Halo 1. Chapter 1

May, 13, 2552 Personal journal of 1st Lt Ronan Crisp

Dropping From 3000 feet is one hell of a ride. The indisputable screech, once you hit low orbit, sounds so similar to that of the Moa bird. With that sound you know that in only a few short seconds you'll crash into the ground and hear that distinct sound of death and carnage all around you. It's funny to think that this could be my last jump into Hell. I could be dead in such a short time. Not getting the chance to tell my beloved Allice that I love her so. What a hell of a birthday present.

-Ronan Crisp-

March, 11, 2550

Walking through the gates of camp Warsong, on my home planet Reach, is one of the most exhilarating moments that a marine could ever experience in his life. It's crazy I just about lost my breath when my foot hit the rough concrete that leads inward. I stopped suddenly and took a look around to get the full picture. Frank, my closest and oldest friend, grabbed my shoulder as he walked past me.

"Come on Ronan if you don't move your ass than we'll be late for roll call."

"Alright, alright I'm movin."

We jogged over to the huge line of ODST hopefuls and stood in line waiting to see what our first day would be like. Once all of the trainees were in line and quiet a gruff looking major came over with a clipboard and started shouting names.

"Aman, Curtus!"

"Here!"

"Crashaw, Bentley!"

"Here!"

"Crisp, Ronan!"

"Here!"

The Major went through more names that I didn't catch until he came to a tall boy who with completely black hair and green eyes he wasn't very impressive, but he did have certain features that the opposite sex could potentially find attractive.

"Weaver, Scott! Where on earth did you get the most common name of the human race, Scott!

"My mother gave me the name major! It was my grandpops!"

"You will NEVER address me as major you will always address as sir. And you will put sir before and after every fugging phrase that comes out of your whore dog mouth! Do you understand me!?"

"Yes!"

"I didn't hear you! You motherless whore!"

"Sir yes, sir!"

"Now that's better! Hall, Micheal!"

"Here!"

The Major went through a hell of a lot of names. Till he came to a pair of brothers, not looking anything a like except for their distinct dark brown almost black hair and the dark brown eyes.

"Placeres, Kane!"

"Here!"

"Placeres, Martinez!"

"Here!"

"Oh goody we have a set of brothers in this god forsaken battalion!"

"Sir Yes, sir!" They said in unison.

"I swear by the Holy Ghost and God himself that if either of you causes any sort of trouble dicking around in my company I'll personally shoot both of you in your small Cuban asses! Do you understand me?"

"Sir Yes, sir!"

It had been damn near two hours in that blazing sun not moving a single muscle. I was half asleep when a shot went into the air. The entire battalion jumped four feet in the air and their skins twice as high. I spun every which direction looking for the source of the gunshot. I finally caught eye of the smoking barrel of an SMG. It was in the hand of the major, who would've guessed? He yelled one word into the air and not a single man in the whole eight-hundred man group missed.

"RUN!"

We didn't jog or run for two more hours, we sprinted every which way fallowing each man in front, trying to pass so you could be further away from the crazy psychopath with the gun. If you fell behind, you had two choices: get shot in the ass and kicked out of the battalion or sprint faster. By the end of this hellish pace, at least fifteen miles per hour, there were only a total of 200 or so half dead guys left in the whole group. The major walk in front of us, not missing a stride or breathing heavy, and yelled.

"TENSHAN!"

Every last man snapped to the upright position and waited for the next horrifying event we'd have to face in this hell hole. The major turned toward us and said.

"Well, well, well. Not all of you SOBs are dead yet. Pity I was hoping I'd get out of four months of looking at your ugly ass faces. Now any one of sufficient rank step forward."

Only about 20 or so of the remaining boys stepped forward, including me seeing as I was a NCO, a Sergeant First Class to be exact, he then proceeded to separate each of us into 24 squads of eight, Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Int, and Jig each squad was given their own barracks and a box of manuals for the SOEIV's (Single Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicle), which is the vehicle in which and ODST rides to Hell in. I was in charge of Charlie Squad. I guess that meant I was supposed to lead my squad out of this hell hole at the top of the company.

"Ah hell you boys are doom, you'll never make it out of here." He chuckled at this "Report back to this exact position at 0400 on the dot. With Chapters 1 through 6 read and memorized. You have survived the first day which is a hell of a lot more than the sorry ass marines with holes in their asses! Dismissed!"

"Sir yes sir!"

We all waited till we lost sight of him and wait a few minutes more. I turned towards Frank and asked.

"So do you think it's safe to leave now?"

He shook his head, laughed and headed for the barracks. We entered are new home and took a look at our new brothers. I noticed a few boys from earlier. I walked up to the big burly guy who was as tall as he was wide, with brown hair and eyes. He was sitting on his bunk picking his teeth with a small pocket knife. I walked up to him and extended my hand.

"Hey there bud my names Ronan and this is Frank."

He shook our hands in turn and said.

"Hey there my names Micheal I'm from the planet Harvest"

"Nice to meet you Micheal. How long you been in the corps?"

"I've been a marine for three years. What about you two?"

"Well we both enlisted at the same time on Reach I'd say about two years ago."

"No shit Reach is one hell of a place did you two grow up here?"

"Yep we've been almost brothers since the day we were born."

"No kidding. Hey I got to get bunk ready for inspection I'll bug you two later. Ight?"

"Okay, see you later."

Frank and I look for a set of bunks near each other when we heard a commotion and turned to see what was happening. We turned and looked to see the bigger brother, holding the younger one in a head lock and giving him a nogie. Honestly it was kind of funny. We walked up to them to introduce ourselves

.

"Hey there, my names Ronan and this is Frank."

Still holding his brother in one arm he held out his hand to shake.

"Hey there my name is Kane and this is my little brother Martinez."

Martinez still in the headlock held out his hand laughingly.

"So where do you to hale from and how long you been in the corps?"

"Frank and I Came from the planet Reach as for being in the corps we joined about two years ago. What about you two"

"Well I've been in the corps for four years and this little shit has been tagging around for about a year. As for where we came from we were born on planet Harvest."

"Nice so what you guys arguing about?"

"This little shit wants the bottom bunk, but I get it."

We burst out laughing at what was such a stupid argument. We then left the brothers to settle their little dispute. We looked again for a couple of bunks. We turned and looked at two guys playing a game of poker before taps. We walked up to them asked how much it was to get in a round. We sat down and played a couple of rounds before I decided to ask the usual questions. The skinny one answered for them.

"Well my name is Curtus and this is Buck. Anyways we came from a small training camp on earth nothing to fancy."

We stayed and played while Curtus talked and talked about life and his girl back home. Boy this kid could talk. I don't think he shut up for at least an hour. Finally we bid ado and walked away. We saw a couple of bunks on top of each other so we headed that way. When we got to the bunks we threw our stuff on them. I had top naturally because I could move more easily than Frank. We looked over and saw a Bentley lying on his bunk reading a book. He was about 5' 10" and 186 pounds. He had brown hair and brown eyes. Just as I was about to ask his name and so forth when Taps went over the megaphones and the lights went out. We all crawled into our seabags and fell asleep to wait for the next day's horrors.


	2. Chapter 2

March, 25, 2552

Dear: Mom

It's been so long since I've had time to write. We've jump into "Hell" to many times to count. The covey bastards are hell to fight. It's as if once you kill an army and turn around to take a breather you get stabbed in the back by an elite. Thank you very much for the cookies you sent to me they were very delicious. It's been a hell of a long time since I got to sink my teeth in to a circle of sugary goodness. Also Thank you so much for the coffee from the farm I REALLY missed that stuff.

Your loving son,

Frank

March, 29, 2550

It's been a couple of weeks since we set foot on the soil of boot camp or as the boys call it "Hell Camp". Crazy to think we've been here three weeks and we have done nothing but drills, drills, and more drills. We haven't even set eye on a single weapon we might shoot except that of the SMG in which the major terrorizes us with on our unbearable runs. I swear we run at least fifteen miles a day. As I sat down next to Frank on his bunk I reached up onto mine and grouped for a package. When my fingers finally ran over the smooth edge of a beautiful combat knife I picked it up gently to be sure not to cut myself and handed it over to Frank. He looked at me confused as I put it in his hand.

"What's this?"

"It's your eighteenth birthday present dumbass. I would have given it to you four days ago, but I couldn't quite get it from the armory as soon as I had planned."

"Don't tell me you stole this."

He took the knife and turned it over in his hand gazing at it. It was a black bladed K-Bar over a hundred years old and yet still in pristine condition. It had a leather handle and an absolutely perfect balance point to it as if it were made to be thrown. The blade looked almost new the only place you could see that had any wear on it was a scar that etched in the left side of the blade that ran about an inch or two down the length of the blade.

"I wouldn't use those exact words, but me taking it was less than legal."

"Hahaha! You're a crazy sonofabitch Ronan. Thanks a lot man. I know how difficult this was to get."

"Ah hell, it was no trouble at all. With a little bit of chloroform and you can do just about anything in this joint."

"That's funny right there bud."

We sat there for a bit not talking just letting the little bit of time that we have between drills and mess duty go by silently. I could see Frank was about to say something when the bell rang, that meant it was mess time. We pulled ourselves up sluggishly and looked around. Frank took on last look at the blade before he slid it under his pillow and we moseyed over to the kitchen. We entered the hall and put on the sticky plastic garment that all the boys had to wear when on mess duty. Surprising enough the initial run wasn't as fast as it usually was. Since it was slow we were able to sit back every time the cook turned his back to us. We didn't do much until all the food was served and everyone had eaten except the officers. As a Coronel walk up the line we sprang to our feet and to serve him. It was the first time we had ever seen this high of rank in the mess. In fact he was probably the highest rank we had ever seen in our short military carries.

"Hey boys what's for dinner?"

"Nothing Special sir." I said "Just the regular pork and beans."

"Hi, my name is Col. Eric Blackson."

He was nothing to look at in my standards he was I'd say five feet six inches, with muddy brown hair, and eyes to match his eye had a look that makes one think of death. It was almost as if he'd seen so many people die at once. Sad really.

"Hello sir. I'm Ronan and this is Frank. What brings you to our humble abode?"

"I'm here to take a look at the boys that survived this long in boot."

"You don't say. What type of boys you looking for?"

"Ones with a wild eye like mine." He chuckled at that.

It was kind of creepy the way he laughed after that last phrase. It makes me think that he was planning to make a suicide squad. 

The Coronel left that night and we never heard from him again. Oh yes we heard the stories about how and if he died. There was a few like him being killed by some rebels back on harvest or the one about him losing an entire platoon to a single squad of elites, but in turn he was able to effectively destroy an entire armada of covy birds. Who the hell can you tell with all the scuttle bucket that goes around now a days.

A couple of hours after mess the lovely Major decided we were getting a bit lazy, at oh I'd say three A.M., so he decided to take us on a run up mount Torock in the Highland mountains. Which was only about a mile off base, he ran us up Torock 5 miles up and 5 miles down. As we ran up the hill I started to chant a little bit, Frank soon joined in, than Buck and Curtus, as well as Bentley the words flowed out of our mouths.

"We fall upon the risers."

"We fall upon the grass."

"We never land upon or feet, we always hit our ass."

"Hidey Tidy, Christ almighty who the hell are we?"

"Zip, zam, Goddamn we're O.D.S.T.!"

The major stopped and stared at us as we kept running up the hill with a smirk on his face he could see that we were slightly turning into ODST's. He took a moment to see how my little squad was doing. When we reach our point of stopping he ran to the front and said

"You have two minutes to get a quick breath and a swig of water and then we're sprinting down. No lolly gagging. Or I'll shoot you in the ass. Understood?"

"Sir yes sir." We said in unison.

As we sat breathless I rallied up the boys and told them to take a seat. I looked into each of the eyes and knew that I had their attention. Even though they were half out of it from the cold and the running. I knew that they would do exactly as I told them to.

"We're going to be the first one down this god forsaken hill. Got it?"

Each one nodded as my eyes passed over them once more. Not a sign of doubt that we weren't going to the be the first ones down was in their eyes. I guess the good old major decided to be nice for once and let us take a few more minutes to breathe when he sent out the command to fall back down the hill. I reached down to Frank grabbed his hand and pulled him up. Than we each moved on to some else in the squad and pulled them up.

Once every one in the squad was on their feet, well kind of, I waved my hand and started to trudge down the hill. I told Frank to take up the rear and that I would take the lead. There were a few other squads in front of us, so I told the boys that we were double timing it. Just as it started to rain the numbness started to set in and so everything on from that point was nothing but a blur. There was no way of telling that we were a whole mile in front of the rest of the squad.

