第43页
McKay discovered that the path was blocked by an ancient rockfall about thirty meters up, but saw the side door that was located just downhill of it, and knew what the aliens had been trying to defend. Here was the back door, the way she could enter the butte’s interior, and push upward from there.
Plasma fire stuttered out of the entryway, struck the cliff above her head, and blew rocky divots out of the smooth surface.
McKay motioned for her troops to retreat back around the pillar’s broad curvature, and waved a hand in the air. “Hey, Top! I need a launcher!”
The company sergeant was six troopers back so that a single well-placed grenade couldn’t kill both leaders at once. He signaled assent, bawled an order, and passed one of the M19s forward.
McKay accepted the weapon from the private behind her, checked to ensure that it packed a full load of rockets, and inched around the curve. Plasma fire sizzled out of the door, but the officer forced herself to remain perfectly still. She triggered the weapon’s 2X scope, sighted carefully, and squeezed the trigger. The tube jumped as the 102mm rocket raced away, sailed through the hole, and detonated with a loud roar.
There must have been some ammo stored inside, because there was a blue-white secondary explosion which shook the rock beneath the ODST officer’s boots. A gout of fire flared from the side of the cliff.
It was difficult to imagine anyone or anything having survived such a blast, so McKay passed the launcher to the rear, and waved her troops forward.
There was a cheer as the Marines ran up the path, shouldered their way through the smoke, and entered the butte’s ancient interior. There were bodies, or whathad been bodies. Fortunately, the tunnel was intact.
A couple of troopers collected plasma weapons, tried them out on the nearest wall, and added them to their personal armament.
Others, McKay included, stared up through a thirty-meter-wide well toward the circle of daylight above. She saw a shadow pass overhead as one of the Pelicans dropped even more Helljumpers onto the mesa. The distantthump! of a frag grenade detonation made dust and loose soil tumble down on them.
“Hey, Loot,” Private Satha said, “what’s the deal withthis ?”
Satha stomped on the floor and it rang in response. That was when McKay realized that she and her troops were standing on a large metal grating.
“What’s it for?” the private wondered aloud. “To keep us out?”
McKay shook her head. “No, it looksold , too old to have been put in place by the Covenant.”
“I found a lift!” one of the Marines yelled. “That’s what it looks like, anyway—come check it out!”
McKay went to investigate. Was this a way to reach the mesa? Her boot dislodged a shell casing which fell through one of the grating’s rectangular holes and dropped into the darkness below. It was a long time before it could be heard clanging off ancient stone.
Silva, Wellsley, and the rest of the Major’s headquarters organization were on top of the butte waiting for her by the time McKay rode the antigrav lift to the surface and stepped out into the harsh sunlight. She blinked as she looked around.