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An pissed ODST, not a figure one, alien or human should underestimate. You had to be a dare devil to drop from space in a HUV, and you sure as hell had to be crazy to try what he did. Luck. It was as if four leave clovers dangled from him. Or a simple case of sixth sense that seemed to come with years of experiance, training, and joining up with one of the most demanding military positions.

The figure continued moving across the field of fire. Brutes. They're spikers came down but yet Winter was already upon the first. Pushing the seconds shots in front of his 'brother'. Yet if the Brute had killed its own there would have been an end for Winter. The first fell to a magnum round into its unarmored jaw, its monkey like face stood stiff, blood drooping of its mouth. It wasn't ready for such a reaction. Its fellow chieftain had met its end. Now it had.

Now luck ran out, and the Brute's brother charged. Its knuckles bursting through the grass, teeth snapping at the air. ******** Winter found himself within the air. Toppling to the ground, pain curling within his gut. Ribs, were they broken? Pain.. s**t.

The brute readied for another lunge at its fallen victim. It thought he was the dying elk and he was a lion. Sadly this elk had something flashy. A silver mass. Bullets cracked off from his magnum. Shell after shell hammered into the creature body. They bounced sadly against it. Its unstoppable force charging at him. s**t!

The last two rounds worked their wonders. The lucky duo smashing through the beasts eye and forehead. Sending the creatures massive weight against the fallen warrior. In pain he looked at the gray mass. Squashing him like some bug. The half ton weight was simply to much..

With a heave the creature rolled, how? Using every ounce of strength the creatures pressure upon his lungs relaxed, his bones and arms bruised felt themselves lifted. Yet.. There was still that jackle. That simple single jackel.

Winter's hands groped within blind pain for that single plasma pistol. The round whizzed through the air. Grazing the creatures neck. The second was much like the first. Yet.. Luck returned. Third luck was truly the charm.

The green plasma orb smashed through the creatures bird like face. Melting through it evaporating its now useless brain.

Finally. The bout was over.

"Broken rib. Bruised body. Sir, your one hell of a lucky man." Emma announced.

The man brought the right injection to him, through the port upon his hip within his airtight suit the needle brought its wonderful fluids into his body.

Pain.. It started to drift away. Energy moved into his veins.

Winter flipped the COM. "This is Sergeant Winter. I have Richard. I have a few broken ribs and just got a brute corpse on me but hell. We'll tuff it. That AA battery will be down as scheduled."

With that he flipped the COM away. Turning towards the soldier he moved towards him. Bio foam was plastered against the man's armored chest.

"Lets move soldier. We have work to do."

Bravo lead was down? So much for playing it safe. The kid had seemed charged in the past few days. It was as if he was determined to kill anything alien in sight. That strategy wasn't good for a soldier. Perhaps Karr had lost sight in the fact that he was still a human. Or maybe he was something more? After all, Hammer had rather suddenly become a Spartan, and he did appear to favor the good Warrant officer.

CAPT. Lee's message came through the com channel loud and clear, Lipton lifted his eyes from the forest to check the orbital imagery of the crash site. The AA was still up so there wouldn't be any getting in close.

"Negative Captain, the hostile AA is still operational. I can't move in until it's down. Vector FIVE FIVE out."

The Pelican banked slowly once more as it cast a long shadow over the tree tops. Beneath the shadows of the alien trees Blue team moved silently and quickly towards the location of a recent battle. They stopped to examine the tracks and determined that at least one Human had been here and made it out alive. Although the number of Brute corpses was small, they all knew that there would be no way that a regular marine would be able to pull something like this off again. They needed to find this survivor and fast. The four man ODST fireteam jogged on through the forest undergrowth.

Back at the crash site Gold team had made no progress.

[Gold team to Vector FIVE FIVE, no survivors at Charlie EIGHT TWO crash site. Repeat, no survivors. Request pickup.]

Lipton heard the call and replied.

"Copy that Gold team, sit tight."

The Pelican banked once more as it turned back toward the crash site of Mitchell's Pelican. It settled down about twenty meters from the crash itself, and the crew chief covered the ODSTs with the mounted gun as they entered. There was no hostile resistance, but it never hurt to be absolutely sure. Once all members of the team were aboard, the Pelican's engines roared and sent the craft back into the air.

One team had come up empty handed, Lipton sincerely hoped that the other team would not do the same. They would leave no man behind.

