Author's Note: Sorry everyone for such a long wait for this chapter. I thought this was already up and I recently just noticed that it wasn't. Thanks for reading, and prepare for exciting chapters in the near future.

Chapter Five

1308 Hours, May 3, 2554 (Military Calendar)/

Taut Nui System – Inside of Epsilon Halo

Sergeant Major “OX” Morgan

We hadn’t gone ten minutes into one of the many entrances of Epsilon Halo when we opened a massive door that showed a large hanger. There were two bridges that stretched across a massive chasm. After we went through the door it closed behind us.

Inside the hanger were the bodies of long dead Covenant soldiers. Brutes, Jackals, and Grunts were strewn everywhere, their insides gutted out of them and dried. The sight was sickening, even though it was the enemy.

“What the hell happened here?” an ODST asked, kicking a Brute’s helmet over the edge and down into the dark void.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “But whatever it was, it wiped out an entire Covenant army.

Making sure we weren’t trapped, a UNSC marine with the letters SGT Gordon on his helmet tapped a control panel that reopened the door.

“Just being careful,” Gordon muttered as the door opened.

“Let’s move on,” Captain Reimer, the commander of the group, said.

The five M12 Warthog’s drove forward, each one holding its maximum limit of passengers. We reached the other side of the two bridges when a UNSC marine suddenly ordered us to stop. He gripped his gun and looked around. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

Everyone stopped and listened. Faintly somewhere in the hanger was the sound of something plunking and more than one something moving overhead. The lights on our MA5Ws and other weapons couldn’t see the ceiling of the building.

“Steady,” Reimer ordered. “Don’t fire unless you see something.”

He gave the order to a marine to open the next door. The marine with shaky fingers tapped the panel and the door opened.

“Move forward,” Reimer turned.

The Warthogs drove on through the door as we continued behind them.

The sound of an automatic weapon echoed behind me as I saw something drop from the ceiling to one of the bridges.

“We’re under attack!” a marine cried out.

I ran back to the hanger and saw Flood falling from the ceiling, dropping down on the marines that were in the back of our team.

“Get in here!” a marine shouted, shooting the panel in the hanger room that would open the door we had gone through, then pressed the panel past the door so the doors began closing.

There were still a dozen more marines and a ODST behind the closing door.

“What the fuck do you think you’re thinking?!” I shouted at the marine.

“I’m stopping the enemy from getting us!” he replied.

“We still have men behind that door!”

The door was almost all the way closed, as three marines got through.

“If they want to live, then they’ll make it through, otherwise, they’re goners.”

“You’re abandoning your own men and one of my own”—I checked his ranking; he was a Petty Officer First Class. I had a higher authority over him—“Petty Officer.”

Two marines dove through the closing door before it snapped closed and locked. The other seven marines and the ODST were locked in with those Flood monsters. I heard gunfire and explosions before all was quiet except for the faint noise of occasional hitting on the two foot thick solid door.

“I will have you court-martialed, when we’re done… marine,” I said firmly and fiercely.

“Sue me,” he challenged.

I punched him.

“Let’s keep going,” the Captain ordered, ignoring our little fight. “If those monsters get through, it’ll be too tight in here.”

First Class Lieutenant Jakob Downs ordered us together so he could find out which ODST had not made it through the door. Tragically it was Lance Corporal Vince Gurrini, our demolitions officer. Those explosions were most likely him going kamikaze on the Flood, without a doubt killing him and the other marines, along with a hundred Flood. He ordered us to be prepared for anything.

When continued through the corridors, shining our lights around the dimly lit walls, which were illuminated by strange glowing round symbols that covered the walls. We came into another large hangar room—where the Flood was waiting.

There were dozens of infected Covenant soldiers, carrying plasma weapons. They were in a strong phalanx formation for about fifty feet. Jackals were in the front, their energy shields overlapping each other. Elites crouched behind them, with their swords poking out between the holes in the shield barrier. The Grunts were somewhere behind the blockade, but I couldn’t see them.

The Flood held their position, as if taunting us to take the first shot; which we did, after we got into a position to match theirs. With the five Warthogs, we made a make-shift wall. The marines that stood on the back of the Warthogs aimed the mounted guns at the Flood wall.

Everyone else took a position behind the Warthogs the best they could. Captain Reimer gave the order for us to fire.

In a split second plasma and lead filled the air. The Jackal Flood defected our shots, while the Grunts behind them fired off plasma. The Warthogs didn’t fare well against the fire hot plasma that began to melt the body.

A gunner fell down from his position on the mounted gun, collapsing on the ground next to me. A second marine climbed up on the gun and took the previous marine’s job.

Several marines were ordered to use M7057/Defoliant Projectors, or simply the flamethrowers.

We provided them cover by lobbing frag grenades over the Flood’s heads, which exploded. The marines with flamethrowers moved back and forth, setting the infested Jackals on fire and they tried pulling back, which effectively caught more of the Flood on fire.

Then something happened we hadn’t planned on.

Two dozen infected Brutes that were infected jumped out on us behind the Warthogs. We hadn’t even seen them.

The Warthog furthest from me exploded, sending marines flying head over heels behind the Flood ranks. The Warthog beside that one flipped over from the blast.

Those Brutes carried Brute shots, Spikers, and one fancied a gravity hammer, and they mowed our forces quicker than a weed whacker does to a blade of grass.

Some marines tried to retreat the way we came from. But the door had locked itself. There was no way out but by going forward—which is what we Helljumpers do best. Captain Reimer ordered the ODSTs to charge forward into the blockade of burning Flood and clear the way out.