"Keep suppressing fire on that target!" shouted Bradley, directing his hand at the bunker. He held his breath and put a vex in his sights, squeezing the trigger he dropped the creature. "Bradley, they're flanking our left side!" said Eric. "Everybody get down!" screamed Zack as he shouldered his bulldog. Loading a shell, he fired it into the side of the bunker. Shrapnel and debris exploded into the sky. Several vex came flying out of the fireball, seemingly annihilated by the blast. Sand and Minnesota fired their pulse rifles at the flanking hostiles and finished them off. "Bradley, that's the third vex hive we've come across this week," stated Sand. "Just keep your eyes up," warned Bradley, "they could be anywhere. Now let's get back to base before more of those little demons show up."

   A few miles into their trek back to base, they noticed a large plume of smoke off in the distance. "It can't be.."muttered Eric. He took off in a dead sprint toward the dark cloud. Jumping over downed trees and ducking low branches, they came to the clearing. The smoke they saw was the remains of their base. "Split up and find anything useful, damn vex must've tore this place apart," said Bradley. Minnesota opened a large crate with an image of a pistol painted on it and inside were extra magazines and shock grenades. He tossed a few to his squad mates. "We should check the medical building for survivors," suggested Eric.

 The squad carefully walked towards the medical building, weapons raised. "It smells like diarrhea," joked Minnesota as they passed the demolished bathrooms. "This ain't no time for jokes," replied Zack. The door was laying on the ground in front of them. It appeared to have been ripped off of its hinges, judging by the deep gashes in the metal from the vex talons. Quietly, they snuck inside into the main hall. "You hear that?" asked Eric, "it's a crunching sound". Raising their heads to listen, they all heard the noise as well. "On me," whispered Bradley as he charged his rifle. Rounding the corner toward the vault, the noise ceased. There in front of them rose a Hunter Vex, and the noise they heard was the creature gnawing on the dead body of a nurse. Minnesota quickly raised his rifle and fired two shots into the vex. It died before it hit the ground.

The group rummaged through the medical vault and found pain killers and rubbing alcohol. "This'll have to do for now boys," sighed Eric. "Hold on a sec," said Bradley as he walked off into the halfway. Coming to a fork in the path he veered left and up to a large steel door. He placed a small breaching charge in the center of the door. "Everyone back up," he warned. Flicking the switch to a small remote in his hand, the door blew inwards. Bradley turned and looked at them, pressing his hand against a cement block on the wall marked with a small symbol in the upper right corner.The block slid in slightly and the floor slid open beneath them, revealing a set of stairs. They set off down into the dark.

Approaching the bottom of the staircase, Bradley reached over towards a circuit box, and threw the switch. Bright lights came on overhead, row by row. The room was at least one-hundred feet by fifty feet. All throughout the room were computers that seemed to be wired to all of the security cameras in their sector. "Where did everyone go," questioned Minnesota. "Beats me, must've left while they had the chance," replied Bradley. A few of the computers were flashing similar notifications on screen. Zack walked over and clicked on it, it was video messages from other sectors. A face appeared on screen; "Attention sector Bravo, this is Commander West, we are being overrun by the vex. They have taken out most of our troops and reinforcements aren't promised. Get what you can and get the hell out. We have been ordered to retreat back to Space Station Helo. West, out." The message stopped. "Well, how did we manage to miss all of this," asked Sand. "We were at least six or seven miles away. Not to mention underground for some time while we were defending against that horde about a week ago. Guess our radios didn't have signal down there, they must've thought we were already dead." Added Minnesota. Their attention was directed toward a bay door across the room. It was rising as if someone had pressed the button to open it. Inside it was very dim and there was a figure in the doorway. They all raised their weapons, ready to fire, when they noticed, it appeared to be human.

"Don't shoot! Friendly soldier!" Announced the figure. They lowered their weapons cautiously. "My name is Sergeant Stewart, and if it means anything to y'all, I found an air transport," he added. The group strolled over toward Stewart. "Only thing it needs before we can get it running is an extra power cell. Thought I saw one before in the storage building across base, but I've been terrified of leaving to go get it. These vex are everywhere and they seem larger than before. Decided to just stay safe down here instead of dying up there," Said Stewart. The transport was rather large and could seat up to twelve passengers. It was olive green in color and had pulse jets on the rear and the bottom. On the sides it had twin miniguns, capable of tearing almost anything to shreds. "Once we get the power cell we can use the ship to get us to the next base. And if we're lucky, they'll have a space shuttle we can use to get back to Helo," stated Bradley. The group nodded in agreement to the idea. "Then that's what we'll do," said Eric. "Let's go get us a power cell."