Chapter 4
"Listen up Marines!" a grim-faced General shouted as he walked up onto a large stage, his left ear was missing and Marcus was pretty sure one of his eyes was fake, but it didn't matter, if this man was still in the Marine Corps, it made him one of the toughest sons of bitches Humanity had to offer, and so his words were worth listening to. "At 01:32 hours this morning, Harvest time, Office of Naval Intelligence Reconnaissance units designated India 5-5 and Romeo 2-3 laid eyes upon a weakspot within the Covenant LZ. A weak-spot I intend for us to fully exploit!" the Man had anger and hope in his voice and it was inspiring to the Marines for reasons Marcus couldn't understand. The General activated a button from a clicker in his hand and images of from the Helmet Camera of the ONI units were projected from small holographic unit. "This here, is the North-Western most point of the Covenant's position, in every other place within their perimeter, they have turrets in positions that provide interlocking fields of fire, not to mention a diamond shaped formation of stationary Plasma Shell turrets, which we assume to be a type of Artillery device, we have no idea of their range so be careful if they catch you out. Anyway, this one section of the Alien bastards defence, is significantly less defended, the Hills provide them perfect cover, alongside their turrets and artillery, but that one corner, is too steep to place any form of artillery to cover themselves, there appear to be five extra turrets in position, but with the coordinates provided by our friends at ONI, we should be able to knock them out with our Cobra's before Army forces arrive to swarm the breach. Once the Army are through the breach and have secured a foothold, Marine forces will arrive in Warthogs, and harass the enemy perimeter defences, allowing ODSTs to advance and assist the Army in making their way towards the Covenant deployment zone, after that they will plant a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon, it will detonate within twenty minutes, if you are NOT out by the end of the countdown, then I hope you are happy becoming a shadow on the ground forever" the General finished his speech and shouted dismissed to the large gathering of Marines, as they left the sounds of the Cobra railguns begin to rumble throughout the hills, the attack must have been beginning soon, and Marcus found himself more frightened then he had ever been before.
Within the hour, Marcus had quickly resupplied himself, he grabbed a variant of the Assault Rifle that held a sixty-round magazine, which he felt would be needed with such a large number of Alien forces the Marines would be facing, he also scrounged more Magnum magazines, though he thought to himself that were it to resort to the use of his pistol, he'd be in such a poor situation he wouldn't live through it anyway, so his Assault Rifle was his weapon of choice to ensure his own personal survival, after that, he tried his best not to think about the upcoming assault that would take place, he sat with Titch and Alice, and some other Marines, and they just tried to joke around and talk about anything that wasn't involving the future Operation. One of the Marines began to talk about her time in bootcamp, and suddenly the small group were engrossed in the tale. "So, we walked right? Well, that's what you'd think we would do, but oh no, no, no" she laughed, "Kingsley, thought he would just improvise a boat, I mean keep in mind now, we're up shit creek without a paddle, in fact we were pretty much drowning in shit creek, and Blue and Gold Teams were way probably way ahead of us, so Kingsley found an old car, I mean this thing mustn't have run in about, ooooh, thirty odd years, and it had been shot up in CTF exercises, but he decided he could get it working" at this point she was laughing way to heavily to carry on, and the Marcus and the rest of the group were desperate to know what happened next, 'it couldn't have been that funny' he thought to himself as he waited for the Marine to stop laughing and continue the story. "So instead of trying to get the car itself working! He decides we can all make a boat out of the engine, so whilst me and the rest of Green Team are scrounging wood and vines from the woodland, he sets about pulling the engine from the car, after about another twenty, thirty, fuck knows how many minutes he finally had it removed and carried it over to us where we'd make a raft to get down the Lake, and if any of you remember Reach, it has huge fucking lakes, and he drops the engine on to the make shift boat we made, and in his excitement he tries to get the engine started with the power unit in his helmet, which royally backfires, not only! Does he shock the shit out of himself to the point he is thrown a good fifty or sixty feet back, but he manages to jumpstart the engine, which then sends our raft right into the middle of the lake, before it fell off, the raft flew up into the air and broke apart. We'd wasted a good fucking hour getting everything ready, and if you thought that was the funny part, it