Spartan 176, Thomas, looked across the plains and grimaced. Two full divisions of UNSC Marines were camped around him, but he felt like a sitting duck, with no more protection than that which his suit afforded. He knew it was foolish to not trust these brave soldiers, but he simply knew too much about the Covenant to feel safe. They might win the ground war, but they always lost the planet. They did not have the firepower that the Covenant had in space.

They always lost the planet.

This planet was the closest thing to paradise that he had ever seen. Rolling hills and plains cover a third of the planet, with small clumps of mountains presenting easy hideaways for rest and relaxation. Beautiful, clear lakes shined in the sun with a blinding radiance. It was so perfect. And now the Covenant were here.

He shook away the thought and turned to his companions, three others dressed in similar suits of armor. They were watching him, he knew it. He was the team leader and they were waiting for his verdict on the coming mission. He sighed and nodded his head.

That was all the confirmation they needed. In a second they were up checking gear, grabbing equipment, and looking for anything that could kill Covenant soldiers. He smiled at their work. No one, not even Spartan 117's group, was as resourceful as his squad. He still remembered Chief Petty Officer Mendez's comments from one exercise back in their training. They had been given a capture the flag style mission, straight in the middle of a UNSC military base. John's squad had gotten first place, no surprise there, but his squad pulled off the most bizarre capture imaginable. Not only had they taken the flag, but they had also greased every weapon in the armory and booby-trapped the barracks' entrances. Watching the Tango company soldiers charge headfirst into the metal poles while fumbling with slippery guns was worth the two week KP duty and extra classtime assigned for their 'tom-foolery.' They were ranked last because on the mission because of that, even though one team did not even get away with the flag. All of the others thought it was hilarious though; even John congratulated him on the harebrained scheme. That was one of the best feelings he had ever had.

Yeah, John gets the glory kills and most of the attention, he thought, but we definitely get the fun jobs. We once used a garrote and a crate of plasma grenades to take down a pair of Covie dropships. That was cool. John was definitely the best though, that he admitted proudly. John was his role model, cool under fire and blessed with an inordinate amount of luck. Both were traits that a good Spartan leader needed. Thomas had the discipline part down pat, but he knew he was not as lucky. There had been too many close calls in the past. His luck had just about run out.

They had not heard from any of the other teams for about a year. Sure, they saw the news clips and heard about them, but they had not really seen them. For all they knew, the others could all be dead right now. Or they could be alive inflicting major damage to the Covenant forces throughout space. Only ONI knew that. For publicity reasons, the Spartans never 'died.' So Thomas had no idea whether his friends were really Missing or not.

"Tom, how do we pack?" A voice behind him shook him from his thoughts. He turned to the speaker. Spartan 098, Morgan, held up an M19 in one hand and a silenced M7 in the other. "Are we going heavy or stealthy for this op?"

Thomas thought for a moment and pointed to the M19. "We'll go with the boom-sticks." Morgan nodded his head and Thomas imagined his smile at the announcement. Turning to the others, he switched to the team frequency. "Everyone grab an M6, your primary and an M19, along with two reloads. We are about to blow some serious Covenant crap."

Three green lights flashed on his HUD and the team scrambled for their weapons. Morgan took his trusty BR55, a weapon that he had been issued during its trial phase. He fell head over heels for the weapon, quickly claiming it for keeps and chasing away the weapons-techs that tried to take it back and replace it with the debugged standard issue version. His had two extra grooves in the barrel, allowing a more powerful spin and impact with each shot. He named the gun 'Pop' after the noise the Grunts made when they were hit by it. In his hands, the BR55 was just as deadly as a SRS99C wielded by an ODST sniper.

Spartan 130, Faith, took the M90. She was the team's demolitions expert. While they were all very, very good at demolitions work, she was unarguably the best. They had seen her once take down a brace of Wraith tanks and a Banshee with three grenade and a pack of gum. The M90 was her favorite because she loved to get in close quarters and bash the alien cretins or blow holes in their chests. When asked, she always gave a vague answer about 'wussy campers' and their exaggerated kills.

