Halo: A Soldier's Story

Interior Defense

"This is Forge; we've been ambushed at the Relic site! I'm pinned down with Anders, we're taking heavy losses, we need reinforcements now!" Sgt. Forge yelled into the com repeating his plea for help into the comm system.

"Sergeant, Alpha Base won't be able to respond in time, we've got Grizzlies inbound from Spirit of Fire, hold on down there" I heard voice reply over the radio

"Ah, Grizzly tanks. Forge's pet project" Anders said from her crouched position next to me

"What the heck is a Grizzly?" I asked while ducking to avoid plasma fire

"You will see" Anders replied, "Now hand me a gun."

"What?"

"Gun" she repeated

"Umm ok," I said I unholstering my pistol and handing it to her before poking my head out to survey the situation

Though we were still being outnumbered by the Covenant their tactic of standing out in the open and shooting at us left them with high losses.

"Keep the pressure on " I heard Forge yell

The Covenant weren't able to get a single inch of ground. We were like a well-oiled machine; as one group needed to stop to reload another group would lay down suppressive fire.

The Covenant were forced to stop trying to advance and take cover on the other side of the bridge.

This, however, meant the battle turned into a stalemate with each side not able get a clear shot.

"Reloading" I yelled as crouched behind my little section of wall. After reloading, there were only 4 mags left which would quickly disappear if I fired for full auto for even half a minute.

"Reloading" I heard someone else yell. I quickly moved from my cover and starting firing to keep the pressure on the covenant. Every knew if we let them come across the bridge we were done for.

"We are running low on ammo here were is that backup"I heard forge yell into the intercom."

"Almost there Forge" the same voice from earlier replied

Holding my breath, I scanned the other side of the bridge for an even a semi-clear shot instead of just shooting suppressive fire and wasting ammo.

As another soldier yelled reloading a elite jump from behind its cover and prepared to through a plasma grenade. Knowing it would take a full magazine to even bring its shield down as this range; I instead to aim for the elites arm to it drops the grenade and hopefully blows its self up.

That was the plan anyway. What actually happened was I missed almost every shot and the grenade came flying overhead.

"Grenade" I yelled as scrambled to the side forcefully pushing Anders along with me to ensure she was not hurt by the explosion.

Lucky my warning came quick enough and everyone seemed to move out the way quick enough to not die from the grenade. Unfortunately, that meant most of us had stopped shooting across the bridge and the elites used the opportunity to charge across the bridge.

By the time I got back into firing position, there were half a dozen elites half way across the bridge.

We all opened fire quickly taking down the first two and dropping the shield's of a the third but then sound you never want to hear in a fight sounded all around me. Click Click.

At least half of us including me needed to reload. Most switched to their secondary arm and kept firing but I already gave my pistol to Anders so I had no choice to try and reload as quickly as possible.

By the time I was fully reload another two elites had died but the last two elites were steps from us and those who had switched to their pistol and run out of those bullets from that too and had no choice but to reload.

I emptied my clip into the first elite that came across and with the help of a few other Marines brought it down before hurt anyone but the other and shot elite jumped across and smacked a marine right off of the bridge into the abyss below and killed another Marine a with a neddler before it was taken down for good.

There was no time celebrate however as we had to turn our attention back the bridge to ensure another group didn't charge across.

"I've got men down, where are those reinforcements?"

Reloading my last magazine the person on the intercoms answer was blocked out by my own thoughts. 3 days. I had survived the hell of war for 3 days.

I smiled. By far my the most productive three days of my life. Half a clip. Met some great people, killed some bastard aliens. 10 rounds left. At least, I would be leaving this hell for a more peaceful one soon. Empty.

'BOOM'