We kept running and we didn't stop for anything. We sped up the pace for the last four miles. The only time that the pace was any different was in the beginning when we were passing the other squads. We were half way through the camp when I finally noticed we didn't have to run any more. I slowly staggered to a stop and looked behind me to see how the squad was doing. They were all physically and mentally exhausted. Curtus came up to me and asked.

"So Sarge are we allowed to head out to get cleaned up or what."

All I could manage was to shake my head no.

"Why's that boss?"

"Cause I'd rather not have my ass chewed when the major runs in to the barracks to find us all asleep instead of standing in at roll."

"Ah hell, fine."

We sat down and waited for around 15 minutes for the rest of the company to show up. Finally the major jogged in to camp and approached me.

"I'm shocked that you were able to make those chubby bastards move their asses that fast. Also if I'm not mistaken I do believe you just set the record or going up and down Torock."

"You got to be kidding me. I know we moved fast, but to set a record goddamn."

"Now don't get all mushy on me boy, but yes you led your men to their fullest potential and in all honesty that ain't and easy thing to do. Gr… well done boy."

That was the last thing he told me until the day he died. It's funny I was the only one in the entire company that he said something positive to their face about and he never talked to me directly after that day. Who could tell what was going through his mind through the years. He was a crazy SOB and I guess I'll miss him. Oh well what you going to do with that.


	3. Chapter 3

April, 5, 2552

Dear: Ally

It was wonderful to hear from you for my birthday. How long has it been since the marines have let the mail come in so the boys could get a taste of home? If only home was still around to be tasted. These bastards will never understand that we thrive on our letters from home.

Love,

Micheal

April, 8, 2550

We woke up with the sound of yelling, some sad sap from Beta had a mental breakdown so they drug him away. We never saw him again. The major decided to run us up and down Mount Torock. The more times that we ran up that hill it seemed to get easier and easier as or muscles grew stronger and leaner. All I could tell was that I was never getting out of here. We are here for at least another month, but I've lost track and I don't really care. It's kind of grown on me believe it or not, the runs up the hill have given me time to think on what will happen in the future, and wouldn't you know it I haven't got shit. Oh well what are you going to do, right?

On this particular run I decided to let the boys take it easier than the usual pace. We allowed one of the more persistent squads move up. It was Delta; the squad that we were one day going to be assigned with. The leader was a man named Konrad Hoch. I had heard stories about this particular man. He was well known for his mouth, but with that same mouth he could inspire men to do many things that lesser men could not. The only funny thing was he was older than every other man in the company except for the fine major. From what I hear he is either twenty-seven or twenty-six, not quite sure. All I know is that he is old and probably a crazy old man. With a stout body type with a whopping height of five feet seven inches. Weighing about one-ninety and he had one of his front teeth that I think got broken when he was young, but he told everyone he was in a brawl about two years back and out it went, so his whole squad and most of the rest of the camp decided to call him "Toothless". As he passed us he yelled down.

"You boys are getting slow. You actually let someone take lead for once! Ha you're getting lazy Ronan."

I looked over and I saw that scowl that Frank got every time some joker decided to dis him or anyone he traveled with. I looked back at the rest of the boys, each one with a scowl on their face deeper than the last. Except Bentley, he kinda had a smile on his face, a look of pure readiness and willing to break both legs just to get past that cocky SOB. When our eyes met he nodded at me and quickly sped his pace. I swept my eyes swiftly over each man once more as my eyes reached them they all nodded and took another step faster than the last. Finally my eyes met Frank's and he raised his hand and let out a bellowed.

"Let's show them Delta boys who the fastest SOBs in this mother loving company are!"

That was all the motivation the squad needed to speed their feet tenfold. We quickly caught up to Toothless and overcame him like a cheetah on a gazelle back on the home world of Earth. Each one of the boys shoved the boys in Delta making them stagger, and slow. No one dare touch Konrad, for he was their "superior"(as rank is concerned), but as I past him I slapped the back of his head and yelled down at him.

"So you think Charlie has slowed down hmm? We'll beat you to Hell and back anytime, anywhere!"

We sprinted up to the top of the hill and turned on our heels. Nothing was going to stop us from showing those Delta boys who was the boss of camp Warsong. We owned this camp it was ours and no was going to say anything about it. We passed Konrad and Delta and smacked, shoved and hit each one of them as we passed them still on their way up. We sprinted faster down the mountain than we ever had before. We reached the bottom at a dead sprint. I slid to a stop right in front of the major and an important general. I snapped straight to attention, salute and full, without breaking a stride my boys fell in as one, all saluting as if one entity. The general put us at ease. I caught a glimpse at his name tag; it was David "Duke" Richard, he was a highly decorated solider. I believe he was one of the Earths advisors at the time.

"Sir Charlie squad reporting."

"Sir this is Sergeant Ronan, the Non Com of Charlie squad."

The General extended his hand towards me. It took me a minute to realize the he wanted to shake my hand. I was sweaty from the run so I wiped my hand on my trousers and gripped his hand. He had a grip like iron, we took on quick shake and released.

"It an honor to meet you sir. Sir Major Sir we finished our run and are awaiting further orders?"

"General these boys from Charlie squad have set the fastest speed this camp has seen since it was first established."

By this time the Delta came rolling in out of breath and staggering, they wobbled to attention just as the General eased them. Konrad gave me a look of pure hatred, as if I had killed his first born child or something it was downright hilarious, the major dismissed us and told us to pack our seabags and cause we were moving out towards a new encampment for some special training and evaluation.

This was our first time dealing with weapons we had have when first stepping through the gate of Warsong. The trucks took as about thirty miles east towards the firing range that. Which believe it or not the Spartans of the S-11 program used, the driver told us that if we were lucky we might even get to see one or two of the Spartans and would be Spartans.

The drive was slow and not very exciting. Curtus and Buck were talking to Bentley and Micheal about the time they had stolen a car from an old man down the street from them. Frank and Kane were telling stories of the girls that they had been with. We passed through forested area where a couple of the boys from earth saw and were interested on the wild life there, but that was it. As we went on we hit a rough patch of rocks and as we went over them Buck fell out of his seat and hit the floor of the truck with a loud thud. We all laughed at him as he picked himself up. Just as he sat we hit another bump that sent him right back onto the floor. We all sent a second burst of laughter out at him and as he was picking himself up his face changed from a pale tan to a deep crimson red. Curtus tried to comfort him, but he was still laughing too hard to say anything so Buck punched him in the arm and sent him away and he sat there glaring at all of us as we sped our way down the road.

We finally slid to a stop in front of an old rusty pair of gates. The major was there waiting for us which was weird because we had left before him. He yelled at all the squad leaders to get all the men out of the truck and in line for briefing. We all jumped, skipped and ran to the line and waited for what the major had to say. He strolled in front of us until everyone was out of the trucks and in line waiting for his holy command. Finally he turned and started to give us a speech on how we will not scorn the record of this range by shooting ourselves or shooting each other in the asses. After one of his more entertaining speeches he led us through the gates and to a bunk house. He told us that for the next six weeks we would be staying here and learning and qualifying in every weapon that the UNSC has to offer, including some of the Covenant weapons. We all grew jittery with the chance of shooting stiff, as the major continued to talk. The major came to a close he led us to the armory to retrieve our first weapon the MA5 Assault Rifle, or the AR for short. We each were handed one rifle, and when we each had one in hand the major turned to us and told us one thing.

"Now repeat after me. This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will... My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit... My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my world and all her colonies. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is Humanities and there is no enemy, but peace!"

We looked at him and then at each other for a brief second and recited the creed in which was inscribed on the back of our eyelids since day one of our enlistment. We did not miss a single world, syllable, letter, or period. We all spoke as one entity there was no mistake we had learned this to be the truth, the only truth. For if we did not learn this one truth than we would be androids that were made to kill. Truth is what makes a solider human and effective at what they do. Once peace was said by the whole squad and the look of approval was on the face of the Major, which I might add is the most terrifying look any of us had ever seen in our lives; it was kind of a twisted look of pleasure maybe like Mr. Hyde form that old book. We were escorted to our new homes by a young Sergeant Major who over all was a decent man, although he didn't say much except to put our bunks and footlockers together for nightly inspection and then left. I don't recall ever seeing or hearing of him after that. Most likely went on living his life happily with his family.

Charlie Squad was stationed into its own small bunk labeled 5-C. As we strolled into our new "home" I dropped my bags on the top bunk closest to the door. Frank pushed me to the side and threw his heap of junk on the bunk just under mine. We had figured that since I was more agile and not quite as thick I would take the top bunk whenever we bunked together. Also it helped that the squad leaders were always at the front of the room next to the door so that he can get a better look on what's happening in his Bunkhouse. Once everyone had found a comfy spot in the bunk and was busy getting their small sections of privacy ready for inspection. The inspection came and went with little excitement. We were released for the night with the order to be up and ready for the first day of shooting practice by 0600 and with that I made a check of my squad to insure that they were either in bed or just about before I crawled in and shut my eyes for the night.

I woke up early at about 0430 the next day with a cold dew drop slipping off the rafters and directly on to my left cheek, and slowly started to get myself roused to wake up the boys. Before I was fully awake I slid off my bunk and dropped to the cold surface of the bunkhouse. Which was an unhappy way to wake up as my feet, which were still very warm form sleeping, hit the icy cold floor. I slowly made my way to the shower room so I could have it to myself for a few minutes before I had to wake up all the boys. I stumbled in to the showers for a quick refreshing and waking shower and then shuffled my way back into the main bunk to stir everyone up to prepare for the day of shooting. Frank was the first ready, after me, and set to making a small batch of home grown coffee his mom had sent him through the mail. Once the coffee had finished he handed me a cup as we waited for the rest of the squad to finish pulling on the rest of their assorted items.

The time was 0545 and we were all ready to move out, with our rifles in hand, towards the range for the first day of practice and evaluation. Through the next week the instructors would be testing all of our weapon capabilities and setting us towards the certain special weapons training that each one of us would receive in the short weeks we spent on the range. We made our way to the shooting range when we came across the boys of Delta. They seemed a bit more arrogant than the usual smack talk, even though they were rarely able to back it up. They decided to let them on the range first so that we could see how bad we had to do to still be on top. Each man we given 3 magazines for their rifles. Each one of us would fire a semi-auto magazine, a full automatic mag, and finally a timed precision magazine.

Delta shot their first round of shots with the average score being a 27/32; they continued to shoot just as bad as they had with the first magazine. With the fully automatic round the average score was around 20/32 and on the precision round the average was only slightly better than the last with it being around 23/32. As we sat there laughing at the Delta fail miserably at shooting just as they had with the daily runs. It was our turn to shoot now to show that we had better shots in Charlie than they had in Delta. We walked over to the ammo depot and picked up our three magazines and turned back towards the firing range. We each picked different shooting "stalls" and set up for the first round. We finished that round with an average of around 30/32, we swiftly moved on to the full automatic round and finished with an average of 27/32, and for the final round we showed amazing shooting with the average being of 31/32 shots hit. We out of all the squads we had one man who scored a perfect score of 96/96. We repeated this chain of events three more times and each time Curtus scored the perfect score. After the last round a Colonel and a Master Sergeant walked up to him and told him that he was being pulled from the squad for the remainder of the station at the firing range. He was being put into a special class for only the top shooters of the ODSTs. He and one member of Delta got chosen for the course.

The Delta boys name was James Farnsworth. He had a bit of an authority problem and disliked most of the members in his squad. But overall he was ok. Not bad looking considering he came from Earth he was about 6' 2" with dull blonde hair. He was a wise crack and seemed to get along with Toothless up to the point where he'd ask him to do certain things. When asked to do a job he found uninteresting or unpleasant he'd walk off and tell one of the younger more foolish guys in his squad to do it. So far every time the job is done quickly and to specifications so there have been no insubordination claims against him.

The two of them were taken out of the base to a new one which we the more average shooters weren't allowed to know where or even what the name of the place was and we were told right off the bat not to even ask, so we didn't. We let it be and didn't pick or probe at it any further. Besides we didn't have time to ask that many questions. The C.O.s was running us ragged with all the different weapons we could possibly use on the field of battle. Both the UNSC and Covenant weapons were being taught although they didn't go into depth with the Covy weapons as much as I had would have liked. We barely got to handle and become familiar with each weapon and was allowed to shoot only two of them, the Type-25 Directed Energy Rifle or more commonly referred to as the Plasma Rifle and Type-51 Carbine. Both of these weapons are plasma based and cause one heck of a burn on organic matter. We knew this because we each took a shot the corpse of a pig they brought up to the base. Man was that a nasty burn. The reason they decided to keep us from shooting every weapon was that we were stupid and unable to comprehend how to shoot such advanced technology, but in my opinion they were hogging all the ammo for their own personal enjoyment. We each took our turns with the covy rifles and laughed whenever we weren't up to bat. We all knew we looked silly firing the odd shaped and abnormally large weapons, but whenever someone let the weapon discharge right at their feet.

