~3~

It was a bad day to be a Covenant soldier.

"Do not relent!" the Arbiter commanded his Elites. "Make them regret ever being born!"

The Prowler was leading the way down a long bridge that had a ginormous wall on its left side. At the end of the bridge was the last remaining Covenant in this particular canyon, held out with a trio of shade turrets. On either side of the Prowler, both Choppers cruised along. All three fired nonstop as they went.

Eventually, they reached the holdout, but there weren't many Covenant left. The Arbiter ordered for an ammunition sweep, so Mar and Falzud got out of their Choppers.

"Careful," Sgt. Banks, the Marine in the Prowler, cautioned. "Brutes must've tripped a defense system."

He was referring to the Sentinels, ancient guardians of Forerunner artifacts. They were meticulously exterminating the remainder of Truth's forces off the bridge. As Mar pulled a brand new needler out of an ammo crate, a Sentinel melted a wounded, whimpering Grunt into the ground.

Well then, Mar thought.

You should grab one of those, Madiba advised.

It did make sense. Their beams were specifically designed to eradicate Flood parasites in all their many forms. Any weapon that could permanently put a reanimated corpse to rest was good enough for Mar. He walked over to one of the Sentinels that had been destroyed in the fighting and wrenched the part that fired the beam free from the rest of its body. The other active Sentinels didn't seem to mind.

It's pretty heavy.

Usually a good sign, that is.

Mar and Falzud climbed back into their vehicles. Shortly after, Johnson's Pelican arrived over the bridge with him standing in the open troop bay on a mounted rotary turret.

His voice came over the COMs, "Ma'am. Hocus almost got her wings shot off. But we spotted a structure that matches Cortana's description of the map room from the first Halo ring."

Commander Miranda Keys, daughter of the legendary Jacob Keys and the enigmatic Katherine Halsey, responded, "A Cartographer. Good. Should help us fix Truth's location. Secure the LZ, and we'll push through that wall."

"Roger that. Chief," Johnson said, addressing the Demon. "Follow my Pelican. LZ's this way."

Without warning, the Demon drove the Prowler right off the side of the bridge. Mar looked over at Falzud, who shrugged, and the two fearlessly followed suit.

The Chopper pair hit the ground with a crunch! crunch! and caught up with the Pelican and the Prowler. A group of Sentinels from the bridge joined the convoy and flew above the ground crew, keeping watch. Protecting. Their presence however, seemed to make Sgt. Banks a little uneasy.

"Tidy bastards," he commented. "Hope they don't decide to clean us up."

The Pelican navigated through the canyons, leading the way to the landing zone. En route, a couple of Ghosts engaged the ground crew. Mar gunned down one. Falzud smashed through the other. Eventually, they regrouped with Wildcat and the rest of the team in a smaller, elevated canyon. They were all standing outside of a tunnel in the rock face.

"LZ's through this cave," she explained. "They've got a ton of heavy armor."

Peering through the cave, Mar saw that she wasn't exaggerating. If anything, what she said was quite the understatement.