M6: Battle for Refuge (Ground)

[Dufflepud]

M6: Battle for Refuge

Shipmaster Varias Xar 'Kedasai
Aboard the CAR-Class Frigate, CNV Deliverance

"Excellency, we have exited slipspace," informed the young navigations officer who sat at the helm. Vairas simply grunted in affirmation as he drummed his four, taloned fingers against the arm rest of his command throne. He had never enjoyed this kind of mission. He had joined the navy because as a ship master, he could direct the cleansing beams that were the purest incarnation of the wrath of the gods he served. However, for this mission, he would simply be overseeing the deployment of a medium strength strike force. He certainly understood the task's importance, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

With a sigh, the gold armored veteran stood from his seat. At least he would briefly be able to exercise some of the frigate's power as he cleared the Human colony's meager defenses.

"How many vessels?"

"Jut one, sire. It appears to be of the frigate class. Shall I fire?" The ship master couldn't help but chuckle at that. To call the vessel he was about to engage a "frigate," by Covenant standards, was about as absurd as equating a lowly Unggoy to a Sangheili warrior!

"Cleanse the filth so that we may proceed," he commanded with a wave of his hand, turning about and sliding back into his levitating seat. Moments later, a swirling, violet-golden bean lanced across the exoatmospheric void, reducing the prow of the enemy warship to molten slag and carving a path deep inside. Varias waited for several moments as the now crippled UNSC craft floated helplessly, but there was no resulting detonation. His mandibles pulled into a snarl of discontent; were the gods displeased with him today?

"Excellency, the energy projector will be ready once more in thirty seconds. How would you like to finish the heretic ship?"

"Open fire with pulse lasers. Leave no trace of their existence!"

This time, thousands of smaller, ionized beams collided with the hull, raking across it and stripping layer after layer. After several seconds of this assault, one managed to breach the core, causing it to rupture and detonate as Varias sat back with a grin. Despite his fowl mood, the site never ceased to please him. Unfortunately, that meant he would now be moving on to the dull part...

"Inform the Field Marshal that we are ready to begin deployment of his excellency and his troops to the holy relic's vicinity."

"Of course, sire. It will be attended to at once," replied the communications officer.

"Hopefully the field marshal will attend to this artifact with equal haste," grumbled the ship master under his breath.

---

Jiralhanae Chieftain Boreas
Deploying with Pack to the Battle of Refuge

Boreas strapped himself into the side of his phantom as the drop ship began its smooth descent to the planet surface. Sitting around him were his personal guard, along with several of his select officers. The other three hundred or so warriors that he would be leading into battle were in other drop ships deploying simultaneously. Across from him, a captain began to pick his teeth with the blade on the underside of his mauler sidearm. Disgusted, Boreas looked away. He would reprimand the officer later for his savagery - it always irked him when his people justified their universally applied moniker. "Brutes." The Chieftain was anything but.

A slight shudder ran through the hull as the rapidly decelerated, and the sound of the aircraft's main cannon firing snapped the grizzled warrior out of his reverie. Before any of his underlings could make the jump, Boreas barreled forwards, leaping into the small gravity lift and simultaneously pulling the gravity hammer from the magnetic clamps on his back. Bullets peppered his resilient shielding, causing it to take on a diamond like sparkle as he touched down and rolled behind a half-molten human vehicle. 

As the fire died down, Boreas took a step back, lifting the hammer high above his head before bringing it back down as if swinging a golf club. The combination of kinetic pulse generators and Jiralhanae strength sent the thing hurtling forwards, crushing a fireteam of soldiers and eliminating their mild fortification. As the rest of his pack began to descend, Boreas grinned. This fight would be over quickly.

---

Admiral David Vardy
Aboard the UNSCS KILLIMANJARO

"Admiral" Janeway said, handing David a Padd. "The numbers you asked for."

Nodding, David accepted the PADD without comment. He was busy concentrating for what they might find around the planet. He had a solid fleet with him. Experienced Captains and Commanders, all ready to die on his command. A sobering thought, but one that was in the back of his mind. He needed to be ready for any contingency.

"ETA to destination." David asked Lambert.

Popping into existence, the holographic image of a large balding african american man in khaki pants and a plaid vest appeared, Holding what looked to be a cup of coffee. Pretending to have a sip, He then replied "Two hours sir."

Nodding, David returned to his PADD, not amused by the antics of the AI. Normally he appreciated the efforts the AI took to appear human, But sometimes, David cared more for proficiency than appearance.

"Fleet wide channel Mr. Kim." David ordered.

"Channel Open" replied Kim, his fingers dancing over his console.

Rising, David then stepped over to the holographic table that had been recently installed on the bridge. It gave David a better idea of things from a 3d perspective rather than watching a 2d screen.

"This is Admiral David Vardy." David began. "In two hours we will be dropping out of Slipspace into the system. We don't have an accurate number of ships, So we will have to play this one by ear. Intel is sparse, Since ONI hasn't had time to scramble any ships to scout out the region for us, So we will have to manage. I'm sending your AI's a plan for all contingencies."

Taking a breath, David then continued. "I know this is far from ideal intel, but we've gone in with much worse. I know each of you will do your best. Vardy out."

Nodding at Kim to cut the channel, David then went back to his chair and sat back down, snatching up his PADD. It wasn't much of a speech, but it was all he had for the moment.

---

Shipmaster Varias Xar 'Kedasai
Aboard the CAR-Class Frigate, CNV Deliverance

"Immolate them!" roared the shipmaster, as the first human vessel dropped out of slipspace, a destroyer based on its tonnage. They hadn't been expecting more ships this early in the extraction. If more were inbound...

"Sire, half a dozen vessels are now exiting slipspace... no, make that a dozen... excellency, I count nineteen vessels just outside visual range!" Varias' contorted face relaxed, and he slumped back into his seat.

"May the gods have mercy on us," he offered, a strange complacency coming over him as the rest of the bridge crew began to panic. Seconds later, the Deliverance was no more.

---

Field Marshal R'ha 'Katolai
Overseeing the excavation of the Holy Artifact

R'ha was overseeing the battle from a tactical viewer built into his HUD. Of course, the resistance on the part of the human Army had been almost completely crushed, so it could barely be called a "battle." They had deployed via drop pod and struck fast, quickly taking out human AA and entrenchment with targeted pulse laser blasts and bombing runs. The humans hadn't been able to recover from that initial blow, and the Field Marshal watched as the Covenant lines pushed ever outward.

Despite the fact that the outcome of this battle was never questionable, he had to admit that the addition of Jiralhanae shock troops to their ranks did add a certain... efficiency. Their Chieftain, Boreas, was a clever commander, even if the Sangheili could practically smell the hatred saturating his every word.

Turning back to the drilling platform, R'ha was pleased to see progress being made. Aside from the bristling defenses, it supported a trio of locust assault platforms, repurposed for mining. It amused him that a device would be repurposed from its original use as a mining device to combat, only to be repurposed back again to its original use.

"The ways of the gods are mysterious," he muttered to himself, stepping up onto the platform that levitated almost half a meter from the ground using antigravity technology. Three distinct purple beams bored into the ground around where the artifact was buried, turning dirt and rubble into vapor at a slow and steady rate. To damage the artifact at all would be heresy in its purest form.

Opening a channel with the Deliverance, R'ha was surprised to find the vessel not responding. It was not visible from the planet's surface, as it had backed out of the atmosphere after deployment to rendezvous with incoming reinforcements. As if on cue, a battlenet notification flashed in front of his eyes, informing him of the frigate's destruction. He could only hope that the incoming fleet would arrive soon enough to allow for extraction. If the humans were to land a large enough force before then, they might be able to retake the city, and the relic along with it...

---

UNSC Army Specialist Peter Holden
Battle of the City of Refuge

This was as close to the end of a world that Specialist Peter Holden had ever seen.

He’d been asleep in his rack on base when the air raid sirens had started blaring, forcing him awake. He’d jumped up in his bunk, scrambled into his clothes, strapped on armor and grabbed his weapon. His squad leader had been royally pissed he’d been late to the gathering, but shortly thereafter all hell had broken loose. In a matter of an hour Refuge had already been lost to the Covenant, and now, it was no longer a matter of fighting to defend the city. It was a fight just to stay alive.

“Specialist, watch your six!”

The shout came from an unknown comrade in the mass melee of the battle, a female in another company whose voice Peter didn’t recognize. But that didn’t mean she didn’t help. He was just about to turn around when instinctively he ducked, and noticed a fraction of a second later that a hot orb of green plasma went splashing onto the asphalt of the street, cracking the ground beneath it and smoking.

Momentarily taken aback, the specialist still yelled out, “Thanks!” to his anonymous savior.

Holden’s heart was pounding fast now, and in the chaos of the fight, he was at a loss as to what more he should do other than attack anything alien he saw on sight. Alongside his team members, he raised up his rifle from behind the cover of a half blown-out concrete barricade and fired as fast as he could. He could still hear the rushing of his pulse in his ears, but the sounds of plasma and gunfire and explosions going off every few seconds were almost overcoming that. Things were so hairy he felt like he could scream at the top of his lungs and no one would hear.

“Oh shit! Incoming!”

A small round object glowing blue suddenly landed right at the specialist’s feet. He’d been so busy squeezing off rounds he hadn’t noticed it sailing toward their position until it was too late. Eyes going wide now, Specialist Holden scrambled back in a hurry on unsteady legs, going several paces before he stumbled and fell, the fear getting the better of him. Acting automatically only because of his training, he quickly spun around on his stomach and covered his head, hoping he’d gone far enough to avoid the brunt of the blast.

Then the plasma grenade burst.

---

It was several minutes before the battle-weary young specialist awoke. When he did, the street was oddly quiet – or more specifically, there wasn’t a lack of sound but it had dampened. Like the fight had moved and was further off in the distance now. Before he could make anymore sense of it, a familiar female voice spoke to him, looking down at his supine form on the ground.

“Soldier, you with us?” the woman asked, also in uniform and gripping a rifle tight herself, straight across her chestplate with the barrel pointed low. Holden could see in his slowly returning vision that she had the insignia of a first lieutenant. He gingerly pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, his voice sounding gruff and harsh from the injury. Something hurt but he couldn’t pinpoint what just yet. “At least I…think so.”

“Good. Can you stand?”

He tested out his legs and they moved. Holden sighed in relief. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Excellent.” She reached down and put her free hand underneath his armpit to help him up. “Then let’s get going, Specialist. The Marines and ODSTs just landed, and they’ll need a hand. Jarheads can’t tell their heads from their asses most of the time.”

Holden coughed to clear his lungs of debris, then slowly nodded and gave a rough chuckle. “That’s right, LT. They’ll need…all the help they can get from us Army dogs.”

“Hooah, Specialist.” Then her voice took on a grim tone. "Comms are down and the city's gone, but we'll find a way out."

---

Major Domo Sal 'Chevamee
Locust Overseer

If holy artifacts were gifts from the gods as the hierarchs said, why did they have to be so damned difficult to excavate? Sal had been directing the excavation process for hours, and yet there was still no sign of the artifact. They had been ordered to use the lowest settings on their mining lasers, for fear of damaging the relic, although the Major had his doubts that they could really do it any harm.

He was too busy grumbling internally to notice the telltale glint as the last layer of rock was vaporized.

"Shut down the machines!" he roared, and two of them complied. The third, however, continued to bore into the rock, molten plasma spilling all over the artifact. "By the gods, turn your machine off!" Sal marched over, prying open the lid of the locust only to see his operator frantically trying to regain control of his system. Seconds later, he managed to shut the thing off.

"What were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry, Major, I must have fallen asleep!" The young minor knelt, knowing what was to come. 

"For your actions you will be tried for heresy. Lay down your arms and allow me to escort you-" suddenly, the artifact let out a pulse, and all turned to face it. Sel stopped mid sentence, taking a step forwards to peer into the hole. The artifact was glowing with energy, its luminance increasing still as if to emit another shockwave.

"Minor, what have you done?"

---

UNSC Marine Major Julius Fabinoa
Aboard UNSCS Iowa (In orbit above Hope)

Julius walked through the hangar bay of the Stratago, watching as the marines went about prepping for combat. Some were checking each other’s gear over, while others were securing vehicles to Pelicans for combat drops. Of course there were those who were in the armory loading up, but the armory was through a hallway in the middle of the far back hangar wall. Meanwhile, the major walked toward a pelican that had already been fully prepared for him and his men. He climbed into the empty bay turning to the busy marines scattered about the hangar, he paused a moment to clear his voice before beginning the mission briefing.

“Alright men, listen up, the covenant have invaded the planet, and they have already setup a foothold in the city of Refuge. Most of the Army personnel on the planet has either been killed, or pushed back into the city by those split jawed freaks. Our job is to head down there, secure a landing zone, take control of key points in the city, and put a bullet in every single one of those damn freaks’ heads. ODSTs are heading down in their HEV pods in small clusters due to the cities tight spaces. Marines will be going down via pelicans and secure a perimeter for supply drops. After that we move into the city and push those bastards out while saving everyone we can. Understood?! We’re moving out everyone, get moving.”

Julius heard the marines shout in the usual “Ooorah” as he moved to the back of the pelican so his men could load in. He opened the door to the cock pit and looked at the pilot, who was performing his final diagnostic check. As the pilot turned to Julius, he gave him a thumbs up to signal they were ready to go, to which Julius nodded his head before closing the door and sitting in the closest chair to him. He fastened the harness as the pelican roared to life and slowly began to move. It didn’t take long to feel the gravity of the planet hit as they entered the atmosphere and began to descend. Julius waited as the pilot spoke over the com.

“Alright, beginning final descent, eta five minutes. Give them hell gu-.”

The com erupted in static as the pelican jolted and began to plummet out of the sky, Julius undid his harness and stumbled to his feet as he reached for the door. He wrenched the door open, fighting against the g-forces as he leaned in and looked at the pilot, who was in a panic as he fumbled with the controls. Julius grabbed the pilot’s shoulder with his free hand and got his attention.

“What the hell’s going on!?”

“I don’t know, the thing just shut off! All the controls are unresponsive, we’re dropping out of the sky!”

That’s when Julius noticed it, a strange blue light filled the sky around the city, with strange symbols and lines appearing vertically along it. The symbols seemed to move along the light, which appeared to be surrounding the city. Several Pelicans and HEV pods could be seen plummeting into the city as well, all in various directions. Julius was baffled by it all, and only barely noticed the HEV pod that was barreling right towards them. His eyes grew wide as the HEV pod approached them faster and faster.
“Oh shi-”

The HEV pod smashed into the Pelican’s cockpit, crushing the pilot instantly and sending a large chunk of metal and glass into Julius’ face as he was sent flying through the bay and smacked the back of his head into the reinforced steel door. All at once the world shut off and the last thing Julius heard was the screams of his own men as the pelican crashed into the city.

---

Generic Summary:
After detection of a Forerunner artifact buried underneath the city of Refuge on a UNSC colony, the Covenant sent an advanced force to quickly strike and secure the artifact so that it could be extracted upon the arrival of a larger invasion fleet. However, the UNSC had a large force of vessels on hand to enter the system, and upon receiving a distress call, arrived in the system and began deploying marine reinforcements. Unbeknownst to both factions, the artifact was still active, and upon being unearthed, an accidental locust beam set it off, creating a massive technology dampening field around the city, scattering the UNSC troops, and effectively de-arming half of the Covenant. With the city in automated lockdown, vehicles rendered inoperable and communications dead, you are completely and utterly alone. Good luck.


UNSC Summary:
You were the first wave of drop ships and HEVs, but as you approach the ground, a massive EMP-esque blast sweeps the city and sends you hurtling towards the ground. Due to your low altitude, most of you survive, scattered and disoriented, but alive. Unfortunately, your second-wave comrades are not so lucky. As you stagger out onto the street and look up, you see your good-as-dead brothers in arms falling from the sky like so many raindrops, many burning out in a fiery display. Regroup and survive, soldier. It turns out "feet first into hell" isn't just a saying.

Covenant Summary:
Suddenly, a shockwave emanating from the artifact sweeps though your lines, deactivating all of your electronic-based technology. Now, a massive tech dampening field surrounds the city, and with no way in or out due to city wide lockdown, plus communications gone, you are effectively stranded. Human forces are scattered across the city, but right now your focus is on the artifact. However, if they are allowed to regroup and reorganize, you might just find yourself helplessly unarmed in the face of an enemy counteroffensive. Additionally, tensions seem to be flaring between the Jiralhanae, with their firearms still functional, and the Sangheili leadership...





