Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [84]
away . . . and we don’t know how long they last.” He got three acknowledgment lights. Kelly and Fred took up positions on either side of the open door. She gave him a thumbs-up. Kelly took point and the Spartans moved, single file, up a circular stairwell. She paused a full ten seconds at the doorway to the main floor. She waved them ahead and they emerged
on the main level of the museum. The skeleton of a blue whale was suspended over the main foyer. The dead hulk reminded the Master
Chief of a Covenant starship. He turned away from the distraction and slowly moved over the black marble tiles. Oddly, there were no more Jackal patrols. There were a hundred Jackals outside guarding the place . . .
but none inside. The Master Chief didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right . . . and Chief Mendez had told him a thousand times to trust his instincts. Was it a trap?
The Spartans staggered their line and moved cautiously into the east wing. There were displays of the local flora and fauna: gigantic flowers and fist-sized beetles. But their motion sensors were cold.
Fred halted . . . and then, with a quick hand signal, waved John to move up to his position.
He stood by a case of pinned butterflies. On the floor, facedown in front of that case, was a Jackal. It was dead, crushed flat. There was an imprint of a large boot where the creature’s back had been. Whatever had done this had easily weighed a ton.
The Master Chief spotted a few blood-smeared prints leading away from the Jackal . . . and into the west wing.
He flipped on his infrared sensors and took a long look around—no heat sources here or in the nearby rooms.
The Master Chief followed the footprints and signaled the team to follow.
The west wing held scientific displays. There were static electric generators and quantum field holograms on the walls, a tapestry of darting arrows and wriggling lines. A cloud chamber sat in the corner with subatomic tracers zipping through its misty confines—the Master Chief noted it was unusually active. This place reminded him of Déjà’s classroom on Reach.
A branch opened to another wing. The word GEOLOGY was carved on the entry arch.
Through that arch there was a strong infrared source, a razor-thin line that shot straight up and out of the building. The Master Chief only caught a glimpse of the thing—a wink and a blink then it was gone again . . . it was so bright his IR sensors overloaded and automatically shut down.
He waved James to take the left side of the arch. He had Kelly and Fred drop back to cover their flanks, and the Master Chief edged to the right of the arch.
He sent a fiber-optic probe ahead, bent it slightly, and poked it around the corner.
The room contained display cases of mineral specimens. There were sulfur crystals, raw emeralds, and rubies. There was a monolith of unpolished pink quartz in the center of the room, three meters wide and six tall.
Off to one side, however, were two creatures. The Master Chief hadn’t seen them at first—because they were so motionless . . . and so massive. He had no doubt that one of them had crushed the Jackal that had gotten in its way.
The Master Chief got scared all the time. He never showed it, though. He usually mentally acknowledged the apprehension, put it aside, and continued . . . just as he’d been trained to do. This time, however, he couldn’t easily dismiss the feeling.
The two creatures were vaguely man-shaped. They stood two and a half meters tall. It was difficult to make out their features; they were covered from head to toe with a dull blue-gray armor, similar to the hull of a Covenant ship. Blue, orange, and yellow highlights were visible on the few patches of exposed skin the creatures sported. They had slits where their eyes should be. The articulation