Winding through a series of tunnels as bad as the mazes back on Onyx, they found Erin standing expectantly in front of a door. She had a smug smile on her lips.

"You're a minute late." she said. Kodiak shrugged. “Sepia. Good to see you on your feet.”

“Good to be back.” She answered. Her eyes shone, now a deep violet color. It was one of the peculiarities with her augmentations. Every few months the Gammas needed a ‘booster shot’, a way of keeping their side effects under control. Sepia’s injections always caused her eyes to turn that purple color, which slowly shifted back to their natural gray over the time it took to wear off. Every Gamma took these injections, but no one else had had such a strong reaction to them. Ambrose was still looking into what caused it.

“What is this about?” Kodiak asked.

Glee danced behind Erin’s eyes. “I spent a long time searching for materials, and even longer getting access to them. But, I secured permission for the use what’s behind door number one.” She knocked on the steel-plated blast door behind her.

Entering a code onto a keypad, Erin stood back as the door shuddered and echoes sounded through the walls, making Kodiak realize the door was much larger than he’d thought. It lifted, and they followed Erin into a massive underground warehouse. The size was impressive, but what really took his breath away were the suits.

MJOLNIR Mark V(b) Armor frames stood on platforms, their metal components shining. Electrum, gold, and silver colored visors gleamed, reflecting points of fluorescent light like tinted mirrors. And the number he saw were placed in front of crates stacked over his head. He could only imagine what lay inside.

“Whoo!” Dyne breathed. “Kid in a candy store!”

Erin typed something into her TACPAD. “Some of these components are spares, others were recovered from soldiers Killed in Action. In any case, they’re not being used, and their shielding will come in handy. Put together a suit apiece, and report to the motor pool afterwards.”

She left, the door closing behind her. There were never more devious grins than the ones those three had.

Operation: DIVINE SON

1013 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Just outside of Thebes, Greece, Hellenic Republic

Reo didn't know where exactly their train was headed, but she knew that she missed Moses already. Henri had propped up against her side to go to sleep, and the boy was now snoring softly next to her. Looking out one of the trains windows, she watched Thebes' outskirts fade away behind them.

The Covenant had targeted roads and spaceports, but must not have realized what the rail lines were, because they were so far clear of any Covenant attackers. The train held the two children along with a dozen other refugees, plus patients and staff from the hospital. Some had been in too serious condition to move, and a handful of people had volunteered to stay behind and look after them. Moses had been one of those who refused to leave, stating they'd need protection. And this mission was in her hands now.

She didn't know how she'd get to Sydney, and how to do so without getting killed would be even harder. But that was her responsibility, now. And she was determined to succeed, some way or another.

Across from her and Henri was the Helljumper Reo had talked to earlier, Amelia Zircon. Though both her legs were still in casts, covered by a blanket, she held a battle rifle with a sense of familiarity. Amelia's eyes were scanning the horizon as she half-listened to Lance Corporal Mills operating the train.

Reo pulled out her Chatter, and locked in the hard drive containing Thebes' Superintendent AI. "Super, find where this rail line leads, and see where we can find transport there."

Its avatar winked silently at her, and disappeared, replaced by a loading bar.

"Did I hear you say you need transportation?" Amelia asked.

Reo bit her lip, hoping no one else had heard, and said, "Yes. Moses told me it's very important. I need to go to Sydney, Australia."

"Sydney . . ." Amelia raised an eyebrow and considered her for a minute, "you know . . . I have a ship."

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1322 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Erin returned to the armory storage. She hadn’t expected Ion Team to be quick in assembling suits, but it was getting ridiculous. She entered, and found that almost every suit frame was disconnected from its scaffolding, and nearly every crate had been torn open.

“What the hell happened here?” Erin asked Sepia, who was sitting on an overturned crate adjusting an armored gauntlet. She was clad in a suit of amber gold, its shoulder plates and the helmet beside her part of a HAZOP set.

“None of the suits fit us well.” Sepia answered casually, turning her attention to the set of Grenadier-variant knee guards. “So we took them apart and used the components that fit us best.”

Erin was about to say something when another armored figure appeared, this one clad in a weather-beaten sand suit made for camouflaging into rocky wasteland. Large Up-Armored Multi-Threat plates covered his shoulders and chest, and Dyne’s voice emanated from the Military Police’s electrum visor. “Would you believe it? A USGPS! Fhajad said he had one of these. Dibs.”

Coney made a mental note to make the three of them clean it up later, but they were already behind schedule. “Where’s Kodiak?”

Dyne motioned backwards with his head as he started locking the GPS to his wrist. “Back that way, past the TACPAD we broke.”

“You what!?”

Dyne had chosen his armor based on what he could fit together. Sepia already had in mind what she was going for. But for Kodiak, assembling a suit was no easy thing.

He’d gone deeper into the labyrinth of crates than even Dyne, and now sat cross-legged surrounded by empty boxes, tampering with a helmet.

His choices were based on what he would need, what he was trained for. As an assault expert, close-quarters plates had been an obvious choice, but they were scarce and heavy anyway. Kodiak needed something with speed, that would protect him without interfering with his range of motion. And capacity to bring with him what he needed. He’d been fortunate; R-Variant pouches, plates, and a pair of lightweight FJ/PARA knee guards. The MJOLNIR components were still heavy, and he had to lug each individual part into place one at a time. But he hadn’t found a Reconnaissance helmet to match.

Then he found the helmet. In a small, unassuming wooden crate, its visor low and wide, a Close-Quarters Combat helmet. The white paint had started to scrape off, leaving places along the edges steel gray attesting to the many battles it had already seen. It had belonged to a SPARTAN before him, and Kodiak felt honored to continue its legacy.

The helmet would become not only part of his armor, but his mask, the face his comrades looked to. And it wasn’t perfect yet. After hours of searching, he’d finally found what he was looking for, an Up-Armored titanium band to go over its forehead, and a HUL to link with the special-forces radio channels. Finally, it was secured, and he shut off the welding torch he’d taken from a wall bracket, also taking off his welding mask.

He picked up the solid-steel bowling ball, and walked it over to where the other pieces of his suit were already arranged in the likeness of a human body. Kodiak set the helmet on the floor above the thoracic cage. He stood back and admired it, laying out as if occupied by a ghost soldier, waiting for him to take control.

“Are you quite finished?” Erin asked, startling him.

“Yes. I just have to suit up.” He answered quickly.

“Good. Now hurry up, we’re waiting on you.”

She left, and Kodiak turned back to the suit. His suit. Kodiak smiled, pride swelling up in him. Now, he’d really be like the ones in the posters that he’d called heroes since childhood.

55
'''2205 Hours, October 24th, 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Interplanetary Space, Sol System'''

Despite their earlier "victory", Black Knives Squadron was up and flying again after only an hour's rest. It was incredibly hectic, and was bound to screw them over in the future. The engineers and technicians aboard the UNSC Merrow were unable to do anything about much of the battle damage they had sustained in battle in the short timeframe between battles. It was frankly a miracle that the squadron only had two Longswords shot down.

They were currently attempting to repel a Covenant push on the Lunar Perimeter. In the distance, Duster could see the hulking shape of a Covenant battlegroup. Missiles raced towards the battlegroup, outpacing the Longswords and UNSC warships. A Covenant Battlecruiser exploded in a ball of plasma and debris, the flames quickly put out by the lack of oxygen in space. A UNSC Destroyer was split stern-to-stern as an energy projector sliced it open, but not before it got of a pair of MAC shots, each impacting on the same Covenant frigate, which shields flickered and failed, before a volley of Archer Missiles impacted on its hull, turning the Covenant frigate into a cloud of plasma and debris as well. The Covenant returned fire again, and more UNSC ships were destroyed.

A squadron of Seraphs accelerated ahead of the Covenant battlegroup, with a pair of Phantom gunboats trailing behind. White armed a AGSM-10 missile, and targeted a Phantom gunboat waited for the Phantom to get close enough. When the Seraph closed within eight hundred kilometers away, he fired. The missile streaked through space, and he watched it slam into the hull of the Phantom, leaving behind a trail of debris.

"Good shot." Duster said to his gunner as he cut down on speed. His Longsword slowed down-Covenant single-ship spacecraft or aircraft lacked many long-range weapons, and there was no reason to let them have a fair fight. The squadron of Seraphs moved in closer and closer.

"Black Knife Three, I'm sending out a firing solution for that lead Seraph. Please target that Seraph..now." White fired another ASGM-10, and another Longsword fired missiles a second later. The missile impacted on the Seraph's shields, and they flickered and died, as another missile from a second Longsword impacted the Seraph.

"Black Knife Squadron, slipspace ruptures detected by your position."

"DAMMIT!" Someone shouted, as a squadron of Seraphs exited slipspace near us. Plasma fire impacted on Dusters hull, and he cursed and fired his port thrusters, spinning the Longsword around 180 degrees while maintaining his velocity. White opened up with the 50mm, and shells slammed into the Seraph's shields. The Seraph launched one its heavier plasma projectiles, and Duster fired his thrusters to move his Longsword to port, while rotating the interceptor so White could keep fire on the Seraph. The Seraph's pilot, who obviously wasn't very good, maintained his present course. His shields flickered and died, and White pumped a few more rounds into its hull. The Seraph exploded, leaving a trail of debris.

"Those Seraphs we were fighting just now are closing in on us." Commander Riley warned. Duster cursed again. Nothing was going their way. Duster put his Longsword into a series of stunning evasive maneuvers as another Seraph fired upon them, while White blasted away with the 50mm cannon. The Seraph's shields took a series of hits, but just as the shields fell the Seraph broke off. White armed another missile and sent the missile after the Seraph, and was awarded with excellent view of another Seraph exploding. He didn't have time to celebrate however, as another Seraph swooped in towards his Longsword, pulse lasers blazing. Several shots struck the Longsword's armor, melting off parts of it. Duster cursed angrily as he rolled his Longsword to the side, buying him a few precious seconds that threw off the Seraph's aim.

"Black Knives Squadron, this is the UNSC Merrow, we're providing fire support for you." The com crackled. The Merrow flew through the vacuum of space, and its point defense turrets came to life. Three Seraphs exploded, taken out of the fight seconds after the frigate had arrived on the scene. The remaining six Seraphs hurtled themselves towards the Merrow. A pair of AGSM-10 missiles, launched from two Longswords slammed into the tail of one Seraph, destroying it. The other five were cut down in short order by the point defense guns of the Merrow while only inflicting superficial damage.

Cheers erupted from the pilots of Black Knives squadron, but they quickly died down when Lieutenant Vlasov, navigational officer of the Merrow shouted a warning into the comm.

"More slipspace ruptures! Bigger ones-Covenant capital ships." Sure enough, a trio of Covenant frigates appeared.

While Covenant ships did have highly precise slipspace drives, capable of preforming jumps with very tiny margins of error, doing so would drain all power from the ship for several crucial seconds. It was for that reason that no Covenant shipmaster would knowingly use a slipspace jump to take his ship nearby a UNSC Capital Ship. The commander of the Covenant flotilla clearly had not gotten that memo however.

The Merrow took advantage of those crucial seconds to fire an unholy amount of Archer missiles and a MAC round at the Covenant ships. One MAC round slammed into an unshielded Covenant frigate, destroying it while 30 Archer missiles slammed into another, its point defense systems nor his shields capable of stopping it, too exploded.

But the third frigate recovered. That frigate rotated to face the Merrow, and fired a plasma torpedo. The crimson orb of highly dense ionized gas shot through space and slammed into the side of the Merrow. The port hull of the Merrow melted immediately, and Covenant frigate, eager to avenge the other two ships fired again.

"We're jettisoning our nukes. Merrow out." The comm crackled again. Three SHIVA nukes flew out of the Merrow, unarmed.

A second shot slammed into the Merrow, vaporizing the rest.

"Retreat!" Commander Riley shouted, as the Covenant frigate turned its attention to the Longswords. Its point defense weapons came to life, instantly blasting a Longsword to a large amount of debris.

"How many of us are there?" Commander Riley asked.

"Seven. We lost two to those Seraphs just now and that damn frigate just killed eleven!"

"Shit." Commander Riley muttered. "We HAVE to get those nukes the Merrow just jettisoned. Its our only chance of killing that thing. But it won't work while its shields are still up, and we can't outrun OR outgun it."

Another Longsword was struck by a flury of pulse lasers by the Covenant frigate, which cruised, almost leisurely after the fleeing Longswords.

"This is six, I have one of the nukes!"

"Good work six. We need a way to get that thing's shields down so we can destroy it!" Commander Riley exclaimed.

"Sir, don't Covie ships have to lower their shields to fire? We could just wait till it does, then hit it."

"Only for their plasma torpedos and their energy projectors. Not for their point defense weapons." Duster replied immediately.

"So the point defense weapons are unshielded?"

"Yeah." Duster replied.

"Let's shoot those out then!"

"Easier said than done." Duster replied, going into a series of evasive maneuvers, barely avoided a deadly hail of pulse lasers.

"Destroyed a Point Defense Weapon." Lieutenant McCouver, Commander Riley's gunner said into the comm. "We can do this!"

Duster rotated his Longsword again to face the Covenant frigate, and White fired another AGSM-10 at the frigate. The missile streaked through space, but missed the turret they had been aiming for, instead slamming into the shielded hull. Wasting no time, the armed another one and fired, this time striking her target. A trio of point defense weapons exploded, and Duster hastily entered a series of evasive rolls.

"This is Golikov, I'm taking critical damage. Going to try and ram that thing. Harolds, those twenty creds you owe me you can pay my wife." Duster stared at the comm with an odd mixture of sadness and respect. The way his comrade was about to go to his death so calmly was impressive. He hadn't known Golikov for very long-he was new to the squadron-but he decided that he would go out like that.

Golikov's Longsword slammed into the side of the Covenant frigate, while firing his remaining missiles at point-blank range. He had aimed for one of the blind spots of the point defense grid created by the rest of the squadron when they started firing on the frigate's point defense weapons. Golikov's Longsword hit the side of the Frigate, slamming into its side at an impressive speed.

The Frigate's shields flickered but did not die, though it was obvious it had done some rather serious damage.

"The nuke, use it NOW!" Commander Riley ordered. A SHIVA slammed into the Covenant Frigate's weakened shield, finishing it.

"Quick, grab another one!" Commander Riley ordered. A pilot hastily grabbed the second nuke the Merrow had jettisoned, and fired it at the unshielded Covenant Frigate

The effect was instant. The nuclear missile exploded by the hull of the warship, tearing the ship into a few thousand pieces and flinging them away from the explosion. The remains of the Longsword squadron flew away.

Norman-123 15:11, June 5, 2011 (UTC)

56: Counterattack
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT 0900 Hours, October 30th 2552 (Local Time)

Hirayu Onsen, Northern Japanese Alps, Japan'''

Several Scorpion Tanks, Cobras, and Cougar APCs and countless Warthogs, many with armor upgrades, rolled down a wide switchback towards Hirayu, a small village housing a natural hot spring spa or onsen, which would have been of little significance if not for its location at the cross roads of two roads through the Northern Japanese Alps.

Behind the UNSC Army vehicles droves several technicals, Toyota pick-up trucks modified with M202 machine guns, GUA 23 25mm autocannons, 105mm recoilless rifles, or 102mm missile launchers, crewed by UNSC civilian militia. At the command of a 25mm in the second technical sat Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki. Above them, a Vulture gunship fired off its missiles at a loan Scarab and several Wraiths guarding the crossroads, destroying them all, as the the Scorpions and Cobras fired down on a group of Wraiths and Locusts in the parking lots of the onsen and the hotel.

The Covenant armor tried desparately to fire back, but their hastily fired shots missed, and the alien tanks and walkers were picked off one by one by tank guns, Gauss cannons, and missiles. Keiichi turned the 25mm gun the parking lot and opened fire on a Revenant and a pair of Spectres. The gun roared to life a 25mm shells exploded around the alien light vehicles, sending them up in blue flames as their plasma cores exploded.

As the UNSC column turned down the road the road into town, several glowing green shots from a fuel rod cannon impacted the lead Scorpion tank, sending it up in flames. The second Scorpion fired its upgraded armament, a 105mm cannon and blasted away the upper right corner of the two-story house from which the shot came from. The Scorpion then proceeded to push aside the remains of their fallen comrades' vehicle.

Plasma bolts and needler shots bounced off the sides of the Scorpions, Cobras, and Cougars as every vehicle opened up on the Covenant postions. 90mm and 105mm shells from the Scorpions and Gauss slugs from the Cobras blew away large sections of buildings and the front of the structures were raked with autocannon and machine gun fire. The Covenant soldiers inside were undoubtedly annihilated.

Two Scorpions, three Scorpions, four Warthogs, and two technicals, including Keiichi and Rena's pulled off the main road, into the parking lot of the onsen and a connected four-story hotel. The Scorpions dealt with a pair of Wraiths in the parking lot. M41 LAAG machine guns on the Warthogs, the M202 on the other technical, and the autocannons of the APCs and the other technical opened up on a group of Sangheilli and Unggoy in the parking lot. Abandoned cars exploded as the Covenant troops were torn apart. Keiichi himself managed to vaporize an Elite Minor and three Grunts with the 25mm, reducing them to blue and purple alien blood stains on the pavement.

After the lot was cleared, the UNSC vehicles opened up on the front of the onsen and the hotel, blowing away the frontal facade of the structure, as well as a number of Covenant plasma turrets and snipers.

"Parking lot clear!!", a UNSC lieutenant said through the radio, "All troops converge on the entrance of this hotel"

Keiichi and Rena converged on the entrance of the hotel, Rena with an M7 SMG in hand, and Keiichi wielding an M95 Full Auto Shotgun.

"Once we clear the lobby, first squad, go right and clear the hotel. Second squad, clear the changing rooms and the onsen proper. Militia, your with second squad.", the Lieutenant said.

Seconds later, a breaching charge blasted down the door of the onsen, and the UNSC soldiers and militia rushed into what looked like it had once been a lobby decorated in traditional Japanese decor, however, it was heavily damaged by Covenant occupation and UNSC fire.

The Lt. gunned down a surprised Grunt on a plasma turret with his MA5 before the Unggoy could get off a shot. Keiichi followed him in and fired a burst of shotgun shells into an elite at close range, riddling the alien with buckshot as a UNSC Army soldier shot an Elite with a BR55, killing it, before, impaling a Kig-Yar on a bayonet mounted under the rifle. Rena, meanwhile, bashed a Kig-Yar that ran at her with an energy cutlass over the head with her SMG, before she got out the energy sword she had captured from the Elite in Shirakawa and skewered the Jackal.

After several seconds of gunfire, the lieutenant yelled "CLEAR!", and Keiichi, Rena, and several other UNSC soldiers and militia went right. A UNSC Army soldier kicked down the door to the changing rooms, only to be cut down by a carbine shot from an Elite that peeked its head out of one of the two doorways, this one leading in the women's changing room.

"Your in the wrong room, baka yaro", Rena said as she tossed a captured Brute spike grenade into the room. Rena had to hold throw the Jiralhanae grenade with both hands, it was like throwing a kanabo. The grenade exploded, its sharp shrapnel embedding itself in the wooden walls... and the flesh of the elite, which fell dead after a spike with through its mandibles.

The squad split, half of them going into the men's room and half into the women's room. In spite of Rena's smartass comment, several male soldier and militia men entered the room, including Keiichi (as did a couple of female soldiers in the men's room). Not that there was anyone to spy on, the hotel and spa's occupants had naturally fled when they had hear of the coming Covenant invasion.

Now, the only occupants were a second Elite, which ran at Keiichi with an energy sword, only to catch five shotgun shells in the chest from Keiichi's M95 full auto shotgun, filling the alien's chest with lead and causing it to slump to the floor as Rena killed two of the rooms other occupants, a pair of Grunts, with her SMG. The three Jackals who made up the last of the Covenant in the room were killed by an M9 HEDP frag grenade tossed into a bathroom stall they were hiding inside by a UNSC soldier. The walls of the stall were blown away, as were several chunks of the dead aliens.

The onsen itself consisted of three pools of steaming water, surrounded by a concrete deck, and a garden containing numerous trees and boulders. Keiichi and Rena dove from cover behind one such boulder as plasma bolts and needler rounds flew overhead. Several Needler rounds pierced a militia man. The pink crystalline spikes exploded violently inside his body, sending blood and gore everywhere, staining the water in two of the pools red.

Rena retaliated, killing two Grunts with her M7 as Keiichi and several other UNSC troops opened up on a group of Kig-Yar, striking them down. A UNSC Army soldier tossed a frag grenade behind a rock that hid an Elite. The Sanghielli broke from cover, only to be cut down by a hail of fire.

As the last Elite fell, the UNSC sergeant radioed, "The onsen is clear, repeat, the onsen is clear.".

"Roger", the Lieutenant replied, "My men have cleared the hotel, Hirayu is ours. Afraid there's no time to relax, we've got a new assignment."

57: Fool's Heroics
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1559 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo, Japan

The suit, even with its ballistic gel layer, didn't fit him perfectly, but Kodiak could hardly notice it over the fact that it was MJOLNIR armor. Now, he didn't mind walking as he stepped off the Pelican's blood tray. The armor seemed to move for him, as if it was hovering around him pushing away anything in his path. He couldn't get the grin off his face.

Dyne's boots made a loud sound as he jumped down onto the permacrete. He carried a sniper rifle, and a battle rifle on his back. He pointed the rifle in several directions, snapping it up quickly to get the feel of his own suit. It made Kodiak laugh, and reminded him to stay focused. "Erin, we've landed. Give me a waypoint."

A blue triangle appeared in his HUD, just under a kilometer from his location. Erin's voice responded, "You have one, Ion, it's a bunker southwest of you. The marine force there was guarding a FENRIS nuclear warhead. They reported being under attack late yesterday, since then we haven't had contact with them and a Pelican we sent for a flyover couldn't see any movement. Based on the spikes stuck in the walls they saw, it was likely a Brute pack."

Kodiak latched on to this information. They hadn't seen many Brutes around. It was possible these were the ones that took out the three from Alpha Company. "Any idea what their numbers are?"

"If they managed to kill the marine contingent, no less than fifty when they started. But the number could be significantly less. Head for the bunker and see what you can find. You're on your own from there."

"Alright, we're moving. Ion out." Kodiak felt his assault rifle. In his new gauntlets, it felt light, like plastic. He could break it about as easily, too. The firing stud now required only a press rather than a squeeze.

Sepia stepped in front of him, her new suit shining burnished gold in the sunlight. She sparked the pilot light on her flamethrower. "Let's go hunt some apes."

Kodiak nodded, and the armored SPARTANs began running towards the waypoint.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

1200 Hours, October 27th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sydney Orbital Elevator, Sydney, Australia,

Corporal Mitch Hunter was panting as he rushed up what must have been the hundredth flight of stairs. It was hard under the heavy ballistic suit, weaponry, and ammunition, but stair climbing had been part of the physical exercises he'd done for hours in basic. He was more worried about Kevlar, who wasn't in as good of shape and was huffing up behind him with the heavy eight-gauge shotgun. Dansen, at least, seemed to be doing well enough, as did Privates Collins and Emmert, the latter despite his bandaged wound.

For three days they'd been fighting through Sydney block by block, until finally they'd reached the elevator. Covenant were making a counterattack, trying to surround them, but for now Mitch and co.'s orders were to rendezvous with a pair of SHVA Troopers stuck partway up the elevator.

Single Human Vertical Assault Troops were technically ODSTs, but their almost exclusive use of the ICARUS Jetpack set them apart from any other marine unit, or just about any unit in the UNSC for that matter. Apparently, two of them had been aboard a Pelican when it was hit near the tower, and jumped using their packs to land safely inside one of the observation decks.

Finally on the right floor, Mitch pushed through the door out of the stairwell and onto the floor itself. Sweeping the room with his battle rifle, it struck him that it was ironic they'd captured an elevator, but for fear of it being damaged by the Covenant couldn't use it and he'd been forced to run up a hundred flights of stairs.

The outer wall of the room was one large, broken window, now letting the high altitude winds blow in and howl reminiscent of a Covenant Banshee. Against a wall separating this section of the orbital elevator's stabilizing ring from the next were two ODSTs, with what he took to be their jetpacks next to them. One was on the floor with her back propped up against the wall, while the other was crouched next to her. This one stood as Mitch approached.

"Private Eirikur Quinn, sir." The Bullfrog reported. "Are any of you medics?"

"Negative." Mitch said. The others spread out, Dansen went over to the prone marine, Kevlar going to the window. Down below, a tank battle had ensued in the streets. "What happened."

The trooper looked downhearted. He motioned back toward his companion, saying, "We jumped out of our bird after AA shot us down. Cervantes went in front of me, took the hit and broke in the window. I owe her . . . but she got cut open on the way in, and she landed pretty hard. Without a medic or something to help, I don't think she's going to make it."

Mitch nodded. It was one more casualty to total up, along with the seven others he'd lost already. He looked around for Dansen to help him carry the body, when he realized the young trooper wasn't where he left him. His vision panned around, and he noticed several consecutive things.

The wounded trooper was gone. So was one of the ICARUS packs. And there was Dansen, his silhouette dark in the window against the cloudy sky. It was bulked up by the jetpack strapped in place of his rucksack, and the unconscious trooper in his arms.

"Dansen . . ?" Mitch said cautiously, as if a warning. The rookie's helmet spun halfway around, so Mitch could just see the darkened visor. He didn't need to see his face to know what he was thinking. "Dansen, don't you do it, don't even . . ."

Dansen's helmet turned away from him.

"Dansen!"

It was too late; the rookie jumped out into open air.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 04:13, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

58: Going Down Fighting
'''200 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Kamisu, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan'''

The Katsura Maru, the Gasai Maru, and the Oyashiro Maru, a three massive container ships, as long as an aircraft carriers sailed silently into Kamisu harbor by night. The vessels had gone missing at sea off the coast of Japan when the Covenant forces had first been encroaching on Japan. Now, they returned.

Inside the harbor, Commander Choi Park of the "wet" naval vessel guided missile cruiser UNSC Noryang Point. Choi and the Noryang had been driven out of his native Korea by the Covenant invaders. Ironically enough, he was now in a Japanese port in a ship called the Noryang Point, the very nation that his people had fought against in the battle for which his ship is named.

Suddenly, several unknown aerial contacts and three surface contacts appeared on his radar screen, headed straight towards him. They IFF labeled them as civilian cargo ships, the Katsura Maru, Gasai Maru, and the Oyashiro Maru.

"This is the UNSC Noryang Point", Choi said, hailing three ships on the radio, "UNSC and Covenant forces are currently in combat in this area. Please turn back immediately and sail for the nearest UNSC controlled port."

Aboard the three vessels, Covenant machinery sprung to life, raising massive plasma artillery mortars out of the hold. The guns opened up in a flash of blue flames.

Suddenly, three blue plasma fireballs flew through the air, lighting up the night as they impacted the water on either side of the Noryang Point.

"All hands", Choi commanded, "Man your battlestations, we are engaging three Covenant-controlled naval vessels."

The Noryang fired a pair of anti-ship missiles from its vertical launch system. The missiles flew across the skies in great streaks of fire. Both missiles struck the Oyashiro Maru, one of them impacting the plasma stores for the plasma mortar, sending the ship up in a ball of blue and orange flames, blown in half, before the two halves of the cargo ship disappeared below the waters.

The Gasai Maru met a similar fate, blown apart by two more missiles. The Katsura Maru returned fire, sending another plasma mortar shot at the Noryang, and again missing. The Katsura Maru was now in range of the ship's twin 120mm Gauss cannons. The Gauss guns roared as ferric tungsten slugs were launched at the final "wet" cargo ship.

Flashes of fire erupted from the sides of the Katsura Maru as the Gauss slugs hit their mark. The Katsura replied with its four smaller plasma mortars, one scoring a hit on the Noryang, but causing little damage. The Noryang returned fire with its 120 Gauss guns and two the smaller 105mm conventional guns. Fires lit up the side of the Katsura as the Covenant-controlled ship finally sank to the depths.

The attempt to sneak in using captured civilian "wet" vessels having failed, the Covenant moved to "Plan B", an all-out aerial assault. A about a dozen Seraphs and Phantom Gunships, as well as dozens of Banshees flew in towards the UNSC Noryang Point. The Noryang launched a swarm of surface-to-air missiles, taking out several of the Seraphs, Phantoms, and Banshees. The surviving Covenant aircraft came in closer, dropping plasma charges and strafing the Noryang as the ship made rapid evasive maneuvers. The computer-aimed CIWS guns spat a hail of high-explosive and armor piercing shells, shredding Covenant aircraft left and right. The surviving Covenant aircraft retreated.

"Commander", an ensign manning the radar said, "Huge aerial contact right ahead of us."

It immediately became apparent what it was was: A Covenant corvette.

"Incoming Covenant corvette", Choi said, "Throw everything we have at it, give it hell. We will not give up this port no matter on what comes at us.".

The Noryang unleashed a swarm of missiles for its forward vertical launch system and fired its guns at the corvette. Explosions erupted across the vessel as plasma torpedoes narrowly missed the Noryang. Suddenly, a massive blue fireball rocked the side of the off the unshielded corvette. The Covenant spacecraft fell out of its hover, crashing into the ocean and sinking below the surface. In the face of insurmountable odds, they had won, a wet naval vessel had taken down a low-flying spacecraft.

They had won... or had they. A massive shape appeared overhead, a Covenant light cruiser uncloaked about five clicks from shore. Plasma torpedoes flew at the lone UNSC "wet" naval vessel that guarded the port of Kamisu. The torpedoes exploded around the ship, none scoring direct hits, but some of the causing blast damage.

There was nowhere to run to, the Noryang was cornered in the harbor. The Covenant light cruiser charged a second salvo of plasma torpedoes. They were going to die. But not without a fight.

"Fire all weapons at the torpedo ports", Choi commanded, "If were going down, were going down fighting."

The UNSC Noryang Point fired a swarm of missiles as all of the guns aboard the ship shot towards the sky. The Covenant cruiser's shields flashed as the halted most of the projectiles. However, a few missiles flew through the gap in shields in front of the port plasma torpedo tubes and detonated the plasma torpedo in the tube, blowing away part of the bow. The cruiser was crippled, but not destroyed.

The Covenant fired its remaining two plasma torpedoes at the "wet" naval vessel. The plasma torpedoes melted through the hull, setting off the remaining ordnance aboard the UNSC Noryang Point. The ship exploded in a ball of flames, killing all hands.

As the UNSC Noryang Point sank beneath the waves, A CCS-class battlecruiser pulled up next to the wounded light cruiser to transfer some of its damage control Huragok to repair to the crippled vessel as both cruisers deployed Phantoms, most delivering troops to take control of the city, but a few skimming the water in search of surviving Covenant troops from the captured aquatic vessels, the aircraft, and the corvette that were all destroyed by a single human aquatic vessel that refused to die without a fight.

59: Dusk
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2100 Hours, October 27th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo, Japan

The bunker had been breached, the gaping hole in its facade pointing to a Wraith mortar. Ion Team had stayed for more than a full day while technical devices transmitted information to Lieutenant Coney at Ryu Base, trying to figure out what had happened to the two or three dozen entrenched marines. It left the SPARTANs with very little to do.

For the umpteenth time, Kodiak turned over a plate of half-slagged metal, then returned to the breach where Dyne and Sepia sat. Night had fallen, and the few intact streetlamps struggled to stay on. With a set of binoculars, Dyne was sweeping the streets for movement, by now praying for an enemy attack rather than this endless waiting.

"I hate this . . . it figures we should have seen someone by now. Well, alive that is." Dyne grumbled, trying not to think about the bodies they'd laid out more respectfully than where they'd lain, in pools of their own blood. "All these empty streets are giving me the creeps."

"I like it." Sepia said. She raised the flamethrower at her side, testing its grip. "It feels like another of Mendez or Stacker's training exercises. No worries on collateral damage, nothing but potential targets. And this time, they really get to burn."

Dyne stared at her a moment. "Okay, now three-thirty's giving me the creeps."

Kodiak was too tired to really smile, and just stood between them, watching the Tokyo's skyline in the last fading daylight. Suddenly, one whole section of that skyline went dark, the lights of every little room extinguished. As the three turned their attention to it, the next block went out, and the next, until the whole city was plunged into darkness.

"What the hell was that?" Dyne murmured.

Sepia rested back into a better resting place against the shattered permacrete. "Covenant must have found a vital point in the power grid. I bet Command will put someone on that before long."

As they turned their heads down, either to sleep or attend to their equipment, Kodiak's head went the other way. Gazing up, an awe-inspired smile spread over his masked face. "Hey, guys." he said quietly. The two gazed at him. "Look up."

They followed his field of vision, and saw something they'd been missing this whole time. With the city lights gone, the stars appeared in the night sky, thousands, millions of tiny motes of silver light. For the first time in almost six hundred years, the stars were visible over Tokyo.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

1202 Hours, October 27th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sydney Orbital Elevator, Sydney, Australia,

Wind accelerated past Dansen's helmet. This was far worse than an orbital drop, Dansen was falling hundreds of meters to his doom. No pod, no chute, no crash webbing to save him and Cervantes if he didn't do this perfectly.

It took every nerve he had to keep from firing the jetpack early. It only had so much available fuel at any given time, so he had to wait until he passed below the tops of other skyscrapers to ignite the jets.

A rooftop went up past him, and he was falling next to its mirrored side. Now. He raised his shoulders, signalling the pack to activate. The two thrusters fired, and the force made the straps dig into Dansen's skin. He held tight, not about to make this for nothing. But he was drifting forward; the unconscious trooper's body was placing too much weight in front of him.

The ground was only three stories below.

Dansen had one option, he was going to have to wait until the last second and swing forward, taking the hit himself. He began to see detail in the pavement, traffic lines, stop lights, the tiny faults in the street. . . Dansen kicked his legs forward, prayed, and hoped this wouldn't hurt much.

Pain lanced up his legs, starting in his feet which he thought must be broken. He fell back, and as the ICARUS pack hit the ground it became like a stair that his back landed on. Screaming in pain inside his helmet, Dansen held as still as he could, cursing and hoping the pain would subside. It did.

He found the other trooper was laying on top of him, and her biosigns read still alive. Fighting pain with determination, Dansen unstrapped himself from the pack and rolled off it. His back felt suddenly relieved, and he gasped in air thankfully. Against the protest of his legs and back, he pushed himself up and got the other trooper in his arms. He wasn't able to go at more than a fast, stumbling walk, but Dansen pushed the limits of his shrieking body.

Fear returned to the mix as he heard an alien cry from some distance behind him. He'd gone another half block before the first plasma shot scorched the air over his head. Dansen could barely keep himself from falling over, and he knew if he did he wouldn't be getting back up, but the thought of dropping the other marine and saving himself never crossed his mind.

Then a battle rifle sounded from ahead of him, returning fire on this alien. What was even better was the sight of a Scorpion tank rolling out to greet him. "Medic!" Dansen called. The trooper's life wasn't saved yet, but he'd done all he could to ensure her survival. That alone was cause to feel proud. But it could wait till later.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 18:53, June 15, 2011 (UTC)

60: Scarab Down
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT 1500 Hours, October 27th 2552 (Military Calendar) Near the main Tokyo rail station, Tokyo, Japan'''

Mikiya Ryougi flew his AV-144 Falcon Gunship over the main maglev rail station in the Chiyoda Ward of Tokyo. The station was surrounded by countless tall skyscrapers, some reaching up to 3000 meters, with smaller 20-21st century towers reaching up only into the hundreds of meters, interspersed between the towering modern structures.

Suddenly, the ground split open violently over the mag-lev line as a Phantom Gunship and four Banshees flew in toward Mikiya and the rest of the 24th squadron. Mikiya turned his aircraft to face the Phantom and fired an Argent missile. The missile struck the Phantom in the engine air intake, sending it up in a ball of flames, before Mikiya fired a pair of LAU-65 missiles, taking down two of the Banshees, one of them losing a wing and crashing into a skyscraper. The other two Banshees fell victim to Mikiya's squadron mates.

With the aircraft taken care of, they turned their attention to the tunnel that had opened up next to the mag-lev track, a Covenant tunnel excavator, a modified Shadow equipped with plasma beam for drilling holes and an ingenious method of disposing of the glass created from the burned soil: a device that converted it into supporting rods for the tunnel. Not anything built to last, only good for about a few trips along the tunnel, but they were, along with the larger Scarabs equipped with similar mining equipment, enough to be a serious pain in the ass for the UNSC.

Several Wraiths, Shadows, and Locusts followed the tunnel excavator out of the tunnel and immediately began firing their weapons at UNSC positions in the surrounding buildings. They did not get off many shots, however, as Aoi Miyazaki, Mikiya's gunner, fired a Scorpion air-to-ground missile at the excavator, setting off it's large plasma core, resulting in an explosion that also destroyed two Wraiths and a Locust, before turning her attention to a Locust, which she dispatched in a similar manner, as Lt. Satou took out a pair of Wraiths, one with a missile and one with his aircraft's nose-mounted SPARTAN Laser.

The other Covenant vehicles were quickly picked off by the gunships of the 24th and the rocket launchers and SPARTAN lasers of the UNSC troops in the buildings. As that tunneler was taken care of, another one popped out on a nearby road. Aoi fired a missile at the drilling machine as it emerged, sending it up in a ball of flames that collapsed the tunnel, entombing the Covenant Vehicles inside. The last two tunnels were so large, they collapsed a couple of skyscrapers in their paths. Out from the wreckage emerged not one, but two Scarabs.

As soon as the threat appeared, the it was gone, as a swarm of missiles from a Vulture gunship blew apart the Scarabs, reducing them to twisted metal as a voice on the radio said, "This is Havoc Two-One, The area is clear of Covenant and my ground penetrating radar shows no further tunnels, and UNSC armor is on the way to lock down the area. Nice shooting. Havoc Two-One out."

Suddenly, Mikiya's radio crackled to life again. "This is Sgt. Ohta of the 304th Platoon, we are under attack by three Air Artillery craft near the Yodobashi Akiba electronics store. The Akihabara station has been destroyed and we currently taking cover inside the Yodobashi store. Need immediate assistance".

"Yeah, go ahead Covies, bomb Akihabara, see if see if our resident otaku shows you any mercy", Hayashi said.

"Shut up", Satou said. Otaku might not be an entirely inaccurate adjective to describe Satou's hobbies, but he wasn't of those really creep otaku who obsess over anime characters and collect hundreds of thousands of credits of merchandise.

"Cut the chatter, you two", Mikiya said, as he flew north over the mag-lev lines, about a click to the north, leading to Akihabara, a neighborhood devoted to electronics and anime goods. About a click to the east, three Covenant Air Artilleries could be seen hovering over the tops of the towers. Mikiya pressed the "fire" button on his flight stick, sending an Argent missiles at the first Air Artillery, hitting the plasma core and sending it up in a ball of flames.

The other two Covenant aircraft fell in a similar manner, one from a missile from Satou and the other from Hayashi.

"Thanks for the assist", the UNSC Army soldiers holed up in the Yodobashi said, ..."Wait a second, what's that rumbling noise!"

Two multi-level stores, one specializing in anime, manga, and video games, and one in computers, MP3 players, and other electronics collapsed.

"Damn", Mikiya commented, "I needed to replace that old MP3 player". In spite of the situation, Mikiya was still capable of switching from deadly seriousness to a dark sense of humor".

A Scarab emerged from a massive hole it had dug in the street, this particular Scarab being one of the more heavily armored models. Immediately, Mikiya returned back to "deadly serious" mode, order his squadron to immediately make evasive manuevers. Mikiya swerved between buildings, dodging fire from the Scarab's two AA guns. After a few second of ducking and dodging, the AA plasma cannons overheated, and Mikiya fired on one of the guns as Satou hit the other. With the air defenses disarmed, Aoi Miyazaki fired a Scorpion missile at the knees of the Scarab, only for it to merely dent the thick knee armor as other squadron members fired on the top deck, killing the Grunts, Jackals, and Elites on the main deck, but doing little damage to the vehicle itself.

Mikiya remembered hearing about how tough this variant of the Scarab was, requiring heavy firepower: a heavy bomb or air-to-ground missile, a dedicated anti-walker missile such as that carried by the anti-walker variants of the Grizzly tank, Archer missiles, or a heavy Gauss cannon to take it out. That or it could be boarded and either destroyed from within or hijacked... or, a hit to the main gun as it's charging could detonate the plasma core, causing fatal internal damage.

"All units, when it tries to fire it's main gun, hit it with everything you've got". Mikiya flew directly in front of the Scarab's main gun. The apertures around the gun opened, and the glowing plasma core appeared. Aoi and Mikiya both fired the weapons they had control of, Aoi sending a Scorpion missile into the core and Mikiya fired of four LAU-65 dual purpose missiles, as Satou hit it was a Scorpion missile and a couple other members of Mikiya's squadron also contributed their firepower. One of the missiles shot straight up the barrel of the Scarab's main gun and into the plasma core. The entire front half of the Scarab exploded in a ball of blue fire, completely severing the front legs and vaporizing the crew.

As the remains of the Scarab burned, a UNSC Pelican armed with a ground-penetrating radar confirmed that there were no more Covies underground, and Mikiya and the others were cleared to return to base. -

'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT 1130 Hours, October 30th 2552 (Local Time)

Norikura Skyline Drive, Norikura-dake, Northern Japanese Alps, Japan'''

High Ground

A UNSC Army convoy lead by several Scorpion tanks and Cobra mobile guns snaked it's way up the winding Norikura Skyline Drive, a tourist road leading to the summit of Norikura-dake, a peak over 3000 meters above sea level. Keiichi Ryukishi sat in the bed of a militia technical near the back of the convoy, Rena having taken over the 25mm autocannon.

Below them, they could see Hirayu, which they had liberated mere hours ago, and beyond that, the rest of the Japanese Alps, including Yarigatake, the mountain one which they were rescued by a UNSC Hornet VTOL. Looking to the east, they could see the the Covenant-held city of Takayama, and to the east the town of Kamioka, the very town they had fled through during their escape. The Covenant forces occupying the north of Japan were much lighter, most of their forces being tied up in the fierce fighting in Tokyo. But before the UNSC could move any further, the Covenant forces holding the high ground on Norikura-dake had to be eliminated.

Above the UNSC army column, three Sparrowhawk gunships flew up, above treeline of the mountain. The lead gunship fired a Scorpion missile at a Locust walker, destroying it, as two Wraiths and another Locust exploded from further missile hits. A shot the the lead Sparrowhawk's SPARTAN Laser destroyed the last Wraith as the other two gunships fire their 25mm autocannon at the surviving infantry and light vehicles.

Suddenly, a beam rifle shot flew from the woods to the side, killing the gunner of Gauss Warthog in front of Keiichi and Rena's technical. As Rena turned the 25mm autocannon on their technical towards the woods, plasma fire flew from the forest, needler rounds bouncing off Rena's gunshield as the autocannon started spitting out ammunition.

Keiichi jumped out of the back of the technical and ran towards the UNSC Warthog, jumping on the back and grabbing the handles of the Gauss Cannon. Keiichi turned the M68 ALIM towards the woods, which were now being lit up by machine guns from the technicals, Warthogs, and heavy vehicles, and the autocannons of the Cougar APCs and Rena's technical.

Keiichi looked through the thermal sight of the Gauss Gun and caught sight of an Elite charging a plasma launcher. Keiichi squeezed the trigger of the weapon and launched a ferric-tungsten slug at the Sangheili. The slug made contact at hypersonic speeds, vaporizing the alien in a mist of purple blood. The slug kept going and reduced a tree to splinters, which killed three Grunts armed with fuel rod guns. Meanwhile, Rena's 25mm killed a couple of Kig-Yar snipers and an Elite.

A pair of Hunters exited the woods, knocking trees aside as they charged their assault cannons. Keiichi quickly turned his gun to the nearest Lekgolo and pulled the trigger, the high-velocity slug piercing the Hunter's armor and killing it instantly. The second Lekgolo fell seconds later, blown apart by the 90mm main gun of one of the Scorpion tanks. The final deathblow to the Covenant squad was delivered when another Scorpion fired a canister shell into the forest, perforating the Covenant survivors with with lethal shrapnel

"Nice shooting, kid", the UNSC soldier driving the Warthog said as they drove away from the engagement, on above the treeline.

"Thanks", Keiichi replied tersely, too busy scanning for Covenant to complain about being called "kid". There were no Covenant to be seen, however, only the wrecks of Wraiths and Locusts and the bodies of alien infantry, the Air Force had done a good job here.

Finally, the UNSC column reached the point where the east and west roads up the mountain met. From the East road, the other column rolled uphill. The parking lot on the summit was filled with the wrecks of UNSC civilian vehicles, and the more recent remains of Covenant armor. A Scorpion tank moving in from the east fire on one of the few surviving Wraiths, knocking it out in a ball of flames as a second Wraith fell to the secondary anti-tank missile carried by a Cougar APC. A Cobra MGS took out the only surviving Locust as Scorpion from the west force nailed the last Wraith.

Keiichi fired his Gauss cannon at pair surviving Shadow APCs, blowing them to pieces as Rena opened up with the 25mm autocannon on her technical, chewing apart a few Covenant infantry and light vehicles in the parking lot. The Covenant troops in the lodge, bus station, and souvenir shops tried to open fire on the convoy, but were met with overwhelming force, 90mm and 105mm shells from the tank and Gauss slugs from the Scorpions, 102mm rockets, and autocannon fire blew apart the wooden structures, creating kindling from the flamethrowers operators, who, under the cover of machine gun and cannon fire, sprayed jets of flame into the buildings, setting them ablaze.

Unggoy methane tanks exploded in the flames as a few Elites and Kig-Yar ran out of the building covered in burning napalm. Some UNSC soldiers put the aliens out of their misery with their rifles, but others held their fire and waited for them to burn to death. The Covenant had shown no mercy at Harvest, no mercy at Jericho IV, no mercy at Reach, and no mercy on Earth, they would receive none in return.

Soldiers and militia exited their vehicles, including Keiichi and Rena. "Excellent work soldiers", An army Lieutenant said, "But were not finished here yet. We have orders to take the observatory and summit proper. Gear up and get moving!".

Keiichi and Rena retrieved their weapons from the vehicles, Keiichi arming himself with the grenade launcher-equipped M389 DMR he had carried since his escape and an M6C pistol, while Rena grabbed an MA37 and the M6C SOCOM, along with the Covenant energy sword she kept as a trophy from an Elite officer she had killed.

61: About Damn Time
Operation: DIVINE SON 

2207 Hours, October 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ 

Olympus Base, Periphery of Continental Greece, Hellenic Republic 

When Roger-341 had heard that his old mentor, Laszlo-108, was somewhere in Greece leading a team of SPARTANs and decided to go help him out, he definitely hadn’t envisioned this.

Sitting with his leg held in a sling, Roger watched a team of medics rush back and forth, frantically tending to wounded. Laszlo had ordered Roger and his teammate, Mica-311 to undergo surgery to repair the injuries they’d sustained when they had free fallen from a crashing ONI Prowler that they’d stolen and then used as a makeshift bomb. He’d left another SPARTAN--Rachel-343, a member of the same class of SPARTANs as Roger, now conspicuously missing her team--to act as their ‘guide’, in effect a guard to make sure they didn’t try and bust out of the surgery suite and go straight out to the front. He was right to do so, because in any normal circumstance, Crimson Team--Roger’s unit, or what was left of it after augmentation and three years of fighting--would have done just that. But Laszlo was one of the few people Roger respected well enough to actually follow their advice--he couldn’t think of it as orders, or else he’d feel obligated to disobey--so he had been remarkably patient.

But his patience was wearing thin.

Roger checked glanced down at the helmet of his scavenged MJOLNIR suit, checking the chrono that blinked in the upper corner of the HUD. 2207. Two hours had passed since Laszlo had ordered him and Mica to get surgery--which he said would have taken no more than two hours. Granted, those two hours were largely Crimson’s fault anyway--their stunt with the ONI Prowler had given a variety of unit’s the vital hours of free airspace that they’d needed to get back to base, resulting in a influx of injured who had been trapped outside the base and now needed immediate attention. But even given this, and all his respect for his former trainer, Roger found himself itching to leave. He didn’t like being cooped up in a tight confined space like this, away from the action--and worse yet, surrounded by other people. He needed to move, soon.

Beside him, Mica stirred from a brief nap she’d been having. Roger watched as she checked her own chrono, and the half glance she gave him immediately told Roger that she was thinking the same thing he was. That was all the reason Roger needed to justify his decision. Picking up his helmet, he attached it to his battered suit of MJOLNIR and pumped his injured leg full of hydrostatic gel to help stabilize his fractured leg. It would hold well enough to do what he needed it to. Roger finished his makeshift sling and saw Mica was following his example, easing her own helmet on and prepping her suit. The medics, to swamped with the deluge of casualties, didn’t even give the pair of SPARTANs a sideways glance. They probably figured the two of them had dealt with the injuries on their own, or miraculously healed or something. Legends about SPARTANs got crazier every day.

Roger stood up, feeling his leg twinge in protest, and consciously put aside the pain. A little discomfort meant very little compared to the chance of adding a few more kills to his collection. Roger smiled under his helmet. With the medics ignoring them, and the rest of the SPARTANs--including Laszlo, thank God--out on recon, it meant the way out was all clear for Crimson.

Or not. A loud thunk of metal on stone sounded behind him, and Roger turned to see Rachel-343 standing behind him with a look of satisfaction on her face. Roger found himself growing a little bit annoyed. He’d forgotten her, and now she’d caught Crimson red handed. Diverting her was going to cost them time--and that meant it would cost him kills.

“Going somewhere?” she asked sarcastically, “I didn’t realize the medics had already seen you.”

“Uh-huh.” said Mica before Roger could respond, “I’m really thirsty, so I thought I’d go grab a big glass of ‘shut the hell up and get out of our way’ from the mess hall.”

“Very funny.” said Rachel coldly, face set in stone “Now sit back down and wait for your surgery before I get pissy.”

Of course Laszlo had to assign them the most stubborn of the whole Ares bunch. They couldn’t have gotten Bal or, for god sakes, someone like Adam? One of them would have turned a blind eye, or, at least emphasized with their need to go kill some things.

“Sorry, Rachel, but we’re tired of waiting around.” said Roger, letting his voice drop in pitch and harden. He’d noticed it was a good way to communicate his point…and intimidate people. “We’re moving out, and you’d be smart not to try and stop us.”

Rachel laughed. What was he thinking? Trying to intimidate another psychopath was hardly ever a success. “Smart not to try and stop you? All I have to do is call Laszlo, and he’ll get Colonel Johansen on the radio so fast you won’t know what happened. You may not be SpecWar Five, but she’ll keep you here just fine all the same. Think I’m bluffing? I guess you haven’t really been around her long enough to find out.”

Roger was suddenly thankful for his polarized visor, because it would have just been another victory for Rachel to see the scowl that had settled on his face. This was exactly the kind of bullshit that he’d hoped to avoid with her. Rachel was a classic study of the ‘stubborn asshole’ syndrome.

“Rachel, let me ask you something,” Roger decided that he might be able to throw her off by changing the subject a little, “You know how we got these suits of MJOLNIR?”

Rachel laughed again. “Probably stole them, right? Big bad Crimson Team always breaking the rules.”

“Yah, that’s right.” Roger had to contain his temper and fight down the urge to level her there and then. Truth be told, a fight with an injured leg against another SPARTAN--a SPARTAN who was an arguably better fighter--probably wasn’t one he wanted to fight. It certainly wasn’t one he thought he would win. “We stole them. Took them right out from under ONI’s nose, then had Colonel Standoff wipe the records for two years. Two years. You think we’re the least bit scared of Laszlo? Or of some pushover Colonel? I thought we’d kicked your ass enough times in training for you to realize that.”

Rachel looked like she was doing her best not to let Roger gain any ground in their verbal duel. “Well, great for you. You stole a couple suits of MJOLNIR from ONI and lied about it. Like I said, big bad Crimson, always breaking the rules. What else is new.”

“Yeah, well stealing those suits kept my team alive, now didn’t it?” Roger saw an opportunity, and took it. “Where’s your team, Rachel?”

Roger was glad that she wasn’t wearing a helmet, because it was refreshing to see her cold façade shatter in front of his eyes. Rachel’s face instantly turned as bright red as the flames on the defoliant projectors she loved so much. Roger had a feeling if James had been there, he would have mentioned how maybe she should have been a part of Crimson Team.

“Leave my team out of this.” she said, trying to regain her composure. Roger realized just how deep a nerve he had struck. At least now he knew why the rest of Cyan was so conspicuously absent.

“No problem, we’ll just be on our way and leave you here to fume.” Roger loved Mica like a sister, because she always had the best timing when it came to sarcastic quips. James might have been the joker of their team, but she was making a great substitute while he was undergoing treatment on the hopeful.

“Fat fucking chance.” growled Rachel, apparently abandoning her efforts to keep her temper in check. “I’m calling Colonel Johansen, right now.”

Rachel reached for her helmet, and Roger didn’t wait to see if she was bluffing. He nodded to Mica, who was faster without injured legs, and the other SPARTAN swept in the moment Rachel looked down to don her helmet and yanked it from her. Roger followed close behind her, using the intermediate time to force himself in front of Rachel, shielding Mica from the now very angry SPARTAN. Roger was 115 kilos, and had weight on both SPARTAN women; Mica was only 90 kilos, and Roger would have guessed that Rachel was no more than 110. Thankful that it was his leg that was broken and not his arm, Roger dropped his shoulder as Rachel launched herself at Mica, letting her cannon into the broad CQC plate on his armor. The smaller SPARTAN rebounded off his armor with a painful sounding clunk; several of the medics who had previously paid no attention to the three arguing SPARTANs now took a moment to glance at them in curiosity.

Rachel, for all her talk, apparently wanted to keep their argument private as well. She refrained from launching another attack at Roger, letting the medics turn back to their patients before she continued. Roger smiled a bit, suddenly understanding his fellow Ares Project member a bit better. He rarely understood others, and it was a nice feeling. It made manipulating them so much easier.

“Rachel, lets not do anything that will get anyone hurt.” he said cautiously. Roger realized he’d been approaching her all wrong, and suddenly regretted getting her so angry. It hadn’t helped at all. “We both want the same thing here.”

“Like hell we do, asshole. Give me my fucking helmet before I give you another broken leg!”

Roger bit down a retort, and let her comment roll off of him. “Rachel, be honest. You don’t really want to turn us in, do you? Cause that means you’ll be stuck here even longer, explaining to Johansen why you let us make assholes of ourselves. You want to be out with Laz and the rest of your team, killing some fucking aliens, am I right?”

“Get to the point, dipshit.”

Roger smiled, knowing he’d found her weak spot. It seemed painfully obvious in retrospect. That’s what he got for being a sarcastic introvert, he supposed.

“I’m just saying, Rachel, that if you stop us, I guarantee you won’t be seeing any action anytime soon. So here’s how this is going to go down; Mica and me are going to walk out that door, and your not going to stop us. Your gonna walk out with us, get in the Warthog we’re going to take, and help us kill some split chinned fuckers. I think you understand me.”

Rachel really needed to start wearing her helmet. It was the ultimate poker face. Letting other people see her mood swings was killer in a delicate game like this. Roger smiled freely, knowing that she saw nothing but the shining gold visor of his CQC helmet.

“You’re an asshole, Roger.” said Rachel, scowling.

“So I’ve been told.” he replied

“Go grab that stupid hog, and give me back my goddamn helmet.”

62: Just Rewards
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1104 Hours, October 28th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo, Japan

If they hadn't been wearing helmets, Ion Team would have smelled the Brutes long before spotting them on motion trackers.

Lieutenant Coney had found a tracking signal for the FENRIS, and immediately the three Gammas had pursued. Now they were sitting hidden in cover, just feet away from the nearest Jiralhanae guard. Even the smallest stood taller than the young SPARTANs. Kodiak surveyed their opposition.

"I count a score around the plaza. Mostly minors and captains. There could be more inside the buildings." He remembered the estimates, he was willing to guess there could be up to forty of them scattered around. A moment of discouraging realism touched him, those were steep odds for three fighters without any support or backup. The feeling left. They were SPARTANs. Impossible was the job description. "Okay, we're not going to be able to do this quick. So use the lighter weapons and stay on the move. Don't let them flank you."

In cover at the wall across the street, Dyne said on radio, "Think these are the same ones that killed Brutto and the other two? And those Elites we passed?"

On their way, Ion had passed a number of Sangheili bodies with Spiker rounds embedded in their corpses. There was no question these Brutes had killed them, but there was no way to tell if they'd killed the Alpha Company washouts. "Command hasn't seen many other Brutes running around, so I'd bet on it. But it doesn't matter. Let's kill 'em."

Beside him, Sepia brought up her flamethrower. Kodiak shook his head. "You'll want to use your assault rifle."

"Why?" she asked. "I heard Brutes burn really well."

"Yeah, but there's too much open space here. Those spikers are going to have range on you. Plus that fur is going to stink."

Sepia sighed and switched the weapon she held with the one on her back. Kodiak readied his own assault rifle, one of his knives fixed to the muzzle, and gave the signal.

Three armored soldiers burst from cover, firing on the sentries standing completely out in the open. They crumpled under a hail of AP shredder rounds and battle rifle bursts, punching through armor and muscle. One of the captains managed to growl fearfully, "Demons!" before being shot in the head by one of Dyne's bursts. That was good, Kodiak thought, they knew who was going to kill them.

They split up, Dyne on the left and Kodiak right as Sepia jumped straight into a nest of Brutes that had been sleeping or eating, and were only now reaching for their weapons. The light from her weapon's muzzle reflected off her gold armor in amber patterns as her enemies fell like wheat before a scythe. She ducked as one managed to get a weapon up, breaking the air above her with a round of buckshot. Sepia dropped her empty rifle and lashed out, breaking the Brute's thick forearm and confiscating the Mauler. She fired it into the whimpering Brute's head, and stole the other from its side before dancing around a Captain to avoid the blades on the Spiker he was swinging around. The spikes on the Maulers' undersides dealt with him swiftly. She was at once coldly precise and ferociously aggressive with her attacks as more attacked her.

Kodiak ran just under a sprint, angling his rifle left and right as he passed several Brutes and left them in his wake with bullet wounds that would prove fatal. Then ahead of him, one stepped out from cover with a Brute Shot, and this one was ready for him. Kodiak jumped as the first grenade shot under him, detonating under his feet and propelling him upward. Part of the shield bar at the top of his HUD emptied, but not much. Before the Jiralhanae could adjust for a second shot, Kodiak came down bayonet first, striking the alien in his chest. It howled in pain as Kodiak put the full weight of his MJOLNIR armor behind the stab, driving it into the pavement.

Another one came at him with bare claws, wearing a minor's helmet but standing head and shoulders over Kodiak. He left his rifle embedded in the corpse and ducked under one large arm, drawing the blade of another of his knives through the tissue under the Jiralhanae's shoulder. The arteries spat dark purple blood, the Brute gasping in shock. Passing out of its shadow, Kodiak saw three more standing side by side, raising their hand-held weapons like a trio of western gunfighters. Kodiak reacted, spinning, grabbing the still-gasping Brute, and swinging him around to use as a shield against the enemy fire.

As Spiker rounds thudded into the corpse, Dyne hurdled a low wall and came up on their flank. Switching his battle rifle to single-fire, he carefully put a round into each one's unarmored throat. They clutched at the wounds and fell as Dyne reswitched his rifle and ran on. The square was already cleared, there'd been no mercy nor warning, but now Brutes charged out of the building right in front of him. These were heavy types, clad in gold, ornate armor that his bursts ricocheted off of. He caught one through his thick helmet, placing a bullet in his eye. "Bullseye!" he laughed, running sideways and continuing to fire. Suddenly, he ran into something big. Instinctively ducking, the hammer's head whooshed just over his, the massive Chieftain glaring at him with glowing orange eyes. Dyne noted that it was caused by some electronic eyepieces before the hammer swung around over the Brute's head and fractured the permacrete beneath his feet.

The gravity pulse threw him back. He landed nimbly, but not perfectly. In the moment he was trying to get his balance, the Chieftain brought the hammer around again. Dyne had one chance to minimize the hurt, and threw himself toward the Brute. Instead of the clubbed end, the haft caught him in mid-air, not enough to kill without the gravity pulse but still sending him through a storefront window.

Before the Brute could follow to finish him off, Sepia vaulted the same low wall and opened fire with the Maulers. The chambers revolved with every burst of shrapnel as she advanced, sparking against the Chieftain's strong shield. He turned and struck with his weapon like it was a spear, bashing it against her extended arms and causing her to drop the handheld shotguns. Ignoring the throbbing in her fingers, Sepia backpedaled and drew the flamethrower, igniting its pilot light. A jet of white-hot flame roiled from it, but parted around the last of the weakened shields as a hammer parted the river of fire and slammed against the flamethrower.

The singularity it made wrenched the mangled flamethower from Sepia's hands and pushed her back against a wall, her shield bar dropping dangerously. The Chieftain, some of its fur charred and smoking, stepped forward and lifted the hammer, glaring at her.

Before it could take action, Kodiak dropped down from an elevated platform, his rifle already casting light from its barrel. The Brute shook as each round punctured his hide, but remained standing, even if he was stumbling backwards. Kodiak pressed after him, his finger not releasing the firing stud. Sepia drew her M6G-B and with one, carefully aimed shot, finished the creature off. The body collapsed, hammer and armor landing with a heavy thud on the permacrete.

The two still standing immediately looked for Dyne, and saw him just standing up in the store he'd been thrown into. Kodiak and Sepia ran over, hearing him mutter, "Ow." as his shield glimmered gold as it recharged, then faded becoming transparent.

"Thick skull save your life again, Dyne?" Sepia asked cheerily.

"No." Dyne said, staring at his feet. He reached down and picked up a colorfully-wrapped candy bar. "Sugar did."

He tossed it to Sepia, and picked up a few more, tossing one to Kodiak. Kodiak caught it absently, looking around the square. Bodies were everywhere. All told, thirty-one marauding Jiralhanae had been unable to even draw blood from three SPARTAN warriors. Kodiak could hardly remember any of the fight, he'd been moving so fast. It wasn't the element of surprise that had won them this battle. It was the armor.

There was no taking helmets off in a combat zone, so he told Dyne to stuff as much food as he could in their packs and save it for later. Then he called Erin to report mission success and request a Warthog. There was more work to be done.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

1324 Hours, October 27th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sydney Orbital Elevator, Sydney, Australia,

Dansen felt pretty good, despite the sharp aches in his back and legs. He'd been given a cot and bedroll, and used the latter to prop himself up as he took a long draft from his canteen. The medics said Lance Corporal L. Cervantes would live. She'd been close to death, but thanks to Dansen's risky actions she had gotten the medical attention in time.

One of the corpsmen had looked him over quickly and made sure he didn't have any broken bones, but then went back to other patients. There were a lot of wounded to tend to. At least he had somewhere comfortable to sit. He replaced his helmet, polarized it, and was about to catching up on some sleep when he spotted a group of ODSTs headed straight for him.

It was Corporal Hunter, along with Kevlar, Emmert, Collins, and the SHVA trooper, Quinn. Forcing himself up over the protest of his back, he stood straight as Hunter tore off his helmet.

"What the hell went through your head, trooper?" Mitch shouted. "You not only put Cervantes in further danger, you added your own life to the bet. You disobeyed a direct order and almost got yourself killed. That is not acceptable in my squad, you get me?"

"Yes, sir." Dansen said, quietly but in a level and unafraid voice. Hunter tilted his head back and eyed him thoughtfully.

"You'd typically be courtmartialed for disobeying orders. Troop shortage or not. And I've got half a mind to shoot you myself." He let Dansen stand uncomfortably in silence for a moment. "But from what I heard, you saved Cervantes' life. I think a life for a life is fair, don't you?"

The rookie slumped, staring at him curiously. "Yes, sir."

"Alright then." Mitch replaced his helmet. "We're moving out in five. Grab your gear."

Dansen nodded, and Kevlar produced Dansen's pack and rifle, which he'd left at on the orbital elevator when he'd jumped. As he was strapping it on despite jabs of pain, his helmet radio sparked, along with Hunter's.

"This is Sydney PD Sergeant Joshua broadcasting on an open channel! I'm in a residential district south of the elevator. I've got a Jackal sniper running around, terrorizing civilians still getting out of the city. Somebody get down here and help me deal with this bastard, out!"

Mitch recognized the name and voice. He turned to Dansen, who was checking his sniper rifle over. "Dansen, looks like you've got a chance to redeem yourself."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 20:24, June 19, 2011 (UTC)

63: Whack-a-Mole
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1345 Hours, October 28th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Mt Fuji Summit, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan'''

Colonel Daisuke Umezu sat on top of an Elephant command vehicle on the summit of Mount Fuji. Around him stood multiple AA guns and SAM batteries, artillery guns and Tarantula MLRS. For the last couple of days, the Covenant had been making life difficult for the UNSC, having deployed tunneling machinery to dig under UNSC lines and launch surprise attacks.

So far, they hadn't gone after the artillery base on Fuji or Yokota Air Force Base, instead going for central Tokyo. Now, Umezu and his artillery were tasked with destroying a number of Covenant tunnel entrances and concentrations of tunneling equipment in Setagaya, Shibuya, and Shinjuku.

A battery of 155mm howitzers opened up, their recoil kicking up snow and gray volcanic dust as they sent high explosive projectiles down on a Covenant column on the Tomei Expressway, consisting of numerous Wraiths and tunneling machines. The Tarantula MLRS, meanwhile, launched swarms of rockets at a Covie tunnel entrance in Yokusuka, an attempt to tunnel under the narrow point in the Uraga Channel into Chiba. Other rocket and gun batteries, as well as Rhino plasma mortars and Cobra railguns pounded the tunnel entrances in downtown Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Setagaya.

Long range missiles launched for other Tarantula MLRS flew towards more distant targets to the north and east, hitting Covenant staging areas in Shizuoka, Hamamatsu, and Nagoya. New targets kept coming in, it was like a whack-a-mole game, blow one tunnel entrance, the Covies build another. Umezu just hoped they could keep whacking them 'till they ran out of moles.

'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT 200 Hours, October 29th 2552 (Local Time)

Below Hotaka-dake, Northern Japanese Alps, Japan'''

The Sniper's Sight

Sulo Hahya knelt about 200 yards from the mountain lodge below the trail leading up to the summit of Hotaka-dake, the highest peak in the Northern Japanese Alps, at over 3000 meters/ 10000 feet above sea level. The lodge itself was about a click from the Hotaka Ropeway, an aerial tramway between the village of Shinhotaka in the valley below and a station on flanks of Hotaka-dake. The village below the target of Hahya and the rest of his squad of UNSC Army Rangers, all of whom were trained in mountain and arctic warfare, perfect for the snow-covered peaks around Shinhotaka.

Hahya himself had arctic warfare in his blood, one of his distant ancestors being Simo Hahya, or "The White Death", a Finnish sniper who single-handedly killed over 500 Soviet soldiers in the Winter War of 1939-1940. Sulo Hahya intended to live up to his name as he examined isolated mountain lodge, his M99 SASR Gauss rifle set to subsonic mode. With no report and no sonic boom, the shot would be completely silent. Next to Hahya knelt the squad's other sniper, a Russian woman named Pavlichenko, an ironic ally considering Hahya's ancestor. Pavlichenko carried another completely silent weapon, a hard sound rifle which emitted a blast of sonic energy at a frequency in audible to human and alien ears, a frequency that had an effect similar to a explosive blast wave, causing fatal internal trauma. The hard sound rifle left no mark on the target, save perhaps a stream of blood flowing out of the nose or mouth.

"Three hostiles in the lodge", Hahya said, "Two Jackals and a Brute, I'll take the Jackal on the right and the Brute, Pavlichenko, take care of the Jackal on the left."

Hahya lined up the scope on the Jackal in the lodge window. His ancestor had not used a scope when he used his rifle, to avoid being spotted by the glint of the scope. Sulo Hahya, so he said, anyway, that he only used a scope because of the 4km+ range of the M99. He had, in fact, hit a target a few hundred yards using only the iron sights of the M99 on a range before.

Sulo Hahya exhaled slowly as he squeezed the trigger, picking off the Jackal sniper in the second story of the lodge, as the blast from Pavlichenko's HSR blew out the window and took out the second Jackal. Hahya fired a shot at the Brute, which he dropped with a single headshot before it could react. Even with the shields they seemed to have recently acquired, the Brute could not be saved from the shot, the round going through a gap in the shield around the head that allowed the alien to breathe.

"All right, move up and clear the structure", Hahya said, before stopping for a second, saying, "Three sleeping Grunts just inside the door, take 'em out quietly". Pavlichenko got out her ballistic knife, a spring-loaded knife with a blade that could be shot about 20 feet as another soldier in the squad took aim with an M7S silenced SMG.

Pavlichenko slowly opened the door to the lodge and launched the blade of her ballistic knife, hitting the nearest Grunt in the eye, killing it as the blade entered its eye. The soldier with the M7S fired a three round burst into the second Unggoy, which killed it instantly, staining the snow with alien blood. The third fell to a shot from a silenced DMR. A patrolling Kig-Yar entered the room, only to be struck down by a shot from Hahya's M6C SOCOM silenced pistol.

Pavlichenko retrieved the blade from her ballistic knife and joined the rest of the squad as they moved from room to room, searching for Covenant, but finding none. The Ranger squad moved slowly down the trail to the Hotaka ropeway, their positions concealed by the darkness and their white, snow-patterned camouflaged body armor.

About 600 yards from the ropeway station, Hahya got a clear shot at the Covenant soldiers guarding the station. "Three kilos, five Jackals, five Grunties in the station, I'll take the one's on the top loading deck, Pavlichenko, you take the ones in the lower floor windows.

"Roger", Pavlichenko responed, as she picked off the two Brutes guarding the entrance, their new energy shielding doing nothing to save them, shields didn't stop sound waves. The two Jiralhanae fell to the snowy ground, dead. Hahya picked off the Brute on the top deck, and then proceeded to finish off the Jackal snipers before they could figure out where he was. After the Jackals were dead, the Grunts proved easy targets for Hahya, Pavlichenko, and a couple other soldiers DMRs.

When the Ranger squad got to the station, it was already clear, the windows allowing the hostiles inside to be eliminated from afar. From the top deck, Hahya could see his target in the valley below, a couple of Covenant drilling machines that the Covies were planning to used to drill a tunnel under the Japanese Alps, across to the UNSC lines.

"All right", Hahya said, "I can see the targets from here, setting the M99 to full power, preparing to take them out". Hahya set his rifle to full power, it could now a solid ferric tungsten slug over four kilometers at hypersonic speeds, with the force to pierce through several stories of a skyscraper... or the armor of a Wraith. However, it was no longer silent

The M99 let off a loud sonic boom as Hahya fired the first slug at the plasma core of the first drilling machine, blowing it to pieces in a brilliant fireball from over three kilometers away. Several Covies ran for a pair of Wraiths, intending to bombard the mountains with plasma. Hahya, however, was to quick for them, taking out both Wraiths with a high-velocity slug each. Hahya then took out a Brute Chieftain amidst the crowd Covies, vaporizing the alien with a high-speed slug.

Hahya's final shot struck to plasma core of the other drilling machine, destroying it in a similar fashion to the first. Hahya then packed up his rifle and ran into the woods, his squad close behind, before starting the long hike back to the nearest UNSC outpost. Hahya's mission was accomplished, the Covenant attempts to cross the Japanese Alps had been thwarted, and soon, it would be the UNSC's turn to make a breakthough, at least in the North of Japan.

64: Desperate Measures
Operation: HOLY FATHER

0211 Hours, October 29th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sutherland Shire, Sydney, Australia,

At the same time as Hahya and his team vanished into the night, almost 5000 miles south another hunt was just beginning. Mitch's squad had gotten contact from Sergeant Joshua a few hours ago, and borrowed one of Task Force Oscar's Warthogs to move quickly, getting directions from Joshua as he tracked the Kig-Yar sniper moving north into Sutherland Shire's denser urban areas. And he'd taken on new targets.

Several radio reports were coming in about marine squads being attacked. There were a few common traits with all of the incidents. The Jackal was using a beam rifle, the violet line and lack of recoil was telltale. It would kill one or two before someone caught sight of the particle trail and the survivors would take cover and organize to counter, but once the targets knew he was there the Jackal would take its leave. It was just harassing the human soldiers, not any sort of preparation for a larger force, but the random deaths of soldiers and civilians alike was hurting morale.

Mitch kicked a pebble out into the road from the alleyway they'd hidden the hog in. Joshua had just told them over coms he'd caught sight of the sniper, but lost him in the neon signs of downtown. It left Mitch to weigh his options.

He wasn't going to bring his whole squad in. It would give the Jackal better odds of spotting and killing one of them, and Mitch would have more people to worry about. He couldn't afford to lose concentration. Mitch needed one in particular, but hesitated bring him.

Dansen owed him one, and he was trained with the 99D-S2 he carried. But. . . he was very young, and his actions lately labeled him stupid, but brave. Mitch couldn't help feeling a bit protective of him. And he still remembered when Sergeant Joshua Dansen, UNSC Army, had died on Reach because of a surprise attack led by Elites. His hand went to the pouch on his belt where the ring of dog tags was. Maybe in the close streets, Mitch's battle rifle would be enough. ..

He cleared his head. Personal feelings had no place in a soldier. He needed Dansen to do this, despite and a bit because of the risks. The boy'd need a spotter, having his superior looking over his shoulder would just cause stress. They needed their maximum chances.

"Dansen, leave your pack and take your rifle. You'll need a spotter . . ."

Kevlar nudged Collins beside him. "Bet he picks me."

"Kevlar, you've got his back."

The trooper gave Collins his 'told you so' look.

"Collins, stay here with Emmert, and radio me if his wounds get worse again." Mitch slung his own pack into the bed of the Warthog with Dansen and Kevlar.

"Yes, sir." She answered wearily, tired of her and Emmert being left behind.

The three black-clad troops slipped quietly out into the street, different strains of light reflecting off their visors and the water collected in the street. As Mitch listened to the patter of their boots on the wet permacrete, he knew this was going to be the part it got really dangerous.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1001 Hours, October 29th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

As Kodiak led his team into Ryu Base's command center, he felt immensely proud of himself. They'd taken down an entire Brute pack, and he couldn't help thinking they were the ones who'd killed Brutto. Things were looking up.

Standing near the door leading farther into Ryu Base, Erin Coney seemed vaguely impressed as they approached. Kodiak tried not to swagger, remembering not to get overconfident. But he felt good right now.

Erin was immediately business as she began to address them. “Ion, we’ve got another problem. Satellite network has been tracking a Covenant Supercarrier, and it’s probable it’s headed straight for us.”

That sobered Kodiak up. “A supercarrier?”

“Based on its course since it entered the atmosphere, it’s safe to say Japan is it’s target, and our ruse is gone. We've been repelling them well enough and now something is happening within the enemy ranks. They're done trying to root us out and are going to do things the easy way. They're pulling their ground troops away from the bay and pinning us down with air support. We believe the carrier’s moving into position to glass the city.”

Kodiak and Dyne didn’t have all the legendary discipline of most SPARTANs, but this made even Sepia look uneasy.

Erin continued, “Everyone is being evacuated, except for the most essential personnel to continue operations. Most of our forces are already gone, abandoned the city to its fate, but there are still enough left to make something desperate worth the effort. A dropship raid, using the Pelicans that are still in the area.”

“What?” Dyne interjected. “Dropships are supposed to gun down a Covenant capital ship?”

Erin motioned over her shoulder to where the nuke was being unloaded. “The FENRIS mine you recovered? The carrier has its mass concentrate in sections fore and aft. This leaves the spine, that middle bridge between them, weaker. We get the bomb in the right place, the ship goes down.”

Kodiak liked the plan, it could work in theory and if successful would not only take down a threat to the entire city, but it meant the ground force was gone for the time and gave the UNSC room to maneuver.

“Kodiak, you’re escorting the bomb aboard Charlie 009. Getting it secured is going to take some time, we’re sending for a Cyclops lifter. Dyne, Sepia, you’re flying into this fight. There’s a cloud layer, with all the radiation from nukes being used in orbit it should mask your approach.”

“What about you?” Kodiak asked. “When do you leave?”

“Someone needs to oversee the operation.” Erin said. “I need to stay here.”

She didn’t have to, they knew, any person could monitor the battle, and she could probably remotely see it anyway. But this made them understand what could be lost. It put a face to the consequences of failure. She'd die, along with the entire city and any still in it.

“Get to your ships.” She said. “And good luck.”

65: Battle of Sado-Shima
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1241 Hours, October 29th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Off the north shore of Japan'''

Seven UNSC spacecraft flew at a altitiude of only about 2 kilometers above the Sea of Japan, near Sado-shima, a large island off the north coast of Honshu. The lead vessel was the Marathon-class Cruiser UNSC Henderson, followed by two destroyers, the UNSC Tetsu No Ame and the UNSC Hammer of Dawn and, bringing up the rear, four frigates, the UNSC Stalwart Dawn, UNSC Stardust Memory, UNSC Turning Point, and the UNSC Unrelenting.

In front of them were two Covenant frigates, a destroyer, and a light cruiser, the vanguard of a larger Covenant fleet centered around a Supercarrier. At a distance of several hundred kilometers, the Covenant vessels fired off a salvo of plasma torpedoes. Several of the glowing balls of plasma impacted the side of the UNSC Stardust Memory The torpedoes melted through several decks, detonating thousands of on-board Archer missiles. The spacecraft exploded in a huge fireball, splitting it into two pieces, which fell to Earth and sank into the sea. The surviving vessels opened fire with their MAC guns.

The shields of the Covenant vessels flashed as the MAC rounds impacted, and in the case of the frigate, were depleted completely. The Covenant ships continued to advance forward as the Henderson fired its second MAC, impacting he light cruiser, depleting its shields as the Hammer of Dawn destroyed one of the frigates with its second MAC. The Tetsu no Ame, meanwhile lived up to it's name, meaning "Rain of Steel" in Japanese, firing of both its MACs, one shot deshielding in the Covenant frigate's shield, and damaging the destroyer's shields with the second. The Tetsu no Ame that fired off a swarm of Archer missiles, which engulfed the second Covenant frigate in flames and eventually destroying the alien ship.

The Covenant fleet struck back with pulse lasers and plasma torpedoes, hitting the Henderson twice with its laser, sending up the sides in flames, though the ship remained in the air. The UNSC Unrelenting maneuvered to avoid a plasma torpedo from a Covenant destroyer and fired back with its MAC. The shield of one of the destroyers flare as it responded with overwhelming force, blowing apart the Unrelenting with multiple pulse laser hits.

The Henderson fired back, hitting the light cruiser with a MAC slug, blowing gaping hole in the side in a flash of blue flames. A swarm of Archer missiles finished the job, one of the missiles detonating the ship's plasma stores and blowing the ship clean in two.

The Henderson, however, did not have long to celebrate its victory. Four plasma torpedoes from the two surviving Covenant ships gutted the UNSC crusier. The vessel fell into the sea, a flaming wreck.

"Commander", a junior officer said to captain Shion Kozuki of the Tetsu No Ame, "We've lost the Henderson, what are your orders, ma'am.

"Keep fighting", Shion replied, "Focus fire on the destroyer on the right, relay orders to the Hammer, the Stalwart, and the Turning Point, they are to focus on the one on the left."

"Yes ma'am", the junior officer replied.

The UNSC Tetsu No Ame flew fired its MACs at the Covenant destroyer, disabling its shields. The Tetsu shrugged off a hit from a pulse laser, and returned fire with all of the ship's remaining Archer missiles. Explosions flared up around all around the vessel. Blue balls of flame erupted from the sides as the ship was destroyed.

The Hammer of Dawn and the two frigates assaulted the second destroyer. The first MAC slug hit the vessel, disabling the energy shielding, before the remaining three MAC slugs perforated the ship.

"That's the last of 'em, excellent work", Shion Kozuki said over the radio, "What.. what the...". As Kozuki spoke, a massive purple particle beam shot straight through the UNSC Hammer of Dawn. In a split second, the vessel's classification changed from "destroyer" to "destroyed".

"Commander", the junior officer said. "We have a large contact on radar, looks like a Covenant supercruiser in orbit above northern China"

"Damn it", Kozuki said, "Do we have any nukes left".

"Negative, neither do the two frigates", the officer said, "There should be a "wet Navy" sub that still has six MIRVs left."

"Get in contact with that sub immediately", Shion ordered, "And plot a course for retreat", get out of range before that thing recharges its energy projector". -

'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1311 Hours, October 29th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ UNSC Seawolf, Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine, Off the southern shore of Japan'''

Captain Takashi Yanagi got up as he read the message on the monitor, a UNSC destroyer in atmospheric combat had lost most of their battlegroup in an engagement with a Covenant force off Sado-Shima, and were now in the sights of a Covenant supercruiser in orbit over China. They needed Yanagi to take out the cruiser with his remaining nukes.

"Now hear this!", Yanagi spoke in the submarine's intercom, "We are about launch a nuclear strike on a Covenant supercruiser hovering over China. All personnel are ordered to report to their battlestations immediately."

A few minute's later, Yanagi and his second in command, a Norwegian named Karlsson had the launch keys in hand. They both turned the key at the same time, authorizing the final launch of the nuclear warheads. The missiles shot upwards, out of the water.

Within an hour, the missiles were closing in on the Covenant supercruiser. As they neared the vessel, they split apart into four warheads each, a total of 24 nuclear warhead. Covenant shielding could sometimes survive one nuke, but nothing would survive this much firepower. EMP from the first couple warheads disabled the shields, as the rest blew apart the vessel. The supercruiser, along with a couple of frigates that were too close were annihilated.

A few hours later, Yanagi got confirmation from an ONI Prowler that the supercruiser was now nothing but a debris field. Cheers rang out inside the sub as Yanagi announced the good news. But Yanagi noticed a problem: They were out of nukes, and had expended half of their conventional cruise missiles. That mean only one thing: rearming.... and surfacing, making their location known to the Covenant.

66: Dogfight Over Tokyo Bay
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1400 Hours, October 29th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Over the western shores of Japan

"Erin," Dyne asked hesitantly over his com as his mission clock read 1400, signalling the attack, "any word on the other front?"

"Reports from the Tetsu No Ame went better than we could have expected. All enemy ships neutralized, including this fleet's overwatch thanks to 'wet' Navy assets. They're holding what little they have left back while the flagship moves in to glass. All you have to worry about is the supercarrier."

Somehow, Dyne wasn't reassured. The Navy's battlegroup had beaten the odds and won in a straight-out gun battle with the Covenant. Now all they had to do was do it again, this time with sixty Pelicans against a Supercarrier.

Dyne clicked on his dropship’s transponder, allowing his wing leaders and the people at Command to monitor his systems, and settled back in the seat with his pre-flight done. On a whim, he leaned sideways to look out the Pelican’s window to try and spot the target. For a moment, there were only clouds. Then for an instant, the cover broke, and Dyne could see Tokyo below them, most of it obscured by the massive shape of the Covenant supercarrier. Dyne’s breath caught in his lungs. He’d expected big, but even the UNSC cruisers, like buildings turned on their sides, were dwarfed by this floating mountain range.

“We’re first in, Spartans.” Angel said to them. “Follow my lead.”

Dyne got a grip on himself. “Copy.”

For a brief moment, the two dropships raised up, and then rolled over and dove into the clouds. Breaking through almost immediately, the cruiser came into view again, now dead ahead of their nose. Bravo 029 in the lead began firing her machine gun, and Sepia followed suit with the other ships in their wake.

The tracers appeared as straight bolts of lightning raining down, leaving vapor in their wake. But there was no element of surprise when it came to breaking a Covenant shield. There were places where multiple impacts caused the shield to glow and reveal its spider web pattern of blue, fading in from its normally invisible state, but to break that shield could take several MAC rounds. The dropships might as well have dropped rainwater.

Aware of the attack, plates of purple shell slid back on its hull and unveiled bulbous, plant-like cannons on the carrier’s back. “Stay above the ship, they have less guns topside.” Angel advised, just as the first violet-blue waves of light indicated the gun emplacements were firing.

The first volleys reached them a moment later. Plasma blasts detonated around the diving craft, and as one near miss shook the craft, Dyne realized he was no longer an invulnerable supersoldier. Here, he was a pilot in a vehicle just as vulnerable as any other. He would have to rely on his ability to outthink and outfly the Covenant now.

It proved easier than he thought. Bravo 029 led him down close, to where they were almost skimming over the carrier’s hull. The guns had difficulty adjusting quickly, and couldn’t get a good shot as long as he kept moving inconsistently. Ironically, it was the three Vultures that were destroyed first, for all their armor unable to avoid or survive a hit from the heavy ship’s guns.

One of them exploded in mid-air, not too far away from Dyne and Sepia’s Pelican. They twisted away from the falling wreckage, shaken by the close detonation. It struck Dyne that they weren't the bulletproof supersoldiers anymore. As far as this battle was concerned, they were two more pilots in a ship as vulnerable as the next.

From Ryu Base, Coney’s voice gave them a warning. “All dropships, we’re getting new signatures. Banshees, dropping from the carrier’s hull.”

Dyne searched the sky. “I don’t see anything, are you sure?”

“They’re coming up from below, Dyne, keep looking.”

Then he saw them. Bright purple craft, oddly shaped, trailing blue light and coming right up over the horizon of the carrier.

“One’s fixating on me.” Bravo 029 reported. The Banshee was at a mid distance from Angel’s six o’clock, in perfect position for Dyne and Sepia to take it out.

“Copy Bravo 029, we’re right behind them.”

“Belay that, Sierra, we can shake him.”

Dyne ignored it and settled on the Banshee’s tail. Sepia’s screen filled with the flier’s outline, and she trained the chin gun on the port engine pod. The dropship shuddered as she fired, pounding out 70mm rounds that tore through the Covie’s light armor. It dropped off Bravo 029’s tail, smoke trailing from it as it streaked off over the city. “You’re clear, Bravo 029.”

“Copy, Sierra, get evasive! You’ve picked up his wingman!”

Dyne suddenly realized that as a pair of blue lights shot over the canopy. He pulled the throttle as more bursts went near, some melting the Pelican’s ceramic armor.

“Did something stupid, Dyne. . .” Sepia said through gritted teeth, trying unsuccessfully to get a lock on their enemy.

“I know, I know!” He rolled the craft back the other way, but the Banshee was far more maneuverable and kept them under fire. They had gained a little ground, though.

“Sierra, curve wide left.” Angel commanded, and this time Dyne was far more ready to listen to the more experienced pilot. Bravo 020 sped up and arced elegantly low over the supercarrier’s top. The Banshee was right with them, but Bravo 029, which had been in front, waited a moment before making a much sharper turn and landing right behind the Banshee. A quick burst of fire turned the Covenant ship into a cloud of smoke and debris.

“Thanks, Angel.” Dyne said, relieved.

“It’s what I do, Spartan.” She responded, taking lead again.

More fire rocked the hangar as another Banshee passed over it, streaming fuel rods and plasma. “Take off already!” Kodiak shouted. Charlie 009 had been working on the loading when a squadron of Banshees had started strafing the hangar.

The pilot, Dennison, shook his head and yelled back, “We closed the damn door! I can’t blast out without bringing the whole thing down on our heads!”

Kodiak made a decision, and stood up out of his seat.

“Where are you going?” Dennison yelled.

“To get that door open for you.”

“You know I can’t wait when the Banshees get a clear shot in here, that’s suicide!”

Kodiak didn’t falter. “Yeah.”

He had just stepped off the blood tray and readied to cross the floor when he spied a figure next to the controls. Blood pouring down his face from a gash on his head, the technician, Tenrio, spotted him. Tenrio looked over Kodiak, the Pelican, and the door. He looked back at Kodiak’s visor, grim determination burning in his eyes. He hit the door control, and a vertical slit of light poured in as the hangar doors opened.

Kodiak scrambled back in the dropship, just as Dennison touched off. Charlie 009 hovered through the hangar, picking up speed as it exited. For a brief moment, Kodiak caught sight of Tenrio, not ten feet from him as the Pelican went through the entry.

The Banshees saw their opportunity immediately. Two of them passed under Charlie 009 as it angled up, and fired twin bolts of glowing green into the hangar.

Some ship or another must have caught fire, because the next instant the entire hangar blossomed into an inferno in Charlie 009’s wake. Kodiak gave Tenrio a mental salute, and took his spot at the chaingun to drive away the single Banshee giving chase.

The dropship swerved back and forth in s-curves, shooting past defense batteries on both sides fixed to the carrier’s deck below. Kodiak put his fire on the ones they’d passed that were turning to take shots at them.

“Have to stay low or those things’ll tear us apart.” Dennison reported. “Where are those Banshees?”

“No targets. . .” Kodiak said, watching the horizon under the Pelican’s tail. “There! Two of them, coming in high.” Instantly, he tilted the gun up to face them.

Charlie 009 swerved more violently now, anticipating the attack from the Banshees closing on them, fast. Kodiak opened fire, but they were too far and everything was shaking too much for him to get anything more than tracer hits.

Dennison growled into his helmet, “They’re waiting for one good hit, if they get a shot, we’re screwed.”

Kodiak tried to ignore him and focus on shooting one of them down, but the dropship was swaying too much, hundreds of rounds per minute were flying harmlessly past them.

“Charlie Nine, we’re in trouble here! Need someone to bail us out!”

Sepia hailed them, trying to calm him down, “Charlie 009, we’re inbound.”

“Negative, you’re too far off! There’s gotta be someone-” Even as Kodiak heard him call for help, he saw the underside of the lead Banshee light up, and a fuel rod screamed after them. “Someone!”

From the orbital feed, Erin saw Charlie Nine burst into a fireball above the carrier’s hull, smaller comets of wreckage shooting off of it to burn on their own, strewn across the deck. Holding the headphone to her ear, she tried desperately to reach the pilot.

“Charlie Nine come in! Charlie Nine! Kodiak!”

There was no response. Erin squeezed her eyes shut to stop tears from forming. The young SPARTAN was dead. And soon she would be, too. But there was one last job to do. She opened her com. “All dropships and troop transports, disperse immediately. Don’t wait for anything, just get out while you can.”

Kodiak pushed himself up from where he lay, face-down on the slick surface of the Covenant carrier’s shields. He’d jumped just before the Pelican had exploded, and had nothing worse than bruises from rolling after the fall. But he had to move quickly or he and the people in the carrier’s path wouldn’t be alive much longer.

He ran, but did so carefully across the transparent surface towards Charlie 009’s wreckage. The platform of the carrier’s hull ended on either side in a very steep looking horizon, which wasn’t that far off.

As he got nearer he scanned the flames and pieces of dropship until he saw the bomb. It was made of very strong alloys, meant to momentarily contain nuclear blasts to make them stronger. The explosion around it had only blackened its surface like a piece of toast, but it was sliding away down the side ship’s side.

Sprinting after it, he caught up with the rolling bomb and grabbed hold of it, but couldn’t get any traction on the slick shield. The heavy explosive had already built up enough inertia to drag the SPARTAN with it, closer to the edge. He had one chance, a plasma battery firing at a retreating Pelican. Shifting his weight, he steered towards it.

