The pelican landed in a clearing of a forest allowing the Spartans to jump out and disappear into the wooded area. Once off the pelican took off leaving the team. Six moved slowly across the floor of the forest before one of the Imperial buildings came into sight. The others soon joined her and one of them set up a massive sniper rifle on a log. She looked to him as he made signals with his hand.

She nodded and signalled for the others to move before she did. The other Sparts split away from her and headed to the left and right while she moved forward towards the base. With one eye on her motion tracker and one eye on her surroundings. For this mission, speed and stealth were needed. Holding her silenced pistol, she moved up carefully being aware of what was around her.

Her breathing slowed as she moved and scaled the central building of the base getting to the top. As soon as she reached its peak, she flashed green to her other squadmates. A loud bang echoed across the base followed by alarms and movement by the Imperial soldiers. As they did, Six grabbed a cutting torch and cut open a section of the base before descending into the building.

She downed two guards silently before moving onwards. A waypoint on her HUD indicated where she needed to go. Descending deeper into the building, the chaos outside took attention away from her. But the ones who didn't leave met a bullet to the head as she moved down and deeper into the command building. About halfway down she found the command centre lightly guarded and with only one officer inside. As she entered, the officer turned and began to fire at her along with his Imperial troopers forcing her to get it cover behind one of the terminals.

While Spartans had shields, part of their training forced them not to rely on them. Once they go down, all they had was their armour and enhancements. Both of which could fail if they weren't careful. As soon as the firing stopped, she popped up out of cover and fired several rounds trying to take out her attackers. But the officer had a surprise as the rounds bounced off a shield.

He laughed before unleashing his smg at her which forced her to dive into cover. As she did so she pulled several four-star shuriken's before coming out of cover and throwing them. On reflex, the officer lifted his arms up to try and block the metal stars, only getting cut by two of them. As he lowered his arms, he saw Six coming at him but he didn't have time to react as commander drove her knife into his heart outright killing him.

Pulling away she let the body fall the floor before walking over to one of the terminals. Inside her helmet she smiled as she found what she was looking for. After recovering her shuriken she left the room.

OOOOO

Aniko fitted her tri-scope onto her battle rifle before grabbing her helmet and walking over to the drop pod with a drop. She stopped before claiming in with a deep breath.

"Focus, you've done this a hundred times now," she muttered. "This is no different,"

The other Spartans also climbed into their own pods and locked themselves in before the doors closed and the pods moved into position. Once in position, Templar came on over the comms.

"Team one, secure communications, team two secure the motor pool and command," he said before the beeping began.

Aniko gripped the handles of her pod as the last beep sounded and her pod was released. The shaking did nothing to clam her nerves as she entered the atmosphere and fire surrounded her pod. As she descended into the clouds, yellow streaks of fire appeared before her and took out several drop pods. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the fall, but a few clicks on her own pod made her moan in terror. Her breathing deepened and quickened as she felt fear run though her system.

"You've done this before, you've done this before," she kept telling herself.

Soon her pod slammed down onto the ground and the door burst open. Her eyes shot open and her body was taken over by pure instinct as she grabbed her BR and charged out. Green camo imperial troopers moved into defensive lines across the buildings and grabbed on stationary turrets. Federation Spartans moved in dug into to whatever cover they would find. The ones who couldn't, used their hard-light shields as cover and moved up with them.

Several Spartans grabbed their rocket launchers and fired at the defences, taking out several emplacements and Imperial marines. That eased up the fire on them letting the Spartans to move up and take the positions across on the buildings, but none of them entered. Instead, they just fortified the entrances preventing the Imperial troops from leaving while the others cleared the outside area.

Aniko lead her team into the command centre with speed. They broke the door down and the team of four split up into teams of two. Her weapons expert and CQC expert moved to take out the garrison while she and her tech expert moved to secure the command room. The two moved deeper and up into the control room busting it open. As soon as they entered Aniko brought up her shield as the officers fired at her. None of them were Spartans, which would make things easier on the two.

Ben, her tech expert, threw a flashbang into the room and detonated almost immediately blinding everyone in the room. Except for the Spartan's whose helmets nullified the flash and sound. Aniko dropped her shield and fired at each one of the troopers on the left while Ben unloaded his smg into the Imperials on the right. Their amour did little to stop the bullets from piercing their flesh and killing them.

