Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [61]
All dirt, he thought.
Like Earth.
From there, they would throw everything they had at the Covenant if they were found. Even if he had to throw the last rock himself. He’d made a promise.
They would make the Covenant pay for every inch of dirt, the rookie thought to himself.
ACHERON-VII
_____________________
It’s barren here
the air chokes; on dust and smoke
the ground cracks; surrendering to the heat
It’s lonely here
with only the dead as company,
but anymore, this has become his closest companion;
death
There was once a purpose to all of this;
a specific design
Soldiers sent forth in the name of retribution
In their path; an alien covenant
vast in number
ardent in their belief
Now, but one stands
Only one; survivor
His friends taken by conflict
Their adversaries delivered unto
Alone now, he treks the wastelands
cut off; stranded
Knowing somewhere above;
Out and beyond
His brothers, his sisters, continue to struggle
Continue to fight, to die;
to strive
A million stars between here and home
A million enemies; more
Yet here he stands, ever vigilant
And here he’ll stay;
A lone warrior, on a desolate plain
HEADHUNTERS
* * *
JONATHAN GOFF
ONE
_______________
BLOOD, BULLETS, AND ADRENALINE
* * *
“Hey!”
The word just hung there for an instant as Jonah gave his motion sensor a second glance.
“I got one,” the excitement in his hushed voice unmistakable.
“You sure?” Roland had just about enough of false alarms.
“Pretty sure,” Jonah shot back.
There was a split second when the world came to a complete stop—silent and unmoving.
“Nope—yeah, I’m sure,” Jonah confirmed.
If he was right, and Roland desperately hoped he was, then it would be the first contact with enemy forces since their insertion into the field some six days prior. In that time the pair had covered twenty-three miles, at times moving at a snail’s pace as they crept ever closer to their target.
“This is fun,” Jonah concluded, the excitement in his voice escalating.
“It’s about to be, anyway.” Roland had never much enjoyed this part of the job—the sneaking around, the long days and hours spent maintaining absolute cover while maneuvering behind, through, and between enemy lines—but what came after, the blood, bullets, and adrenaline, that he enjoyed quite a bit, maybe as much as Jonah, though probably not. Jonah had the added benefit of loving every minute in the field. Not just the combat, but the whole ordeal, from insertion into each new alien hotspot to the postcarnage report back at home base—whether he was facedown in the mud and muck for twelve hours straight, silently sliding his custom combat knife across a Sangheili throat, or recounting the bloodshed wrought by the muffled rhythm of his M7S submachine gun, Jonah loved it all—every single second of life as one of the elite, as one of the UNSC’s top-tier Covenant killers.
TO HUMANITY at large, Jonah, Roland, and their fellow Spartan-IIIs were ghosts, their missions and movements deemed highly classified—top secret. Their very existence was known only by a select few, and while their brothers and sisters in the Spartan-II program earned glory and unwavering respect as they fought and died against the Covenant, the IIIs fought, and most certainly died, with only the recognition and admiration of their fellow secret warriors as their reward—for the Spartan-IIIs, however, as with the IIs, this was more than enough. Though created under comparable, yet varied circumstances, the two forces shared one very similar mind-set: Duty first. Loyalty second. In the Spartan mind petty vices such as fame simply did not register. There was no need for the galaxy-wide adulation of the masses reveling in their many brutal victories over the Covenant. Nor did they want the sympathies and pity of anyone outside their close-knit circle when they were confronted by defeat—by death. This secrecy helped bond each Spartan-III