2Planet: Reach – Visegrad Outskirts, 2525
Operation Start: 0400 hours, UNSC Zulu-class Phantom Drop
The Pelican hissed through the mist, barely audible over the whine of its repulsors. Inside, four Spartans crouched in silence, motionless except for the occasional flick of a finger or tilt of a helmet. Blue Team.
John-117's HUD flickered with data: atmospheric readings, troop movement indicators, and a blinking mission objective.
TARGET: Insurrectionist Outpost – Former mining facility
OBJECTIVE: Secure intel. Confirm presence of foreign transmitters. Minimal engagement. No civilian casualties.
CLASSIFICATION: ONI-Black Level
The kind of mission where questions were neither asked nor answered.
"Drop in ninety," Kelly murmured.
John nodded, his eyes scanning the dark terrain below. The forest canopy was thick with frost, branches like skeletal fingers scraping the wind. Something felt… off. Not tactically—intuitively.
They'd done dozens of raids on rebel outposts. But this one had too many unknowns. ONI was twitchy. Intel kept changing. And the surveillance photos they'd been given were outdated by weeks.
Cortana's voice broke through his helmet: "Reading elevated magnetic signatures near the target site. Possible electronic warfare equipment—or something nastier."
"Copy," John replied.
The Pelican touched down in a clearing a kilometer from the outpost. Blue Team moved like ghosts—silent, coordinated, lethal.
They reached the perimeter without incident. The facility loomed in the distance, half-collapsed and rusting, its lights flickering dimly against the dawn.
Linda took a sniper overwatch position in the trees. Fred and Kelly flanked low through the rubble. John advanced alone down the main path.
Then he saw it.
Blood.
Not fresh. A day old, maybe two. Spattered in arcs across the concrete, leading to a heavy steel door—blown inward from the outside.
He crouched near the body of a rebel scout. No gunfire residue. No shell casings. Throat slit. Precision cut.
John's visor tagged the corpse: UNREGISTERED KILL.
Fred's voice crackled in. "Chief. I'm finding the same down here. Someone's already hit this place."
John stood. "Not Covenant?"
"No. Too clean. Too personal."
Inside, the outpost was a massacre. Ten bodies, minimum. Some shot. Some stabbed. Some… worse. One hung from a rusted pipe by his own gear harness. Another lay curled in a corner, hand pressed to a makeshift skull scrawled on the wall in blood.
Linda's voice cut through the silence. "I've got movement. East side. Tall. Heavy. Moving with intent. Can't get a lock."
John turned instinctively, weapon raised. But there was nothing. Only the wind, and the smell of death.
And then he saw it—etched into the side of a crate, carved by combat knife:
"Sic Semper Tyrannis."
So always to tyrants.
John said nothing.
But he remembered those words.
From another war.
Another ghost.