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Sixty seconds ticked by. Nothing happened. One hundred twenty seconds. “Where are the Spartans?”Dr. Halsey asked.
“They’re here,” Mendez replied. Dr. Halsey caught a glimpse of motion in the dark: a shadow againstshadows, a familiar silhouette.
“Kelly?” she whispered.
The trainers turned and fired at the shadow, but it moved with almost supernatural quickness. Even theself-targeting systems couldn’t track it.
From above, a man free-rappelled down from the girders and gantries overhead. The newcomer landedbehind one of the perimeter guards, quiet as a cat. He punched the guard’s armor twice, denting theheavy plates, then dropped low and swept the target’s legs out from under him. The guard sprawled onthe ground.
The Spartan attached his rappelling line to the trainer. A moment later the writhing guard shot upward,into the darkness.
Two other guards turned to attack.
The Spartan dodged, rolled, and melted into the shadows.
Dr. Halsey realized the trainer’s exoskeleton wasn’t being pulled up—it was being used as acounterweight.
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Two more Spartans, dangling from the other end of that rope, dropped unnoticed into the center of thebunker. Dr. Halsey immediately recognized one of them, although he was dressed entirely in black, savehis open eye slits—Number 117. John.
John landed, braced, and kicked one guard. The man landed in a heap . . . eight meters away.
The other Spartan jumped off the bunker; he flipped end over end, evading the stun rounds that filled theair. He threw himself at the farthest guard and they skidded together into the shadows. The guard’s gunstrobed once, and then it was dark again.
On top of the bunker, John was a blur of slashing motions. A second guard’s exosuit erupted in afountain of hydraulic fluid and then collapsed under the armor’s weight.
The last guard on the bunker turned to fire at John. Halsey gripped the edge of her chair. “He’s at pointblank range! Even stun rounds can kill at that distance!”
As the guard’s gun fired, John sidestepped. The stun rounds slashed through the air, a clean miss. Johngrabbed the weapon’s armature—twisted—and with a screech of stressed metal, wrenched it free of theexoskeleton. He fired directly into the man’s chest and sent him tumbling off the bunker.
The remaining quartet of perimeter guards turned and sprayed the area with suppression fire.
A heartbeat later, the lights went out.
Mendez cursed and keyed the mike. “Backups. Hit the backup lights now!”
A dozen amber floods flickered to life.
Not a Spartan was in sight, but the nine trainers were either unconscious or lay immobile in inert battle
armor.
The red flag was gone.
“Show me that again,” Dr. Halsey said unbelievingly. “You recorded all that, didn’t you?”
“Of course.” Mendez tapped a button but the monitors played back—static. “Damn it. They got to thecameras, too,” he muttered, impressed. “Every time we find a new place to hide them, they disable therecording devices.”