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PROLOGUE

0500 Hours, February 12, 2535 (Military Calendar) / Lambda Serpentis System, Jericho VII Theater of Operations

"Contact All teams stand by: enemy contact, my position"

The Chief knew there were probably more than a hundred of them--motion sensors were off the scale

He wanted to see the made that lesson clear: "Machines break Eyes don’t"

The four Spartans that co absolutely silent and immobile in their MJOLNIR combat armor Soods in the armorbut his Spartans were far ods had ever been

He snaked the fiber-optic probe up and over the three-e When it was in place, the Chief linked it to his helmet’s heads-up display

On the other side he saw a valley with eroded rock walls and a riverthe banks as far as he could see were Grunts

The Covenant used these stocky aliens as cannon fodder They stood a meter tall and wore armored environment suits that replicated the atmosphere of their frozen hos, not only in appearance, but because their speech--even with the new translation software--

was an odd corowls

They were about as ss, too But what they lacked in brainpower, they made up for in sheer tenacity He had seen theround was piled high with their corpsesand their opponents had depleted their ammunition

These Grunts were unusually well armed: needlers, plasma pistols, and there were four stationary plasma cannons Those could be a problem

One other problem: there were easily a thousand of theo off without a hitch Blue Teauard and let Red Teah in the confusion Red Team would then plant a HAVOK tactical nuke When the next Covenant ship landed, dropped its shields, and started to unload its troops, they’d get a thirty-aton surprise

The Chief detached the optics and took a step back fro to his team over a secure COM channel

"Four of us," Blue-Thispered over the link "And a thousand of theuys"

"Blue-Two," the Chief said, "I want you up with those Jackhammer launchers Take out the cannons and soften the rest of them Blue-Three and Five, you follow et the welcohts winked on his heads-up display as his teaed the orders

"On my mark" The Chief crouched and readied hie--three ht up There was no sound as the half ton of MJOLNIR armor and Spartan landed on the lie--she was the fastest Spartan on the Chief’s team He was confident those Grunts wouldn’t be able to track her for the three seconds she’d be exposed In quick succession, Blue-Two emptied both of the Jackhammer’s tubes, dropped one launcher, and then fired the other rockets just as fast The shells streaked into the Grunts’ foruns flipped over, engulfed in the blast, and the gunner was flung to the ground

She ditched the launcher, ju at top speed to the fallback point

The Chief, Blue-Three, and Blue-Five leaped to the top of the ridge The Chief switched to infrared to cut through the clouds of dust and propellant exhaust just in tiets Two consecutive blossoms of flash, fire, and thunder deciuards, and most importantly, turned the last of the plase

The Chief and the others opened fire with their MA5B assault rifles--a full auto bullets tore into the aliens, breaching their environ the methane tanks they carried Gouts of flame traced wild arcs as the wounded Grunts ran in confusion and pain

Finally the Grunts realized as happening--and where this attack was coed en round and shook the porous stone beneath the Chief’s boots

The three Spartans exhausted their AP clips and then, in unison, switched to shredder rounds They fired into the tide of creatures as they surged forward Line after line of them dropped Scores more just trampled their fallen comrades

Explosive needles bounced off the Chief’s arround He saw the flash of a plasma bolt--side stepped--and heard the air crackle where he had stood a split second before

"Inbound Covenant air support," Blue-Four reported over the COM link "ETA is two er that," he said "Blue-Three and -Five: maintain fire for five seconds, then fall back Mark!"

Their status lights winked once, acknowledging his order

The Grunts were three renades He, Blue-Three, and Blue-Five stepped backward off the ridge, landed, spun, and ran

Two dull thuround The squeals and barks of the incorenades

The Chief and his team sprinted up the half-kilometer sandstone slope in thirty-two seconds flat The hill ended abruptly--a sheer drop of two hundred ht into the ocean

Blue-Four’s voice crackled over the COM channel: "Welcome mat is laid out, Chief Ready when you are"

The Grunts looked like a living carpet of steel-blue skin, claws, and chrome weapons Some ran on all fours up the slope They barked and howled, baying for the Spartans’ blood

"Roll out the carpet," the Chief told Blue-Four

The hill exploded--plumes of pulverized sandstone and fire and smoke hurtled skyward

The Spartans had buried a spiderweb pattern of Lotus antitank ed off of the Chief’s hel off the re to stand

Hisprojectiles high at two o’clock--velocities at over a hundred kilometers per hour

Five Covenant Banshee fliers appeared over the ridge

"New contacts All teams, open fire!" he barked

The Spartans, without hesitation, fired on the alien fliers Bullet hits pinged from the fliers’ chitinous arrav pods on the end of the craft’s stubby ot the aliens’ attention, however Lances of fire slashed frounports

The Chief dove and rolled to his feet Sandstone exploded where he had stood only an instant before

Globules of lass sprayed the Spartans

The Banshees screamed over their heads--then banked sharply for another pass

"Blue-Three, Blue-Five: Theta Maneuver," the Chief called out

Blue-Three and -Five gave hie of the cliff and clipped onto the steel cables that dangled down the length of the rock wall

"Did you set up the fougasses with fire or shrapnel?" the Chief asked

"Both," Blue-Three replied