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They floated a half meter above the ground, as if the odd, pink bladders on their backs kept them aloft.One alien used a slender tentacle to open the hood of a car. It began to disassemble the car’s electricengine, moving with startling speed.
Within twenty seconds all the parts had been neatly arranged in rows on the pavement. The creaturepaused, then reassembled the parts with blinding quickness, disassembled and rebuilt it several timesinto different arrangements. Finally, the creature simply reassembled the car and floated on its way.
The Master Chief made sure his mission recorder had gotten that. This was a Covenant race neverdocumented before.
He rotated the fiber-optic cable to point down the opposite end of the street. There was more activityanother block away.
He retracted the probe and moved Blue Team a block farther south. He signaled the team to holdposition, then climbed up a short series of metal handholds until he was just below a manhole cover.
He cautiously sent the probe topside again, up through the manhole-cover vent.
There was a Jackal’s hoof directly adjacent to the probe, blocking half of his field of vision. He turned
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the probe with excruciating slowness, and saw fifty more Jackals milling back and forth. They wereconcentrated around the building across the street. The building resembled pictures that Déjà had shownhim years ago—it looked like an Athenian temple, with white marble steps and Ionic columns. At thetop of the steps were a pair of stationary guns. More bad news.
He pulled the probe back and consulted the map. The building was marked as the Cote d’Azur Museumof Natural History.
The Covenant had serious firepower here—the stationary guns had commanding fields of fire, making afrontal assault suicidal.Why would they protect a human structure? he wondered. Was it theirheadquarters?
The Master Chief signaled for Blue-Two. He pointed to the accessway that led under the building. Heheld up two fingers, pointed toward her eyes, and then down the passage, and then slowly balled hishand into a fist.
Kelly proceeded very slowly down that passage to scout it out.
The Master Chief checked the time. Red and Green Teams were due to report. He had James attach theground-return transceiver to the pipes overhead.
“Green Team, come in.”
“Roger: Green Team Leader here, sir,”Linda whispered over the channel. “We’ve scouted theresidential section.” There was a pause. “No survivors . . . just like Draco Three. We’re too late.”
He understood. They’d seen it before. The Covenant didn’t take prisoners. On Draco III, they hadwatched via satellite linkup as human survivors were herded together and ripped apart by ravenousGrunts and Jackals. By the time the Spartans had gotten there, there was no one left to rescue.
But the victims had been avenged.
“Green Team: stand by and prepare to fall back to the RV and secure the area,” he said.
“Standing by,”Linda said.