Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [111]
“It’s in this direction.” Orlav gestured at a passage leading through the tanks.
“Lots of spaces to hide in there,” Benti said.
Clarence gave her a look like Who would want to?
“Lots.” Orlav agreed. “So we’ll do it real careful-like.”
Moving in stages, creeping, darting into new territory, their backs only to each other, they moved deeper into the bowels of the ship.
Benti wished she could get used to the smell, but it was impossible. Even keeping her hand over her nose didn’t help. The smell had a taste, a texture, that got around any defense. Benti wanted that bath more than ever—and ice cream, damn the sarge for putting the idea in her head. But more than anything, she wanted someplace with a blue sky and no ceiling. She wondered, not for the first time, if Lopez was already waiting for them on the bridge.
“I’ve been in the shit before,” Gersten said, “but this is ridiculous.”
“Shut it,” Benti said. Mouthy Gersten was ruining silent Gersten’s rep. But also her ears had pricked up at the hint of an echo.
“Let Gersten wallow in it, for once,” Orlav said straightfaced. Even Tsardikos, who had been almost as silent as Clarence, couldn’t suppress a chuckle at that.
But Benti shushed them again. “I’m serious. Clarence, you hear that?”
Clarence nodded. It was impossible to miss. A voice that rose stark above the muted hubbub of the recycling system. A voice that spoke no words, that didn’t try to, that didn’t know how.
They knew the wide array of Covenant sounds, and this was not one of them.
“Keep moving,” Benti said through gritted teeth. Boy, she wished now they hadn’t split up. The sarge would’ve had a much better plan. But right now the sarge might as well be on a beach in Cozumel.
“Where’d it come from?” Orlav asked. “I can’t tell.”
Another sound, containing a depth and jaggedness that tripped Benti’s pulse.
“What the hell was that?” Gersten asked, spinning about. “Covenant bastards, what the hell is it?”
“Shut up and keep moving,” Benti insisted. She couldn’t shed the image of the Covenant Elite Clarence had killed for her, listening for something that frightened it more than a bunch of Marines.
Shedding caution, they sped up into a jog, a glance at each corner, knocking into the holding tanks because they looked behind them so much. Tsardikos was lagging. Benti hissed at him to go faster, but he couldn’t keep up.
Another roar, a bellow not even really animal in nature—too ragged and discordant. It echoed off the tanks and pipes, hiding its source. Moaning, eerie changes in the timbre, like someone tuning in a messed-up radio channel. More and more voices—no, they couldn’t be voices—joined in, as if alerted to a hunt. Just discernable above the coalescing howl, something that chittered and scuttled.
“They’re behind us, I think,” Gersten said, not trying to be funny any more, as he swiveled to jog backward, flashlight spasming across the pipes behind them. Benti turned, couldn’t see anything. Not even Tsardikos.
“And they’re gaining,” Orlav added. Unnecessarily.
They broke, running so fast now that anything could ambush them, but needing to take that risk. Running felt good to Benti’s tense muscles.
“Where are we going, Orlav?” Benti shouted. “Come on, where are we going?”
“Maintenance storage room, with access back upstairs beyond!”
“How far?”
“Fifty meters!”
“They’re gaining,” Gersten said, rising strain in his voice. There was more than one voice in the growing growl behind them, multiple footfalls, heavy, far too heavy. They turned a corner, kept going.
“Grenade?”
Orlav: “Too close to the hull!”
“Here!” Benti splashed to a halt by a narrow passage that led through the last of the tanks. A quick scan indicated that the space beyond was clear, nothing lurking in