IP = In Progress
S = Successful
F = Failed

Current UNSC Objectives:
-Reach the Rally Point or if the Rally Point isn't able to be reached, an auxiliary site. (IP)
-Follow the Green Flares (to reach Objective #1) (IP)
-Regroup the survivors, and assess who they have with what kind of equipment (IP)
-Distribute the available equipment, ammunition and rations as needed while keeping a central stock (in case it needs to be used) (IP)
-Figure out a way to protect the civilians and extract them or learn what skills they have (police officers, firefighters, Paramedics...etc. etc.) (IP)
-Hunker down in a defensive position if possible (IP)
-Send out scouts or patrols to learn the location of the artifact/EMP and figure out a means to keep the Covenant busy or observe from afar. (IP)

Optional Objectives:
-Regain communications with orbital assets, if possible. (IP)
-Mount a counteroffensive against the Covenant (IP)

Current UNSC Military Strength:

Vessels:
1 Carrier
4 Cruisers
3 Destroyers
6 Frigates (1 destroyed)
8 Corvettes

Ground Forces:
Currently at Artifact:
7th Marines (150-170)
Local Army Force (30-50)
NavSpecWar (3)


Current Covenant Objectives:
-Defend the artifact at all costs until it can be extracted (IP)
-Determine a method of regaining contact with the battlenet and the incoming reinforcement fleet (IP)
-Regain order (IP)


Optional Objectives:
-Determine a method of deactivating the artifact without harming it (IP)
-Prevent the Humans from reorganizing (IP)

Current Covenant Military Strength: 
Vessels:
1 DDS-Class Escort Carrier
1 CCS-Class Battlecruiser
4 Destroyers
3 Frigates
5 Corvettes
1 Frigate (Destroyed)

Ground Forces:
Currently at artifact site (full force not yet deployed):
Reticent Strike Team
Covenant Advanced Force (200-300)
Jiralhanae (50-100)

Location
(What to expect)

Rain- The planet is mostly tropical and rains constantly, the cities advanced sewage system is the only thing between the city and the rain getting so bad that it drowns the city.

Urban- The city is fairly large and advanced, expect towering skyscrapers, industrial complexes, shopping malls, monuments, etc.

Desolation- The orbital bombardment and subsequent battle has left the city extremely unstable. Buildings and structures make collapse at any time.

Day/Night Cycle- The day here is only a little over twenty hours long, so expect abnormally quick day/night shifts.

River- The Glowstone River, an enormous and torrential body of water that is so named for the bioluminescent lichen that grow on its rocky bed and shores, cuts through the city. If not for the city lights, it would be visible from space, and it is this soft blue glow that so enticed settlers to the very location that is Refuge.

City Lockdown- The city outside of the map is unaccessable due to enormous concrete blockades that have gone up, and as such you are restrained to this particular location (which is still quite large).

[Faclan]

Cad, Kig-Yar Major & File

Slogging through the muck to victory!...or not. (Bottom right of the map near the army unit on the road)

"Onward! They can't breech our line and soon their souls will be free to go to their heathen hell!" Cad screeched over the gunfire and pounding rain as rounds bounced off his shield, the pitiful human hand held bullet hoses missing the three of them most of the time while Nas kept the humans suppressed as they moved forward. The less than normal armed and armored humans falling back quickly to a ruined long human vehicle in the road as they occasionally stood up in the broken windows to take pot shots at them. But the red shield of himself and the blues of Pad and Kop were holding strong as the low powered rounded bounced off their overlapping light. He had radioed back to base that they found the ten man strong squad and had been told to engage, which he replied with an affirmative and with a surprise attack of Pad's grenade and the files remaining fire three fell almost immediately and a fourth had been shot down while the humans were retreating.

From Cads estimate there were six humans left in that transport, enough to still turn and kill them if they got around their shields so he would have to advance carefully. It seemed like there were two main doors to this transport on their side, and he could see a third door around the back middle, but his eyes kept looking through his helmet and shield as they closed the gap. The call of a reload came from behind them as the Carbine fire stopped momentarily as Cad nodded to Kop. "Get a grenade inside that vehicle, wel cover you." He hissed to her over the rattle of the humans hoses and the pings of them bouncing off their shields. The other male Kig-Yar taking a step back as he deactivated his shield and got out one of his two grenades as Cad and Pad moved closer together to cover him.

Thankfully there was still some daylight so the transport was still able to be seen but the flashes from the humans lit it up as well as the grenade was armed as Kop shouted at the humans to Catch their Salvation as he threw...But then everything went to hell fast.

A massive white light erupted behind them and rapidly overtook them and the in fight grenade, the holy blue flare going out as it bounced harmlessly inside the transport. But not only did the grenade go out but so did all of the files weapons and shields. Rapidly pressing the shield button again Cad let out a nice out swear as he shouted a fall back! Luckily the dud grenade had kept the humans down momentarily as the Kig-Yar dove backwards behind some cars, Cad and the others looking in horror at the now open ground behind them towards where Nas was posted up, shouting at them that her weapon was inactive too! Looking skyward as the rain pelted against his scarf and helmet, some getting into his eyes but for right now he was beyond caring, Cad silently asked the gods why as he heard the grunting language of the humans as they started to take stock on what happened.

(Feel free to have some of those army peeps be PC's or to have a ODST or Marine happily show up to Cads now pinned down file, three of them out in the open behind cover and their Markswoman further back behind other cover.)

SSA-012 Yanmee Swarm.

Observing the Chaos. (Inside the Covenant Zone)

The Swarm sat perched near the excavation zone, all of them horizontally spaced across the broken walls of a human building, like birds would sit on power lines. They were glad to be out of the rain, as the constantly tatter on their wings made flight more difficult, but even so they hadn't be out for long. They were sent to see if there was a dedicated human base yet, and they had seen that there was not. Shifting around they looked over to see the artifact start to actually get unearthed, which was good, the Gods would be pleased that it was back in safe hands. But they chirped and looked over more closely when it started to glow. The chirp soon evolving into screeches as a large white burst of light washed over them all. But due to their talons grip on the building they managed to stay perched as just was fast as it had burst the light was gone.

The Swarm chittered back and fourth as they saw the lights around them fail, their lower light vision starting to recover as they took out weapons and their engineers equipment and found them all to be dead, completely and utterly. With some more quick discussion two of them hopped off the wall while the rest tried to get their equipment working again, the two that left the wall going off to try and find a Sangheili who could explain what happened and what was required of SSA now that this mission had got a lot more complicated.

(I'm sure Nek is busy flying around somewhere doing heretic stuff P: - Hope everyone had a good holidays and welcome back to RP! .)

[NinjaBoss]

Major Domo Zahn 'Vignarlee
Nearby scattered army unit in the eastern outskirts of Covenant zone

Zahn ducked behind the wall, avoiding a 3 shot burst from enemy weaponry. Cuhl, Pradad, and Kabab crouched nearby, hidden beneath the large window that was now missing the glass that formerly covered it. Rain poured in through the window, splashing Zahn and his lance, or what was left of it. A few months ago the rest were killed on a formerly unknown planet, and Zahn still had the scars on his chest to remind him of that battle with the behemoth reptilian worm. He would need the same strength it took him to win that battle in this one, ever since the blue shockwave disrupted their weapons and shields. He growled, knowing that the energy shielding that had so efficiently protected him in every battle he had ever entered would be absent for the duration of this one. At least he thought, but with the communications down and no way to know what caused the shockwave or how long it would last, he would just have to do without this time.

He peeked his head up once again, glancing into the courtyard some fifteen feet below. He deducted that no humans had entered the building in the floor beneath them, something they would have to do in order to reach the stairs that would ascend them to Zahn's position. He ducked his head again as another shot rang out, this one much closer. "Cuhl, Unggoy! We have no weapons, and no communications. We can't defeat the nishum any other way but the old way, with hand to hand combat." He growled. "But we'll have to get to them first...." Cuhl trailed off, looking at Zahn expectantly. "That's why we're going to let them come to us. Get away from that window, and send your Unggoy to look for any useful supplies. Sharp pieces of broken steel, anything. You and I will look for anything larger that we can use to create some sort of barricade or cover. The gods know we'll need it." Cuhl turned and barked at the Unggoy, who had already heard what they were supposed to do but sat awaiting their orders anyway. They were to terrified of the Sangheili to do anything else. They ran off further into the room, searching for the supplies they needed.

Zahn and Cuhl moved quickly and silently around the parlor, being careful not to be seen by the nishum. They grabbed large circular tables, or what was left of them, and moved them in front of doorways and windows to block the enemy's sight. They needed to be as discreet as possible. Making sure the barricades were as secure as possible, Zahn moved back towards the Unggoy, who were just now returning with what they had found. A steel bar about one and a half feet long with a jagged edge, two human kitchen knives six inches long, and a thick steel bar nearly a meter long. Zahn grabbed the bar with the jagged edge, and Cuhl picked up the larger, heavier one. The Unggoy were left with the kitchen knives. It wasn't much but it would have to do. Now all that was left was to wait......

Unggoy Ultra Zaxax
Nearby artifact excavation site

Zaxax awoke with a start, and Salal let out a yelp of surprise. A large blue shockwave erupted in an outer circle that expanded across the city, and filled Zaxax's battlenet comm's with static. He quickly turned it off, his ear throbbing, and slowly stood. "Wh- what happened?" Nadad asked, standing as well. "I'm not sure....." Zaxax replied, realizing the absence of the familiar throb from his plasma pistol. He picked it up and checked it, but there were no readings whatsoever. Curious, he tried firing at a rock some distance away, but the pistol just clicked. "Hey guys.... check your guns." He said, and they each retrieved their weapons simultaneously, and attempted firing their weapons much lick Zaxax did. Nadad's pistol merely clicked as well, but Tapap's and Salal's needlers still fired, however their tracking mechanisms failed. "Hmm.... that's weird. Why don't our plasma pistols or the trackers work?" Zaxax said, more to himself than to anyone else. Suddenly a guttural voice spoke from behind, belonging to a large Sangheili. "It was an emp blast, set off by that idiot minor firing on the artifact with his locust beam." And as quickly as he had come and spoke to them, the Sangheili was gone, off on his business.

"Well boss, what do we do?" Nadad asked, looking around nervously. Zaxax understood, feeling more vulnerable than he already did without his weapon. He pondered that question, realizing that he had no real answer himself. "Let's see what's going on. Battlenet's off, so I'm going to see how we can turn our guns back on and what is going on with the holy artifact. Besides, we need orders anyways." Zaxax set off in the direction of the Sangheili, curious as to what he would find once he reached them.

[Huka]

Field Master Til 'Muramai
Exterminating Inner-territorial Human Rebellion

Before Foreunner Artifact Disruption 


The entry strike and proceeding expansion of the Sect's assault was nothing short but beautiful! The orbital strikes eradicated AA defenses and banshee fuel rod blitz sent once-effective entrenchments into shattered memories. OIPs heralded the Sect of Lamenting Consecration's vengeance of their entrapment from milestone past, the Reticent Lance mercilessly cleared the Holy Artifact's resting place with the swarms of their underlings' arrival before the Locusts came for digging.

While R'ha remained to oversee the recovery of the Artifact, the Muram Field Master went to assist in the complete control of the vanguard's gained territory.

The Muram veteran, aged and honed from decades of combat, was dressed formally in his frontlines combat harness; pale gold like many Field Masters of the Zealotry, sleek and distributed for agile movement while keeping its armor strong to the humans' ballistics, and etched on his thoracic cage with the Forerunner Glyphs of Undying Dedication. His avian-like mask aimed to the enemy as his energy staff blurred in its fatal flourishes that brought four of the flustered human city-guardsmen down with the stench of seared flesh falling suit.

The Sect infantry fired and sliced at their enemy with the efficiency beaten into their bones from the Field Master's rigorous training. They knew better than to show a lack of spirit in his presence. "Clean this city of their filth, my brothers!" Til roared out before taking a barrage of ballistic bullets to his back. Letting a surprised cry as his shields were draining, the Muram got into a instinctively low crouch and spun multiple times in the midst of cover and bodies. Whirling his staff as it collapsed and placed onto his wrapped sash, the Field Master tightened his back muscles and activated his camouflage with a twitch of his mandibles.

Leaping over a burning warthog with a creak of his weight on its plasma-twisted frame, Til spotted his assaulters; a small lance of humans, aimed with rifles and eyes wary for the Field master's previous location. Narrowing his good eye, the Muram sprinted across the short distance and promptly pushed a heedless Sangheili minor aside as he appeared out of thin air. "Contact!" One of the humans cried out when its wide blue-pupiled eyes saw him.

But it was too late for them. With a thrill of a warcry, Til flicked his right hand and flipped his ivory-covered energy sword hilt under his fingers. The human managed to shoot a half-clip, from experienced knowledge of the humans' weaponry, before a pair of sand-yellow blades sliced it from right shoulder to hip. Following in the momentum, Til spin-kicked a bladed boot into the side of one screaming human's head, feeling its helmed head compress from the striking blow. Its female comrade tried to duck but the Sangheili's toe-blades sliced her eyes and nose, prompting a shriek of immense pain.

The tick Til's foot landed on the side of the stone barricade, he sent most of his weight into a horizontal flip over it to dodge a incoming clip load. Tensing his curled leg muscles to hide most of his body behind the small cover as the furious lance-leader screamed curses at the Zealot before he sprang into the air with an acrobatic flip.

Their eyes met for that one brief moment; fierce brown eyes glaring at a single green visor on the side of the Sangheili's helmet. Landing behind the human with a thump, Til reared his blade back for a impalement, but the human was fast in his turn and slammed the butte of his rifle into the armored cheek of his helmet. Grunting with no pain but a funny tickle of the blow's vibrations, the Zealot inhaled sharply and thrusted his entire blade into the human's midsection.

Hearing the familiar spat of bloodied pain, Til angled his arm and lifted the paralyzed human into the air. With a grunt, he threw the dead creature off and onto the barricade with a audible snap of its spine. His audience returned to the sound of the female screaming while holding her sundered face.

"Aah, you are still alive?" He questioned with the dull tone, "A lesser of my kind would have put a bolt in his head by now. Not from the pain, but from the loss of sight and becoming a legibility in the battlefield...and medical replacement is hardly a option to a typical Sangheili."

Lifting his sword and aimed his free hand at her, preparing for a coup de grace, Til let out a clicking thrill before a sudden wave of outlandish energy swept over his person. Blinking once, he glanced over to see his sword sputter and dead as if he have been using it extensive. Tilting his head in curiosity, he turned his head and looked as several of his fellows were facing similar difficulties with their weapons...and shields. A few were killed to this sudden change but thankfully they weren't in the frontlines.

Thankfully the Sect infantry were quick to switch tactics and finish off the humans instead of playing 'prowler'*. Trying to reactivate his sword again, the weapon refused to revive...

Looking down at the human female, Til watched her writhe and scream in pain. Returning his hilt back into its place in his vambrace, the Zealot grabbed the female's entire face in his clawed hand, muffling her protests before violently snapped her neck in a pull and irregular twist. "May you rest in a life untouched of difference." He prayed before standing up and looked at an approaching Major, who asked abit shakened while blood dripped from his arm from a misfire, What just happened?" 

"The Gods have provided a challenge, that is what."


Minor Chata 'Aquiree
Patrolling in Covenant Territory

Standing at the right side of Lance commander Suf 'Natrunee and next to his fellow Thesu 'Qorahee, the Aquir clansman Chata looked around cautiously in the relatively safe sector of the human's fallen city. Just a moment ago, practically everything was fried by some kind of distortion. Communications, most firearms, and energy shields were killed, forcing most of the Sect to use their curveblades like hunters of old. Chata even seen a few tried to use discarded human weapons before their commanders violently rebuked that idea.
The lance was assisted by Unggoy Ultra Dadap and his ilk, a odd bunch but they were skilled...or instinctively evasive enough to survive the whispered stranded battle that the Sect's veterans fought in. 

The Covenant wasn't without its pride and clear disdain to their enemies. Chata didn't had much thought to it. He was comfortable to had at less his blades, that's all he needed, and this carved spear from the remnants of a iron bar that he found. "Careful, the humans are sneaky creatures. Almost as bad as the Kig-yar." Suf whispered, looking back to his lance. Most nodded but of course Thesu had something to say, "That is bad."

