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Fred held up a hand.
A mated Sentinel pair silently glided past the open arch—ten meters in front of Kurt. The spheres within the booms moved back and forth. It continued its orbit around the dome, moving out of view, and another Sentinel pair appeared along the same trajectory.
They weren't attacking, yet they had to sense the Spartans inside. It almost looked as if they were guarding this dome.
Kurt steeled himself, resisting the urge to shoot such a close target. What good would it have done? He couldn't penetrate those shields.
He felt vibrations, and in the distance lights flickered along the rim of the crater.
The bulbous hull of a Covenant Seraph single ship appeared, then another Seraph appeared, then seven more… and then two dozen flying in formation.
Kurt held his breath, hoping this was just a search party.
A line of Covenant destroyers followed, so massive they blotted out the stars in the night sky. A second wave of cetacean-shaped vessels resolved, and then a Covenant carrier flew on overwatch, surrounded by a hundred Seraph fighters.
Kurt had never seen so many enemy ships so close—all of
them headed toward his position. Twenty warships. The subsonic thrum of their antigrav units made his insides go soft.
The Sentinels circling the dome moved to intercept the new threat.
Pinpoint laser artillery shot them out of the air.
The two leading destroyers peeled off the battle group and drifted over the dome. Shafts of sparkling purple light flashed from their undersides—antigrav transporter beams. A hundred armored Elite shock troopers streamed to the ground.
Kurt looked for Dante and spotted him high on the dome's inner surface attached with a rigging of rope and suction climbers. He pressed blobs of C-12 onto the patterned stone.
Kurt directed his single beam at the COM relay on the landing pad. "Will, what's Dr. Halsey's status?"
"She's found something," Will replied. "Says she needs ten minutes to get it ready"
"Get what ready? Never mind. We don't have ten minutes," Kurt told him. "Prepare for a hot reception."
Kurt watched Covenant assets pour down the transport beams and assemble in the city: more Elites with plasma rifles, titanlike Hunter pairs wielding fuel-rod cannons and nearly impenetrable shields, plasma turrets and their Grunt tenders, and a monstrous Scarab walker.
Spirit and Phantom dropships escorted by Banshee fliers buzzed the dome.
It was an invading army.
Kurt motioned his Spartans down the lines to the landing pad. They had to fall back—fast.
His teams silently slid to safety. After all had gone down their rope, Kurt followed.
Blue plasma splashed across the archway ledges.
Kurt loosened his grip on the rope and free-fell a dozen meters, squeezing the brake at the last instant before he hit the floor. He rolled and dove behind the starboard hull of their ship.
Lasers stitched the stone platform behind him.
Six dropships and their Banshee escorts entered through the archways. They circled, rapidly descending.