Tired

John was crouched, waiting behind a large rock. He checked over his assault rifle to be sure it was ready for anything that might attack them. He didn't have margin for error in a combat situation so he had to be sure that nothing got screwed up or it might cost him his life. He looked across the pathway to Fred, crouched beside the second rock. He could see that there were cracks along the shoulder armor of Fred's Mark IV armor and he made a note to remind the man to get it fixed.

A blur of green and black passed them and John readied his rifle. The Grunts ran past, not at all aware of the two Spartans. As soon as they had passed Fred and John opened fire on the five-foot-tall aliens. The armor piercing rounds tore through the small aliens and they fell to the ground, torn apart by the bullets. John swept the area and saw nothing left alive. He lowered his rifle and looked back at the fallen aliens.

"It's like there's no end to these things." Fred kicked one of the torn up bodies near him. "You would think at some point they'd run out of the little guys or they'd get tired of just being used to drain our ammunition."

"They likely have a high birth rate." John looked over as Kelly rejoined them. She'd been playing rabbit for a while, leading packs of grunts and elites toward them so they could ambush them. Usually he wouldn't have taken part in this sort of tactics, but he only had five soldiers with him, and right now one of them was very injured and the other two were watching a group of marines. The rest of the Spartans had been separated and John had lost contact with Red and Green team.

They were doing everything they could to force the Covenant from the planet, but he wasn't sure how much they could really do. Eventually the ships above would call them back, or they'd be glassed along with the planet. He was still trying to figure out what their next move should be when Kelly spoke to him.

"Are you even listening to us?" Kelly put her hands on her hips and John turned his attention to the quick Spartan. He decided he must be tired as for a second the thought of how nice it would be to just lie down with Kelly and sleep for a week crossed his mind. It was forced away just as quickly as it arrived but it made John aware of how long they had been at this. The Spartans had been running these attacks for three days straight, all in hope that Red or Green team would show up.

"We need to go back to the others. All of us need a bit of rest and we need to decide on a way to find the other teams. For now there's no way we can strike at any major forces without full strength." John turned and started to walk back toward where the marines and the rest of his team were waiting. They walked in silence, at least John thought it was silence. He glanced back to be sure that Kelly and Fred were following and frowned as he noticed the small signs that they were talking to each other. He wondered why they were leaving him out of the discussion.

They reached the rest of the soldiers and John nodded to James who was on guard. The Master Chief moved into the small structure that had been quickly patched up. At one time it might have been a small outpost, maybe a ranger station or something, but not anymore. Whoever had been here was long gone and the Covenant had only hit it to be sure. Luckily it was still rather strong so it made a good hiding place.

John sat down on one of the crates in the back room. He leaned back against the wall. He should try to get some sleep, but he couldn't. Although he was tired he needed to think. He had to come up with a way to find the rest of the Spartans, and try to beat back the Covenant. His attention was pulled from the fight as Kelly walked in, moving toward him. He watched her as she sat down and leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. John rest his own helmet against hers, moving his arm so it was resting against hers.

John brought up her bio-indicators on his HUD and watched as the line rose and fell sharply with each beat of her heart. He remembered old days when, after a hard day of exercises that left him exhausted, Kelly would let him lean against her and he would just listen to the sound of her heart. A calm and soothing rhythm that slowly lulled him to sleep. He listened to the beeps as the monitor continued to track her heart. His eyes closed as he replaced each of those beats with what he remembered her heart sounding like. He listened to the sound until finally he drifted to sleep.