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He was so intent on listening to his team's field checks, he al- most ran into a pair of Jackals He instinctively melted into the shadow of a tree and froze

The Jackals hadn't seen him The birdlike aliens sniffed at the air, however, and thenon Fred's concealed position They waved plasy shields The s pro- tective fields rippled and solidified with a muted hum

Fred keyed his COM channel to Red-Tice Her blue ac- knowledght immediately winked in response to his call for backup

The Jackals suddenly turned to their right and sniffed rapidly

A fist-sized rock whizzed in from the aliens' left It slammed into the lead Jackal's occipital crest with a wet crack The creature squawked and dropped to the ground in a pool of purple-black blood

Fred darted ahead and in three quick steps closed with the re- y shield and grabbed the creature's wrist The Jackal squawked in fear and surprise

He yanked the Jackal's gun arled as its oeapon was forced into the h skin of its neck

Fred squeezed, and he could feel the alien's bones shatter The plasht, emerald flash The Jackal flopped over on its back, minus its head

Fred picked up the fallen weapons as Kelly eed from the trees He tossed her one of the plasma pistols, and she plucked it out of the air

"Thanks I'd still prefer roused

Fred nodded, and clipped the other captured weapon to his harness "Beats the hell out of throwing rocks," he replied

"Affirmative, Chief," she said with a nod "But just barely"

"Red-One," Joshua's voice called over the SQUADCOM

"I'er," Fred told hihts winked on

In a half crouch, Fred ht ahead: The shade thinned and vanished because the forest was gone The trees had been leveled, every one blasted to splin- ters or burned to charred nubs

There were bodies, too; thousands of Covenant Grunts, hun- dreds of Jackals and Elites littered the open field There were also humans--all dead Fred could see several fallen Marines still s fros with burning tires, and a Banshee flier The flier had snagged one canard on a loop of barbed wire, and it pro- pelled itself, riderless, in an endless orbit

The generator complex on the far side of this battlefield was intact, however Reinforced concrete bunkers bristling with enerators were deep beneath there So far it looked as if the Covenant had not

"Contacts ahead," Joshua whispered

Four blips appeared on his s identified them as UNSC Marines, Company Charlie Serial numbers flashed next to the men as his HUD picked them out on a topo map of the area

Joshua handed Fred his sniper rifle, and he sighted the con- tacts through the scope They were Marines, sure enough They picked through the bodies that littered the area, looking for sur- vivors and policing weapons and a about the way the Marine squad ht They lacked unit cohesion, with their line ragged and exposed They weren't using any of the available cover To Fred's experienced eye, the Marines didn't even see in a specific direction One of them just ambled in circles

Fred sent a narrow-bealobal fre- quency "Marine patrol, this is Spartan Red Tea your position froe"

The Marines turned about and squinted in Fred's direction, and brought their assault rifles to bear There was static on the channel, and then a hoarse, listless voice replied: "Spartans? If you are what you say you arewe could sure use a hand"

"Sorry we ave a short, bitter laugh "Hell, Chief, this was just round one"

Fred returned the sniper rifle to Joshua, pointed toward his eyes and then to the Marines in the field Joshua nodded, shoul- dered the rifle, and sighted theer--not quite on it It never hurt to be careful

Fred got up and walked to the cluster of Marines He picked his way past a tangle of Grunt bodies and the twisted

The men looked as if they had been to hell and back They all sported burns, abrasions, and the kiloaped at Fred, mouths open; it was a reac- tion that he had often seen when soldiers first glimpsed a Spar- tan: two meters tall, half a ton of armor, splashed with alien blood It was a mix of awe and suspicion and fear

He hated it He just wanted to fight and win this war, like the rest of the soldiers in the UNSC The Corporal seeue He removed his helmet, scratched at his cropped red hair, and looked behind him "Chief, you'd better head back to base with us before they hit us again"

Fred nodded "How lanced at his three coain, Chief?"

These e of battle shock, so Fred controlled his ientle a voice as he could s say you're with Charlie Company, Corporal How many are you? How many wounded?"

"There's no wounded, Chief," the Corporal replied "There's no 'company' either We're all that's left"

CHAPTER THREE

0649 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani system, Orbital Defense Generator Facility A-331, planet Reach

Fred looked over the battlefield from the top of the southern bunker, his temporary command post The structure had been hastily erected, and so instacrete hadn't fully hardened

The bunker was not the best defensive position, but it gave hithen the peri razor wire, buried Antilon mine packs, and swept the area on patrols

A six-round for weapons and ammunition

Satisfied that the situation was as stable as possible, he sat and began to remove portions of his armor Under normal circum- stances a team of techs would assist in such work, but over time the Spartans had all learned how to make rudimentary field re- pairs He located a broken pressure seal and quickly replaced it with an undaed one he'd recovered from SPARTAN-059's arear from Malcolm's suit But it would dishonor his fallen coift of the spare part

He banished thoughts of the drop and finished installing the seal Self-recrimination was a luxury he could ill afford, and the Red Team Spartans didn't have aMarines had held off the Cove- nant assault with batteries of chainguns, Warthogs, and a pair of Scorpion tanks for aled across the minefield and cleared a path for the Jackals and Elites