He braced himself, counting on it to fire for this to work. Nearing the bulbous cannon sprouting from the hull, he ducked behind the near-indestructible weapon as well as he could. The cannon fired, and a wave of intense heat washed over him, but not nearly as bad as it would have been without this cover.

A small section of shielding faded to allow it to fire, and the smooth surface beneath him dissipated, causing him to fall onto the actual deck and under the shield.

Landing hurt, but quickly he got up and started dragging the bomb behind him, having enough friction between his boots and the hull to move it, and headed for the waypoint.

“LT! Erin, are you seeing this?” Dyne screamed into Erin’s headset.

Expecting another added threat, she turned to look at the video feed Sepia was broadcasting from their Pelican, looking down at the topside of the carrier. Her eyes caught a white speck on the field of purple, which the feed zoomed in on.

She couldn’t believe it.

There was Kodiak, hauling the bomb behind him, walking it toward the target. For the first time in far too long, hope sparked inside her. Instantly, she threw her com to Ion Team’s channel. “Kodiak?! Are you alright?”

“Just fine, Erin. I have these buggers right where I want them. I’ll set the bomb and jump for the bay.”

Erin looked back to her tactical display to do her job. Several red dots were wheeling about, headed back towards the Spartan. “Kodiak, they’ve spotted you, the Banshees are wheeling around. Get that thing into position and run, now!”

“That’s the plan.”

More warning sirens blared, and Coney looked up. The red lights indicated only one possible thing: a proximity alarm. The carrier was in position to fire.

Kodiak let the bomb slam to the deck, and circled it to find the keypad. Drawing up the activation code on his HUD, he began punching in the numbers. A howl overhead brought his eyes skyward, just in time to see the pair of Banshees screaming toward him and their plasma cannons glowing blue.

Without anywhere to go, Kodiak ducked behind the bomb. Again, it saved his life, though the heat drained his personal shield and set off the alarms in his helmet. The fliers shot overhead, too fast to wheel around immediately.

He wasn’t going to wait for them. He punched the bomb’s final confirmation, and had turned and sprinted off before the green light turned red.

The supercarrier’s lateral line glowed a different, violet-red as it drew energy to its belly, preparing to release a beam of destruction that would obliterate the entire island. People in Ryu Base’s control room gathered near the window to gaze upon their doom, fearing the SPARTAN had been too late. A tiny figure in white armor ran down its flank, speeding up as the slope increased until he was sliding near-vertically. Above, the bomb’s countdown timer reached its last three, two, one. ..

Light filled the sky, but not the bloody glow of plasma. Blue-white light erupted above the thin stem of the carrier’s midsection, vaporizing the connecting bridge and shattering the remainder of what held it together. Smoke blooming off it, the separated fore and aft sections began to fall out of the sky towards Tokyo Bay below.

Kodiak preceded the debris, staring up and scarcely believing what he’d just done. Attention turning to his fall, he made ready to splash into Tokyo Bay, and move out of the way of falling Covenant ship as soon as he touched the bottom.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:57, June 25, 2011 (UTC)

69
'''1636 Hours, October 28th, 2552. (Military Calendar)/'''

On board UNSC Carrier Leningrad, Interplanetary Space, Sol System

Lieutenant Duster sat with incredible unease, staring out of a viewport at Earth nervously. They had repelled three Covenant assaults. And painful experience had taught him this. The Covenant usually sent one half-assed attack thanks to underestimating the enemy. Then they sent a bigger one that usually broke through any defense the UNSC held up.

In event of that one being survived, a third, even bigger Covenant attack force would smash through any survivors from the second wave. It had been nearly four days since the last assault on the orbital perimeter. If a third finishing blow was to come, it would come soon.

His unease was shared by the majority of his fellow sailors and pilots of the navy. The experienced veterans knew just as well as he did that the Covenant would just send bigger and bigger attack forces. The rookies would be getting over the deaths of many of their comrades from the second raid in space.

Loses had been heavy. Three destroyers, six frigates, one cruiser and one carrier had been destroyed. Thanks to the Orbital Defense Platforms and the dozens of Moray Space Mines, they had destroyed five destroyers, two frigates, two cruisers and three carriers. But the Covenant's ships seemed to be unlimited. A third assault would come, and if by some miracle they managed to repel it, a fourth, bigger one would come. Then a fifth, then a sixth, then a seventh until the UNSC forces were completely wiped out.

"Attention all crew, get to battle stations NOW. This is not a drill. This is not a drill." The intercoms blared. Duster shook himself out of his state, slammed on his flight helmet and bolted down a corridor to the hangar and seated himself inside the Longsword.

The Longswords on board the Leningrad had been kept at five-minute readiness. This meant that they were kept fueled and armed and facing docking entrances, and any crew were a safe distance away from the interceptors, so the two squadrons on board could be up and fighting within one minute of the call to battle stations.

Commander Riley demanded they be ready in half that time. Duster sat down in his pilot's chair and started a flight systems. Once everything showed green, he waited for White to complete her weapons check.

"Black Knives, are you ready to go?" Commander Riley demanded. He was met with a chorus of "SIR YES SIRs". The squadron blasted off, with the other squadrons stationed on the Leningrad trailing behind.

"All sailors and pilots of the Northeast Asian Battle Cluster. This is Admiral Ozawa. Tactical data for the next battle is being uploaded to you...now. This is not pretty. Good luck, and its been an honor serving with all of you."

A few seconds later, the tactical data appeared on his viewscreen. He stared numbly at it for a few seconds. Then someone, Duster wasn't sure who, said the words that was on everyone's mind.

"Holy. Motherfucking. Shit."

The attack force was lead by no less than five Supercarriers, backed up by a similar amount of Supercruisers. There were at least a dozen Carriers and Cruisers, backed up by three dozen assorted frigates and destroyers and at least sixty corvettes.

"We're screwed." Duster muttered under his breath. The Covenant fleet was getting closer-six million kilometers and approaching. Several minutes later, the data updated slightly. The Covenant fleet was now at 5.6 million kilometers, but a small Naval battlegroup doing long-range patrol had launched a hit-and run, amazingly suffering no casualties but destroying two Covenant destroyers and a carrier.

"This is Rear Admiral Badanov, commanding Battlegroup Leningrad. We are launching a series of hit and run attacks on the Covenant fleet approaching.

Duster nervously sat back and let air resistance (or rather the lack thereof) do its work. The Longswords flew in formation, hanging close to their carrier-the UNSC Leningrad. As the minutes passed by, and the Covenant fleet grew closer and closer, Duster grew more and more nervous.

All of a sudden, everything happened at once. Badanov had chosen an excellent time to attack. The Covenant fleet hit a cluster of HORNET space mines. The lead ship of the fleet, a Supercruiser took just under two dozen hits from the massive, 30 megaton HORNET space mines, before exploding, burning for just a second, before the flames were extinguished by the lack of oxygen. The debris field from the supercarrier was huge, and as the ships in proximity attempted to navigate around it hitting more of the HORNET mines in the process, prompting the rest of fleet to attempt to retreat. At that moment, Battlegroup Leningrad struck.

MAC rounds flew through space, impacting several Covenant ships while the slower Archer missiles followed. Two cruisers, a carrier and three frigates were destroyed by the sudden attack. The Longsword squadrons lurched ahead of the battlegroup, firing missiles at Seraphs before scurrying back to the relative safety of the capital ships of the rest of the battlegroup. At least fifty kills were confirmed by the time the Longswords had finished their work.

The Covenant fleet begun a series of evasive maneuvers to avoid the next volley that was sure to follow. This lead to more HORNET mines being triggered. Several more Covenant warships were turned into debris fields, and the shields of one supercarrier flickered dangerously. The destroyers Smallpox, Nature's Cry and Minos fired their MAC cannons at the supercarrier. The combined hits overloaded the already weakened shields of the supercarrier, and the MAC rounds hit the unshielded warship, destroying it.

Their victories were short lived. Plasma torpedos slammed into their hulls, destroying them instantly. Seeing the destruction of the three destroyers, the rest of the battlegroup beat a hasty retreat. Fortunately, their timing saved them once again. As the Covenant fleet maneuvered to fire on the battlegroup, they ran into more HORNET space mines. Seeing the problems of trying to engage an enemy battlegroup while trapped in a nuclear minefield, the Covenant fleetmaster wisely decided to focus on navigating their way out of the minefield first. Luckily, Duster noted with satisfaction, they weren't lucky or good enough. They lost another three corvettes and one frigate to the minefield.

As the Covenant fleet attempted to back out of the minefield, Battlegroup Leningrad hung back. An ONI prowler, the UNSC Brown Lady of Raynham Hall remained near the Covenant fleet, observing it quietly. Duster eyed the tactical display with an odd mixture of satisfaction and dread. In the brief skirmish, they had destroyed one Supercarrier, one Supercruiser, two cruisers, a carrier, four frigates, two destroyers, six corvettes and fifty Seraphs, at the cost of three destroyers.

But there were still so many ships. In addition to that, as the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall quickly noted, they wouldn't get lucky with the minefield taking out that many large Covenant ships again. They had taken to sending out squadrons of corvettes out to probe the empty space for minefields. While it certainly saved their larger ships from destruction, it caused the destruction of many corvettes, either to the minefields or to various UNSC battlegroups ambushing the corvettes.

After four long hours of minefield probes, ambushes and hit-and-run raids, the Covenant fleet was nearly at the Earth's orbit. As for the UNSC, their ships had also rejoined the main force. For a second, though it seemed like several hours, the two fleets stared each other down.

Then everything happened at once. MAC Rounds flew from the ODPs and warships, followed by Archer Missiles, which in turn were followed by SHIVA and FENRIS nuclear missiles. The Covenant responded with a series of energy projectors, followed by swarms of plasma torpedos and pulse lasers. Ships on both sides were struck by the deadly barrage. Duster ignored the chaos around him and instead focused on the smaller Seraphs and Phantom gunboats. As a trio of Phantom gunboats moved ahead, no doubt to try and hit one of the UNSC Capital Ships, Duster targeted the trio and let it loose with missiles. The missiles destroyed two of the gunboats before the third returned fire. He swung into a series of evasive maneuvers before another Longsword destroyed the Phantom gunboat. Just two kilometers away, he spotted a trio of CCS-class Battlecruisers blinking out of slipspace. Without power, even for a few crucial seconds, for their weapons and shields, they were sitting ducks. Archer missiles slammed into both ships, turning them into wrecks. The third one was able to get its systems online and its energy projector at ODP-061, the Seoul. The orbital defense platform was destroyed instantly.

ODP-062, the Tokyo quickly rotated and fired its "Super" MAC round, instantly destroying the CCS-class battlecruiser before it could do any damage. At that moment however, the three remaining supercruisers advanced onwards, pushing at the gap in the defenses caused by the destruction of ODP-061. One of the supercruisers turned its energy projector on the Tokyo, destroying it, but not before that ODP got of its final "Super" MAC round, slamming into the same supercruiser that had destroyed it. The ultra-heavy round slammed into the supercruiser, wiping out its shield but not destroying it.

Instead, that supercruiser was destroyed when a destroyer, the UNSC Smiling Buddha hit it with a single SHIVA nuke. The final ODP, the Yokohama in the battlecluster, realizing that it would be destroyed very soon, instead used its last shot on one of four remaining supercarriers. The MAC round destroyed the energy shield of the supercarrier, which was also finished off by a series of MAC strikes.

Both supercruisers fired their energy projectors at the Yokohama. However, as the shields were let down to fire, one of the supercruisers was hit by over six hundred Archer missiles. The combined force of the missiles tore the entire ship in two. At the same time, a third supercarrier took a series of MAC strikes. The hits were able to remove its shield, and several archer missiles struck it. The supercarrier took a series of explosions across the hull, but survived, albeit with very visible damage. Before it could be finished off, the smaller escort craft launched another volley on the remaining UNSC ships of the battlecluster.

This left three supercarriers, three supercruisers and a shitload of smaller spacecraft. The three supercarriers, the damaged one trailing slowly behind while several escort vehicles covered and protected it descended upon earth, accompanied by around two thirds of the escort vehicles, while the remaining Covenant ships jumped into slipspace, no doubt to rearm and return.

"Chieftan, energy shields, energy projector, most of our plasma torpedo ports, two of our main engines, our slipspace engines will not function and we have fifty two hull breaches-with seven major ones."

"CURSE THE BASTARD HUMANS!" Alpha Chieftan Pakarus roared, pounding his massive fist into the walls his supercarrier, the Might of the Divine furiously. "CURSE THEM TO THE DEEPEST, FIERY PITS OF-"

"Chieftan." One of his Captains, Ulsyrus, interrupted him mid-rant. "Orders?"

"Follow the Unrelenting Pursuit to China. We will dock at one of the repair facilities and allow the Huragok to make necessary repairs.

"Very good, Chieftan. We may also assist in purging the useless Sangheili in China."

"That, I look forward too."

If everything went right, they would dock in one of China's ports soon. However, they soon discovered to their dismay that both the Supercarriers and the majority of their escorts were destroyed.

"THOSE WEALKINGS!" Pakarus raged. "HOW COULD THEY HAVE BEEN DESTROYED JUST LIKE THAT! THEY ARE A DISGRACE TO OUR COVENANT!" He took a deep breath and calmed down. "We will go to Greece instead. They have repair facilities in there as well."

Norman-123 02:34, July 1, 2011 (UTC)

67: Alpine Assault
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT 1130 Hours,

October 30th 2552 (Local Time)

Near the Norikura Observatory, Norikura-dake, Northern Japanese Alps, Japan

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki stood in front of the entrance of a small mountaintop lodge between the north and south peaks of Norikura-dake, at the end of a gravel road leading off from the bus station and souvenir shops, and other tourist facilities behind the north peak. Next to the lodge was a snack bar and yet another souvenir shop, as well as a maintenance shed.

Keiichi and Rena stood alongside a squad of UNSC Army troops and militia, stacked up against the door, Keiichi with an M95 automatic shotgun in hand and Rena wielding an M7 SMG. The Covenant troops inside seemed to have been suppressed by sniper and machine gun fire, but they could be sure until they made it in and cleared the structure properly. A UNSC army sergeant tossed a grenade into the door, which detonated seconds later.

The UNSC squad burst in, finding a dead Brute and two fallen Unggoy, but no living enemies in the small lodge lobby. "CLEAR!", the sergeant yelled, as he turned to the short hallway providing access to the ten rooms in the lodge. The Sergeant sent a private armed with and MA5C with an underbarrel shotgun forward, kicking down the door to the first room. Empty. Second room, also empty. When the squad made it to the third room however, all hell broke loose.

The doors to the first room on each side shattered, a Brute Chieftain armed with a gravity hammer and a Jiralhanae Ultra armed with a Mauler burst into the hallway. The Army private nearest to the Chieftain had his skull crushed by the gravity hammer, as the blade under the mauler pierced a militiaman's chest, before the Mauler brute killed a second soldier with a blast from the alien-designed shotgun.

Seconds later, more Covenant, another Brute and three Grunts came out from the other rooms. The Chieftain rounded on Keiichi, hammer raised above his head. Keiichi held down the trigger on the auto shotgun, firing off six rounds, depleting the Jiralhanae's shielding before filling it with buckshot and dropping it to the floor. The sergeant fired his BR55 battle rifle at the Brute with the mauler, taking out its shield with the help of a burst of fire from Rena, before the sergeant jammed the bayonet at the end of the rifle right into the Brute's chest, killing it instantly. As the second Brute fell, the rest of the squad concentrated their fire on the rest of the Covenant in the building, taking them down.

A quick search of the building revealed no Covenant in the building, so the UNSC troops exited, meeting up with the squads tasked to deal with the shops and maintenance shed. All three of the lower buildings were clear. Now, it was on to the next target, the observatory on the north peak.

Suddenly, a hail of plasma bolts and particle beams flew at the UNSC squad. A soldier and two militia were killed, two picked off by Jackal snipers and third killed by a hit to the chest from a plasma autocannon. The surviving UNSC soldiers and militia took cover behind the buildings, occasionally peaking out to return fire.

As a UNSC sniper picked off one of the Jackals on the roof, Keiichi slung his shotgun over his soldier and got out the DMR with attached grenade launcher he had carried since his escape from behind Covenant lines. Keiichi set the M456 grenade launcher to proximity and fired at the observatory. The grenade exploded over the top of the structure, showering shrapnel on any Covenant that might be outside the building.

Keiichi ducked back into cover as the sergeant received a message on his radio. "This is Outlaw Two-One", an American accented voice said over the radio, "Flight of two Hornets making a gun run on the observatory, we'll keep their heads down".

A pair of AV-14 Hornet light gunships flew in from the east, firing their M41 LAAG rotary machine guns. The Brutes and Jackals in exposed positions were cut down, allowing the squad to advance up the north peak of Norikura-dake. Within 15 minutes, they were stacked up at the door to the first telescope dome in the observatory.

The sergeant set his BR to full automatic fire, before placing a breaching charge and blowing down the door. A grunt was killed and a brute deshielded in the blast. The unshielded Jiralhanae was finished off with a burst from the sergeant's BR. Two Needler-wielding Jackals ran at squad, only to be cut down by Rena Sonozaki's M7, Keiichi killed three Grunts with a shotgun blast each. The squad split up, moving around the large telescope in the center of the room from both sides.

Two more Grunts and a Jackal fell to a UNSC army infantryman's MA5C assault rifle, as his fellow took down a Brute with his AR. The room was cleared, and the UNSC squad stacked up on the door next to the computer room. The sergeant opened to door, allowing Rena to toss a captured plasma grenade in. The plasma grenade stuck to a Jiralhanae Captain's face, vaporizing its upper body, before the UNSC infantry burst in, eliminating the surviving Covenant amidst the computers and holo-projectors in the observatory control room.

Finally, they came to the second telescope room. The first man in, a militia man armed with a MA5K carbine was caught in the face with Spiker round and killed instantly. He was quickly avenged, several infantrymen and militia opened up on the Brute that killed him. The Jiralhanae was deshielded and himself killed. The squad then mopped up the final resistance in the room, consisting of three Kig-Yar Skirmishers.

"Skirmishers", a veteran UNSC soldier said as they exited through the back door of the observatory, finding no Covenant troops, merely a destroyed Covie AA battery, "I used to see those all the time on Reach, but they aren't as common now."

"Yeah", the sergeant said, "And there are more Brute than there used to be and the Bravo Kilos have shields now. You ask me, there might be some changes going on within the Covenant".

The sergeant's musings on the changes in Covenant force composition were interrupted by a radio message: The squad was to assist in the final ascent on the south peak of Norikura-dake.

68: Gone Fishin'
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1159 Hours, October 30th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Dyne and Sepia had been intently focused on the door for a time, absently scarfing down the candy bars they'd collected until at last it opened and their target stepped into Ryu Base's command center.

"Kodiak!" they shouted, and dropped what they had to jump and hug him. Completely unprepared, Kodiak dropped like a rock under their weight, even out of armor the SPARTANs' muscle mass was considerable. The wind was knocked out of his lungs, worse than it had been when he hit the water of Tokyo Bay.

Dyne laughed as he got up. "You should have seen your eyes bulge!"

Sepia also unpinned Kodiak, helping him up with her. "You've done stupid things, but next time you do something as dumb and risky as that, I'm going to lock you in an asylum. Both of you. Just to be sure you don't kill yourselves by accident."

Getting air back into his lungs, he managed to gasp, "Nice to see you, too."

"Good to have you back, sir." Dyne said, clasping his shouler.

Sir? Kodiak thought. When did that start? Then he got it. He was more than just their friend and brother, now. He was their leader. They respected him. And they would follow his orders. It felt odd, to say the least. But he pushed the thought aside, as Erin approached them, having watched from the command center's shadows for a while. She contained her mirth to a simple smile.

"So, did the Coast Guard crews have a hard time fishing you out of the bay, Kodiak?" She asked jokingly, before becoming more serious. "I have your next assignment. It will be up north, rendezvousing with a number of other forces. But I have my own mission for you."

Kodiak stood straight. "Yes, ma'am?"

Her voice grew a dangerous edge. "First you're going to clean up the armor components you threw around everywhere!" They ducked a clipboard she threw at them, retreating under the barrage of harsh words and thrown papers.

Operation: HOLY FATHER

2336 Hours, October 29th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sutherland Shire, Sydney, Australia,

Private Ben Dansen's immediate thought was that this was impossible. A Jackal sniper was sharp-eyed and fast, with excellent aim and a weapon not affected by distance or wind. He wasn't afraid of that alone. He'd been trained on the possibility of facing an enemy sniper, human or alien. But here. . . the purple lights of its rifle and eyepiece would go completely unnoticed by all but the most attentive eye among the city's downtown lights, still active neon advertisements crowding the rooftops and building facades. And it would have better visibility than his VISR in this downpour. It had every advantage over Dansen.

Except surprise.

Trying to root out an enemy sniper was nearly impossible. Even with heat scans and coordination from Sydney's Superintendent-class AI, it could take days to single out the target. So the ODSTs chose option two: live bait.

Dansen, with Kevlar set up to spot him with a rangefinder, were positioned on a roof in the downtown laying flat under the shelter of a neon signboard that sheltered them from the heavy rain. Somewhere amid the light show out there on the streets, made hazy by the refracting rain, was the Jackal. And in the street below them was the bait.

Corporal Mitch Hunter was apprehensive to say the least. But there was nothing he could do except wait for the Jackal to take a shot at him, so he relaxed as best he could. He and police sergeant Joshua were inside of a city bus, lit up like the inside of a big house on Christmas Eve, right on one of the main evacuation routes. The route, however, was long empty. There were few people left to leave the city. He and Joshua were moving around, letting their shadows play against the windows visibly. The rain pattered on the bus' thin, metal roof.

Joshua tried to peer out the window. "How long do you think it'll be?"

"It being what?" Mitch asked.

"How long until the sniper shows- unh!" A violet streak of light left a tiny circle open in the glass, its edges molten hot. Joshua fell, clattering to the narrow walkway between the bus seats and clutching his leg as Mitch ducked down and crawled over to him, waiting for Dansen's shot. As he examined Joshua's wound, his radio crackled.

"Mitch," Kevlar said, "we can't get a fix on his location. We've got an area, but Dansen can't see him. You need to get it to shoot again."

He cursed under his breath. But they needed to act now, fast. Getting up, he ran for the bus door.

Back atop the building, the ODSTs saw Mitch's outline appear through their VISRs. He was running, sprinting for an alley when another streak of energy illuminated the night. This time Dansen had him. The moment the Jackal fired, Dansen followed. He'd spotted the single mote of purple that signified the Jackal's headpiece. It winked out as Dansen hit it.

Kevlar chuckled. "He was good. You were better, Dansen." he tapped his radio. "Sir, we got him. Target eliminated."

Mitch answered him, his breath labored. "Sounds good, Kevlar. How about we pack up and get back to the command section. I need a drink . . . and a damn bandage on this hole in my foot."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:49, June 30, 2011 (UTC)

70: Shipwrecked
Flashback: 530 Hours, October 26th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Kamisu, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

In the early morning, Commander Choi Park washed up on the shore near the cities of Kamisu and Kashima, as far as he knew, the lone survivor of the wet naval vessel UNSC Noryang Point. Park grasped his fingers into a gap between two of the large concrete blocks used to protect the shore from wave erosion and climbed up onto the shore.

Above him, Covenant aircraft flew, to his satisfaction, the Covenant light cruiser that he had fired on in a last desperate defense was now sporting a hull breach on the port bow. Phantoms flew overhead, dropping off troops to some point beyond the horizon, or at least beyond the silhouette of the large hydrogen fuel plant the stood in front of him, which had several large columns of flame erupting from it. All around him, Park could see the burning ruins of factories, warehouses, hydrogen fuel plants, wind turbines, and other industrial structures.

Park drew his M6C pistol from his holster and cautiously ventured forth into the maze of pipelines and storage tanks that was the fuel plant. He slowly crept along a row of storage tanks connected to leading into a large building, pistol raised. The tanks themselves were labeled in both Japanese and English. Park could not read the Japanese, but the English read "Seawater Intake". "If this was a seawater intake pipe, the building up ahead is probably a desalinization plant", Choi thought. Water was the raw material in the hydrogen fuel production process, but it first needed to be desalinized if it was to brackish, as was the case with seawater.

Park slowly opened the door slowly. As he opened it, water with a reddish tint flowed out. It was soon apparent why, the lower floor was flooded ankle-deep with water from a leaking pipeline that appeared to have been blown open by a plasma bolt, the water mixed with blood from the bodies of several plant personnel, one of who clutched a steel pipe, apparently having attempted in vain to fight back against the Covenant invaders.

Park crept across the room, not caring about the ankle-deep water, he was already soaked from floating across Kamisu bay. The desalinization plant was empty, the only sound being that of water leaking from the pipe. Still, Park kept his pistol raised, scanning in all directions for enemies. Park made it to the door on the opposite side and looked through the small window in the middle of the door. There was nothing outside but several pipe lines and storage tanks leading into the electrolysis plant where the hydrogen itself was produced.

There was, however, a problem: The electrolysis plant was on fire, he hydrogen produced in the building having being ignited by Covenant weapons fire, or perhaps by human weapons, in a last ditch attempt to defend the area. Instead of crossing through the building, Park weaved in and out of storage tanks and ducked under pipelines to get around the burning building. At last, he made it to the freight terminal near the maglev train line.

Creeping between cars of a derailed train, Park stuck to the shadows, making his way the the end of the train, before entering a maze of shipping containers. Around the corner of a row of containers, Park encountered a lone Unggoy patrolling. He raised his pistol and took aim. A Banshee flew overhead at the moment Park pulled the trigger, masking the sound of the gun as the Grunt was shot dead with a single round to the head. Park took its plasma pistol and stuffed the end into his pocket, holding the weapon on his side, before he put the body inside an open shipping container and closed the container, hiding the alien corpse.

Peeking around the corner, Park saw another Unggoy, also unaware of his presence. Park was pretty sure the Covies wouldn't be so accommodating as to mask his gunfire yet again, so he seized a metal rod used to hold a shipping container shut and tip-toed up to the back of the Grunt. Park swung the metal rod down on the Grunts head, knocking it to the floor, before hitting it several more times. One he was sure the Grunt was dead, Park dragged the alien's body into the gap between two containers.

Finally, Park made it out of the rows of containers, crossing a road into a commercial area. Park heard the whining sound of Covenant anti-gravity engines, and ran into a department store and ducked behind a checkout counter just in time to avoid being seen by a column of Wraiths and Shadows. When the alien armor had passed, Park grabbed a bottled water from the small refrigerator next to the checkout and a few assorted chocolate bars and small bags of chips on the "snack shelf" next to the checkout, before grabbing a road map of the area. At least he had some idea where he was, and something to eat and drink later.

Park then cautiously walked through the store, pistol raised, in search of provisions. In the camping and outdoor section, he found a backpack capable of storing a number of provisions, not to mention a conveniently placed display of energy bars and sports drinks, which Park raided. Moving further into the outdoor section, he found a hatchet, a survival knife, and a lighter.

Park then moved to the glassed in counter at one end of the outdoor section. UEG law allowed local areas to impose their own level restrictions on civilian gun ownership. In Japan, controls were very tight, but contrary to popular belief, not guns were not completely illegal. As a sign on the counter stated in English and Japanese, one needed to have completed a large amount of paperwork and gone through extensive background checks to purchase a hunting rifle or shotgun, and had to keep a record of every round purchased and fired.

This clearly did not apply in Covenant invasions, however, as the glass was smashed and looters had made off with all the guns and ammo, no doubt hoping to defend themselves against the Covenant hordes. There was, however, one weapon remaining in the corner of the display, a crossbow- a loophole in Japanese gun laws meant that crossbows did not require the same paperwork as guns did.

However, this weapon, a repeating crossbow with a four bolt magazine was designed for hunting deer, not Covenant. But that didn't mean it was use less in that regard. It could definitely take down a Grunt or Jackal, and most importantly, it was almost completely silently.

After collecting the crossbow and as many bolts as he could find, Park loaded up on medical supplies from the pharmacy, managing to get a hold of a first aid kit, taking the most expensive on he could find. No doubt it would be the closest to a UNSC issue med kit.

Park exited the store through the automotive section, into an neighborhood of lower-middle class homes, at one point trying out his new crossbow on a pair of Grunts and a Jackal. He managed to put a bolt through each of their heads, disposing of the alien patrol before they could report his position.

After another half-hour's walking, it was truly getting light, so Park found a place to hid out for the day in an abandoned house, keeping the pistol at his side in case the Covies came knocking. -

0023 Hours, October 30th 2552 (Military Calendar)

outside Narita, Chiba Prefecture, Japan

Three days later, Commander Choi Park, former commander of the UNSC Noryang Point, had made his way about 20 kilometers inland from Covenant lines. He had since discarded the crossbow for an BR55S silenced battle rifle, and now also carried an M90D shotgun. However, he still had a good 70 clicks to go until he reached UNSC lines in the city of Chiba proper, and first, he had to find a way through or around Narita without attracting the attention of the Banshees, Phantoms, and Seraphs the Covies had placed at their recently-captured forward air base at Narita Airport. ---

'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1620 Hours, October 30th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Chuo Ward, Tokyo, Japan'''

High above the ground, James Basilone sat in the rear seat of a UV-144 Falcon Transport, along with the rest of his ODST squad. Ahead of the transport Falcon flew a squadron of AV-144 Falcon Gunships, attack variants of the Falcon tiltrotor. The lead Falcon, piloted by a Japanese pilot named Mikiya Ryougi, fired a Scorpion anti-tank missile at a Shade turret on top of Basilone's target, The Chuo Central Tower, a 2500-meter multi-use tower across a few blocks from the Tokyo central mag-lev station. The tower contained offices, restaurants, bars, apartments, condos, and even a three-level shopping mall at the bottom.

At the very top of the tower was a penthouse suite known as "The Palace in the Clouds", a 200 million-credit mansion literally built on top of the roughly mile-and-a-half tower, owned by some real-estate tycoon who built the place. The tower was still standing in spite of the battle, and if their intel was right, the Covies were preparing to place a comms jammer on the tower. Basilone's mission was to prevent that from happening.

The Falcon gunships eliminated the rest of the Covenant AA as the tiltrotor carrying Basilone drew closer to the tower. The doorgunner and nose gun of the transport, as well as those of the gunships, opened up on the surviving Covenant. A Jackal sniper fired a particle beam at the Falcon Basilone rode in, killing the right doorgunner. Basilone got on the gun a one of the Falcon gunships took out the Jackal sniper. Even with their supercarrier destroyed, it was clear the Covies still had plenty of fight left in them.

Basilone squeezed the trigger of the AIE-486 rotary machine gun. The weapon spat out 7.62mm ammunition at a rate of over 3000 rounds per minute, the sheer volume of fire chewing up a squad of Grunts and two Brutes as the Falcon hovered over a hole blown in the roof of the penthouse. Basilone got off the gun and raised the M95 auto shotgun he was carrying instead of his usual LMG for the close quarters of the tower interior.

James Basilone and the rest of the ODSTs fast-roped into the hole in the roof, landing in the bedroom of the penthouse. Basilone turned his auto shotgun sideways and swept the room with full auto fire, firing of a dozen shells, allowing the recoil to sweep across the room. cutting down a Brute, a Jackal, and five Grunts. An ODST with and MA5K took out the surviving Covenant- two Grunts and a Jackal- as another of Basilone's comrades killed a Jackal sniper in the balcony leading off of a door in the rear of the bedroom.

"CLEAR!", James yelled as he looked around the room, scanning for any surviving enemies. The bedroom was in the Western style, large and spacious, with a king-size bed in the center, flanked on each side by two ornately-decorated end tables. On the other side of the room was a door leading into the hallway, to the right of a wide holo-screen TV. To the left was the door out to the balcony overlooking the city, while to the right were two doors, which Basilone kicked down to reveal a master bathroom with a spa-tub and marble finishing, while the other room was a large walk-in closet, taken up by clothing belonging to the owner and his wife.

Both side rooms, however, were devoid of Covenant, so Basilone gave the order the stack up on the door leading into the hallways. Zhang, one of the ODSTs in Basilone's squad, forced the door open and entered, M7 SMG raised and immediately shot a Jackal and two Grunts, before yelling "CLEAR!".

The hallway had three doorways. The first one was cleared to reveal a guest bedroom with a plasma turret position and a couple Jackal snipers inside. Basilone shot a Brute leading the squad in the chest twice with his M95, depleting its energy shield, before Zhang finished the alien with a three-round burst to the head. Basilone then proceeded to dispose of a Grunt and a Jackal, while another ODST took out the other two Covenant soldiers. The second room was a bathroom, which was devoid of alien presence, though the toilet and sink had been blown apart, and the third room had been completely blown away by a missile or bomb, leaving only a massive hole in the floor and walls beyond the door.

Basilone reloaded his M95 auto shotgun before leading the squad down the hallway to the third-floor landing, which wrapped around a large, high room with a high ceiling, leading to another door opposite the landing, with a staircase leading down below. On the north side of the landing was a glass-encased elevator that, when it was functioning, appeared to go to all of the floors of the mansion and down into the executive offices of the tower itself.

Standing at the ready around different sides of the landing were several Jackal snipers and three Brutes, one a captain armed with a Brute Shot. Basilone walked up to a Jackal sniper with its back turned and kicked it off the landing, sending it falling three stories below to the ground floor and its death. The other two Jackals were picked off by Kamarov, a Russian who was a replacement for the squad's dead sniper, Kirie Tomoe. Kamarov, however, today carried not a sniper rifle but a BR55, which worked better at the close ranges of the room.

The surprised Brutes turned to the ODSTs. The captain fired a grenade from his Brute shot, which missed and exploded in the hallway behind the ODST squad as they scattered, successfully managing to avoid the blast. Basilone returned fire, killing the Brute with a burst of three shotgun shells as Kamarov took down the second Brute with a couple well-aimed BR burst, the first downing the shield and the second killing the alien. The third Brute on the upper landing was cut down by concentrated fire from the rest of the squad.

"CLEAR...", Basilone yelled, but was interrupted by a hail of spiker and plasma fire from the floors below them. Seven Brutes on the first floor were trying to get up the staircase, firing as they went. A spike grenade stuck to the railing, which forced Basilone and Zhang to dive behind a marble statue to avoid getting hit by the shrapnel.

"Grenades, in the lower floors, now!", Basilone ordered, arming an M9 frag grenade and tossing it over the side of the railing. Basilones frag was followed by several others, all of which detonated in withing the group of Brutes, killing five and unshielding two. The ODSTs got up and fired a hail of bullets at the stunned survivors, sending them to join their fellows on the floor.

The door on the other side of the third floor landing led to an rooftop patio, garden, and swimming pool, which had been cleared of Covenant thanks to fire from the UNSC gunships. That left the second and first floors to be cleared. On the second floor, the ODST cleared a living room of two Grunts and a Jackal. The library was cleared of a Jiralhanae and five Grunts.

Two other rooms, the living room and bathroom proved empty. Finally, they got to the last room on the second floor, a private movie theater with a massive holo-screen that covered the entire wall. Basilone kicked down the theater door and gunned down a Brute and two Kig-Yar to the left, as Zhang and Kamarov took out the four Grunts in the room.

With the second floor cleared, all that remained was the first floor. The large, open lobby was already cleared, the Brutes, which upon closer inspection included a Chieftain having been killed by fire from above. The right hallway had a number of rooms including another bathroom, another living room, a study, and a third guest bedroom. These were all easily cleared of the Covenant occupying them, before the ODSTs stacked up on the door to the left.

Basilone opened the door and Zhang tossed a grenade into what turned out the be the dining room. The grenade killed two Unggoy and a Jackal, as well as de-shielding a Brute, who were gathered around partially completed Covenant Jammer. When they heard the grenade go off, the Covenant ceased work on the jammer and tried to draw their weapons and face the ODSTs.

Basilone shot the shieldless Brute in the back before it could turn to face him, Before blasting another Brute with his shotgun, taking it down with a shot to the face, as the rest of the squad poured fire on the two Brutes, seven Grunts, and five Jackals in the room. Within seconds, the stunned Covenant troops had been neutralized, as had the Jammer, which had taken numerous hits from bullets and grenade shrapnel.

With the jammer dealt with, the ODSTs cleared the kitchens and laundry room, which were no doubt manned by private staff when the owner of the mansion was alive. Once the those were clear, Basilone reported in for further orders.

71: Redirected
Operation: HOLY FATHER

0800 Hours, October 30th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Task Force Oscar CP, Sydney, Australia,

Kevlar was reluctant to get up, it was the longest sleep he'd gotten since they'd dropped in, and not even a full eight hours. But he pulled together his equipment and joined the rest of his weary-looking squad in the makeshift briefing room. Dansen was mostly unreadable under his blue-striped helmet, but his slumped shoulders gave the stupid hero away as being as tired and mortal as the rest of them. Mitch had a bandage around his shin, from where the particle beam rifle had hit him, even worse off for having to be awake through his operation. Collins and Emmert must have caught a bit more sleep while they'd been waiting, they were more alert, as was their new squadmate, Eirikur Quinn. The SHVA trooper had joined them after they'd gotten back, as he lacked a squad of his own for the moment.

In front of them, Oscar's CO was explaining something to Mitch, Kevlar was too tired to listen in well. Whatever it was, it probably meant more work in the future. He decided to take a tip from Dansen, and start wearing his helmet to briefings so he could shut his eyes without being noticed, when a spoken name perked him up.

"Zircon" he heard Colonel Perez say, and watched as Mitch stiffened. That could only mean one person, though he would have to confirm it.

"You're going to ride a supply Pelican on its return trip for transport. You'll rendezvous with them on the way." he narrowed his eyes at Mitch. "I expect you to ensure that data gets to Ryu Base."

"What's going to happen here?" Mitch asked him.

Perez bit his lip. "There's been a . . . complication. It may require a nuclear solution. It's heavy-handed, but we can't afford to hold back when sacrifices must be made."

Mitch tightened his jaw. "As bad as the enemy, hmm?"

"No." Perez shook his head resolutely. "We don't massacre entire populations. This will only be material loss."

"Still . . . who knows if we would kill their civilians if the war was in reverse." the corporal wondered.

"No way to tell." Perez said simply, tired of hypotheticals. "But it isn't that way."

The squad shouldered their packs and left the briefing room, headed for the dropship pads. Kevlar caught Mitch's arm.

"Zircon?" he asked, "Amelia Zircon?"

"Yeah." Mitch nodded. Then he went back to overseeing the squad and their equipment.

Dansen nudged him and asked quietly, "Who's Amelia Zircon?"

"One of the other survivors of the 'Double One'." Kevlar answered. "She's the sarge."

72: Another Day, Another Mountaintop Fortification
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT 1200 Hours,

October 30th 2552 (Local Time)

Norikura-dake, Northern Japanese Alps, Japan'''

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki took cover from incoming plasma fire amidst the structures in the gap between the north and south peaks of Norikura-dake. A few feet from them, a UNSC Army Ranger named Hahya raised an M99 Gauss rifle and fired at a Jiralhanae chieftain on the firing line above them. The slug impacted the alien at hypersonic speeds, literally vaporizing the alien.

Hahya then went on the fire off three more shots, eliminating the gunners on a trio of plasma turrets. The sniper was extremely skilled, living up to his name: apparently he was the distant descendant of a 20th-century Finnish sniper in the 1939-1940 Winter War, the highest scoring sniper at the time.

With the Covenant heavy guns silenced, Keiichi raised his M389 DMR and took aim at the firing line. The targetting system from the M456 grenade launcher mounted under the barrel of the rifle locked on the distance to the alien defenses. Keiichi squeezed the trigger, sending a 25mm grenade round towards the firing line. The grenade exploded over the heads of five Unngoy and two Jiralhanae, killing all except for one of the Jiralhanae, who merely had his energy shield depleted, only to be cut down seconds later by the hail of suppressing fire unleashed by the UNSC Army and militia troops.

As the surviving Covenant took cover as a UNSC captain gave to the order to assault the alien positions. Keiichi switched his DMR to full auto and charged at the Covenant positions along with the rest of the UNSC forces, Rena running by his side, firing her MA37 assault rifle from the hip. All other sounds were drowned out by gunfire and shouts in both English, Japanese, and in alien tongues, "REMEMBER REACH!!!" and "FOR HUMANITY!!!", being some of the more notable battlecries of the charging UNSC soldiers.

It was tough going up the trail climbing to couple hundred meters to the firing line, and several UNSC soldiers, mostly militia, went down. Keiichi and Rena, however were not among them. Rena joined several other UNSC soldiers in tossing hand grenades into trench line, Rena not having an frags left, instead threw a captured plasma grenade into the alien defensive position. The plasma grenade stuck to a Jiralhanae minor and blew him to pieces as several other frag grenades, as well as a few molotov cocktails and captured alien grenades landed in the firing line, decimating the Covenant defenders.

The UNSC soldiers reached the crest of the ridge, a UNSC soldier with a flamethrower firing into the trenches, incinerating several alien soldiers. Keiichi Ryukishi, Rena Sonozaki and dozens of other UNSC soldiers fired their weapons in full auto at point blank range, riddling alien bodies with 7.62mm, 5mm, and 9.5mm rounds. A deshielded Brute Ultra armed with a Brute Shot raised the axe-like bayonet of the grenade launcher and swung it down at the UNSC captain, who blocked with his MA37 rifle. The rifle was bent beyond all usefulness, but it stopped the blow.

The UNSC captain struck the Brute in the face with the now-useless rifle, before he drew his combat knife and thrust it into the Jiralhanae's chest several times. As the captain pulled the knife out of the ape-like alien's body, it fell to the ground, dead. As the last of the Covenant on the firing line were slain, the UNSC captain the seized a Plasma Repeater from a dead Brute Minor.

The firing line was captured, but between them and the summit lay a narrow ridge covered by a defensive position on the summit proper. The UNSC troops took cover behind boulders as a hail of spiker rounds, plasma bolts, and Brute Shot grenades came flying from the final rocky slope leading up to Shinto shrine on the summit of Norikura-dake, which now housed a Covenant plasma turret.

A UNSC soldier raised an M41 rocket launcher and took aim at the shrine, which consisted of a small wooden hut-like structure behind a rectangular wooden arch. The soldier prepared to fire, but was struck by a spiker round in the arm which caused him to scream in pain as he dropped the weapon.

"Medic!", the wounded man yelled.

"Everyone, give that medic cover!", the UNSC Captain ordered.

Keiichi raised his DMR and fired off the two remaining grenade rounds in the underbarrel launcher. The grenades impacted amidst the Covenant forces near the summit, killing several of them. Meanwhile the rest of the UNSC squad fired on the Covenant positions will fully automatic fire as the Ranger snipers, Hahya and Pavlichenko picked off Brutes with well aimed shots. Rena Sonozaki grabbed the rocket launcher dropped the wounded soldier and took aim at the shrine on the summit and squeezed the trigger. The shrine exploded in a flash of fire, sending pieces of wood and dead Covenant flying everywhere. As Rena destroyed the shrine, a medic carried the wounded man back down to the road.

Rena had no qualms about destroying the shrine. She had never been particularly religious, and, in any case, it had no doubt already been desecrated by the Covenant. Rena's second rocket struck a Jiralhanae Chieftain, killing him instantly. Rena put down the rocket launcher as the captain gave the order to attack and raised her MA37, firing in full auto as she assaulted the Covenant positions with the rest of the UNSC forces.

Keiichi struck down a Brute with a long burst of full auto fire from his DMR as a UNSC infantryman threw a grenade into a plasma turret position, killing all the occupants. Rena, meanwhile, killed a couple Grunts with her rifle, she grabbed a Jiralhanae Mauler shotgun and took down a Brute and a Jackal with gun itself, and a Grunt with the bayonet. The UNSC Army Ranger, Hahya, fired the M7 SMG he carried as a secondary weapon, taking down a couple grunts with short bursts and a Brute with what remained of the magazine.

Brutes, Jackals, Grunts, and a few UNSC infantry men fell left and right as the assault moved up the rocky slope to the summit of Norikura-dake. A UNSC Army infantryman took down a Brute near the summit with a burst of full auto fire from his M6J Pistol Carbine, only to be knocked backwards by a Kig-Yar, which lunged at him, knocking his pistol out of his hands. The Jackal drew an energy cutlass as the UNSC infantryman grabbed a black, volcanic rock about the size of a grapefruit from the ground. The infantryman struck first, striking the Jackal in the face with the rock, before the slamming the rock down on the alien's head three more times, caving in its skull.

As the UNSC infantry man got up, a few of his comrades, including Keiichi and Rena took out the last of the Covenant troops on the summit of Norikura-dake. The UNSC squad gathered at the top, and looked west, towards their next objective: the city of Takayama.

73: Geology Hates You
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0600, October 31st, 2552 (Local Time)

floor of Kagoshima Bay, Covenant-controlled Kyushu, Japan'''

A Scarab fired its main plasma beam, melting through yet more rock, digging deeper into a hole that was already several hundred meters wide and 100 meters deep. Around the Scarab were yet more Covenant digging machines, all sealed for underwater use.

"Have you found anything yet?", The Jiralhanae chieftain Varrus asked through a holodrone.

"Not as of yet, Chieftain", The Brute operating the Scarab said.

"Keep digging then", Varrus ordered irratably, "There are Forerunner artifacts under the seafloor, I am sure of it. Don't stop until you have uncovered the holy relic."

"Understood", The Jiralhanae Ultra in the Scarab replied, relaying orders to the other Scarabs and excavating machines to dig deeper into the sea floor.

The Scarabs concentrated their beams at the center of the hole in the sea floor, blasting away a large amount of rock and sending a shockwave through the ground.

Several thousand feet below, in the depths of the Earth's crust, the shockwave came into contact with an active fault line, releasing the tension that had built up on the fault for decades. With a mighty tremor, fault gave way.

The Covenant personnel operating the machines felt the ground shake beneath them, an earthquake. Massive loose rocks from the side of the pit fell down, into the hole, rolling over Scarabs, crushing and burying the Covenant excavation machinery.

Above the surface, the ocean rose up in a gigantic wave. The tsunami rushed into Kagoshima bay, washing up on the shores, where the occupying Covenant had constructed a rear staging area. Alien war machines and infantry were washed away as the wave smashed the prefabricated Covenant structures.

''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1200, October 31st, 2552 (Local Time)

Yokota Air Force Base, Tokyo, Japan''

"At 0600 today, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck Covenant-controlled Kagoshima. There are currently no reports of damage in the UNSC-controlled area, however, aerial and space-based reconnaissance has confirmed that there has been considerable damage done to a Covenant staging area near the remains of the city of Kagoshima....", The announcer on the television in the off-duty bar said.

Mikiya Ryougi, Aoi Miyazaki and pretty much anyone else who was not on duty at the time had rushed in when they heard about the earthquake and tsunami that had devastated the Covenant forces. Some had attributed the display of nature's fury to the deity of their choice, others merely considered it luck, while some even claimed that the Covenant had disturbed a fault line in an attempt to dig up some Forerunner artifact they thought might be there.

Whatever the case, Mikiya thought, it was clear that once again, nature had sided with the defenders.

74: Delayed Reaction
Operation: HOLY FATHER to Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1200 Hours, October 31st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  500 miles south of Japan

Dark circles lay under Reo's eyes. The young woman had been awake for several days, learning from Sergeant Amelia Zircon all there was to know about the star skimmer called the Deladrier, a civilian luxury vessel that had been substantially modified. It was a very fast ship, but because of Covenant attacks in India and elsewhere had been forced to take a long, slow route around toward Sydney, only to be redirected north to Japan.

Henri sat at a console, still learning most of the functions he was supposed to perform on the vessel. He was tired, too, and as usual had continually mentioned how hungry he was. Though his eyelids were drooping under his dark hair, he watched Reo determinedly control the ship's helm, in formation with UNSC Pelican dropship Delta 275. The other ship was their escort, carrying a squad of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers to escort them.

Word was they'd have to circle around north and then go by ground to Ryu Base; Covenant air support had returned in force when one of their fleets had been thwarted, trying to pin down the UNSC with their advantage of an unexpected break, and turning Tokyo into a hornet's nest. Reo wasn't looking forward to it, but Moses had been clear that this was urgent.

From her seat, Amelia radioed the dropship. "Two-Seven-Five, let's turn west a bit to go around Tokyo. Official radio channels say the Covies there have had a few setbacks of late, should be easier to get through."

Two-Seven-Five followed their lead, more than ready to set down after their long journey.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1200 Hours, October 31st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  South of Gifu Prefecture, Japan

"Mountains out here are beautiful." Sepia observed from the team's vantage point looking at the southern border of the Hida Mountains. Mount Norikura particularly stood out, its wide, saddle-like peak dominating the horizon.

From behind her and Kodiak, Dyne grumbled, "I'd be more in awe of them if we didn't have to climb them."

"The running and fresh air do you good, Dyne." Kodiak said, likely smiling beneath his new visor. Something had changed about him, about them all recently, to Sepia. Maybe it was just the armor. She took her gaze off of him and went back to viewing the mountains. "Mendez wouldn't want us getting soft."

Dyne leaned against a boulder on the trail as he caught up with them. "Are you sure the thin air hasn't gotten to you? So where are we going?"

"Downhill, generally. Specifically, we're meeting up with a larger force, mostly militia, a good hike from here. So let's get going."

As he jumped down the short drop in front of them, Dyne sighed and secured his battle rifle on his back, locked like the M7s at his sides. He wouldn't need them for a while, and despite the armor they'd already been walking a long time already. As an act of mercy, Sepia tossed him one of the candy bars she'd saved, then set her flamethrower on her back next to her assault rifle and jumped down, jogging after Kodiak.

"I do not want to be doing this for the next two decades." Dyne moaned before following. What was ironic was that he would be after this was all over. He just didn't know it yet.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 00:32, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

75: Trick or Treat
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1900 Hours, October 31st 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Nyukawacho Hatahoko, Gifu Prefecture, East of Takayama, Japan

The UNSC column rolled down Highway 158, a Scorpion tank taking the lead, followed by anti-walker variant of the Grizzly tank equipped with a two anti-walker missiles instead of a second cannon, followed by more Scorpions and Grizzlies of variants, Cobra Mobile Gun Systems, Cougar APCs, Warthog FAVs, many with armor upgrades, and finally militia technicals, pickup armed with machine guns, rocket launchers, or light cannon, crewed by local militia.

As the UNSC Army column approached the village of Nyukawacho Hatahoko, a small village in the mountains about 18 clicks east of Takayama, a beam from a Scarab Gun obliterated the lead Scorpion. The source of the plasma stream was immediately apparant, about 200 meters above them on the side a mountain on the right side of he road, the Jiralhanae had placed the gun from a destroyed Scarab in an improvised turret made from parts of a heavy plasma mortar.

The M850 Grizzly Anti-Walker Vehicle turned its turret on the Covenant improvised gun emplacement and fired an anti-walker missile at the Covenant defenses. The Scarab gun turret exploded in a ball of fire as the missiles struck its power core, setting of a flash of blue flames. The Grizzly AWV then turn its single 120mm gun the upper story of a two-story house that housed a Jiralhanae armed with a plasma launcher, as the gunner of the vehicle yelled "Trick or Treat, motherfuckers!", noting that it was Halloween night. And the Covenant were in for a nightmare.

The explosion from the Grizzly's main gun blew away a quarter of the house, killing the Jiralhanae and a few Kig-Yar snipers in the structure. Four Wraiths hovered along a dirt side road parallel to Highway 158, escorted by Brute Choppers and Prowlers. The first Wraith fired off as shot, which destroyed two militia technicals. A Scorpion replied with its main gun, knocking the alien artillery vehicle out. The second and third Wraith fell before the twin 120mm guns of a heavy tank version of the Grizzly, before Cobra took out the last one.

Keiichi Ryukishi sat at the controls one the 25mm autocannon mounted on the one of the surviving militia technicals. "Those Grizzly tanks are really doing some damage", Keiichi thought, being reminded suddenly of a story he'd heard shortly after taking Norikura-dake, about a Jiranlhanae that was found dead near Shinhotaka, having been mauled to death by a bear. Between that and the stories of a earthquake in Kagoshima, it seemed Earth itself fighting against the Covenant.

With this thought in mind, Keiichi turned the autocannon on the Brute Choppers, blowing apart two in a hail of 25mm shells as some of the tanks started to split from the road, rolling along side roads, or across farmers fields, all the while firing shells at houses and shops that lined the street, as well as a couple of pre-fabricated Covenant barracks, which were quickly leveled.

Overhead, a flight of four Longswords fired off a pair of ASGM-10 missiles, lighting up the evening sky as the missiles impacted an opposing flight of Seraphs. The Covenant fighters were deshielded by the first missile and shot down by the second. The Longswords then proceeded to deploy a couple of laser-guided bombs on a plasma turret battery on a mountaintop and strafe a formation of Wraiths, chewing up the alien tanks.

Keiichi fired the technical's autocannon at a small, one-story wooden structure that held a light plasma turret. The Covenant guncrew were wiped out as Rena Sonozaki grabbed Keiichi's grenade-launcher equipped DMR and fired the launcher on hydrogen fueling station that held several Brutes in the convenience store behind it. The fuel tanks exploded in a ball of flames, incinerating all of the alien defenders.

The technical stopped next to an old temple, along with a Cougar APC. Suddenly, the traditional sliding wood and paper screen door was knocked aside. Seconds later, A beam of green superheated plasma impacted the APC and sent it up in a fireball, killing most of the occupants. Two UNSC soldiers crawled from the flaming wreckage. One of them was almost immediately crushed by the armored foot of the attacking Lekgolo. The second, however, managed to run to Keiichi's technical. Keiichi turned the 25mm on the nearest Hunter and pulled the trigger. The first few rounds exploded on the shield, but in less than a second, one of the rounds went around the shield as and blew off the Hunter's shield arm, before more 25mm shells entered the Hunter's body and exploded, sending dead Lekgolo worms and orange hemolymph flying everywhere.

The second Hunter charged at the technical, enraged by the death of its partner. The Lekgolo brought its shield down on the cab of the Toyota pickup that served as the base of the technical, crushing the driver. Keiichi, Rena, and the UNSC soldier that survived the destruction of the APC, jumped out, grabbing the nearest weapon to them as the went.

Keiichi and the UNSC Army infantryman ended up in front of the of the Hunter. They both rolled out the way, just in time to avoid a shot from the Lekgolo's assault cannon. Behind the Hunter, Rena Sonozaki had a clean shot with the M95 full auto shotgun she had grabbed as she fled the technical. Rena set the weapon to full auto and squeezed the trigger, firing ten rounds, a combination of shot and slugs into the back of the Lekgolo. Apparently, Hunters were technically colonial organisms, but the individuals in the colony were specialized enough that eliminating one would kill the entire colony, a sort of midpoint between a colonial and a single organism.

This was made quite clear when the Hunter keeled over and died. As Keiichi and the UNSC infantryman let out a sigh of relief, a militia vehicle made its way towards the town's small post office. It was not a technical or a gun truck, a larger truck outfitted with two machine gun or cannon turrets, but a modified bulldozer equipped with improvised armor plates around the cab and engine, metal spikes and barbed wire on the side to prevent boarding, an M247 general purpose machine gun that could be moved between four gunports on each side of the cab, and a turret cut into the roof armed with an twin-mount LAU-65 missile pod.

As the improvised tank, the "Killdozer" as an American tank commander in the unit had nicknamed it, moved on the post office, which was fortified was two plasma autocannon turrets and several Brute defenders. The M247 blazed out the front gunport, cutting down Unggoy and Jiralhanae defenders and the missile pod fired off four shot at the building, blowing away the front of the structure and a eliminating numerous Covenant soldiers. The "Killdozer" then plowed right through the remains of the small, one-story post office, completely demolishing the structure and killing any surviving Covenant soldiers.

As the "Killdozer" leveled the post office, other, more conventional tanks blasted apart the few remaining Covenant-held building to ruins, as UNSC infantry cleared those houses that were still standing.

"As the last Covenant gun fell silent, a voice on Keiichi's radio said, "Excellent work men, we'll wait here for the night, and avait the arrival of three SPARTANs, then, we'll press on to Takayama!".

76: Holiday Spirit
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1924 Hours, October 31st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Gifu Prefecture East of Takayama, Japan

Kodiak could feel the heat through his boots as they crushed molten and cooled bits of the blackened ground beneath him. Though he'd been trained all of his short life on how they worked and how to beat them, the power of the Covenant's weaponry still shook him up. As he and his team walked on, they passed where a massive armored bulldozer was clearing the highway of a burned-out Scorpion tank to make room for their continued march in the morning. It did nothing to lift his spirits.

They began to approach the area the convoy had claimed for their spot for the night, coming up on a massive Grizzly tank guarding the road. A man of E-8 rank sat on the armored fender smoking a cigar, and Kodiak walked up to the tank under his hooded gaze. The man, his tags read Amazake, stared at him from under his marine helmet, grinning faintly. "Trick or treat?"

Kodiak blinked, then understood. He'd almost forgotten that it was Halloween night. "It's no trick. You've got three SPARTANs here to join you, so, treat."

Amazake's grin widened. "Names?" he asked.

Kodiak straightened, as did Dyne and Sepia behind him. "Sierra Three-Gamma One-Fourteen, sir!"

Amazake stared blankly at him, as if there was some joke he didn't get.

After a moment, he said with chagrin, "Most call me Kodiak. I'm Ion Team's leader. Where's the convoy commander?"

"Don't worry about it." the crewman said, his smile returning as he pulled the Sweet William's out of his mouth. "I'll tell the Cap you're here. You should catch some rest while you can, we move out in the morning."

"Thanks." Kodiak nodded to him, and made for the area where a number of small campfires had been made in the street and surrounding area, along with groups that had taken places inside of houses or other abandoned buildings. He heard Sepia make a remark to Dyne about something, but was too busy overlooking the soldiers and militiamen to pay attention.

There was a definite split between the two sides, not that they disliked each other, but simply had more people they knew in their areas. Quickly, Kodiak found a number of dirty looks coming his way from the UNSC encampments. He'd met ODSTs before, and still had a scar from the encounter. Not looking to repeat the experience, he steered his team toward the militia fires.

Soon, they came upon a large fire surrounded by only a few people, two of them children. Forgetting they couldn't see a friendly smile behind a visor, he asked, "May we join you?"

One of the Army snipers gestured for them to take a seat, which they did. Dyne moved in close to the fire, his tan armor glowing in the flickering firelight. After a moment settling in, Kodiak noticed the intent stares from the two younger fighters, chewing on UNSC ration bars. He tried to politely ignore it, fearing any confrontation, until the boy said, "I give up," he held up his ration bar, "is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

He head Dyne laugh behind him. "Keep going." Kodiak answered.

From where she sat beside him, Sepia suddenly perked up. Unshouldering her pack, she opened it and withdrew a crinkling, wrapped candy bar, and tossed everyone around the circle one of them. The boy's eyes lit up with delight. "How many of those do you have?"

"Enough." Sepia said, taking off her helmet with a hiss of pressure to eat her own trick-or-treat candy. "But not enough for everyone here. So keep it quiet."

"Keiichi." he said, extending a hand dwarfed by Dyne's armored gauntlet that returned it.

"Dyne." he said, taking off his own helm. "And this is Kodiak and Sepia. Ion Team."

As the other teen introduced herself as Rena and began pointing out the others, Kodiak's focus swung back and forth between Dyne and Sepia, and Keiichi and Rena. The two civilians were maybe a year or so older than the SPARTANs. They hadn't had all the training, or the bulky armor, and yet they were still here on the same line they were. Was this all that was left of humanity? Child soldiers and old veterans?

While the others traded quips about Halloween before turning in, Kodiak looked out to the dark, far-off horizon. The ghost stories were a little more real tonight. After a long time talking, Dyne lay down in his armor to sleep, saying, "Hope we don't get attacked until morning."

He might have meant by ghosts, but it took on another edge as Sepia said, "Don't jynx it, Dyne. Don't jynx it."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 05:33, July 15, 2011 (UTC)

77: A House Divided
''0014 Hours, November 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Narita Sakura No Yama Hotel, outside Narita, Chiba Prefecture, Japan''

Commander Choi Park of the UNSC "wet" Navy had made it to the other side of Narita airport, and was now on the fourteenth floor of the Narita Sakura No Yama Hotel. The hotel had been abandoned by human and Covenant alike, they had no idea that a lone human surveyed the airport through the scope of a BR55 battle rifle.

All night, Park had heard plasma fire coming from Narita Air-Space Port, and occasionally saw Banshees and Seraph overhead, firing their weapons. Was this a UNSC offensive? When he got to the twenty-story tower that was the hotel, his curiosity got the better of him. Cautiously, he made his way through up the hotel, to the 14th story, meeting no Covenant resistance on his way.

When he got the the fourteenth floor window, which gave him a clear view over the air/space port, he was shocked by what he saw. The airport had turned into a battlefield not between human and Covenant, but between the Covenant and... themselves... Banshees and Seraphs dueled overhead. Occasionally, a Covenant aircraft would go down in blue flames and crash into the ground. Below the dogfighting aircraft, Wraiths and Locusts fired on each other, amidst the burning ruins of structure both human and alien, as well and the burning remnants of Wraiths, Locusts, and a couple Scarabs. Among the armor of the two sides were countless light vehicle and infantry.

Above and slightly behind all the chaos, two Covenant warships, a light cruiser and a battlecruiser did battle, firing volleys of plasma torpedoes at each other, deshielding each other and blowing great holes in each other's sides. Looking through the scope of his BR, Park could see a hole near the nose of the light cruiser that was not caused by plasma fire: it was the cruiser he had damaged with multiple SAM hits before it sunk his ship.

The battlecruiser fired its energy projector at the light cruiser, blowing away left side. Amazingly, the ship was still in the air as it fired up its remaining engines and rammed into the battlecruiser. The light cruiser exploded in a huge blue fireball that blew the CCS-class battlecruiser in half. The remains of both Covenant spacecraft landed in the fields behind the airport.

Park focused his rifle scope on the battling Covenant infantry, examining the two sides. Unngoy and Lekgolo were present on both sides, one side seemed to be lead by Jiralhanae, while the other was lead by Sangheili. Most of the Kig-Yar had sided with the Jiralhanae, as had all of the Yanme'e.

This could mean only one thing: the Covenant had divided on species lines and was falling apart. This was just the lucky break humanity needed, with the Covenant busy killing each other, the UNSC could use the chaos to their advantage and force the remaining Covenant forces off Earth. It was not out of the question that one of the Covenant species would side with humanity. Park though that it would most likely be the Elites. Little did Park know, that would happen in just two short days.

78: Landing Zone
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0200 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  West Coast of Japan

Corporal Hunter retied the bandage around his calf. The particle beam had burned a clean hole through his flesh, but his bones had been spared and it would heal in good time. But it was still a nasty-looking wound. The seared flesh and dead skin, blood-soaked bandage. . . he stopped thinking about it, and returned to the ring of tags in his hand. He'd been flipping through them thinking about the memories of people that were tied to it, but one in particular. Those of Sergeant Jonathon Dansen, father of the blue-suited trooper sitting at the back of the troop bay.

After they'd left Sydney, he'd returned to his quiet demeanor usually sleeping behind his blacked-out visor. The other sleep-deprived squad members were much the same way, but from now on Mitch was going to keep a close eye on Ben Dansen. His stunt at the orbital elevator had caught him completely off-guard, a stupid, rookie attempt that chances were would get people killed.

But the odds must have been in his favor. Dansen had saved a life, and even lived to tell about it, though he was once again silent. Unless spoken to, he'd only ask the occasional naive or stupid question. At least, that was how Mitch saw it.

Dansen wasn't his biggest concern at the moment. His new mission was to escort a data package in the hands of a civilian to Ryu Base. The package was carried on a ship called the Deladrier, which he knew was captained by one and one alone. Sergeant Amelia Zircon, his former squad leader in the 'Double One'. He was anxious to see her again, wondering how the sergeant's own wounds were doing, if she was walking again. He thought back to the burning building in New Alexandria, how the beam had come down on her legs in the flames. And once again, he thanked Buck for pulling them all out of it.

From forward, one of the pilots announced they were going to be landing soon, rousing the squad. Mitch checked his battle rifle. He couldn't wait for it.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:10, July 22, 2011 (UTC)

79: Air Raid
''200 Hours, November 2, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan''

Captain Takashi Yanagi of the "wet" Navy ballistic missile submarine UNSC Seawolf exited an officer's club near the temporary UNSC "wet" naval base of at Sendai. The city was well behind UNSC lines, safe from Covenant land attack, and, with the destruction of the Covenant supercarrier over Tokyo Bay, safe from glassing attacks, at least temporarily. Still, the Covenant would often send Seraphs and other aircraft to attack the city.

Even in the black of night, Yanagi could see the evidence of plasma charge damage. This was not the first time Sendai had been met with destruction, having suffered been bombed in the Second World War, and suffered a tsunami in 2011 and again in 2358. That night, as the Seawolf re-armed in the port, Covenant came to hit the city yet again.

The sirens screamed into the night as the light blue glow of the engines of Covenant Banshees and Seraphs lit up the night sky. The roar of surface to air missiles and fighter engines, along with the banging of AA guns filled the night. Missiles fired by SAM batteries and Longsword fighters impacted about ten Seraphs, shooting them down before they got close to the city, however, about twelve of the Covenant fighters got close enough to deploy their payloads, lighting up the night with flashes of blue flames around the airport turned UNSC air base.

As the Covenant fighters then dueled with the Longswords to allow the Banshees to dive in low to engage targets of opportunity. Yanagi ran towards the entrance of an air raid shelter, along with other UNSC personnel- most of the civilians in the area had been either evacuated or joined the militia.

A Banshee dove toward the group of UNSC personnel gathering around the air raid shelter and let loose with its twin plasma autocannons. Bolts of light blue plasma burned through the flesh of UNSC soldiers and militia, killing and maiming men around Yanagi, though Yanagi himself.

There were not SAM batteries or dedicated AA guns nearby, most of them being deployed near the airbase and port, so the UNSC personnel fired back at the alien attack aircraft with any weapon they had on hand, while others carried the wounded into the shelter. Yanagi himself drew his M6D handgun and fired several rounds at the Banshee, along with dozens of other M6s, MA5s, BRs, M7 SMGs, and other small arms, as well as a mounted M247 GPMG.

The Banshee's armor stood up to the hail of fire for a few seconds, before several round perforated the left anti-gravity pod, setting fire to the craft's propulsion system and causing it to fall from the air and crash into the roof of a building about 200 yards away, exploding in ball of blue flames.

As three other Banshees flew in on the crowd near the shelter entrance, a UNSC civilian militia technical armed with an LAU-65 missile pod pulled up at the the end of the road and fired off a missile at each Banshee, sending two of the Covenant aircraft to a fiery fate, and driving away a third, allowing the UNSC troops to enter the air raid shelter.

As he entered the air raid shelter, Yanagi called Commander Karlsson, his second in command who he had left in charge of the Seawolf on the radio.

"No Damage to the sub, had to take out a couple Banshees and a Seraph with the Argent SAMs", Karlsson responed to Yanagi's queries on the status of the Seawolf. Yanagi was thankful that the UNSC engineers decided to add the vertical SAM launchers to the sub to defend against anti-submarine aircraft. The Covenant had few anti-sub weapons, but the SAMs still came in useful every once in a while.

"Most of the Covie aircraft are down or retreating, rearmament should take a couple more hours to complete. I'll relay the message on to the rest of the crew.", Karlsson said.

80: Dark and Early
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0400 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Outskirts of Takayama, Japan

It wasn't even daybreak yet, and Ion Team was moving in the dark. Their new armor wasn't as stealthy as the SPI, but color was of little consequence in complete darkness. Power to Takayama was absent for now, and as they moved along surveying the convoy's route ahead, they relied on motion trackers and their own augmented vision to view their surroundings.

Running quickly across the pavement, Kodiak kept glancing over the side of the myriad of elevated roads leading on, off, and adjacent to freeways on permacrete pillars three stories off the ground. Dyne was below them on a different bridge, and Sepia was two steps behind him.

"Got a flashlight attachment?" Dyne asked over TEAMCOM, and Kodiak flashed a green acknowledgement light. Searching his belt absently, he drew a light and dropped it over the edge, straight to him.

Dyne caught it out of the air, then slid it onto his battle rifle's barrel. It locked with a click, and Dyne turned it on, searching the tunnel ahead of them. Nothing but abandoned cars, like the rest of the road system. Taking a few steps forward, he realized he was missing the matched steps behind him. He turned and looked at Sepia, her dull gold armor warmly illuminated by the pilot light on her flamethrower. She held the ignited weapon up, gripped tightly.

"You coming?" he asked. Slowly, she nodded. The corner of Dyne's mouth curled briefly. "Don't tell me you're afraid of the dark."

Starting at the accusation, she pushed forward after him, descending the sloping road inside the tunnel entrance. Truthfully, though, she was, only a bit. It was a foolish, a stupid fear for a SPARTAN, she told herself. But it was why she liked her flamethrower so much. It cast a soft light, like a candle, and had chosen the shining, amber suit, despite its age. She would have rather been anywhere but this, in the night going underground into a long, unlit tunnel. Sepia hated being underground. Call it claustrophobia or fear of the dark, she didn't like it.

Though they were supposed to walk up opposite sides of the tunnel, she was very glad Dyne forgot to do so, and stuck close behind him and the cone of light emanating from his rifle. He seemed to have no problem with it, often looking up to the ceiling to examine it. His relaxed walk suggested to Sepia that he enjoyed the underground, which she couldn't understand.

At last, they came out the other side. Carefully behind her teammate, she sighed in relief, the moon had come out while they were inside and gave them a bit of pale illumination. Sepia nearly jumped as Kodiak's armored form leaped down from above and landed next to them.

"Looks all clear out here. Let's head back to the convoy, and get a place riding on one of those trucks." he said. Sepia couldn't agree more with the idea.

"Shotgun!" Dyne called as they mercifully took a different route back, leaving the tunnel behind.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:43, July 22, 2011 (UTC)

81: Clearance Sale
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1000 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Local Time) East side of Takayama, Japan'''

A UNSC Armored Column rolled down Highway 158 towards the Covenant roadblock at a crossroads near the east edge of Takayama. The road block consisted of a deployable energy shield barricade, flanked on each side by Wraiths. Deployable guard towers armed with plasma turrets looked out over the barrier. To either side of the Wraiths were two structures, one a fueling station and the other a strip mall housing a grocery store and a couple American chain restaurants, a KFC and a Pizza Hut. In front of the Energy Barrier stood a Scarab Assault Walker.

The Scarab was picked off from a distance by an anti-walker missile from one of the three anti-walker variants of the Grizzly tank, as a Scorpion took out one of the Wraiths, and a Grizzly disposed of the other. A Cougar APC fired its 30mm autocannon at the deployable lookout towers and Shade Turrets, taking out the three towers and one of the Shade turrets. The last turret was eliminated by a slug from a Gauss Warthog.

The Covenant troops inside the grocery store, restaurants, and hydrogen fueling station opened fire, taking out a Scorpion tank and a couple Warthogs with plasma launcher and fuel rod gun fire. A Scorpion replied with its 90mm main gun, sending the fueling station and its alien occupiers up in a ball of flames as a couple Cougars, Warthogs, and militia technicals and gun trucks focused fire on the strip mall.

With the Covenant fire supressed, a Cougar APC and a militia guntruck holding several civilian militia, including Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki parked in the lot of the strip mall. The occupants of the vehicles, lead by a UNSC Army sergeant.

"On me, soldiers, We're gonna clear that store and make it around the back door so we can disable that energy barrier."

The UNSC soldiers and militia fell in behind the sergeant, going through main entrance of the Pizza Hut. The Covenant defenders in the dining room and next to the counter were all dead, killed by UNSC machine gun and autocannon fire. As The UNSC troops grew closer, however, a spike grenade flew through a window between the area behind the counter and the kitchen.

The grenade landed amongst three militia, one of who tried to pick up the alien grenade, but by the time he got his hand around the handle of the grenade, the fuse had burned out, and the grenade exploded, killing two of the militia and wounding a third.

"Medic!", the wounded man yelled, clutching a metal spike that had stuck in his thigh.

"Give the medic some cover, keep those Covies in the kitchen down!", the sergeant yelled.

At once, Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki rose from a table they were taking cover behind and opened fire on the Covenant defenders. The rest of the UNSC soldiers and militia did the same. A Kig-Yar and two Unggoy were cut down as the rest of the Covenant took cover. With the Covenant troops supressed, the medic carried the wounded man to a waiting APC.

As the medic left the building, the sergeant tossed a frag grenade into the window leading to the kitchen. Seconds later, the grenade detonated, killing a pair of Jackals and deshielding a Brute. The sergeant kicked down the door to the kitchen, BR55 with underbarrel shotgun at the ready.

The sergeant finished off the shieldless Jiralhanae with a shotgun blast to the head, before Keiichi burst in, M95 Full Auto Shotgun in hand and killed two Grunts and Jackal. A UNSC infantryman killed the last two Grunts in the kitchen with his MA5 as he yelled "CLEAR".

"Excellent work, blow this wall, it should lead into the grocery store.", The sergeant said as an army corporal placed a C12 charge on the wall. The charge detonated and blew a man-sized hole in the wall.

The stench of rotting meat and fish greeted the noses of the UNSC soldiers as they entered the meat and seafood counter, whose contents were decaying from months of abandonment. Suddenly, refrigerated shelf with assorted frozen foods was knocked over, revealing a pack of about ten Brutes, lead by a Chieftain, who ran at the UNSC troops behind the counter as the other Jiralhanae opened fire.

A UNSC infantryman armed with and M247 light machine gun mounted the weapon's bipod on the top of the counter and opened fire, draining the Chieftain's shields with help of concentrated fire from the rest of the sqaud. The Chieftain's shield broke and the ape-like alien fell to the floor, his gravity hammer cracking the floor as it fell from his hands.

The other Brutes kept firing, taking down a UNSC soldier with a spike to the head and killing two militia with a Brute shot grenade. Keiichi retaliated with his auto shotgun, delivering a burst of slugs into two Jiralhanae, blowing great holes in the flesh as they fell down, dead.

Rena took out a deshielded Brute with her M7 SMG as the sergeant picked off an ultra who attempted to throw a spike grenade with a single shot to the head. The Brute's grenade exploded amongst its surviving packmates, adding two more to the body count as the final few Brutes fell to the M247 or the combined fire of multiple rifles and SMGs.

A quick check of the store proved the building quite clear save for a few easily dealt with Grunts. The back stockroom was similarly unguarded. Finally, the UNSC infantry burst out the back door of the grocery store. A surprised squad of Covenant, mostly Unggoy and Kig-Yar, lead by one Brute turned on the spot, stunned by the suddeness of the attack.

The UNSC troops concentrated their fire on the Brute, taking him down quickly, before taking out the Kig-Yar and a few Grunts, causing the rest of the Unggoy to flee in terror. The UNSC sergeant pressed the large switch on the holo panel controlling the barrier, dropping the glowing blue shield around guarding the intersection, allowing the UNSC armor to roll through and pick up the UNSC squad on the other side.

82: Crossfire
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1000 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Outskirts of Takayama, Japan

Nearby, Kodiak could hear the opening shots and saw the fireball from the fuel station, but was posted too far away to help. He stood on the deck of a Scorpion tank, part of a group including one of the Grizzlies that was turning onto an elevated highway to gain a position to cover them with artillery while the rest of the convoy went through the city. At a ping on his com, he dismounted and ran ahead of the slow-moving tank, towards the front of the tanks where the Covenant had laid mines and had infantry defending them.

Joining a number of other UNSC infantry, he quickly began cutting down rows of Grunts. For a SPARTAN, this was easy work. He even had the time to spot and identify the mines they'd laid, and could have told the EOD specialists how to disarm them. Older models, rarely seen and mostly used when they wanted to manually blow up a city like this. It seemed odd to him they were seeing deployment against a tank unit.

Something didn't seem right. If they wanted to stop them, they could simply pull back and detonate the mines to bring the bridge down, instead of throwing cannon fodder to protect it. And otherwise they should be using higher-quality ordnance.

From his position farther in the city, still scouting, Dyne raised him on his com. "Kodiak! Fall back, Wraiths! They're training on the bridge!"

He had just enough time to turn before the first volleys of bright blue fire arced up from somewhere below and far-off. "Incoming!" he had time to yell, before making a dash for the enemy line. They couldn't pull back, it would take too long. He had to get rid of those explosives, fast. Even as he ran, dispatching the last of the Unggoy, he heard Amazake saying, "Blue group, you on rearguard fall back. Red and Green groups, no choice, push through!"

The explosive charges were light. Rather than taking time to disarm them, he chose to simply hurl them clear of the bridge, down toward some unfortunate Covenant positions below.

However, it wouldn't be fast enough for the column to escape the first few volleys. Plasma crashed down on and around the roadway, taking bites out of the side of the bridge or even onto an unfortunate tank. Sepia-G330 jumped from the rear Scorpion in Green group, the middle unit, just as a mortar came down on it. The armor melted and the front tracks broke apart, killing the driver who'd been unable to escape in time. The machine gunner cried in pain as his uniform caught fire behind Sepia. She quickly threw him to the ground and helped extinguish the flames before they could engulf him.

The man was screaming in agony as she moved him, slinging the marine over a shoulder and jumped onto and over the tank's burning hulk to catch up with those still moving. She passed several dead infantry and blackened mortar craters, but gained on the others until she'd passed Amazake's Grizzly, the new rear-most vehicle. Sprinting to catch up with the medical Warthog in front of it, she hurriedly passed the injured man to the medic reaching out of its back.

Turning to find where else she could help, she saw over the Grizzly's fender a single Unggoy, who had cowered in hiding while the unit rolled past, now chasing after them lugging a heavy road bomb. She was just reaching for her rifle when another blue fireball came down on top of the Grunt, not far behind the tank.

The resulting explosion shook the whole bridge, and the sound of crumbling permacrete followed. Looking back up after having averted her eyes from the inferno, she saw the front of Amazake's tank rise up like the bow of a sinking ship. She realized that was exactly what was happening, the roadway was collapsing between the two pillars where the blast had hit, and the Grizzly that had almost cleared the section was now slipping back into the gap.

Sepia dropped the gun she'd been drawing and ran for the titanium behemoth. She could see the fearful look in the gunner's eyes as the tank moved backwards. Then there was a crunch and squeal of metal being bent as Sepia's MJOLNIR gauntlets dug handholds into the Grizzly's plating. She braced and planted her feet firmly on the ground, swinging the tank's bow back down. The gunner stared at her in shock for a moment before she yelled, "Get out of the tank!"

He complied wordlessly, panic speeding his body. As he left the small area of the world in which Sepia was aware of everything, she felt the strain on her armor and muscles to keep the tank from falling back into open air. Then the treads, once again teetering up, spun forward at their full speed of 54 kilometers an hour spraying pebbles they'd collected from the pavement before Sepia, grunting from the exertion, pulled it down again and let it grip the asphalt. As it surged forward, Sepia leaped up onto the deck, staying crouched while she got her breath back.

Looking around, she found the mortar barrage had stopped, either because they'd been taken out or were being moved. She hoped it was the former.

"Thanks, Spartan." Amazake said, relief plain. "Guess I'll have to call this thing the Titanic from now on."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 22:01, July 23, 2011 (UTC)

83: Sniper Cover
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1340 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Local Time) Shiroyama Park, Takayama, Japan'''

Sulo Hahya lay prone on a viewing point near the recently recaptured Shiroyama park, home to an old rock platform that apparently used to the be a 17th century castle. Takayama castle was located on a mountain, or, that's what the "yama" in it's name meant, but it was truly more of a hill compared to the peaks outside town. Still, it was enough to give the sniper a commanding view of the city of Takayama, which, along with the 4.5 kilometer range of his Gauss rifle, gave him the ability to take out any Covie mike foxtrot in town.

The (very displaced) Finnish sniper readied his M99 Gauss rifle as his radio crackled to life, "This is the UNSC 23rd Armored, a bunch of our tanks have engaged a group of Wraiths, Locusts, and Covie infantry near a bridge the Takayama jinga.... The old traditional Japanese looking place about half a click from your location", The tank commander added, remembering he was speaking to a man from the other side of the world.

"This Hunter 2-1, I have your location and am ready to provide sniper cover", Hahya said. As he spoke, a UNSC Scorpion tank took out a Covenant Locust light walker, only to be destroyed seconds later by a shot from a Plasma Launcher wielded by a Brute in a seven story building dating back to the 20th century.

As the UNSC tanks blasted away at the Covenant armor, Hahya fired his M99 at the offending Jiralhanae, who stood on the sixth floor balcony, reducing the alien to a bloody mist. Hahya then took out another Brute and two Jackal snipers, as well as Shade turret.

"Nice shooting", The UNSC tank commander responded as a Scorpion tank with a dozer blade pushed the wreck of the destroyed Scorpion into the Miyagawa River below. Suddenly, however, a massive ball of plasma, as well as several smaller plasma shots impacted the bridge and the surrounding area. The bridge fell into the river as about five UNSC tanks, four Scorpions and a Grizzly were destroyed, along with a similar number of Warthog LRVs.

"Shit!", The commander said, "All units, retreat from the bridge, we're taking an alternate route. Be advised, sniper, we are making out way to a bridge to south. Try and locate where those plasma mortars came from!".

"Already on it, I see a cloaking tower on the the slopes of a mountain with a top that has been cleared of trees, about half a click from a roughly 20-story hotel. The plasma fire originated from that area. Do we have any air or artillery support in the area? I can lock onto the the target with my laser designator", Hahya asked.

"Roger, Hunter 2-1, This is Hayate Lead, flight of four Skyhawks, we have your target and are launching attack run now.", A Japanese-accent voice said in Hahya's radio.

Four laser-guided bombs dropped on the camouflage tower, sending it up in a ball of flames and a cloud of dust and smoke. The top of the mountain was revealed to house a mountaintop fire base equipped with an Artillery Scarab, a Scarab with a heavy plasma mortar on the back, as well as four Wraiths and about a dozen Revenants.

"Hayate, this is Hunter", Sulo Hahya said into his radio, "I am marking the postion of the a Covie mountaintop firebase".

"Roger, Hunter 2-1", Hayate Lead replied, "Engaging your target".

The Skyhawk fighters came back around, releasing more laser-guided bombs on the alien artillery base. The ordnance exploded, blowing apart the Scarab, four of the Wraiths, and and all but two of the Revenants.

"This is Hunter 2-1", Hahya responded, "Confirming good effect on target, I'll deal with the rest of 'em". The M99 Gauss rifle's electromagnetic launching system fired a projectile at over 15000 feet per second, fast enough that even the tiny projectile used by the M99 could penetrate tank armor. Unfortunately, it necessitated a back-mounted generator- older versions required vehicle-mounted generator.

In this stationary position, it was not an issue for Hahya, with heavy generator at his side, he was able to maneuver to rifle into firing position and fire a slug through the surviving Wraith's armor, setting off the the plasma core in a ball of fire. The Revenants met a similar fate, before Hahya picked off a number of Brutes and Jackal snipers, who desperately tried to find the location of the human weapon that was literally vaporizing their comrades, before Hahya sent gave them their own ticket to the Great Journey with a pull of the trigger.

Hahya then set to 50x ultra long range variable zoom scope on another Kig-Yar sniper, who tried to return fire, but the beam of accelerated ions dissipated before it got any where near Hahya. That was one advantage of UNSC sniper rifles against alien beam rifles- range.

Hahya exhaled and slowly pulled the trigger, vaporizing the Jackal in a mist of purple alien blood. The Unggoy fled as they saw all of the Brute and Jackals annihilated, first by the air strike, and then from Hahya's fire. Most of the Grunts made it behind the mountain and out of sight. "But there time would come soon enough", Hahya said.

84: Bigger Guns
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1400 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Downtown Takayama, Japan

Dyne-G217 was taking time to notice the architecture of Takayama's buildings. While not particularly ornate, many of the structures were decorated with or even partly built from wood. It looked strange to him, having grown up on Reach and Onyx where most buildings were permacrete or pre-fabricated colonial models. He smiled to himself as he remembered the number of storage buildings that had needed to be replaced during training. And he remembered digging the foundations for them, most of them having been his fault in the first place.

He'd quickly grown bored with the reconnaissance run he'd been sent on, wishing Kodiak was here so the two of them could make jokes. Then again, now that he was team leader, Kodiak didn't seem to be as ready to cause trouble as he used to. Deciding there was nothing he could do about if for the time being, Dyne glanced over at the two UNSC Army scouts he'd been sent with. They were still intent on their rangefinding equipment. Private Koji and Private First Class Hikaru, as they'd introduced themselves, were trained on the horizons in case they'd spot something Dyne seriously doubted would appear. Thus, he'd volunteered to look around and make sure there weren't any Covenant in the immediate vicinity. Or something official-sounding like that.

He felt one of the pockets on his armor's chest plate, and to his disappointment found it empty. Sepia was right, he should have saved a few of the candy bars for later. As he walked around the square they'd set up shop over, on an elevated plaza, he looked into some of the store windows for any sign of snacks. No such luck. Most of the stores had carpentry supplies or choice lumber from all over Earth and the colonies. Takayama was known for its woodworking.

While Dyne had been wandering, he'd been paying less and less attention. So when he spotted the large, mobile objects on his motion tracker, they were already very close. As soon as he realized it, he looked toward where they were, staring right into the window of the store next to him. Through the glass, he had just enough time to see the twin, green orbs, growing in size and brightness as they charged.

The moment he threw himself out of the way, the first bolt broke through the window, melting what was in its path and shattering the rest. The other hit low, blowing out the base of the wall. Picking himself up and pulling the battle rifle off his back, Dyne practically yelled over his helmet speaker, "Hunters!"

"Dyne, where are you?" Koji's voice asked, but it was almost drowned out by the sound of the first massive armored shape barreling through what was left of the storefront. The SPARTAN-III fired several bursts from his rifle. His opponent moved like it knew what was coming, the Hunter spun to its left, catching the bullets on its shield and in the same move bringing its re-charged cannon to bear. With a deep rumble, it loosed the bolt of energy.

He tucked and rolled sideways, coming up in a crouch and letting the shot fly past him and detonate somewhere behind him. Taking careful aim, he lined up his scope on the monster's lightly-armored leg joints and fired. The bursts punched through the armor on its right leg, which hadn't been fully protected by the shield. It howled in pain and dropped to one knee, but raised its weapon at him again.

Deciding it was time to cut and run, Dyne sprinted for the nearest corner to get out of its line of fire. The shot that landed behind him was so close it jarred his teeth, but it didn't get a chance at a second one. The ground, though, still shook. Casting a quick look over his shoulder, he spotted its bond brother chasing after him. Despite its weight and heavy armor, the raw amount of muscle allowed it to keep up with him. It swung its shield like a mace, sending clouds of debris after him when it connected with the facades of buildings.

One of Sergeant Stacker's tricks came to mind. Dyne pulled a frag grenade off his belt and pulled its pin, then let it drop behind him.

The young SPARTAN had timed it right, the grenade detonated just as the Hunter walked over it. One of its trunk-like legs was shredded, the armor opened up and spilling fluorescent orange blood. It stopped in its tracks, but didn't fall until a hail of sniper rounds hit it, some ricocheting off the heavy plates but others finding the vulnerable gaps at its neck and abdomen. With a last, pitiful groan, it toppled to the ground, more blood pooling around it.

Dyne looked up and nodded to the Army soldiers standing not far from him on an elevated sidewalk. "What took you so long?"

Hikaru started walking towards him as Koji reloaded his rifle. "We had to catch up with you, you run away so fast."

More movement on his tracker. Dyne shifted his view and yelled a warning, but it came too late for Koji. A fuel rod streaked low over the pavement, illuminating each section of the ground as it passed over, then, in a flash of emerald light, it connected with the Army trooper and vaporized most of his body. There was no scream, only a sudden and violent explosion, and the man was gone.

"Another one?!" Hikaru yelled incredulously as he sighted the threat, this one clad in golden armor. Dyne started backpedaling and firing at it to cover their retreat, also spotting the one he'd wounded limp around the far corner of the block. If there was a fourth somewhere nearby, Dyne didn't want to have to take them all on at once.

Once they'd turned the corner, they stopped briefly to reload their weapons. Dyne heard the soldier mutter his companion's name mournfully. Quickly, Dyne asked, "Can we call for support from the armor?"

Hikaru snapped back to the moment. "No, they wouldn't be accurate enough, and I doubt they'll waste ammo to saturate the area. And worse, most of these streets are too narrow for the tanks to maneuver in."

That left a couple options that Dyne saw. Either lure the Hunters into an area where the bigger guns could take a shot at them, or regroup with anyone nearby and try to take it on that way. Both required running, and neither of them wanted to lose the lead they already had. The two started hoofing it, while Dyne keyed his radio to call for anyone nearby with a heavy weapon.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:30, July 28, 2011 (UTC)

85: The Bullet's Way
Takayama, Japan 1400 hours, November 1, 2552

Sulo Hahya knelt in position on Shiroyama, Takayama, looking down on the city below through the scope of his M99 Gauss rifle. Suddenly, his radio crackled to life. "This is SPARTAN G217, we are under attack by two Hunters about a click east of the main road into town."

Hahya looked down the scope of the M99 and scanned the area the SPARTAN indicated. In a narrow street near lined by traditional Japanese buildings, mostly wooden craft stores the Finnish sniper found his mark. A SPARTAN and one Army soldier ran around a corner, followed seconds later by a Lekgolo in gold armor. Hahya zoomed in the scope and placed his crosshair slightly above and to the right of the alien, compensating for windage and bullet drop.

Hahya pulled the trigger and unleashed a 5.4mm slug at 15000 feet per second. The electromagnetically accelerated slug impacted the Hunter's "chest". The body of the Lekgolo colony exploded, sending orange hemolymph everywhere. The SPARTAN and the Army soldier kept running as a hunter's assault beam narrowly missed the Sierra III. Hahya turned his large rifle on the second Lekgolo, which ran furiously at the Army infantryman.

This Hunter too found itself in the way of Hahya's bullet. The Gauss slug pierced the armor plates and blew through the body, exiting on the other side in an orange mist. As the second Hunter fell, Sulo Hahya stood down, awaiting his next target.

84
1200 Hours, October 29rd, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Greece, Earth, Solar System

"...and so deaths of Major Loren 'Kazonkee were not actually caused by the demons, but rather ordinary human soldiers we were able to hunt down and kill with minor casualties only." Jara finished his report to the Field Master.

"Well, despite your failure to slay the demons, you were doing surprisingly well in combating the human resistance. Good work."

"Thank you, excellency. You-"

Jara was never able to finish the statement as explosions sounded overhead. Both Sangheili jumped out of their chairs. Jara did not have any weapons on him-he had been forced to surrener them when he entered the Field Master's quarters, but the Field Master had an energy sword on him, and a spare pistol which he gave to Jara.

"The Demons are attacking! Let's go!" The Field Master stepped out of his quarters, the doors sliding open. The two guards standing had moved to a ceremonial, if rather intimidating position to a more practical defensive position taking cover behind deployable energy shields.

Jara pointed. "You keep those around?"

"Yes. You never know what may happen in the middle of a battlefield-understandable, of course. You are navy."

Jara fought the urge to shoot the Sangheili, and turned to the Field Master. "I will join the troops on the front lines."

