The Flood (11 page)

The Master Chief returned fire, then dropped back behind the ’Hog. “Fitzgerald,” he barked. “Keep fire on them. I’ll move up on the left and take them out.”

“Got it.” The tribarreled gun thundered, and fire hosed the Covenant position.

The Spartan was prepared to charge ahead and into the fight when his motion sensor painted movement from the rear. The LAAG ceased fire as Fitzgerald yelled in pain and fell from the back of the Warthog. The Marine’s helmet cracked into the metal floor.

A shard of glassy, translucent material, tapered to a wicked point, protruded from the Marine’s bicep. The shard glowed a ghostly purple. “Goddamn it!” Fitzgerald grunted, as he tried to regain his footing. Two seconds later, the purple shard exploded, and blood sprayed from the wound. Fitzgerald howled in agony.

There was no time to tend to Fitzgerald’s injuries. A pair of Grunts charged up the slight incline and opened fire. A barrage of the glassy projectiles arced toward them and ricocheted madly from the Warthog.

They were too close. The Chief fired at the nearest Grunt, three shots in succession. A trio of bullet pocks formed a neat cluster in the alien’s chest. The Grunt’s partner squealed in anger and brought his gun to bear – an odd, hunchbacked device with a ridge of the glassy projectiles protruding from it like dorsal fins. The weapon spat purple-white needles at him.

He sidestepped and slammed the butt of the pistol into the Grunt’s head. The alien’s skull caved in. He kicked the corpse back down the incline.

Fitzgerald had crawled to cover behind the Warthog. He was pale, but didn’t look shocky yet. The Spartan grabbed a first aid kit and expertly treated the wound. Self-sealing bio-foam filled the wound, packed it off, and numbed it. The young Marine would need some stitches and some time to rebuild the torn, savaged muscle of his arm, but he’d live – if either of them made it out of here alive.

“You okay?” he asked the wounded soldier. Fitzgerald nodded, wiped sweat from his forehead with a bloody hand, then struggled back to his feet. Without another word, he manned the LAAG.

It took the better part of fifteen minutes for the Master Chief and the gunner to sweep the area clear of Covenant forces. The Spartan patrolled the perimeter. To the left of the Warthog, the chamber stretched roughly eighty meters, then ended – as did the road ahead – in a massive chasm.

“Any ideas?” he asked Cortana.

There was a brief pause as the AI examined the data. “The roadway ahead ends in a gap, but it’s logical to assume that there’s some kind of bridge mechanism. Find the controls that extend the bridge and we should be able to get across.”

He nodded. He turned back and crossed the roadway and headed off to the right of the parked Warthog. As he passed the vehicle, he called over his shoulder to Fitzgerald. “Wait here. I’m going to find us a way across.”

The Master Chief marched across the chamber, and checked the odd structures that dotted the landscape. Some were illuminated by the dim glow from some kind of light panels, but there was no indication what powered them, or what the structures contained.

He frowned. There didn’t seem to be any sign of mechanisms or controls. He was about to head back to the Warthog and backtrack their course, then stopped. He stared at one of the massive pillars that stretched to the ceiling far overhead.

There was nothing down here, but perhaps the mechanism he sought was above them.

He moved as far to the end of the area as he could. Unlike the opposite side of the chamber, this half was bordered by a high, grooved metal wall. He followed the edge of the barrier and was gratified to locate a gap in the wall – a doorway.

Inside, a ramp led up twenty meters, then turned ninety degrees to the left. The Spartan drew his pistol, activated his helmet lamp, and crept up the ramp.

His caution was justified. As he reached the top, his motion sensor showed a contact – right on top of him. He ducked around the corner just in time to meet the charge of a crimson-armored Elite. The Elite growled a challenge and swung a vicious blow at the Chief’s head.

He ducked, and his shields took the brunt of the blow. He fired at point-blank range, not even bothering to aim. The Elite reared and returned fire and plasma blasts slashed through the narrow corridor.

In one fluid motion, the Chief drew, primed, and dropped a frag grenade, practically at the Elite’s feet. The alien warbled in surprise as the Spartan spun and ducked back around the corner.

