this sotry is based on HALO the video game, it was the first story i ever wrote so, it proabably sucks, its like my Death Province, no sex, mostly jsut science-fiction war, i hope you like

Last stand: prologue
8-12-2545

I was sitting in a recliner, looking down at my chest and looking at the bandages, and dog tags, SSGT. McRiley, it was August 12, 2545. I just returned on leave, I took a plasma shot to the lower stomach, I luckily survived. I was station on a small UNSC outpost on a distant system; I can still remember when they came, the covenant. There were rumors going around, about Harvest, we only thought Covenant were made up by brass to spook us marines, but they were real, and they came. I have never seen an enemy fight without mercy. I fought my fair share in the civil war in the outer colonies, but those guys didn’t cut people in two…no…. these new enemies, The Covenant, were entirely different.

I was resting on my bunk when I heard the alarm go off, I just thought of it as another drill, so I decided to run out with only my rifle and water bottle. I knew from the second a warthog blew up just 10 feet away and explosions happening around the base, then did I know this wasn’t a drill. Time seemed to stop as they marched shooting anyone who was in there path. 8 feet tall, aliens, split jaw, with U-shaped weapons, never saw anything like them. That’s when I saw the little guys, about 4 feet tall, and carrying little pistol like weapons. I decided to put a full clip into the nearest group. The little ones fell fast, but the big ones, bullets just seemed to bounce off them. That’s when they saw me, started firing as I ran behind a crate, I looked back, the other end of that crate was smoking, apparently they were firing some time of fire or laser beam, I didn’t know at the time, but they were firing plasma, there is no way to stop that, unless re-enforced titanium, but I was shirtless, had no body armor, had 2 clips of assault rifle ammo, and one frag grenade.

I saw a warthog, a good 50 meters away, the 50 cal. looked in good condition, I started to sprint, I guess the big guys thought I died or something because they just started to walk away. I jump up on there, clicked the safety and unloaded. 4 of them were surprised when they saw 2 of their buddies get ripped in half, they turned but a little to late to draw there weapons. I got 2 more when a fast purple object flew bye and all I saw was green the warthog flipped, on fire. I guess you would call that the banshee, damn things are fast and lethal. I got up and saw a big guy in red armor point to me, and say something to a blue one, I don’t know what they were saying, but I got a clear picture. Before the red one could even finish what he was saying, his head exploded, then I heard the shot. I turned and saw a marine holding a SRS 99D AM sniper rifle, he smiled at me raised the gun again, I turned just for about a second to see the red collapse and the blue turn before a bullet went through its chest and sprayed blood all over the wall, it crumpled to the floor, I turned and the marine who waved to me to follow him I turned and followed him for a good 500 yards, when we came to the armory, we went inside only to find 4 others, apparently, I was the highest rank. I found out the snipers name, PFC. H. Jenkins, there was also an explosive expert, LCPL. Griggs, and a pilot, a female, CPL. C. Rose, there was a PVT. R. Ramirez, he said he love to get up close in personal, that’s why he was packing a M90A CAWs shotgun, lethal at close range, then there was another female, one who I would never forget, PFC. C. Kane.

Well with all the greetings and hand shakes and nods, we started to devise a plan to get off that rock. Apparently, there was a small vessel, worthy of space travel and light speed, so we were going to head there, and jump to Reach. But Cpl. Rose said something that got my attention, what if they have tracking equipment, or have the space around the planet on lock down, if they landed and we have no word from command or any reinforcements, it must mean are fleet was destroyed up stairs. What she was saying was 95 percent true, none of us wanted to believe her, but she was right, we got are defenses destroyed in one day, not even that 1 hour but none the less, we were all determined in one thing, to get out of here alive. CPL. Rose said the vessel, was about 5 klicks south, south-east, of the base, we loaded are equipment bags with lots of ammo and food, we headed out at dark. The thermal eyewear and night vision on the latest helmets helped by a lot, we got about 2 klicks when we encountered some of the little guys, they stopped, stared at the trees, and all they heard was puff puff of are silenced weapons. We trudged on for about another 30 yards. That’s when we saw something behind us, something burning blue in the mist.

