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.

He got it.

Reach HighCom must have realized the generators were in danger of being overrun, so someone panicked and sent in bombers to hit the forest in a half-klick radius. That wiped out the Covenant assault wave. It also killed the Lieutenant and his men.

What a waste.

Fred replaced the last of his armor components and powered up. His status lights pulsed a cool blue. Satisfied, he stood and activated the COM.

"Red-Twelve, give me a sit-rep."

Will's voice crackled over the channel. "Perimeter estab- lished, Chief. No enemy contacts."

"Good," Fred replied. "Mission status?"

"Ten chainguns recovered and now provide blanketing fields of fire around the generator complex," Will said. "We've got three Banshee fliers working. We've also recovered thirty of those arm-mounted Jackal shield generators, plus a few hundred assault rifles, plasma pistols, and grenades."

"Ammo? We need it."

"Affirmative, sir," Will said. "Enough to last for an hour of continuous fire." There was a short pause, then he added: "HQ must have sent reinforcements at some point, because we've re- covered a crate marked HIGHCOM ARMORY OMEGA."

"What's in it?"

"Six Anaconda surface-to-air missiles." Will's voice barely concealed his glee. "And a pair of Fury tac-nukes."

Fred gave a low whistle. The Fury tac-nuke was the closest thing the UNSC had in its arsenal to a nuclear grenade. It was the size and shape of an overinflated football. It delivered slightly less than a megaton yield, and was extremely clean. Unfortu- nately, it was also completely useless to them in this situation.

"Secure that ordnance ASAP. We can't use them. The EMP would fry the generators."

"Roger that," Will said with a disappointed sigh.

"Red-Three?" Fred asked. "Report."

There was a moment's hesitation. Joshua whispered: "Not good here, Red-One. I'm posted on the ridge between our valley and the next. The Covenant has a massive LZ set up. There's an enemy ship on station and I estimate battalion-strength enemy troops on the ground. Grunts, Jackals, equipment, and support armor are deploying. Looks like they're getting ready for round two, sir."

Fred felt the pit of his stomach grow cold. "Give me an uplink."

"Roger."

A tiny picture appeared in Fred's heads-up display, and he saw what Joshua had sighted through his sniperscope: A Covenant cruiser hovered thirty meters off the ground. The ship bristled with energy weapons and plasma artillery. His Spartans couldn't get within weapons range of that thing without being roasted.

A gravity lift connected the ship to the surface of Reach, and troops poured out—thousands of them: legions of Grunts, three full squadrons of Elites piloting Banshees, plus at least a dozen Wraith tanks.

It didn't make much sense, though. Why didn't the cruiser get closer and open fire? Or did the Covenant think there might be another air strike? The Covenant never hesitated during an as- sault ... but the fact that he was still alive meant that the enemy's rules of engagement had somehow changed.

Fred wasn't sure why the Covenant were being so cautious, but he'd take the break. It would give him time to figure out how to stop them. If the Spartans were mobile, they might be able to engage a force that size with hit-and-run tactics. Holding a fixed position was another story altogether.

"Updates every ten minutes," he told Joshua. His voice was suddenly tight and dry.

"Roger that."

"Red-Two? Any progress on that SATCOM uplink?"

"Negative, sir," Kelly muttered, tension thickening her voice.

She had been tasked with patching Charlie Company's bullet-ridden communications pack. "There are battle reports jamming the entire spectrum, but from what I can make out the fight upstairs isn't going well. They need this generator up—no matter what it's going to cost us."

"Understood," Fred said. "Keep me—"

"Wait. Incoming transmission to Charlie Company from Reach HighCom."

HighCom? Fred thought headquarters on Reach had been overrun. "Verification codes?"

"They check out," Kelly replied.

"Patch it through."

"Charlie Company? Jake? What the hell is the holdup there? Why haven 'tyou gotten my men out yet?"

"This is Senior Petty Officer SPARTAN-104, Red Team leader,"

Fred replied, "now in charge of Charlie Company. Identify yourself."

"Put Lieutenant Chapman on, Spartan," an irritated voice snapped.

"That's not possible, sir," Fred told him, instinctively realizing that he spoke to an officer and adding the honorific. "Except for four wounded Marines, Charlie Company is gone."

There was a long static-filled pause. "Spartan, listen to me very carefully. This is Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. Do you know who lam, son?"

"Yes, sir," Fred said, wincing as the Admiral identified himself. If the Covenant were eavesdropping on this transmission, the senior officer had just made himself a giant target.

"My staff and I are pinned down in a gully southeast of where HighCom used to be," Whitcomb continued. "Get your team over here and extract us, on the double."

"Negative, sir, I cannot do that. I have direct orders to protect the generator complex powering the orbital guns."

"I'm countermanding those orders," the Admiral barked. "As of two hours ago, I have tactical command of the defense of Reach. Now, I don't care if you 're a Spartan or Jesus Christ walking down the damned Big Horn River—/ am giving you a direct order. Acknowledge, Spartan."

If Admiral Whitcomb was now in charge of the defense, then a lot of the senior brass had been put out of commission when HQ got hit.

Fred saw a tiny amber light flashing on his heads-up display.

His biomonitor indicated an elevation in his blood pressure and heart rate. He noticed his hands shook, almost imperceptibly.

He controlled the shaking and keyed the COM. "Acknowl- edged, sir. Is air support available?"

"Negative. Covenant craft took out our fighter and bomber cover in the first wave."

"Very well, sir. We'll get you out."

"Step on it, Chief." The COM snapped off.

Fred wondered if Admiral Whitcomb was responsible for the hundreds of dead Marines who'd been trying to guard the gener- ators. No doubt he was an excellent ship driver. . . but Fleet offi- cers running ground ops? No wonder the situation was FUBAR.