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The Spartan believed her, but as he stepped through the hatch, and more Ghosts appeared and began shooting at him, none of the pilots seemed ready to surrender their machines. He destroyed one of them with a long, controlled burst from his assault rifle, then scurried up through a jumble of boulders, and perched on one of the pyramid’s long, sloping skirts.
From his new position he saw a Hunter patrolling the area above, and wished he had a rocket launcher. He might as well have wished for a Scorpion tank.
The pyramid’s support structures offered some cover, which allowed the Master Chief to climb unobserved, and toss a fragmentation grenade at the monster above. It went off with a loudcraack! , peppered the alien’s armor with shrapnel, and generally pissed him off.
Alerted now, the Hunter fired his fuel rod cannon, just as the Chief hurled a plasma grenade and hoped his aim was better this time. The energy pulse missed, the grenade didn’t, and there was a flash of light as the Covenant warrior went down.
It was tempting to run for the top, but if there was one lesson the Spartan had learned over the last few days it was that Hunters traveled in pairs.
Rather than leave such a potent enemy guarding his six, the Master Chief climbed up to the first level, ducked around the wall that separated one side of the pyramid from the next, and took a peek. Sure enough, there was Hunter number two, gazing down-slope, unaware of the fact that his bond brother was dead. The human put a burst into the alien’s unprotected back. The spined warrior fell and slid, face first, to the bottom of the structure.
The Chief worked his way farther up, zigzagging back and forth across the front of the massive pyramid while an extremely determined Banshee pilot tried to bag him from above, and all manner of Grunts, Jackals, and Elites emerged to try and block his progress.
He took a deep breath, and continued his climb.
At the top of the pyramid, the Spartan paused and allowed his long-suffering shield system to recharge. He stepped over the fallen body of a Grunt, and loaded his last clip into the assault rifle.
A huge door fronted the top level. There was no way to tell what waited on the other side, but it wasn’t likely to be friendly—a series of motion sensor traces ghosted at the edge of the device’s range.
“What’s the plan?” Cortana inquired.
“Simple.” The Spartan took a deep breath, hit the switch, spun on his heel, and ran.
It was about twenty meters back to the Shade, and the Chief covered the distance in seconds. Once at the controls he swiveled the barrel around just in time to see the doors part and a horde of Covenant soldiers pour out.
The Shade was up to the job. Just as quickly as they appeared, the aliens died.
Dismounting once again, the Spartan entered a large, hangarlike space, took the time required to deal with stragglers, and activated the next set of doors.
“Scanning,” Cortana said. “Covenant forces in the area have been eliminated. Nicely done. Let’s move on to Halo’s Control Center.”