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BLUNT INSTRUMENTS

FRED VAN LENTE

ONE

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Fireteam Spartan: Black‘s objective was not difficult to locate All one had to do was look for the enor out of the horizon on the colony world Verge

They bled silently through ten square kilometers of heavily fortified ene beam until at last they reached the re the hardest hit in the initial Covenant assault a few s leaned and listed in their foundations like beaten boxers right before a climactic keel to the mat It took Black-Four a few minutes to identify an aparth for the beneath their feet

Once they reached the penthouse, they passed stencils of pandas and koalas still visible on the charred walls as they entered what they assumed had been a child‘s rooh the vacant holes where s once were

Their et drifted about five blocks away, casually knocking over fire-gutted husks into clouds of rubble Thanks to their untranslatable and unpronounceable Covenant name, FLEETCOM

simply dubbed the enormous machines ―Beacons" Nearly fifty stories tall and five city blocks wide, the Beacon looked to the Spartans‘ eyes like a perfectly syravity stilts Out of its gaping lower orifice swared insectoids hu and squealing in a teeth-gritting cacophony, the swarrapplers that yanked up great chunks of regolith The Drones flew back up and

deposited the rocks inside the Beacon‘s hollow, irradiant heart, where the helium-3 inside them would be extracted and converted into pure fusion power The energy was then projected skyward, focused in the for from the Beacon‘s summit A weblike

constellation of Covenant satellites orbiting Verge trans the colonies on Tribute, in the Epsilon Eridani systee‘s helium-3 deposits had been trapped in the secondthe spallation-heavy terrafor process The Beacon would drift fro all the He-3 it could, until Verge was picked clean, a feeeks from now Then the machine and its creould be drawn up into a battle cruiser so the Covenant could glass the planet from space

Unless, of course, Spartan: Black blew the godforsaken thing to kingdo off the pri the colonists there a fighting chance

Which was exactly what they planned to do

―What do we see, people?" Black-One asked Befitting their highly classified status as an

unconventional warfare (UW) unit, Spartan: Black‘s ebony armor had been created as skunkwork prototypes in a top secret parallel developnam, United Korea; as such, MJOLNIR: Black boasted a few variant design elements and enhancements completely different from the

standard-issue conification, for exareater than the standard Mark V or VI, with a field of view of nearly five thousand meters From this distance, Spartan: Black could zoorav ―feet" of the Beacon and see the across the street

―Two Hunters per pylon," Black-Two said, noting the stooped, spiny-arht arreen power rods ―Armed with standard assault cannon"

―Complemented by two--no, three--Jackals at each corner," Black-Three added

The spiky-crowned, beaked aliens carried, in addition to plas pole made of a translucent purple-pink crystalline er swarm in a confused, almost drunken fashion, and a couple of Jackals would descend on it with a shriek, stabbing the stray in the neck, where it wore a translucent reddish-orange collar The bugger quaked spas the collar with its front claws; it could take only a thrust or two fro seizures before it fell dutifully back with the swarm and resumed whatever task it had abandoned

―Jackals aren‘t just security," Four said ―They‘re also ement"

―Very nice toyou"

No one said anything for almost five minutes They just watched the enemy work

Finally, Three said, ―Hunters and Jackals--they‘re just another day at the office I mean, I can kill Tree-Turkeys inyou can sink your teeth into But the buggers--how ot a hundred, a hundred fifty so far," Four said ―But I‘ pretty fast down there"

―One-fiftyJesus," Three said ―How are the buggers going to react e bring the has as weapons? What kind of intel do we have on their tactics and behavior?"

