The Chief and his team opened fire again, picking off the remaining Grunts that were still alive and struggling to stand.

His motion detector flashed a warning. There were incoming projectiles high at two o’clock—velocities at over a hundred kilometers per hour.

Five Covenant Banshee fliers appeared over the ridge.

“New contacts. All teams, open fire!” he barked.

The Spartans, without hesitation, fired on the alien fliers. Bullet hits pinged from the fliers’ chitinous armor—it would take a very lucky shot to take out the antigrav pods on the end of the craft’s stubby meter-long “wings.”

The fire got the aliens’ attention, however. Lances of fire slashed from the Banshees’ gunports.

The Chief dove and rolled to his feet. Sandstone exploded where he had stood only an instant before. Globules of molten glass sprayed the Spartans.

The Banshees screamed over their heads—then banked sharply for another pass.

“Blue-Three, Blue-Five: Theta Maneuver,” the Chief called out.

Blue-Three and -Five gave him the thumbs-up signal.

They regrouped at the edge of the cliff and clipped onto the steel cables that dangled down the length of the rock wall.

“Did you set up the fougasses with fire or shrapnel?” the Chief asked.

“Both,” Blue-Three replied.

“Good.” The Chief grabbed the detonators. “Cover me.”

The fougasses were never meant to take down flying targets; the Spartans had put them there to mop up the Grunts. In the field, though, you had to improvise. Another tenet of their training: adapt or die.

The Banshees formed into a “flying V” and swooped toward them, almost brushing the ground.

The Spartans opened fire.

Bolts of superheated plasma from the Banshees punctuated the air.

The Chief dodged to the right, then to the left; he ducked. Their aim was getting better.