He was so intent on listening to his team's field checks, he al- most ran into a pair of Jackals. He instinctively melted into the shadow of a tree and froze.
The Jackals hadn't seen him. The birdlike aliens sniffed at the air, however, and then moved forward more cautiously, closing on Fred's concealed position. They waved plasma pistols before them and clicked on their energy shields. The small, oblong pro- tective fields rippled and solidified with a muted hum.
Fred keyed his COM channel to Red-Two, twice. Her blue ac- knowledgment light immediately winked in response to his call for backup.
The Jackals suddenly turned to their right and sniffed rapidly.
A fist-sized rock whizzed in from the aliens' left. It slammed into the lead Jackal's occipital crest with a wet crack. The creature squawked and dropped to the ground in a pool of purple-black blood.
Fred darted ahead and in three quick steps closed with the re- maining Jackal. He sidestepped around the plane of the energy shield and grabbed the creature's wrist. The Jackal squawked in fear and surprise.
He yanked the Jackal's gun arm, hard, and then twisted. The Jackal struggled as its own weapon was forced into the mottled, rough skin of its neck.
Fred squeezed, and he could feel the alien's bones shatter. The plasma pistol discharged in a bright, emerald flash. The Jackal flopped over on its back, minus its head.
Fred picked up the fallen weapons as Kelly emerged from the trees. He tossed her one of the plasma pistols, and she plucked it out of the air.
"Thanks. I'd still prefer my rifle to this alien piece of junk,"
she groused.
Fred nodded, and clipped the other captured weapon to his harness. "Beats the hell out of throwing rocks," he replied.
"Affirmative, Chief," she said with a nod. "But just barely."
"Red-One," Joshua's voice called over the SQUADCOM.
"I'm a half-klick ahead of you. You need to see this."
"Roger," Fred told him. "Red Team, hold here and wait for my signal."
Acknowledgment lights winked on.
In a half crouch, Fred made his way toward Joshua. There was light ahead: The shade thinned and vanished because the forest was gone. The trees had been leveled, every one blasted to splin- ters or burned to charred nubs.
There were bodies, too; thousands of Covenant Grunts, hun- dreds of Jackals and Elites littered the open field. There were also humans—all dead. Fred could see several fallen Marines still smoldering from plasma fire. There were overturned Scor- pion tanks, Warthogs with burning tires, and a Banshee flier. The flier had snagged one canard on a loop of barbed wire, and it pro- pelled itself, riderless, in an endless orbit.
The generator complex on the far side of this battlefield was intact, however. Reinforced concrete bunkers bristling with ma- chine guns surrounded a low building. The generators were deep beneath there. So far it looked as if the Covenant had not man- aged to take them, though not for lack of trying.
"Contacts ahead," Joshua whispered.
Four blips appeared on his motion sensor. Friend-or-foe tags identified them as UNSC Marines, Company Charlie. Serial numbers flashed next to the men as his HUD picked them out on a topo map of the area.
Joshua handed Fred his sniper rifle, and he sighted the con- tacts through the scope. They were Marines, sure enough. They picked through the bodies that littered the area, looking for sur- vivors and policing weapons and ammo.
Fred frowned; something about the way the Marine squad moved didn't feel right. They lacked unit cohesion, with their line ragged and exposed. They weren't using any of the available cover. To Fred's experienced eye, the Marines didn't even seem to be heading in a specific direction. One of them just ambled in circles.
Fred sent a narrow-beam transmission on UNSC global fre- quency. "Marine patrol, this is Spartan Red Team. We are ap- proaching your position from your six o'clock. Acknowledge."
The Marines turned about and squinted in Fred's direction, and brought their assault rifles to bear. There was static on the channel, and then a hoarse, listless voice replied: "Spartans? If you are what you say you are . . . we could sure use a hand."
"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.
Charlie Company's surviving Marines had held off the Cove- nant assault with batteries of chainguns, Warthogs, and a pair of Scorpion tanks for almost an hour. Grunts had charged across the minefield and cleared a path for the Jackals and Elites.
Lieutenant Buckman, the Marines' CO, had been ordered to send the bulk of his men into the forest in an attempt to flank the enemy. He had called in air support, too.