- radical00edward
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- Exalted Heroic Member
Back.. and to the left.
Back.. and to the left.
Back.. and to the left.
Back.. and to the left.
Back.. and to the left.
Back.. and to the left.
Back.. and to the left.
!!!SPOILERS!!!
Assuming that Halo: Reach follows the books events, which I personally dont want to happen, I would really love to see the scene when Admiral Whitcomb, John, and the team made the journey to the bottom of the ONI CASTLE Base to find out of the radio signal they recieved was from the Spartans deployed to the surface of Reach.
Enjoy!
Halo: First Strike pages 186-190
Their dropship eased lower until it was a meter above the blue
tiles of the room; the side hatches opened. The Chief jumped out
first, followed by Anton, Lieutenant Haverson, and Locklear.
From the hatch on the opposite side leapt the Admiral, Sergeant
Johnson, and Grace.
The dropship immediately rose into the hole in the ceiling, far
enough in to be shielded from any stray ground fire.
"Move, everyone," the Admiral growled. He pointed at Grace
and Locklear. "You two, fire long-range weapons. Everyone
else, haul ass. Take them out, people."
The Admiral's plan was sound. He wasn't risking the
dropship-their only means of escape-by landing too close to
the enemy. They still had the element of surprise; the Covenant
would have never anticipated an assault on the heart of their
operation.
But how long would this advantage last? How long before that
cruiser blasted their dropship to atoms? The Covenant were not
their most dangerous enemy. Time was.
Grace paused, muscled the fuel rod gun to a forty-five-degree
angle into the air, and launched a round. The alien weapon
hissed and spat a glowing sphere of energy. The blast arced over
the half-kilometer distance, impacted, and exploded in a green
flash. Grunts and Jackals flew through the air.
Locklear fired two Jackhammer rockets, then dropped the
spent launcher. The pair of rockets connected with a cluster of
Elites who had-until a second ago-been running the show.
The twin explosion obscured that end of the room with billowing
clouds of dust, fire, and smoke.
The Master Chief motioned for his team to spread out and
move forward at a jog.
Ahead there were silhouetted Grunts and Jackals in the dust
clouds, screaming and shooting at the air, each other, anything
that moved.
"Keep moving," the Master Chief said. "Move while they
don't know what's hit them."
Anton paused and knelt next to a set of tracks dug into the
tiled floor. "Kelly's been this way," he reported over the COM.
The Master Chief clicked on Red Team's COM frequency.
"Kelly? Fred? Joshua? Spartans, acknowledge this signal."
Only static answered him.
A hundred meters from the stunned Covenant work crew, a
stray plasma bolt fired from the hazy, rubble-strewn region detonated
a few meters from the Master Chief. He sent a spray of automatic
fire across the area, hoping to force the enemy to keep
their heads down.
Grace halted and fired the fuel rod gun again. A second glowing
burst of radioactive energy flashed overhead and detonated
along the far wall.
In the intense light, the Master Chief saw that a dozen Jackals
had braced themselves along the wall and overlapped their energy
shields to create a phalanx. Behind them five Elites readied
plasma rifles.
"Down," he shouted, and dived to one side.
Grace hit the floor and rolled away. Plasma bolts sizzled over
their heads, and the Master Chief's shields drained as a shot hit
too close. The barrage turned several of the blue tiles around him
into a crater of blackened glass.
"Grenades-up and over those shields, Spartans," Admiral
Whitcomb bellowed.
The Master Chief and Anton primed plasma grenades and
hurled them from their prone positions. They hit the far wall and
dropped into the cluster of Elites and Jackals-behind their
shields. There was a pair of blue flashes, and the enemy formation
blew apart. Jackals scattered and ran.
Grace fired the fuel rod gun, hit the broken phalanx formation,
and blew them literally to bits. She dropped the weapon. "Rad
counter at max dosage," she called out. "This thing's too hot to
use anymore."
"Back away!" the Chief ordered. "Those things have a fail-safe!"
