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Mayfap looked around the Silence and Deception's carbon monoxide bay with relief. The moment he and the other Grunts had gotten off the infernal drop ship they were allowed free time to soothe themselves while the Elites calculated their next movements. Mayfap did not take particular interest in being an Elite right now all hot and sweaty in their armor listening to boring speeches on battle strategies and how to properly execute them.

Instead he was listening to the arguments of two other Grunts who were trying to decide whose turn it was to report to the Elite in charge of the bays that they were fine, eventually a lowly yellow grunt was forced to do it.
Mayfap closed his eyes and started to dose off when he was awoken suddenly by alarm sounds coming from outside, grudgingly Mayfap opened his eyes to see what was going on. All the other Grunts had crowded the gas mask storage lockers to go out and see what was happening "Idiots!" Mayfap muttered, the quicker they were ready to leave the quicker they would be called to. Then Mayfap heard shouting and a huge commotion coming from outside the bay, more interested than before Mayfap sat bolt upright. What could be making all this noise? Mayfap wondered, could it be a simple argument gone awry, a group of humans or even possibly… the demon?

At these new sounds some of the lower ranking Grunts stepped away, but Mayfap knew that it was probably best to go out, there was strength in numbers and being considered a deserter or coward could be punished by death anyway. Not seeing any other option Mayfap decided to don his mask and see what the commotion was all about. After Mayfap had gotten his gas mask on and was sure it was very firmly attached, he opened the bay door to get out.

Field Medic David Craig raced through the orbital MAC gun the Sydney carrying a limp man calling himself Private Mancenie to the infirmary on the second level. The privates health had slowly been deteriorating but now it was picking up a dramatic speed, if he didn't get there soon he would die. Craig pushed himself to his limits and gained as much speed as he could, seething pain swelled from a stitch working its way all around his body. Bursting through a door and into a white walled room smelling strongly of disinfectants, Craig knew he was in the infirmary, but he didn't have time to celebrate as he dropped Mancenie onto a stretcher and started work on cleaning him up.

Craig started to fell a creeping chill crawl up his spine, the same one you experience just before you drop down on a rollercoaster, the one telling you something is very wrong. Craig turned around and heard wild barking and guttural sounds coming from the lift going to level three. Craig did a quick sweep of the infirmary and to his horror found that it was completely abandoned save for some corpses lying on stretchers. How could I have missed this? Craig queried himself but didn't answer as the barks grew louder and more numerous, Grunts, they had to be only they could make that stupid noise. Craig had no way of knowing whether they were accompanied by Elites or Jackals but he did know the chinking of Hunter armor when he heard it, every marine had memorized this noise and it was the subject of many of their nightmares.

Craig knew the odds were bad, very bad for the following reasons: he could not take on even one Grunt let alone the ten or so that seemed to be coming, he could not hold his own against a Hunter for more than ten seconds and he was tired for all the running. There was an old saying Craig had once heard, it went something like: as long as there are more powerful enemies to fight prayer will still be popular. If there was anytime to pray it was now thought Craig there was just one problem, he had no religion, he had given that all up when he went to medical school.
The noise grew louder and Craig knew he was dawdling, he had to do something now… but what? Hiding was a good option Craig thought, but how would the private hide? He could leave him here; Craig looked into the privates pleading eyes and knew he couldn't leave a fellow marine to die like that. Then what? Fight? This was out of the question obviously, he couldn't fight them! Craig shifted his weight from foot to foot as if getting ready to make a run for it; Craig looked around the room for an answer, the door lock? Nah, the Hunter could blast through it in a single shot. Craig looked at a corpse covered with a cloth as if it held the answer, then he realized it, they could hide! Craig quickly grabbed two white cloths using them to cover himself and the other marine, he instructed the marine to remain as quiet as possible and not move for any reason. Lying down under his own cloth he was just in time as the Covenant group burst through the door at that moment, Craig hoped they wouldn't check the bodies were dead and closed his eyes.

Lieutenant Carter sat back on his chair behind his paper covered desk and looked out his window to the deserted space beyond. He knew it wasn't as peaceful as it looked; a massive Covenant invasion attempt at Earth was currently underway with his own Spec Ops teams hard at work everywhere trying to prevent this. The lieutenant wondered what had become of some of his teams as he scratched beneath his black eye patch, a reminder of his short stay in a Covenant prison. He sincerely hoped none of them had been captured as death was better than what they would be in store for, but then again he had only been captured in a (failed) attempt to learn the location of Earth. They knew where Earth was what reasons would they have to take prisoners?

