But the sea was too rough, waves crashed down on the raft, and broke it apart. Swells lifted Keyes up, others pushed him down, and the final darkness beckoned. But then, just as the ocean was about to consume him, Keyes became aware of the one thing the creature that raped his mind couldn’t consume: the CNI transponder’s carrier wave.
He reached for it like a drowning man, clutched the lifeline with all his might, and refused to let go. For here, deep within his watery grave, was a thread that led back to what he had been.
Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.
The Master Chief fired the last of his shotgun rounds into the collapsed hulk of a combat form. It twitched and lay still.
After winding through the confusion of subterranean chambers and passageways for what seemed like hours, he’d finally found a lift to the surface. He carefully tapped the activation panel – worried for a moment that this lift would also drop him deeper into the facility – and felt the lift lurch into a rapid ascent.
As the lift climbed, Foehammer’s worried voice crackled from his comm system.
“This is Echo 419. Chief, is that you? I lost your signal when you disappeared inside the structure. What’s going on down there? I’m tracking movement all over the place.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” the Master Chief replied, his voice grim, “and believe me: you don’t want to know. Be advised: Captain Keyes is missing, and is most likely KIA. Over.”
“Roger that,” the pilot replied. “I’m sorry to hear it, over.”
The lift jerked to a halt, the Spartan stepped off, and found himself surrounded by Marines. Not the shambling combat forms he’d spent the last eternity fighting, but normal, unchanged human beings. “Good to see you, Chief,” a Corporal said.
The Chief cut the soldier off. “There’s no time for that, Marine. Report.”
The young Marine gulped, then started talking. “After we lost contact we headed for the RV point, and these things, they ambushed us. Sir: Advise we get the hell out of here, ASAP.”
“That’s command thinking, Corporal,” the Chief replied. “Let’s go.”
It was a short walk up the ramp and into the rain. Strangely, and much to his surprise, it felt good to enter the stinking swamp. Very good indeed.
CHAPTER NINE
D+60:33:54 (Flight Officer Captain Rawley Mission Clock)
Pelican Echo 419, above Covenant arms cache
“There’s a large tower a few hundred meters from your current position. Find a way above the fog and foliage canopy and I can move in and pick you up,” Rawley said. Her eyes were glued to her scopes as SPARTAN-117 took the lead and the Marines left the ancient complex and entered the fetid embrace of the swamp. The rain and some kind of interference from the structure played hell with the Pelican’s detection gear, but she was damned if she was going to lose this team now. She had a reputation to maintain, after all.
“Roger that,” the Chief replied, “we’re on our way.”
She kept the Pelican circling, her eyes peeled for trouble. There was no immediate threat. That made her even more nervous. Ever since they’d made it down to the surface of the ring, trouble always seemed to strike without warning.
For the hundredth time since lifting off from Alpha Base, she cursed the lack of ammunition for the Pelicans.
Knowing the dropship was somewhere above the mist, and eager to get the hell out, the Marines forged ahead. The Spartan cautioned them to slow down, to keep their eyes peeled, but it wasn’t long before he found himself back toward the middle of the pack.
The tower Foehammer had mentioned appeared up ahead. The base of the column was circular, with half-rounded supports that protruded from the sides, probably for stability. Farther up, extending out from the column itself, were winglike platforms. Their purpose wasn’t clear, but the same could be said for the entire structure. The top of the shaft was lost in the mist.
The Master Chief paused to look around, heard one of the leathernecks yell “Contact!” quickly followed by the staccato rip of an assault weapon fired on full automatic. A host of red dots had appeared on the Spartan’s threat indicator. He saw a dozen of the spherical infection forms bounce out of the mist and knew that any possibility of containing the creatures underground had been lost.
The Pelican’s sensors suddenly painted dozens – correction, hundreds – of new contacts on the ground. Rawley cursed and wheeled the Pelican around, expecting ground fire.
No fire was directed at the dropship. “What the hell?” she muttered. First, the contacts appeared out of nowhere, charged into the open, but didn’t shoot at the air cover? Maybe the Covenant were getting stupid as well as ugly.
She hit the radio to warn the troops and winced as the muffled pop of automatic weapons fire burst from her headset. “Heads up, ground team!” she yelled. “Multiple contacts on the ground – they’re right on top of you!”
The radio squealed, then static filled her speakers. The interference worsened. She thumped the radio controls with a gloved fist. “Damn it!” she yelled.
“Uh, boss,” Frye said. “You better take a look at this.”
She glanced back at her co-pilot, followed his gaze, and her own eyes widened. “Okay,” she said, “any idea what the hell that is?”
The Chief fired short bursts from his assault weapon, popped dozens of the alien pods, and turned to confront a combat form. It was armed with a plasma pistol but chose to throw itself forward rather than fire. The Chief’s automatic weapon was actually touching the creature when he pulled the trigger. The ex-Elite’s chest opened like an obscene flower and the infection form hidden within exploded into fleshy pieces.
He heard a burst of static in his comm system. Interference whined as the MJOLNIR’s powerful communications gear tried to scrub the signal, to no avail. It sounded like Foehammer, but he couldn’t be sure.
It hovered in front of the Pelican’s cockpit for a moment, and light stabbed Rawley’s eyes. It was made from some kind of silvery metal, roughly cylindrical but with angular edges. Winglike, squarish fins shifted and slid like rudders as the device bobbed in the air. It – whatever it was – shone a bright light into the cockpit, then turned away and dropped altitude. Below her, she could see dozens of the things flying in a loose line. In seconds, they dropped below the tree line and out of sight.
“Frye,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry, “tell Chief Cullen to work the comm system and punch me a hole in this interference. I need to talk to the ground team now.”
The tide of hostiles fell back into the ankle-deep water and regrouped. A dozen exotic-looking cylindrical machines drifted out of the trees to float over the clearing. The nearest Marine yelled, “What are they?” and was about to shoot at them when the Chief raised a cautionary hand. “Hold on, Marine... let’s see what they do.”
What happened next was both unexpected and gratifying. Each machine produced a beam of energy, speared one of the hostiles, and burned it down.
Some of the combat forms took exception to this treatment, and attempted to return fire, but were soon put out of action by the combined efforts of the Marines and their newfound allies.