第20页
"I think so," Fred told her.
She looked around. "Joshua?"
Fred shook his head. "He got hit on the way in."
It had been easy for him to fly into the face of certain death moments ago. Saying those words was a hundred times harder.
Kelly slumped and dropped her head back against her Banshee.
"Stay here, I'm going up to take a look." Fred powered up his Banshee and rose parallel with the ridgeline. He nudged the craft up a little farther and got his first look into the valley.
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It was a sea of flame. Hundreds of fires dotted the cracked, glassy ground. Where the Big Horn River had snaked along, there was now only a long steaming furrow. There was no trace of the cruiser or the Covenant troops that had filled the valley moments ago. All that remained was a field of smoldering, twisted bone and metal. At the edge of this carnage stood black?ened sticks—the remnants of the forest—all leaning away from the center of the explosion.
Ten thousand Covenant deaths. It wasn't worth losing Joshua or any of the other Spartans, but it was something. Perhaps they had bought enough time for the orbital MAC guns to tip the bat?tle overhead in the Fleet's favor. Maybe their sacrifices would save Reach. That would be worth it.
He looked up into the sky. The steam made it difficult to see anything, but there was motion overhead: Faint shadows glided over the clouds.
Kelly's Banshee appeared alongside his, and their canards bumped.
The shadows overhead sharpened; three Covenant cruisers broke through the clouds and drifted toward the generator com?plex. Their plasma artillery flickered and glowed with energy.
Fred snapped open his COM channel and boosted the signal strength to its maximum. "Delta Team: Fall back. Fall back now!"
Static hissed over the channel, and several voices overlapped. He heard one of his Spartans—he couldn't tell who—break through the static.
"Reactor complex seven has been compromised. We're falling back. Might be able to save number three." There was a pause as the speaker shouted orders to someone else: "Set off those charges now!"
Fred switched to FLEETCOM and broadcast: "Be advised, Pillar of Autumn, groundside reactors are being taken. Orbital guns at risk. Nothing we can do. Too many. We'll have to use the nukes. Be advised, orbital MAC guns will most likely be neu?tralized. Pillar of Autumn, do you read? Acknowledge."
More voices crowded the channel, and Fred thought he heard Admiral Whitcomb's voice, but whatever orders he issued were
32 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
incomprehensible. Then there was only static, and then the COM went dead.
The cruisers fired salvos of plasma that burned the sky. Dis?tant explosions thumped, and Fred strained to see if there was any return fire—any sign that his Spartans were fighting or re?treating. Their only hope was movement; the enemy firepower would shred a fixed position.
"Fall back," he hissed. "Now, damn it."
Kelly tapped him on the shoulder and pointed up.