The Pelican's engines hummed a dull, vibrating lullaby, a stark contrast to the cacophony of plasma fire and explosions they'd just left behind. Inside the cramped troop bay, the air smelled of ozone, burnt wiring, and the metallic tang of dried sweat. Wraith took off his helmet, letting out a long, slow breath. The silence, broken only by the Pelican's mechanical symphony, was a balm after the chaos.

"Prelate's confirmed down," Ghost reported, his voice a low monotone, eyes still scanning the tactical displays on his wrist-mounted pad. "Clean kill. The intel was solid on his routine."

"Too solid, maybe," Shadow grunted from across the bay, running a gloved hand over the pristine finish of his silenced SMG. "He walked right into it. Almost felt. . . set up."

Viper, leaning back against the bulkhead, her sniper rifle resting beside her, nodded. "Yeah. It was the extraction that felt like the real fight. Not the target acquisition."

Wraith looked at each of them in turn, their faces still grim beneath the residual dirt and grime of the urban battlefield. "Agreed. The assassination itself was textbook. That Prelate had a death wish, walking around with a skeleton crew in a supposedly 'secure' sector. But that extraction. . . that was too close."

Ghost's head snapped up. "The Brutes and Hunters. They materialized faster than any standard patrol could have responded. And the moment the Prelate went down, that Spirit was already in the air, heading straight for our LZ. They knew."

"They knew we were there, but not where exactly until we initiated the target package," Wraith mused, rubbing a gloved thumb over a scorch mark on his forearm armor. "The rapid deployment of a Hunter pair and a heavy Brute contingent. . . that's a quick reaction force, not a patrol stumbling on us."

Shadow shifted. "My breach charge was quiet. The M7s were quiet. Someone inside must have tripped an alarm, or they had a proximity alert on the Prelate himself."

"Whatever it was, it almost cost us," Viper added, her eyes distant, replaying the desperate moments. "Those Hunters, closing in the smoke. If Shadow hadn't called out that fuel cell, we would have been vaporized.

"Good call, Shadow," Wraith affirmed, looking at his intel specialist.

Shadow just nodded. "Standard procedure. Prioritize threats. That Hunter was the biggest obstacle to egress."

"And Ghost," Wraith continued, turning to him. "Taking out that first Brute was clean. Gave us the precious seconds we needed for the smoke. Saved Shadow's ass, probably mine too. Great save on the EMPs, Shadow"

Shadow shrugged, "The EMP on the Spirit was a hail mary, but it worked."

"A beautiful hail mary," Viper corrected, a rare hint of a grin touching her lips. "Never thought I'd see a Spirit dropship fall like a brick from a single pilot kill shot in urban terrain. Saved us from being cornered and hammered into paste."

Wraith leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "This goes into the after-action report. The ease of the assassination combined with the near-catastrophic extraction implies they were trying to draw us out. To confirm our presence, perhaps. Or even to capture us."

"Or they had an emergency contingency for the Prelate," Ghost speculated. "A dead man's switch, or an active tracker that broadcasts once vital signs cease. Either way, they learned we were there the hard way."

The implications were chilling. If the Covenant were evolving their tactics to specifically target ODST deep-strike teams, their methods would require adaptation. Stealth was their greatest weapon; however, if the enemy could provoke them into revealing themselves, or had systems to instantly detect their success, every mission would become a knife-edge gambit.

"Next time," Viper said, breaking the silence, "we go in with even less, and get out even faster. Or we bring a heavier punch for the extraction."

Wraith strapped his helmet back on, the visor snapping into place, concealing the troubled look in his eyes. "Next time, we're better prepared for their contingencies. This mission was a success, but it was also a warning. Onyx just showed us how thin the line between phantom strike and fatal trap can be."

The Pelican roared louder, beginning its ascent out of the planet's hostile atmosphere. Below, the Covenant occupied the city, which continued to burn; however, the fires now mingled with the gnawing uncertainty of a targeted strike, and the unsettling realization that the hunters might also be hunted.

