Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [63]
Both Roland and Jonah not only fell under the “two missions” banner of acceptance, they were perfect matches for each of Beta-5’s requirements, and more importantly, when offered the opportunity to participate—though presented with only the vaguest of program overviews—they each leapt at the chance to hit back at the Covenant in new and unexpected ways.
Once selected, candidates were separated from their fellow Spartans and shipped to a special training facility on the far side of Onyx, the ONI-controlled world that served as the IIIs’ base of operations. After three months, the soldiers were broken into four two-person squads, chosen through a series of detailed evaluations and an intense interview process meant to devise the best possible pairings between members of the group. Roland and Jonah’s pairing hit on 97.36 percent of the desired matchmaking criteria; only one other team scored higher.
Now, more than two years later, their training complete—including seven months of supervised field exercises, followed by six months’ real-world wartime insertions—and the successful negotiation of twelve battlefield insertions under their belts, Roland and Jonah found themselves on the far side of the galaxy, two human soldiers on a moon crawling with Covenant. Their current task was straightforward enough—slip onto the Covenant-held moon, believed to be the site of one of the pious alien collective’s sacred religious digs, and remove six of the ten identified base camps situated around the outer perimeter of a much larger central compound. A second team of Headhunters would remove the four outstanding camps in preparation for what was to follow. The confusion and re-shuffling of troops and supplies by the Covenant contingent following each base camp’s dismantling was simply the opening salvo in a full-scale assault by a dozen Spartan-III fireteams and associated orbital backup.
THREE
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APES OR ALLIGATORS?
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The indicator on Roland’s individual radar showed that whatever their contact—Grunt or Elite, Jackal or Brute—they were less than ten meters from it, and while he and Jonah were careful not to give away their position as they crept closer, they had yet to establish visual confirmation of their target. In the post-dusk hour it was possible the Covenant sentry was using the shadows of the forest to conceal its perch as it stood guard over the base camp’s perimeter. It was just as likely, however, that the bastard was hidden beneath the light-bending cloak of active camouflage. One option pointed toward a raptorlike Kig-Yar sniper posted somewhere up in the thick tangle of branches that made up the forest’s canopy. The other, less appealing, option meant one of the Sangheili Elite, the Covenant’s most devout and dangerous warriors, was patrolling this sector of the perimeter.
Each possibility brought with it its own set of complications. The two Spartans ran through the encounter scenarios as they worked to develop a proper plan of attack: Shooting a sniper from its roost could draw unwanted attention. They could miss the kill-shot, alerting the creature to their presence and giving it the opportunity to signal an alarm. Or, even with a clean kill, the force of the impact and the pull of gravity might send the body tumbling from its resting place, bouncing off and snapping any number of branches along the way, before slamming into the ground with a thud that was sure to carry in the still night air. Taking out a camouflaged Elite in close combat meant dealing with the combined might of the alien’s armor, firepower, and brute strength. An Elite patrol usually carried one standard-issue Covenant plasma rifle, if not two, possibly a plasma pistol for backup, as well as plasma grenades, and if Roland and Jonah were