It was a waste of ammo to pepper the front end of a Hunter with 7.62mm rounds, and slow though he was, the alien could still bring him down with a blast from his arm-mounted fuel rod cannon.
So he put his sight onto a target so big he didn’t need to zoom, and let fly.
The Hunter saw the missile coming, tried to deflect it with his shield, and failed. Seconds later pieces of warm meat showered the area, melted holes in the snow, and continued to steam.
The Chief ran past without a second look, jumped onto the Banshee, and strafed the rest of the Covenant forces on his way down the valley. Judging from the way the nav indicator was oriented, the Spartan needed altitude, a lot of it, so he put the alien attack ship into a steep climb.
Finally, when the red delta flipped over, and started to point down, he knew he was high enough. He did a nose-over and caught his first glimpse of the way point below. The surrounding area was dark, and snow continued to fall, but the platform was nicely lit. He lowered the Banshee onto the pad and had just bailed out of the pilot’s seat when the Sentinels attacked. “This is the last one,” Cortana said. “The Monitor will do anything to stop us.”
The Chief blew three of the pesky machines out of the air, backed through the hatch, and let the door close on the rest.
“We’re close,” the AI commented. “The generator is up ahead.”
The Chief nodded, stepped out into a room, and felt a laser burn across the front of his armor. It seemed that the Monitor had posted Sentinels inside the complex, as well. Not only that, but these machines had benefit of intermittent force fields, which were resistant to automatic weapons fire.
Still, he had a couple of 102mm surprises in store for the electromechanical enforcers, which he fired into the center of the hovering pack. Three Sentinels were blown out of the air. A fourth did loops as it tried to rid itself of a plasma grenade, failed, and took another machine with it. The fifth and sixth succumbed to a hail of bullets as their shields recharged, while the seventh slammed into a wall, crashed to the floor, and was busy trying to lift off again when the Chief stomped it to death.
The way was clear at that point and the Spartan was quick to take advantage of it. A few quick strides were sufficient to carry him into the central chamber where he was free to approach the final pulse generator.
“Final target neutralized,” Cortana said as the noncom stepped back a few moments later. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Let’s find a ride and get to the Captain,” the Chief agreed, as he prepared to leave.
“No, that’ll take too long.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“There’s a teleportation grid that runs around Halo. That’s how the Monitor moves about so quickly,” the AI explained. “I learned how to tap into the grid when I was in the Control Center.”
“So,” the Chief asked, somewhat annoyed, “why didn’t you just teleport us to the pulse generators?”
“I can’t. Unfortunately, each jump requires a rather consequential expenditure of energy, and I don’t have access to Halo’s power systems to reroute the energy we need.” She paused, then reluctantly continued. “There may be another way, however.”
The Spartan frowned and shook his head. “Something tells me I’m not going to like this.”
“I’m pretty sure I can pull the energy we need from your suit without permanently damaging your shield system or the armor’s power cells,” Cortana continued. “Needless to say, I think we should only try this once.”
“Agreed. Tap into the Covenant network and see if you can find him. If we’ve only got one shot at this, we should make it a good one.”
There was a pause as Cortana worked her magic with the intrusion and scan software. A moment later, she exclaimed, “I’ve got a good lock on Captain Keyes’ CNI transponder signal. He’s alive! And the implants are intact! There’s some interference from the cruiser’s damaged reactor. I’ll bring us in as close as I can.”
“Do it,” the Master Chief growled. “Let’s get this over with.”
No sooner had the Spartan spoken than bands of golden light started to ripple down over his armor, the now-familiar feeling of nausea returned, and the Master Chief seemed to vanish through the floor. Once he was gone only a few motes of amber light remained to mark his passing. Then, after a few seconds, they too disappeared.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
D+73:34:16 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock)
On board the Truth and Reconciliation
He wasn’t here, wasn’t there, wasn’t anywhere insofar as the Chief could tell from within the strange never-never land of Halo’s teleportation net. He couldn’t see or hear anything, save a sense of dizzying velocity. The Spartan felt his body stitched back together, one molecule at a time. He saw snatches of what looked like the interior of a Covenant ship as bands of golden light strobed up and disappeared over his head.
Something was wrong and he was just starting to figure out what it was – the inside of the ship seemed to be upside down – when he flipped head over heels and crashed to the deck.
He’d materialized with his feet planted firmly on the corridor’s ceiling.
“Oh!” Cortana exclaimed. “I see, the coordinate data needs to be–”
The Chief came to his feet, slapped the general area where his implants were, and shook his head. The AI sounded contrite. “Right. Sorry.”
“Never mind that,” the Spartan said. “Give me a sit-rep.”
She patched back into the Covenant computing systems, a much easier task now that they were aboard one of the enemy’s warships.
“The Covenant network is absolute chaos,” she replied. “From what I’ve been able to piece together, the leadership ordered all ships to abandon Halo when they found the Flood, but they were too late. The Flood overwhelmed this cruiser and captured it.”
“I assume,” he said, “that’s bad.”
“The Covenant think so. They’re terrified that the Flood will repair the ship and use it to escape from Halo. They sent a strike team to neutralize the Flood and prepare the ship for immediate departure.”
The Chief peered down the corridor. The bulkheads were violet. Or was that lavender? Strange patterns marbled the material, like the oily sheen of a beetle’s carapace. Whatever it was, he didn’t care for it, especially on a military vessel, but who knew? Maybe the Covenant thought olive drab was for wimps.
He started forward, but quickly came up short as a voice that verged on a groan came in over his implants. “Chief... Don’t be a fool... Leave me.”
It was Keyes’ voice.
Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK. He clung to the tether of his CNI carrier wave, and “heard” familiar voices. An iron-hard, rasping male voice. A tart, warm female voice.
He knew them.
Was this another memory?
He was struggling to dredge up new pieces of his past to delay the numbing advance of the alien presence in his mind. It was harder to maintain a grasp on who he was, as the various pieces of his life – the things that made him who he was – were stripped away, one at a time.
Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.
The voices. They were talking about him. The Master Chief, the AI Cortana.
He felt a sense of mounting panic. They shouldn’t be here.
The other grew stronger, and pressed forward, eager to learn more about these creatures that were so important to the struggling prisoner who clung so stubbornly to identity.