To be continued…….

Last Stand: Prologue Part 2
June 4, 2545

We were worried that the blue glow was the light from one of those big guys gun. We back up and went into a bravo defense position. We hade Jenkins go put up sniper coverage in a tree. We hunkered down for about 30 mins when I heard Jenkins voice crackle over the radio, “Sir, it’s not a weapon, I repeat friendly coming in.” I turned and raised my MA7K when he approached, I held up my hand, telling the team to hold. I thought, “Crap! This kid looked only 19, barely out of basic,” as I walked up to him, when I reached him, he gave me a look and saluted, I grab his hand as fast as I could and yanked it down and said in a whisper, “boy, if you do that again I will cut off your hand, you do not salute a ranking officer in a combat environment.” He quickly dropped his hand, and said under his breath, “sir, im PVT. G. Lewh…..” He didn’t even finish the sentence when something cut straight through him, etched on his face was shock and horror as he crumpled to the ground, that when Jenkins fired. The sot hit something, purple blood splattered out of thin air, and something hit the ground. It was a big guy, white armor, holding his weapon in his hand, everyone ran up, weapons rose on look out, I told them to stand down, it was a scout. That’s what tore me up, the kid was barely 19, and I just watched him get cut in two. We hid the bodies, and sprinted the rest of the way, Jenkins told me he saw it too late, he is more tore up bout it than I am.

The sun started to rise so we decided to find a nice cave. Everyone slept except me and Christi; we started to talk about how we got to the armory. Apparently, Jenkins was the hero today, saved all of us except Griggs. Griggs was seen by Christi, firing to SPNKr rockets at the same time, damn guy surely does love explosives. Then we started to talk about family we had back home. She had a boy, her husband died back on earth, had a car accident, the boy was the only survivor. I had nothing, my father was my last family he died 2 years after I joined, and I was the only one to attend his funeral. We talk until it grew dark, right about 6 p.m. we saw a piece of frigate crash into a lake, about 20 klicks away. When it got dark we ventured out again, this time, we ran into 4 scouting parties. Thank god we didn’t come across any of those big scouts. Rose is starting to complain, I heard Ramirez saying “typical sky jockey.” After that, rose shut up, and moved twice as fast. We finally came to the outpost, it looked deserted, but not until Jenkins, said “stop” over the TEAMCOM did I get worried. He motioned me forward and whispered into my ear, “sir, they got about 2 platoons guarding this place. That’s when we back tracked a bit and hid in some dense woods.

We started to plan. Jenkins said he spotted a good looking warthog near the tree line. I ask Griggs to run a weapons check. And I asked if we had a medic, Jenkins said he has some. Griggs told me we had, five MA5B’s, 30 extra clips, two M6G pistols, 4 extra clips, two MA7K, 6 extra clips, and one M41 MAV/AW rocket launcher, 1 ammo case, and only 10 frag grenades. We finally thought up the plan, we were going to move out at dawn. We moved out with Jenkins taking point, we trudged back to the hill, and waited. We saw the vessel and decided to go with the plan. I and Ramirez crept down the hill toward the warthog.

We jumped in it, keeping low, it was lucky we weren’t seen, so we didn’t want that to end just yet, a little thing started to walk over to the vehicle. It got no more than 20 feet away when its head exploded. That’s when heads started to turn, I turned the key and floored it up the hill, that’s when we fell back into the tree line and waited. It was about 10 mins, when we saw them come over the hill, about 20 of them, looking around. Ramirez was sitting in the gunner position; Griggs got the honor of handling all the grenades, and the rocket launcher. The girls would be led in by Jenkins when it was ok to come in. Jenkins was about 30 feet away, when he started to drop them. One by one there heads exploded, they didn’t know what to think. That’s when I hit it, we came bursting out of the tree line, I could see them scared shitless. The little ones started to run; the big one just started firing. Briggs pulled a pin and lobbed it into the nearest group of 3 big’s, they just when sky high. I could tell, at least 2 of them had there legs blown off. We went driven down that hill, man Ramirez was screaming at the top of his lungs, at these things. They were just getting mowed down by the 50 cal.

