It was difficult to imagine anyone or anything having survived such a blast, so McKay passed the launcher to the rear, and waved her troops forward.
There was a cheer as the Marines ran up the path, shouldered their way through the smoke, and entered the butte’s ancient interior. There were bodies, or what had been bodies. Fortunately, the tunnel was intact.
A couple of troopers collected plasma weapons, tried them out on the nearest wall, and added them to their personal armament.
Others, McKay included, stared up through a thirty-meter-wide well toward the circle of daylight above. She saw a shadow pass overhead as one of the Pelicans dropped even more Helljumpers onto the mesa. The distant thump! of a frag grenade detonation made dust and loose soil tumble down on them.
“Hey, Loot,” Private Satha said, “what’s the deal with this?”
Satha stomped on the floor and it rang in response. That was when McKay realized that she and her troops were standing on a large metal grating.
“What’s it for?” the private wondered aloud. “To keep us out?”
McKay shook her head. “No, it looks old, too old to have been put in place by the Covenant.”
“I found a lift!” one of the Marines yelled. “That’s what it looks like, anyway – come check it out!”
McKay went to investigate. Was this a way to reach the mesa? Her boot dislodged a shell casing which fell through one of the grating’s rectangular holes and dropped into the darkness below. It was a long time before it could be heard clanging off ancient stone.
Silva, Wellsley, and the rest of the Major’s headquarters organization were on top of the butte waiting for her by the time McKay rode the antigrav lift to the surface and stepped out into the harsh sunlight. She blinked as she looked around.
Bodies lay everywhere. Some wore Marine green but the vast majority were dressed in the rainbow colors that the Covenant used to identify its various ranks and specialties. A squad of Helljumpers moved through the carnage, searching for wounded humans, and kicking corpses to make sure that the enemy soldiers were actually dead. One of them attempted to rise and received a burst from an assault weapon for his trouble.
“Welcome to Alpha Base,” Major Silva said as he arrived at McKay’s side. “You and your company did a damn good job, Lieutenant. Wellsley will have the rest of the battalion up here within the hour. It looks like I owe you that beer.”
“Yes, sir,” McKay replied happily. “You sure as hell do.”
The tunnel was huge, plenty large enough to handle a Scorpion tank, which meant that the Master Chief had little difficulty steering the Warthog through the initial opening.
He’d almost missed the entry, at the bottom of a large dry wash. Cortana’s sensors had identified the entrance to the tunnel system. “It’s not a natural formation,” she’d warned him.
That meant someone built it. Logically, it meant that the tunnelled somewhere – and it might shave precious time off his search for the crashed lifeboats.
Once inside, things became a little more difficult as the Spartan was forced to maneuver the LRV up ramps, through a series of tight turns, and right to the very edge of a pit.
A quick recon confirmed that the gap was narrow enough to jump, assuming the ’Hog had a running start. The Master Chief backed away, warned the gunner to hang on, and put his foot to the floor. The LRV raced up the ramp, sailed through air, and jounced to a hard landing on the other side.
“I’m picking up lots of Covenant traffic,” Cortana said. “It sounds like Major Silva and the Helljumpers have captured an enemy position. If we can round up the rest of the survivors, and find Captain Keyes, we’ll have a chance to coordinate some serious resistance.”
“Good,” the Master Chief answered. “It’s about time something broke our way.”
The Warthog’s headlights swung across ancient walls as the Spartan turned the wheel, and the LRV emerged into a large open area, dotted with mysterious installations. It was dark; the road ended in front of a deep chasm. It wasn’t long before Covenant troops emerged like maggots spilling out of a rotting corpse.
Plasma fire splashed across the Warthog’s windscreen. The Spartan dove from the vehicle, crouched near the driver’s-side front tire, and drew his pistol. Fitzgerald opened up with the LAAG and swept the area with fire. Spent shell casings rained all around them.
The Chief peered over the edge of the Warthog. They were dangerously exposed. The roadway they’d been using was devoid of cover, elevated roughly three meters above the rest of the massive vaulted chamber. Worse, it bisected the chamber, which left them exposed on virtually all sides.
The giant enclosure was dimly lit; visibility was poor and the muzzle flash from the Warthog’s gun played hell with his night vision. He blinked his eyes to clear them, then activated his pistol’s scope.
The metal floor dropped away to either side, and every surface was engraved with the strange geometric patterns that festooned Halo’s mysterious architecture. Set well back from their position were a number of small structures, pillars, and support pylons. The Covenant were dug in among them.
A Grunt popped out from cover, his plasma pistol glowing green – he’d overcharged the weapon. The little SOBs liked to dump energy into the weapon, and discharge it all at once. It drained the weapon damn quick, but it also inflicted hellish damage on a target. A pulsing green-white orb of plasma sizzled past the Warthog.
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.