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He slung his AR, drew the shotgun—briefly hoping there would be a lull during which to reload—and opened fire on the bloated monstrosities before the force exerted by their exploding bodies could do him harm.
Then, with newly spawned infection forms flying in every direction it was clean-up time followed by a desperate effort to reload both weapons before thenext wave of creatures attempted to roll over him.
He dropped into a pattern of fire and movement. He made his way through the ship, closer to the engineering spaces, pausing only to pour fire into knots of targets of opportunity. Then, he quickly disengaged, reloaded, and ran farther into the ship.
The noise generated by his own weapons hammered at the Master Chief’s ears, the thick gagging odor of Flood blood clogged his throat, and his mind eventually grew numb from all the killing.
After dispatching a Covenant combat team, he crouched behind a support strut and fed rounds into the shotgun. Without warning, a combat form leaped on his back and smashed a large wrench into his helmet. His shield dropped away from the force of the blow, which allowed an infection form to land on his visor.
Even as he staggered under the impact, and pawed at the form’s slick body, a penetrator punched its way through his neck seal, located his bare skin, and sliced it open.
The Spartan gave a cry of pain, felt the tentacle slide down toward his spine, and knew it was over.
Though unable to pick up a weapon and kill the infection form directly, Cortana had other resources, and rushed to use them. Careful not to drain too much power, the AI diverted some energy away from the MJOLNIR armor, and made use of it to create an electrical discharge. The infection form started to vibrate as the electricity coursed through it. The Chief jerked as the Flood form’s penetrator delivered a shock to his nervous system, and the pod popped, misting the Spartan’s visor with green blood spray.
The Chief could see well enough to fight, however, and did so, killing the wrench-wielding combat form with a burst of bullets.
“Sorry about that,” Cortana said, as the Spartan cleared the area around him, “but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”
“You did fine,” he replied, pausing to reload. “That was close.”
Another two or three minutes passed before the Flood gave up and he could take the moment necessary to remove his helmet, jerk the penetrator out from under his skin, and slap a self-adhering antiseptic battle dressing over the wound. It hurt like hell: The Spartan winced as he lowered the helmet back over his head, and sealed his suit.
Then, pausing only to kill a couple of stray infection forms, and still looking for a way to gain entry to the cryo chamber, the Chief made his way through a number of passageways, into a maze of maintenance tunnels, and out into a corridor where he spotted a red arrow on the deck along with the wordENGINEERING .
Finally, a break.
No longer concerned with finding a way into cryo, the noncom passed through a hatch and entered the first passageway he’d seen that was well lit, free of bloodstains, and not littered with corpses. A series of turns brought him to a hatch.