Ghost of Harvest

The barrel of the rifle was warm against his cheek. He felt it hum beneath his skin, not so much from the mechanical workings of the weapon, but from the tension in his own grip. His breath came out in slow, measured huffs, fogging the visor of his helmet. The night was still, save for the occasional crackle of burning wreckage in the distance. The stench of burning metal and singed bodies was so thick he could almost taste it.

He blinked slowly. There was no adrenaline rush. No shaking hands. No racing pulse.

Everything felt like it was just... happening. He observed the battlefield as though watching through someone else's eyes. The Covenant patrols were methodical, trudging over scorched earth and broken bodies like vultures picking over a dying world. Even from this distance, he could see the glint of their plasma rifles under the dull light of the stars. It should have terrified him. It didn't.

The only thing he felt was the cold weight in his chest.

"Eyes up, merc," came a voice through his comms, jarring him from the void. The voice was sharp but calm, like a professional blade. "We've got to move. More of them are coming in from the east. Our extraction window is closing."

It was her. The pilot.

He adjusted his position, pulling the rifle closer to his body. His gaze flicked to the horizon where blue fires and towering shadows danced in the distance. The Covenant were advancing.

"Copy," he muttered back, voice a gravelly monotone. His mind was already pulling back to the same place it always wandered when he was left too long with his thoughts: Harvest.

The memories clawed at the edges of his consciousness, uninvited. He'd been seventeen when the Covenant glassed the colony. Seventeen when he watched his mother's face turn into a silhouette against the searing light of plasma fire. Seventeen when he realized there was nothing left to fight for but revenge.

The war had forged him into something hard and unfeeling—just another killer in a galaxy full of them.

He slid out of cover and moved in silence across the ruined terrain. His body moved mechanically, every action precise, honed by years of combat. A few meters away, the pilot crouched behind the remains of what used to be a supply truck. Her dark flight suit blended into the shadows, but her eyes were sharp beneath the reflective visor of her helmet.

"We have to get out of here now, or we're dead," she said, her voice tinged with urgency, but not panic.

Her name was Alyssa. He didn't know much else about her, not beyond what was necessary for the job. She flew fast, followed orders, and kept her distance. It was a relationship built on efficiency, nothing more. But tonight, even that felt tenuous.

The Covenant had hit harder than expected. What was supposed to be a quick strike and extraction mission had turned into a battle for survival.

"I'm not leaving without the intel," he replied. His tone left no room for negotiation.

Alyssa's jaw tightened. "You really think ONI gives a damn if we live or die? You've seen the bodies out here. This isn't some heroic stand. It's a massacre. We need to be smart."

"I am being smart," he said coldly, pulling a data chip from his pouch and holding it up between two gloved fingers. "We get this back, we get paid. Simple."

She was about to argue, but the distant hum of Covenant energy shields caught her attention. Her head snapped toward the horizon. A new wave of Grunts and Elites was moving through the rubble, their neon visors glowing faintly in the darkness.

Her gaze shifted back to him, her voice dropping to a whisper. "They're here."

Without another word, he sprinted toward the extraction point, each step a rhythm of survival. The weight of his armor pulled on him, each movement feeling heavier than the last. His lungs burned as they drew in the acrid air, his muscles crying for rest. But he had learned to ignore the pain. Pain was a luxury. And luxury was for the dead.

The terrain shifted beneath his feet—loose gravel, broken metal shards, and scorched dirt—but he kept moving. The Covenant wouldn't stop until they were dead or gone, and he intended to be neither.

Then he heard it: a screeching sound above, a dull roar growing louder.

"Drop ship!" Alyssa's voice crackled through his comm. He barely had time to process her warning before he felt the tremor in the ground, and the impact knocked him off his feet.

He hit the dirt hard, pain shooting through his side as he tumbled into a shallow ditch. A jagged piece of metal tore into his armor, and he grunted, trying to roll to his feet.

Before he could move, a searing blue light cut through the darkness. A plasma grenade, its glowing core spinning toward him.

Instinct took over. He threw himself backward, but he wasn't fast enough. The explosion sent a shockwave ripping through the earth, and his world turned white with pain.

The force of the blast sent him flying, crashing hard into a pile of debris. His body ached, his vision swam, and for the first time in years, he felt fear—real, raw fear. The kind that gnawed at your gut and made your pulse scream.

Everything hurt. His armor had taken the brunt of the explosion, but the damage was significant. He could feel his own blood seeping through the cracks. This was it. This was how it ended. Another faceless soldier, another body in the dirt.

But somewhere in the haze of pain and chaos, something flickered across his vision. At first, he thought it was a glitch in his HUD. A soft glow, like an interface overlaying his sight. But it wasn't ONI tech. This was... different.

[System Activated]

The words blinked into view, and for a moment, he thought he was hallucinating. He blinked, but the text remained. His body was wracked with pain, but now there was something else—a sensation, like his mind was being pulled in a different direction, guided by an unseen force.

Health: Critical. Energy: 4%.

"What...?" he muttered weakly, his fingers twitching against the dirt.

Level 1: Survivor.

The words hovered there, cold and mechanical. He could barely process them, but somehow they made sense. His body was broken, his mind fraying at the edges, but this system, this... thing, was offering something.

A second chance.

Quest: Survive.

The Covenant were getting closer. He could hear their guttural voices, their armored footsteps crunching over the debris. His vision swam, blood dripping down his forehead and into his eyes.

His body screamed at him to stay down, to give in to the void creeping at the edges of his consciousness. But then he saw Alyssa—her shadow moving through the smoke, her gun blazing, trying to hold off the incoming forces. She hadn't left. She wasn't running.

The system blinked again. Survive.

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to move. Pain shot through him, but he pushed it down. You've survived worse. You survived Harvest.

He could hear Alyssa's voice in his comms, sharp and distant, but he couldn't make out the words. Everything was a blur now. His hands fumbled for his rifle, and for a moment, he thought he couldn't do it. He thought he was going to die here, a forgotten soldier on a forgotten world. But then something shifted inside him.

Health: 10%.

It was a small number. Tiny. Insignificant. But it was enough.

The system pulsed again, filling his mind with cold focus. His vision sharpened, and he felt a surge of energy—just enough to push himself to his feet, just enough to keep fighting. He leveled the rifle and fired, every shot clean, every movement precise. He wasn't fast, but he was relentless.

Alyssa's figure came into focus through the haze, her visor locking on him. She was moving toward him, covering his approach with a hail of gunfire. He didn't need to hear her words to know what she was saying.

"Come on. We're not done yet."