Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [142]
They looked at John like he was a monster; like an alien. In some of their eyes he could detect something deeper. Not horror; astonishment? Betrayal? Of course it may have just been hearing Cortana speaking through his comms.
“Who was that?” Palmer spat.
“That was Cortana. She’s . . .”
“She’s a real fucking bitch.”
The Spartan stood in silence, head cocked slightly to the right. “Corporal, give me your TACPAD.”
Corporal Palmer produced a notebook-sized device from her pack and passed it to the Spartan, and he flipped it open and showed them a traffic video with a time stamp from twenty-two minutes earlier four Wraiths and fifty light infantry entering the Mtangwe Underpass.
“It’s amazing how persuasive an argument overwhelming force can be,” Cortana whispered to the Spartan. John shrugged and moved toward what appeared to be a series of rungs imbedded in a flat section of the sewer wall.
Cortana was the first smart AI he had ever worked with directly. Sadly, whoever died to make this AI possible had to have been a genius among geniuses. For example: The section they were in wasn’t on the grid; it dated from before construction had even started on the Mombasa Tether—itself more than two hundred years old. Cortana had plucked the plans for them out of the ether before he could finish his request. As far as equipment went, the AI was cutting edge. The only thing that bothered him about Cortana was her excessive familiarity; she was more like a pushy civilian that just happened to fit on a data crystal than a true military AI.
“You can tell her that the rest of their unit has begun to dig in at Beria Plaza,” Cortana’s voice buzzed in his ear. “That’s a little under two kilometers away.”
“Corporal Palmer, does Beria Plaza mean anything to you?”
“It was between where that door came slamming down in front of us and where we were going.”
“That’s where the rest of your unit is. It’s about two clicks due east of our current position. You’ll go up here,” John said, indicating the ladder. “It’ll take you up to the surface.” Cortana may have been busy looking for some way to get him onto the Covenant assault carrier, but not so busy that she couldn’t provide him the occasional blueprint, video feed, or other intel—whether it was helpful to his situation or not.
“Okay.” Palmer nodded. “So you gonna follow this pipe all the way out to the Mombasa Quays?”
“No. I’m going to make sure the rest of you make it out of here alive.”
“Gosh! That’s awfully nice of you,” Palmer mugged—then the smile faded. “Look, you may be a Spartan, but . . .”
“Exactly, Corporal. And if we had all been Spartans back there none of us would have died. Now let me do my job.”
Palmer’s jaw dropped. After about a second and a half she closed her mouth, snapped off a smug salute, pivoted on her heel, and then jogged over to the rest of the Marines.
As the Marines stacked up at the base of the ladder, John readied his service rifle, swapped in a full magazine, and took station on the other side of the tunnel so he could keep an eye on them as well as keep an eye out for pursuers. He glanced over at the Marines as they moved into position to climb to the upper part of the spillway—and out of the sewer they had been slogging through for the past twenty minutes. While it may have only been a storm sewer, it hardly mattered this close to the Kilindini Harbor. He wondered if the oppressive stench was the reason for the soldiers’ sour expressions.
“Chief,” Cortana whispered, “there was no way for you to save those three.”
“Even so,” he muttered, “I could’ve wiped out that entire unit.”
“Four Wraiths,” Cortana broke in. “Four. You rely too much on your luck.”
“The limited space and the abandoned vehicles in the tunnel would have restricted their mobility as well as their ability to use their main weapons, especially if they brought all four down—which they