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PROLOGUE

BETA COMPANY’S VICTORY AT PEGASI DELTA

1135 HOURS, JULY 3, 2545 (MILITARY CALENDAR)

51 PEGASI-B SYSTEM, TARGET AREA APACHE, PLANET

PEGASI DELTA

The orbital pod impacted, and metal wrenched and sparked Inside his cocoon of titaniu, SPARTAN-B292 watched black stars explode across his vision, he tasted blood in his s

To kicked in: he pulled the pod’s twisted fraht

Soasi-914A was supposed to be a faint yellow sun This was electric blue--boiling plas to one side as the blast washed over him The outer layers of his Semi-Powered Infiltration armor boiled and peeled like a bad sunburn

"Training," his instructor, Lieutenant Co must become part of your instinct Drill until it becoht; a lifeti took over

He raised his MA5K assault rifle and fired along the trajectory of the plas sure to sweep low

His eyes cleared, and as he automatically reloaded his weapon, he finally saw the surface of Pegasi Delta It could have been hell: red rocks; orange dust-filled sky; the scars of a dozen impact skids and craters around him; and thirtyinto the sand

Tom pulled out his Sidearm and warily moved to the fallen aliens There were five with extensive wounds to their lower legs He shot theular vulturelike heads, then he knelt, relieved therenades, and stripped off their forearh Tom wore a full suit of Semi-Powered Infiltration armor (colloquially called "SPI"

armor by Section Three techno-philes), its hardened plates and photo-reactive panels could only take a few glancing shots before failing The ar textures sputtered and stabilized, however; and once again blended into the rocky terrain

Every SPARTAN-III had received extensive training in using the enemy’s equipment, so Tom would improvise He strapped one of the Jackal shields to his forear as you res, a tactic larger UNSC soldiers would have trouble acco

The display on his faceplate flickered to life, a transparent layer of ghostly green topology One hundred kilometers overhead, the baseball-sized Stealth Tactical Aerial Reconnaissance Satellite, or STARS, had co dot appeared that represented his position Toet

He scanned the horizon and saw the Covenant factory city in the distance, looiant s deep inside Beyond the factory lay the lavender shoreline of a toxic sea

Additional dots appeared on his heads-up screen… a dozen, two dozen, and then hundreds The rest of Beta Company was online Two hundred ninety-one of them Nine hadn’t made it, either dead on reentry or killed froet out of the pods

After the mission, he’d cheek the roster to see who they’d lost For now, he stuffed his feelings into a dark corner of his ht Xs representing the subprowler Black Cat exfiltration craft appear and then fade on his display That was their only way off this rock after Operation TORPEDO was accomplished

Text scrolled on his display: "TEAM FOXTROT PROCEED ON VECTOR ZERO EIGHT SIX PROVIDE FLANKING SUPPORT TO TEAM INDIA"

No reply was necessary Orders were broadcast from STARS overhead, and any break of radio silence would reveal their position

Three of the dots on the display winked, and tiny numbers faded into view B091 was Lucy B174 was Min And B004, that was Adam His friends Fireteam Foxtrot

To of rock, and took cover under it, waiting for theet distracted by his racing heartbeat, he reviewed Operation TORPEDO one asi Delta was home to a Covenant refinery The sea on this tiny world was unusually rich in deuterium and tritium, which they used in their plasma reactors The factory processed the stuff, and refueled their ships, e of UNSC territory a priet It allowed the enemy easy access to human space

There had been previous operations to neutralize the target UNSC CENTCOM had sent nukes, launched from Slipspace, but plutoniu nors useless The Covenant had easily detected and destroyed them

There were similarly too many Covenant ships near the moon to send a slow, distantly launched nuke in norular invasion or even the elite Helljumper ODSTs worth the attempt The UNSC had one chance to take the factory out before the enemy would muster their defenses

So they were sent

The three hundred Spartans of Beta Coo into Slipspace from the UNSC carrier All Under Heaven They had endured the ride in long-range stealth orbital drop pods, suffered debilitating nausea transitioning unshielded into norot parboiled on the fiery ride to the surface of Pegasi Delta

Froiven by those five Jackals, Toht not yet know the size of the breach in their security He’d have to e of whatever element of surprise reets of ammunition depots and methane reserves

They could still do this They had to do it Destroying that factory would triple the length of the Covenant supply lines to UNSC space This is exactly what Tom had trained for since he was six years old--years of drills and war gah

He heard the crunch of gravel under a boot He spun, rifle raised, and saw Lucy

Every SPARTAN-III looked the saular shifting caionnaire mail, one part tactical body arnized Lucy’s short, careful gait

He e-old silenced Spartan welcohtest of nods

Torenades

Adam arrived next, and Min ten seconds after that

When all their appropriated shields were in place, Toestures, ordering them to move ahead in a loose arc formation Stealthy, but fast

As he stood, thunder rumbled, fire flashed in the sky, and a shadow covered thehters roared over their hiding spot

A line of plasma erupted a hundred meters behind theht toward his tea his Jackal shield, holding it between hih his SPI armor like butter The force field flared white from the radiation; his skin on his palms prickled with blisters