CHAPTER 21

JANUARY 20TH 2552 20:00 HOURS, MILITARY STANDARD TIME, TERANIS IV, UNKNOWN CURRENT LOCATION

26 YEARS LATER

SPARTAN, BLACK One, Margaret 053, stood crouched over the side of a vast cliffside leading down into a blackened gorge, eerily resembling a blackened and droughted vein on the dying surface of a planet. she tightly gripped her Supressed M7 Submachine Gun as SPARTAN BLACK Four, Victor 101 moved past her into the confine of the darkened cave, she moved behind them as Victor suddenly vanished into the blackness.

Margaret keyed her helmet lights on through her helmet heads up display as she followed behind Victor towards SPARTANs BLACK Two and BLACK Three, Roma 143, and Otto 031, shielded in the identical bulk of the MJOLNIR Armor she and Victor also wore.

"there's a body of water that seeps straight down, possibly further into the canyon." Victor reported, as he peaked his head over a waterfall, His own M7S was level with his head as he scanned the bottom carefully.

"Alright, we'll move down towards the end of where the downfall goes, then we set up shop."

Three acknowledgement lights winked green on her HUD, before they began to carefully climb down the surface, careful not to alert any potential patrol that had happened to cross by the cliffside.

Margaret placed her armoured boot across the gap between the crack in the footway, careful not to set it too close to the edge to break away more from the eroding rock from the bankside.

she turned her head down and found a clearing below her feet, the dual moon midnight echoed across the downpour, she carefully eased herself down in her heavy battle armour, after she reached level, she waited for the others.

three armoured bodies one by one eased themselves down from the upper right bank of the waterfall and eased themselves towards the opening, slipping and smashing against rocks downstream was no threat to the threat to the Spartans in their powerful MJOLNIR Battle Armour, that was breaking their established essence of stealth was in a hostile environment with no intel on current combat capabilities.

"Hell of a tight squeeze" Roma said over her helmet-to-helmet communication channel. "You'd think Three's been putting on weight"

"Shut up, Two" Otto said, over the quiet chuckles of Victor and Roma.

"Turn on your VISRs, fan out and watch the canvas for any hostiles, Four, your on point."

They nodded and activated their VISR systems, the world suddenly seemed brighter in Margaret's HUD, Otto, Victor and Roma had green outlines highlighting their Black MJOLNIR Armour.

The VISR, or Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance, was an imaging system which relayed tactical data to their helmets. Including highlighting enemies in neon red and UNSC in neon green.

They slowly eased themselves out of the cave and deep into the open vein-like canyon, Margaret squatted down as she hit the ground, after doing a visual scan, they each spread out across the rocky surface. Victor took point further ahead of the others, as the teams best spotter, recon expert and sniper, his form was matched with a green outline.

"Main objective in sight, Black One" Victor whispered over TEAMCOM, "Covenant Fuel Tanks, looks like a refinery all right. They've also set up local camp sites around the area of the main facility, add some grunt and jackal fodder on patrols to that list too."

"Figured as much, Four." she said back over SQUADCOM, she paced further up a mound where Victor sat overlooking the bulbous Covenant megastructure, he held his M7S against his shoulder. He turned to face her. "What's the plan? Place is basically infiltrate and siege proof.

Margaret looked over the fortification, a vast stronghold glistening with perhaps thousands of grunts, dozens of Elite warriors, maybe a few hundred Jackals, or if they are extra unlucky, maybe even a swath of armoured hunters. The pregnant fuel tanks were safeguarded by a variety of sensors and fortifying field weapon emplacements, including Shade weapons.

Margaret, and the rest of the Spartans had been told a simple, but effective rule of warfare against more powerful enemy. That was to strike first, and hard, hard enough they couldn't get back up.

Two and Three approached from behind her, she turned and smiled charmingly in her helmet, "Then we've got no reason to do this quiet. Divide, shock and awe, hit first and last."

"Sounds like a plan" Otto nodded,

Roma chimed in, "What about the possible hundreds of Covenant hoarding around over there?"

"We give them something to keep 'em busy, Two." We'll smash up the Covenant listening outpost on the other side of the canyon and then strap several charges around the nearby outposts. After we blow them we'll clear out and we'll storm in while there busy trying to keep up. It should give the effect there is a larger force than it really is, keep your blowpacks handy, we're gonna place a few charges on anything worth blowing up aside their refinery.

She nodded an

Margaret did the same with her BR-55, she made her left hand into a slicing motion and they dispersed like shadows into the cold night.