The response was nearly instantaneous as the surviving troops ran for cover and a series of plasma bolts blew chunks of wood out of the protective log and set it ablaze.
Confident that he had whittled the opposition down to a more manageable size, the Chief eased his way back to the LRV and pulled himself up into the driver’s seat. The Marines waited to see what he would do next. “Check your weapons,” he advised, as he hit the ignition switch and the big engine roared to life. “We have some clean-up to do.”
“Roger that,” the gunner said grimly. “It looks like we have KP duty again.”
There was no telling what the Covenant troops expected the humans to do, but judging from the way they ran around screaming, the possibility of an old-fashioned frontal assault just hadn’t occurred to them.
The Spartan aimed the vehicle for the front of the complex, spotted the hallway that extended back toward the face of the cliff, and drove straight inside. It was a tight fit, and the Warthog wallowed a bit as the big off-road tires rolled over a couple of dead Grunts, but the strategy worked. Both Marines opened up on the Covenant troops and the Chief ran one of them down.
Then, once the outer part of the structure had been cleared, the Master Chief parked the LRV where the Marines could provide him with fire support, and ventured inside. A series of ramps led down through darkened hallways to the antechamber below. It was full of aliens. The Master Chief tossed a grenade in among them, backed up out of the way, and sprayed the ramp with bullets. The grenade went off with a satisfying wham! and body parts flew high into the air before thumping to the floor.
Cortana said, “Don’t let them lock the doors!”
Too late. The doors noiselessly flashed shut.
The Spartan polished off the last of the resistance, checked to confirm that the doors were locked, and was already on his way back to the surface when the AI accessed the suit’s radio. “Cortana to Keyes...”
“Go ahead, Cortana. Have you found the Control Center?”
“Negative, Captain. The Covenant have impeded our progress. We can’t proceed unless we can disable the installation’s security system.”
“Understood,” Keyes replied. “Use any means necessary to force your way into the facility and find Halo’s Control Center. Failure is not an option.”
The Master Chief was back in the ’Hog and halfway to the LZ by the time the Captain signed off. “Good luck, people. Keyes out.”
If the front door is locked – then go around back. That’s what the Spartan figured as the LRV rolled back the way it had come, through the LZ. The Marine seated next to him exchanged insults with a buddy stationed on the beach.
They had just rounded a bluff when Cortana said, “Look up to the right. There’s a path that leads toward the interior of the island.”
The AI had no more than finished her sentence when the gunner said, “Freaks at two o’clock!” and opened fire.
The Spartan ran the Warthog up a slope, allowed the M41 LAAG to handle the heavy lifting, and positioned the vehicle so the gunner could put fire on the ravine ahead. “Tell me something, Cortana,” the Master Chief said, as he lowered himself to the ground. “How come you’re always advising me to go up gravity lifts, run down corridors, and sneak through forests while making no mention of all the enemy troops that seem to inhabit such places?”
“Because I don’t want you to feel unnecessary,” the AI replied easily. “For example, given the fact that your sensors are telling both of us that there are at least five Covenant soldiers lying in wait farther up the ravine, it’s logical to suppose that there are even more beyond them. Does that make you feel better?”
“No,” the Spartan admitted as he checked to ensure that both of his weapons were fully loaded.
He charged up the ravine and took cover behind a large outcropping of rock. Plasma bolts melted the stone near his head, and he snapped a quick shot in return. The Grunt snarled and dove for cover, as a pair of his partners opened up on the Spartan’s position. Behind them, a cobalt-armored Elite urged them forward.
The Master Chief took a deep breath. Time to go to work, he thought. He sprinted from his cover and his pistol’s reports echoed through the narrow ravine.
The skirmish took mere minutes. His shield indicator pulsed a warning yet again, and he paused at the top of the ravine to allow it time to recharge. His gun swept the area, and noted the circular structure that dominated a small depression at the top of the ravine.
His shield had just begun a recharge cycle, feeding off the armor’s capacious power plant, when the pair of Hunter aliens burst from cover and lobbed fire at his position.
The first blast struck him square in the chest and sent him tumbling backward. The second shot was stopped by a thick-trunked tree. A trickle of blood pooled in the corner of his left eye. He shook his head to clear his blurred vision and rolled to his left. A third shot kicked up a plume of soil where he had lain just seconds before.
The Chief tossed a frag grenade, counted to three, then sprang to his feet and sidestepped to his right, firing all the way.
He’d timed it perfectly. The grenade detonated, and the flash and smoke briefly confused the aliens. His rounds bounced from their thick armor plates. In unison, they spun to face him, their weapons glowing green as they charged for another salvo.
Another grenade detonated in their path and slowed the Hunters’ advance. They fired through the smoke and the crash of their weapons thundered through the low ravine.
The Hunters moved forward, eager for the kill – and realized too late that he’d doubled back and closed in on them. His assault rifle barked and tore into the gaps in their armor at close range. They screamed and died.
The Master Chief followed the terrain as it gradually sloped back down to the west. He dealt with a brace of sentries, then located his objective: a way into the massive structure that loomed above. The human saw a dark, shadowy door, slipped through the opening. He felt the gloom settle around him.
His biochemically altered eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, and he moved deeper into the structure, pausing only to feed a fresh magazine into his assault rifle.
One level below, Zuka ’Zamamee listened. Someone was on the way, the desperate radio traffic testified to that, and it seemed safe to assume that it was the very human he had set out to kill. The fact that the transmissions ceased amid the clatter of human weaponry attested to the fact that the armored human was here.
But would he enter the trap? He had carefully seeded references to the map room into the stream of battle updates. If the humans had tapped into the network using the downed ship’s AI, then they would have no choice but to send this fearsome soldier to find it.
Yes, the Elite thought, as his highly sensitive ears heard the scrape of a booted foot, a muted click as a new magazine slid home, and the subtle rasp of armor. It won’t be long now.
’Zamamee looked left and right, assured himself that the Hunters were in position, and withdrew to his hiding place. Others were present inside the cargo module as well, including Yayap and a team of Grunts.
The Master Chief hit the bottom of the ramp, saw the alien cargo modules that populated the center of the dimly lit room, and knew that damned near anything could be lurking among them. Something – instinct, or perhaps only luck – caused his heart to beat a little faster as he put his back to a wall and slid sideways. Something wasn’t right.
Light filtered in through an ornate window which enabled the Spartan to see that there was an alcove to his left. He eased in that direction, felt a cold weight hit the bottom of his stomach as he heard movement, and turned toward the sound.