At exactly 10:00 a.m. on August 26, 2552, after hiding underground for three whole days, the outermost steel door of the triple-reinforced bunker beneath the ONI headquarters' second basement level finally swung open.
Then, after the seven members of Noble Team had filed out one by one, the door was quickly shut and locked from the inside again! Clearly, aside from Annie and the other members of Noble Team, not a single refugee or surviving UNSC soldier inside had chosen to come out at a time like this.
That was because even though the Covenant's bombardment had ended, the surface still wasn't fit for life—not for a while, anyway. After all, unlike the members of Noble Team, they didn't have Mjolnir powered assault armor with "triple-reinforced" protection!
"..."
"Sigh!"
"Just look at it. The jewel in the crown, Reach's pride—New Alexandria. It's finally been completely destroyed..."
"Maybe all of Reach is pretty much done for now, too?!"
Looking at the fires and smoke everywhere, and at New Alexandria, now reduced to silent ruins beneath the gloomy, dark red sky, no one needed Noble Three Jun to say it aloud. New Alexandria had suffered the same fate as the other Reach cities bombed earlier. The Covenant's plasma bombardment had glassed the city's surface. Many of its sturdy buildings were still standing, but for the foreseeable future, this place would no longer be fit for any living thing.
"..."
-ω`)
"Honestly, you UNSC guys are so useless. You can't even beat those not-so-tough aliens. You're seriously pathetic!!"
s(｀ヘ′;)ゞ
"Those guys really are dumber than Little Bear!"
(ˉ▽￣~)切~~
Annie didn't think those Covenant aliens were hard to deal with—not when, even without cheating, using her supernatural powers, or summoning a fleet, she'd already beaten them all by herself!
But look at the UNSC