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Sergeant Tanner continued, "So then the Covenant fleet really starts to tear into the orbital defenses. It's getting ugly up there. Major skirmishes with the Second, Seventh, and Sixteenth Fleets."
"… Just as long as the plasma doesn't start dropping," Hig-gins replied.
Tanner stopped chewing her gum. "Multiple silhouettes ahead. Banshee fliers. Whoa—" She craned her head, looking up.
Fred moved to the cockpit and followed her gaze. Up the orbital elevator, past a whisper haze of clouds, a pair of dots— each a kilometer-and-a-half-long Covenant ship—orbited.
"What the hell are they doing up there?" Tanner whispered.
Covenant orbital support complicated this mission. Ground forces might have aerial support, heavy armor, or artillery
But Covenant didn't need the stalk to transport an invasion force. They'd just land their ships or use grav beams. Why were
they here? Blue Team would have to move in closer before he could discern their motives.
Fred studied the radar images. "There's a hole in the Banshee patrol pattern." He tapped the far edge of the screen. "Put us down here. We'll go in by foot."
"Your call," Tanner said dubiously. She pushed the throttle and the Pelican accelerated, dropping so it now decapitated palm trees.
"Make ready for hot drop, Spartans." She spun the Pelican around and sank into the jungle. "Call if you need a lift. Blue Team. Good hunting."
Fred, Linda, and Will grabbed their gear and jumped out the back, six meters to the sandy ground.
The Pelican roared away.
Fred pointed northeast and they moved silently though the tropical brush, and entered the shadow of Tallo Negro del Maiz.
A half kilometer from the elevator complex, the jungle had been cleared and replaced by concrete, asphalt, and warehouses. Towering freight container cranes stood instead of coconut trees.
Fred heard the dull pounding steps of a Covenant Scarab attack platform. He spotted the lumbering behemoth as it crashed through a warehouse, tearing steel walls like tissue paper.
"Trouble," he muttered over TEAMCOM.
"Opportunity," Will countered.
Linda kept her comments to herself and methodically wrapped the barrel of her new sniper rifle with brown and green rags. She lay in the scrub, powered on her Oracle scope, and sighted down its length.
"UNSC personnel down," she reported. "Thermals cold. All dead. Making out six—no, a dozen Covenant moving in groups of four… carrying cargo pods. Not Elites. Brutes."
Fred paused, remembering the gorillalike creatures from their op on Unyielding Hierophant. A single Brute had wrestled
John in his MJOLNIR armor… and almost won. Not as bad as facing Covenant Hunters, but Hunters only came two at a time.
"Where are they going?" Fred asked.
She shifted her sight. "Elevator. They've got an ascent car half full."
"Switch to neutron detector," Fred suggested.
Linda twisted a dial on the Oracle scope. "Cargo pods are hot," she confirmed.
"Nukes?" Will said. "Covenant don't use nukes. They have an edict about using 'heretic' weapons."