Chapter 1

I sat in the Pelican titled Omega423. The ship slithered through the thick fog. The Covenant had taken a city called Galient in New Brazil. The seven other Pelicans followed behind us. The city was located on the other side of a tall mountain, on a plateau roughly 20-kilometers wide. Boulders filled the city after a cruiser took heavy fire and skidded along the valley floor. The cruiser wasn’t on the ground at this time, but hovering above the city.

The roar of the Pelican drop-ship rang out over the hills. The pilot, Private Walker, came on the loud speaker, “Descending under the fog!” The Pelican dipped down 45 degrees, as did the others as well. Charlie Team was to come in from the opposite side of the mountain and help us sweep the area. We would close them inside the city then exterminate them.

“Bravo 219! Dip down! Dip Down!” cried our pilot. A wave of blue plasma washed over the Pelican bringing up the back. The pilot screamed out! The Pelican exploded into chunks of heated metal and plasma splashed over it! The damaged Pelican swerved and ran into Delta2347. They both struggled to maintain their position, and then both gave up and collapsed into the thick jungle below! The five other Pelicans fell silent. I reached into my belt pocket and pulled out a picture of my little girl, Samantha, and my wife, Sarah. They were in Andromeda. I told them to get out of the city when I was recruited. They said they would be ok and leave with a lifeboat. I was worried sick about them.

“Fisher?” said Tom from the opposite side of the Pelican. I nodded. I wasn’t expecting a caring question, not a Your family will be ok, or an Are you ok? “Which are you going to kill first, a Grunt, a Jackal, or a Elite?”

I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “I guess I’d have to take one of those other things ONI has been yapping about.” I laughed. “A…. umm…. priest, is it?”

“You mean a Prophet?” He said, laughing. I nodded. “Heck, I’m willing to take one of those heavy ones!” He laughed. Sergeant Irwin walked into the conversation. He was a real hard ass. No one talked back to him, or even questioned him. He was always the superior, as he told us at boot camp.

“You think you can take on a alien who’s 6 times your weight, and 12 feet tall? A creature which looks at you moments before it raises its massive shield and brings it down on you, with enough power to throw a Warthog twenty meters? It carries a gun which makes your Assault Rifles look like toys, a gun that can melt through a persons skull?” he said coldly. A scar covered his left cheek. He said he got it from a Plasma Sword that just missed him. His heavy black armor was more like a Spartans than the usual marine armor.

We stopped our conversation there. I guess it was more important to be aware than to be talking about whom you would kill first.