[ 11282-31220-JD ]

Info & Permissions (mandalus)

2012-11-28T14:24:18Z

character info. Ref. 1 • Ref. 2
NAME / SERVICE NO. "Rookie" / 11282-31220-JD. SEX. Male. AGE. 21. NATIONALITY. Naniwan / Lunar. HEIGHT / WEIGHT. 186 cm / 88 kg	HAIR. [unknown] EYES. [unknown] LANGUAGES. Japanese. English. APARTMENT. A-303 ROOMIES. -
EQUIPMENT. 1 M7S Caseless Submachine Gun [functional; 192 rounds = 4 mags à 48 rounds] 1 M6C/SOCOM [functional; 60 rounds = 5 mags à 12 rounds] 1 ODST body armour with VISR [comm broken, otherwise functional] 1 Backpack [holding first aid equipment like Biofoam and painkillers] 3 Fragmentation Grenades [functional] 1 Photograph	CONDITION. Healthy.

permissions.

TRIGGERS.

he's seen a couple ugly things in the war, but he doesn't seem too trigger-able about them. neither am i. so don't worry about this.

MEDICAL INFO.

in good health. he has some good constitution going on there, can sprint fast, and so on. however, he's just recently suffered a head trauma that doesn't seem to be affecting him, but that was enough to knock him out for six hours. he's fine overall, but he may get some aftermath headaches and the usual. the only thing of note here is that has a nasty, deep, and still very red, i.e. fresh scar running across his throat and - from the same incident - a damaged larynx and vocal cords. so yes. he's not physically capable of speaking more than a bit of whispering. [note: this is headcanon, to explain why he doesn't talk at all when he clearly communicates with gestures fairly excessively sometimes.]

MENTAL INFO.

he's fine mentally, too. he's seen some ugly things, though, so if your character's a mindreader and really wants to get in there, don't expect it all to be flowers and sunshine. IF you have a mindreader type character, PLEASE talk to me before doing anything like that. this guy has a really mysterious past, a lot that isn't even covered by canon, and if somebody jumped into his head and all... well, i'd have to come up with something. and i don't want to take THAT many liberties, honestly. so... you wanna take a look into his head? awesome. just talk to me so we can figure out a way around the stuff that i don't want to have to make up. lol

FOURTH-WALLING.

hahaha. yeah, try it.

PHYSICAL CONTACT.

i don't see why not. just don't take off his helmet, please. or ask me beforehand. I LIKE KEEPING HIM A MYSTERY OK.

ROMANCE/SEXUAL RELATIONS.

not looking, again. it won't make me uncomfortable if your character is a flirt or something and hits on him, but really. there won't be anything going on here.

INJURE/KILL.

i'm totally cool with fights and him getting injured. just make sure to discuss it with me first. this guy, unlike my other, is a bit of a badass. not TOO much, though, so no worries. just a human special ops soldier.

DEVICE HACKING.

yeah, here? heads-up, please. cause you know, military and all. let's discuss it if you want to do something, but it's def. possible long as i know what's going on.

THREADJACKING.

never worry about that. IF it ever becomes too much, i'll tell you early enough. i love thread-jacks.

ANYTHING ELSE.

since nobody knows his face and he doesn't have anything like a voice (lol), you can assume that weird guy in the showers that nobody's seen before is him. anybody from halo-canon would probably see on first glance that he's an odst, though, because as everybody in the 105th marine expeditionary unit (sub-group of the odst), he has the odst's "skull and comet" symbol tattooed somewhere. what's more, anybody would immediately know his blood type (0+) and his rank (lance corporal) if they are familiar with those things, since the former is printed very large on the left shoulder of his armour, and the latter is visible in the insignia on his armour's chest plate.

Application [mandalus]

2012-11-23T07:27:59Z

→ PLAYER INFORMATION;
Name: Herit
Personal Journal: texas_red
Contact: Chabliya (plurk), texasr3d (aim)
Timezone: CET

Current Characters: Kai Leng

→ CHARACTER INFORMATION;
Character Name: The Rookie*. (Service-ID "11282-31220-JD". AKA the "FNG", "Rook".)

