The last time he did this, it was different.

It was a beautiful island with azure, surf-capped currents tossing against sandy beaches and tall, proud evergreens climbing upward into the sky.

Not this time.

There was no beach. There were no evergreens. It was just a barren desert wasteland with an occasional gnarled and lifeless tree trunk rising from the dry ground. Not anything like the last time.

The Master Chief lifted the Scorpion Tank’s operator hatch, briefly peaking out onto the battlefield. He quickly surveyed the Forerunner installation’s cartographer, a towering structure off to his right which was said to contain the map room. In the distance, the Sangheilian assault carrier, Shadow of Intent, hovered high above the face of the building, closely following the battle below.

There, at the foot of the cartographer, was a war.

A large UNSC contingent, including Scorpion Tanks and Warthogs, burrowed down the slope of a ravine into heavily-protected Covenant territory. Here, swarmed by Ghosts, Choppers and Wraiths, as well as a slew of Covenant infantry, the Master Chief and the Marine forces pressed forward toward the base of the cartographer’s tower.

The assault had signaled some of the final pieces of the Covenant’s groundside military and was part of the UNSC’s last ditch effort to end the war with the Covenant and prevent the Prophet of Truth from firing the Halo weapon. There was, however, just one more major impediment before the UNSC could attempt to steal back the Forerunner tower from its Brute occupants.

A Scarab.

The powerful vessel climbed around the backside of the cartographer and into the field of view, intent on devouring the human aggressors with its overwhelming fire power. This would be no easy battle. The Spartan and Marines would have to overcome the mechanical beast’s violent movements, its dozen or so well-armed soldiers, its heavy forward cannon, its suppressive rear turret, a handful of swirling Choppers which would soon be clamoring about its legs and the batch of Grunts hiding in a central abutment, armed with fuel rod guns.

And as the charred and battered UNSC vehicles poured onto the valley floor and the Scarab’s turret and passengers began to fire indiscriminately, the Chief let only one thing enter his mind.

There was a job that needed to be done.

With his fingers clenched firmly on the tank’s operating controls and his teeth gritting down as though they were holding it together one panel at a time, the Spartan forced his vehicle forward with the metallic sounds of armored death, and with a howl of bursting air, the tank’s primary cannon cleared the Scarab’s prow of a handful of Brutes and Jackals.

There was a job that needed to be done and he was the only one who could do it.

So he did.

Proceed to The Architecture of War.