The place seemed ok, we didn’t encounter anymore resistance. So we started to load onto the vessel when we heard’em. Out of the sky, giant U-shaped dropships started to land. I heard Griggs say, “oh Hell no!” as he walked over and picked up a rocket launcher. That’s when one of them landed and troops started to jump out, when I heard the pumf of the rocket, and seen the smoke trail. Half the people were off when it hit, the thing lurched and ran smack into another one, they collided and an explosion I have never seen before happened, but there were still 5 more of them. Troops started to run at us, I seen Griggs fire the remainder rockets, and load another, but there were too many to take out. Ramirez ran out, just to get shot twice in the chest; he stopped where he was running and looked down. Just to see to needles protruding from his chest, after 2 seconds, they exploded that just tore his chest apart. Griggs was yelling to Rose to get the ship going, that’s when I saw her, Kane ran out, holding two MA5B’s and just going fully auto. She took down about 3 enemies when I saw it hit hurt, 5 plasma shots to the back, I turn just to see a head exploded of a big one. Jenkins ran and got behind some cover. That’s when we all saw it, a big one plated in gold it look like. He pulled out the sword and started to run at Jenkins, he didn’t see it coming. Before any of us could react Jenkins was lifted off the ground and held by the neck. The thing seemed to speak to him, before it stuck its sword in his chest. But I heard plainly Jenkins yell, “how about you die!” and with that, pulled out his pistol and stuck it right in the bottom part of the things jaw. The thing crumpled and all of them just seem to back off. Me and Briggs grabbed Jenkins and pulled him on board. As we were pulling him on board, one of them got a lucky shot and hit me in my stomach. We finally got on board; I grabbed some biofoam, and squirted it into my wound, which sealed it for now. Briggs ran and got strapped in the co-pilots seat. I sat there holding Jenkins in my arms, he looked up at me and said, “sir, can you…….can…you……tell my brother….tell him I died bravely…..” I just looked down in surprise, and said, “Boy, there is no need in telling him, because you did fight bravely, you saved the lives of this whole team, you saved mine more.” And with that he smiled one last time before the shine in his eyes disappeared……

Last Stand: Prologue P-3
July 24, 2545

System:// ERROR
Planet:// ERROR

I slowly shut Jenkins eyes. We didn’t even strap in when Rose yelled, “Sir, we got inbounds, victor alpha-six!” “Corporal, do we have any armaments in this shuttle?” we had only 5 mines, we fought all through that planet, lost soldiers, to only get killed in a shuttle. That’s when we heard the explosions; we quickly changed to rear camera feed, and saw UNSC Long Sword fighters shooting down the seraphs. Over the FLEET COM, someone said, “This is UNSC task force B6, I’m Admiral Nevins.” Rose spoke over the COMM, “Sir, you a sight for sore eyes, the Covenant took the planet; we are all that is left.” They gave us permission to board, the second we did, we went into slipspace. The next thing I knew I woke up in an infirmary. Nevins surprised me when he entered; I quickly stood, not expecting to feel the stab of pain in my stomach. He said, “At ease soldier, I am surprised you’re even able to stand with a wound like that.” “Well Sir, I am more worried about my Team.” “There alright, there mending, one is already in a cryochamber.” I knew what was coming next, he said he already got the stories from the others; he was waiting for me to recover. We were heading to Earth; ONI was still trying to collect data on the Covenant. We were finally on are way home, not to a welcoming committee, but to something.

Last Stand: CH-1
April 24, 2552

System: // Sol
Planet: // Earth
4-24-2552

It has been 7 years since that day. I guess brass only hand out pat on the backs when ever you barely survive an encounter with the Covenant and live to tell them what you saw. All I got was a promotion, now I am a Lieutenant. Of course seeing I survived, they put me in a training facility. But I like it here, I got my friends. Griggs is the weapon instructor; he is a master sergeant now. And then we got Rose teaching more students to be Pelican and ShortSword pilots.