Rolling his eyes, Suf held his twin curveblades in a tightened grip. The humans will be mobilizing soon, no telling what they were up to now...and the Jiralhanae weren't helping the situation. He could taste the tension as bad as their gods-forsaken stench!

[HollowSaber]

: Corporal Jake Furrow :

: Refuge, Outskirts of Covenant Controlled Territory :

: Nova Squad:

    As Jake nearly reached his drop point, a bright flash caught his attention in the distance. Using his altitude to his advantage, the Trooper had been trying to piece together where the Covenant were. When the light went off, it was like a beacon and Jake’s eyes were glued to it. The flash was almost like a pulse that spread through the entire city, and it was coming right towards him as well. Slowly, the ODST watched the thin film rapidly slither closer and closer towards him until it finally enveloped his entire pod. It was at that same instant that his HEV slammed into the side of a building. The Trooper grit his teeth and clutched onto the two handles as tight as he could as the thin walls were no match for the barreling piece of metal and electronics. Within seconds of hitting the building, Jake busted out of the first floor on the opposite street and slammed into the pavement. Once he touched concrete, the HEV skipped and twisted before finally crashing into the side of a car.

    The Trooper inside of the pod was given a full view of the meteor shower above as the pulse quickly filled the sky. It was almost like an EMP blast the Covenant had set off and all of the people who were still up high were now plummeting without any signs of stopping. Jake grimaced at the sight and stared for a long time, watching HEVs crash into Pelicans, Pelicans crash into each other, and HEVs twist out of control. Jake had left early, wanting to be one of the first on the ground so he could get a head start. Now he was thankful for being the bold Trooper he was. However, as he stared towards the sky, he realized that his partner was amongst the fray above.

    Private Hex, a spotter who had always looked up to him, was most likely one of those burning fireballs that were falling from the sky. However, there was a slim chance that the Private was still on board the ship they were supposed to jump from simply because of Jake’s own selfishness. Jake had told the Private to stay behind until an LZ was secure as to give him some time alone on the field, so hopefully the Private listened. If he did, they would meet up later in the battle. Jake knew full well that he’d have to return to the LZ at some point.

    Rather than let his mind wander on possibilities, Jake reached up and pulled the lever to release his pod door. The HEV hissed loudly before expunging the thick observational glass into the street. Jake sat up slowly, letting his body recover from the hard landing, and looked around himself. To his left, there was concrete and cars. To his right, there was concrete and cars but also, there was the place where the pulse had come from. If that was true, that was where Jake was going.

    Jake leaned to his left and yanked the sniper rifle he had from the pod’s holster. He didn’t bother with the scope he had left turned off, as he would need to replace the battery later due to the EMP, so he simply removed the electronic piece of equipment off its rail. Before he dismounted the HEV, Jake snagged his pack, his pistol, and the two extra clips he had snagged just in case. He also grabbed the smaller second bag which held an extra batch of explosives he had brought along. Knowing the Covenant, he’d need them.

    With his boots finally on the ground, the Trooper shut off his display to keep the distracting fizz from bugging him and made his way up the street towards the location of the EMP. He didn’t go too far though and moved into an alleyway. There, he pulled his pack off his shoulders and set his rifle down. Reaching inside, the ODST pulled out a telescopic sight and a map. The sight wasn’t electronic and as a sniper, Jake was almost forced to keep one on hand just in case of conditions like this. Now that he had actually needed to use it, Jake was thankful he had the scope on hand. Of course, that meant his electronic scope was now dead weight. Dead weight was always bad weight. Even so, he would have to deal with it for now.

    The Trooper closed up his backpack and slung it over his shoulders again. Then he pulled the smaller explosives pack over his head, letting it slide over and sit underneath the larger bag. It was almost like a fanny pack, but it was much bigger. The bag was nearly half the size of his regular bag and housed nearly twice the amount of explosives. If the explosives were constantly live, he could almost be classified as a walking bomb. Thankfully they weren’t and needed to be primed by a specific detonator. After that EMP though, Jake would have to rely on timer charges or manual charges.

    After almost five minutes of wasting time, Jake opened up the map in front of himself and scanned over its contents. Before the drop, he had initially circled a small area where he expected to land. Due to him jumping a bit earlier than others, he hadn’t been affected by the EMP aside from some of his equipment being fried so he was still in that general area. After peeking out into the street and cross-referencing what he saw with the map, Jake discovered that he was just barely to the east of his perceived drop point. If he guessed right, the location of the EMP was almost twenty minutes to his south-east. If he was also right, then Jake would also be encountering enemy forces. He’d have to keep to the shadows if he wanted to get by them without sparking a firefight.

    The ODST released a heavy sigh as he folded up his map. The Trooper snagged his rifle and darted out into the street, moving from one alley to the next as he followed the path he had seen in the sky towards the EMP source. It would take time, but time was all he needed to get the job done.

[BasedGoody]

Private Barry Barrington
Not doing well.

Barry knelt by the revolving doors, peeking out. He gripped his Assault Rifle with care because this alone separated him from the beasts outside. They were taking this back to the medieval times! Those caveman-assholes are still smashing rocks and making fire, but we have guns! Barry smiled to himself. Micheal played the drums with his fingers on his Battle Rifle nervously on the other side of the doorframe. CPL. Goodwin was sitting next to the deactivated mall fountain and fiddled with his helmet, trying to find out what was wrong with their electronics.

"I'm tellin' you, there is something that the Covvies know that we don't." Donald grumbled.

"Yeah asshole? Why would they disable their own weapons? How about that?" Micheal retorted, slightly annoyed. 

"SHHHHhhhhhh...." Barry held a finger up as he peeked out the door. An Elite walked down the street holding a machete. Two Grunts waddled behind him armed with butter knives. Another strolled behind with a snapped table leg. "Team of 'em coming in. We can take them." Barry whispered. Micheal nodded in agreement. Donald slowly stood up and grabbed his Assault Rifle, tip-towing to the door. The Corporal picked up his weapon and followed Donald's movement. Harold appeared from a doorway of a clothing store with his DMR.

Goodwin started, "No, they don't see us yet. We can still-" Suddenly a noise of a boot slipping on a tile filled the air. Every Marine spun to Harold, who lied with his back on the ground. "Moron." The Corporal finished. The team of Covenant spun around and stared directly into the store.

"HUMANS!" The Elite yelled and pointed. The Grunts attempted to dive for cover but the larger alien readied his weapon and began to charge. From behind the beast, in the air, a green dot came into view. The enemy was thirty feet away. The green dot got larger. The Corporal snapped to attention and his raised his weapon. Barry followed and pulled up his Assault Rifle.

"Fir- wait..." The green dot was now clear- a pelican. Heading right for the mall. It spun out of control, clearly effected by the EMP. The vehicle was flaming from it's long fall. It's shadow cast over the Elite. He turned in confusion to see the pelican come crashing into the street right on top of him.

"SHIT." Barry gasped, falling backward. He spun around and started running. The rest of the fireteam followed close behind. The Private tripped over his own boots and dropped to the ground. He turned to see he air vehicle come smashing through the doors and skid to a stop about five feet from them. Flames emerged from the wreckage as it got still. Harold, breathing deeply, walked slowly towards the destroyed mass. Blue blood and bits of Elite flesh stuck to the front of it. He touched the front with his finger before retracting it and squirming for a second in pain. 

"Ah FUCK that's HOT!" He yelled. Barry placed a hand on his shoulder and shoved him back. 

"Anyone alive...?" He shakily asked.

Micheal scowled, "Yeah, I don't think anyone survived that..."

[MrKill]

Colonel Johnathon B'Sheau Killinger
Seventh Marines
Hope

The veteran Marine officer found himself hanging nearly upside down from his seat, his arms dangling limply past his head and his legs caught in an awkward position. His right foot was cough on a broken panel from the pelicans troop bay, making his right leg look like a "Greater than' symbol, while his left leg was stretched out pointing towards a casualty... clearly.

Second Lieutenant Adenstien, a communications officer for one of the battalions within the Seventh Marines, was still strapped to her seat. A rod from the webbing had impaled its-self into the young officers chest, right through the abdomen and literally pinned her into the pelicans seat.

It had all happened way too fast. One moment, roughly 1640 hours they were just entering the planets atmosphere from the south, a precaution by the pelican pilot to keep elements from the Marine HQ teams alive... it probably would have worked as well. They neared the city around 1700 hours, and then the pelican dropped from the sky and collided with something.

Killinger had fallen unconscious, but for how long was still a mystery. His eye piece was a static mess, so the Colonel took it off his helmet and dropped it towards the other side of the pelican. The troop bay was fairly dark, but fortunately a ray of light illuminated a decent section of the 'bloody tray'. No one in the pelican had survived, but there were only seven people on board originally. Unfortunately, however, they were all Battalion HQ assets.

John groaned as he lifted his chest up with his abdomen muscles, examined the strap keeping him from falling and produced his combat knife from its chest mounted case. He carefully grabbed the strap his his left hand and cut it with the right, and immediately the weight of his body nearly propelled him to the opposite wall of the troop bay; Fortunately, however, he simply flipped right and bounced once as his grip provided to be adequate.

He let go of the strap and landed in the webbing and stopped nearly instantaneously as his hand caught a section of the webbing. He slid down the rest of the way and sighed. The pelican crashed, that was given, but what caused it? That was the million dollar question and based on the fact the Colonel's HEADS UP DISPLAY was sizzling static the Veteran Marine knew the answer - some sort of Covenant EMP hit the pelican.

"Reaper Actual to all Marine Vectors, respond." The Colonel said into his radio, but only got static back. That was expected, but then the Marine Officer found out something even more startling... His retinal displays from his Neural Lace was also affected, which meant that this had to be something bigger. He pulled out his M6D and lazily waived it across the troop bay.

Normally the interface would link the weapons aiming reticle and display it on a UNSC Personnels retina, but it was extremely fuzzy. It was working, but not one hundred percent. It was, and nothing else could explain it, something above the Covenants level of technology, it had to be. If the Covenant possessed something this powerful now, that had the ability to stop neural impulses to the eye and back, perhaps humans could reverse engineer it to target covenant warriors specifically.

The Colonel took the better part of five minutes gathering equipment from the pelican. He was able to scavenge two bio-foam containers, two yellow 40MM flares, a red hand flare and a green 40MM flare. He also found a MA5C with a under-barrel M301 40 MM Grenade Launcher in place of the flash-light mount, but unfortunately he couldn't find any of the 40 MM HE grenades for it.

On top of the gear he already had, which was a BR55HB-SR with ten magazines and a M6D with eight, he managed to acquire eight spare magazines for the MA5C he had scavenged. He had replaced five of his BR55 magazines with MA5C magazines and put the thirteen remaining magazines into his ruck sack. He had also gathered the dog tags of the deceased Marines, the crew chief and the two pilots before leaving the pelican.

The ramp opened with startling quietness, which meant Killinger could move around more aggressively, a good trade off. Ramp opens with little noise, in return a little man (Compared to a pelican) could move around making more noise. Regardless, by himself, the Colonel needed to be aware of everything... and hope he'd survive to regroup with someone.

[BetaWülf]

Garatus, Jiralhanae Captain

Garatus was displeased when his phantom skidded across the ground, throwing him from the back into the front, the phantom itself leaving a deep furrow in the earth. His huge forearm emerged from a pile of fur and armor, he burst forth from the pile and rolled out the side of the dropship in an undignified heap, but quickly sprang up and unleashed a deafening roar to rally his pack.

Slowly but surely they appeared, round about seventy Jiralhanae crawled out of the woodwork to surround their Captain, they appeared to be in some sort of park, this one being tropical.

"Unload the supplies you mange bags! Get the axes!" Garatus bellowed, eying the trees and noticing the lack of functioning technology.

Unggoy Major Dakek

"AYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!" Dakek screamed before continuing "We're gonna die!!!" as the phantom he was in spiraled before lodging in the side of a large building.

The phantom was now lodged in the side of a large office building diagonally, the File being spilled out the lower angled right side of the phantom. Luckily for them however a hole had been knocked through the floor. Their leader leapt down first, looking for any Humans to kill, sadly for the Wodam hunter there were none to be seen on this floor.

"Spread out can-soldiers" the Sangheili said, catching himself before openly calling the grunts Cannon Fodder. "Report in if you find anything that suggests Humans recently in your area, now move!" he said blood thirstly.

"Stupid Sangheili" Dakek said kicking a piece of rubble once his commander was out of earshot. He descended the ruined building in an ape like fashion, showing their arboreal skill, before finding himself in the lobby.

"Running off to kill stupid simians and leaving us to rot, or worse!" the Unggoy droned on to himself as his Kig-yar companion caught up to him. Swapdap and Gabdap had paired off, so Toc and Dakek were once again stuck together, which wasn't a bad thing since they got along well enough.

"This sucks nipples! I don't wanna be out here!" the Unggoy yelled as he stomped off towards a cluster of smaller buildings, Kig-yar in tow.

[Wax™]

Second Lieutenant Justin Jenkins
Seventh Marines
Refuge on Hope?

Justin's eye's slowly fluttered open, but Justin was greeted with nothing more than extremely blurry vision, not being able to distinguish anything further than his arm. Shaking his head a little Justin attempted to lift himself up from, where ever he was, but wasn't able to, it was like the gravity was holding him down. Grunting Justin shook his head again, his vision finally began to slowly come through and once it did he was able to distinguish exactly where he was.

He was in the back of a Pelican, which wasn't much of a surprise since he descended it one, but he wasn't where he should be. He found himself hanging upside down, his right boot entwined in the overhead cargo webbing, Justin grunted and attempted to lift himself up but didn't have the strength in him just yet. Twisting his body to look around the cargo bay he only noticed two people in the bay itself, one was a young marine who's head had exploded all over the bulkhead of the pilot bay. The second was a man still strapped into his seat, however something with enough force had broken his neck and left his head in an awkward position.

Justin closed his eyes and tensed up, this was his first deployment against the Covenant and already he had seen two extremely gruesome death's, opening his eye's he grunted and lifted his head to look at the roof where his foot was still trapped in the webbing. Swinging his body a little he managed to pick up enough momentum to catch the webbing and pull himself to his boot. As he did so however the Pelican he was in seem to creek and groan.

Justin ignored the noises and moved his right hand to take his combat knife, moving it up to the netting he began to cut through the pieces that were trapping his leg. Once he cut the final rope he fell back onto the floor of the Pelican hard, hard enough to knock the wind out of him, as he did so the Pelican groaned even more violently and began to vibrate and turn, Justin looked out the exit of the troop bay and notice the Pelican was lodged in a building and began to direct itself towards the ground.

Justin began to slide along the troop bay floor, extending his arms out he gripped onto the safety harness of a nearby seat, Justin tensed up and watched as the Pelican began to fall toward the ground below which was at most a twenty meter drop, Justin closed his eyes and within seconds his body slammed into the roof of the Pelican, his fall was barely broken by the cargo nets above but once again the wind was blown out of him and his vision blurred.

"Fuck..." He managed to cough out before rolling over onto his stomach after a few moments, it took several more seconds for his vision to come back and once it had he lifted himself onto his hands and knees and began to crawl for the exit.

His hand dropped onto the butt of an MA37, looking at it for a moment he leant back and sat on his calves. Taking the MA37 he strapped it around his chest before finally finding the strength to pick himself up onto his feet. From there he looked around the cargo bay and began to rummage through any supplies he could find, finding extra ammo for his MA37 some standard medical kits and also a can of C7, sliding all these into his pack he exited through the rear of the Pelican and soon dropped himself down against a heavily damaged car, lifting his MA37 and holding it sloppily by his chest he began to examine the area.

"This is Delta One-Actual to any Marine vectors, please respond, over?" Justin said, in hopes someone would hear him.

[MrKill]

Colonel Johnathon B'Sheau Killinger
Seventh Marines
Hope

Three things were on John's mind:

He needed to find a building that would be sufficient enough to act like a regimental headquarters, preferably a multiple floor office building so one floor was one section of the HQ, which meant the facility he selected would have to have natural protection from elements and easily defend-able. The perfect building would be a building with visible surroundings and taller structures nearby, with smaller streets so barricades could be erected out of cars, buses and potentially crashed aircraft.

He also needed to regroup his men, so this specific building would act as a R.V point. His plan was to launch a couple of the flares high into the sky so Marines and Army could pull back and regroup, from there plans could start being made, mainly counter offensives across multiple areas. They needed to spread out and find the source of this strange EMP before more waives of UNSC reinforcements came down, unlike the last waive - which were all burning fiery graves now likely. John had just glimpsed the last sections of the second waive of UNSC troops. Pelican's falling from more than five thousand feet in the air, albatrosses tumbling out of control and the vast majority of the UNSC's second waive reduced to flattened metal.