* That's the only name he goes by, both in the short story and in the game; his initials are given as "J. D.", but that may just stand for "John Doe", i.e. "we have no fucking clue what his name is either". If it ever becomes an issue, I'll just go with him not telling, or not knowing it either.

Character Journal: brb_napping
Canon: Halo 3: ODST
Canon Point: After finding the broken gauss turret at Kizingo Blvd and reconstructing the events there, and having found a few hints about Sadie Endesha.
Canon Building: -

History:

'We often talked about the ODST as a kind of detective. A lone gumshoe in the dark mysterious city. Hey, let’s drop one man, that’s not a Spartan, on his own, into a dangerous environment, and let him really solve a mystery, let him solve a mystery, let him find clues.'
-- Joseph Staten

Since the Halo universe is far too extensive to explain in detail here, I hope the summary provided here will work instead.

The Rookie's personal history is a bit of a mystery, like most hard "facts" about him, such as his name and age. We do know that he was born on Luna - the Earth's moon - in Crisium City, Naniwa. Who his family was or how he grew up remains unknown. On 7th July 2547, presumably at the age of 16 to 18 years, he enlisted, went through boot camp, and joined the UNSC Marine Corps.

Over the next five years, he would collect some battlefield experience and be transferred to the special operations capable 105th Shock Troops Division in the ODST - the so-called Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, an elite Marines unit whose members are dropped behind enemy lines in so-called "Drop Pods", in order to perform specialised, high-risk operations. Most notably, this unit, unlike the SPARTAN programmes, doesn't consist of super-soldiers, but exclusively of regular human soldiers - highly skilled and specialised, and hand-picked, however.

In September 2552, fresh out of ODST boot camp, he participated in the Battle of New Jerusalem, an UNSC colony world in the Cygnus System. He was part of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Force, a Rapid Offensive Picket which was completely annihilated in the battle - except for him. The Rookie is the only known survivor of his team. During the battle, he encountered the dying ODST Colonel Gage Yevgenny, who told him his life story and would therefore become a huge inspiration for him in the fight against the Covenant. Knowing his death was inevitable, however, Gage sent the Rookie to run to safety and remember him, before blowing himself up along with a team of rogue ODST and Covenant, who were after the gold respectively the artefact on board his crashed Pelican. The Rookie followed the order and ran, to be picked up by back-up - and eventually return to Earth as the sole survivor of his team in this battle, with a promotion from Private First Class to Lance Corporal.

Along with the promotion, the Rookie was transferred to an ODST squad under Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck. With his new team, the next mission took place on 20th October 2552. The battlefield - Earth. After the Covenant had discovered Earth's location, a group of alien attackers was now searching for an artefact in the African mega-city New Mombasa. Originally sent there with orders to infiltrate one of the Covenant's major Assault Carriers, the Office of Naval Intelligence's Captain Veronica Dare took over command of the squad, and changed their destination during the drop, including the ODST in a secret mission. However, complications during the drop due to the Assault Carrier's sudden Slipspace jump led to the drop pods being scattered over the city, and every member finding himself in a different location.

The Rookie was especially lucky here. He did not just find himself alone behind enemy lines with a minimum of ammunition and weapons, but he was also knocked out due to his pod's collision with the pod of a team mate and the subsequent crash, and spent the next six hours unconscious.

[for more detailed samples of his background see the novel excerpt & game cut scenes here]

Personality: The Rookie may not be exactly what you expect a special ops soldier to be. Oh sure, he's good. Else he wouldn't be in the ODST. After all, these troopers "aren’t supersoldiers, but they’re the next best thing". [Bungie] However, this guy here? Let's just say whatever skills have gotten him into the squad weren't attentiveness and discipline.