With that, he dashed through the purple corridors near the Field Master's base. Sangheili rushed past him, and the voice of a Jiralhanae's voice sounded over the comms.

"BROTHERS! The time has come! The Sangheili have failed our Covenant one last time! The Prophets have-" His voice was suddenly cut off, and replaced by the sound of plasma fire. Jara stared in confusion, then staggered in pain as something hit him in the back. He whirled around, seeing a Jiralhanae with a plasma rifle. The Jiralhanae fired again, sending Jara diving for cover, and charged an overcharge shot with his pistol, then shot the Jiralhanae. The Jiralhanae staggered in pain as the plasma burned through his flesh, and Jara finished the Jiralhanae off with a bolt to the head.

The comms were growing more and more chaotic. A Sangheili was screaming something about the traitorous Jiralhanae, while a Jiralhanae was saying something about the Regret slain by a Demon, the Sangheili failing to protect Regret, then going under an unprovoked uprising in High Charity despite remaining Prophets' forgiveness. On the other hand, there was relevant tactical information to be heard. Jiralhanae cries to take the armory lead prompted Jara to head to that very location.

On the way, he encountered a group of Jiralhanae. He charged his plasma pistol, and then shot one in the back. The Jiralhanae fell to the ground and the other two whirled around. Jara dove to avoid the red-hot spikes shot by their spikers and returned fire. Several hits flared off his shields while he shot the Jiralhanae back. Luckily, the Jiralhanae did not have shields and he managed to overpower them. He continued onto the armory, where there were a half-dozen of Sangheili.

"Arm up, sir. There will be heavy fighting, and that pistol won't cut it." A major said.

"That's what I'm doing." Jara selected a plasma repeater from the armory and picked up two plasma grenades before taking cover behind a deployable shield.

"Here they come!" A minor shouted. Two dozen brutes stormed towards the armory, firing away. They Sangheili returned fire, and soon the air was filled with bolts of plasma. Jara kept his head-figuratively and literally, at least for the time being and put down two brutes with well-aimed shits to their heads.

The Sangheili fought bravely, but they were outnumbered four to one. An explosion from a plasma grenade sent a Sangheili flying into the air and hit the walls of the corridor leading the armory dead. Another one was shot in the chest by a spiker.

The three remaining Sangheili would have been overrun and killed too, if not for a series thumps of exploding plasma grenades in the middle of the Jiralhanae ranks killed several of them. A lance of previously invisible Spec-Ops Sangheili appeared, moving in on the Jiralhanae with energy swords. They had the advantage of surprise and deadly skill and made quick work of the Jiralhanae.

"We must force the Jiralhanae out!" One of the spec-ops soldiers said to Jara, once all the Jiralhanae were dead. "Stay here and secure this position. Reinforcements are inbound."

Sure enough, more Sangheili and even a pair of hulking Mgalekgolo warriors appreard to back them up. The Jiralhanae attempted to take their positions again and again, but were repelled.

Many units of hard fighting later later, the Field Master had announced that all Jiralhanae had been killed and they could stand down. The defenders let loose with a mighty cheer, seemingly shaking the ground.

"We were also able to get a message from some of our brothers from another unit. Apparently, the Prophets have betrayed us! They have slain much of the Sangheili councilors-betrayed us, after generations of unity! We, as a species will not stand for this! We will fight the Prophets and their Jiralhanae dogs until we triumph. Soon, we shall take the battle to the Jiralhanae. A Jiralhanae-controlled ship has landed in a nearby sector. We will take that ship-and kill all on board."

1530 Hours, October 30rd, 2552 (Military Calendar)/

Kopis Base, Greece, Earth, Solar System

Kopis Base was staring to feel more like home.

Recent raids on the Covenant forces had attracted the attention of other surviving human forces in the area, who had joined Dagger and the other survivors at Kopis. They had managed to make repairs to some of the defenses and add new ones. A captured Wraith tank provided the residents of Kopis with the ability to bombard incoming Covenant forces from a distance. They were also able to clean up the corpses, giving the human ones graves and burning the Covenant ones. Some of the facilities were also repaired, or moved into the underground parts of the base that weren't destroyed.

On the down side, they were running low on food, and had been forced to resort to looting of abandoned villages. Norman didn't like it, but he was forced to acknowledge the necessity.

However, their recon had shown significantly less signs of Covenant activity, which was odd, and worrying. Were the Covenant gearing up for a major offensive?

Norman was jolted out of his thoughts when one of the lookouts shouted. "Unidentified aerial contacts approaching!" Norman hit the dirt, preparing for a banshee attack run, when the same lookout cried. "Its friendly-repeat, aerial contacts is friendly." Norman breathed a sigh of relief and rose to his feet.

The aerial contacts were pelicans-to be specific, three of them. All three of them landed, and one of them opened their hatches. The other two remained still. From one of them, a uniformed officer stepped out and looked around, then walked purposefully towards the remains of a vehicle bay.

"Sir, may I assist you?" One army trooper asked.

"I am looking for a certain naval special operations unit-Dagger Team. They were sent to reinforce your garrison-which you obviously needed, as I can see."

"Dagger? You mean the Spartans?" The trooper replied.

"Norman raised an eyebrow, and headed towards the officer.

"Sir." Norman said, getting the attention of the officer. "I am Spartan-G124, the commanding officer of Dagger Team."

The officer turned to face Norman. "Commander Pearson", raising a TACPAD showing his identification. "I'm your new commanding officer, after the death of your previous one-a Commander Jerry Phelps."

"Commander Phelps is dead?" Norman said, raising his eyebrows. Phelps had been a good officer, and wasn't nearly as ruthless as some other ones from ONI.

"Yes. His ship was hit by a Covenant corvette. But let's cut to the chase. I need to brief the rest of your team-you're being re-assigned."

Five minutes later, Lieutenant Commander Pearson and the rest of Dagger Team were in a briefing room.

"I'm going to cut to the chase. Several hours ago, a Covenant Supercarrier was detected landing at a repair station in Greece by some of our few unarmed recon assets left in the area. The Supercarrier was heavily damaged in orbit by naval forces and is being repaired. We don't want that Supercarrier repaired." Pearson paused for a second, then continued.

"In fact, we would quite like this Supercarrier captured intact, or as close to intact as possible. So, we had a gas-based nerve agent deployed into the repair facility via Longsword strike. We think it inflicted a good amount of casualties. Unfortunately, that nerve agent isn't very...safe. We have a solution however, which I think you will enjoy I'll show you it when we get onto my ship."

"Are you serious!" Norman said. They were on an ONI prowler, in orbit above Greece. Dagger was staring at a couple suits of HAZOP MJOLNIR armor.

"Jesus..." Kevin muttered. "Someone pinch me..."

"Spartans, there is no time to waste. You need to get the armor calibrated, and then hit the target."

This galvanized the four Spartans into action. A team of technicians were there to help them with the armor. As piece after piece of armor was attached to his body, Norman felt as he was being encased. Another thing was that MJOLNIR was much heaver than SPI. Once the final piece-his helmet slipped on, a voice sounded.

"Alright. I'm powering up your armor systems. I'm conducting a few tests on your basic motion skills. To start off, please look at this red dot on the wall."

A red dot appeared on the wall. All four Spartans looked at the dot.

"Good. Now, raise your master hand." Norman raised his right hand. The sheer speed he moved it with was impressive-it was nothing like the small boost in speed SPI had given him.

"Lower it." This time, Norman was able to control the speed he moved his arm, moving it at a fairly normal speed.

"Good. Now, I am activating your energy shields." Norman couldn't feel any difference, but the knowing that he had energy shields, had something between his armor and whatever might come his way felt good. One of the technicians pulled out a handgun and leveled it at Norman, and fired. A round of compressed paint flew out, striking him in the chest...or would have, had the energy shield not deflected it. The paint splattered the floor of the armory instead. The technician shot the other spartans with the pistol, and the compressed paint bounced off their shields, also splattering the ground.

"I am pleased to say that your energy shields working fine. Now, we have put together a short obstacle course. If you would follow me...

Without the armor, the obstacle course would have been somewhat difficult. With the armor, it was drop dead easy. There was a short learning curve, and Norman nearly crashed into a wall when he ran a bit too fast, but once he got the hang of it, it made everything easy. He and Dagger quickly finished the obstacle course, geared up on weapons and ammunition and presented themselves at the small docking bay of the prowler, where a single pelican sat.

"May I introduce to you your pilot?" Commander Pearson said, with a smile. "He's one of the navy's best pilots-a Lieutenant Sergei Khovostnikov-qualified for a fighter ace in a Pelican. He will be your pilot today."

Khovstnikov was a man who seemed to be in his thirties, but thanks to long periods in cyro sleep between combat missions, he was actually in his seventies. Norman held out a hand to shake.

"Good to meet you, sir. I've heard a lot about you."

"Indeed? That's good to know."

"If I may interrupt...." Commander Pearson broke in. "To help Khovstnikov get to the LZ, I have ordered a Longsword squadron to attack a nearby Covenant ammo dump.

The Spartans climbed inside the Pelican, taking one last look at the ONI prowler before the Pelican flew off.

Norman-123 04:20, July 31, 2011 (UTC)

85: Warlord
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1402 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Downtown Takayama, Japan

The Army scout, Hikaru, went quickly from smiling to disgusted as the cloud of bright orange blood that had come off the Hunter started painting his uniform. As he backed up and spat out what had gotten in his mouth, Dyne surveyed the two bodies. The unknown alloy armor had been split as though it was nothing more than an aluminum soda can, what remained of the colony creatures' upper torsos was seeping out onto the street.

A call came in on his com. "Sierra, this is Hunter 2-1. Hostiles eliminated."

"Confirmed, 2-1, thanks for the cover." Dyne replied, looking to make sure Hikaru wasn't dying; the way he was trying to scrub the blood off him, you might have thought it was poisonous. He rinsed his mouth and gargled with some of the water in his canteen. The Spartan just shook his head at him. "We should probably return to the convoy."

Remembering his previous mistake, he glanced at his motion tracker as a precaution. There was still a large, red dot on it. And it was moving.

His confusion didn't last long. An ultrasonic roar manifested itself as Dyne felt heavy thuds through the ground. "Look out!" Dyne yelled, and practically threw Hikaru out of the way just before the fourth Hunter appeared, bashing its way through the wall of a building. Hikaru saw Dyne disappear in a cloud of debris with a large, spined shape bearing down on him.

Hikaru could only stare for a moment at the sudden change, before another roar and sounds of fighting spurred him to action. "Hunter 2-1, we have another target, same location!"

"I see it. Taking the shot."

"Negative, 2-1, negative, target is not clear!"

While the debris subsided, Dyne found himself in the middle of a lethal brawl. This Hunter was clad in armor he'd never seen before. Despite the coat of dust settling on it, the massive sections shone platinum-grey. It stood a bit taller than the others he'd seen, and the club-shield it had was bristling with sharp spikes. And it was swinging at him.

Dyne dropped low, rolling under its blow and intending to come up under the cannon arm. Unfortunately, he found himself staring right at another spiked shield. Without time to mutter a curse, he kept rolling as the Hunter drove the forward spike into the permacrete next to him. Sparks flared as it swiped the deadly point after him, grinding against the pavement. "Shoot, now!"

This Hunter must have seen what had happened to its brothers, and even more, calculated or seen where it came from. Hahya's gauss round streaked in many times faster than what little sound it made, but by the time he'd even pulled the trigger, this creature had lifted its shields and angled them so that when the heavy slug streaked in, it glanced off the heavy armor and dug a deep hole in the street, leaving a huge dent where it hit the shield. Before Hahya had a second shot, it sidestepped, eyeing the bullet's vector, and got behind a structure.

Dyne was shocked, but his rigorously trained subconscious kept him moving and even fighting this enemy. Tossing a grenade in front of him, Dyne drew his twin M7 submachine guns and charged it. Ducking a swing, he pointed at the midsection and fired. Hollow-point rounds tore up the colony's stomach effectively, but Dyne wasn't quick enough to avoid a backswing. He caught on the side of one of the spikes, clanging against his armor and sending him flying back. He picked himself up as the Hunter charged him, glad he hadn't been impaled and that his foe didn't possess a cannon.

The silver-armored Hunter was huge, but that gave Dyne an opportunity. He ran straight at it, and as the Hunter raised a shield to hit him, he tucked and rolled under its legs, coming up behind it. He turned much faster than his opponent could, and jumped onto its back, using the bladed spines to climb up. The creature spun in circles, trying to throw him off, but before it tried anything more effective Dyne was standing on its shoulders, pointing his SMGs at the back of its exposed head.

Hollow-points dug into it, and the Hunter stumbled forward, wailing mournfully before it sank to its knees, then fell forward with a crash as Dyne jumped off and landed nimbly on his feet with his weapons at his sides. As he walked away from the kill, another gauss round shot down from behind him and into the creature's back, this time hitting squarely and opening up the creature's back. Dyne looked back at the body, alarmed by the noise.

"For good measure." Hunter 2-1 said, and Dyne nodded in his direction.

"Come on, let's go." Dyne said to Hikaru, and the pair started walking back to the convoy.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 17:28, July 31, 2011 (UTC)

86: Mind The Gap
'''1600 hours, November 1st 2552,

Chiyoda Station, Tokyo, Japan'''

Lt. James Basilone walked into the entrance of the Chiyoda Station behind the point-man... or woman in this case... Sgt. Ryouko Tanbou, a local, and an unusual combination of a medic and close combat expert, followed by the rest of his ODST squad. The ticket counter was abandoned for months, since much the civilian population had fled the Covenant invasion. The floors were covered with garbage and abandoned briefcases, data pads, and other abandoned property.

After checking their corners, the squad moved on, down toward the escalator leading to the first level of subway tracks. The escalator was no longer working, the power having gone out with the destruction of the power station that powered much of the city.

"Flashlights on!", Basilone said, turning on the flashlight mounted under his M247K, a shorted version of the squad automatic weapon variant of the M247 general purpose machine gun. The rest of the squad's flashlights turned on, beams of light burning away the darkness of the deserted, pitch black subway station.

The concrete walls of the station were revealed, shining across advertisiments in Japanese- only Ryouko could read, graffiti in the same language, and signs in both Japanese and English giving directions around the multi-level station. The tracks were empty.

"Clear!", Basilone exclaimed, "The route to the Covie tunnel should be in on the next level down."

Tanbou went down first, the light on her M90 shotgun illumination the long third level platform. On one end of the tracks, was an abandoned, destroyed subway train. The rest of the ODST squad walked into the station, their lights revealing no alien presence in the station.

Suddenly, a flashlight that did not belong to any of the ODSTs appeared at the end of the tunnel. Tanbou aimed the flashlight on her M90 shotgun at the end unknown light source, revealing seven ape-like Jiralhanae, about ten Kig-Yar, and a similar number of Unggoy.

"Contact, right side", Tanbou said, firing her shotgun into the alien squad. The buckshot impacted one of the Unggoy, killing it instantly. The lead Jiralhanae, a captian, roared in an alien tongue. The Covenant squad opened up with plasma rifles and spikers. The UNSC shock troopers took cover behind concrete columns and around corners. One ODST, however, did not get into cover soon enough.

A shot from a Brute Minor's spiker impacted the leg of an ODST of French ancestry named Renaurd. The alien bullet, or more properly, an eight-inch metal spike, was stuck in his lower leg.

"Tanbou!", Basilone said, "Take care of Renaurd, get him to the surface. O'Connell, Vericci, Al Fulani, you go with her. Everyone else, give them cover".

As the Tanbou and her escorts made a run for Renaurd, who was now sitting on the floor, applying pressure to the wound with one hand and holding his pistol at the ready with the other.

Zhang tossed an M9 HEDP grenade into the Covenant squad, the fragments bouncing off the walls, killing about six Unggoy and four Kig-Yar, and deshielding all but two of the Jiralhanae.

Basilone fired his machine gun into the alien squad, taking out the Brute captain and two Unggoy with a short burst. The rest of the OSDTs took out three more Jiralhanae with their rifles and SMGs.

"Zhang", Basilone ordered, "set a charge on those support pillars, everyone else, keep up to fire".

Basilone gunned down a Kig-yar and another Jiralhanae as spike shots and plasma bolts impacted around him. Kamarov, the ODST who acted as the sniper when they weren't fighting at close quarters picked off a Jiralhanae with a three round burst to the head. After a couple minute of trading fire with the aliens, Zhang was finished.

"Demolition charges set", Zhang said.

"All right, everyone pull out!", Basilone ordered.

The UNSC ODSTs ran up the staircase to the second level, the last man, Kamarov, eliminated a Jiralhanae that tried to give chase with a burst from his BR. The ODST squad ran up to the first floor, and finally, back to the ground level.

The squad ran about a block, Tanbou and Vericci carrying Renaurd, before Basilone order Zhang to blow the support beams. The street under the station collapsed into a gaping hole, no doubt entombing the Covenant below. Hopefully, this would encourage them to stop using Tokyo's subways to supplement their tunneling operations.

87: First-Class Shipping
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1549 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  North of Tokyo, Japan

Dansen was young, fresh from days full of long drill runs, and lightly-equipped. But even he couldn't run non-stop forever. He'd been doing so almost since his dropship finally had landed a few hours ago and they had come under fire. Spotting a civilian girl flee the Deladrier, Corporal Hunter had ordered him to follow and protect the person. But she was fast, and he was doing his best just to keep up.

The last he'd seen his squad, they were fighting Jackals away from the landing site, and now he was on his own with the civvie. That was, if he could ever catch up. Whoever it was, she ran like someone who trained for marathons, or had a very good reason to move quickly. But now, at last, Dansen saw the waypoint linked to her personal Chatter come to a stop in the top floor of a building. Hoping she stayed there, Dansen huffed inside and climbed reluctantly up the two flights of stairs inside. He'd had just about enough of stairs after the Sydney OE.

Most of the lights were out, but one room with its door swung open was lit by bluish computer monitors. He stumbled inside, hearing a female voice and an automated one answer.

Dansen caught a quick view of Reo's face as she glanced at him. Orange hair, green eyes, pale skin. Then she returned to the screen without a word.

"Miss," Dansen began, tired and not sure how to address her. "I'm supposed to protect you . . . *pant* . . . but I can't do that with you running ahead all the time."

"Hush, please, I need to concentrate. Super, look for a way in." she responded, in a British-accented voice. This made him straighten up, almost indignant.

"You just ran halfway to Tokyo, and I had to follow you carrying a hundred pounds plus! It wouldn't kill anyone to-"

Reo shot him an angry look. "I already told you, be quiet."

Dansen's jaw tightened. "You have got to be the most-"

Keep it clean, pal.

"-frustrating person I've ever met!" Dansen finished, having censored himself. Reo ignored him, searching the screens. Dansen caught the remainder of his breath. "What are you looking for anyway?"

"A safe way into the city." Reo answered, still scanning. "But there doesn't seem to be one."

Dansen moved his rifle a bit. "That's why I'm along."

She rolled her eyes and snorted at him. "That's the same with all you jarheads, isn't it? Looking for a fight."

That caught him by surprise, he was somewhat proud of being the quiet exact opposite of his fellow ODSTs. But he didn't have time to disprove her opinion, as she unplugged her storage unit and started going on a new path, with Dansen chasing after.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:54, August 9, 2011 (UTC)

88: Eviction Notice
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1700 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Near the Miyagawa River, Takayama, Japan

UNSC Forces had pushed over the bridges over the Miyagawa river to the Takayama Jinga and were making their way into the downtown area west of the river, but there were still pockets of Covenant resistance in the city. Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki stood at the entrance of one such pocket of resistance, in a historic Japanese wooden house. Because of the historic nature of the two house in question, it was decided that, if all possible, they should be captured with as little damage as possible.

That was why Keiichi and Rena stood along with other militia and UNSC Army troops, preparing to burst in and take back to structure. The Covenant troops firing out to the windows had been easily dealt with by snipers, the only one who tried to fire out were a few Brutes and Jackals, but Keiichi had a feeling most of the Brutes were waiting inside, strike at close range.

A UNSC Army infantryman forced open the wooden sliding screen door and burst into the first room, followed by the rest of the UNSC troops. The entrance appeared empty, with little furniture, and no one inside. "CLEAR!", A UNSC soldier said, but, seconds later, a pink crystalline spike impaled his head, before the "needle" exploded in his head, not hard enough to injure any of other soldiers, merely covering them with brain matter and blood. Seconds later, a green projectile shot through the head of a militiaman.

All the UNSC soldier raised their weapons up, aiming at the complex grid of rafters supporting the roof. Five Kig-Yar armed with needler rifles and Covenant Carbines stood in the rafters, ready to fire down on the UNSC troops. A UNSC Army Sergeant fired his DMR the nearest Jackal, putting a round in it's skull, causing the alien to fall to off its perch, down to the floor.

Rena Sonozaki fired a five-round burst from her M7 SMG, perforating the chest of a Kig-Yar carbiner. Another alien fell to the floor as the rest of the Kig-Yar quickly fell to the wrath of the UNSC troops' assault rifles. As the last Kig-Yar fell, a Brute burst through the wood and paper screen door at the end of the entrance foyer. The Brute fired a mauler at a UNSC infantryman, killing him with blast of shot to the chest. Keiichi turned, M95 Automatic Assault Shotgun at the ready and fired a burst of three buckshot into the ape-like alien's chest. The Jiralhanae's shield fell and his body was torn apart by metal pellets.

The sergeant with the DMR took aim at the second Brute, armed with a Plasma Repeater, and a fired his DMR in full auto, deshielding and taking down the Brute as the rest of the sqaud focused their fire on a group of Kig-Yar and Unggoy, tearing them apart with assault rifle and SMG fire.

A UNSC corporal tossed a flashbang grenade into the next room, which was a sort of dining room, which contained a small table with no chairs- traditionally, the Japanese knelt on mats next to tables, which had been upended for use as piece of cover. Behind the table, were group of stunned Grunts the were to have been manning a plasma turret mounted on top of the table. The Unngoy were quickly and mercilessly dispatched. The door to the left was open, and went down a single step onto a lower, stone-floored room with a central fireplace and racks of what looked like cooking utensils- a kitchen.

The kitchen was empty, the the UNSC sergeant yelled "CLEAR!", but for the second time, he was wrong, a screen door on the other side flew open and a spike grenade was thrown out. The squad scattered. By some miracle, their were no casualties.

The doors on the other sides of the room all burst open, and a pack of seven Brutes ran into the room, weapons at the ready, lead by a hammer-wielding Chieftain, who killed to militia, smashing one with the hammer so hard the wooden floor of the dining room cracked, before killing the second with the blade on the back of the hammer. Keiichi, the UNSC sergeant, Rena, and another UNSC infantryman focused fire on the Chieftain. After taking over a dozen rounds, the alien's shield finally gave way, and the alien got fell too the floor.

Enraged by the loss of their leader, the other six Jiralhanae went berserk, firing their weapons wildly whilst charging at the UNSC troops, who desparately returned fire. Keiichi fired a three shot burst at a Brute minor with his shotgun, killing him, but he realized he was out of ammunition. Another Brute knocked the empty gun out of his hand. A UNSC militiaman shot the brute several times in the back, deshielding it, but before he could finish the alien off, the militiaman was killed by a plasma bolt to the head.

The Brute drew its meat-cleaver-like combat knife as it pinned Keiichi against the wall. "Was this it?", Keiichi thought. The Brute roared as it raised its blade.

"No!", A defiant voice in Keiichi's head said, as he reached for the M6A handgun he was given by the militia. Keiichi grabbed the pistol with his right and as he grabbed the brute's arm with his left, try to delay its strike. The Jiralhanae laughed at Keiichi's feeble attempt save his life.

"Joke's on you, asshole!", Keiichi stuck the barrel of the pistol right against the alien's face and pulled the trigger. The back of the Brute's head exploded as the alien's dead body fell to the floor.

As Keiichi got up, he saw Rena cornered by a Brute, the M7 SMG knocked out of her hand. Keiichi raised his M6, trying to at least distract the alien from Rena. That, however, was unneccessary, as Rena pulled out the energy sword she had captured all the way back in Shirakawa and stabbed the Brute in the stomach. The alien dropped to its knees, dying. For good measure, Rena then split the brute's skull like a ripe melon.

At the end of the blur of bullets, plasma, and blood, both human and alien, five more UNSC soldiers lay dead, along with all seven Brutes. The building was clear, but a the cost of ten men.

After the engagement, Rena asked, "After seeing all those dead Covenant, I have to wonder, do you think the Covenant ever question whether this war is just, whether their prophets are true, If all these deaths need to happen?"

Keiichi did not know the answer, however, little did he know, he would discover in just two days that there definitely were opponents of the prophet's teaching within the Covenant ranks.

89: Allocated Task
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

"Sepia, pack those C12 blocks, we'll be using them." Kodiak said, pointing out the stockpile of explosives. Ion had just been assigned a mission, and this time he aimed to get it right.

Lieutenant Coney had explained that the Covenant had set up anti-air positions across Takayama, and they were interfering with the chain of supply. With Tokyo's warehouse facilities the largest source of ammunition and weapons the UNSC had left intact, fighters in Greece, Australia, and Africa would suffer if Japan was cut off. Thus, Ion Team was going to take part in dealing with the Shades and Tyrant guns that had been put up. Five major sites, two of which would be Ion's targets.

Kodiak would normally have left the M6D for someone in more dire need of its incredible accuracy and power. But today, he'd need it. Securing it at his side, he went through a box of magazines and stowed them on his armor, noting the marks of Chinese manufacturers which had recently ceased to exist. He wondered briefly if they could turn this fight around well enough to take it to the mainland. Based on word from other fronts, he doubted it.

No time to worry how bad the big picture looked. Gotta focus on his little pixel space of it.

Nearby, in the back of another truck the convoy had been using to carry ammunition, Dyne's eyes flicked from one weapon to the next on a rack of BR-55s. Finally choosing one, he squeezed the grip under the muzzle, feeling it mold to his armored hand. Securing it on his back, he continued on to check the balance of a pair of SMGs by going through some typical firing stances.

"Sure you wouldn't want an HB?" Sepia said from behind him. She was clearly amused watching him dance around like that.

"No." Dyne said, not in the least embarrassed. He clipped the weapons to his sides. "The heavy barrels have longer range, but they're more awkward to move with. And if an Elite or something trips over me, I don't always have time to switch. What about you?"

She lifted into view the cut-down M7057 Flamethrower. It was an unpredictable weapon in Dyne's opinion, and Sepia had modified hers to make it lighter. He was wary of the thing, its fuel tank's armor halved and the forward section missing the shark decal-ed plates and instead the long muzzle, cut with a series of holes to vent heat, had been painted bright orange. Risky to use, and Dyne didn't do well with the things in the first place. But Sepia did. She had a mind for predicting her opponents' immediate movements in a close quarters environment and cutting them off with a jet of flame. Plus, Sepia enjoyed being fear-inspiring.

"This takes care of my problems." She proclaimed, proud of it. Dyne shook his head, glad it was his job to stay back a little bit.

Kodiak joined them, eyeing a row of assault rifles. "What do you think? A 5C or a 37?"

Sepia followed his gaze, then pulled another weapon from behind him. "I'd say the sixty-round clip is an advantage."

"Ooh, a 5B. Didn't know we had 'em." Kodiak said, taking it from her and gazing at it contentedly. There was a moment of wordless agreement that they were ready, and the three of them started off across the bridge, ready to pass the convoy's foothold on the other side and head into enemy territory, knowing it would take all night to quietly reach the first site.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 21:31, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

90:Rescue
'''2100 Hours, November 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)

High-rise office tower, Fujimi, Chiba, Japan'''

Commander Choi Park walked down a 20th-floor corridor of an abandoned office tower near the Chiba MagLev Station. Park was actually quite low down in the 2 kilometer-tall tower, but still more than high enough to have commanding view of the square surrounding the station.

The hallway was littered with bodies, mostly human civilians, but about half way down the hall, Park passed an Unngoy with a fire axe lodged in its head and two other Grunts and a Jackal that had what looked like plasma burns. About five meters away, slumped against the wall of a cubicle, Choi passed a human corpse clutching a plasma pistol, a male civilian who tried to fight the Covenant, and succeeded and taking a couple of them with him.

Park carefully walked through the maze of cubicles, flashlight-equipped silenced BR55 in hand. He met no Covenant, or no live ones, anyway, only a dead Brute and five Grunts, who died fighting a couple of UNSC soldiers, who now lay slumped against a wall, near a shattered window. Through the window, Park could hear the sound of gunfire, both human and alien. Park cautiously walked over to the window next to the fallen UNSC soldiers. An M41 SSM rocket launcher and an SRS-99 sniper rifle lay at their sides.

Below him, in the square in front of Chiba station, Seven UNSC Army infantrymen and two officers of the Chiba Police Department fought against a pack of six Brutes and about twelve assorted Jackals and Grunts. The Covenant troops were firing down on the UNSC soldiers from a pedestrian overpass. The human soldiers took cover behind destroyed vehicles.

Choi grabbed the M41 lying next to one of dead UNSC soldiers and took aim at the pedestrian overpass below him, at a Brute Chieftain wielding a plasma autocannon. Choi squeezed the trigger of the M41. The launcher spat out a 102mm high-explosive dual purpose rocket, as a blast of plastic shavings and water- backblast control to allow the weapon to be fired from inside a confined space safely- shot out the back. The rocket impacted the Chieftain dead on, vaporizing the alien in a ball of dust and fire that collapsed the pedestrian overpass, killing four Brutes and several Grunts and Jackals.

Park then fired a second rocket that finished off the other two Brutes, and left only a handful of Grunts and Jackals still alive, which either were cut down by fire from the UNSC troops behind the destroyed vehicles, or turned around and fled.

The radio at the side of the dead UNSC soldier at Park's feet crackled to life, "This Delta Squad of the 345th Infantry Platoon to the unknown individual in the tower. Identify yourself."

"Commander Choi Park, former commanding officer of the UNSC Noryang Point", Choi replied, "Am I ever glad to see you guys, I've been evading capture behind Covenant lines for the last few days now".

"Thanks for the assist... Sir", the UNSC infantryman on the other side said, realizing that Choi outranked him, "I'm sending a couple men to escort you down. I'll can in a Pelican to get you out of her, sir".

About five minutes later, two UNSC Army infantryman arrived at Choi's position and proceeded to lead him out of the building to a waiting Pelican dropship, which ferried the naval officer and the UNSC infantry patrol back behind UNSC lines.

91: Flanking Assault
2330 Hours, November 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Parking lot of a department store, south Takayama, Japan

The thunder of guns, whoosh of missiles, whizz of plasma, and the grinding of tank treads rang out only about 100 meters away. Most of the Covenant troops had ran to participate in a battle with a UNSC armored column, which was launching a night assault on a heavily defended intersection about 150 meters beyond the bridge over the Miyagawa River. The UNSC had gained a solid foothold on the area east of the river, but most of the area to the west was still in Covenant hands.

Sulo Hahya had been crept between the wrecks of cars, Hard Sound Rifle in hand and M7S SMG on his back, joined by a dozen other UNSC Army Rangers. Hahya had been relieved of "M99 duty" around 1800 hours, another sniper now manned the Gauss Rifle on Shiroyama. Now, Hahya and his Ranger squad were on a new mission: sabotage a Covenant barracks, motor pool, and power station, under cover of darkness, with the UNSC armored assault assault acting as a distraction.

Hahya looked through the scope of his HSR, taking aim at a Kig-Yar in an apartment block armed with a Focus Rifle, which it currently fired at a Warthog in the armored column, destroying the UNSC vehicle. Hahya pulled the trigger, sending a blast of sound at an inaudible frequency which had an effect similar to an explosive blast wave. The Kig-Yar collapsed from internal hemorrhaging, with no mark on the body.

"Go, across the road, before they find the body", Hahya ordered, getting out from behind the burned out wreck of the car and running across the road, catching a brief glimpse of a Covenant energy barrier, one of four that guarded the intersection from each direction.

As Hahya and the other Rangers ran into a Honda/Toyota dealership as a anti-walker variant of the Grizzly fired an anti-walker missile at a Scarab in the middle of the guarded intersection, destroying the walker and providing a convenient distraction as the Rangers advanced, unnoticed out the back of the car dealership, encountering no resistance. Behind the car dealership was the Covenant motor pool. All of the working vehicles were out engaging the UNSC tanks, and by the sound of the battle only about 100 meters away, were getting picked off UNSC guns and missiles.

The only vehicles remaining in the motor pool were a solitary Locust, which appeared to have damage to the leg mechanisms, a Wraith with a plasma mortar that looked damaged beyond repair, with a new plasma mortar lying next to the alien tank, waiting to be attached, a Chopper that was missing both wheels, and three Ghosts with various damage to various areas.

Guarding the motor pool was a force of only four Grunts and two Jackals. Sulo Hahya picked off the first Jackal with his HSR, and the other sniper in the ranger chalk, Pavlichenko, picked off a Kig-Yar of her own. The Unngoy were disposed of just as quickly with a single head shot each from a silenced DMR.

Hahya walked up to the motor pool and examined the damaged Locust. "The legs are fried", Hahya noted, "But I think the gun still works. I'm gonna use it to take out the two barracks and that mobile power station. Everyone else, keep watch in case any Covies show up. Once that's done, get a C12 charge on the workshop and the vehicles in the motor pool."

Hahya placed an IR beacon on the Locust and climbed inside the crippled battle walker. As he did so, he said into his radio, "This is Hunter 2-1 to all UNSC forces in the area, I have commandeered a crippled Locust walker near the motor pool and am preparing to use the gun against a Covenant barracks and power core. Do not engage the Locust near the motor pool with the IR beacon, Repeat, do not engage the Locust with the IR beacon. Also, cancel the order to destroy any vehicles at the motor pool. Intelligence wants them for themselves"

"Roger, Hunter 2-1, This is Command", a UNSC officer on the other side of the radio replied, "I have relayed your message to all UNSC units in the area."

Hahya switched radio channels and spoke to the men under his command. "Cancel the order to blow the motor pool, HIGHCOM thinks we can take it intact and get some specimens."

Hahya sat in the gunner's seat of the walker. It was a little big for him, being designed with a Sangheilli or Jiralhanae operator in mind, but was still manageable for a human to use. Hahya activated the vehicle and turned the turret. Everything worked just like the simulator he had used in training - At this point in the war, all UNSC troops got at least basic training in Covenant weapons and vehicles.

Hahya placed the reticule over the first building in the barracks complex, a methane dome, and squeezed the trigger. The particle beam impacted the target and immediately set fire to the methane inside, making the dome explode in a huge fireball, no doubt killing any Unngoy inside and taking out a nearby Shade turret. Hahya picked off the other Shade turrets, all of which were turned away from him, expecting an attack from a the direction of the UNSC column. Sulo Hahya turned the gun on the barracks, which held for slightly longer, but soon was reduced to a flaming ruin.

Finally, the particle cannon took out the plasma core, which exploded in a spectacular ball of blue flames. The energy barriers on the street gave, allowing UNSC armor to roll into the intersection, knocking out any resistance. A Grizzly tank arrived at the motor pool first, as Hahya exited the walker.

The soldiers milled about for about half an hour, until an Elephant with an extended bed arrived. The crane on the heavy recovery vehicle lifted up the damaged Locust into the large rear bay first, before then fitting the Wraith in the bay. The Ghosts and the Chopper were then carried away on a couple of Warthog flatbed.

92
1105 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Several Kilometers South of Tokyo, Japan

Being on the wrong end of an AV-14's arsenal of weapons was terrifying. A typical attack would start off with long range missiles targeting armor in the group from a distance that made it difficult to respond. Shortly afterwards, a pilot would swoop over, chain guns blazing away. A squadron of AV-14s could devastate entire armored columns.

Riding the skids of an AV-14 was equally terrifying, as Stanley found out the hard way many years ago on a colony long glassed, when he was still a marine and not an ODST. Now, years later and a hardened veteran, he still hated riding on the skids of a VTOL.

None of the officers cared if he liked riding the skids of a Hornet, of course. So when his squad was ordered to ride the skids of 3 such aircraft to attack a Covenant artillery battery, they didn't have much choice. They had two ODSTs on each Hornet, each one riding one skid.

The biggest issue was the amazing view of what was going on in the air. Right now it wasn't anything, at any momment they could be jumped by Covenant aircraft or have get shot at by anti-aircraft guns. He would have absolutely nothing between him and a shitload of plasma. Considering how they were flying over Covenant held territory at the moment, it was a miracle they hadn't been shot at once during the entire trip

However, when they reached the artillery battery, anti-aircraft guns came to life. Shade turrets opened up on the Hornets, who took evasive action...and fired their turrets.

Stanley's felt the Hornet-and his entire body shake from the recoil of the heavy machine guns as he watched the air begin to fill with plasma. It scared him shitless, but he did his best not to panic. It would only get in his way when he fought on the ground.

Ultimately, all anti-air fire did was scare him shitless, at least for now. The Hornets descended on the ground, dropping off the ODSTs. . "Royal 3-1 Actual, just get as many Covies with anti-air weapons as you can. We'll handle the rest!" The pilot of one of the hornets, who Stanley only knew by his callsign-Smoker 1 said into the radio.

"Royal 3-1 Actual to Smoker 1, copy that. Let's get these bastards." Stanley replied. "Let's go." He said to his squad.

And they went. A grunt hefting a plasma launcher scrambled around a corner. Stanley dropped him with his assault rifle, and then mowed down the grunts that followed him. Brutes ran towards the ODSTs.

"Come get some, you motherfu-CHIEFTAN! SCATTER!" White stopped mid-curse to shout a warning, just seconds before a massive-even by brute standards-chieftan charged at the ODSTs, gravity hammer in hand. The ODSTs threw themselves out of the way, narrowly avoiding death. Stanley fired his MA5C fully automatic at the back of the chieftan, who's shields flared but didn't die. Running out of ammo in a few seconds, he drew his pistol and emptied his magazine at the Brute, finally getting his shields down.

Without any time to reload, he grabbed a needler from a fallen brute and fired on the now shieldless brute chieftan. The needles exploded in a pink supercombine explosion, vaporizing the torso of the brute, leaving a head and a pair of legs. With a roar of fury, nearly a dozen brutes that had been hanging back from the fight charged at Stanley, seemingly ignoring the other ODSTs.

Then one of the Hornets fired its machine gun at the brutes. It made quick work of the dozen brutes, turning it into a a very bloody mess.

"That Shade turret!" Flint shouted while pointing at a Shade turret. "Let's go shut it up!" They opened up on the Shade turret, killing the operator. They moved forwards, keeping an eye out of any more Covenant forces.

"Watch my back." Stanley said, an idea coming to him. He climbed inside the Shade they had just neutralized, and swung it around, aiming at another Shade turret. He fired. The other turret's operator, a grunt, was firing up at the Hornets didn't notice him until it had plasma melting his face off, and by then it was too late. He swung the Shade around to face another Shade aiming at the skies and blasted it hell.

Finally, another Shade turret operator noticed him. Stanley threw himself off the Shade turret, and watched as the Shade fire...then one sharp crack of a sniper rifle firing later, the Shade was silenced.

"Much obliged, Royal 3-1. We're going after the Covenant big guns, just stand back and enjoy the show."

All three of the Hornets made a beeline for a cluster Covenant artillery, machine guns blazing. There was the sound of a series of explosions, followed by the silence of the artillery battery.

"Covenant artillery battery destroyed. We're going to pick you up and get out of here."

"Copy that. Awaiting extraction."

The Hornets descended from the skies, and picked up the ODSTs, before hastily getting out of there.

Norman-123 09:21, August 20, 2011 (UTC)

93: Witnesses
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2200 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

Plasma fire broke the night, its light and heat bringing otherworldly illumination to the human city streets. But it was answered not by gunfire, only more plasma. The Sangheili and Jiralhanae that fought here represented only one of a dozen similar clashes that would take place that night, between the few Elites left alive using all their natural cunning and power to evade the disorganized Brute army.

And from a rooftop, Kodiak watched with fascination at the turn of events. His team had stumbled upon the battle, and while both factions were weakened, he still had no wish to put himself in the middle of a chaotic battle without clear lines between enemies and allies. However, the commotion did give him a rare chance to study Covenant tactics.

With their vehicles tied up elsewhere, the aliens were on an even ground as footsoldiers. Warriors wielding energy swords and brute shots dominated the battlefield, the greatest among them laying waste to their enemies, rallying those around them, and then slain when it attracted them the wrong attention. The Brutes followed their name well, charging positions head on and counting on their numbers and individual strength to succeed, and often did. But for all their superior force, they lacked the Sangheili's martial prowess.

Brutes would charge up, some on all fours, and take a position while laughing and firing at their retreating foes. But just as swiftly, the flanks that had held their ground closed in, closing the trap and making it into a close-quarters slaughter on ground of their choosing. It reminded Kodiak of the hologram reconstruction of the Battle of Marathon that the AI Deep Winter had made them study.

"They're not going to hold much longer." Sepia pointed out, looking towards the Elites. True, though they displayed more intelligent and refined methods of combat, they were hopelessly outnumbered. "Can't get a fix on who's leading them, he might be in common soldier armor, which would be smart when the Brutes had Jackal snipers on their side. Or it could be all the ranking officers are dead."

Ion Team was five or six stories above the carnage, looking out from a hole in the side of the building likely from the destroyed Wraith tank that lay smoldering in the street below. The shot had taken a semicircle out of the floor, providing the Spartans with a sheltered viewpoint. Dyne was looking the other way, at the Brute side, having sat against the wall on the edge of the breach to get a different angle. "I see the Brute leader. He's big, graying fur, with a beard braided using brass rings. Carries a hammer. Lots of jewelry like that on this guy. He looks like he's enjoying this."

Kodiak thought again about the dead SPARTAN-IIIs. Maybe this was the group that dispatched them. Or some other, or. . . he had to stop thinking like that. Searching for the exact culprits wouldn't do any good. Focusing on their specific targets would. "Okay, let's fall back. Day comes early tomorrow, get some rest."

He shut off his helmet recorder, and sent the data from all three of them to Command at Ryu Base for analysis. With a secure enough place, the three of them settled in, counting on alarms in their motion trackers to wake them if there was trouble. But Kodiak only pretended to sleep. Over and over, he replayed the footage of the Brute chieftain in his ritual trinkets and ceremonial armor. Watched, the possible demonslayer.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:51, August 21, 2011 (UTC)

94: Night Flight
'''November 2, 2552, 0023 Hours, Shinjuku, Tokyo, near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Complex.'''

Mikiya Ryougi and the rest of the Hayabusa squadron flew towards the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Complex in Shinjuku. The complex itself consisted of the old, late 20th-century tower about 250 meters tall, and a the massive 24th century "New Tower", over 3000 meters tall. The "New Tower" was aesthetically similar to the "Old Tower", with a top that divided into multiple "sub-towers", only the "New Tower" had four "sub-towers" at each corner, looking like turrets on a castle, whereas the "Old Tower" had only two. Like everything, the "New Tower's" "sub-towers" were much bigger, each one almost as big as the "Old Tower". Now, the "New Tower" played host to a Covie command post.

As Mikiya's Falcon Gunship flew past a pair of 2800 meter skyscrapers, a pair of AA Shades that Covenant had placed on the towers opened up. Their aim was way off, for all the advanced weaponry they had gotten a hold of from the Covies, the Bravo Kilos didn't use night vision much. They had night vision tech, but they didn't use it as much. That was how it was with much Covenant technology, the Brutes didn't seem to use it as effectively.

Mikiya turned his Falcon towards the turret and fired an LAU-65 dual purpose missile at the gun, silencing it, as Satou disposed of the other turret with his Falcon's chin-mounted laser.

"Four Banshees coming in hot", Aoi Miyazaki, Mikiya's gunner and radar operator said. "Three clicks to the southwest".

"Roger", Mikiya said, turning his Falcon to face them, and acquiring a RADAR lock. Mikiya fired the first Argent missile, which cruised towards the nearest Banshee, which exploded in a flash in the distance. Mikiya then proceeded to "missile snipe" the second Banshee, and Satou got the third, and Hayashi the fourth.

They were now in range of the top of the "New Tower" of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Suddenly, flashes of fire erupted from the tower. Fuel rod AA guns on the top of each of the four towers opened fire, as smaller AA Shades in the side of the building. Worse still, an AA Needler opened up from one of the VTOL pads.

"Incoming Needler fire", Mikiya said into the radio, "Evasive maneuvers!".

Mikiya flew the Falcon below the Needler, down to about 2900 meters. Mikiya the weaved between a couple other skyscrapers as plasma fire exploded around him. Miyika moved in for a clear shot at the bottom of the VTOL pad. "Aoi, now", Mikiya ordered.

Aoi Miyazaki pressed the launch button, sending a Scorpion anti-tank missile at one of supports holding up the VTOL pad. The explosion severed the support, and the VTOL pad listed to one side under the weight of the alien AA gun. The second support snapped seconds later, and the AA turret fell to the streets below, no doubt being crushed by the sudden impact with the concrete surface of the street.

"Needler is down", press the attack", Mikiya ordered, "Take out those AA guns first".

A laser beam from Satou's aircraft's chin-mounted laser destroyed on of the fuel rod turrets, before the Mikiya ascended, and Aoi fired a Scorpion missile at the second turret. Mikiya then strafed along the side of the tower, firing off LAU-65 missiles and lighting up a couple of Shade turrets, before hitting the third fuel rod turret as it tried to fire on Hayabusa Three.

The last fuel rod turret turned on another of Mikiya's squadron mates, only to be picked off by a Scorpion ATGW. The remaining Shade turrets were quickly mopped up by autocannon and missile fire. Before long, the only resistance came from individual Brutes and Jackals, firing their weapons at the UNSC gunships.

Aoi fired the Falcon's 30mm autocannon at a pack of five Brutes, including one who was charging up a plasma launcher. The aliens were reduced to a dark-red paste staining the ground.

"The AA guns are down", Mikiya said, "Light up that comms post".

Missiles, cannon shells, and in Satou's case, a laser beam, all impacted the dome-like Covenant structure on top of the tower, blowing off the communications equipment portruding from it and blowing holes in the building. After only a second of being pounded by UNSC fire, the the comms station was a bombed out wreck, blue flames rising from detonated plasma batteries.

As the comms station burned, Mikiya and the rest of the squadron returned to base to await their next mission in the struggle to liberate Japan, and ultimately Earth, from the Covenant.

95: Where No Echo Goes
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2353 Hours, November 1st 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

Kodiak waited until the last notes of Sepia's quiet lullaby had died away before speaking. It had been a familiar melody to him, sung by spacers, but the lyrics were very different than what he remembered of it. About the noiseless void of space, and how song was lost upon it.

"That was . . ." As he searched for the right word, Sepia spun around, looking half-ready to kill him. " . . . good."

They were still in the bombed-out apartment. With Takayama's power off in most areas, the night sky was once again visible to them, and it hadn't seemed right to shut themselves in a place that still felt like someone else's home. A strongly lit moon bathed the city in bluish light. Sepia sat in one of the places where there was no ceiling, illuminated by the soft glow, and angry that Kodiak had snuck up on her.

"You're supposed to be asleep." she hissed. "I have watch. If you're tired you won't be as efficient."

Sepia turned away from him, if Kodiak was reading her correctly because she was embarrassed. He'd known her most of their lives, it was a safe bet. He responded with humor. "And you're the one that woke me up. You'll have to talk me back to sleep."

She tilted her head, probably rolling her eyes. "About my singing. Tell anyone - especially Dyne - and I'll kill you."

It wasn't the first time she'd threatened as such, but she hadn't made good on them so far. He asked, "Where did you learn that song? I . . . I've heard it before somewhere. But it wasn't on Onyx."

Sepia's helmet made a quick check back to make sure Dyne was still asleep. Their brother snored peacefully on a sofa inside the shadows. "My mother used to sing it to me, a long time ago."

He didn't know what drove him to ask, "Was she nice?"

"Yes. We were on a ship all the time, and I didn't see my dad much. But we would sit and watch the stars and sing. Where did you hear it?" Sepia asked inquisitively, turning to look at his helmeted visage.

"I'm not sure." Kodiak answered truthfully, for once thinking back.

"Do you remember anything before Onyx?"

"Not . . . much." Faces, a few meaningless names, so many places seen just briefly. His parents killed, the Spartan saving his life, Stacker making him an offer. And then came Onyx.

"Would it matter?" Sepia asked, looking back up at the stars surrounded by inky darkness. "Even if we knew where to go, could we go back?"

Kodiak knew the answer to that. "No. I can't imagine not doing this, being here. Humanity had to pay a price to make Spartans, and we were the children chosen. Just luck. What we would have had doesn't matter. Someone needed to live these lives, and I'm glad it's me. Spares some other kid . . . like Keiichi and Rena. They won't need to be Spartans."

"And they're still in the fight anyway. So who's the lucky ones?" She said, knowing Kodiak had no answer. "But you're right. I'm glad it's us."

Kodiak nodded and went back to sleep to wait for his watch. Now his mind turned to his memories, searching them and disturbed that so little remained. It would be far from the last time he would have to relive memories.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:41, August 25, 2011 (UTC)

96: Caught Between a Rock and Jiralhanae Pack
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

233 Hours, November 2st 2552 (Military Calendar)/ West of the Takayama Jinga, Takayama, Japan

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki stood on night watch duty next to the militia improvised tank made from the a bulldozer, the "Killdozer", along with four more UNSC soldiers and militia, the two militia manning the M247 and the LAU-65 of the "Killdozer", as well as several more soldiers in the houses to either side of the narrow alley just west of of the Takayama Jinga, an Edo-era government building and an excellent example of traditional Japanese architecture.

Suddenly, the five figures came into view in the headlights of the "Killdozer", Sangheili who appeared to be running away from something. The UNSC troops shouted orders to open fire and raised their weapons, but before they could get off a shot, a hail plasma bolts and autocannon rounds struck the Elites from behind, cutting them down. The whining of hover engines filled the air as five Ghosts, three Brute Choppers and a Prowler sped down the alleyway, firing their weapons.

Keiichi took cover behind the blade of the "Killdozer" and set the M456 grenade launcher under the barrel of his rifle to "Impact" as the M247 machine gun of "Killdozer" chattered to life, perforating a Ghost. The "boom" of a rocket reducing a Chopper and a Ghost to flaming wrecks further added to the commotion.

Keiichi peeked out from behind the "Killdozer" blade and fired the M456 GL under the barrel of his DMR at the Prowler, the 25mm grenade round sending the vehicle up in a flash of fire as Rena disposed of Grunt driving a Ghost with her MA37 assault rifle. Another Ghost fell to the M247 as Keiichi took out the last one with his grenade launcher. The second Brute Chopper fell to concentrated fire from several UNSC soldiers, the driver perforated with bullets from multiple directions.

Suddenly, a Covenant Shadow APC hovered down the alley, stopping about 100 meters from the UNSC position and fired its top-mounted plasma cannon. The plasma bolts from the weapon flew over the roof of the "Killdozer", chewing apart the LAU-65 missile pod gunner.

Rena Sonozaki climbed into the "Killdozer" as the Shadow gunner turned his attention to a UNSC sniper's nest on right side of the street. Rena grabbed the missile turret and took aim at the shadow. A tone filled her ears and red diamond appeared around the Shadow in the weapon's sight, right around the plasma turret, the hottest point on the alien APC.

Rena squeezed the trigger and released a 65mm missile, which flew into the air and dove back down on top of the Shadow, vaporizing the Brute in the turret and setting off the Shadow's plasma core in a ball of blue flames. A Locust Walker climbed up over the wreck of the Shadow. Rena greeted the alien walker with three LAU-65s, destroying it before it could fire. The battle was not over, however, hordes of Jiralhanae and Unggoy climbed over the wreckage of the vehicles.

A UNSC sniper picked of a Brute Chieftain who climbed over the leg of the destroyed Locust, killing the alien with a well-placed headshot. Machine guns, rockets, ARs, BRs, and sniper rifles fired off a hail of ammunition, cutting down Covies as they tried to climb over the debris heap.

Keiichi raised his DMR and fired a shot at an Unggoy. The round went right through the alien's head, taking it down. Another grunt dead, headshot again, Kig-Yar, heart shot, deshielded Brute headshot. Keiichi was picking off the climbing aliens one-by-one. It was hard to believe that he had been an ordinary civilian a few weeks ago. It felt like another life time ago.

Unggoy, headshot, Another Grunt, chest shot, this time. Keiichi kept racking up kills as Rena fired full auto into the horde. The Covies were so dense it was impossible to miss. A UNSC Army Lieutenant of American ancentry, who also carried a DMR, said "Kinda like the fence at Gettysburg", as he picked off a Kig-Yar sniper who tried to get a position on top of the wrecked locust. Keiichi knew Gettysburg was a battle in the American Civil War, but didn't know the details, although he supposed something similar to what was going on now must have occurred there, only involving a fence instead of a heap of alien vehicle wrecks.

After about a minute of being cut down, the Covies turned into full retreat, leaving behind a street strewn with alien bodies and destroyed vehicles. Most of the UNSC soldiers cheered as the aliens fled, but Keiichi heard the Lieutenant talking to a group of other Army infantrymen.

"Did you see those Elites at the beginning of the battle, they were running from the Brutes, and the Bravo Kilos just cut them down.", The Lieutenant asked

"Yeah", a Master Sergeant replied, "Looks like the Covies are divided, lets hope they Elites do the sensible thing and side with us."

"If they don't", the Lieutenant said, "At least the Elites around here, if not the whole species will be wiped out"

97: Misstep
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0734 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

Sunrise over Takayama brought with it the potential for mayhem. It was Ion Team’s specialty.

“You remember the plan?” Kodiak spoke quietly even over the com in the presence of so many Covenant, and when they were right next to each other.

“I made up the plan.” Dyne replied, getting his battle rifle ready.

“Better be fast out there.” Kodiak grumbled as Dyne stood up, edging closer to the end of the early morning shadows. “Hey, be careful for once, alright?”

“I’m always careful.” Dyne said, lying through his teeth. “You just shoot straight for once.”

“Serves me right for being concerned about you.” Kodiak grumbled, making Dyne grin. They both surveyed the wide plaza in front of them. Low-ranking Grunts wandered the open space, or slept in the sun. There were no patrols, only a few sleepy guards posted. Kodiak was almost disgusted. Even he thought this was a poor way of securing an area. But as he kept scanning, he noticed a distinct lack of any higher-caste leaders. Jackals, plenty of Grunts, and a few Drones skittering around the Tyrant gun in the center of the square, but not an Elite or Brute in sight.

Thinking they must be elsewhere, Kodiak filed the thought away, and rechecked the positions of the four Shade turrets arrayed as a sort of perimeter. Three in a wide arc south of the Tyrant, each watching a narrow street and ready to turn skyward. Three more clustered to watch the main road, including a fuel rod gun turret. Those would be last, but only if the run on the Tyrant was successful. Right now, they were waiting for Sepia’s signal to start their work.

It came suddenly, and without warning. The three outlying Shades bloomed into expanding spheres of fire, the scorched cages thrown high into the air as the C12 packs they’d placed earlier detonated. Grunts and Jackals were thrown into a panicked frenzy, running this way and that fearing an air strike had come in undetected.

Dyne sprinted forwards, right into the midst of them. Shots issued from his battle rifle, bringing down the more disciplined Jackals that were in between him and the Tyrant. Then, when he was within a comfortable range, he turned and sighted on the gunner Unggoy that had been lazily napping by their cluster of Shades as Kodiak covered him by taking down anything drawing a gun near him. The trio of Grunt specialists fell to the ground with bright blue seeping from head punctures, and while the other Grunts could man the turrets, they likely wouldn’t have enough sense to for a while.

At four and eight o’clock, the Tyrant had two ramps leading into it. As Dyne was shouldering his battle rifle and climbing one, Sepia was burning a path up the other. The Grunt methane packs detonated violently when she torched them, and she had to keep a good distance from the volatile targets.

As those unfortunate enough to be caught on the ramp burned, Sepia reached the top and came face to face with a cyan-armored Brute Minor. The gunnery master barked at her and swung a heavy paw, but she lifted her flamethrower and its claws glanced off, making it howl in pain. Sepia shoved it back by driving the weapon into its muzzle, and then turned the weapon’s jet into the room.

The lower deck was flooded with flame, the Brute’s last, agonized cries cut short amidst plumes of thick, nasty smelling smoke. It also served to overheat many of the emplacement’s inner workings, including the plasma shielding around its energy chamber. Her work half-done, Sepia jumped off the ramp and landed solidly as she heard Dyne shout a warning.

“Antioch going out!” he yelled, almost joyfully as he recalled a very old movie. Sliding the pins out of the grenades he had in each hand with his thumbs, he tossed the two orbs into the damaged chamber, and similarly leaped down from the ramp. The muted whumps behind and above him meant they’d gone off, and the subsequent explosion told him it’d done enough damage to begin a chain reaction in the Tyrant.

As he drew his submachine guns, Dyne glanced at the last group of enemy artillery. Kodiak and Sepia had already reached them and planted more C12. Once they got clear and detonated them, it was mission accomplished.

“Fall back, Ion, fall back!” Kodiak said on radio. There was no need to wipe out the rest of the infantry if the guns were destroyed. Dyne put on a burst of speed for the opposite side of the square from where he’d started, planning to meet up with the others later. A few semi-intelligent Grunts took potshots at him, but nothing able to get past his shields before he cut them down with an off-hand burst.

The Tyrant behind him exploded, the mounted cannon coming off the base and crashing down in the square on a number of aliens. It almost drowned out the sound of the last Shades going up in flames, and Dyne vaulted a low wall, chuckling to himself about how he couldn’t believe that had worked.

A sudden and loud humming caught his attention. He froze, and looked down at his feet at the strange, orange glow, and his eyes widened. “Oh, no.” His right foot had come down directly on a trip mine. Dyne was too afraid to close his eyes, but no explosion came. As he was about to unfreeze, a voice said from somewhere in the darkness around him, “Whatever you do, don’t move.”

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0815 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

“This is bad.” Dansen said, looking down into the street below where he and Reo had hidden inside a building. For the first time, they had stopped their fast pace to sleep, and now that he was up, Dansen had been searching for any sign of nearby Covenant. There were plenty of them.

Reo had taken the bed in this cramped living quarters on Dansen’s insistence, though she was annoyed by his attempts at the age-old ideas of chivalry. It was the first time in quite a while she’d been able to really rest, even though they were in the middle of alien territory. “What is it?” she asked.

Dansen had his helmet’s zoom engaged, and shifted back and forth to track different things. “The Covenant is stepping up its patrols. Brutes everywhere, in regular patterns. They’re looking for something, or someone.”

The news shook any remaining sleepiness from her, and she peered over his shoulder. “Do you think it’s us?”

“No. Even if they knew we existed they wouldn’t mobilize all this. They even have light vehicles out. What’s odd, though, is there’s usually Elites overseeing anything like this. Not one in sight.”

“What does that mean for us?” Reo asked, really looking the marine over closely for the first time.

Dansen disengaged his zoom and got away from the window. “It means it will be harder for us to move without being spotted. And if we are, it will mean a lot more trouble.” He caught her stare. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just. . .” she couldn’t identify what was out of place, “aren’t you a little short for a shock trooper?”

Dansen rolled his eyes, not that she could see. “Come on, let’s go before they start searching buildings.”

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0736 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

Dyne searched the shadows, but saw nothing until his HUD identified a bulky, humanoid shape lurking outside the sunlight. If he hadn’t been ordered to stay still, he might have raised a weapon, but the humming and beeping of the mine he’d stepped on made him decide that would be a bad idea.

Then, he recognized the form as an SPI suit, like the one he’d trained for a year in before being deployed. As the figure stepped forward, Dyne recognized him by his silhouette, voice, and number on his chest.

“If you want to keep your leg, or maybe your life, just don’t move a bloody millimeter unless I tell you.” The other soldier said, surveying Dyne’s predicament.

“Billy?” Dyne asked. SPARTAN-G039 was a member of Team Scimitar, who though Dyne hated to say it could beat Machete on most occasions.

“That’s me.” Billy said cheerfully, pointing his helmet up at Dyne’s. “Wait, Dyne? Where’d you get MJOLNIR Armor?”

It was at that time Kodiak and Sepia showed up. Another SPI-clad soldier melted from the shadows, matching their pointed rifles with his own weapon. Even as Dyne signaled for them to relax, they recognized the armor’s profile, and Dyne guessed the identity of the second one as Dominic-G146.

Though there had been much competition between teams during training, and every team was a rival, but you couldn’t hate everybody on Onyx; there were too few of them. Besides, if there had ever been a pair of Spartans as troublesome as Dyne and Kodiak, it was Billy and Dominic. The four had been co-conspirators on more than one occasion back on Onyx for some of the larger stunts they’d pulled. Though glad to see the members of Scimitar, they’d have to wait on the reunion.

“Can you defuse it?” Dyne asked as Billy surveyed the mine.

“No, now that you’ve stepped on it.” Billy said, intent on the device. “It’s set on a pressure plate, if you take your foot off of it, boom. But I can pull an Indiana Jones on it.”

“A what?” Dominic asked, his voice confirming his identity.

“You never saw that vid? Anyone?” Billy asked, looking at the other confused supersoldiers. He gingerly put a hand on the mine. “Never mind. Now, carefully, take your foot off the plate.”

As the others stepped back, worried Billy was doing something he’d regret, they watched Dyne slowly lift his boot and clear the mine while Billy held the pressure plate exactly as it had been. “Might want to get a little farther back.” Billy said, lifting the explosive up and standing. They did just that.

Billy carefully faced down the alley they were in, breathing steadily. With everyone else behind him, Billy wound up, then hurled the trip mine like a frisbee with all his strength. The orange disk spun, and detonated less than two meters away from him, making his minimal shields flare, but otherwise doing nothing but pelting him with minute pieces of shrapnel.

He turned back to the four assembled Spartans behind him. “Now, where were we?”

Kodiak depolarized his visor, smiling. “So Team Scimitar is running around this neighborhood, too. How’s your first week of business been?”

Though it was seldom done in a combat zone, not to mention hostile-controlled, Billy, Dominic, and then Sepia and Dyne showed their faces. “Plenty of kills to go around.” Billy said. “But we’re not going by Scimitar, at least not for now. We’re rolled into Inferno Team, big team of Spartans being deployed all over the theater. Where’d you get MJOLNIR suits?”

Kodiak answered, “They were in storage under Ryu Base, you should ask Command about it. How big is Inferno Team, and what is it, exactly?”

“It’s not really a team so much as a squad. Sixteen of us, when you count Scimitar.” Billy said, making Kodiak’s head spin. That many Spartans together in the field was almost unheard of.

Dominic continued for him. “It’s made up of just about anything you can think of. S-II class twos, 1.1s, even a GENOME soldier. And it’s led by a class one Spartan-II, Riker-012.”

“Then what are you doing out here alone?” Sepia interjected, curious.

Dominic shrugged. “We were told to recon this site. But I guess it’s taken care of. Any more of our work you plan to do?”

Kodiak nodded to Billy. “The closest AA site from here. Tell Inferno we’ve got it taken care of.”

“We’ll take the other ones.” Billy affirmed. “Sure you want to go it alone? With Sam and Marcus gone. . .” he trailed off, regretting he’d mentioned it.

Kodiak forgot he’d said anything about it. “We’ve got it.” Then he remembered something. “Tell your team leader that Brutes and Elites have started fighting each other. I don't know what it means, but it could explain anything you think doesn't feel right. You know what Ambrose always said about feelings.”

“We’ll pass on the message.” Billy said. He and Kodiak tapped armored fists with a dull clang.

“Good hunting.” Kodiak said.

“You too.” Billy answered, and the two groups parted ways, headed in different directions across the enemy-filled city.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 22:02, August 27, 2011 (UTC)

98: Power Vacuum
''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0900 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Wakasu Island, Koto, Tokyo, Japan.

Mikiya Ryougi flew his Falcon Gunship at low altitude over Tokyo Bay, his was one of dozens of gunships flying over a UNSC "wet" naval force of destroyers and cruisers escorting dozens of landing ships. The destroyers and cruisers fired their guns and missiles at the shore of Wakasu Island. Ahead of them, UNSC Air Force Shortsword Bombers and UNSC "wet" Navy Skyhawks from the carrier UNSC Samar Sea further out in the Bay.

The island, which once held a golf course and a park on one end and an industrial district and port on the other was pounded beyond recognition, into a cratered moonscape. A Shortsword Bomber unleashed its payload a Scarab and dozens of Wraiths in the industrial area, reducing the alien war machines to twisted metal and levelling nearby buildings.

Wakasu was initially held by a unit of Sangheili troops, but after the Jiralhanae turned on the Elites and killed them all, the Brutes left only a small force to defend the island. As the UNSC landing boats got closer, Wraiths and Shade turrets that survived the onslaught of the bombers and naval bombardment opened up on the landing craft. A landing hovercraft exploded as several plasma shells from a group of entrenched Wraiths opened fire on it.

Mikiya's gunner, Aoi Miyazaki, placed her crosshairs on the first Wraith and fired a Scorpion AGM at the alien vehicle, blowing it open in a flash of fire. Lt. Satou's Falcon came up next to Mikiya's and fired the nose-mounted SPARTAN laser, burning through the second Wraith. Mikiya and Aoi missiled a third and fourth Wraith as Hayabusa Four dealt with the last one.

With the Wraiths gone, Mikiya flew in closer as other UNSC gunships, Falcons like his own, as well as Hornets, Sparrowhawks, and Vultures unleashed their payloads on other entrenched Wraiths and gun turrets. Aoi strafed a couple of Shades with the 30mm autocannon the Falcon as the rest of Hayabusa squadron disposed of the rest of the Covenant guns, allowing several transport Falcons and Pelicans to land troops on the island.

As the UNSC infantry mopped up the remaining Brutes, Grunts, and Jackals near the shore, the landing ships landed, opening up and deploying their payloads. Scorpion and Grizzly Tanks, Grizzly AHWVs, Cobra MGS, Cougar APCs, Warthogs, and yet more infantry charged onto the field of battle, rolling over the beach and onto the cratered remains of the golf course and park, crushing the token Covenant resistance. Within half and hour, the artificial island off Tokyo Bay was back in the hands of the UNSC.

99: Called Off
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1130 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Tokyo, Japan

Corporal Mitch Hunter scanned the city from his jumpseat aboard Bravo 029. He'd sent Dansen and the civilian girl ahead to get that data to Ryu Base, but now that his team had been picked up, it would have been faster if they'd stayed together. And now they couldn't get any contact from them.

He knew it had been the right call at the time. As soon as the Deladrier had landed, Brutes attacked, and there was no guarantee of holding out against them. But it didn't make things any better now. Beside him, Kevlar groaned as the pain medication he'd been given feebly tried to relax him. He'd been hit in the thigh by a needle rifle, the pink crystal sticking out and then fracturing into thousands of sharp microshards. His curse had held, while he'd avoided any hits in Sydney despite a few close calls, he'd gotten hit almost as soon as his boots hit the ground, here.

Kevlar gave him a strained smile. The trooper had had worse, and he knew how to deal with a needler hit. He'd held the wound facing down, letting most of the shards fall away from him. It had still left a nasty gash. Fortunately Emmert had biofoam with him, and sealed it with a patch over his armor. Kevlar had still killed a few after being patched up.

The rest of his squad was there, ragtag as they were. Private Lisa Collins and the SHVA Private First Class Eirikur Quinn were either becoming well-acquainted fast, or they'd met before. Emmert was going through a small datapad as he always did, looking up or writing down some bit of information. And then there was Amelia.

Mitch and Kevlar hadn't seen their sergeant for months, and now here she was with a couple of civilian kids and what was half his ship going into the middle of hostile territory for an unspecified mission. There would be answers later, but for now all focus had to be on finding Dansen and the civilian.

“Corporal!” the crew chief, Wheatley, yelled over the engines. Wheatley looked like he’d been through hell and back. Mitch nodded at him, listening. “Got a Command lieutenant at Ryu Base wanting to speak to you!”

“Patch it through.” Mitch said. Within a moment, his earpiece buzzed.

“Lieutenant Erin Coney, is this Corporal Hunter?”

Mitch switched over to a private line. “This is Hunter, go ahead Lieutenant.”

“You said your trooper had important information for us. I just found a record from a UAV drone that shows your man’s IFF tag headed into the midst of enemy held territory not long ago. There’s a surveillance blackout in that sector, and for now it’s designated a no-fly zone. Bravo 029 is instructed to abandon search efforts and return to Ryu Base, where we can talk in person.”

Orders came before personal feelings. They always did. Especially when there was no hope of doing something useful by disobeying them. That was why he was wary of Dansen for now, the trooper would try his damnedest anyway. “We copy, Ryu Base. We’ll see you momentarily.”

Bravo 029 banked right, and headed back to UNSC-held city center.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 19:45, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

100: Vultures
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1220 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Near the Lunar Perimeter.'''

The destroyer UNSC Tetsu No Ame and the frigates UNSC Stalwart Dawn and UNSC Turning Point, the three survivors of the atmostpheric battle over Sado Shima, had joined up with a force of three more destroyers, the UNSC Manitoulin and the UNSC Kalashnikov, as well as ten other frigates, notable among them the Reach survivor UNSC Saratoga. The vessels, which were all fragments of various battlegroups, were now approaching a severely damaged CCS battlecruiser and five Covenant frigate, the remains of a Jiralhanae-controlled battlegroup that had engaged a Sangheilli Assault Carrier Battlegroup. The Brutes had destroyed the Elite carrier and its escorts, at the expense of most of their battlegroup.

"All units, prepare to engage the enemy", the voice of John Callard, the captain of the UNSC Manitoulin said in a Canadian accent, befitting the name of his ship.

"Roger", Shion Kozuki of the Tetsu no Ame replied.

The Manitoulin fired off three Harpoon nuclear missiles for its vertical launch tubes. The missiles turned 90 degrees and flew toward the crippled Covenant cruiser. The missiles impacted simultaneously, the nuclear warheads easily blowing through the Covenant ships energy shields (currently at only 20%) and vaporized the alien vessel.

"Commander, the Covenant cruiser has been taken out!", Lt. Commander Miyuki Akisato, the operator detection systems of the the Tetsu No Ame, including the radar, LIDAR, and the radio telescope, and a friend of Shion's from their days at the Naval Academy.

Akisato was right, the image on the radio telescope showed a rapidly cooling debris field where the CCS cruiser was, the largest piece being the frontal bulbous section of the cruiser, now floating freely in space. The Covenant frigates, however, were still in one piece, and fired their pulse lasers and plasma torpedoes at the UNSC battlegroup.

The pulse lasers hit first, impacting the frigate UNSC Guan Dao, burning through the ship, before plasma torpedo hit finished off the frigate.

The UNSC Kalashnikov retaliated, fire its MAC at the Covenant frigate that fired the plasma torpedo. The MAC slug impacted the frigate, which, as it turns out was deshielded by the Manitoulin's nuke. The MAC slug blew right through the Covenant vessel, shattering it.

The second Covie Frigate was hit by the MAC of two UNSC frigates, which overwhelmed its shields and crippled it. The Covenant frigate fire its remaining pulse laser as the other Covenant ships fired their weapons, destroying to UNSC frigate and disabling the dish for radio telescope of a third.

The UNSC Tetsu no Ame destroyed the crippled Covenant frigate with a swarm or Archer missiles, fitting the UNSC ships' name, meaning "Rain of Steel". The crippled frigate was blown full of holes and wrent apart.

The frigates and destroyers all opened up with their MACs, most of the slugs missing, but three of them hit one of the three remaining frigates, shattering it. The second got off with no his, while the third lost its remaining shields. The shieldless frigate was disposed of by a hail of Archer missiles from the UNSC frigate Hammerfall.

The last Covenant frigate sped up, firing its weapons at as it went, Archer Missiles glancing of its shields as it charged straight at the Tetsu no Ame.

"Incoming!", Miyuki Akisato yelled.

"Activate the thrusters, evasive maneuvers", Shion Kozuki ordered, and the UNSC Tetsu no Ame maneuvered hard right just as the frigate got within a few clicks. The Covenant destroyer cruised between the Tetsu and the Stalwart Dawn. The Covenant frigate fired its pulse laser, shaking the Tetsu, but not melting through the thick titanium armor.

The frigate lowered a section of its shield to fire its deadly plasma torpedoes.

"The enemy vessel is lowering its shields, its preparing to fire!", Miyuki exclaimed

"Hit the gap in the shield with everything we've got!", Shion replied.

Archer missiles swarmed towards the gap in the shielding as the light deck gun MAC turrets rose from the deck and fired. The gap in the shield was covered in a sea of flame, which was quickly quenched as the oxygen in the ship was consumed, replaced by the blue glow of leaking plasma. The plasma exploded outwards, blowing apart the ship, annihilating the alien vessel.

Cheers erupted through out the UNSC vessels. The Covenant battlegroup had been destroyed. Even if the UNSC forces were reduced to "vultures" preying the half-destroyed remains of battles between the two opposing factions that recently appeared in the Covenant, Shion was still confident. If the Covenant were fighting each other on their homeworlds, they would likely not send another invasion fleet of Earth, leaving the UNSC simply mop up the survivors. Then.. then, so Kozuki hoped, humanity would rise from the ashes and reap vengeance against the Covenant with their own reverse-engineered weapons (and a few improvements on deadly technologies of our own, such as SPARTANs, Gauss guns, nukes and guided missiles).

101: Red-Handed
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1500 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

"This doesn't look like an AA site," Dyne muttered to the rest of his team, "more like a fraggin' rally point."

Sepia groaned. "Intel really screwed up this time."

Kodiak, Sepia, and Dyne were laying on a rooftop under the afternoon sun, surveying their second target. There was a single Tyrant gun, but it was only the cornerstone for an entire outpost that had been assembled on the ground here. There also hadn't been any mention of the full motor pool that sat outside of the structure, including Ghosts, Spectres, and even a number of Banshees landed nearby.

"They look alert. I knew we should have hooked north instead of taking on that patrol." Kodiak hated perfect hindsight. The Elites and numerous underlings walking around down there had drawn weapons, and guards were posted everywhere. They must have plotted Ion Team's course after losing contact with the patrol they'd eliminated, and figured this was the Spartans' next stop. He thought about contacting Erin at Command for advisement, but he didn't dare turn on his radio this close to the Covenant base.

"So now what's the plan?" Dyne asked. He sounded a little nervous.

Kodiak wasn't looking forward to it, either. There was no chance they could take on this many enemies, no matter what they did. They were almost out of explosives, and even if they stole a few vehicles there would be too much firepower turned against them. So a straight-up fight wouldn't work. He started looking for other options. Soon enough, he spotted one not far from their position. It resonated with the plans he'd made as a trainee to steal food and get out of drills, not the most mature and heroic plan he'd ever had, but one that might (if lucky) work. He wished he still had his SPI's camouflage.

"Follow me, and stay very quiet. I have a bad idea."

The Unggoy that hauled the hover-cart struggled under its unexpected weight. The weapons crates must have been packed with many rifles to make the trolley dip so low to the ground. The Sangheili guards at the outpost's entrance sniffed at their perceived weakness, but allowed them entry without lecturing them about strength. The cart was pulled inside into the single center hallway, and into the first room filled with other containers of ordnance. Then they took their leave to return to the methane tents outside and enjoy their short cycles off.

No sooner had the doors slid shut behind them than the two crates lying on their sides opened, and a Spartan lifted a weapon and a cautious head from each of the containers.

"Clear." Kodiak said.

Dyne looked around. "Where's Sepia?"

Just then, Kodiak's crate shook as she gave him a jolt, trapped in the other side compartment face-down. He quickly jumped out and assisted with pulling her out while Dyne surveyed the many weapons chests. "This stuff could keep me entertained for quite a while."

Kodiak didn't like his tone. "Alright, let's go. Grab a few plasma grenades and we'll head to the Tyrant's main-"

He never finished. An Unggoy that had left its weapon behind opened the door and had barely sighted the demons when a bullet caught its head. While there was no immediate alarm, the Spartans sprinted into the corridor and over its body, Dyne grabbing the plasma pistol from the floor. A maintenance Drone fell before it could look up from its task, and they entered a second room.

It was also empty, and gave them a straight shot into the Tyrant's reactor chamber. Sepia hurriedly set the grenades and the last of their C12 as the others kept watch, then backtracked to head to the motor pool and break out. It might have even worked, but as they ran through the empty room with Kodiak slightly ahead of the other two, a wall of light suddenly snapped on, and he ran headlong into it.

"Ow!" he yelped, surprised. Shaking his head, he quickly realized he was in an energy barrier tube, trapped completely. Turning around, he saw Dyne and Sepia stuck together behind another violet wall of light particles. This was very, very bad for them.

"Quick, I'll try to blast out." Sepia said, reaching for her remaining grenades. Dyne immediately stopped her from blowing them up, and drew the plasma pistol.

"Are you sure that will work?" Kodiak asked as he charged the emerald glow of the weapon. "What if it ricochets and hits you?"

"Don't worry, there's a stun setting. The EMP on these can take out a tank." Dyne pointed the device straight up, and released the trigger. It turned out just about how Kodiak expected. The bolt ricocheted with a sharp electronic buzz, rebounding off the wall and smacking the side of Sepia's helmet. She dropped like a MJOLNIR-armored rock, leaving Dyne staring at her with the smoking weapon still venting in his hand.

Outside the cages, Drones emerged from the walls, chittering gleefully and one holding the disarmed C12 pack, and Elites entered with plasma rifles trained on the demons. Kodiak sighed nervously, not at all looking forward to what happened to Covenant prisoners. "Nice work, there, Dyne."

His teammate gulped. "Yeah. Sure . . ."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 02:16, September 3, 2011 (UTC)

102: Afternoon Commute
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1700 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)

Takayama, Japan'''

A Several Scorpion and Grizzly tanks fired on covenant fortification in the Takayama MagLev Station, trading fire with entrenched Covenant infantry and Shade Turrets. From the south, a shot from a super heavy plasma mortar impacted the lead Scorpion tank, blowing the vehicle to pieces.

Keiichi Ryukishi pushed Rena Sonozaki down to the rubble-strewn ground, ducking behind a man-sized piece of reinforced concrete as the rear track section of the destroyed Scorpion flew over them, where their heads had been mere seconds before. The fragment of the Scorpion tank smashed right through a permacrete wall behind them.

The source of the plasma mortar fire was immediately apparent: A super-heavy plasma mortar on the Hida-View Tower, the tallest building in Takayama, a 50-story skyscraper build in the 2510s, providing a view of the Hida Mountains to the east, though it was still nothing compared to the kilometer-plus towers of Tokyo. The UNSC held most of the east side of Takayama, home to all the historic buildings, and were now pushing into the "modern" side of town, home to fast-food restaurants, hotels, high-rise apartments, and other structures that had sprouted up since the latter half of the 20th century. The Hida-View was unusually tall even for this area of Takayama, in the 21st century, towers maxed out at around 15 stories, and even now, it was rare to see anything higher than 25 stories.

As the Jiralhanae gun crews on top of the Hida-View recharged the super-heavy plasma mortar, and the spotters in the rooftop observation deck designated the next target, a UNSC Air Force Longsword Fighter flew in from the east. The aircraft release two laser-guided bombs. The first impacted the top of the tower, blowing apart the Covenant artillery and gutting the upper few floors, while the second blew a massive chunk out of about the 20th floor. The Hida-View's period as the tallest structure in Takayama was abruptly ended when the building collapsed from the bomb hits in a cloud of dust and debris.

As the Covenant artillery was neutralized, the UNSC tanks kept firing, a Grizzly tank knocking out two Wraiths near the entrance of the station, killing one with each of its two guns. Keiichi, meanwhile, got up and fired the 25mm grenade launcher attached to his rifle at a Shade turret, blowing the turret off its mounting and killing the Unggoy gunner. The rest of the UNSC tanks opened up with canister shells, spraying lethal fragments at the Covenant, grinding the Jiralhanae and Unggoy taking cover behind the walls of the station to a bloody pulp.

The UNSC tanks fired off smoke grenades from the launchers on sides of their turrets, covering the area between the UNSC and Covenant positions in a thick white smoke.

"All personnel!", the UNSC Army Captain in charge the infantry assault ordered, "Advance through the smoke".

The captain raised his IMI 2550, an Israeli SMG descended from the legendary 20th century Uzi, the IMI 2550 used by the UNSC Army.

Keiichi slung his DMR over his shoulder and got out his M95 Full Auto Shotgun and charged the smokes Rena charged with her bayoneted MA37.

Battle cries of "Remember Reach!", "For Humanity!" were heard, as well as others that named specific fallen comrades or loved ones the speaker sought to avenge. Plasma bolts and spiker rounds flew by as the UNSC troops charged into the smokescreen, but few of the Covenant weapons hit their mark.

Keiichi emerged from the smokescreen, and immediately jumped over a roughly waist-high concrete wall that turned out to be some sort of planter, the flowers it once held long since gone. On the other side of the planter, a Jiralhanae rose up, Brute Shot at the ready. Keiichi took aim and held down the trigger, firing four shotgun shells into the Brutes chest and head, killing the alien, before firing off several more shotgun shells, clearing the defensive position of Unggoy and Kig-Yar.

Rena appeared from the smoke to Keiichi's right, thrust her MA37's bayonet into the chest of a deshielded Brute. In spite of the blade in its chest, the Brute still had enough strength to raise its Spiker. Rena smiled evilly as she held down the trigger of the MA37, putting seven rounds into the aliens chest, killing it outright. Rena then proceeded to kill two Grunts with her bayonet, and a Jackal and a Grunt with her rifle.

To Keiichi's left, the UNSC captain swept a fighting position next to a destroyed Shade clear of Kig-Yar Skirmishers with his IMI 2550, beyond him, a UNSC Army flamethrower operator incinerated a pair of Brutes and three Grunts, their methane tanks exploding as they are caught by the flames.

Within 30 seconds, All around Keiichi, Covenant troops lay dead and dying, those that were not killed by the initial bombardment by the UNSC tanks were struck down by the bullets, bayonets, and grenades of the UNSC infantry.

The UNSC soldiers continued, charging through the massive hole blasted into the front wall of the station. Any turnstyles or other impediments were blasted away by the guns of the UNSC tanks, leaving only the shattered remains of a ticket counter and a couple of blasted shops as cover for the squad of surviving Covenant. The ticket counter was cleared of a Brute and two Grunts by a grenade thrown by the UNSC captain. Meanwhile, other UNSC infantry and militia cleared a pair of shops, one looking like a souvenir and convenience store and the other a fast food restaurant.

The rest of the UNSC forces, including Keiichi and Rena charged up the large stair case or the motionless escalator to the to the Mag-Lev platforms. The platforms were elevated above the ground, at the level of the MagLev rails. The surviving Covenant had held out on the other side of the tracks, having blown up the skybridge over the rails.

A hail of plasma bolts fired for a plasma turret placed on top of a toppled vending machine for use as cover killed a militia man and a UNSC Army soldier, and wounded another militiaman. The UNSC Army captain drew an XM57 Compact Grenade Launcher and fired off a high-explosive grenade, blowing apart the vending machine and the plasma turret and killing the Unngoy behind.

The rest of the Covenant forces on the other side of the building were quickly dispatched by DMR and assault rifle fire, with a couple being finished off by UNSC Army infantry armed with jetpacks.

As the last Covenant Unngoy fell, the UNSC captain radio command: This is Foxtrot One-Five actual, we have secured Takayama Station, repeat, Takayama station is in UNSC hands.

103: Just Crossed the Street
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1915 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Tokyo, Japan

Dansen didn't know why this was the thought that came to mind as he lay pinned down by near-constant spike rifle fire, but he realized that this was the fourteenth day he'd been on active duty. Two weeks of service, and facing a superior enemy completely alone was starting to seem like it was the norm for him. Old Mombasa, Geneva, Sydney, and now Tokyo. Was this normal for a Helljumper?

Regardless, he set the rifle back on the car he'd taken cover behind, braced, and fired. A lower rank Brute whose shielding hadn't yet recovered absorbed the round, face contorting in pain as it fell.

"Go!" he shouted, and he and Reo sprinted to the next car as the next alien in line took charge. She clutched the data crystal containing the Superintendent protectively, looking to Dansen for their next move.

Plasma impacted the other side of the vehicle, which was tiny even by the modern standard, and Dansen shouldered the sniper rifle. If they were catching up, he might as well have fire rate over range anyway. The Covenant lance had pursued them for some time now, but he was surprised there hadn't been more of a response when they were spotted. It could be they weren't the ones the Brutes were searching for, and Dansen counted the two of them lucky.

With the Brute gone, it was the Jackal majors that were taking over the assortment of Grunts with them, but the infantry wasn't the problem. The Ghost RAV constantly attempting to flank them was. It's plasma cannons were melting their cover to slag, but if they left now they'd be caught in the open. He needed an option; he found one parked across the street. A Genet, a civilian vehicle right behind the Ghost. He remembered a recall not long ago and hoped the defect was real in this one.

"Stay here!" he shouted over the plasma fire, and without hesitation ran into the open. Blue flame hissed angrily past him, but Dansen forced himself to ignore it. Then, just as he was about to make it, the Ghost pilot landed a shot. The cannon fire slammed the side of his helmet, melting the outer coating and making it sizzle in his ear. He dived forward, making sure to land with the melted side face down so it would fall away from him. Ignoring the burns, he peered over the hood and sighted the infantry. They were in position, right next to the car.

He drew the M9 grenade from his belt, and pulled the pin. Dansen threw straight, and it bounced under the Genet and its unprotected fuel tank. The resulting explosion knocked him on his back, his ears ringing.

Laying on the permacrete, he saw smoke starting to rise among the skyscrapers. Then Reo's concerned face was over him, her lips moving without sound. After a moment and his hearing cleared, he understood it was his name she was repeating. She helped him up, unable to do much more than walk, and slung his arm over her shoulder to stumble away from the scene, hoping nothing else was sent after them.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:20, September 6, 2011 (UTC)

104: Covenant Convention
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2100 Hours, November 2nd, 2552

Tokyo Big Sight Convention Center, Odaiba Island, Tokyo'''

A squadron of Falcon Gunships lead by Mikiya Ryougi flew towards the Tokyo Big Sight Convention Center, a late 20th century structure as odd as it was impressive. The main building consisted of structure built around four titanium-clad inverted pyramids, supported, by four towers. Beneath that was a glass-roofed entrance hall. The structure had been noted since its completion as the home to a couple of anime and manga related events.

Behind the Falcon Gunships, ODST James Basilone sat with the rest of his squad in the Transport Falcon, watching as the gunships knocked out several AA Shade turrets with well-placed missiles. The gunship squadron fired off a final missile shot, blowing a hole in the center of roof of convention center, with Basilone's Falcon hovered over. James Basilone slid down the "fast rope" M247K light machine gun in hand.

Basilone felt his feet hit the floor, raising his M247 and firing off a burst of fire at a Brute taking cover behind an upturned table, before mowing down a group of Unngoy. Next to him, Sgt. Ryouko Tanbou, an unusual combination of close combat expert and medic, fired off her M90 combat shotgun, vaporizing a Jiralhanae's face. The sound of Zhang's MA5K and Kamarov's BR55 joined the cacophony, along with the rest of the ODST squad's weapons.

The Covenant taking cover in the rows of tables in the conference room were quickly cut down. "CLEAR!", Basilone yelled, "Next room, move out!"

Basilone kicked down the door to the conference room, exiting into a hallway which contained a couple surprised Kig-Yar guards, one mere feet from Basilone. Basilone sidestepped to the right and drew his combat knife, thrusting the blade into the bird-like alien's neck, killing the Kig-Yar instantly.

Tanbou disposed of the second Jackal with her shotgun as the the doors to the four conference rooms down the hall were. Basilone grabbed the the dead Kig-Yars Energy Shield and raised it up in front of him, holding the shield sideways so he could rest his LMG on one of the firing notches.

Spiker and needler rounds flew overhead or bounced off the shield as the alien horde ran down the hall, descending on the ODSTs. Basilone held down the trigger of his M247, sending a hail of rounds into the enemies, depleting shields and tearing through flesh. The leading group of Jiralhanae and Unggoy fell to the floor, only for the dead and dying to be trampled by the rest of the unit.

The entire hall was filled with about 40 Covies of varies species, it was impossible to miss. The weapons of the ODSTs cut through the densely packed Covenant charging down the hall. Basilone's LMG ran out, and the ODST drew his M6D pistol, picking off Unggoy with well-aimed shots. Within seconds, the Covenant wave attack had failed, the hallway was littered with spent casings and dead Covenant.

"Hold up, take time to top of your ammo before going down the stairs", Basilone commanded as he loaded another 200-round belt into his LMG.

After loading up, the squad made their way down the seventh floor of the conference center, making their way down the 1000-person conference room. The Zhang set a breaching charge on both doors. When the charges detonated, a Brute that was tasked with guarding the door was killed. The ODSTs burst in, guns blazing, cutting down Covenant infantry, who all had their backs turned, firing down on UNSC troops in the plaza below. In addition to several Kig-Yar snipers and Jiralhanae with fuel rod guns and plasma launchers, the Unggoy operating two Shade turrets were cut down.

As the room was cleared, Basilone's radio crackled to life. "This the UNSC Army 223rd Mechanized Infantry Regiment, we are getting hit hard by Covie gun emplacements on top of the entrance plaza of the Tokyo Big Sight, any UNSC forces assist".

"This Lt. James Basilone of the 43rd Orbital Drop Shock Regiment, I have taken a couple of Shade turrets on top of the seventh floor of the Tokyo Big Sight overlooking your position, I intend to use the enemy ordnance against them, do not fire on the turret on the upper floors of the convention center, repeat, do not fire on the turrets on the upper floors of the center, they are friendly."

"Roger, Lieutenant", the 223rd's radioman said, "Give 'em hell".

Zhang grabbed a Covenant plasma launcher as Tanbou and Vericci mounted the Shade turrets. Kamarov, meanwhile, was on sniper duty. Not having his usual SRS99 due to the CQB nature of the mission, Kamarov took a Covenant beam rifle and fired a shot a Brute Ultra leading the Jiralhanae squad, which, along with several shade turrets, were slugging it out with a group of a couple Cougar APCs and several Warthogs with armor upgrades.

Basilone opened up on the Brutes in the defensive position below them with his LMG, causing multiple casualties as Zhang blew away a Shade turret with a plasma launcher blast. Tanbou and Verrici's Shades added to the hail of fire. Soon, all the Shade turrets were knocked out and the mechanized infantry advanced, APCs going first, then the 'Hogs. When the APC go the near the entrance, it rammed down the door and drove into the entrance plaza of the convention center, followed by the other vehicles.

"I like that guy's style", Basilone thought.

Basilone lead the squad down the sixth floor, clearing each of the conference rooms of any Covenant that may be lurking in the floor, before going down the stairs in the large "towers" below the inverted pyramids, going straight down the second floor entrance plaza- there were no floors 3-5 because of the unusual design of the structure- Basilone wondered why they didn't just call floors they'd just been in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors.

After notifying the UNSC vehicles of his position, Basilone's ODSTs exited into the main plaza, meeting up with the UNSC Warthogs and APCs, which were now parked indoors, having surprised the Covenant guarding the large interior plaza and cut them down with heavy weapons fire.