turned, Engel, had just misread the map, and we about twenty minutes away from the RV point" she finished, her face red as she gagged for air at the memory, Marcus and the rest of the group couldn't help but laugh, and the banter towards her kept them occupied as the time to the Operation slowly got closer, until, a large announcement came. "OPERATION FALLOUT COMMENCES IN FIVE MINUTES! ALL UNSC FORCES ARE REQUIRED TO REPORT TO THEIR DESIGNATED AREA!", the message repeated two more times and then an organised mass of bodies began running off in different directions, from above it must have looked like an Ant Hill. "Mount up! Now!" a Seargent shouted to the squad of Army troopers off to Marcus' left, they were going to be involved in the main infiltration of the Covenant LZ, their warthogs were just transport variants, they had no weapons, and it must have been a horrifying feeling to know you'd be involved in a charge and had nothing but your small arms to hit with. Marcus, however, had to force himself to ignore his empathetic thoughts as he hopped up onto the Machine Gun turret of his own 'hog, driven by a Private named Karlson, as his Lieutenant, Javid, sat himself into the Passenger's seat, if he didn't have his mask up and his helmet on, Marcus could swear he'd be able to see fear in the bastards eyes, and though he wished no one dead, he was glad his Lieutenant was frightened, a feeling many of the Marines he had needlessly sent to their deaths had felt at their final moments. Marcus let out a slight triumphant laugh and watched his breath steam up and vanish into the air. Karlson started the Warthog's engine and the vehicle grumbled to life, he checked over the Machine Gun, and prepared himself for the battle to come. As hundreds of transport 'hogs drove off over the hills, the huge Cobra artillery pieces began to slow down their fire rate. It didn't take long for the small arms fire to begin cackling off in the distance, followed by the response of the 'pews' and howling of the Covenant heavy weaponry, Wraiths, 'Shade' turrets and maybe even weapons the UNSC haven't even witnessed yet.
"Alright Marines, we're going in" a voice called over their comms, and with that, Karlson set the warthog on its way. His heart racing, Marcus scanned the skies, his 50. Caliber turret would shatter the lightly armoured Covenant fighter, but their sheer numbers and their twin Plasma turrets, plus a plasma cannon, meant they'd do a lot of damage to him and his comrades if he let them get through. Overhead dozens of Hornets whizzed past, missiles flying from their pods and turrets firing at anything ahead of them that didn't look human, the sight was a welcome one, but the grandness of the sight was soon wiped away as the Warthog crested the hill, catching some slight air due to their speed, the carnage lay ahead of them, the carcasses of UNSC equipment surrounded by their dead occupants, those who weren't dead were desperately firing at the Alien threat, but to little effect, the Army troopers were being slaughtered, and as the Marines got closer to the battlefield they were forced to slow down to avoid the wounded or the wrecks of Warthogs, Scorpion Tanks and even Mongoose ATVs. As their assault stalled the Covenant Wraiths began their relentless bombardment, all of a sudden three tonne Warthogs were flipped through the air like a juggler's ball and Scorpions had their turrets melted away by huge balls of Plasma, Men and Women alike were left immolated by the enemy small arms, and as the Marines dismounted to join the Army in a more conventional attack, the Covenant sent forth their air power, Banshee's howled through the air, diving onto the UNSC forces like an Owl whose spotted a mouse. Hundreds lay dead or wounded within a matter of minutes, the offensive forces now turned to the defence, and the few vehicles the Human forces had left began to cover the troops on the ground from the aerial attacks of the enemy, but this left them open to the enemy heavy vehicles and Wraiths continued to bombard them unopposed, the Hornets too were engaging the Banshees. "Get out the 'Hog! Now!" Javid shouted over the chaos of the ensuing battle, Marcus wasted no time in leaping from the gun and as he did, he felt an intense heat against his back as the vehicle went up in flames and a green plume of Plasma slammed forward into the ground before darkening as it cooled rapidly. "Shit, where's Karlson?" Marcus cried as he tried to compose himself, his commanding officer still laying on the ground, squirming to get away, 'ah fuck him' he thought to himself as he took his Assault Rifle from his back, flicking off the safety he ran to the other side of the burning wreckage of his Warthog, Karlson was alive, but his arm was badly burnt, and he was missing his left leg from the knee down, it lay on the floor a metre from where he lay, "Is it bad?" he asked Marcus when he saw him standing over him, Marcus fired off a few rounds at a Grunt that had popped out from cover, but missed, the creature panicked and fled and so Marcus turned his attention to his fellow Marine.