The Covenant have pushed us all the way back to Earth, even though we still haven’t been found, there is still the chance someone might slip up. Now, I teach the classes on telling the difference between the Covenants. Most of the new marines get a little scared when we start talking about the big guys, hunters. Glad I didn’t see any back then; things would have been tough, even Spartans have trouble with them, even though none have died yet. Plus they have been using new species in there armada; Buggers, brutes, and jackals. With all these things, and fire power, im surprised that I even survived that day.

It was about 12:00 p.m. GMT, nice day to take a drive I guessed, decided to go see what Griggs was up to. Drove around the base, marines running, can hear the racket of BR55HP SR’s in the distance. Im glad Songnam came up with some new weapons. The M7 sub machine gun, and the standard BR55HB SR, they also came with a new laser firing weapon; Griggs nearly shit himself when he tested it out. The MAV M6 GGNR or what the technicals call it, SPARTAN LASER. Plus they shipped out some new heavy weapons, LAU-65D/SGM-151 missile pod and the AIE-486H HMG. Thinking about firing one of those babies nearly made me crash into another warthog. Then I noticed I was at the firing range.

Griggs was always as he was, powerfully built like a line backer, some boot got a little cocky and thought he would try and play “tackle the teacher” kid ended up in the hospital with a broken arm and leg. After that the boots stopped messing with him. I then I heard a sniper come to life, saw a scrawny kid holding it, aiming down range in prone. Griggs walked over, “I thought you were teaching today?” “I decided to visit.”
With that he smiled and gave me a pat on the back and said, “You up for a little target practice?” I laughed and said, “I don’t want to embarrass you in front of the boots.” And with that he picked up a Battle Rifle, I guess it was on. But before we could even put a bullet down range, we heard an explosion, some boot quickly pointed at the sky.

UNSC frigate class came speeding through the atmosphere, leaving a long thick cloud of smoke and fire. That’s when we saw them, even though it was blue as day, hundreds of ships. That’s when we started to see the explosions….that’s when I knew……the Covenant had found Earth.

Last Stand: CH-2
April 24, 2552

System: // Sole
Planet: // Earth
4-24-2552

Not even 60 seconds did me and Griggs start barking orders. Griggs told his assistant to get all weapon information and how much ammo we had. I called Rose and told her to get hornets up to start patrolling and to have pelicans ready for movement.
With in 5 minutes we had the schematics, 250 boots, 50 LRV/LAAV, 25 LRV/LAAV GC, 20 mongooses, 10 scorpion tanks, 30 hornets, and 15 pelicans. Griggs voice chirped over the radio, “Sir, were getting a distress call from the crashed frigate, call sign “Hercules.” He said, “Their requesting help on all channels, what should we do?” “Just tell them were on the way, tell them get ready for a hard pick up, and to have a weapons and vehicle count.” “Roger that.”

The frigate lost pretty much all weapon caches, save for 50 MA5Cs, and 25 M7s. The vehicle side was a little better, 10 warthogs, and 2 scorpion tanks. Of a crew of 225, only 75 made it, 25 needed medical attentions. Apparently they took a plasma torpedo in the left engine, came fast out of orbit. From satellite images, most of the Covenant was over in Africa. It was around 5 a.m. when we saw something come out of the sky, 15 Covenant Phantoms came gliding down. The Covenant was stupid enough to come in with out fighter support. The ShortSwords made quick work of them. With that small victory, it gave the men hope, but Griggs, Rose, and I knew better. When the Covenant found you, they either fought to the death or glass the planet.

Last Stand: CH-3
April 26, 2552

System: // Sol
Planet: // Earth
4-26-2552

After 2 days, a covenant ship came from the sky. It started to unload troops about 50 klicks away. Not long after it start doing that, another frigate came through the sky, a UNSC frigate, this one wasn’t damaged, we made contact for a short time, before it unload a salvo of archer missiles and MAC round the paths were wrong they were going to miss the covenant ship. But they didn’t the seemed to hit something invisible beside the ship. At that second, me and Griggs watched as a massive plasma explosion erupted near the covenant ship. It shields flicker and die. We watch as the plasma scorched the land under it, the other covenant ship shot a plasma torpedo at the frigate and we watch it make a fast right turn only to make it half way before 85% of its hull was a melting slag.

