No Easy Way Out

No Easy Way Out is an achievement in Halo 4 and Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It is awarded for surviving all enemy waves during the defense in Episode 5, Chapter 1 of Spartan Ops on Heroic or harder. To "survive" the player must reach and defeat the final wave of enemies, which includes keeping at least one of the research stations alive for about five minutes. Activating the switch which prevents the Prometheans from teleporting before all of the enemies have been defeated will end the level prematurely and prevent the player from getting the achievement.

As waves spawn in when there is only one enemy left, it can be helpful to leave two Promethean Knights alive and targeted on the player until the research stations are no longer needed.

Trivia
The achievement is mislabeled in Halo 4 - despite saying that it can be unlocked on Normal or harder, it actually requires that you be playing on Heroic or harder. This is corrected in the description in Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The language is also somewhat misleading in both versions of the achievement - seeming to indicate that the player must survive, but in actuality the player can die numerous times. Instead the player just has to "survive" all the waves of Promethean reinforcements.