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Then, having moved forward, he was forced to fight his way through a series of narrow, body-strewn passageways as what seemed like an inexhaustible supply of Flood forms came at him from every possible direction.
Eventually, having made his way through grottoes of coolant, and past piles of corpses, Cortana said, “We should headthis way—toward the ship’s gravity lift,” and the Spartan saw a nav pointer appear on his HUD. He followed the red arrow around a bend to a ledge above a coolant-filled basin. Even as he watched, a dozen carrier forms marched up out of the green lagoon to attack a group of hard-pressed Covenant soldiers.
The Spartan knew there was no way in hell that he’d be able to force his way throughthat mess, turned, and made his way back down the trail. A sniper rifle, just one of hundreds of weapons scattered around the area, was half obscured by a headless combat form. The petty officer removed the rifle, checked to ensure that it was loaded, and returned to the overlook. Then, careful to make each shot count, he opened fire.
The Elites, Jackals, and Grunts went down fairly easily. But the Flood forms, especially the carriers, were practically impossible to kill with this particular weapon. With few exceptions the heavy round seemed to pass right through the lumpy-looking bastards without causing any harm whatsoever.
When all of the 14.5mm ammo was gone, the Chief went back for the shotgun, jumped into the green liquid, and waded up onto the shoreline. He heard an obscene sucking noise, saw an infection form trying to enter an Elite’s chest cavity, and blew both of them away.
After that there was more clean-up to do as some combat forms took a run at the human and a flock of infection forms tried to roll him under. Repeated doses of shotgun fire turned out to be just what the doctor ordered—the area was soon littered with severed tentacles and scraps of wet flesh.
A pitch-black passageway led him back to another pool where he arrived just in time to see the Flood overrun a Shade and the Elite who was seated at the controls. The Spartan began firing, already backpedaling, when the Flood spotted him and hopped, waddled, and jumped forward. He fired, reloaded, and fired again. Always retreating, always on the defensive, always hoping for a respite.
This wasn’t his kind of fight. Spartans were designed as offensive weapons, but ever since they’d landed on the ring, he’d been on the run. He had to find a way to take the offensive, and soon.
There was no break in the endless wall of Flood attackers. He fired until his weapons were empty, pried energy weapons out of dead fingers, and fired those until they were dry.
Finally, more by virtue of stubbornness than anything else, and having reacquired human weapons from dead combat forms, the Master Chief found himself standing all alone, rifle raised, with no one to shoot at. He felt a powerful sense of elation—he wasalive .
It was a moment he couldn’t take time to enjoy.