"What? You mean you can't feel that?" he replied curiously, "can't feel what, what's happened?" the wounded Marine's voice trembling now as panic began to sneak in, "Bollocks, alright, well, your arms badly burned, and your left leg is gone below the knee, in fact, it's behind you" Marcus replied, he couldn't help but pity Karlson, he was one of the replacements from the Epoch, he'd survived the assault on Utgard, and now, here, in a field somewhere on Harvest, he suffered losses at the hands of an Alien threat they knew little about. "Corpsman!" Marcus shouted, "We need a Corpsman over here!" he screamed towards a trooper with a red cross on his helmet, and the man ran over as fast as he could, bolts of Plasma screeching past him, "Help me get him behind cover" the man shouted over the sounds of the battlefield. Marcus placed his rifle on his back and drew his pistol, grabbing Karlson by the back of his armour, he dragged him a good four or five meters behind a burnt-out tank, firing off rounds in a desperate attempt to supress any hostile fire. The man was an Army medic, he looked over Karlson and asked him some basic questions, but as Marcus reloaded his pistol, placing it back in his holster and then re-equipping his Assault Rifle, the Medic shouted, "I can't do anything for him here, the good news is, he's numb to any pain, which means the Plasma has burned away his nerves in the affected area" then he laughed grimly, "the bad news" he continued "is that he is numb to any pain, and if there are any internal problems, he and I are not going to know about it, I'll stay here with him, and try find a way to get him out of here, but I can't promise anything". Marcus paused for a minute, unsure of what to say. As he managed to unfreeze himself, he tapped the Medic on the shoulder, and went over to his wounded companion, "Alright mate, I'm gonna have to leave you with this medic, you're going to be fine, okay?" Marcus said, leaning down close to the wounded man's ear so he could hear over the fighting, Karlson merely nodded. He readied himself to move, poking his face out from behind the Scorpion wreck to look ahead, a group Marines and Army units were ahead of him, they'd managed to open up a small gap in the left flank of the Covenant fortifications, and so he returned to his cover, took a few deep breaths, and then began a sprint over to the group, above him the fighting was almost over, the UNSC Air Force and Marine units' superior training had won them the battle for Aerial Supremacy as Banshee's fell from the sky by the dozens, their metal carcasses joining the graveyard of UNSC vehicles, their pilots joining the Human dead on the ground. "Welcome to the 'Hole' Marine" one of the troopers shouted as Marcus leapt to the ground to avoid a Plasma grenade, which, to his dismay, was not as close as he thought, and made him look a lot more foolish than practical. "The 'hole'? It's been what, a few minutes? And you gave it a nickname like we have been here for days?" Marcus shouted back, "We're just thinking ahead" a nearby Marine responded, Marcus laughed a little at their dark humour and he regained his composure. "We sent in a small squad a couple of minutes ago, in two minutes we expect them to contact us, if not, we're fucked, because I don't see any way for us to break through unless more troops head our way, and their either busy dealing with the wounded, or ignoring our comms" the Army trooper, a Seargent First Class, shouted, "we're already fucked if we stay here Sir, we have to either fall back or move forward, but we can't stay here. If in two minutes we don't here from your squad, we need to make our decision!" Marcus replied, he fired towards a group of grunts who in turn were pinning down a group of Marines and a wounded pilot, the two grunts dropped dead and the rest scattered, he cut down another grunt and sent a fourth flying through the air as his bullets burst the strange gas tanks attached to their armour. A Brute came forward, two Plasma rifles in its hands it began to fire at anything and everything, truly living up to its name, a Pilot who somehow survived the crash landing popped out of their cockpit, the Hornet mangled and sparking, fire sending plumes of smoke into the darkness of the sky, but as they attempted to leave the wreckage, the Brute dropped one its weapons, and with a speed that still catches Marcus by surprise despite past close encounters, it grabbed the Pilot by the throat, and slammed the unfortunate victim by the throat, the Pilot desperately swung at the Brutes arms with one arm, and flailed around for their pistol with the other, but for all that effort, the Pilot was faced with little positive results, and the brutes broke its victims neck with just one hand, before firing into the corpse with its Plasma Rifle for good measure, the Pilots corpse thrown away, discarded as if a piece of rubbish. The Beast then charged forward, but before it could grab another victim, it stopped, spotting Marcus and the group of UNSC forces, it turned to fire at them and though a few bursts of Plasma made their way towards them, they missed their mark, and the Brute had little time to react as a Rocket slammed into it, the creature went up in pieces, limbs and organs that weren't torn away collapsed into a pool of its blood, the gruesome site forever burned into his mind, Marcus forced himself back to the immediate situation.