Before we lost contact with the UNSC Newton, we got a message over the radio, “…roger….base…took…out…repeat again…one frigate destroyed…other weakened…most of the…the…invasion force destroyed….still….have…sizable…force…on approaching…from…the north……we…will.try…and…send………” that was all until there was nothing but static. The north was a foolish way to go, mountains and dense forests, but the covenant could just burn through it. I started barking orders to have 2 scorpions and 25 warthogs ready 2 hours. Needed 200 men for the op, we were going to try and fight where the enemy could barely see.

It was getting dark; we had 10 hornets and 2 pelicans for air support, 20 warthogs MG, 5 warthogs GC, and 2 scorpion tanks. The scorpions were in the mountains with camouflage netting over them. I was in a wart hog, up near the forest, when we saw a blue blob in the sky; with me were my warthog driver and gunner, then another warthog. The second I yelled, “get us out of here it’s a trap!” the other warthog exploded in a fire ball of blue plasma and orange flames; our warthog turn and fish tailed out of there. The second we did, covenant ghost, came bolting from the tree line, the covenant banshees cam zipping over the forest from no where. I got the head set on and yelled over the machine gun fire, “fighter group A, we need air support being tail by covenant ghosts and banshees, over,” “roger alpha 1, air support will be there soon.” As we were driving by the mountains, I saw the scorpions open up with their cannons; I turned to see a ghost burst into a fireball, flipping end over end. I stop hearing machine gun fire, so I turn and look at the gunner, so see him having a shock of amazement on his face looking down; I saw he was shot squarely in the chest, the round burned through leaving a hole through his torso. That is when he leaned to the right and fell out of the warthog. Knew if we did get that gun going again we would die, I didn’t think I just jump over the top and gripped the gun and unloaded on a ghost trailing us. I got a lucky shot off, because there was a blue flame erupting from the left side of it, and the whole left side start burning blue. It went on for a few more seconds then crashed in a blue fireball. There still ghost and banshees following us, that when is aw a banshee shoot one of its fuel bombs, I yelled to the driver, “watch out!” he turned at the right second because the bomb blew up at where we were going to be at. I looked up at it again, as I saw a rocket streak over us and exploded right where the fuel rod cannons were. The banshee burned green, then blue, and then it just vanished. The hornets started opening up with 50mm machine guns and start launching rockets, the ghost turned and started to retreat, the last banshee fired a fuel rod bomb at us, I saw it streak past me then I saw a blinding green light. Then I felt myself get ripped form the turret and thrown to the ground. I couldn’t hear anything, I try to get up but I couldn’t, I turned my head to see the warthog flipped, and the front right of it was gone, what as left of the front was ablaze. I looked closer to see my driver dead, half his body was gone. Then I saw a pelican fly over, and then I blinked and opened my eyes again to see a medic over me. I blinked again I was on a stretcher and the sky was moving, then all I saw was a pelican drop bay roof. I closed my eyes and I saw Jenkins, then everything went black.

Last Stand: CH-4
4-27-2552

System: // Sol
Planet: // Earth
4-27-2552

“We got to inbounds, victor 3, 500 yards and closing. Banshee class fighters!” I jerked upwards. The noticed I was in a pelican drop bay. The first person I saw was a medic, a staff sergeant. Before I could ask what was going on, I felt one of the engines explode. Then I heard the pilot scream over the radio, “right engine out, losing altitude. Pelican 3 to base, we are going down, I repeat we are going down!” then I saw Griggs walk up and tell the medic brace for impact; he picked me up and strapped me into a seat. Right when he strapped in, I felt the pelican scrapped against something, probably trees. But it only lasted a minute before we start breaking through them. Then I felt something rip off I turned around to see the drop bay door gone, out in the dawn sky I saw a black smoke trail. Then I felt the pelican hit the ground, the last thing I saw was an explosion.

