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Yayap remembered previous encounters with the human, felt a chill run down his spine, and took his seat. Something told him that when it came to a final confrontation between the Elite and the human, it might be many things, but it wouldn’t be easy.
The Engine Room hatch opened, an infection form went for the Master Chief’s face, and he fired a quarter of a clip into it. A lot more bullets than the target required, but the memory of how the penetrator had slipped in under the surface of his skin was still fresh in his mind, and he wasn’t about to allow any of the pods near his face again, especially with a hole in his neck seal. A red nav indicator pointed the way toward a ramp at the far end of the enormous room.
He pounded his way up onto a raised platform, ran past banks of controls, and ducked through the hatch that led up to Level Two. He followed a passageway out into an open area, and then up the ramp to Level Three. Near the top, a pair of combat forms fell to his well-placed fire. He policed the fallen creatures’ ammo and grenades and kept going.
“Not acceptable, Reclaimer,” 343 Guilty Spark intoned. “Youmust surrender the construct.”
The Chief ignored the Monitor, made his way up to Level Three, and encountered a reception party comprised of Flood. He opened fire, took two combat forms and a carrier down off the top, and backed away in order to reload.
Then, with a fresh clip in place, he opened fire, cut the nearest form off at the knees, tossed a grenade into the crowd behind him. The frag detonated, and blew them to hell.
Quick bursts of automatic fire were sufficient to finish the survivors and allow the Master Chief to reach the far end of the passageway. A group of forms were waiting there to greet him, but quickly gave way to a determined assault as he made his way up the blood-slicked steel, and through the hatch at the top of the ramp.
He moved onto the Level Three catwalk and immediately started to take fire. There was total chaos as the Sentinels fired on the Flood, the Flood shot back, and everyone seemed to want a piece of him. It was important to concentrate, however, to focus on his mission, so the Spartan made a mad dash for the nearest control panel. He hit the control labeledOPEN , heard a beeper go off, followed by the sound of Cortana’s voice.
“Good! Step one complete! We have a straight shot into the fusion reactor. We need a catalytic explosion to destabilize the magnetic containment field surrounding the fusion cell.”
“Oh,” the petty officer said as he jumped down onto a thick slab of duracrete, and felt it start to move. “I thought I was supposed to throw a grenade into a hole.”
“That’s what I said.”
The Chief grinned as a brightly lit rectangular slot appeared, and he tossed a grenade in through the opening.
The ensuing explosion threw bits of charred metal around the smoke-filled compartment.
One down, and three to go,the Spartan told himself as the Sentinels fired, and the laser beams hit his chest.