The lieutenant was aboard the destroyer Pillar of Summer, one of four ships constructed by the UNSC fleet when the amazing tales of the battering the Pillar of Autumn took before it was destroyed came back home on the mouths of Halo's only survivors. Carter would have like very much to meet these survivors but their identities were kept secret, except for Sergeant Johnson, Carter had asked about his escape but he told him it was all classified. Carter cursed the spooks at ONI behind this, of course Colonel Ackerson had something to do with this but Carter didn't know for sure. Many rumors had gone around about who were the other survivors and the only one Carter believe to be true was that they were Spartans, because why else would they be kept secret?

The lieutenant was still pondering this as a visibly shaken looking corporal burst through the door and said to him in a scared voice "The Captain wants you on deck right now!" Wondering what on Earth the captain could possibly want Carter followed the soldier to the bridge. As they were walking Carter noticed that the corporal was wearing full body armor and was armed with an assault rifle. Carter suddenly realized what was happening, they were being boarded! Entering the bridge the corporal stood near the door at attention as Carter made a beeline for the captain. He found him looking out the main window watching the ensuing space battle between Covenant and human forces; it looked like they were losing badly. "Niles!" the Captain yelled apparently to no one but as he did a holographic figure of orbs of what seemed to be liquid floating around appeared, it reminded Carter of the lava lamp he had in his office. A voice came over the sound system, it was calm and had a sort of dream like quality "Yes, captain?"

The Captain started before the A.I had even finished "Give me a firing solution at the approaching Covenant ship with the MAC guns, then calculate were the boarding craft are most likely to gain access to us and send troops to those positions, tell them to take no prisoners." There was a brief moment of pause but it was at least less than a second later when the A.I replied "Done sir." The captain smiled to himself then turned to face Carter. "Carter, we have a big problem." He said in a grave voice, "So what's new?" Carter replied without humor. Turning back to view the battle the Captain said his next words with great care as if he was worried about saying something he wasn't supposed to "As you know, this was has been going steadily… wrong for us, I have lost many of my men, some who I didn't know... some who I did… I just wanted to know, in your opinion, could we defend this ship from the Covenant?" The Captain finished saying this with a great bitterness in his voice and Carter knew what was going through his head. "Sir, I have to say with all honesty… no."

Sampson glided through the wreckage of the Athens as fast as she could trying to get to Longatano before it was too late, she had already depleted the fuel in her jetpack searching for both Covenant sabotage and her missing team members. Looking around she found a severed communications cable, one end had a chunk of concrete attached to it. "Perfect!" Sampson yelled out loud. She grabbed to cable and started to swing it around, she might not get to him in time but the cable might, she flung it with all her strength and saw it arc towards Longatano then wrap itself around his left leg. Wasting no time Sampson pulled Longatano in, it was hard work fighting the pull Earths gravity already had on him but she managed to do it.

Once Longatano had been pulled in she inspected his suit for breaches, it would be a terrible waste of time and effort if he was already dead plus Sampson didn't want to lose another team member. His suit showed no breaches and his pulse and breathing were fine and regular, Sampson breathed a sigh of relief. "Not today soldier, we still have Covies to kill." She said to him. A hand clasped her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin, but she managed to draw her pistol, then turn to face what was behind her. It grabbed the pistol wrenching it from her grasp, and then gave her an assault rifle. Sampson looked at the thing and found it to be Sergeant Swinb, he tapped his neck and made a slashing gesture showing that his radio wasn't working, Sampson nodded.

Then Swinb pointed through the chunks of free floating metal and Sampson saw a Covenant troopship searching the wreckage. Understanding that they were going to board it Sampson hefted the assault rifle but something stopped her, she poked Swinb then pointed to Longatano still unconscious. Swinb gave a dismissing wave with his hand and pointed to a large easily noticeable piece of flame red metal at the outskirts of the wreckage. Sampson fumbled around at her belt and found a set of magnets which she used to fix Longatano to the sheet of metal. Then together they made their way to the troopship, once they had gotten within radar distance they began to move slower so they could hide their signals amongst the other moving wreckage.

