Halo: A Soldier's Story

Hell level 3 loading.....

"Oh man up" I joked

He took out the ball from his jacket pocket and threw it to me "It belongs to my little brother, he on reach now because of the war breaking out" Mark started. He took a long pause and looked up into the sky, letting the snow the fall against his face and melt from his body heat, making it almost seem like he was crying and they were his tears. "When the Covenant first attacked, my family had been told evacuate, when we got the shelter that would take us to the larger ships leaving the planet, it was incredibly crowded." Mark stopped again and inhaled deeply.

"When we got near the front, they manage to squeeze me and my brother on board one of the evacuation ships that was leaving then, but it couldn't fit my parents onto it. I told them I would take care of my brother, and we would be waiting for them in the planetary evacuation ship.

After we had left the town, I had been looking at the town we had left from a window on the cramped ship when I saw a flash of light in the distance. Then another and another. I later found out that within a few minutes of our departure, the town was attacked and completely destroyed, They said if we had left 7 minutes later we wouldn't have made it either.

He finally looked down from the sky and water ran down his face from the melted snow, but I knew were real tears mixed in there too.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. I had never had a real family, and I could never imagine the bond he had forged with them and the pain he must have felt to have it shattered like that; suddenly and with no way to repair it.

"My brother's name is Piccolo."

"So Mark and Piccolo Fratello," I said aloud "I guess have heard worse last names" I joked

"Looks who is talking Mr. Seth Chitan-te, " he said starting to relax and cheer up "At least I don't have a dash in my name."

"Hey, for all I know my last could be something normal like Ebanks or Wilson, that's just the name I was given by the orphanage I grew up in, you are stuck with that last name forever" I joked while throwing the ball back to him.

"You don't know your real last name?" he asked while placing the ball back in his pocket

"Nope they didn't have my real birth certificate and don't have a middle name either, never bother getting one when didn't even have a real last one, but hey, at least I got a pretty cool first name," I replied

"Hmm," he said to his while scratching his chin

Just then I heard the sound of warthog engine speeding toward us. I looked at the massive gates, but the noise was coming from the opposite direction. Then the jeep came into sight. It was Sergeant Forge's personal warthog, I could tell it easily by the custom paint, and it was the only warthog I had seen on Harvest with a gauss cannon attached it.

I remember studying about the gauss cannon while training, from what I could remember it fired a small projectile at speeds of about Mach 40 or 13,600 meters per second and the force and energy created by it moving at such high speeds cause it to be an incredibly destructive weapon, easily penetrating most armored targets, from what I heard 3 or 4 shots would destroy even tanks.

I saw Forge manning the gun while the warthog raced toward the base. This gate was on the opposite side on which we had arrived and fought to retake the base, and I'm glad we attacked from the other side too. This side path to the base was a long and wide path that was between two snow cliffs. This made it so if you wanted to get in the base there was no cover you could you to hide you have to walk straight up to gate where you would be seen from about least 75 yards away and that was only if the snow was falling heavy. On a clear day, that number could easily be tripled.