The third and final thing was getting communications back online. Without the communication networks it will be nearly impossible to react to situations, and it would become like wars of humanities past. Runners would need to be sent out to front line units so commanders could get their orders, and then the runner would have to update the command teams of that units location. It was a stressful job and without working vehicles it was also an extremely physically demanding job as well.

John had already decided on a building, though, as he stared at it past the road way. It was close to his pelicans crash site, too. The building in specific was a four story building in the middle of a field and according to his map, within the Marine Landing Zone as well. It would be effective to have a command building directly in the official landing zone, but nonetheless no one would know until it got darker anyways... and to be fair it was quite a walk away, maybe half an hour on foot.

The trade-off was important enough to John for the near instant selection of the building. It could park rows of vehicle fields, pelicans, albatrosses and battalions of men... in the field... which meant it could also be heavily defended by those exact things as well. Multiple fields of fire, companies of men on the perimeter, AA weapons and the arsenal of defensive measures the UNSC employed...

But it came down to a basic lack of radio transmission, which John found surprisingly - and increasingly - frustrating. He'd come to terms with how much he used his radio and as a front line commander he was on it quite a bit, listening into transmissions and was often engaged as well, sending and receiving a butt load of transmissions frequently... so the lack of the voices in his ear were startling, and he felt empty for the first time in a long time.

John was about to move across the road and towards the field...

...When sound of warping, bending and breaking metal collided with his ear drum, likely a crashing aircraft. John waited for the inevitable explosion, but it never came. Perhaps this aircraft had already crashed, or perhaps survived the crash. Regardless, the Veteran Marine decided then and there to investigate. If someone had survived the crash perhaps John could be of assistance, or at least try to be of some assistance.

He grasped his BR55HB-SRs' handguard and sprinted towards the sounds general location, maybe he'll come across some good news.

[Deleted]

Sangheili Ultra Vinza'za 'Wodamai
Southwestern Sector of Covenant Occupied Zone

Vinza'za tossed his Plasma Rifle to the ground, vexed by the flash that had destroyed all the electronics of the Creche.  Shields and display were gone.  Apparently something had gone wrong, and now they were all going to suffer for it.  It was not something Vinza'za enjoyed considering the amassing Human forces that were preparing for a counterattack.  On the bright side, Vinza'za imagined Human electronics were affected as well.  It wouldn't stop their weapons though.

"This is no good!  The Gods must be angry with us!" Bezjul said fearfully.

"Maybe.  Maybe this is a test.  We've lived through worse, I'm sure we can make it through this."

Even with the failure of anything electronic, the Ultra still attempted to hail someone on the Battlenet, "Ultra Vinza'za 'Wodamai reporting, our weapons and equipment have failed.  Is anyone recieving this?" The only thing that responded was dull static.

"Nothing...God's curse it." Vinza'za suppressed frustration, thinking of how best to tackle the situation.  After pondering this for a moment, he called over Bezjul and a few jackals and skirmishers that were nearby.

"Take this message to the other Lance leaders: we must act as independent cells while the Battlenet is down, but I want Acolyte to hold it's ground for now.  If we get hit hard by the Humans, we will fall back as our fighting capability is heavily diminished.  Give any working weapons to the best sharpshooters and retrieve any weapons off the dead Nishum," at this the warriors gave him an odd look, "A dead warrior is a useless one.  Human or not, our objective is to protect the Artifact not throw our lives to the Gods because of prejudice.  If anyone has a problem with that, they can report to me.  I will be held accountable as I gave the order; if anyone's honor would be spilled upon the ground for that, it would be myself. Go, with haste!"

They all obeyed, the skirmishers running off quickly with the Creche Commanders orders.  He hoped they understood his choice, as even he was loathe to use such weapons, but he preferred that over dying a death unworthy of a warrior.  That, and the wrath of the Zealots.  Shortly thereafter, weapons exchanged hands and one of the Jackals gave his Needle Rifle to Vinza'za.  The Ultra proposed that he hold onto it, but the Jackal insisted so he chose not to argue.  Human weapons were retrieved with noteable disgust,  but the soldiers obeyed Vinza'za's orders.  By the time all was said and done, the 'Wodam Huntsman guessed that somewhere near half the Creche was armed with weapons, mostly from the dead Human's that had once valiantly defended this sector.  Vinza'za could only  wonder what lied ahead for the Creche and the battle that awaited them.

[Deleted]

ODST Sergeant John Redsont
Hope

John rubbed his temples with his right hand as he stood next to his HEV pod, which was sideways and sticking out of a building a foot above the sidewalk. John was about to activate his chute when the light show started, which was the reason he hit the ground a little harder than he would have liked. That and he fell on his arse as he climbed out of his pod. John lowered his hand and looked up at the sky, which was filled with crashing pelicans and HEV pods that only added to the various explosions that John heard in the distance. 

"Sure hope the squad is okay." John said as he hefted his assault rifle.

It only took a once over to see that John's rifle wasn't working optimally. The ammo count display was offline, so John aimed at a nearby mailbox and fired off a short burst to make sure his weapon was working. Sure enough the weapon let out a small spray into the mailbox, which reassured John a little. 

"At least I have my guns still. Otherwise I'd have to start throwing rocks at the Covenant. But I suppose I should get moving.", John thought aloud as he put on his helmet and began jogging down the street.

He saw a large building that appeared to be an apartment complex, which would allow John to get a bird's eye view of the area and hopefully find more people that survived the crash landing. As John jogged along he thought about the source of the EMP and figured the Covenant had to be behind it, and it made sense given how the UNSC were literally down a wave of reinforcements. As John thought about this, he reached an intersection a block away from the complex. He crouched down by a large truck and scanned the area ahead, which seemed to be clear. At that moment, a small Covenant patrol came into view around the corner. John sighed at the misfortune of running into covies on his own and stayed low as he watched them pass.

That was when John noticed it, the patrol was frantic, and slightly disoriented from the look of things. The grunts were waving their plasma pistols like a child with a toy that wasn't working. The jackels seemed to be looking over their own weapons as well, plus they didn't have their shields activated. Even the elite leading patrol seemed annoyed at his weapon and even threw it to the ground and stomped on it in rage before yelling at the grunts to keep moving. John narrowed his eyes as an idea formed in his head, he gave a slight smirk before watching the patrol move out of sight.

"Well, at least my gun works.", John whispered smugly as he crossed the intersection quietly.

[Cabel]

[City of Refuge: Captain Mark “Spade” Seamus Sorelson: Seven Marines: Alpha Company: Pelican Crash-site: Port-Side Crash-Seating: Hanging by the safety belt upside down] 

Slowly opening his eyes, the veteran officer stared across the interior of the bloodtray at the marine hanging upside down across from him still strapped in her crash-seat unconscious and had remained uninjured or so Mark hoped. Something had been messing with his HUD, interfering with his attempts to scan the other marine’s bio-signs. I need to stop flying. I seem to find myself in a downed Pelican, or is it the same one? It wouldn’t surprise me if I’m an albatross with anything that has wings, he realized. Using his right arm to reach across the armored breastplate to where the combat knife lay strapped into a standard issue sheath, Mark managed to unfasten the sheath’s safety strap before drawing the standard-issue field knife. Raising it carefully against the main safety belt across his waist, he’d slice through it in only a few quick moments which resulted in the marine being unceremoniously dropped on his backside. He’d been knocked unconscious when the Pelican had encountered an EMP field, or at least if his guess had been right and from the looks of things the troop dropship had struck something on the planet’s surface. Without a readout from his HUD, he hadn’t been able to even guess how long he’d been out of it though unlike the more popular notion throughout humanity that analog timepieces were obsolete technology the native Seattle-born officer had developed the habit of wearing an analog wrist-watch from an early age. Blinking a few times to clear his head, he’d roll the cuff of his uniform sleeve back on his right wrist to check the watch he’d worn for two reasons. The first, whether it had still worked and to find the time.

Managing to look up in time, he’d noticed the Sergeant in ballistics armor that had been strapped into the crash-seat opposite his cut through the main safety-harness strap. Unable to roll out of the way, the combined weight of the young sergeant with her ballistics armor forced him to quickly exhale and to see spots in his vision briefly. So, the Sergeant’s alive and I’m not the only survivor from this downed bird, he mused. “Are you alright, Sergeant?” Mark asked.

“Aside from being a bit dazed and having a bump on the noggin, I’m alright, Sir. Are you?” the young Sergeant asked realizing she’d happened to get the drop on her commanding officer and quite unintentionally whom had also broken her fall.

“My head feels like Taffy sat on it, but I’m…just fine,” Mark replied as he helped the young Sergeant to climb off of him or at least get to her feet. “Shit!” he shouted, before biting his tongue. Rolling over, he’d found his left shoulder that had been dislocated during the last mission had been forced out of its socket again most likely from the Pelican’s impact. Biting back the pain, the commanding officer of Alpha Company managed to his feet and grabbed his rucksack which had remained secured along with an MA5C. With the young Sergeant’s help, Mark had found three other marines had survived the violent impact and after dividing the available ammunition amongst them the group of five marines secured their gear. Taking a few medkits with them, the small group checked their weapons ranging from MA5C assault rifles to at least several models of the M6 series Magnums. Looking around at the surviving marines, Mark found the improvised fireteam consisted of one Sergeant to a Corporal and two Privates First Class in addition to a Captain with the use of an arm. If this keeps happening, I‘ll request a prosthetic at least or a titanium shoulder socket, he mused. “Let‘s see where are. Sergeant, if you would get the ramp controls,”

The fireteam arrayed themselves in defensive positions the moment the ramp opened in order to provide covering fire if the Covenant were outside, but as the ramp lowered the site of a building‘s roof complete with air condition vents to heating units lay before them. The Pelican‘s ramp had opened skywards rather than being lowered more in part to the dropship having become inverted prior to impact, and beyond the rooftop lay a normally elegant skyline of the city of Refuge if not for dozens of columns of smoke off in the distance.

“Great,” Mark said sarcastically after briefly looking over the edge to find the Pelican had crashed on the roof of a high-end apartment building some forty floors above the street level.

[BasedGoody]

Sgt. Garret Gizinski
Is EVERYONE okay?

Garret walked around the lobby of a high-end apartment building. The Sergeant had survived the wreckage along with two of his Corporals, Rigby Johnson and Daryll Martin. His third, Julius, snapped his spine as his harness got unstrapped by the force and flung himself into the wall of the pelican as it crashed. Six of his regular marines survived the impact as well. Their crushed wreckage of a transport lied  in the street outside of the hotel. The marines were scavenging around for necessities like food and water while the three higher ranked humans talked.

"So what the Hell actually happened?" Martin asked. To be honest, Gizinski barely knew himself. He knew it was some EMP because all of their technology was screwed, but why would they let off an EMP on themselves? Their entire army is based off electronics! They had already seen a team of Monkeys scrambling across the street without their weapons.

"I hate to tell you, but the Covenant fucked us!" Rigby said lowly.

"No, no... They didn't do it on purpose." Gizinski started, "Why would they screw themselves over?"

"Yeah?" Martin asked, "Then who, or what, did this?"

The Sergeant started to reply when a giant crash shook the entire building. Everything was silent for a second as everybody tried to assess what was going on. One Private jogged outside and looked around. It wasn't until he looked up that he gasped. 

"Yo Sarge! You better come look at this." He yelled. Garret strode out of the building and looked to the top to see a spiral of flames and smoke erupted from a pelican on the roof. Another crash. Gizinski swore to himself before walking back into the building. His two Corporals looked with concern.

"Another pelican crashed onto the roof." He said quickly before spinning around and pointing his finger towards three lower Marines, "You guys are with me. We're checking it out." They nodded and ran up to the Sergeant who turned to his Corporals, "You two are in charge, I'll be back." He said before motioning for the three Marines to follow him towards the spiraling staircase. He look up to see it go on for almost forever. The Sgt. sighed deeply.

"Shit. Let's go."

--

Garret finally reached the top floor and barged in through into the hallway. He searched around with his Marines for a second before one called the over. He pointed out a window to a fire-escape leading to the roof. Garret nodded for him to open the window, and they all climbed out. Moving first, Gizisnki mantled his way to the top to see the wreckage fully with his eyes for the first time. 

It was a twisted mass of metal with flames and smoke exploding out of it. The Sergeant heard voices coming from the inside. So there are survivors.

Suddenly, the door way started to open.

[HollowSaber]

: Corporal Jake Furrow :

: Refuge, Covenant Controlled Territory :

: Nova Squad:

    Boots clattered across the hardwood floor of a building as Jake stumbled through one of the doors, chasing after another smaller creature as it tried to flee. A heavy grunt escaped his lips and the Trooper lowered his shoulder, tackling his target to the ground. The Jackal let out an unanswered, lonely screech as it was forced onto its face. The Plasma pistol in its left hand shot out across the floor, disappearing beneath one of the distant restaurant booths while the shield gauntlet shorted out. Jake quickly mounted on top of the bird-alien, slamming his knee down into the middle of the creature’s back in order to pin it down. When the ugly looking thing looked back and tried to claw at him, Jake drew his combat knife and slit its throat. Blood burst out, spraying onto his black armor slightly as the wound opened up. The Jackal tried to scream for help, but the thick liquid of life filled its mouth, muting the beast and drowning it.

    Within seconds after cutting its neck, the Jackal flopped onto the ground motionless underneath Jake’s knee. The Trooper released a sigh and wiped his knife on his sleeve to clean it. The black weapon didn’t reflect any light, but it didn’t show any signs of use. That was enough to satisfy Jake, and he returned the weapon to its sheath on his thigh. The Trooper moved away from the Jackal and returned into the other room, a bar area, to grab his weapon. He took one quick look around, glancing at the two dead Elites, the four cut up Grunts, and the other two Jackals whom both had bullets in their skulls. It was a quick fight and one that Jake had wanted to avoid but it was far too inevitable. The ODST didn’t look back at the messy place and simply slung his silenced sniper over his shoulder as he made his way out the side door.

    Drawing his pistol, Jake reached into the easy-access pouch of his backpack. From it, he retrieved a pistol silencer and swiftly attached it to the barrel of his weapon. The M6D was a vicious anti-personnel weapon and the silencer could barely muffle the shots, but it helped with the muzzle flash. As long as Jake removed the flash, he didn’t care about the noise. There were too many places in this city to shoot from that it was nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact location of a shooter simply by sound. The soldier would just have to keep his distance.

    Lifting up his wrist, Jake pushed the disabled TACPAD out of the way and rolled up his sleeve a bit to check the watch he had snagged off a dead body. The little object was a wind-up watch and didn’t require any electronics in order to run, giving Jake a bit of an edge when it came to time management. It had been nearly eleven minutes since he had stepped out of his pod and started moving. With a quick glance at his map and then at his surroundings, the Trooper could guess that he was nearly ten minutes from the EMP source. However, it seemed that Covenant numbers were growing the closer he got. The patrol he had just taken out was the third he had come across. Jake would have to keep his eyes open.

    Yet, he needed to start thinking of a plan as well instead of just heading right into the flames. There was a high chance that the EMP source was a weapon by the Covenant, and if he was right, the Elites would be all over it and would be trying to protect it from any assaults from major forces. If that was true, then Jake would have a hard time getting to his objective. He’d need a way to get to the generator thing without being noticed. Or, if he was noticed, he’d need a way to avoid patrols. Most of all, Jake needed eyes on his target so he could come up with the best plan possible. One that would eliminate a large number of Covenant forces, keep him out of harms way, and would eliminate that EMP source. Jake needed to get up high.

    Looking away from the map, Jake looked straight up towards the building across the street from where he stood in an alley. The building was nearly ten floors high and as Jake looked to his right at the distant location of the EMP source, it would give enough height for Jake to look down on the distant Covenant area. There were several other tall buildings in between himself and the EMP Source, but this one was the safest choice. The others were closer to the Covenant and were all most likely occupied, leaving Jake with only one option…

    A hard kick to the side door gave Jake entrance to the city building and upon entering, the Trooper was smacked by a warm breeze from inside. The cool outside air and the warm inside air mixed in the door frame, causing a few papers to rustle and flutter off the security desk, almost making the ODST shoot the bullet proof glass. Though, the man kept his cool and swiftly stepped inside. With the door closed, the Trooper quietly tipped over a cabinet and blocked the door before finally exiting and heading into the secondary lobby.