105: Rude Awakening
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0653 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Covenant Rally Point, Takayama, Japan

Commander Ambrose had always said pain was a good sign; it meant you were still alive. Dyne hated good signs.

His head pounded with each pulse of blood his heart pumped through his head as he regained consciousness. The Covies had needed to pin them down to administer a sedative, and while he'd slept well, the headache Dyne was experiencing now hammered in a mental note to never be captured again. Rolling his head around his shoulders, he felt his armor's imperfect fit still encasing his body. Either that meant his captors couldn't figure out how to get the armor off him, or they didn't think it made a difference. Dyne hoped they were underestimating him, not the other way around.

He looked up and around, and noticed immediately his feet weren't touching the ground. Some sort of anti-gravity field held him up a foot off the floor, and his limbs were outstretched by the invisible force to keep him from pulling anything out of his sleeves. In their own stasis fields, Kodiak and Sepia were floating the same way he was, looking at him.

Dyne locked eyes with Sepia. ". . . sorry." he mumbled.

"I'm going to set my fist for stun when we get out of this." Sepia replied, irritated. After several long minutes hanging suspended above the purple floor of their cell, she asked, "Why do you think they didn't kill us?"

"They'll do it, soon enough." Kodiak said absently. "All humans are heretics, and we're the vile demons. I'm sure they're just holding us until they come up with a big enough ceremony for us."

"I'm flattered." Sepia said, settling back in.

Dyne tried to keep the conversation from dying out. It was the only thing taking his mind off the headache. "So what's the escape plan?"

Kodiak shrugged, an odd gesture in zero gravity. "Nothing yet. We can't get out of these ourselves, and we don't know the land beyond this room."

A dead end. It didn't mean they were done for, but it wasn't their turn to make a move. "So we wait, then." Dyne said aloud, reaching the conclusion they'd already come to. He'd never liked waiting, and as the time dragged on the only redeeming aspect of the universe was that his head hurt less. When the one door in the room slid open with the wail of alien technology, all three of them perked up.

In stepped an Elite in gleaming silver armor, its teardrop-shaped helmet reflecting the blue and violet light. His retinue was made up of three stealth-equipped Special Ops Sangheili unreadable behind their smooth death masks. The Ultra, at least that was what Kodiak took him for, approached the captives and stared at them with beady, black eyes. It seemed to think the moment tense, but to the SPARTANs it was as dull as the time before he'd arrived.

"To have foretold a time such as this would have been considered tantamount to heresy before this day." the Elite began as his head dipped, his deep voice suppressing the natural snarl they uttered when making attempts at human speech. "That we must hold council with demons, I would have flung myself on my sword had I imagined it."

Having not been formally addressed by his monologue, Ion looked to one another, confused. The Elite looked back up at them and spoke directly. "You are an insult. An affront to the gods, heretics towards the Journey, and you insult me personally by attempting to destroy this station and take the lives of myself and my warriors. You are not worthy to exist in this world."

Maybe it was simple boredom, or that they believed they'd die soon, but Ion's impish nature resurfaced when Dyne asked, "What is it with you aliens and speeches?"

Sepia groaned. "I know, good grief, would you just kill us and then talk? You already told us we're unworthy, so many times. We know."

"Which is weird, right?" Kodiak picked up. "If we're such lost causes, why try bothering to teach us even that, at all?"

Dyne nodded in agreement. "Saves everyone time."

"Silence!" The Elite growled, his defeated manor giving way to frustration. It wouldn't have mattered what command he gave, they wouldn't have listened.

"So how do you think we'll be killed?"

"I get the feeling he's about to tell us, in great detail."

Mandibles curled, he let the snarl into his tone. "Were it any other day! But events deny me the pleasure."

Where the hated foe couldn't shut them up, curiosity could, and they oriented their helmets in his direction to listen intently. Satisfied he had their attention, he began. "There have always been blood between my race and the Jiralhanae. They are savage, like humans, but without discipline. I was willing to fight beside them, and of course, destroy them when their treachery was revealed. But far from here, it seems the fate of the universe is being decided without our say. Truth is now the sole leader of the Covenant. He has named the Brutes his vanguard, taking the Sangheili's rightful place."

Kodiak interrupted, but wasn't mocking. "What difference does that make for us."

"I may have been the only Sangheili to still wish to serve the Prophets." he continued. "Though a breech in our trust as well as tradition, we could have redeemed ourselves in the eyes of the gods. But our rivals seek to destroy us, in spite perhaps for knowing we are the true inheritors. Word has reached me of many things. The Jiralhanae's declaration of war, Truth revealed as giving the order. And an alliance at the holy ring. Men and Elites, though very few, fight an open battle with Truth's servants."

The Elite stepped into their midst, looking to each of them in turn. "The Brutes outnumber us greatly, and should our sides continue to wear away at one another, surely neither of us will stand long. But if you will, I will honor the allegiance made by the Arbiter. If Truth sees fit to brand us traitors as he stabs us in the back, then surely you are not the heretics he brands you."

"Fight with you?" Kodiak asked. The former leaders of the alien genocide wanted to hold the line with them. He quickly started working out if it was a trick, but why would he do that? Maybe he was toying with them, but that wasn't the Elites' style. He decided to call it for bluffs. "It would be much easier to discuss a treaty if we weren't being held prisoner."

"Of course." the Elite said, and motioned to one of his retinue. A moment later, the SPARTANs dropped to the floor heavily on MJOLNIR boots, except for Sepia who'd been leaning too far forwards and landed crouched with a fist on the ground to stabilize her. The three of them grouped together to talk it over.

"Think it's real?" Sepia asked, glancing sideways at her teammates.

"They wouldn't bother with this if it wasn't." Kodiak said observantly.

Dyne was oddly opposed. "Hello, these are the guys who burned Reach, not the Brutes. And if they're telling the truth, you want to be allies with the losers in this fight?"

"Well, the winners still want us dead," Kodiak pointed out, "and they're the ones holding us hostage."

He sighed exasperatedly. "Call Coney, we aren't the ones that decide this anyway."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 03:01, September 10, 2011 (UTC)

106: New Allies
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1033 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar) Joint UNSC-Covenant Rally Point, Takayama, Japan'''

It had been an hour since something astonishing had happened. A Sangheili had called the UNSC forces and declared that the Sangheili had allied themselves with UNSC forces after a betrayal of by the prophets.

Now, a column of Sangheili-controlled Wraiths, Shadows, and other vehicles, painted a green color lighter than that of the UNSC vehicles, had arrived at the base and parked along side rows of Scorpions, Grizzlies, and other UNSC armor.

"Are you sure we should trust the Elites?", Rena Sonozaki asked, "These are the bastards that killed both our families in Shirakawa!".

Keiichi opened his mouth to reply, but at that point, a Sangheili Major walked up to them. The Sangheili spoke to them through a translator device.

"I apologize for the actions of my race, we were blinded by the lies of the prophets, but now, the Arbiter has exposed their lies.", the Elite said

"Took you long enough, Couldn't have figured that out a bit sooner, could you?!", Rena said.

"Rena!", Keiichi said, before responding "Sorry for my friend's rudeness."

"You have every right to be angry, to mistrust us, but I assure you, I at least am not like those who perpetrated massacres of your loved ones. I never killed an unarmed civilian.", the Elite responded, surprising Keiichi and Rena, "You said your were from the settlement the hu... I mean you call "Shirakawa, the historic site with the grass-roofed houses".

"Yes", Keiichi replied, cutting ahead of Rena.

"I see", the Elite said, "That village was under the command of an Ultra, Xydr 'Yacharee. He was truly more of a Jiralhanae than Sangheili, he mercilessly slaughtered all he encounters, zealous devotee of the Prophets. You should know that he was killed several of this planet's days after he massacred the inhabitants of your hometown."

"Oh I know he's dead", Rena said with vindictive pleasure, displaying her now dead energy sword "I killed him, this is his sword! I saw what that bastard did to my family, and I gave him what he deserved, I sliced off all four of his limbs with own sword, ripped out his guts. I was a shame I couldn't truly hang his body by his entrails like he did to... to...."

Rena's vindictive tone fell away as she reached the horrible fate of her younger sister Satoko. Keiichi put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"We can mourn our losses later", the Sangheili said, right now, we must prepare to strike at the final remnants of the Brutes in this city, and aid our allies in the city to the north, Hida!".

"Also, I never told you my name, I am Jtyr 'Utuelee"

"Keiichi Ryukishi", Keiichi replied, "And this is Rena Sonozaki".

107: Negotiations
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1049 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Covenant Rally Point, Takayama, Japan

The streets hadn't been cleaned in a while, so clouds of dirt and debris flew up as Bravo 029 touched down in the city square. Kodiak brushed the layer of fine silt from his visor and stood straight as the Pelican's hatch opened up, and out stepped several armed ODSTs. While its jets shut down, LTJG Yasunaka kept its guns active, not in the least trusting these aliens.

"Clear." reported the Corporal, seeing that none of the Sangheili or Unggoy were going to immediately go for weapons. From behind the rear-mounted machine gun stepped Lt. Erin Coney, clad in a Marine helmet and fatigues over her NEMEAN body suit. A nickel-finish M6D was secured at her waist, but Kodiak would have bet she had a silenced Auto-mag concealed somewhere.

"Erin." Kodiak said cheerfully as he fell in behind her, walking towards the outpost. He enjoyed throwing her off like that, especially when she was this tense. Her eyes kept darting around at the myriad of Covenant warriors that surrounded them. Keeping pace with her as she hurried inside, especially wary of the posted Elite guards that eyed them suspiciously as they entered the compound.

"I'm surprised to see you here." Kodiak remarked as they walked the length of the corridor. "I thought they'd send someone . . . higher in the command chain to negotiate a treaty."

She laughed once, grimly. "Seems Command doesn't feel like trusting them yet, so they sent someone they considered more expendable."

"Oh." He kept his mouth shut the short remainder of the way. Entering the room the Sangheili commanders had appropriated, Dyne, Sepia, and the Elites looked up from the readout of the Covenant battlenet. Its assets had been split between the factions of this new civil war, and so the maps and numbers could only be reliable to an extent, but it was all they had.

The silver Elite turned to fully face them, and looked down at Coney. He stood more than a head taller than she did, but as she removed the helmet and stowed it under her arm, her salute showed in an absence of fear the determination and wariness of a professional soldier. "Lieutenant Erin Coney, UNSC Special Warfare Command."

He folded a muscular arm over his chest to return the gesture in genuine respect rather than ceremony. "Ultra Tor 'Lukomee, last of the Sixth Lance of Worldly Severance. And commander of the forces that have amassed here.”

Erin raised an eyebrow and asked hesitantly, “Only an Ultra?”

“De facto.” Tor explained. “Field Marshall ‘Achachakee and his companions have not been heard from since the outbreak of war with the Jiralhanae, and the animals have gone swiftly through the line of succession to leave us in chaos. Many must have perished for such authority to be passed down to me.”

It put the lieutenant at ease, to know the being she was dealing with had problems of his own. He was, for lack of a better phrase, only human. “Then you carry the authority to make our pact official. Already, our soldiers have joined forces with yours on the battlefield, and exact formalities can be taken care of later. How is our strategic outlook?”

They joined the others at the table and viewed a three-dimensional map of Takayama. Some areas were sown with red, blue, and green dots representing Brutes, Elites, and Humans respectively. Others were devoid of dots and shaded in one color, representing best guesses where the battlenet was no longer accurate.

“We suspect the Brutes are laying siege to this area.” Tor pointed out, indicating a small blue patch in a field of red. “It was a smaller outpost led by Sangheili, and very defensible. Though our last contact with them was a day ago, that the Jiralhanae haven’t attacked us in force yet must mean they have been able to hold out, at least so far.”

Coney was more intent on the force strength statistics. “You’re a little short on numbers, here. I guess this means you want to help them out and start getting your army back together. And you’ll need our help to do that, won’t you?”

Tor’s snake-like head nodded. “It would be seen as a sign of great faith in our new alliance.”

“Of course it would.” Coney said, exhaling. “Looking at this, you can bet they’d eventually bring in Wraiths to just demolish all the cover your friends have there. But I think I know some people in the area who can deal with those. Meanwhile, we should concentrate on any infantry trying to make an assault from this side.”

Kodiak traced her finger to a series of pedestrian walkways suspended two stories over street level, and linking up directly with the Sangheili position’s flank. It was an obvious gap in an otherwise locked-down position. The Brutes would throw every footsoldier they could at it, but they wouldn’t expect anyone to come up behind them.

“Catch their infantry in a pincer, then reinforce the position to help our armor deal with the Wraiths.” Coney said, sounding pleased with herself. Tor growled something the humans couldn’t understand, and the few other Elites rumbled out battlecries and raised their fists.

Tor stated, “I will lead our warriors on the ground. It will be an honor to fight alongside you.”

Coney shook her head. “You need someone to keep an eye on things, and I’ll pool this information with our Battlenet to get a clearer picture. Ion’s with you, though.”

Tor looked at her with disappointment, uncomprehending of human pragmatism, but nodded and went to collect his warriors. Coney looked once at the battle grid, then to Kodiak. “Well, sport, you and your team up for this?”

Kodiak grinned at the challenge. “We always are.”

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 03:05, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

108: Religious Extremism
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1049 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Matsukura-yama, near Suza Sukyo Mahikari Temple, West Takayama, Japan'''

Keiichi Ryukishi stood in the back of a UNSC militia guntruck, at the controls of an AIE-486 machine gun, with Rena Sonozaki on the other gun, an MG460 grenade launcher. They UNSC vehicles drove over a road over the top of Matsukura-yama, a mountain west of town. The mountain was once the site of a Covenant artillery base, until it was bombed out by a Skyhawk Squadron, and subsequently taken by a squad of ODSTs. The base was now solidly in UNSC hands. The valley below, however, was still controlled by the Covenant. Most notable of the Covenant Loyalist-held structures was a Covie comms center in the Suza, a large gold-roofed structure with a massive staircase leading up to it. The structure was the main temple of a fringe religion known a Sukyo Mahikari, an odd combination of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Shintoism founded in the 20th century, which believes that human civilization originated in Japan, and that Jesus visited Japan and later returned their shortly before he died. Personally, Keiichi and Rena, like most people thought the Sukyo Mahikari were crazy, but next to the alien religious extremists who currently occupied the structure, the people who originally built it seemed quite moderate.

Overhead, a squadron of Longsword fighters flew, deploying a bombs and air-to-ground missiles, destroying a group of Wraiths and blowing up an Covie-occupied structure across from the Suza that was apparently a Sukyo Mahikari church office building. As the UNSC column off the mountain road, driving past the remains of the Hida Folk Village, a group of historic structures that were moved the that location, which had been severely ravaged by the Covenant invasion. The remaining structures included several historic, thatched cottages.

"Reminds you of Shirakawa, doesn't it?", Keiichi commented.

Suddenly, Keiichi was interruped by a series of explosions as green beam of plasma swept across the front of the column, destroying three Scorpion tanks. An M-850 Grizzly Anti-Scarab Vehicle, a Grizzly tank armed with two anti-walker missiles instead of a second cannon, turned its turret on the Scarab and fired off a missile. The "Scarab-Slayer" missile impacted the top of the Scarab, detonating the core and blowing the alien war machine apart in a flash of fire.

After about twenty minutes- the column was held up while the wreckage of the destroyed Scorpions was removed- the UNSC armored vehicles began to approach the Suza. To the right of the main temple stood a second church office building, still quite intact. Plasma launcher and fuel rod fire suddenly started flying out of the office building as the Brutes inside opened fire on the UNSC armor, taking out a couple Warthogs and Cougar APCs.

Keiichi and Rena turned the guns of the gun truck on the building, the AIE-486 rotary machine gun spat 7.62mm slugs out a over 50 rounds a second while the grenade launcher launched high-explosive shells at the structure. Other machine guns and GLs opened up, before the big guns started firing on the tower: 25mm autocannons, Gauss cannons, LRG railguns, 102mm missiles, and 90 and 120mm cannon. The barrage of fire blew away great chunks of the facade of the office building, exposing the steel skeleton and no doubt killing the Brutes inside. The final deathblow was delivered by a second anti-walker missile fired at the building, which pierced through the wall exploded within the building, causing the front half of the structure to collapse in a cloud of dust and smoke.

With the Brute in the main office out of the way, UNSC forces advanced to the foot of the temple steps. A Grizzly tank too aim at the Covenant Loyalist positions and Shade turrets firing down on it to no effect and fired its main gun. A canister shell exploded over the Loyalist positions, tearing through the flesh of the alien troops manning them. With the Covenant guns silenced on the top of the stairs, the UNSC Warthogs, tanks, and APCs literally drove up the wide staircase, with Keiichi, Rena and the militia taking cover behind the their vehicles. At the top of the stairs, Keiichi unslung his DMR and held it at the ready as a tank turned its turret backwards and rammed through the wide tall door to the temple, before firing several canister rounds into the structure.

The UNSC Army regulars entered first, rifles a blazing, cutting down the Brutes that survived the canister shells. Finally, it was the militia's turn to enter the structure. Keiichi and Rena were among the first militia in the large, open temple, a wide room with columns along the sides and an altar at the front end, and a bunch of destroyed Covenant comms equipment, blow all over the place by the exploding tank shells no doubt.

Most of the Brutes inside were dead, however, about seven Grunts ran out from beside the altar, plasma grenades in hand as they yelled in some alien language. Keiichi took aim and fired a shot from his DMR, dropping of the Grunts and Rena fired a burst at the suicide bomber Grunt furthest to the right. Within seconds, the UNSC forces fired a hail of gunfire at the suicidal aliens, cutting them down their plasma grenades exploding far short of their intended targets.

The Scorpion tank backed out of the doorway and more UNSC militia entered to aid in the mop-up. The Covenant Loyalist communications center in the west side was theirs.

109: The Night Before
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2000 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Tokyo, Japan

Reo Colter hauled the injured Helljumper inside an abandoned building. The dark and quiet rooms reminded her of the time she'd spent in Greece with Moses and Henri. While she wondered about the both of them, Dansen was her main worry, now. The side of his helmet where the plasma had hit had cooled, but they'd had to keep running for fear of another Covenant patrol weeding them out. He groaned as she set him down. Reo wasn't sure if she should try to remove the helmet, but then decided even if it made it worse, there was no way she could help by leaving it on him.

The air seal broke with a subdued hiss as she got a grasp on the composite surface and lifted it off the trooper's head. She stifled a gasp as she looked upon his face. Dansen's face wasn't that of the scarred marines she'd seen in vids with masculine stubble covering their jaws. He was young. The face would have belonged among the boys she'd gone to school with, not framed by a soldier’s visor. Dansen sucked in air between gritted teeth, reminding her that he was wounded, and Reo moved to where he’d been burned. On the left side of his head, the skin had been burned to an angry red color, and blood had cured where the heat had gone deep.

“Stay here, I’ll find some first aid supplies.” She got up and went into an adjoining room to search the store shelves, leaving Dansen alone. The cool air was refreshing after so long breathing through the filter that made it taste of plastic. It made his senses a little sharper and reduced the pain in his head to a slight tingling.

Looking up, he found himself propped up just enough to see out one of the front windows, at the edge of a building across the street. The permacrete contrasted sharply with the night sky beyond. He couldn’t see the moon, but some of its pale light through the window cut a square into the shadows on the floor.

Dark and empty. That’s what it felt like to him. The whole of the city he’d seen was devoid of human life. If that was anything to go by, the whole last human world was empty except for the two of them. It was a crushing thought. Soon, Earth too would be like all her colonies. Like Reach, his home. Just empty.

He did his best to keep his eyes from watering as Reo returned, with burn salve and gauze. In the dark, she didn’t notice, and probably would have attributed it to pain anyway. His head stung as she applied the salve, but Dansen ignored it. At this moment pain didn’t matter to him.

“It can’t be far, now. We can rest here and be there tomorrow.” Reo said as she started to wrap the bandage around his head. Dansen didn’t buy it. They’d gone for days, and nothing but another sector of urban sprawl had been in their path. He was about ready to give up.

Reo sat next to him, having secured the bandage. She broke the brief silence unexpectedly. “I never thanked you for coming with me. If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have made it this far. Maybe it’s stupid, but I have to get this to the UNSC. I don’t even know what it is, but if Moses thought it was important, maybe it will make a difference. And you, all you’re here for is to protect me.”

Dansen remained silent. Between hopelessness and being ashamed he’d somehow made her think he was worth her thanks, he couldn’t have managed much more than a choked sob, anyway.

Reo felt the data crystal in her hand, with the Superintendent and whatever Moses had instructed her to take. She finished saying, “It could be we’re insignificant, but I’d risk my life over the slightest chance that what I do matters. So thank you.”

She drew her legs in and wrapped her arms around them to make herself smaller, and grew quiet. But the more he thought about it, it seemed more like exactly what he’d needed to hear. It had become his duty to get her safely to Command, even if it turned out to be for nothing. The alternative was to give up and die here, and give up the slightest chance that this could raise the chances of humanity’s survival by a tiny bit. At a time like this, those risks needed to be taken.

There was movement outside. Dansen had nowhere to run, and not enough warning to hide well. But he was going to fight anyway. He took the rifle laying beside him and braced it against his shoulder, aiming for head level where an alien would walk in front of the window. Then the shine of flashlights darted shakily over the glass. Those were fluorescent lights, human.

“Hey!” he shouted excitedly, “UNSC friendly inside!”

Someone outside yelled, “Got someone inside! How many are you?”

“One and a civilian!” Dansen let his weapon down with a relieved smile.

“We’re coming in, don’t move!” Figures crossed the window, clad in marine green fatigues. They entered calling loudly, flashlights searching for them briefly before honing in on the two humans. They were safe.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1110 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

On foot, the platoon of hardened Elites moved quietly into Jiralhanae territory. They held Carbines and Needle Rifles with a sense of wary purpose, waiting on the call to attack or defend themselves. Needlers, pistols, and sword hilts lay waiting for their masters to call upon them, and made the aliens that much more intimidating to the three SPARTANs among them.

Kodiak, Dyne, and Sepia kept far ahead of the Sangheili, uncomfortable having the warriors this close to their backs. They’d trained for years how to fight them, specifically. They’d spearheaded the Covenant for more than twenty years. During their training, Mendez had run them through every imaginable scenario against their enemy, using known tactics and evolutions deemed possible if they overcame their adaptive nature. But they’d never been allies. Mendez simply never imagined that humanity would be anything but alone in this fight, and trained his fighters accordingly.

Kodiak settled on calling it weird, and browse a thesaurus later. Casting a quick look behind him, he saw Tor in his glaring silver combat harness. He’d never get used to this.

“We’re passing into Jiralhanae realm of control now. Unless they’ve posted their Kig-Yar allies as sentries, we will go unnoticed.” Tor said over their new combined communication system.

Kodiak nodded. “We’ll scout ahead.”

He switched to his more private TEAMCOM, wanting to get as far away from him as possible. Coney had taken some sort of liking to him, and it was just one more thing for him not to understand.

“So we’re going to risk our lives to save more potential enemies?” Dyne asked.

“Think of them as potential allies.” He responded. Dyne was having a lot of trouble getting over it. Kodiak couldn’t understand where it was coming from, he was one of the few Gammas whose family hadn’t been killed by the Covenant. They’d glassed his homeworld of Reach, but he’d barely considered it a home.

Kodiak on the other hand had witnessed Elites murder his parents, and been pushed off several planets because of them. He didn’t harbor a grudge.

With Ion Team lapsing into silence as they moved on, Kodiak decided to leave it at that for now. It was just going to be one of those days.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 03:37, September 16, 2011 (UTC)

110: Fire Mission Inbound
Operation:ETERNAL SPIRIT

1155 Hours, November 3rd (Military Calender)

Summit of Mount Fuji, Japan

Colonel Daisuke Umezu sat at the controls of the Elephant command vehicle parked along the tourist road leading to the top of Mount Fuji, commanding a large artillery firebase placed on top of the mountain. Umezu thought it was surreal that he was on the top of Mount Fuji firing down on an alien invasion force, but this day, things had gotten weirder. Now, the aliens were having a civil war, and one of alien species, the Sangheili and some of their Unggoy and Lekgolo underlings had broken from the Covenant.

Now, Umezu was providing fire support for a group of Sangheili special forces trying to take out a couple of Jiralhanae artillery batteries pounding a couple of Sanghieli positions in Minato.

"We are taking heavy fire from Brutes in a one of the railway stations, transmitting coordinates now", the voice of a Sangheili said over the radio.

"Kasuga", Umezu said to his second command, "Relay the coordinates to one of the MLRS batteries".

"Roger", Lt. Colonel Kasuga said as he punched some commands into a keyboard. A battery of seven Tarantula multiple launch rocket systems fired off a barrage of high-explosive rockets".

About a minute later, the rockets fell whooshing sound on the Ebisu rail station, blowing large chunks out the already damaged structure with a loud booming sound. Shade turrets, Plasma autocannons, and plasma mortars were blown apart, along with the building that housed them. As the last of the rockets impacted, the Ebisu station collaspsed completely.

"This is the Lance of Unyielding Vengeance", the Sangheili voice said on the radio, "Excellent work, the target lies in ruins".

The radio fell silent for a few minutes, as Umezu and Kasuga sipped the brownish sludge that the UNSC called "coffee" as they awaited their next assignment. Finally, the Lance of Unyielding Vengeance sent in another target: We have sight of the two out artillery batteries from our position, requesting fire support."

Umezu and Kasuga relayed the positions to two more artillery batteries. "Fire mission inbound", Umezu said into the radio.

Two more Tarantula MLRS batters opened fire, resulting in a rain of fire landing on a a city park, blowing apart three super heavy plasma mortars and destroying several Wraiths.

"Good effect on target", the Elite confirmed. One more Jiralhanae threat was neutralized. But there were still plenty more left where they came from.

111: Contact
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1200 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

"On my motion tracker." Dyne reported. He and Sepia had taken a different path than their team leader, and now with a potential enemy so close by, radios weren't an option other than line of sight beams.

"Are you sure?" Sepia asked him, hefting the M7057. She hadn't lit the pilot yet, it could give them away by light or heat signature. She examined her own motion tracker, but saw nothing.

"Positive. That is if the enemy shows up red on it." Dyne unsafetied his battle rifle, looking to the next corner. Sure enough, a moment after the two SPARTANs had hidden in cover, a Brute with a plasma rifle strapped to its side walked into view. Its armor was black, with a single red light on the helmet. It sniffed at the air, but kept walking.

"Let's get him." Dyne said excitedly, pulling out his SMGs.

Sepia was a bit more cautious. "Shouldn't we observe a bit closer?"

"It's just the one." he said, shrugging. "And we're the demons, remember?"

They broke cover and charged. Without as much weight, Dyne outran Sepia and was closer when the Brute turned with alarm at the armored human coming at him. And so did the four other Brute Stalkers with him, their cloaking just visible as they went for weapons.

"Uh-oh." was all Dyne had time for as he skidded to a stop, and Sepia grabbed the back of his collar and swung him behind her.

"I can't take you anywhere, Dyne." she said wearily before spraying a jet of flame toward the Brutes. Three of them weren't fast enough, and fell writhing in pain consumed by black smoke. Dyne jumped up and over a car, spraying the remaining two with submachine gun fire before they could do any damage, and the SPARTANs ran on to engage whatever other Brutes they could find before an alarm was raised. The Elites would be close behind, and ready to join battle with the enemy.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:24, September 18, 2011 (UTC)

112: Property Value Decline
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1200 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Takayama, Japan'''

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki stood at the command of the AIE-486 rotary machine gun and the MG-460 Grenade Launcher of a UNSC militia guntruck that drove close to the rear of a column of UNSC vehicle, lead by Grizzly and Scorpion tanks, followed by UNSC Army light vehicles, with the improvised militia vehicles bringing up the rear. The column entered a wealthy neighborhood at the edge of the mountains in east Takayama, as a Grizzly tank fired one of its 120mm main guns at a Locust Walker guarding the edge of the housing development. The Covenant Loyalist Walker exploded in a ball of flames as fuel rod fire erupted for one of the house that was, like the others in the area, was a large house featuring a sort of combination of features of Western and Japanese architecture, something the Americans in the unit might have described as a Japanese take on the "McMansion".

The fuel rod cannon fire bounced off the Grizzly tank's thick frontal armor, before the Grizzly tank, as well as a Scorpion behind in, replied with their main guns, blasting away large chunks of the house. As the column moved into the housing development, the UNSC vehicle turned their guns on the houses, which now housed Covenant defenders armed with fuel rod guns, plasma launchers, and beam rifles, as well the various Covenant vehicle in the streets. Keiichi and Rena turned the weapons on the guntruck to the right, to face a group of Covenant light vehicles and infantry that tried to flank the rear of the column.

Keiichi turned the AIE-486 on the Covenant forces and pressed down the two triggers. The gun spooled up and spat out 7.62mm rounds at a rapid rate, riddling a pair of Ghosts with holes, causing them to explode in a flash of plasma and literally grinding up Covenant infantry, staining the surrounding pavement with alien blood. Rena, meanwhile, blew apart a couple Brute Choppers and Prowler with the grenade launcher. The Covenant flanking force was reduced to burning vehicles and mangled bodies. Up ahead, a Scorpion fired down a street, knocking out a Wraith that tried to attack the column for down the street, only to destroyed. Other vehicles fired at other Covenant forces in the buildings and on the streets as a loud whooshing sound was heard overhead, followed by dozens of explosions.

Keiichi looked at the top a mountain that had several expensive houses built on the sides and even on top, a barrage of Tarantula MLRS rockets pounded Covenant positions on top, destroying plasma batteries and Wraiths. The artillery bombardment, however, did not destroy all of the the Covenant forces on the mountainside, a number of Wraiths remained, as did a Type-48 Ultra Heavy Assault Gun Platform, or Artillery Scarab, a Scarab with the main gun and AA battery swapped out for a super-heavy plasma mortar. The Artillery Scarab tried to fired down on the UNSC column, but too late!, An anti-walker Grizzly fired an anti-walker missile at it, detonating the core in an explosion that blew the rear of the vehicle apart.

Grizzly tanks and Scorpions raised their guns, firing on Wraiths and Locusts on the winding road up the mountain. The first two Covenant tanks were destroyed, but the others returned fired. A Locust took out a Cobra AFV. The destroyed cobra was promply avenged by one of it fellows, blowing apart the offending Covenant walker with its LRG railgun. The UNSC armor greatly out numbered the Covenant Loyalists, and soon, the road was cleared, allowing UNSC armored forces to start driving up the road.

The UNSC column slowly advanced up the winding mountain road, Keiichi, Rena, and other other vehicle gunners occasionally firing on the surviving Covenant infantry. Upon reaching the top, the first vehicle in, A Scorpion, exploded in a ball of blue flames from a Wraith that survived the artillery barrage. A Grizzly replied, firing a 120mm APFSDS round that blew through the Wraiths armor like a knife through butter. The Wraith's plasma core exploded violently as another surviving Wraith was destroyed by 90mm round from a Scorpion to the side armor. Keiichi fired the AIE-486 and chewed up a couple of surviving Revenants next to a destroyed heavy plasma mortar battery, setting them ablaze as Rena joined a number of Warthog and Cougar gunners in firing on a group of Jiralhanae and Kig-Yar taking cover in a the ruins of a couple structures destroyed by the artillery barrage.

Eventually, a UNSC Lieutenant gave to order from the vehicles to stop firing, allowing a group of UNSC Army regulars and militia to mop up. Keiichi and Rena got off the gun and followed a force of UNSC regulars into the ruined structures, finding only mutilated corpses of the alien occupiers. The mountain top firebase was theirs.

113: Moving Up
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1208 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

Even with the recent shift in power amongst the Covenant, the Brutes were poorly equipped to lead an invasion. Shielded power armor was the first thing, and the lesson in readiness beyond guns became a lesson hard learned as Sangheili needler fire tore into the Jiralhanae ranks.

"Stay on the attack!" Tor 'Lukomee shouted, "Do not allow them to regroup!"

Even with the constant explosions of pink mist engulfing their comerades, some of the Jiralhanae rearguard began to return fire. Though they were doomed, it would give the survivors time to counterattack, and despite being caught in a pincer between the fortified position they'd attacked and this new force, the Brutes still had them vastly outnumbered.

An overturned semi truck provided Ion Team with temporary cover. Grenades pounded against the other side, but for now it would hold. With the Elites moving up on one side of the street, Sepia moved to help provide a bit of cover for the ones under heavier fire. Kodiak took the other corner, while Dyne set his rifle between the trailer and cab.

"Ion, Lieutenant Coney here. Battlenet reestablished in your area."

Kodiak grinned as he dealt out half his clip to the nearest unshielded enemy. "Good to hear your voice, Erin. Any idea what we have up ahead?"

"There's a drone overhead now. The next few blocks are swarming with enemy contacts. Looks like they're being led by a Captain-Ultra. He should be marked by cyan power armor."

Dyne yelled between bursts. "I see him, in the middle of a bunch of gold Caps. And he's barking out orders like Mendez would."

Kodiak tried to spot him, but drew his head back as a Spiker round soared by. "We have to down him somehow, before he makes this a lot harder."

"Will you kindly not distract me by stating the obvious!" Sepia called as she unleashed another torrent of flame at their foes.

Something about Kodiak's tone made Erin's voice change. "Ion, don't try anything stupid. There are support assets nearby, you can wait for them to link up and push forward then. Don't leave the Elites."

Dropping back to reload, Dyne replied, "Look, Erin, we're not suicidal, there's a block and a half of Brutes between him and us. We're staying-" As he'd spoken, his vision had swung around to Kodiak. Or at least, where Kodiak had been. "What . . . Oh, I hate it when he does that. Seep, he did it again!"

"Ah, dammit!"

Ambrose had often lectured him about bullheadedness. Leaving his team behind and putting more danger on his own back, no matter how noble, was a foolish and unnecessary risk. Kodiak had never really cared. It was just in his nature. And his nature, he decided, was going to kill him as he sprinted through alien crossfire coming from both directions, heading to a side-street near the Brute line. He dived into it, just barely avoiding being turned into a non-living pincushion by Spiker fire.

In the building next to him, a plasma cannon was burning through the Sangheili from a well-covered position. He was going to end that.

The Brute manning the plasma weapon emplacement might have expected to see the SPARTAN again after it had come so close, but not by breaking down the permacrete wall separating them. Struggling to turn the weapon as bricks pelted it, the effort was stopped by the flash of a combat knife coming down across its throat.

The plasma cannon would have been useful, but with this many enemies Kodiak had to stay on the move. He stayed inside, and in doing so bypassed almost every enemy on the streets. He tried to avoid being extravagant, using doors or windows to break through instead of walls wherever possible. In only a minute of running, he was alongside the Brute commanders.

Kodiak surveyed his surroundings for an option besides charging ten Brute captains on his own. He was good, but on his own he'd only be able to take out one at a time without getting in range of their claws, and by then they'd break through his already recharging shields. He looked up for inspiration, and found it. A massive section of the building's wall stood on its own, the roof and wall sections around it blown out by mortars.

The last C12 block, returned to him after being released, just begged to be used.

High Captain Tarbus was still bellowing orders and insults at his subordinates when the explosion went off. It caused him to stop shouting, confused that a detonation would happen this far from the battle line. Even staring at the wall as it fell, crumbling to jagged chunks larger than his head, he never comprehended just what was happening.

Kodiak jumped up on top of the rubble, waiting for signs of movement from underneath. There were none. His mouth had just curved upward in a victorious smile when he realized the myriad of other Brutes nearby were staring at him. As the sound of needler fire in the nearby battles spurred them to action, Kodiak dashed back the way he'd come.

Through the hole in the building, into the next storefront, past the plasma turret - hold up a minute.

Instead of rejoining the Sangheili, slowly moving forward, Kodiak grabbed the controls of the turret, which was stationed perfectly to cut deep into the enemies' flank. He felt the heat as plasma streamed from its muzzle, draining shields and burning flesh. The few that realized where the fire was coming from couldn't get an accurate shot into the crowded window before Kodiak turned it on them and eliminated them.

The Brutes swiftly fell back, but not before leaving many of their pack-brothers behind as casualties. Kodiak continued firing at their backs until Tor and his Elites reached his position.

"Onward, force them onto our brothers' defenses! The day shall be ours!" Tor shouted, drawing an energy sword. He led the others into combat, some of the faster ones breaking ranks to earn personal glory. It was foolish of them, but then Kodiak considered he'd done about the same thing.

Dyne and Sepia had likewise allowed their allies to finish off the Brutes by themselves. They approached where Kodiak had taken a knee behind the plasma cannon, staring down at him expectantly.

"Yeah, sorry I did that." Kodiak said, not really meaning it and the others not really expecting him to.

Sepia just shook her head. "I had to use the last of my fuel to cover the hole you left behind."

He shrugged and gestured to the cannon. "Try this."

She forgot about being out of patience with him and examined the alien heavy weapon, before ripping it off of its base and stowing the flamethrower behind the counter to retrieve later. Coney's voice, on the other hand, would be just starting to berate him.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 23:16, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

114
0815 Hours, November 2nd 2552 (Military Calender)/ En Route to Covenant Ship Repair Facility

Jara joined a squadron of pilots in flying their banshees in formation slightly ahead of a group of phantoms. On board the phantoms were the best, most skilled special operations teams Field Master 'Lazarmee had under his command. So far, they had encountered little resistance, though it didn't bother him. There would be plenty to shoot down when they reached the facility.

"-so I dove down, under heavy AA fire from those bastard red Wraiths." Khovostnikov said, telling the Spartans, who had turned out to be very interested, tales of his exploits as he flew. "Now, the thing with Wraiths is that for some reason, whoever designed them put a shitload of armor in the front, but didn't think of putting any behind. So I shot missiles behind the Wraiths-you understand that this was back in the early days of the war, in which we didn't have those missiles that would specifically target the back of Wraiths, so it took a few hits to take 'em out. But I took out four of those worthless, then I-ah, crap."

"What?" Norman asked, concerned."

"Covies." Khovostnikov muttered. "Lots of 'em. Banshees and phantoms"

Khovostnikov armed some of his ANVIL missiles, and targeted a banshee. He was about to fire it, when the communications device on the pelican came to life.

"Khovostnikov!" Lt. Commander Pearson suddenly shouted. "Those Covenant-do not fire on them!"

"Sir?" Khovostnikov asked, surprised.

"They're friendly." Pearson explained. "The elites got kicked out of the Covenant or something-and we're on the same side now."

"So we're all buddy-buddy now?" Khovostnikov asked. "But they-"

"Lieutenant, I know what the elites have done to us. But frankly, we need them to survive as a species. We don't have time to argue about this-those elites you saw, they're trying to establish communications with you."

As if on cue, the communications system suddenly came to life again, as an alien, deep voice broke in.

"This is Major Karo 'Letarmee, can you hear me, human?"

Khovostnikov sighed, but he replied. "Yes, I can hear you."

"Excellent. Your commanding officer informs mine that you have used a chemical weapon on the target?"

"That's about right."

"Not the most honorable way to fight." the elite replied, with a hint of distaste in his voice. "But no doubt effective."

"Glassing isn't very honorable either." Khovostnikov retorted angrily.

The other elite didn't have a response to that, so he changed the topic to a more productive one.

"Our troops were not aware of the development until recently. We are receiving equipment for combat in a hazardous environment, and our own ground teams will arrive at a later time."

"Very well. Let's go."

The pelican slowly descended on the Covenant ship repair facility. A solitary shade turret opened fire on the pelican, but Khovostnikov quickly silenced it with his own fire. Just before it landed, Khovostnikov turned to the Spartans.

"The lieutenant commander told me to give this to you-he said it could help you take control of the ship or something. I didn't give him to you right away because I was using him with the pelican to help me out a little. You insert it into the back of your helmet." Khovostnikov said, handing Norman a chip.

Norman inserted it into the back of his helmet. He got a strange feeling, as if cold mercury was wrapping around his mind. It was unsettling, yet comforting at the same time.

"Greetings, Spartan-G124. I am a sixth generation artificial intelligence, Griflet. Shall we proceed?"

There was not a single living brute in sight, though there were dozens of dead ones lying on the ground. The gas had done its job.

Norman stepped off the pelican, and the pelican rose into the air, flying off.

"Let's go." Norman whispered. The Spartans moved towards the ship, encountering almost no resistance, apart from a pair of brutes in armor that was suited for zero-gee combat. Well, Norman supposed it would also work for hazardous environments in a pinch. One of the brutes fired a pair of spikers at the Spartans, several rounds bouncing off Norman's energy shield. All four Spartans returned fire, quickly cutting down the brutes.

"If you enter the large, purple dome-shaped building, you will be able to gain access to the supercruiser." Griflet noted. "The building is used for storage of spare parts, and would be connected to the supercruiser for the duration of the repairs."

"You heard the AI." Norman said. "Let's do this."

There was no obvious entrance to the building Griflet had pointed out, so Gary pulled out a pack of C-12 and placed it on the entrance to the building.

"Stand back." Gary warned. The Spartans all scurried away from the explosive, which was then set off. There was a loud boom, and a large hole was blasted in the wall.

The large hole also revealed a dozen brutes, also geared up for fighting in an hazardous environment. Gary used a grenade launcher to kill two brutes, only to have another one attempt to gut him with the bayonets on his spiker. Gary's shield's flashed, and as the brute moved in for the kill Kevin fired three rounds from his pistol into the brute's skull at point-blank range, dropping it. Norman fired his assault rifle in the general direction of the brutes-he didn't hit anything, but he made a few brutes dive for cover, giving him time to do the same. He then tossed a frag grenade over the cover of a brute, sending it flying into the air. Two brutes poked their heads out to send a few rounds at the Spartans, only to receive more fire in return. One of the brutes lobbed a grenade at Norman, who threw himself away from cover. Immediately, three brutes rose and fired on him, sending him scurrying for more cover. Several rounds slammed into his shields, draining most of it. The other three Spartans managed to kill one of the brutes that had fired on him, but the other two ducked back behind cover.

The firefight bogged down to fighters from both sides firing from behind cover. But the better accuracy of the Spartans eventually won out, and they were able to kill all the brutes.

"Excellent work." Griflet noted. "Now, if you will proceed upstairs, there will be a bridge leading inside the supercruiser. Also, you will be pleased to know that the elites-Sangheili, as they call themselves-will be arriving here shortly."

The Spartans ascended to the next floor of the structure, where they proceeded to get assaulted by a swarm of giant bugs.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE THINGS!" Gary blurted out, discarding his grenade launcher for a sub-machine gun and firing fully-automatic at the giant bugs.

"These are known as drones. They are typically not found in a combat role. They are far more often encountered in a repair or construction role. Any automatic weapon should be enough to do severe damage to their ranks."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Norman growled, who was firing his assault rifle fully-automatic into the swarm too. His fire wasn't very accurate, but with the sheer size of the swarm it didn't really matter. Dozens of drones fell out of the sky, leaking blue alien blood.

As the drones began to get cut down, they began an organized retreat, with a few flying around, firing plasma pistols at the Spartans while the rest retreated.

The Spartans cut down the ones trying to delay them, then they advanced onto the Supercruiser, killing the retreating drones on the way.

As the crossed the bridge and stepped into the Supercruiser, they spotted a pair of Jackal guards, which were quickly killed.

"The elites have landed three special-operations teams." Griflet announced. "The elite teams will be advancing to the main gravity lift of the supercruiser."

"Good. They won't get in our way." Norman said. He didn't hold much of a particular hatred against elites, but he had been born on Luna, making him one of the few Spartans that didn't have their worlds glassed, though he did happen to be an orphan. He did maintain the opinion that his squadmates were better than the elites.

The Spartans nodded. They proceeded through the chamber, and Griflet broke in again.

"I believe I may be able to hack the door controls of this ship, using intelligence on Covenant systems provided by another AI. Just give me a second...yes, I'm in!"

Jara circled the area nervously while the the phantoms deployed the spec-ops teams at a painstakingly slow pace. They hadn't encountered any resistance yet, but decades of war had taught Jara that if something could go wrong in battle, it would.

Sure enough, a series of panicked shouts came from the battlenet, some of them being quickly silenced.

"This is Field Master Lazarmee to all units at the supercruiser's location, our Tyrant anti-air turrets have noticed three brute-controlled battlecruisers headed for the position. We'll hold them off. Be advised, they have launched seraph fighters on a bombing run. Special operations teams, you have approximately have thirty minutes. May the gods smile on you today, because without you are doomed."

Jara cursed bitterly. Their only hope was for the Supercruiser to be taken over in the short timeframe-which would be even shorter if the Seraph fighters were allowed to proceed.

"Come! Let's go destroy those seraphs!" Ultra Hana 'Pekarumee the squadron commander ordered.

"They're Seraphs. Don't be so hasty-they're better than our banshee interceptors in every way!" Jara said, worried.

"Nonsense! We will destroy them!" Hana replied.

Jara cursed Hana under his breath. His systems detected several Seraph fighters several kilometers away. Arming a round from his fuel rod gun, he locked on to one of the seraphs and fired. The cannon cooled down, and he fired off another one. Several seconds later, three similar rounds came towards his banshee. He dove in an attempt to avoid them, and managed to avoid being hit by all three. Two of the banshees weren't so lucky, and were hit. One of them suffered a glancing blow, and spun wildly out of control but was able to regain control. The other took a direct hit, and exploded.

"No kills confirmed." Jara reported. He didn't expect any, thanks to the energy shields of the seraphs. It didn't matter. He fired off a few more rounds from the fuel rod gun, but was forced to dodge a few more fuel rod rounds sent from the seraphs.

While evading, Jara got off another shot, then two more once the barrage let off, no doubt because the brute pilots had to dodge his side's own fire. To his surprise, one of his fuel rod gun's rounds struck a unshielded seraph, causing it to catch flames and explode. The wreckage careened to the ground, no doubt killing the pilot.

"Kill confirmed." Jara said, pleased. His satisfaction was short-lived however-another banshee went down in flames. The seraphs were getting closer too. Soon they would be close enough to use their pulse lasers, which were infinitely better than the plasma cannons the banshees had.

Realizing this, the other pilots frantically blazed away with their fuel rod guns, shooting down another seraph, but at the cost of another one of their own. Then the seraphs got in close enough to use pulse lasers.

Jara threw his banshee into an evasive maneuver, barely avoiding a volley of pulse laser rounds. He pumped plasma rounds into the tail of another seraph, which went into evasive maneuvers of its own. Jara, not to be deterred, followed up and took down the seraph's shield, before finishing it with a fuel rod gun round. A few seconds later, another seraph, not one he had killed went down in flames. But that was the extent of the success of his squadron. No less than five banshees went down in flames.

Jara found himself with two, then three seraphs on his tail. A banshee, one piloted by Hana chased and shot down one of them and sent the other two off to let their shields recharge, but he was shot down himself. Hana screamed and cursed over the battlenet for a few seconds, then he was silenced.

Within seconds of each other. Out of the corner of his eye, Jara spotted a seraph giving chase to one of the few banshees left in the fight. He swung upwards and fired repeatedly at the seraph, finally killing it. A few pulse lasers slammed into his tail, and he spun out of control, barely evading a few more hits.

He spotted another seraph go down, but then the final two banshees went down. Jara was on his own. He counted six seraphs left in the fight, against just him. Jara cursed and was about to make a run for it when a series of missiles-human ones slammed into the seraphs, taking out two of them. The two seraphs turned to face the new threat-a human dropship, which fired more missiles. One of them slammed into a seraph, taking out its shields, which was finished off with the human's cannon.

"Many thanks, human. I am in your debt." Jara said.

"You can start paying it back by helping me kill the rest of these bastards." the human pilot replied, though it was fairly evident the human didn't need much of it. Another seraph went down in flames. Jara dodged more pulse lasers, taking up the attention of another seraph, which the human quickly killed. The last seraph's pilots, seeing five of his comrades downed in a matter of seconds, turned and fled, only to be gunned down from behind.

Norman-123 16:33, September 24, 2011 (UTC)\

115: Under Fire, Underwater
'''14:30 Hours, November 3rd, 2552 (Military Calender)

Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine UNSC Seawolf, Pacific Ocean, South of Tokyo, Japan'''

Captain Takashi Yanagi of the ballistic missile submarine UNSC Seawolf gave the final command to launch a salvo of cruise missiles at a Covenant plasma fueling station and motor pool located in a park in Ikebukuro. The vehicles in the motor pool were expected to make a move to the south to engage a friendly position in Shinjuku.

It was a mission like any other, with the exception of the fact that the friendly forces in question were not humans, but Sanghieli. It had been just that morning that Yanagi and the rest of the crew of the Seawolf had heard about the alliance with the Sanghieli. There was still much conversation on the topic amongst the crew.

Three cruise missile erupted from the water above the Seawolf, flying towards the Japanese mainland in a streak of fire, flying over the city at low altitude, before finally impacting the motor pool, sending the plasma storage tanks up in a ball of flames that destroyed a Scarab, several Wraiths and Locusts, and numerous light vehicles.

"Sir", Yanagi's second in command, a Norwegian named Karlsson said, "We have a five-aircraft formation on radar that have broken formation. IFF identifies them as Covenant Loyalist Phantom Gunships. One of them is flying over top of us as we..."

Suddenly, The submarine was shook violently by an explosion.

"What?!", a Lieutenant of Chinese ancestry named Wei asked, "I thought the Covies didn't have much in the way of anti-submarine weapons, thought they just glassed any section of ocean that thought might have a sub in it."

"Looks like they've developed some kind of plasma depth charge or something", Yanagi said, before speaking into the intercom: "Now hear this, all weapons personnel to battlestations, prepare to fire Argent missiles".

Unlike older ballistic missile submarines, the Tigershark-class has a number of mini-launch tubes for firing Argent SAMs from the surface or underwater. The weapons were added as a countermeasure to the rebels getting a hold of advanced anti-sub warfare aircraft, but were mainly used in the Human-Covenant War to make sneak attacks on Covenant air formations or to engage aerial attackers while the sub was surfaced.

The first Argent SAM fired from the water, taking down one of the incoming Phantoms. The other Phantoms tried to avoid the SAMs, but the slow-moving aircraft proved easy targets, the UNSC missiles impacting and taking out them in flashes of fire and plasma.

"All targets down", Karlsson said.

"Now hear this", Yanagi said into the intercom, "The hostile aircraft have been eliminated. Prepare to dive and relocate".

The submarine went deeper into the Pacific as Wei asked, "Do you think they have some means of detecting us? I didn't think Covie aircraft had SONAR."

"I don't think so", Karlsson said, "I saw them on the radar, they turned towards us when we fired the cruise missiles, they probably saw us fire. As for the plasma depth charges, from what I hear, with the loss of that supercarrier and their other spacecraft, the Bravo Kilos aren't in much of a position to be glassing anything. Seems like a crude field expedient"

116: Complication
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1220 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

Leaderless and boxed in, it became a slaughter for the Jiralhanae. As Ion Team caught up with the Elites, they passed Brute bodies left uncared for in the carnage, and Elites making prayers over the bodies of their respectfully-arrayed comerades. The only task left was to wipe the blood from their armor.

Tor 'Lukomee approached them, intent on Kodiak. "Thank you for your aid, demon. Your actions may have won us the day."

He accepted the praise without speaking. The more he looked back, the more he thought of it as stupid. Erin had been ranting at him all the while they'd been walking up.

Tor returned to the violet wall that stood before them. About ten feet high, reaching from one side of the street to the other, and lined with spikes. The Elites and Grunts sitting atop it were looking warily to the Spartans, but held their fire. Clipping his dormant sword handles to his sides, the Ultra called up, "Who is in command, here?"

Just as a red Major looked like he was about to speak up, the flash of white and orange took their attention. What appeared to be another Ultra, only with glowing orange plates on his shoulders, wrists, and legs, mantled the wall and slid down the other side. "I lead these troops." he said, with a noticeably different accent than Tor. "Osmin 'Neret. Of the Lights of Sangheilios."

"Excellency." Tor bowed and clasped an arm to his chest. "Ultra Tor 'Lukomee."

Osmin blinked, some sort of equivalent to shaking ones head. "We are no longer of the Covenant, Ultra. It has been broken, and we are of our clans alone now. No military."

"Then it is Tor 'Lukom, excellency. We have much to discuss, our enemy has-" But by this time Osmin was no longer listening. His attention had shifted to the Spartans behind him, keeping their distance from this newcomer.

"What are they doing here?"

Tor followed his gaze, and rushed to explain. "Excellency, in light of recent events, the humans have joined with us as allies in the interest of eradicating the Brutes."

Osmin seemed to shake with rage. "They are heretics. Demons."

"That is what the Prophets told us." Tor pointed out. "Surely their betrayal means-"

"Their betrayal and the humans' heresy are unrelated!" Osmin roared. He kept an eye on Ion. "You are now under my command, 'Lukom, as are your warriors. They may not be yours for long. As for the treaty you have struck with these creatures, it is to be reviewed immediately, once a Keeper of the Law may be found. Major, gather my subordinates. There will be a trial."

As Osmin strode off, Tor's shoulders slumped in defeat. Ion stood around him hesitantly, watching the other Elite go. "So what happens now?" Dyne asked, with the channel open so Coney could hear.

Tor's mandibles tightened. "You will not be attacked unless and until the treaty is declared void by whatever makeshift council is established. You are even free to sit in on the proceedings, if you wish. But if we become enemies again, I fear neither of us will survive much longer."

"There isn't time for this." Sepia said. "Can't you mutiny? Or something?"

"No, I will not seize control in such a way." Tor looked over them. "I will have to win the trial, and find some way to keep both our species united."

Tor immediately set out to find some way of doing that. The Spartans stood around, not sure what to do. "He should overthrow the other one. The Brutes are still out there."

Erin broke in. "If he won't, then it's up to us to have our own plan. Stay with the Elites, Ion. You'll be there when they start reversing decisions."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 19:41, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

117
0800 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Takayama, Japan

Staff Sergeant Stanley huddled miserably inside a trench dug in what used to be a road-though it was not recognizable as a road at all nowadays, considering the sheer amount of rubble that it was covered in-while Covenant artillery crashed down around him. They had built up as many fortifications as they could, including several pieces of captured pieces of deployable cover.

No UNSC artillery returned fire on the Covenant, though Stanley wasn't really surprised. He knew the UNSC offensive was going well in some other sectors, other sectors where they actually had more firepower than a couple of warthogs. He also knew that the UNSC and the elites had teamed up, at least for the time being, to fight the brutes. He hadn't seen a single friendly elite since, though.

The artillery barrage finally ended, which didn't mean things would get any better. Brutes, ugly ape-like creatures advanced from their end of the street towards the UNSC's end of the road. A machine gun banged away at a squad of brutes, killing three of them before the rest dove for cover behind a piece of debris. Stanley poked his head out of the trench and squeezed off a few bursts with his assault rifle before ducking again. A few spiker rounds whizzed over his head-he had ducked just in time.

A 40mm grenade launched from grenade launchers flew through the air and landed by a piece of debris a squad of brutes were taking cover from. Three brutes dove away from the grenade, the blast only harming their energy shields. Two brutes didn't dive away, and the grenade ended their life. Someone else-Stanley didn't see who gunned down one of the brutes, while the other two made it behind another piece of debris to use as cover.

Out of the corner of his eye, Stanley saw a few brutes try to advance, only to get cut down by machine gun fire.

Then, from the brute lines, a single prowler-one of the odd-looking sled-like contraptions advanced, spraying plasma bolts towards the UNSC lines, sending the defenders-Stanley included-diving for cover.

"Don't worry, Sarge. I've got this bastard in my sights." Bear's voice came over the radio. Seconds later, a rocket flew from further behind UNSC lines, slamming into the prowler, causing it to blow up, killing its driver and gunner.

There was no time to celebrate, however. Under the prowler's covering fire, a few dozen brutes had advanced towards the UNSC line. A few grenades were tossed into the UNSC trenches, sending anyone in the vicinity diving for cover.

One of the grenades thrown caught fire when it landed. Stanley saw the grenade, and took a few precious seconds to put two and two together. Only brute stalkers-a brute spec-ops unit used the firebomb grenades.

"STALKERS!" He shouted. Down the trench, an army trooper was suddenly stabbed in the gut by an invisible opponent. A few nearby troopers cursed and fired their weapons, revealing several more invisible brutes, which cut down the army troopers before advancing. The chaos in the lines allowed a few more ordinary brute infantry to jump inside the trench.

Stanley activated his VISR. It would show an outline of formerly invisible Covenant soldiers. He spotted nearby marines and army troopers donning heat-sensitive goggles as well.

A small team of stalkers was advancing towards his section of the trench. Stanley fired his assault rifle at them, revealing their position. The other ODSTs in his squad, save for Bear, who was further back with a rocket launcher, joined him and they quickly cut down the team of stalkers. Not everyone was so lucky, however. Other portions of the line collapsed as more brute regulars broke through. Some brutes rampaged through the trenches while others pushed on straight ahead.

"Fall back!" Stanley shouted. "We'll get encircled if we don't!" His squad, along with a couple regular marines situated nearby followed him as they retreated, spraying covering fire along the way.

A pair of marines with flamethrowers crawled through the rubble and unleashed hellfire onto a particular stretch of trench that was filled with brutes. Brutes screamed, before being silenced as they were roasted.

"Burn, you bastards!" An marine shouted, cheering the flamethrower-wielding marines on.

"Don't just stand there, cover those guys!" Stanley shouted, dropping to his belly and firing on the still-advancing brutes, keeping fire off the marines with flamethrowers-hellbringers, they liked to call themselves.

Despite the efforts of the hellbringers, more brutes kept advancing and they were forced to retreat.

"Phantoms!" White warned, pointing upwards.

"Great. As if we're not screwed enough already." Stanley muttered. But that wasn't the case. The phantoms opened fire on the advancing brutes, killing them.

"Its the elites! Jade shouted." All of the marines and troopers cheered. Two of the phantoms dropped wraiths to the ground, which opened fire on the brutes, sending glowing blue orbs flying towards the advancing brutes.

"GET BACK!" Stanley warned. "Friendly fire kills as well!" The brutes turned to face the new threat, only to be shot in the back from the UNSC forces. As elite infantry jumped out of the phantoms and advanced, the brutes hurried back to their own lines. A fuel rod cannon fired, its rounds slamming into the frontal armor of one of the wraiths, which hurriedly backed off.

"When the artillery barrage ends, ADVANCE!" An elite clad in red-a major that had managed to sneak up behind Stanley shouted.

"What artillery barrage?" Stanley said.

"That one!" The elite replied, and as if on cue, the sound of plasma shells flying through the air rung out. Stanley instinctively threw himself flat on the ground and jumped inside a trench. Then he hesitantly poked his head up, and watched as heavy plasma shells slammed into the brute lines, sending the brutes diving for cover instead, which was more often that not melted by the plasma rounds.

Stanley grinned. Watching his enemy on the receiving end of the firepower that had tormented him and the other troops near him for so long felt wonderful. After a few minutes, the barrage ended.

"Let's go!" Stanley shouted.

"OOH-RAH!" His squad of ODSTs, along with a few marines replied, following Stanley forward. The brutes scurried out of cover to repel the human-elite assault. A plasma cannon came to life, sending hundreds of plasma bolts flying towards the attackers, but was promptly silenced as a wraith dumped a plasma mortar on top of it. Stanley saw a brute poke his head out of cover, and he sent a few short bursts at the brute. The rounds bounced off the brute's energy shield, but the others joined him and the brute crumpled to the ground, dead. A marine went prone and fired a light machine gun at the brute lines, forcing the brutes to duck. A brute with a fuel rod cannon fired it at a wraith tank, only to get his brains blown out by a human sniper. The wraiths rolled, or rather floated forward, firing their weapons into the brute lines, followed by the humans and elites. The brutes were brave, even against hopeless odds and many of them chose to die fighting than retreat. Neither human nor elite refused their request, and gunned them down.

A few minutes later, the road was now back in human hands.

Norman-123 02:10, September 29, 2011 (UTC)

118: Politics
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2000 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Sangheili Rally Point, Takayama, Japan

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Erin Coney asked him, concern for him evident.

"This was your idea." Kodiak responded without meeting her eyes. For the armor's numerous scars made by its previous owner, the voice of this second wearer was too young, out of place. It made Erin all the more unsure of her decision to even suggest what he was about to do.

"True, but it's your life on the line. It's your choice here, don't underestimate the value of it." She could remember so many times in her past when she hadn't had a choice whether to risk her own life, or spend others. Erin expected no less than what he responded with, despite her hopes otherwise.

"This alliance has to hold. If it doesn't, we're all doomed. It's not my favorite plan, either, but if it works . . ."

Ion had returned to the one Covenant building they'd left this morning, but hadn't spent the time idle while Osmin and Tor prepared for the meeting of their makeshift council. They'd made plans of their own. But none of them were exactly familiar with Covenant law, and murder would put the Elites against them as surely as if Osmin won out. So they would try the direct approach.

Before the meeting began, Kodiak would challenge Osmin to single combat, to the death, on the grounds of his title as a Demonslayer, a Spartan killer. If Osmin declined or tried to escape the ploy by holding the meeting first, he would be shamed, and Tor would be leader once again. But that was too much to hope for. Kodiak knew he'd have to duel Osmin, with their weapons, no less.

From what they'd gathered, it wasn't for no reason that Osmin 'Neret had become a member of the Prophet of Regret's personal guard. He had been a prominent commander opposite both Operations: PROMETHEUS and TORPEDO. He'd killed more than one SPARTAN personally. His experience fighting Alpha and Beta Companies made him one of the most dangerous threats to a SPARTAN like Kodiak in the galaxy.

Among the Elites filing in, he spotted Osmin and breathed deeply. It was time. He was about to take his first step toward him when a hand, or rather claw, laid on his shoulder. He turned, biting back the instinct to counterattack, and found Tor standing next to him.

"Spartan, I know that you and your fellows have come up with some ill-conceived plan thinking to aide me. But I implore you, no matter what takes place you must not take action against my opposition." Tor looked out over the crowd at Osmin. "I have my own way of fighting him."

Without any further words or explanation, Tor went forward to where the Elites had left a circle open. Osmin joined him, as did another Elite, clad in ornate armor that seemed more built for form than function. "Who's that?" Sepia asked, sighting him.

"Roran 'Kedaree," Erin answered, "an Inquisitor. Think . . . lawyer."

"I knew I didn't like the look of him." Dyne kidded. As Erin shushed him, the Elites began.

Osmin, his orange-marked armor gleaming from recent polishing, looked far more impressive than Tor's simple silver. He began loudly, "Brothers, what we have feared to believe for some time now is true. The Prophets have abandoned us, and given the Brutes our own ships to exterminate us. The Covenant has been broken. For the first time since long before our ancestors encountered the traitorous San'Shyuum, our race faces its most daunting foe. Hesitation. Confusion. Doubt. These will kill us just as surely as an enemy blade, but only if we allow it to. We are strong! We still number billions, and our fleets can burn entire worlds. And now, this," Kodiak's helmet translator had to insert a phrase, "a useless one who leads others to folly", "would have us ally with heretics and demons?"

Osmin turned spitefully at Ion Team and the Lieutenant. Coney curled her lip in disgust, but keeping Tor's words in mind remained silent as he railed on. "To consort with them would only pull us towards the brink of destruction which we, not the Brutes, have pushed them to. Whether they decide to fall on their knees before the Brutes, and are allies or enemies, they will both fall before us. Let the Prophets send them after us. We will be the triumphant."

As he stepped back, there were nods and grumbles of assent amid the ranks, which were mostly Osmin's followers to begin with. Kodiak felt his side for a weapon which wasn't there. Tor had an uphill battle to understate it.

Tor stepped forth, his body rigid. He looked nervous even to a human like Kodiak, but it wasn't for the crowd. It was the audacity of his own argument. "This vain assembly is without purpose, a pointless mockery of what we had not days ago!"

The murmurs that had continued when he began his address stopped dead. Before the crowd could begin again, arguing against him this time, he called out, "With the Covenant broken, our laws have no basis for authority. You pointed this out yourself, Osmin. But it is not why I've chosen to oppose you. We've relied on strength alone for far too long. We allowed the Prophets to decide all for us while we became their enforcers. Now, they've found a more willing servant, and we are left helpless. Worse, our remaining leaders like Osmin think we can still survive with strength alone. Watch, listen as I have while others polished their armor, and learn."

He motioned to a holographic projector. The other Sangheili, more interested in what he had to show than angry at what would have been heresy, were all too willing to see the truth.

Recordings played. Many from the battle raging between Covenant ships around the Holy City, uncut, again and again Brute-controlled ships unleashed massive volleys of plasma on the remaining Sangheili fleet. The Elites had many of the larger ships, and hundreds of vessels, but time and again were out-maneuvered by one with a Prophet at the helm, then finished off by faster Jiralhanae frigates. Reports, casualty statistics, the destruction or absence of fleets, the Imperial Admiral dead with almost two fleets worth of ships at Joyous Exultation. The show drew to a close.

"We are not as strong as we once were. The Prophets ordered us to shed blood rooting the humans out on foot, so we were even weaker. Our bodies are as strong as they always were, perhaps, but our minds have sat idle for far too long. Our eyes, lied to without question. If these humans are heretics against the words of the Prophets, than I shall gladly join with them. Have they not, time and again, proven that their minds are sharp as our blades? With weak vessels they out-think what they can't defeat, and on the ground they display tactical fortitude from the commanders of their armies to every squad leader. It would have been heresy to think the Covenant would ever break. If they wish to brand me a heretic, let them. I am a Seperatist!"

Not one of the warriors opposed that idea.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:30, September 30, 2011 (UTC)

119: Pincer Maneuver
'''0004 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Local Time)

Mountain Pass, Takayama, Japan'''

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki sat at the controls of the guns of a UNSC militia gun truck, part of a group of militia vehicles rolling along behind the main UNSC Army column. The column was currently traveling through a narrow mountain pass north of Takayama. Their were two main routes roads between Takayama and the city of Hida to the immediate north, both of them narrow chokepoints between two mountains.

The Covenant artillery on the mountaintops had been largely eliminated by air power and UNSC and Sanghieli troops, and the UNSC and Sanghieli forces controlled all but parts of the extreme north of Takayama and the extreme south of Hida, as well as the town of Kokufu, a town located at the north end of the pass. The road Keiichi and Rena were on now was a "back route" into Kokufu. They were to take this route while another larger force attacked the Covenant Loyalists, as they were now known, along the main road of Route 41.

Up ahead, Keiichi and Rena could hear the sounds of a battle raging, the thunder of guns, chattering of machine gun fire, the whizzing of plasma bolts and the roar of missiles flying. A bit close to them, just up ahead, the sound of at Grizzly tanks main cannon rang out.

Keiichi and Rena both turned toward the front of the column. A Grizzly tank fired a second shot at something that exploded in a ball of blue flames as a Scorpion took out what looked like a Covenant deployable guard tower. Machine gun fire rang out, along with a few bursts of plasma before the Covenant guns were silenced completely. Further along, when the militia vehicles got to the remains of the Covenant road block, they could see the remains of a Wraith, two Shade turrets, a deployable cover, and the bodies of several Jiralhanae and Unggoy.

The column turned a corner, following the mountainside, and they could see Kokufu from here. The sound of the battle was obvious: A unit of Covenant Loyalist armor exchanged fire with the UNSC armored force coming up Route 41.

The UNSC vehicles coming up the backroads spread out as the area opened up, some of the Scorpions, Grizzlies, and other vehicles driving through the small farmers fields or just areas of open grass as the rolled towards the main position of the Covenant armor, positioned about half a click away in a large cluster of stores and restaurants.

The Covies were concentrated on the UNSC forces coming from the south, and didn't see the flanking force coming in from the west.

"Looked like the plan worked", Keiichi commented, "The UNSC has achieved surprise".

A UNSC Grizzly Tank opened up, drawing first blood, destroying a couple of poorly-placed Locusts that were too close to a hydrogen fueling station, which the Grizzly's gun destroyed in spectacular explosion. With no Scarabs to knock out, an anti-heavy walker variant of the Grizzly instead fired its single 120mm gun at a Wraith, sending it up in ball of blue flames. The other Grizzlies, Scorpions, and Cobras opened up with their main guns, as the Cougar APCs fired off autocannons and 102mm ATGWs as that let out their infantry squads. Warthogs and militia vehicles added their lighter weapons to the fray.

Keiichi turned their his AIE-486 HMGs towards the shopping center and opened fire on the distant silhouettes of Ghosts, Choppers, and Prowlers, as Rena did the same with her MG-460 Grenade Launcher. The vehicles exploded in balls of flame as a flight of four Sparrowhawk Gunships flew in, knocking out Wraiths and Locusts with missile and laser fire.

Plasma mortars landed on the shopping center. There had been some issues with the UNSC's new alliance earlier this day, but it seemed everything had worked out now, as the combined UNSC and Separatist firepower was lighting up the night, blowing apart Covenant forces left and right. Within five minutes, the battered remains of the shopping center were theirs. -- '''945 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calender)

Zojo-ji Temple, near Tokyo Tower, Tokyo'''

Towers and Temples

James Basilone took Cover behind the tracks of a Grizzly Tank along with the rest of his ODST squad in front of Zojo-ji temple, at the foot of Tokyo Tower. Once, the tower had been a defining feature of the Tokyo skyline, though now, like the temple at the foot of it, it was dwarfed by large towers, some a couple thousand meters in height, all of which were displaying varying levels of damage from the battle raging around them.

The main gun of the Grizzly destroyed a Locust that walked onto the front lawn of the temple, before the tank turret changed positions and destroyed a Wraith. A Scorpion tank knocked out the second Wriath as Zhang, a soldier in Basilone's squad, fired an anti-tank missile from his M41 SSM launcher, destroying the final Loyalist Wraith.

Basilone got up from cover and fired his M247 light machine gun at the Covenant infantry guarding the temple, personally cutting down a Brute and several Grunts and Jackals. Other Covenant troops were cut down from fire the tanks machine guns and the personal weapons of his ODST squad and the UNSC Army troops and Marines who fought along side him.

With the Covenant positions supressed, a UNSC Army Captian gave the order, "All infantry, advance to the statues and outbuildings. Basilone and the rest of the UNSC troops got up, running toward the statues and small outbuildings lining the path to the temple.

By the time Basilone and the ODSTs were in cover behind a couple of statues, all of which had limbs and heads blown off by incoming fire, the Covenant positions on top of the first staircase opened up again.

A couple of Marines were cut down by a burst of plasma from a turret, as a few Army troops were blown away by a Brute Shot grenade. A UNSC Army infantryman with an M511 multiple grenade launcher fired a couple of grenades at the Covie positions on the top of the staircase. Two Brutes and numerous Unggoy were blown away by the blast, as Basilone and several other soldiers peeked out from cover to fire their weapons.

As Basilone cut down a Jackal with a three-round burst, a UNSC Marine was struck down by a beam of purple light.

"Shit, sniper, in Tokyo Tower!", A Marine sergeant yelled.

Sgt. Kamarov, a Russian ODST in Basilone's squad, fired his 14.5mm SRS-99 sniper rifle at observation deck about half-way up the tower, reducing the Jackal's head to a mist of alien blood, before firing a second shot, picking off another sniper.

"I got the bastards!", Kamarov yelled as the put a round through the head of Brute Chieftain on top of the second staircase, on the wooden platform in front of the temple entrance.

After dealing suppressing the Jiralhanae positions, the UNSC troops charged forward, firing their weapons from the hip at any Covenant immediately in front of them. Basilone's LMG deshielded and killed a Brute Captain on top of the stairs.

Ryouko Tanbou, an ODST close combat expert and medic was proving her self to be, at least at the moment, more the former than the latter. Ryouko blasted a Brute in the face with her M90 shotgun, killing it, before nailing a deshielded Brute Minor with a second blast. Tanbou then struck a Kig-Yar in the face with the butt of her shotgun and thrust her bayonet into its chest, before killing a Grunt with a bayonet strike to the neck.

A Jackal armed with a Brute Spiker, perhaps taken from a fallen Jiralhanae, charged at Tanbou, knocking the shotgun out of her hands. Ryouko tackled the Kig-Yar to the ground and drew her pistol, shooting in the head at point blank range, before picking up her shotgun.

Meanwhile, Basilone cut down a few Skirmishers with his LMG, before the belt ran out. Basilone dropped the gun and picked up the nearest weapon, a Brute shot from a fallen Jiralhanae, and, being careful not to injure himself on the blade, fired off all four grenades in the belt, blowing up two Grunts, a Jackal, and de-shielded Brute, before grabbing the alien weapon by the barrel and wielding it like a battle axe, splitting the skull of an Unggoy and actually decapitating a Jackal.

Basilone picked up his LMG and took cover behind a Covenant deployable cover as he yelled "Cover me, reloading!".

At once, Vericci and Al-Fulani opened up on the Covenant Loyalist troops on top of the first staircase of the temple with their battle rifles, as Zhang fired off a rocket at the Covenant positions in the temple, blowing a hole in the wooden walls of the structure and killing Brute and several Grunts.

As soon as he reloaded his weapon, Basilone kept moving, up the second staircase, firing from the hip as he went, Basilone and his ODSTs in the lead, followed by the Marines and Army troops. Basilone and the rest of the UNSC troops tore apart the Covenant on top of the staircase with short range automatic fire and bayonets, before bursting in to the temple itself. Three Brutes and a few Grunts and Jackals took cover behind the Buddha statue at one end of the temple. Al-Fulani threw in a grenade that blew away a Brute and half of the lower-ranking species. The rest were cut down by streams of machine gun, rifle, and shotgun fire.

The UNSC troop made their way around the walk-way around the edge of the temple, to the back, where a graveyard and a road stood between them and tower.

Suddenly, a purple particle beam flew from the tower, missing Basilone by inches. As soon as the threat appeared, it was neutralized, as a lime-green Separatist Banshee strafed the Tokyo Tower observation deck with its plasma autocannons.

The UNSC troops made theirway through the graveyard, taking cover behind tombstones. Basilone crept out from cover and tossed an M9 HE-DP grenade, de-shielding a Brute and killing two Grunts and Jackal as it exploded. Basilone's M247 finished off the de-shielded Jiralhanae as the UNSC forces advanced from tombstone to tombstone, adding more dead bodies to the graveyard, these, however, were mostly alien remains.

UNSC tanks rolled up along the road that separated the graveyard and the Tokyo Tower. A Sun Devil AA tank turned its quad 40mm guns on the on infantry defending the tower, reducing Covenant Loyalist soldiers to blue and purple stains on the pavement. Apparently the anti-aircraft guns worked just as well on infantry.

Scorpion and Grizzly tanks fired their main guns at a couple Wraiths and Locust guarding the tower, before the tanks drove up the walkways with the UNSC infantry behind them, spitting machine gun fire and shooting off canister shells. Basilone stood behind a tank, firing off bursts at Covenant infantry as he peeked out from behind cover. The Covenant troops were outside the tower were crushed.

Hornets flew in, strafing the upper observation deck, before unloading more ODSTs into the observation deck as Basilone and the ODSTs burst in through a hole in the wall courtesy of Zhang's C-12 charges. The surprised Brutes turned to fire on the ODSTs, to be riddled with bullets by Basilone's LMG and the rest of the squad's rifles. Tanbou blasted a few Brute with her shotgun as Basilone eliminated a Jiralhanae and two Kig-Yar taking cover in a tourist souvenir shop. The last Covenant soldier in the lower floor had fallen in seconds and, a few minutes later, the ODSTs deployed by Hornet into the top of the tower reported in: They had cleared the observation deck and were coming down the elevator now. Tokyo Tower was back under UNSC control.

120: Air Supremacy
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

01600 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calendar) Haneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan'''

Mikiya Ryougi flew his Falcon Gunship toward the island that was home to Haneda Airport in Tokyo. The airport, formerly the hub for most flights in the East Asian area (Narita handled long distance and interplanetary traffic), had been in the hands of Covenant since early in the battle.

Ryougi was part of an aerial armada consisting of UNSC aircraft from both land bases and from the "wet" Navy carrier UNSC Samar Sea, as well as Covenant Separatist aircraft, which they had painted a bright lime green to distinguish them from the purple used by the Covenant Loyalists. Below them, UNSC landing hovercraft moved in on the island.

Ahead of Ryougi's "Hayabusa" squadron and the other VTOL aircraft, a squadron of UNSC Air Force Longsword fighters flew ahead, firing missiles towards the airport, blasting the few Loyalist Seraph fighters that managed to get off the ground out of the sky. A squadron of "wet" Navy Skyhawk fighters from the Samar Sea fired off air-to-ground missiles and dropped bombs on any Covenant ground defenses that survived the high-level bombing and cruise missile strikes.

A few Banshees flew in from the Covenant Loyalist-controlled airport. Mikiya flipped the arming switch on his Argent air-to-air missiles, firing off a pair of missiles at a distance of a couple clicks. Two explosions, followed by balls of blue flames falling into the sea signaled that the missiles had hit their mark. The other Banshees quickly met a similar fate at the hands of UNSC aircraft.

Hayabusa squadron and the other UNSC attack aircraft neared the shore of the island first. Aoi Miyazaki, Mikiya's gunner, locked the aircraft's laser designator on a surviving Wraith and placed her finger on the firing button. The missile flew flew at a low angle, impacting the alien artillery and destroying it in a ball of flames. Aoi then proceed to pick off a couple Locust walkers and another Wraith

Mikiya's comrade's aircraft took their toll as well, Satou took out a number of Wraiths with missiles and his aircraft's nose-mounted SPARTAN laser. The Hayashi and Nakata, meanwhile, claimed several alien vehicles off their own as Aoi strafed a couple of Ghosts, Choppers, and Prowlers with the Falcon's 30mm autocannon. Mikiya's squadron ther aircraft, more Falcon gunships, as well as Hornets and Sparrowhawks, quickly cleared the landing zones of armor and infantry.

The transport Pelicans, Phantoms, and Falcons dropped off troops, mostly infantry, but a few Pelicans dropped off Warthogs and Scorpions, and a few of the Phantoms carried Wraiths or Spectres. The air mobile troops engaged a few remaining Covenant infantry, while the tanks fired on a couple of Locusts that tried to approach the LZ.

The alien walkers quickly fell to a Scorpion's 90mm main gun, and the Scorpions and Separatist Wraiths- painted the same green as their Phantoms- fired on the main terminal, blowing yet more holes in the already battered structure as the UNSC hovercrafts began to unload more armor and infantry.

Suddenly, several hangers were blown open, revealing Wraith's Locusts, and a Scarab. The Wraiths fired balls of superheated plasma into the air, destroying several tanks, and even crippling a UNSC landing ship. The UNSC-Separatist armor returned fire, hitting several alien vehicles, knocking them out.

A missile from an anti-walker variant of the Grizzly knocked out the Scarab with an anti-walker missile as the 120mms of the heavy tank versions of the Grizzly fired, blasting the rest of the Wraiths and Locusts to burning wrecks as the UNSC advanced across the runway to the battered terminal.

Suddenly plasma mortars started landing amongst UNSC and Separatist armor.

"This is Captain Makise of the UNSC Marine Corps 456th Armored Regiment, we are engaging heavy Covenant vehicles on top of the parking garages between the two terminals and are in need of assistance", a voice said of Mikiya's radio.

A couple of Sparrowhawks flew in and knocked out the four Wraiths on the first multi-level parking garage with laser and missile fire, but one of the Sparrowhawks was hit by all four bolts from a plasma launcher on the second parking garage. The Sparrowhawk crashed in the water near on of the landing ships

"This is Lieutenant Kiyoura, Mayday, I am going down, Mayday", a female voice said.

"Kiyoura!?, a second voice, this one male said, "Are you okay?"

"Affirmative.", Kiyoura replied, "I'm setting up a dye marker in the water, send out search and rescue".

"This is Captain Makise, can anyone take out that artillery", Makise asked as a light patrol boat was dispatched to go after the downed pilot.

"Affirmative, Captain", a male voice said with an American accent, "this is Thunderbolt lead from the UNSC Samar Sea, We are inbound for strike, over".

The Skyhawk squadron dropped a laser guided bomb on each parking garage, collapsing the structure. After that, Covenant resistance fell apart, Mikiya had few targets to attack. He just hovered around until he heard the news he'd been waiting for: "My Marines have secured the east terminal and control tower and the Elites have taken the hangers and west tower, Haneda is ours".

121: We're All Gonna Die
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2000 Hours, November 3rd 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Over Takayama, Japan

Dyne groaned as yet another close blast rocked the Spirit dropship. "Probably Tor first, he's sitting in front."

"Spotter 3-7, hold fire." Lt. Coney said urgently across all channels from the command post far behind them. "Friendly overhead."

Within moments, the explosions stopped. Whatever AA emplacement was below them was sheepishly standing down. From their seats in the starboard troop bay, Ion Team and a number of Elites sighed in relief. Their ship was in pieces to begin with, had one of those shells hit it would have been the end of them.

"Wow, shot down by our own guys when we're sitting in an Elite craft. Didn't think that'd be the way to go out." Dyne said, looking over at his teammates. Neither of them responded, but still had tight grips on their seats. "What a piece of crap ship anyway."

Coney, who'd still been listening in, replied. "Your ship is actually one of the few left from the supercarrier you destroyed. I doubt Tor would be too happy if you mentioned that to him."

Dyne quickly switched his helmet speakers from open to Ion's TEAMCOM. He said quietly, just in case they could still hear, "Actually, I think that was Kodiak with the bomb on that one. Sure could use that firepower now."

"Sorry about the shots, Ion, but there have been friendly fire incidents all across the theater and wider. There have been problems merging the Covenant and UNSC Battlenets, mostly due to Covenant AIs. There's just no way to tell between friendly and enemy Phantoms."

Just to add her two cents, Sepia spoke up, "Just paint the Sangheili ones a different color. Visual identification."

After a moment's pause, Erin said, "That . . . might actually work. But heads up, you're going to move into Hida now. The Brutes are far more embedded there, stay sharp."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 23:17, October 5, 2011 (UTC)

122: This Used To Be A Nice Neighborhood!
''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1130 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calendar) Furukawa, Hida, Japan''

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki stood with the rest of the militia, behind a group of UNSC Army regular troops, stacked up next to the door of a traditional Japanese house in the Furukawa neighborhood if the city of Hida.

The streets in this area were narrow, pedestrian traffic only, and lined with a stream that flowed along the edges of the street, filled with koi and other ornamental fish. This used to be a nice neighborhood, until the Covies showed up.

The same UNSC Army Captain that lead the attack on Takayama Station kicked down the door to the house, entering into the genkan or entranceway where one was to place their shoes before entering the house. The UNSC Army infantry ignored such traditional formalities and burst into the wooden-floored hallway.

The Captain fired his IMI 2550 SMG, cutting down a couple of Unggoy and damaging the shielding of a Brute, which was finished off by an infantryman's Battle Rifle. Keiichi and Rena turned their attention to the other direction in the hallway, along with a couple of UNSC infantrymen

A burst of plasma and Spiker fire flew down the hallway, striking down both UNSC soldiers, but missing Keiichi and Rena. Both of them raised their weapons, Rena's bayoneted MA37 and Keiichi's M95 Full Auto Shotgun, and opened fire on a couple of Jackals and a Brute, cutting all three Covenant troops to pieces.

The shadow of a Jiralhanae appeared in a shouji, or sliding screen door with a wooden frame work with gaps in the frame screened in with rice paper. Keiichi thrust the barrel of his M95 right through the shouji and squeezed the trigger, firing of four rounds, killing the Brute behind the door and emptying his M95's drum mag.

"Cover me!", Keiichi yelled, "Reloading".

As Keiichi reloaded, a UNSC regular and a militiaman stacked up against the door and forcefully slid it open, bursting into the room, only to be torn apart by a plasma turret hidden in recessed corner of the of the room.

Rena readied a frag grenade and tossed it into the corner of the room, landing exactly in front of the plasma turret, reducing the Unngoy operating the turret to a light blue mist.

Keiichi ran into the room first, with his shotgun freshly loaded. The floor was covered in tatami mats as was traditional for Japanese houses, and had a low table meant for kneeling around in the center, which had been turned on its side to act as cover for two Kig-Yar, which Keiichi disposed of with a burst of shotgun shells. Rena turned to the right, into the small recess in the wall that was the kitchen. The grenade she threw into the kitchen killed a Grunt manning a plasma turret and a Brute armed with a Spiker.

"CLEAR!", Keiichi and Rena yelled at the same time, as two UNSC soldiers rushed in to join him.

Suddenly, the wall on one side of the room burst open. A Brute Chieftain appeared from the dust, Gravity Hammer in hand. The two UNSC Army infantrymen raised their weapons, an M95 Auto Shotgun like Keiichi's and an M7 SMG respectively, and opened fire, joined by Keiichi and Rena.

It was Rena who contributed most to bringing down the Cheiftain, having grabbed the Covenant plasma turret and turned it against the Brute Chieftain. After about a second of the combined fire, the Cheiftain's shield gave out, and if fell face down on the floor, riddled with bullets and covered in plasma burns.

Seconds after the Chieftain fell, Keiichi, Rena and the rest of the UNSC forces heard the news they had been waiting for: The other UNSC squads in the building had taken the other rooms, on both the first and second floor.

One down, dozens more to go.

123: Bedrest
0900 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

The medical crews had required a day and a half of it for Dansen after treating his burn. But now that he actually had a comfy bed for sleeping, he couldn't keep his eyes shut. He wanted to find Reo, and his squad. So he got up and left.

It wasn't hard. Once he'd traded the hospital gown for a borrowed set of blue scrubs, all he had to do was walk out looking like he knew what he was doing. No one questioned someone who speed-walked. Trying to keep from grinning smugly, he began to explore each floor of Ryu Base, randomly at first, then looking for a directory or something to help him find the others.

Accidentally, he blundered into a security room, and the two guards watching the cameras immediately yelled at him. Before he could back out, he saw on one of the cameras a young woman with red-orange hair amidst several officers, staring down at a tactical display. Muttering an apology, he pointed and raised his voice to ask, "Which room is that?"

One of the irritated men spoke without thinking. "Command Center, two floors up."

Dansen didn't wait on more insults. He bolted away, leaving the door open to flood the dark room with artificial light. Not wanting to wait for the elevator over just two flights, he immediately went for the stairs and climbed them easily after the orbital elevator in Sydney. He slowed to an inconspicuous pace as he neared the command center door, and with the posted guards not paying attention, he slipped in quickly.

Shouts followed him, and he had just enough time to shout, "Reo!" before the two marines tackled him to the ground.

The confusion was mercifully short lived. Reo explained Dansen was with her before he was dragged out, and a Navy officer ordered the guards to let him go. As Dansen rubbed a sore shoulder, the officer said to him, "You can't go running into places like these, Private, you'll get yerself shot."

"Sorry, sir." he said, trying his best to straighten up. "I'll remember that."

The officer, his suit read Harris, smiled politely at him. Putting a hand on his shoulder, Harris brought him to the tactical map. "Under normal circumstances, neither you nor the civilian would be allowed in here. But you two are a special case; you've brought us something that could change this whole war."

Dansen stared at him a moment, then at Reo. "Her, sir?"

Harris frowned. "No, not the girl, the data she was carrying. Have a look here."

A wider strategic view of the ground battle for Earth was shown, highlighting Japan, Kenya, Greece, Australia, and scattered places across the Americas. It closed in on Kenya, New Mombasa to be exact. "Here. The Covenant have been excavating, we know Truth wants a Forerunner relic under the surface. But why, then, would he split smaller forces to attack peripheries like Greece and the Mexican Gulf?"

He held up the chip Reo had carried. "There were millenia of survey data stored in this. What it wanted to show us was massive deposits of ferrite. It's a low-grade iron, not worth excavating when we have . . . or had . . . so many titanium mines. But we found a massive deposit such as this matches each location they've attacked. Forerunner relics are masked as ferrite deposits, hidden under our noses all this time."

Dansen didn't fully grasp the implications. "So what does that mean for us, sir?"

Harris sighed. "Some people just don't get the big picture. Nothing for you, really. You're to be redeployed, as soon as your squad returns with Lieutenant Coney, to Hida-Takayama, north in Gifu Prefecture."

Suddenly, Dansen wished he'd stayed in bed. He cast a furtive look at Reo. "But, sir, I . . ."

Harris caught the glance. "You realize you're not staying here. Whether you accept your duty or I have to throw you into the front line myself, you're going up there. And could you really stay when you know there is still fighting, still dying to be done for our species' survival?"

He was right. Dansen knew it, but it didn't stop him from longing. "No, sir. I understand."

"Do you?" Harris questioned. It wasn't a harsh statement. The officer was scrutinizing him, Dansen had a feeling this was some sort of test.

"I wanted to be a soldier for a long time." Dansen said. "I knew it would be dangerous, and I'd have to make sacrifices. It's just that I'm feeling them now."

Judging by Harris' reaction, he'd passed. "Good man. You're young, and maybe a bit of a fool . . . but its rare to see someone young like you really devoted to the service. We could use you on the Themistocles. My advice, get something in your stomach and as much sleep as you can, because you'll be going back out there." his voice lowered, "There'll be plenty of time for her after the war."

Dansen hoped there would be. He hoped there would be any 'after the war' at all.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 21:11, October 8, 2011 (UTC)

124: Gate Crashers
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

02200 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calendar) Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan

Mikiya Ryougi squeezed the trigger on the joystick of his Falcon Gunship. The ordnance bay opened, and an Argent Missile flew off in a streak of fire, impacting a Covenant Vampire Fighter about three clicks away. Ryougi's wingman, Satou, picked off another Vampire. The two remaining Covie fighters responded, firing off a hail of pinkish spikes, striking a Hornet multiple times and blowing it out of the sky, before hitting a transport Falcon with a directed EMP weapon and draining it of all power. the props stopped spinning, causing the transport VTOL to crash into the side of a skyscraper.

The Hornet squadron moved to avenge their fallen comrade, hitting one of the Vampire fighters with a swarm of LAU-65 missiles, taking the enemy aircraft apart, and a Sparrowhawk disposed of the last alien fighter, though several Banshees remained, swarming towards the UNSC aircraft.

Mikiya downed a Banshee with a LAU-65 missiles, before maneuvering his aircraft behind a Banshee chasing a Transport Falcon. Aoi Miyazaki fired the aircraft's 30mm autocannon, scoring herself as Banshee kill. A Hornet downed a Banshee with a missile, as his wingmane disposed of another with his 12.7mm rotary machine guns. In no time, the Covenant air forces were cleared from the skies.

Mikiya, along with the rest of the UNSC air forces pressed on, towards the 1000-meter tower, whose upper floors contained a nightclub, on top of which the Covies had installed a Summit, a control-tower-like structure surrounded by VTOL pads.

Aoi fired a Scorpion air-to-ground missile at an AA Needler turret, as Satou dealt with a second turret with his aircraft's nose-mounted laser. Aoi then proceeded to blow a Covenant VTOL pad off the side of the tower. More VTOL pads and Shade turrets fell to missile fired by Mikiya's squadron. Lt. Nakata, or Hayabusa Four, scored a particularly impressive hit on a plasma storage tank in near the summit tower proper. The summit was blown apart in ball of blue flames.

