第55页
Dots swirled about the edge of the expanding cloud of dust. If Ash didn't know better he'd have sworn they were vultures. But Onyx didn't have raptorlike avian species.
Ash zoomed magnification on his faceplate. At five-times he saw the dots had a three-fold symmetry.
He unslung his sniper rifle and sited through the scope.
They were drones of some sort. But not UNSC MAKOS. Not Covenant Banshees fliers, either. They were a few meters long.
Three dull steel booms that surrounded a centra! eye, glowing like molten iron. No obvious jets. No cockpit. There were a dozen of them.
"Has to be an experimental prototype," Dante said. Maybe Zone 67 is a testing range for new weapons."
"They wouldn't be 'testing' a megaton worth of destructive force while we were so close," Ash countered.
Or was this part of the final test? Some new threat that the three squads would have to band together to defeat? That would be Chief Mendez's style: change the rules in the middle of a test.
The drones moved away from the atomized mesa, drifted closer to Team Saber's location, stopping short just on the opposite side of the Zone 67 fence, where they circled another butte.
Ash spied motion atop that formation. Shutters from a a camouflaged bunker popped open, and heavy machine-gun fire strafed the drones.
The lead drone's three booms snapped forward to make a triangular flat plane. A glimmering film of gold popped into place and fifty-caliber rounds impacted and bounced off.
"Energy shields!" Dante said. "Has to be Covenant."
Ash reluctantly agreed with this assessment. This was no game, no final honors test.
The war had arrived on Onyx.
He broadcast over an open COM channel: "Currahee C and C, come in. This is Saber One. We have an emergency."
No answer. His radio light was green. He was broadcasting, but no one was listening.
"Radio check," Ash said to his team. "Everyone try to get the Lieutenant Commander or the Chief. Try to raise the Agincourt, too."
Ash used his sniper rifle and tracked the drones.
The remaining eleven lined up behind the one distorted to
form an energy shield; their red eyes aligned and pointed directly at the mesa top.
Men emerged from the bunker with M19 missile launchers.
The drones' eyes flared to a brilliant gold—energy projected forward, flicking like a rapier strike.
The men and bunker wavered a moment, erupted into flames, and vaporized. The mesa top then detonated into a cloud of dust and molten rock.
The ground tilted and cracked. Team Saber retreated into the tunnel and debris rained over them.
Ash squinted back through the haze.
The drones had scattered and moved forward, zigzagging over the rocky terrain: a search pattern.
He moved to the opposite end of the tunnel and risked another open COM broadcast. "Team Katana, Team Gladius, Covenant activity in Zone 67. Forget the test, guys. We've got a situation."
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