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Cortana used the suit sensors to examine the results. “Good!” she exclaimed. “That should open the door that leads into the main shaft. Now all we have to do is find the Silent Cartographer and the map to the Control Room.”
“Right,” the Master Chief replied. “That, and avoid capture in unknown territory, possibly held by the enemy, with no air support or backup.”
“Do you have a plan?” she asked.
“Yes. When we get there, I’m going to kill every single Covenant soldier I find.”
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CHAPTER SIX
D+144:38:19 (Lieutenant McKay Mission Clock) /
The hills between Alpha Base and thePillar of Autumn .
Three parallel columns of vehicles are pretty hard to hide, and McKay didn’t even try. The combination of some thirty Warthogs and four Scorpions raised a cloud of dust that was visible from more than two kilometers away. No doubt the heat produced by the machines registered on sensors clear out in space. Banshee recon flights could have tracked them from the minute they hit the trail, and there was only one logical place the vehicles could be headed: the butte called Alpha Base.
It wasn’t too surprising that the Covenant not only organized a response, but a massive one. Here, after days of humiliation, was the opportunity to revenge themselves on the beings who had taken the butte away from them, paid a surprise visit to theTruth and Reconciliation , and raided more than a dozen other locations besides.
Knowing she was in for a fight, McKay organized the vehicles into three temporary platoons. The first platoon was comprised of Warthogs under the command of Lieutenant Oros. She had orders to ignore ground targets and concentrate on defending the column from airborne attacks.
Sergeant Lister was in charge of the second platoon’s Scorpion Main Battle Tanks, which, because of their vulnerability to infantry, were kept at the center of the formation.
The third platoon, under McKay herself, was charged with ground defense, which meant keeping Ghosts and infantry off the other two platoons. A third of her vehicles, five Warthogs in all, were unencumbered by trailers and left free to serve as a quick reaction force.
By giving each platoon its own individual assignment, the officer hoped to leverage the Company’s overall effectiveness, ensure fire discipline, and reduce the possibility of casualties caused by friendly fire, a real danger in the kind of melee that she expected.
As the Marines headed east toward Alpha Base, the first challenge lay at the point where the flat terrain ended. Hills rolled up off the plain to form a maze of canyons, ravines, and gullies which, if the humans were foolish enough to enter them, would force the vehicles to proceed single file, which rendered the convoy vulnerable to air and ground attacks. There was a different route, however, a pass approximately half a klick wide. All three columns could pass through it without breaking formation.