Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [88]
“Write a letter to the friendly folks at Naval Intelligence,” Three groaned.
She could hear the swarm surging forward. She threw herself through what remained of the plate-glass windows lining the lobby of an office building and made for the fire stairs, which wound up a reinforced concrete shaft on one side of the building.
Two took the steps five at a time. The building had to be forty stories tall.
She whipped past the sign for the thirtieth floor when the walls of the stairwell began to tremble and an intense, overpowering hum began vibrating through the shaft. She worried the building was about to collapse. She passed a hole punched in the wall and saw five Yanme’e desperately crawling through the exposed, rusting rebars and realized the entire swarm was trying to claw their way inside at once.
She looked behind and saw the shadow of a huge mass of Drones surging up the stairwell right behind her.
“Aaaaaaaah,” Three crackled over her speakers. “They found me, Two, they found me! Stay back, you goddamn buggers!” She heard him firing his AR. “You wanna piece of me, you’re gonna have to work for it!”
She sprinted the rest of the way up to the roof and burst outside to see Black-Three lying on his back struggling with a Drone who was trying to rip his AR out of his hands. The crumpled husks of bullet-ridden Yanme’e lay all around.
There was something about the Drone fighting with Three that looked familiar—the four missing limbs.
Hopalong and Three both turned their heads to look at her at once.
She didn’t hesitate.
She unleashed a short, controlled burst at Hopalong, ripping him away from Three and knocking the Drone off the building.
The swarm poured over the edges of the roof like a cup overflowing and she could hear them on her heels coming out of the stairwell too.
She closed the distance between her and Three in two long strides. She didn’t slow down. She scooped up Three, threw him over her shoulder, ran to the edge of the roof . . .
And jumped.
She landed with both feet on the roof of the building opposite and didn’t waste any time locating the exit leading down—the door had been blown open by a Covenant raiding force many months ago.
She took the stairs down by leaping from one landing to the next, stopping only once to adjust Three to a more comfortable position across both her shoulders.
As she did so Three said, “For a minute there I didn’t know whether you were going to save me or your bugger boyfriend.”
“That would be because you are a moron,” Two said.
Much of the swarm was waiting for them in the lobby when they burst out of the stairwell. Howling like Sioux warriors on a final charge across the plains, the Spartans unloaded their assault rifles, Three while still draped across Two’s back, and cleared a narrow path through the Drones to the exit.
But now came the impossible part—the scenario One had wanted to avoid in the first place: a hundred meters of open ground between the Spartans and the Beacon with clouds of infuriated Drones swarming overhead, everywhere they looked. Each of their ARs was on its last clip and they wouldn’t make it ten paces without expending all their ammo if they tried to fight their way through.
So she just had to run.
The Drones flew down and tried to grab them, or snatch Three off her shoulders, but she was too strong and Three beat them back with the AR, firing off a burst or two when absolutely necessary.
Then Two felt her feet kicking empty air—she was rising off the ground against her will. But no Drones were near them.
“Oh crap,” Three said.
She looked up—and saw several Drones floating above them, the antigrav grapplers they used to excavate mantle for the Beacon now trained on the two Spartans.
She saw a familiar form flitting by their side—she had blown off his front arms but he was still alive, limbless but still able to hover-hop on what remained of his