Swinb gave Sampson the signal to grab the hull and she complied sticking a considerably large amount of C-4 to the air lock, she knew it wouldn't take this much to blow the door open but she wanted to make one hell of an entrance. Swinb readied his assault rifle and Sampson did the same, then Swinb gave the signal for them to take positions on either side of the air lock. Once both of them were in position Swinb held up his hand then counted down using his fingers, five, four, three, two… one.

Blue Elite 'Sareesa Juiben sat at the controls of a troopship searching through the wreckage of a dirty human station, or what was left of it Juiben joked to himself. It was just him and a clutch of five grunts in the ship, his superiors obliviously didn't think any humans had survived the blast but just wanted to be sure. Frankly Juiben would rather be fighting the humans to gain the ultimate glory but he understood how important it was to do as he was told whether he liked it or not, the Prophets worked in mysterious ways. Juiben wasn't angry at his superiors for this he just wished he could see some action.
Juibens prayer had been answered when the air lock was blown apart and two humans taking advantage of the sudden loss of atmosphere barged in. The moment they were in they opened fire upon the disorientated Grunts killing them all easily. Having regained his orientation Juiben yelled a terrifying battle cry and charged the pathetic humans.

Mayfap left the carbon monoxide bay to find plasma slashes and bullet holes covering the hallway and going around the corner, incidentally that was were the noise was coming from. Mayfap took a deep breath checked his needler then cautiously walked towards the corner and peeped around the corner. A tremendous battle met his eyes; human forces had somehow gotten into the ship and were now quickly overpowering the Elites. At first Mayfap wondered how they had done this but was soon clued on as he saw not one but two demons among the humans blasting away. Scared out of his wits Mayfap slowly crept up onto the battle, one of the Demons came close to him and Mayfap saw his chance, he jumped into the battle then unloaded his entire clip of needler bullets into the Demon. It turned around but was caught in three huge explosions caused by the needles; Mayfap closed his eyes to avoid the bright light and opened them expecting to see a charred body.

Instead he found that the needles had no effect, the Demon seemed to be completely undamaged. Mayfaps knees shook in terror, it looked directly at him then brought its weapon to bear in front of Mayfap but before it could pull the trigger an Elite sensing its moment jumped him from behind taking its attention of the Grunt. Relieved beyond words but still willing to battle Mayfap instead tried to take out as many humans as possible but this too seemed difficult as these were smart humans, they wore silver armor and moved very quickly.

Fighting valiantly Mayfap held his own against the humans with the aid of a group of Grunts but they too slowly fell. As the fight dragged on more Covenant joined the fight but still they were losing, Mayfap now saw his chance with a human he had been fighting for ten minutes now. It was tired now and had left its left leg right next to Mayfaps needler; taking advantage of this Mayfap fired six rounds into its leg. It yelled in pain as its leg was severed violently by the small explosion and it fell to the ground, Mayfap fired into its head taking pleasure in the splattering sound the explosion made.

The Covenants footsteps made loud slapping sounds against the floor as they moved through the infirmary. Just as Craig had feared they were searching for something, for what Craig had no idea but he could hear them searching all the stretchers so it meant trouble for them. The Grunts guttural barking and screeching got louder and louder as they drew closer and closer, Craig tried to still his rapidly beating heart as adrenalin raced through his veins. He held his breath and tried to stop his breathing so as not to let on that he was still alive to the Covenant, suddenly without warning the covers were ripped off him. Craig lay there not daring to breathe still hoping that whatever had uncovered him couldn't tell if he was alive or not.

Craig felt a hot breath sweep over him and he smelt the terrible stench of a sweaty grunt, then the most frightening thing Craig had ever happen to him occurred. The Grunt poked him with its clawed finger then shook him a little; the Grunts hot breath grew heavier as it grew closer. A wild commotion went up in the room and Craig thought he had been found out but instead he heard shouting from where he had left the private. A sick feeling hit the bottom of his stomach as he heard plasma shots then a scream of pain. Knowing he was too late but still not caring Craig opened his eyes and jumped off the stretcher. To his luck he had caught the Grunts off guard but unfortunately the Hunter knew he was alive and the moment he got up he went back down as the Hunter hit him right on his helmet.

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