Grace sprang back, just in time. The fallen fuel rod gun sparked,
sputtered, and then blew with the force of a frag grenade. Blackened,
twisted tile rained down on them.
Locklear jogged up and fired at the Grants fleeing the excavation.
They weren't armed. Locklear mowed them down without
remorse.
From a pile of shattered stone, a pair of battered Elites struggled
to rise. Blood and bone exploded outward from their chests, and
they spun around toward the source of this force-boulders pushed
away from the blocked passage. Three Spartans emerged from
their cover, assault rifles smoking from their recent discharge.
John knew instantly the three were Kelly, Fred, and Will.
He ran forward to meet them.
Fred lowered his weapon. "Anton ... Grace ... John?" he
said disbelievingly.
The Master Chief opened a COM channel to his Spartans.
"It's me. I wish I had time to explain everything. I will-later.
Let's get the hell out of here first."
Kelly quickly reached out and swiped her two fingers across
John's faceplate.
He wanted to return the smile, but at that moment Admiral
Whitcomb, running full force, skidded to a stop next to the Spartans.
He was followed in short order by Haverson, Locklear, and
Johnson, who kept looking over his shoulder to scan the huge
empty room around them.
"Is this everyone?" Admiral Whitcomb asked.
"No, sir," Fred replied. "There's one more." He turned and extended
his hand back into the partially collapsed tunnel. "Ma'am?
It's safe to come out."
For a heartbeat the Master Chief forgot that he was in the
heart of an enemy's camp; he forgot about the war, that Reach
had fallen, and everything else he had gone through in the last
few days. He had never thought he would see her again.
Dr. Halsey emerged from the partially caved-in tunnel. She
brushed dust from the hem of her skirt and lab coat with one
slender hand.
"Admiral Whitcomb," she said, "a pleasure to see you again.
My thanks for the rescue. It was far timelier than you could
imagine." She turned to the Master Chief. "Or is it you I have to
thank for this daring operation, John?"
The Master Chief found he had no words to answer. He also
bristled at her casual use of his given name... but he could forgive
her that. She had always used his name-never his rank or
serial number.
He noticed the fist-sized crystal clutched in her hand. It had a
thousand facets and emitted a brilliant blue light the color of
sapphires and sunlight on water.
"Thank anyone you want, Catherine," Admiral Whitcomb said.
"Throw us all a party if that'll make you happy... once we're out
of here." He clicked open his COM. "Polaski, get down-"
Sergeant Johnson set his hand on the Admiral's arm and nodded
toward the far wall.
"What is it, Sergeant?" The Admiral's voice died in his throat.
The Master Chief's motion tracker flickered on his heads-up
display, but there was no solid contact... nor did he see anything
across the entire three-kilometer-wide cavern. Had it
picked up a camouflaged Elite? No, the dust in the air would
have certainly given it away.
"No one move," the Admiral whispered.
John saw them, then. He saw them all.
He had missed them before because he had thought it was the
haze in the air rippling, the dust, maybe the distance causing a
miragelike image. He hadn't thought it possible for so many
Covenant to be so still.
On each level of the twelve tiered galleries that circumscribed
the gigantic room stood Covenant soldiers. They crowded the
balconies with Grunts, Jackals whose energy shields popped on,
snarling Elites, and several pairs of Hunters with fuel rod cannons
glowing green.
The whine of thousands of plasma weapons charging filled
the air like a swarm of locusts.
No one moved. No one breathed except Locklear, who exhaled
a long and heartfelt expletive.
John tried to count them all. There had to be thousands-on
every level. A battalion at least, maybe more. They wouldn't
even have to aim. All they had to do was shoot and fill the space
with needle shards and boiling energy.
They'd be vaporized before they could get halfway to the tunnel
at their backs.
A Hunter pair roared with rage; they leveled their fuel rod
cannons at John and his team and, with steady aim, discharged
their weapons.
A split second later the rest of the alien horde opened fire.