New Alexandria (level)

New Alexandria is the eighth level in the campaign of Halo: Reach. The level has an unique structure: the three main objectives may be assigned to the player in any order, and the two minor objectives between these are randomly selected from a larger pool every time the mission is played. The mission requires the player to fly the Falcon, and the player is able to call in a new one if he loses his.

Setting
The level takes place later on August 23, 2552, in the airspace above New Alexandria.

Plot
Noble Six meets up with the rest of Noble Team and is informed that the Covenant are jamming all communications to Command. He mounts a Falcon and assists Kat in destroying the jammers.

NOTE: All encounters in this level are randomized. The three jammers are the only consistent parts, and the order in which they need to be destroyed may change between playthroughs.

One jammer is located at the New Alexandria Hospital. The troopers sent to destroy it are locked in a fight with the brutes before Noble Six arrives and destroys the jammer.

Another jammer is located at Club Errera in the Vyrant Telecom Tower. Two pairs of Mgalekgolo stop the troopers, and Noble Six must deal with them before destroying the jammer.

A jammer is also located in a penthouse at the Sinoviet Center. Troopers assigned to destroy it were killed by Drones (save for a single survivor) and Noble Six must finish the job.

As Noble Six destroys the jammers, Covenant Battlecruisers arrive to the city and start glassing the areas further away.

Between destroying the generators, Noble Six must also complete two secondary objectives, which revolve around assisting the UNSC forces in the city. These objectives include After the last jammer is destroyed, Kat receives orders from Colonel Urban Holland that all personnel are to be evacuated through the Office of Naval Intelligence Headquarters building. However, a group of Shade turrets stationed around the building are preventing any evacuation craft from escaping.
 * Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck requests assistance in freeing his men from a collapsed building. Noble Six is instructed by Kat to escort Buck’s Falcon to the tower.
 * A team of Troopers is under a Covenant attack and requests assistance. Kat instructs Noble Six to kill the Covenant in question. The targets may be hunters, snipers, brutes or elites and engineers.
 * A pelican evacuating civilians cannot take off due to Covenant shade turrets on the nearby rooftops. Noble Six has to destroy the shades.
 * A fourth jammer is found in an exposed rooftop location. Noble Six must kill the covenant guarding it and take it out.

After Noble Six destroys all of the turrets, he meets up with the rest of Noble Team at the ONI HQ. However, they receive an urgent hail from Colonel Holland, informing them that they are being redeployed to Sword Base. Just then, the Covenant begin glassing the city, and the signal is cut off. As Noble Team flees to a radiation bunker, Kat is hit in the back of the head by a Needle Rifle round fired from a Phantom overhead. Her body is dragged into the bunker by Noble Six as the doors close.

Three days later on August 26, after the Covenant forces are gone, Noble Team walks outside to be picked up by a Pelican, with Kat’s dead body in Carter’s arms.

Trivia

 * The level appears to be a homage to Halo 3: ODST, with a similar score, mood, and a brief cameo appearance by Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck. At the portion of the level involving Gunnery Sergent Buck, "The Menagerie," a song from the "Halo 3: ODST Original Soundtrack" begins playing.
 * The Crazy Army Trooper can be found on this level.
 * The layout of Club Errera, where the two pairs of Hunters are fought, is identical to the layout of the Firefight map Crater.
 * When the player must destroy the Covenant Jammer in the Sinoviet Industries tower, the layout of the lobby is identical to that of the Halo 2 multiplayer level Ivory Tower, and to its Halo: Reach remake, Reflection.
 * If this level is played on Co-op, the second player will be given a Falcon of their own. Curiously, the Falcon given to the second player is armed with grenade launcher turrets instead of machine guns.
 * The songs Never Surrender and Siege of Madrigal are included in the Club Errera easter egg in this level.
 * There are several different random support objectives involving the use of the Falcon (i.e. assisting Buck, destroying a Covenant rooftop transmitter, or helping a group of marines kill a group of randomly generated Covenant species on a rooftop or protect them from Banshees), but only two will be given per playthrough. The random nature of this mission is most likely why there are no Rally Points available, such that it can only be played from the beginning of the mission.
 * At the beginning of the level, if you turn the camera to the right when getting into a Falcon, you can see a building collapsing (Note that it will only collapse if you get close to it).
 * Early on in the game's development, the level was supposed to be followed by a mission where the player would control a Scarab in the ruins of New Alexandria.
 * During the closing cutscene for the level, if you look in the Phantom as it flies off, a Sangheili Field Marshall can be seen inside th troop bay-possibly the same Field Marshall encountered by Noble Team in the Visegrad Relay and the one encountered in The Pillar of Autumn.