Filter
Top Products
ERIC NYLUND
117
stood next to her. Fred was thrilled to see them alive—and even
more thrilled to see Will holding a Jackhammer rocket launcher.
"Get below," Kelly said, and motioned with her head to the
center of the crater. "We'll cover you." She continued to fire until
she had depleted the chaingun's belt of ammunition.
Will took aim and squeezed the trigger. A rocket knifed
through the air, and a contrail of white smoke connected with the
cockpit of an oncoming Banshee. The alien flier disintegrated in a
ball of fire.
Fred turned and saw a shaft that plunged deep into the ground.
A steel cable had been rigged to one side, and it angled into
the depths.
He grabbed the line, jumped, and zipped into the darkness. He
felt a sharp vibration through the line—once, then twice—as the
other Spartans followed him.
After three hundred meters of free fall, he glimpsed a faint il-
lumination at the bottom of the shaft, the feeble sickly yellow
glow from chemical light sticks. Fred tightened his grip on the
cable, and his descent slowed. A meter from the bottom of
the shaft, he let go and landed in a crouch. He moved out of the
way. The other Spartans landed next to him.
"This way," Will said and moved ahead, through a set of eleva-
tor doors that had been forced open.
Fred noticed that Will moved with a severe limp, and remem-
bered the Spartans he had sent here were injured. It was ironic
that he had sent them out of the thick of battle, to end up in the
middle of another dire situation.
Then again, they weren't dead .. . which was more than he
could hope for Beta Team.
They stepped into a corridor with brushed stainless-steel
walls that mirrored and smeared the faint light from the chem
lights.
Overhead there was a tremendous explosion. Rocks and dirt
showered into the shaft, and dust blossomed through the corridor.
"Lotus antitank mines," Will said. "A little something to slow
our uninvited guests down."
Two other Spartans, Isaac and Vinh, sat along either side of
the hallway, behind rock barricades. They gave slight nods to
Fred and kept their eyes and weapons on the end of the corridor.