    After a short jog, the Trooper appeared in an intersection. To his right, the front of the building opened up and to his left, there was an elevator and a door to a staircase. Jake went to his right first, moving swiftly to the main lobby. There, he slipped behind the front desk and started to shuffle through the papers. The soldier’s eyes scanned the tops of everything, checking for some sign of where he actually was. He needed a name, or something that would designate what building he was in. From the looks of it on the outside, the building looked like a tax office or a district attorney office. However, none of the files said anything about either of those. The headlines and subjects were always about electrical systems going down, locations of where blown fuses were, and problems concerning street lights.

    Then it hit him. Jake froze in the middle of his tossing of papers and he snagged an unopened letter from a small pile to his left. He narrowed his eyes on the front and grinned beneath his visor at the name he saw. Without another wasted moment, the Trooper stashed the letter into his back pocket and snagged three different sets of keys off the desk. He then turned around to a small safe and knelt down. He tried every key on each of the rings, twisting and turning them all until the safe’s bolt finally popped. He pulled it open and scanned over the contents; letters and a few papers with similar subjects. The safe was a storage box for letters; a secure mailbox. Jake hissed and shut the safe, put the keys into his pocket, and turned back to the desk. He quickly grabbed all of the papers he had thrown about and organized them back onto the desk to make them look as if they hadn’t been touched.

    With his trail clean, the Trooper fled the main lobby and headed back up the hall. Rather than kick the door to the basement down, Jake used the keyrings. To his luck, the third key on the first ring opened the door and gave him access. The Trooper nodded and swiftly disappeared inside, locking the door behind him.

    Underneath the city building was a single room. That room was simply an entrance way to another, and Jake passed through it without a word. On an ordinary day, he guessed there would be someone standing behind the security desk that was there. However, the desk now looked empty and abandoned. Jake bowed his head at first and then walked through the small set of metal detectors. They went off, but the Trooper was the only one to hear the annoying sound as he entered the storage area. Six rows of file cabinets which stretched nearly forty feet each filled the room. It was a frightening sight, but Jake simply cracked his neck.

    It was time to go digging….

[NinjaBoss]

Major Domo Zahn 'Vignarlee
Nearby scattered army unit in the eastern outskirts of Covenant zone

Zahn lay in wait, hiding behind the doorway to the parlor. Gunfire had ceased for nearly half of an hour, and he and his lance had booby-trapped the parlor and the floor above it as best they could, given the lack of any particularly useful supplies. They made do however. Cuhl lay in wait on the other side of the doorway, and he looked at her, nodding. The Unggoy were in the floor above, watching carefully through the window using the makeshift cover they had used for protection. Zahn had been very clear on his orders to the Unggoy, he just hoped that they would listen. Suddenly, a tin can started ringing slightly nearby his ear. He clutched his makeshift weapon tightly, as the can was their signal for the approach of the humans. So the Unggoy had listened. He smiled slightly to himself knowing they were capable of such simple orders, as the signal had definitely been useful, especially with their lack of shields and technology.

Footsteps began to draw near, and Zahn's heart began beating faster. He began feeling the familiar hype he did before every encounter with an enemy, with time seemingly going so much faster yet slower than normal. He heard a voice, a human one. Unfortunately it was far enough away that he couldn't tell if it did say anything he could understand in their strange language. Footsteps slowly drew nearer, and though they were muffled from the careful pace of a cautious soldier, they were there. Zahn waited, patient and careful, and then he looked up at Cuhl. He nodded once again, and she nodded back. The human then stepped into the room, and she swept her bar down low, catching it in the shins. A look of sudden surprise crossed its face before it hit the ground, and Zahn stabbed with the jagged edge, catching it in the back of the neck. He reached down and grabbed the weapon it was holding, one of their automatic rifles, and picked up the pistol tossing it to Cuhl. She growled upon catching the weapon, and Zahn felt the same but these were desperate times. He then grabbed one of the grenades from its belt and pulled the pin, tossing it out the door towards the humans.

He waited three seconds and heard the humans scrambling about, then the grenade exploded. On cue he and Cuhl left cover from the doorway, firing their new-found weapons. Zahn hit one of the humans trying to scramble away, and Cuhl fired repeatedly upon one attempting to fire back. Both dropped to the ground, unmoving. The rest of the humans scrambled for more cover. Zahn and Cuhl moved in on the two who they had killed, taking cover behind a concrete barricade that had been erected as cover during the initial assault on the human city. Scavenging the weapons, Zahn found another pistol as well as one of their three shot burst rifles. He grabbed the rifle, passing the automatic version on to Cuhl. They then took the pistols and tossed them expertly through the upper windows of the building they had been in, for the Unggoy. Zahn smiled to himself, knowing they were no longer at a disadvantage.

Unggoy Ultra Zaxax
Nearby Covenant excavation site

Zaxax sat down on a stool, wiping his brow. He had gone to the Sangheili and all they had done was tell him to wait by the artifact for further orders. So here he was, sitting and waiting. The Sangheili had taken their now worthless plasma pistols and done who knows what with them, but at least he and Nadad had a needler like Tapap and Salal. The weapon felt unfamiliar in his hands, most unlike the plasma pistol that he was used to. However it was better than nothing he supposed, as he and his lance needed protection. He turned to them, as Salal was talking. "Us Unggoy need to stick together guys. They only gave us guns because Zaxax is an ultra. If we didn't have someone so high rank with us they wouldn't give a nipple. We should just-" A Sangheili Major approached as he was talking, and cleared his throat, cutting Salal off. "You can quit complaining, Unggoy. You're lucky your lance got weapons at all. And the reason that we gave you weapons because that one is an ultra is that he, unlike you, knows what to do with weapons. He has earned his command, and doesn't get ideas that resemble heresy, also unlike you. So shut it, Unggoy!" He said, kicking Salal and shooting Zaxax a glare. "And just because you're an ultra doesn't make you special Unggoy. You'd better prove you earn it, or I personally will ensure that status is revoked." The Sangheili then strode off, shaking his head in disgust.

"What a dick!" Salal said. He climbed back onto his stool, but didn't continue talking. Zaxax just sat there, himself displeased with the way the Sangheili had acted. There wasn't anything he could do however, except for toughen up and take the rough treatment. If life was going to get any better for him and his Unggoy they would have to earn respect, through any way possible. At least they weren't out to kill them like they were the human scum. He looked up as another Sangheili approached, this one an Ultra. "Unggoy, come with me. We're going on patrol, and since the battlenet is down we need to take a look and report the old way, by sending a runner back to base." He stood, and so did Nadad, Tapap, and Salal. Three other Sangheili joined them, one a major, the other two minors. They set out, the Sangheili grumbling about the Unggoy coming with them. This caused the Ultra to stop and turn around, suddenly very angry. "When we find the nishum, do you want to be the one to leave battle to report back to base? No? I DIDN'T THINK SO, SO SHUT IT!" He then turned back around, and they continued as if nothing had happened, the Sangheili done grumbling about their new companions.

[David]

Admiral David Vardy
Bridge - UNSC KILLIMANJARO
Synchronous orbit - Hope

In the after math of the destruction of the covenant ship over hope, It had given David time to organise his fleet. The loss of one frigate may have seemed insignificant in the small run, but in the long term, it was a devastating blow that could have major repercussions on the war effort.

"Admiral" Prompted Janeway. "Admiral?"

Snapping out of his reverie, David turned and looked at the Commanders worried face and screwed his face into what he hoped was a passable embarrassed grin. "Sorry Commander. Guess I was distracted."

Nodding her understanding, Janeway then presented a PADD to the Admiral. "Latest reports from the other ships."

Nodding, David accepted the padd and dismissed her. Looking back down at the pad, He scowled at what he saw. Some of the ships were still suffering minor technological issues from being pulled quickly out of dock and pushed into a battle. Some it was minor, Engine performace issues that were easily fixed. Others had issues with their A.I not functioning or functioning at 80% of normal. Not what he wanted to see in a combat situation where things could explode in their faces literally.

Pushing that PADD away, David grabbed the other one and looked at his numbers of casualties so far on the surface. After what looked like an EMP pulse struck, COMMS and other systems had gone out, causing David to loose contact with the surface. He could only hope that there was a fighting chance for the soldiers down on the ground.

"Lambert" Called David, Summoning his AI. 

"Admiral." replied Lambert, Appearing in his usual guise as a Fat balding man, Holding a cup of coffee. 

"How is the sensor sweep of the area going?" asked David.

"The same as it was, when you asked 10 minutes ago sir." replied Lambert, Now sipping from his cup.

Nodding, David dismissed the AI and looked back down at his numbers. Hopefully when the Covenant returned, He'd be ready.

[deceit]

Ra'ab had just fired an overcharged plasma bolt from his pistol, the green bolt glistening with life, the auto-targetting, carrying it towards the enemy vehicle. If he could grin, he would be grinning with delight. Before the bolt could get to the target, however, a pulse of energy suddenly flew passed him. He threw up a hand to defend himself, as did most of his Lance, preparing himself for death. But death did not come. He saw his bolt splash harmlessly against the wall, spewing plasma and molten concrete ahead of them. The Army vehicle, which his plasma bolt had not hit, suddenly stopped. Ra'ab stared curiously as the loud whine of the vehicle cut out.

It was a typical four wheeled vehicle that he had encountered in the past, dubbed "warthog," only it had no external mounted turret upon it but instead several seats from which extra riders could hold a position, possibly fire from. The three humans in the vehicle were clearly panicking. They were stragglers who had been pinned down for quite sometime, and had managed to acquire the vehicle in a desperate attempt to reach the human fortifications of the marines. Ra'ab was stationed just outside of the Northern borders of the Covenant landing zone. He had been clearing this section of straggler Army forces for a while now with his lance under the command of an Ultra, who had taken charge of his Lance, among three others. Together, the squads were punching out North to scout out an area rumored to be a "working base" of some remaining human filth. When these humans had made their dash, Ra'ab's lance had been dispatched to chase.

But why did the engine die if Ra'ab's plasma bolt had missed? The EMP field was not that impressive of a weapon, there's no way anything short of a direct hit would disrupt the vehicles mechanics. And what the hell was the burst of energy? It seemed to come from the direction of the Holy Relic, the purpose of their mission.

"FIRE!" Ra'ab commanded of his troops, "We don't have time to wonder! FIRE!" He raised his plasma pistol and squeezed the trigger.

His gun vibrated for a second, and a bust of green plasma formed at the edges as it lit up...and then nothing, it fizzled to its death. Ra'ab watched in confusion as the battery died. He looked over to his troops, only to see them swatting their weapons in equal confusion. "What?" He murmured.

His eye turned to his Kig-Yar File, who were cocking their heads in similar confusion as their shields gauntlets died. The file quickly changed their tactics, putting their plasma pistols away and taking cover.


Ra'ab snapped his attention back to the humans. One of them was staring at them, looking confused. Suddenly, he pointed and screamed something in joy at his fellow soldiers. Ra'ab got a sudden sick feeling in his stomach as three Nishum soldiers extracated themselves from their vehicles and leveled weapons at him. He realized, if even the Kig-Yar's shields went out...his personal barrier would be down as well, "Take cover, you fools!" Ra'ab screamed at his Unggoy, grabbing the nearest, Tansy, and dragging him behind a shiny abandoned vehicle.

Ransy got the notion, and screamed at Rigby and NamNim to flee. The three Unggoy, exposed in the middle of the street from their pursuit, went running to the nearest source of cover; A bus stop waiting station, which consisted of a metal bench, three large steel boxes containing newspapers, and a sheet of metal with an advertisement and canopy above it. One of them jumped, landing on all fours behind the newspaper boxes. NamNim and Rigby managed to get behind the sheet of metal.

The three soldiers, in their army gear, opened fire. The first soldier, with his sub-machine gun pitter pattering out a few bursts of controlled rounds. Ra'ab flinched and pressed himself tightly against the light blue paint of the vehicle he was pinned against as bullets sparked off of the wheels and punctured the painted surface, and the car became unleveled as a loud boom went off, the sound of one of the tires exploding as a bullet released all of the pressure in it. Ra'ab growled. This was no good.

He activated his communications. Or at least his tried, but nothing but the rain and the sound of bullets and crying Unggoy could be heard.

Unarmed, pinned down, and no communications.

He supposed this is what he had heard the humans call "shit hitting the fan."

[Armory]

Sergeant Johnathan Miller

Physical/Vehicle Status: Vitals at normal levels/ No Damage taken

Emotional Status: Fired up and ready to go kick ass.

Time Zone: 10:00 Hours Refuge Planetary Time

Location: Anvil Tank Asset Hanger aboard the UNSC Iowa

Current Mission: Provide heavy fire support for Marines and ODST's who are pulling the strike on Covenant held territory/Locate and protect surviving pockets of civilians

Drop ETA: 10:00 Minutes before drop

The drop bay buzzed like an angry colony of bees as it prepared to receive the initial troops to be dropped in planetside. The wide are provided spacious room for the many vehicles, men and equipment that was about to be passed through it. Miller straightened himself up as he walked through this place in awestruck silence. It was almost just yesterday when he had left boot camp and had just been transferred to the ship. The sergeant stood there in silence for a moment before being pulled back to reality by his gunner with a slight push.

"Keep it moving John" Ingram called as he moved past John deeper into the bay area.

Miller then took one last gaze at the troop bay round him before moving into the side by were the UNSC Iowa housed her many tanks in. The tank bay was just as loud as the other as the sounds of welding and rivets being driven into place filled the air. Miller continued to walk along the row of tanks before stopping in front of his bay. The mighty beast of a vehicle that sat inside the bay was always a awe inspiring thing to see. It stood prouder than almost any vehicle in the bay, its mighty green armor and dual guns prepared for battle to perfection by the bay crew. Miller made his way around the tank to the crew chief while Ingram moved to go get suited up.

"How did she do Corporal?" He asked with a small smile looking to his Tank engineer for the status report as the man gave a quick salute.

“She ran like a charm Sergeant. Treads, guns and everything else are all in prime condition. I ran a diagnostic a while back and all electronics turned out fine in tests. She’s now officially ready to drop sir.” The corporal nodded before handing John the diagnostic sheet and moving back to the crew area.

Miller looked over the sheet before placing it in what he liked to call his “improvised mailbox” which was simply a plastic binder holder bolted to the wall. With that the sergeant moved to his locker and started taking out his combat gear. The sergeant then proceeded to strap himself into his “combat harness” of sorts before making sure everything was secured properly. Then he reached over and grabbed his helmet. The green helmet was new and polished and felt cold to touch as he ran his fingers over the smooth metal. With that he flipped the helmet over and shoved it on his head, strapping into it as well as he then started to put on his drivers gloves. John quickly checked over his gear one quick last time before taking a deep breath and moving out into the bay and towards his tank. He watched as the other tank crews emerged and made their way over to their tanks. Miller slapped Ingram on the back before climbing through the drivers hatch and settling in the seat. The tanks interior was cramped compared to most other vehicles in the UNSC, but Miller never really minded. With not a second thought Miller pulled the hatch closed and listened to it seal with a hiss. Miller waited for the second hiss of Ingram’s hatch closing before starting up the engine.

The tank roared to life as the electronics inside started to boot up and the whine of the engine echoed through the room. Soon enough the “go” light flashed in the driver compartment and Miller guided the tank slowly towards the waiting Albatross that would take him and his gunner to the ground. With a bit of maneuvering the tank managed to move its way onboard the craft before the dropship loaded up and the cargo bay doors closed behind Miller’s tank. From here it was clear there was no turning back as the thrusters started maneuvering towards the hanger bay doors. There was a loud noise as the bay doors opened and the Albatross made its way out into the void. Miller could feel the clamps being put on the tank to prevent it from free floating in the cargo area. The radio chatter over his comm started to pick up as they began their slow decent into the atmosphere in almost a funeral march like procession.

The lines seemed to halt as they usually did when the Albatross entered the atmosphere as the craft shuttered as it made it’s slow decent. The metal around the dropship heated up as it passed through the upper atmosphere and came even closer to the ground below.

“Two minutes till we hit the LZ Sergeant…..” The pilot’s voice echoed over his comm before everything grew silent once more.

The silence seemed to hang in the air before the dropship shuttered as if it was trying to fight heavy turbulence. The craft groaned like it was under some kind of pressure before the pilots voice screamed over the dropships intercom in frantic tones.