Richard stirred and the awoke sharpley, vision blurred and bloody. Then finally everything came into focus and he saw his commanders wounds. "s**t sir, Im sorry, if that one chieftan hadnt interfered... *sigh* if you want a court martial I'll understand" He said keeping Pace with his commander. "What happened while I was out? did their reinforcements come or something?" Richard coming to that thought of seeing his commanders wounds now looked to survey his. Two broken knuckles, and a cracked rib, the rib would really slow him down, the knuckles werent really important except for aiming. 'Damn' he thought as he was picking up a brute shot and two plasma grenades ' I really ******** up, I cant even begin to imagine what commanders thinking'

( Human or Covie sniper rifle?...Ill make it the S2AM)
Richard surprised by his commanders willingness to stay focused did exactly what hesaid, he hauled a**. Well in Richard condition it seemed like hauling a**. After about one and a half minutes he arrived and searched for the rifle and found it, it was the older version but it would work. Richard had a pretty good shot, only a few point away from passing sniper school. As much as Richard wanted, he didnt have his ghilly suit so he found a well camoflauged spot and waited. Finally the Brute gunner came into his scope and richard aimed. CRACK! Richard watched as the Brute's face exploded in a spray of blood and brains. 'Yup, I still got it' The he Picked up the Brute Shot and without the help of his left hand leaned it on the ridge and fired until every clip was gone. He got six confirmed hits with it, and alot of double hits. Richard watched as a group of four grunts, three jackals and a single bute aproached the frest. He aimed. CRACK! The brute's body fell liflessly to the ground. at the same time the grunts ran wild and the jackals fruitlessly tried to keep order. He took out his assault rifle and steadied it on the ridge and used it like his highschool teacher told him they did almost 700 years before, like a belt fed machine gun. He killed all but one grunt and let it run back to report about the ghostly killer. ' I hope I'm giving the commander enough time' he said while changing to a different location with a similar layout fifty feet away. Now four of the 6 brutes left charged with 14 grunts and 6 jackals in a tight formation. as they closed in, phalanx formation he lobbed a plasma grenade into the center where the brutes were and his two frags outside of the formation to get maximum causualties. The plasma stuck to the Leader of the Brutes, a captian, causeing the rest to scatter into his frag grenades' range. The plasma grenade exploded in a falsh of Blue and purple, killing two unwary brutes, the stuck bute, and 3 jackals. The grunts went crazy huddling around the range of his frags which exploded 2 seconds later. The ground was soaked with bluish pueple blood and two thirds of the battle groups bodies. Richard thought he caught a glimpse of Winters but he heard a roar behind him. He slowly turned around with his last plasma in hand to find a Brute chieftan with a hammer in its claws. He pressed the button and threw it at the brute, then jumped off the ridge, catching aglimpse of the brute chieftan trying to swat the blue glowing grenade away. Richard smiled, Now all he had to do was kill the grunts and snipe off enough of the party by the AA wraith. He was getting promoted very soon.

The distress call from both of the Marines reached V55 and Lipton. He forwarded the call to Blue team and motioned for King to move the bird in the direction indicated by the distress beacon. When they arrived on scene Blue team had already taken defensive positions in the tree line and were laying shots into an encroaching Covenant party. The ground was littered with the corpses of Grunts, Jackals, and Brutes. None of the ODST operators had been hit. Blue three used a SRS99D-S2AM rifle with the finesse of an artist and all the brute force of a Spartan. Hell, the Spartans were just like a four man team of ODSTs, that's all. The Pelican banked low and raked the hills with missile fire. Explosions billowed up and sent corpses flying. The rear hatch opened and the crew chief, CWO North opened fire with the AIE-486H that was attached to the cabin. The fifty caliber rounds tore through the forest and shredded trees, knocking down anything in their path. It was a deeply satisfying sight.

In front of the Pelican was the site of a crashed Hornet. There were three human bodies, only two seemed to be corpses, while one of them moved a little. There were four or five Brutes either living or otherwise nearby. They couldn't swerve in time for North to hit them with the AIE-486H HMG so they unloaded with the missile pods attached to each engine nacelle. The Pelican shuddered slightly as the small but powerful missiles fired. They made contact with the Brutes and blew them to hell. The Pelican set down as Gold team hopped out the back to secure the survivor and cover Blue Team's retreat.

Once everyone was aboard, the bird lifted off again and headed back for the 105th's designated LZ. They had received no word from the 301st as to the status of the Covenant AA, so they couldn't risk entering the area. The human forces had already lost several Pelicans, which was just s**t luck when compared to the Elites, who hadn't lost a single vehicle yet. Then again, it was their technology and they knew what they were doing. On their way to the 105th LZ they passed over the Elite encampment. They had not established a ground base, as they were confident that they would win in space. He was almost positive that they would. From what he had seen, the separatist ships were beating the tar out of Truth's fleet.

Major Lipton sat in the cockpit, in the raised co-pilot's seat just behind the pilot. He scanned the COM channels when he received a direct order from Commander Miranda Keyes. Technically he was operating independently of her unit, but she was a superior officer and had control of the combined human forces on the Ark at the moment, so he was inclined to listen.

Vector FIVE FIVE this is Forward Unto Dawn, do you copy?

