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"Ground troops?" Fred said, boosting his speed to a full sprint. "How far?"
"Haifa klick."
That didn't make sense, either. Why have forces groundside when you were destroying the planet from orbit? "Something's not right," he told her. "Let's see what they're up to."
Kelly's acknowledgment light winked red.
"They're between us and the fallback point," Fred told her. "We have to."
They entered the stand of trees, paused, and looked back. The Hunter shambled after them, but it was a futile pursuit. Despite their occasional bursts of speed, the Hunters were too slow.
They were caught between Covenant forces on the ground and those in the air, and neither Fred nor Kelly voiced the one question foremost on their minds: Was there even a fallback po?sition left? Or had the Covenant between them and the rest of their team found and destroyed them?
The COM crackled."—is Gamma Team, Alpha. Come in."
Fred replied, "Gamma, this is Alpha. Go ahead."
112 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
There was a roar of static. "Whitcomb ... too many. Got— you read?"
"Gamma," Fred shouted. "The fallback is hot. Repeat hot! Acknowledge."
There was only static.
"I hope they heard," he told Kelly.
"Red-21 can take care of his team. Don't worry." She crept forward and waved him to follow. "Take a look at this."
Fred glanced over his shoulder. No Hunter, and nothing on his motion detector. He followed Kelly, and parted a wall of black?berry brambles. Parked in a clearing were Covenant vehicles, lined in three rows of four: mortar tanks. The tanks had two wide lateral fins, beneath which were armored antigrav pods. They were extremely stable and fired the Covenant's most powerful ground weapon: the energy mortar. Fred had seen them in ac?tion; they fired an encapsulated blob of plasma that obliterated everything within twenty meters of impact. Titanium battle plate, concrete, or flesh—it all vaporized.
Marines called these tanks "Wraiths" because you usually got one look at them before they made you one.
There were a handful of Grunts milling about the tanks, as well as dozens of the floating Covenant Engineers. The Engi?neers swarmed over and under the machinery. Most interesting to Fred, the vehicles' hatches were open.
"I can't think of a better disguise," Kelly whispered, "than five tons of Covenant armor." She started forward.
Fred set his hand on her arm, holding her back. "Wait. Think it through. There are two possibilities. First, if the Covenant have found the fallback position, we go in guns blazing and carve a path for Delta Team to get out."
She nodded. "The other possibility?"
"They don't know that Delta Team is holed up under the mountain. Then—" Fred hesitated. "Then we have to draw them away."
Kelly considered this, then said, "I was afraid you were going to say that." She gave the dirt a tiny kick. "But you're right."
A blip appeared on their motion trackers, directly on their six. The contact was large and moving steadily toward them. The