The day finished uneventfully except for when Frank, Michael, Kane and myself started the trek back to the bunkhouse we rounded the last corner just before reaching the door to our cozy house and Michael let out a scream that could break the sound barrier. We all scramble to figure out why Michael was screaming like a first year school girl. Michael had never seen the Óriás spiders on Reach before (which were 2 times the size of the Tarantulas on Earth and 6 times the size of the ones back on his planet Harvest. Little did any of us know but he was deathly afraid of all spiders especially ones that big. He had gained this fear after an encounter with his brother and one. His brother had strapped him down on his bed and dumped a bucket of spiders on top of him.) But his yell set it off. As it started to climb the wall to get away from the ear splitting shrieks Michael pulled out his knife and threw it at the spider. The blade flew through the air and landed with a loud THOLCK directly into the spider just as it was turning the corner to make its escape. He turned to us, still breathless from his powerful scream, with a look of wonder. We had all kept our faces straight mostly out of shock, but when he turned around we completely lost it. We all fell on the ground rolling with laughter. Kane finally pulled himself together enough to walk over to the spider and pull the knife out of it. He walked over to Michael handed him the knife still laughing at him.

About a week after that event the Warrant officers and Sergeants of the range gave one last final chance to qualify for a higher rifle skill which most of us took except for Curtus who was still absent from our ranks. All of us scored at least a little higher and were all proud of ourselves for being some of the best shots out of the company. In addition the finale qualifier they took us to a small barracks with small screens on them they told us this was our evaluation to decide what we were designed to do for the squad. It was simple enough, but with some really strange questions to them. I wasn't sure what half of them meant, but I filled them out as truthfully as I could possibly do. I believe that I impressed them for some reason. The minute we all finished the test we were shipped back out to Camp Warsong with no real explanation.

The following week we all got exciting news. We were heading out to do in depth training depending on what the test had revealed about what our specialties would be. First off Frank and Michael headed off to the machinegun range which they would learn how to fully use the weapon to its full potential. Since we all "knew" where Curtus went so we didn't worry much about him. Kane to much surprise was apparently was an expert pilot back on harvest. He had learned how to fly from his father who was a crop duster. When Martinez left his brother showed little sympathy and the only action he showed was a swift punch to the left arm and a kidding remark about not getting electrocuted. Martinez was headed off to the communications school. He had picked up most of the dialects of the worlds of Harvest and Reach. Bentley lugged his stuff off the field medic's station to learn the quick basics. He had taken multiple courses in medicine before enlisting. Scott scored a perfect score with Grenades and RPGs so the shipped him back to the range to become a Grenadier Warrant Officer. Buck didn't qualify for any specific range so he choose to head back down to the range with Michael, Frank, and Weaver(for some reason I've come to calling Scott "Weaver"). Once Frank reached the range once more in addition to going to the machine gun range he was ordered to the demolitions range to become the destructive expert in destroying everything. He was quiet ecstatic about it. Me on the other hand was told to stay put. I was being put through an extensive course in tactical maneuvers, a crash course in radio operations, map reading, inspirational speaking and motivation of soldiers.

Frank, Michael, Weaver, and Buck all mounted the truck to head back to the range for their special weapons training. Kane and Bentley mounted a different truck headed in the opposite direction towards the field hospital and airstrip where they would learn their skills. Martinez and myself stood by and waved to the rest of our squad as the pulled out. When both convoys of trucks crested the hills out of sight I slapped Martine on the back and we head back up the road to the center of camp. We reached the center and shook hands. We wouldn't be seeing each other for about two weeks. Both of us were a bit gittery seeing as we had spent the better part of two and a half months bunking in the same bunk and today we were to head to two different rows of tents to meet completely new people. People had the same brain processes as us.

As I walked to the row of some 350 tents that held all the would be leaders of squads of the 108th regiment of the 101st ODST's the I made my way to the E company section and to find a tent to rest my dead head in. I slid in between the flaps of the fourth tent down the line and took a look around asking.

"So is there any room for me to rest my head?"

A squat guy gestured for me to come on in and make myself at home. I threw my stuff on the furthest bunk to the back. I made sure I set up my little slice of home so that it looked nice and required little effort to set up for bunk inspections which were sure to happen. Once I was secure I moved over to the squat fella to say hi.

"Hey, names Ronan I'm out of C squad." I announced extending my hand first to the shorter guy and then to a taller guy. The shorter one spoke first.

"Well hey there the names Derick L. Reuain. I'm with Alpha." The boy seemed a bit too excited to be real, but I did sense that there was an under lining to this one and made sure to keep my eye on him. Then the bigger fella spoke with a deeper voice.

"The names Zerin, Zerin Stanton they pulled me out and designated me the head of Fox." Now this guy I knew would be an interesting one. His built just demanded you to sit up straight and listen to him, but it wasn't a fear thing it was more of an "I'm here to keep your ass out of trouble" sort of build. I nodded to Zerin and then turned my attention back to Derick.

"So Derick your last name is pretty unique. It's kinda funny almost sounds like rerun."

"Actually." He said with a slight blush "That's what my couches, friends and teachers called me."

"Say where are you from anyways?" I said indicating to both of them. This time Zerin spoke first and for both of them.

"Well we are both from Earth Recruited at the same time. About 2 years prior to now. We worked out of a small base camp in northern America. Never really talked." He spoke in sort of a nonchalant sort of manner, as if it didn't matter where he was from.

"No shit you're from America. I've always heard it was a nice place where you from exactly?" They almost seemed to tag team me with every question.

"I'm from the West coast and Zerin is from the opposite end of the continent near the East coast."

We continued to talk for a bit while cleaning our weapons, shining our boots, making sure our bunks were in neat arranged order. Then taps started to play and we headed off to the shower to get ready for a well needed rest.


	4. Chapter 4

May, 13, 2552 Personal Journal of 1st Lt Ronan Crisp

Life has been rough not much has happened here on reach, have heard the rumors that we could be dropping in on some rebels that have started to mess around with the wires and communications like back on harvest. I'm sure that we could handle such and easy deployment, but I think my boys are eager to get out to the field and start fighting in some real engagements. Against some highly qualified soldiers, not against militia that can be easily taken care of by the security members planet side. Man we always seem to get the crap duty right around the time of my birthday.

-Ronan Crisp-

May, 3, 2550

The two weeks had passed with relative ease. I had never had much difficult when it came to reading maps or setting up battle plans. When I was younger my brother and I used to stay up late and play chess along with old battle simulators our father had left at home. So most of the field problems they designed for us to complete I was usually at the head of Easy Company as their strategist. I was always positioning our men in such a way that I almost always engulfed the companies that we were up against. The only problem I had was when we were doing 2 squad maneuvers. I was working with Zerin against 2 squads from Bravo Company. The Sergeants names were Tennessee Dye and Paul Blethen. Those two were some of the best strategist in the entire regiment and to my enjoyment I got paired against them both. I was paired with a big Samoan kid from Earth, he was massive and powerful. He had a way of imposing his will on you without speaking a word. I think it might have been all the tribal tattoos that were strung across his body. His name was Tai Sandal and he may have not been the most powerful he could move his men forward with little trouble and he fallowed battle plans beautifully.

We were set up in a small grove of trees at first and our job was to capture an objective from a heavily fortified position. We had a total of 4 squads in total and I was in charge collecting the objective with minimal casualties. When me and Tai sat down to figure out how we would do the attack he suggested that we have two squads on the floor and two in reserve in the sky so that we could drop them on top of the enemy strong hold while they were distracted from the front. I pondered over it for a second and then built on it, instead of just having the attack come from the front I situated second squad towards the left flank. My plan was to attack them from the front with three heavy machine guns to make them believe our forces were towards the front of them and once they had either moved their men or they were distracted by the commotion I would send in second squad from the left and hit them form the extreme left hopefully catching them in the back. Then I would have the boys who were situated in the air to drop directly on top of them. A little towards the right side so that we could push them back and hopefully we could push them back far enough to get to the objective and pull out with minimal casualties.

Tai agreed that the plan held potential and we started to get our men in position for the prestrike. We decided Tai would start on the ground with the two squads and get them to where needed to be for the attack. He took both machine guns from the 2nd squad and slowly moved his squad towards what we decided to be the front which was the longest portion of the wall. Their base basically a triangle with buildings scattered around it and had boulders surrounding it. Towards the back of it where it narrowed to the point the boulders grew bigger and the spaces in between grew smaller and smaller to the point where they could only get one man in between them at a time and they had to squeeze through the gap. The boulders provided plenty of cover for Blethen's men, but it allowed us to push them back to the point that they would be bottle necked in the point with little time to avoid a quick strike.

Tai was set in position and had just received confirmation from the other squad that they were set up and waiting for his command to start the assault. Tai relayed his ready status to me on the jump deck and told me he was waiting for my command to strike. I was observing a heat sensor from above and saw that most of the heat was towards the back of the camp. Which was odd in its self, but then I realized that there was only have the amount of men in the camp then there should have been. After thinking on it for a couple of seconds I decided to give the order to start the attack on the base. Tai's men opened up promptly and the simulation was started. All the heat signatures started to move over to the front to defend it from the attack. I told Tai to send in second squad in 30 seconds. He confirmed the orders and then I headed towards my pod to prepare for the jump (since this was a simulation for some reason we knew how to jump perfectly without fail). 10 seconds after the orders were given all of my two squads were set up and I started the count down from 30. 5… 4… 3… 2…1. Launch! And we were off.

The frontal assault was going well with no casualties. From the left the boys of second squad had distracted them from the right which allowed the pods to drop in quickly and effectively without much notice. We now had them in a three way box and were pushing them back quickly towards the objective. We didn't let up, but then all of a sudden the missing men I had noticed on the heat projection seemed to come out of nowhere. They popped out of hole that were dug in the ground, out of trees, and from on top of buildings. Paul had known that we would have a heat sensor searching for his other two squads so he covered them under dirt and mud to hide their heat signatures. The battle was quickly turning to the favor of Paul and Tennessee. I decided that we needed to get to that objective and collect it at all cost. I grabbed two other boys and sprinted towards the objective. The bullets were kicking up dust all about me one of the two boys was hit a few meters from the objective and went down, dead. As the other one entered the hut holding the objective, an anti-personnel mine took him out of the equation. I continued my run not stopping to check on the two of them. I grabbed the objective, which was a small black brief case, turned on my heals and started the run back through the firefight. Tai saw me at this point and started pumping rounds toward the opposing team to try to give me cover fire. I was 50 meters out and all of a sudden I hit the floor hard, sliding a little ways. I looked up and there was Paul in my path. To my surprise he was an excellent shot with a sniper. He had blown out my knee. I struggled to my feet, and started limping towards my lines. Another shot ripped through my shoulder and I fell once more. Still unwilling to give up I pulled myself to my feet and moved forward. I saw Paul lining up the third and final shot, but then Tai popped out of nowhere and shot him directly in between the eyes. Tai picked me up with one arm and quickly moved up back toward the line. He ordered a quick retreat and the simulation was over. I had won the battle by retrieving the objective, but in doing so we had lost half of the men in the skirmish. Paul had won in K/D ratio but I had won the game according to the rules.


	5. Chapter 5

May, 15, 2552

Dear: Riley

I think I've finally come to the conclusion. I'm ready to be a father and a husband. I know that I was shocked to find you were pregnant in your last letter, but I've accepted it and I'm ready to take all the responsibilities as a father. I want you to go live with my father he may be a little rough at times, but he accepts you and knows I love you. He'll take care of you for me till I can make it back from my excursions. I love you baby take care of yourself and the baby.

Love,

Zerin Stanton

May, 17, 2550

I barely remember any of the information from those two weeks, but I'm sure at least half of it kicked in at some point in time during a jump or two. Today was the day all the guys returned from their advanced training. All of them were excited to share the stories of their experiences. My squad was apparently the top ranked members in each of their field of expertise. Martinez could transmit a message and translate the response faster than a jet can fly. Kane was able to out fly and out maneuver any pilot he was up against in any aircraft vehicle especially the UH-144 Falcon. He had a way of controlling the ship that no one could seem to predict or copy. Frank was able to arm, disarm, detonate, and repeat his explosive ordnances like it was no one's businesses he had no fear in dealing with them. Weaver could hit a target dead on with a M319 Individual Grenade Launcher at 350 yards away, in quick order. Michael had used the machine gun like most men use an Assault rifle he just flipped it a round as if it weighed nothing. He could reload and continue to fire in 5 seconds flat. His controlled burst were unmatched by even some of the Sergeants on the range. Curtus returned to us that day. After about 3 weeks of special training in sniper recon school he was a fully qualified Sharpshooter and could hit an ant off a rock from a mile and a half away. Bentley appeared to be just as he left, although he did have a few new tricks to add to his arsenal of healing methods. Buck came back not much different just a qualifier in a few new weapon styles. We all went to sleep telling stories about those two weeks and how the test had revealed exactly what they exceled at.

