• Alpha Centauri II

    The battle of Alpha Centauri II raged on around me as I scrambled for the cover of a nearby boulder. Plumes of searing hot plasma streaked through the air around me, whistling past my ears. Slipping and sliding, I took a wild dive and landed safe in its shielding. I pressed my body against the rocky surface and listened to the pot-shots chip away at my refuge and slowly the shots of plasma lessened and finally died out completely.

    Slowing my labored breaths, I checked my weapons, a standard S2-AM Sniper Rifle and the close to useless M6C Magnum Sidearm, both low on ammo, Damn it. I silently grabbed the rifle, and angling it to my shoulder I turned back to the Covenant, a collective group of alien of all walks of life, all bent on destroying my race, the Human Race. I pressed my eye into the scope and squeezed the trigger. A nearby grunt dropped like a stone as the bullet punctured the squat alien’s methane tank, sending it up in blue flames, killing most of it’s squad as the plasma grenades on his belt detonated. A small smile crept on my face, payback I thought to my self. I sniped the remaining members of the Grunt’s squad; I finally heard the dreaded clack of the rifle’s empty firing bolt. I collapsed behind my boulder and looked up into space and saw to my dismay more orange flashes lit they sky. In space, where the battle mattered, we were losing again…

    Breaking me from my thoughts, in the distance I could hear the steady whir of a Pelican dropship’s engine. I looked round my shelter to see the familiar dark green paint of the dropship’s hull. With that confirmation, I made a mad dash for the Pelican. I didn’t see the Covenant coming, and I felt that mistake as their weapons burned down into my spine. I fell to the ground and watched, immobilized in the dirt, the Pelican take off. And as I lay there on the battlefield, feeling the life slowly leave me, and with my last life energy I closed my eyes for a moment and asked myself “Why did this have to happen to me?”

    ***End of Chapter***