Decades of training and instincts took over, and Senior Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-104 melted into the shadows. He unclipped a fragmentation grenade from his belt, and primed the detonator. He allowed his heart to beat three full times before throwing the grenade out into the open on a high trajectory. The Chief heard the distinctive whirring of a plasma rifle, and realized that the enemy was attempting to shoot the grenade out of the air. SPARTAN-104 counted to four as he unclipped a mobile grav-lift from his right thigh and activated the device. Once the Chief hit “four,” he slid the grav-lift across the barren metal floor, hoping that his on-the-fly calculations had been correct. The grav-lift slid to a stop and a bright blue beam emitted from the device. The grenade fell from the sky and was bounced back into the air by the grav-lift. I’ve only got one chance to do this, he thought. Amidst the whirring of the plasma rifle, the Chief blasted from his hiding place and darted straight for the grav-lift. If he was even a fraction of a centimeter off, he could severely injure himself. SPARTAN-104 leaped into the air and had to time everything perfectly. He came down into the beam of the grav-lift, a half-ton of man, armor and pure willpower, and was bounced back into the air, roughly on the same trajectory as his frag grenade only seconds before. The red armor-clad Elite staggered backward as the grenade detonated four meters in front of it. Its shields flared and failed. It shook its head, attempting to clear its vision, but it was too late. The Chief shouldered his battle rifle and fired a quick and precise three-round burst into the Elite’s neck, severing its head from its body. Sickeningly, and as if it were possessed by the “gods,” the Elite’s headless body stood rigid, motionless, and completely upright, for several moments. SPARTAN-104 pulled his knees up to his chest, and pushed his legs out as hard as he could, in an attempt to flatten his trajectory. His armored boots slammed into the former Elite’s breastplate and shattered the sturdy armor, and a half-ton of Spartan slammed the Elite’s body into the ground, crushing its chest. The petty officer opened a secure and private comm link to the officer directly above him in the chain-of-command structure for this mission. “SPARTAN-104 to SPARTAN-117,” he said. “Threat neutralized.” SPARTAN-104, Fred, glanced at the timer in his head’s-up display: one minute, three seconds had elapsed. “Acknowledged,” Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-117, John, responded. He said nothing more, and Fred noted that the Master Chief’s status light had flashed amber, indicating that all was not well on his end of the secure comm link. “Is everything OK?” Fred asked. There was no answer—only static. Fred knew that the Master Chief would have everything under control, but there was no reason to flash an amber status light unless things had gone from bad to worse. Fred could only imagine what the Chief and his team were encountering, because, so far, Fred’s resistance had been light at best.