Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [133]
MacCraw nodded dumbly. “At least, the part the explosion didn’t cover up. Do you think that was Benti?”
“Could’ve been. Could’ve been something else. We don’t have time to worry about it, so long as we’re still breathing air.”
Nothing on the remaining consoles indicated a drop in air pressure, just a sudden surge of energy near the engines.
Eight to ten minutes. Knew what MacCraw was thinking. They’d survived nightmares only to get shot down by their own commander. He’d already given up, tears glistening in his eyes.
Couldn’t have that. She was still his sergeant.
She slapped his chest. “Let’s hope someone was alive to hear it. Now hustle! We blow through some space zombies, get cozy in a pod, and we’re gonna live, you hear? We’re gonna live.” She grinned suddenly, fiercely. “And we’re gonna get back home to the Red Horse, and then we’re gonna tear the commander a new a-hole. Two new assholes, one for you and one for me. And then we’re gonna find Smith, and we’re gonna take our time with him, I think.” Couldn’t even pick one of the many things she wanted to do to the spook, saw the same violent yearning lift MacCraw’s chin. “And then, when we’re done with him, then what?”
MacCraw sniffed and blinked his tears away.
“And then there’s ice cream, Sarge.”
Their grins were hollow. Voices breaking. The Flood still hammering on the door, the door they had to go through.
“Damn straight.”
>Benti 1613 hours
Benti raised her rifle, Burgundy in her sights, but both Clarence and Henry reached out, with expressions that said, No, don’t, you’ll let them know we’re here, and there are too many of them. Benti bit her lip bloody, couldn’t block her ears; Burgundy wouldn’t stop screaming, even though her voice was ripped to shreds she shrieked and screeched, begged and pleaded, all her terror and desperation echoing around the cold engine, ringing in Benti’s ears as they lifted the pilot and pressed her against the mucus glob with the rest of the Mona Lisa’s crew.
And then she really started screaming.
Benti couldn’t look any more. She screwed her eyes shut, but that wasn’t enough. Turned, pressed her forehead against Henry’s knee. She had to do something, but didn’t know what to do. Henry looked over his shoulder, then dipped his head down to peer at her. His breath reeked. He stank of Covenant, a smell that never failed to get her blood up, and she leaned back. But he had intelligent eyes. Kind eyes. Something like recognition in them. He could hear all she could hear, could understand it all.
She had to do something.
But.
A thunk and crackle tripped their attention, disorientating the Flood on the deck below. The ship’s PA was waking up.
“—is the UNSC Red Horse—”
Rebecca.
Benti’s delight was drowned out by the crashing, raucous cacophony that exploded from the Flood.
“What’s going on?” she hissed, leaning close to Rimmer. Clarence lifted his hand from Rimmer’s mouth just enough.
“You gotta find some way to turn it off, it’ll enrage them, they go crazy when they hear something, might be food, they go crazy, they’ll look for where it’s coming from—” Clarence clamped his hand over Rimmer’s mouth again, the prisoner already too worked up. He shook his head, indicated with his eyes. There was a speaker way too close to them.
Down below, great spasms of rage gripped the Flood. The voices over the PA, Foucault’s, Sarge’s—oh, Mama Lopez, what the hell is going on?—sent them into a mad frenzy, howling and throwing themselves about, pouring in doors, out doors. An infected prisoner smashed a speaker down on the deck with a single blow, denting the wall. Benti saw Cranker turning this way and that like a drunk puppy trying to do a trick for its master.
Just audible over the din, the sarge listing all of ONI’s sins. Rebecca spelling out the doom of the human race, should the Flood be allowed to spread.
The more she heard, the more Benti began to think she understood what the Flood might