Halo: The Search

Chapter 14

September 7th, 2552
(Covenant Elite) "Multiple ODST, advancing from the upper left hill!" Our home was being destroyed. The humans pushed us back every time we set up defenses to hold back wave after wave. At this point, we were hiding behind teepee after teepee until they were blown apart, forcing us to move back more.

I shot aimlessly into clouds of smoke, where human gunfire was coming out; Explosions came from everywhere. Left to right, my allies would fall. They'd be blown up or bullets would eat them away until they dropped.

I peeked around my tenth teepee, hoping it wouldn't be my last and saw only human gunfire flying across the air. I realized I was the only one standing my ground. Everyone else around me was dead or had run away. I chucked a plasma grenade at a brave group of soldiers, who were charging through the smoke and then took my leave, sprinting away.

Teepees around me soaked up damage while people shot at me. My shields began to dwindle, bullets hitting me every so often.
I ran around as many teepees as possible to keep myself from taking too much damage and soon reached the end of my hometown. I found a lone ghost twenty feet away from me and booked it.

A rocket slammed into the ghost, bursting it into a ball of orange and blue fire. I shielded my face from flying parts and dove into a crater in the ground.

An ODST was holding a rocket launcher with both his hands and stood menacingly on the war torn battlefield, searching for any signs of life.

I wanted to charge from cover and attempt to slay the beast but I knew it'd be suicide. After one last glance for bodies, the ODST turned and walked away. I let out a long drawn out breath. If I were to survive, I'd have to wait out the humans, stay here until they left or find another vehicle.

Being impatient, I turned on my camouflage, sneaking around in hopes of escaping.
My hopes were quickly met by another ghost. This time I was able to get on it and speed out. A couple humans noticed me but I became a lost cause, getting farther and farther away.

1 Day Later

The lost battle had not been kind to me. No friendly outpost was under a day's journey and what's to say the humans haven't swept other outposts, now that they'd know we were set up on other areas on this planet?

Finally, I arrived at what could hopefully be my new home. An elite was waiting for me and I approached him wearily.

"One of the survivors from the attack?" I nodded slowly, surprised that he addressed me as if there were more survivors.

"Follow me." He turned and walked at a casual pace throughout this town. Instead of teepees, every building was made of wood or stone. A forest was all that covered the horizon and behind me were grassy plains along with rolling hills. This area felt a bit nicer compared to my last dwelling place.

In the heart of this area was the town hall: An oak wood, rectangular structure, supported by a cobblestone frame around the bottom. We walked through a set of plain oak doors and I was surprised at what I saw.

My allies sat there tiredly. At least thirty elites had made it out of the battle and one grunt. It hurt knowing this was probably all that was left out of the hundreds we had but I had thought I was the only one, which would of been worse news.

A fellow elite approached me and kneeled bowing his head. "It's good to see you Commander." I looked down in confusion at the minor.

"Commander...?" The elite stood up and looked at me sorrowfully.

"Indeed. We found the commander murdered in his quarters. You're the runner-up for his position." My mandibles were open wide in shock as I tried to process this information.