Spartan 170, Anne, took the sniper rifle. Thomas watched her out of the corner of her eye as she carefully put the sniper rifle back together after a quick check. She was nearly unparalleled in her skills with the sniper rifle. Only Linda could outshoot her, and that was at a distance of 3 kilometers by two millimeters. She had a fiery temper but was a ridiculously patient when on a mission. She could easily stay in one spot for a week before she felt the need to reposition.

Thomas looked around at the assorted weapons and reached for his MA5B. The others joshed him all the time for still having the older MA5B when the MA5C was available, but had stuck with the weapon ever since he had first used it on the firing range when he was a kid. The weapon was well worn and nearing the end range of its life-expectancy, but he cared for it so well that several soldiers had thought it was brand new. He liked the large clip and the fast rate of fire. It was great for distracting an Elite long enough to cap them in the head with an M6 before it could properly respond. The MA5C had too little ammo for a weapon with its punch anyway.

It took three minutes for them to load up. Each Spartan carried his or her primary weapon, an M19 with two reload tubes, some variant of the M6 pistol, five M9 grenades and several pounds of C3 with trapping equipment. They hustled off to the RV point where a quartet of Warthogs waited for them. Each was crewed by a driver and a gunner. Thomas looked at the firepower in their fleet and grinned in spite of himself. Two of the Hogs had the standard M41 chain-gun, while one had a three-barreled 102mm SC-HE and the last had the new M68 gauss cannon. They had plenty of firepower in those last two alone. He wondered what kind of opposition they were expecting on this run to the DZ.

The soldier in charge of the Warthogs saluted as Thomas approached.

"Lt. Walker reporting, sir. We will be your ride to the drop-off, sir."

Thomas returned the salute and hopped into the passenger seat beside him. He never felt comfortable in the Warthog's seats. They were designed to hold a normal human, not a seven-foot tall suit of armor.

"Green light, sir. We are ready whenever you are."

The Lieutenant nodded and waved to the others. The Warthogs started with a jerk and began to speed forward toward the objective, a distant area hidden behind a few mountains.

"Yes sir we are ready. I hope you will forgive the fact that the Hog isn't too pretty, but we haven't really been able to clean it up yet."

Thomas looked at the front of the Warthog and noticed for the first time the splatters of blue and purple gore on the windshield and bumper.

"Ah. Been doing some Grunt bowling, have you?"

The Lt. grinned. "You could say that, yeah. We were pulled off the front line an hour ago for resupply and rearmament. Our unit is up near the drop-off, so we got volunteered to pick you up. It's on the way, so it's not a bother." Not that it mattered, the Spartans were so important that technically they could commandeer any unit they wanted, even if they were halfway across the galaxy. They never felt like trying that out though. One can push FleetCom only so far.

"Thanks for the lift then." Thomas glanced across at the other Warthogs and flashed his squad-mates the signal to turn on their team channels. "I need to talk to my team for a minute."

"Go ahead sir, I'll just ignore you all for a while."

Thomas nodded his thanks and leaned back. He turned on his team channel and was instantly assaulted by the confirmation lights from his teammates.

"What's up, Tom?"

"Nothing really, I just wanted to do a quick recap of the mission."

Thomas stifled a grimace as their confirmation lights flickered, even though they could not possibly see it. He was nervous, and they knew it. That was not good. "A Covenant munitions dump has been seen north of the Sierra mountains, so our job is to blast it."

"My favorite job," Morgan interrupted.

"But our primary target is an installation identified as a Forward Command Post. We are to go in and neutralize their ability to function then hightail it back to HQ, right?"

"Right."

"Wrong. We have a secondary objective after that; kill and harass any Covenant forces in the area."