Lipton replied casually.

"Dawn, this is Vector FIVE FIVE, we're reading you loud and clear, over."

Vector FIVE FIVE, there is a structure approximately seven klicks from your position. We don't know what it is, but 343 Guilty Spark suggested that it might be a map room or library of some sort. If the Ark operates like the Halo rings, we'll need an index to make it work. Recon the structure and retrieve the index if possible. Keyes out.

Lipton grabbed the COM and replied. While Hammer might not like his decision, orders were orders, and there were plenty of ODSTs operating under Hammer's command for their plan to work.

"Roger that ma'am. Vector FIVE FIVE enroute to objective now. Vector FIVE FIVE out."

The pelican banked hard right as it turned toward the coordinates sent by the Dawn. The small human craft was soon enveloped by an immense storm. Lipton knew they might drop out of contact with the 301st so he keyed the COM.

"Vector FIVE FIVE to Wasp, we've received priority orders from Dawn, will be unable to render assistance should it arise. Yankee ONE THREE, Echo FOUR TWO ZERO, and Romeo ZERO SIX will be on station."

With that last message, They entered the storm. The cockpit went dark and CAPT. Brown flew with his instruments. The small plane was tossed this way and that in the unstable air, and lightning illuminated the occupants with a triumphant clash. Lipton was forced to brace himself repeatedly as they traveled through the turbulence. Finally, they neared the edge of the massive storm after what seemed like hours of flight time. In actuality it had been only a few minutes, but the clouds had been thick with moisture and sand, plastering the Pelican in a decidedly muddy wash.

They emerged into a massive basin, covered with sand dunes as far as the eye could see. In the center of what appeared to be a massive eye in the storm was a single tower. One which rose to a height unparalleled to anything built by human hands. It stood alone in the empty waste, drawing all focus upon its weathered exterior. The Pelican gained altitude sharply as they ascended to what seemed to be the heavens, attempting to reach the top. The climb was steep but they reached the summit with ease. As the Pelican turned to deposit the ODSTs within, Lipton hopped down from the human bird and stared at the glowing doors. He frowned and walked forward. The squad with him brought the wounded man, who had been identified as Cpl. James Mitchell the MIA Marine from Charlie EIGHT TWO. Their medic had stopped all of the bleeding and was caring to his wounds with all the attentiveness of a mother worried for her injured child.

He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as he approached the glowing shielded doors. With curiosity he placed a hand on the shimmering air, it passed through the glowing wall. He withdrew his hand and hit the wall with the but of his M6G. The blow was repulsed with a slight buzz. Apparently they would not allow force to get through. He shrugged and stepped through. His body tingled as he passed through the alien barricade and entered what seemed to be a cathedral. The ceiling sloped upwards until it peaked at what seemed like two hundred feet. He walked into the center of the structure and glanced down. He was standing on a window that revealed a cavernous structure of equal size below. He felt a slight tinge of vertigo and drew his eyes upwards until they rested on a golden hologram the size of the Pelican hovering outside. He watched as symbols pulsed along its surface, flowing about its skin. There was an intense flash from the eye and his vision went black.

The Brutes, a herd of fast moving Goliaths followed. Stampeding through the earth. Only four it sounded. Ye enough to give Winter trouble. So close turning around would simply give him death. By giving his position. It had been a dumb move. The AA had been one and just a single one. Such a great congregation of them?

These four must have been the last. The forward patrol, standing guard and watching over the once green plasma filled sky. And now they were raining spiker shells all around him.

Grenades were few. Three plasma, their weight pulled off his body had been the cost for the AA tank. There was a single fragmentation grenade. For later time. Armed with simple sidearms the man pushed deeper into the denser forest. Faster, faster, yet the Brutes did to. With it all the pain of the rib returned. Bouncing against his heaving chest. Making every breathe sharp and painful.

A round came from behind. It stung, the metal rod flying through his side. Sending him flying through the air. Momentum pushing him into the earth. From the hole blood leaked. The soldier panted to himself. Footsteps, loud and thumping came forward. A grizzly hand picking the small figure from the earth.

"Pitiful human." The Brute snarled, mangled human speech spouting from its mouth.

A knife came down, splitting through the wrist of the Brute. A last effort. A last stand. The Brute shoot itself away from the figure, the blade came back and a last throw brought it into the beasts neck. It fell to the ground. Grasping its little throat. Blood spilling from it. Purple red washing over the grassy ground.

Yet there were three more. Moving to his sidearm he readied to pull the trigger. It was to late. Spiker rounds took him to the chest leaving a useless round into the sky above. Eight of them, that was what he counted. Punctured organs. Blood foaming at the mouth.

Choking the salty taste of blood the soldier flicked on the COM. "Good luck boys."

His vital land slided.

Chemicals filled his body. The Brutes turned kept on. Moving through the grass.