The Rookie is probably best known for sleeping or just napping where- and whenever he has the chance; that includes during briefings, when the new Captain is introduced, in his drop pod before the drop, under a set of stairs, before and during the interrogation of an alien informant. So it seems just fitting that upon the crash landing in New Mombasa after their drop, the Rookie was the only ODST - the only soldier in his whole team, even, which also included an intelligence officer - who was knocked unconscious and spent the next six hours... why, yes. Sleeping peacefully in his pod, in the middle of a fallen mega-city run over by aliens, while his team was out there, fighting.

Thankfully, upon waking up, he managed to redeem himself, freeing himself from his damaged pod and beginning a lone journey through the alien-infested city to find out what happened to the rest of his team. Here, we see the Rookie's other side, when he's not relatively safe in the security of an UNSC ship and lazy: the ODST.

Once behind enemy lines, the Rookie's behaviour changes drastically. While before, when only witnessing him among allies and in safety, it would admittedly be hard to believe that this lazy newbie, who doesn't even pay attention to briefings, introductions or - in some cases, as will be detailed later - orders, is really an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper and part of a unit specialised on high discipline and stealth, the battlefield really changes not quite his personality, but very much so his actions, behaviour, and focus.

The Rookie has, new as he is to the ODST, first-hand battlefield experience, and that experience isn't at all pleasant: In the Battle of New Jerusalem, he witnessed his entire team being wiped out, and came back as the sole survivor. He heard the life-story of veteran ODST Colonel Gage Yevgenny, and witnessed first-hand how the man killed himself to stop both the Covenant and rogue members of his own squad, his own comrades. These experiences have had a strong influence on the Rookie's approach to war, and even on his personality and perception in general. It's important to note that the Battle of New Jerusalem took place only a month before the events of Halo 3:ODST, which is the point in the timeline he is taken from. In this limited time, his personality has undergone a few perhaps subtle, but nonetheless important changes.

Most notably, during the events of the Battle of New Jerusalem, the Rookie is portrayed as a far more talkative, somewhat more naïve soldier, obviously not long on the front lines, visibly more affected by the things he experiences than he seems to be only a month later, by the time of the New Mombasa mission. He is shown unsure what to do, how to treat the fatally wounded Colonel, nervous and in a way helpless. Yevgenny's words and his story, but even more so his actions when he blows himself and the soldiers on his track up, are shown to have affected the Rookie deeply, clarifying to him what the war is about and what the human troops are fighting and dying for in a way that was prior to this point impossible to fully understand for him. It's fairly straight forward from the story's ending that Yevgenny's death is one of the turning points in the Rookie's life, illustrating to him what he has to do from here: fight the Covenant with all he has, to the last breath.

This incident most likely also influenced his decision to join the squad after his return from the battle. But despite the aforementioned experiences, it would be wrong to think that the Rookie is one of the typical fierce warriors driven by revenge, and that's exactly the interesting point about him: He's not. He's the opposite.

The Rookie has a natural calmness in nearly everything he does that no doubt partially comes from his experiences in New Jerusalem, before which he didn't yet show this trait, and that is, most likely, what makes him exceptional: Unlike his comrades, there is no tough talking from him, no insulting the enemy, no anger, not even any visible sign of triumph when the team returns from the New Mombasa mission victoriously. In fact, there's simply nothing from him. He's highly concentrated while on the field, and laid-back and lazy before and afterwards. He knows what the war is about; it's serious. When he fights, it's not about triumph or honour or revenge. It's simply about winning; saving humanity. And he does so surprisingly focused and efficiently. The minute he is released from his pod, he wastes no time tracking down his team in the destroyed, abandoned city, alone, terribly outnumbered, and only with rudimentary equipment - and then, after catching up on the events, tracking down Captain Dare and saving and escorting the Engineer with the Superintendent's data with only her as backup. When he has a mission, he does his work, and that's it; there's no time for the details around it for him, because he knows very well how important and how dangerous his job is. That is the only thing he has eyes for when he is on a mission: doing the job.