He was rewarded by a flash of smoke and fire. A spray of purple-black blood splashed the metal wall. He rounded the corner, pistol at the ready, and stepped over the Elite’s smoking corpse.

The Chief continued along the corridor, which opened onto a narrow ledge. Directly to his right, the thick metal walls stretched up and out of sight. To his left, the metal sloped away at a steep angle that led back to the main floor, that gradually gave way to the yawning abyss as he continued forward. Ahead of him, there was a pulsing glow, like the strobe of a Pelican’s running lights.

He stopped at the source of the light: A pair of small, glowing orbs hung suspended above a roughly rectangular frame of blue matte metal. Floating within the frame were a series of pulsing, shifting displays – semitransparent, like Cortana’s holographic appearance, though there was no visible projection device. The display’s shimmering geometric patterns nagged at him, as if he should recognize them somehow. Even with his enhanced memory, he couldn’t place where he’d seen them before. They just seemed... familiar.

He reached a finger out to one of the symbols, a blue-green circle. The Spartan expected his finger to pass through nothing more than air. He was surprised when his finger met resistance – and the panel lights began to pulse more quickly.

“What did you do?” Cortana asked, her voice alarmed. “I’m detecting an energy spike.”

“I... don’t know,” the Spartan admitted. He wasn’t sure why he touched the “button” on the display. He just knew it felt right.

There was a high-pitched whine and, from his vantage point, he could see the gap in the roadway in the distance. At its edges, harsh white light sprang into view, forming a path across the break in the road, like a flashlight beam in smoke.

The light brightened, and there was a tremendous ripping sound. “I’m showing a lot of photonic activity,” Cortana said. “The excited photons have displaced the air around the light path.”

“Which means?”

“Which means,” she continued, “that the light has become coherent. Solid.”

She paused, then added, “How did you know what control to push?”

“I didn’t. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The ride across the light bridge was harrowing. He had tested the phenomenon with his foot, and discovered that it was as solid and unyielding as rock. Then he’d shrugged, told Fitzgerald to hang on, and sped the Warthog directly at the beam of illumination. He could hear Fitzgerald alternate between cursing and praying as they drove over the seemingly bottomless chasm on nothing more than a beam of light.

Once on the other side, they followed the tunnel out into the valley beyond, where the Master Chief guided the ’Hog up through a scattering of rocks and trees, to the top of a grassy rise. A sheer cliff threatened to block progress to the right, forcing them to stay to the left, as they headed toward a gap to the south.

The vehicle splashed through a shallow river. They saw the mouth of a passageway off to the right, decided that it would be best to investigate, and guided the all-terrain vehicle up through a rocky pass.

It was only a matter of minutes before the Warthog arrived on a ledge that looked out over a valley below. The Master Chief could see a UNSC lifeboat and a scattering of Covenant troops, but no Marines. Not a good sign.

A vaguely pyramidal structure rose to dominate the very center of the valley. The Master Chief saw a pulse of light race toward the sky, and knew that the structure had to be similar to whatever caused the flash he’d seen earlier.

There was only a moment to take in the situation before the aliens opened fire and the gunner replied in kind. It was time to put the ’Hog into motion. The Master Chief drove as the M41 LAAG whirred and rattled behind him. Marine Fitzgerald shouted, “You like that? Here, have some more!” and fired another sustained burst. A pair of Grunts rolled in opposite directions, as a squat, long-armed Jackal was cut in half, and the heavy-caliber slugs blew divots out of the ground beyond.

As the LRV swung past the pyramid, Cortana said, “There are some Marines hiding up on the hill. Let’s give them a hand.”

The Spartan aimed for a gap between two trees and saw a tall, angular Elite step out from cover. The Elite raised a weapon but was quickly transformed into a speed bump as the Warthog knocked him down and the huge tires crushed his body.

The Marines appeared soon after that, holding their assault weapons in the air, and calling greetings. A sergeant nodded. “It’s good to see you, Chief. It was starting to get a little bit warm around here.”

Covenant forces made a run at the hill after that, but the 12.7X99 mm rounds made short work of them, and the slope was soon littered with their bodies.

The Master Chief heard a burst of static, followed by Foehammer’s voice. “Echo 419 to Cortana... come in.”

