Chapter 2
May 27, 2537 17:10 (estimated military time)
"Exobis", Polaris system
Three Spartans crouched in what remained of a make-shift army barracks. Waves and sheets green plasma and pink needles flew past the little cover they hid behind. Suddenly one of them, the one in the middle, with a large red '1' on his left shoulder, gave a hand signal. Just as suddenly, the other two popped up, firing at the cloud of buggers 200 meters in front of them. There was no need to aim, even covering fire could take out a good 7 of them with one clip. The two finished unloading their 32 round clip from their MA5B Assault Rifles and took cover again.
On Byron's map he could see the green dot labeled "041" moving along a broken wall to the tower, with 042 and 043 close behind. Then he saw a 069 right on top of his green dot.
"What's the plan?" Hannah-069 asks him, crouching up against the concrete slab they hid behind. "Because if you don't have one I have six you can here." Hannah was always on top of things, even though it wasn't her job to do so.
"I've got it." replied Byron, shoving a fresh magazine into the Carbine he still held in his hands. "We will make our way to the entrance of that cave over there, using the destroyed dam as a walkway." The Spartan knew by her silence she was a bit skeptical of his plan. "The rest of the team is either behind that tower or on it." He explained, pointing at the crumbling structure 10 meters away. "And the dam is over there." His finger moved along a line of rubble to the dam, which was roughly 20 meters away. "We jump that." The gloved finger made a little arch shape over the meter –wide gap; "And then make it into those caves right there." Byron finally moved his finger the final 13 meters to the mouth of the cave; in total it was roughly a 50 meter journey through boiling plasma.
Hannah mauled it over. The three seconds for her to think it over seemed like an eternity. While Byron was technically the team leader and highest ranking officer of Green Team, he often ran his plans over with Hannah, since she usually caught anything he missed.
"Jess, can you put a marker on the cave entrance on everyone's HUD?" Hannah asked, and by her voice Byron could tell she was smiling. A dot suddenly popped up on Byron's HUD, answering her question. "Meet you there!" She exclaimed as she sprinted off behind some cover by the tower. Byron locked the Carbine onto his back and picked up some plasma grenades lying about the area. He then threw extra ones at the cloud of buzzing, trying to distract them. Streaks of smoke continued to appear in the sky, showing Ben still held position in the tower.
Byron glanced over at the dam and saw Hannah leap over it, rolling as she landed, and fire at the swarm with her Assault Rifle. The other three Spartans were making their way along the rubble. One would pop up and fire a few bursts as the others followed the wrecked wall that was their cover. They worked in perfect synchronization.
Byron picked up a two Assault Rifles with full clips and got down on one knee, firing arbitrarily at the swarm. He dove into a crater when the rifles clicked, and checked his map. Ben was off of the tower and on the ground half way across the distance from the tower to the dam. How? Byron thought, and peaked his head out of the crater. He saw a red oval of light rush across and over the dam.
Jackal shield, very smart, Byron thought as a hail of pink needles hit the opposite side of the crater he was in. The Spartan was able to leap out of the crater just as they began to explode. My turn. Adrenaline pumped through the Spartan as he made the mad dash to the dam. As he leapt over the gap, however, a barrage of plasma hit him, draining his shields in mid-flight and causing him to fall to the ground on his left side. Byron's vision blurred, he became disoriented. The right side of his head and his right shoulder hurt tremendously. Byron tried to get up, and soon felt hands grabbing at him, and arms wrapping around him; then he blacked out.