We woke up the next morning at about 0500 as usual. We quickly dressed grabbed our manuals and headed down to the parade grounds. We had heard scuttlebutt that today was the day we finally got to see the amazing and beautiful SOEIV's. we could barely contain ourselves as we walked into the parade ground and found a truck unloading large boxes about 10x20 feet into the hangers we were told were the Pod huts. We walked over to the lines to acquire the speal that the major would give about how these things were not toys and that they were worth more than any of us would ever be. He went on and on rarely breaking for a breath. Finally he was done and separated us out and sent each squad to their Pod huts to start looking them over and getting a feel for them. Each squad had 5 SOEIV's in them 4 basic ones then a commander one. The basic SOEIV's are equipped with a crash seat, communication gear, numerous equipment racks for items such as ammo, meal rations, extra weapons and special equipment that is given to each man. They also have rudimentary control systems and a single entry escape hatch. Even the largest of them provide little room to move around as much of the space is given over to equipment storage areas that line the interior which is attached to the frame. The commanders SOEIV's which had a few extra gimmicks in them. Such as high-powered imaging gear, tactical sensors, and a fourth generation Class C Military "dumb" AI unit. All that makes these ones a tad bit more expensive and quite a bit more crowded.

We moved over to our hut and peered inside. Everyone was in awe at how amazing these things were. Standing 18 feet tall and 8.5 feet wide we couldn't believe how massive they were. We quickly moved about them, and gingerly touching them as not to injure massive craft. We soon got over that and started to crawl all over the ships. There were two man a SOEIV so that they could more quickly find all the buttons, levers, switches, joysticks and all the other components inside the pod. Of course I had to hold back a little so I could get all the boys set up off on their searches before I got to crack into mine. The moment I opened my pod a voice spoke up greeting me.

"Greetings Recruit 00165-11080-RC(this was my service number)." The voice had sort of an animated voice to it.

"Whose there" I asked quickly looking about the inside.

"I am Military issued SOEIV 'Dumb' AI construct 8960." I had heard and read that the commanders of combat squads were given a 'dumb' AI for their pods but I didn't figure that I would be working with mine right off the bat.

"Well I don't want to call you AI 81… whatever it was, do you have a secondary name?"

"Program not could not be found." It's tone was kind of solemn and unemotional. So I swiftly called Martinez over

"Hey Martinez you use to work on the old 'dumb' AI right" he nodded in recognition "do you think you could program a name for my AI?"

"Sure boss just give me an hour and the name you want." I turned back to the Pod and ask the AI really basically.

"So AI what would you like your name to be?"

"Command not recognized, more data required." I lost myself in thought to decided what I should do. Then I dawned on me. DATA would be the perfect name for an AI whose main directive was to supply data on missions. I then again turned my attention back to Martinez.

"Hey his name should be DATA."

"Boss you do know that after each landing you'll have to rename the new AI in each pod right?" I was put in between a rock and a hard place. Finally I turned and spoke to him again.

"Is it possible to make DATA be a mobile AI unit? So that after landing and securing the drop zone it's possible to retrieve and reuses the same AI?" he pondered for a bit and shrugged his shoulders.

"Anything is possible, but the problem is getting the data for each drop into it. What I may be able to do is construct it so after you drop the first time we can yank this AI out and I could program it to be a personal AI that could analyze and supply battle input strait to your helmet from the drive in the back."

"I think that would work perfectly. Thanks Martinez you can head back down to your pod." I was excited to have my own personal combat AI. I trusted that Martinez could successfully make this AI work.

We continued to test the pods and test ourselves on what we knew about the pods. Because we knew in the next week we would be tested on our knowledge and if we failed missing 4 or more we would have flunked and most likely be kicked out of the Camp. We drilled it in to our heads till the siren for bed time rang we all picked up our notes stretched and headed off to our bunk to continue our studying.

Today was the day. We had all passed with flying colors on the written test. The lowest score belonged to Curtus who missed 3. He damn near wet himself on the last question. He hadn't studied as much as the rest of us because he said he was superior to us and could memorize anything like a computer. Look who almost failed and got kicked from the program haha. But anyways today was the day it was the day we were to start the actual drop training. The first step was to use the 500 foot drop pod. It was a pod hanging off of a crane shaped object about 500 feet off the ground. Each crane had 4 pods on each so to get through the training in more of a timely manner. Each pod was connected to a cable that allowed it to drop freely without any extra friction and then once it hit and the man 'escaped' the pod and another filled his place it would ride all the way back up to the top.

Since according to UNSC Insertion Protocols all the commanders were expected to lead by doing, I decided to take the first ride. I was the first from my squad and the entire training company to make this jump. I made my way to the pod. I peered inside eager to get in. A calm looking Lieutenant and a Warrant officer were standing by to show us the basic functions and help us get strapped in for our first jump. Is sat down in mistakenly hard seat and slowly buckled myself in. The two experts checked me over and tightened a few straps and then slapped my helmet letting me know that I was ready for the jump. The door closed with a hiss and I started my way up. I was so nervous that thoughts of what could happen flashed through my mind. The thruster fails, the chute fails, door isn't properly latched and I'll be thrown. Cable snaps and I get stuck inside so many scenarios played through my head as the pod climbed up to its 500 foot peak. Nothing could stop it now I knew that in a few minutes I would be plunging towards the ground with nothing to protect me should something should happen. I said one quick hell marry as it made the clank telling me I was at the top. Then the beeps started. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. BEEEEEEEEP! The pod lurched as it was released from its binds and I hurtled to the ground the chute had already been pre opened so I didn't feel that shock I didn't feel any shock until I hit about 200 feet from the ground the signal for the thrusts came on and I quickly hit the button. The thrusters quickly started to produce their flames and I started to slow down significantly, but it still didn't swallow to much of the impact I hit with a thunderous BANG! Dust shot out from under the pod to try to avoid the enormous weight of the pod. Once the dust settled I peered through the window slots to see what had happened. I hit the release buttons that surrounded the inside of the door and pried it open. As I stepped from the pod my knees nearly gave away for the adrenalin wearing off. I knew if I had fallen I would lose respect of some of my men and the teachers. I walked through the cloud of dust and moved toward where the observers were to be. As the dust finally cleared out I started to hear clapping, whooping and shouting of excitement. My boys were ecstatic about my survival and were quickly running to me to slap me on the back and congratulate me. Once they had they all ran to get their chance to jump. First Frank, Michael, Kane, and Weaver crawled into the pods and started their rides up. It took nearly two minutes to get up there. When I was up there I thought it had taken much longer, but I guess I was just imaging things. Once they had reached the top it took 10 seconds to start the drop. I knew that they were all doing the same thing I had done. Praying to whatever they believed in and thinking about what could happen to them. But again like me they had little time as the beeps started. First Franks dropped, and then Michael, Kane, and finally Scott dropped. It was amazing to see them fall. They all accelerated towards the ground till about 150 feet and their thrusters started burning. They all hit with 4 load bangs it sent shivers down my back. It was outstanding to see the four of them exit their pods after they had hit. Time seemed to slow down as the four of them walked out of the dust slapping each other and laughing. They were all excited they had passed their first test and survived. The final four of use rose and fell just as before and I was in awe with shivers after every hit. It was crazy that it was possible to do it. Our boys had all finished and were relieved for the rest of the day to work on whatever needed to be done. Weapon cleaning. Picking up the bunk for inspection, just anything that was needed.

I decided to stay behind. For one thing I had nothing to do; I had cleaned my assault rifle yesterday, my bunk was all neat and tidy, and I trusted Frank could get all the boys in order to make sure the bunks could pass inspection. As I stayed behind more and more squads went through their first jump. Everything was going good until we reached one of the squads I had nerve met before. It was Jig squad no one had heard much from them, and they had never done anything that caused them any attention. Until now it seemed. They were on the towers and on the way up one of the cable began to wiggle. I had seen it and was questioning it trying to figure out why it was moving so much. I was still thinking it over when they reached the top and the countdown started. They started their decent down, but for some reason the pod with the lose cable continued to accelerated towards the ground. The cable all of a sudden snapped and it flipped the pod so that its top was facing towards the ground. It continued to plummet towards the ground. We all knew what was going too happened and we couldn't do a single thing for the poor fellow. He hit with a loud THOCK. It bounced and rolled, spun and flipped over the ground a couple of times be for it finally laid to rest in its side about 100 yard from where it was supposed to have landed. We had to wait for the other three pods to land before we could get to the one that had flipped. I sprinted out towards the wreckage and was one of the first people to it. We ripped the door off the pod and peered inside the sight was terrible. The poor bastard had been ripped to shreds. He had lacerations all over his body and the inside of the pod was covered in his blood. When it had flipped it had knocked one of the racks lose and it had cut him multiple times when he had hit and bounced. He had also bounced his head on the inside of the door. Me and another fellow pulled him out of his pod and laid him softly on the ground. I pulled off his helmet and looked at him. He seemed to be younger than he should have been to be able to be an ODST. He looked to be about 16. I scanned him and as I moved back to his face his eyes opened very slightly. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. I wasn't sure what I could do for him he was in such bad shape that I had my doubts that he would even survive till the Ambulance got here. It finally came and they put him on a gurney and started to wheel him into the car. My hand slipped out of his and he was gone.

I moved back to the barracks crawled up on to my bunk and laid down. I wasn't sure why, but I felt so sorry for the kid. I couldn't get him out of my mind. The look on his face was one of shock, turmoil, and wanting to live. He had taken such a hard fall and he was still alive because he fought for it. A couple of the guys walked up to me to try to talk to me, but I just waved them off. I didn't feel much like talking to any of them. I had seen a kid in his prime get basically destroyed and had his hopes and dreams torn away because of some faulty machinery. I couldn't decide what to do. I don't remember much from that night I just kind of drifted off to a dream like sleep where I saw everything happening around me, but I couldn't move. Finally the next arrived and as usual I was the first one up which was nice because I had time to think on things and go over what had happened, and what I needed to do to keep my composure.

I roused everyone up after about an hour to myself and they started their motions of getting ready for the day shaving, showering, and pressing their clothes so that they looked uniform ready. I moved about them not saying much to them. as they finished we moved out to our pod hut to do another days exercise and learning exercise with them. Today we were doing to simulate a drop. Each squad had received 4 extra SOIEV's that way there were a total of 9 SOIEV's per squad one for each man to sit in and practice using the communication gear during a drop. We had a total of 1 minute to conduct all orders and communications to simulate a short drop. We drilled on it for most of the day; I was giving out orders with the boys responding. We repeated the cycle at least 20 times for each transmission. It grew tedious after the 6th transmission and I started to go irritable towards it. As luck would have it just before I erupted lunch came around. I sent the transmission once more and then exited my pod. I rubbed my eyes as I moved away from my pod and towards the slop chute. I moved through the line, got my food and then headed towards our table. As I sat down Martinez ran towards me all excited. I was curious to why he was so excited. As he reached me his smile became more pronounced. He slid in next to me and handed me a small drive. I cocked one eyebrow up before asking him.

"What's this?"

"It's the dumb AI you wanted. He's fully loaded with the name you asked for. Also I added some small touches to it to make it more self-aware. It can analyze battle field terrain and objectives and give input." I didn't show it, but I was excited to finally have my own AI unit. In all hopes it would allow me to keep my men safer on the battle field and allow me to complete tasks much quicker and effectively.

"Thanks Martinez." I said with a slight smile on my face. "Is this the AI from my pod?"

"Nope, I 'barrowed-' it form Delta squad about a week ago." He was all proud of himself for doing things without hurting anyone of importance. I thanked him again and sent him off to go get food.

As I ate I looked the disk over it was pretty simple. It was about an inch long and half an inch wide. In the middle it had a small clear part that emitted a faint deep cobalt blue light. I would have to wait for to see if it would work until we graduated from Camp for we only got the equipment when we were doing field exercises or in the pods. We had to promptly return the equipment after the training. I was kind of disappointed because I had wanted to start using my AI right that minute, but I had to wait for at least another 2 weeks.

Another week had passed and we were on to the 3000 foot towers. We had made two to three jumps a day off the 500 foot tower and we were finally able to use the high towers. These towers were free falling towers. They didn't put the foil on the pods because we weren't going to go through the atmosphere. Which was ok with me at this point; I was still a bit nervous from the first jump which had led to a kid losing his life by a faulty pod.

