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ERIC NYLUND
23
He controlled the shaking and keyed the COM. "Acknowl-
edged, sir. Is air support available?"
"Negative. Covenant craft took out our fighter and bomber
cover in the first wave."
"Very well, sir. We'll get you out."
"Step on it, Chief." The COM snapped off.
Fred wondered if Admiral Whitcomb was responsible for the
hundreds of dead Marines who'd been trying to guard the gener-
ators. No doubt he was an excellent ship driver. . . but Fleet offi-
cers running ground ops? No wonder the situation was FUBAR.
Had he pressured a young and inexperienced lieutenant to
flank a superior enemy? Had he sent in air support with orders to
saturate-bomb the area?
Fred didn't trust the Admiral's judgment, but he couldn't ig-
nore a direct order from him, either.
He ran his team roster up onto his heads-up display:
twenty-two Spartans, six wounded so badly they could barely
walk, and four battle-fatigued Marines who'd been through hell
once already. They had to repel a massive Covenant force. They
had to extract Admiral Whitcomb, too. And as usual, their
survival was at best a tertiary consideration.
He had weapons to defend the installation: grenades,
chain-guns, and missiles—
Fred paused. Perhaps this was the wrong way to look at the
tactical situation. He was thinking about defending the installa-
tion when he should have been thinking about what Spartans
were best at—offense.
He keyed the SQUADCOM. "Everyone catch that last
transmission?"
Acknowledgment lights winked on.
"Good. Here's the plan: We split into four teams.
"Team Delta—" He highlighted the wounded Spartans and
the four Marines on the roster. "—fall back to this location." He
uploaded a tactical map of the area and set a NAV marker in a
ravine sixteen kilometers north. "Take two Warthogs, but leave
them and stealth it if you encounter any resistance. Your mission
is to secure the area. This will be the squad's fallback position.
Keep the back door open for us."
They immediately acknowledged. The Spartans knew that