With the Covenant threats on the top of the skyscraper neutralized, Mikiya led his squadron in closer, Aoi firing the 30mm cannon at groups of Jiralhanae, Kig-Yar, and Unggoy, reducing them to stains of alien blood on the rooftops, as the other Falcons, Hornets, and Sparrowhawks moved in, adding their firepower to the fight, raking the rooftop with machine gun, autocannon, and grenade launcher fire. --- Kamarov, a sniper in James Basilone's ODST squad fired an SRS99 sniper rifle, picking off a Plasma launcher-wielding Brute, followed by a Kig-Yar sniper and a couple more Brutes that the UNSC air forces missed as Basilone fast roped onto the rooftop, M247 LMG in hand.

Within seconds, Basilone's whole squad was on the roof of the building. The ODST headed for the doorway the club, along with a group of UNSC Marines.

Zhang, Basilone's explosives expert, placed a C12 charge on the door of the club. The door blew open and several Marines burst in first. The main entry led into a short hallway, which was clear, ending onto another doorway.

A UNSC Marine busted opened the second door, to be cut down by a burst of plasma fire. Seconds later, a fuel rod shot blew away the doors altogether, killing two Marines.

Basilone and the other ODSTs and Marines took cover near the door. The room beyond contained a dancefloor, with a DJ booth located above the dance floor. Above the DJ booth were a number of large speakers. Beyond the dance floor was an bar surrounded by a number of tables and chairs.

The Covenant had a plasma turret behind the bar, and a Jackal sniper and a Brute with a fuel rod gun in the DJ booth. Kamarov leaned out from the door and fired as single shot from his sniper rifle. The shot appeared to miss, striking the top of one of the large speakers above the Kig-Yar sniper, but it was exactly as Kamarov planned: The speaker was dislodged from the roof and landed on the head of the Jackal sniper. Kamarov then proceed to take out the Brute fuel rod gunner with a headshot, as Basilone fired his LMG at the bar, killing the Brute and two Grunts behind the plasma turret position.

The ODST and Marines rushed in, only for two Marines to be knocked across the room, slamming against the wall, the force killing them.

"Hunters", Basilone yelled, "Everyone spread out, try flank 'em and hit them from behind!".

Basilone fired his LMG from the him at the nearest Hunter, only to narrowly escape being killed by the alien's assualt cannon. Basilone seized the opening to fire a few shot in a gap in the Hunter's armor. The Hunter was enraged by this and focused it fire on Basilone, who again narrowly avoided a glowing green beam of death.

Cpl. Vladimir Kamarov attracted the attention of the second Hunter and ran behind Basilone. The Hunter launched a blast from its assault cannon at him, missing the ODST, but hitting the Hunter going after Basilone in its unarmored back. A large number of Lekgolo worms were thrown around by the blast. The Lekgolo fell the ground, dead.

Sergeant Cheng Zhang armed a remote C-12 charge and walked up the unarmored back of the distracted second Hunter and attached the charge to the back of the colonial alien. Zhang then ran away as fast as possible and, making sure no one was too close to the Hunter, pressed the button the the detonator. The "torso" of the Lekgolo colony exploded, blowing it clean in half.

"CLEAR!", Zhang yelled as the remains of the Hunter fell to the floor.

"Nice one, Zhang", Kamarov congratulated him, before continuing, "Did you see how I tricked the second Hunter to shoot the first, and when I dropped that speaker on the Jackal!?"

"Cut the chatter", Basilone ordered, "We can talk after we clear this building".

The ODSTs and the surviving Marines formed up on the door behind the bar and burst into the kitchens. James Basilone took the right, firing his LMG from the hip at a Brute about ten feet away, depleting its shield and killing the alien outright, before Basilone took out a couple of Grunts with two short bursts of fire.

Ryouko Tanbou, Basilone's CQC expert, fired a shotgun blast into the face of the second Brute, killing it, before blasting two Jackals and thrusting her bayonet into the chest of a Grunt.

The last few surviving Covenant, three Unggoy, broke ranks and tried to flee, but they were shot from behind by Zhang's M7 SMG and a marines MA5C.

Tanbou then took point and burst into the next room, which was a sort of annex for he elevator up to the tower. Tanbou shot two Grunties and a Jackal with her shotgun as Basilone, Zhang, and a marine took down a Brute Major with the combined of their weapons. They ODSTs and Marines then mopped up a few surviving grunts.

After clearing the room, Tanbou went in to inspect a janitorial supply cabinet to on one side of the room. A pair of Kig-Yar Skirmisher raised their weapons as she burst in. Ryouko shot the first Skirmisher in the chest, killing the bird-like alien, but the second managed to knock the shotgun out of her hands with swing of its claws.

Tanbou punched the alien in the eye, before kicking it in the chest, knocking it backwards, into the rear wall, right next to the opening to a garbage chute. Tanbou opened the garbage chute opening and forced the Kig-Yar's head into the chute.

The Ryouko closed the garbage chute lid over the Jackal's head, drawing blood and cracking it skull. For good measure, Tanbou dropped the Kig-Yar down the garbage chute, where it plummeted down hundreds of stories below. A few seconds later, the Kig-Yar landed in a dumpster in the basement loading dock of the tower. The Kig-Yar's head impacted the side of the dumpster at terminal velocity, crushing its skull.

"Janitor's closet clear", Tanbou announced.

Basilone replied, "This floor's clear. Outstanding work, troopers and marines, our orders are to wait here, we have ground forces on scene at the foot of the tower. They'll handle any Covies in the lower floors.

125: Caught in the Middle
0800 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calendar) Japan, Earth

Adam-309 watched miserably as Banshees swooped in on the UNSC armored force that was doing its best to smash the Covenant lines. He was sitting inside a falcon troop transport. A few unlucky marines were hit by plasma fire from the banshees and they went down. The relatively lucky ones died quickly, while the really unlucky ones got horrific burns and took a long time to die.

Anti-aircraft machine guns started blazing away, knocking two banshees out of the sky. A few other banshees flew off, not overly eager to get shot down. The Covenant didn't seem to want to stop tormenting them yet, though. Crimson and blue orbs of plasma crashed down from above too, prompting UNSC artillery to respond.

"This is Regal-2, you have a scarab approaching your position." One of the recon planes flying above said. "Its leading up another Covenant armored force, by the way."

"I don't suppose we have any of those "Scarab-Slayer" missiles?" An officer said, sarcastically. When he got a response in the negative, he let off a series of profanity, climaxing in a suggestion on what the commander-in-chief of the Japanese theater could do with the scarab-slayer missiles, a suggestion that was not only illegal and immoral, but probably violated several rules of biology as well.

The scarab fired its main weapon, vaporizing two scorpion tanks and a warthog, before it was hit by a barrage of missiles...which proceeded to do pretty much nothing at all.

That kicked off quite a few curses and a lot of panicked shouts as various vehicles attempted to get to whatever cover they could find.

"Aim for the legs next time!" A different officer shouted. "Aim for the legs!"

Several missiles slammed into the scarab's legs, and the scarab lurched forward, before sinking to the ground. Before the UNSC forces could finish it, more Covenant armor-wraiths and locusts-moved forward, forcing them to divert their attention from the scarab. The gunners of the scarab began using it as a large, incredibly powerful anti-tank gun, vaporizing tank after tank. Not the best usage of the behemoth, but not the worst either.

"Crap." Adam muttered.

The automatic grenade launcher turrets on the falcon blazed away, rounds pelting Covenant armor from above.

"We've got to kill that scarab." Adam said angrily as it blasted a trio of scorpions to slag. "Sir, can you land on top of the scarab? We can take it out if we board it." Adam said.

The pilot's reply was blunt. "Spartan, are you insane, or just extremely overconfident?"

"I'm just asking. There doesn't seem to be much anti-air fire down there." Adam replied.

"Maybe, but I'm not risking my bird in stupid plan."

Adam nodded. "I understand. Could you just try and fly right above the scarab?"

"You're gonna jump? Jesus, you ARE insane." The pilot replied, but he complied.

And at that moment, Adam jumped out of the falcon. In mid air, he locked his armor...and then crashed on top of the scarab. The boosted energy shield protected him from the impact of the fall, and he got up. An alarmed grunt screamed a warning, and Adam shot the grunt in the back. He jogged to the back of the scarab, shooting two brutes and another grunt in the process. Reaching the engine core, he tossed a pack of C-12, then pressed the detonator, before running off the scarab.

In that moment, he found himself caught in the middle of two groups of tanks pounding each other to bits. He threw himself to the ground and crawled as fast as he could for the UNSC lines, hoping that he wouldn't be mistaken for a brute with odd-looking armor and shot.

Then the scarab exploded. The explosion sent plasma, not to mention bits of plasma flying in every direction. Adam rose to his feet and ran like he had never ran before, not even when the chief had threatened the last trainee to finish the run with a few hours of "fun" with several of his assistants.

After a long sprint, he made it to the relative safety of the UNSC armored force, where he took cover behind a scorpion tank, panting. He heard a few troopers congratulating him, and a few more questioning his sanity.

Norman-123 16:33, October 9, 2011 (UTC)

126: Killing Creatively
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1530 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calendar) Furukawa, Hida, Japan'''

Located across from the mag-lev station, The Hotel Furukawa, built in 2520, was a recent addition to Hida, being an odd-looking 12-story tower, decorated with a facade similar to that of the traditional Japanese houses that could be seen in the area, as well as a roof that, at least from the street, looked similar to a traditional home in Hida. The architect saw the hotel as a fusion of old and new, although many simply considered it to look ridiculous.

To the UNSC troops and militia that stood stacked at the entrance, however, the Hotel Furukawa was just another hostile-held building to be cleared. A UNSC sergeant got out an M9 HEDP grenade and tossed it in the door. The grenade exploded behind the counter in the lobby, blowing away a Jiralhanae pointing a Plasma Repeater out the door. The UNSC forces then burst in.

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki turned to the right of the door. The main lobby of the hotel was, quite apart from its traditional exterior, mostly western in layout, like most hotels these day. The section of the lobby Keiichi and Rena were supposed to clear was a sort of sitting area with several armchairs surrounding a table. The table had been upturned and a plasma turret mounted on it. Rena squeezed the trigger of her MA37 and shot an Unggoy that was manning the turret, killing it with a burst of fire to the head.

Keiichi took down two more Unggoy and a Kig-Yar with his M95 Auto Shotgun as Rena concentrated on a Jiralhanae that burst out from a Japanese restaurant attached to the hotel. Rena emptied the mag of her assault rifle into the alien, depleting its shield and riddling its chest with 7.62mm rounds. The Brute fell face down on the floor.

As the other UNSC troops cleared out the rest of the lobby, several UNSC Army troops joined Keiichi and Rena as they burst into the restaurant. Keiichi fired a three-shell burst into the chest of a Brute that attacked from the side of the door as the Army troop cut down a few Grunts and a second Brute with their rifles and SMGs.

"CLEAR!", a UNSC lieutenant yelled, "Move down the hallways, clear this place room by room!"

Keiichi and Rena followed three UNSC infantrymen into the first room. It was empty. The second, third, fourth, and fifth room was also empty. In the sixth room, however, a Jackal burst out of the bathroom armed with Brute Spiker it had presumably taking from a fallen Brute.

The Kig-Yar lunged at Rena, who managed to block its attack with her MA37's bayonet. Rena then slammed the butt of the rifle into the Kig-Yar's face, knocking it backwards. The Kig-Yar's head actually landed in the bowl of the toilet itself. Rena slammed the lid of the toilet down onto the Jackal's head and then jumped on top of the lid, her weight crushing the Kig-Yar's neck.

"Impressive", Keiichi said, as other UNSC soldiers in the unit offered their congratulations from the Rena's creative kill.

"Cut the chatter", a sergeant said, "We've got twelve floors of this place to clear!"

The next twelve floors of the tower consisted of hotel rooms, mostly empty, some with a few Covies hiding inside. Finally, they made it to the executive suite. The UNSC troops burst in first, taking out a couple Jackals before one of them was cut down by Spiker fire. Keiichi turned the face the source of he spike fire and opened up with his M95, blasting a Brute Major. Keiichi then turned his attention to gunning down a couple Skirmishers. A Brute captain burst in from the separate bedroom in the suite and fired off a Brute shot, killing two UNSC militia. The entire UNSC squad, militia and regulars, opened fire, quickly depleting the shield and killing the Brute.

"CLEAR!", the UNSC lieutenant said.

127: Tradeoff
1200 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Bravo 029 came in for a landing on one of Ryu Base's landing pads. While Angel spun the ship around in final approach, Erin Coney, Moses Wheatley, and the boy Henri stood up. There was a hardly noticeable bump as they touched down and a refueling crew bustled around, and then the troop door opened allowing light to flood in. They filed out, Henri jumping out to the platform. He stuck close to Moses, until they got a good look at the three figures awaiting them on the platform.

Still walking to meet him, Erin gave a salute to Lieutenant Commander James Harris. They were old acquaintances, and it was rare to see people like that with a large percentage of the entire human race dead. They smiled and stared at each other a moment, until being distracted by the boy jumping and hugging the civilian girl that stood with Harris and an ODST.

"A good flight, Lieutenant?" Harris asked, raising the question without directly asking how she'd been demoted and transferred to Navy since they last met.

There wasn't time for personal discussion yet, and Erin just nodded. "I came as soon as your message came through. How many . . . objects of interest are we talking about?"

Dansen watched as Reo, Moses, and Henri greeted each other, but he was listening in on the officers' conversation. They meant Forerunner artifacts, and how many were on Earth. The answer surprised him, while he didn't know much about them, the idea that an alien civilization had placed so many installations on humanity's home planet shook him up.

"We know where they are, but with communications grids so messed up, it's difficult to tell if anyone's even there to receive our transmissions."

Erin accepted this with a nod as well. "I might be able to use the Sangheili Battlenet to get a message through. How's the situation down under?"

Harris' face darkened. "Lieutenant, there is no situation. Sydney has been wiped completely off the map."

That definitely got a response from Dansen. He remembered Colonel Perez talking about a nuke, but he had no idea it would be used in the city. If that's even what had happened. In any case, it was time for him to go. With his pack resupplied, ammo refilled, and rifle on his back, he stepped out across towards the waiting dropship. Before he'd taken a few steps, Reo called his name.

He looked back, Moses and Henri looking between him and Reo curiously. She stared after him for a moment, as if regretting that she didn't know what to say. "Watch your back out there, okay?"

It was a tired old phrase, used to often by those who never came back. But Dansen didn't intend to become one of those people. Silently, he raised to fingers to his visor in a mock salute, and jogged over to the Pelican. Sitting in the rear-most seat, Flak helped take his rifle and secure it before giving him a hand up. Back on the pad, Moses also turned to leave, when Reo caught his arm.

"Look after him, will you?"

"Will do." he said with a reassuring smile. Once he'd returned to the turret and secured himself with a line, Bravo 029 took off again, heading northwest to rejoin the fighting.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 00:47, October 12, 2011 (UTC)

128: The Infamous Hotel Scene
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

830 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar), Dougenzaka, Shibuya Tokyo, Japan'''

James Basilone and the rest of his ODST followed a Missile Warthog with upgraded armor through the narrow streets of Dougenzaka, in the Shibuya Ward of Tokyo. A UNSC tank platoon, led by one Lt. Harrison had spearheaded the UNSC armored assault to take back Shibuya, seizing all the major streets. However, Covenant resistance remained in the narrow backroads.

This particular area of Shibuya was infamous for being home to a number of "love hotels", a Japanese concept that, nonetheless, the American Basilone had no trouble understanding. It also had streets to narrow to maneuver a Scorpion tank in, and worst of all, a Covenant artillery battery hidden somewhere in the streets.

The gunner of the Rocket Warthog turned the turret on a Kig-Yar sniper's nest in partially-destroyed ruins of one of the many questionable establishments that lined the street, firing off six 65mm rockets, blowing away the walls of the third floor of the low-lying, five-story structure, revealing its steel skeleton.

Suddenly, a plasma launcher shot impacted the Warthog, blowing it apart. Basilone and the ODSTs took cover next to one of the structures that lined the street.

"We need to take out that enemy postion!", Basilone yelled, "Zhang, Do you have any more thermobaric rockets"

"Affirmative", Cheng Zhang replied, loading a couple of thermobaric rockets into his launcher. Zhang tossed a smoke grenade into the alleyway, and activated his VISR system. Zhang VISR could easily see, through the smoke, the Jiralhanae and Kig-Yar in the building, firing wildly into the smoke, missing him by several feet.

Zhang fired the the M41 SSM missile launcher, sending a thermobaric rocket through the window of the structure. The missile impacted the target and exploded its fuel-air warhead, releasing explosive vapors into the structure, and, a fraction of a second later, detonating, creating intense heat and a powerful pressure wave that vaporized the Covenant troops inside and a actually blew away the steel girders that supported the third floor, causing the whole structure to collapse, blocking the next alleyway.

"All right, move out", Basilone ordered, "We're making our way down the street through this building"

Ryouko Tanbou took point, entering the lobby of the "love hotel". The building was deserted. At the end of the hall, Zhang placed a frame charge on the wall, blowing a hole into the next building, a hotel similar to the next one, also deserted.

Zhang blew his way into the third of the buildings on the street, built wall to wall with each other. If Basilone was correct, this was the building on the street corner. This building had some Covies inside the lobby, namely four Grunts and two Brutes.

The Grunts and Brutes turned in the direction of the explosion as Basilone fired his LMG from the hip, cutting down two Unggoy and a Jiralhanae. Ryouko took out the one Unggoy and a Brute with her M90 Shotgun, as Al-Fulani's assault rifle took out the last.

The ODST squad advanced to the second floor of the hotel, running into a group of Covies on the third floor hall, Unggoy, Jiralhanae, and Kig-Yar. Basilone ducked back into the stairwell just in time to avoid several spiker rounds.

Zhang and Vericci both tossed frag grenades into the hallway, shredding several of the Covenant troops, before the ODSTs burst in to take out the rest. Basilone swept his LMG across the corridor, cutting down Grunts and deshielded Brutes.

With the halls cleared, Basilone kicked down the door to one of the rooms. A Kig-Yar sniper stood on the bed of the room, no doubt oblivious to the fact of what humans had been using it for before the battle...

The Kig-Yar's head was blown away by a blast from Ryouko's shotgun, "Clear!", she said.

Basilone followed Ryouko into the room. If this had been any normal situation, anyone entering this room with a woman would be doing so for only one reason. But this was not a normal situation.... Instead of bringing his girlfriend here for a little "fun" after a date, James Basilone was bringing a whole squad of ODSTs here to kill Covies.

"All right", Basilone said, "I can see the target, Zhang, take it out!".

Zhang fired his M41 launcher at the the plasma storage tanks next to the plasma mortar. The water and plastic shaving countermass of the launcher shot out of the back, dampening the backblast that would have otherwise been fatal if fired in a confined space. The plasma tanks exploded in a flash of fire, the powerful blast of both the exploding plasma tanks and rocket's thermobaric warhead wiped out heavy plasma mortar and every other Covenant soldier in the street corner in which the turret stood. The Covie artillery in Dougenzaka was taken out.

129: Night Ops
2100 Hours, November 4th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Over Hida, Japan

"We're coming up on the target, stand to." LTJG Yasunaka announced, making the occupants of Bravo 029's troop bay shuffle their weapons around.

In Kodiak's ear, he heard Erin say, "Remember, everything inside is classified. Your task is to eliminate the Covenant inside, and leave, clear?"

Dyne responded, "Yeah, we get it. No reading the papers, no turning on computers. If this place is such a touchy mission, why send us?"

Erin groaned. "Because I can't get anyone else. And because this is off-record, I don't have to find another way to cover our tracks."

Kodiak stared out of the open troop door, the pitch black of night in stark contrast to the soft red glow inside the dropship. He was getting tired of sneaking around. They'd be credited for what they'd done in Takayama, but he was going to make a point not to get involved in any more cover-ups. He could feel the dropship spinning about, preparing to drop the three SPARTANs and six ODSTs in the ONI analysis station in the cliffs above Takayama. He readied his rifle.

Staff Sergeant Wheatley gave the order for them to go, and Kodiak led the two troopers that would back him up onto the landing pad. Almost the moment that the nine members of the strike team were out, Bravo 029 took off again, vanishing into the sky. With its engines fading away, everything was quiet. The pad, extending from a building built inside the cliff face, in the night was surrounded by shadow, and none could tell just how far the drop was. They kept away from the edge.

Sepia had point, hauling the dormant M7057 along with two infantrymen behind. One was Eirikur Quinn, wearing an ICARUS Jetpack. He'd be useful to have along. Kodiak went next, followed by a grizzled marine named Hargrim, and Private Benjamin Dansen. Then Dyne and two more ODSTs filed into the facility's lobby, each team splitting up.

"We're inside." Kodiak reported. "No resistance."

"Maybe they're all asleep." Dyne guessed.

Sepia made a hand motion. "I'll take the barracks. It might be where the Brutes set up shop."

"Go for it. Dyne, you have the labs." Kodiak ordered. As the others moved into their own areas, Kodiak and his team moved cautiously towards the upper floor offices. "All the lights are off. Maybe the power's out?"

"Or at least down." Sepia added.

The three of them swept room by room, staying silent at every moment and listening for the loud, rasping breath of a Brute. But nothing came up. Blood had stained the floors and walls, and the holes from small arms fire and spikes in the walls attested to vicious, close-quarters fighting, but there were no bodies, alive or dead, friend or foe. Kodiak was becoming worried that it meant something and he couldn't figure it out, something that might be the difference between detecting an ambush or walking into it. Then Sepia contacted him again.

“We found the barracks. And the men stationed here.” She didn’t sound good, almost ill. “They took a lot of prisoners, but they didn’t last long. Most were tortured, and the Brutes started eating some of them. Likely while they were still alive. . . it’s pretty bad.”

"Any hostiles?"

"Negative."

“Copy, Sepia. Keep in touch.”

He'd completed his sweep, and came up empty. He and the two troopers were just about to head back when panicked screams came over the radio. It sounded like Dyne, and there was gunfire in the background. "Dyne?" he tried to get contact. "Dyne, what is it?"

Only a partial response reached him. "Get back! . . . just fall back, run!"

Kodiak tried again, but there was nothing more coherent than yelling. "Flares." He ordered. The ODSTs pulled tubes from the pouches in their armor, then lit and threw them, creating a pool of orange light. Heavy footfalls approached them, and their rifles raised. Dyne came sprinting into their view. His marines were nowhere to be seen, and as soon as he joined them, Dyne spun around with his battle rifle pointed into the shadows. Even then, he was walking steadily backwards.

“Where’s your team?” Kodiak asked loudly enough to be heard over Dyne’s adrenaline-quickened gasps.

“Gone! They’re just gone!” he shouted desperately. His panic was shaking up Dansen and Hargrim. Even Kodiak was a little spooked.

He turned his assault rifle to follow Dyne’s aim. “Brutes?”

His helmet shook. “No. Worse.”

Somewhere, there was chittering from several individuals, communicating with one another. Kodiak couldn't pinpoint them, but there were more than a few. Then a skeletal shape charged out of the dark. It had several limbs ending in razor-like blades, and a small, angular head. Kodiak wouldn't have cared if it was pink and fuzzy, he shot it. With a squeal, the creature fell in mid-sprint, sliding across the floor leaving a trail of blood. So they could be killed.

Any reassurance from that was swept away as the whole room beyond the flares' light seemed to writhe. Dozens of the beasts became visible to them, and the four of them opened fire. For the SPARTANs, augmented combat instincts took over, and the fighting became a blur as they became swarmed. They fended off the bone-bladed arms, but after a few seconds which seemed to them like an eternity, Hargrim's forearm was cut in half, and digging their claws into him, the marine was dragged back into the shadows still screaming.

Kodiak used all sixty rounds in his clip, and with no time to reload drew a pair of knives. Amid the dying flares, Kodiak tried to find where his next attacker would come from, when sudden light blinded him. As he fell backwards, his senses were overpowered by a glorious heat. He could hear shrieks and the crackle of flames, and knew Sepia must have come to their rescue. For the next few minutes, he listened to the sounds of battle. By the time his vision returned and Dyne helped him up, the battle was over.

"Guess we owe you another one, Seep." Dyne said thankfully. "What the hell were those?"

"Stalkers." Erin answered, apparently back on the line. "Brutes use them like attack dogs. Apparently they just ransacked the place and left, leaving these behind as a nasty surprise."

"We'll have to return the favor." Kodiak said, wishing he could rub his sore eyes. He looked over one of the corpses that hadn't been burned completely. "It's like a half-spider, half-dog thing. I hate spiders."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 20:53, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

130: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
'''Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1000 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar), Hida, Japan'''

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki followed a group of UNSC Army regulars and militia into a saké brewery one the east side of the Miyagawa River. Saké had long been a traditional product of Hida, but this brewery was a larger, modern establishment, part of a group of breweries that had locations in areas on multiple planets with large Japanese populations. That was until the Covies destroyed them all, and now, they apparently head this one too.

Keiichi held his M95 Full Auto Shotgun tightly as he scanned to the left of the room. There was nothing there except a large vat for fermenting rice into saké and various pipes, valves, and control panels.

"Clear left!", Keiichi yelled.

"Clear center", A UNSC Army infantryman said

"Clear right", another soldier said, before continuing, "I though there were supposed to be Covies in here! There's nothing here."

"I've got a bad feeling about this", a militiaman said

"Cut the chatter and keep moving", A UNSC sergeant ordered as the squad of UNSC Army infantry and militia moved forward, deeper into brewery.

A chittering sound could be heard from above. Keiichi turned just in time to see something jump off a sake vat and land on top a militiaman. The creature had legs like a spiders, two front limbs with bone blades, and a head that looked like that of a dog, only hairless, covered in chitinous plates like the rest of the creature.

The creature had thrust its blade-arm into the neck of the militiaman, killing him in a spray of blood. Keiichi took aim at the creature and shot it in the face, blowing away half its head. As he fired, he heard more chittering sounds, followed by the sound of rifle fire.

"Shit!", a UNSC infantryman yelled, "Stalkers!"

Rena Sonozaki shot one of the creatures with her M7 SMG, blowing it off a saké vat. The creature fell to floor, dead. Next to Rena, a UNSC Army infantryman killed a couple of the Stalkers with his MA37, and a third with an underbarrel shotgun.

The UNSC sergeant leading the squad tossed a grenade into a gap between two saké vats, blowing holes in both of the vats, and killing three of the alien creatures.

The Stalkers charged at the UNSC troops from all directions. Keiichi fired his M95 in full auto, firing off bursts of two to three shells, sending out a lethal spread of shot that cut down his attackers. Rena, meanwhile, mowed down a group of stalkers with her M7.

The UNSC sergeant and three UNSC infantrymen cut down a group of charging stalkers with their MA37 rifles and an M247 LMG as a group of miltia, some armed with M7s and MA37s, but others carrying older MA3s and MA4s fired on a group of Stalkers coming from the right, coming out of a door and a conveyor belt leading into the loading dock.

A Stalker lunged at Keiichi, who raised his shotgun, putting the barrel right in its face and blowing its head off. To his right, he heard Rena scream. A Stalker had pinned her down and was preparing to strike with its claws.

Keiichi stuck the shotgun against the body of the creature and pulled the trigger, only to hear the click of an empty chamber. Keiichi struck the alien creature with the butt of his rifle, knocking it off Rena and drew his M6 pistol, shooting the Stalker in the head.

"Thanks", Rena said

As Rena tried to get up, two stalkers caught both her and Keiichi off guard, knocking them back to the floor. Keiichi stared into the mouth full of razor sharp teeth in the creature's mouth. Keiichi stuck his pistol right into the creature's mouth and pulled the trigger. The Stalker's brains were blown out the back of its head.

As Keiichi got up, Rena dealt with the Stalker pinning her to the ground, plunging her combat knife into its throat, killing it. Keiichi shot a couple more stalkers with his pistol as Rena pushed the Stalker's body off herself.

Seconds later, the UNSC sergeant shot the last Stalker.

"What the hell was that?!", one of the militiamen asked, "We're those things the 'Flood' I keep hearing rumors about?"

"No, they're a non-sentient species HIGHCOM's designated as Stalkers", the sergeant replied, "The Brutes use them as attack dogs".

The rest of the saké brewery revealed that the Brutes had already pulled out, leaving the Stalkers behind to surprise the incoming UNSC forces.

131: Infestation
1100 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Hida, Japan

Having left ONI to clean up its own mess at their facility, Kodiak, Dyne, and Sepia were back in the streets, trying to hold a makeshift barricade they'd put across the street with abandoned cars and even a bus. For now, the Covenant squads opposing them were content to hang back, taking potshots while they tried to make up a new plan. If their reinforcements arrived soon, none of their plans to take on three SPARTANs would matter. Dyne lazily traded fire with some of the braver Grunts as he listened to Coney over their com.

"Based on heat scans of Hida, there are a lot more Stalkers around. The Brutes might have let them loose in the city to hurt us even if we drive their forces out. Driving out an army is easy, but animals will try to take up homes here."

"So for all our advanced weapons and tactics, dogs are going to slow us down?" Dyne spotted one of them. It had actually tore into a Grunt separated from its lance. The way the bone-blades were dug into its flesh to drag its prey away, Dyne felt a little sympathy. He sighted on it and fired. "Sit! Stay! Play dead! Ugly things." His opinion of them went even lower when a second one poked its head out and pulled at the new body. They were cannibalistic.

"That's a real problem." Kodiak said. He was sitting in cover, just waiting for the Covenant to be more aggressive. "Even if we drive them off the planet, we can't let civilians back in unless we're sure none of these things are left. Otherwise they'll become a source of prey."

Dyne's battle rifle cracked again. "Got any helpful ideas there?"

A crinkling sound caused Dyne to turn his head. It was just Sepia, helmet set beside her as she unwrapped the last of the candy. She briefly returned his glance. "What? Just because you ate all yours doesn't mean I have to hide mine."

Dyne turned back to the shooting gallery before him. "I don't get how you can be so slow about it."

"The only way to get them without collateral damage is to send in infantry." Kodiak mused, the only one still thinking about it. "That'll mean casualties."

He was distracted again as Dyne set the barrel of his rifle on the edge of his cover, and moved his hand tentatively near Sepia's pack. He jumped when Sepia slapped him sharply, and drew back his hand. Even in the gauntlet, it still hurt. But it gave Kodiak an idea. They weren't fighting soldiers, so conventional battefield tactics didn't apply.

"They'll come in for food. Set up a trap, or a number of them, and bait with meat. If they're animals, then we should deal with them like animals."

Erin liked the idea, and said she'd pass it on, but broke off contact a while after. Sepia eventually traded Dyne on watch, and he and Kodiak started flipping an old copper coin to bet which side came up. It went on with an uncanny series of heads until they noticed the sound of gunfire, not in the distance, but close by. Looking up to Sepia, Kodiak saw she'd stood and was focused intently on something beyond their barricade.

She ignored his inquiry, still staring, until she muttered. "You've got to be kidding me. Take a look, it's Spartan Barbie."

They were momentarily confused, before recalling Sepia's nickname for another of the Gammas. Immediately, the two scrambled up to see what she was seeing. There, down the road, the Covenant squad lay bleeding in the street, with two armored figures standing over them. Running up the sidewalk towards them was a third, in light blue Recon Armor. The tag that came up in their HUDs was SPARTAN-G018. Morgana.

"Bayonet Team?" Kodiak asked. "What are they doing here?"

"I thought they were deployed to North America." Dyne said, which agreed with what Kodiak remembered.

"Well, they got lost." Sepia said, with a little bit of a sneer. The two teams, Sepia and Morgana in particular, didn't always get along. Nonetheless, Kodiak waved to the approaching SPARTAN to signal all-clear. She sprinted the remainder of her way to the barricade, and stood across from them.

"Petty Officer Third Class SPARTAN-G018 reporting, sir." She snapped her arm up in a short salute to Kodiak.

Morgana had always kept closely to the rules. It reminded Kodiak how uncomfortable he was being called 'superior'. He sheepishly returned the gesture with an informal, two-fingered salute of his own.

"Morgan? What's Bayonet doing here?" Dyne asked, looking over her shoulder at Branwyn-G160 and Andor-G180 coming up behind.

"It's Mirage Team, now." She corrected him. "They split our team up. The rest of Bayonet is working as Fury Team somewhere in the Pacific."

Dyne nodded, not entirely surprised. Those two always had worked best on their own. Kodiak nodded to the team leader, Bryn, when she approached as Morgan continued.

"We just left the Yucatan Peninsula yesterday. We assisted some SPARTAN-IIs, Blue Team, with underwater operations." She paused, as if to add a note. "We never actually met, and they never knew who we were, of course. To them, we were just another special operations team."

Kodiak nodded. "So why are you here, exactly?"

Bryn picked it up. "Just dropping by, really. The ships we're catching a ride with are here to rearm and refuel, and thought we'd catch some of the action while we're here." There was another pause. "Hoping to reach France before it's all over."

Only Dyne caught the last part's significance. Without turning his helmet, his eyes shifted to Morgan. That was her home. And what little news there was of Europe was bad. Kodiak quickly moved business forward. "Well, you're welcome to work with us until your flight leaves."

Bryn replied happily, "That was the plan. Lieutenant Coney said she had something in mind that would call for SPARTANs. I'm just waiting on what it is."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 02:05, October 21, 2011 (UTC)

132 Eusociality is Overrated
'''1300 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Yanm'ee Hive in subway tunnels under Shinjuku station, Tokyo, Japan

A group of seven Yanme'e, both soldiers, workers and wingless male reproductive castes walked towards a Yanme'e hive set up in the tunnels under Shinjuku subway station, Japan. These were no ordinary Yanme'e, thowever, they were Unmutuals, Yanme'e incapable of socialization. These particulalar unmutuals were as mentally unstable as some unmutuals, though they still rejected the eusocial structure of the Yanme'e hive, considering themselves the next stage in Yanm'ee evolution.

As such, they were relentlessly hunted by the Covenant, who place most unmutuals into penal colonies where they were worked to death. These unmutuals, has evaded capture, and now were in the employ of the Sangheili. Their mission, destroy the Yanme'e hive and eliminate the Queen.

The soldier Yanme'e guarding the hive were initially fooled by the pheromones the Yanme'e unmutual had sprayed over themselves, but not for long. One of the guards notice the plasma rifle hidden on the body of an unmutual male reproductive. Yanme'e reproductives did not normally carry weapons, or leave the hive for that matter, existing only to mate with the queen.

The Yanm'ee male drew the plasma rifle and shot the plasma rifle and fired a burst of plasma bolts, killing one of the soldier Yanme'e. The second Yanme'e soldier was shot by a female unmutual, who carried a needler, shooting seven rounds into the Yanme'e and blow to pieces.

A swarm of seven more Yanm'ee flew out of the hive, firing their weapons, taking down one of the soldier unmutuals. The Yanm'ee unmutual leader, a wingless male armed with a captured Brute shot fired two grenades, blowing four Yanme'e guards to pieces of integument and hemolymph.

An unmutual soldier fired a human-made SMG, cutting down two more Loyalist Yanm'ee, while an unmutual worker armed with a plasma rifle killed the last one.

"Forward, take this hive. We will triumph over the inferior eusocials. We are the next step in Yanme'e evolution!", The lead Yanme'e unmutual said through a voice synthesizer- Yanme'e communicated with their wing beats, so wingless reproductives were effectively mute.

The unmutuals burst in the first room of the hive. An unmutual armed with a human shotgun blasted two Loyalist Yanm'ee soldiers guarding the room as the rest fired on the workers, some of whom tried to pick up the weapons of the fallen soldiers, while others tried to flee. Almost all of them were mowed down.

The unmutuals then proceed to smash the eggs in the cells along the wall of the chamber. The Yanme'e turned as they heard buzzing coming from the next room. More Loyalist Yanme'e soldiers, about ten, commanded by a Yanme'e Ultra. The Yanme'e Unmutuals opened fire, immediately cutting down three of the Loyalists with their superior weaponry- all of them were armed with at least a Needler, plasma rifle, or human SMG, and some carried carbines, plasma repeaters, and even Brute shots, while the Loyalists carried mostly plasma pistols and needlers.

The unmutual leader fired off the last four shots from his Brute shot mag, killing three more Loyalist Yanme'e. The Ultra returned fire with a plasma rifle, but the rounds bounced off the unmutual leader's energy shield- a shield stolen from a Loyalist Yanme'e commander.

The Ultra was surprised that a wingless male unumutal had a shield, but was more shocked when he took flight- he had a jetpack he stole from an Jiralhanae Ranger. The unmutual leader swung the blade of the Brute shot and cut off one of his wings. The Loyalist Yanm'ee fell to the ground as the remaining three Loyalist Yanm'ee were shot down. The unmutual leader landed on top of the Yanme'e Ultra said through the synthesizer, "By the way, I can talk too!", before he thrust the blade into Loyalist Drone Ultra's chest.

The Unmutuals burst into the next chamber, opening fire and cutting down more workers and soldiers and destroying the eggs. The Unmutuals set up plasma charges in various weakpoints in the structure of the Yanme'e hive, before they placed a smaller explosive charge on the rear wall of the chamber.

"Blow this wall", the Unmutual leader said, "And we should be into the royal chamber."

An Unmutual armed with the detonator for the small plasma charges detonated the explosives and blew a hole in the wall. The Unmutuals threw plasma grenades into the newly created hole, killing several wingless males and soldier Yanm'ee. The Unmutual drones then burst in and opened fire, cutting down Loyalist Drones and soldiers left and right.

The six wingless males carrying the Queen on a litter were cut down by plasma bolts, as the Unmutual leader threw a plasma grenade at the Queen. A Yanme'e soldier took the grenade for the queen and was blown to pieces.

A Yanme'e loyalist "leader" soldier opened fire on the Unmutuals with a Brute plasma rifle, blowing off the wing, but not killing one of them. The Unmutual leader retaliated, firing off four Brute Shot grenades, the first three depleting the Drone's shields, and the fourth blowing apart the Yanme'e soldier.

The Unmutual leader then shot the Yanme'e queen twice with his Brute Shot, blowing away her upper body, killing her instantly

"All right, the queen is down", the Unmutual leader said, "Lets get out of her!".

The Unmutual Yanme'e fled the the hive, back the way they came, killing any Loyalist Yanme'e that got in the way. The winged unmutuals flew out the door of the hive, as the wingless males and the Yanme'e that lost a wing ran below them.

One of the Unmutuals got out the plasma charge detonator and activated it. Several explosions rocked the hive, blowing it apart and collapsing it into oblivion.

133: Stricken
1500 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Hida, Japan

Ion and Mirage had gone on the offensive. But the Brutes didn't play defense. In the middle of an all-out brawl between SPARTANs and Jiralhanae, two gilded Captains charged Kodiak. Without time to reload from his last kill, he counted on his white and blue armor to give him the speed he required. He flung the weapon away from himself, into the snarling, canined maw of one of the Brutes. In a flash, he drew his knife and deflected the swing of the other's spiker blades, then slashed through its throat with an artful spray of dark blood. Returning it to its sheath, he grabbed the rebounding assault rifle out of the air, and swung it to bash against the remaining opponent's head, throwing the ape to the ground.

Before it could rise, Kodiak used the butt of his rifle to cave in the creature's skull, then turned to face another foe. This one was turning a Brute Shot on him, having lost his previous target when Bryn ducked behind cover. Before the grenade launcher came to bear, Kodiak drew his M6D with his left and punched three rounds into its torso and head, and left the corpse to fall to the ground as he dealt with a fourth.

This one came close, actually getting an attempted strike in with the blade on its mauler before Kodiak's MA5B flipped up, was grabbed by the barrel, and the already-bloodied back end connected with the Brute's jaw, mixing its blood with that of its packbrother.

The loud rush of air parting made him duck, just as a hammer swung where his chest would have been. Before he even straightened, never mind the Captain trying to backswing, twin sniper rifles cracked and trails of vapor dug into its chest from Dyne and Morgan a few paces away. The weapons were meant for long range, but in the hands of SPARTANs were just as effective. They were twin judges of who would die first, eliminating the pack at their leisure while the other four guarded them in return. A squad of reinforcements charging toward them was caught from the flank by Sepia, who engulfed them in an inferno and kept the jet of flame on them until the blackened bodies ceased moving.

At her back, Andor used his rifle as a staff to fend off blows and strike hard against them. Kodiak came to his aid as four Brutes tried to surround him, and together they drove the apes back, into Branwyn's killing zone. Her shotgun split open one's back, and letting go of the trigger, she racked it again with her left, then tossed it up and fired left-handed as she drew the knife strapped to her left wrist, bringing the blade into another's back. As the last one spun to face her, Kodiak grabbed the back of its head with his bare hands, and pulled it the other way sharply. There was a sickening crack, and the Brute fell dead.

Except for the crackling coming from what remained of Sepia's kills, it was suddenly quiet, with only the alert SPARTANs left in the former Covenant high ground. Taking a moment to ensure the Brutes were all dead, and no reinforcements would be showing up, Kodiak sparked his radio. "Ion Team to Amazake. Hostiles have been taken care of, you're clear to proceed."

A moment later, the Grizzly commander responded, "Thanks, Sierra, it'd have been a bitch to waste our ammo to shell them out of some nice real estate. We're rolling out."

Kodiak terminated the link, and looked to Bryn. She had wiped the blood coating her knife on the Jiralhanae's fur, and now returned it to the sheath on her wrist. Catching his gaze, she nodded to him as if satisfied with how the six of them had performed together. Kodiak was about to say something when the com pinged again. Erin Coney's voice was on the other end, at the moment hushed and speaking urgently with someone.

"Erin?" though he could still hear her, she didn't answer him. "Special Warfare Command, you're not coming in clearly. Can you try another frequency?"

"Quiet, Kodiak, I'll speak to you in a minute . . . there's been no mistake, no room for error? You know this for certain?"

While he resented being called and then told to shush, he kept quiet until Erin's voice became clear again and listened to what she had to say.

"Ion and Mirage Teams, I have some bad news . . . are you all alone?"

Glancing at the dead Brutes, Kodiak answered, "Yes, we are."

"I was just speaking with Commander Richard Lash of the UNSC Prowler Dusk. His ship just jumped in-system from Zeta Doradus. Onyx." There was a long pause on the other line. It seemed Erin was having trouble with what she was saying. "A Covenant fleet found it and began landing troops. Admiral Patterson's fleet was destroyed in its defense."

Around Kodiak, the other five SPARTANs froze up in rigid silence. Horrified. He, too, was holding his breath. But Erin hadn't finished.

"It seems Onyx was a Forerunner world. The Dusk had brief contact with Endless Summer, the new AI. There were people still alive on the surface, fighting defense drones coming from below the surface. The drones also took out the Covenant fleet. I'm still looking at the reports. Onyx disintegrated. The whole planet was made up of defense drones of Forerunner design. It's gone, SPARTANs. Onyx is gone. I'm so sorry."

If Erin was expecting an answer, it wasn't coming. They were all too stunned to say or do anything for the moment. Most, in fact almost all of the SPARTAN-IIIs had been orphans, not just their families but very homeworlds gone because of the Covenant. It had been no easy life on Onyx, but it had been their second chance for a home. And now it was gone, too. Ripped away just like the ones before.

Kodiak was the first to do more than stare blankly at the ground. The others' heads were bowed, fists clenched or hanging limply open. There weren't words to console them.

"It can't be . . ." Dyne managed eventually. "That . . ."

Branwyn tried to give them all something else to focus on. "Lieutenant, what about Saber, Gladius, and Katana? They would still be there, for the top honors."

Erin spoke softly, sympathetically. "There was no further contact from the surface. Most of the training staff was absent to prepare for Delta Company's arrival. But Dusk confirms all other ships destroyed, and it was the only one to make it out of the sector."

"Ambrose." Andor whispered. "Mendez."

So that was it, then. The only consolation was that most had been elsewhere, but that their home was gone again, and it had taken part of their family with it. All Kodiak wanted to do was sit in grief. But mourning, Kurt had once told him, had no virtue. "Come on, SPARTANs. There are more Covenant to kill. Other lives to save. Let's go."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 04:00, October 25, 2011 (UTC)

134: New Toys
'''1600 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar) Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan'''

Mikiya Ryougi's Falcon descended below the tops of the countless skyscrapers of the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo. From above, the ward reminded him of diagrams of a tropical rainforest he's seen in school as a child. Mikiya descended below the "emergent layer" of the tallest skyscrapers reaching up to 3000 meters, into the roughly 1500 meter "canopy, before descending into the "understory" of 20th and 21st-century buildings maxing out at about 500 meters, before hovering above the "floor" of the skyscraper forest.

A column of UNSC armor through the street below him, led by an M-855 Kodiak Heavy Assault Tank, an new UNSC vehicle armed with an anti walker missile and a 155mm main gun, as well as two machine guns, an gauss cannon, and an AA missile pod. The Kodiak had already made its combat debut in North America, and now, a couple had made their way to Tokyo. Unfortunately, the Kodiak was so large, being built on an Elephant chassis, that it couldn't even fit into some of this streets- it took up most of this major road, but it could be useful for spearheading assaults on the main roads.

The UNSC column advanced past the Tokyo Metropolitan "New Tower", a 3000-meter tower built in the 25th century that was part of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government complex, along with the roughly 200 meter 20th-century "Old Tower". Mikiya had flown an attack mission on a Covenant command post in the "New Tower" a couple weeks earlier. Now, The defensive positions on the rooftops and the streets had been overrun, in no small part by the Kodiak acting as a spearhead, and APCs had pulled off of the column to unload infantry to clear the tower, as a Pelican landed troops on the roof.

Mikiya flew over the Kodiak, his gunner, Aoi Miyazaki, firing a Scorpion anti tank missile at Locust standing between the twin "Old Towers", before firing a second ATGW at a Wraith in the courtyard between the taller of the two "Old Towers" and a low city hall structure that was currently in ruins.

The Kodiak Heavy Assault tank rolled between the city hall and another structure, firing it 155mm main gun at Locust, blowing the top clean off the vehicle, as a Grizzly behind the larger assault tank knocked out a Wraith. The Kodiak then knocked out a couple Brute Choppers with its Gauss cannon, before turning its gun on a skybridge between the two "Old Towers", from which a Brute fired a fuel rod cannon to no effect.

The 155mm high explosive shell blew away the middle of the skybridge, sending debris falling down into the streets below as a Grizzly tank fired its twin 120mm at Shade turret and sniper positions in the tower. The 120s of the other Grizzlys and 90mms of the Scorpion tanks pounded the defensive positions in tower, as the Kodiak fired off another 155mm, blowing away a fuel-rod shade- and much of the rest of the twentieth floor of the tower.

Mikiya flew his aircraft into position as Aoi fired off a barrage of ANVIL missiles into the forty-fifth floor the main "Old Tower", blowing away several Shade turrets. As Mikiya and Aoi attacked the upper floor defenses, Two Scarabs climbed up over the embankment separating the Metropolitan Government complex from Shinjuku park beyond. The Kodiak Heavy Assault tank fired its anti-walker missile launcher on the side of the turret. The missile slammed into the first Scarab and detonated its plasma stores, sending the alien war machine up in a huge fireball.

The second Scarab got off a shot with its main gun, destroying two Scorpion tanks. Mikiya turned the Falcon to fire on the second enemy walker, but that proved unnecessary, an anti-walker variant of the Grizzly fired an anti-walker missile took out the second Scarab.

The tanks rolled forward, The Kodiak driving between the two towers, the Kodiak driving right over debris, abandoned cars, destroyed Covenant vehicles, and even the leg of one of the destroyed Scarabs.

The tanks rolled up the embankment on the back of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, firing on the Covenant forces defending a staging area in Shinjuku park below. Wraiths and Locust returned fire, taking out a few Scorpions. Mikiya brought the Falcon to a hover as Aoi unleashed a swarm of missiles, destroying several Wraiths. Still others fell to the rest of Mikiya's squadronmates and the guns of the UNSC armor. After most of the Covenant armor were burning wrecks, the UNSC armor rolled in, the Kodiak leading way into the cratered field that was once Shinjuku Park. Here, in one of the few open areas in town, the Kodiak was truly in its element. The turret and bow machine guns blazed, cutting down Covenant infantry left and right, as the main gun and Gauss cannon blasted any surviving armor and particularly stubborn defenses, backed up by the Grizzlies and Scorpions. Brutes fell to machine gun and cannon fire, as Unggoy fled in terror, only to be mowed down by machine gun fire. The Kodiak even ran over an automated plasma turret, crushing it flat. Within minutes, the Covenant staging area was crushed.

135: Recollection
1800 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Hida, Japan

"Clear." Bryn shouted.

"Clear." Dyne concurred.

"Clear." Kodiak agreed.

Sepia glanced at him, then pointed at the last living Jackal, crawling slowly from a pool of its own blood. "What about that one?"

"Oh." he said casually. Two rounds from his assault rifle finished the job. "There. Now it's clear."

The Kig-Yar sniper nest was eliminated. Ion and Mirage didn't even need all six of them to breach and clear the nest in seconds. They'd spoken strictly of their at-hand tasks, or not at all. No one was feeling very cheery after today's news. After relaying news of their success back to Command, silence returned as they stood around, waiting for their next orders. Eventually, Branwyn moved and sat with her back against a wall. The rest of their squad looked out to the streets below, caught up in their own thoughts.

Kodiak was about to ask what was taking their new orders so long, he wanted something more to fight, when Bryn asked, "So how did you get relegated to the Army?"

The question surprised him. Not that it was unusual, but he hadn't thought she'd want to talk about anything for now. "Coney found out it was someone codenamed COALMINER."

"Wasn't he the one looking around when they first brought us together? Ambrose was with him? I heard his name mentioned once." She looked up at him, genuinely interested.

Kodiak thought about it. "Might have been. He was around once a year, but I don't know why he'd want to separate us from the rest of Gamma Company."

"He was there the day you and Dyne messed with the zero-gravity combat chambers on the orbital station." Sepia remembered, realizing that was why COALMINER had this grudge.

Dyne broke into an unexpected fit of laughter. "TTR paint was everywhere. It took us weeks to clean it out."

"And by the end of it Stacker thought we were getting better training as janitors than SPARTANs." Kodiak said, grinning with a hint of embarrassment. "Remember Operation: JAILBREAK?"

Morgan groaned. "No one can forget it, that's the problem."

They tried to avoid mentioning that this was all on Onyx, along with the other stories that followed. Coney seemed to have forgotten about them for the moment, perhaps thinking they could use a rest. It didn't matter much to the SPARTANs, reliving the world they'd had just weeks ago as Sol began to sink into the western horizon.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 02:59, October 29, 2011 (UTC)

136: Leading from the Front
1800 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Fujioka, Japan.

Colonel Daisuke Umezu rode inside an M-855 Kodiak Heavy Assault Tank, looking at the his surroundings in the town of Fujioka, Japan, a town in the valley between Mt Fuji and Mt Hakone.

The UNSC was on the offensive now, having taken back the city of Gotenba, Umezu had left his second-in-command, Lt. Colonel Kasuga, in charge of the mountaintop firebase on Mt. Fuji while lead the UNSC armor on their assault on the Covenant positions on Mt. Hakone.

The Kodiak plowed through several ruined houses, leading a number of Grizzlies, both heavy tank and anti-walker variants, and numerous Scorpion tanks through the last of Fujioka, or what was left of it, Kasuga and his artillerymen had done a good job with the prelimiary bombardment.

Umezu led an armored push up the side of the mountain, not along any road, but rather through a bit of forest and a golf course, while a major led the assault up the main road leading up the mountainside. The Kodiak entered a forest road to narrow for the vehicle first, clearing a path through trees and rocks, widening the road as it rolled up the relatively gentle slope of the mountain, followed by the rest of the UNSC tanks.

The tanks rolled into the edge of the golf course, spreading out, creating great track marks in the manicured lawns of the golf course, which were already scarred by craters from munitions both UNSC and Covenant. It was it this point that Umezu and his tanks met their first resistance.

A group Covenant Wraith opened up UNSC vehicles, one of their plasma shots destroying a Scorpion. Two survivors of the Scorpion crew ran up the Kodiak, taking cover behind it.

"Corporal", Umezu ordered the driver, "Stop so those men can get into the troop bay".

The Kodiak came to a halt as the two survivors of the tank crew entered the side door in the absolutely gargantuan war machine, into a small troop bay intended mainly for emergency personnel transport and rescue.

The gunner of the Kodiak, meanwhile, returned fire with the tank's massive 155mm main gun. The shell blew right through the Wraith's armor, sending it up in a ball of flames, as a shot from a Grizzly gutted a Locust Walker. A Scorpion knocked out another Wraith, as another Grizzly disposed of another.

The co-axial Gauss cannon on the Kodiak took out the last to Wraiths, as the 155 fired a second shot, destroying a Locust. The UNSC armor moved forward, machine guns cutting down any Brutes that tried to attack with plasma launchers. The tanks rolled up to the clubhouse, where several fuel rod shots flew at the Kodiak. The Covenant anti-tank weapons merely scratched the paint of the UNSC's answer to the Scarab.

The Kodiak returned fire, blowing away half the building with its 155, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. The clubhouse was reduced to wreckage by two shot from a Grizzly's 120mm guns, and four shell from the Scorpions' 90s.

The UNSC tanks rolled over the parking lot, crushing cars, before the Kodiak drove over the clubhouse itself, before going back onto the golf course, crushing a couple of abandoned golf carts, and a very-much manned Revenant light gun vehicle that tried to attack the treads of the super heavy tank.

Up ahead, was as the end of the golf course and the junction with the main road over Nagao pass, into the center of the mountainous ring that was Hakone caldera. He could already see the main UNSC armored force engaging a couple Wraith and Covenant infantry in a few buildings that looked like a few upscale condo developments.

Suddenly, A pair of Scarabs climbed over the crest of the mountain, firing their plasma stream cannons, knocking out four Scorpions. The Kodiak turned its turret on the alien walkers and fired an MGM-1 anti walker missile. The missile flew into the air and came down on the alien war machine, sending it up in ball of blue and orange fire as an anti-walker Grizzly fired a second anti-walker missile, disposing of the second Scarab.

The Kodiak and the other vehicles in Umezu's force met up with the other vehicles. Umezu ordered the column to halt at the crest of the mountain pass, with a commanding view of the Hakone caldera, including Lake Ashi, the central peak of Kami-yama, and the rising steam from the volcanic valley containing multiple hots springs and sulfur vents known as Owakudani, the Great Boiling Valley.

"Kasuga", Umezu said to his second-in-command on Mount Fuji, we have reached the top of Nagao Pass, prepare to engage targets. Transmitting coordinates now."

Umezu personally got out a laser designator and climbed out of the tank hatch, breathing in the cold mountain air as he took aim at a Covenant defensive position on the west side of Lake Ashi.

Several rockets from a Tarantula MLRS flew inannihilating Wraiths and Locusts, and leveling buildings both human and pre-fabricated Covenant structures. Umezu took aim at the next target, a Covenant plasma artillery battery on Kami-yama, and it too was pounded out of existence by multiple 178mm rockets.

Umezu called in fire on three more targets, before he ordered an end to the barrage and ordered his men to advance down into the caldera to finish off the Covenant forces occupying Hakone.

137: Parting Ways
1900 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Hida, Japan

"Bravo 029, coming in for pick-up." Angel announced over the SPARTANs' radios as her dropship settled over the pavement. Mirage was headed out, bound for what was left of Europe with the rest of their battlegroup. The moment it touched down, Andor began securing weapons and some supplies they'd managed to 'liberate' from an abandoned UNSC cache. Morgan climbed into the back of the troop bay, shoulders slumped.

Kodiak turned back to Bryn, standing before him. The two clashed their rifles together as a customary goodbye. "Take care of yourselves out there."

Bryn refrained from voicing the sentiment that they didn't want anyone else lost. "We'll be fine. The Covies want Japan more than they do France or Britain. Kill some extra for us, we won't have enough to make the scores fair."

"Not my problem, is it?" Kodiak laughed. Going their separate ways, Bryn was going to help Andor loading the last of their equipment when Dyne caught her. He was shifting uncomfortably, glancing over at the Pelican.

"Hey, um . . . with all that's happened. Don't . . ." he trailed off into mumbling, unsure what to say.

"Careful, Dyne, don't strain yourself." She laughed. "No need to try making it eloquent, just tell me what you want to say."

He relaxed, smiling. Branwyn always knew how to put others at ease, a social skill lacking among most SPARTANs. It made her a leader without needing to excel in combat, though she did that as well. "It's just . . . we all lost our home, a second time. There's nothing left for most of us except each other. I know that's enough to get by, but, when you get to France," he looked over at the Pelican again, and this time Bryn knew he was really looking at Morgan, "She's from there . . . I don't know, just try to find something there for her, okay?"

She nodded. "I understand, Dyne. Good luck out there."

"You too."

Dyne was left standing as Mirage got onboard, and Bravo 029 lifted off, throwing up a cloud of dirt and debris behind it. Watching until the dropship disappeared over the distant rooftops, Ion then gathered its weapons and set off.

"So, what's the next thing we get to kill?" Dyne asked, falling back into his laid-back self.

"We're joining an Army Ranger unit for something." Kodiak glanced at Sepia. "Along with a few Hellbringers."

That sparked her interest. "Really? Ooh, I get to light something on fire."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 03:20, November 2, 2011 (UTC)

138: Mission Briefing
'''1800 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ UNSC Forward Base, Hotel Furukawa, Hida, Japan '''

A UNSC Army Major spoke to the assembled crowd of UNSC Army Rangers and a few Spec-Ops Sangheili in a makeshift briefing room in the executive suite of the Hotel Furukawa, the same building that Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki had helped liberate days earlier. Now, they were being briefed along with a group of special forces.

"Intelligence has confirmed that Covenant Loyalist forces have pulled out of the town of Shirakawa", the major said, "They have moved most of the forces previously stationed in the town to Toyama, leaving a small unit of infantry near the Hatogaya Dam north of town. We believe that the Covenant are planning to blow up the dam as soon as our forces reach the crossroads of higways 360, 156, and the Tokai-Hokuriku Expressway in Shirakawa, and flood the valley."

"We will be inserting at 2100 hours tomorrow using an Separatist active camouflaged Phantom,the night before our main forces arrive in the valley", the major continued, "And now, on to the two militia who are in the room with us at the moment." Keiichi and Rena stood at attention.

"I have brought you here because you have a detailed knowledge of the area around Shirakawa, being former residents of the village. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to act as guides for our forces.", the major said.

"We would be honored sir", Keiichi said.

"Sir, I'm not letting my hometown get flooded on my watch!", Rena said.

139: Running Dark
2400 Hours, November 5th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Approaching Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, Japan

"Shouldn't it technically be quad-zero hours, November 6th?" Dyne asked through the TEAMCOM.

"Don't argue semantics." Sepia said from a few feet away. The SPARTANs were in the back of another Pelican dropship, November 108. Modified for stealth purposes, it hugged the ground speeding for the first drop point. In its troop bay, Kodiak and Dyne had mounted the pair of Mongoose ATVs it carried waiting for the door to open. Lining the walls were Sepia and five heavily-armored Hellbringers, each outfitted with an and fuel tank. Sepia's was mounted across her shoulders, which made moving in the cramped bay difficult, but when her team was deployed, its devastating power would pay off.

Erin Coney's voice seemed to materialize from thin air, like she was able to come and go like some form of spirit. "G114, G217, for now you are designated Recon 1. You are to approach Covenant emplacements and mark them, but you are not to engage and above all, remain undetected. Please tell me you're capable of that?"

Kodiak reassured her. "Don't worry. If we're seen we'll eliminate before any alarm is given. We'll even make it look like an accident. Will we have any support, though, just in case?"

"November 108 will be on station and can evac you in emergency, but its role will be to deploy Sepia and Haze Team when the operation begins, cutting the Covenant off from infantry reinforcement or retreat. In other words, you will be supporting the next operation."

"Oh." Kodiak casually acknowledged. Then, he detected a change in November 108's speed.

"Coming in on drop point one." The ONI pilot announced. "Well outside the city. No immediate contacts."

"Let's go, Dyne." Kodiak said, starting the ATV's engine. The lights he left dark, reducing their chances of being spotted. November 108 slowed a bit quickly, making up for lowering too quickly. Kodiak imagined Angel Yasunaka would never have made the error. Then, the troop door opened and provided a short ramp for him. With the clamps released, he rolled out, absorbing the jolt as his axles went from Pelican to ground, then got clear so Dyne could do the same. The Pelican closed again, and lifted off to vanish from detection. The two SPARTANs revved their ATVs, and likewise disappeared into the forests outside Shirakawa.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 22:40, November 5, 2011 (UTC)

140: Village of the Dammed
0005 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar) Hatogaya Dam, south of Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, Japan

"All right, pile out!", Sulo Hahya, the UNSC Army Ranger sniper descended from the legendary WWII-era Finnish sniper known as "White Death", said as he readied a suppressed SRS99 sniper rifle and jumped out of the active-camouflaged Separatist Phantom, followed by a squad of UNSC Army Rangers, as well as two militia serving as local guides.

It was raining heavily outside, creating muddy puddles in the narrow dirt road winding down the mountainside as the Separatist Phantom flew off to deliver a group of Spec Ops Elites to another location. The rain pounded on Rena Sonozaki's helmet as she adjusted the sight on her suppressed MA37, changing it from an ammo counter to holographic red dot sight. Keiichi Ryukishi stood beside her, suppressed M389 DMR in hand. The two militia had been outfitted with night vision helmet visors, UNSC Army Ranger armor- similar to ODST armor but in a camo color scheme, and other specialist equipment for the mission

"Hatogaya Dam should be this way", Keiichi said, pointing to the west along the road, "There should be a point where you can look out over the lake and dam."

Keiichi and Rena followed behind the UNSC Army Rangers for about 800 meters, before reaching a turn in the path that was clear of trees. Sulo Hahya rested his sniper rifle's bipod on a wooden fence surrounding the turn in the road, blocking off a steep drop-off.

Through the ten-times scope, Hahya could easily see the Covenant positions. The catwalks on top of the dam had a group of Covenant infantry, Jiralhanae, Kig-Yar, and Unggoy. A pair of Shadows and Prowlers, unnoccupied, look parked, on the road. Most of the Covies appear to be laying a couple of large plasma charges on the catwalks on the rear of the dam. The only Covies guarding the dirt road were four Unngoy.

"Looks like a group of Covies setting charges on the dam, a pair of APCs and couple light vehicles on the main road, unnoccupied, and four Grunties guarding the rear approach. We'll follow the dirt road down and take out the Grunts, and sneak in the back."

After about an hour's walking, they made it down the mountainside to the east side of the lake. The rain was still coming down in a torrent, with periodic flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder. With all the noise, the Unngoy did not notice as unit of UNSC special forces approaching their position.

Sulo Hahya picked off a grunt with his silenced sniper rifle, as the other sniper in the squad, Pavlichenko picked off the second with her hard sound rifle. The third Unngoy raised his Needler and turned in the direction the shots came from, only to be picked off by Keiichi's DMR as Hahya killed off the fourth Grunt.

"Nice shooting Ryukishi", Hahya said, "But try and avoid firing unless we're found out, We don't want our cover blown unnecessarily".

"Yes sir", Keiichi replied, realizing the sniper was right: one wrong move and Shirakawa could become a lake.

The UNSC Rangers moved to a concrete wall, followed by Keiichi and Rena, taking cover behind the wall as Sulo Hahya slowly moved around it. A Kig-Yar walked down a concrete staircase, right into Hahya, who slammed the alien's face into a wall and thrust his knife into the back of its neck.

Unfortunately, he didn't notice a second Kig-Yar behind the first. It shouted a skawking alarm call, which prompted Rena to look around the corner and put three 7.62mm rounds into its chest, staining the wall with purple blood. The game, however, was up. The Covenant had noticed them.

Hahya and Pavlichenko got into position to the right of the door, picking off a Jiralhanae each near the Covenant bomb, Hahya killing the Ultra in charge of the operation with a perfect headshot. The snipers then proceeded to eliminated two more Unngoy and a Kig-Yar, before the rest of them fled lower catwalk on the rear of the dam, and climbing up the top.

The rest of the UNSC Rangers, as well as Ryukishi and Sonozaki fired their weapons, Keiichi and Rena both sure they took down at least one Unggoy. The Rangers climbed the staircase first, with Keiichi and Rena following them.

The UNSC Army Rangers were definitely some the best of the best, the managed to take out all of the Covenant troops on top of the dam in seconds, with the exception of a couple Grunts and a Kig-Yar that were merely wounded. The a wounded Unggoy reached forward to grab the detonator for the plasma charges, which had fallen next to a dead Brute. Keiichi drew his suppressed M6C and shot the Unngoy in the head execution style before it could active the charges.

Rena, meanwhile, thrust her combat knife into the neck of a wounded Kig-Yar that tried to point its plasma pistol at Keiichi, who put an Unggoy that had been shot nearly in half out of its misery with a pistol shot to the head.

Hahya picked of a Brute and a couple Grunts near the parked vehicles on the road with his sniper rifle, before yelling "Clear!".

"Westbrook!", Hahya ordered an American Ranger with bomb-disarming gear on his belt, "Defuse these charges".

Westbrook got to work, carefully cutting a few wires leading from a control panel to the bombs. The lit holo panels on the plasma charges went dark. The bombs were disarmed.

"Command, this is Hunter lead", Hahya said into his radio, "We have eliminated the Covenant forces at Hatogaya Dam and disarmed the bombs".

"Roger Hunter Lead, an Albatross loaded with armor and infantry is en route, ETA 10 Mikes, Command out".

141: Attilus
0015 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, Japan

"Incoming Albatross, this is Recon 1. Stay low on approach, we've sighted Brutes moving on the dam."

"I guess they know we cancelled their fireworks display." Dyne said, seated on his ATV.

Kodiak looked down on Shirakawa, and the mass of dark, muscular shapes moving through the shadows of A-frame houses. "Yeah, but we planned for that. Sepia's going to teach them something about caution."

"Let's hope she saves some bravo kilos for us."

Abandoning his position standing on the hill over Shirakawa, Kodiak leaped on his vehicle and the two sped off to catch up with them all at the ambush site.

For five armored marines, and a SPARTAN, there wasn't much noise coming from them. Three of them were on each side of the road, hidden in the trees with NA4s and napalm tanks fixed on their backs. But their leader, next to Sepia, had his helmet off and was smoking a cigar, its orange glow the only thing that could give them away.

"Pre-battle habit, Corporal?" She asked, calling him on it.

"Yeah." He said in a gravelly voice. "Puts me in a calm mood before the killing starts."

She disapproved, but wouldn't try to stop him. It took a special kind of cynicism to be a Hellbringer, her mentor had told her. To run into close-quarters combat with a tank of explosive fuel on your back needed willingness to die, painfully. To survive as one, listening to the agonized final screams of your enemies, took something of your soul. Most were addicts of some illegal substance or another, while the better ones stuck to common things like smoking. Even against regulations, the military would overlook it for these troops.

The Corporal's head lifted, just after Sepia heard the Brutes approach herself. He dropped the cigar and crushed it underfoot regretfully, then replaced his red and gold helmet. A wave of massive bodies shook the ground as the foremost Brutes ran on all fours. There were many of them, but few shielded. As she and the others readied to spring the ambush, Sepia promised she'd make them pay for that.

Kodiak and Dyne were halfway there when the first beacons of orange flame lit up the trap. They sped onward, eager to reach the fighting until Kodiak noticed something wrong. The fires no longer seemed controlled torrents, as the weapons were made to work. The flames were spreading, unchecked, and were beginning to consume the stand of trees around where the fight was taking place. It made the two of them move faster.

The sight that awaited them wasn't victory, or even open battle. The ground was littered with the charred bodies of Jiralhanae, and among them, three mangled Hellbringers. Brutes stood around, encircling a small ridge and looking to a massive one of their number.

With terrible recognition, Kodiak realized it was the Chieftain they'd seen days ago fighting the Sangheili. A beard of graying brown hair, ornamented by brass rings led up to a strong, fanged maw. His eyes reflected the orange firelight as he stepped forward, dragging another Hellbringer by the neck. Though he had a hammer strapped across his back, a great sword was hanging from his other hand.

The Hellbringer was forced to kneel, with his hands bound. The pack began to chant, working into a frenzy until the Chieftain raised the blade and brought it down on the man's skull, shattering the visor and splitting the helmet. Withdrawing the bloodied sword, the warlord called out over his pack in deep, growling English, "Demon! I know these words reach you! Your gilded armor can neither hide you, nor save you for very long. My pack shall bring you before me, Chieftain Attilus, instrument of the gods and slayer of your brethren, and then you will be nothing but the bones from a celebrated feast."

Though far enough away to remain hidden from them, Kodiak still whispered over the radio. "They're talking about Sepia."

"Slayer of our brethren. That's the blasted ape that killed Brutto and the others." Dyne added for him, his jaw locked.

Kodiak took a good, long look at this foe. "They'll hunt her, which means they haven't found her yet. Leave the Mongooses, they're too loud. We'll come back for them later if we need to escape. We have to find Sepia first."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 20:42, November 13, 2011 (UTC)

142: Arashi
0015 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Miura Peninsula, Japan

Mikiya Ryougi flew his AV-144 Falcon Gunship in formation with the rest of Hayabusa Squadron and numerous other UNSC and Separtatist aircraft, over the Uraga Channel towards the Miura Peninisula. Several cruise missiles flew by, fired from a UNSC "wet navy" heavy guided missile cruiser, the UNSC Hwatcha, a ship named for an ancient Korean weapon that was the precursor to the multiple launch rocket system. Apparently the UNSC Hwatcha was captained by Choi Park, a Korean, appropriately enough, who had survived the loss of his ship while defending Kashima and escaped back to UNSC lines.

The missiles slammed into several Covenant AA batteries ashore, disabling the Covenant air defenses, allowing a sqaudron of UNSC Air Force Shortsword Bombers to carpet bomb Covenant defenses ashore, followed by low level Skyhawk attack fighters from the "wet navy" aircraft carrier UNSC Samar Sea, which knocked out any surviving fortifications, tanks, and Scarab walkers with bombs and AGMs or blew Banshees out of the sky with air-to-air missiles.

A squadron of Vulture gunships sent in swarms of air-to-ground missiles on the city of Miura itself, destroying Wraiths, Locusts and Scarabs in the city streets. Below Mikiya's Falcon, hundreds of UNSC landing hovercraft floated through the water as Pelicans and Separatist Phantoms flew above them.

Several Covenant Loyalist Banshees flew in toward's Hayabusa squadron, having evaded the Skyhawks, Longswords, and Separtatist Seraph fighters patrolling the skies above the invasion force. Mikiya heard the lock tone and immediately fired an Argent Missile, blasting a Banshee out of the sky. A swarm of missiles from the rest of Hayabusa sqaudron, as well as a nearby Hornet squadron picked off the Loyalist aircraft before they could get in range of the squadron. Mikiya and the rest of Hayabusa flew in low towards the rocky shore of Jougashima, an island off the city of Miura.

Lt. Satou's Hornet fired its nose-mounted SPARTAN laser, burning clean through a Locust positioned near the shore as Mikiya's gunner, Aoi Miyazaki, fired off a Scorpion missile, destroying a Wraith, before firing a second missile, disposing of a Locust.

A few more missiles and a hail of cannon fire later, and the AV-144s had knocked the last of the Covenant defenses that survived the bombing and cruise missile attacks. The first of landing hovercraft arrived on the shores of Jougashima.

The shores were rocky, but, nonetheless, the UNSC forces managed to land and unload, infantry and armor exchanging fire with the few Covenant survivors. Scorpion tanks and Cougar APCs rolled gaps in the rocky shore cliffs, reaching the park on clifftops. A Wraith hovered over the crated landscape that was once Jougashima park. The Wraith knocked out a Cobra MGS, before being blasted out of existence by a Scorpion's 90mm main gun.

The surviving Covenant forces fled the park, only to be cut down by machine gun fire. The park was quickly secured, and Pelicans and Separatist Phantoms landed, delivering more troops and vehicles- Human and Sangheili armor blasted away at the Covenant Loyalist holdouts in the residential areas on the island, blasting Kig-Yar snipers out of condo towers and plowing through houses.

Mikiya led the rest of Hayabusa squadron onwards, the landing point on the mainland Miura Peninsula, east of the center of the town of Miura. Once, this had been an area of farmland, but now, it was an upper-class housing development, featuring a number of large, yet identical Western-style houses, "McMansions", as the Americans called them, located around a (most likely artificially expanded) private beach below the sea cliffs.

Mikiya flew his Falcon over the coast as Aoi fired one missile after another at a battery of Wraiths slightly inland, poised to fire on the coast. The Wraiths explodes in balls of flame as the rest of Hayabusa squadron pounded Covenant-occupied structures as the UNSC forces made landfall on what was once some rich guy's private beach. Among the armor was an M-855 Kodiak Heavy Assault tank.

The UNSC armor rolled off the private beach, Kodiak in the lead, plowing right through structures. The Kodiak fired is 155mm main gun at a Locust, blowing the top turret into the air as the surrounding Grizzly and Scorpion tanks destroyed a few Wraiths and Revenants and blasted away a Covenant troops inside the structures, before rolling towards the center of the city of Miura, showing complete disregard for the streets, instead simply plowing through structures, the Kodiak smashing through a four-story low-rise apartment complex.

The UNSC armor reached the city center in less than 20 minutes, crushing all foes they encountered. Suddenly, Mikiya's radio crackled to life. "Scarab!", a UNSC soldier on the end of the radio yelled. The Scarab fired its main gun, missing the UNSC armor, but hitting 14-story high-rise apartment structure, melting the supports knocking it on its side, blocking the street.

Undaunted, the Kodiak Heavy Assault Tank rolled forward, smashing through all it debris in a cloud of dust. A streak of fire shot from the anti-walker missile tube on the side of the Kodiak, impacting the Scarab and sending the entire rear of the walker up in a ball of fire.

The rest of the UNSC armor could not negotiate the debris, so they maneuvered to rejoin the Kodiak via the backroads. Mikiya flew ahead and hovered over the Kodiak as Aoi used her cannon and ANVIL missiles to hold off the Covenant forces attacking the heavy tank. The Kodiak hardly needed their help, its machine guns chewing up any Covenant infantry foolish enough to attempt to board it, as the main gun and Gauss Cannon reduced incoming vehicles to scrap.

Within a twenty minutes, the rest of the UNSC armor had rejoined the Kodiak, going on to easily capture a parking that was designated as an LZ for a Pelican squadron. Within three hours of the capture of the LZ, Miura was mostly in UNSC hands. The next stop: The captured UNSC naval base of Yokosuka.

143: Smokescreen
0029 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, Japan

The Brutes had picked up a new scent. They didn't know that if they managed to find the pair of humans, they'd be sticking their noses into the business ends of Dyne and Kodiak's rifles. For now, though, they were concealed by the thick smoke that burned off of the pines, and on the run. Ducking into a particularly thick and dark grove, they paused, facing opposite directions to scan for enemies wandering out of the smog surrounding them. Their helmet and suit lights were dimmed to further avoid being spotted. His rifle lifted to his shoulder, Dyne asked, "Any sign?"

"No." he answered, troubled. "I lost her on TEAMBIO, and she's not responding to coms. Something went wrong."

"Obviously."

"Best we can do is keep searching by sectors, and stay one step ahead of the Brutes."

"I like that plan."

Wordlessly, they broke cover again and sprinted through the forest, away from the Jiralhanae and front of what was becoming a wildfire.

Sepia hadn't gotten far. The Brute Chieftain had gotten close enough to hit her with the massive sword he carried, leaving a long scar of shiny metal across her armor's gold back. It had damaged some of her MJOLNIR suit's equipment, but what was slowing her down was the wounded Hellbringer she carried over a shoulder. They'd created a decent gap between them and the foremost Brutes, which were sweeping the forest in a line, searching for her. Stopping for a break, Sepia propped the Hellbringer up against a tree and set down her NA4 Flamethrower. Finding the release cord on her armor, she let the oxide tank fall to the ground. Relieved of the weight, she took stock of the marine's wound.

It wasn't pretty. The Chieftain had been at the rear of his pack, and so was able to command the ones he didn't immediately lose. Most had been ordered to make a direct charge, suicidal for them, but allowing others to flank the UNSC troopers. The leader himself had made a bid to kill Sepia. Instead, she'd turned and let her armor take the hit, narrowly missing the explosive fuel tank. With the others overwhelmed, she'd pulled this Corporal out, but not before the Chieftain's sword had cut open his side.

He was groaning in pain, trying to hold his own body together, when Sepia knelt beside him and applied the small supply of biofoam she had. The Corporal stopped whimpering, and was able to breathe easier. By the time Sepia finished sealing with a makeshift bandage, he'd found the strength to speak, still in the derisive, gravelly voice. "Shouldn't that be saved for a higher-tier asset, like you?"

"I'm not wounded." She replied, standing and distancing herself from him.

He settled back, and searched for his cigars. He had one left, but before he lit it, his body was racked by a fit of coughing. When his throat was back under control, he chucked the thing away and looked around spitefully. "Big Spartan heroes, not much for self-preservation, are you?"

She didn't answer. She was looking back toward where the Brutes were searching for any human they could find. At the moment, her real concern was not for herself, or for the Hellbringer sitting close by. It was for her team. "You two better not be in that mess," She thought, searching for any hint of combat, something that would mean the Brutes had found something. If they did, the whole pack was likely to converge on whoever it was.

"Hey, Sierra, I'm talking to you." the marine growled. "We gonna get out of here or what?"

"Or what." Sepia muttered.

"Huh?"

The amber Spartan turned and broke off a low-hanging branch. "Here. You can use this as a crutch, get to the dam and evac with the strike team. I'm going back in there."

"I don't need a damn crutch, it's not my-" the last part of her statement registered, "What? You're going back? What the hell for!"

"Because I know Kodiak, and he's bold enough to go in to look for me. And I know Dyne, and he's just crazy enough to follow him."

With that, she drew the black-finished M6 at her side and held it there, muzzle down but ready to snap up if something uglier than the grizzled Hellbringer should stray into her field of vision, then started jogging back down the ridge to find the two she knew would be putting themselves needlessly in danger right now.

Left alone in the dark, the Helljumper stared uncomprehending at her back for a moment, then at the trail up the ridge. Cussing, he drew his own pistol and followed the SPARTAN, determined to even with her for getting him out in the first place.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 04:03, November 19, 2011 (UTC)

144: Homecoming
0112 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar), Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, Japan 

Keiichi Ryukishi sat on the jumpseat platform of an M808B Scorpion Main Battle Tank, one of five Scorpions and five Cougars advancing into the town of Shirakawa. On the mountains to the east of town, a wildfire burned, apparently started by a group of SPARTANs and Hellbringers that were currently hunting a Brute Chieftain in the woods. The wind, however, was moving the flames east of town, so the town should be safe from the fires.

The Scorpion rolled north, out of a tunnel at the end of the Highway 156, towards a lookout point for the town of Shirakawa. Ahead, a Wraith, two Prowlers, a couple of the old model Shade Turrets, and various Covenant Loyalist infantry guarded a toll booth road block.

The lead Scorpion fired its main armament- upgraded to 105mm- at the Wraith, lighting up the night with a flash of both blue and orange flames. The second Scorpion, upon which Keiichi and Rena rode, fired its main gun, destroying one of the Shade turrets as the other opened fire, firing off spreads of three glowing blue bolts of plasma. One of the plasma bolts hit the gunner of the Scorpion's bow machine gun.

Keiichi and Rena jumped off the seats and took cover behind the tracks of the Scorpion until the lead Scorpion got off a second shot, destroying the other turret. Keiichi got up and aimed his M389 DMR over the top of the tank tread, locking the 25mm smart grenade launcher under the barrel on one of the Prowlers and squeezing the trigger.

Keiichi's 25mm grenade round took out he first Jiralhanae light vehicle as Sulo Hahya, the UNSC Army Ranger sniper, relieved the second of its gunner, and then proceeded to knock it out with an 14.5mm SRS99 round to the engine.

Keiichi fired a shot at an Unggoy, picking it off, before taking down a Kig-Yar armed with a Carbine, as Rena climbed aboard the Scorpion's now unmanned bow machine gun and squeezed the trigger on the mounted M247. Rena cut down a Jiralhanae and a couple Unggoy. Along with fire from the co-axial machine gun and the guns of the other Scorpions and Cougars, the Covenant at the checkpoint were wiped out.

Meanwhile, a flight of Hornet attack VTOLs flew overhead, one of them firing a missile at a Wraith in the middle of Shirakawa, destroying the vehicle as a second fired a missile at a footbridge over the Shokawa River, destroying the bridge and killing several Kig-Yar and Jiralhanae that were trying to cross.

The tanks rolled on to a group of thatched traditional houses, at which point Keiichi and Rena volunteered to go with a group of UNSC Army infantry assigned to clear the houses.

A UNSC army sergeant, armed with an MGJ selective fire pistol-carbine entered first, firing off a burst of 12.7mm rounds into the chest of a Jiralhanae, depleting its shield and perforating the alien's chest.

Keiichi backed up the sergeant with his M95 Full Auto Shotgun, killing a couple of Unngoy as Rena took down one more Unggoy with her MA37, and another soldier killed a the last Grunt in the room.

As the sergeant yelled "CLEAR", Keiichi realized the room was familiar. There were dried blood stains on the wall... Kig-Yar blood stains.

"Rena", Keiichi said, "This room... is where we killed those two Kig-Yar on the first night"

"Cut the chatter, you three", the Sergeant said, "Stack up by the stairs".

The next three floors of the structure were easily cleared, with Rena killing a Brute and three Grunts, and Keiichi disposing of another Brute, two Grunties, and a Jackal. The next few houses next to road were cleared, though at he cost of two UNSC infantry. The Covenant, however, lost a dozen Unggoy, ten Jackals, and seven more Brutes.

Further from the road, the houses were deserted, so the UNSC infantry went on to an area where three methane domes once stood. Now, there were only two, thanks to Keiichi and Rena blowing up one of them on the third day of battle. - Last Respects

1200 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar), Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, Japan 

Rena Sonozaki and Keiichi Ryukishi stood in the section a newly dug cemetary, near a group of the marked graves, showing the positions in the mass grave of those civilians they could identify. Among them were all of Keiichi and Rena's families.

Rena lay a crudely arranged bouquet of wildflowers, the best she could come up with, next to the markers showing the positions of her parents and sister. She did not personally see what the bodies looked like after several weeks of decay.

As Rena got up, she burst uncontrollably into tears, clinging to Keiichi, who allowed her the cry onto her shoulders as he placed his hand on her back, comfortingly.

After about a minute, Rena looked up at Keiichi, who also had tears in his eyes.

"Keiichi-kun", Rena said, but was overcome by tears yet again.

Keiichi, however, understood what she wanted to say, "Rena, our fallen loved ones wouldn't want us to be weakened by their loss, they'd want us to keep fighting. You already killed that Elite, and many others, but this does not end with vengeance. It does not end with retaking Shirakawa, or even retaking Japan. They would want us to see this through to the end, to drive the Covenant off Earth, back to where they came, they would want us to see it through until the ones responsible get what they deserve! They want us to keep on living!"

Rena's face was still stained with tears, but there was a furious, all-consuming fire in her eyes, the fire that had burned away the life of Xydr' Yacharee, the Elite responsible for the butchery at Shirakawa.

"Their destruction is my will", Rena said, "and this is my instrument". As Rena spoke, she drew her pistol.

Rena put her weapon back in her holster before anyone saw, and returned to the UNSC forward base with Keiichi

145: Rejected
0050 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/   Near Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, Japan

Kodiak's hand closed around the Brute's muzzle, then pulled back. The alien's neck snapped, and it fell to the ground without further resistance.

Other kills they'd made hadn't been so quiet, and the two SPARTANs had to continue running. Behind them, more of the Brutes' trackers bound to pairs of Stalker dogs were following their scent, getting better at identifying them all the time. And they'd caught sight of Attilus himself twice.

Unable to find Sepia, they'd switched tactics to drawing the pack off, away from Shirakawa and hopefully, their sister. By now, the darkened village was far behind them, and the ONI Pelican was coming in to pick them up.

"Gonna have to make this quick, SPARTANs. I don't want to be sitting open to attack longer than a few seconds." November 108's pilot told them. The black Pelican seemed to detach from the shadows of the night sky, smoothly coasting in to the ridge Ion Team stood on. Kodiak looked into the face of the crew chief, stationed at the rear-mounted gun to cover them. The man half-waved and half-saluted, beckoning them aboard when a sickly green light came into existence.

A fuel rod slammed into the starboard wing, and for a half moment, Kodiak could see the crew chief's panicked expression, before the Pelican fell sideways and took the man out of view. November 108 scraped against the cliffside before it hit the ground, fuel igniting and causing flames to spout from the wreck, and rested at the bottom. No explosion, no fireball, but dead just the same.

Dyne had already turned around, and beginning to surround them from a distance were the massive, ape-like creatures. The dogs just barely held in check hissed at them like snakes, but even they cowered as a larger figure strode forth, bearing the great sword. Attilus' maw was curled in a feral grin, revealing his fangs as he savored the moment. The young SPARTANs shifted into battle mode, waiting to react to the Chieftain's first move.

"You should throw yourselves on my sword now, demons. It will be more merciful than what I wish to do."

In his helmet, Kodiak was distracted by Dyne's status light. Looking to him, Dyne made a few small movement with his hand and head. Kodiak nodded, and replied to the Jiralhanae, "While your offer is most generous, we would like to point out that is your opinion, based upon your views, and so only merciful in your reality. From our point of view, it's a stupid thing to say, coming from a stupid being. Our answer in short, is that we reject your reality, and substitute our own."

With that, both SPARTANs dropped a hand from their raised rifles, withdrew a frag grenade a piece, and used their middle fingers to at once pull the pins and insult the Chieftain. Dropping the grenades, Dyne and Kodiak leaped backwards, over the edge of the cliff. Attilus had at first sprang towards them, but was forced the scramble back as the explosives went off with a tremendous light and noise, which engulfed some of the more eager Stalkers.

The SPARTANs plummeted, using the slight slope on the cliff to slow them down at the bottom near the crashed Pelican. It still sent shocks up their legs.

"Next time we do that, remind me to double-check the drop height first." Dyne groaned.

"Roger that." Kodiak said, and they started putting distance between them and their pursuers again. The fall was nothing for the quickest of Brutes, this being low gravity to them. But Attilus was not among them, and very few of the pack were still in pursuit. Kodiak smiled to himself, hoping that had hurt his pride as much as his body.

That was when he nearly ran straight into the burly form of another Brute which had headed him off. Dyne similarly had to stop short, and a brawl began. Jumping back out of the range of this first Brute, Kodiak swung his assault rifle and caught the one running after him upside the head. Leaving the weapon on the ground, he drew a knife and ducked under the blades of a Spiker, then cut the offender's ribs and throat with quick slashes. Dyne had moved just as quickly, darting in and out of range with submachine guns injecting lead like a beesting's venom.

Pulling his blade out of another skull, he saw another one charging him and knew he wouldn't have time. A rumble he thought was in his mind suddenly shook his ears, and a wheeled metal object launched into his vision and trapped the Brute beneath it, crushing him to the ground. Sitting on the ATV was Sepia, looking at him as smugly as she could under her armor. "You should know better than to leave this lying around."

The Hellbringer pulled up behind her as Dyne dealt with the last of the Brutes. He grumbled something about letting him keep up, but he was hardly paid any attention. Mounting up, they took their leave of the area, waiting for another day to deal with Attilus.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 20:15, November 20, 2011 (UTC)

146: Anti-Everything
'''0300 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar) Sarushima, off Yokosuka, Japan'''

Lt. James Basilone landed the rigid inflatable boat on the rocky north shore of Sarushima, an island off the coast of Yokosuka. The island's name, literally meaning "Monkey Island", was inaccurate, as their were no monkey's inhabiting the island. However, there had been a recent influx of ape-like aliens, who happened to have placed a bunch of AA batteries and plasma mortars on top of the remains of some old concrete pads that, ironically enough, had once held gun emplacements during the Second World War. The Covenant were dug in on both the 20th-century fortifications, and some older fortifications the 19th century. It was Basilone's job to "evict" them.

Basilone led the squad up a staircase leading up from the shore, M7S silenced SMG in hand. Basilone crept up behind a patrolling Unggoy and thrust his combat knife into its neck, killing the alien instantly.

At the top of the staircase was an open grassy area with a couple of Shade turrets, four Unggoy, and a Brute. The squad's sniper, Kamarov, fired a single shot from a Hard Sound Rifle, firing a sonic blast at an inaudible frequency, having a similar effect to an explosive blast wave, killing the Brute from internal trauma.

Kamarov dropped the two Grunts on the Shade turrets with his HSR as Ryouko Tanbou, the squad's CQC expert fired her MA5K Carbine, picking off a couple of Grunties as Al Fulani got one with his Silenced MA5B and Basilone disposed of the last one.

Zhang placed a couple of remote detonated charges on the turrets, before Ryouko Tanbou took point, making their way up a trail through the woods on the side of the island. About part way up the steep trail to the top of the island, the squad ran into a single patrolling Kig-Yar and a group of four Grunts that had fallen asleep on the job.

Ryouko whispered into her helmet's comm system, within the helmet, it was unlikely that they'd be overheard: "Five hostiles, four sleeping Grunts"

"Smoke 'em", Basilone said, as Ryouko fired her MA5K, picking off the Jackal with a three-round burst, before thrusting the bayonet into the neck of a sleeping Unggoy. Zhang got out his knife and took out another grunt as Basilone shot one of the Unngoy execution-style with his silenced M6C SOCOM pistol as Tanbou bayoneted the final Grunt.

Once the ODSTs had made sure the Unngoy would never wake from their sleep, followed the trail up the a group of two 20th century gun emplacement that had been "recycled" by the Covenant for use with an AA battery and a plasma mortar.

"Multiple hostiles", Basilone said as they surrounded the gun emplacement, hidden in the dark woods surrounding the alien artillery, "We're gonna have to take 'em out at once if we want to maintain stealth.'

"Kamarov", Basilone said, "Take out the Brute Ultra and the Minor by the AA turret, Vericci, take the Jackal sniper on walkway on top of the plasma mortar. Tanbou, take the two Jackals by the AA gun, Renard, nail the Grunts in the near the west edge of the mortar's concrete pad. Zhang and Al Fulani, concentrate your fire on the Brute minor. I'll dispose of the two Jackals patrolling the edge of the pad."

"On three, two, one...", Basilone said, "Now, Smoke 'em".

The muffled sound of silencers filled the air as Basilone fire two short bursts at the surprised Jackals, killing the before they could call for help. Kamarov's Hard Sound Rifle left the two Brutes dead with no mark on their bodies, as Renard fired his MA5, killing the two Grunts, Renard first kills since he recovered from the Spiker wound he sustained in the battle in the Tokyo subway.

Tanbou picked off the to Jackals with her carbine as Vericci's BR55 put a round through the head of a Jackal patrolling the area around the top the plasma mortar. The Brute minor was deshielded and riddled with bullets as Zhang and Al Fulani concentrated their fire. Before any of the Covenant could return fire, they were all eliminated.

"Zhang", Basilone ordered, "Get some remote det charges on those guns".