"Sounds simple. I thought it would be harder." Anne's voice sounded bored, even over the radio.

"Yeah, well, then there is the little detail about some kind of temple that ONI has located in the valley."

"Oh yeah, that."

"Once we hit the FCP we head to the temple and sit tight until our shrinks can juice it for intel."

"Then it's mission over."

"Yeah."

"Sounds like a milk run to me." Faith's voice was cheery and optimistic, but Thomas could tell the edge of tension it had in it. His nervousness was starting to affect the team. He needed to buckle up and calm down.

"Let's hope it goes as smoothly as it sounds."

Thomas shut off the radio. This mission was just an ordinary search-and-destroy, they had done it dozens of times already. Something in his gut was telling him that this mission was about to go south. He had been on hundreds of missions harder than this one sounded in his career, but for the first time in his life, he felt unsure.

Faith's light blinked on his private comm. channel. He switched over and made an effort to not look over at her Warthog.

"Something wrong, 130?"

"Yes, sir, you. What's eating you, Tom. I've never seen you this worried. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he mumbled. "Just got a case of butterflies, that's all."

"Yeah, that's not fine. We need you in peak shape for this- contacts 12 o'clock."

Thomas scanned the field in front of him and saw nothing. "Where?"

"Just beyond the dip."

Thomas raised his MA5B to his shoulder and aimed near the front right tire of his Warthog. His radar was filling with contacts up ahead, and he studied it long enough to see where the leaders were. It was easy to tell, the Elites always stood still, so it was harder to see their radar marks. The easy ones were all Grunts. As soon as they hit the dip and left the ground, he fired.

Gouts of flame erupted from the methane tanks of three Grunts as he fired a quick burst into their huddled clump. The Grunts screamed in panic as the flames ate hungrily at their bodies. Thomas shifted his aim to an Elite standing defiantly in front of the Warthog and started to fire, but the driver floored the gas pedal. The Elite's body broke in half with a sickening crunch as the front end of the Warthog sliced into it. Thomas grabbed the dieing Elite's ammo belt and plucked the grenades from it before hurling the Elite off to the side.

Thomas looked back at the dip in the plain to check the damage. A dozen Grunts were lying splayed out in the dip along with a handful of Jackals and Elites. He keyed his radio and called his team.

"Status."

"Green." Morgan said in his deadpan voice.

"We're good here," Anne said. "Nice 'Hog-kill back there," she added with a subdued chuckle.

"Nothing to report here, Tom."

Thomas felt his stomach lurch as they sped away from the scene. He did not know why, but he felt like that would be their last lucky break on this mission. The Covenant had acted stupid back there. No grenades, no mines, they hadn't even fired a single shot at them. Something about that made him feel nauseous. Normally, he would have taken it for granted that they had surprised the Covenant troops, but how could they have missed the noise of four Warthogs from so close?

He mulled over the scenario as they continued on to the drop-off point. He thought of a dozen different reasons on how it could have turned out that way, but dismissed them all. Finally, he sighed and admitted that they had been lucky. Very lucky.

The Spartans unloaded from the Warthogs at the drop-off and set out on foot for the FCP. They made their way cautiously, carefully avoiding patrols and sensors until they came within sight of the Covenant FCP. Seeing a suitable position, Thomas waved them over and crouched down.

"Here's the plan. Anne, take that ridge up ahead on the left, use your Jack-rounds and provide covering fire for Faith. Faith, set up shop down that way," he pointed to a collection of boulders near the boundaries of the camp. "Jacks and traps for any reaction forces." Faith nodded and Thomas could imagine her grinning. Traps were her favorite method for disposing of Covenant troops. "Morgan, get up to that tree line and fire from their. I will be right… there." He pointed to an unusually tall, thick tree that dominated the landscape near the FCP. "This is the fallback point. Fire on my mark. Faith, how long do you need?"

She paused for a heartbeat while she looked over the area. "Five minutes, max."