“I’VE LOST CONTROL, WE ARE IN FREE FALL!!!! I REPEAT WE ARE IN FREE FALL!!!!!”

The whole craft lurched around Miller and his tank as the force of gravity pulled the dropship downwards and towards the ground. Hah we literally are a 120 ton anvil in this case Miller couldn’t help think in a sense of grim humor as they plummeted, his heart feeling like it was about to tear out of his chest. Then impact and darkness…..Miller groggily pulled himself awake to alarms going off inside the tank as he looked around the cockpit when a wave of what felt like grim relief washed over him, he was still alive. Miller checked himself over to make sure he wasn’t missing anything before looking over at Ingram and shaking the gunner. “Hey Buddy you solid……” No answer. He shook him more violently “Ingram!!!!” He barked still with no answer. Millers eyes widened in horror as he started to franticly unstrap himself from his seat before a groan was heard through the cabin.

“What the hell just happened….” Ingram’s voice sounded off in a shaky tone as the gunner sat up slowly.

Miller felt the breath he had pinned inside him come out in a large deep breath before looking around. “I don’t know…..we got hit by something though I’m going to run it by command if they experienced the same thing as us, cause that sure as hell wasn’t anti air fire…..”

“How do you know it wasn’t anti-air fire” Ingram grunted before starting to unstrap from his seat inside the tank.

“Because if it was we wouldn't have just dropped out of the sky, we would have exploded.” He said turning to his gunner before turning on his helmet com onto the UNSC encrypted channel. “All units this is Anvil 1-1 we have been taken out of the sky by some new Covenant weapon, anyone else in formation see what happened……” An eerie static filled John’s com before he then tried to turn on the tank. Nothing…..the engine seemed to try to fight its way to start, but would eventually just die off into silence. “Shit…..she’s dead in the water.” He muttered before starting to pick up the bail equipment. Ingram glance over before he started to collect his with a worried glance.

“We weren’t fucking trained for shit like this……” Miller could hear Ingram mutter under his breath before both driver and gunner popped their hatches open and climbed out.

The tropical breeze that blew against Miller’s face had the definite smell of smoke and death to it as he removed himself from the tank, which surprisingly wasn’t that badly damaged from the crash with the only real damage being done to the Albatross on impact. Miller was silent as he readied his MA5C Carbine model, and made sure his trusty M6 was strapped to his hip along with other pieces of equipment including a flare gun and three flares for times of need before dropping down from the tank onto the damaged metal wreck of the Albatross they had landed in. Miller heard Ingram’s boots hit the metal before looking around for survivors. His eyes finally settled on the fellow tank that was crammed into the craft before he started as a fast paced walk towards it. The tank seemed quiet enough as Miller moved to the side of it before beating on the side armor with his fist “Hey Buddy wake up man!” He called out to his fellow tank crewman before picking up a loose battle rifle from a dead trooper and adding the poor man’s gun to his arsenal, John was going to need it more than he was at this point.

“What’s the damn mission objective now?” Ingram said looking over to John before cocking his gun.

John was silent as he looked around before speaking “The game has changed, we are outside the tank and venerable now….we need to regroup with the main force and see if we can’t protect the civilians along the way….as of right now I’m thinking we’re in the dark….however we are one of the farthest places’ from the Covenant positions from what I saw before the crash. Either way we get moving now or we possibly die with our eyes blind out here. I don’t know about you, but I plan on living through this.” He said with some confidence to him. They were going to make it out alright….right? John banged on the side of the other tank even louder now waiting to see if he could get a response from his fellow driver. It was time to test this tank crew’s mettle and time to put the hammer to the anvil….but in Miller’s mind the only question was if they would they break.

Fixed widely-spaced formatting. 
-Martial

[HollowSaber]

: Corporal Jake Furrow :

: Refuge, Covenant Controlled Territory :

: Nova Squad:

    The ODST ripped into one file cabinet after another, sorting through the contents of each individual drawer with what looked to be a careless hatred for the countless numbers of papers. Yet inside of Jake’s mind, he was calculating the usefulness of every single file he saw. Every handle had a label, every folder a tag, and every file a paper clip. Within each of the paper clipped stacks were different partitions of the label on the drawer, allowing for someone who knew what they were looking for to easily find it. The Trooper on the other hand didn’t know exactly what he needed, but he knew what it looked like, so he was forced to go one drawer at a time. Each one he pulled was hastily emptied and the papers inside were thrown over his shoulders into the air, out of his way.

    Jake’s patience began to grow thin as he made it nearly halfway down the second row of cabinets. His eyes strained and his arms tired from the mechanical motions of pulling, gripping, and throwing. Each cabinet had an average of thirty folders, and each of those folders varied in size and weight. Some were only four papers wide while others were almost a hundred and were falling apart at the seams. It was annoying and painful. Jake had endurance, but the constant actions were just tiring. He was on the verge of giving up when he yanked open the drawer which was three rows from the end and two from the bottom.

    Inside was a massive array of files, all thin but filled with information. How? They were maps. Within the bellies of each of the folders Jake pulled free was some sort of map of an area. However, they were not ordinary maps. The Trooper grinned at his find and carried the small stack of folders off to the side, exiting the now messy room. The folders were placed on the security desk and the map the Trooper carried was opened up over the top of the counter. Snagging one of the new maps, Jake opened it to the best of his ability and glanced from the grey one to his own. There was no grid on the new map, but the images were almost completely the same. It seemed a bit older than what Jake had but that was enough for him.

    The Trooper tossed the map he held in his hands into the air and began to open up the files in front of himself, searching within each folder very carefully. He opened up every map he found in order to scan and cross reference it with what he had. If it looked off or was the same type of terrain map that he had, the piece of paper was abandoned and the man went onto the next one. If the design of the map was different but gave a more formal look at the city, the Trooper put the map down carefully on the opposite of his own map, organizing what he would be taking and what he would be leaving. There were thirty maps in total within the folders he found; Jake only took four


    Now satisfied with his bit of success, Jake stacked the maps, folded them, and made them vanish into his backpack. Pulling his pistol back out from its holster, the ODST made his way back up the stairway and out of the storage area. As he exited, the soldier was careful as to lock the door behind himself before heading to his right. Jake raised up his pistol and moved swiftly down the hallway towards the staircase. There were no doors for enemies to pop out of, but the two elevators didn’t look all that friendly from where he was. Their lights may have shown that they were on his floor, but he never trusted those things. With that in mind, the Trooper slipped into the stairwell and began his ascension. Speed and silence would be his ally today and he had no time for games. The Covenant was far to close, and time was scarce.

    The ODST didn’t place a single trap in the stairwell, choosing to conserve his explosives for later, and moved swiftly to the top floor just below the rooftop. Inside were mostly office spaces and Jake was immediately reminded of his scuffle with a band of Elites during a previous operation. A slight tinge of regret flushed through the Trooper’s mind as he glanced back towards the stairwell. Maybe he should have placed at least one trap…

    The door closed on its own before Jake could think any further of the action and the ODST turned his eyes away. He steadied his mind and walked calmly across the floor towards a small group of four glass panes. Outside and in the distance, Jake had a beautiful view of the horizon. He also had a lovely view of where some of his allies had crashed in the city, and he saw even more smoke columns rising from the various crash sites. He was lucky to had dropped when he did, and the man was thankful for it. If he had jumped even ten seconds later than he had, Jake knew full well he would have died due to his HEV twisting out of control before hitting the building. It was a scary thought and made Jake shiver.

    The magnum in Jake’s hand was quickly returned to its holster and Jake pulled his sniper rifle off his back. He set the rifle up on its tripod and then carefully rested the butt end of the weapon down on the ground to steady it for a moment. With his rifle set, the Trooper pulled off his backpack and explosives back. He then pulled the various maps out of his backpack and spread them out on the floor all around his rifle. Lastly, the ODST snagged a pen from the front pocket of his backpack. Without a TACPAD, he’d have to take notes manually.

    As Jake lay down on his stomach, the ODST reach up and pulled down a black cover over his scope. The soldier could see through it quite fine, but anyone looking back wouldn’t be able to. The one-way lens would help keep his scope from reflecting any light into the distance. Being spotted simply because you reflected some sun was the worst way to be discovered, and Jake didn’t plan on having it done to him today.

    Now that he was set, Jake rested the butt end of his sniper against his shoulder, readied the pen in his hand, and leaned his helmet down so he could see into the scope. At first, he saw what he expected to; numerous Elites were stationed around the distant zone with several underlings present as well. Although, as Jake slowly scanned up, he noticed something strange. There was a four-legged vehicle pointing down towards some sort of… meteor…

    “Sweet god…” Jake lifted his head away from the scope and stared down range with his own eyes. What he had seen was something he had not guessed. After the initial EMP pulse, Jake had suspected a bomb, or some sort of new weapon. But this… this was different…. That was no weapon…

    “Forerunner.” Jake mumbled as he eyed the object in the middle of a small hole.

[MrKill]

Colonel Johnathon B'Sheau Killinger
Seventh Marines
Hope

"Well, that's something..." John muttered as he pulled out his map for the third time in the past five minutes. He was almost paranoid, expecting green dots to start appearing on the map telling him where his units were - but they never came, despite how many times he folded and unfolded his map. It was almost like opening an empty fridge, closing it and expecting it to be magically filled with food when you reopened it two seconds later.

The building he was looking at, in particular, was a multiple story home surrounded by a dozen or more trees - a peaceful home to live in no doubt, until the Covenant decided that they wanted to attack the planet. It was a rather displeasing briefing in orbit before deployment, actually. Many civilians had died, along with the majority of the UNSC Army that was stationed on the planet before Marines were even deployed. In the end it didn't matter, but this was one of the few buildings that were around. This area seemed much more like a farming community.

It only took the Colonel roughly five mikes before he was able to reach the building. It was a rather tall wood and concrete home that appeared to have been built in the early twenty five hundreds, probably about fifty years old already, but John had to admit he'd probably live there if he could - but it was also likely way outside his financial budget.

He carefully opened the door with his M6D produced and was rewarded with the life if luxury within the first hallway. Pictures of family members, a beautifully crafted wooden rail going to the second floor and marble flooring almost took his breath away, it reminded him of his grandfathers home... but it had been looted through. Pieces of paper, muddy footprints and shotgun shell casings were spread out between the vacant shoes by the door.

John bent down and carefully examined a patch of dark red on the 'WELCOME TO OUR HOME' mat that had been placed at the door. It only took a minute for John to confirm his suspicion - it was blood. He could smell the faint scent of iron, so it had to have been rather fresh too. The Veteran Marine slid his two weapons off and placed them quietly behind a shoe - they'd make to much noise as he cleared the house.

"Hey! Do you know where this old fuckers safe is?" Someone shouted from upstairs.

"No, but I'm look'n down 'ere!" Another replied, but this time it was on the main floor.

"Please don't hurt my family!" A third added. A door opened down the hallway and a bald man, mid seventies and fairly overweight was pushed through, his forehead bleeding. He immediately spotted John and was about to shout for help when the Veteran Marine fut a finger to his mouth.

A forth guy, with a shotgun pointed at the man, exited the door and slammed it shut. John just barely managed to scramble into a closet full of coats before the man started walking towards him. John scolded at himself as he stared out the still opened front door.

"Well, the door opened when you tried to run. Look how close you came to succeeding in avoiding us, old man." The forth guy said, approached the door and closed it. His right foot barely missed Johns MA5C's strap when he turned around and returned to the elderly man... with John following behind him.

"I'll give you what you want," The elderly man said. "But please don't hurt my family."

"Oh, they'll be 'hurting' after I'm don-" The forth man was saying, but stopped immediately and started gurgling blood as a knife blade slid through the back of his throat and out the front. John twisted it and pushed it out of the right side of the mans throat, cutting through the artery.

The Marine quietly laid the body down and turned towards the elderly, who was silently watching. John uncut his binds, which were plastic-y, and offered the man his M6D. The elderly man rejected it by pushing it away, so John re holstered it.

"God bless you, Marine." The man said, struggled to get up even with John's help and scampered downstairs.

A moment later he returned with two teenage girls and rushed out the front door, closing it silently. John wished he could warn them that the Covenant had launched an attack, but explaining would have consumed time he didn't have. The first man from upstairs, unfortunately, had started walking down the front stairwell moments after the family had left. John grabbed the deceased body, opened the basement door and rolled the deceased man in. The Marine closed the door behind him.

"Whoa!" The first man said in a tone of pure shock.

"What?" The second replied, following with a loud crash as something broke.

There was a moment of pause. "Uh, nothing, just thought I saw something." The first responded, but John could hear a magnitude of swearing, a wet smack! as the man stepped in the blood and the footsteps, circling between a dry thump and a wetter squish, approach the door.

John rolled the body down the stars as quick, and quietly, as he could and was satisfied that the door hadn't opened by the time he got to the bottom and slid the body around the corner, though the blood trail would give his location away anyways. The key was to stay quiet, but honestly what if these guys put down their weapons after seeing a Marine?

It wasn't a change Killinger would take, especially if it meant his own life. The men searching for a safe, or safes, were on a mission of some sort. Whether it was to get something of precious value or money, the Marine didn't know. Worlds coming to an end and people are still going to be greedy, it was human.

The basement door opened and the man started walking down, clearly following the blood trail. John dragged the body down a small corridor, opened up a door that lead into a bathroom, and slid it in. He had to think quickly, he had just trapped himself. There was no other door in the hall and the man would, assuming he was armed, likely shoot.

"I know you're down here, old man. You're dead! DEAD!" The man said, getting louder. The voice was right at the bathroom door, and the knob slowly started to turn, but it stopped quickly. John heard the man rack a round into a weapon and chuckle, before the door knob started to spin again. The bathroom, fortunately, was a larger bathroom with plenty of space.

John quietly slipped onto the wall beside the door as it opened. The looter pushed the door open, as expected. John reached out, put a hand on the door and quietly slowed it down, seconds before it hit him. It looked natural enough because the man didn't say anything, but he did enter the bathroom. John waited a moment, saw the looters shadow approach the bath's closed curtains and that was when he Marine attacked.

He pushed the door open quietly, sprinted towards the smaller framed man and grabbed the looter from behind, his right hand - with the knife - pressed against the throat with his left hand holding the head back. The looter dropped the handgun, and it smacked with a sickening splatter into a smaller pool of blood.

John spun the looter around and was started to find out it was a girl, and shoved her into the bathtub while producing his own sidearm, one with a much more powerful round in the chamber. The girl put her hands up.

"Quiet." John simply said. "Explain, now."

The girl used her normal voice this time, instead of trying to impersonate a male. "This is my fathers house, I was coming to pick him up so we could evacuate but then my car died and I had to walk the rest of the way. Along the way I ran into these men trying to break into the house and acted quickly, saying I was after my dad's evacuation passes. They allowed me to help them but said I couldn't have any of the gold they found."

"Okay, so why did you follow the body?" John asked, his weapon still pointing at her head.

"I thought maybe my daughter, who was a black belt, had gotten free from the basement and killed this man. I thought you were my daughter."

"I need proof, ma'am." John asked.

The woman nodded and slowly pulled out a picture of her family from her coats beast pocket. The picture of the two teenage daughters were genuine, with the lady smiling happily in the middle of them. John helped her up, apologized and quickly explained that her father, and children, had fled the house.

"Thank you," She said. "The last man is looking for my fathers safe, with contains one million credits worth in gold." She added, before handing John a piece of paper. It was the combination, but John simply tossed it into the blood of the deceased man after the mother had left. He didn't need it, but perhaps the UNSC did. He'd mark it later, if they'd ever break through the EMP affect, for the UNSC boys to pick up.

"I've got what I'm looking for, I'm out!" The woman said, using her impersonation of a male. It was actually really good, but the real looter didn't buy it and quickly replied.

"If you got what you're looking for, you found the safe you bitc- FUCK YOU?!" The man screamed, and John jogged up the stairs during his rage of cussing and cursing. He peaked out the left and saw the man with a sawed off shotgun pointing towards the running mother, and John could barely make out three other figures.

He smiled happily, knowing that a family was safe now, before raising his own sidearm and aiming at the head of the last looter. He whistled, the man turned around, and a fountain of blood and brains blossomed behind him as the gun shots echo spread through out the house.