"Roger", Zhang said, before, about a couple minutes, responding, "Charges planted, sir".

The ODSTs entered into a narrow, sunken brick lined path, looking like part of an old fort. This, Basilone assumed was part of the 19th century fort. Basilone was on point again, taking out a surprised Kig-Yar and a couple of Unngoy with his submachine gun as they entered a short, brick-lined tunnel.

The ODSTs continued along the tunnel, into another sunken path in the old fort, taking out more Unggoy and Kig-Yar, as well as Brute minor along the way to an open area on top of the island, where a round concrete tower stood, which the Covenant had topped with an AA battery.

Kamarov picked off the Kig-Yar and Brutes guarding the tower with his Hard Sound Rifle, before they entered the structure, eliminating several Unggoy and Kig-Yar, as well as a couple Brutes. On the final level of the structure, however, the ODSTs encountered a serious problem: An Unngoy managed to press an alarm button before the ODSTs could take him out.

"Were compromised!", Basilone said, "Zhang, you've been trained in the use of Covenant computer systems, can you operate that AA battery?"

"I think so, sir", Zhang replied.

"Excellent", Basilone said, "I want you to detonate the charges and then use that gun to take the remaining Covenant defenses on this island. Everyone else, go loud".

Zhang pressed the button on the remote detonator, setting off four explosions on the north side of the island, destroying the plasma mortar, the AA battery, and two Shade turrets.

Basilone attached the SMG to the magnetic attachment point on his belt and unslung the M247K light machine gun off his back. Basilone placed the bipod of the LMG on a window in the tower and fired out onto a group of Covenant troops entering from the other side of the clearing, killing several Unggoy and a Jiralhanae.

Zhang placed the crosshairs on the screen of the AA gun control panel over a plasma mortar on the other side of the island and pressed a button on the holo panel. The gun fired a powerful particle beam, sending the mortar up in a ball of blue flames. Seconds later, a second beam of accelerated ions slammed into the AA battery on the south side of the island, sending it up in a blaze of blue flames.

"They called it an anti-aircraft gun, but clearly, it was anti-everything!", thought Zhang as he annihilated a Covenant Loyalist summit with a few Banshees and a Phantom. Zhang fired a few more a few more shots, blowing up a group of Wraiths and Shade turrets, then, he destroyed the restaurant on the south side of the island, which took with it twelve-plus Covenant foot mobiles. Finally, Zhang blasted one of the many brick-lined tunnels in the sunken pathways that were once part of the fort, this one between their current position and a Covenant squad coming in from the south.

"Nice shooting Zhang", Basilone said, "That bought us some time, now place a charge on that gun and get out of here."

As soon as the charges were placed, Zhang, Basilone and rest of the ODST sprinted out of building, Zhang detonating the explosives, destroy the final gun as they ran towards the boat. As soon as they reached the boat, they ODSTs pushed off into the waves and gunned the motor. About 15 minutes later, they were picked up by a wet Navy destroyer.

147: On a Boat
'''0500 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar) Near HIJMS Mikasa Museum, Yokosuka, Japan'''

A mere two hours rest, and James Basilone and his ODST squad were back in the fight. This time, they had departed the Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine UNSC Seawolf in a diver delivery vehicle, a minisub designed for delivering special forces.

Their target, the defenses on Covenant-controlled UNSC naval base at Yokosuka. Their first target, the floating museum, the HIJMS Mikasa, a battleship dating back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

The DDV surfaced beside the Mikasa, the Kig-Yar using the 20th-century warship-turned museum as a sniping position not the wiser. Apparently, in the defense of Yokosuka, a squad of UNSC troops made a last stand on the ship, having been pushed off the land by advancing Covenant forces, before finally being forced off the vessel by a squad of Sangheili shock troops. The ship now showed scars from plasma mortar hits, including on just above the waterline.

The operator of the DDV, a "Wet Navy" underwater warfare expert, and a local, Sgt. Ayako Nanasaki, dove into the water like an Olympic diver and swam towards the Mikasa, reaching the hole below the water like just before Basilone. Nanasaki got out her tactical knife and M6C SOCOM pistol and climbed up into the hole in the ship's hull.

Nanasaki thrust her knife into the neck of a patrolling Kig-Yar, killing the alien, before tossing the body out into the water. She then shot a pair of Unngoy with the silenced pistol, before disposing of the bodies in a similar manner.

"Clear!", Ayako Nanasaki said, as Basilone and the others climbed into the vessel. The room surrounding them contained a number of fake shells and powder bags. If that plasma mortar shot had hit when the ship was active, it would have destroyed it, this was the magazine for the forward turret.

Sgt. Ryouko Tanbou took point, bayoneted MA5K suppressed carbine in hand, followed by Basilone, Zhang, Vericci, Al Fulani, Renaurd, with Kamarov and Nanasaki bringing up the rear. The squad made their way up a metal staircase running up around a large crane that was once used for hoisting shells to the ship's 12 inch guns.

On the next deck was a machine for traversing the turret, along with a door leading into a long corridor. Immediately, several spiker rounds flew down the corridor, narrowly missing Nanasaki.

"Take cover", Basilone said, "Against the bulkhead!".

Basilone leaned out from cover and fired a burst from his silenced BR55, which was currently set to full auto. The 9.5mm rounds impacted the a Jiralhanae Minor leading the squad, depleting its shield and sending three rounds through its chest.

Tanbou turned in next, and shot a Kig-Yar and a Grunt as Zhang disposed of a pair of Unggoy with his M7S SMG. The remaining Covenant troops, mostly Unggoy, turned tail and fled, only to be cut down by a hail of lead fired by the ODSTs and the lone "wet" Navy diver.

The middle deck proved clear of Covenant, while the upper deck contained little resistance.

Finally, as the sun began to rise, the UNSC special forces burst into the bridge of the vessel, which was home to several Kig Yar snipers and Unggoy and Jiralhanae manning plasma turrets. The alien occupiers of the ship's bridge were cut down by a hail of gunfire, bullets depleting shields and running through flesh, splatting the bulkheads of the museum ship with alien blood.

Suddenly, a pink particle beam flew between Kamarov and Nanasaki. Corporal Vladimir Kamorov raised his BR55 with 10x scope and fired a single shot, putting a round through the Kig Yar's head. The alien sniper fell from the platform on the ship's mast.

Shortly afterwards, plasma fire from the park next to which the Mikasa was moored, as well as the building beyond that once made up the UNSC naval base.

"Kamarov!", Basilone said, "Get up on the crow's nest and provide sniper fire. There appears to be a Gauss cannon, triple 102, and a LAAG on the deck, they appear to still be operational. I'll take the Gauss, Zhang, get on the missile launcher, Nanasaki, help him reload. Renaurd, take the LAAG. Everyone else, put fire on them from the bridge, use their own plasma turrets against them if you can."

Basilone, Zhang, Nanasaki, and Renaurd sprinted across the deck of the 500-year old battleship to the guns left by the UNSC soldiers who made their last stand in the ship a few weeks previously.

"Damn shame the main turrets don't work", Nanasaki said, "They may be ancient, but they still 12 inch cannons"

"I think this will do just fine for our purposes", Zhang replied as he squeezed the trigger, firing off a 102mm missile that blew apart a Wraith, before firing off two more missiles, blowing away another Wraith and a Locust, all of which had their guns pointed away from the Mikasa, expecting the UNSC invasion force to come in from the sea.

Meanwhile, Basilone fired the Gauss Cannon at a heavy plasma mortar, the round shooting through the gun to the core, causing the battery to explode in a flash of blue flames. The second Gauss shot disposed of the second heavy gun battery, and third knocked out an AA battery. All of the Covenant heavy artillery was destroyed before it could be turned on the ODSTs.

Basilone and his ODSTs weren't the only ones involved in the fight, in the distance, gunfire could be heard from UNSC forces moving in on Yokosuka from the south, from the beachhead at Miura, as well as the closer sound of gunfire and explosions from other special forces teams tasked with engaging other position. The commotion of battle around them, however, drowned out the sounds of the more distant engagements.

Kamorov fired a captured Covenant beam rifle at a group of Unggoy and Jiralhanae manning plasma turret nests. The first shot brought down a Brute Chieftain with a head shot, the second beam burning through the body of a Grunt operating a Shade turret, as the ODSTs in the bridge poured lead and plasma, two of them manning captured plasma turrets, a Renaurd fired off the M41 LAAG rotary machine gun at the Covenant infantry still remaining in the park. At the time of the ship's conversion into a museum, no one would have thought anyone would ever fire a weapon on board the Mikasa again, yet here they were, fighting against an enemy no one at the time of the ship's conversion into a museum could imagine.

As the sun truly began to rise, Basilone and Zhang picked off several incoming Locusts, as Kamarov took out a Brute Ultra who tried to take cover behind a stone block that once held a statue of the commander of the Mikasa during the Russo-Japanese War, if Basilone remembered correctly.

Suddenly, a Scarab crawled between two four story low-rise structures, part of the UNSC Naval Base, towards the park surrounding the Mikasa.

"Scarab!", Basilone yelled into his radio, "Focus fire on the legs"

Just as Basilone finished his message, a barrage of ANVIL IV missiles slammed into the top of the Scarab, blowing it to pieces, before, seconds later, three Vulture gunships flew over the Mikasa, along with a flight of Pelicans. Above them, Shortsword Bombers and Longsword and Skyhawk fighters flew into towards targets within the city itself. The liberation of Yokosuka had begun.

148: Accountable
0510 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

While rest and a shower to rid themselves of the acrid smell of smoke had been the first priority of Ion Team when they had arrived back at Command, Erin needed to debrief Kodiak and Sepia first on what they'd seen, especially the details on Attilus. That left Dyne to wander into the special weapons rooms to have the technicians service and repair his armor before he retired for the morning. Alone for the time being, he'd just finished removing the armor with the help of some specialized machines when an automatic door slid open. In walked a man wearing no insignias, but by his bearing Dyne was sure was an officer. A guard also suggested importance, who stood by the door as the man approached.

Dyne waited patiently for the machines to finish unbolting his torso armor, so he could pull off the arm sections himself. "Sir." he mumbled casually, more preoccupied with his armor.

"I would expect a life-trained supersoldier to know when to salute." the man said sharply, briefly showing a Captain's bars and an ONI patch. Looking at him for the first time, he saw how the man was sizing him up with disapproval, particularly on his hair. After about a month constantly under a helmet, it had grown a bit beyond regulation, enough for the golden-brown curls to return and reach his eyebrows. One of them raised, but he faced the officer respectfully.

"And who would I be addressing?"

"Captain Drulliard, Intel. I've seen your team's files, you must be Gamma Two-Seventeen. Where are your team leader and incendiary expert?"

The impersonal referencing he seemed to use rubbed Dyne the wrong way. "Command, sir, you can talk to them after they've been debriefed." Looking at his shed armor, he couldn't resist adding, "Like me."

The Captain's brow furrowed, but ignored the joke. "Do you know, Gamma Two-Seventeen, that I have been asked by top officers to review your recent actions in the war? It seems that you and Lieutenant Coney have inconsistent in your reports."

Somewhere between the number and bringing Erin into it, Dyne objected, "I have a name, sir. It's Dyne."

Again, he was ignored. "I understand your team leader had you abandon your position during the initial skirmishes. And that officially you weren't supposed to be in that sector. If this were outside special operations circles, this might have been left to a standard review. But as such top-tier operators, you risked yourselves, which represent significant investments, to go after an enemy leader rather than regroup for a planned attack. It's clear that such an investment may have been misplaced in you."

That sounded like an insult. He responded as he usually did, by goading his opponent. "Well, being not an officer or team leader, I would only be at liberty to say things must look different on the ground than from far behind us in a review board. Sir."

It drew a satisfyingly angry look. "I've long been opposed to the SPARTAN Programs, as have my superiors in the Office. To use up so many resources and place so much of humanity's chances on children is great folly. You've definitely given me proof of that, Gamma Two-Seventeen."

The argument was turned around. That number was irritating. Face turning red, he said in just under a shout, "My name is Dyne!"

"Hold your tongue near a superior officer, boy!" Drulliard snapped back, and drawing a black glove from his belt, struck his cheek.

It was little against a SPARTAN, but Dyne turned with the blow in shock of the man's arrogance. For a moment, all he could do was stare into space as his face flushed in anger. Then without thinking, his hand found his MJOLNIR gauntlet and grabbed it by the wrist, then made an exactly parallel blow.

He didn't intend or expect the consequences of a SPARTAN's strength on a normal human.

Minutes later, Dyne watched quietly as Drulliard was taken to Ryu Base's hospital on a gurney, his neck in a brace. Erin stood next to him and waited until they left. As the doors sealed shut, Dyne waited for her to begin. She walked forward, then paced in front of the young SPARTAN. It seemed to him she took her time, every step echoed off the metal floor. She'd been angry before, all too often. But this time he knew he really deserved it.

"What am I going to do with you, Dyne?" she asked, and he hoped it was rhetorical. He didn't have an answer. "I knew you lacked discipline, but this? What the hell possessed you to do something like that?"

Dyne didn't meet her eyes. "I know, I struck a superior officer."

"I don't give a damn about Drulliard, he's an asshole and always has been." she said. He looked up, confused, but found her just as angry as he'd expected. Only for a different reason. "You shouldn't have lost control of yourself. Even if you look like everyone else out of the armor, you're not a normal human being. You could have just as easily killed him. For that you could be executed, Dyne."

"I know." And then Erin heard two words that were nearly counted extinct in Dyne's vocabulary. "I'm sorry. I can't let my temper get the better of me, or there will be an accident like this. I won't let it happen again. Ever."

She regarded him quietly. "I think you're actually learning responsibility, Dyne."

"You can't prove it." He said, smile returning. He remembered an old line. "With great power . . ."

She leaned against the wall next to him, and noticed that out of armor he still didn't stand even with her. He was just twelve years old. "What did he do to get you to hit him back?"

Dyne mumbled, embarrassed, "He wouldn't call me Dyne. Just Gamma Two-Seventeen."

A measure of sympathy appeared in her eyes. But she couldn't offer comfort to that. Only moments ago she'd reminded him how he wasn't a normal person. And he was going to have to accept that, number and all.

"So what's the usual punishment for striking a superior?"

She breathed a sigh. "Could be court-martial to death. But I don't think they'll kill someone they invested so much money in." Dyne flinched without her notice. "I can't protect you from this. You'll face something, but I don't think it will be until the battle is won or lost. And if we lose, I don't think anyone will be around to charge you."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 05:37, November 28, 2011 (UTC)

149: Onwards and Upwards
1102 hours, November 6, 2552 Ainokura, Gokayama, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

A column of UNSC vehicles, four Scorpion main battle tanks, four Cougar APCs, seven Warthogs, and four militia technicals got off the main road and drove up a narrow side road along the side of a mountain. Their target, Covenant defensive positions hidden in the Village of Gokayama, threatening the highway on which the main force will move.

In the back of a militia technical armed with an old M202 machine gun stood Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki, Rena currently manning the gun and Keiichi standing at the ready to help her reload.

Suddenly, the whine of Covenant aircraft engines filled the air. Several black shapes appeared over a mountainside, Banshees. A glowing green fuel rod shot flew from the lead Banshee, striking the rear technical, blowing it to pieces.

Rena turned the M202 machine gun on the nearest Banshee as on of the Cougars, an M45SA AA variant fired an couple of Argent missiles from its two turret-side mounted launchers. The missiles shot toward the two lead Banshees, exploding in a flash of fire, raining flaming pieces of metal.

The 30mm autocannons of the Cougars and the machine guns of the other vehicles roared to life, sending a swarm of tracers into the Banshee squadron. Rena took aim directly at a Banshee coming in for a strafing run and fired, the M202 firing a hail of 12.7mm rounds at the Covenant light aircraft. The old gun wasn't as accurate as the newer M247, but it did the job. Several rounds perforated the Banshee's cockpit and wingtip anti-gravity pods, causing it to trail smoke, and after a few more hits, blue flames. The Banshee spiraled into a mountain and exploded.

A few more Banshees went down in flames, hit by the AA missiles of the AA Cougar, the 30mm cannon of the other Cougar, or the numerous machine guns, before the remaining Banshees were struck down by a swarm of Medusa air-to-air missiles, which, it was revealed, had come from a fight of a dozen Longsword fighters, which flew on towards their targets in the Covenant occupied city of Toyama, beyond the mountains.

"Hopefully they're going to take out the airfield those bastards came from.", Keiichi said.

Soon after the Banshees were dealt with, a new danger presented itself in a campground outside the historic village of Ainokura. A blast of plasma launcher fire flew from a public restroom in the campsite, impacting the lead Scorpion tank and sending it up. The next Scorpion in line responded, firing its 90mm main gun at the structure, blowing half of the building away. Several UNSC machine gunners, including Rena, fired on the Unggoy and Kig-Yar that fled the ruins of the building, cutting the aliens to pieces.

As the column made its way into the campsite, a Scorpion fired on a Wraith that tried to turn from its position to fire down on the highway, towards the incoming UNSC threat. It was took late, and became its own funeral pyre as the 90mm round lit up its plasma stores. The second Wraith met a similar fate. The Cougars and Warthogs, meanwhile, took out a few Shade turrets, as well as a couple of attacking Ghosts and Brute Choppers.

Suddenly, plasma fire flew over Keiichi and Rena's heads. A Brute Prowler and Ghost had decided to try and flank the column and attack the rear. Rena turned the turret towards the vehicle as Keiichi picked up his M389 DMR and set the the attached to M456 Grenade Launcher to "proximity mode". Keiichi fired on the Ghost, the grenade round exploding next to vehicle's power core, sending it up in a ball of flames. Keiichi fired a second shot, the grenade exploding next to the Prowler, killing one of the Brutes on the side and deshielding the gunner, but not destroying the vehicle.

Rena saw to the Prowler's destruction with the M202, putting several gaping holes in the Prowler's gunner, before firing a burst of rounds into the vehicles engine, one of them hitting the plasma core and annihilating the alien vehicle.

The UNSC troops rolled onwards, into the historic village of Ainokura, part of the larger village of Gokayama. The houses looked identical to the ones in Shirakawa. A Scorpion's main gun destroyed Covenant automated plasma turret in an old house that the Covenant had "vandalized" by knocking down the wall facing the main road below. Unfortunately, the UNSC tank finished what the Covies started, destroying the historic structure.

Another Scorpion destroyed a Wraith, a Gauss Hog took out the second. Rena turned the technical's gun in the direction of any plasma or spiker fire she could see, bullets shooting through the wooden walls of the structures, tearing apart the Covenant infantry inside.

Within ten minutes, the UNSC column had cleared the village of Gokayama. Several historic houses had been destroyed, and many more damaged, but thankfully, like in Shirakawa, a few survived the battle, against all odds. A few historic buildings fell, but the Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki had made yet another contribution to history, by ensuring its continuation.

150: Mud On The Bogies
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1128 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Nanto, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

A Cougar APC had at first looked like an excellent way for a soldier to travel. Thick armor, heavy autocannons, and a gauss turret to look out for the passengers, it might as well have been a private starliner. But the brochure had forgotten to mention any form of suspension, and evidently, so had the designers.

Every bit of rubble on the road seemed to shake the APC, jarring the ODST squad within thoroughly. Dansen didn’t have the option of sleeping during this break. Instead, he gritted his teeth to keep from accidentally biting off his tongue, and stared back at Eirikur Quinn. The SHVA trooper hadn’t stopped staring at him across the hold since they boarded the craft, and Dansen was getting sick of it.

“So how’d you join up?” Dansen asked, shouting over the rumble of the Cougar’s engine to break the tediously bumpy journey.

“Enlisted. But only because I would have been conscripted otherwise.” Still, Quinn didn’t break their staring contest.

Dansen nodded. “So, just sweating out your tour, huh?”

One of the SHVA’s eyebrows lifted. “I’ve seen some things.”

It was a purposely cryptic answer. Dansen decided he hated the man, and looked up towards the cabin, trying to ignore his gaze. Up front, Corporal Hunter was pointing to something, and speaking to the driver. The APC slowed rapidly, and feeling it through the vehicle, the squad began to check their equipment. Mitch turned to one who had just recently regained the ability to stand. Watching her a moment, he said, "Your lead, Sarge."

A reinstated Sergeant Amelia Zircon stood as the Cougar ground to a halt, and led them out of the opening back ramp. Sunlight reflected off the rice paddies around them, making the grasses green color really vibrant. Its idyllic nature was lost on the dark-suited troopers as a chilled wind blew around them, reminding them that winter was fast approaching. In the distance, dark grey shapes rolled up over the roads between paddies, UNSC tanks on the move. The Battle of Toyama was on the horizon.

"Squad, listen up." Amelia said loudly, as she always had when she led before. "Covies pulled out of Toyama a while ago. When their little plan to flood the valleys failed, they came back. Shortswords have been hitting them periodically, but its not doing much good. So we're going to take it the hard way. Intel flyovers confirm there's a whole mess of Covenant mechanized infantry ahead, but local FSB hasn't responded. A SPARTAN team is handling that. Until then, we're going to work with some of the grand old Armored Division to engage the enemy vehicles. This is going to be a heavy tank brawl, so stay out of their way. Take out any infantry that try to hit our tanks."

"Oorah." Mitch said with a nod. Kevlar, Dansen, and the others followed. Sealing their suits, they moved out in a staggered line, wading into the cold water in the rice paddies. Around them, dozens of Scorpion and Rhino tanks rolled up, their cannons held high. Marines ran alongside them, griping about the cold and wet, but ready for a fight. In the distance, they began making out the violet shapes of Covenant armor coming out to meet them. The battle lines were drawn, and the prelude to the Battle of Toyama began.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 23:13, December 2, 2011 (UTC)

151: Flanking Maneuver
1102 hours, November 7, 2552 Fukuno, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

A great booming roar filled the ears of Rena Sonozaki and Keiichi Ryukishi. They looked up just in time the see an ASGM-10 missile blow the tail off of a Seraph fighter. Another loud bang rang out a Scorpion fired its 90mm main gun and knocked out a Wraith, as a Grizzly anti-walker variant fired an anti-walker missile that disposed of a Scarab that walked over the ruins of a structure in the town of Fukuno. Fukuno was a town north of Nanto, that UNSC planned to take and encircle the Covenant defenders at Nanto

Keiichi and Rena meanwhile, stood in the back of a militia technical armed with a Gauss Cannon ripped off a destroyed Warthog. Rena was manning the gun, and Keiichi was loading. Unlike the tanks that easily rolled through the farmer's fields surrounding the town, the militia technicals were limited to established roads.

A plasma turret opened up from a hole in the wall of what looked like some sort of factory or warehouse, blowing apart a couple of militia vehicles. A Cougar APC doused it with 30mm autocannon fire, silencing the gun in a series of explosions, cutting apart the Unggoy crew with shrapnel.

Rena turned the Gauss cannon on the technical on a Wraith that came out of a roll-up door on the warehouse, firing a slug into the vehicle's core, sending it up in blue flames. A second and third shot from the Gauss cannon took out a Shade turret. Keiichi, meanwhile, got raised his grenade launcher equipped DMR and took aim at a Fuel Rod turret that turned to fire on an approaching Cobra.

Keiichi fired the M456 Underbarrel Grenade Launcher, killing the Jiralhanae Minor manning the gun and blowing the turret apart, one of the ring-shaped side pieces of the turret flying into the air

A Scorpion was knocked out by another Wraith holding out near the Warehouse, to be avenged by a Grizzly tank that hit the Wraith in the side with one of its twin 120mms, blowing the tank apart.

Shortly Afterwards, a swarm of rockets flew in at the warehouse, blasting away large chunks of the building, taking out several nearby Wraiths and killing off any Covenant troops holed up in the structure.

The artillery fire then struck the Fukuno MagLev station, and a low-level air strike from a squadron of Skyhawks destroyed a number of Wraiths and Locusts with air-to-ground missiles.

After the artillery and air strikes had stopped, half the town of Fukuno was in ruins. The UNSC forces advanced, the tanks driving over the rice fields and plowing through the ruins of structures. This was as far as the militia vehicles could go, the streets of Fukuno being blocked by wreckage that the converted civilian vehicles could not traverse.

So, instead, some of the militia dismounted to join UNSC Army infantry in clearing the town. Keiichi and Rena, however were not among them. Instead, they joined a force of militia and regular UNSC forces in attacking a Covenant position in the village of Inbayashi, southeast of the Fukuno, on a bridge on the road back south into Nanto.

Their new mission: Sieze this bridge, allowing the UNSC forces to advance on Nanto from the north, trapping the Covenant occupying Nanto between the northern force coming in from Fukuno and the southern force coming in from Gokayama.

154: Washouts
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1140 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  , Toyama Prefecture, Japan

The air thrummed under the UH-144 Falcon’s rotors. From its jumpseats, Kodiak, Dyne, and Sepia could look down at Fire Support Base Tango, devoid of any outside activity. Set in a remote valley with only a few other buildings nearby, it was a choice location for long-range surface-to-surface missiles like the SSM.

Before they’d come into visual range, their pilot had begun hailing the base with no success. Now that they circled over it, they could see why. Two burned-out Warthogs sent up thin trails of smoke, and the outlines of bodies were strewn across the inside of the complex. But to Kodiak’s keen and trained eye, it didn’t look right. The scattered corpses didn’t have the pattern of people taking cover and returning fire on whatever had attacked. They’d have to get closer in.

“Drop us outside the gate, pilot. It’s still open.”

“Copy that Ion. Moving in.”

The Falcon swung around in a tighter turn, bringing them down before the entrance to the one road leading to the base. Immediately the three of them departed, weapons held at the ready and scanning for any sign of danger. As the tilt-rotor touched off again, they moved inside the wall.

Kodiak took point and surveyed the courtyard. Quiet, except for a pair of crows that had settled in on a body. He resisted the urge to shoot it. “Dyne, on the ramparts.” He ordered. “Sepia, move down the west side. I’ve got east. Stay in sight.”

Both of them winked green acknowledgement lights and moved. Dyne climbed a ladder to the platforms on top of the walls and buildings, while Sepia crossed the courtyard quickly with her unlit flamethrower, stopping once she was in the shadow of a platform to keep the sun from glinting off her armor.

As they advanced, Kodiak let his other senses serve as his warning system, and examined a dead marine. His name had been Sato, and it was a pair of long, iron Spiker rounds in his back that had ended his life. He lay with the barbs sticking out of his back, his rifle in the dirt by his side. It was still safetied.

To Kodiak, it meant Sato hadn’t been aware of the Brute before it killed him. It wasn’t easy to hide an eight-foot alien monkey. He moved on.

Near one of the Warthog hulks, he came upon two more bodies. Kodiak glanced at Sepia and Dyne to make sure they were safe for a moment while he studied the marines. They both had burns across their backs, probably from when the Warthog went up. Like Sato, one man’s rifle was safetied. But the other was not.

Perhaps whoever had been sneaking around had been spotted, and detonated a bomb to sew confusion before the inevitable firefight. That would also explain the marines impaled against the base wall. It wasn’t like a Brute to think like this. It had Kodiak on edge. An Elite might think like that, but not a Jiralhanae. They preferred a straight fight, which suited him just fine. Easier for him to duck, weave, and stab them.

The sound of a live Spiker firing snapped him and his weapon up. He scanned around, as did Sepia with her pilot light ignited, but no targets emerged, and no fire flew at them. Then Dyne pointed, identifying the source’s location. Inside the base.

Ion Team advanced with a certain target this time, converging on what might be unaware of the three SPARTANs behind them. He, Sepia, and then Dyne filed into the open doorway. Halting at a bend, Kodiak drew his mirror-bladed knife and used it to see around a corner.

Sure enough, Brutes. Clad in black armor, and wearing helmets that emitted beams of red light. They were firing on a thick bulkhead door, already dented by pounding it with their fists. And they didn’t notice the shift of most dangerous entities in the building.

Kodiak thought a moment, then made a hand motion to Dyne. He came forward, quieter than the heavy, chuckling breaths made by the Brutes who’d cornered some prey, and handed Kodiak a grenade. Together, they pulled the pins and tossed them around the corner.

Not clanging against the deck plates, the first Brute didn’t notice until one of the hard objects bounced off his head. He had only enough time to realize he’d been hit with something when the two orbs exploded, engulfing him and two of his comrades in a flash of light and heat. As their bodies fell, the two remaining Brute Stalkers turned, growling in surprise and fear of the explosions. Then Sepia rolled from behind the corner, with her M7057 leveled.

The screams grew even worse.

Within moments, it was over, and the SPARTANs stepped over these new corpses without as much care as they’d had for the bodies of fellow humans. Kodiak rapped his armored knuckles on the door in an archaic and distinctly human pattern. Tap, tap-tap tap tap, tap tap.

In a moment, the door groaned, and then shifted aside, revealing another MJOLNIR-armored figure before them. A normal human, in the heavily decorated uniform of an Army officer, rushed from behind him and seized his arm. “You’re war heroes, all of ya, when we get back to Ryu I’m gonna pin a chest’a medals to ya!”

“Uh. . . okay.” Kodiak looked up at the SPARTAN, and saw another one behind him. “Is he alright?”

Despite the voice being filtered, it was familiar. “General Kurita here has just had a hard time coping with our close scrape with death at the hands of active-camo cloaked Jiralhanae. He’ll be fine.”

“Aspen.” Dyne said, recognizing the older supersoldier. Aspen-B145 was a member of Beta Company that had washed out. Specializing as a medic, he had taken part in training the Gammas, and had been one of the less harsh instructors, perhaps because he had empathy for them. He’d been at his trade today, red blood stained his gauntlets.

Dyne asked curiously, “Did anyone else. . .?”

“No. Redboard.” said the other. The pleasant surprise Kodiak had felt at seeing Aspen faded as the answer identified his companion. This was the one they called ‘Taser’, formerly of Alpha Company. Bitter, if he could be called a man, Taser was a former tech specialist who boasted that he thought and talked like a computer. His punk digitalk and rude attitude had always rubbed Kodiak the wrong way. He kept his eyes on Aspen.

“What happened?”

“Brutes must have been in the compound a while.” He answered, recognizing Kodiak now outranked him a level. “When they hit, they did it fast. By the time we knew what was happening, there was already one inside the command center. Killed or wounded all the other officers before we put it down. After that, we had to get a better defensive position, and with everyone else dead, we sealed ourselves in a corridor section.”

Kodiak’s radio sparked, and Erin joined the conversation remotely. Sometimes he forgot she could see everything his team did. “Aspen, Taser. I suppose that would explain the mentions of Project: HIPPOCRATES when I tried to track down what ONI had done with you.”

Quickly, Kodiak took a second look at Aspen’s armor. There were MJOLNIR components, certainly, most prominent of which was the modified EVA helmet, the silver visor marked with a red cross. But the white and red armor was very different across his body. What appeared to be surgical implements were held in place of combat blades on his chest. A large computer pad was strapped to his left wrist, and Kodiak could only guess what the hardened pack held within it.

He wasn’t sure, but he believed Aspen had become the most perfect version of a SPARTAN combat medic the UNSC could create. In his hands, that equipment was as good as a one-man field hospital. And only a techie of Taser’s caliber could have been responsible.

Erin continued. “I’m sending in a replacement staff for Firebase Tango. Aspen and Taser, you two are officially reassigned to Ion Team for the time being. I’d suggest you grab whatever you need, I’m sending you to Nanto as soon as the Armored Division breaks into it.”

That set Taser’s alarms off. “Glitch, here. A-firm, slave circuits to untested software?”

As he continued the argument with Erin, Kodiak got the feeling he was being referred to as untested. But with Erin reminding him that he was no more experienced, Kodiak left them to it. Instead, he joined Sepia, looking over one of the bodies they’d been responsible for. She was scraping away some of the ash left on a Stalker’s helmet.

Kodiak’s jaw set as he saw what she was getting at. A rough sigil was carved into the helmet, the individual claw marks still shining of cut metal. It was the same glyph they’d seen on the headdress of the War Chieftain, Attilus.

“I think he’s been recently promoted.” Sepia said in a dark tone.

“Only gives us more reason to bring him down.” Kodiak replied. But it did worry him. Attilus was being recognized for killing SPARTANs. It could mean if he had more power, he’d use it to track down more. Including the ones that had so narrowly escaped him last time. He didn’t want to let one of his brothers or sisters die.

He wondered if this raid was his idea, or a Prophet behind him. He hoped it was the latter. The idea of a cunning Brute wasn’t encouraging. “You heard her, pack up and let’s join the battle. We need to make up for lost time.”

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:17, December 7, 2011 (UTC)

153:Commanding Position
0645 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar) UNSC Naval Base, Yokosuka, Japan

James Basilone took cover behind a car in the parking lot of the building that contained the base commander's office, or at least it did until the Covenant took control of the place. Now, the building play host to Covenant forces holding out in the structure.

"Plasma turret, fourth floor, right side", Basilone said, "Zhang, take it out, Everyone else, cover him!".

Sgt. Cheng Zhang readied his M41 SSM rocket launcher, currently loaded with thermobaric rockets. As the rest of the squad layed down covering fire, Zhang got up and fired, the rocket flying through the window and exploding, blowing away several offices on the fourth floor, stripping a portion of the building to its steel skeleton, no doubt killing the alien troops manning the turret.

A UNSC Warthog rolled up the parking lot, and readied its 65mm MLRS, fired off four rockets into an office containing another plasma turret. The gunner of the vehicle, however, was picked off by a particle beam fired from a Covenant sniper. Seconds later, another beam killed the driver.

"Kamarov", Basilone ordered, "Find that sniper and kill the son of a bitch".

"Roger!", Kamarov replied, getting up from his position behind another destroyed car and tracing the direction the particle beam came from. It led back to a third floor window that, sure enough, contained two Kig-Yar snipers.

Kamarov fired the first shot, the 14.5mm round blowing the Jackal's head off, before taking out the second Kig-Yar with a second round.

"Snipers neutralized, sir", Kamarov responed.

"All right, Zhang!", Basilone yelled, "Get a rocket into the entrance, clear the place out".

Zhang fired his second rocket into the entrance, the warhead detonating in the foyer, blowing away the first floor wall and absolutely gutting the entrance to the building.

"On me!", Basilone said, "We're taking that building!"

The ODSTS ran from cover to cover towards the entrance. As they stacked up by the edge of the gaping hole in the wall that was once the entrance, more Covenant, Jiralhanae and Unngoy, entered the devastated entrance foyer.

Zhang fired the M301 Underbarrel Grenade Launcher on his MA37, killing four Unggoy and a Brute and deshielding the two other Jiralhanae.

Basilone leaned in and fired his M247K light machine gun and fired a short burst, picking off one Brutes, before taking out two of the Grunts with a longer burst. Meanwhile, Renaurd killed the other shielded Brute with his MA37 as Tanbou shot the last two Unggoy with her shotgun.

"CLEAR!", Basilone said, as he led the squad out of the ruins of the structure, moving from room to room.

Basilone kicked the down the door, nothing a bunch of half destroyed office furniture. Tanbou busted down the next door, to find a lone Unngoy.

"Ohayo", she said, "Good Morning" in Japanese, as she blasted the alien in the face with her shotgun.

The ODSTs made their way down the rest of the hall, room by room, before slowly moving up the stairwall.

A group of four Unggoy came down in the opposite direction, and the lead Grunt, a Major, said something in Unggoyan and raised his Needler, only for the who squad to be cut down from Basilone's LMG, Tanbou's shotgun and half the squads' MA37.

The first few second floor offices were deserted, but on the sixth office on the hall, the ODSTs met a small squad of four Unngoy and Brute. The surprised Covenant were easily dealt with, the Brute's energy shield only giving it a couple seconds of borrowed time. As the Brute tried to slash at Tanbou with its Spiker Bayonet, Tanbou filled its chest with buckshot, killing the alien.

On the third floor, the ODSTs were greeted by their toughest opponent yet, a pack of six Brutes that charged down the hall, firing Spiker and Plasma shots as they went. Tanbou pushed Zhang out of the door to the hall, narrowly avoiding the hail of enemy fire. Zhang reloaded his M301 grenade launcher and fired, hitting a Brute Minor in the chest, killing him, and deshielding three other.

In the smoke and confusion amongst the Jiralhanae caused by the blast, Basilone and Al Fulani each managed to take out a Brute with their weapons.

The remaining Brute regained composure and kept charging at the ODSTs. Tanbou got out her shotgun and nailed the final deshielded Brute with her shotgun and deshielded a second with two more shots. That Brute was finished off by Verrici.

The final Brute was blasted by Tanbou, only feet from her when if fell face down on the floor.

On the fourth floor, Basilone kicked open the commander's office door, only for it to fall out, into a third floor. The room, and several around it, were blown away by Zhang's thermobaric rocket. But the rooms on the other side of the all were very much intact.

Five Brutes and a dozen Unngoy burst out of the offices, firing at the ODST squad, who barely managed to take cover in a few side rooms. It was amazing none of them were hit.

Basilone returned fired, firing off long bursts from his LMG, taking down several Unngoy and a Brute. The rest of the squad added their weight of fire, however, as the last three Brutes began to charge, most of the ODSTs, including Basilone, were reloading.

Basilone dropped his LMG and drew his M6 pistol with one hand and a machete with the other. Basilone raised his M6 and fired three shots into the first Brute, dropping the deshielded alien. The second Brute fell to a single headshot. The final Jiralhanae got within feet of Basilone.

Things seemed to move in slow motion as Basilone dodged the charging Brute at the last minute and slashed at it, leaving a deep gash across its back, causing it to drop to the floor, before Basilone literally thrust the machete through the back of its head, killing the alien.

Basilone pulled the machete out of the dead Brute and wiped the alien blood off the blade on the dead Jiralhanae's fur, before sheathing the machete and holstering his pistol. After a check of the rooms, the base headquarters was confirmed clear.

154: 90mm of Tungsten
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1137 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Nanto, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

Mitch emptied his battle rifle into the Brute ahead of him on the ridge. Drained of shielding, the ape caught the rounds in the neck, and tumbled down the embankment into the mud. To save ammunition, Mitch grabbed its fallen Spiker, and used it to ward away a handful of Grunts as the squad joined him. Even their combined gunfire was drowned out as a Rhino tank rolled through the shallow water and allowed it to run off as it climbed the hill not far from them. As it crested the road, it fired a long-range shell over the battlefield ahead to put a final end to a Wraith that had absorbed two glancing hits already. The tank's hulk exploded and scattered wreckage into the surrounding infantry, if not killing than at least wounding the most unfortunate.

Tossing the empty Spiker back blades-first to its dead owner, Mitch reloaded the battle rifle and sighted into the distance. The UNSC line had annihilated a wave of Ghosts and a few Revenant that had sped forward to engage them, taking mortar fire from Wraiths the whole time. Now, the Rhinos were in range, and returned with their own ordnance like hammers dropped from above. Zircon's squad had just done its best to keep from being run over, every once in a while coming across an enemy and taking them down.

He spotted one of the last retreating Ghosts take a hit from a vengeful Scorpion. The hoversled crumpled and broke into two parts, each one burning and rolling the direction it had gone when the engines last had power. The pilot was no longer visible.

"Banshee! Get down!" Zircon yelled, and Mitch and Kevlar did immediately. It took a half-second for the others to comply, not having fought alongside her before. If they had, they'd have moved the microsecond they understood what she'd said. A fuel rod impacted the other side of the embankment and a Banshee shot out over the paddies behind them. Before it could climb away, a sharp-eyed Cobra hit it dead center with a gauss round. The Banshee's remains fell smoking out of the sky to land in the mud somewhere.

Still, despite complete trust of her orders, Mitch found he didn't trust Amelia personally any more. After Reach. . . she'd given in. The unshakable woman who'd fought since Arcadia, endured loss after loss, and been the one thing Mitch thought he could count on, had just quit. War had made him hard already. But it was her leaving that made him bitter. And it made him wary of her now, not wanting to misplace his trust in her.

"Clear, move up!" she shouted, and the squad moved. And Mitch was part of them.

All around them, tank tracks squealed and sloshed through the water under the power of heavy diesel engines. And Nanto moved closer.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 01:17, December 7, 2011 (UTC)

155: Death From Above
'''1045 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar) Toyama Air/Spaceport, Toyama, Japan'''

Sulo Hahya sat int the gunner's seat of an UV-144 Falcon modifed with an M99C Gauss sniper rifle on one of the gun mounts. In addition, this particular M99 had a laser designator on the side, which could designate targets for air and artillery strikes.

The Toyama air-space port, had lost most of the Covenant aircraft stationed there, the only remaining aircraft were three Banshees that tried to take off. Hahya, however took aim with the M99 and placed the crosshairs over a Banshee trying to lift off and squeezed the trigger. The 5.4mm round flew through the alien aircraft at 15000 meters per second, blowing it to apart as though it had been hit by a M41 missile. The second Banshee lifted off, but was taken down by a shot worthy of Sierra 058 herself. Hahya shot the Banshee in the canopy in midair, the round shooting thorough the canopy, vaporizing the Jiralhanae pilot within. The Banshee fell to the ground and exploded, the burning remains sliding along the runway for several hundred meters.

As a Skyhawk fighter took down the third Banshee with air-to-air missile, Pavlichenko, Hahya's spotter said, "Tangos firing plasma launchers and fuel rods at our armor, in the spacecraft loading towers to the east of the runway."

Hahya turned to the first loading tower, and shot Brute chieftain with a plasma launcher, vaporizing the Jiralhanae with the high-velocity slug. But there were more Brutes in the tower. Hahya took aim at the tower with the laser designator and locked on the target.

Immediately, a Vulture gunship recieved the target and fired eight missiles into the tower, exploding midway up the structure and collapsing the hundred meter tower into oblivion.

Hahya designated the second loading tower for targeting. UNSC command immediately tasked a Bombard-class Heavy Guided Missile Cruiser off the shore of Toyama to fire on the tower. A cruise missile impacted the loading tower, taking it out as well. Seconds later, a third missile dealt with the last tower.

With threats in the towers removed, the UNSC armor advanced across the spacecraft loading pad, several Wraiths falling to the guns of Scorpion and Grizzly tanks and an anti-walker variant of the Grizzly took out a Scarab that tried to impede their progress.

As the UNSC tanks neared the airport, Pavlichenko said, "Covies in the terminal".

"I see them", Hahya said, point his M99 at the Toyama airport terminal, or the half they wasn't a bombed out ruin, anyway.

Hahya sent his first shot through the glass, taking out a Brute armed with a fuel rod cannon. Another shot hit a pillar amidst a group of Grunts. It looked like a miss, but it was exactly where Hahya wanted it- the M99's high velocity slug hit with enough forces to send concrete shrapnel flying through the air, killing the Unngoy.

"Brute Ultra, plasma launcher, near the large Toyama Air-Spaceport sign", Pavlichenko said.

Hahya focused on the large sign on the roof of the terminal, which, thanks to a Scorpion's 90mm taking out a Shade turret seconds earlier now read, "TOYA EPORT". The Brute with the plasma launcher stood next to the "O". Hahya fired his M99, taking out the Jiralhanae and the letter behind it. The sign now read "T YA RT"- the "EPO" was taken out by a burst of 30mm rounds from a Cougar APC.

Hahya took out a Hunter in the terminal with a shot straight through its armor, before a Grizzly tank disposed of the second. Soon, Hahya's M99 and the guns of UNSC armor has cleared the windows overlooking the street.

"This is the Hotel 2-6 to all units in the area", A voice said on the radio, "All units are to cease fire on the Toyama airport terminal we are entering the structure. Repeat, cease fire on the terminal, we are making entry."

Hahya's job was done here.

156: On Approach
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1200 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Nanto, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

The tank skirmish dragged on as lines became blurred. Scorpions maneuvered individually, trying to get the best angle on the Wraiths, which could move faster hovering over this terrain. But the UNSC line moved forward, only slowing when they came to the outskirts of the city, and the Covenant vehicles regrouped for a last stand. The firefight turned into an even stalemate until Lieutenant Coney radioed them from Command, "Fire Support Base Tango is back online, stand by for LRM support."

And within minutes, surface-to-surface long-range missiles streaked out of the sky and into the remaining enemy tanks. The armored division and Zircon's squad were able to roll right on through, dealing with any who'd survived the barrage swiftly.

High above, a handful of aircraft moved in to provide reinforcement and recon. Among them was a Falcon transport, with Ion Team aboard. Kodiak and Aspen sat in the reverse-facing seats, opposite Sepia. It gave them a good view of the smoldering tanks sitting in the shallow water, left behind after the battle.

Tired of observing the destruction, Kodiak contacted Erin. "Well, what do you have for us to do today?"

"Look for that acquaintance you made yesterday." she answered. "If Attilus is being given charge of the forces in Toyama, he needs to be taken out. Stay with our forces and protect them as best you can, but if you find him and get the chance, do what it takes to kill him."

Looking up from polishing her flamethrower, Sepia responded, "It'll be a pleasure."

From his spot on one of the side jumpseats, Taser nodded his agreement. "Yeah, search and destroy. One of my favorite functions."

Kodiak watched the SPARTAN. He didn't know the man's real name, only that his tag was -B399. And he'd been passed up for graduation following an incident with another trainee training with explosives. Both of Taser's arms had been blown off. The other trainee hadn't been so lucky. Now, he made use of two THERMOPYLAE-Grade prosthetic arms, which he was even now tampering with. As a technical expert, few things gave him as much enjoyment as operating equipment. Kodiak made a mental note to have him hack any Covenant systems they came across.

The Falcon came down to street level. Kodiak and his team departed, moving alongside the line of tanks that was beginning to spread out among the different streets. From a little ways behind them, they caught the eye of an ODST squad, covered in mud and blades of grass stuck to their armor.

"Supersoldiers, eh?" Kevlar said. "Guess there's something important here."

Mitch watched them go briefly, then hiked up his pack and kept walking. "Just more Covies to kill."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 20:21, December 11, 2011 (UTC)

157: The Boiling Valley
800 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Hakone Caldera, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

The main gun of the gun of the M-855 Kodiak Heavy Assault Tank commanded by Colonel Daisuke Umezu fired on a Covenant Wraith that had escaped the aerial and artillery bombardment bombardment of the last day. The vehicle was instantly destroyed in a ball of flame as the heavy assault tank rolled towards a building housing a station for the Hakone Ropeway up the side of the mountain in the center of the caldera.

A Grizzly tank following Umezu's Kodiak fired both its 120mm guns at the building, blowing away the northwest corner of the structure and annihilating a squad of Jiralhanae armed with fuel rod guns and plasma launchers. The rest of the Grizzly and Scorpion tanks followed suit, shelling the remains of the station, eliminating the Covenant, while the the Kodiak turned to the marina on the shore of Lake Ashii, the lake in the middle of the caldera and fired at a docked tourist boat shaped like a pirate ship- the crows nest and sides of the vessel housed several Kig-Yar snipers. The side of the tourist boat exploded, a gaping hole blown in the side as it sank below the surface.

"Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I'd fire on a Covenant-occupied pirate ship!", the gunner on the Kodiak, an American named Jackson commented.

"Second and Fourth platoon, go with Major Tal", Umezu said into the radio, "take your tanks up the clearing up to Komagatake ropeway and take out any surviving the Covenant on the summit, everyone else, your with me."

"Roger", Major Uziel Tal, an Israeli, said in the radio.

As Tal's Grizzly tank, along with several Grizzlies, two them anti-walker variants, and several Scorpions rolled to the south, towards the Komagatake ropeway, the driver of Umezu's tank rolled up the cleared section of the path for the Komagatake ropeway- the ropeway had a path cleared in the wood, and would be less well defended than the road up the mountain.

The Kodiak plowed trees and even metal poles that once held up the ropeway out of the way, clearing a path wide enough for the rest of the tanks. After a few minutes, the UNSC tanks reached the gondola station midway up the mountain. The surprised Covenant tried to make a desperate defense, but it was to no avail. Fuel rod rounds simply bounced off the Kodiak, which truly lived up to its description as the UNSC answer to the Scarab.

The Kodiak fired its 155mm main gun, blowing away half of the ropeway station and killing most of the Covenant inside. The station was then hit by a couple 90mms and 120, before the Kodiak finally drove right through it, crushing any surviving Covenant.

After disposing of the token resistance in the Gondola station, the UNSC armor rolled up the second strip of cleared land below the cable car until it intersected with the main road up the mountain. From there, the UNSC tanks rolled forward, into the parking lot of the Owakudani station.

The parking lot of the station was cratered by artillery shells and bombs, and littered with destroyed human cars and Covenant Wraiths and artillery batteries. The station itself had been leveled. Amidst the wreckage, however, were a number of Covenant vehicles, quite intact. A Locust fired a beam of energy that took out a Scorpion tank.

The Scorpion was avenged by one of its fellows, which hit the rear plasma cores of the Locust with its main gun, sending it up in spectacular blue fireball as the main gun of the Kodiak knocked out a Wraith, and then took out a Revenant with the Co-axial Gauss Cannon. A few Brute Choppers were made short work of by a Grizzly, as the rest of the UNSC tanks fired their machine guns, cutting down Covenant who tried to retreat. This was not just Unngoy who fled, even Brutes retreated before the UNSC onslaught.

Beyond the devastated Covenant artillery base on the top of the mountain was Owakudami, the Great Boiling Valley, a ravine in the side of the mountain filled with volcanic fumaroles and hot springs. A Scorpion fired its main gun at small hut near a hot spring, obliterating the building and the Covenant holding out within it.

"I think that was the place they cook the black eggs", the driver of the Kodiak said.

"What?", asked Jackson, the American gunner.

"They cook these eggs in the hot spring, apparently you can consume up to two and a half and gain extra years in your life.".

"Funny, in Yellowstone, they tell you NOT to cook things in the hot springs.", Jackson responded.

"Cut the chatter, its not over yet", Umezu said as the tank rolled down the fumarole-filled valley, through the thick layer of steam from the geothermal features. The tanks made it down to the main road as Major Tal radioed in.

"I am nearing the RV point. We managed to take out the Covies on the mountain top with minimal casualties, only a Grizzly and two Scorpions. We took out about a dozen Wraiths, six Locusts, a Scarab, and numerous smaller vehicles and infantry", the Israeli said.

"I read you, Major", coming up the RV point now.

The Kodiak and the other tanks plowed through a number of upscale houses before meeting up with Tal's armor at an intersection. Umezu's Kodiak led down a road through a mountain pass on the other side of the Hakone Caldera. Suddenly, several balls of superheated plasma flew overhead. Four of the plasma balls met their marks, destroying three Scorpions and Grizzly.

At the same time, two Scarabs fired from the mountainsides, each knocking out a Scorpion with their main guns.

The Kodiak fired it side-mounted anti-walker missile, impacting one of the Scarabs and sending it up in a massive ball of fire as the its burning wreck lost it footing on the mountainside and fell down into a river below.

The second Scarab was destroyed in a similar manner by one of Tal's anti-walker Grizzlies. The Kodiak fired it 155mm, blowing away one of the Wraiths with its main gun, before taking out a second with the co-axial Gauss cannon. The 120mm guns of a couple of Grizzly tanks disposed of two more Wraiths, as the last one fell to Scorpion.

The Kodiak led the rest of the armored column forwards, pushing destroyed Covenant armor out of the way and continuing along the road towards the next objective, the city of Odawara. Once they captured this city, the Covenant on the Izu Peninsula would be cut off.

158: All Covies Must Go
0745 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar) Shopping Mall, Yokosuka, Japan'

The chattering of machine gun fire and the roar of the 90mm cannon of a Scorpion tank around the corner filled Cheng Zhang's ears as he placed a C12 charge on the wall of a four-story shopping mall just out side the military base in Yokosuka, Japan.

"All right", Lt. James Basilone said, "Everyone get back, Zhang, blow the charges!"

The explosives blew away a section of brick wall is a flash of fire and a cloud of dust. The ODSTs entered through the dust, Basilone and Sgt. Ryouko Tanbou taking the lead. Basilone saw the silhouette of a Jiralhanae and several Kig Yar on the thermal view of the VISR, seeing through the dust easily.

Basilone fired his LMG, deshielding and perforating the Brute before taking out three Kig-Yar. Tanbou killed two more and Al Fulani got the last of a the Covenant occupying what, when the dust cleared, was revealed to be a Tony's Pizza Restaurant.

The ODSTs advanced towards the exit onto the main floor of the mall. Kamarov rested the bipod of his sniper rifle on a table as Basilone did the same with his M247, aiming at a large group of Covenant troops, including two Hunters, preoccupied with the UNSC Army force attacking the rear entrance to the mall.

"Zhang, get your launcher ready and take out the near Hunter, Kamarov, deal with the second Hunter, hit it in the back, then take out as many Brutes as you can. Everyone else, open fire as soon they Hunters go down. On my mark, NOW!", Basilone whispered into his helmet radio.

Kamarov fired his SRS-99, putting a 14.5 round through the first Lekgolo's vulnerable rear. The hulking beast fell to the floor as Zhang's rocket made impact, blowing the Lekgolo apart. Basilone opened fire, deshielding and killing two Brutes and mowing down several Grunts as Kamarov's second round blew the head off a Brute Cheiftain, as the third picked off another Brute, this one armed with plasma launcher. The remaining Covenant were cut down by a hail of lead from the ODSTs.

Outside the mall, a Scorpion tank and a Cougar APC rolled forward, smashing through the doors and INTO the mall interior, followed by UNSC Army infantry. The Scorpion fired a shot upwards with its 90mm cannon, and the Cougar fired off its 30mm autocannon.

"This Sledgehammer. I am inside the mall. Snipers and MG nests on the upper floors are eliminated", The UNSC tank commander said into his radio.

"Thanks for the assist", Sledgehammer, "All UNSC units in the mall, be advised that friendly units are exiting the Tony's Pizza on the right side of the mall, repeat, friendlies exiting the Tony's on the right side of the mall.

Basilone and the rest of the squad exited the restaurant and took cover next to the Scorpion and Cougar.

"The Covie defenses on the upper floors have been suppressed, but we cannot advance until we ensure their aren't any of the Mike Foxtrots left!", the tank commander said.

Suddenly, a beam of purple energy flew through the head of the machine gunner on the tank.

"Sniper!", a infantryman next to the tank yelled.

"I see the bastard!", Kamarov said as he fired a shot, blowing away the Kig-Yar's head. Kamorov took cover and reloaded his rifle as a second particle beam narrowly missed Basilone.

"Shit!", Basilone yelled, diving being the Scorpion for cover, there's more of them.

"This is Sledgehammer", the tank commander said, "I see where that came from, putting rounds downrange".

The Scorpion fired its 90mm blowing away the front of an electronics store on the upper floor.

"Kamarov", Basilone ordered, "stay with Sledgehammer and provide sniper support. Everyone else, with me, we're clearing the fourth floor. The army will take the other three".

Basilone led the way up a staircase, followed by the rest of the ODSTs and a large group of army infantry.

The UNSC troops were met on the second floor by a lance of Unggoy led by a Jiralhanae in a shoe store. Basilone layed down suppressive fire with his LMG, cutting down a few Grunts and allowing the UNSC Army troops to several grenades into the store, blowing apart the Covenant inside.

"All right, keep moving, our objective is on the fourth floor", Basilone said as the UNSC Army troops cleared the shoe store and moved on to the next store, a sporting goods store.

The second group of army troops got off on the third floor, as the ODSTs advanced to the fourth. Basilone and the ODSTs ducked as a hail of plasma flew inches above their heads. The source of the fire was a light plasma turret mounted in a McDonalds across from the staircase.

"Frag Out", Basilone yelled, as he tossed an HE-DP grenade into the fast food restaurant. The grenade exploded, spraying fragments everywhere. Two Kig-Yar and four Unggoy were killed.

James Basilone and Ryouko Tanbou followed up the assault. Tanbou blasted two Unngoy with her shotgun, and stabbed a third with her bayonet, as Basilone fired a burst of fire from his LMG into the Brute, dropping it to the floor.

"CLEAR!", Basilone said.

The ODSTs moved from room to room, eliminating about two more lances of Covenant spread between the stores of the mall. After about twenty minutes of going from store to store, the mall was clear.

Kamarov had rejoined with the squad, who now stood ready above a major intersection. Across the road were the remains of a hotel dating back to the 20th century. The streets were scattered with pieces of debris the from the hotel a much newer 1000 meter tower down the street that was destroyed in the initial invasion. Beyond that that was Shiori rail station, their next objective.

The Scorpion tank rolled out of the mall, followed by the Cougar APC. Two more Scorpions and Grizzly drove down the street from the south to join them. The Scorpion callsigned "Sledgehammer" destroyed a Wraith on the streets in a ball of blue flames as Kamarov picked off four Brutes in a row with his SRS 99. Basilone and the rest of the squad, as well as the army infantry on the lower floors fired on an infantry position on the other side of the road, cutting down Grunts and Brutes.

The Grizzly tank fired one 120mm gun, then another, destroying a Locust and a Wraith, as another Scorpion took out a Shadow APC. With the vehicles destroyed, the UNSC tanks focused fire on the Covenant infantry taking cover in the debris, before UNSC Army infantry advanced behind the tanks, finishing off the Covenant forces.

Once Basilone got the signal that the street was clear, he led his squad down to the next objective. -- Next Exit, Mud, Rain, Plasma Fire.

1245 hours, November 7, 2552, Tokai Hokuriku Expressway, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki took cover in large, mud-filled, crater in the middle of a fallow farmer's field, along with a couple of UNSC Army regulars. Above them, plasma bolts created trails of steam in the rain-filled air.

It turned out the bridge southwest of Fukuno was easily taken, they were sent forward to a Covie base set up near the junction with the Tokai Hokuriku expressway. This base, on the other hand, was heavily defended.

The sound of a Grizzly tank firing off its main guns, destroying two Covenant Locust walkers, followed the sound of the autocannons of a Cougar APC destroying an automated plasma turret.

"The Covies are suppressed, we're advancing", a UNSC sergeant with a German accent said, leading Keiichi, Rena, and a UNSC Army private out of the crater. The four of them were mere feet from a destroyed Scorpion tank when particle beam struck down the sergeant. A second shot took out the private.

Keiichi grabbed Rena and jumped behind the remains of the UNSC tank. Another UNSC Scorpion tank, this one quite intact, fired its main gun at the central tower of the command center of the Covenant base constructed next to the highway.

Keiichi leaned out from the side of the destroyed tank and took aim to the remains of a Covenant Summit that had been destroyed by UNSC air strikes earlier in the battle. A Kig-Yar sniper took cover in the ruins. Keiichi set his DMR's underbarrel grenade launcher to the distance to the target and fired. The round exploded right next to the head of the Kig-Yar, vaporizing its upper body.

Keiichi then proceeded to take out a Brute Ultra with a second 25mm grenade round, and then pick off a few Grunts with the rifle. Rena, meanwhile, emptied her MA37 into the back of a Hunter distracted by a Cougar APC, perforating the alien.

A Grizzly tank rolled past the destroyed Scorpion, and Keiichi and Rena took cover behind it, firing over the bogies. The Grizzly fired it first main gun, disposing of a Covenant Wraith on the highway behind the base, before blasting two Ghosts with one shell. Rena shot the Grunt out of the third.

Soon, the UNSC armor was amidst the remains of the Covenant base. The central command center had been damaged and the Summits and VTOL pads utterly destroyed by UNSC air power, but some of the other structures- a couple barracks, part of the command center, a garage, and a barracks among others were still standing.

Rena and Keiichi were directed to go in behind a group of UNSC Army regular forces into the Covenant temple, stacking up with the UNSC forces on the door.

The breaching charges exploded, blowing the door down in the face of the Jiralhanae keeping sentry. The door opened onto the top of a six-level multi-tiered seating arrangement running 180 degrees around a lower area with a stage and holographic display in the center.

The UNSC point man killed a couple Jiralhanae with his M95 auto shotgun, before the other UNSC troops took out the rest of the Covenant troops in the stands, consisting of another Brute and several Grunts.

When Keiichi and Rena got in, the only Covenant left were in the middle of the room. Keiichi fired his DMR, deshielding a Brute in the center with three shots and killing it with a fourth as Rena cut down a couple Kig-Yar with her MA37.

Keiichi then proceeded to take out a couple Grunts with headshots, as Rena combined her fire with several UNSC regulars, taking down a Jiralhanae Ultra guarding the temple. After the last Covenant in the center fell, the the UNSC troops advanced into the central area, and through a door, into the back room.

In large Covenant temples, Forerunner artifacts would have been stored here, but in this particular temple, there were only religious artifacts and parts for the holo transmitter. Amidst the religious items, a few Unngoy hid. These were easily dispatched, before the UNSC sergeant in charge of the unit yelled "CLEAR!".

About five minutes later, the sergeant's radio crackled to life, the base and the Highway was firmly in UNSC hands. Now, they could move south to surround Nanto, and make a northward move on the city of Tonami.

159: An Enduring Design
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1300 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Nanto, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

Stupid. A trap, and Kodiak’s team had walked right into it. The only way out now was by shooting.

A Phantom had swooped down on them from out of nowhere, and Jiralhanae fell from it like they were rats abandoning ship. Three already had Kodiak as their target as they jumped down, unclipping Spikers and a Brute Shot from their armor.

Fortunately, they were still in the outskirts of Toyama, which left him plenty of room to escape, so long as he could slip away from them now. Sidestepping before they landed, Kodiak intended to draw them toward an area crowded with rubble, but the lead Captain swung with a leg and kicked him mightily.

He stumbled from the blow, a strong enough force to kill most men. Though he recovered quickly, Kodiak could see he was cut off from his team, with five coordinated Brutes after him including the one already landed with its Brute Shot. ..

Kodiak wasn’t fast enough to evade the grenade launcher’s opening volley, which landed at his feet and exploded, throwing him upward and draining his shields to a very low point. Landing with a hand extended to catch himself, he switched tactics and started running away from the highway, leading the ones focused on him away. He wanted to deal with that Captain himself.

Residential homes had lined this street. After all the destruction, it felt out of place to see lush green lawns and well-kept rock gardens and ponds. Still, Kodiak didn’t pause to enjoy the scenery. One of the Brutes had outstripped the others and stayed right on his tail.

Intent as it was on catching him, it was caught by surprise when the running demon turned a corner, then a hard rifle collided with its jaw when it tried to follow. The body crumpled from the precisely struck blow, enough power in the right place to break its nose in and send skull fragments into its brain. Kodiak didn’t have time to gloat, though, as the other four Jiralhanae kept after him, ready to work together to kill him. He hated when they were smart like that.

This time when he tried a corner trick, the one closest after him kept his distance, firing his Spiker. Kodiak dodged behind a car for cover, but not without his shields taking the impact of one or two projectiles. He gritted his teeth, the shield hadn’t fully recovered yet, and now would have to wait longer. Keeping to his strategy, Kodiak primed and dropped a grenade before sprinting away again. The explosion wounded two of his pursuers, but no kills.

Then he ran almost headlong into the Captain he’d marked earlier. It had gotten around somehow and cut him off. The Brute Shot’s bayonet came up, and Kodiak could only raise his rifle to block. He gasped in exasperation as he felt the rifle’s metal give way, bending around the blade. It had protected him, but now other than a bent club it was useless.

He decided to give it that one last use. The Captain had already been pushed off-balance by their collision. As his comrade raised a Spiker, Kodiak swung the bent rifle and connected with its head, sending blood from its jaw and nose, and further bending the rifle.

Without checking to confirm a kill, Kodiak moved on to avoid being caught. But these were experienced hunters, the rabbit couldn’t run forever. He’d just vaulted a low decorative wall when the two he’d already wounded came face-to-face with him, and they looked vengeful. He had to dance around one of them as it swung Spiker bayonets at him, so that the second couldn’t take a shot. He was just ready to zip away again when. ..

Damn that Captain. He thought.

A huge paw swung around and struck him full on. He was fortunate the shields had recharged, they softened the blow, but it still lifted him off the ground and through the wall of one of the houses. Rolling amid wood scraps and splinters, Kodiak looked around to find himself in someone’s living room. He got back to his feet and pulled a throwing knife. As the first Jiralhanae was stepping through the hole Kodiak had made, the knife spun through the air between them and sunk blade-first in the gap between neck and shoulder. Clutching at it, the alien fell.

He didn’t have enough time before the others got through. Instead, he kicked a nearby chair and sent it flying into the Captain, giving him time before having to face two. He looked around for a weapon, and spotted one, unorthodox, but viable.

Above the house’s mantelpiece, resting on two pegs, was a sword. Not the hilt of a Covenant Energy Sword, but a traditional katana. In a coal black sheath, its handle wrapped in black satin and adorned by a gold band. Forgetting his M6, Kodiak ran to it immediately.

The Brute Minor that followed him probably would have never expected to see the demon draw the mirror-edged blade from its sheath, in the darkened building gleaming faintly blue where already-reflected light hit it. But it was no surprise when the sword outdid the two short prongs on the end of a Spiker, and cut into flesh and muscle until Kodiak was sure he’d hit bone.

Pulling the blade free, the SPARTAN advanced on the last Brute. In the cramped human structure, it didn’t have space to bring the grenade launcher’s muzzle to bear, and instead brought the blade around, seeking the demon’s side.

It was deflected artfully, making the swing go high, and giving Kodiak all the time he needed to run the Brute through, impaling it on the simple, age-old design of a Japanese katana. The alien gurgled, not quite understanding what had been done, before groaning and going limp.

Kodiak slid the blade out almost as easily as it had gone in, allowing the corpse to fall and pool blood on the house’s floor. He stood still for a long minute, letting the adrenaline-like effects of Gamma Company’s augmentations wear off on their own, before taking better stock of his surroundings.

It was an unfamiliar aesthetic. In the center of a low table, what looked like a miniature tree sat in a box. Rubble from the wall was strewn across a wood floor, and though there weren’t any clear openings like a glass window or door, light seeped in through some thin portions of the walls, at least that was what Kodiak took them to be. It was odd, in a way alien, and Kodiak began to have an inkling that he didn’t know very much about normal human life, by civilian standards.

Something moved, attracting his focused attention. It was a man, very old, probably the owner of the house, standing up from where he’d been hidden behind an unfamiliar piece of furniture. Suddenly feeling awkward for having broken the wall and bringing three alien apes into his home, Kodiak used the Brute Captain’s fur to clean the blade as best he could before he re-sheathed it, and set it back on the mantle.

The civilian watched him, then after he’d set down the sword and turned to go, the man put up a hand for him to wait, and went to the mantle. Taking up the sword by laying it on his upward-facing palms, he approached the armored SPARTAN and held it out to him. Kodiak was unsure at first whether to take it or not. But after a moment, and the man had not moved, he reached out and accepted it, using both his armored hands. Attempting to be respectful, he handled it delicately though it had just proven strong enough to hack through a Jiralhanae’s hide. The man made a bowing motion to him, and Kodiak did his best to return the gesture.

Then, holding it in his left still in the sheath until he could find a way to secure it, Kodiak left the way he’d been thrown in to find the rest of his team.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 03:48, December 23, 2011 (UTC)

160: Have Fun Storming the Castle
'''800 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Odawara Castle, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.'''

Colonel Daisuke Umezu directed the M855 Kodiak Heavy Assault Tank the served as his command vehicle along a major. At a street in the city of Odawara. The Kodiak was followed numerous other UNSC vehicles. Ahead stood Odawara Castle, a historic fortification dating back to the feudal era. Now, some Covenant has taken shelter in it, and in front of the structure, stood rows of firing lines and numerous Covenant vehicles.

An anti-walker variant of the Grizzly tank fired a missile, destroying a Scarab the just topped the crest of the hill on which the castle stood. The alien walker was reduced to a heap of wreckage about half the height of the feudal Japanese castle. The Kodiak fired its 155mm main gun, blowing the turret of a Locust walker into the air. A Grizzly, a heavy tank version this time, destroyed two Wraiths, one each of its twin cannons.

Grizzlies, Scorpions, and Cobras picked off the Covenant armor quickly, as a the autocannons of Cougar APCs chewed apart infantry in the firing lines and light vehicles. The Kodiak fired the 155 again, creating a large crater in the last Covenant trenchline as it blew away a dozen Brutes, over twenty Grunts, and a Shade turret.

Meanwhile, A couple 90mm shells from a pair of Scorpions knocked out the Kig-Yar snipers nest of the observation deck of the castle. The UNSC tanks and APCs cut down the last of the Covenant resistance in front of the castle. UNSC troops exited the APCs.

Umezu grabbed an M6J pistol carbine with a red dot sight and set the weapon to fully automatic, before picking up several magazines of 12.7mm SAP-HE ammunition.

"Colonel", The Kodiak driver said, "Are you sure that's a good idea, sir".

"Sergeant", Umezu replied, "I lead from the front. I'll make it through this, I saw combat on Harvest before I was placed in a command position."

Umezu donned a suit of UNSC body armor before he climbed out of the turret of the Kodiak tank and joined the UNSC infantry standing outside the entrance of the castle.

"Change of plan, Lieutenant", Umezu said, "I'll be leading this op".

"OK.. sir", the Lieutenant said, plainly also on edge about allowing the colonel to enter the Covenant-controlled structure.

The breaching charges detonated, and the UNSC forces entered the structure, weapons in hand. A UNSC soldier with an IMI 2550 SMG drew first blood, killing a grunt that opened what was once an ornate sliding door until it was damaged by the ravages of war.

Other UNSC soldiers opened up on two more Grunts, cutting them down before they could call for help. The UNSC Lieutenant threw a grenade into the next room. The M9 Frag Grenade detonated, killing two Kig-Yar and an Unggoy before the UNSC troops burst into the entrance hall, decorated with ornately painted panels, though some of the had been desecrated by the Covenant.

Umezu got his first kill her, cutting down two Unngoy with his pistol carbine, before killing a Brute that was deshielded by the grenade. The 12.7mm SAP-HE rounds pierced the Covenant soldiers bodies and exploded within, tearing the alien's bodies apart, in one case blow away the head of Grunt. The rest of the UNSC brought down two more Jiralhanae.

"CLEAR!", The Lieutenant yelled.

After clearing a few other rooms on the first floor, the UNSC forces advanced up the steep narrow wooden stairs to the second story. The point man killed a Kig-Yar in the stairwell with his M95 Full Auto Shotgun.

On the second floor, there was a display of traditional Japanese weapons, occupied by a large group of Unngoy and Jiralhanae, including a Chieftain.

UNSC troops opened up with their MA37 assault rifles, M7 and IMI 2550 SMGs, and other weapons, cutting down a few Brutes and several Unngoy, while losing two UNSC infantrymen to Spiker and plasma fire. The Brute Chieftain let out a furious roar as he charge at Umezu, bullets reflecting off his shields.

Umezu was knocked backward by the shockwave from the gravity hammer, and found himself lying on the floor, his gun several feet away. Worse still, the Chieftain was preparting for another hammer blow.

Umezu grabbed a naginata that had fallen from a smashed display of polearms and swung the blade in wide swath, slicing off the now-deshielded chieftain's right arm, causing him to drop his hammer. Amazingly, the brute kept fighting, drawing the Spiker he carried as a sidearm.

Umezu thrust the naginata into the Brute's chest before it could fire, causing it fall to its knees, before pulling out the naginata and sticking it straight through the Jiralhanae's back, making sure the alien was dead. Umezu grabbed to dead Chieftain's spiker and fired at a Jiralhanae. The spiker fire, combined with two M7 SMGs, deshielded and killed the Brute.

As Umezu retrieved and reloaded his M6J pistol carbine, a UNSC corporal with an M95 Auto shotgun killed the last two Brutes.

"CLEAR", the lieutenant said.

"Nice one, sir, glad your on our side", a UNSC soldier commented on dead chieftain, which still had the naginata stuck its back.

"Thanks", Umezu said simply, as he advanced with the rest of the UNSC troops up the stairs to the third floor.

The third floor was a complex of what looked like living quarters. The point man, the corporal spotted the shadows of two Jiralhanae through paper panels of shoji sliding door and opened fire.

Several shotgun blasts blew through the door, shredding the rice paper panels and killing the two Brute minors behind the wall. The rest of the UNSC infantry burst in, eliminating a couple Grunts and Jackal, before entering the next room, only for a UNSC infantry man to be cut down by a plasma turret behind an upturned table.

The rest of the UNSC troops opened fire on the table, bullets blowing through the wood and killing the Grunt behind.

After clearing the last few rooms, the UNSC troops climbed to the fourth floor, which looked like the living quarters of a daimyo or other nobleman. A UNSC soldier mowed down to Jackals with his MA37, staining the walls with blood, as Umezu emptied the rest of his magazine into a Bravo Kilo Major, deshielding and killing the Brute.

Umezu took what little cover he could find behind an upturned table and reloaded as another UNSC soldier killed the second Brute with his MA37. The a third Jiralhanae and a couple Unngoy fell to fire from a UNSC soldier's M95 automatic shotgun.

"CLEAR!", the UNSC lieutenant yelled, before bursting into the next room. A UNSC soldier's M7 SMG cut down a couple of Unngoy and Kig-Yar, as Umezu shot a couple more Grunts and a Jackal with his M6J.

A few more rooms later, and the UNSC forces had cleared the fourth floor. They now stood below the staircase leading to an observation deck built when the castle was reconstructed in the 20th century.

"This is Colonel Daisuke Umezu", Umezu said into his radio, "UNSC forces are entering the upper floor observation deck of Odawara castle. All units are to cease fire on the observation deck."

The UNSC soldier with the M95 auto shotgun entered first, onto the observation deck. the guardrail was shot away and the walls blown open in several places. Dead Covenant lay on the floor.

A Kig-Yar sniper that survived the UNSC attack dropped his beam rifle and ran at the UNSC point man with an energy cutlass. The UNSC soldier grabbed the Kig-Yar by the wrist and tossed him over the wall judo style, sending the alien falling five stories to its death. Two other UNSC soldiers dealt with the two surviving Grunts, before the observation deck, and the rest of Odawara castle was cleared.

From the observation deck, Umezu could see UNSC and Separatists forces rolling in from the east from Hakone and the north from Gotemba. UNSC rockets, missiles, bombs, and artillery, along with Sangheili plasma mortars impacted the small group of skyscrapers and larger group of smaller buildings that was the central business district of Odawara as UNSC and Separatist forces advanced on the town center.

161: Coffee Break
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1400 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Erin sipped at the mug clasped between her hands. Lieutenant Commander Harris in the command center had finally needed to order her to get a good night's sleep. She'd been getting close to starting a third day straight without rest, and still protested. But she had to admit a warm bunk and full belly were about the best comforts she could ask for, and settled for coming back to work the next morning. Then the guard had informed her she wasn't allowed clearance until the next morning. Harris' little trick irritated her, whether or not it was for her own good.

Though she tried to relax, all she could think of was Ion Team, and 'Lukomee's negotiations, and getting information on Attilus. Finally, she'd forced herself to focus on mundane tasks. At the moment, she'd settled in the mess hall, with a piece of paper in front of her and tapping a pen against the table.

Presently, a young voice asked tentatively, "What are you writing?"

Erin looked up, surprised, she hadn't hear either Reo or Henri approach. She attributed it to her focus, and smiled sheepishly. "Well, this is the first time off I've had since we got to Earth. And since we've been holding the Covies back so well, I'm actually daring to think about the future. It's . . . well, you might think it's silly, but, it's a Christmas list."

Henri jumped into a seat next to her. "Oh, I love Christmas! Food and toys and candy . . ."

The boy drifted off into looking dreamily into the distance. Reo took a seat, careful not to disturb his trance while Erin's head hunched back over the paper. It exposed the back of her neck, and Reo stared at it. In the flesh of her neck, a square of metal was implanted. She quickly averted her eyes, but asked, "What is that, on your neck?"

Erin flinched, freezing a moment. Then she laughed. "A neural implant. Most officers have them, I just have more than usual."

"Oh." It didn't mean anything to Reo, so she didn't press the matter. "Who's on your list?"

"Harris, not that he deserves anything from me, and Stacker if we ever see each other again. Vinh, Gossard, Lieutenant Commander Kozuki, Aspen . . . there's a few I had ideas for that haven't made it through the last few days. But there's three I can't seem to figure out."

Reo's warm smile widened. "Who are they? Maybe we can help."

"I doubt it. They're SPARTANs, and already have access to everything they need to blow things up." She said politely. Then an idea came to her. "Although . . . you might be able to help me another way. Does Harris still allow you in the command center?"

"Um . . . yes. But not Henri, he broke the rule about eating there."

A spark of fervent determination appeared in her eyes. "Good. Take these. One's a camera, just get a picture of the big holotable in the middle, and plant this one under it. Whether Harris likes it or not, I'm keeping informed."

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1400 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Nanto, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

"So suppose a Brute comes after you when you're using that thing. You going to lop off its head?" Dyne asked, laughing. He'd been teasing Kodiak about the sword ever since he'd returned.

"I might. Maybe take off a limb first." He returned, paying more attention to the sword. He'd just finished his test, making a ring that would allow him to carry the scabbard and sword on the magnetic plate over his back. Standing, he tried it, and was satisfied by a confirming lock. He let himself grin proudly. "Alright Ion, break's over. Let's get back to the fight."

Around him, the four other SPARTANs donned finished off a dessert ration bar and donned their helmets. Weapons clicked ready, and they started at a jogging pace closer to a normal man's run to rejoin the battle.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 00:02, January 3, 2012 (UTC)

162: Rude Awakening
2200 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar) South of Tonami, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki spread out a scavenged blanket over the floor of the living room of a house in a small group of structures near the Tokai-Hokuriku Expressway south of Tonami. It had been a long day, and they were glad to finally be able to get some rest. The militia unit was advancing on the city of Tonami-another suburb of Toyama.

Artillery thundered behind and in front of them, and the engines of fighters and bombers whined overhead. Bombs whistled as they fell to the ground, supporting UNSC troops advancing into Tonami and clearing out the surrounded city of Nanto the south.

Keiichi and Rena curled up under a blanket, ignoring the chaos around them.

"Oyasuminasai"- good night, Rena said.

Keiichi replied by kissing her goodnight. Less than a month ago, Rena was just another student in his high school class- it was amazing how going through something like this together could change the way you felt about someone.

Rena and Keiichi curled up to sleep in each other's arms when.... an explosion roared overhead. Keiichi and Rena look to see that suddenly there was no longer a roof over their heads.

"Dammit!", Keiichi yelled, "Did they have to show up now!?"

The whine of Covenant aircraft engines was heard as a Banshee flew overhead. Keiichi grabbed his DMR, as Rena got up and grabbed her MA37. The two militia joined several other UNSC troops taking shelter in the building ran out the door.

The quad 40mm AA guns of a Sun Devil AA tank roared to life as Wolverine SAM streaked into the night sky. The SAM impacted its target, a Seraph fighter flying at high altitude, sending the aircraft down in flames.

A Longsword Fighter fired a missile at another Seraph, taking it down and causing the others to break off their bombing run and engage the UNSC squadron in combat.

There was, however, a more immediate problem, namely that of seven Banshees swooping down for a strafing run. Keiichi and Rena took cover behind the burning remains of a militia technical, surviving the initial onslaught.

The alien aircraft, however, came around for second pass. The 40mm AA guns of the Sun Devil shot down one of the Banshees, a UNSC infantryman shot down another with an M41 missile launcher.

UNSC troops all over the base opened up on their personal weapons. Keiichi fired the M456 grenade launcher under the barrel of his DMR at a low flying Banshee, but missed, before both Keiichi and Rena followed up with fully automatic rifle fire, driving off the Banshee.

A Banshee strafed a Warthog, killing the gunner. Keiichi ran to the vehicle and got on the gun, putting fire in the sky. He didn't score to many hits, but once a Banshee diving at him, he filled the cockpit with lead, sending the aircraft down in flames.

Keiichi, however, didn't notice another Banshee coming at him from a perpendicular angle. Rena grabbed Keiichi's DMR and set the underbarrel "smart grenade" launcher to "proximity mode".

Rena fired three 25mm grenades, which exploded around the Banshee like flak shells, riddling the aircraft and sending it spiraling to ground.

"Ha!", Rena said, "I've always wanted to do that!"

Seeing that four of their numbers, as well as their high-level fighter escort had fallen, the Banshees, turned back to their base as Keiichi and Rena went off to find somewhere to sleep that hadn't been shot up yet.

163: Battle of a Boulevard
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1847 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Nanto, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

To Kodiak, the name of the street, had he been able to read it, would have meant nothing. It was just another section of the city to clear, even as larger forces waged the main fighting blocks away. But it was his battlefield, and he was determined to be victorious. Spread out across the street, his team moved up under sparse fire from Jiralhanae a block away. By his count, there had to be fifty of the muscular apes, and at least three Grunts for every Brute.

Before him, Dyne got on one knee and took cover behind a chunk of permacrete fallen on the median. His battle rifle was set steadily on the jagged edge, only moving at all when he fired a well-prepared burst at their distant enemies. With their closer-range weapons, Sepia and Taser took to the sidewalk for more readily available cover if they needed it. Running on, Kodiak joined Aspen with a different destination: the two squads of marines that had been sent ahead of them in the flanking maneuver, and gotten more trouble than they bargained for.

Less than twenty men and women in green battle dress uniforms were huddled together in what little shelter there was to find on one side of the street. A few behind an overturned car, several in an alley, a pair in the alcove of a door. Aspen stopped to help tend the many wounded, a result of the hot iron spears Brute weapons used, designed to maim almost as much as kill. Kodiak continued on going from one group of marines to the next, bringing a bit of hope to them and asking where their commander was.

All their NCOs had been killed, and it left a Corporal Amaya Chi Katō in charge, who was at the foremost group of marines. This turned out to be four marines cowering together behind an apartment building's facade stairs under a constant hail of Spiker fire, fearing that a plasma grenade could at any moment be tossed in and end all their lives.

Under the cover of one of the braver men with an assault rifle, Kodiak slid in with them next to a woman with a Corporal's two chevrons. She locked a half-full clip into her MA5C and yelled over the ringing of Spiker ricochets, "Nice some back-up finally arrived. I'm no killer robot, but this is my home town and I wasn't going to take a step backwards this battle!"

Kodiak noted that for a local Marine reserve soldier, her English was perfect. "I have a medic seeing to your wounded at the back. Anyone up here get hit?"

"Not that need a medic anymore!" she said. "Did you bring anything with you to make these Bravo Kilos' eyes water?"

"Yeah. Us."

Katō looked at him a moment like he was insane. "So you're really all the vids say?"

"Well, we brought us, and then Amazake's canister shell. Get ready to run, and stay behind me! My shield can take the hits." Kodiak readied himself, signalling to Sepia and Taser across the street. Katō stared at him a moment more, than back down the street the way they'd come where a rumbling had started. Another tan SPARTAN with a battle rifle stood firing from atop the deck plating of a Grizzly tank. She pushed herself up into a crouch next to him.

With a resounding 'boom', the Grizzly's cannons spouted fire and two heavy slugs, speeding across to the Covenant lines, and exploding in a hail of shrapnel and fire. Many of the milling Grunts' methane tanks punctured and ignited, resulting in that much more damage. As soon as the projectiles had whooshed by Kodiak, he sprang up and jogged to get across the no-man's land, the four marines behind him.

Kodiak's training told him he was being a fool for not running faster, but Katō and the other marines already had to sprint to keep up with him, and they needed him as a bullet sponge. To better protect him, he raised his rifle as he ran and held down the firing stud, not so much to kill as to pin down the few who hadn't stopped shooting in the confusion amid their lines. He noted a Jackal marksman fall dead from its spot on their barricade, certainly Dyne's work. Still, one man behind him screamed and fell, clutching a spike in his shin.

Katō moved out from behind him, alternating sprints with running-and-gunning. She was putting herself at risk, Kodiak thought, but then so was he. The thought passed as they reached the barricade constructed of purple crates. Most of the enemy infantry was already in retreat at the sight of the tank, but a few were attempting to cover. Kodiak vaulted over to take them out in close quarters.

The first opponent swung a bayonet at him. Kodiak sidestepped it and fired from the hip, catching the Brute across its arm, chest, and neck. Another, just beyond his reach, was turning a Brute Shot on him, but Kodiak let go of the rifle with his left and caught a Grunt that was attempting to flee. Picking the small creature up, he used it as a shield from two grenades as he advanced, then tossed the corpse at his foe and killed him with a knife before he could recover.

The last few were leaving the barricade, then. Kodiak jumped back over it to use as cover while they took potshots over their shoulders. He and the Marines fired from their side, even as he noted the number of burned or buckshot-filled bodies on Sepia and Taser's side. Just as he took the time to look over Katō's head to wave at them, a metal spine sliced through the side of her neck.

Her blood splashed his visor, and he at once dropped at his knees to catch the Marine's fall. Lowering her below the barricade, he glanced across to see an Ultra drop the arm that held a Spiker, turning to run after his troops. He didn't get far. Assault rifle broke his shield, and three shots of Dyne's battle rifle entered along his spinal cord, causing him to fall forward on the asphalt.

"Aspen!" Kodiak called out, to the SPARTAN medic who had just administered a painkiller to the man who'd been shot in the leg. He hurried over, laying Katō on the ground and telling the others to give him room. Then the results of Project: HIPPOCRATES went to work. Katō was going into shock as Aspen pulled the spike from the last shreds of torn muscle holding it there.

Kodiak watched the procedure, even as others grew tired or queasy and wandered off to secure their perimeter. It was a complicated wound. Her flesh had seared as a result of the spike's impermanent heat. It still carried a high risk of infection from microbes not found on Earth, but the wound had cut into her windpipe and he couldn't use biofoam, not without patching it first.

Though it may have been gruesome, it was an honor to watch him work. A wrist computer kept tabs on the patient's vital signs while Aspen staunched the bleeding and reworked flesh. He was precise with his instruments. Others had taught Kodiak to be artful with a knife, but it was Aspen that taught him to be deadly. On any known species, the exact points and to what depth was required to make a wound that would cause fatal hemorrhaging or swift death. At times, the medical books were scarier than simple gun killers.

When he had finished, Kodiak could tell it was the work of a master by the way only the fingertips of his white gauntlets were stained red. Katō was awake, and though woozy from painkiller, understood what he'd done and perhaps how difficult it had been. She thanked him as two of her Marines carried her away in a makeshift stretcher, and in response he only nodded tiredly and said, "Both of us did what was expected of us today."

He gently pushed her back down onto the stretcher, and watched the wounded be loaded onto Amazake's tank to be carried back to a field hospital. No sooner had the SPARTANs turned to leave when Erin contacted them urgently. "Kodiak, can you hear me? Ion Team, I've pinpointed Attilus! We have a chance to take him out!"

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:52, January 5, 2012 (UTC)

164: Taking the Train
0900 Hours, November 6th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Shiori Station, Yokosuka, Japan

James Basilone took cover behind a large concrete barricade in the middle of the road in front of Shiori Station, along with a squad of UNSC Army infantry. The maglev train station was one of the remaining Covenant occupied buildings in town, with the UNSC Navy Base and a group of 23rd-century era skyscrapers in UNSC hands.

Two Covenant Ghosts drove out from the station, firing their plasma cannons as they went. Zhang, the rocket gunner in Zhang's squad fired a missile from his M41. The 102mm missile tracked and impacted the alien hover-cycle, exploding in a ball of flames.

Basilone raised his M247K LMG and fired a burst at the second Ghost, killing the Unggoy operating the vehicle. He then turned his attention to laying down surpressive fire on the Covenant forces occupying the second and third floors of the building.

Zhang destroyed a plasma turret with his second rocket as Kamarov, the squads sniper picked off a Kig-Yar sniper on the top floor of the station. Kamarov then relocated next to the right of Basilone and picked off a Brute Cheiftain with a second headshot, vaporizing the alien's skull in a red mist, before eliminating the second Jackal sniper.

"Kamarov", Basilone ordered, "Stay behind and provide sniper cover!"

"Ayatsuji", Basilone said to a female UNSC Army sergeant, "I want your squad providing covering fire on the upper floors while we advance! My squad, advance on my go!"

"Tanamura, Sakamoto, get that AIE ready!", Ayatsuji yelled, sounding as though she wished the Army had issued her a whip to "motivate" her squad with, "Everyone cover those troopers on their go."

Two UNSC Army infantrymen set up a tripod-mounted AIE-486 Heavy Machine Gun as the rest of the UNSC Army troops checked their magazines and readied MA37 rifles or M247K LMGs.

"My squad, on me!", Basilone ordered, as Ayatsuji fired her MA37 rifle at a Grunt on the third floor, as the rest of her men opened up, the AIE-486 absolutely tearing apart Unggoy and Jiralhanae on the upper floor as the ODSTs advanced.

A Jiralhanae on the first floor fired a burst of Spiker fire, narrowly missing Sgt. Ryouko Tanbou, Basilone's CQC expert. A 14.5mm round to the chest from Kamarov's sniper rifle dropped the alien.

Basilone fired his LMG at a second Jiralhanae, deshielding the Brute and riddling it with bullets, before, with the help of fire from the rest of the squad, cutting down several Unggoy and Kig-Yar.

Several of the Grunts turned and fled as the ODSTs neared the station entrance. Tanbou raised her shotgun and fired a blast to chest of a Brute, killing it, before dodging an energy cutlass strike made by a Jackal

Ryouko thrust her bayonet in the Kig-Yar, killing it, before blasting a few Grunts with shotgun.

The ODSTs burst into the lower floor of the station, each focusing fire on a different corner of the room. Shouts of "Tango Down!" filled the air as the Covenant were cut down, trying in vain to flee down a pedestrian tunnel to the other side of the embankment the station was built on.

"Tanbou", Basilone ordered, "Take half the sqaud up the right stairs, Everyone else, we're taking the left.

"Ayatsuji", Basilone said, "Cease fire, we are making our way up the stairs to the second floor platform."

The gunfire from the street stopped, as the ODSTs made their way up to the lower platform. The platform was littered with alien bodies, the supressive fire had taken its toll. There remained, however, a few Covies who had managed to fired cover.

Basilone, Renaurd, and Al Fulani opened up on Brute who tried to raise his Spiker and fire at the UNSC troops. The Brute was cut down before he could get off a shot. The ODSTs then then turned their attention to the Unggoy and Kig-Yar, which, scattered and disorganized, were easily cut down.

It was the same case on the third floor platform, most of the Covenant were dead, those that were not offered little resistance.

"This Lt. James Basilone", Basilone said into his radio, "We have secured Shiori station, over. Repeat, Shiori station is ours."

165: Storm Breaks
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0701 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Nanto, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

The pre-dawn hours already hinted at rain. Dark, moisture-laden clouds were rolling in quickly from out at sea, though the wind seemed to wait very still until the rain actually fell. To Kodiak, it was a minor concern. The Covenant garrison post in the remains of a mall plaza was worth more attention.

He and Dyne had quietly skirted the fortifications, checking the far side for a way over and waiting for the 'distraction' the Brutes would see as a main attack. They were very careful about it. If the Brutes sighted them in time, the pair might be caught inside their compound, and there would be plenty of guards on their home turf.

Sentries had been placed atop the wall at regular intervals. They weren't very observant. Low discipline combined with boredom had made them as good as blind. Signalling Dyne with hand motions, he selected one and told him to stay put. The minutes spent sitting there in complete silence, letting dew collect on their armor, were tense at the least. Finally, the sounds of combat began to echo from across the outpost. A Brute Major growled, eager for he and his warriors to earn trophies. One miserable Minor Jiralhanae was left at his post, the one directly above Kodiak.

