Halo_ First Strike - Eric S. Nylund [51]
Marines called these tanks "Wraiths" because you usually got one look at them before they made you one.
There were a handful of Grunts milling about the tanks, as well as dozens of the floating Covenant Engineers. The Engineers swarmed over and under the machinery. Most interesting to Fred, the vehicles' hatches were open.
"I can't think of a better disguise," Kelly whispered, "than five tons of Covenant armor." She started forward.
Fred set his hand on her arm, holding her back. "Wait. Think it through. There are two possibilities. First, if the Covenant have found the fallback position, we go in guns blazing and carve a path for Delta Team to get out."
She nodded. "The other possibility?"
"They don't know that Delta Team is holed up under the mountain. Then—" Fred hesitated. "Then we have to draw them away."
Kelly considered this, then said, "I was afraid you were going to say that." She gave the dirt a tiny kick. "But you're right."
A blip appeared on their motion trackers, directly on their six. The contact was large and moving steadily toward them. The Hunter must have made up its mind—come to find them and stomp them into the ground.
"Move," Fred whispered.
They crossed the field, quickly and silently, and the Grunts never saw them. Fred and Kelly reached the smooth-surfaced Wraith tanks. He gave Kelly a go signal, and she sprang into the nearest open hatch. A moment later Fred inched ahead to the next tank and eased inside.
He sealed the hatch behind him.
This was one of the most desperate and stupid decisions he had ever made. How were they going to take on an entire Covenant invasion force with a pair of tanks—especially tanks they hadn't a clue how to operate?
"Red-One," Kelly said over the COM. "Ready when you are."
Fred examined the dim interior. Directly ahead was a seat, constructed with the same mottled purple metal as the Banshees. Fred settled his bulk onto it. It was too high; he had to stand in a half crouch. Holographic control surfaces and displays sprang into the air before him and showed a 360-degree view.
Through the armored shell he felt the rumble and roar of Kelly's tank starting.
Fred didn't understand any of the symbols, yet something seemed familiar about them. Some of the controls were similar to the Banshee, but nothing was an exact match. He relaxed as best he could given the situation, and his hands drifted over the controls. He tapped a symbol that could have been Aztec iconography, a tangle of spaghetti, or a crisscross of bird tracks.
His tank coughed and rumbled and rose a meter off the ground.
Fred frowned. He'd been damned lucky to get it right the first time. That was more than luck—-just as it was more than luck that he knew that the controls under his left hand moved the tank, the ones under his right aligned the mortar on target, and the one in the center armed and fired the main battery. But Fred wasn't going to examine how he knew this. He'd just use this curious development to his advantage.
"Ready here," he told Kelly. "Let's take out the motor pool."
"Affirmative," she said, trying to conceal the faint trace of anticipation in her voice.
114 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
In unison the Spartans turned and fired at the far corner of the formation of tanks. Two blue-white blobs of liquid sun spat from the Wraiths and detonated. There was a dazzling light, an expansion of superheated white fire—and then there was glass-smooth ground and the smoldering skeletons of seven Wraith tanks.
More luck. If the tanks had been active, with hatches secured, they might have survived the first volley.
Kelly's tank surged ahead and bulldozed aside the surviving tanks near them.
Fred turned, accelerated to full power, and smashed through a line of retreating Grunts, a series of small, satisfying thuds reverberating through the cockpit.
The two Wraith tanks shattered through a line of trees, splintering