Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [27]
“I presume you do not have my Spartans taking inventory today, Chief?”
“No, ma’am. We just need the privacy.”
Mendez drove the Warthog past a manned guardhouse and into a large tunnel that sloped steeply underground.
The road wound down in a spiral, deeper into sold granite. Mendez said, “Do you remember the Navy’s first experiments with powered exoskeletons?”
“I’m not sure I see the connection between this place, my Spartans, and the exoskeleton projects,” Dr. Halsey replied, frowning, “but I’ll play along a bit further. Yes, I know all about the Mark I prototypes. We had to scrap the concept and redesign battle armor from the ground up for the MJOLNIR project. The Mark Is consumed enormous energy. Either they had to be plugged into a generator or use inefficient broadcast power—neither option is practical on a battlefield.”
Mendez decelerated slightly as he approached a speed bump. The Warthog’s massive tires thudded over the obstacle.
“They used the units that weren’t scrapped,” Dr. Halsey continued, “as dock loaders to move heavy equipment.” She cocked one eyebrow. “Or might they have been dumped in a place like this?”
“There are dozens of the suits here.”
“You haven’t putmy Spartans in some of those antiques?”
“No. Their trainers are using them for their own safety,” Mendez replied. “When the Spartans recovered from microgravity therapy, they were eager to get back to their routine. However, we experienced some —” He paused, searching for the right word. “ . . . difficulties.”
He glanced at his passenger. His face was grim. “Their first day back, three trainers were accidentally killed during hand-to-hand combat exercises.”
Dr. Halsey cocked an eyebrow. “Then they are faster and stronger than we anticipated?”
“That,” Mendez replied, “would be understating the situation.”
The tunnel opened into a large cavern. There were lights scattered on the walls, overhead a hundred meters up on the ceiling, and along the floor, but they did little to dissipate the overwhelming darkness.
Mendez parked the Warthog next to a small, prefabricated building. He jumped out and helped Dr. Halsey step from the vehicle. “This way, please.” Mendez gestured to the room. “We’ll have a better view from inside.”
The building had three glass walls and several monitors marked MOTION, INFRARED, DOPPLER, and PASSIVE. Mendez pushed a button and the room climbed a track along the wall until they were twenty meters off the floor.
Mendez keyed a microphone and spoke: “Lights.”
Floodlights snapped on and illuminated a section of the cavern the size of a football field. In the center stood a concrete bunker. Three men in the primitive Mark I power armor stood on top. Six more stood evenly spaced around the perimeter. A red banner had been planted in the center of the bunker.
“Capture the flag?” Dr. Halsey asked. “Past all that heavy armor?”
“Yes. The trainers in those exoskeletons can run at thirty-two KPH, lift two tons, and have a thirty-millimeter minigun mounted on self-targeting armatures—stun rounds, of course. They’re also equipped with the latest motion sensors and IR scopes. And needless to say, their armor is impervious to standard light weapons. It would take two or three platoons of conventional Marines to take that bunker.”
Mendez spoke again in the microphone, and his voice echoed off the cavern walls: “Start the drill.”
Sixty seconds ticked by. Nothing happened. One hundred twenty seconds. “Where are the Spartans?” Dr. Halsey asked.
“They’re here,” Mendez replied. Dr. Halsey caught a glimpse of motion in the dark: a shadow against shadows, a familiar silhouette.
“Kelly?” she whispered.
The trainers turned and fired at the shadow, but it moved with almost supernatural quickness. Even the self-targeting systems couldn’t track it.
From above, a man free-rappelled down from the girders and gantries overhead. The newcomer