"There's been nothing from the recon squad" the Army Seargent said, "what do we do then?" a Marine private asked, there wasn't fear in her voice, but definite concern, "I can't force you to join me, but I say we should go in, our job is to destroy the enemy Landing Zone, we do that, we stem the tide, maybe even end the Siege of Harvest, there's not many of us, and fuck if I know how we destroy it, we have no nukes, and no flares to signal support, but we can improvise, whose with me?" the Seargent asked, the group looked around to each other, no one backed out, "alright, let's move forward then" the trooper shouted to the group. By now, behind the advancing UNSC forces, the battlefield had entered a new stage of chaos, Pelicans attempted to navigate themselves as close as they could to evacuate wounded troops and deploy reinforcements, without being hit by the Covenant artillery, by also, avoiding the huge vehicle graveyard that had formed from the previous wave, the entire plan had vanished in the blink of an eye, Army medics and Marine corpsmen roamed the plain, dodging the enemy fire to find those who could still be saved, any of those still capable, returned fire, or attempted to push forward and breakthrough, still ignorant of the hole that he and his fellow soldiers were heading to exploit despite multiple hails to make their way towards the exploitable position. As they broke through the breach, they saw the bodies of the previous team, weapons ready, the group advanced cautiously, led by the Army Sergeant, the highest ranked member of the force, every few seconds a Grunt would appear, but they would cut it down almost as soon as they appeared, a more brutal whack-a-mole. "Where do we go from here?" a voice asked over their comms, "forward I guess" someone else replied, "forwards as good a way as any I suppose" a third voice chimed in, "keep the comms clear, we move forward, keep your eyes open and call out anything that looks important" the Sergeant finally ordered, the channel went silent and the group kept moving forward, cutting down never ending horde of Grunts, Marcus was reloading when a pair of the little Aliens charged forward, Plasma grenades in hand, they ignited them as soon as they spotted him, he barely managed to pull his pistol out as he dropped the empty Rifle magazine from his hand, bringing his secondary up he squeezed the trigger twice, the closest grunt dropped to the ground dead, the second grunt stumbled as a third round slammed into its chest, but it kept coming, but it didn't matter, that stumble had cost it valuable time, and four plasma grenades ignited, vaporising the vast majority of the two Grunts, all that remained was some burnt flesh and scorched equipment.
"good spot" someone said over the comms, Marcus clicked it twice in acknowledgement, and placed his pistol back into the holster, grabbing a full magazine from his front chest pouch he slammed it into his Assault rifle and locked it in place, he continued to scan the area as the group advanced, it fell quiet, all that could be heard now was the sounds of the continuing skirmishes behind them, the whooshing of the Plasma Shells from the Wraiths, and occasional Hornet strafing run by one of the UNSCs pilots, risking the AA fire to kill as many covenant forces as possible. The group came to a halt, a large open area ahead, with multiple strange pads and columns around the perimeter, "well" the Sergeant began over the comm, "that definitely looks important, split up, two groups, we take out two of those columns, and regroup here, we have some okay cover, if nothing happens when those columns go down we move on, if something does happen, well, we figure that out if it happens" and with that, the single group became two, seventeen became a group of eight and nine, and they scattered, sprinting towards the strange alien columns, "alright, cover me" an Army engineer said as he pulled off a pack and began fiddling with some C-12 explosives, 'heavy stuff' Marcus thought to himself as he began to scan the surroundings, he and the other six surrounding the Engineer in a semi-circular formation, crouched to lower their mass, making them harder to hit. 'This better be worth the effort' he continued to think, 'otherwise this is going to be one hell of a costly mistake, what were we thinking going head on?' his thoughts were disrupted, "Contact!" a Marine shouted, "to the Right! By the damaged Wraith!" a squad of Grunts led by an Elite, opened fire on the group, one of the Marines of the small formation was hit in the leg and the arm, but continued to fire from prone positions, the rest of them made quick work of the smaller cannon fodder, before turning their efforts on the Elite, Marcus ejected the empty magazine of his Assault Rifle, once again reloading, he was running short of ammunition now, he had four Magazines left for his Rifle and three for his pistol plus the one already loaded, but his pistol wouldn't count for much against the bigger Aliens like an Elite or a Brute or the strange Worm conglomeration with their huge Plasma Beam weapons, and that concerned him if this operation amounted to nothing he might not have a way of getting out again. "Charges placed" the engineer shouted over their small arms fire, "Grab him, we're leaving!" one of the troopers shouted in response, Marcus placed his rifle on his back and grabbed the wounded Marine, the remainder of the squad fired on the Elite, its shield flickering with each shot that made impact, it wouldn't hold forever, but for whilst it was active, it allowed it to continue firing on the UNSC forces, slowing down their withdrawal. "Crap, I'm out" the wounded Marine shouted to Marcus, 'I better not regret this' he thought to himself, he began to drag the man back with one hand as he reached for the pouch on his chest, grabbing two of his four magazines he passed them to the wounded man, "take these, make them count!" Marcus shouted, eventually, after a lot of fire, the Elite's shield broke, and it roared in defiance, as dozens of rounds flew past it, those that hit sending blue blood flying from the wounds, the creature merely walked off, as if the wounds meant nothing to it, but it allowed the squad to get back to their RV point.
