Lance

Were you looking for the the M95 or M97 Lance missile batteries?'' "They're in standard formation, little bastards up front, big ones in back."

- Malta Station defense coordinator

A lance is the second smallest known organization of Covenant military units, with a file being the smallest known group.

Standard
A lance is usually commanded by a Sangheili Minor or Major, or a Jiralhanae Minor or Major. A lance also contains a file of four Unggoy Minors and one Major. Sometimes, a Sangheili or Jiralhanae Major will oversee the command of three lances in a battle.

After the Great Schism, Jiralhanae of a junior rank, including Minors, Majors, Ultras and lower-ranked Captains, were charged with leading lances of four or five Unggoy, occasionally with two or three Kig-Yar added. A Unggoy Heavy will sometimes be present to set up or man a Type-52 plasma cannon or to operate a Shade turret for heavy suppression.

Kig-yar
A lance of Kig-Yar usually consists and comprises of a group of four to six Kig-Yar infantry, with one or two of them being Majors and the rest being Minors. Kig-Yar lances are sometimes led by a Sangheili or a Jiralhanae, though this is not always the case.

Yanme'e
A lance of Yanme'e is usually nothing more than a swarm of around a dozen or so soldiers. As they are very mobile and constantly airborne, Yanme'e lances are not commanded by a Sangheili. They are commonly commanded by one or more Yanme'e majors.

Jiralhanae
An all-Jiralhanae counterpart to the lance is known as a pack. A Jiralhanae pack is usually led by Jiralhanae Captain or Captain Major.

Science Lance
Formed to recover and examine captured technology, science lances were dispatched by the Prophet of Regret in 2525 to the Damascus Testing Facility to study captured technology, although the MJOLNIR armor had already been recovered by the SPARTAN-II supersoldiers.