Reach

"Spartans never die. They're just missing in action."

Heh. If I had a coin for every time some rookie marine said that, well; I would be able to replace my armor. But unfortunately, money doesn't come from the sky; neither do Spartans. On the other hand, fresh blood in the ODST drop to quick raids of Covenant. ONI doesn't do jack shit except keep secrets. And finally, Spartans; we are the back bone of the entire UNSC, as yours truly is a part of the frontlines.

A simple life is what I ask for, and I get repaid in metal armor and bio-injections; ones that make me stronger, faster, and overall just plainly better. Sure, there was others; but they were not as lucky as I, they couldn't survive the training. Those were the ones that dropped dead and keeled over due to the injections and training. Those ONI bastards stole kids as well. Hopefully, those kids get to enjoy life. Mine is just ending.

The day is the 23th of July. Year; 2552. Time; 11:54

Just got news from two days ago that one of the relays on a planet called Reach lost contact. They are radio silent, no one knows why. No one cares why. Reach is a back-water planet with nothing but farm lands, but here is ONI making a team and diverging resources for us to go there. I am a lucky soul it seems, since ONI decided to make me the captain of a dingy platoon filled with restless ODST. I am a hulking tin can; and my squad is made of string beans. Who cares, nothing will happen. Someone probably threw a spear at the relay; that happens all the time in this kind of back of the century planet. Besides, not even the Covenant would be and interested in this type of planet. Another boring job for the lowest class Spartan it seems. How dreary. When I donned this armor, I expected there to be for action, or at the least wasting bullets and counting heads. Other Spartans would look at me with disgust. I would agree, I am just attracting dust at this point.

"Sir, when do we drop?" A timid and frail looking ODST looked at me.

I sighed, since when did I ever qualify to command a squad of string beans?

"We drop at 04:00 tomorrow." I grumble and grimaced, it was useless for the marine to see my face anyways; a visor that shadowed my face was between him and me.

"Relax, there aren't going to be any Covies there for any reason." I said, while signing and holding my head in my right palm.

The ODST marine quickly dropped his posture in front of me. I looked astonished as by I saw four more marines other than the one in front of me. So, it seemed like ONI favored me plenty and gave me five green ODST. Spectacular.

I again, signed. Was I growing too old for this? Of course not. I am just 35 years young!

"Ok first things first. Names. If I'm going to run this squad, I need names to call." I said plain and cool

The timid one from before come before me and saluted "Sir! Joshua-Marks!"

Ugh… Ok, ok fine, I can do this. No really, I… I'm fine with green horns. They just need experience that's all, they're just like children. Too bad I can't have any; the injections made me sterile. Not like I would want any.

"Thank you… Oh yeah, I forgot. At ease soldier. For the rest of you all; just state your name. Drop the formalities, I'm not your drill sergeant. Ok?" I said.

The next one came up to me with a stiff regime, he was a lot heftier than the string bean before that came to me.

"Andrew-Marks!" The lean marine told me with a stiff accent.

Huh, brothers. That's admirable. My brother died in from the bio-injections, his body was frozen: his brain is dead.

After the brother walked away, came a marine with a defiant look sporting a hair-do that was not in regulations and hands in his pockets.

"Frankie-Hemming." The Marine said, he pulled his hands out of his pockets to light a cigarette for himself.

I'm no drill-sergeant. But I can't stand kids making mistakes for themselves. So, I yanked the cigarette from the marine and threw it away, but the fresh marine simply got another one. I gave up.

After that mistake came a tall marine. Great. At least this one is quiet!

"Alric-Falk." The voice came from up high with a gruff of experience and age.

Phew, I thought I was going to lead a squad composed of recruits.

"Please to meet you Falk." I responded with vigor.

Nothing else came from him, other than him reuniting with the rest of the marines. They surrounded him although they didn't say anything to him. In fact, he sat down and went to sleep, while the marines around him just talked over him.

Finally, the last marine looked at me with sharp slit eyes, I wonder which planet this fellow is from? Possibly earth; I've seen others that claim they came from earth look like that, I don't know whether to believe them or not however. At least he gives an air of bravery. And they say chivalry is dead.

"Kurokawa-Yoshio." He said with swiftness, before turning around to stand beside the group of marines, and like Falk that came before him he stood there and said nothing. And he too; closed his eyes, but he didn't sleep like Falk did. He just kind of stood there, menacingly; with his arms folded.

But the way all those marines grouped together made it look like they were a squad before being assigned to me. Yay! Lucky me! At least there won't have to be any group bonding or anything like that.

Eh. This seems way harder than what its normally supposed to be. Whatever, this is only a one-time team anyways.

24th of July. 03:47.

The fun part of being in a squad with ODST is that you get to go with them in their drop pods. They have the name Orbital-Drop-Shock-Troopers since they drop from a ship in orbit. Sounds fun, right? Well ODST usually get fucked by the environment and such, well that's if this were a city, what we were dropping in was not. Well, I can't see the point in going in through orbit rather than a pelican; this decision was ONI's not mine, so I can't really nit-pick them.

Everyone in my little squad had their helmets on and weapons loaded into their pods, besides Hemming everyone was here. I at the very least expected this.

Fortunately, the devil answers his calls.

When I was thinking about the punishments, I could enact upon him, he showed up with frazzled hair and a lit cigar in his lips.

"Hello 'Cap!" Said he with his cigar butchering his words.

I sighed, at least this will only be for a day. Soon enough, he too was sitting down in his pod singing lullabies. Lovely, just lovely.

At 04:00 we get the green light to drop.

At least I wouldn't die from the impact since I have a hulking suit of armor attached to me. But for the others I wondered. Since the distance the pods must drop is substantial. I, however, worried about the wind brakes on the pod, since I weighed about 1000 pounds in my armor.

The clouds parted for me

I fell from the sky

A metal box carrying a metal man

Towards the planet

Reach

The area we landed in was somebodies' farm. Hooo~, this was going to be hard to explain on my record. Just to be clear this was ONI's fault not mine. The pods stuck firmly in the wet muds with the marines being able to climb out of it, all except for Hemming's pod; his pod was submerged door first into the mud and it was slowly sinking.

All the other marines gathered around it to fetch it out of the mud. The Marks brothers heaved and pulled, Yoshio silently stood, and Falk helped the Marks brothers. Joshua-Marks was screaming and writhing about how weak he was, his brother Andrew-Marks was yelling at Yoshio to help. Falk was silent but he was gnawing his teeth and sweating.

I simply walked towards the pod and lifted it from the ground.

Bio-injections. Yo.

The Marks brothers looked at me in awe. Falk said nothing but was crouched on the ground, the same as the Marks. Yoshio stood and looked like he expected this.

I punched the door open. Hemmings greeted me. His hair was disheveled and his pants; wet.

Sure, he blamed it on the marsh lands from farming; water seeping in and what not. But I simply told him to clean himself up and put his helmet back on

Again, I questioned why we landed so far away from the relay. I don't care. I simply headed towards the relay with my squad. Our mission was to accompany an engineer that would fix the relay; and boy, were we in for a treat.

Once we arrived there. Our first orders were to duck from enemy fire. Seems like we were going to be warmly welcomed, and local

Spartan tradition states that I must fire back at opposing forces.

This was certainly going to be an interesting trip for once.