SECTION VI
THE MAW
CHAPTER TWELVE
D+76:18:56 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock) /
Commandeered Banshee, on approach to the Pillar of Autumn .
The Banshee screamed through a narrow valley and out over an arid wasteland. The assault ship’s shadow raced ahead as if eager to reach the Pillar of Autumn first. The Master Chief felt the slipstream fold in behind the aircraft’s nose and tug at his armor. It felt good to be out of twisting corridors and cramped compartments if only for a short while.
The first sign of the ship’s presence on the ring world’s surface was the hundred-meter-deep trench the Autumn ’s hull had carved into Halo’s skin. It started where the cruiser had first touched down, vanished where the vessel had bounced into the air, and reappeared a half klick farther on. From there the depression ran straight as an arrow to the point where the starship had finally come to rest with its blunt bow protruding out over the edge of a massive cliff. There were other aircraft in the area as well, all of which belonged to the Covenant, and they had no reason to suspect the incoming Banshee. Not yet, at any rate.
The Spartan, who was eager to make his approach look normal, chose one of the many empty lifeboat bays that lined the starship’s starboard side, and bored in. Unfortunately the engine cut out at the last moment, the Banshee hit the Autumn ’s hull, and although the Spartan was able to bail out, the alien fighter fell to the rocks below. Not the low visibility arrival he had hoped for.
Still, given Cortana’s plans for the vessel, his presence wouldn’t remain secret for long anyway.
“We need to get to the bridge,” Cortana said. “From there we can use the Captain’s neural implants to initiate an overload of the ship’s fusion engines.
The explosion should damage enough systems below it to destroy the ring.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” the Chief commented as he made his way toward the tiny air lock. “I don’t know who’s better at blowing things up—you or me.”
The moment he stepped outside he saw a cluster of red dots appear on his motion detector and knew some nasties were lurking off to his left. The only question was, which hostiles did he face—the Covenant or the Flood? Given a choice, he’d take the Covenant. Maybe, just maybe, the Flood hadn’t located the ship yet.
The passageway ended to the right, which meant he had little choice but to turn left. But, rather than run into the Covenant or the Flood, the Spartan came under attack from a flock of Sentinels.
“Uh-oh,” Cortana said as the noncom opened fire, “it looks like the Monitor knows where we are.”
I wonder if he knows what we’re up to, the Chief mused.
A robot exploded, another hit the deck with a loud clang, and the Master Chief shifted fire to a third. “Yeah, he’s after my head, but it’s you that he really wants.”
The AI made no reply as the third machine exploded—and the Chief made his way down the hall using the lifeboat bays for cover. Two additional Sentinels appeared, were blown out of the air, and turned into scrap.
Soon after that they arrived at the end of the corridor, took a right, and spotted an open maintenance hatch. Not ideal, since he didn’t relish the thought of having to negotiate such tight quarters, but there didn’t seem to be any other choice. So he ducked inside, found himself in a maze, and blundered about for a while before spotting a hatch set flush into the deck in front of him. That’s when a group of infection forms swarmed up out of the hole, and the Chief’s question was answered. It appeared that the Flood had located the Autumn —and already taken up residence there.
He swore under his breath, backed away, and hosed the Flood with bullets.
He eased forward and looked down through the floor hatch. He saw a carrier form, and knew there were bound to be more. He dropped a plasma grenade down through the hole, backed away, and took a certain amount of pleasure in the ensuing explosion.
The maintenance tunnels didn’t seem to be taking him where he needed to go, so he dropped through the hole, crushed a handful of infection forms, and shot two more. The blood-splattered corridor was messy but well lit. He pried open a wall-mounted locker, and was pleased to find four frag grenades and spare ammo. He quickly stowed them, and moved on.
Two Sentinels nosed around a corner, opened fire with their lasers, and got what they deserved. “They might have been looking for us,” Cortana observed, “but it’s my guess that they were assigned to Flood control.”
The theory made sense, but didn’t really help much as the Master Chief was forced to fight the Sentinels, the Flood, and the Covenant, while he made his way through a series of passageways and into the ship’s heavily damaged mess, where a large contingent of Elites and Grunts were waiting to have him for lunch.
There were a lot of them, too many to handle with the assault weapon alone, so he served up a couple of grenades. One of the Elites was blown to pieces by the overlapping explosions, another lost a leg, and a Grunt was thrown halfway across the room.
They’d come full circle—he’d blasted Covenant troops apart before the crash landing, and here he was again. The enemy just didn’t learn, he thought.
There was a survivor, however, a tough Elite who threw a plasma grenade of his own, and missed by a matter of centimeters. The Master Chief ran and was clear of the blast zone by the time the device went off. The Elite charged, took the better part of a full clip, and finally slammed into the deck, dead.
It was a short distance to the burned-out bridge, where a Covenant security team was on duty. Word had been passed: They knew the human was on his way, and opened fire the moment they saw him.
Once again the Spartan made use of a grenade to even the odds—then crushed the head of an Elite with his fist. The alien’s head was turned to pulp and its body collapsed like a puppet with no strings. The armor gave him enough strength to flip a Warthog over. Then, just when he thought the battle was done, a Grunt shot him in the back. The audible went off as his armor sought to recharge itself. A second shot, delivered with sufficient speed, would kill him.
Time seemed to slow as the Master Chief turned toward his right.
The Grunt, who had been hiding inside an equipment cabinet, froze as the armored alien not only survived what should have been a fatal shot, but turned to face him. They were only an arm’s length away from each other, which meant that the Master Chief could reach out, rip the breather off his assailant’s face, and close the door on him.
There was a loud click followed by wild hammering as the Chief made his way forward to the spot where Captain Keyes had issued his orders. Cortana appeared over the control panel in front of him. Everywhere the AI looked she saw burned-out equipment, bloodstained decks, and smashed viewports.
She shook her head sadly. “I leave home for a few days, and look what happens.”
Cortana brought a hand up to her semitransparent forehead. “This won’t take long— There, that should give us enough time to make it to the lifeboat, and put some distance between ourselves and Halo before detonation.”