I woke with a throbbing pain in my rib cage and felt like searing pain in my head. I looked around to see my seat had been ripped from the pelican. I was about 100 feet from it; I unbuckled myself and staggered slowly over to it. As I walked, I saw one of the marines who were in the drop bay with me….it was bad…the kid was ripped in half…I kept on walking until I saw Griggs on the ground. I walked over to him and felt his pulse, it was steady, and ok so he was alive. I found the medic, she was alive, I woke her up. The first thing she said to me was, “Sir, are you ok?” “Yes sergeant I am, are you?” even though I was lying, I had a broke rib and a cracked skull, “once you check yourself go get Griggs up, and start looking for survivors.” She replied, “Sir, yes sir.” She wearily got up and moved towards Griggs. I got to the pelican, there were to more bodies, one was alive…the other was impaled by a titanium piece of metal. I dragged the body out, this one was a PFC. a boot, lucky him I guess. I noticed there were foot prints leading away the crash sight. Then my radio crackled to life, “does anyone read me?” I replied, “yes this is Lt. McRiley, who are you?” “Sir, Im corporal Kane, I’ll be right there.”

Griggs and the medic walked up, after they did, I boot came running up with a sniper rifle. I turned to Griggs and said, “Go check for any weapons or supplies that survived the crash.” I turned to the medic, “get all the medical equipment you can carry, and check on sleeping beauty over there, and what is your name?” “SSGT. Marlow, Sir.” “Ok well get to your duties.” I turned to Kane, the started thinking, didn’t Kane use to have a son…..and he looked about the age if he grew up. Kane must have read my mind cause he said, “Sir, you served with my mom in the past…im glad I could finally meet you.” “Damn I didn’t know that you joined.” “Yes sir I did….sir, do you hear that?” I turned an looked to sky, and in the distance I saw a phantom in bound, probably looking for survivors, yelled to everyone, “EVERYONE GET TO SOME COVER!” I saw Marlow trying to drag the boots body I yelled at her, “leave him; they should think his body is dead if he doesn’t wake up.” I saw her look at me like I was crazy, she ran off to the woods with her SMG, I said to Kane over the radio, “if anyone starts to go near him, put a round through there head. We were all hidden when the phantom came in and dropped off 5 grunts and 2 elites.

Then everything went bad. The boot started to wake up…one of the elites saw him and started to walk up to where he was. He stopped right before him; the boot raised his head slightly. The elite raised his plasma rifle, and then time just seemed to stop.

Last Stand: CH-5
4-27-2552

System: // Sol
Planets: // Earth
4-27-2552

There was a crack of sniper rifle round, but 3 seconds before, the elites head exploded into a white skull and blue bloody mist. Every covenant turned to see the blue armored elite crumple to the ground. Before the red armored elite could even react, a round went through its left eye. The grunts went into what they usually go into when ever there are no elites around. They ran around like chickens with there heads cut off, I saw Griggs easily pick them off with his battle rifle.

After we hid the bodies, we moved out into the forest farther for some cover. When we were about a klick away from the crash site, we set up a small camp. I started talking to Griggs, he said there was a warthog attached to the pelican before we got shot down, he also said the pilot dropped it so it wouldn’t get too badly damaged. So it was about 3 klicks southeast from where we were now. At day break we would move.

We could have called in for a pick up, but all the radios, except for the one in the warthog, were damaged in the crash. As we hiked I found out the boots name that almost got him killed. He was PFC. Garnet; he was a mechanic and was currently taking flight training. I started talking to Kane, he joined the UNSC second he could, and he was spotted at basic for his exceptional marksman skill, graduated with top marks in force recon.

We were about half a klick away from the warthog when we heard a ghost inbound. I told Kane to take a look, and if possible take it out; all he gave me was a smile. We watched him start climbing a tree, then he disappeared to where we couldn’t see him, we looked toward where the noise was coming from. About 2 minutes later we saw a blue fireball in the distance, and then Kane started climbing down. When he got to the bottom, he turned and looked at me, smiled and said, “Threat eliminated Sir.”

We got to the wart hog with no further trouble, when we got there we found it flipped and a tire busted. Garnet easily fixed the tire, we found out the radio antenna broke off, and so the radio was practically useless unless you were 500 yards away. We loaded up with Kane in passenger, me driving; Griggs on the machine gun, and Garnet and Marlow laying in the back getting some rest. I hit the ignition and started to drive north.

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