User:WarCrimes/Purple Hearts of Gold

Purple Hearts of Gold is a 2013 fan-written Halo novel by M. F. W that was released for corrections on September 9 and is under going final preparations for release before Christmas.

Plot
The story is centred around the 16th Light Commando Battalion, one of four experimental units trained to perform like Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, sent on Spartan class operations with the cost of standard human lives making the project more beneficial but all the more savage towards the troops within, who are weakly armoured and lightly armed.

The story introduces Corporal S. Jones who was a victim of the glassing of Harvest and had been in the Battalion for almost two years. He recounts his wars on and off planets with the covenant as he and Captain Owen Alleys battalion begin to retake Mass Relay Station Five on Reach.

The battalion retake the station in order to re-establish communications externally in that region to accelerate the civilian evacuation of the Ettinum Region. After 7 days of holding the station under immense siege from plasma fire both ground and air based they succeed, but not without losing 1 D77-TC Pelican and 3 UH-144 Falcon's.

The battalion goes underground leaving the immobilised wounded to detonate explosives in order to kill more covenant. The remaining 34 men and women hike underground in the sewers and outside across rugged terrain for three more days before Spartan III's spot them and send for pickup.