Halo Contact Harvest 21

Byrne was a big man. But the alien was a meter taller and outweighed him by half a metric ton. It bent Byrne over and hustled him headfirst into the data center's wall, just beside the hole. If the
Staff Sergeant hadn't been wearing his helmet, his skull would have shattered. Instead, the impact only knocked him unconscious.

The next thing Byrne knew, the alien had him by the wrists and was dragging him, belly-up, back into the raging firefight outside the tower. Byrne's helmet was gone, as were both his weapons. The alien had torn off his assault vest with a single, vicious swipe of its paw; there were bloody clawmarks down the center of his olive-drab shirt and his chest stung and throbbed. He tried to get his feet under him and break free of the alien's grip.

But the creature simply turned at the waist, and smashed a giant fist into Byrne's face, brea-
king his nose and cheekbone. As the Staff Sergeant's head rolled between his shoulders, the alien hauled him over the sandbag berm in plain view of the recruits on the tower.-Chpt.21