These towers were designed with 9 pod slots. An entire squad was to drop at the exact same time to simulate an actual jump and I was in command of my squad so I gave the countdown from 30 and then communicated the need to know operational info that was planned out on the drop. I was always curious why we needed to communicate when we fell. I learned it on the first drop. As I gave orders to my men the head honchos gave orders to me which were mainly changing position and trajectory. It was interesting to see how fast the pods fell once we were free. Once we were released it took about 30 seconds to hit the bottom and we only had about 20 to relay orders. We zoomed down and hit the ground with a loud obnoxious thud. Not even a second passed after we hit that the doors of the pods shot off in 5 different directions. We all exited the pods with speed and precision. We moved to the rally point and then we were done. That was it; in less than a minute the entire exercise was done and the next squad was preparing to drop. It was interesting to see what they did with the pods after the practice drop. A big tracked vehicle, the elephant I believe the called it, would drive through and pick up each pod with a large crane it had on the top of it. This particular vehicle didn't move fast, in fact if you jogged up alongside of it you could jump on it.

All the boys were slapping each other on the back laughing and joking. They had all passed yet another jump and knew that there was only one jump left to take. The final full dress jump and 25 mile forced march. Every ODST hopeful knew that this was the proudest day in their lives. Not even the birth of their first born son could compare with it was the talk around the camp. Once we reached the end of the 25 mile march we would be given our hard earned jump wings. A beautiful silver pair of winged pod with a skull under it, very few men were able to acquire such noble pin and the ones who did never took any smack talk or back lip from anyone. So we waited in less than 48 hours we would take the final plunge of our stay at camp.

Today was the day; the entire camp was preparing to make the final. This jump was out of an actual carrier. We were all relayed up to the carrier in the two days of waiting and now that we were aboard we were outfitting the entire group with new weapons, armor, pods, rations, ammo, really anything we would need for our this jump to be as real as possible. Since this was the final test before graduation of jump school we were each issued our first set of ODST armor, our own BDUs not one person had ever failed to complete the final jump and there for every man was given his armor prior to completion so that they could make the final jump. They were the basic armor variants with no color except for the gray-silver color of the titanium. They barred no symbols and no special add-ons. We would be able to purchase add-ons, colors, and emblems once we graduated and were situated in our battle stations, but until then we all looked the same.

We had finished preparation for the jump and were all dressed and ready to make the final jump. When the command came to move to battle stations and prepare to drop my squad picked up their helmets and weapons. Each solider carried two weapons that they had qualified with. Frank carried a M392 Designated Marksmen Rifle(DMR) and a M45 Tactical shotgun, Kane carried a M7S Case less Submachine Gun with a Silencer(silenced SMG), Weaver was carrying a MA5 Assault Rifle and a M319 Individual Grenade Launcher, Martinez had an M6C SOCOM Silenced magnum and a SMG silenced, Michael had a Shotgun and a Silenced SMG, Bentley carried a Magnum and a silenced SMG, Curtus had a SRS 99 Anti Material Sniper Rifle and was proud of it, he also carried a Magnum, Buck carried a DMR and a M41 Anti-Vehicle/ Assault weapon(or the rocket launcher). Me I Carried what I personally believe to be the best gun. A BR55 Battle Rifle, it was a three round burst rifle with a scope for those far away targets, I also had a Magnum on my hip just in case I ran out of ammo for my BR. My squad was fully loaded and ready for bare. They had drilled all the info into their heads of the rally point and the operation. Everything they could possibly want to know about this drop was in their heads and they were ready to get on with the mission.

We all mounted our pods and waited for the countdown to begin. The pod was snug up against me as a reached out to turn on my monitor to get in contact with my squad. My left monitor showed Frank and my right monitor showed a Lieutenant that I hadn't seen before, but I guessed he was the one who was going to start the count down. I slid my hand down into my pocket and pulled out the little hard drive Martinez had given me when we started investigating the pods. The little drive held my own personal 'dumb' AI, named DATA. He couldn't think much on his own, but once filled with the tactical info he could analyze just about anything during a drop and on a field given he was loaded with terrain maps and a few other things. I was eager to use him for the first time. I took the drive and slid it into the back of my helmet where there was a little access point for drives like these. Data went through the boot up process and went through all of the information that was implanted into its memory base. It went through my HUD and checked my vital signs, weapons and ammo, and tactical information. It processed all the info like it was nothing. He was up and running waiting for commands before the Lieutenant started the command to drop. And then he started the countdown.

"30… 29… 28... 27… 26… 25…" it was weird; it seemed he was counting so slowly that it almost appeared to take a minute to go through one second. "20… 19… 18… 17… 16… 15…" nothing I had ever done seemed to drag on so long it was impossible to stop things from playing out in my head. " 10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1"

Just like that as soon as the word one came out of his mouth we were released from our holding and started to plunge towards the ground. Everything seemed to move so fast now in such a short time we started to enter the atmosphere. The loud screeching started and we were given a change in directions which I relayed to my boys who moved the pods quickly and precisely. We were 10 seconds form the ground and I could feel it ever nearing closer and closer. It was crazy how quick it was going to be over. The BANG and for some reason I heard a firefight outside of my pod. I knew it wasn't my imagination when bullets ricochet off of my pod. A second later the door of my pod flew off with a hiss and I lurched out of my pod with my rifle in hand. I ordered DATA to survey the area for possible threats. He came back with a reading showing bullet patterns from just about every direction I was moving up the line as more and more pods rained from the sky. Some were knocked off course and skidded to a halt with their doors flying off mere seconds after coming to a rest and ODSTs shooting out the openings.

We all poured from our pods and moved forward toward the objective. We opened fire when we reached cover and allowed more of our fellow troops to move forward. After a few advances I met up with Weaver and Martinez who were just as confused as the rest of the battalion. We knew we couldn't sit idle and discuss what was going on and what a good plan of action was. I grabbed the coms off Martinez back and tried to reach the commanding officer, but for some reason he had seemed to have fallen off the earth. I cursed under my breath and told the boys to spread out and give supporting fire on the advance. We had to keep moving forward towards the objective 25 miles to the south of our present location.

We moved perfectly together as we had been trained to do. We met up with a couple of boys from a few other squads and even a couple from different companies. Our small force was now up to a total of 12 men. Some of the Sergeants were so surprised by their entry that they just shut up and fallowed what I told them to do. They just accepted that I was in charge of the situation and that I was their best chance of completing the objective. It was now dark and we moved through the night silent as smoke moves through the night sky. None of use made a sound. There were was some sporadic fire here and there, but as in the landing neither DATA nor anyone else could identify the location of the fire.

We continued to move toward the objective on our second day. Most of the boys had, in their haste to avoid the carnage and mayhem of the landing, had left their rations and excess supplies in their pods. Most of what they had they had when they had entered their pods. So basically it was the clothes on their backs and the ammo and weapons they had entered with. A few of the kids around me had even left their weapons so when we stopped for a quick break I took secondary weapons from people who had them and gave them to the boys who had left theirs behind.

I was mid-morning on the second day and we were about 28 men strong and had picked up Frank, Michael and Kane. They were all level headed and were leading a squad of their own when we had found them. They seemed to have been leading their group excellently. I was intrigued how well Frank could lead a group and made a note to keep that in mind in a real operation. We were still about 5 miles out from our objective and all of that was up hill. We thought we were in the clear when we heard whistling in the distance. I held the column of men and all of a sudden 5 men hit the deck hard frozen with a paralyzer dart. I looked in the direction of fire and gave the order to eliminate the targets while we checked on the 'wounded' men. There was no more fire, but the problem was we had to carry the men to the finish line.

Just then I remembered the whistling sound and I looked up towards the sky. What I saw did not sit well with me. I knew the Instructors were going to put us through hell one last time. On an inbound route were canisters of a form of tear gas that was hell on the eyes and the respiratory system. It made the eyes water instantaneously and when you breathed it in it made the lungs and throat dry up and feel as if they were on fire. I turned to the boys and told them to prepare for a hell of a run. We were going to pick up the 5 wounded men and sprint up hill to the finish line. Passing the loads of the limp men every mile, I picked up the closet man to me and threw him over my shoulder. Frank, Kane, Michael and a small boy from Bravo Company did the same. Right about the time we got the five men over our shoulders the tear gas landed right on top of us. Immediately we started coughing and choking, but I gave the order to move out and we started the trek up the hill to the final stop.

We all grunted and cursed at the luck because about every 10 minutes more gas fell from the sky and gave us a new reason to hate the instructors with each volley. We were down to our final mile and somehow I had decided to take another turn on carrying one of the limp boys. My knees were shaking and were about ready to collapse from the weight of the man on my back. I was in front of the column and as I crested the hill I saw the Major and the lieutenant that had dropped in with us standing only a few hundred yards in front of me. As my eyes caught sight of them I shot up and straightened my back, which was hard to do for the man on my back was in one of the most awkward positions imaginable. Once I straightened my back I increased the speed of the group. We looked impressive and like total idiots when we walked past the two officers with massive grins on our faces. Me and the four other men who were carrying the 'wounded' men laid them next to one another and then fell in line with the rest of the group. We all spilt off into our squads and I was surprised to see that my squad was the only one with more than 3 people form the same squad. We all presented ourselves excellently and waited what the two men in front of us would say. The two officers looked at each other and then the lieutenant spoke.

"You men have finally completed the ODST Training program. This is the hardest training course that the UNSC can provide and you surpassed all expectations of the camp. And for that you have earned the right to proudly wear your jump wings." He pasted out the small pins and not one of use could keep from smiling. The major moved forward to speak.

"You boys even though you will move on to be indifferent groups are all battle brothers from here till the day you die. You hold a deeper bond than any other group of men in the armed forces and nothing can separate you. Now the trucks will take you back to camp. I want you to get your dress uniforms ready…" he was cut short by Martinez

"Sir we don't have dress uniforms."

"They were delivered to your quarters the day you left for our run. Now as I was saying, you are to get your dress uniforms in perfect shape for the graduation ceremony. You have one last thing to do before you are fully recognized by the UNSC as ODSTs and that is just the formal ceremony. Fall out and get some rest you've all earned It." the Major slapped to attention and we returned the gesture and then headed towards the trucks.

The ride back to camp was the most rewarding ride I had ever had in my life. I could barely feel my legs but I was content in knowing that the feeling would be back and when it did I would be stronger than ever. Everyone around me was yammering on about how they were ODSTs and where they would go from here. I decided to stay quiet not because I was too tired to talk I just felt that I had no need to say anything of importance.

When we got back to the barracks we rushed in to see our amazing dress uniforms. They were glorious. They were black with red and silver trim and my god it made you damn near cry to see your name over the right breast pocket. It's impossible to describe the feeling you get when you graduate from a hell hole like this but it is one of the most amazing feeling you can get in your life. I quickly squared away my uniform and made sure everything was in order than I crawled up on to my bunk to catch some sleep. About an hour later the rest of my squad showed up each showing off their wings that they had received after the hike. It had turned out that the small group I was with was the first group to finish the run. I was kind of proud that I was able to lead not even my own squad to the finish line in less time than any other group in camp.

We were given the rest of the day of the run off to rest and relax and the fallowing day was full of inspections. We had to have all our equipment cleaned. Dress uniforms needed to be starched and pressed, guns had to be cleaned and oiled, shoe and boots had to be shined so that the major could see his purty face in them, all buckles buttons and laches need to shine like the stars. There was not one thing that we didn't clean. We had one day left as normal marines; 18 hours we would put on our final graduation parade and we would be full ODSTs the best soldiers that the UNSC had to offer the worlds.


	6. Chapter 6

June, 9, 2552 Personal Journal of LCPL Buck Urquhart

Hey dad,

It's me again I just wanted to tell you that I miss you and that I'm still thinking about you. Mom is good I talked to her last weak over the video coms and She seemed tired, but happy to hear from me. It's been 5 years now, and I still can't believe your gone. It has been hard to not be able to see you and hear you play that old harmonica anymore. I still hold on to it close to my side when I drop in. Even playing it sometimes when we do deep space drops. The boys get pissed sometimes, but they all understand it's a soothing thing for me. I miss you dad…

June, 9, 2550

It has been a long time since we've had any social contact with the outside world, let alone seeing and speaking to someone of the female variety. So it was a godsend when the entire outfit was given a 1-month furlough to head home or go on a trip around the surrounding continent. The squad quickly spread out leaving the camp behind, as if no one had ever been there.

I roamed the camp with my brand new Chevron proudly displayed upon my shoulder. I had received it after the graduation event for leading not only my men, but a little more than three squads through the rough terrain and to the finish point of the forced march in less time than any other group. As I strolled through the camp thinking about where I should go to take my furlough. I had tried to find the major, but it appeared he had jumped ship just as fast as the others. I had thought about trying to catch up with Frank, Kane, Michael, and Bentley, but I remember what they had been planning on doing. If I recall correctly it involved Alcohol, Smoking, and enormous amounts of unprotected coitus. Two of which I choose not to indulge in, don't get me wrong I enjoy the occasional brew, but I've seen myself while intoxicated and its proven not pleasurable for me. It just never seemed to fit my lifestyle.