John wasn't done though. He collected his weapons, policed the ammo and firearms off the dead, and found himself climbing up the stairs. Eventually he went into the attic, out a side window and onto the roof, where he'd produce a set of binoculars to examine a apartment building across the field... and saw a crashed pelican and a lone figure standing beside the building it had crashed into.

"Good, someone survived..." John said, before swapping his BR55HB-SR for the MA5C with the 40 MM. He loaded a green flare and launched it high into the sky, smiling as it was clearly visible hundreds of meters in the air. Good, it meant any UNSC forces nearby could regroup.

[Cabel]

[City of Refuge: Captain Mark “Spade” Seamus Sorelson: Seven Marines: Alpha Company: High End Apartment Building: Rooftop: Pelican Crash-site] 

“Clear,” one of the Privates reported followed by several other reports from several of the other survivors, that the rooftop had been clear of Covenant patrols or craft.

“Gather what gear you can from the Pelican, and we’ll make our way down to the street level,” Mark ordered having gone back into the downed Pelican to retrieve the dog tags from their fellow leathernecks and the flight-crew that hadn’t made it. Letting the MA5C hang at his side by the shoulder-strap, the veteran officer reached up with his right arm to yank the dog-tags off of the fallen marines snapping the thin chains the marines and the flight crew had worn around their necks. Out of a ten marine payload and the three man flight-crew, five marines and two of the flight-crew namely the pilot and co-pilot had perished on impact. They’d managed to find the crew-chief a marine aviator, a young woman with the rank of Staff Sergeant had survived by having been thrown from the cockpit through the open hatch separating the two compartments and had been buried under a few of the supply crates when the Pelican had gone finally struck the rooftop. The young Staff Sergeant had survived while the rest of her crew hadn’t, but hadn’t come out it unscathed either. She’d suffered a broken leg when the heavy supply crates had fallen on her, meaning that Mark with the surviving marines had to construct a litter to carry her off the roof if a means had been found. Taking the time to close the eyes of his fellow leathernecks, Mark checked each of the dog tags before tying them in a small cloth pouch he’d unfortunately learned to carry with him on missions for such a morbid occasion.

“Sergeant, get the men together. Gather our wounded. We’ll destroy this dropship, and make our way off this roof…” he began before one of the marines outside the downed Pelican shouted that they had visitors. “Human, squid-lip or walking gas-factories?”

“They’re human, Sir. They’re marines. We’ve been saved,” one of the other Privates called out.

“Easy, son,” Mark said making his way out of the wreckage to take a look at their visitors taking hold of the MA5C again. “A rescue squad…more survivors like ourselves. Sergeant, what company are you with?” Spade asked having noticed the rockers on the marine’s armor before his attention drifted out beyond the rooftop to spot a green flare arcing skyward. “Sergeants, get your men together. Help our wounded off this rooftop, and get us down to the ground. We have our signal. Now, get your butts in gear,”

[BetaWülf]

Bahtarus, Jiralhanae Blacksmith

Bahtarus was very, very unhappy when his phantom flipped, it was fairly near to the ground when it dropped but still it was unpleasant. He lurched out and vomited a think orange pile, mostly meat from his breakfast mixed with alcohol, which reminded him. He wiped his mouth of bile and pulled out his flask as he sat leaning against the phantom, he took a few gulps before screwing the lid back and standing.

He was glad the phantom was right side up, else his equipment be extremely damaged. He had been called planet side to repair three bruteshots that had broken, ones firing mechanism had broken and the other two had had their blades broken, luckily for them Bahtarus was contracted for such work by the other Jiralhanae.

He of course had brought a rack of weapons to sell to any suckers he could find while down there, but at least the suckers would be getting something of quality. He was lucky enough to have had a few other brutes aboard, they were able to help him get his equipment out, and it was in working condition.

He set up in the center of the Covenant controlled territory where there was a semblance of a camp, his portable forge was built to function with or without technology, though without it, it would be a far more difficult job to preform. He started using the hand pump bellows to get the coals burning and set up his weapons racks, one full one empty, each holding five weapons.

The full weapons rack had one crossbow and its bolts, a great sword, two one handed axes and a two handed hammer, much like a Chieftains except without the technology which he was informed(and had guessed) was not functioning, he sighed and put on his apron, took another swig and grabbed his hammer and anvil and started working on a bastard sword.

[Wax™]

Second Lieutenant Justin Jenkins
Seventh Marines; Delta One-Actual
Looking for Hope in Refuge


Justin had been walking for a good ten minutes by now, in and out of cover, downs streets and alley ways, his movement was slightly slowed down having lightly sprained his ankle in the Pelican crash, however he didn't actually notice until he had been walking for five minutes, once the majority of adrenaline in his system wore out, Justin cursed under his breath and dropped his weight into a car to his left, hugging his MA37 a little bit he looked around the area, it was quiet, most of the civilians in the area had escaped, most of them.

A few seconds after Justin dropped down a woman ran out of an alley way, beaten and bruised, she was wearing a typical house wife blouse and a knee length shirt which was ripped and torn. A second after two men came out of the alley in pursuit, it wasn't too hard to stop her as she fell over in her own confusion, Justin picked up his MA37 and aimed down the sites, however he didn't overly want to kill his own kind, so he waited for a moment.

"Where do you think you're going..." One man grunted as he bear hugged the woman and lifted her up before throwing her onto the hood of a car, the second man then proceeded to grab at her arms and hold them down, Justin saw all he needed to see. He switched his MA37 to a single round burst and fire two rounds, one quickly after the other. The two rounds connected with the heads of the men assaulting the woman, sending a fine spray of blood all over the car, some on the woman too.

The woman who was once screaming was now silenced, she was obviously in shock, Justin lifted himself up and jogged with a limp over to the woman who had slid off the car and proceeded to hug her legs to her chest and rock a little bit, once Justin was within ear shot of the woman he spoke.

"Hey, it's ok... I'm a marine, I'm here to help." He said, by the time he was near her he took a knee and placed a hand on her shoulder. The woman jumped before looking to Justin, she scrambled a bit but soon calmed down. Seconds after she had calmed down not too far away from Justin in the air shun a bright green flare, it had to be a marine signalling for a regroup.

"Ma'am, I need you to head south..." Justin said pointing in the direction of the original LZ. "...You'll be safe there." He said before lifting himself to his feet and then her, he didn't stop to say anything further, he instead began to run toward the flare which was quite literally half a block away, about a hundred meters, Justin jogged as fast as his sprain would allow him.

He managed to make it to the area the flare was sent off, he could tell cause there was a smoke trail literally leading out of the top floor of the house. Justin took a knee around the corner of the house by an alley, the alley was sealed off by a wooden fence. Justin took some time to capture his breath before going to stand to make for the inside of the house, however he was soon blown off his feet as the wooden fence seemingly exploded and a group of men came crashing out.


Staff Sergeant Jason Bowers
Seventh Marines; Delta One-One
Destroyers inbound!

Jason made his way through the rubble of a multi-story complex with threefour of his men in tow and one army ranger, everyone was fine except for one man who had burnt his left arm a little, he managed to re-group with them several minutes after their Pelican had crashed down, Jason held up a closed fist and squinted before gripping his MA37 a little tighter, he heard movement in the storeroom ahead, the storeroom seemed to be the only part of this building which actually wasn't turned into rubble, it was still intact.

Jason slowly crept up and made his way to the left side of the door, with a few swift hand movements he directed two of his squad members to the other side of the door and one behind him, once he had done so he gripped his weapon and stepped away from the door. Enough so that he could lift his boot and kick in the door, he grunted hard as he did so. As he stepped in he switched on his light and shun it into the storeroom, stopping instantly as he saw what was inside. A woman and man clutching two children, one child seemed to have a kitten in her arms which was crying.

"It's alright... Just civvies." Jason said to his men who were outside before looking to the family. "...You all should head south of this position, there will be people there who can protect you." Jason said but was soon interrupted just as he was going to speak again.

"Sergeant... Movement." Said the Specialist Army Ranger.

Jason stepped outside and looked up in the sky, shining bright in the sky was a green flare.

"Move out Delta..." Jason said, he smirked, he happened to be in a company designated Delta, leading a squad called Delta.

Jason gripped his MA37 and began to jog to the area where the flare was located with his three men and the Specialist close behind in a staggered column, Jason and his men soon approached what looked like a long slender alley way, gesturing with an open palm towards it Jason and his men soon piled in, slowing down to a walk with their weapons up and ready. At the end of the alley way was a wooden fence.

"Anyone feel like some demolition?" Jason said, but before anyone could reply a rabid dog jumped out of one of the gaps in the alley way. Pretty much shitting themselves Jason's marines as well as the Specialist army trooper rushed forwards and essentially pushed Jason and themselves through the wooden fence.

Jason soon found himself arms raise holding the rabid dog at bay which was centimetres from gnawing his face off, letting go of it with one hand he reached around for his combat knife, ripping it out of the sheath and sending the knife into the dog's eye socket, once the dog stopped kicking he threw the beast off and retrieve his knife and pushing himself up onto his feet.

"Sergeant..." One of his Corporals spoke pointing to a fifth man who had seemed to join Jason and the others.

Jason picked himself up slowly just at the same time the fifth man did, brushing himself off he looked to the man's face and Jason almost went white, it took every fibre in his being to not snap to attention and salute or even kiss the man's shoes.

"Holy shit Lieutenant... Sorry about that..." Jason looked to his men and then back to the Lieutenant. "...Delta Destroyers reporting in... Sir." He said shyly, the Lieutenant was sure to be pissed off at this point.

[Martial Virtue]

Lieutenant Colonel Adrienne Jackson, UNSC Marines

City of Refuge
Crashsite

Adrienne awoke with her heart pounding hard inside her chest and pain ripping through her skull. She instinctively let out a groan and attempted to move, but found she couldn't. An object was blocking her movement. Strange.

Somewhere in her first threads of consciousness, she knew this had happened to her before. Thirteen years ago to be exact, when she'd still been a young, green first lieutenant on her very first op. It was far removed from her current station as regimental XO now, buried deep in her past. But she'd never forgotten, and it hadn't been pretty. 

Nausea rolled through her like a tidal wave at the memory, and she had to swallow down the choking fear that came with it. She could run headlong into battle with nothing but snarling Covies on the horizon and a gun in her hand and not break a sweat, but a Pelican crash was enough to reduce her to this - scared and hurt. She would've been embarrassed if she even knew what was going on.

Wait. A lightbulb suddenly went on in her still-recovering mind, pushing through the darker thoughts and the terrible headache. A Pelican crash? Is that what happened?

The lieutenant colonel finally opened her hazel eyes and took in the scene in front of her - troop bay, most of the Marines around her strapped into their harnesses at awkward angles. And those who weren't...well, let's just say they had nothing to worry about anymore. Their lives were done.

Shit. Jackson shut her eyes tight again and tried to remember what had been going on before the Pelican went down. Obviously on a mission, she reasoned to herself. Somewhere in the Outer Colonies...

In a rush she suddenly recalled the mission brief, down to every detail. She remembered the maps, the deployment charts, the company rosters and the general outlay of the city. Refuge, she thought to herself then. The city was called Refuge. On planet Hope. For a moment she winced against the pain of her headache, then tried to concentrate again. The Covenant were...already here.

Somehow, despite the circumstances, reasoning through the situation put her mind at ease. She knew where she was now, what had happened, what they were doing. Her racing heart slowed and that, in turn, allowed her to think more clearly. I've gotta get out of here and take charge of the Marines who're still alive.

With that spurring her on, Lieutenant Colonel Jackson reopened her eyes and reached down for her combat knife this time, stuck in its sheath on her left hip. She pulled it out with a grunt and began sawing at the straps holding her in place. The manual release hadn't worked when she'd tried. 

Once out of her restraints, she planted both her boots carefully between seats, not wanting to step on anyone; the Pelican was down on its side. Sheathing her blade, she put a hand to her helmeted head for a moment as the pain spiked at the movement, but she grit her teeth and continued. 

"Marines, status!" she barked through the bay. 

"We went down hard, ma'am," her aide, Sergeant David Costigan, replied from a few seats away. "You were out for a while, Colonel. Wasn't sure if you were still with us."

Jackson winced again. "Well, I've been better, Sergeant. But I've also been worse. Glad to see you're in one piece, too."

Costigan nodded in acknowledgment, then looked to the remainder of the troop bay. "Before you ask, we had a hefty number of casualties, ma'am. Eight Marines are gone."

"Goddamn," Adrienne breathed. "The rest?"

"Got some injuries as well, ranging from minor to pretty bad. We could really use a medic, but ours...didn't make it through the free-fall."

Of course he didn't. The lieutenant colonel released a sigh, rubbing at the top of her helmet for a second. "Any idea what the hell hit us? Details of it are a little fuzzy for me."

"Not surprised," Costigan said. Then he thumped his own helmet. "Don't know if you've noticed yet, Colonel, but all our electronics are down. This bucket'll still protect your dome but as far as being helpful in more advanced ways...we're shit out of luck."

"An EMP blast, then," Adrienne reasoned.

"Looks like it, ma'am."

"Right."

Okay, Jackson. Think, she thought to herself. She had a host of injured Marines, no medic, and needed to get the rest of the men who were still alive in here organized. They couldn't just sit tight inside the Pelican. The war was out there.

"Colonel? Orders?"

Leaving the wounded behind didn't even enter Adrienne's mind as a possibility, but neither was remaining here herself. They'd need protection until someone could bring back help. And with her abnormally high penchant for remembering things, she wouldn't forget where they were. She'd bring back help. And she'd make sure the Marines who were hurt got the aid they needed. She glanced up at the sergeant.

"Costigan, gear up. Me and you are going out."

The sergeant raised an eyebrow. "And the rest?"

Jackson took a step back and spoke louder to address everyone else. "Marines, if you're mobile, set up a tight perimeter outside. No one gets in or out till I return. You keep the wounded protected and treat them as best you can with what you've got. Sergeant Costigan and I are going out to look for a medic."

And see if we can't get more of a sense of what's happening out there in the city, too, she added to herself.

This was a hell of a mission so far. And it'd only just begun.

[BetaWülf]

Dakek

The Unggoy padded across the grass before stepping onto the pavement, stopping to look at the store across the street from him. It was a small building, well at least compared to the others, it's dull pink, particleboard walls were somehow welcoming. Dakek waddled across the street to the small flight of steps that led to a brown door with an unscathed inset glass panel. He reached for the brass knob but it was locked, oh well.

Dakek slammed the flat of his meaty forearm into the glass, shattering it across the floor of the uninhabited store. The Unggoy stepped in, waving his Kig-yar companion off to go do his own thing in the store while he raided it himself. He looked around at all the cool things but forced himself to remain focused on arming himself.

He looked to the back of the store and saw the owner in the back alley, dead, Jiralhanae knife sticking from his chest. Dakek decided to try to ignore the gruesome sight. Instead he found himself a gun case and start beating it open with a heavy, crook ended metal bar which he ended up prying it open with instead.

He found himself a sawed-off double barreled shotgun hidden beneath the bottom panel, and instructions on another one just like it but ya know, not sawed off. It explained how the seemingly simple weapon work and what the Shells looked liked, which he grabbed many boxes of and put them in an over the shoulder bag across his chest.

Sometime later with Dakek

Dakek sat outside the "Walmart" with quite a few childrens tricycles he had lugged out, and waited for other Unggoy to arrive, he had salvaged a pile of pipes and chains from the bicycle section for the to use as weapons if they showed, Dakek sat upon his red and yellow plastic Trike, his sawed off shotgun held aloft.

[Huka]

Minor Chata 'Aquiree
Covenant-controlled Sector North, Near Covenant sentry post

"No." Chata said. "But Chata, I need a weapon to fight the heretics." Thesu whined like a cub in the common room. The Aquir soldier stared at him while Moi and R'od watched the conversation with mild interest. "No." Chata replied, trying to keep a stern voice to his comrade. Thesu slacked his mandibles as he made a whining noise that seemed abit pitiful,even for a Sangheili, "Please, I am the only one without a good weapon."

"I told you to get a carbine before leaving the ship!" The Aquir rebuked with a soft chuckle. Thesu didn't seem keen on the idea, "And get the chance of having radioactive poisoning? I rather fight the humans with their own weapons." Just then, Moi and R'od looked at each other. Thesu noticed this and looked at them, "What?" The two looked back at him, both with a mischievous gleam in their eyes. Since the major wasn't here-scouting around for humans and ammunition-the four was left to their own devices for a moment near the Imp drop-zone.