―We have jack," said Two, the fireteaence officer ―Covenant‘s rarely deployed theain, shaking his head ―I hate surprises"

―If it was easy, they wouldn‘t call us heroes," One drawled

―I‘d prefer a pat on the back," Three said ―But I gotta be alive for that"

―Two," One said, ―find us a room in the interior where we canseen from the street"

―Copy that, Chief" Black-Two backed out on her stoot up into a crouch and h the rest of the penthouse

She deterhtlines to the perimeter and prepared to return and tell One but was stopped by a fluttering, flapping sound from a doorway on the north side of the rooainst the wall and peered around the doorway She was looking into a ruined fa facedown and shattered on a carpet littered with te s On the ground beside a sofa blackened and bloated by fire and the eles spasmodically

Two put both hands on the assault rifle hanging from her shoulder and silently lined up a shot at the crown of the bugger‘s walnut-shaped head Soh She didn‘t pull the trigger

Two realized the Drone was on his back, pulsing the hinged arain in a futile attempt to flip himself over onto his belly Two could now see that all four of his lower legs had been cut off and cauterized at the stu arms didn‘t have joints that allowed hiht

Tatched hied from behind the doorway

and took several slow strides over to where the Drone lay His orange, half-egg eyes were fixed at the ceiling and didn‘t register her approach

Still covering the insectoid with the rifle, Two tucked one foot under the creature‘s body and kicked his to stay upright while hopping up and down on the end of his abdoer was human sized, and they were now practically eye to eye Two took a step back anddown the barrel of the AR

Holding the gun steady with one hand, she flexed her other elbow in such a way that a

co the left foreaem of the skunkware MJOLNIR A wand coital ink keyboard, and every scrap of linguistics data United Nations Space Coes of Covenant races popped out of the

compartment and slid into her palm

―Identify yourself and your purpose," Two said sternly, and waited for the Interrogator, as ONI had christened the device, to translate and broadcast the question in Yan circle appeared on the Interrogator‘s display, indication it orking After only a few seconds, the device emitted a faint series of clicks and screeches in a pitiful attempt toSure enough, a moment later, its display flashed: ―Untranslatable" Two cursed under her breath Not enough was known about the daible

With his head cocked quizzically, the Drone watched as Black-Two tried to rephrase the question a couple of different ways so that the Interrogator ht translate, but no avail

Then the creatureone claw in her direction, then curling his digits rapidly toward himself: Give

Black-Two frowned What little intel ONI had on the Drones suggested they had an instinctive faculty for technology Cautiously, she handed the Interrogator over There seemed little harm in it

A cord attached the device to her forearm to supply it with power and data, as well as ensure that the other half of a conversation couldn‘t just walk aith it

The second the Yanme‘e wrapped his claws around the device he popped open the access panel on its underside He rearranged the circuits and uts with such speed and precision that one would have thought he had spent every wakingwith them

Two opened her , transfixed by the rapidity of the thing‘s race, like a dragonflyin the device clicked

And the creature started talking

IN THEnursery lookout, Black-One was just starting to wonder as taking Black-Two so

long when her subordinate‘s voice rang out from inside the apart the boys, too!"

The rest of Spartan: Black walked into the living rooator‘s power cord At first glance it looked like the Yan the Spartan on a leash

― Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! " Instantly, the three other Spartans fell into an attack phalanx, Three and Four both dropping to one knee and raising their ARs while One re her oeapon on the Drone‘s head ―Spartan Black-Two!" she barked ―Step away from the hostile!"

Two held up both hands and estures ―It‘s okay," she said ―It‘s okay He‘s not all that hostile I na"

Hopalong‘s claws flickered across the translator‘s digital ink keypad ― Hello, guys " Norator spoke in the inflectionless nonaccent of the midwestern United States But whatever the Drone did to the machine‘s insides had distorted the co of intelligible speech played backward that just happened to also sound like intelligible speech

―The hell, Two?" Three snapped ―Making friends?"

―He knows an alternate route to the Beacon, an underground one," Two said calency ―Tunnels that have been coo in therav pylons and take them out before the Covenant knohat hit them"

―How did he knoere after the Beacon in the first place?" Three demanded ―You tell him?"

―Have you looked outside?" Two snapped defensively ―Like there‘s anything else on this dirtball worth blowing up"

―I can‘t think of a single reported instance in which Covenant provided aid to hu her weapon at Hopalong ―We trust this bugwhy?"

―See that?" Two pointed to the stu limbs had once been ―The