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The fire got the aliens’ attention, however. Lances of fire slashed from the Banshees’ gunports.
The Chief dove and rolled to his feet. Sandstone exploded where he had stood only an instant before.Globules of molten glass 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 him the thumbs-up signal.
They regrouped at the edge of the cliff and clipped onto the steel cables that dangled down the length ofthe rock wall.
“Did you set up the fougasses with fire or shrapnel?” the Chief asked.
“Both,” Blue-Three replied.
“Good.” The Chief grabbed the detonators. “Cover me.”
The fougasses were never meant to take down flying targets; the Spartans had put them there to mop upthe Grunts. In the field, though, you had to improvise. Another tenet of their training: adapt or die.
The Banshees formed into a “flying V” and swooped toward them, almost brushing the ground.
The Spartans opened fire.
Bolts of superheated plasma from the Banshees punctuated the air.
The Chief dodged to the right, then to the left; he ducked. Their aim was getting better.
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The Banshees were one hundred meters away, then fifty meters. Their plasma weapons might recyclefast enough to get another shot . . . and at this range, the Chief wouldn’t be dodging.
The Spartans jumped backward off the cliff—guns still blazing. The Chief jumped, too, and hit thedetonators.
The ten fougasses—each a steel barrel filled with napalm and spent AP and shredder casings—had beenburied a few meters from the edge of the cliff, their mouths angled up at thirty degrees. When thegrenades at the bottom of the barrels exploded, it made one hell of a barbecue out of anything that got intheir way.
The Spartans slammed into the side of the cliff—the steel cables they were attached to twanged taut.
A wave of heat and pressure washed over them. A heartbeat later five flaming Banshees hurtled overtheir heads, leaving thick trails of black smoke as they arced into the water. They splashed down, thenvanished beneath the emerald waves. The Spartans hung there a moment, waiting and watching withtheir assault rifles trained on the water.
No survivors surfaced.
They rappelled down to the beach and rendezvoused with Blue-Two and -Four.
“Red Team reports mission objective achieved, Chief,” Blue-Two said. “They send their compliments.”
“It’s hardly going to balance the scales,” Blue-Three muttered, and kicked the sand. “Not like thoseGrunts when they slaughtered the 105th Drop Jet Platoon. They should suffer just as much as those guysdid.”
The Chief had nothing to say to that. It wasn’t his job to make things suffer—he was just here to winbattles. Whatever it took.
“Blue-Two,” the Chief said. “Get me an uplink.”
“Aye aye.” She patched him into the SATCOM system.
“Mission accomplished, Captain de Blanc,” the Chief reported. “Enemy neutralized.”