Chapter 1- An Easy Mission

ODST Corporal Jack Sterling was sitting in his drop pod, resting his eyes as he listened to his squad mates squabble. He kept his helmet, feeling keeping it on gave him more character than his actual face. If anything, he knew he kept it on to hide his emotions from the people around him. Better to be known as strong and silent than emotional.

He peeked forward to watch his squad's leader, Sergeant Frederick Banks, and their designated demolitionist, Wally Cornelius, AKA Boomer, arguing over the plan of attack on their next assignment. Jack huffed in amusement. He knew Boomer always wanted to go in with a little more flare, while Frederick wanted to keep it low profile. Jack agreed with Sergeant Banks, they weren't Spartans, but Wally was always forgetting that.

Suddenly, a fist lightly struck his leg. He looked up to see their sniper, Katherine Banks, smiling at him. She pointed behind her with her thumb and said, "I can't see your face,but I know you're enjoying their little fight."

A small smile came over his lips, but he simply nodded his head. He was the newest member here, only being a part of the squad for about 4 months. He found a silent enjoyment in the twos' fights, and he knew Katherine found it strange. She's been in the squad since it was formed, being Sergeant Banks' sister.

She sighed and leaned against the wall next to his drop pod. They had about an hour or so before they reached their mission location. It wasn't supposed to be anything serious. After the head of the Covenant was cut off, remnants have broken off and been causing trouble across the colonies. They were currently heading to Tribute. The planet was only partially glassed, so Jack was guessing some desperate Covie remnant sought refuge in it, thinking humanity would simply abandon it. They highly underestimated humanity's resilience. Jack wasn't expecting much to happen, other than taking them out long range, out of danger, and then clearing their operation site. A quick in and out. They've been doing a lot of that recently, and Jack would be lying if he said he wasn't a bit bored. But hey, he was still doing his duty and clearing out those Covie bastards. Even though it was a small op, he would still be proud of the work.

Katherine yawned and said, "I can see you're in the same mindset, this op will be real clean. Yeah, I know you're tryna rest your eyes behind those visors. Anyway, I just hope you don't get lazy. Even on something easy, one small slip-up can mean your and our lives."

Jack shifted his helmet towards her, making her laugh. She wiped a tired tear from her eye and said, "No pressure, though. I know you won't make a slip. Seeing how you're the man with the big iron on his hip." She laughed at her own joke and walked away to begin checking her equipment for the fifteenth time.

Jack watched her walk away, then touched the suppressed pistol on his hip. Her fascination with old songs always caught his attention. He used to think the stuff was garbage, but then she introduced him to plenty of it, and now he wished people still made music like it. It was a part of her he appreciated. Now that he touched the pistol, he pulled it out and checked over it again. He must've done it twenty times, but he knew it was better than falling asleep from boredom on accident. He was no good on a mission freshly woken up.

Wally let out a large grunt and walked away from Frederick, who huffed and turned to Jack, who was inspecting his pistol. He was secretly hoping the guy was still sitting still, resting his eyes, so he could walk over and give him a good whack for sleeping. He then walked towards him and simply knocked the pod he was sitting in. "Know the mission, right? Just want to make sure before it's too late."

Jack nodded and said, "Shoot from afar, clear the site, no prisoners. In and out." He then went back to checking his pistol, but he heard Frederick let out a small cough. He looked up to see his Sergeant holding out a sniper rifle. Jack groaned as he grabbed it with one hand.

Frederick sighed and said, "You're not a bad shot, Jack. We'll all be using one, so just suck it up. Unless you just can't handle the kickback?" He heard a huff of protest from Jack, but was happy when he made no retort. He then said, "Check it over, make sure it's fully functional. Don't want you to miss the perfect shot." Frederick then grabbed another sniper rifle from the rack and walked over to Wally, expecting a lot of back talk.

Jack was checking the sniper rifle, then looked over at Wally, waiting for the show to begin. He slowly stopped checking the sniper rifle and simply laid back a bit as he began watching Wally complain. He let out a small chuckle. Jack had no clue where that guy got trained. He had almost no discipline, and was the most disobedient soldier he's ever seen. He didn't have a clue to why Sergeant even handled his shit, but Frederick was always more patient than most. Jack knew this was probably the only reason the team was able to work so well.

