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“Yes, sir.”
“Now, Corporal, brief me on what happened here.”
Corporal Harland hunkered down and sketched rough maps of the area as he quickly recounted thebrutal series of surprise attacks. “Right here—grid thirteen by twenty-four. That’s where they hit us, sir.Something’s goin’ on there.”
The Master Chief scanned the crude maps, compared them with the area surveys displayed in his HUD,then nodded, satisfied.
“Get your wounded inside the Pelican, Corporal,” he said. “We’ll be dusting off soon. I want you torotate by thirds on guard duty. The rest of your men should get some sleep. But make no mistake—if thePelican gets fragged, we’ll be staying on Sigma Octanus Four.”
The Corporal paled, then replied, “Understood, sir.” He stood slowly—the long day of combat and flighthad taken its toll. The Marine saluted, then moved to assemble his team.
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Inside his sealed helmet, John frowned. These Marines were now under his command . . . and thereforepart of his team. They lacked the Spartans’ firepower and training, so they had to be protected—notrelied upon. He had to make sure they got out in one piece. Another snag in an already dicey mission.
The Master Chief opened his COM link: “Team leaders meet me at the LZ in three minutes.”
Lights winked on his heads-up display—his Spartans acknowledging the order.
He looked around at the destruction. Thin sunlight reflected dully from the thousands of spent shellcasings strewn across the battlefield. Dozens of shattered Warthog chassis bled trails of smoke into thehazy sky. Scores of burned corpses lay in the mud.
They’d have to get a burial detail down here later . . . before the Grunts got to the dead.
The Master Chief would never question his orders, but he felt a momentary stab of bitterness. Whoeverset these camps up without proper reconnaissance, whoever had blindly trusted the satellitetransmissions in an enemy-held region, had been a fool.
Worse, they had wasted the lives of good soldiers.
Green Team’s leader jogged in from the south. The Master Chief couldn’t see her features through herreflective faceplate, but he could tell without checking his HUD that it was Linda by the way shemoved . . . that, and the SRS99C-S2 AM sniper rile with Oracle scope she carried.
She carefully looked around, verified that the area was secure, and slung her rifle. She snapped a crispsalute. “Reporting as ordered, Master Chief.”
Red Team leader—Joshua—ran in from the east. He saluted. “Motion detectors, radar, and automateddefenses up and running, sir.”
“Good. Let’s go over this one more time.” The Master Chief overlaid a topographic map on theirhelmets’ displays. “Mission goal one: we need to gather intelligence on Covenant troop disposition anddefenses at Cote d’Azur. Mission goal two: if there are no civilian survivors, we are authorized toremote detonate a HAVOK tactical nuclear mine and remove the enemy forces. In the meantime, wewill minimize our contact with the enemy.”