“We read you, 419. We have survivors and need immediate dust-off.”

“Roger, Cortana. On my way. I spotted additional lifeboats in your area.”

“Acknowledged,” Cortana answered. “We’re on our way.”

It took the better part of the afternoon to check the interlocking valleys, locate the rest of the survivors, and deal with the Covenant forces who attempted to interfere. But finally, having rounded up a total of sixty-three Marines and naval personnel, the Spartan watched Echo 419 land for the last time, and jumped aboard. Foehammer looked back over her shoulder. “You put in a long day, Chief. Nice job. Our ETA at Alpha Base is thirty minutes.”

“Acknowledged,” the Spartan said. He exhaled, then softened his clipped tone. He allowed himself to lean back against the bulkhead and added, “Thanks for the ride.”

Thirty seconds later he was asleep.

Captain Jacob Keyes stood, hands on knees, panting in front of a vertical cliff face. He and the rest of the command party had been running off and on for three hours. Even the Marines were exhausted, as the shadow cast by the Covenant dropship drifted over them and blocked the sun.

Keyes considered making use of Dowski’s pistol to fire at the aircraft but couldn’t summon the energy. The voice that boomed through the externally mounted speakers was all too familiar. “Captain Keyes? This is Ellen Dowski. This is a box canyon. There’s no place for you to run. You might as well pack it in.”

The darkness cast by the ship shifted as the aircraft lowered itself onto the bottom of the canyon. The engines howled and blew dust in all directions before eventually spooling down. A hatch opened and Dowski jumped to the ground. She appeared to be unharmed and wore what could only be described as a self-satisfied smirk. “You see? It’s just like I told you it would be.”

A half dozen veteran Elites dropped to the ground, followed by a brace of Grunts. All were heavily armed. Gravel crunched as they approached the cliff face. One of the aliens spoke, his booming voice warbling the human speech with detectable discomfort. “You will drop your weapons.
Now.
”

The command crew looked at Keyes. He shrugged, bent over, and laid the M6D on the ground. The others did likewise.

The Grunts scurried about and collected the weapons. One of them chortled in his own language, as he collected all three of the Marines’ assault weapons, and carried them away.

“Which?” the Elite with the translator demanded, and looked at Dowski.

“That one!” the renegade officer proclaimed, and pointed at Keyes.

Hikowa started forward. “You little bitch! I’ll–”

No one ever learned what Hikowa would do, because the Elite shot her dead. Keyes lunged forward and attempted to tackle the Elite, to no avail. A lightning-fast blow clipped the side of his head, hard enough that his vision grayed out. He fell to the dirt.

The Elite was methodical. Starting with the Marines, he shot each captured human in the head. Wang attempted to run but a plasma bolt hit him between the shoulder blades. Lovell made a grab for the pistol, and took a blast to the face.

Keyes struggled to his feet again, dizzy and disoriented, and attempted to rush the Elite. He was clubbed to the ground a second time. Hikowa’s dead eyes stared vacantly back at him.

Finally, after the last plasma bolt had been fired and while the odor of burned flesh still hung in the air, only two members of the command crew were still alive: Keyes and Dowski. The Ensign was pale. She shook her head and wrung her hands. “I didn’t know, sir, honest I didn’t. They told me–”

The Elite snapped up a fallen M6D pistol and shot Dowski. The bullet hit her in the center of her forehead. The pistol’s report echoed down the canyon. The Ensign’s eyes rolled back in her head, her knees gave way, and she collapsed in a heap.

The Elite turned the M6D over in his hand. The weapon was small compared to
his
pistol – and his finger didn’t fit easily inside the trigger guard. “Projectiles. Very primitive. Take him away.”

Keyes felt the other Elites grab him by the arms and drag him up a ramp into the dropship’s murky interior. It seemed that the Covenant’s rules had changed again. Now they
did
take prisoners – just not very many. The ship lifted, and the only human to survive sincerely wished that he hadn’t.

Alpha Base didn’t offer a whole lot of amenities, but the Spartan took full advantage of what few there were. First came a full ten hours of completely uninterrupted sleep, followed by components selected from two MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat, and a two-minute hot shower.