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Along either side of the course there was something new: three 30mm chain-guns mounted on tripods.
“Weapons emplacements are targeting us, Chief!” Cortana announced.
The Master Chief wasn’t about to wait and see if those chain-guns had a minimum-depth setting. He hadno intention of crawling across the field and letting the chain-guns’ rapid rate of fire chip away at hisshields.
The chain-guns clicked and started to turn.
He sprinted to the nearest tripod-mounted gun. He opened fire with his assault fire, shot the lines thatpowered the servos—then spun the chain-gun around to face the others.
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He crouched behind the blast shield and unloaded on the adjacent gun. Chain-guns were notoriouslyhard to aim; they were best known for their ability to fill the air with gunfire. Cortana adjusted histargeting reticle to sync up with the chain-gun. With her help, he hit the adjacent weapon emplacements.John guided a stream of fire into the guns’ ammo packs. Moments later, in a cloud of fire and smoke, theguns fell silent . . . then toppled.
The Master Chief ducked, primed a grenade, and hurled it at the closest of the remaining automatedweapons. The grenade sailed through the air—then detonated just above the autogun.
“Chain-gun destroyed,” Cortana reported.
Two more grenades and the automated guns were out of commission. He noted that his shields haddropped by a quarter. He watched the status bar refill. He hadn’t even known he had taken hits. That wassloppy.
“You seem to have the situation under control,” Cortana said, “I’m going to spend a few cycles andcheck something out.”
“Permission granted,” he said.
“I didn’t ask, Master Chief,” she replied.
The cool liquid presence in his mind withdrew. The Master Chief felt empty somehow.
He ran through the razor fields, snapping through steel wire as if it were rotten string.
Cortana’s coolness once again flooded his thoughts.
“I just accessed SATCOM,” she said. “I’m using one of their satellites so I can get a better look atwhat’s happening down here. There’s a SkyHawk jump jet from Fairchild Field inbound.”
He stopped. The automatic cannons were one thing—could the armor withstand against air power likethat? The SkyHawk had a quartet of 50mm cannons that made the chain-guns look like peashooters.They also had Scorpion missiles—designed to take out tanks.
Answer: he couldn’t do a thing against it.
The Master Chief ran. He had to find cover. He sprinted to the next section of the course: the Pillars ofLoki.
It was a forest of ten-meter-tall poles spaced at random intervals. Typically, the poles had booby traps
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strung on, under, and between them—stun grades, sharpened sticks . . . anything the instructors coulddream up. The idea was to teach recruits to move slowly and keep their eyes open.
The Master Chief had no time to search for the traps.
He climbed up the first pole and balanced on top. He leaped to the next pole, teetered, regained hisbalance—then jumped to the next. His reflexes had to be perfect; he was landing a half ton of man andarmor on a wooden pole ten centimeters in diameter.