Chapter 3
Chief fiddled with his rifle. It was a machine-gun rifle with a scope that fit around his right arm. According to the Weapons Design expert Drake Crocket, it was an automatic Carbine with laser projectile ammo (which had not been present under the UNSC). Crocket designed it specifically for John and was made in a matter of a few days. Chief was very tempted to fire it. His thought concentration was broken when the pilot of the small shuttle he was ferried in announced their arrival.
"Space Hunter barracks ahead," the pilot announced on the intercom. "Further instructions will be given once we land."
When he made it off the landing pad, he was escorted to the briefing room. There was only one other mercenary waiting for the briefing. He was in red and golden armor with a strange cannon-like gun over his right arm. He stayed completely quiet as the briefing started.
There was a large screen in front of the hunters. A man walked in front of the screen and started the briefing.
"As you might assume," the man began. "This is an offensive task against the Space Pirates who disrupt our galactic trade. They usually do relatively small ambushes; like attacking freight ships filled with materials necessary for trade." Chief noticed the other mercenary tense when the man said "Space Pirate". "But recently," the man continued. "There have been attacks on more important things necessary for our trade—trading posts. We have detected that they have a species known as Metroids attacking the posts as of evidence from security cameras still in tact. So we are going to simply terminate their biological weapon at the source: SR388, the specimen's homeworld."
"Sir," Master Chief interrupted. "How do we kill a species on a planetary scale without blowing up the thing?"
"I was getting to that," the man said.