Since I couldn't figure out where to go I headed over towards the small chapel that we had in camp in hopes that the Chaplin would be there. He was a simple man short and a little thin, but he was all muscle. He could hold his own against just about everyone in camp, and had proven it on multiple occasions. His name was Angus, a quiet and content man.

To my surprise when I got there he was still sitting down playing one of the many games he had brought to the camp. He didn't seem to be in much of a hurry which kind of made me feel more calm and relaxed. As I moved into the small room I barely had time to realize and react to him tossing the extra controller my way and gesturing for me to have a seat. I promptly plopped down next to him and started playing.

"So, Ronin what are your plans for your release?" he inquired.

"Honestly" I said "I haven't the slightest idea. I don't feel much like going home seeing as things happened before I left. I may just end up hanging around the base."

"Now you know we can't have that. Why don't you come back to my home town of Dicsfény and look around?" I hesitated for a minute.

"Are you sure I wouldn't be imposing on anything?"

"Just come on down and if you feel that uncomfortable you can head back here. Besides my wife loves cooking and having guests over." I mulled it over trying to decide if it was a good idea or not. Finally, I told him yes, killed him once more and headed off towards my bunk house to get finished packing as quickly as possible.

We boarded a flight to a modest little town about 6 hours out of the main city. I didn't have much, but it was quaint little place with kind people about it.

"Do you have a girl back home that your fond of?" I was a caught off guard by the bluntness of his question, but then answered it.

"Well you see the main reason I choose not to go home had partly to do that. There was this girl I had fallen for back home. We were together for nearly two years, but… she left me as I boarded the plane heading for basic training. I haven't been back there in almost three years."

"You're kidding me right you haven't been to your home town in over three years because of a girl?" he was shocked by what I had said "That's alright I can kind of relate. When I was younger I had fallen for a girl, but just like you she broke my heart and I didn't return for quite a time. It gets easier trust me, besides there's plenty of girls in the world in fact there's a couple of cute one in my town." I smiled at this, in all honesty I had wanted to find someone I could write to often and tell things that I've wanted to talk about for quite a while.

We touched down and exited the craft, just then I heard a loud shriek. I turned to see what was going on at that moment very beautiful redhead started running towards the two of us. I turned to Angus to see what was happening. He laid down his luggage and moved forward to embrace the woman.

She was very beautiful and very small; she had bright red hair that shown in the light that went down to her shoulders. Her eyes were a dark deep forest green, you could lose yourself in them if you looked too long, she wasn't very tall no more than 5 feet 2 inches. She came to about his chin. They were really cute together and seemed to work wonderfully together. After they got the initial wave of not seeing each other for such a long time I moved forward.

"Oh, right, Elizabeth this is Ronin. He was the boy I was telling you about. He will be staying with us for the furlough." She eyed at me for a time and then a wide bright smile spread across her face.

"I'm so excited to meet you. We haven't had guests in such a long time." As I extended my hand out toward her she came up and gave me a hug. It was a little strange.

"So" I inquired "I should go find the hotel and get set up right?"

"Nonsense, you're staying with us, Angus invited you here it wouldn't be proper to let you set up in the shamy hotel down the street." Without me even having a chance to say a word she had grabbed both mine and Angus's seabags and was heading toward a simple car. Again she had surprised me; she was really strong for her size. We grabbed the rest of our stuff and fallowed behind her

The ride to their house was quick and they talked the whole way. As Angus drove Elizabeth continually asked me questions, it was really fun. In about 30 minutes we reached their house. It was a simple one story place with a garage. It had tan sides and a brown slate roof. It was almost exactly like the one I had grown up in as a kid, just a different color.

Elizabeth shuffled me into the house and moved me to the spare room and told me to make myself comfortable. I plopped down on the bed and let out a loud long sigh I had been holding in since the end of the graduation ceremony. I was finally done with the hard work and could get some long needed rest and relaxation. It felt good just to lay there and be able to think about what was a head of me, probably OCS and becoming an officer. A few skirmishes here and there with the normal innies in the colonies. Hopefully I would find a lovely girl and settle down and sprout little devils all about. I chuckled at that, the idea of settling down with a woman. Relationships never seemed to work around me they always failed before I could get so close to a girl and that's why I've always help my tongue around most possible candidates.

It was getting late and my stomach started to rumble so I made my way to the kitchen. Within I saw Elizabeth cooking up a storm; she was going crazy there were pots and pans on every burner and things in the stove and all about the counters. They were planning on fattening me up. As I moved in I saw Angus sitting in the living room reading from a book. So I made my way towards him to sit and talk.

"So Angus how long have you lived here?" I inquired

"Well I've only been in this house for about two years, but I've lived in this town my entire life. Most of my family is here and the country side is good and fertile."

"So are you planning on being a farmer once you're done with your service?"

"If God permits it than yes, but he may have more and better plans for me."

We talked for a while until Elizabeth came in and shooed us into the dining room where there was a huge display of her cooking skills spread about the table. There was almost no room for plates and glasses. The table looked like it would buckle under the weight of the enormous load it bared. I was in awe and hoped that she didn't plan for me to eat all of the food that adorned the table. We sat at the table and said grace to the heavenly father and then my plate was loaded down with all sorts of food. Meats, cornbread, corn, peas and carrots, chili, mashed potatoes, basically anything and everything you could want for a Thanks Giving dinner, but then again it wasn't Thanks Giving.

I ate everything on my plate and was moderately stuffed and when the plate was removed and replaced with another one I ate it too. I didn't want to seem ungrateful or rude so I continued to scarf down plate after plate that I was given. I had at least a little bit of everything on the table. Which was a mountain still, after all I had eaten I had barely made a dent on the mound. Once I had finished my 4th plate I pushed it away from me, leaned back and let out a hefty content sigh. I was stuffed and wouldn't possibly be able to eat another mouth full.

The Roeper's ate their fair share of food and now sat back like me and we started to chat about all the day's events and the events that had come to pass over the last couple of months; all the training that I went through, what I had seen, what I had learned. They continued to drill questions into my head. They seemed so interested in me that when I tried to change the subject to something about them that they moved away from it and back to me every time. It was exhausting all the conversation.

It had grown late in our discussion and I excused myself so that I could head to the bedroom to get ready for bed. They said goodnight happily and moved towards their own room so that they could get some sleep, I suspected. It was easy to sleep the bed was comfy and felt to embrace me no matter which position I was in. I slept like a baby in short.

The next day I woke up a little early, a force of habit I guess. The sun was just cresting the hill to the East. I smiled at the beauty of the morning. I hadn't had time to look at it very much when I was at camp. The sun was never up when I woke and we were always moving about so when it did rise I didn't have time to take it all in. Man how I had missed the smell of morning dew and the look of the pink early morning sky.

I quickly dressed and headed into the kitchen, even as early as I had woke Elizabeth was earlier and she was already about the daily chores. Cleaning the dishes from last night, washing the counters, the floors, the table, she was moving in a blur that I debated whether or not to let her know I was here for fear of losing and arm. I didn't even have to move the slightest when she saw me and beckoned me towards the table to eat breakfast.

"How did you sleep Ronin?" she asked in the sweet voice she always had

"Very fine, thank you." I answered as I sat to a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast. "Do you think Angus would mind if I head out and take a look around the town?"

"Not at all, Angus enjoys it when his guests go adventuring around the town. Besides he won't be up for at least another couple of hours." She said with a rather large smile on her face as she tended to another batch of eggs and the works. "In fact why don't you take the old jeep in the shed? She hasn't been driven in a while and could use a nice little drive around town." I was taken back a little bit her letting me barrow one of their vehicles. I quickly finished my meal and with a mouth full of eggs and toast I said thanks once a more and headed out toward the small shed to the west of the house.

As I exited the house the sun was just cresting the hill off to the East I felt its extravagant rays reach out and start to warm my core with a beautiful sunrise. The day was a lovey summer morning that I knew would turn into a rather hot day. I moved along a gravel path that led to the shed and reached for the old wooden double doors that would allow me to feast my eyes upon the car I would be driving.

The doors pushed open with a load squeak as I strained to move them. I the doors were very miss giving instead of being light weight they were reinforced with a thick steel plate on the back side of the wood. With a little more strain on my muscles I forced the door open to reveal a large object covered by an old canvas sheet to keep the dust off of it. I made my way towards the car which was basically surrounded by a mountain of boxes and other assorted storage binds that I didn't care enough to snoop around in. as I moved the boxes out of my way and neared the car I saw that I wasn't merely a car but a truck instead.

I finally had a clear path to the car and was able to grasp the canvas tarp covering the vehicle. As I pulled the tarp free from the vehicle a whoosh of dust and debris covered me; I coughed and sneezed as the dust entered my nostrils and mouth. It took me a minute to clear my sinuses. Once I looked up towards the truck I saw how old and amazing it was. It was the exact same truck my grandfather had owned before he passed on. It was a small bright barn red pick-up truck with a wooden bed on it. It had a two-person cabin with a bench seat in it. I opened the driver's door and slid in behind the wheel. The keys were hanging in the ignition and swaying ever so lightly as if anticipating a long wanted drive.

As I reached out and turned the key the engine turned over and started to purr like a dream. For how much dust had covered it, it seemed to have been run only yesterday. I ran my hand over the steering wheel and feeling the old polished wood and years of work ran through my body. I knew this vehicle had been used for many years as a farming car and yet it seemed to be in such good condition. I had drifted off to the sound of the purr, thinking about all that this truck had seen and been through that I didn't even notice Angus walk up next to the window.

"I see you found the old thing, huh" I jumped a little as I was shocked back into the real world. "Whoa, didn't mean to give you a heart attack" he slightly laughed to himself.

"Yeah, no kidding Angus."

"So I see Elizabeth allowed you to ride in the old gal."

"Yes, sir, I hope that's alright with you"

"Of course it is. This old thing has been driven in such a long time I'm surprised that it even started up for you. Where do you plan on going if I may pick your mind?"

"To be honest" I said thinking deeply and then looking back to him "I haven't the slightest clue" he laughed at this, slapped the car with a load 'WHACK' and walked off back inside to Elizabeth.

I waited for him to go inside and close the door, once I heard the latch snap shut I put the old truck in reverse and pulled out of the shed. I made my way onto the main road and started a little cruise down the street to see what this small town had to offer. The main strip of the town was quaint, but not quiet thrilling or exciting. So I turned off the main strip and headed down a side road that was running along a river. I had made it about half way to the lake at the end of the river. The lake was a beautiful little place with a wide expanse of soft sand all around its boarders and a few cliffs hanging on to its sides making good places for young teenagers to meet and jump off of.

I had been driving down this road for a while by this time and the wind was starting to pick up. I had been fiddling with the radio for some time now and couldn't quiet get the sound to sit nicely on a broadcast. As I started to get frustrated the knob shot off of the dial and onto the floorboards. I cursed my bad luck and looked for any movement down the road. Seeing none I reached down for the knob. As my fingers grabbed it I pulled my self-upright again and just in time to.

At that very moment I saw a girl standing in the middle of the road. As I slammed on the breaks and swerved just nearly missing the girl my head slammed into the steering wheel causing a small gash on my forehead. As I peered up from over the steering wheel I saw a small white horse chewing on grass in front of me acting as if nothing exciting had happened at all.

I turned my head to look over at the girl still standing in the middle of the road. She had a tiny smile on her face, and ever so slightly laughing at me by the way I was looking at her. She then at this time ran over to the horse and haltered it leading it back down a gravel road way to a barn.

I was still stunned by what had just happened that I didn't realize how long I had been sitting there. It was clearly long enough for the girl to put the horse securely away and then run back out to check on me. When she got close to truck I unstrapped my seatbelt and got out of the car. My head was spinning and I had to grab hold and lean against the truck for support.

"Oh Gosh! Are you alright?" the girl asked in a very concerned and southern voice as she neared the truck.

"Y-yeah... I mean I think so." I stuttered as my knees started to weaken and I grabbed tighter to the side of the truck than before.

The girl looked at me inquisitively down and up until she reached the top of my eyebrow where she spotted the blood slowly running down the far side of my face. As her eyes caught sight of it she squeaked a little like a mouse.

"Do ya need help darling?" she asked averting her eyes from the sight of the blood.

"Yeah" I said as the world started to spin faster. "Maybe" my grip started to slip from the truck and I started to slide downwards. "Um... nope" and I was sitting on the ground.

