James and Gabriel moved silently through the sparcely forested area, slipping between the shadows of the trees, the only sound to be heard was the rustling of the leaves, then a sudden sharp crack. James made a signal to Gabriel to hold still. Another loud cracking noise echoed nearby. Gabriel peeked out once before flattening himself against the trunk of the tree and tapping the side of his helmet twice to indicate he had gone to a private frequency. James nodded and did the same.

"What is it Gabriel?" asked James.

"Jackals. I spotted at least 3, but I don't think they noticed me," replied Gabriel.

"What's their armament?"

"Seems like one's got a Type 50 SRS and the other two are carrying something that looks like a cross between the Type 33 GML and a Type 51 Carbine. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they've got a Type 25 DEP secondary," said Gabriel, who (despite their helmets keeping any sound from escaping) was whispering.

"If that's true then they've probably got PDGs to go along with those Type 25's."

"Think we should engage?"

James seemed to think for a moment before sighing "We'll have to deal with them sooner or later, but let's do this quietly, knives only. Take out the two who don't have a Type 50."

"But what about the third one? It'll bolt as soon as we take out even one of them, and most likely call for reinforcements."

James lowered his head before pulling out his knife.

"Catch," said James, before throwing the knife to Gabriel.

"What's your plan?" asked Gabriel.

James' only response was "Do it on my signal, "and to pull out his silenced SMG, kneel down, peek slightly out of cover, and take aim. Gabriel understood instantly, adjusting James' knife in his hand and loosening his grip on it slightly, before pulling out of his own knife in preparation.

As soon as James had pulled the trigger, Gabriel had thrown one of the knives and was already rushing towards the Jackals like a bat out of hell. James' shots dropped the Jackal carrying the beam rifle while Gabriel's thrown knife took out the other one. The last one turned to run but was almost instantly stopped by a knife to its neck.

Gabriel slowly pulled out the blade as the Jackal went limp, wiping its blood off the blade with the creature's hair.

James walked over and pulled his knife out of the other Jackal's eye before picking up its weapon.

"You were right Gabriel. Looks like the Covenant have been making some new toys. Captain Verten will want to know about this. "

"Right, I'll get a scan of it and we'll send it to the captain along with the rest of data."

"Good. In the meantime let's move these bodies out of the open."

"You know Sam's gonna freak right?" chuckled Gabriel.

"Fuck him," replied James and he picked up two of the bodies.

Gabriel scanned the weapon before picking up the third body and tossing it to where James had stowed the other two.

James motioned for Gabriel to turn the their radios back the squad frequency.

Almost as soon as they did, Sam's voice came through their earpieces.

"What happened, why did you two go silent?"

"Sorry, we ran into some Jackals and had to focus," sighed James.

"Why did you engage? Our mission was to collect geographic data and NOT get discovered, not kill every Covenant we come across."

James sighed then responded "And how exactly were we supposed to collect data without them discovering us? Besides, we killed them quietly and hid the bodies."

"Still, you were supposed to avoid combat... Whatever, I'm going to go turn off my comm now, the buzzing from the squad frequency is getting annoying. Sada, I'll meet you on Frequency 2-3. Antares out," Antares switched frequencies and kicked the body of the dead elite in front of him.

"You don't think it was a little hypocrytical to chastise James for attacking those Jackals out in the forest when we just killed this sucker right next to their base?" Laughed Antoine as he threw the body into the ravine near the forerunner structure.

"Probably, but the difference is that this one will appear as though the elite simply fell into that ravine there," replied Sam.

Antoine shrugged.

"Problem Sada?"

"No, just thinking you're not as uptight as you try to act."

"Ha. Ha. Ha," answered Sam sarcastically.

Antoine smiled before grunting out,"How long we got before returning to the rendezvous point?"

Sam checked his helmet's clock, "About half and hour. We'd best get back to the hill, the others are probably there already."

Antoine nodded and began walking back while Sam walked just a few paces behind.

As they walked back, Sam swore he kept seeing some sort of blur, but whenever he looked again it was gone. Sam shook it off as they arrived at the hill. Zach and Chris were already there, and James arrived only a moment later.

James removed his helmet and took a deep breath before saying, "Okay, we're all here, let's set up the beacon."

Antoine kneeled down and took out the parts for the beacon from his combat pack. He began to assemble the beacon and in only 4 minutes had it set up.

"Ready to transmit sir."

James looked over at the Forerunner structure, "Good, upload this data and then let's get moving, I'd like to be as close to that structure as possible before things get loud."

"Yes sir," said Antoine before taking the data chip from James and activating the beacon.

James put his helmet back on and motioned the squad to follow. And follow they did, not one of them knowing the hell they were about to enter.