"Right then, flash blue when you're done." She nodded and took off for the boulders. Thomas looked at the other two for a few seconds before giving them a thumbs-up. They hurried to their posts, eyes open for Covenant activity.

Once Thomas had climbed the tree, he scanned the FCP and found his targets. Turning on the team channel, he whispered, "Wraith storage, fuel cells."

There was a second long pause before the others replied.

"Banshee pad, Third barrack from left."

"Second barrack from left, ammo crates."

"First barrack, command center."

Satisfied, Thomas leaned back in the tree and waited. He watched the Covenant troops wandering back and forth among the buildings and made adjustments to the target priorities when needed. Overall though, the camp was really quiet. Few people moved back and forth.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, Faith's blue light flashed on his HUD. He shouldered the rocket launcher and took aim at the farthest of the targets.

"Fire on my mark," he said. Three green lights winked at him on his HUD. "Mark."

Two volleys of four missiles streaked out from their positions, leaving smoking trails in their wakes. The first volley hit simultaneously. Four gigantic explosions ripped through the silence of the morning air as buildings cracked and splintered like matches. The second volley hit a moment later. Brilliant blue explosions littered the FCP as plasma weapons and fuel cells detonated in a chain reaction that shook the tree Thomas sat in. The flames rolled through the base like a tidal wave, engulfing everything in sight. Buildings melted away from the fury of the firestorm that they had created.

Time seemed to slow down as Thomas ejected the spent launcher tube and rammed a fresh one home. He picked his targets and fired with uncanny accuracy, hitting two Banshees as they attempted to lift off to avoid the inferno on the ground. Six more missiles followed his, blasting tanks and fliers where they sat in their lots.

Thomas felt a wave of exhilaration flood his veins as he loaded his last launcher tube. His eyes scoured the burning base, looking for anything that might have escaped the conflagration consuming it. Seeing nothing, he fired his last rounds into the Wraith depot, just to be sure. The explosions seemed muffled in comparison to the rest of the scene around it.

"Contact, Covenant survivors, coming in fast." Faith's voice sounded bored, as if she had just woken up from a nice long sleep. "Rolling out the welcome mat."

Thomas hopped down from the tree and sprinted back to the fallback point. As he ran, he looked across to where Faith was. She was falling back slowly, goading the Covenant troops on with well-placed shots from her pistol. There were about fifty Grunts charging her, as well as a dozen Elites and even a Hunter. She dodged their fire with uncanny ease, sniping at the Jackals, who were falling like flies before her barrage.

They had come within twenty yards of her when the boulders surrounding them disintegrated in a massive ball of fire. When the smoke cleared, barely a dozen Covenant were still standing. The Hunter, the only one unscathed, roared in rage and barreled down on her, oblivious to the scores of dead comrades it trampled on the way. Faith stood her ground impassively, daring it on. At the last second, when the Hunter had raised its shield to strike, she whipped out her shotgun and pumped two rounds into its unprotected shoulder joint. The arm flew off as the eel-like creatures were blown apart by the slug rounds. Faith rolled under the confused Hunter's legs and came up behind it in a fighting stance. Before it could turn she had plunged her fist into its back and yanked out a fistful of the organisms. The Hunter let out a mournful cry and collapsed on the grounds, shuddering as the creatures wriggled about in pain.

Faith took off like a shot, dashing for the fallback point while Anne covered her back with her sniper rifle. She fired four times and the remaining Elites and Jackals fell to the ground clutching at their missing heads.

Thomas counted his teammates as they came back to the fallback point. Once they had all arrived, they checked their ammo and took off for the temple. As they moved out, Thomas radioed HQ to report the mission's success. The news that he got was not encouraging. The front had collapsed, and human and Covenant forces were scattered all between the FCP and the temple. Thomas groaned inwardly as he looked at the SatMap they uploaded to his HUD. It was going to be a long day.