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What no one told McCasky was that the satellites weren’t penetrating the rain and jungle canopy of thisswampball too well. If the Lieutenant had thought about it—like Corporal Harland was thinking about itnow—he would have figured something was wrong with sending three squads on a “milk run.”
The squad wasn’t green. Corporal Harland and the others had fought the Covenant before. They knewhow to kill Grunts—when they massed by the hundreds, they knew to call in air support. They’d eventaken down a few of the Covenant Jackals, the ones with energy shields. You had to flank those guys—take them out with snipers.
But none of that had prepared them for this mission.
They had done all the right things, damn it. The Lieutenant had even gotten their Warthogs five klicksdown the streambed before the terrain became too steep and slippery for the all-terrain armored vehicles.He had the men hump the rest of the way in on foot. They moved soft and silent, almost crawling allthey way through the slime to the depression they were supposed to check out.
When they had gotten to the place, it wasn’t just another mud-filled sinkhole. A waterfall splashed into agrotto pool. Arches had been carved into the wall, their edges extremely weathered. There were a fewscattered paving stones around the pool . . . and covering those stones were tiny geometric carvings.
That’s all Corporal Harland got a look at before the Lieutenant ordered him and his team to fall back. Hewanted them to set up the motion sensors where they had a clear line of sight to the sky.
That’s probably why they were still alive.
The blast had knocked Harland and his team into the mud. They ran to where they had left the Lieutenant—found fused glassy mud, a crater, and a few burning corpses and bits of carbonized skeleton.
They saw one other thing—an outline in the mist. It was biped, but much larger than any human Harlandhad ever seen. And oddly, it looked like it was wearing armor reminiscent of medieval plate mail; iteven carried a large, strangely shaped metal shield.
Harland saw the glow of a regenerating plasma weapon . . . and that’s all he needed to see to order a fullspeed retreat.
Harland, Walker, Cochran, and Fincher fell back, running—blindly firing their assault rifles.
Covenant Grunts had followed them, peppering the air with those needle guns, mowing down the jungleas the tiny razor shards exploded.
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Harland and the others stopped and hit the deck, splashing into the thick, red mud, as a CovenantBanshee passed them overhead.
When they got back on their feet, Cochran took the round in the stomach. The Grunts had caught up tothem. Cochran flinched, his side exploded, and then he crumpled to the ground. He fell into shock sofast he didn’t even have time to scream.
Harland, Fincher, and Walker hunkered down and returned fire. They killed a dozen of the littlebastards, but more kept coming, their barks and growls echoing through the jungle.