You could almost call the Rookie somewhat antisocial at this point. He doesn't talk, ever - and while his commander Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck simply comments "he doesn't say much", we never in fact hear the Rookie speak at all after the events of the Battle of New Jerusalem. It's possible that he simply does not want to speak, or that he was injured during the battle, and cannot. His behaviour otherwise, just as his employment in the ODST, do not suggest that this is the effect of a traumatic experience during the battle, however, contrary to what some players may believe. While he doesn't speak, the Rookie makes himself perfectly understandable with simple gestures and body language, a lot of which makes a somewhat "green", not quite cold-professional-hard-ass kind of impression; for instance, he is prone to looking around in obvious confusion, tilting his head, shrugging, or playing with the broken weapons and other hints to the past events - obviously answering, asking, and interacting with his body language. Therefore, even thought he doesn't speak and his face cannot be seen, he still strangely stays a very expressive character, which is quite unique about him.

He's known to take it to a bit of an extreme, though. For instance, he straight out does not respond to comm calls. Whether it's the ONI captain calling any survivors in reach, or his commander demanding an answer, the Rookie just won't reply. He won't. Not send a signal back, not anything. Just like he ignores briefings, he ignores calls like this, just listens, uses the information he's given, and keeps on doing what he was doing or has to do. Here, even an injury making a reply impossible isn't quite an excuse: even with damage to his vocal cords and larynx, he should still be able to whisper, which - seeing the technology the soldiers use - would hardly pose a problem for the comm. He just doesn't want to reply. He's not big on talking, and despite his not exactly grim or fierce demeanour, more a man of action than words.

Overall, however, the Rookie depends on orders. That is exactly what Buck adds after the résumé about not talking much: "But I don't care. I just need him to listen." And here, he's good. He's very good at listening, whether it is to orders, which he usually follows promptly and (of course) without questions, or just to whatever is being said that might be of importance later. One of his actual achievements during the New Mombasa incident was not only finding Captain Dare and rescuing her and her alien informant, but also finding the missing pieces to the story behind the Superintendent, by downloading and listening to the data available throughout the city. While he doesn't say much, he may well understand a lot more of what is happening than many of the people around him, and especially more than many of his team mates and his superiors may expect. For some reason, information always comes to him - whether in the form of Yevgenny, comm calls he listens to without responding, or data hidden away somewhere. If it wants to be heard, the Rookie is usually the one who will hear it - and keep it to himself.

The Rookie is overall a nice man, not particularly aggressive or competitive (not even reacting with anything but confusion when Romeo hits him to wake him up). He's shown to be somewhat empathic, best seen in his conversation with Yevgenny. Interestingly, despite his promise and conviction to fight the Covenant teeth and nails, he shows an exceptional degree of tolerance when quickly accepting the Engineer the team is supposed to recover to the point of exchanging glances with it at the behaviour of Buck and Dare. As we see in Buck's reaction to the alien, this is something that seems a lot more difficult for some of his team mates. And here, the Rookie's overall disposition and mentality about the war shows clearly: he's not attacking something, he is defending himself, his race, and their planets. He fights the Covenant not because he hates them or feels vengeful, but to defend his people.

Unlike his comrades in his squad, the Rookie is not an expert in any field in particular. While his team has a sniper, a pilot and explosives specialist, a heavy weapons specialist, and the leader, the Rookie himself doesn't excel at anything in specific. He can fight, of course, and he's fairly versatile at that, but he is not a specialist. If anything at all is suggested as his speciality in the game, it would be intelligence - gathering and working with information. This is confirmed by a statement by Halo 3: ODST's Lead Producer Curtis Creamer: "You see a lot of crime dramas where detectives have this crazy ability to travel to the scene of the crime and sort of 'imagine' how the crime took place. The Rookie has that ability, so when he finds one of these clue objects you get to 'recreate' what happened to that character."

That's the Rookie's role in his team, next to the sniper, the explosives specialist and pilot, the heavy weapons specialist, and the leader: the scout, reconnaissance guy, or "spy" character, sneaking around, finding out what's going on, and infiltrating places that are overrun by the enemy, armed with sound-suppressed semi-automatics and side-arm handguns. These are the things he does and excels at, even when cut off from his team and commanding officers, proving that while he hardly stands out, he does have a certain amount of intelligence and creativity. And it fits his silent, somewhat passive demeanour.