"Took your sweet time" the Sergeant joked, "alright, everything ready?" the engineer who'd travelled with Marcus and their group nodded to his NCO, and the Sergeant gave a hearty smile, there were still seventeen of them, even if one was wounded, and his plan was a success so far, "Good... Good. Okay, get some Bio-Foam inside those wounds, and link up the explosives to the detonators". A Corpsman got to work on spraying in the Biofoam and whilst the wounded Marine groaned in agony, Marcus knew from experience he would feel a lot better with the foam than without it, and it means he'll be able to re-join the fight until they can get him proper medical attention. "All set Sir" the Engineer finally spoke up, "ready for your order". At that moment a Hornet finished it's fly over and explosions rocked the Eastern side of the covenant camp, "Alright, let's see if these things are important, blow it, now" the Sergeant shouted, the Engineer pressed down on the detonator, for a split second there was nothing, and then, two large explosions forced the towers to collapse under their own weight. Minutes ticked by, "there's fuck -" the Marine was suddenly shocked into silence, Marcus looked forward, and in front of him, whatever had happened, they had uncloaked a huge Covenant depot, within, hundreds, if not, thousands of Covenant vehicles lay dormant, ready for deployment once their crews were manning them, and above them, five ships, smaller than any of the Covenant warships he had seen before, but still just about larger than a UNSC Paris Class Frigate, still with the bulbous shape, but rounder, than all other Covenant ships, almost like a huge Banshee, but without the wings, they immediately began to fire upon the surrounding area now they had been exposed, three of the ships began to break for orbit, whilst two continued to hold in atmosphere to maintain their fire. "Any UNSC air assets in the region, this is Sergeant First Class Nichols, we require immediate air strikes on this position, I don't have the map grid but trust me you can't miss it, thousands of enemy vehicles, and two warships are ahead of us, we need to take them out, do you copy?" the seconds felt like hours as they awaited a response, from above, a squadron of Banshees deployed from one of the Covenant ships, from the hangar a strange object fell from it, the huge object slammed into the ground about six hundred meters to their right, as it stood, the four legged creation had a strange dome like device pop up from its front, which soon began to glow green, "no one here engages that, it's not aiming at us, don't give us away" the Seargent said as a huge beam of Plasma slammed into the UNSC forces still on the plain, a Pelican that was attempting to depart was caught by the Plasma and immediately dropped back down to the ground with a large explosion, a row of the few remaining Scorpions was entirely destroyed by just one burst of the weapon, the remainder scattered, attempting to return fire and destroy the behemoth of a war machine that the covenant had just unleashed, but any shells that managed to slam into it, seemed to do little to no damage. "Don't need to tell me twice" one of the Marines replied, "But Sarge, what about the guys out there?" one of the troopers asked, "what about them, we need to take out this LZ or they might deploy more of these things all over the planet, so let's stay hidden and get it done" the Sergeant replied starkly, "Yes Sir" was his reply. "We need air support here right now!" the Sergeant shouted down his comms, finally a response came, "We're aware of the weapons platform Sergeant, but we can't spare the firepower right now, all our Hornets are either badly damaged, or refuelling at the FOB" a voice replied over the comm, "you don't understand, we uncovered the Landing Zone, there's literally thousands of vehicles and two warships ahead of us, we need to take them down" the Sergeant responded, anger in his voice as the giant Behemoth of a vehicle began to prime for firing again, the Green light glowing eerily in the darkness as ten or eleven more shells slammed into it to no avail, the beam again fired forward, slowly moving to the left this time, destroying several Pelicans and most likely killing hundreds of wounded. "Understood, stand by" the woman replied, "Stand by? The fuck are we meant to be standing by for, they should see this threat and scramble everything, this whole Op was to destroy this landing ground and she is telling us to stand by?" the wounded Marine said, "Hoorah" Marcus replied. "Evacuate now Sergeant, in five mikes a hundred Archer Missiles will be dropped on your position".
