Chapter Two

September 4th, 2551

Centauri Seven

0600 Hours

Fire Team Zulu had been marching for two hours and the sun was just starting to rise. Corpral Wallace checked his MA5B assault rifle and had Private Marshall take point. The squad edged toward a ridge and struggled to keep a cohesive formation as the fog continued to wreck havoc with their visibility.

They trudged slowly up the ridge and through the trees when their motion senors showed three contacts about one hundred an thirty meters ahead of them. Wallace motioned for a halt with his hand, and had the men rally in a firing line along the top of the ridge and wait for the contacts to come out into range. Suddenly Wallace's motion tracker read the three unidentified cotacts as friendlies. His Friend or Foe reciever read the soldiers ID beacons as a Major Stanford, a Sergeant Pastor, and a Private O'Connolly. The becons read all of them as membrs of units from Bravo Company.

Wallace spoke quietly into his helmets comm system."Are the rest of you recieving the same FoF readings I am?" He got nods from the soldiers next too him and acknoledgement signals from the rest.

Private Jenson was the first to ask what all of them were thinking,"What are a Major, a Sergean and Private all doing this far away from their camp together? Thats an odd assortment of ranks."

"Good point", Marshall cut in. "If their with the Company we're supposed too meet we should probably announce ourselves."

"True Marshall." Wallace replied.

Jenson cut in again, "Sir. Something just doesn't feel right about this. If this damn fog weren't here I would feel a lot better."

"Stop your bitching Jenson. Although I have to agree about one thing. Something doesn't feel right." Wallace said.

Corpral Wallace tapped the Marine next to him, a Private Sinclaire. He motioned for him to move forward and get a look at the contacts. He then radioed for everyone else to hold their position and wait for the scouts report. He watched as Sinclaires signal moved forward on his motion tracker and came within about 15 yards of the nearest contact. For a very few long minutes that felt like hours, none of the contacts moved. Then without warning the three green contacts moved forward and towards Sinclaires position. Wallace felt a lump build in his throat.

Suddenly Sinclaire reported over the comm."Sir I really can't see anything yet...", a short pause,"Wait I see sometihng coming out of the fog. It looks like an offic...What the fuck...What the hell is that..." he said with a voice of alarm. The sound of gunfire cut the Private off and then nothing but static came over the radio.

Before Wallace could respond automatic gunfire came at them and he heard some screams. He heard an MA5B fire in return."Fire at will!" he shouted and then tried to pick out where the hostile fire had come from. The three contacts were holding their position around Siclaires on the motion Scanner, but suddenly twenty new contacts appeared from nowhere at about two hundred yards out and began closing fast. Weapons fire erupted all around him and wallace thought he spotted a something moving about fifteen yards in front of him in the fog and he opened fire. He could have sworn he hit what ever it was but it fired back and Wallace was hit in the shoulder. What shocked him was that he had been hit by a bullet and not a plasma burn. He hit his team com frequency and shouted,"Fall back! Stay together!" He got a series of acknowledged clicks over the comm, and then he made a run for it.

Yigsa Solamee'e led his warriors out of the hills they had been marching through and into the rolling plains. The next few hours would be simple mop up work. He rode a Ghost down the last hill to where his scout Dak waited for him. As he rode the last stretch of land between the column of Grunts and Jackals, he came to where Dak was supposed to be, but just found a pool of violet blood. The Jackals shield was laying idlly on the ground next a rock, but his body and plasma pistol were missing.

The crimson armored Elite peered from left to right an all around the hills behind him. He pulled a scope from a compartment on his Ghost and looked all around the plains in front of him. There was nothing for as far as the eye could see. He pulled the comm from his belt radioed Lizzit the Grunt he had seen at the head of the column when he had passed it."Have the warriors stop, and send a contingent to my position." He got the customary 'affirmatives' from the worthless Grunt and awaited his backup to arrive.

Ten minutes passed before the help arrived. Five Grunts and three Jackals ran to where Yigsa waited."One of our scouts, a Jackal, is missing. Find him."

"Ofcourse your Excelleny!" one of the Jackals bowed. With that the group seperated and began to fan out over the area.

The Elite, content they could handle finding Dak, roared his Ghost to life rode it back to the main body of his force. He dismounted the craft and strode toward Lizzit and had the little Grunt whip the Covenant warriors into formation. the grunts lined up into two equal rows behind the line of Jackals, whou presented their shields forward and stood at full attention. The grunts tried not to let their nervousness show.

Yigsa marched in from og them and inspected the line formations with as much appreciation he could muster for these lesser species."Today we will be engaging the infidels on holy ground. the Prophets themselves are watching this mission. As are the gods! Fail in our objective, then we fail in our faith! Fail here, and the Great Journey will leave us behind as heritics!"

Before he could give them more of his lecture, his radio cut in."Your Excellency! We-"static cut in,"attack.Wielding human weapons but-"more static,"requesting reenforcements immeadately!"

'Damn!' Yigsa thought. He motioned for his warriors to move out, and left Lizzit in charge, as he jumped back onto his Ghost and sped back to where he had left his scouts. He raced up the hill and back into the boulders where he had last seen Daks' shield and found two Jackals and a wounded Grunt huddled against the rock looking almost in shock. Yigsa jumped off his vehicle and walked over too them and saw blood all over the ground around them, but absolutely no bodies. He picked one of the Jackals up and roared."What did this? Humans?!?"

The Jackal just shook and stuttered out"Nnnoo....they were demons!"