The Rookie is a capable soldier - if not exceptionally impressive. His attentiveness isn't always the best - this isn't only seen when he's shown sleeping during important happenings, but also when he, for instance, "loses" the Engineer - not noticing the alien leaving when he's standing right next to him, because he is too busy watching Dare and Buck argue. That underlines what, despite skills that he has and knows how to use, one should never forget: he is young and inexperienced, and he makes mistakes that could have been avoided.

However, he's loyal, he's serious and disciplined when he has to be, somewhat lazy and lax with rules (which he seems to view more as guidelines, sleeping in his pod, ignoring calls) otherwise, and essentially just a young man who's fighting in a war for his race and its home planet. He's good - but not the best among the best. He's an ODST elite soldier, but part of the team, not its driving force or most distinguished member. And he's perfectly fine with that, being good enough to do his job, but nothing more. The Rookie, more than anything, doesn't like standing out - that much is obvious with his silent, calm personality, and his follower's mentality. He knows that the right thing to do is, and he does it - but he's not a leader, and he doesn't aspire to be. He's perfectly okay being average among the good. Leadership is distracting. He can work alone, at least on short term, but when doing so, he instantly makes the focus of his mission searching his superiors and awaiting their orders. Overall a passive character, the Rookie is undeniably still green, and he knows it. He doesn't have anything to prove, though - he knows why he's in this war.

Imported Character History: -

Powers/Abilities: Being a trained special ops soldier? No, honestly. He can fire a pretty big variety of guns, operate turrets, administer first aid, sneak around, and sprint pretty fast. He can take a bullet or two if you don't aim for dangerous spots. He's a perfectly normal human special ops soldier, really. No supernatural powers whatsoever. He does have one special gift, though, as described in the personality section, which is to basically do the film noir detective thing and enter a crime scene, look at the clues, and reconstruct the events. It's a major point in how the game operates, seeing that you get to play out the scenes he reconstructs, but I'll tone it down here, of course.

→ SAMPLES;
First Person Sample:

[VOICE]

[The recording function is turned on - but there's no voice. Just the usual background noises; and then, there's a tapping sound, as if someone is playing with the device. The silence continues for a few more moments, then the recording is turned off again.]

[TEXT]

[These messages are sent separately, with only a brief, but regular delay between them.]

^[1] this is 11282-31220-JD
my comm is damaged
please respond

^[2] 92458-37017-EB
21175-12121-TM
14606-85099-KA
51033-15973-MC
respond

^[3] gysgt buck please respond
this is 11282-31220-JD
my comm is damaged
i am at an unknown location

^[4] any unsc personnel receiving this message please respond
this is odst 11282-31220-JD
i need information on my location and the status of the fight in new mombasa

^[5] anyone who can read this please respond
this is odst 11282-31220-JD

[And here, the messages stop. The sender's obviously gone to figure out shit on his own.]

Third Person Sample: Intro-Log at Hometrail

brb_napping @ 2020-07-24T15:24:00

2010-07-24T13:24:30Z

navigation
Player Contact : HMD & Concrit Application : Background Information : Information & Permissions Posts : Logs

Relationships & Activity

2010-07-24T11:12:26Z


	[classified] other aliases: Rookie gender & age: m / 21 blurb: ★ ✆ ✉ � ᛭ ✍

relationships.

Contact

2010-07-24T10:22:42Z

contact info.

My mostly used AIM account is EmergencyShank.
My mostly used eMail is Chabliya [@gmail].
My timezone is CET, and I tend to be away over most of the day. Best chances to reach me are evening my time (= beginning afternoon in American timezones, roughly, or night/early morning in Asian/Australian timezones).

Have any problems reaching me there? Or want to plot and are too lazy to go that way? Leave me a note here, and I'll get back to you. Ideally, leave me a note with your contact info, since comments are screened, and all that.