_______

The debriefing was terse, focused on the successful objective—a dead Prelate—and glossing over the extraction that had teetered on the brink of disaster, holding back any off-the-record comments. Now, back in their assigned section of the UNSC Everest, a behemoth of a warship, the team gathered in their cramped quarters, the silence was heavy with unspoken questions they could now speak freely.

"That intel was bullshit." Viper broke the quiet, slamming her empty MRE pouch onto the small table. "Thin patrols? A two-man quick reaction force almost wipes us. That's not thin, that's bait."

Wraith, perched on the edge of his bunk, his helmet resting beside him like a silent sentinel, rubbed his temple. "It was. . . incomplete, at best. The Prelate's movements, the minimal guard detail inside the city hall—all perfect. Too perfect."

"The moment his vitals flatlined, the QRF was already deploying," Shadow added, his voice devoid of inflection as he meticulously cleaned his data pad. "My passive scans before insertion showed no such force in that sector. It was either blind luck on their part, or they were already positioned, waiting for something."

Ghost, ever the quiet one, slid a maintenance kit across the table. "They were waiting. No doubt." His eyes, usually unreadable behind his visor, held a simmering distrust now that his helmet was off. "ONI. They've always played their games."

Wraith sighed. This was the conversation he'd been dreading. The Office of Naval Intelligence had a long, storied history of clandestine operations, of information manipulation, and of using assets as expendable pawns. ODSTs understood the risks of their job, but being deliberately misled was a different kind of betrayal.

"The mission objective was achieved," Wraith stated, almost to himself. "Prelate down. Covenant command structure in that sector destabilized."

"At what cost, Lieu?" Viper countered, a rare edge to her voice. "My shot on that Spirit's pilot was pure luck. We're an ODST team, not a suicide squad for ONI's grand chess moves—or even Spartans for that matter."

Shadow finally looked up from his pad. "The tactical data provided for the extraction route indicated less than 5% probability of encountering heavy resistance. Actual encounter rate was 85% for hostile infantry, 30% for armored, and 100% for air support within two minutes of engagement." He looked at Wraith. "Either their intelligence gathering is catastrophically failing, or they intentionally filtered the risks."

"They filtered it," Ghost said flatly. "They wanted the Prelate dead, no matter how many 'boots on the ground' it took. Our lives are just numbers on their spreadsheets."

Wraith knew they were right. He'd seen it before, subtle discrepancies in mission briefs, vague assurances that turned out to be dangerous omissions. But this was different. This felt. . . personal. Like they'd been lured.

"It raises questions for future deployments," Wraith admitted, his gaze hardening. "How can we trust the intel if it's designed to funnel us into a kill box? Our stealth relies on accurate information, not on being the blind sheep led to slaughter."

"So what do we do, Lieu?" Viper asked, her cynicism momentarily giving way to genuine concern. "Go rogue? Refuse missions?"

"No," Wraith said firmly. "We do our job. But we do it smarter. Every piece of intel from ONI gets double-checked—triple-checked. We assume everything they tell us is a partial truth until proven otherwise. Shadow, I want you running every possible counter-scan on future drop zones. Ghost, recon the target and exfil routes with thermal and motion sensors before we commit. Viper, you're the last line of defense on every approach, and the first to sound the alarm on anything out of place."

He looked at his team, their faces hardened by years of war, but now marked with a fresh layer of doubt. "Our lives depend on each other, and on our own judgment. From now on, that's what we rely on. Not on what ONI decides to share, or decides to hide."

A silent, understanding nod passed between them. The trust in their chain of command had been fractured, but the bond within the team, forged in the crucible of impossible missions, remained ironclad. They were ghosts, shadows, and vipers, but they were no longer blind. And ONI, whether they knew it or not, had just taught them a very dangerous lesson: never trust the hand that feeds you, especially when it's leading you to the wolves.