"My pod left the pack." His allies are in the distance. "I'm behind enemy lines."

"Don't feel bad mate, I fell onto a wraith, then there were a bunch of brutes," Milo said cheerfully, "Tell me where you are I'll adjust and head your way."

After Hales pod smashes down farther away from the others on a large hill over looking a covenant AA Site. several Plasma cannons and plasma turrets fire at passing by pelicans and UNSC drop pods."All green here" Hale says as he looks through his 99C-S2 scope "Got eyes on Covenant AA.. Anyone near my location?" he says as he sees drop ships land and drop off grunts,elites,brutes,besides them a neat pile of fuel containers. In a split second the pile erupts into flames from Hales round hitting them. engulfing many of the covenant in the flames.

Rose grunts as a single plasma shot zips it's way past her shoulder, and opens fire at the jackal who did it. The jackal quickly succumbs to the bullets. As a trio more grunts enter the area, and Rose thinks that she'd have to retreat, she hears the all-to-familiar sound of a warthog passing through intersection. The gunner of the vehicle immediately reacted to the presence of the hostile Covenant in the area. A second after the gunner brings his gun to bear, the covenant all flopped onto the ground, dead. Once the hostiles were dead, Rose gave a wave to the warthog as thanks, and it drove off. "Right, time to find my squad." She clicked on the COM. "My area is secure, if you men wanna regroup here. Or should I come to you guys?" She transmitted a marker onto her squadmate's HUDs to where her location was, then hopped down from the balcony and sprinted over to the center of the intersection, where there was a lot of cover. She then began to sweep the area for any more hostiles.

Hales hears Rose over the Com and follows her Beacon "This Is hale on the way." he says as he moves from his location as several jackals have realized where he is.

"Rose, we'll head your way. We should all regroup there. Then we go for Samuel, who's behind the enemy lines, and will find it a hard push to regroup with us, over?" Zack said into his comm. "Right, let's get there, Nathan" Zack said, looking through his helmet at his squad mate next to him. "Go!" He shouted, throwing another frag grenade, and firing short bursts of fire to hopefully pin down whatever could been shooting back. "Heading to you now, Rose. Don't go without us" Zack said into the comm link again.

Samuel strambles through the streets, trying to find a safe place to hide. He hears gunshots in the distance. The area where Samuel landed, has been cleared out by the Covenant. The streets are filled with human corpses, with an occasional Unggoy here and there.

Steven Briggs was having a bad day.

The steering controls of his orbital drop pod had shorted on him halfway to the target zone, leaving him totally powerless over his direction of descent. Furthermore, as the land below him grew bigger, he couldn't help but notice there was a whole Covenant welcome party waiting for him.

He didn't have much faith in pitting his M7 SMG against droves of Grunts and their Brute overseers, not when they had two plasma tanks trawling around behind them. Then again, even without those purple mammoths pounding him into dust, a single Brute would probably be enough to tear his spine from his back.

Though Briggs did have plenty of faith in the Lord Above.

"Get me out of this Jesus, and I promise I wont ever gamble at cards again," he muttered to himself, as he braced for the inevitable impact.

Something struck the drop pod, sending the grizzled Medic off at a sharp sideways angle. The world shot past below him, but it also grew nearer; the controls, perhaps awakened by whatever had hit his pod, lurched to life.

"DANGER, DANGER, DANGER, FATAL TRAJECTORY DETECTED," boomed the feminine voice of Briggs' very own angel of death.

"No shi- I mean, yeah, thanks," replied Briggs, trying to keep his brain from blacking out on him as the pod rocketed across the landscape.

---

Men were screaming all around. Rifles were blazing at an increasing rate, physically shaking the ground below his aching back. A shadowy figure stood over him, looking down, shouting something.

"What?"

"I said, are you OKAY!?"

Briggs dragged himself up. His body ached at inch-long intervals, and his head felt like it had gotten the worst of a sledge hammer's rage.

"Where am I?" He asked, wiping his eyes in an attempt to clear the blurriness.

"New Mombasa, Sir."

"Sir? Who's in charge here?"

"You are, Sir."

Briggs' vision finally focused, along with his muffled hearing, and he found himself staring at the young, sombre face of a woman. He couldn't see any rank insignia on her, and so presumed she was a Private with either the Army or the UNSCMC.

"Where's my helmet, Private?" He asked, gauging his surroundings. She handed it to him in short order. "Thank you kindly. I don't suppose you've seen the rest of my flock, have you?"

"They scattered around grid H-17," she replied; she flinched as a plasma bolt exploded some yards away.

"Where are we?" he asked, kneeling down to retrieve his M7.

"G-17 sir, a click west," she said, showing him the geographical display on her tablet.

"Ooh-rah," Briggs said with a smile. "Get the men ready, we're moving out on my command."

As Hale hides in what remains of an office building over looking a Covenant controlled section of city "This Is hale to all UNSC forces within the city be advised of of major enemy air and armor in the business district moving on to the residential district recommend extreme caution ." he says over the radio as he watches three scarabs lumber off flanked by dozens of wraith flanking them with many ghosts riding ahead. above them between the remains of office buildings fly several squadrons of banshees thinking quickly hale goes onto company coms "This call sign over-watch in position at grid F-15 any friendly's in the area?"

Zack takes a moment to stop and listen to Hale as he reports in. "I'm heading towards Rose, over? That's where we should all go. Re-group is key. We can't take these Covenant forces alone" Zack said, and continued his jog towards Rose. He'd much rather be in number right now, with what had just been reported over the comm link. "We got anything to handle that enemy air? I don't think my SMG will cut it" Zack asked as he took cover from enemy fire.

The Covenant were tacking over a few buildings, using them to dig in. They were setting up gun emplacements, and were becoming a hard to remove pest.