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He initiated a single-beam COM network, and opened external audio so Dr. Halsey could hear them, too.
"We do this fast," he told his team. "Olivia, Will, scout the perimeter of this landing pad. I want a report in ninety seconds on all routes and motion sensor hits."
Olivia and Will nodded and melted into the dark.
"Linda, Fred, Mark, Holly, get grappling rounds, scale the dome, and take up lookout positions in the arches. Set up single-beam relays and zip lines. Anything moves this way, sound the alarm."
Their status lights flashed green. Linda disappeared into the ship and returned with harpoonlike shafts and rope bags. She passed them out to the three other Spartans. They slid the rounds into their sniper rifles, aimed, and shot them through the archways overhead. Braided monoline uncoiled, pulled by the grapple. They tested the lines, and then rapidly ascended the ropes.
"Dante, Mendez, stay with the ship. Get our gear ready and loaded into balanced packs."
Dante's status light remained unlit for a full second in protest, and then it winked green. Mendez nodded and they boarded the ship.
"Kelly, Ash, Tom, Lucy—you're with me and Dr. Halsey. Ash, grab those cut-down nukes."
Ash moved into the dropship's cargo area and retuned hefting a backpack.
"Tom, Lucy," Kurt said, "keep Dr. Halsey covered."
His senior NCOs stepped to either side of the Doctor.
"Got a staircase, sir," Will reported. "Goes through the floor and around the landing pad's support pedestal. No motion detected."
"Roger," Kurt said. "Olivia, link up with Will. Scout it out. We'll follow."
He oriented on Will's IFF tag and set a single-beam relay antenna on the edge of the platform so he could keep in contact topside.
Kurt led his team to the stairs that helixed around the giant pedestal supporting the landing pad. Kelly and Ash were right behind him, Tom came next, then Dr. Halsey, and Lucy on rear guard.
Each stair step was spaced a quarter meter, but they fanned out from the pedestal ten meters. Kurt kept to the inner surface of the spiral, avoiding the darkness that lay beyond.
Dr. Halsey paused to examine the stone surface.
Lucy halted, too, and the faint illumination of the TAG lights on her SPI armor reflected in the banded rock. She reached out and touched her image. There was translucence to the material that, for a moment, bounced reflections within the reflections— and an infinite number of Lucys appeared mirrored.
She withdrew her hand, and they hastily continued.
After three revolutions around the support, Will's IFF tag appeared on Kurt's heads-up display.
A single-beam COM channel opened. "Chamber ahead, sir," Will reported. "With Forerunner symbols, I think."
Fred's voice broke over the COM: "We're in place. No incom-ing."
"Eyes sharp," Kurt told Fred. Then to Will he said, "Show me."
Will led them until stairs passed through a floor and stopped at an arched entrance. Olivia crouched there, rifle out, covering the room beyond. The chamber was only four meters across. After the agoraphobia-inducing space of the city, this room looked suffocatingly small.