The girl looked utterly shocked at what was happening, but none the less she got under my right arm and helped me to my feet. She was not very tall at all at least a head shorter than me if not more. She led me to the small house and set me down on the comfiest chair I had ever sat on. Things were really starting to get fuzzy now and I thanked her as much as I could before everything went black and I closed my eyes to sleep off of his horrible headache.

I awoke and noticed that the sun was slightly lower than it had been earlier, maybe by a few hours had passed. As I looked around my forehead started to throb with pain and I reached my hand to it. It was wrapped in a small cloth bandage that was lightly saturated with blood. I cringed at the pain until I noticed the girl walking towards me with a few small pills and a glass of water. I reached my hand out happily accepting the pain medication and smiled at her as I gulped them down my gullet. I handed her back the glass and smile again.

"Anything else I can get ya Sugar?" she asked as she looked me over once more.

When her eyes met mine I was instantly melted by her gaze. She had the softest grey-blue eyes that I had ever seen in my entire life. The freckles she had were heavy across the bridge of her nose and then lightly speckled across the rest of her face to make her look so much more beautiful. Her beautiful hair hung down just covering her eyebrows and was the purest gold color I had ever seen. She had an enormous braid reaching all the way down her back to just before her rump.

Adverting her gaze, she said "I have to go feed the animals before it gets too late" as she moved away towards the back door. As she pulled on her boots a small black and white dog trailed behind her. When the door was firmly shut my head got light again so I laid it down and rested some more.

I finally came to again very groggy this time and eyed the girl sitting across from me she looked very worried at me. When she looked up towards me and noticed that I had come to, she slowly made her way towards him

"Hi there" I smiled towards her as she came closer.

"W-what am I supposed to do when you black out again" she asked.

I smiled at her and started to explain that if I went to sleep again that it was not anything to worry about. Just as I was finishing the details I felt dizzy again and laid my head down and once again I was unconscious.

I woke up a few hours later and by this time the sun was setting and I looked absolutely beautiful. I was feeling much better by this point and I got out of the chair and looked around for the girl. She was not in the house so I wandered over to an end table full to the brim of pictures. I had just picked up the first one, one of the girl and a rather handsome boy hugging, when she walked through the door and noticed me. She moved over towards me till she could see what I was looking at and then started to blush a little and averted her eyes to the ground.

"I should have taken that ol' thing down months ago now." she said more quietly than normal.

I looked over to her inquisitively.

She just shook her head saying "a bad thing".

"I'm sorry" I said as I replaced the picture back on the table.

The girl turned to me smiling slightly trying to change the mood she said "So... What are you doing way out in these parts of this small town? I don't think I've seen you before."

"I'm on furlough with a friend" I said smiling at her.

"I would probably say cool if I had any idea what that is" she said giggling slightly.

"Oh, my bad, It is mandatory leave from the military." I responded still smiling.

"Oh cool" she said, and still wanting to know more she asked "What do you do in the military?"

"I just graduated from ODST School" I said smiling with pride. As I started to think I realized that I did not know the girls name and she didn't know mine. I extended my hand out towards her saying "My name is Ronin by the way."

The girl took my rough hand into her soft one and smiled back at me "My name is Alice, but everyone calls me AJ." She said staring at the floor.

I smiled at her saying "That's a very pretty name you've got there." Then all of a sudden I blurted out "So... what do you do?" This made her look up instantly not showing a hint of shyness.

"I'm a vet! I run my own clinic." She said smiling from ear to ear. Just as she said that the phone rang and she trotted off to see who was calling.

Since she was occupied by the phone call I decided that I would let myself out and wandered over to the barn to see what all she had in her clinic. The barn was a large white thing just behind the house. It had great giant double doors that swung both ways, a small human sized door smack dab in the middle of the big door on the left and a large amount of glassless windows running up and down the length and height of the thing. To be honest this was the biggest farm building I had ever seen in my life.

I opened the smaller door and walked inside and then proceeded to walk down the alley that was full of stalls, most of which were empty. As I came to one of the bigger stalls I noticed that It was holding a large draft type horse that was a beautiful roan colored horse with white stockings and a white star on his face and a black mane and tail about a two feet in length each. I looked at him and he looked at me. We both watched each other curiously.

I slowly opened the stall and walked just inside of his stall. He parked his ears up interested that a new creature had entered his housing. I latched the stall and stood just inside waiting to make sure he knew that I was not going to hurt him. He stood for a minute with his knees waving as he tried to decide if it was safe for him to come near me. At last he started to slowly take a step towards me. As he did this I even slower than his movements raised my arm out to him to allow him to get my scent at a distant.

He was within a foot of my hand still unsure of whom I was. He stretched his neck as far as he could and his whiskers just barley brushed my fingertips. He snorted at the surprise of a new smell and took a step backwards. I remained as still as humanly possible as I could and wait for him to move again. I had been standing there for about a minute when he decided once again to move forwards towards me. This time his entire nose entered my palm and took a few deep inhales finally getting us to my smell. As the minutes slipped past he crept closer and closer to me till he was almost on top of me.

I figured by this point I should be able to move my hand around his head. I started by running my hand up the front of his face, which he seemed to like a lot for he was pushing more into me. I started to scratch around the bridge of his nose and he almost fell over in delight. I moved now to his ears, which I was a little bit uneasy about because I know that horses are not the biggest fan of having their ears toyed with, but I had to see how far this big fellow was going to trust me. To my surprise he nearly nudged me over in pleasure. So taking this as a good sign I curled my hand into a fist so that my knuckles could scratch into the ear without causing any damage or pain using the finger tips.

This horse was a strange one. He did not act like any horse I had ever encountered. In fact, he seemed to be more like a dog than a horse; by the way he was acting. I was rubbing up and down his side by this time when I noticed that AJ was watching me from outside of the stall with a shocked and surprised face spread all over the place. I looked over to her curiously and almost asked what the face was for when she spoke first.

"HOW ON EARTH ARE YOU TOUCHING HIM!" she said in a very loud and astonished voice.

"I just walked in and held my han..." She cut me off before I could finish.

"I know how you went about it, but how DID you do it! I've had him for two years now and haven't had so much luck as to enter his stall without him getting all up set at me." She said in a little less loud voice.

"Maybe he just likes boys" I said in a laughing manner. She seemed to lost in thought to pay attention to the joke. "Wait a second how long have you been watching me?!" I asked curiously

"Long enough darling." She said in a half paying attention manner. She was still lost in her own world of how such a thing she could not do in two years. Some stranger could do in less than 30 minutes. I looked out of the barn and noticed that the sun was setting just behind the hills. I cursed myself at being so oblivious to the time.

"Oh my... I'm so sorry I didn't realize what time it was I should get out of your hair" I said as I exited the stall.

"Would you like to stay for dinner?" She shot out rather quickly and it caught me off guard.

"Umm..." I stumbled "I mean if it's not a nuisance to you, sure." A wide smile spread across her face as I answered what I knew was the right answer.

"No trouble at all" she said smiling at me. "I'll go get it started. What would you like?" she asked as she walked out the door beckoning me to follow her.

"Oh, I'll take whatever you have cooking in that mind of yours." I said gleefully returning the smile she gave me. I followed her all the way into the house where I found out the name of that stallion was Hero. While she cooked we talked about different things here and there, but our conversation never slowed or stopped. It just seemed to flow on like we had known each other for years and were just old friends catching up after not seeing each other for a long while.

While she cooked the meal I set the table with just two simple plates, cups and silverware. I also grabbed milk and juice from the fridge and placed it on the table trying to set it up as neatly as I could. She had a rather large table for being all on her own. In fact her entire house and property seemed to be offal large for her to be all by herself, but I put it to the back of my mind thinking I could easily ask her about it later on.

To the eye her meal looked rather plain and ordinary for macaroni and cheese, there was nothing special about it. Just noodles cheese and a few simple spices tossed in for good measure. To be honest I did not expect the food to be all that good maybe a little flavor, but not as much as it had. I packed quiet the punch nearly knocking me out when the flavor hit my tongue. It was amazing, I had never in my life tasted such an amazing concoction that was expected to be just an ordinary dish. After my first bite I looked up to her in shock and awe. When she finally noticed she gave me a queer look.

"What?" she asked staring at me.

"You... are the most amazing cook on earth" I said staring into her gray-blue eyes. She quickly averted her gaze from mine and stared at the floor while her face turned a light shade of pink. This made her quite cute.

"You're to kind" she said softly.

We finished our meal fairly quickly, but continued to chat at the table for some time more. Nothing to interesting in the conversation just nice relaxed banter. She asked me about the USNC and being an ODST and I asked her what it was like to be a vet and to run her own farm. It was all simple conversation, but it seemed to flow so naturally for both of us that we could not help, but smile as we talked.

Time continued to fly by and I assisted her with the cleanup portion and when that was all done she looked up to her clock hanging above the stove. Biting her lip, she contemplated something and then finally spoke to me.

"Hey Ronin, I know it's getting' a tad late, but you seemed interested in what I did as a vet and I have to run to a house call. Would you like to tag along with me and take a look for yourself." she bit her lip again clearly hoping that I would say yes to her. This made me look up to the clock to check the time and seeing that even though it was on the later side the sun was still out I smiled and nodded my head and then proceeded to follow her out to her truck.

As we drove down the driveway and pulled on the road I noticed that Angus's truck was still sitting on the side of the road where I had left it after knocking myself out earlier that day. I smiled at it seeing that nothing bad had happened to it and by jostling my pockets I confirmed that the keys were safely in there so that no one would be able to take her away. I decided that once we had returned I would drive back to Angus's house and relinquish the keys to him.

We drove for quite a while down one road and up another, taking dirt roads, across bridges and through tunnels it seemed almost to take forever to get to where we were headed and this time we didn't seem to talk much we just stole glances at one another and smiled back and forth. Occasionally uttering a few words to break the silence so that it did not seem to dry.

At last I could see a large ranch in the distance, and so I was forced by curiosity to ask what she was doing. She turned to me and smiled, kind of an evil grin.

"We are goin to a birthing." This caught me off guard as I was about to question she cut me off. "There is cow due to birth and from what I hear she has been having some complications. So here we are to 'help' in the process."

I bit my tongue as we pulled to a steady stop I had never been part of a delivery of any kind of animal and was unsure of what to do. I followed AJ closely not wanting to be left behind and be mistaken for someone who knew something.

She briskly walked towards a large white barn with the words "BROODING MARES-REACH ROCKS-A" stamped in Bright Green letters spread across the top of two large doors that exposed a large ally way lined with stalls. As we entered the wide swinging doors an older woman hustled over to AJ with a worried look on her face.

"Allice, the mare is this way please come quickly." she quickly uttered and as she turned on her heels and headed back to the other end of the barn gesturing for us to follow her closely.

I looked over to AJ trying to figure out what was going on. She looked a little concerned, but not worried or scared. She moved quickly for having such small leg, she almost out ran me.

As we reached the stall of interest I heard deep grunts and whinnies from a waiting mare. As AJ stepped in the stall was dark and she quickly asked for someone to fetch a light. She then moved closely to the mare inspecting her and assessing situation. Me trying to avoid everything went straight to the wall to hide.

AJ turned to me after a few minutes of looking and promptly asked. "Ronin there are several boxes and bags in the bed of my truck. I need you to go get the grey box and the purple bag. Please be quick about it." she smiled to me and turned back to the frightened to mare to try to calm her down.

I turned her away from her and ran back to the truck to get her the supplies that she asked for. They weren't difficult to find and I quickly grabbed the supplies and headed back to the stall.

When I finally returned to the stall the lights were up and I could see everything that was going on in the stall. The girl had gotten the mare to calm down and lay on her side. She was still making pained grunts, but they were not as panicked as they had been before.

AJ turned to me and smiled saying thanks and as she grabbed the two items that I had been carrying. She was actually kneeling on the horse's neck to help keep her down. I nodded to her and moved out of the way once again trying to avoid being in the way.

As AJ rummaged for the right medicine and syringe she turned to the woman, sitting to her side calming the horse, and asked.

"Is this the first foal she has thrown?" the woman nodded in compliance stilling cooing at the horse calming her down.

It was surprising how calm she was and how much of a calming essence she spread to the whole room around her. Everyone seemed to take a deep breath and relax a little bit as she filled the syringe with a sedative for the horse.

Suddenly the mare started to thrash around which caused AJ to slide almost completely on top of the mare. She then rubbed the shoulder of the mare and plunged the needle into her shoulder. She slowly injected the mare with the liquid and then removed the needle rubbing the injection spot once again to help the pain go away. I caught myself smiling at her as she waited for the mare to calm down.

Once the mare had calmed down and started breathing regularly again. She stood and walked over to the boy and stood taking a deep breath as she leaned against the wall. She said nothing, but showed a small smile at the boy and then turned back to the mare to check on her dilatation. She did this a few times until she decided that it was time to act.

