"Keep your eyes peeled, and your hands on the triggers."
The forestation went on for miles in every direction, only hindered by a distant high peak mountain which worked with a collection of mountains, making their location technically a ravine.
Flying birds could be seen soaring through the northern skies and soft calls all over the forestation undergrowth by the local native environment.
A contrast to the typical overgrowth of trees reached the middle of their destination, a circle with the diameter of at least two miles with absolutely no vegetation inside it. That was the objective for the squad of Spartans and scientists.
Michael watched over the natural landscape with his squad, the pelican had just dropped them of at least one kilometre from the objective. High shrilled squeaks emitted from the undergrowth as native animals were disturbed suddenly.
"All right Spartans move forward and keep an eye on the scientists." Ureal commanded swiftly, moving forward heavily with her Spartan armour bouncing over her shoulders.
"Do we have any confirmation on native life forms?" Gabriel requested, intrigued by the sounds coming from the forest's undergrowth. He crouched down by a low laid fern leaf, rammed his sniper rifle onto his back and touched the vegetation, trying to feel the texture through his tough encased glove.
"Not yet", she replied as she restocked her DMR.
Raphael snorted, "Anything comes at you with a vicious attitude you make sure to put a bullet through its skull."
This got a chuckle out of Lucifer, an act that could commemorate any Spartan on his/her good humour.
Gabriel and Michael glanced to each other as the entire squad entered the vegetation undergrowth, keeping constant visual contact with each other and the small scientists who were hurrying to keep up. The humid heat seemed to affect the unarmoured civilians, it made Michael uncomfortable but he could handle it for now.
The buzzing of insects flew past the squad; the entire atmosphere was reeking with them; which was something that annoyed Raphael very much.
"Keep moving, objective is dead ahead" the Commanding Spartan spoke, letting her voice sound like reason to the scientists. The forestation was starting to clear up, leading them to the 'dead zone' of their destination.
Suddenly a purple vehicle flew over the entire squad from above the overgrowth, a Banshee flier scout.
"Wow, wow" Michael panicked, grabbing his battle rifle and reloading swiftly, looking through the sights and preparing to fire.
"Calm down rookie, it's probably just a Shanghalli scout; remember they're the good guys now?" Gabriel remarked, enjoying the private's mistake.
The green Spartan sighed and sheathed his battle rifle, he remembered when all covenant were the enemy but now things were a lot more complicated. He noticed the scientists looked extremely uncomfortable with the appearance of the covenant scout.
A flock of small green skinned native animals ran away from the sound, their hind legs kicking up dirt as they galloped to a safe location. Loud squeals filled the air as the family of herbivores fled the scene.
The vegetation finally cleared, leaving the charred broken soil left, a massive crater beheld the entire squad in the middle of the destroyed circle. Nothing was growing inside it, leaving a black mark on the heavily green ochre of a planet.
In the middle of the 'dead zone' remained the crashed destruction of broken ship parts, the forerunner crashed shuttle.
"Objective reached, call in command and let the scientists do their thing." Ureal exclaimed, lowering her DMR and allowing the civilians to advance with their equipment and human intentions.
More banshee fliers swopped overhead, leaving streaks in the sky as the oversaw the Spartans reaching the forerunner crashed shuttle.
"Man those things give me the urge to kill something" Raphael observed as he reloaded his UNSC class shotgun.
Lucifer looked down and touched the foul soil, letting it scrape over his gauntlet.
"Something has caused this land to never recover from the crash" he remarked, his voice deep and mellow in contrast to the other Spartans.
'Enough talk, we've got scientists to look after – let's get this done and dusted before sundown."