He heard a small sigh of disappointment from Katherine as their argument escalated. She never found any enjoyment seeing her fellow soldier act out of line. Jack learned to find it enjoyable, seeing how there was little enjoyment to be found when your job is killing things. Although, he always did enjoy Covenant remnant missions more than Insurrectionist missions. Now that the elites were the UNSC's allies, he rarely got the chance to get some pay-pack for the billions of people they killed. He prefered alien blood on his hands over human blood.

Once Wally had stopped complaining and the room became silent, Jack found his eye resting became far more appealing. He knew this is when he needed to do some kind of movement. He placed the sniper rifle in its position in the drop pod, ready for deployment, then pulled himself out. He stretched his arms and legs, then took a short jog to the ammo rack to take a last minute look at any possible equipment.

Jack silently thanked god he did, because he suddenly realized he didn't have his knife. He pulled it out from a rack and checked it's sharp, shiny blade. "Not shiny enough." He said under his breath. He took a wipe and began vigorously wiping it. After a few minutes, he looked over the blade. It was like a mirror. He then placed it in his chest sheath and gave it a small pat. He took a deep breath, then let it out. He was getting nerves right now, just like he did shortly before every mission. He decided to take a few extra magazines from the rack, especially now that he was going to use a sniper rifle. He placed them on his armor belts, then made his way back to his drop pod.

He sat back down in his drop pod and checked his HUD's timer. Only thirty minutes until it was time to drop. He checked back over at his squadmates, to see them all going over their own equipment. He laid his head back into his seat and tried to think about something to let the time pass. He remembered the gossip about how Master Chief had gone MIA. It was a while ago, but he liked thinking about it. He knew for a fact he wasn't dead. If that damned Arbiter was able to survive the same thing, he knew Chief could too. But the question was where. The ship had split in half, and they couldn't find the other piece. He slowly shut his eyes to get a better visual, and suddenly he felt a violent rock. He shot up to see his squadmates standing up, putting their gear on and looking over a map.

"Damn! I fell asleep again!" He said to himself. He knew he shouldn't do that. It was only thirty minutes, it can't have that much effect on him. Jack didn't think so after he shot up, feeling perfectly fine. He walked over to the table and saw the highlighted target. The Covies had decided to set up in a low canyon area, trying to stay hidden. Luckily for the ODST's, that gave them the perfect sniping position. Jack almost laughed at how dumb the aliens were.

Katherine turned to him when she put her helmet on and said, "Stay behind EagleEye, I can take them all out!"

Jack laughed and said, "I don't like using sniper rifles, but I'm not letting you get all the fun!" He then turned to Frederick, who simply shook his head. He didn't like when they turned these missions into competitions. He saw it as a lack of humanity. Jack thought that's exactly what they needed as soldiers, a lack of humanity. A lack of emotion. They needed to be killing machines that struck fear in the enemies, and respect from their comrades. Although, Jack knew this was basically them trying to be a Spartans.

Frederick whacked the table and said, "Okay, troopers! We're about to drop, so get in your seats and get ready to land feet first into hell!" He watched as the three looked at him with very little enthusiasm in their replies. He knew full well they weren't excited for this cake walk, but he always enjoyed giving his little speech.

They all quickly ran to their drop pods and strapped in. Suddenly, the doors shut and the interior monitors kicked in, showing Jack the rest of his squad. He was trained for this, but he did find the fact that they were shooting out of a ship from orbit in tiny cocoons, hurtling towards Tribute's surface. He knew that he would see flames surround his pod as they entered the atmosphere, and violent rocking as they fell, then a slam once they reached the surface. But, he also knew once all that terrifying stuff was done, he would be met by a soft, quiet, vibrant forest.

Then, the pods dropped, racing towards the planet. He heard Boomer howl in laughter, then tightened his grip on his thighs as their descent continued.