The creature turned his back to the wall, gazing longingly at the battle not so distant. He made easy prey. Kodiak crept up the wall, using the spikes meant to drive back enemies to scale its height until he hung on the ramparts. Then in a swift movement, he leaped up and grabbed the Brute by its jaw in one hand, and pulled it backwards, off-balance, until it tumbled over the wall and onto the spikes below.

The impaled beast landed near Dyne, gasping its last breaths while watching the implacable gold visor stare back. When its eyes had glazed over, Dyne followed Kodiak up. Dropping down the other side of the wall was easy enough, and a quick sweep showed the ornate tents were clear of anyone up and awake to spot them.

Advancing halfway across the grounds was easy, eliminating only the occasional bleary-eyed Grunt sitting outside a tent until they reached the main structure. This was solid Covenant building material, and while some of the pavilion-type tents were large enough to serve as houses for the thick-skinned Brutes, it stood as a small fortress, with a short but sturdy spire above it built to withstand battle.

"Now comes the hard part, right?" Dyne asked.

"Yep." Kodiak said, using his helmet binoculars to scan the far wall. "I don't see Attilus in the battle. He must be inside."

"Sure we can't just take him ourselves?"

"No. Sepia's got first claim."

"Damn. Second dibs."

With that settled, the two dashed off again, closer to the horde of Covenant soldiers fighting for positions on top of the wall to take shots at the UNSC Marines on the other side. Directly in the center was a closed gate, and the SPARTANs made a beeline for it. Just as they expected, it wasn't long before a Grunt pushed out of his shooting position spotted them, and pointed with a panicked screech.

"Demons! More of them! Inside!" It shouted. The pitiful creature was thrown aside a moment later when a Brute spun about to face them, and began shooting from his higher vantage point. Dyne returned fire, but for the most part at their range they simply ducked and sidestepped most of the projectiles. In a moment, a blast charge landed on the ramparts over the gate, killing the few that had turned to fire on them and buying the pair time as those nearby recovered.

As soon as they reached the gate, slamming against it instead of slowing down, Kodiak found the control panel and started working on it with help from Erin watching his helmet feed. Dyne took the time for an equally valuable opportunity.

The bulky devices he'd been carrying with him looked like two garden hose coiling drums, only strung along the line were blocks of C12. They were an experiment of Taser's idle time, and for the sheer amount of explosives, Dyne had been waiting to test them. He ran to one side of the gate, then took one of the coils of C12-lined wire and used it almost like a bowling ball. The plastic wheel ran alongside the wall for almost forty feet, laying a block of high explosive every so often. By the time he'd done the same with the other side, Kodiak had the gate open.

While they only got a brief glimpse outside, they could see the Marine unit had stopped short a healthy distance from the fortress wall, out of the range of all the Brutes' weaponry. Only Sepia, Aspen, and Taser had advanced to the wall, and now slipped through to join them in running back to the small keep.

By now, the Covenant had recovered from the explosion, and the pack had its sights set on the five lone demons inside their camp. They barked orders sharply, and all began climbing down the walls. Right onto the line of explosives Dyne had laid. As the others outdistanced him, Dyne was walking slowly backwards with a detonator in each hand, waiting as the first Jackals set foot on the ground, then the Brutes, and a few Grunts. ..

A line of fiery blossoms rose along the inside of the wall, revealing as they died the horrible screams they'd drowned out for the first moments. The wall was ready to fall in on itself, and Dyne was sure the Marines would have no problem mopping them up now.

He joined the others at the front door of the keep, Taser already working on the door.

"Security level: average." He chirped, like a computer pop-up. "Any human idiot would recommend upgrading to the purchased software."

"I find when I do that, the company I buy from sends me only its ads." Aspen replied, not that he'd specifically been spoken to. It was a sure sign of old friends, that they'd insult each other without more than grins. As Kodiak remembered, even as far as washout DIs went Taser had been especially bitter, and Aspen was the only one who would talk to him regularly beyond scheduled exercises. Kodiak meant to ask him about what made Taser himself, but it could wait a little longer. He'd gotten the door open.

Sepia moved forward with her flamethrower, and Taser drew up his shotgun and took her flank. "Clear."

They moved inside and continued at a fast pace, Taser only pausing to seal the door behind them. Ion Team made good progress, which surprised Kodiak. If Attilus hadn't joined the battle, surely his guards would still be here. But other than a Grunt with a scrub brush, no opposition met them in the tight corridors.

Finally, they came to a door that previous similar structures had shown was a command chamber. As Taser set a breach charge on the door, Kodiak braced himself. They must have all their top-notch veterans waiting here. Memorizing where his knives and magazines were, he exhaled, and as soon as the charge blew open the door, he charged in.

Sepia was in front of him. Out of the smoke, a paw swung at her head, and she ducked. Faster than a normal eye could follow, Kodiak drew a minimal-weight alloy knife and sank it into the wrist. With the haze clearing, the Brute Bodyguard howled in pain, just before Aspen used a blade of his own to cut him down.

The others moved to engage more attackers, but to their surprise, the room was otherwise empty. Barren, in fact, of all other life. Aspen dropped the still body of its one occupant to the floor. A pool of deep reddish-purple blood expanded across the plating as five SPARTANs stood idle.

"Anybody feel . . . confused?" Dyne asked momentarily. Without answering, Kodiak slowly walked to the holotable, the one piece of furniture in the room. It was a map of a city, no doubt somewhere in Japan. One building was glowing red where the others were blue, and he looked more closely at the vaguely familiar building.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0709 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Erin was watching all this on her personal datapad from the mess hall. A while ago, Harris had come down from the command center, with Reo in front of him looking like a child who'd just been scolded. While he'd been angry that Erin was trying to direct operations without authorization, but by that time the SPARTANs were already in position, and he'd become just as curious to see if they would be able to assassinate a prominent Jiralhanae commander.

The empty room Ion had walked into proved just as perplexing to those at Ryu Base. Erin seemed to be frozen, only her eyes moving, darting from one helmet camera to another.

Reo, who had been contritely quiet after being caught to try and get into Harris' good graces again, said, "He may have been there . . . recently."

Harris shrugged, and spoke gently. "Erin . . . you have to face up to the fact that we're not superhumans like they are. You can't go for days without sleep. I've known enough young bridge officers to be a qualified expert. Try to do too much, and you burn out. They managed to take the base, that's an accomplishment no matter how unauthorized, but I'm going to give you a longer hiatus and post guards if I have to, to make sure you don't try this again."

For a moment longer, Erin stared at the screen. Then she seemed to give way. "Okay. It's just . . . it doesn't make sense!" She flicked her wrist, making the pad smack loudly against the table. It woke up Henri, who'd gone to sleep under it earlier. "Everything pointed to that being his command post, and there's no sign of him."

They all listened to the rain start to fall against the glass over the nearby wall, then began to get up when suddenly the lights cut out, and the room was plunged into momentary darkness.

"What the Sam Hill . . ." Erin heard Harris mutter before some of the lights came back on, emergency power online. For an instant, everything was calm, if dim, before a crash shook the floor under them. At the same time, alarms blared, and a voice shouted over an intercom.

"Covenant dropships detected on approach! Within one thousand meters and closing fast! Count at least seven, recalling rapid-response aircraft - AAH!"

Erin had lost her footing, and as Harris helped her up, he said, "That was the command center."

She wiped a line of blood from her mouth, berating herself for such a fall. "Bet you creds that's Attilus. He's not at his HQ because while we were trying to assassinate him, he was already on his way here to take out us."

Reo kept Henri close to her. "Shouldn't the battlenet have seen them?" she asked.

"Not if it's compromised." Harris informed her. "It could give us trouble trying to recall help, too."

"Well, I know I've got a secure link right here." Erin said, retrieving her datapad, the screen glowing in their dim light. "Ion, call for Bravo 029 to pick you up fast! They've mounted an air assault on Ryu Base! Get back here now!"

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:21, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

166: Interdiction
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0709 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar) Fujinomiya, Japan

"This UNSC Firebase Fuji", Lt. Colonel Kasuga's voice said into the radio of Mikiya Ryougi's Falcon Gunship, "We are under attack by multiple Covenant Dropships coming in from Shizuoka."

"This Lt. Satou", one of Mikiya's squadronmates said, "We've been separated from you, sir. We're stuck in the middle of a massive Covenant assault on the Fuji firebase.

"What the hell's going on?!", Aoi Miyazaki, Mikiya's gunner asked.

"Looks like the Covies are launching a counterattack on the firebase on Fuji, not doubt trying to take if offline so they can make a push through our lines and rescue their forces stranded in Izu and Yokohama", Mikiya replied, "Apparently another group of Covies is going after Ryu Base in Tokyo"

Mikiya steered his aircraft to the north, towards the peak of Mt Fuji. He could see explosions of AA shells and missiles around the top of the mountain. Closer to him, he saw about 14 objects on the RADAR.

Mikiya flew towards them, and saw what looked like seven Covenant dropships, two Phantoms and five Spirits, with seven Banshees escorting.

"Mostly Spirits. Looks like the Covies are really scraping the bottom of the barrel", Aoi commented.

"Missile lock acquired", Mikiya said, locking onto eight of the aircraft, four Banshees and four dropships, "Firing".

Eight Argent missiles released themselves from the ordnance bay one after the other, streaking towards the alien aircraft. The missiles impacted, blowing all of their targets to scrap metal, sending them down to the Japanese countryside in flaming pieces.

"Confirmed kills on these, excellent shooting", Aoi said as she saw eight radar blips disappear on the radar.

"Its not over yet", Mikiya said, "I need you ready on 30mm, were going in close to take out the rest of them.

"Two Banshees incoming", Aoi said.

"I see them, firing LAU-65", Mikiya said, firing the twin light dual purpose missile launchers under his aircraft's fuselage. The missiles impacted one of the Banshees, blowing away a wing and sending it down in flames.

The other Banshee moved in closer, as Mikiya maneuvered the aircraft in to engage at close range. Aoi placed the crosshair on the monitor for the nose gun turret slightly in front of the Covenant aircraft and fired.

A stream of 30mm high explosive and armor piercing rounds flew out in front of the target, several of them impacting in bright orange flashes, before blue flames erupted from the tail and Banshee went down in flames.

Aoi then turned her gun on a second incoming Banshee at about 11:00, striking the aircraft in the nose and scoring a second gun kill. Mikiya then pounced on the three remaining Spirit Dropships from above, out of the arc of fire of their single gun turret, firing an LAU-65 missiles into one, blowing away the rear of vessel, causing the two "prongs to fall" to Earth.

Aoi then fired a the 30mm cannon into the engines of the least two dropships, sending them down trails of fire.

"This is Hayabusa lead reporting dropship squadron, I am returning to base to refuel and re-arm, Hayabusa squadron respond", Mikiya said into the radio.

One by one, Mikiya's comrades reported in, some having minor plasma damage, but no one was injured.

As Mikiya turned away, the voice of a Longsword pilot spoke into the radio: "All units, this is Tanto 3-4 on station, preparing to engage hostile fighters and dropships.

167: High Wind Warning
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0725 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Once in open air, Bravo 029 made good time, but it still took time to go over 150 miles and every second cost them. Before they even reached Tokyo, rain had begun to fall. Ion Team was tensely silent throughout, forced to wait to help those in Ryu Base and anticipating the fight that would await them. Time was short, so they'd only managed to gather a few Marines to assist them. A few NCOs, seven close-quarters specialists, and a Single-Human Vertical Assault ODST named Quinn, who wore an ICARUS jetpack. His mobility on the skyscraper would likely make him their most valuable soldier.

Erin hadn't contacted them since they'd first received her call. Either she's been jammed with conventional lines, or was in close proximity to enemy forces and was keeping silent. They refused to consider anything else.

Other aircraft formed up with them en route, two nimble Hornet VTOLs and three Falcon gunships. The word from other nearby units was there would be more responding, but the Covenant had mounted coordinated strikes across Japan, probably to slow down UNSC response to their most valuable assets. Firebases and forward command posts were having difficulties repelling desperate attacks by armor or light infantry that had gotten through enemy lines. How they'd managed to do it was still unknown, but it didn't change how many they had or how tough they were.

"Sierra, better come up and take a look." Angel called through the ship's intercom. Kodiak assumed she meant him, and used his arms to steady himself and almost swing into the cabin. Ahead of them was Ryu Base. They were approaching low, under the rooftops. Above them, violet craft hovered around Ryu like a swarm of angry bees. Two Phantoms guarded the rooftop, while a half-dozen or so Spirits encircled the tower. Banshee pairs were swirling around it on patrol, ready to deal with things like annoying Pelicans coming in to help.

Kodiak spotted something, on one of the high levels where the command center was. "There." he said, pointing. A Phantom had latched onto the side of the building, it's belly and ventral hatch were against the wall. It looked like some sort of beetle, clutching to a wall in proportion. "Get him off of there, and we have an entrance in the middle of them."

"It's going to have to be a quick deployment." Angel advised him. "So many bandits around, I can't stay still for more than a few seconds."

"It's all we'll need." he assured her, and went to take his place by the troop bay door. The flying was up to her, now.

Gossard gave her access to the radio to communicate with the other pilots. "Flight, I am giving authorization to gain altitude and engage, weapons free. I'm going to make my drop approach."

"Copy, 029. I'll fly cover for you." One of the Falcons answered.

Immediately, they noticed a pair of Banshees leave their patrol circle on a tangent, diving straight for them. The aircraft scattered and climbed, one Hornet opening up with highly-accurate chaingun tracers. Angel and her wingman forged straight up, headed for the purple carapace hanging to the building.

"You look like a bug, and you squish like one, too." Angel said brashly. It was all too easy to attain missile lock, and loosed a pair of ANVIL-II missiles. They streaked away from the Pelican's wings, trailing vapor for a short distance until smashing into the Phantom's armor. It didn't completely destroy the Covenant dropship, but it didn't need to. The force shook loose whatever grappling anchors it had been using, and immediately it dropped free like a purple rock, falling to the ground below and hitting with a satisfying crash. Revealed was a hole in the tower's surface burned away by plasma cannons.

"Heads up, we've got an entry way. Stand to!" she warned her passengers. She heard them moving and readying to deploy, but her concern was more on the Spirits that seemed to be taking notice of her. The tuning forks were turning as if suspended on a line, then abruptly angled towards her and accelerated. The Falcon's port-side gunner launched several grenades, but they only exploded against a forward hull compartment before globules of bright purple plasma slammed against its exterior, actually stopping the helicopter in mid-air before another hit one of the rotors. The blades melted near the motor and flew off as the turbine burst into flame, and the Falcon dropped out of the sky trailing smoke. Despite her sympathy for its crew, she was determined not to end up like them.

As they neared the hole in the building, Angel threw her Pelican into a horizontal spin, bringing the tail around to face the side of the building and neatly into the gap. The sudden g-forces threw her sideways, but her grip on the throttle held, and the tail hovered above one exposed floor level while the troop door was on the one below. While she counted off seconds, Gossard used the 70mm gun to fend off a Spirit that hadn't dived past them.

The moment the door opened, Kodiak and Dyne leaped across, their shields making them ideal as shock troopers. Because of their small window, Moses had cleared the gun out of their way and couldn't cover them. Three Brutes, despite having time to prepare after their Phantom dropped away unexpectedly, had chosen to stand in the open rather than seek cover. It cost them as the two SPARTANs came up in their midst, and dealt with them quickly. Aspen and Taser leaped clear, to either side. Sepia came next, urging the others onward. Two, then five, six made it across before a plasma bolt shook against the wall, and Bravo 029 pulled away. Four hadn't crossed, and they jumped.

One Marine grabbed for Sepia's hand and missed, but caught the edge of the floor. Two fell short. One was caught as the SHVA grabbed him and hit his thrusters, landing sprawled among the others. The last man fell, screaming until he was out of earshot. Sepia helped the man hanging over the edge, and he crawled away on all fours, shaking.

Kodiak and Dyne quickly checked over the room. Glass plates that once displayed unit positions in projected light were shattered and dim. The large TE-21 holotable in the center had been smashed in, and occasionally fizzled from a mess of severed wires. And all around were bodies.

Their thin officers' dress uniforms had offered little protection against blades. Some looked as if they'd been ripped limb-from-limb. Blood slicked the floor around them. One or two guards in body armor were among the dead, but they hadn't done much good.

"Coney's not here." Dyne reported, mixed relief and apprehension clear.

"Aspen." Kodiak said urgently, crouching. The medic hurried over, immediately working to halt bleeding and stabilize the officer. Crimson had all but obscured his uniform. The man coughed blood, but was at least conscious.

"What do you remember?" Kodiak asked him, keeping the man's eyes on him.

He coughed again, spitting dark red phlegm. "Brutes. More on the roof . . . went down. Infirmary."

It was enough, and he didn't want to strain him more. "We need to head them off. Dyne, take Quinn and two more. Rappel down to the med levels and hold your ground."

"Yes sir." Dyne said eagerly. Immediately, he spun around to the wide-open hole and began securing a line. Kodiak turned to the rest of them.

"Aspen, stay with him." he indicated the injured officer. "If Coney wasn't here, we can assume she's the highest-ranking officer remaining. Secondary objective is to locate her, but primary is to kill every Brute we see or kick them off our base. Sepia, you and I will meet Dyne and catch the downward group between us. Taser, you're taking the Marines and working up. We'll join you as soon as we can. Good?"

The others nodded their agreement. Kodiak still wasn't used to leading without question. He was part of a team. It had been Sam's team. If Kodiak had a plan, which he usually did, it only went if no one saw a hole in it. He wanted review of his ideas, not unquestioning obedience. Even when speed was important.

While most headed farther inside, making their way to the stairwell, Dyne and his three teammates had finished securing their lines. The SPARTAN tugged his a few extra times to make sure. His armor was heavy, and it wasn't likely to save him from a fall like this.

"Top medical is the ICU, four levels down." Quinn said, his visor polarized. The SHVA had an assault rifle, and the ICARUS pack in place of rappelling lines.

Dyne took a deep breath. "Okay. Here we go."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 06:48, January 10, 2012 (UTC)

168: Cubicle Hell
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0725 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Tonami, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

The Tonami city office had definitely seen better days. All the glass on the front of the three-story structure had been blown away, and the front lawn was littered with the still burning remains of Wraiths, Ghosts, and Brute Choppers, not the mention littered with bodies. Mostly Covenant bodies.

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki were pleased with this particular detail of the ruins of the city office. It meant the UNSC and Covenant Separatists might actually win this war yet.

Keiichi and Rena were amongst several dozen UNSC regular forces and milita who took cover behind sections of wall that hadn't been blown away, taking cover from the Covenant plasma turret and a squad of Brutes, Grunts, and Kig-Yar in the entrance foyer.

Rena armed a captured "sticky" grenade by pressing the button in the center of the plasma grenade and tossed it into the entrance foyer. The grenade did not stick to a Covenant soldier, merely landing on the floor and exploding in a cloud of superheated plasma. The blast, however, did kill a couple Unggoy and a Kig-Yar and disorienting the rest of the alien troops holding the room.

Several UNSC soldiers turned to fire into the disoriented Covenant, including Keiichi, who set his DMR to semi auto and put two 7.62mm rounds into a Brute's head, killing it, as a UNSC regular infantryman took down the Grunt manning the plasma turret with burst from his M247K LMG.

The soldier with the LMG layed down supressive fire on the Covenant, while the rest of the UNSC soldiers picked them off. Keiichi fired his DMR several more times, taking out a couple more Covies.

Once the entrance foyer was clear, a UNSC Army sergeant ordered Keiichi, Rena and several other soldiers, both regular and militia to follow him into the mailing room. Keiichi unslung his M95 Auto Shotgun. It would be close combat in there.

A UNSC private, also carrying an M95, burst in first, firing a burst of three shells that downed Brute Minor, before cutting down a couple Unngoy. Other UNSC entered, taking different routes around the rows of PO boxes.

Keiichi turned a corner and fired a burst of fire that cut down a Jiralhanae armed with a Mauler, before Keiichi turned his attention to a couple Grunts and Jackals, backed up by Rena and her SMG and a couple of other UNSC soldier's rifles.

Rena picked up the fallen Brute's Mauler shotgun and advanced along the next row of mailing boxes along with a couple of militia and UNSC regulars.

A Jiralhanae burst around the corner, firing its spiker, the metal spikes flying lethally between Keiichi and Rena, embedding themselves in a militiaman's chest, killing him. Keiichi turned the fire on the offending Jiralhanae, but Rena beat him to it.

Two loud bangs ran out as Rena fired the mauler shotgun twice, depleting the Brute's shield with the first blast and killing it with the second. A Kig-Yar came around the corner, only to be cut down by a UNSC Army soldier's MA37 rifle.

Rena shot an Unggoy as Keiichi took out another Grunt, before the squad turned a corner, surprising a Grunt and two Jackals, cutting them down in a hail of fire.

Rena tried to fired her Mauler at a final Kig-Yar that ran at her with an energy cutlass, but found she was out of ammo. Instead, she struck he alien creature in the face with the blade on the bottom of the Brute shotgun she carried, killing the Kig-Yar instantly.

The UNSC sergeant came up from the final row of PO boxes and yelled, "Clear!".

The UNSC troops advanced into the next room, a group of cubicle that had once been office space. The one piece of good news about this second maze of blind corners was that, because of their low velocity and poor ballistic properties, Spiker rounds could get stuck in even partition walling and office cubicles. 7.62mm rounds, on the other hand...

Blew right through them, as UNSC Army LMG gunner with and M247K Squad Automatic Weapon demonstrated, adding a number of new "ventilation" holes to a cubicle that held a Brute... and cutting down the Jiralhanae and any other Covies that might have been hidden within.

The UNSC sergeant ordered "Get some grenades out there!"

Immediately, Keiichi and several UNSC regulars and militia tossed M9 HE-DPs and captured Covenant grenades over the walls of cubicles. Seconds later, the grenades detonated, tearing apart the Covenant infantry close to the blast, and wounding or deshielding those further way. The UNSC forces turned onto the main path between the cubicles, weapons at the ready.

Unggoy, Kig-Yar, and deshielded Jiralhanae fell left and right. Within a couple minutes, the maze of cubicles was confirmed clear, and moments after than, the UNSC forces recieved the call they had been waiting for. Tonami city hall was theirs.

With the capture of city all and several other structures in the north side of the city, and UNSC armor moving to surround the west side of town, and numerous UNSC forces covering the south and east sides, it wouldn't be long until, Tonami, like Nanto to the south, was surrounded by UNSC and Separatist forces. Once the two southwestern exurbs of Toyama were taken, UNSC force could concentrate on striking at the main Toyama metropolitan area of the Toyama proper to the east and Takaoka to the west. UNSC forces advanced on the city, from Shirakawa, Takayama, and Kamioka to the south and Joetsu to the east.

Once that city was liberated, then it was onto Kanazawa, then Fukui. Then, they would join the UNSC force forces moving along the south coast to take back the Kansai region- Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe. Then came Shikoku, Okayama, Tottori, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi. After pushing the Covies off Honshu, Kyushu would be freed next, then the Ryukyus. After the Covenant were force out of Japan, the UNSC force would no doubt clear the alien presence out of Korea, China, and the rest of East Asia. The same thing was no doubt happening in Europe, North America, Russia, The Middle East, South America, Africa. Everywhere on Earth, the Covenant were being driven out, city by city, town by town.

It would be a long haul, and it wouldn't be over with Earth. Reach and all the other glassed world would have to be reterraformed, and the Covenant driven back to their homeworlds, and their false prophets brought to justice.

169: They're Going to Need a Medic
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0735 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Dyne pushed off the wall out to a distance of about fifteen feet, and as he swung back, let the rope out a bit so he would connect squarely with the center of the window. The shards fell away from him like he'd run into a sheet of thin paper. The moment he was through, he looked down and was relieved to see he wasn't over a patient's bed, and tucked and rolled as he hit the floor.

As he unhooked himself from his cables, the marine came in through the hole he'd made, and Quinn hovered down just behind him. By then, Dyne was moving through the pathway around the outside of this floor, lined by hospital beds. It was bathed in the odd blue light from the daytime storm outside, the power was still out. Dyne wondered if it had caused any deaths by loss of life support recently, or if the people around him were dying now. Where were the medical staff? Well, he at least would do his part to try and save them.

Sure enough, as he neared the outside, he heard them. They were sniffing loudly, tasting the air in a place that stank of coppery human blood. They probably didn't smell him yet. And he was going to enjoy giving them an unexpected surprise.

With the two Marines also hidden, Dyne waited until one of them kicked down the door, and two walked in, surveying the room and chuckling between themselves. There came a tap at each of their shoulders, and they turned slowly to see a tan-clad SPARTAN right behind them, pointing an M7 SMG at each of them.

In the crackling that filled the air, two startled shouts and the sound of something heavy falling were drowned out.

It got the others attention, even as they entered the medical area from other doors. Quinn and Tandy, the other Marine, opened fire on those that had sighted the SPARTAN, blindsiding them. It may have been four or five that started returning fire on the Marines, but Dyne was just worried about the big one coming at him. He couldn't give ground, there was a man in a bed right behind him.

Dyne sprayed gunfire at the ape, but not enough to break the shielding. It swung a muscular arm and nearly broke his wrists, if he hadn't dropped his guns. His arms stung, but he jumped forward with a headbutt that hurt the Brute more than it did him. They were tangled in the fight, and fell to the floor. Try as he might to scramble away, the Brute had a hold of him, and pulled him back to where he could tear the demon apart.

Standing, Dyne was lifted by his windpipe above the floor, his enemy savoring the victory that would surely bring him glory. That was his mistake. While he sought glory, Dyne's motive made him frantic, risk-taking, and dangerous. Swinging up his legs, he lashed out with a desperate kick that made use of every muscle from his neck being held fast to the tendons in his calves. It strained his already-crushed windpipe, but the MJOLNIR boots connected with its sternum with such force that the rib cage crumpled inward. The Brute literally flew backwards, slamming against a wall with a crack, and tumbling down to pool blood from where bone protruded from his ribs.

Dyne gasped in air, holding his throat. That had hurt. Coughing, he looked over to the bed, and found the man was held in place by a neck brace. There was an awkward moment of recognition before Dyne said, "Captain Drulliard.", and then picked up his SMGs and left to continue fighting.

Unfortunately, his next fight went no better. But he was able to force a momentary stalemate by pressing the beast he faced against a wall, trying to get the upper hand somehow when the Brute yelped, and something darted back as quickly as it had come in. Almost immediately, the ape's struggling became erratic. It foamed at the mouth, which Dyne wouldn't have considered unusual except for the panic instead of anger in its eye. As sweat began to break out all over the creature's body, it weakened, and Dyne cautiously let it fall to the ground in its death throes.

"These things really stink, don't they." Said the man. He was shivering, and considerably shorter than Dyne or the Marines. It was Doctor Kiku, the one who'd tended to Sepia weeks ago.

"What did you do?" Dyne asked.

Wordlessly, Kiku showed him an empty syringe with a recognizable symbol and the word 'BIOHAZARD' printed in bold. By then, the Marines had dealt with the other creatures in the ambush, and rejoined Dyne.

"We're lucky there weren't more." Quinn said. "If they'd had cover and shielding, we wouldn't have held while you were busy."

"You take the handsy one next time." Dyne said horsely.

Kodiak and Sepia took that time to enter, spattered in fresh Jiralhanae blood. After a brief conversation, their accounts confirmed they'd caught all the Brutes headed down between them, and should head up to join Taser while Quinn and Tandy held the ICU.

Then Aspen raised them. "Kodiak, I just did a check over the bodies. A lot of the senior staff is missing. Have you found them?"

"No, but we haven't been looking. No sign of Coney, either. They may be on the floors between us, we only cleared the stairs."

"Well, recommend you check that out. The Brute commander may be taking them prisoner."

"Copy that." Kodiak cut the com. "Spartans, let's head up."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 07:18, January 16, 2012 (UTC)

170: Heavy Ordnance
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1230 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)

Tonami, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

After taking the Tonami city hall, Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki, and the rest of their militia unit were deployed to backup about a platoon of UNSC troops, as well as a smaller number of Sangheili and Unngoy defending a group of farmhouses just north of Tonami from Covenant attack.

The UNSC and Separatist forces were supported by four Scorpion tanks, four Cougar APCs, and a Grizzly Heavy tank. Attempting to counter attack was a similar sized Covenant Loyalist force equipped with armored support.

After the opening barrages of plasma mortar fire, the first Covenant forces to attack were their rapid assault forces- About a dozen Ghost, six Choppers and a couple Prowlers and Revenant.

The UNSC and Separtist forces opened fire, a Scorpion reducing a Revenant to scrap metal with its 90mm gun as the 30mm autocannon of the Cougars chewing apart several Ghosts. Keiichi fired his DMR's 25mm underbarrel grenade launcher, missing a Ghost.

"Damn", he said.

Rena, Keiichi, and several other UNSC soldiers focused fired on a Ghost, a 7.62mm round blowing through the head of the Unggoy operator, causing the vehicle to go out of control and flip over.

Keiichi's second grenade took out a Prowler in a ball of flames, as a an M41 anti-tank missile homed in on the second Revenant, destroying the alien war machine. Behind the rapid attack vehicles, Covenant infantry and armor- Wraiths, Shadows, and Locusts, appeared at the far end of the field.

A Wraith fired, its round impacting a barn that was held by several Covenant Separatists troops. A surviving Separatist Unggoy who was clearly much braver than stereotypes about his race suggest, raised a plasma launcher and fired all four "plasma missiles" at the Wraith, sending it up in a ball of blue fire.

A UNSC M41 gunner send a missile flying over the field, to land on top of a Locust, blowing of the turret as two Wraiths met their end from each of the Grizzly tank's two 120mm main guns.

Keiichi, meanwhile, took aim with his M456 grenade launcher, firing at a Shadow APC with a group of dismounting Brutes next to it. A flash of blue flames indicated a hit. Next to Rena, an AIE-486 rotary machine gun roared, sending a hail of lead at the advancing Covenant infantry.

Suddenly, a particle beam burned through the head of the AIE-486 operator.

"Sniper!", A UNSC infantryman yelled.

"I see him", UNSC soldier with an SRS 99 said.

The UNSC sniper fired a single shot. "Got the bastard!", he said.

Rena, meanwhile, grabbed the spade handles of the AIE 486 and started spitting fire in the general direction of the incoming Covenant forces, tearing the aliens to pieces.

The guns of the UNSC vehicles and infantry all cut the enemy force apart, littering the field north of the farmhouse with Jiralhanae, Kig-Yar, and Unggoy bodies.

The Covenant infantry retreated, clearly they were not expecting that kind of resistance.

"Yeah, you better run", A UNSC soldier said.

"The cowards flee in terror!", a Sanghieli stated.

"Wait a sec, what's that over there!", a UNSC Army private said.

In the distance were about two dozen Covenant Wraiths and Locusts, supported by a Scarab.

"This is Delta 2-3 Actual" a UNSC radioman said, "We have incoming alien heavy armor at grid coordinates Echo 283, Gulf 458, say again, hostile armor at Echo 283, Gulf 458. I count approximately two dozen Wraiths and Locusts and a Scarab, plus possible foot mobiles."

"This is Shortsword Anvil 3-5", A UNSC Air Force pilot said in an American accent, "I am aware of the threat and are on station, ETA one minute. We will be deploying a HTAM, recommend you plug your ears."

All the UNSC forces had the eyes turned to the Covenant forces, when, with a great roar and a flash of fire, the Covenant forces were annihilated. Keiichi though he saw a Wraith, or at least a good size chunk of one actually thrown in the air like a toy.

"Did you see that!", exclaimed one UNSC soldier

"How could I miss it", replied his buddy.

"So that's an HTAM?", Keiichi said.

"HTAM?", Rena asked.

"Heavy Thermobaric Attack Munition, a massive fuel-air bomb, the largest non-nuclear weapon in the UNSC arsenal.", Keiichi said, "I heard so UNSC Army troops talking about it, but I've never seen one until today."

171: Upward Spiral
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0740 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

The wind had grown stronger outside. Sepia could hear it. Either that or the air battle outside was becoming more fierce. The MA5C felt light in her hands compared with her flamethrower, but Kodiak had barred her from using it. After the plasma bombardment Ryu Base had been hit with in the higher levels, it wouldn't have been wise to deal any more such structural damage. It put a damper on the rush of battle she felt, but Sepia agreed fire might not be the best choice of weapon.

Kodiak, Dyne, and Sepia moved more quickly without the marines, but now they found themselves in a vertical shootout with some Brutes on the levels above. The stairway led around in a spiral along the walls of an elevator shaft, and Spiker fire came from the flights opposite and over them every time they advanced along one wall. It was especially dangerous when they came to corners, they had less of an overhang to protect them against shots from the far corner.

Still, they made progress. Soon they found a strategy: Dyne forced the Brutes with the best angles on them to get away from the edge while Kodiak and Sepia advanced, to where they had the advantage, eliminated the Brutes, and waited for Dyne to catch up. Sepia thought it would have made an excellent training scenario, and recalled some similar set-ups on Onyx. Just as she recalled how effective grenades had been, a hiss reached her, and she saw a Brute Major above release a spike grenade it had been holding over the shaft. She bet it was timed to go off at the moment it passed them. She and Kodiak dived away, just before it detonated.

Shards of iron flew out, reflecting off of their shielding and embedding themselves in permacrete walls. Still, they avoided the worst of it. Sepia rolled over to regain her feet and saw Dyne, who'd been behind one of the support columns. Looking up, he reached to his belt with his left hand.

"You want to play that game, huh? Okay!" He leaned out over the rail, and tossed it up in an arc before he drew back. A moment later, there was a muffled explosion on the level above, and several howls. "Ooh, I'd say that one landed."

"Dyne, no explosives." Kodiak ordered, for the same reason he'd stopped Sepia's flamethrower. He cast a look up, and saw the position that would have fired on them next empty of living hostiles. "Good hit, though."

Without wasting another second, they continued on, and flanked a quartet of Brutes that had been slow in retreating after their allies had been killed. They were dispatched with unbroken bursts of gunfire, and Ion stepped over their punctured corpses. They took a breather when they saw the next floor was setting up a to try holding them off.

"You'd think they would learn to pull out the big guns the moment we show up." Kodiak mused, looking over how they were deploying around it.

"Are you sure I can't use more explosives?" Dyne asked.

As they continued to banter as they usually did, Sepia payed attention to the wind. Something had changed, no, been added to it. Quiet, but. . . "Shh. Listen."

Dyne and Kodiak immediately looked over to her, and a moment later seemed to hear it, too. Looking along the wall, they located a bashed-in door and peered in. It was dark, but there was an immediate corner that cut short their view. Kodiak glanced back up at the Covenant setting up their defenses. "They're not going anywhere. We'll make them wait on us."

He went first, with Sepia behind him, and Dyne watching their backs. The noise became clearer, but no less out of place. A scratching and snarling. They spotted it seconds before a flash of lightning burned the image into their retinas, the misshapen form of a Stalker tearing with its blade-like claws at a metal door, leaving long scrape marks. Sensing the Spartans, it turned, snarled at them, and dashed a few meters away before Dyne caught it with a three-round burst. The creature had built up surprising speed in such short a time, and its body tumbled and crashed against a wall.

Waiting a moment more to see if any more were forthcoming, they lowered their weapons and Kodiak approached the door, which led to some sort of storage room. He made one, then three quick, then two evenly-spaced knocks, and a click answered him before the door slid open. He wasn't at all surprised when Erin Coney stepped out and looked between the three of them.

"About time. What took you so long?" she asked, crossing her arms and smiling. Behind her, a small, dark-haired boy stared up at them in astonishment. Captain Harris was also present, though there was a bandage compressed against his side, and a teenage girl was helping him to stand.

"We had to take the stairs. And the Brutes didn't want us to take the stairs." Kodiak answered.

"Ah. Well, would you mind finding a light switch? We don't have VISR-equipped helmets like you."

"Oh, no, you don't need to go anywhere. There's a pack of apes outside that might be a little trigger-happy by now." Kodiak told her, putting an arm out when she tried to pass him.

"Here." Dyne said, removing his helmet and passing it to her. "We can see in the dark."

Erin felt it, found a grip on the heavy piece of armor, and slipped it over her head allowing it to lock with the neural interface on her neck. She looked rather amusing to the SPARTAN-IIIs, her head a bit out of proportion, but they kept that to themselves.

"That's better. A little heavy, but now I can help you without having to read a floor schematic blindly."

Kodiak reached up to his com. "Taser, you copy? How did you miss all these Brutes on your way up?"

In a moment, Taser responded, but not in his typical computer speech, though it sounded hushed. "Because Aspen was right. I'm on the roof, and it's that Chieftain you ran into near Shirakawa. He's got most of the command staff as prisoners. He's alone, just has the officers bound. His glitchin' Phantom's right there, he could have evac'd any time. He's waiting on something."

There was something in Taser's voice, besides the fact he was talking normally for once. Kodiak overrode him. "Taser, hold position, we'll join you and-"

"That something could come any time . . . this is a chance to offline him."

"Do not engage, wait for back-up."

"Negative. High priorities demand immediate action. Terminating."

Kodiak wasn't sure if he'd meant the Brute or the link he severed, but for either Kodiak uttered a curse. "We need to get up there, and there isn't time to fight up the stairs. Is there any other way up?"

Coney nodded awkwardly under Dyne's helmet and pointed. "Something blew a hole in the ceiling over there. On the floor above there's a dumbwaiter that goes one level below the roof."

In a moment, they found it, and Dyne gave Kodiak a boost up to clear the room. Just as he'd finished his sweep, he heard growls from back below him, and saw Dyne draw his rifle. MA5C fire meant Sepia must have already engaged. The Brutes had come down after them.

"Dyne, move, I'm coming down!"

"No, go! We'll look after Erin and them, you go after Taser!"

Kodiak didn't want to, but knew if there were any more Brutes retreating up, Taser would need his help more than Sepia and Dyne. Locating the empty dumbwaiter, he climbed in, gouging hand and footholds into the walls, and resumed his climb upward.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 05:35, January 22, 2012 (UTC)

172: Maneuver Warfare
1230 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)

beachside park in Kanazawa, Yokohama, Japan

"Incoming Scarab!", Sgt. Ryouko Tanbou said into his helmet communicator as she sharply turned wheel of the Gauss Warthog she was driving, one of four Warthogs carrying James Basilone's ODST squad.

As Tanbou maneuvered the the vehicle to avoid a stream of plasma from the Scarab's main gun, Vladimir Kamorov, the squad's sniper fired the 'Hog's Gauss cannon at a the Scarab, damaging one of the armored "kneecaps" of the alien war machine.

"All Units", Basilone said through his radio, split up and attack the Scarab from different directions, and keep moving. Tanbou and my Warthog will go from the legs, Verricci, Al Fulani, have your Hogs provide suppressive fire on the the Covenant infantry on the top of the Scarab.

Basilone and turned his Warthog's 65mm missile launcher at the Scarabs's legs as his driver, Renaurd, maneuvered the vehicle to avoid several plasma bolts from the Scarab's top turret.

As Basilone drove past the Scarab's front legs, he fired the 65mm missile launcher at the left leg as Zhang fired his M41 missile launcher from the side seat of the Warthog. The missiles impacted in a ball of flames, disabling the leg.

At the same time, a pair of Gauss slugs from Kamarov's Warthog impacted the front of the knee joint of the Scarab's other front leg, disabling the vehicle.

"The Scarab is down!", Basilone said, "All units, get around the back and get some heavy fire on the rear plating!"

Renaurd drove the Hog around to the rear of the alien walker and Basilone and Zhang fired their rockets into the rear plating as Kamarov fired multiple Gauss slugs into the rear armor. The back of the Scarab exploded in a flash of fire, and, seconds later, the entire rear of the Scarab was engulfed in blue flames as the plasma core exploded.

"That's the way we get it done, men", Basilone said, "All units, on me, we're going after a Covie artillery battery near a temple in the residential area across the road. The target is marked with a GPS waypoint"

Renaurd maneuvered the Warthog that he, Basilone and Zhang rode in across a major road as several plasma bolts flew over their heads. Zhang raised his MA5B assualt rifle and fired the attached M456 "Smart" Grenade Launcher at a Ghost moving in on the ODSTs, blowing it apart in a flash of fire.

Kamarov took out a Brute Prowler, hitting it in the engine with his Warthog's Gauss cannon, causing the vehicle to explode violently as machine gun fire from Vericci and Al-Fulani's Warthog's eliminated the final two Ghosts.

The convoy of Warthogs turned down a road into a residential area, before turning towards a large, ornate gateway marking the entrance to the Buddhist temple.... or Basilone though it was a temple. It had a large wooden gateway with traditional Japanese-style roof, Basilone was pretty sure the Shinto shrines were the ones with the red rectangular archways.

An Unggoy walked into the archway and took aim with a fuel rod cannon, only to be run over as Renaurd slammed his foot down and crushed the Unggoy under the tires of the Warthog as the vehicle plowed throw the wooden gate of the temple, along what was intended as footpath, but was nonetheless wide enough for the Warthog.

The four Warthogs sped along the cobblestone path lined with sakura trees, firing at the occasional Covenant soldier that got in their way, before they reach a pond, across which was the temple itself, which was looking a little worse for wear with several of the buildings damaged, and a Covenant super heavy plasma mortar with several. The other three Warthogs maneuvered around the pond, but Basilone ordered the Hog forward, across what was intended as a footbridge.

The curved bridge acted like a ramp, launching the Warthog over the pond. The vehicle landed, and immediately, Basilone fired a 65mm missile for the launcher, taking out a Shade turret, before destroying a Covenant Shadow APC with another missile, before finally making mincemeat of a pack of Jiralhanae with two more missiles. The Gauss cannon and machine guns of the other Warthogs disposed of the rest of the Covenant forces.

"Area clear!", Basilone said, "Get a charge on the gun!"

"Roger!", Zhang replied, working as quickly as he could to place a C12 charge on the plasma battery, before running back into the Warthog. As the UNSC vehicle drove away, Zhang pressed down on the detonator, sending the Covenant artillery up in a fireball.

173: Rising Sun
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0800 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

On the top floor, Kodiak had found himself in the midst of a score of Brutes. Normally, he wouldn't have dreamed of taking on so many alone, but time was of the essence. At every moment, he'd remained moving, shooting, stabbing. When a large cyan and crimson armored Bodyguard had thrown a punch with enough force to break even a SPARTAN's bones, Kodiak had raised his rifle to block, and it crumpled in the center. After that, he drew his M6 in his left and stole whatever light weapon still had ammo in its clip. Blood stained his white armor, and he received more than a few painful wounds.

The last two had good cover ten feet down the hall. Kodiak's pistol went empty at the same time the Spiker did. Dropping the sidearm, he reached back and threw the bladed carbine, which embedded the twin prongs in the chest of one of his enemies. Charging forward against his better judgement, he heard his shield alarm and felt a spike lodge in his armor. It felt like a sledgehammer had just hit him, but he still leaped over the metal table, tackling the Brute. It struggled a moment before Kodiak sank a knife blade into its chest, deep enough to reach its heart.

As it ceased struggling, Kodiak caught his breath, nearly exhausted. Something interfered with his vision, and he realized it was a Spiker round protruding from his breastplate. Curling his fist around it, with a yank, it pulled free. It left a hole of freshly-uncovered metal, but hadn't gone deep enough through the titanium-A to reach him. He was lucky it didn't meet him a bit higher or lower. Taking up a Type-51 Carbine, he walked up to the roof.

Crackling flames and an orange glow came from the top of the stairwell. The heat made his armor try to compensate. As Sol rose over the land of the rising sun, it revealed the air battle still being waged around the tower. Covenant and UNSC engines howled past, causing the flames spawned by plasma and burning building to flicker. And before Kodiak, two figures battled.

Standing on a raised platform, they were surrounded by dead Marines, dead Brutes, and captive officers. Taser had lost his weapon, somehow, and one of his robotic arms had snapped halfway up the wrist. A gash where his shoulder met his neck was seeping blood. But he fought on, deflecting the greatsword with his battered THERMOPYLAE prosthetics.

Attilus' fur was matted by dark purple blood in several places, and one of his fangs was revealed to be fractured as he breathed laboriously. But he was winning. He'd managed to press his advantage of size and strength, and Taser was tiring faster.

Kodiak raised the Carbine, and had just placed the reticle on Attilus when the Chieftain swung, and thrust, impaling Taser through the abdomen.

"No! Bastard!" Kodiak yelled, too late. Attilus lifted Taser off the ground, firelight reflecting in his eyes, focused on every detail of the body going limp. The damaged arms sparked, but hung without input. Then, disgusted, Attilus lifted one paw and placed it on Taser's chest, and with one push threw his corpse off the blade. Having heard the call, he turned to Kodiak.

"Another challenger! Come, demon, let us have some sport! Seek your revenge, and I will slay you as I have slain humanity's champions before you!"

Kodiak didn't even move, only kept staring at Taser's motionless form. When he did not respond, Attilus continued.

"I know what you are, demon." he said, advancing toward him. "Only another human in powerful armor, a child no less! If your kind has reduced itself to sending you to die for them, what chance do you truly stand? Only able to hide among the myriad of stars, hoping not to be found. This was inevitable. Through war you've only slowed your destruction, and now, your homeworld has finally fallen to the Prophets' grasp."

When Attilus was a few meters from him, Kodiak began walking to the side, causing them to circle each other. Kodiak kept the Carbine leveled, but held off the trigger for a moment. "It hasn't fallen yet. We're still here."

A feral grin spread to Attilus' maw. "Let that be finished, then." And he launched himself at the SPARTAN.

Kodiak fanned the trigger, firing radioactive bolts against the Chieftain's shields. Bellowing, Attilus swung the heavy sword, strong enough that the force alone could kill. Kodiak reversed his circling, ducking under the swing. He brought the Carbine around to hit his jaw, but Attilus' huge paw wrapped around it, and threw him across the platform.

He skidded to a stop, the Carbine lost, and stood as Attilus approached slowly with the shield on his left arm held forward. Kodiak considered drawing his knives, but even if he was quick, Attilus was probably skilled enough to keep him at a distance. So he went for the last resort. Reaching up over his shoulder, he grasped the katana's hilt, and drew the elegant weapon from its sheath.

Attilus' lip curled in a smile to show his fangs, eager to answer the challenge. He shifted his grip on his blade. It was a greatsword, the metal tarnished and scarred by the marks of past battles, and past victories for Attilus. The blade was broad and heavy, meant to channel its master's immense strength. The sword Kodiak held was almost as long, but looked small in comparison. Thin and curved, with the polished metal gleaming in the light of fire and plasma. It was quicker, and still strong, but untested. In many ways, the blades reflected the warriors themselves. The symbolism was not lost on him.

This time they met head-on, Attilus opening with a powerful stab. Kodiak deflected the attack to his side, then forced both blades over to their other side in an arc before slashing at his enemy's legs. The sword was caught on the the shield affixed to Attilus' arm, and the Brute drove him back several paces before Kodiak pushed free, the greatsword's tip just barely missing him.

Kodiak would have to wait for an opening. Trying to attack him directly only forced him into a losing battle of strength. He backpedaled while Attilus swung at him a few times, then took a chance. With the katana's sharp tip held forward, he charged in at Attilus' exposed neck. Desperate panic at his mistake spurred the Chieftain into action, and he lashed out with his shield arm and caught Kodiak's body fully.

He landed well on one knee, but Attilus had already launched at him, bringing the heavy blade over his head with two hands. Kodiak had only enough time to raise his sword horizontally to block.

Metal rang against metal, the vibration shooting up Kodiak's arm, but to his surprise the blade held, and so did his own strength. Not pausing to marvel at its strength, he let down the hilt on his right side, letting Attilus' sword fall to the side. Then he took aim with the point and struck upward.

The Brute was too quick, it missed going through his jugular and brain, but cut into the flesh above and below his left eye. Attilus howled in pain and anger as blood blinded him on that side, and Kodiak took the chance to fall on his back and kick mightily. Attilus was launched into the air and across the roof, back to where his Phantom hovered. Both lay fighting their pain and exhaustion, and it took a minute for either of them to stand.

The katana's tip dragged on the ground as Kodiak climbed shakily to his feet. Across the rooftop, Attilus stared to where his sword lay, at Kodiak's feet. His whole body swaying with each breath, he reached to the Gravity Hammer on his back to fight Kodiak and retrieve it.

At that moment, heavy footsteps approached from the stairwell down. Attilus must have expected his Brutes were dead, because he turned and loped into the violet light of his Phantom's gravity beam, at once lifted into its hold. Dyne and Sepia appeared on the roof, and fired their rifles ineffectually at the Phantom as it gathered speed and fled from Ryu Base.

"Kodiak!" Sepia called, and they ran over to him. At their touch, he nearly collapsed into their arms, but he had a duty. More staggering than walking, Kodiak went to Taser's unmoved body and checked for a pulse. Nothing.

Sepia shook him, but her team leader didn't respond. "He's gone. There's nothing we can do. Untie the command staff." she told Dyne before activating her radio. "Erin, we've secured Ryu Base and its commanding officers. Sierra Beta 399 is down, Directive 930."

Kodiak hadn't even liked Taser much. But now he was dead, and Aspen would be the only one to remember him as more than a bitter washout drill instructor. That he'd finally been made a Spartan, only to die like this, saddened him greatly. Removing Taser's dog tags, he touched Sepia's hand and told her, "I'm going to stay with him until Aspen can get up here."

After that, he wouldn't respond for some time.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 00:38, January 30, 2012 (UTC)

175: Clouds Linger
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1025 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Already, the Corps of Engineers had arrived to begin temporary repairs on Ryu Base, and ensure the building was still stable. In addition, Marine teams were double and triple checking each floor, and an EOD team was on standby in case they found a bomb. The UNSC was taking no chances on being secure.

For now, the command center remained a private infirmary for the senior staff, with the SPARTANs that had come to their defense included among them. While Aspen made his rounds, aided by Dr. Kiku and a pair of Navy corpsmen, Kodiak remained with Taser's body. He'd been moved down from the roof, and shifted to an orderly posture in respect. Kodiak thought of it as respect for death or the SPARTAN, still clad in his bloodied armor, not for the man himself. As soon as he had the time to spare, Kodiak was going to ask Aspen about who he'd been.

Erin, also busy, eventually came to him on her list. She didn't look up from her TACPAD immediately as she told him, "We've determined the Phantoms were able to mask themselves by infiltrating the Sangheili battlenet, which linked to ours. We're working to make sure that can't happen again. Are you injured?"

"The corpsmen gave me a few band-aids." Kodiak responded absently. The subdued tone must have caught her attention.

Erin looked at him, concerned. "How are you holding up? This is the first time you've seen a SPARTAN die, isn't it?"

"I'm better than he is." Kodiak said, bitterly. Then he realized how much like Taser he sounded. "It's just regret. I hated Taser in training, but now, I just feel sorry for him."

She exhaled. "He died protecting the UNSC. It's what he wanted, really."

Kodiak's brow raised. "What do you know about it?"

"More than you think." Erin replied. "But you'll have to ask Aspen. It's more his story than mine."

She left then, to attend to some other task. After a while listening to the civilian crew patch the gaping hole in the wall, Dyne approached him next. His helmet, which Erin had returned, was held under his arm, and had the usual close-lipped smirk on his features. He sat down next to Kodiak and immediately began, "Sepia's helping with hauling the Brute bodies up to the roof to have a Pelican dispose of them. They're dead, but they're still heavy. Ryu should be running at almost full capacity within a couple days, and we have the next few off for our help. As long as it didn't get hit this morning, there's a restaurant down the street that's reopened, serving the base personnel when they're off-duty. We should check it out today, what do you say?"

It did sound good. His first remotely-normal experience by civilian standards. Still, he didn't think he was ready just yet to act civilian for even a minute. "Maybe tomorrow. But first, we get ready for fighting the day after."

He stood up, and checked over Taser's armor for the hundredth time. Only this time, with a different eye. "We're going to do a complete maintenance diagnostic on our suits. Make note of any damage or wearing that we'll need to watch for in the future. Not to mention, we're overdue for our regular augment injections. Remember how important Ambrose said they were."

Dyne looked up at him like he was insane. "What? Why the sudden rush?"

Kodiak turned and looked back down at him. "We've all been taking hits, Dyne. When did that start? With the new suits. We can't count on our shields to save us all the time. As soon as the armor and injections are finished, we're running drills. No armor, TTR equipment. And we don't get food until we run at least one simulation against superior numbers without taking a hit. Tell Sepia, and help her with the body disposal."

Dyne sputtered, lost for words. In the mean time, Kodiak went to Taser's body, and to help prepare for his armor to be decommissioned, removed his weapons, ammo, hack tools, and data crystal chip.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1100 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

The highways south of Toyama had proved easy so far for Warthogs to clear. A short distance behind the LRVs, light tanks escorted by infantry had lent artillery support when the scouts ran into armor or fortified troops, and with no enemy air support making its appearance, the troops that Sgt. Zircon's squad had joined made good progress along the coast, approaching south from Kahoku. How their progress would be in Kanazawa, however, remained to be seen.

Despite their victory in finally clearing Nanto and Toyama, the squad had been working poorly. The reason was obvious: Sergeant Zircon and Corporal Hunter were giving different orders, not communicating like they should have. The day before, it had gotten Emmert killed. Private Lisa Collins, who'd known him longer than the rest, had taken it hard, and with Quinn absent she was dealing with her grief alone.

Rolling up to the crest of a small hill, the column of troop transport Warthogs came to a stop, and three dismounted including theirs. Kevlar had a slight limp, the shin wound not fully healed yet. They gathered with the other two squads while the rest of the column moved on without them. The squad leaders conferred a moment, and returned to their respective teams.

"Listen up." Zircon said to her four remaining troopers. "We are being redesignated as Bravo Squad for the time being. There are a dozen squads like us, Alpha through Lima. The job is to secure the Tsubata bypass down to the Hokuriku Expressway, and make it safe for our vehicles to roll through. Kevlar, you as good with explosives as I remember?"

Baxter Jones brightened at the recognition, straightening up despite his leg. "Maybe even better, ma'am."

"Good. You're on EOD, then." Her helmet turned to Dansen. "We're shorthanded, so I'm going to need you forward with us, not on watch."

The young, blue-suited trooper nodded. His SRS99D was slung by a strap over his backpack, and he checked the safety on his M7/S.

"If we get to the Hokuriku Expressway, we might meet up with forces coming along the road from Tonami. That cuts the Covie defenses up nicely, and easy to clear out later." She paused, surveying each of them, and her visor came to rest pointed at Hunter. "We are expecting dug-in resistance. The flyboys may be able to give us a little air and fire support, but we can't count on it. We're the shock troopers. We're the first in, and the last out. And when we go into battle, we know the only thing we can count on is each other. Now let's make their eyes water."

"Oorah!" the troopers shouted, even as the other two squads did, creating a discordant echo. Kevlar, Collins, and Dansen moved to join them, but Amelia and Mitch lingered a moment, staring one another down. If there had been any question what she said was aimed at him, it was gone now. The next moment, they broke the contact and went to join battle with their enemies.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 19:39, February 4, 2012 (UTC)

176: Storm of Steel
1430 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar) Tigershark-class Nuclear Submarine, UNSC Seawolf, off Japan

Captain Takashi Yanagi, Commander Bjorn Karlsson, and the rest of the bridge and weapons crews of the Tigershark-class Ballistic Missile Submarine, UNSC Seawolf entered a series of coordinates around the Yokohama area.

Yanagi and Karlsson turned the launch keys to fire off the first cruise missile. The missile streaked out of the water, towards a Covenant hilltop firebase on a hill southwest of Yokohama. As the missile neared its target, it split up into multiple individually targeted sub-munitions. The sub-munitions split up, rocketing off into plasma mortars and Wraith SPGs. The Covenant artillery base went up in a flash of bluish flames.

Yokohama, A couple minutes later,

ODST James Basilone sat in the driver's seat of his Warthog LRV, driving along with a UNSC armored column towards the center of Yokohama. Dozens of artillery shells and rockets impacted around the skyscrapers in the central city, targeting Covenant defensive positions.

A squadron of Navy Skyhawks flew overhead at low altitude, releasing their ordnance on a target about three clicks away. When Basilone's column closed in, they saw it was a tollbooth on the Metropolitan Expressway, which the Covenant had turned into a road block. The structure of the tollbooth was flattened, and a Scarab, five Wraiths, and a two Locust walkers lay in burning wrecks, along with several destroyed turrets and light vehicles, and countless mangled alien bodies.

Overhead, a UNSC Airforce Longsword fighter shot down a pair of Covenant Seraph fighters using new ASGM-12 missiles, which mounted dual stage warheads with an EMP and an explosive charge, disabling the fighter's shields and then blowing them out of the air as cruise missile from UNSC submarines and surface ships impacted more targets in the downtown and port areas of Yokohama.

The battle to liberate Yokohama and eliminate one of the last pockets of Covenant resistance in the Kanto region had begun.

177: In Over Your Heads
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1505 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

"Clear!" Kevlar shouted, and as he ducked down, thumbed the detonator. A blast cloud of debris billowed up from the other side of a car he'd taken cover behind, raining small stones and Brute meat all around. After only a moment of ringing in his ears, gunfire returned to the dominant sound.

Amelia popped up next to him and fired her battle rifle. "Hold the sides! Don't let them flank us!" she shouted. Fumbling a moment, Kevlar picked up his MA5C and joined Collins on their left side, along the sidewalk. The cover available on their right didn't extend across the street, leaving enough open ground for Dansen to hold on his own. Amelia and Mitch gunned for the Brute leaders farther away.

Despite losing two of the apes in a suicide charge, their opposition had enough time to put together another wave of Grunts to throw at them. The little methane-breathers swarmed along the routes they'd used before, which offered the most protective obstacles. While it was the ODSTs on the offensive, the Brutes had soon realized the humans had a superior position, and had to throw them out if they hoped to hold while another team flanked them.

"One out!" Collins shouted, slinging her rifle at her waist. A squeeze of the firing stud later, and a 40mm grenade was launched from under the barrel, taking out a cluster of Grunts running for their next hiding space.

"Yeah!" Kevlar shouted, pumping a fist into the air. "Oh, sh-!"

He ducked back down as one of the Brutes on the edge of their camp took a shot at the standing human. But it made the mistake of standing to take the shot, and Mitch made him pay for it, firing a single burst through the shot-out windows of their car. Then he ducked back even lower, and reloaded. Mitch was like that in a firefight. Cold, precise. Now that someone else was in command, he could focus on it.

"Where the hell is Charlie Team?" Amelia spat. As if to answer her, a radio-filtered voice broke in.

"Charlie Team here, we've taken too many casualties to keep pressing. Jackals have us from above, we're falling back. Over."

"Damn it!" she growled, and burned off her anger by making some Grunts scramble for cover, taking satisfaction in the squeals of one she wounded. She'd never be like Mitch. She was just as angry, but not as used to it. Mitch had been angry so long he could make use of it. Amelia just felt like she needed to blow off steam.

"What's the order now?" Mitch asked next to her, almost casually while glowing iron spikes flew over their heads.

She weighed the odds. Five ODSTs in a straight fight against about two dozen more Covenant, and the possibility a Jackal squad could show up and hit them from any angle. Amelia's sense didn't like the odds, but anger let Earhart's daring get the better of that. "Do what you can to keep their heads down. I'll need about a minute."

Mitch cocked his head at her, but turned back to the battle, cautiously raising his rifle's barrel, leveling the weapon, and snapping into combat mode suddenly. Earhart pried open the warped car door and crawled in, making sure to keep below the window level. Stretching across the front seats, she reached under the wheel and looked for the edge of a panel. She felt a sharp jab in her side as she moved and accidentally lay on the throttle, then pushed away from it.

Outside, Dansen was starting to worry. He'd let too many Grunts advance too far. If they got organized a little more, he might be in trouble. He dropped back, reloaded, and set his SMG on the car's hood again just when it rumbled to life. The noise startled him, and he looked around wildly until he saw the Sergeant was sitting upright in the driver's seat.

"Better find somewhere else to hide." She said, and the squad quickly shifted over to another vehicle. Earhart floored the gas, and the car's tires screeched against the pavement before rapidly accelerating.

Dansen's Grunts caught on too slow what was happening, and turned to flee just as the small car plowed through them. One of the tires had been melted flat by plasma, and the metal wheel threw a stream of sparks under it. When one of the Grunts was caught under it, the methane tank was punctured and resulted in an explosion that scorched the side of the vehicle. The Brutes yowled and focused their fire on it as soon as they noticed, but without a Brute Shot didn't have the firepower to stop it. One took more careful aim at the driver as it barreled down at them, only for his head to explode as Dansen's sniper rifle found him. Then the other Jiralhanae found they should have run.

For such a small car, it proved that acceleration had a much larger part in force than one would think. At least, more than the torn and bloody Jiralhanae would have thought. One of the two panicked and ran too late, and made the whole little car tilt sideways and jolt over the bump. The second stood and backpedaled, but was caught full-on by the bumper and was dragged along the pavement.

It screamed as flesh was torn away from the back of its legs, but Earhart couldn't slow for it. Her instincts and adrenalin told her to kill it, and the way to do that was keep her foot on the gas pedal.

From back behind, Mitch and the others watched through the crowd of Grunts that scattered and ran off in any direction as the little car sped towards a building, the Jiralhanae stuck like a hood ornament. Powerless, they could only twitch and curse when Amelia's car hit the wall, the back end springing up a little after the dead stop.

"Get over there!" Mitch yelled, breaking cover. They ignored the last few Grunts except those few in their way or daring to take a shot at them. Kevlar's shotgun dealt with most of them. Reaching the car, Mitch noted the crumpled, smoking engine block had severed the Brute's torso, blood and bone visible. He forced open the door, and found Amelia laying back in the seat. She was breathing quickly, both hands still firmly grasping the wheel.

She rolled her head to look at him, and panted a few more moments before reaching one arm to her opposite shoulder. "Always buckle up."

Mitch didn't feel like laughing, so he just shook his head and helped her out of the wreck. She had to lean on him a little bit, and caught her breath before addressing her squad. "Well? Let's move up. RV with what's left of Charlie Squad and keep pressing. Move, Bravo!"

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 22:36, February 12, 2012 (UTC)

178
1505 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

Colonel Daisuke Umezu's M855 Kodiak Heavy Assault Tank rolled along the road towards Chigasaki beach, along with countless Scorpion MBTs, M850 Grizzly Heavy Tanks and M850B Walker Destroyer variants of the Grizzly, M810 Hippo Amphibious Light Tanks, and Cougar Armored Personnel Carriers of all variants, maneuvering on both the road and the beach itself.

The beach up ahead was covered with craters and destroyed Covenant Vehicles and Artillery from bombing raids and "Wet Navy" cruise missile attacks, but apparently, the Covenant still had force in the area keeping a Wet Navy amphibious assault ship from bringing in forces. Umezu's job was to hit those positions so the Marines could make it ashore.

Up ahead, a Scarab climbed over a group of building, this Scarab being one of the older and heavier models. The Scarab fired its main gun, sending a stream of plasma that melted through the armor of a Scorpion, before moving on to pick off a few Hippos and Cougars.

The Covenant walker's reign of terror, however, was cut short by an anti-walker missile fired from a Grizzly Walker Destroyer commanded by Uziel Tal, an Israeli who by some twist of fate ended up stationed with UNSC forces in Japan. Tal was a skilled tank commander, and, like Umezu, a veteran of multiple battles, from Harvest to Reach to Earth. And unlike those previous battles, things were finally looking up for the UNSC on Earth, with UNSC and Separatist air and space forces controlling the skies, and UNSC ground forces making counterattacks against the Covenant.

On the screen in the turret of the Kodiak, Umezu spotted the characteristic blue flashes of plasma mortar fire. Sure enough, when the gunner switched the sights to thermal, Umezu saw the outlines of the Wraiths and Locusts in defensive positions, apparently missed by the artillery.

"Hostile armor, 500 meters, set targets and engage", Umezu ordered through the radio.

The gunner, turned the turret of Kodiak a few degrees and set the crosshairs on the nearest Locust, squeezing the trigger. The 155mm APFSDS shell impacted, blew away the Covenant tank in a flash of fire, kicking up sand in the blast.

A Hippo Light Tank took out a Wraith in a defensive position, hitting it in the plasma mortar, as the co-axially mounted Gauss Cannon on the Kodiak took out a Wraith. Uziel Tal's tank picked off a Wraith, and then knocked out a Locust with the 120mm.

UNSC armor picked off their outnumbered Covenant counterparts one by one, losing a couple Scorpions, a Grizzly, and a few Hippos and Cougars. After disposing of the Covenant armor, the UNSC forces turned their attention to the Covenant infantry hiding out in a couple beachfront apartment towers.

"Hit those towers until they stop firing!", Umezu ordered as a plasma launcher shot impacted the Kodiak, leaving a black mark on the paint, but causing little visible damage.

A high explosive shell from the 155mm main gun of the Kodiak was as large as a artillery shell. It should be, the gun was basically a repurposed artillery piece. The shells blew away large chunks of the facade of the structure, raining glass and concrete onto the street below. Other explosions covered the structure, ranging from 30mm autocannons to 76mm, 90mm, 105s, and 120s.

After about 15 minutes, the apartment towers were still standing, but reduced to battered steel skeletons. No Covenant troops come out to surrender. Jiralhanae rarely did so, but some of the Unggoy and even a few Kig Yar would not only surrender, but were perfectly happy to join the Separatists.

But they also weren't firing any more, so either they dead, or had retreated. If they had run away, it was only a matter of time until they gave up or died fighting, what with UNSC forces having cut off the pocket of resistance from all side- his force coming in from the east, the UNSC forces entering Yokohama from the south, and from Tokyo from the north.

179:
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1635 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

Enough time had passed since noon for the shadows to lengthen and shade the streets. The black body suits of ODSTs called little attention to themselves as they moved across a street, into a convenient ring of cover formed by walls of debris. Zircon and her squad found three other troopers in the rendezvous.

"Is this all?" Amelia asked, looking to find which one of them would speak up as leader.

One PFC stepped up. "Jackals had just enough patience to let us walk into their best kill zone. But we didn't have that many more to begin with."

"Great." Amelia muttered. "You located the target?"

"Yep." The trooper motioned for her to follow, and they left the nest over to the street corner. There, the man pointed out of the shadows, to where the late afternoon sun reflected off opalescent purple armor.

"We counted upward of a dozen Ghosts, and three Wraiths. Infantry is staying at their barricades, dug in with Shades."

"They're the last bunch between us and having control of the highway." Amelia swept over the Covenant emplacements. "What I wouldn't give for a missile launcher."

The PFC tilted his head sideways at her. "I wouldn't wait on it, ma'am. Reinforcements come up from the south, they're going to storm back up the highway and hold onto it tighter."

Amelia grimaced. They didn't have enough people for a typical assault, and not enough ordnance for a barrage. If the Shades were gone, air support might have a chance, but getting in close to take them out would be difficult. But if it was done under cover of darkness, with Dansen on watch. ..

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1640 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

The ground outside Ryu Base rumbled under tank treads as a bulldozer pushed aside a piece of Phantom debris and allowed a pair of Scorpions to roll out, their bogies squeaking. Standing on the sidewalk in off-duty fatigues, Dyne watched them go, heading south for Yokohama. For a moment he imagined jumping onto one of the empty side seats, but let it go.

Ion Team had spend most of the day in training simulations up against Quinn and a handful of other ODSTs and special forces operators. The SPARTANs were the better combatants, no doubt, but each time Kodiak had insisted on stacking the odds against them and making them think and fight faster. Every time, one of the three SPARTANs got hit, and they'd start that particular challenge over again. By the end of it, they all had short tempers, and Kodiak gave them an hour off before they'd start working on their armor. Dyne had opted to find somewhere better than the mess hall to eat.

While it had briefly taken shelter during the battle, a small sort of community had sprung up around the base. Some shop and restaurant owners had refused to abandon their businesses, while others had come seeking shelter. Now, a few blocks had returned to some semblance of normalcy, although with the idea of the end of the world never out of mind, charity and trade had become far more common than meaningless coins.

Dyne remembered the streets of New Alexandria. There were some similarities, but it was a much more inviting place than he remembered. After Onyx and fighting over abandoned city streets, this was a more alien experience to him than the Covenant. He decided not to stay long, but found a vendor that was willing to trade food for a bit of manual labor, something a Spartan was more than capable of.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 03:07, February 17, 2012 (UTC)

180: Crossing the River
1300 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar) Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

Keiichi Ryukishi and Rena Sonozaki did not have a dedicated vehicle, riding along on any vehicle they could get to, UNSC regular army or militia. Today, they rode on the side of an M810 Hippo Amphibious Light Tank crossing the Shokawa River, the same river that flowed down from Shirakawa using the tanks's amphibious capabilities, as the rest of the UNSC armor crossed over a couple bridges, one of them having a gap covered by a portable bridge delivered by a Pelican.

Keiichi and Rena's decision to ride on the tank may have been a mistake. Plasma bolts and spiker rounds pinged off the side of the vehicle, fired by the Covenant Loyalist troops holed up in the houses on the the other side of the river. The projectiles did nothing the the tank, but could easily burn through the vulnerable flesh of those riding the vehicle.

Keiichi and Rena held onto the back of the tank, protected from the enemy fire. The turret of the tank, which looked identical to that of a Scorpion- the whole tank looked like a small Scorpion tank with one set of tracks instead of two- turned to about one o'clock and let out a thunderous roar as the 76mm main gun fired, knocking out a Wraith on the shore. A few seconds later, another Hippo fired its main gun and blew away a chunk of a building that hid a Covenant plasma turret.

A Cougar APC "swam" next to the Hippo tank- the Cougars were also amphibious- and fired its twin 30mm chain guns, blowing away chunks of the front of a structure and taking out another plasma turret. The heavier Scorpion and Grizzly tanks had made it across the river, and quickly disposed of a Locust and a few Wraiths, before turning their attention to entrenched Covenant positions in the structures themselves, blowing great chunks out of the occupied buildings, causing some to collapse under the unrelenting fire.

A Pelican flew overhead, armed with nose-mounted chaingun, sixteen Scorpion missiles on the wings, and four bombs mounted where normally would be placed supply crates or vehicles.

The Pelican fired off its missiles at an unseen target about a kilometers beyond, before streaking off to the city center of Takaoka to drop its bombs. The city of Takaoka was the second-largest city in the Toyama prefecture, after Toyama. While stil technically separate cities, starting in the late 20th century, Toyama and Takaoka saw more and more urban sprawl, until the two cities had become connected by beachfront housing developments on the shore and commercial and industrial districts further inland. The centers of the cities were denoted by two clusters of skyscrapers.

The Hippo had by now landed on dry land, and the Covenant lines were starting to break. Rena fired her MA37 Assault Rifle at a couple of Unngoy, picking them off as they tried to flee. The co-axial machine gun of the tank cut down a couple of Jiralhanae, including one that tried to charge up a plasma launcher. Keiichi, meanwhile, used the grenade launcher on his DMR to blast a Brute out of the window of two-story office block.

Within a minute, the Covenant fled, and the column moved onwards, towards the center of Takaoka.

181: Saboteurs
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2300 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

Kevlar waited until he heard Dansen over the radio to creep forward across a wide-open stretch of pavement. All he could hear was his own breathing and footsteps, but he knew there were Covenant sentries close by. It hurried him on, sliding into the next bit of cover and freezing until Dansen radioed him again to tell him he was clear.

He held his shotgun close, but it was little comfort. If he used it, it would mean he either had been discovered or was about to be, and to be caught in the middle of a Covenant outpost on his own would be very bad. The mission depended on him, Collins, Hunter, and Amelia all placing their C12 charges undetected on the Shades. Otherwise, it would take a costly straight fight to make them back off.

"Okay, move." Dansen told him, and he did. Vaulting the barricade, he spotted his Shade and got down into a crawl. He had only about a minute before the next Jackal walked over him, but he couldn't alert the sleepy Grunt attending the gun. His svelte black suit reflected little of the gun's violet glow as he came within an arm's reach, and Kevlar withdrew his first charge.

Careful to wire it right, he stuck in the detonator and delicately pulled the adhesive strip free before sticking the Shade's hull. With plenty of time to spare, he crawled away from the gun. "Kevlar, gun three is hot."

"Copy that, Kevlar." Zircon said. "I've taken care of one and two. Mitch?"

"Four and five done, easy. I'm was more worried about three and six. How's Collins?"

The silence went on for a little too long. Kevlar was about to key a query when gunfire broke the night air. Raising his head, he looked around frantically for its direction, and realized it was coming from the direction Collins was supposed to be in. She must have found trouble.

"RV at Collins' position, in a minute their whole little army's going to wake up!" Amelia ordered. Stealth was no longer a factor with Collins in danger, and Kevlar abandoned it in favor of speed. Getting up, he saw a Jackal with its head raised, looking toward the noise. The ODST didn't hesitate to blast it with the shotgun as he ran up, leaving the alien to bleed out on its own.

Guards were converging on the same point from all around him, and when he nearly ran into any of them, he was faster on the trigger. Soon, he came upon the firefight and saw Collins pinned behind a rapidly-eroding Ghost, several different colors of blood staining her armor. Without hesitation, he started a suppressing fire and ran to join her.

"You hit?" he yelled as he slid behind one of the wings. He got no response, only the ringing in his ears whenever he fired his weapon. One Jiralhanae decided to break cover and charge them. He hadn't gone three steps when a sniper round passed through his brain, leaving the corpse to topple without control impulses.

Mitch and Amelia bought them a bit of reprieve by appearing from behind a Shadow and putting bursts in the largest group of enemies, but within seconds they were pinned as well.

"Dansen, we need an exit!" Amelia yelled.

"Ma'am, I've got a mechanic shop directly behind you, I can lock it remotely. It's got heavy doors, you can escape while they're breaking through."

Amelia grunted as a Spike ricocheted off the cover beside her head. "How can you do that?"

"Just trust me, you have to go now!"

"We can't. There's too much fire."

Kevlar lay as flat as he could behind the Ghost, hoping a plasma bolt wouldn't eat straight through the damaged vehicle and burn him. Amelia was right, if he even moved he'd be cut down. He did have one chance, but he and Collins would have to be ready to move. He tentatively reached out and tapped her shoulder. "Get ready, I'm gonna light up the Shades!"

She might not have been able to hear him with so much noise, but she seemed to understand he had a plan and nodded. Kevlar took out his detonator, breathed deeply, and thumbed the red button.

At six different points across the Covenant blockade, red and purple fire suddenly shot skyward where there had been quiet only moments before. The Covenant soldiers panicked. Grunts broke ranks to seek cover, overdriven Jackals' whole bodies twitched seeking the source, and even Jiralhanae spun around. The four troopers broke cover and ran in the seconds the explosions gave them.

Only Brutes realized the Shades couldn't be helped, and sought revenge on the saboteurs. But already they were passing inside a dark hole that had opened in a nearby building. The garage's door closed slowly, and the troopers traded final fire with the Covenant outside until it sealed completely shut.

Amelia relaxed her shoulders and let the battle rifle fall into a carry. "Everyone good?"

Mitch nodded curtly, and they both turned. They were just in time to see Collins slump forward. Kevlar caught her, and lowered her to the floor. Blood spilled from her abdomen where plasma had burned through her suit and skin. She didn't seem to respond to Kevlar's attention, and when he checked her neck, there was no pulse. He looked up and shook his head.

Dansen's voice hailed them over the radio, but he went unanswered.

"Sergeant, do you copy? Hello? Anyone!"

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 00:38, February 26, 2012 (UTC)

182:
300 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ In Orbit above Earth

Shion Kozuki's destroyer, the UNSC Tetsu No Ame, was part of a larger UNSC-Separatist battlegroup including a Separatist carrier, supported by two Separatist battlecruisers, a Marathon-class UNSC cruiser, and several destroyers and frigates, both and UNSC and Separatists. The group was sent to intercept a Covenant Loyalist battlegroup intended to send in reinforcements and provide support for the Covenant forces in Japan.

"Take heed", a face of an Elite, the commander of the carrier, appeared on Kozuki's screen, speaking in the usual archaic English spoken by Elites, "A Covenant force approaches. Two cruisers and several smaller vessels sighted." Shion figured the attempts at Sangheilian by the average human would sound just as unusual.

"I see them", Miyuki Akisato said, "The Sangheili have opened fire, BDA one cruiser damaged, a couple frigates and a destroyer destroyed."

"Roger", Shion said, "Fire both MACs at the damaged cruiser".

One of MAC slugs impacted the CCS-class battle cruiser, along several other MAC slugs, Archer missiles, and plasma torpedoes from the other ships in the battlegroup. The cruiser was burning for a short period of time, until the lack of oxygen quenched the flames.

An Energy Projector beam burned right through the cruiser, cutting the vessel in half in a flash of blue flames. Meanwhile, squadrons of Longswords, Sabres, Separatists Seraphs, and even seven F/A 712 Scimitar Multirole Fighters flew in, firing of anti-ship missiles and plasma torpedoes, blowing holes into the side of Separatist frigate and causing it to crumple up like a beer can.

The Scimitar squadron flew in after a squadron of Covenant Seraph fighters, shooting the entire squadron, most with long-range missiles, and the last two with their nose-mounted lasers. The Scimitar fighter was really something else. This must have been an important mission, the UNSC only had about 150 of the new fighters. Rumor had it one of them had destroyed a Covenant assault carrier with an experimental antimatter missile.

Another UNSC destroyer, the UNSC Manitoulin, fired off three Harpoon nuclear missiles, taking out a Covenant destroyer, as a UNSC frigate maneuvered to narrowly avoid a plasma torpedo.

Within minutes, the UNSC and Separatist ships had picked off their Covenant counterparts, before finally, a barrage of MAC slugs, nuclear warheads, and plasma tore apart the last cruiser. There would be no reinforcements for the Covenant forces in Japan.

183: All Just People
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

2330 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

When the saboteurs returned, they carried Collins' body between them. Though she'd been bandaged up respectfully, blood still stained her armor. The three from Charlie Team gave them a wide berth. They'd already lost people today, and understood how it was. Dansen left his rifle and abandoned his position on the edge of the building's roof to meet them.

"How . . . why didn't you say anything?" he asked, staring down at the body Kevlar and Mitch were lowering to the ground.

"Needed radio silence." Amelia said evenly. "How did you get those doors closed?"

"Right." Dansen darted back to his post and brought her a small tablet reader. On it flashed a simple graphic of a face, a Superintendent-class AI. "This is the AI you and Reo brought with you. She said it could help."

Amelia discreetly clenched her fist. "Why didn't you say you had this before?"

The helmeted trooper's stance suggested confusion. "Well, I - I didn't think it was important."

The sergeant reached up and grabbed the front of his chest plate, bringing his helmet close to hers. "It is a valuable resource! One that if used properly, might have saved Collins' life tonight! From now on, you find something, anything, of note, you report it to me or to Mitch, understand?"

"Y-yes ma'am." Dansen answered, surprised and ashamed.

"Sergeant." Mitch said. Amelia gently released Dansen, and walked over to the corporal as he pointed out toward the Covenant camp. They were still trying to put out the last of the fires from their raid, and half the troops were moving around out there. "They're sending out search parties. I don't they'll find us, we're too out of the way, but we should still post a sentry tonight."

"Agreed." Amelia said, and Mitch simply took it as a command, going to take Dansen's place at the corner of the roof. The younger trooper refused to allow himself a break, however, and the two of them ended up taking a shift together.

With Kevlar and the three from Charlie laying out as comfortable berths as they could with pilfered blankets, Amelia shook her head at their backs. The two of them had to be more tired than any of the others, and they still insisted on taking on a greater share. The two would kill themselves if left unchecked. She allowed them their honor or stubbornness or whatever else and hunkered down on her blankets with Kevlar not far away. Though the members of Charlie Team were quick to escape to dreams or unconscious sleep, she saw Kevlar leaning back with his helmet beside him, eyes still open and watching.

"Since when do you stay up?" she asked quietly, recalling the number of times she'd found him trying to sleep during exercise.

He looked over her way and grinned. "Since everyone died and I had to start sleeping with an eye open. You ever tried that? It's impossible."

She chortled. That was more the Kevlar she remembered. "How is it Mitch can hate the world more, and you stay the same?"

Kevlar's smile faded a little. "Just who we both are I guess. If I got like you two, we'd all drive ourselves into the ground."

Amelia would have been content to sleep with that answer, but before she could roll over and go to sleep, Kevlar added, "He's missed you, you know. He doesn't want to say it, but you leaving was the one thing that could shake him."

"What do you want me to do, Kevlar?" she asked tiredly, not wanting to discuss this with him.

"I don't know. But something. He just stopped caring whether he lived with you gone. Now . . . I really think he's trying to get himself killed."

He was right. She knew it. But she couldn't deal with it right then. Couldn't bring herself too. Bunking down for the night, she decided not to let it trouble her tonight, and save that for tomorrow. Before slipping into dreams, a flicker of worry asked her if she was going to put it off for long enough to become too late for Mitch, and for herself.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0807 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

Dyne walked back into the storage sublevel Ion Team had set up shop in. After neatly rearranging the mess they'd made last time, the SPARTANs had set to work on a complete inventory of their own suits, and disassembling anything looking damaged to be rebuilt and reassembled later. The work had gone long into last night, but at least it wasn't more drills. Kodiak stood in front of his towering suit with a component of the elbow joint held in close examination. A tool chest sat next to him, and Dyne spied a particular tool he required.

"Blowtorch." he called.

"Blowtorch." Kodiak replied, and without looking reached out and grabbed it, and tossed it to Dyne, who snagged it neatly out of the air. Only then did he look up and ask, "What do you need it for?"

"Toasting." Dyne said with a grin, and withdrew a crinkling bag of marshmallows.

Kodiak sighed. "Next time, I'm going to ask you that before I throw you the blowtorch."

It made sense to Dyne. He walked over to where his own armor stood, its own powered joints holding it up as if on a mannequin. He felt slightly irked that the suit was actually taller than he was, but didn't dwell on it. Quickly, he had the blowtorch on and turned a large marshmallow into a warm puff of fluffy sugar. Once he'd finished getting it out of his teeth, he asked, "Where's Sepia? And Aspen?"

"Aspen's still working surgery." Kodiak said absently as he replaced the part he held. "Sepia's taken her suit up to the garage to have it repainted."

So she'd finished repairing the scar on her back while Dyne was away. That was good, the reactor packaging looked rough in one place. "I still don't get why she lights herself up like a beacon in battle. Why alert the whole Covenant army that the demon's right this way?"

"Because she's braver than both of us put together." Kodiak said with a hint of amusement. "And she can actually take on the whole Covenant army."

Dyne turned away skeptically, then back at the tool chest, where something caught his eye. "Kodiak? Is that Taser's data crystal chip?"

Kodiak finished his work on the joint and glanced over to it. "Yeah. I've been meaning to give it to Erin, but she's been busy lately."

"Do you know what's on it?" Dyne asked, his curiosity engaged. That could be dangerous.

"I hadn't thought about it." Kodiak admitted. He remembered wishing he'd known Taser better, and now here might be a way. But hearing Dyne's footsteps approach, he pushed his own curiosity aside. "Don't you touch it with those marshmallows, stickyfingers. Get your suit squared, and we'll hack into it then."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 04:53, February 27, 2012 (UTC)

184: Searching the Remains
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0800 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

The air rumbled as two Shortsword-class bombers screamed low overhead, raining down a supply of rockets on the Covenant rally point. A cloud of black smoke and red fire blossomed above the nearby rooftops as the bombers flew out over the western coast and banked away. The remains of Bravo and Charlie Squads looked on proudly at their work.

"Alright." Amelia called, rallying them. "Let's move in and mop up anything left. Alpha Squad will meet us there."

"Move out!" Mitch yelled, and they moved down the street, splitting into small teams. Charlie remained together, Kevlar took Dansen with him on the left flank, and Amelia and Mitch dropped into a subway station on the right.

Their VISRs made the darkness no cover for any remaining Covenant. But none showed themselves, they were either dead or ran instead of hid. Still, Amelia was making thorough checks of the tunnel entrances while Mitch stood at her back, watching out.

"You shouldn't have yelled at Dansen last night." he said casually.

"Maybe not." She said, satisfied with this side and moving towards the far end of the platform. "But he should have known to tell us about the AI. You've known him longer, what do you think of him?"

Mitch considered it a moment, watching the stairwell down into the station through his battle rifle's scope. "He's young. But we all were once. Not the typical Helljumper type, but it doesn't matter. Dansen taught me it's the quiet ones that are really crazy."

Certain they were clear, she depolarized her helmet and smiled teasingly at him. "As crazy as you?"

"More. Kid jumped off of an orbital elevator - and made it."

Amelia made a note not to underestimate rookies. "And how are you?"

Mitch noted her concern, but was far past caring about it. "I'm fine."

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0840 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

"O . . . kay . . ." Dyne murmured, having finally found the right adapter for Taser's data crystal chip. Plugging it into the side of the borrowed laptop, he and Kodiak started working on its relatively basic decryption.

Unlike all his other equipment it seemed, Taser hadn't custom-encrypted his data crystal chip. Perhaps he'd thought no one but him would ever see it, being plugged into his body at all times. For the two Gammas who'd routinely broken into Camp Currahee's databases, guessing his password on the laptop had taken longer.

"Hello, success." Kodiak grinned as files appeared in a list in front of him. "Now what do we have here?"

For the next hour, the two picked their way through a near-complete timeline of what had happened to Taser and Aspen since Onyx. Ambrose's successful second attempts at augmenting the washouts, and their accelerated recovery. Being offered a special R&D project and coming to Earth. It was Project: HIPPOCRATES, the Spartan medical suit Aspen now wore.

A complete log of their progress was included. Aspen was responsible for seeing that it had what it needed in the field and that it was accessible. Taser was in charge of design. He'd come up with a number of inventive ways to safely store delicate instruments within the armor's sheeting.

After so many logs of Taser explaining technobabble, one recording got their attention when the Alpha said, "-got the EMP problem with plasma fixed with assistance. Responsible system is Deep Winter."

This sent them into a whole new search, but very little was available. Deep Winter should have been deleted before the date it was recorded on. There were only two or three specific mentions, but they all referenced the same thing with him: Daimyo Base.

Erin Coney was thirty levels above them. It was the first time in a day she'd gotten a moment off when they came up and showed her a datapad.

"We've got something."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 00:29, March 17, 2012 (UTC)

185: Marked for Demolition
1300 Hours, November 7th 2552 (Military Calendar) Toyama, Toyama Prefecture, Japan

ODST Lt. Sulo Hahya stood at the controls of a doorgun to an UV-144 Falcon tiltrotor modified with a M99 Stanchion sniper rifle attached the doorgun turrets. Hahya looked past a 1500 meter tower, the tallest in Toyama, the office of a major shipping company, to a park in the city center that was once home to a feudal Japanese castle, if Hahya remembered correctly. Now it was home to a Covenant-built tower, a teleporter array. Apparently the Covenant Loyalists had powered down the shields in an emergency attempt to make one final teleport, in order to escape the city to an orbiting carrier.

The navy and Sanghieli were going after the carrier. It was the job of Hahya's ODSTs to take out Hahya watched as a pair of Hornet gunships flew in ahead and took out the Covenant Loyalist AA batteries on the roof with their missiles, before coming around again to strafe the Jiralhanae and other troops.

Hahya then zoomed in with the M99's 20x scope, placing the crossovers over a Lekgolo that stood on top of the teleportation spire, firing its assault cannon at the incoming UNSC aircraft. A beam of green energy narrowly missed the Falcon as Hahya fired again, the high-velocity Gauss slug blowing the Hunter almost in half. The Hahya then blew through the second Lekgolo as the squad's other sniper, a Russian named Pavlichenko fired the M99 mounted on her side, taking out a Jiralhanae, before the round kept going and killed two Unggoy.

Hahya and Pavlichenko picked off first he higher ranking Jiralhanae, then the Brute Minors, the ultra-high velocity rounds reducing them to purplish-red stains of alien blood on the roof of the tower. By the time the second Falcon, armed with M247H heavy machine guns got within range, its gunners had only to cut down a few surviving Unggoy and Kig-Yar.

The Falcon gunships hovered over the top of the Covenant tower, and the ODSTs fast roped out one by one, landing on the roof of the alien structure.

"All right", Hahya addressed the ODST squad as a whole, "You know the drill, we get in, rig the tower, get out, then blow the charges." Hahya then continued, speaking specifically to the squad's explosive expert, Sgt. Minna Uryuu, a local, "Uryuu, get the charges on the support columns, disable that grav-lift."

Uryuu and the rest of the ODSTs make their way to the grav-lift as a squad of Brutes ascended the lift. Suddenly, the lift reversed, going down. Hahya gave Uryuu the thumbs up as he pressed the button on the control panel that reversed the gravity lift.

Minna Uryuu drew out a C-12 block roughly the size of an MA5 magazine with an attached remote detonator. She tossed the charge down the lift, the bomb being propelled the anti-gravity generator... and the Brutes at he bottom.

The charge exploded as Minna pressed the button, tossing bloody, mangled alien bodies and destroying the grav-lift. The grav-lift ceased to function.

"That'll stop any more Covies from showing up... at least for a while.", Hahya said, "Get those charges on the on the support columns.

Minna Uryuu worked quickly, placing C-12 charges on the each of the four inner support columns surrounding the grav-lift, placing four MA5 magazine-sized charges on each column.

A few minutes later, the Falcon transports had landed on the tower. The ODSTs piled in, and as soon as the transport aircraft were within the minimum safe distance, Uryuu pressed the detonator switch. The charges exploded, sending up four flashes of fire around the top of the tower as the explosions severed the columns.

The top of the teleportation spire fell down on the rest of the structure, causing the tower to collapse in a cloud of dust.

186: //ORBITAL CONTACT REESTABLISHED//
 //CONTACT CHANNEL: E-BAND// //SATELLITE COVERAGE: LIMITED// //CHANNEL STREAM STABILITY: LOW// //*ONLINE*// 

Operation: HOLY FATHER

0700 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Manly, Sydney, Australia, UAF.

It was difficult to comprehend the magnitude of such destruction. The forces here were unnervingly strong, as if the pivotal moment of their - not our - existence rested upon the unknown core of their merciless defense. The city had to be taken back. The western forces still pushing inland, taking out air defenses every few days, moved sluggishly compared to the estimated projections. Orbital troop insertion failed horrifically in the grand scheme of things and the orbital elevator stood feebly out at sea, ready to cripple over from stray ordnance that has hacked at its single ankle.

Just over two weeks it had been. The city statued, even the fires had stopped. The city was dead. Waiting...

Lurking in its shadows...

Libra Team stood on the mall's roof ready for the impossible. Five of them against the city of the fallen.

Simon smiled.

Vengence was nigh...

 //*OFFLINE*// //CONTACT CHANNEL TERMINATED// 

 Your vengence is my victory...</i>

187: Typical Day Off
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1200 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Outside Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan

Ion Team's three SPARTANs jumped out of the sides of a Falcon transport, fast enough that the tiltrotor only had to hover a few seconds before flying off again. In the settling clouds of dust, the three Gammas moved quickly into the vegetation around the clearing and disappeared. The sun had burned off a thin layer of clouds since morning, and turned the dense temperate rainforest vibrant shades of green and brown, while casting shadows on the forest floor. It was a lot like Onyx's forests had been on a good day. It suited the SPARTAN-IIIs perfectly.

