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The response came so quickly that McKay missed whatever acknowledgments the two Platoon leaders might have sent. The key was to neutralize the Banshees and the Ghosts so quickly, so decisively, that the ODST troopers would be able to cross the long stretch of open ground and reach theAutumn virtually unopposed. That’s why no fewer than three of the powerful M19 rocket launchers were aimed at each Banshee—and three Marines had been assigned to each of the half dozen target Ghosts.
Two of the four rockets fired at the Covenant aircraft missed their marks, but both Banshees took hits, and immediately exploded. Wreckage rained on the Covenant position.
The Ghost drivers on both sides of the ship were still looking upward, trying to figure out what had occurred, when more than two dozen assault weapons opened up on them.
Four of the rapid attack vehicles were destroyed within the first few seconds of the battle. The fifth, piloted by a mortally wounded Elite, described a number of large overlapping circles before crashing into the cruiser’s hull and finally putting the driver out of his misery. The Elite behind the controls of the sixth and last Ghost panicked, backed away from the wholesale destruction, and toppled over the edge of the precipice.
If the alien screamed on the way down McKay wasn’t able to hear it, especially with the steadycrack ,crack,crackof multiple S2 Sniper Rifles going off all around her. She keyed her radio to the command freq and ordered her platoon leaders to move up.
The assault force crossed the open area in a run, and headed toward the ship’s sternmost air locks.
Covenant troops stationed within the ship heard the ruckus and hurried outside, and were met by the sight of the still-smoking wrecks of their mechanized support, and an enthusiastic—if somewhat thin—infantry assault.
Most were simply standing there, waiting for someone to tell them what to do, when the snipers’ 14.5mm armor-piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding-sabot rounds began to cut them down. The impact was devastating. McKay saw Elites, Jackals, and Grunts alike throw up their arms and collapse as the rolling fusillade took its toll.
Then, as the aliens started to pull back into the relative safety of the ship’s interior, McKay jumped to her feet, knowing that one of her noncoms would do likewise on the far side of the hull, and waved the snipers forward. “Switch to your assault weapons! The last one to the lock has to stay and guard it!”
All the ODST troopers knew there were plenty of things to scrounge inside the hull, and they were eager to do so. The possibility that they might end up guarding a lock rather than pillaging theAutumn ’s interior was more than sufficient motivation to make each Marine run as fast as possible.
The purpose of the exercise was to get the last members of the Company across what could have been a Covenant killing ground and to do so as quickly as possible. McKay thought she’d been successful, thought she’d made a clean break, when a momentary shadow passed over her and someone yelled, “Contact! Enemy contact!”