Better Late Than Never

A clank echoed through the Pelican's airframe as a docking clamp released. Like a remora detached from a shark, the dropship fell from the prowler's ventral hull and into the reef of Earth's atmosphere. Onboard, the shift in acceleration would have made stomachs turn, were the only passengers not trained to live, fight, and disassemble firearms in zero-gravity. Aside from which, their stomachs were twisted beyond moving much at all. The looming threat of mankind's extinction made for a tense first day on the job.
Inside, the mood between the five figures in faceless armor was grim. Of course, it would have looked grim any time to an outsider, unable to hear the conversation over COMs between hermetically-sealed helmets. Likely about how silly the observer looked being unnerved around them. But just then, the team's leader, Kody-G114—nicknamed Kodiak for his size—was trying not to worry about how there was none of the usual chatter coming from Team Machete.
Kody and his squadmates were SPARTAN-IIIs, newly-minted. Only a week ago, they and the rest of Gamma Company—latest and greatest class of the SPARTAN-III program—had been on Onyx, a world hidden halfway across the colonies and submerged in a lake of Naval Intelligence's best redacting ink. It had been their home as Spartan trainees for the last seven years, which at 13, was more than half of Kody's life. In that time, Gamma Company had been trained in every discipline a special forces commando might need to call upon. Team Machete were just... a little less disciplined than some of their comrades, was all. So when there wasn't some kind of witty repartee being kicked around over their TEAMCOM, it was cause for concern.
He certainly didn't have to wonder about the cause, though. The news had come to Onyx with a whole flotilla of ONI's expensive prowler stealth ships as a courier. The Top Honors tournament capping off Gamma's graduation had been halted for their head instructor, Lieutenant Commander Ambrose, to inform them. Reach—the United Earth Government's military headquarters—had been glassed by the Covenant fleet, the aliens had found Earth, and Gamma was deploying to defend it.
Suddenly, all the excitement about finally seeing action had been crushed by the drop of the other foot. One carrying the weight of each SPARTAN-III recruit's previous brushes with the Covenant, survived at the cost of becoming war orphans. Machete and a few others did their best to keep up morale with brave faces and recycled jokes—it was hard to get new material on a world classified into effective quarantine—but dark thoughts had hung over them all the way to Earth. Not even the chance to study the slipspace drives which cut their FTL jump down from weeks to days had cheered them up.
Kodiak stood by the hatch leading to the cockpit, scrolling through updated reports projected in his helmet. It was an impossible task; from the moment they'd entered the Sol system, new information flooded in from every source. A Covenant advance fleet had blown through Earth's orbital defenses and jumped away over Africa, only for the real invasion force to arrive. There were landings in Africa, North America, even Antarctica. Fortunately for Team Machete, there was a voice in their ear to sort out only what they really needed to know.
"They crushed the regional garrisons outside Shanghai, and have an ops base there under construction. The Covenant own China, now." The woman's voice came across tired, dry when it didn't interrupt sips of coffee, and yet sound amused as she added, "That takes some of Misriah's largest production facilities off the board. But, it's not like they could churn out that much more when the fighting's already started. We're lucky they wasted the time, really."
Lieutenant Erin Coney, Machete's mission handler and field advisor, had been one of Gamma Company's counter-intelligence instructors back on Onyx. She was older than the Spartans by closer to thirty than twenty years and sharp as a staked pit, but Kodiak had to admit that was all he really knew about her. Well, except she was probably a spook⁠. The way other DIs kept clear of her after their first disagreement when they usually butted egos may as well have written volumes in unspoken threats.
Fortunately, Erin had taken a liking to Machete for some reason, enough to volunteer as their handler. Apparently, biting sarcasm was how she showed affection.
"Which brings us to your assignment," she continued.