A World's Pyre

War.
Was this what it was now? Desperate squabbles against the inevitable? Had this been what the rebels had felt like every time they saw pods fall from the sky?
Joseph Kovacs was a statue on the hillside, the angry red beam and a world on fire reflecting off the polarized visor of his helmet. The moonless night sky on New Llanelli was dark, and made darker by the contrast between it and the destruction. The ODST battle armor had made him feel like his old self, a warrior at the bleeding edge, and then he’d finally faced the enemy. They’d lost. They’d lost here, and everywhere else. He watched the city, the very world, crack and burn beneath the Covenant destroyer’s glassing beam, and nearly fell to his knees.
He’d killed so many. The little squat ones, the lanky birds, the saurians in their bright armor with their powerful energy shields. They’d cut some of his own to pieces, and they’d cut the aliens right back, but it hadn’t mattered. Nothing they did mattered. This was war now.
“Kovacs,” A voice called from behind him, but did not pull away his gaze. William Hargrove came up beside him, the two black and blue armored commandos alone atop the hill at the edge of a sprawling forest. “Kovacs, can you hear me?”
He didn’t answer, eyes following the beam of energy as it wiped away all humanity had built on this world like it had never been there at all. Like nothing had ever been there at all. A hand grabbed his shoulder, and gave him a hard shake, finally stirring him from the trance.
“Are they all like this?” He asked the young commander, looking down into Hargrove’s wider faceplate in hopes of some kind of answer that would make the numbness fade. There was a brief silence that felt a small eternity, and Joseph knew the answer. 
“If there’s nothing they want, yeah.” William looked away from him, and out onto the glassing, then back to the tree line where the other members of Lima 9-9 who’d survived the ordeal lingered. “Or if they realize they aren’t getting it if there is.”
Joseph turned, and set his eyes on the one named Ocampo. On his back, inside a secure casing that might’ve been strong enough to withstand a nuclear detonation, was what the aliens had been after this time. Joseph didn’t think the strange device both ancient and alien yet no longer than his forearm or wider than an open palm could’ve been worth all this, but to the Covenant it apparently was.
He’d always understood his enemy before, Joseph had known the insurrection inside and out, they broadcasted enough propaganda so that anyone might’ve known why they were fighting. But they weren’t the enemy anymore, and Joseph’s war with them had apparently ended while he’d been adrift in cryostasis. The new enemy had only ever told them one reason why, and it was not up for debate or negotiation.
“Figures.” Joseph muttered, remembering the weight of the M7 Submachine Gun that hung loosely in his right hand’s grasp. His fingers went tight around the grip, and Joseph felt stronger for having it, but what was he going to do? March into the glassing beam spraying small arms fire? 
“Told you they were something else, old timer.” The barb caught, and Joseph tore his eyes from the shadowed treeline and back to his new comrade. They were close enough to the same age, and yet on paper he was old enough to be Hargrove’s father, something the man had felt the need to dwell on from the moment they’d met.
He should’ve had something to throw back, but the words never came.
“I guess you did.” He nodded, looking back out to the apocalypse in progress. There had been tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people still in that city when the beam came down. He wondered how many were left, and if any might survive. Joseph wanted to pretend he didn’t know the answer, but he could not bury it as much as he tried. Joseph thought about those people, and the billions more before them who’d died the same way. He wondered what they’d prayed for when the end came, Joseph knew what he was praying for now.
He looked up the great lance of light, and told himself this would not be the last time he’d see it. No, he knew New Llanelli would be just the first, but as much as it should’ve that didn’t make his insides shrivel in fear. He was going to fight them for every inch, without hesitation, without mercy, without fear, he’d been meant to die a long time ago, and he did not fear the end of his journey.
“So,” Hargrove was facing out beside him, the glassing shining off his faceplate. “Regretting waking up yet?”
Joseph took the M7 in both hands, and gave one final look at the dying city on a soon to be dead world, and finally turned his back to it. “No.” He answered, and the war raged on.