"What!?" Thesu repeated with an annoyed look, "This is a serious matter!" Moi chuckled with a menacing show of his fangs, approaching his dismayed brother-in-arms, "We know and that's why..." He began, placing a clawed hand on Thesu's shoulder, squeezing it, "We're getting you a functional weapon."

This made the firearms-handicapped minor uneasy. "We're getting you a pair of human pistols." Color left the Sangheili's face and put a slight anxiety in Chata's.


Ultra Japad
Covenant-controlled Sector Northwest

Unggoy lance commander Jadap patrolled through the streets with his group like an merchant caravan; he took the front point with half of the Minor forces behind his shoulders to hide the heavy artillery that they possessed, in their case, Madid who managed was carries bandoliers of plasma and human grenades after the odd lightshow from earlier.

The majors of the lance stood on either side and had the heavy-armed Lupim at the flank, who looked around warily as if expecting trouble, particularly with the sounds of human firearms in the northern quarters of the Covenant's controlled sector. There was confidence for the Unggoy for a brief moment in the beginning attack, but now...

Japad looked back at some of the anxious minors in his party and scoffed, "Quit your whimperings. No one's dead yet!" They looked at him as if caught in the extra rations as he continued with a slammed fist on the concrete floor, "We survive the Bird-face's training, we'll survive this one!" "Here, here!" Olama chirped out.

 Bird-Face was the name for the Sangheili Zealot with a terrible breathing problem and very...uptight attitude. His training was almost as bad as the battle on the bug planet, but it was good training. Sect unggoy knew to coordinate, survive without their overseers, and the most important of all, to fight. However, some didn't agree with the training and joked about his mask.

Needless to say, the Zealot didn't take the joke as kindly and fed a insubordinate to the wild moonbeasts that he used as survival training, symbolizing his end as punishment for disobedience...and plucked the joker of the name's eyes out with his talons for disrespect to a commanding officer. Jadap used the term to bring a bit of giggle to the troops, which it did, but he knew better to push his luck. Since training, everyone had the paranoia that the Field Master was watching, waiting to give retribution to the slightest mistake.
Jadap was afraid to find out whatever happened to the one Sangheili who joked about his breathing problem. 

Turning away from the others, Jadap sniffed the air through his apparatus. He smelled something cooking...and it was put it out, replaced with smoke. "Do you smell that?" He asked. "Yep, yep! Smells like yums-yums!" One of the Unggoy, Dazap from the dull voice, chirped in glee.

"No...doesn't smell like any kind of Covenant food I know of." Jadap said, sniffing again, "Smells like those meat links that the humans and Jiralhanae eat." Dazap seemed to get excited again, "Can we get some? Dazap is hungry!"

"Remember your training, Dazap." Jadap reminded with a weary finger, "But we will investigate the smell. Troop, keep your spirit and heart and head. We are making a step forward!"

No one whined, all fell in line. The memory of training fresh and the Field Master's will done. They were hardened troop and they will act like it.


Major Q'ai 'Muramee
Covenant Controlled Sector Southeast, Human Highway Sentry Post

Striding on the humans' captured highway, Q'ai promptly ignored the stench of rotting corpses and their attracting buzzing of death-devouring insect. In the cycles it took to conquer the world, he took the dark honor of securing a sort-of warning line for the humans, as they have done since the Day of the Paragons, with the swaying figures of skinned bodies with horrific faces and sanguine pools under their mark. This was a form of warning for enemies. This was the area of the hunters. This is where Death awaited in its pale cloak and far-reaching touch.

The Muram soldier checked his carbine once more, paranoia of its seemingly-good condition. After that odd flash, many of the sect have practically lost the advantage of firearms, particularly of the plasma weapons. Some good soldiers were killed from this sudden disarming but their brothers took the vengeance with a bloodlust matched only by a furious War Chieftain or Mgalekgolo taken by the beautiful words of a war poem.

Labus and most of the Unggoy were forced to change their weapons due to their reliance to the plasma firearms. Q'ai ordered the diminutive soldiers to grab rocks and prepare for the greatest rock game of their lives, while Labus kept to his sword. While he was wary of this sudden change of luck, the Major say this as a test of the Field Masters', and he will take it with stride.

In his walk towards his temporarily idling lance, who stood as sentry for the vehicle-lined highway, the Major was instantly attracted by a horrified scream. Snapping his head to the edge of the road, he and most of the lance stepped over to see a human female screaming at the scene of her kin swinging to the winds, covered in flies and dead eyes staring back into her. Others were quickly running the moment she was letting out her wails.

However, no one moved. One reason because they were on the upper level of the highway and another because killing armless civilians was a dishonorable disgrace to everything noble. Q'ai didn't care of the San'Shyuum's preachings and cold commanders' loops in their honor codes. Killing civilians was wrong and beneath Sangheili. Only the murderous and the dishonorable killed with glee and no regret. Just then, alien shrieks answered to the human's cries.

Speaking of the murderous and dishonorable...

Bouncing off cars and salivating jaws was Kig-yar and their Skirmisher brethren, breaking rank and immediately going for the kill. A particularly quick Skirmisher lunged from a overturned vehicle and violently pounced on the screaming female, who didn't even moved five feet in her fatal moment of anguish. Q'ai just shook his head in disgust as he watched the bloody sight. The Skirmisher was joined by others as they tore at the female's stomach and limbs, not even moving to kill her properly first.

"Disgusting..." Jhao spoke out and moved away to continue his patrol, the arteries in his neck could be easily seen through his jumpsuit from the fury ebbing in his body. Q'ai certainly understood that feeling. Sometimes he wonder why they are fighting this crusade so ruthlessly. The Humans were mostly ignorant to the Forerunners' gift...the civilians were anyway, from the tellings of some Sect Special Operators.

Clicking his mandibles, Q'ai lifted his carbine and narrowed his eyes to see the very little target between the obstacles of feathers and snapping jaws. Suddenly he felt the warmth of the Hulian Desert...the cries of his comrades shouting to take the shot. Q'ai, young and ignorant to the war's machinations, staring down the barrel of his glass rifle. Then...that spirit-culling exhale.

A spear of green radiation flew through the air, through the skull of a Skirmisher and the human's. The sudden deaths scattered the avian pirates like carrion-peakers to a disturbed corpse. "May the Spirits take you." He whispered and walked off as well. Labus looking at his commander with dropped mandibles.


Captain Valerius
Covenant-Controlled Sector Northwest, Valerius' Territory

Bodies spawled about and rivers of mingled blood ran through the streets ever pelted with this world's constant rain. It affected the beautiful stench of war sadly, but the simply perfume of it was enough for Valerius. The Captain sat in a makeshift tent of his own; with the large flag of the humans' precious government held over his head with sharpened pikes holding the heads of the little snacks. He rested on a admittedly comfortable chair from the humans' stores, axes resting on his palms as he rested from the marvelous 'cleansing' of the Sangheili Field Masters' area that held the holy artifact and the Jiralhanae exercised their given hunting rights with gory effect.

Valerius and his creche-sized pack took a good section in the northwest of the city, a good collection of food and satisfying game. Licking his lips under his mask, the Captain glanced at his simple guards, a couple of minors in bandeliers and armor similar to gladiators, adaptions honored to him by the albino major Albus. He was glad to know there was some loyalty in his pack and made sure it stayed. When of Therus' birds was seen flying over head with a warning cry, the Captain got up from his seating place and shouldered one of his axes, looking around abit.

The technological communications were still down and most 'holy' weapons were useless since the hair-raising pulse that took the city, but the Jiralhanae still had their powerful howls and signals that rang through the air. In the barbarism of his mind, Valerius knew his Sangheilian overlords were practically useless now without their precious weapons and battlenet to help coordinate better. He wondered what the Chief will do.

His guards noticed his raised posture and stood in attention, their spikers in hand but certainly kept their fingers away from the trigger in a sign of non-aggression. Valerius, nevertheless, tightened his muscles in a subtle way of warning them. Finally the reasoning of his idling appeared;

Nikomedius and a couple of his Jumpers lept from over a building with the aid of their jump packs, slowly descending down to a smaller shop with huffs and barks. "Report." Valerius ordered and Nikomedius gave his Alpha a dramatic bow, "Of course, almighty master. The humans of your wisely-chosen space have been successfully contained and hunted as we speak. Hafrius is signaling for orders and Albus is securing the area until told otherwise."

"Very good, Nikomedius. Keep your eyes and nose for any interfering humans and their Imp comrades." Valerius ordered, using the Sangheili's title for the Fire-riders to make it well understood. "We will make sure failure doesn't soil our honor and respect in the pack. If it does, it will be on your head." The Jumper leader noticeably flinched to that with a twitching lip before bowing with his fists to the corner of the store and head low. "Of course, wise Captain." He said with a low growl in his voice.

[MrKill]

Colonel Johnathon B'Sheau Killinger
Seventh Marines
Hope

All was coming together quite nicely, actually. It had been less than ten minutes since the flare had gone up and already Marines nearby had started to regroup. Down below, near the ally, a platoon had regrouped... or at least some of the platoon. It appeared a Lieutenant and Sergeant had regrouped, but it was hard to see the men from the binoculars from this distance. He recognized the bronze/golden bar and the chevrons of a Sergeant, though.

"Good," The Colonel muttered, before lowering the binoculars and turning his attention to the field again. "Now we need to organize a HQ and find out what the fuck is going on." He added, returning the binoculars to his eyes. The binoculars electronics weren't working, meaning the range finder or even the electronically executable zoom wasn't functioning, so it was all manual. A true hands on experience.

At maximum manual zoom the Colonel could see the building he was looking at relatively detailed, and estimated it was about a thousand meters away. It was a similar building to the one he was at, wooden and concrete like, but it appeared to have steel structure as well, given the roof of the complex was still under construction with metal beams spearing out from the top.

The surrounding field was flat, and again the noticeable farm like surroundings, but John couldn't see rows of plowed grass, and realized it was simply undeveloped land the city hadn't gotten to yet. While the eastern side of the city was developing quick, it appeared the mid lower western side hadn't been given much development through out the years the planet had been a UNSC colony.

John turned around again and examined the area towards the southern end of the city, and spotted a group of UNSC Army soldiers approaching on his binoculars, through an area between two warehouses. Good, he thought. There were only seven of them, unfortunately, and they were moving rather slowly - making sure the area they were in was secure before continuing. They appeared to be almost... paranoid... like the Covenant would pop out of cover like a jack in the box.

Satisfied the troopers would manage to make it to the RV, John continued to search for more approaching groups. This house provided a suitable regroup point for now, but later tonight John would launch the rest of the flares at the complex in the field - the true location of the HQ building. He continued to scan the field, looking for both human and covenant, but for a good two minutes he couldn't find anything.

He painfully watched as the green flare hit a patch of dry grass, which started to smoke - meaning the flare had lit the grass on fire. A minute later the smoke lessened, the fire didn't start and had died out. Once the smoke had cleared the grass patch had only a small, nearly unnoticeable dark patch - but John continued to watch just in case, but the patch never re-lit.

The Colonel switched his attention back towards the distant platoon and smiled when the face of his deceased friends son appeared through the magnified binoculars. John found himself glad he actually managed to regroup and wondered if the was the lone figure he saw at the pelican crash.

Something else captured the Colonels vision, however, as he quickly snapped to the disappearing blue leg with his binoculars - something had fled behind a house. It had to have been an elite, or perhaps a jackal, but it moved to quick for a grunt. It could have even been a brute, but John wasn't sure. He knew it was a risk, lighting the flare, with a Covenant invasion but it was required. He needed to regroup his Marines, but now there was contact. It wasn't human, that he was sure of.

"Damn it." John cussed, degrading himself about the tactical situation and found himself, once again, wishing he had a radio to warn the troopers and platoon that hostile activity had been detected... but there was nothing he could do. Launching one of the yellow flares would be the wrong decision because it wouldn't be easily seen and the red flare he had was a simple hand flare.

Unbeknownst to John, the blue leg was a particularly angry brute.

[NinjaBoss]

Private Moe Keating
Near the bank of the river

Moe shook his head, blinking the darkness out of his eyes. Looking around, he saw the familiarity of his HEV pod..... or what was left of it. It had been badly dented in the recent fall. He had climbed inside of his pod, and been dropped, a routine deployment. But what wasn't so routine was the blue shockwave. It disabled his thrusters and caused him to go spinning out of control, and he had made contact with another pod. After that, he didn't know. Merely darkness. He checked for his weapons, and they were both where he had left them. Retrieving them, he realized that his VISR HUD wasn't working.

"What the...." He said, clearly surprised.

Then he remembered. It was that blue shockwave. Had to have been some kind of Covenant EMP. Whatever it was, he had to get out of here. There would be time for speculations later. He popped the hatch of his pod and it fell forwards with a hiss, and he stepped outside. Looking around, he got a sinking feeling in his chest. His fireteam wasn't anywhere nearby. He thought of what could've happened to them.... crashing and dying, or landing in the middle of a covenant strike force. He ducked suddenly however, noticing a small group of Covenant soldiers nearby. One elite, two jackals, and three grunts. His training kicking in, he prepared to take down the jackals wrist shields, when closer inspection revealed they didn't have any. His first thought was snipers, but that couldn't be right. Then he realized they weren't working. The enemy squad was obviously confused and frustrated, and Moe planned on using that to his advantage.

He slowly retrieved his MA5K, checking the ammo counter. That wasn't working either. He'd just have to guess when it came to ammo. Looking back at the Covenant squad who still hadn't noticed them, he realized almost none of them had weapons. The elite was forcing a needler from one of the grunts hands, but other than that they had no weapons. How curious. Moe didn't care, however. He wasn't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, or so the saying goes. He looked down his sights, glad he had received the extra training now that his HUD wasn't function. Then he let out a burst, dropping the first grunt. They all turned in his direction, suddenly surprised. And that was when it started......

[Deleted]

ODST Sergeant John Redsont

Hope
Apartment Complex

John scanned the city from the fifth floor of the apartment complex, although all he saw was trails of smoke and flames. He sighed loudly as he slumped against a nearby wall. This whole situation was practically a nightmare from the UNSC view point. They had a scattered force over an entire city, if enough people survived to call it a force. There was also the fact that the EMP fried all their gear and left them walking blind in a dark city. The only comforting fact was that the Covenant seem to be lacking guns themselves, but John didn't want to assume they had no guns. The Covenant have plenty of resources, they might even be taking human weaponry if they had too. 

John pushed the thought out of his mind and looked out the window once more, as if expecting to see something that wasn't there before. That's when he heard it, a large metallic thumping followed by a crash. John turned around to the stairs and hear heavy thumping and grunts. He cursed as he ducked into a nearby room, he figured the covenant would still have patrols out in the city after seeing the crashing pelicans. He found a closet and swung open the door before jumping in and closing it quietly. John pointed his rifle at the door and waited as the footsteps grew louder and louder. There were at least three of them from the sounds of it, and from there tone John assumed they were either elites or brutes. The two things that didn't need guns to rip John apart. He brought his finger on the trigger and relaxed his breathing as best he could. One of the creatures had stopped at the door, and the knob slowly began to turn. When the door opened John sighed loudly as he pulled the trigger and filled the elite with lead. The bullets flew into the elite with ease and there was no flare from the shielding it had. John smirked at the fact that the covenant shielding was also being affected.

"Just had to open the door didn't you?" John asked in sarcastic tone as he kicked the elite away and ran out of the closet.

The second elite rushed John from the middle of the room but was mowed down from his rifle fire. However, when John turned to the third elite, he only managed to fire a short burst before having the gun smacked away from him. The elite grabbed John by his arm and neck and flung him across the room and into a wall. John slammed into the wall and slid down as the elite rushed at him again. John reached for his magnum and brought it up only to have the elite grab his wrist and slam it into the wall. John winced at the pain but barely managed to hold onto his gun as the elite roared into his face. That's when John took the opportunity and head butted the elite in its jaw. John heard the elite's teeth grind against his helmet as it rocked back a bit from the blow. The elite's grip loosened enough to free his wrist as he dug it into the elite's head and fired a single round. Blue blood splattered out the other side as the elite went limp and slumped to the ground along with John.

"Well not how I hoped for it to go down, but it could be worse." John said as he stood up holding his side.

John walked towards his rifle and hefted it before manually checking the clip to see how many rounds he had left in it. He counted five, which meant he could probably kill a single elite before he had to change the clip. John then began to descend towards the lobby as the complex was most likely compromised from the noise. He had to find other people, and fast if he wanted to survive.