Halo_ Ghosts of Onyx - Eric S. Nylund [111]
Will and Kelly crouched to either side of the opening to the bridge of light, hidden by its glare.
Kurt did a quick count. All present… save Dante.
Dante brought up the rear, limping into the room, one hand holding his side. He stood straight and saluted Kurt.
"Sir," he said, "I think I got nicked."
Dante's bio signs flatlined and he collapsed.
Kurt dropped to Dante's side and unlatched his SPI chest piece. He'd seen him grazed by plasma on his left side, and sure enough, there were second-and third-degree burns there that had boiled off the liquid-ballistic layer. Under his arm and across his chest a half dozen needier shards had lodged and detonated. The bones of his rib cage were exposed, and deeper, black congealing blood pooled.
He was limp. Cold. Bio signs flat.
Dante was dead. There was nothing Kurt could do.
Kurt had watched Shane, Robert, and Jane die. He had listened to Tom tell how Beta got
wiped out on Pegasi Delta. Now Dante. One more gone on his watch.
It would be easy to blame Ackerson and Parangosky for the deaths of his Spartans. Designed for high-risk missions, they were all going to die, weren't they? And Kurt had
played along and followed orders. What other option was there?
He examined his hands, covered in the Spartan blood.
Linda set a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "We'll bring him with us."
His training reasserted itself. Move—fight—live. The alternative was to sit here and join
Dante.
Kurt gently set Dante onto the floor.
He had to focus. They had a mission: get the Forerunner technology. Get the rest of his
team out alive. Kurt promised the scales would be balanced for Dante. Somehow. He'd see to it himself if he had to.
Linda and Olivia moved to Dante and picked him up.
"Grab your gear and follow," Kurt said to Kelly.
He marched over the bridge of light and entered the holographic map room.
Dr. Halsey stood at the Forerunner console, hieroglyphs swarming over its surface, the symbols' meaning changing as they aligned into higher-dimensional patterns for a moment, then rearranged into new kaleidoscopic formations.
Olivia and Linda set Dante's body down.
Mark, Ash, and Holly knelt next to him and gingerly set his hands together on his chest.
"Dr. Halsey?" Kurt said.
She held up one hand and with the other she furiously typed on the laptop that Mendez held for her. The laptop's tiny projection pad emitted a mote of light that flitted among the symbols like a bee gathering nectar.
Mendez handed Kurt the thumb-sized datapad. "Codes locked and ready to go, sir."
Kurt checked it out: Detonation codes for the FENRIS warheads streamed across the tiny screen. He slipped it into his gauntlet's data port and clenched his fist.
"There's so much here," Dr. Halsey whispered. "I've confirmed this world is part of the Forerunners' plan together with the Halo rings—their 'sword' and 'shield.' Other parts still elude me. There is a reference to the 'ark.' I have yet to determine if something went wrong… why they are not here."
"Doctor," Kurt said more firmly, and he stepped closer. "We have a Covenant armada over our heads, and an army about to swarm through this building. Is there a way out?"
"Yes and no," she replied, still not looking at him. "There is a
room in the core of this world," she explained, "where the Forerunners were to secure something precious. Perhaps the technologies you seek. The room is normally inaccessible, but the arming of the Halo rings triggered something within this planet." She ran her fingers across overlapping streams of hieroglyphics struggling to read. "There is an entrance to this room, open now, but closing. In one hour seventeen minutes the core entrance will shut. Forever."
"Core of the planet?" Kurt said. "There is no way to get to the core that fast."
"We must gather what is within, and make our escape." She finally looked up at him, excitement glistening in her eyes. "And there is indeed a way to get there. This map room can access a Slipspace translocation system similar to the one Cortana used on the Halo ring."
She pointed