HMD & Concrit

2010-07-24T10:21:27Z

hmd & concrit.

Sup, guys. I'll make this brief: We all love concrit. It's my first time playing the character, and I'll be glad for some heads-up on how I'm doing, every now and then. If you have compliments, and a minute to spare, I'd be grateful. If you have crit, notes on what I'm doing wrong, and maybe suggestions on what I could do better or need to keep in mind, I'd be very, VERY grateful.

That's what this post is for. Comments, suggestions, questions, anything? Please comment with them here. And to make that a bit easier:

Anon is enabled
Comment Screening is enabled
IP-logging is disabled.

Thx, guys!

Info & Permissions

2010-07-24T10:04:42Z

character info. Ref. 1 • Ref. 2
NAME / SERVICE NO. "Rookie" / 11282-31220-JD. SEX. Male. AGE. 21. NATIONALITY. Naniwan / Lunar. HEIGHT / WEIGHT. 186 cm / 88 kg	HAIR. [unknown] EYES. [unknown] LANGUAGES. English. ROOM. ALPHA N-106 ROOMIE. Blaine.
EQUIPMENT. 1 M7S Caseless Submachine Gun [functional; 192 rounds = 4 mags à 48 rounds] 1 M6C/SOCOM [functional; 60 rounds = 5 mags à 12 rounds] 1 ODST body armour with VISR [comm broken, otherwise functional] 1 Backpack [holding first aid equipment like Biofoam and painkillers] 3 Fragmentation Grenades [functional] 1 Photograph	CONDITION. Healthy.

permissions.

TRIGGERS.

he's seen a couple ugly things in the war, but he doesn't seem too trigger-able about them. neither am i. so don't worry about this.

MEDICAL INFO.

in good health. he has some good constitution going on there, can sprint fast, and so on. however, he's just recently suffered a head trauma that doesn't seem to be affecting him, but that was enough to knock him out for six hours. he's fine overall, but he may get some aftermath headaches and the usual. the only thing of note here is that has a nasty, deep, and still very red, i.e. fresh scar running across his throat and - from the same incident - a damaged larynx and vocal cords. So yes. He's not physically capable of speaking more than a bit of whispering. [Note: this is headcanon, to explain why he doesn't talk at all when he clearly communicates with gestures fairly excessively sometimes.]

MENTAL INFO.

FOURTH-WALLING.

hahaha. yeah, try it.

PHYSICAL CONTACT.

i don't see why not.

ROMANCE/SEXUAL RELATIONS.

not looking, again. it won't make me uncomfortable if your character is a flirt or something and hits on him, but really. there won't be anything going on here.

INJURE/KILL.

DEVICE HACKING.

yeah, here? heads-up, please. cause you know, military and all. let's discuss it if you want to do something, but it's def. possible long as i know what's going on.

THREADJACKING.

never worry about that. IF it ever becomes too much, i'll tell you early enough. i love thread-jacks.

ANYTHING ELSE.

Background Info

2010-07-14T23:20:59Z

The Battle of New Jerusalem

September 2552

"Cygnus? Didn't think there were any survivors."
— Taylor "Dutch" Miles

The Rook had sat next to the ODST, scanning the horizon for threats, listening to his tale. Any attempt to leave or call for help had been thwarted by the dying man. But now he understood at least why he'd been sent down with a second wave of ODSTs by SOEIV, and why extra Pelicans were on their way. It was all due to this man, Gage Yevgenny, who was most certainly going to die here. The sound of an approaching Pelican began to rise in volume.

"There's a reason I've been keeping you here, talking," Gage said. "Not just a comfort for my dying self. They're almost here. The Covenant, and Eric with his friends. I'm surprised you got here before them all. They're gonna want to salvage all the gold they can from the wreck. What I want you to do is head up the mountain now, all out. Drop your pack, everything but comms and your weapon. Get through the cut there in fifteen minutes and you get on the other side of the mountain. Don't flag down that first Pelican that's coming. In fact, hide from it as best you can. I held you here because if you'd taken off of the mountain, the Covenant would have seen you from the other side. But the Grunts are on canned methane. Instead of using it all up by panting the way over the mountain, they'll work their way around to get close to this wreck. So head up the pass and over the mountain, and run like you ran in boot camp, rook, run like your worst drill instructor is right behind you."

