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The cave, if that was the proper word for the huge cavernlike space, featured plenty of places to hide. Enormous pipes emerged from the walls and dived downward, mysterious installations stood like islands on the platform around him, and there was no way to know what might lurk in the dark corners. Lights, mounted high above, provided what little illumination there was.
The human stood on a broad platform that ran the full length of the open area. A deep chasm separated his platform from what appeared to be an identical structure on the other side of the canyon. One of two bridges that had once spanned the gorge was down, leaving only one over which he could pass—a made-to-order choke point for anyone who wanted to establish an ambush.
There wasn’t a hell of a lot of choice, so he marched down to the point where the remaining span was anchored, and started across. He hadn’t gone more than thirty paces before fifty or sixty infection forms emerged from hiding and danced out to block the way.
The Spartan held his position, waited for the Flood forms to come a little closer, and tossed a fragmentation grenade into the center of the group.
The cavern ate some of the sound, but the explosive device still managed to produce abang , and the resulting shrapnel laid waste to all but a handful of the creatures.
There were two survivors, though, both optimists, who continued to bounce forward in spite of the way in which the rest of the group had been annihilated. A single shotgun blast was sufficient to kill both of them.
He slipped some additional shells into the gun’s magazine tube, took a deep breath, and moved forward again. He made it about halfway to the other side before a mixed force of combat forms, carrier forms, and infection forms started to gather at the far end of the span. Another grenade inflicted casualties, but they charged him after that, and the Master Chief was forced to retreat, firing the assault weapon as he did so.
It was nip and tuck for a few seconds as combat forms launched themselves fifteen meters through the air, carriers charged straight in, and the omnipresent infection forms swarmed through the gaps. Retreating, the Spartan had already reloaded three times before his back hit the wall, and the last combat form collapsed at his feet, started to rise, and took a blast in the head.
Once again it was time to reload both weapons, step out onto the gore-splattered bridge deck, and attempt another crossing. This one was successful, with only light opposition on the other side, and an opportunity to replenish his ammo.
The next set of blast doors opened flawlessly, allowing the Spartan to enter a relatively short section of tunnel that led back to the surface. Determined to use stealth if at all possible, he slipped out of the passageway, scrambled up over the snow embankment to his right, and ran into a group of four Flood. A grenade took care of two—and the assault weapon finished the rest.
A Banshee swooped in, burned a long line of dashes into the snow, and continued up the valley. The Chief was surprised to get off so lightly, but given the darkness and all of the confusion, it was possible that the pilot had mistaken him for a combat form. A worthy target, to be sure, but not something to turn around for. Particularly not when the valley was full of combat forms.