"Well shit" the Sergeant said, "you heard the Lady, time to go!" the group turned to head for the way they entered, and again faced the usual grunt resistance, allowing them to make it to the breach in the covenant lines in quick time, but now they had to try get away from the blast zone of the Archer missiles, and avoid being burned alive by Plasma from the huge war machine. "In two minutes, those missiles are going to rain down on the LZ, we wait sixty seconds, then run into the no man's land" Sergeant Nichols said, the group had nothing to say, their minds probably racing as fast as their hearts now. "Thirty seconds" the Sergeant said, time passed too slowly for Marcus' liking, "Fifteen seconds" the countdown continued, "five... four... three" the Countdown was almost over 'shit, shit, shit' Marcus kept thinking to himself, it was all he could think of, "two, one, go! Go! Go!" Sergeant Nichols shouted, the seventeen of them broke their positions, sprinting away as Covenant plasma pistols and plasma rifles fired on them, four of the group dropped dead within seconds, the remainder of them made it to cover at the wrecks of nearby Warthogs, "They made it so far, and they died running, what a fucking waste" Sergeant Nichols said to himself, "At least it is over for them" Marcus said, knowing the Sergeant didn't need a reply, but he couldn't help himself, the Sergeant just gave a slight humph in acknowledgement, a few seconds later and the screeching of missiles breaking into atmosphere followed by huge explosions that caused a bang so loud you'd have thought the world was about to split in half. Flames engulfed the covenant landing zone and when the smoke finally cleared, the Warships lay smashed upon the ground and the Landing zone thoroughly decimated, there was no sign of the giant weapons platform, presumably the impact of several missiles had completely torn it to pieces. "We're alive then?" the wounded Marine asked sarcastically, "Seems that way" one of the Army troopers replied, giving a laugh to her own answer, Marcus couldn't help but laugh along. "Good job guys, if I could, I'd put you all in for a medal, you deserve it, now let's go help the wounded and get out of here" Sergeant Nichols said. The group got up and made their way to the few remaining UNSC forces in the area, Pelicans that weren't destroyed by the huge beams of Plasma were now filling to the brim with wounded Marines and Army troopers, Warthogs too that had survived were now being stacked with wounded, even Gun variants were being filled with wounded as engineers removed the turrets to allow for more space to be made for them.
Alongside the wounded, dead were being brought to the positions, stacked high, tens of thousands of UNSC forces must have died in this offensive, and if some of the wounded are mortally wounded, thousands more may still die as a result of it. A pair of Marines carried the body of Lieutenant Javid, the officer finally met his fate. 'Strangely, I don't think he died a hero' Marcus thought to himself. "I saw him in a ditch, alive" a wounded Marine said as she made her way to a Warthog, "he was shell shocked, or if not, just a fucking coward. Bastard got my friends killed in Utgard" she finished as a Corpsman came to help her to the 'hog. Marcus walked over to help an Army trooper lift up a dead trooper, they carried his body over to the growing pile and placed him as respectfully as they could amongst the rest of the dead. For over eight hours the UNSC forces in the area spent their time gathering the dead, evacuating the wounded and scavenging weapons and ammo in case the Covenant came back in the meantime, however, not only did they gather up their remaining assets, they scavenged amongst the ruins of the Covenant Landing Zone, and what horrified the remaining Humans, was that the huge weapons platform, contained the same worms that made up the alien creatures they'd encountered personally or studied from Marcus' helmet cam footage, meaning they could make significantly more powerful units. After another day, the bodies of the dead and the wounded were finally evacuated, and so the remaining capable forces were withdrawn too. At the FOB it was clear to see that they had lost significantly more than Marcus could have imagined, hundreds were here, as opposed to the tens of thousands that were here before.