With that done the two walked out of the command centre and met up with the rest of their team before walking out where Templar was barking orders.

"Sir, we're clear over here," Aniko yelled.

"Good, we're setting up a base camp and perimeter," he said as a D22 Heron landed and detached a pre-fab outpost. "Assist the others with the perimeter!"

"Yes sir!" she yelled and moved off.

OOOOO

Chief stood on the bridges on the lead Heron carrier as the first wave headed down to the planet. Linda was already down with her recon group while Fred was still on one of the ships prepping his own deployment. Standard operating procedure was that no two commanders could ride down on the same wave.

If someone managed to get a lucky hit and take out the transport they were on, then it would effectively cut down the command structure and leave them like a chicken with no head.

The wave of pelicans and heron heavy transports flew into the planet's atmosphere and headed toward their landing zone. As they did so, several squads of longsword, broadsword and vulture aircraft moved up next to them providing an escort. As they approached the landing zone, several fighters tried to approach, but a group of longswords drove them off before returning to the formation. As they got close, four pelicans took point and moved forward before landing and disembarking their compliment of marines.

"Secure the area!" the NCO yelled. "I want eyes on our surroundings in 5,"

Yells in the affirmative came in as the rest of the transport fleet landed depositing the rest of the force and the pre-fab buildings. Engineers moved out and began to set up the buildings while the marines began to set up fortifications, watch towers and turrets. As his force did this John jumped off the pelican and looked around as his military moved to secure and reinforce the area.

Inwardly he smiled, never expecting to become a commander of a task force, but seeing how had people were already working spoke to something inside of him. He was responsible for them now, and he needed to make it clear that he did care for them. A soldier's commander who cared provided good morale for the soldiers. It meant that they had someone looking out for their best interest and won't waste lives needlessly. All he needed to do was figure out how to do that.

Soon the main command centre was up and running, and John walked in. While there were still a few things to set up. The main command and control systems were already up, so it would be easier to coordinate the battle. John looked at the holomap displayed in front of him as Dana appeared at one of the corners.

"Spartan Company have taken the objective with only a few light wounds," she said as she highlighted the location. "Recon squads have already branched out into other area's reporting on Imperial numbers. They have also raided a few of their supply lines. Imperial movement has been slow, but from indications they may be headed for here,"

"What did the Spartan Company find at the base?" John asked.

"As we suspected, it was a trap," Dana replied as she brought up a map of the base. "The lower levels are covered in explosives, gas traps and more,"

"And that's just what we found," John finished. "Best to stick to the plan,"

Dana nodded. "I'll convey those orders,"

"Good. We need to reinforce the base, build up our forces before the Imperials attack," he paused for a moment before bring up a map of the continent.

The planet wasn't well developed by human standards, just being focused on agricultural development than urban areas. But there was at least one main area that could be considered to be a city. It was on the coast next to one of the major seas and had a large economy for fishing. As John brought up the map Dana pined several areas with the Empire icon. They were widely spread with an estimated number of soldiers for each area. He stroked his chin as he began to think about how to disrupt the Imperials.

OOOOO

Parisa watched as the Phantom landed on one of the landing pads. As the door opened a Shanghili in ornate gold armour stepped out with a cloak hanging from his left side with the emblem of the Swords of Sanghellios on it. He was followed by two red armoured elites and was met by a couple of Parisa's guards. The Arbiter looked up to her and nodded before following the escort.

She nodded as well before returning to her desk and waited. It didn't take long for the Arbiter to walk in. As he did Parisa stood and bowed as did he when he got in a few feet to her.

"It's good to see you again," she said as the two straightened.

"Indeed, but I am here for more than just our regular meeting," he said. "Where is he?"

Parisa slid a covenant tech data pad over towards him. "He's on the planet indicated on the device as well as some intel we cannot send to him over the normal channels,"

He nodded and slid it into a pouch before handing her a data pad. "This is all the intel we currently have on the banished. May it serve you well,"

"Thank you," she nodded before he walked out of the room. "Stay safe," she muttered before looking out at the side.

As he walked to the ship, Thel 'Vadam took out the datapad and opened it. Stepping onto the ship he closed the pad down and walked up to the pilot.

"Patch me in to the Ship Master," he said.

The pilot said nothing and just tapped a few keys on his pad.

"Arbiter, we are ready to leave the system," the Ship Master said.

"I have new destination,"