"Sir, I can't just leave you!"

"They're all gonna arrive, rook. And I'm gonna blow the Shiva up the moment all the bastards show up."

Gage held up a control pad that would let him wirelessly detonate the nuclear device.

"Years ago, I told my father it was just dirt. But it's not dirt. It's where we live. It's our dirt, dammit. And more importantly, it's about who's standing on that dirt. Those children. Your family, your friends. And those freaks are gonna pay for every piece of dirt they've taken from us."

"We can still get you out of here!"

"No! I'm a dead man, you know it. I'm not gonna waste more marines."

"And your friends coming this way?"

"They're gonna die helping protect the dirt, rookie. They're gonna die doing something good." He smiled. "If they'd stayed back in the city to form up with you guys instead of running out here for the gold, they wouldn't have a problem, would they? They chose this path. Promise me something, rook."

"Anything."

"You'll fight the Covenant all the way. Even if they land on Earth. You'll fight them even if you have to throw rocks at them."

"I will, sir."

"Then go now." He waved the arming device for the Shiva around. "I'm gonna set this damn thing off, and if you're still dawdling around here."

The Rookie got up, looked around, back at the man on the ground one last time, and then ran. He shed his gear as he did so, everything but the BR55 in his hands. He ran uphill, not looking back, his visor open and his breath loud in his helmet. He leaped over rocks, gaining height, until he finally spotted the cleft of rock that would let him cut over the ridge to the other side of the mountain, back toward the city that was the base camp for this operation. He paused, looking back down in the direction he'd come, catching his breath in long, gasping pants. Boot camp was just weeks ago. He was relieved to find out he still had that kind of sprint in him. He could see the developing battlefield far below, in the scrub of the foot hills. Grunts in the hundreds poured toward the downed Pelican that had come around the far side of the mountain as Gage had predicted. They were like locusts, swarming across the grass bumbling along due to the large methane tanks on their backs. And thundering overhead, flaring out toward the scene - a Pelican. It touched down and three figures stepped out. They did not rush to help Gage, but instead started rooting through the ruins of the other Pelican.

The marine did not wait to see what was coming next. He ran through the cleft, barely glancing up at overhangs, and then slid down the other side. Loose rock tumbled, and he surfed down the shale - and dirt. A bone-thrumming thump shook the entire mountain and a steady roar filled the air. By the time the Rookie got to the bottom, a massive mushroom cloud could be seen over the tip of the mountain top. It was still rising when a Pelican flew around a nearby hill, coming down to kiss the dirt for long enough for the Rookie to leap in.

"What the hell happened over there?" the pilot asked.

The Rookie shook his head. "Long story."

Long indeed. He was still a bit shaken by the entire thing. The Pelican shook and bounced.

"The civilians have all been evacuated," the co-pilot told the Rookie, who stood behind him, looking out the window. "We're taking them back to Earth with us."

"Earth?" He was surprised.

"The Covenant just attacked Reach," the pilot reported. "We're falling back - to Mother Earth."

The Rookie looked out at the land under the clouds as they climbed for orbit, stunned. Soon, all the ground would be glass, once the Covenant ships started in on it. All dirt, he thought, like Earth. From there, they would throw everything they had at the Covenant, if they were found. Even if he had to throw the last rock himself. He'd made a promise. They would make the Covenant pay for every inch of dirt, the Rookie thought to himself.

— Dirt, Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe

The Battle of New Mombasa

21 October 2552

"We are dropping into hell, troopers!"
— Edward "Gunny" Buck

OPENING 4 minutes before drop

THE ROOKIE 0 minutes after drop

THE ROOKIE 6 hours after drop

BUCK 0 minutes after drop

BUCK & ROMEO 0 minutes after drop