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Plasma bolts and crystal shards crisscrossed over Tom's head—too many to dodge. The enemy didn't have to be able to see them. All they had to do was fill every square centimeter of air with lethal projectiles. His team was pinned, easy picking for those Seraphs on their next pass.
How had the Covenant mustered such a counterresponse so quickly?
If they had been detected earlier, their drop pods would have been vaporized en route. Unless they had had the extreme bad luck to get here when a capital ship had been docked at the factory. On the blind side? Could the STARS overhead have missed something that large?
One of Lieutenant Commander Ambrose's first lessons echoed in Tom's head: "Don't rely on technology. Machines are easy to break."
Tom's COM crackled: "Ml9 SAMs execute Bravo maneuver, targets painted. All other teams ready to move."
Tom understood: they needed cover. And the only cover was dead ahead in the factory.
From the field six smears of vapor lanced forward to the factory. The M19 SAMs detonated on contact with pipes and plasmas conduits—exploding into clouds of black smoke and blue sparks.
The enemy fire slowed.
That was their opening.
Tom rolled to his feet, and sprinted for the thickest smoke. Team Foxtrot followed.
Every other Spartan on the field charged as well, hundreds of half-camouflaged armored figures, running and firing at the dazed Jackals, appearing as a wave of ghost warriors, half liquid, half shadow, part mirage, part nightmare.
They screamed a battle cry, momentarily drowning the sound of gunfire and explosion.
Tom yelled with them—for the fallen, for his friends, and for the blood of his enemies. The sound was deafening.
Jackals broke ranks, turned to flee, and got shot in the back as their shields turned with them.
But hundreds more held their ground, overlapping shields to form an invulnerable phalanx.
Tom led Team Foxtrot into the smoke-filled shadows of the factory. He found a pipe the size of a redwood dripping condensed water and green coolant and took cover behind it. In the mist he saw Lucy, Adam, and Min take positions behind cover, too. He gave them rapid-fire orders with hand signals: Move in and kill.
He spun around, his MA5K rifle leveled—and found himself face-to-face with a Covenant Elite, its jaw mandibles split in mimicry of an impossibly large human grin. The monster held an energy sword in one hand, and a plasma pistol in the other.
It shot and swung.
Tom sidestepped the deadly arcs of energy, set his foot between the Elite's too-wide stance—pushed and fired at the same time.
The Elite sprawled onto the ground, and Tom tracked his body, spraying rounds into the slit of its helmet. He didn't miss.
Team Foxtrot closed on him, leaving six dead Jackals behind, their bodies snapped like rag dolls.
Behind on the field came rapid thumps and flashes of heat. Plasma grenades.
Jackals and Elites rushed from their cover in the factory to meet the rest of Beta Company on the field, realizing perhaps it would be suicide to face Spartans in close quarters.