The sun burnt furiously in the clear, sallow sky, gazing down at the savaged landscape like a disapproving god. The heat from its fiery eyes beat down on one and all as if from physical blows, enough to send the small and weak to their knees from its sheer, unchecked power. It had brought war. The twenty-odd Marines of Epsilon platoon had already had their chance at it, and every single one of them, from their lieutenant to the lowest of privates, was dead. It was his enemy now, but it hadn't always been that way. The UNSC had once been his master. "No last one?" "No."