I perked up a little bit watching and listening intently to see if I was needed. AJ stroked the mare cooing at her alongside the mare's owner. Within a few minutes of AJ kneeling beside the mare a foal came out smoothly and without complication. AJ smiled at this and seemed to relax. I noticed then the AJ tensed up very tight, she turned to me with an excited look on her face.

"She's havin' twins and the second fella is comin ass overhead, and we need to get him out now. Quick I need a few boys and a rope to tug him out." I quickly grabbed the first rope I saw as two younger boys came into the stall next to me.

As the three of us got in position AJ wrapped one end of the rope around the foal's hind legs just above the hooves, not paying attention to who was accepting the rope she handed it back.

I was in front with the two younger boys behind me. We all braced ourselves to pull on her command. AJ watched the mare closely waiting to see the mare contract, in perfect sync she yelled pulled.

I could feel my muscle swell and bulge with the strain as the three of us pulled. AJ called for us to stop. She watched again, waiting, pull, stop, wait, watch, pull, stop, wait, watch, PULL. I could feel on the last pull the foal slip from his mother and onto the ground.

AJ watched the young thing closely assessing it vitals signs and signs of life. It laid there not moving. AJ rubbed the foals head clean with a rag and waited. At last the foal opened his eyes and stood up all in one quick motion.

Everyone in the room let out a big sigh of relieve as we all saw our hard work being payed off with two healthy foals. The second one joined his sister and they walked over to their mother and started to nurse.

I reached my hand out to her and smiled down at her. She smiled graciously at me and accepted my hand as I pulled her up. She proceeded to reach in to her box and pulled out a rag wiping her hands and then offering it to me. I smiled and accepted it and cleaning my hands. She then turned to the owners of the new foals and said.

"I'll be back in, say, two weeks to give the foals their vaccinations and to check on the mother." she said this in a very calm tone and smiled. She then turned and gathered up her supplies and began the walk back to her truck with a large grin spread across her face.

I followed her all the way back to the truck and climbed in the passenger's seat. AJ slide the box and bag in the back of the truck and climbed in the front. She smiled at me and turned the engine over and pulled out of the drive way. I was in shock and awe at the way she handled herself. How calm she had been, how sure she was of her actions.

I started to think about AJ and wanted to know more about her, and to my surprise she broke the silence first by asking if I had any family. I was quiet for a moment by her suddenness and then finally answered her.

"My father died in combat, along with my brother…" I trailed off pushing aside old memories. "what about you? Any family?" She turned to me and then back at the road.

"I moved far away from everybody, and about once a year my little sister comes for a visit, but don't stay all that long." I thought about family for a minute and then she broke the silence again.

"Umm..." she trailed off kind of nervous. "Is there anyone special in your life?" I thought long and hard for a moment and then replied.

"I haven't had someone special since my school years."

"I find that very hard to imagine."

"Oh?" I said questioning her "why's that?"

"Well..." she started "Your smart, handsome, strong and a few other things. I'm surprised the girls aren't crawling all over you." I chuckled a little bit.

"I am not too fond of girl pursuing me for my amazing good looks." I jokingly answered with a smile. Just then we pulled down the drive way and pulled to a stop in the same place we had left. She turned off the engine and turned to me.

"Thanks for all your help to day. I doubt that foal would have made it without you."

"Well your quiet welcome, but I'm guessing that you want me to get out of your hair now, huh." she smiled at me.

"Stay as long as you'd like, Sugarcube, I'm sure Hero wouldn't mind too much" she said as she closed the door and headed back towards the house. As she walked away I could not help, but let my eyes drift to her hips as they did a perfect sway back and forth. My eyes followed them all the way up to the house until the door closed.

I let out a deep sigh, closed the door to the truck and turned to look and decided what I wanted to do. On one hand I could stay around and get to know this pretty girl more, but on the other I wasn't sure how long I had been away from Angus and I didn't want him to get worried. At the thought of Angus I cursed under my breath remembering that I might have crashed his truck. Kicking myself I headed back down the drive way on foot and headed to take a look.

Upon reaching the truck I looked it over to ensure that nothing on it had been broken or scratched. It was remarkably clean for being driven and almost crashed, but from what I could tell it was in perfect health. I climbed back in to the beast of a truck and started her right up without any problems. I sat for a long moment, as it hummed, and thought about what I should do next. I finally came to the conclusion that if I told Angus what I had been up to him, he would understand and not be too upset with me. With this thought in my head I put the old girl into drive and headed down AJ's driveway to hang out for a little bit longer.

When I pulled to a stop next to her old beat up truck to park I got out and looked up toward the house and met eyes with AJ again. She gave a really warm smile and then went back to the chores she had to take care of inside. I decided to head to the big barns that held Hero to hang out with him for a little while longer.

Seeing Hero again was a very interesting feeling we had never had horses where I had grown up, but just being near this gentle beast I felt as if we completely understood one another and held complete trust without ever being truly with one another. I entered his stall he turned his giant icy eyes to look at me with inquisitive eyes. Walking close to him he didn't move except for his head and eyes which he used to keep an eye on me. His bluish fur was soft as I ran my hand down his thick neck. I let my hand travel over his body and feel his warmth soak into me through my hand. I got closer to him and gave him a large hug around his neck pressing my face into his soft fur and letting all his warmth enter my body and letting the dust horse smell enter my nostrils. I smiled and breathed contently in and out. Within a few seconds Hero rested his head upon my shoulders and we seemed to hold each other for a few moments just enjoying one another's company.

I released him and moved away started to look around at the barn, not sure what I was looking for exactly. I scanned about and as my eyes moved towards the giant double doors at the front of the barn they rested upon the little being that was standing there. She seemed to see me and walked toward me. I didn't notice that she was carrying anything till she got closer and noticed she had to saddles with her. I was astounded that such a small thing could carry such a load; and she didn't even seem to be breaking a sweet under the cumbersome load. As she neared me she plopped the saddles down and gave me a devilish smirk.

"Well sense I haven't scared you off yet I figured I'd give it another try." She smiled with a sinister grin spreading across her face.

"You think equine scare lil' miss?" I asked meeting her grin with my own. I tried to look confident. As she moved forwards toward the beast she plopped the saddle down next to the gate and let herself into the stall. She quickly haltered Hero and led him out of the stall and headed to a long horizontal pole that was about 5 feet off the ground suspended by a pole on each end. I did not really question her even though she said she never had touched him before. She was an odd girl to say the least.

I looked over to her and then reached down and grabbed the saddle and followed her towards the bar. The saddle was an old thing made mostly of synthetic material, but still possessing some of the animal leather that was rare in these parts. It was a rich chocolate brown that faded from deeper to lighter spots. It was especially light on spots that you would expect wear patterns to be. I had a few copper and brass fittings on it and a rather large horn on it. When I had lifted it up I caught the smell of the leather. It was a very pleasant smell that I had only had the privilege to smell once or twice prior. Even though I was only a few steps behind AJ she had already had Hero tied up and was brushing him down. I set the saddle down and walked closer to her.

"Here" she said as she thrust the brush at me and had me continue to brush the dirt and extra hair off him. She trotted off back into the barn and soon returned with a _. She tied this other horse up and started to brush him out. She didn't take long to get him ready and through a blanket and saddle on to his back quickly followed by another small saddle that I hadn't noticed before. Within minutes she had the horse snitched up and ready to ride. I had yet to throw the blanket on Hero when she came back to my side and quickly finished preparing him for a ride.

"Hop on up sugarcube" She teased as she swung herself up into the saddle of her awaiting horse. "This is Money, by the way. He's a snotty lil' thing, but one of the sweetest and gentlest horses I've had the pleasure to ride." She smiled as she patted Money. I smiled at her as I scrabbled up onto the back of the rather larger horse then I had expected. She giggled at my struggle. It had been to many years since I had ridden and I was a little rusty.

AJ took no time to allow me to situate myself, as she took off down the road towards one of her pastures. I cursed lightly under my breathe and egged Hero on. He did a quick little hop and then bolted after AJ and Money. Due to Hero's elongated legs we quickly caught up to them and started to pass them as we raced down the road. I passed a tree and screamed in victory as a reeled Hero to a light stop. I turned and smiled at her laughing.

"Come on Miss Equine I thought you were fast?"

"Oh shud up you." She said in kind of a playful pouty voice. "Hero just has long legs, it wasn' a fair competition. How about I race you to the pond and we can go for a swim." She said very cheerfully.

"And what do I get if I win the race?" I asked playfully with a smile creeping across my face. She smiled and winked at me.

"How bout a kiss, and if I win you have to clean and put away the horses then stay for dinner."

I smiled broadly and accepted her challenge by clicking my tongue and spurring Hero into a long brisk jog and allowed AJ to catch up. However, she did not just catch up. She over took us at a full gallop and gained quite a bit of distance before I had a chance to get Hero up to his full speed.

She was a good 50 yards in front of me and Money seemed to have changed from this tired fat horse to some athletic racing horse and was still getting distance between the two of us. I cursed and egged Hero to gain more speed to which he snorted and burst forward extending his enormous legs just about as far as they would go as we started up the hill that would reveal the pond before us.

As we crested the hill I locked my eyes on the pond which was about 400 yards out passed the base of the hill. AJ had pushed money hard coming down the hill using the force of gravity to help propel him forward. Seeing the opportunity, I did the same, and with the combination of Hero's greater mass and longer legs, his bounds were much greater then Money's and even with their head start we were quickly catching up to them.

We were about 100 yards out and hot on the heels of the AJ and money. I pushed Hero hard for one final push of energy and we were at the shoulders of them when we reached the end of the pond and we had to reel him to an abrupt stop. I hung my head in a sad sign of defeat as AJ trotted up next to me with a devious smile spread about her face.

"I suppose this means I have to clean saddles now." I sighed as I climbed down off of Hero and started to tie him to a tree to keep him from wandering. Aj tied Money next to Hero and walked over to me.

"I don't know" she said with a seductive tone and smile on her lips. "It looked like you were just a bit ahead of me." She said as she pushed herself against me and kissed me deeply on the lips. Twitterpated I didn't kiss back nearly as much as I would have like, but that didn't stop her.

After a few seconds she turned towards the pond and started to unbutton her jeans and tossed her hat over onto a twig to keep it clean. As she neared the water's edge she dropped her pants and started on her blouse. I looked in awe as this beautiful girl started to reveal herself to me. Before she completely removed her blouse she turned her head towards me and beckoned me forward. Not waiting for her to give me another sign I stumbled over towards the shoreline while simultaneously trying to remove my shoes, pants, shirt and all entailed accessories.

When I had finally removed my clothes and was stepping into the water Aj was just breaking the surface of the water coming back up for air. She beckoned me in and the rest I'll leave to the imaginations of you intelligent readers

August 10, 2552 Blessings from Father Angus Roeper, Chaplin, Easy Company

"Lord, protector and watcher I call you to gaze upon your flock and see them through this day of bloodshed and demons. I call you to ride down with these boys as they plunge into the belly of Hell itself and to guide them and aid them in their times of great need. I beseech you to extend your sword and lead them through this day with honor and hope. I beg of you to use your shield to protect them from the ones who would wish to strike them down… We are a tool, an implement, a weapon to be used by you for the greater good of mankind. Lead us father and bring our boys home safe and sound. Amen."

August 10, 2550

It has been a little over 3 weeks and I have spent just about every day with AJ including some nights depending on how the two of us were feeling. For the most part however I would wake up early from Angus's house and then quickly making my way down the street in the truck towards her little ranch. It does not matter, however, how early I rise because she is already up, has fed the horses and is already cooking dinner. That is except for this day…

As I arrived to her house I noticed that the animals were all hugging the fence lines and begging for someone to come feed them. I wondered over to them giving Hero a pat on the nose and then entering the Barn to check to see if she was out there. To my surprise she was not and everything was exactly how it had been the previous day. It looked as if she had not even woken up to feed the animals today. Not wanting the poor things to starve anymore I decided to pitch a few flakes to the animals and started for the house to see if she was there.

To be honest I was a little worried about how this would go down. The last time I had to tell a girl good-bye it did not go very well. Meaning she basically called me some very bad names and hit me repeatedly and told me never to come back. So my nerves were getting the best of me and I was starting to contemplate on whether or not I should just leave without talking to her. I kicked myself for thinking of such a silly thought because she holds such an important a part of my heart. I remember an old saying that said that everyone is a half of a soul and how they would spend their whole life searching for the other half of their soul. I sighed and opened the door and walked in to the house. I found her still in bed with a mountain of used tissues spread around the room. I knocked on the door frame and she raised her self from her bed with the blanket around her shoulders and looked deep into my eyes tears streaming down her rosey cheek her eyes begging me not to leave…


End file.
