Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [83]
“Master Chief?” Kelly whispered. “Our orders, sir?” He opened Blue Team’s COM channel. “We’re going in. Use your silencers. Don’t engage the enemy
unless absolutely necessary. This place is too hot. We’ll just poke our noses in—see what they’re up to and bug out.” Three acknowledgment lights winked on. The Master Chief knew they implicitly trusted his judgment. He just hoped he was worthy of that trust. The Spartans checked their gear and threaded silencers onto their assault rifles. They slipped silently
down a wide side passage of the sewer. A rusty ladder ran up to the ceiling, and a steel plate had been welded in place. “Thermite paste already set up,” Fred reported. “Burn it.” The Master Chief stepped to the side and looked away. The thermite sputtered as bright as an electric arc welder, casting harsh shadows into the chamber. When
it finished there was a jagged, glowing red circle in the steel.
The Master Chief climbed up the ladder and put his back against the plate—pushed. It popped free with a metallicsnap . He eased the plate down and set it aside. He attached the fiber-optic probe, fed it up through the hole. All clear. He flexed his leg muscles and sent the MJOLNIR armor up through the hole, pulling himself into the
next chamber with his left hand. His right hand held the silenced assault rifle as if it were no heavier than a pistol. He braced for incoming enemy fire—
—Nothing happened. He moved forward and surveyed the small room. The stone-walled chamber was dark, and was lined with shelving units. Each unit held jars filled with clear liquid and insect specimens. Boxes and crates were stacked neatly on the floor.
Kelly entered next, then Fred and James. “Picking up motion sensor signals,”Kelly said over the COM channel. “Jam them.” “Done,”she replied.“They may have gotten a piece of us, though.” “Spread out,” the Master Chief ordered. “Get ready to jump back into the hole if this gets too hot.
Otherwise, initiate the standard distract-and-destroy.” The clatter of alien hooves on marble echoed behind a door to their right. The Spartans melted into the shadows. The Master Chief crouched behind a crate and unsheathed his
combat knife. The door opened and four Jackals stood in the door frame; they held active energy shields in front of
them—warping their already ugly vulture faces. The blue-white glow of the energy shield pulsed through the dark chamber.Good, the Master Chief thought.That should play hell with their night vision. The Jackals held plasma pistols at the ready in their free hands; the barrels of the guns moved erratically
as the aliens whispered to one another . . . then steadied as, in careful, slow movements, they moved in.
The aliens fanned out into a rough “delta” formation—the lead Jackal a meter ahead of his compatriots. The group approached the Master Chief’s hiding spot. There was a slight noise: the clink of glass bottles on the other side of the room. The Jackals turned . . . and presented their unshielded backs to the Master Chief. He exploded from his hiding place and jammed his blade into the base of the closest Jackal’s back. He
snapped his right foot out, caught the back of the next Jackal’s head, crushing its skull.
The remaining aliens spun, glistening energy shields interposed between them and him. There were three coughs from silenced MA5Bs. Alien blood—black in the harsh blue-white light—
spattered across the inner surfaces of the energy shields as the silenced rounds found their marks. The Jackals toppled to the ground. The Master Chief policed their plasma pistols and retrieved the shield generators clamped on their
forearms. He had standing orders to collect intact specimens of Covenant technology. The Office of Naval Intelligence had not been able to replicate the Covenant’s shield technology. But they were getting close.
In the meantime, the Spartans would use these.
The Master Chief strapped the curved piece of metal to his forearm.