Halo_ Ghosts of Onyx - Eric S. Nylund [4]
One of Lieutenant Commander Ambrose's first lessons echoed in Tom's head: "Don't rely on technology. Machines are easy to break."
Tom's COM crackled: "Ml9 SAMs execute Bravo maneuver, targets painted. All other teams ready to move."
Tom understood: they needed cover. And the only cover was dead ahead in the factory.
From the field six smears of vapor lanced forward to the factory. The M19 SAMs detonated on contact with pipes and plasmas conduits—exploding into clouds of black smoke and blue sparks.
The enemy fire slowed.
That was their opening.
Tom rolled to his feet, and sprinted for the thickest smoke. Team Foxtrot followed.
Every other Spartan on the field charged as well, hundreds of half-camouflaged armored figures, running and firing at the dazed Jackals, appearing as a wave of ghost warriors, half liquid, half shadow, part mirage, part nightmare.
They screamed a battle cry, momentarily drowning the sound of gunfire and explosion.
Tom yelled with them—for the fallen, for his friends, and for the blood of his enemies. The sound was deafening.
Jackals broke ranks, turned to flee, and got shot in the back as their shields turned with them.
But hundreds more held their ground, overlapping shields to form an invulnerable phalanx.
Tom led Team Foxtrot into the smoke-filled shadows of the factory. He found a pipe the size of a redwood dripping condensed water and green coolant and took cover behind it. In the mist he saw Lucy, Adam, and Min take positions behind cover, too. He gave them rapid-fire orders with hand signals: Move in and kill.
He spun around, his MA5K rifle leveled—and found himself face-to-face with a Covenant Elite, its jaw mandibles split in mimicry of an impossibly large human grin. The monster held an energy sword in one hand, and a plasma pistol in the other.
It shot and swung.
Tom sidestepped the deadly arcs of energy, set his foot between the Elite's too-wide stance—pushed and fired at the same time.
The Elite sprawled onto the ground, and Tom tracked his body, spraying rounds into the slit of its helmet. He didn't miss.
Team Foxtrot closed on him, leaving six dead Jackals behind, their bodies snapped like rag dolls.
Behind on the field came rapid thumps and flashes of heat. Plasma grenades.
Jackals and Elites rushed from their cover in the factory to meet the rest of Beta Company on the field, realizing perhaps it would be suicide to face Spartans in close quarters.
Thousands of Covenant clashed with two hundred Spartans in open combat. Tracer rounds, crystal shards, plasma bolts, and flaring shields made the scene a blur of chaos.
The SPARTAN-IIIs moved with speed and reflexes no Covenant could follow. They dodged, snapped necks and limbs, and with captured energy swords they cut through the enemy until the field ran with rivers of gore and blue blood.
Tom hesitated, torn between moving deeper into the factory complex and executing the mission and running back to help his comrades. You didn't leave your friends behind.
The sky darkened, clouds overhead turning steel gray.
Tom's COM crackled to life: "Omega three. Execute now! NOW!"
That stopped him cold. Omega three was the panic code, an order to break and run no matter what the cost.
Why? They were winning.
Tom then saw the clouds move. Only… they weren't clouds.
Everything was clear to him now. Why there were so many Covenant here. And why Seraph single ships, craft designed for space combat, were bombing them.
Seven Covenant cruisers sank from the clouds. Over a kilometer long, their bulbous oblong hulls cast shadows over the entire field. If these ships had been parked in formation, refueling over the complex, the STARS might have mistaken such large structures as part of the factory.
"We have to help them," Lucy whispered over the TEAMCOM.
"No," Min said, making a short cut motion with his hand. "The Omega order."
"We're not running," Adam broke in.
"No," Tom agreed. "We're not. The order is… in error." Despite the environmental
controls in his SPI armor, he felt chilled.