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We stalled out then, crouched in the brush with our backs to each other for a full field of range until a TTR grenade bounced into our midst and scattered us.

Another hungry, cold night on the mountain.

Then they taught us squad tactics, pairing us up with another fireteam.

With each fireteam leapfrogging the other, we got most of the way up the mountain. But leaving the forest as it petered out high in the mountain’s crag, we fell under ambush by snipers dug in at the top.

We lost most of the other fireteam, who’d been on point, to TTR fire. Felicia, Kiko, Mason, and I had hit the snow and mud and opened fire back. We were the only team that had gotten that far.

“Any ideas?” Felicia asked. With enemy behind us in the woods, and in front of us buried in, and most of our ammo gone, we had seconds to make a decision.

“We’ll never be able to charge them. We need sniper rifles,” I said.

“Trainers have those.”

“Exactly. And they’re coming for us.” I pointed back down the slope.

We backed down the muddy snow into the tree line. “Play dead,” Kiko whispered. “Get down in the mud right on the edge of the tree line with all the others who got hit.”

It would only ever work once, but we sprawled ourselves stiffly out in the mud.

As our pursuers broke cautiously out into the open we ambushed them. I took special glee in hitting O’Reilly almost point-blank in the chest as he approached me.

We relieved them of their sniper rifles.

Mason got hit in the leg while we moved about, trying to get a bead on the trainers at the top, but Kiko and Felicia got off two good shots.

I ran ahead and threw TTR grenades into the areas from which we’d been fired on, flushing out the instructors, and Kilo and Felicia got two of the three.

The last trainer shot me in the arm, a stunning shot done on the run with his sniper rifle, but I gunned him down with the MA5B before he could try it again.

And just like that, we’d taken the top of the mountain.

“Nice.” Felicia slapped my shoulder. We’d all been hit by TTR rounds, but we limped our way to the very top and shouted loud enough to hear our echoes return from the mountain over; our hot, exhausted breath steaming from our mouths into the cold air.

A Pelican appeared, flaring out to land in the clearing at the top of the mountain. Snow swirled out from under the backwash of its engines, and a craggy-faced gunnery sergeant stepped out, as well as a number of corporals.

He didn’t even look at us. “Get everyone up, now!” he ordered the corporals.

They were off, tapping armor with electronic wands to unfreeze it.

Something wasn’t right. There was a strangeness to the hurry they did it with. And what the hell was a gunnery sergeant doing talking to us in the middle of a training session?

We all gathered around the gunny, lining up as we’d been trained. He nodded. “Is this everyone?”

A quick head count confirmed that this was everyone.

“Good. At ease. You’ve all been out here in the wilderness training hard, but I’ve been sent to let you know your training is going to be accelerated.”

The instructors frowned, and we all shifted.

“Much of this information has been classified, and between the ONI and the Navy types, this is what we can tell you: We have made first contact with an intelligent alien civilization.”

A gasp rose at hearing those words. Some of us reflexively looked up into the sky. First contact!

The gunnery sergeant continued, cool as ice. “We know that standard protocols were followed. And that things didn’t go well. Our ships were attacked by alien beings referred to as the Covenant. Before destroying our ships they claimed our destruction was the will of their gods, and that they were the instrument. It seems to be an act of war. As of today the UNSC is on full alert. The Colonial Military has been officially disbanded, all remaining units are officially being pulled in and reassigned and retrained. And we’re ramping up training here, because we have a feeling we’re going to need all the recruits we can get.

“These aliens are for real. They’ve already taken,