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"Sorry we missed the battle, Marine."
" 'Missed'?" The Marine gave a short, bitter laugh. "Hell, Chief, this was just round one."
Fred returned the sniper rifle to Joshua, pointed toward his eyes and then to the Marines in the field. Joshua nodded, shoul?dered the rifle, and sighted them. His finger hovered near the weapon's trigger—not quite on it. It never hurt to be careful.
Fred got up and walked to the cluster of Marines. He picked his way past a tangle of Grunt bodies and the twisted metal and charred tires that had once been a Warthog.
The men looked as if they had been to hell and back. They all sported burns, abrasions, and the kilometer-long stare indicative of near shock. They gaped at Fred, mouths open; it was a reac?tion that he had often seen when soldiers first glimpsed a Spar?tan: two meters tall, half a ton of armor, splashed with alien blood. It was a mix of awe and suspicion and fear.
He hated it. He just wanted to fight and win this war, like the rest of the soldiers in the UNSC. The Corporal seemed to snap out of his near fugue. He removed his helmet, scratched at his cropped red hair, and looked behind him. "Chief, you'd better head back to base with us before they hit us again."
Fred nodded. "How many in your company, Corporal?"
The man glanced at his three companions and shook his head. "Say again, Chief?"
These men were likely on the verge of battle shock, so Fred controlled his impatience and replied in as gentle a voice as he could muster: "Your FOF tags say you're with Charlie Company, Corporal. How many are you? How many wounded?"
"There's no wounded, Chief," the Corporal replied. "There's no 'company' either. We're all that's left."
CHAPTER THREE
0649 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Epsilon Eridani system, Orbital Defense Generator Facility A-331, planet Reach.
Fred looked over the battlefield from the top of the southern bunker, his temporary command post. The structure had been hastily erected, and some of the fast-drying instacrete hadn't fully hardened.
The bunker was not the best defensive position, but it gave him a clear view of the area as his team worked to strengthen the perimeter of the generator complex. Spartans strung razor wire, buried Antilon mine packs, and swept the area on patrols. A six-man fireteam searched the battleground for weapons and ammunition.
Satisfied that the situation was as stable as possible, he sat and began to remove portions of his armor. Under normal circum?stances a team of techs would assist in such work, but over time the Spartans had all learned how to make rudimentary field re?pairs. He located a broken pressure seal and quickly replaced it with an undamaged one he'd recovered from SPARTAN-059's armor.
Fred scowled. He hated the necessity of stripping gear from Malcolm's suit. But it would dishonor his fallen comrade not to use his gift of the spare part.
He banished thoughts of the drop and finished installing the seal. Self-recrimination was a luxury he could ill afford, and the Red Team Spartans didn't have a monopoly on hard times.