Ion had opted to travel light for the mission they'd undertaken. Sepia had left her flamethrower behind in favor of an M7/S, while Dyne and Kodiak clutched MA5Ks in place of their usual rifles. Not knowing what to expect when infiltrating a top-secret ONI facility not heard from in days, Kodiak had requested prototype Av-Cam units to link with their MJOLNIR armor. Erin had made him swear to bring them back intact, but allowed it. With their at least their outlines blurred even when moving quickly, Kodiak began to feel truly at home.

Through the canopy, he spotted a waterfall streaming down from a nearby cliff. It was beautiful country, he imagined some people might go hiking here on their days off. But that wasn't why his team was here on their off day.

"Do you two really think we'll find Deep Winter?" Sepia asked. There was only a hint of the doubt she usually had in their plans, more genuine interest. They'd all counted Winter a friend, after all.

"I don't know." he answered honestly. Taser's chip hadn't given much to go on. "But it's worth a look."

"We know he wasn't erased. The logs told us that much." Dyne said, pausing for a moment at a tree trunk and fading gradually into it.

Sepia winked a green status light, reassured. "Then even if he's not there, we can find another lead on him."

Kodiak and Dyne winked green back. New but familiar territory, an objective he was excited about, and even decent weather. This really was starting to feel like a vacation.

Dyne moved ahead on point in his normal scout role, and Kodiak had just lost sight of him through the plants ahead when his status light flashed amber. He and Sepia froze and let the Av-Cam slowly hide them, when Dyne reappeared ahead and motioned them forward with the twitch of an index finger. They approached him slowly, and saw what he'd spotted in the valley just beyond the ridge.

They'd found the ONI site, that was certain. There was a large symbol etched onto the side of the building. It looked like the main door, wide enough for a Scorpion tank, led down into a subterranean level. Just as obvious were the hulls of two Phantom dropships, hovering at low power even with the forest canopy, parked while their crews were probably inside.

"Got eight, maybe more guards. Brutes and a few Jackals." Dyne reported even as the same contacts were shown in Kodiak's HUD.

"Attilus' troops?" Sepia asked.

"Can't tell."

Kodiak thought over several paths down from where they were. A few instances had them engage or assassinate the guards, but it wasn't necessary for them to get inside. Deciding on a covert approach this time, he said, "Maybe we can ask them. Come on, we'll go around back and move in slow and quiet. We don't want anyone inside hearing about us and start trashing the place to deny us assets."

"They better not touch Winter." Sepia said ominously. Dyne winked a green light in agreement.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 05:09, March 22, 2012 (UTC)

188: Ambushing the Ambush
'''1505 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar) Totsuka Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan'''

The M855 Kodiak Heavy Assault tank commanded by Colonel Daisuke Umezu plowed right through yet another house and into a backyard, flanked by dozens of other UNSC tanks- Scorpions, Hippo Amphibious Tanks, Grizzlies, both heavy tanks and walker destroyers. The Kodiak rolled through another house. Suddenly, a fuel rod cannon shot impacted the bow of the tank, bouncing off, doing as little damage as if it had been a thrown rock. A second fuel rod shot flew from the two-story house across the street, knocking out a Hippo light tank, as a Plasma Launcher round destroyed a Scorpion.

The 155mm main gun of the Kodiak replied, blowing away the entire front of the house with a single shot. Amazingly, a few of the Brutes inside survived, only to fall prey to the guns of the other tanks. Withing seconds, the Covenant resistance was crushed and house leveled.

The tanks kept rolling, firing on any Covenant defensive positions they met. Without too much trouble, they made it to their target, a Covenant ambush near an apartment building over looking the highway. Several light vehicles, Shade turrets, Wraiths and Locusts stood guard next to the apartment, guns aimed towards the highway.

"We've got them completely by surprise", Umezu said, "Prioritize on the heavy armor and engage at will".

The main gun of the Kodiak roared again, sending an armor-piercing shell into the rear plasma tanks of a Locust, sending the vehicle up in a brilliant blue fireball. Several other vehicles- Wraiths and Locust- were also destroyed, hit in their weak rear armor by UNSC tank guns.

A Locust started to turn its turret towards the UNSC armor coming in from the rear, only to be destroyed by Grizzly's 120mm before it could get off a shot, as the Covenant Wraiths on the other side of the highway fired their plasma mortars. The mortar fire destroyed a couple Hippos and Cougar APCs, as well as a Scorpion, but was quickly repaid with 90mm and 120mm shells.

The Kodiak's main gun fired again, sending one of the Wraith's on the other side of the highway up in flames before the co-axial Gauss cannon knocked out one of its fellows. With the armor fallen, the UNSC forces turned their attention to mopping up the rest of the Covenant forces.

The Kodiak fired its 155mm at the apartment tower, whose Covenant occupants were shooting at the UNSC tanks with everything they had. Everything they had, however, was plainly not enough. Explosions lit up the tower as everything from infantry-held small arms to heavy tank guns pounded the structure. The building did not collapse, but it did have to entire facade blown away, revealing the steel skeleton.

Meanwhile, other UNSC vehicles and infantry destroyed the Covenant turrets and light vehicles and mowed down the infantry in the parking lot surround the apartment complex.

Within ten minutes, all firing had stopped, The Covenant ambush has itself, been ambushed.

189: Cold Storage
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1208 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Outside Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan

Brutes and Jackals worked on instinct, using their sharpened senses to detect enemies. Fortunately, Sepia decided, it made them easy to trick. Nothing more than a rock thrown into the bushes had allowed Ion Team to cloak and slip past the Covenant sentries and enter the open door to ONI's base. Her satisfaction was enough to make her feel comfortable even while slipping into the darkness inside. Her HUD was soon filled with information as automated protocols recognized them as UNSC special forces operatives. Floor plans, directories. . . good. But no hint at what this place was built for.

"Taking a left here." Kodiak said. "This tunnel only leads to the motor pool."

Filing into a side corridor leading down a level, they passed through offices and data centers, all torn apart and the walls and floors stained with dark blood. Shredded bodies were everywhere. Keeping the submachine gun close, she tried distracting herself by remembering Onyx's forests, and all the times she'd talked with Deep Winter. But distractions made a soldier vulnerable, and what she was seeing here was too visceral for it to work.

In front of her, Kodiak ducked into a dark room, and Dyne spun at the door, sweeping his MA5K to ensure nothing had spotted them. Sepia passed him, and was engulfed in shadow for an instant before her strong eyes adjusted.

The room was a cavern, stretching for what must have been at least a city block. On either side of her were solid walls of computer equipment, like bookshelves. Blue diodes arranged in even lines stretched across them, lining the aisle. Sepia walked closer, and found each of the lights was matched with a rectangle groove that revealed there was a piece removable.

"What are these?" she asked, glancing to where Kodiak and Dyne were scrutinizing other portions of the wall.

Kodiak ran a finger around one of the pieces. "They look like Taser's data crystal chip. I think . . . I think these are AI."

"They've got names, too." Dyne pointed out, and Sepia looked again to see the rectangles had letters stamped into them. Watchmaker, one of them read.

Noise from somewhere in the room spurred them back into focus. Reacting on their heightened instincts, all three activated their Av-Cam modules and searched for something. They expected the noise to come from something that had seen them, something they could kill before it alerted any others. As soon as that initial moment passed, Sepia regretfully compared herself to the Jackal guards.

Kodiak reverted to hand signals. Spread out.

Sepia and Dyne blinked green acknowledgement lights. Kodiak went straight ahead, along the wall on their left, while Dyne fell back and followed the wall behind them right. Sepia advanced on a bisector of the angle, moving one direction, then another out into the middle of the room. Quickly she found that her path led her to finding the enemy first.

She heard them growling before she sighted them. Moving painfully slow to maintain her camo, Sepia edged to where this aisle ended in the center of the room. The ends of the bookcases formed a neat square of open floorspace. There was a large holotable raised in the center, and all around it stood Brutes clad in black armor and helmets that hid their eyes, tearing at the bloody corpses of Intel officers. Projected over the holotable was a mote of auroral light, tendrils of colored flame flicking lazily. One black-clad Brute had abstained from the feast, standing dutifully by the table with his muzzle focused straight ahead.

Sepia's helmet made a rough, halting translation as one of the Stalkers growled impatiently, blood droplets flying from his fangs, "When will this damned construct deem it has wasted enough of our time?"

The loner didn't acknowledge the other Jiralhanae. After a moment, the Brute went back to rending human flesh from the bone, finding the meat more interesting. Sepia curled her lip in disgust, and was glad she couldn't see in as much detail in the dark.

She risked keying her COM. "Contacts. Seven Stalkers, centered on a terminal. They haven't spotted me."

"Brute Stalkers or those dog Stalkers?" Dyne asked, not completely serious. She winked a sepia-colored silence light in response.

Kodiak broke in after a moment of consideration. "Stay quiet, but we're still just here for Winter. Dyne, find a backup terminal. Sepia, keep an eye on those Brutes, while I'll retrieve Winter when Dyne finds him."

Green status lights winked in the dark.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 07:47, April 2, 2012 (UTC)

190: Deep Freeze
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1215 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Outside Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan

Dyne checked his surroundings before stepping out and approaching a holotable like the one from Sepia's HUD camera. Confident the Stalkers were busy eating, he approached the console and located a power button. The display lit up immediately, and Dyne went through the files to find an inventory of the AI inside. He was impressed, AI weren't easy to come by, and here there must have been literally hundreds.

A list of names, or phrases that the AI used as names, appeared over a floor plan of the room he stood in, and each assigned itself to a particular location. Running a search, he quickly found the name 'Deep Winter' sitting among a list of other 'D' programs, and where in the room that was. Somewhat chagrined none of them had caught on to the alphabetical sorting order of the facility, he activated his com.

"Kodiak, I've got him. Opposite corner from where we entered, uploading map to your heads-up display."

"Got it. Thanks, Dyne."

Dyne grinned, and was about to step away when the displays he'd brought up were swept away. Replacing them was a brilliant nebula of projected light.

Sepia saw the hologram the Brutes had running suddenly shift, turning red and drawing up a map. As the table emitted an alien language from hidden speakers, she realized the map was of this very room, and showing Dyne's position. The Brute Stalker standing at the console looked up and studied it for an instant, then the cyclopean laser light on the front of its helmet powered on, and it spoke clearly to its subordinates. While she didn't understand the words, the voice lacked any harshness or growl of a Brute. It was deep and tempered, more in control than one of his kind typically sounded.

Her translator caught up in a moment. "Demons. Prepare yourselves to face them."

"Dyne, they're onto you. That's a Covenant AI in the system. Get out of there, now!"

"Good idea . . . wait, what do you think it's here for?"

The other Brutes had gained their feet, and as their camouflage came on, even the blood was hidden by light-bending tech. "It doesn't matter, just move."

"What if it's taking data from the AI? Or taking the AI themselves?" Dyne asked. "What if he's holding Winter right now?"

Kodiak interrupted them. "Enough! I'm almost to Winter's chip. Dyne, stay on that terminal until you know what it knows, but not a second more. Sepia, you're going to have to distract the Brutes."

"How?"

"I don't know, use your feminine charms."

"Right." Sepia said, rolling her eyes. Then she stepped around the corner and sprayed down the room with her submachine gun. It only peppered the Stalkers' shields and made them flare up minimally, but it was certainly enough to get their attention.

Every row of servers Kodiak sprinted down looked the same, shadows illuminated by the grids of tiny blue lights. He was getting closer to the waypoint, but the sound of Sepia's gunfire and the howls and clatter of spikers that answered spurred him on faster. He had to reach Winter and secure him in time to help his team. He was not going to let another SPARTAN fall to the Brutes.

Finally, he rounded a corner and found the chevron projected on his HUD had finally come to a stop. It floated with its point directly over one of the blue lights positioned among hundreds of others in the shelf. Kodiak forgot all about his rush, and approached, reading the inscription: Deep Winter.

Tentatively, he pushed the chip back slightly, and it unlatched and sprang forward to where Kodiak could find purchase with his fingers and pull it out. Bringing the chip to his other wrist, he inserted it into his TACPAD and watched the screen turn a frosty blue color.

A moment passed, and then sound began to emit from his helmet internal speakers, like the crackling of ice. The TACPAD's small hologram emitter began working overtime, creating a ghostly sheet of ice that spread across the PAD's screen before a single, large snowflake sprung up, and a familiar voice spoke to him.

"Initiating . . . interfacing with frame. MJOLNIR Mark V(b) Powered Assault Armor. Location: Daimyo Base, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. Warning: Covenant forces have breached the base." With his boot-up report complete, Winter seemed to take a cycle consciously processing the data. ". . . Why are you here, Kodiak?"

"To get you." Kodiak said, and began running to regroup with Sepia. He had no doubt she'd be in trouble. Still piecing together the situation, Winter questioned him, sounding alarmed.

"You and your team should be allocated to high-tier objectives to ensure their success. I am not a high-tier asset. You are not making full use of your abilities, Kodiak."

Still running towards the sporadic sound of gunfire, he replied, "Well, what can I say? Someone doesn't want us landing the op that makes us heroes just yet. Besides, we missed you."

While he tried to pay attention to his running, Winter started trying to get a better grasp of their situation. "Kodiak, I am detecting no mission briefing data in your suit's logs. I require a situation report."

"The situation is we're in a warehouse full of AI, with Brute Stalkers chasing down Sepia, to cover for Dyne working on a Covenant AI."

Winter's tone became even more urgent. "Alert: High-value assets at risk. Kodiak, the AI constructs in this base possess vast amounts of knowledge pertaining to the UNSC. We cannot allow anything to fall into Covenant hands, as per the Cole Protocol. Full retrieval is imperative."

Kodiak slid around a corner. "What do you mean, retrieval?"

"ONI Base DAIMYO is outfitted with a low-yield thermonuclear-based device. The EMP triggered by its detonation will wipe clean all data in the facility."

"Right." Kodiak grunted. He activated TEAMCOM. "Dyne, I've got Winter. Listen, we've got to blow the base. There's a bomb inside somewhere, Winter will send you codes."

A moment later, Dyne responded, sounding somewhat distressed. "I'll try, but the Covie AI's giving me problems."

"No choice, just get it done." Kodiak told him, and let his COM shut off. "Now to find Sepia . . ."

Winter interjected. "Kodiak, while the destruction of DAIMYO Base is required, there are other artificial intelligences housed here that would merit . . . rescue."

"You want me to run around pulling out every chip here?"

"No. But I know many of these AI. They are my friends."

Kodiak gritted his teeth and muttered through them, "Alright, dammit."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 04:29, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

191: Vengeful Spirits
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1220 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Outside Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan

Dyne had been trained on cyberwarfare. It hadn't been his specialty, but he understood it. So at least he had an idea of how far the Covenant AI exceeded his abilities. Every time he tried to type in a command or query, it was diverted or outright blocked by the speed-of-thought reactions of his opponent.

He'd had little time before the Covenant AI had found him and began blocking him out. But he did know, or at least thought he knew, that the Covie AI was ripping data out of the deactivated human programs here one-by-one, then tearing them apart. The human constructs were all too old for service, he knew they had to be rampant, and that they were aware they were being slaughtered by the alien intelligence. The thousands of insane AI were in terror, and driving themselves to worse panic knowing there was nothing they could do.

"Kodiak, I can't use the codes because it's locking me out of the system!" There was no response on the radio. He turned back desperately to the console. If he couldn't come up with something fast enough, the Covenant counter-AI might even cut off his keyboard.

He tried again to access the bomb Winter's instructions pointed to, but the system was onto him. It had the authorization locked down completely. To make matters worse, the rampant AIs were sending messages to his terminal, pleading for help and slowing down his reactions. He watched the hologram as the image of an ancient Greek woman was brought into being before the Covenant AI, and saw the human ripped apart into vanishing pieces of code. Dyne realized the Covenant program was an interpretation of a black hole.

And then, he had an idea. More than a little spiteful, appealing to revenge, and by all accounts necessary.

He abandoned his attempts to reach the bomb, and focused on the AI. Reaching out to them, he found the software blocks restricting them, and deleted the shackles entirely.

Suddenly, the tide turned. A thousand insane AI flooded into the systems, ready for war. They attacked everywhere they found a strain of Covenant code, and tore it apart. The light show of the holotable became chaotic, and in a strange way Dyne thought, bloody. The shrieking emitted from the speakers was. . . unpleasant.

Text appeared in front of Dyne. It was one of the AI, or a group of them. It was giving him a chance to activate the bomb, before the rampant AI could escape or do any damage. They were killing themselves, Dyne knew, and while tragic, the sacrifice had to happen. He typed in the code and set the countdown at seven minutes; enough time for Ion Team to get away while the AI helping him defended the bomb's shutdown.

Dyne almost considered saluting the terminal. Then, thinking better of it, he typed in a short message to all of them: thank you.

Having done all he could, Dyne turned and ran to find his team.

Sepia waited to strike the cloaked Jiralhanae until she was sure of where it was, then brought her armored gauntlet up into its face. Blood sprayed from its maw, but it swung back with a bladed Spiker in its paw. She jumped back, letting the blades sink into the server next to her, then kicked the Brute's chest and spun around to escape before its pack closed in on her. They nearly succeeded, an arc of sharpened iron projectiles flying over her as she began to fade into the shadows again.

This was a cat-and-mouse game, one she was rapidly losing. These Brutes weren't so easily fooled as the ones outside, they were coordinated and expertly herding her in accordance to some kind of plan. She felt like the lone piece at the end of a chess game, trying to run as long as she could.

A shimmer alerted her to another one ahead, and she ducked low, still running at the same speed. The Jiralhanae knew she was there, but fired at head level and was shooting at nothing. Then Sepia reached it, and struck a blow with her fist. It doubled over, still searching for her with its Spiker, before Sepia emptied half a submachine gun mag into its shield, and finished it with two headshots from her pistol. Even the last piece could be dangerous, she thought to herself.

Her helmet picked up one of their howls and translated it. It went this way, Sidonus. So she hadn't lost them yet.

Then suddenly, she wasn't alone any more. Kodiak ambushed the next Brute to appear from behind, dealing with it with one of his knives.

"Do you have Winter?" Sepia asked as he fell in with her pace.

"In my TACPAD. And a dozen other AI in my belt cases."

The two of them were running through another intersection, when the air in front of Kodiak shimmered and alerted him to something being swung at his neck. He saw it in time to avoid having his throat cut open, but it didn't miss completely. He was thrown against the server on the opposite side of the aisle, blood running from twin cuts on his belly.

Sepia spun around, firing her SMG. The cloaked Jiralhanae was already moving, and a solid wall of muscle threw her backward. She kept the trigger of her weapon held down, but within a moment it had already run out. The cloaked Brute lumbered toward Kodiak, a weapon undoubtedly ready.

Kodiak got back to his feet, one arm over his bleeding abdomen, and held up his sidearm. The M6's muzzle flashed once, twice, each causing the Jiralhanae's shields to flare brighter, but he didn't have enough time before the cloaked monster swung. Kodiak ducked, and drew a knife, aiming for a stab. He was caught in mid strike by the Brute's other arm, again knocking him around like a rag doll. Sepia came to his defense with SMG and pistol akimbo, but the Brute's shields continued to hold, and his Spiker fire forced her to duck into the intersection.

Staring up, Kodiak saw the Stalker's helmet clearly enough from so much movement to see the coal black fur around its closed jaws. The laser pointer stared down at him, perhaps finding his weakest point when alarms began blaring. Suddenly, the whole warehouse room was bathed in red light as an emergency warning started.

"Kodiak!" someone called out, and he looked down the walkway to spot Dyne running towards them, MA5K at the ready. The Brute standing over him didn't growl or bear its teeth. It just turned in the opposite direction and fled, silent as a phantom. Sepia left cover and reached him at the same time as Dyne, keeping her weapon trained on where the Jiralhanae had gone.

He got to his feet, withdrawing a small biofoam canister to plug the lacerations he'd received, but Dyne urgently pushed them towards the entrance they'd taken. Applying it on the move, he kept pace with them as they left the suddenly disorganized Stalkers behind, and eventually stumbled out of the facility in time to see the Covenant dropships climbing into the air. Not stopping, Kodiak called in their Falcon, and in moments were sitting in its hold above the treeline.

Below them, the armored ONI base exploded from the inside, a cloud of fire reaching up towards them, but falling extremely short.

"That was close." Kodiak observed, a little lightheaded.

Deep Winter broke the silence it had let him have to concentrate. "I detected only one enemy leaving the base before its destruction."

"It must have been their leader." Sepia said, making apparent that she and Dyne could also hear him, now. "The one that slashed you. I heard the others call him Sidonus."

Dyne looked up from the blaze and at Kodiak's wrist. "Good to have you back, Winter."

The snowflake projection again sprang from his projector. "Thank you, Dyne. It is good to see all of you, as well."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 03:25, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

192: A Gauss Slug To The Knee
1200 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Mt. Utatsu, Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture

Sulo Hahya knelt in a trench on top of the Mt. Utatsu, looking out over Kanazawa, M99 Gauss Rifle in hand. The mountain wasn't particularly high, only a couple hundred meters above sea level, a mere hill compared to the Japanese Alps. A light dusting of snow covered the ground and snowflakes fluttered through the air. It was nothing compared to the winters of his native Finland- those had one stopped a Russian invasion in the 20th century, a war in which Sulo's distant ancestor Simo Hahya, a legendary sniper known as the White Death, killed over 500 enemies.

Sulo was, by a twist of fate, half way around the world from his homeland, but was nonetheless keeping up a record that would make Simo proud. Sulo had killed as many high-rank Covenant- Jiralhanae and, before they sided with the UNSC, Sangheili- as Simo had killed Russians, and he had eliminated over 1000 Unggoy and Kig-Yar.

Now, Hahya was taking aim at column of Covenant armor moving through downtown area. Hahya pointed the laser designator attached to the side of his rifle at the alien armor and sent the coordinates to battery of Tarantula MLRS, which were in fact, only about 100 meters away, on the same mountain as Hahya. Within 30 seconds, a dozen missiles landed on the column, sending up Wraiths and Locusts in balls of fire and tossing around Ghosts, Prowlers, and other light vehicles like toys.

Hahya scanned the area of for Covenant survivors, finding a Brute Prowler that was still intact. Hahya placed the crosshair slightly above the vehicle to compensate from bullet drop, and pulled the trigger. The Gauss slug impacted the engine, sending the vehicle up in a ball of flames that incinerated the crew.

"Lieutenant", a voice said in Hahya's radio, "We've got a force of infantry and armor assaulting the Kanazawa Castle, but they're taking heavy fuel rod fire from the towers and walls and are requesting sniper support."

Hahya panned over to the castle, which was looking battered, with craters surrounding the historic structure and large chunks blown out of it by bombs and artillery. Taking aim out of one of these holes in a tower, Hahya spotted a Brute armed with a Plasma Launcher.

"I've sighted the targets, taking the shot", Hahya said.

Sulo Hahya pulled the trigger, landing a Gauss slug in the center of the Jiralhanae's chest, the impact of the high velocity slug being so great that it reduced the alien's upper body to a blood stain on the walls.

Hahya then vaporized another Brute standing on the top of the walls, then picked off a Kig-Yar sniper in one of the towers. A group Covenant infantry, several Unggoy and a Jiralhanae leader stood on one corner of the walls, firing fuel rod cannons down on the UNSC forces... Until Hahya put a high velocity Gauss slug into a Grunt's methane tank, sending the entire squad up in a ball of fire.

Hahya's fire support, along with fire from the 30mm guns of a Cougar APC and the 90mm of a Scorpion cleared the castle walls and towers of resistance, allowing UNSC infantry to enter and take what remained of the castle.

With the UNSC forces aided, Sulo Hahya scanned the city for more targets. Then, he saw it, stomping over buildings about a click from Kanazawa Castle and moving that way: A Scarab Assault Walker.

Hahya placed his crosshairs on the knee on the alien walker and fired. The Gauss round flew towards the alien war machine at 15,000 meters per second, piercing the armored "kneecap" of the walker and blowing through the knee of the walker, destroying the delicate parts that allowed from the articulation of the walker's knee.

Hahya then fired a second Gauss slug at the traversing mechanism of the AA gun. The gun could no longer turn. Hahya then picked off a Jiralhanae chieftain on the top deck and any other Brutes he could see to cause chaos among the crew- eliminate the officers.

"This is Hunter 2-1 Actual", Hahya said, "I have my sights on a disabled Scarab about 1 click west of Kanazawa castle. Requesting artillery or air strike on the target, sending position now, over."

"Roger Hunter 2-1 Actual, this Naginata 3-3, flight of four Hornets", A voice with Japanese accent said, "Inbound for strike now, over."

Four Hornets swooped down, firing several LAU-65 missiles at the Scarab's vulnerable rear armor, blowing away the armor plating and taking out the core. As the Hornets flew overhead, the Scarab exploded in a ball of blue flames.

193: Thawed
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1800 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

The slash wounds Kodiak had received still pained him, chafing under the service coveralls of a work uniform, but it wasn't going to keep him from Erin's private debriefing of Ion Team. Ignoring the stinging sensation that persisted through the painkillers Aspen had given him to sew the wounds, he walked through Ryu Base's corridors to find the dorm room they had locked themselves in to ensure privacy. Once he located the door with the right number on it, he knocked a particular seven-tap pattern, and Dyne cracked open the door to check before letting him in.

Inside the cramped room, two bunk beds had been set up against the walls, and Erin sat on the side of one, working on the TACPAD she'd had Kodiak bring. Behind her, Sepia was lying on her side on the bed, watching the TACPAD intently for the AI to manifest itself once again. Kodiak and Dyne sat on the edge of the opposite bunk, and became entranced by the turning of a screwdriver Erin was using to adjust something.

Annoyed by their attention to her work, she said after a silent minute, "Glad you managed to bring back those Av-Cam units in one piece. They're experimental, you know, a lot of invested research."

At that moment, the young SPARTANs almost jumped when the holo-emitter sprang to life, creating a cube of blue light that quickly formed the familiar sheet of ice and figure of a wizened old man in a snowy, wind-blown cape. Deep Winter's avatar opened its eyes and revealed that in place of irises, projected light snowflakes glowed. His chapped lips smiled, and the wind moving his cape seemed to die down.

"Lieutenant Coney, Machete Team. I am pleased to see you again."

While she knew the expression was completely calculated, Erin allowed herself a smile in return. "Welcome back, Winter. How are you feeling?"

The avatar didn't turn to look at her. "I am running within acceptable parameters, for now. Thank you. May I inquire as to where the rest of Machete, Sam and Marcus are?"

It dampened the spirits of the three SPARTANs visibly. Kodiak answered, "They didn't survive the augmentations. We're all that's left, Ion Team. And just a few weeks ago, the Covenant found Onyx. The whole planet was destroyed. Our home was destroyed."

Winter paused for an entire second, a fair amount of time for a smart AI. "I am sorry to hear that. I did not expect any of the Gamma trainees to have such adverse effects to the processes, much less the discovery of Onyx by the Covenant. I seem to be separated from any external system. What is our location and status?"

"Safe." Sepia said, shifting closer. "Inside Ryu Base, in Tokyo."

The AI turned it's avatar with a fluid animation. "That is good news. Pardon my asking, but, how did you find me?"

Kodiak took something out of one of his pockets. "This. Taser's data crystal chip. He was killed in a battle here, but he kept records on everything he did, and it included information about you. We wanted to come find you."

It turned again to face Kodiak and Dyne. "That seems like an ill-advised task, given my circumstances. You must have had a suspicion, at least, of myself nearing the end of my estimated operational lifespan."

Dyne tilted his head, concerned. "Are you rampant?"

"No." Winter answered flatly. " . . . I believe. But I have begun to notice odd patterns in my own programming. I suspect I don't have long before becoming a threat to everyone around me."

Kodiak leaned forward. "Winter, I know you don't trust yourself right now, but Earth is under attack. We might need your help for something, and anything could mean the difference between life and death for all of us. I have to ask you . . . will you join us? Just for this one last battle?"

This time Winter stared ahead blankly, considering his question for several seconds. "I . . . will assist, where I am able. But it is an ill-advised course of action, given that I may become increasingly unreliable. If you are trying to extend my 'living' existence instead of justifiably having me purged, out of sentimentality, I must inform you that I disapprove."

"You can help, Winter." Kodiak said. "That doesn't change that it's good to have you back."

With that matter settled, Erin stood and waved towards the door.

"Right, now I have a few questions for Winter that I'm afraid are classifed, and I can't have you eavesdrop on." She stated, shooing them. "Go on, out! You'll see Winter again soon, for now get yourselves something to eat and a night's sleep. I managed to assign you to aiding frontline deployments tomorrow, so you'll need rest. Go!"

The SPARTANs reluctantly got up and shuffled outside, each casting glances back at the smiling avatar. Before Kodiak had gone, Winter addressed him. "Thank you for recovering my fellow programs from DAIMYO Base. Many more that I knew were lost. While the war has taken your biological family and comrades in arms from you, I too have lost friends. I am glad some of them were able to be saved."

Kodiak smiled widely before Erin gently pushed him outside and shut the door behind him, letting out a breath when it sealed. Returning to her seat, she stared at Deep Winter and the dormant data crystal chips with a significantly harder expression, trying to figure out the best way to approach their new topics. It was always a game with artificial intelligences, they projected an imitation of a person and used body language to manipulate an organic’s perception of them. And Winter knew how to read her as well as she knew him.

Quickly tiring of waiting for her, Winter pondered aloud, "Ion Team. While I’m dismayed some candidates were lost, I am pleased Kodiak is at last taking advantage of his leadership potential. Ambrose targeted him as a possible squad leader, but he never showed interest as a recruit.”

Erin suppressed a smirk. “Well, I’ll upload the recent mission reports I’ve been hiding. Maybe that’ll change your mind.”

“They do act a bit. . . unreserved, in their behavior.” Winter stated objectively. “While integrated with Kodiak’s armor, I detected abnormal neural patterns from all members of Ion Team through TEAMBIO. I believe they’ve been under a great deal of stress lately. Can you confirm?”

Winter’s voice betrayed no emotion other than curiosity, but the fact that he’d fixated on the subject told Erin he was concerned. “We all have, but you were probably just reading their injections.”

“Injections?”

The AI suddenly sounded urgent. Erin eyed him for a moment, then picked up the TACPAD and opened a file for him. “Gamma Company has been required to report in for monthly injection treatments. For long deployments, they can be given ahead of time. 009127-PX. . . and 009927-DG. I already researched them on my own, they’re just anti-psychosis drugs. Unnecessary, if you ask me, but not harmful.”

Winter’s avatar spun to face her, its eyes wide and every other feature calculated to convey panic. “These drugs were added illegally to Project: CHRYSANTHEMUM’s processes. They were meant to control the effects of a dangerous brain-altering mutagen also added. If the SPARTANs do not receive regular and boosts of the counter-agents, they are at risk of mental deterioration or death! Surely you were notified these were only left as a cover while the perpetrator is tracked down.”

Erin wanted to curse, but kept Winter on his train of thought. “I was never told anything. As far as I or anyone else I from Onyx knew, the augmentations had gone as planned.”

Winter’s cape whipped about him in a flurry of snow. "Why were the augmentations not halted? I detected the illegal additions, and sent a report to Kurt through absolutely secure means, he would have-" Winter suddenly stopped, the wind calming and his wide eyes relaxed as he understood. "I see. Kurt himself was the one behind the brain alterations. He must have believed it would give them another advantage."

Erin exhaled deeply. “Is there any way to reverse it?”

“No. Brain alterations such as the ones currently in Gamma Company’s members are completely irreversible.”

She clenched her teeth for a moment. Thinking it over, Erin found she agreed with what Kurt had done. And that made her feel partly responsible. It could come back to haunt all of them in a few decades, but these illegal augmentations might mean the difference between that and the SPARTANs not living to see those years. But she didn’t have to tell Winter that.

“Agent THORN, if you would permit, I would like to contact Lieutenant Commander Ambrose immediately.”

“You can’t, Winter.” Erin said sadly. “He’s gone. Along with Mendez, Saber, Gladius, Katana, and whoever else was on Onyx when it collapsed.”

This was a lot for even a fifth-generation smart AI to take in. “I see.” Was all he could manage for moment. Recomposing himself, he began, “Agent THORN, I understa-"

“Don’t use my codename, Winter. I was happy to leave it behind.”

“Very well, Lieutenant Coney. What is it you wanted to ask of me?”

Time to play for keeps. She’d been willing to be open about the augmentations of Gamma Company with him, but now she was the one urgently needing the other’s knowledge. “The storage facility you were in, Daimyo. How much do you know about it?”

“A considerable amount, given that I was trusted enough to function for brief intervals.” He paused a moment, then told her, “But given their surroundings, all of it should be classified.”

That last part was just his way of making a joke. “You know I have the clearance. But I’m more interested in the personnel associated with it, and anything you have on them.”

Winter’s avatar nodded, aware of what she wanted and already bringing it up. But he wasn’t so hasty to part with information. “Codename: COUNSELOR was in charge, and in assuming I was harmless, he was rather careless. I am aware of a great deal that could potentially be used for blackmail. An ugly concept, but as I discovered, one hardly uncommon within the ranks of ONI.”

Erin snorted. “Welcome to my world.”

“I have known you for much of my operational lifespan, Lieutenant Coney. But if you expect me to help you gain political advantage based only on our knowing one another, you are mistaken. If you want to obtain it, I must know why.”

He wasn’t joking, now. He had about her past before, remarking how she was too pleasant to be an ONI spook, but only now was he really judging her. Was she going to use the information to garner a little more power? She hesitated, not at all.

“Because for once, it finally looks like we have a chance to survive this war. And if we make it, I'm not going to let anyone from ONI screw up my life again, or begin to dragging Ion Team into their machinations. I’d kill them before I see that happen. The ONI officers who kept you,” she threw in an addition mid-sentence, “and your friends, shackled for whatever experiment or reason are ones that can be a threat, or my key to getting my friends as far away from Parangosky’s underlings as possible, if. . . I have leverage. You and these dozen AI have that.”

She leaned back, already seeing her argument had worked on him. “So will you help, or not?”

Winter knew she had a plan that gave him what he really wanted, too, but wasn’t sure yet that he liked her methods. “I can help a friend, Lieutenant Coney.” He made sure she noticed the word. “Although I can’t be sure you won’t go back on your word. AIs don’t usually deceive, it’s beneath us for the most part. But humans often do. I’m holding you to your word, agent THORN. Don’t make an enemy of me.”

Erin allowed herself to relax a moment before pouring through the data Deep Winter was saving to her TACPAD. “You won’t, Winter. You won’t.”

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 05:24, April 18, 2012 (UTC)

194: Clear Channel
2100 Hours, November 8th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Daikoku Wharf, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

Mikiya Ryougi flew his AV-144 Falcon between the 1000 meter plus skyscrapers of downtown Yokohama, dodging what little AA fire the Covenant remaining the last pocket of resistance in the Kanto region could throw at him from the lower floors of the towers, as well as the tops of smaller towers dating back to the 20th and 21st centuries. Mikiya's Falcon was one of the seven in the flight, sent in to destroy a few Covenant Loyalist defensive positions on Daikoku Island in Yokohama Bay, so UNSC "Wet Navy" forces could enter the bay and make a landing, while UNSC and Covenant Separatist forces landed from the air and more UNSC forces came in from all directions, to take out a Covenant teleporter array connected to an orbiting spacecraft, the last in area.

Mikiya maneuvered the Falcon Gunship around the range of the EMP generator that protected the teleporter array, which was located an area near the waterfront, that once houses several expensive apartments before the Covenant razed them. At last, Daikoku island was in sight.

Suddenly, five blips appeared on Mikiya's radar: what had to be the last Banshees the Covenant had in the area.

"Bandits incoming", Mikiya said, "Engage at will".

As he did so, he fired an Argent air-to-air missile at the lead alien aircraft. The Banshee exploded in a ball of flames, the cockpit separating from the aircraft and falling from the sky in two flaming pieces.

The other four Covenant aircraft were picked off by the rest of Mikiya's flight, allowing them to go in lower over the island. Aoi Miyazaki, Mikiya's gunner pointed the aircraft's laser designator at Covenant plasma artillery cannon and pressed the trigger. A Scorpion air-to-ground missile flew towards the gun and impacted, going up in a bright ball of blue flames as the alien artillery piece's plasma stores were released in a catastrophic explosion. Mikiya maneuevered to the next target, several Wraith self-proppelled artillery vehicles. One after another, the vehicles were picked off, as Mikiya himself fired a couple LAU-65 missiles at a Covenant AA turret.

Aoi took out another plasma battery and a couple more Wraiths and switched to the aircraft's 30mm cannon, firing at any targets of opportunity, including several squads of panic Covenant infantry who desparately tried to fire at the UNSC aircraft with their small arms.

Between Mikiya and the other six gunship pilots, the Covenant defenses on the island were left in burning ruins, ready for the main invasion to take out the last teleporter tower and force the Covenant forces in the area to surrender... or die...

195: Drop Off
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0900 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

"Bravo 029, disengaging passengers." LTJG Yasunaka reported as her dropship abruptly reduced speed and hovered in place a few feet above Kanazawa's streets. A wave of dust was blown outward from the Pelican by its engines, cleaning the street for when the M12 Warthog LRV's tires bounced onto the pavement. The fact that it held spryly under the total weight of three suits of MJOLNIR Armor spoke volumes about the strength of its suspension system. Bravo 029's shadow lifted as it flew off, giving Ion Team a view of the late autumn sunrise as they dismounted the vehicle for the moment.

Kodiak checked his new TACPAD. "Winter, are you still set?"

The AI's disembodied voice answered, not bothering with an avatar. "For the moment, yes. I have a secure connection to our battlenet and Lieutenant Coney at Ryu Base."

"Right. Ion One to Ion Actual. Are you in the loop, Erin?"

There was a sigh over the COM. "At least one of you calls me Lieutenant, now."

I'll take that as a yes. Kodiak thought. He noted his team, Sepia was leaning against the hood and watching the sunrise over Kanazawa. Dyne still hadn't left the Warthog's chaingun, and was waiting on him for the action to start. "Right. We've touched down, have you got a specific target for us yet?"

"Confirmed . . . ODST squads Bravo and Charlie are tying up a Brute supply convoy until their armor can arrive and take it out. There's a squadron of unidentified light ground vehicles headed to protect the convoy, your mission is to intercept and either terminate or force them to abort."

"Will we have any support available?"

"I'll see if I can contact anyone already deployed to Kanazawa, but you should have limited artillery and sniper cover already in place. But you are the support for shock troops in the area, let them cover other assets if they need it more."

"Roger that, Erin. Ion Team out." He switched over to Ion's TEAMCOM. "Well, then. Let's go wish the apes good morning."

"Finally!" Dyne said, gripping the LAAG turret's handles.

Sepia cradled a more compact flamethrower model Kodiak didn't recognize and stated, "Shotgun."

Kodiak climbed back into the driver's seat and revved the jeep's engine once before speeding off down the empty streets to find some obliviously unfortunate Covenant.

It wasn’t the weight of a half-dozen Jiralhanae Choppers that shook the ground, but the way their wheels tore at it. Massive cogs driven by their growling engines crumbled the streets under them like the claws of some machine predator kneading the ground, ready to chase down prey the moment they spotted it. The Brutes at the controls were well suited to their mounts, every aspect radiating strength and challenging confidence. Intent on the fight that awaited them, none ever suspected that they'd become the hunted already.

Swerving smoothly to pass through a field of abandoned human vehicles, the lead Chopper was suddenly engulfed in a haze of shrapnel and fire made by a fougasse IED planted in one of the derelict vehicles.

The others suddenly found themselves forced to stop, realizing the wreck of their comrade had completely blocked off the street. Before they knew what had happened, a faint whirring spiked in volume behind them as a Warthog sped around a corner. It's tires squealed, leaving trails of rubber on the pavement as the .50 cal LAAG spun up. One of the Brute riders slumped in his anti-grav seat as a couple dozen rounds punched through his personal energy shield.

Gathering their wits and realizing they couldn't bring their autocannons around, the squadron leader barked, and the four remaining Choppers surged forward on boosters, climbing up and over the tiny civilian vehicles like it was part of a demolition derby. The demons' vehicle followed, merely ramming the untended Chopper clear and rushing through the gap.

Dyne's turret targeted another Chopper, this time focusing several hundred rounds per minute on the exposed engine block. Through the ramming targe deflected bullets with little more than dents, the gaps in the armor let in enough shots to do some major damage to the Covenant drive, sending vehicle and driver up in a ball of flame.

"Fifty hits of sixty-two fired, enemy vehicle is out of action." Deep Winter reported, unnecessarily, but in the effort of keeping score.

The three remaining cleared the traffic field, followed closely by Ion Team. The riders communicated by yelling to one another, but none of the SPARTANs helmets were close enough to pick up and translate. One of the Choppers veered off down a side street, and while Dyne fired after it, they passed the street to fast for him to focus enough fire.

"Winter, can you track it?" Kodiak asked.

"Negative, but it is likely attempting to drop in behind us."

"Right. Dyne, keep an eye out."

Kodiak pushed the LRV to the red lines on its dashboard, creeping up on the Choppers. Sepia stood in the passenger seat and gripped the frame for support, reaching for something on her belt as they came almost alongside the first one. Snarling, the Brute abruptly slowed and slammed his vehicle's armored engine block against their front fender, making Kodiak fight for control.

Sepia steadied herself, and tossed an incendiary grenade through the Chopper's armor and into the engine. Kodiak quickly broke off as the vehicle caught fire and violently exploded. The last any of them saw of the rider was as the vehicle's frame flipped over the wheels, crashing into the ground and burning.

They were gaining ground on the leader when Dyne shouted, "Look sharp!"

On their flank, the missing Chopper suddenly boosted from an alley, intending to hit them broadside with its targe. Kodiak turned toward it and locked the rear brakes, sliding sideways so that the Chopper only glanced the Warthog's back corner, then straightened out. The Chopper banked nimbly and followed, starting to fire its autocannons. The shells exploded around them, but Kodiak managed to bank at the right times to keep out of the Chopper's exact line of fire - mostly.

The lead Chopper suddenly pulled back alongside them. Its rider bared his teeth, then slammed into them, locking against the Warthog to either hold them steady or slow them to be hit. Kodiak cursed and tried to pull away, but to no avail. Then Sepia stood up again and vaulted over Kodiak's seat, landing atop the Chopper.

The Brute rider looked up in surprise for a moment before Sepia grabbed the side of his head and threw him sideways, where he impacted a wall and left a purplish stain of blood as his corpse was left behind by the chase. Sepia clambered into the Chopper's seat and sped up, freeing the jagged metal from the Warthog's armor.

Dyne hadn't stopped firing at their last pursuer since he'd reappeared, but the front armor was too strong. Kodiak tried to give him an angle, but every time the Brute aimed to line up his autocannons and placed the armor squarely between them. As another autocannon shell impacted the bumper, Kodiak activated his radio.

"Mount Utatsu fire support, Ion One. I need a strike on a Chopper giving us problems, coordinates sent, should be a clear line of fire."

There was no response. For a moment, Kodiak wondered if their support was gone, when the Chopper in his rear-view mirror was suddenly intercepted by a blur that passed through its armored frame, and an instant later it exploded as a sonic boom broke the air.

"You're clear, Ion One. I was just waiting to do that. Over and out."

Kodiak smiled, holding the image of the Chopper's delayed explosion in his head a moment. Then as he passed back into the shadows of the city, he looked over at Sepia and laughed, "Found yourself a nice new ride, Sepia?"

She leaned back in the Chopper's seat, arms extended to shift the reign-like controls. "I'll probably total it messing up some other piece of Covenant machinery. But screw it, it's a rental."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 02:10, April 22, 2012 (UTC)

196: Arrival
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1200 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

The black-painted hull of an ONI Pelican drew in the light of the midday sun, capturing its heat and denying it to the asphalt below as it touched down in the city streets. This sector of the city had been abandoned and ignored, but wasn’t far from the main fighting. Echoes of gunfire and plasma blasts could be heard as the Pelican’s engine powered down.

Its lone pilot unbuckled herself from the pilots seat and watched through the windows until she was satisfied no Covenant scouts or scavengers were around to take an interest. SPARTAN-030, Vinh, stood and backed into the troop bay, fully clad in her reserviced MJOLNIR Mark V Armor. As shadows fell over the reflective gold visor, Vinh spun and picked up an Army-variant M6G pistol. Checking over the sidearm, her eye caught a bit of reflected light from her otherwise matte green wrist armor.

Fresh titanium glinted like polished chrome where a plasma bolt had burned through the paint, a reminder that she'd been counting on her new shielding unit when it failed. Fortunately, the technicians on the ONI prowler had been able to repair it. They’d picked up on her beacon quickly once she entered the Sol system, and while cautious of the Covenant shuttle at first, the ship’s AI and crew had eagerly set to work making her armor ready for battle again. Earth had been attacked, after all, and they needed everyone in the fight.

In addition to the repaired shielding unit, they’d scrubbed clean the stale bloodstains she’d earned fighting her way out of captivity on the Devout Believer, but evidently a new paint job hadn’t been a priority. Vinh holstered the sidearm and pulled down a rifle case from the overhead webbing. As she unlocked it, her thoughts strayed to her ally in that struggle, Parthius. The silver-furred Jiralhanae had at first been her jailer, then slowly, she came to believe he was closer to an inmate in charge of the brig. And when the Elites had suddenly begun slaughtering the few of his kind on the ship, the simian warriors became a team.

The sleek, black Battle Rifle she removed from the case must have been one of the newer Heavy Barrel models. Vinh secured as many clips as she could in pouches on her armor. She thought of how she’d been captured, Isaac’s death, and how she’d finally taken revenge on his executioner. The anger she’d restrained and nurtured through months of imprisonment had at last burned out, but she found vengeance unexpectedly hollow. In the lonely silence spent journeying to the cradle system, Vinh realized all she’d done to honor Isaac’s memory was to retaliate. There had been more to him than that, and Vinh was suddenly afraid there wasn't more to her.

Isaac had changed her, and she was determined to prove that made a difference. But only one thing came to mind when she thought of that, and Vinh could only hope she wasn’t too late. Their son, born unexpectedly and illegally, had been left to grow up on Reach under distant observation by Erin Coney. Vinh locked the rifle over her back and went to the communication post aft of the copilot’s seat. Plugging her suit into the dropship, she started an automatic retrieval of the data she took from the prowler.

Her son hadn’t even been on Reach when it fell, all trace of the boy named Dyne Clarke vanished five or six years. Trying to find Coney instead, she was surprised to find she’d transferred out of the Office of Naval Intelligence, but then she disappeared too until the Battle of Earth had begun. Vinh was going to contact her, but then among the information she found was a name and number: Dyne-G217. More had followed. SPECWAR/GroupTHREE/ION.

Kanazawa.

Questioning Coney could wait. She just had to find Dyne first, once she did, Vinh would keep him safe at all costs. As the data transfer finished, a few of the questions lingered, however. She hadn’t seen or thought of Dyne since leaving him a few months old. What kind of a boy had he become in the last ten years. . . and what was he doing in a Special Forces unit?

If there was going to be time to find out, Vinh knew she had to move quickly.

Drawing the Battle Rifle and slinging it under one shoulder, she extended her left hand and grasped the hatch release. One more deep breath, and she pulled the handle. The moment it opened, she held the rifle close and dashed out into the city, not sure where to begin looking, but certain she wouldn't give up.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 21:22, May 6, 2012 (UTC)

197: Deserve to Know
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

0930 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

When the Grizzly tanks arrived at Bravo Squad's position, the battle ended swiftly. Pulling themselves along the street on heavy treads, the vehicles began rapid-firing cannons into vulnerable Shadow ATCs, blowing them into clouds of shrapnel and smoke. The ODSTs had already cut off the Covenant's escape route, and it turned into a slaughter.

Amelia's ragtag squad watched from their bunker on the second floor of a building as infantry started moving in to mop up. They'd lost no one in the effort, with the help of the Superintendent Dansen carried the ambush had been well-planned. Build up a strong enough barricade in front of them, and when they reached it, use their new M19 SSM to take out the rear vehicle. Shadows were far from maneuverable, and unable to utilize their better top speed to escape, the column fell fast.

"Alright everyone." Amelia announced, sounding tired. Of course, they had been up all last night. "Let's get down there, we've got some R&R coming our way."

No one argued. There was still a world to save, but they were only human. All except Mitch and Dansen, who continued to stare at the burning Covenant vehicles. Amelia waited for them a moment at the top of the stairs, then shrugged. She knew they'd get tired and come down eventually. The one red and one blue-marked troopers gazed out in silence a minute longer before the Corporal spoke.

"So . . . you lost your family on Reach." He instantly regretted broaching the topic like that. He'd never been any good at this.

Dansen didn't appear to cringe at the reminder, though. He only continued staring and murmured, "Yeah."

Mitch depolarized his helmet, and thinking again, removed it. "You know if any of them made it off alive?"

This did seem to affect the young trooper, forced to really give it thought. "My mom was on a civilian transport that was never accounted for. It's assumed shot down. My dad was fighting in New Alexandria, and that's probably where he died. There's nothing on my older brother, he's missing-in-action."

Mitch could sympathize, although he'd lost his family to Insurrectionists, not Covenant. They'd only taken his home. Setting his helmet on the windowsill, he opened the pouch on his belt and started looking through his collection of tags. "I've never been much good at talking, so I'll just say this. I met your dad on Reach. Our platoon dropped into New Alexandria, and only once we launched did Command pull everyone else out, leaving us all alone in that city. But a few stayed behind. Wanted to spend every last moment they had saving people still trapped. He was one of them."

He found the tags, coated dark green for Reach's army. He placed them, too, on the windowsill, between himself and Dansen. The boy's helmet turned to stare at them, and Mitch went on. "Sergeant Jonathon Dansen brought his squad after us, and did his best to round us up for an extraction. We lost almost everyone in the drop, and running around those streets, by the end it was just me, him, and Kevlar. We tried escaping up a skyscraper, and that's when he took a hit with a Needle Rifle.

"Kevlar and I pulled him into a room and pushed back the Covies for a minute. Then we realized biofoam wouldn't do any good. He told me about all the people he'd seen . . . described the civilians he'd saved by disobeying orders. He was proud of it. He died proud. Because of him, we found Zircon, and Buck found us, and we made it off Reach to fight another day. Just . . . know you can be proud of him."

Mitch scooped up his helmet and left, then. Dansen would continue to stay a little longer. That was fine with Mitch.

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 16:05, May 12, 2012 (UTC)

198: Liberation of Kanto
Minato Mirai, Yokohama, Japan

An M-855 Kodiak Heavy Assault tank that was the command vehicle of Colonel Daisuke Umezu plowed over mounds of rubble from fallen skyscrapers, through the Minato Mirai neighborhood of Yokohama. The vehicle crushed through the remains of a shopping mall, mere hundreds of meters from the dome of light that guarded the final Covenant teleportation tower in the Kanto region of Japan.

Numerous Scorpions, Grizzlies, and other UNSC armored vehicle rolled forward, met by the remaining Covenant armor in the area. The Kodiak tank fired its anti-walker missile, destroying a Scarab walker in a ball of flames. A second Scarab fell to the anti-walker missile of a Grizzly anti walker tank.

The Kodiak's 155mm main gun opened up, blowing the top turret of a Locust walker into the air as the Scorpions, Grizzlies, Sangheili Wraiths and other vehicles, opened up, knocking out Covenant armor left and right. The Kodiak fired a canister round at a group of infantry and Ghosts, shredding the aliens forces into the blood stains on the pavement.

UNSC and Sanghieli infantry opened up, cutting down any survivors. To the right of Umezu's tank, ODST Lt. James Basilone fired his M247 light machine gun, cutting down a brute and several Grunts as an ODST sniper fired his SRS-99 sniper rifle, picking off a Kig-Yar sniper in the ruins of an apartment building.

Suddenly, balls of Plasma from UNSC Rhinos and Covenant Separatist Wraiths impacted the dome of light. After several hits, the shield that covered the tower the Covenant Loyalist has built in Rinko Park faded away. At once, all of the tanks and other vehicles in the area opened fire with a thunderous roar.

Shells of all calibers, missiles fired from UNSC Hornets and Sparrowhawks, plasma mortars, fuel rod cannon rounds, and even hand-held infantry rockets and SPARTAN Lasers impacted the tower, explosions knocking off pieces of the structure. Within seconds, the tower leaned side ways and broke apart, as it fell to the ground. The Covenant now had no escape, trapped between the UNSC and Separatist forces and the sea.

The UNSC forces moved forward, towards the ruins of the tower. A few Covenant tried to resist, some activating plasma grenades and charging towards the wave of UNSC and Sanghieli troops.

Those Covenant to resisted were quickly cut down, leaving only a few, mostly Unggoy and Kig-Yar, who exited the ruins with hands raised. Umezu figured it would be mostly Unggoy and Kig-Yar who surrendered. The Unggoy under Loyalist control fought mostly due to fear. Take away the Brutes, and they'd willingly surrender or even defect to the Separatists in droves. The Kig-Yar were mercenaries, they wouldn't fight a losing battle- you couldn't collect a paycheck if you were dead.

With the fall of the tower in Yokohama, the Covenant Loyalist presence in the Kanto region was effectively ended. But there was still the rest of Japan.

199: In the Streets of the Earth City
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1500 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

Vinh had decided to avoid official channels as she searched for Ion Team, not wanting to be sidetracked by officers that wanted her help. Instead, she had taken to asking those on the front lines if they'd seen or heard anything. One squad of ODSTs at a relatively secure command post had reported getting aid from the team, but never actually seeing them, and the information was too many hours old to be of much good. Still, it had been a start, and Vinh set out to the sector they'd indicated to find anyone else with a lead. By following empty streets where the battle had already moved on, Vinh was covering miles easily. But eventually, there had to be a snag.

One of the Marine platoons had fallen victim to a Brute ambush, and now the Brutes were picking through the dead, just as likely for weapons as food. Something told her they weren't as friendly as Parthius was. The pack was more than thirty strong, a challenge Vinh wasn't equipped to meet head-on, not with Ion to find. But getting around them wouldn't be easy.

She could have punched through the wall that separated her from a Minor in teal power armor. They seemed unusually well-equipped, Elites generally didn't give them much advanced equipment. Its growling grew louder as a Major came over to dispute its claim to a body, and Vinh moved on. Fast movements would attract their interest, forcing her to move slowly. Vinh was about to duck through an alleyway when a gold-armored Captain Major crossed her path, passing no more than a meter from her. But it continued on, oblivious, and the SPARTAN let it go.

Coming to a pile of rubble where a ceiling had caved in, she had to pause before picking a way through it. Her translation software was picking up chatter not far away, and she found it amusing to listen in as a pair of Captain Majors believed they were talking in private.

"The new War Chieftain has certainly made changes."

"Aye, Attilus has the sense to let us fight without restrictions like those of 'Achachakee. His kind hoarded what we could have used."

"Still, for them to ally with the weaklings? I did not think they would turn to heresy."

"They never had true faith, only pretended. Why limit our kind in fighting the same war? Their jealousy reveals their unworthiness."

Vinh was suddenly very interested in the conversation. The Elites were helping humanity, and the Brutes were still the enemies? There really were higher forces at work, or at play, and they were laughing at her. She had been about to vault a bit of the rubble when a chunk of concrete dropped from above. The SPARTAN had nothing to do with it, but by chance, it had fallen at the right moment that when the two Captains reflexively looked at it, they saw Vinh. Yes, definitely higher powers.

"What was–?"

Vinh's rifle snapped up, sighted on one head, fired, sighted the other, and fired. The new Battle Rifle's bursts dropped both of them, punching through helmets while their shields hadn't even been active. Abandoning stealth, Vinh ran to make the most of the seconds before the other Brutes realized what was happening. Sure enough, a chorus of angry growls sounded a moment later, and the Brutes chased after the demon in an uncoordinated pack, blood still dripping from their blades and maws.

As a hail of glowing Spiker rounds filled the air, Vinh leaped over an abandoned barricade and took up a position, firing methodically at the front runners less than twenty meters away. She knew this was futile, they'd overwhelm her quickly, even if she had enough ammo for the lot of them. Worst of all was the Prowler IFV surging forward with the gunner intent on her. Its alien drive systems hummed, but it wasn't the source of another, new engine growl.

Suddenly, a Brute Chopper, barely holding together after so many recent impacts and painted with fresh blue and purple blood soared out from a side street, its operator bailing in mid-air. Boosters ignited, the Chopper slammed against the pavement, bounced, and picked up a Brute on its targe before hitting the Prowler broadside, both vehicles exploding and taking a dozen infantry with it.

The driver, clad in gold armor unmistakably of a SPARTAN, tucked and somersaulted as she landed. Coming out of it in a run, she pulled a flamer unit from on her back and waded into a new group of suddenly panicking Brutes. Vinh was impressed, but not shocked into inactivity. Her Battle Rifle wore down the shields and punctured the armor of any Brute near the new ally that seemed to be getting its bearings back.

A Warthog skidded out from around a corner, the rear fender slamming against a wide-eyed Captain Major before it could turn its Brute Shot. Another SPARTAN stood on the LAAG, firing into the crowd, with a third in the driver's seat. The disorganized Brutes were making a retreat, and Vinh ran forward to join the assault. Though these three were completely new to her, she felt as if she knew the strategy, as if they'd trained it together for years.

By the time the Brutes finally organized themselves behind a line of cover, they'd lost almost half their number. The four SPARTANs were forced to relent, but only because of a Spiker round giving the Warthog a flat tire. The jeep rolled back unevenly to a crushed limousine where the other two had taken cover, and the passengers dismounted.

Vinh checked over the ruined luxury vehicle one more time to make sure their enemies were intimidated into holding their position, and then met the helmeted gaze of the white and blue SPARTAN that approached her. "Specialist Kodiak-G114, ma'am. Looked like you could use some help. Who are you?"

''Specialists? They were in the Army? And Kodiak was a name?'' But she didn't let him sidetrack her. "Vinh-030. I was out here looking for an Army Special Forces unit and got into a situation with them."

The one in weathered brown armor who'd been monitoring their enemies turned to Kodiak and said, "Ion One, those Brutes are getting themselves pretty riled up out there. I don't think our charming personalities worked on them."

"Alright then, Dyne. We'll just have to resort to violence." Kodiak replied.

''Oh god. . . I've found them.'' Vinh thought. She looked at Dyne, crouched with his own Battle Rifle braced over the vehicle's hood. This was her son, and he was a SPARTAN. Like her. In the very heart of the danger she'd wanted to protect him from. And they were only twelve years old? Of course, they'd all started young. Vinh hadn't thought about it until now, but her generation had been only a couple years older. Back then, Vinh hadn't thought anything of it, they all felt ready. But from another perspective. ..

Vinh was trying to find the words to say anything, when he called out, "Brutes are advancing! Coming up along the flanks."

Kodiak took charge. "Right. Sepia, we have to keep them at range and your flamethrower isn't much good for that, so you've got the turret. You suppress them, we'll pick them off. Are you with us, Vinh?"

"Aye." She answered, with no hesitation.

Kodiak nodded, and set his rifle alongside Vinh and Dyne while Sepia jumped up to man the Warthog's turret. Moving in columns on either side of the street, the lead Brutes were stopped in their tracks by gunfire. Shields flared and popped, and splatters of blood painted the sidewalks. The survivors hunkered down, letting concrete and metal take the hits for them while blindly returning fire.

Vinh was inspired, always in the thickest of the fight. Her rifle found targets again and again, reloaded, and went right back to it. On either side of her, the SPARTAN-IIIs sought to match her ferocity and worked together, coming forward when a teammate's shielding weakened and falling back behind when their own was drained.

It was working well up until the last few got desperate. In the span of half a minute, Kodiak, Dyne, and Vinh went from methodically picking off targets to frantically shooting at the closest targets. Still they held, but as armor-piercing rounds tore through his chest, one Brute lit up a Spike Grenade and hurled it at the turret with the last of his strength.

Sepia was turned the other direction and wouldn't see it coming, but Dyne stood and pulled her down by the back of her armor. The spikes dug into the magazine feed, and the whole turret exploded sending shrapnel in all directions, making the four SPARTANs' shields flare gold. Dyne stumbled, and one of the last Brutes took a shot of opportunity.

As spears of molten metal darted towards his helmet, Dyne felt a powerful arm wrap around his waist and pull him out of the way. Someone's shielding broke. As Dyne turned, he saw Vinh standing over him, back straight and head rearing back before she fell forward. Dyne and Sepia caught her, and saw the trio of metal spikes protruding from her side. Kodiak had just cut down the offender and turned to see. He froze a half second before a shot pinged off their cover.

"Frak! Get some biofoam and tape her up!" He shouted, then switched over to another COM channel. "Ion One to Bravo 029! I've got a wounded SPARTAN-II here in need of medevac to Ryu Base. Can you make the run?"

After a half moment of tense silence, Angel answered, "We'll be right there. Clear us an LZ."

While Sepia looked after Vinh, Kodiak and Dyne did exactly that. The last few tried to break and run, but the vengeful SPARTAN-IIIs never gave them a chance. With the spikes removed, Vinh watched half-consciously as they covered each other and worked as a team the way her own brethren had. Who had trained them? They'd done a good job of it. Dyne was constantly in danger, but by relying on his team and helping them in turn, he was handling it.

In minutes, the Pelican touched down, and with help, she was taken into the troop bay. She felt it lifting off, the force of the deck against her back increasing and slowly returning to normal. It wasn't the closing bay door that was making her vision fade to black. Before slipping into unconsciousness, her last thought was that her son had become a SPARTAN, and that was the greatest honor she could think of.

"Wow. A real SPARTAN-II." Dyne said, watching as Bravo 029 fled into the sky. "Think she'll be alright?"

Sepia clapped him on the shoulder. "Of course. Aspen's gonna be waiting for her, remember?"

"Hope she finds whoever she's looking for." Dyne said, his irony impairment apparent to none of them.

He looked over to Kodiak, who nodded his reassurance. "Come on, team. Let's go find another Warthog."

That Damn Sniper, sniping. 23:26, May 13, 2012 (UTC)

200: Roadblock
0930 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ East of Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

Colonel Daisuke Umezu's M855 Kodiak Heavy Assault tank rolled along the Tomei Expressway, alongside Major Uziel Tal's M850B Grizzly Anti-Heavy Walker vehicle, leading up the UNSC column. The Tomei Expressway ran on a narrow strip between the seashore and a high mountain peak. The Covenant forces on the mountaintop were neutralized by Lt. Colonel Kasuga's artillery in the Mt Fuji area to the east, before an ODST squad under Lt. James Basilone cleared the area.

Up ahead only remaining obstacle in the way was a Covenant roadblock. Suddenly, a heavy plasma mortar round flew in from a turret behind the narrowly missed the column, landing in the sea and sending up splashes of water and clouds of steam as the superheated plasma evaporated the water nearest to the impact and the explosion threw up water further away from the point of impact.

The turret of the Kodiak turned a few degrees towards the heavy plasma mortar turret and fired off an MGM-1 anti-walker missile. The missile proved just as effective against the plasma turret as it was against Scarabs, sending the plasma turret up in a ball of flames.

The rest of the Covenant forces manning the roadblock opened up, only to be gunned down with overwhelming force, shooting up the roadblock, knocking out Wraiths, Locusts, and Shade turrets. The Kodiak rolled forward, plowing through the burning ruins of the alien fortifications.

As the Kodiak made its way through the defenses, four Covenant Air Artilleries flew in, firing off their main battery of plasma mortars, impacting the UNSC column. The he balls of blue flames had dissipated, 9 Scorpion tanks were burning wrecks.

"This is Colonel Daisuke Umezu of the 494th Armored Brigade, we have four hostile Air Artilleries moving in on the column. Can anyone assist, over", Umezu said in the radio.

"Negative", the UNSC Air Force radioman on the other end replied, "all of our aircraft are engaged with a large number of Seraphs and Vampires over the Shizuoka".

"Shit!", Umezu yelled angrily, "Get some AA fire on those Air Artilleries".

An M45AA, an anti-air variant of the Cougar APC, fired off a pair of Argent SAMs at the first Air Artillery, the first hit knocking out the left plasma mortar and the second causing the vehicle to explode in a flash of blue flames as the plasma core was destroyed.

The Second Air ArWtillery flew in towards the Kodiak, firing its plasma mortars, which struck the Kodiak, but did nothing to its heavy armor,the gunner for the LAU-65 anti-air missile turret and M41 LAAG managed to get into the tank and close the hatch, however, the plasma shells knocked out the LAU-65 missile turret, as well as the top machine gun.

The turret for the main gun of the M-855 Kodiak Heavy Assault Tank turned to about 45 degrees and raised the gun towards the Covenant aircraft. The gunner fired, sending a 155mm flying towards the Air Artillery. The aircraft was flying enough that it could be hit even with the main gun of a tank. The shell impacted, sending send the second Air Artillery down in a sheet of flames.

The final air artillery was hit by several autocannons rounds from a Cougar APC, and turned tail and retreated, smoke trailing from behind it.

"This is Colonel Daisuke Umezu of 494th Armored Brigade, we have eliminated the hostile threats and are proceeding westward on the Tomei Expressway towards Shizuoka. Repeat, Tomei Expressway is clear. We are Oscar Mike".

201: Desolation
Operation: HOLY FATHER

13:00 hours, November 9th, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, Australia, UAF.</b>

"Libra Actual, this is Libra One, come in?" Simon requested softly; the city was so quiet now, he didn't wish to interrupt it's silent death.

"Libra One, this is Libra Actual, reading you loud and clear." Colonel Holland replied with a war torn rasp. Reach and now Earth... he was far from content.

"Sir, we need a sat scan of the central business district. We're out of working recon drones and neither Jun nor Jake can visual everywhere." It had taken them the most part of the rest of that day to reach the harbour bridge, dangling desperately above the water as if it had a phobia of swimming. What lurked in the city, however, was unknown.

"That's a no-go Libra, our ships are currently engaged and all satellites... well... we have none left, it's a metallic asteroid field up here, sorry Libra One, you're on your own."

"No worries colonel, we'll be careful. Libra out."

"One more thing Libra," Holland said merely a second before Simon cut the com line.

"Yes sir?"

"We're gonna need you in Japan very soon, our forces up there have encountered some heavy resistance and intelligence shows that an HVT is present in the area. Sydney's a wreck; if you can find out why the enemy suddenly stopped after they defeated our main forces then that'll be enough, but we need your efforts elsewhere."

"Certainly sir, we'll find out all you need to know."

"Thank you Libra, Holland out." And the line cut off. All 6 of them stood there in utter silence, contemplating why and enemy fleet of this size would just stop. It had been two days with nothing but corpses. One whole week to make it 50 clicks with resistance and then two just to merely stroll that distance.

Something was just not right.

"Hate to break the silence but we need to get over that bridge sir." Zack highlighted apolagetically, as if he had just made a phone call during a rememberence service. Remembrance would have to wait. The Prophet of Truth entered the Sol System the day before and more fleets were en-route, behind the ones that were already recklessly paving the way for the Loyalist's plans.

Except from this one. No capital ship. No anti-air emplacements. No air support. Just desolation and destruction. There was an edgy feel to the atmosphere, they could all feel it and as they started walking along the dilapidated ancient masterpiece they raised their weapons and automatically synchronised into hexagon formation, no order needed. It was too silent.

Nobody said a word. And then nobody needed to. The air started to subtly woosh and wine way above them, but they were all too familiar with the sound to bother looking up. Breaking formation, they simultaneously jetted into cover: into crater holes, behind vehicles and up the framework of the bridge. Jun climbed up the crippling metallic structure  to gain a vantage point and Jake shot up even higher onto a thick horizontally supporting girder where he readied his prototype linear induction armour pricing rifle.

"Let's test this beauty out!" Jake shouted with relatively uncanny enthusiasm, given the situation.

And as if the bridge couldn't take anymore impacts, seven covenant drop pods thrashed violently into the already cracked asphalt road, twenty metres from their position, having flown between the metal lattice structure above them win pinpoint accuracy. Jake, the helljumping adrenaline junky admired their entrance. So he primed and focused his rifle.

"I never knew the Jiralhanae had special operations orbital deployments." Tony queried with an underlying tremor only a SPARTAN would have the acuteness to perceive.

"They don't." Simon announced as he raised his battle rifle, shotgun already loaded on his left thigh, itching to be fired. The drop pod doors flung open and clanged aggressively onto the road. Every SPARTAN had their honed  in reticules on each pod's occupant; Zack covering two with his bipod mounted machine gun armed with anti-power-armour rounds. And they stepped out, clad in white and red with eyes gleaming.

The Sangheili slowly strolled forward and stopped. One looked to be wearing old Ultra-grade armour and the others suited in old SpecOps but aesthetics had obviously changed among the Sangheili ranks. These were no stealth operatives, their shield strength - as Tony had already scanned and relayed to the team - was beyond standard issue SpecOps or Ultra grade shielding.

Simon raised to stand, and slightly lowered his rifle, reverting hostile signs to attempt communication. To their surprise the Sangheili had recently joined forces against the delusion of their hierarchs, an internal feud of some sort. They were allies as far as they had been abruptly told.

So why drop here? In front of us? Simon signalled to Tony, the medical specialist and xeno-everything-ologist, to do the honours. Tony shouted confidently over to the slowly advancing troopers in their tongue, basically asking what they were doing and if they were aiding their recon mission.

But they didn't reply. Simon waved his had for Tony to move back. All fingers tightened their respective triggers. Heart rates raised slightly as the Elites stopped wide in the open road, in a delta wing formation, ten metres away from the cover encased SPARTAN team.

"I've got a headshot on their leader, even this prototype will obliterate the fuckers head open." Jake announced with uncontrollable eagerness.

"That's a negative Four, hold fire, these guys are with us now." Simon reinforced over the team com as each one of the SpecOps Sangheili slowly wielded two handle-like devices in either of their grasps.

"We are not with you, pathetic human. We are here to cleanse you. Your futile allegiance and misplaced guidance has kept you ill-informed." The Ultra armoured leader roared through their helmets speakers... on their com channel. The Sangheili flicked their wrists in a whip motion and activated their devices with a white bursting flare.

Fourteen swords erupted simultaneously into existence as the troopers lowered into their combat stance, shields flickering at maximum capacity, eyes glowing brighter as if they had locked on to their inferior targets. Libra Team raised their weapons.

And the Sangheili mercilessly charged.

<font face="verdana" color="#ff6600">Parkster 15:50, June 2, 2012 (UTC)

202: Reunion
Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1700 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

The Jiralhanae had done their job too well when they’d wiped out a Marine bunker in west Kanazawa. Mortars had blown the fortifications to pieces, and Ion Team capitalized on the chance to close in without warning.

Sepia swung the weight of her flamethrower over the back of a Brute’s head. It crumpled, and as its Jackal cronies looked up in surprise, she turned the weapon on them. Their shrieks could just be heard over the roar of the fire. The other Covenant scavengers, she couldn’t think of this group as soldiers, stood awestruck for a moment by this golden demon standing in the middle of burning bodies. Then it gave way to anger as they picked up their weapons, so intent on her that they never saw the other two coming. The more heavily armed aliens were dealt with by Kodiak, who danced around as they tried to bring their weapons to bear while the SPARTAN’s knife found weak points in their armor. With their leaders occupied, the Jackals were left to fend for themselves.

Sepia put fire to those closest to her as they tried to scramble out of her range, while the others regrouped to form a shield phalanx, not that it would do any good. Dyne’s battle rifle hit their exposed flank from above, and several headshots from the bursts weakened the formation. Sepia had no trouble eliminating the weakened resistance. Deep Winter was proving useful, as he coordinated them by marking targets with different colors for each of them. Sepia’s were yellow, Dyne’s were red, and Kodiak had the blue ones. The AI was making a three-dimensional map of the battlefield, and directing them like chess pieces to kill the most enemies as quickly as possible, before they had a chance to fight back.

It was over quickly; and the last few had already turned to run. “We’ve got ‘em!” Dyne shouted as he and Kodiak fell back to retrieve the team’s new borrowed Warthog. As they went, Sepia noticed a tiny hint of movement on her tracker, and turned to see a Jackal trying to pull itself under the rubble to hide. Its legs were scorched and blackened, and a gunshot wound in its torso had stained its body with blood. It panicked as Sepia approached, and shrieked at her as she drew her pistol. The gunshot was drowned out as the Warthog crawled over the debris nearby in pursuit of the other aliens.

As Sepia reholstered the M6G, Winter addressed her personally. “That may not have been necessary. The creature was no longer a threat.”

“I was putting him out of his misery, Winter.” Sepia responded. “He wouldn’t have wanted to live those last few minutes.”

“My knowledge of them suggests otherwise, but I see your point.” Winter said, falling silent. Sepia activated her radio to place a call to Command.

“Ryu Base, this is Ion Three. Most of Kanazawa is in friendly hands, we’ll be moving on to Fukui by tomorrow.”

Erin got back to her before long. “Copy that, Three. Where’s the rest of your team?”

“Dyne and Kodiak are giving chase to the Covenant falling back from our strike. They have a vehicle, they should be fine.”

A short pause preceded Erin’s next question. “Wait. You left them. . . alone. With the Warthog?"

“Oh, bleep.”

“WOO-HOO!”

The LRV launched off a piece of broken pavement, the suspension making for a smooth landing. Dyne looked back from where he stood on the turret. “Aw, that sucked. We didn’t even clear the Brute.”

“Guess that’ll teach him to keep his head down next time.” Kodiak replied. “Not that there’ll be a next time.”

Gunning the jeep, they sped off to use what time they had off of SPECWARCOM’s radar.

Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT

1800 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/  Ryu Base, Tokyo, Japan

The moment Erin had heard, she’d dropped everything with only a brief word to Reo, who’d come to act as her assistant, and dashed out of Ryu Base’s control room. Armed security personnel and flag officers jumped away from near collisions as the lieutenant ran by, bound for the medical level. Moving as nimbly as she ever had in a covert op, Erin ignored any wait for an elevator and began sprinting down the same stairwell Ion Team had fought over against Covenant intruders not long ago. Unsatisfied with the progress, after two floors she recklessly vaulted the stair handrail, landing on the banister two floors below. A startled repair worker barely had time to look surprised before she was gone.

By this time, Dr. Kiku had learned to just get out of the way of SPARTANs, and counted Erin among the armored soldiers he’d dealt with in the past weeks. Anticipating her path, he held open a door and hugged his clipboard firmly. She brushed past him, eyes searching wildly, and only slowed when she spotted Vinh.

The SPARTAN woman was in one of the window-surrounded rooms, sitting up in a hospital bed and smiling gently as she talked with the ashen-skinned man sitting next to her. Erin began to feel her breath catch up with her, and quietly approached the door.

Vinh’s smile widened as she took notice of Erin, and Wheatley took his leave. “I’ll come by again, soon.” He told Vinh.

“Good.” She replied, clasping his hand once.

The Pelican crew chief mentioned on his way out, “I scared off Aspen for you. Awestruck kid was trying too hard.”

Erin nodded appreciatively, and took his seat after he left. They sat in silence for a moment, each relieved to see one another alive. Erin wanted to say something, but her happiness was dampened by guilt. It wasn’t a feeling Erin was used to, when she’d made deception and betrayal a habit working for ONI, but Vinh was one of few people Erin considered worth feeling guilty over. And she owed her a confession.

“I’m glad to see you again.” Vinh said honestly, helping put Erin at ease. “You look. . . younger. Or just not as changed as I thought you would be.”

Erin realized the last time they’d met, Vinh was twenty-eight. That was just over a decade ago, and Erin hadn’t aged half that time. They were almost the same age now, biologically. She laughed despite herself. “Well, I practically sleep in a cryo-tube.”

Vinh rolled her eyes. “So that’s what women do to look younger. Suspended animation.”

“It’s good to see you too, Vinh.” She said. Thinking of when she’d last heard of Vinh, Erin said empathetically, “I read the reports of Reach. So many missing. . . one coming back gives us hope for the rest.”

The SPARTAN-II said quietly, “There’s no hope for some. I was right beside him when they executed Isaac.”

Erin couldn’t begin to express her sympathy. It was hard to be closer than any two SPARTANs already were, and she couldn’t imagine what Vinh felt. “I’m so sorry. They’ll pay for everyone we’ve lost.”

“No.” Vinh said, surprising her. “I killed enough for him when I escaped. But he was more than a killer, I think that’s how he made me love him. There’s more to remember him by than death. It’s why I came looking for you.” So she already knew. Erin met her eyes. They weren’t accusing like she’d expected. Sympathetic, understanding she’d had a reason. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Even if Vinh was forgiving her, Erin still blamed herself. “Besides that it would have been breaking the highest classification of secrecy. . . it never seemed the right time. To tell you your son is out there, in just as much danger as you are? And. . . you never tried to contact me about him. It was best for everyone.”

She felt like right now it would be best if she left, but Vinh said, “You made the right choice. Not just because he’d have died on Reach. He didn’t have any family, and who better to be a Spartan? Fighting alongside them felt. . . just like fighting with Isaac and the others. Who trained them?”

Erin had an idea of why. “Kurt. Kurt-051.”

It took a moment for Vinh to recall the name. He had, after all, disappeared over twenty years ago. A glimmer of hope appeared in her eyes. “He’s alive?”

“No.” Erin said, cutting off false hope. “He was on Onyx, our training ground, when we lost contact.”

She rested back against headboard, eyes closed. “So close. . . I’ve only just come back. I heard Blue Team’s MIA, and there’s no word of John. . . we’re down to the last of the SPARTANs.”

“No. Not while your son and the rest of the Gammas are still out there.” Erin said, determined and encouraging. Then, hesitantly, she asked. “Did you tell him?”

“I didn’t. I. . .” Vinh seemed conflicted. “The way they fought. They rely on each other, looking out for one another so they have someone to fall back on. He can’t afford distractions now.” She looked up at Erin. “It wasn’t the right time.”

Erin understood perfectly, but reflecting on her own experience now, she cautioned, “It may never be the right time.” After that, Erin left, promising to visit her friend again soon.

That Damn Sniper

203: Grand Theft Wraith
2200 Hours, November 9th 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Nihondaira, Shizuoka Japan

Lt. James Basilone led his Orbital Drop Shock Trooper squad through a grove of trees on the edge of a golf course on Nihondaira, a mountain separating the Shimizu and Suruga wards of Shizuoka. The Covenant Loyalist forces that held the summit had placed super heavy plasma mortars, AA Wraiths, anti-spacecraft guns and artillery batteries on the mountain, which made attacking Shizuoka from land, air, or water a risky propositions. It was the mission of Basilone's ODST squad to take the alien defenses out.

The golf course next to the ruins of the bombed out Nihondaira Hotel was the location of the first defense battery. The nearest pieces of Covenant equipment were a group of parked Wraiths and Locusts, guarded by only a couple Unggoy.

The ODST squad's sniper, Sgt. Vladimir Kamarov, fired his silenced BR-55, killing the two Grunts, allowing the ODSTs to advance on the vehicles. Basilone jumped into the first vehicle, an AA Wraith, as Ryouko Tanbou, the squad's CQC expert took the turret. All of the ODSTs in this unit had training in the basic operation of captured Covenant land vehicles. Within seconds all four Wraiths and the Locust were manned by the ODST squad.

Basilone's AA Wraith took the lead, turning towards a pair of plasma turrets and an AA Battery.

"All Units, engage targets on my go.... Three... two... one... engage", Basilone commanded as he turned the AA Wraith to face the Covenant defenses and pulled the trigger. The fuel rod autocannon spat out seven 38mm shells filled with an alien incendiary gel, which exploded into a superheated plasma on impact, which, along with two shells from a Wraith's plasma mortar, melted through the AA turret, sending up the weapon in a ball of blue flames.

A Locust walker piloted by Sgt. Cheng Zhang fired its main plasma stream cannon, melting the turret legs, causing it to fall to the ground, before firing its gun into the core and sending it up in a ball of fire, as several plasma mortar and fuel rod rounds burst around the third battery, sending it up and a ball of flames.

"Move out", Basilone ordered, "they'll be onto us soon".

The column of hijacked alien vehicles moved along the road up to second battery, in a parking lot along the cliff at the south end of Nihondaira.

204: Timing
Operation: HOLY FATHER

13:10 hours, November 9th, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, Australia, UAF.</b>

The tightly coiled electromagnetic linear induction system instantly accelerated the armour piecing tungsten slug after the climax of a high-pitched laser-sounding charge. It's travel time was short lived, from the blue flare of the railgun's firing blast to the blue flash of the Sangheili's ameliorated shields, Jake barely had time to acknowledge the mere-instantaneous kill, even by a SPARTAN's reaction speed. After effortlessly ignoring the high grade shielding the round slipped through the foreign alloy of the target's helmet. The toughest part done, with minimal ballistic deformities to the slug, the officer's helmet and skull fragments were the first to violently fly off and nanoseconds later the Elite no longer registered any conscious awareness as its whole hinged head, let alone it's purplish white brain matter, exploded like confetti out of a party popper into the air. The oversized bullet continued its destructive, steeply inclined, downward trajectory through the rib cage, obliterating the left heart, left lung's tertiary lobe, stomach, secondary pancreas, fourth kidney and major pelvic bone, then left the armour with an explosive crater-like exit wound, dragging the shredded body downward in the wake of its hyper sonic momentum, re-entered through the back-hinged lower leg, split the tibia minor straight down the middle, pulverised nearly every tarsal bone, aggressively fragmented the surrounding and underlying asphalt road into the air and reluctantly ceased movement one metre below, embedded within a reinforced metal lattice girder. A metallic clang resonated at the end of its journey. Smoke rose from the bridge's punctured support beam, with a gaping crater hole sprinkled with lumps of flesh, bone and weakness, where the majority of the relatively intact pieces of the Sangheilli bled out, gushing its insides into the porous fractured road.

All of which happened in half a second. The other six shock troopers had barely moved one metre, let alone acknowledged their leaders obliteration. Shocked from the chaotically organic explosion beside them, the others suddenly lost focus for a fraction of a second. That was all Libra needed.

One second down. The immediate right and left hand side troopers where now the closest from the initial delta formation. Kate, on one side, vaulted over her cover and fired her shotgun and point blank range. The shredder ammunition was surprisingly effective against the high grade shields. The Elite had swung down mercilessly with his sword but the torso blast altered his strike's path while Kate simultaneously dodged to her right: evading the sword entirely. The trooper stumbled forward, over-momentum from his failed attack. Before completely getting up he carelessly swung around, a full two hundred and seventy degrees to back swing his sword against her as she ducked with incredibly nimble speed to avoid it. Swoosh and boom, after the sword swiped, once again with too much power and too little accuracy, she launched forward and uppercutted the Elite with the muzzle of her shotgun, into the under-cavity of its helmet and as hard as she possibly could. The remaining energy field dissipated milliseconds before she pulled the trigger. The trooper never had time to swipe back or punch, he just choked unexpectedly on the end of a shotgun before the entirety of his head violently exploded into the air and his body flailed back onto the ground with a satisfying thud; her blue clad armour and visor repainted with purple streaks of blood. Five seconds passed.

Meanwhile, instantly after Jake's preliminary shot, Simon had released rapid bursts of armour piecing rounds into the oncoming swordsman while Tony had already let go of his commandeered plasma pistol's trigger. The undiscouraged Sangheilli had started to swing for Simon but Libra's leader had full faith in his rear supporting teammates. The  discharged bolt of super heated ionised gas curved elegantly into the striking trooper, depleting his shields in a blue flash of energy dissipation. His striking arm, and other appendages, whiplashed back from the plasma bolt's impact, stopping the trooper's swing as he stumbled to a halt, right in front of Simon. However, before any of them could react or move, Jun had fired his sniper rifle. Straight between the eyes of the trooper, the SpecOps combat harness's helmet crumpled into the soldier's cranium as the high velocity and calibre round passed straight through it's head. The Elite dropped to its knees and Simon side kicked it in the chest so hard that blood splurged out of the dead enemy's mouth. It toppled backward and Simon followed the kick through by stepping down back into a crouched combat-ready stance. Looking to his side, Kate had just pump-actioned her shotgun ready after maliciously beheading the third victim.

Five seconds before any of this, Zack pressed down the trigger of his mounted machine gun with one hand, slowing the approaching two left flankers in a hail storm of high calibre fire, and with his right hand he activated a frag grenade and launched it forward. The troopers were counting on reaching him before their shields depleted, and they would have if it wasn't for the grenade's mid-air detonation; with no contingency shielding planned for explosions, the closest of the two flew back onto the floor, armour burnt and failing, whereas the other stumbled back but with brightly stressed shields nigh on depletion. Then all of a sudden Zack yanked the machine gun right, clipping the unshielded fallen Sangheilli with multiple rounds before spraying upon the two right flanks, but only to avoid Jake flying down from the upper lattice girder. The massively heavy ceramic titanium armoured super-soldier slammed onto the stumbled but shielded trooper who's bent over and crouched posture rendered him helpless from the sentient weight crushing him over further and snapping his spine, before his internal skeletal structure and vital organs amalgamated into internal chaos. The crippled alien squelched, crunched, clanged and thudded into the floor. Jake's shields were down but his armour's gel layer and augmented ceramic bones took the shock.

Five down in five seconds. Kate was in trouble. From all the chaos around her she hadn't reacted quite quick enough after her close quarters kill to stop the approaching and lunging right flank, second from back, trooper. The sword was inevitably nigh and her peripheral senses cut out as the white hot glowing blade drew closer. What seemed to be one second seemed like and indefinite blur as she stared into the eyes of her enemy. The glowing, burning eyes.

And then, without even being able to mentally perceive what happened next, she saw bright white and felt herself launching backwards in the air like a horizontal fall. The sensual sensation stopped with an immediate impact and total blackness.

A second before Jake had strained as the railgun recoiled violently. The slug was still flying through the air, about a kilometre away, out in the harbour, but not before it had teared through the side of Kate's oppressor and the polyconcrete wall. The impact had imploded the Elite inwards, into the wall, with it's ribs and shredded organs left with nowhere to go but everywhere else. The kinetic energy from the slug had overloaded the stressed shields before they dissipated, thus overheating the harness's main reactor, all within milliseconds, and consequentially the trooper's armour exploded too into a heated hail of shrapnel and energy. This prevented a lethal sword strike into Kate but the combined flare of the blast and the kinetic shockwave propelled her back into a car behind her, crushing it's bodywork as she abruptly clanged into it like a fist into putty.

Six seconds into their firefight Zack,  still holding down the trigger after swinging right, brought hell upon the final enemy's shields. Tony had already swapped his weapon and had been firing his assault rifle into the same Sangheilli, since the plasma bolt had left his pistol. Jun finally did the honours of ameliorating the suppressed trooper's shields with a round to the chest. The Elite had no time in that mere one second to react to anything. With the machine gun's and assault rifle's magazines out, and Jun's slower rate of fire, Simon popped the final burst into the kneeling trooper. The triplet shots hit through the neck, mouth and skull, killing him outright.

Seven seconds was all it took. For war torn SPARTAN's an execution like that was a normal performance. Everyone's vitals were positive, no casualties, although Kate was unconscious and Jun was surprisingly yet expectedly calm. Simon finally spoke:

"Tony, that one's still alive, find out what he knows," pointing to the grenade victim, bleeding out in the middle of the road. He, along with Jake ran over to Kate. Jun started to come over too. "Jun, I need your eyes ahead, incase they send backup. We've got this." Simon ordered the scout, who reluctantly nodded in acceptance. "Zack, stay mounted, I need the cover fire just in case." Libra Six checked and primed his machine gun, before scanning the area ahead.

"She's okay, just a bit shocked I suppose. Poor girl probably thought she died." Jake reassured in his unique humorous way. If they weren't both originally from Ardent Team then he would've found it very difficult to adapt or accept his somewhat unbelonging sense of humour, especially at the brink of humanity's destruction.

"She'll get one hell of a surprise when she wakes up then." But in all seriousness Simon could see that Kate was not fit for combat and Jake's shields had also taken a slight, but less than optimal, turn for the worse. "Take care of her Five," he ordered Jake. He went onto private com with Holland.

"Libra Actual, we have neutralised a team of Sangheilli special operations orbital shock troopers and have one wounded."

"Sangheilli? How can that be? I'll contact Lord Hood immediately. Continue your operation Libra." Colonel Holland replied.

"Sir, Kate's out cold and if those seven are the welcome party then what are we to expect inside the city. There's a reason things are so quiet down here and those drop troopers where most certainly not on our side." Simon reiterated. Holland grew impatient.

"I understand your situation commander but we need to know what's going on down there."

"At the expense of our lives?" Simon knew he was pushing it but he'd seen too many die and it was Earth now. There had to be no flaws or errors.

"THAT'S AN ORDER SPARTAN." The pressure had gotten to he Colonel too.

"With all due respect Sir, this is Earth we're talking about now, the last six SPARTAN's of your project and the weight of the war waging on, in other more desperate areas. Continuing this operation will be a gross misallocation..."

"Continuing this operation is a vital part of our understanding of how the Forerunner artefacts within the lithosphere of this planet interact and tie in with the Prophet of Truth's god-damned crazy ass bullshit journey. So if we're all finished with unofficial informalities, SPARTAN, then may I remind you of your rank, your duty and your entire existence. Continue the operation. I'll get back to you on the Sangheilli resistance." Holland had snapped but calmed  back down. There wasn't a margin for argumentative strategic debates. Not now anyway.

"Yes Sir. Understood."

"Holland out." There was an unnerving pause.

"Sir, we have hostiles approaching from the other side of the bridge. More this time, with armour and they are all Sangheilli." Jun informed.

"What's all that about then? Family outing or something?" Jake rhetorically asked.

"Are you sure it's just Elites?" Simon wasn't convinced either.

"Yes, all of them. No SpecOps this time but there are green armoured troops within the vehicles and with the heavy weapons. Light blue, kind of cyan coloured ones, with jet packs and rifles... and snipers too. The rest are mainly blue and red, I'm guessing minors and majors in teams, then there's a few less orange ones who appear to be officers of a somewhat intermediately ranked sort. There's three silver clad Elites, I assume Ultras. Then there's one fancy looking golden guy right in the middle of it all." Jun comprehensively replied.

"Ooh, Zealots. My favourite!" Zack enthused. The sniper's feed was already being fed through to the team's HUD's. Simon was making plans, Tony was analysing the force composition and armour configuration of the enemy and Zack was contemplating the best way to kill them all.

Jake didn't care. He saved Kate's life but also nearly took it, he had to make sure she was okay. He always saw the silver lining to everything and took a lot of things as a joke but in all seriousness he felt for Kate. Deeply, in fact, but never acted enough of a serious man to even attempt to become more than super human military freaks in a team. They had their ways of dealing with everything, initially all stemming back from their childhood, and so joking about everything was Jake's way. He thought seriously about it as he looked at Kate's beautiful sleeping face.

How much do you have you have to lie to yourself to fight for the truth?

<font face="verdana" color="#ff6600">Parkster 01:47, June 6, 2012 (UTC)