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Kurt looked away and assessed the remaining threat.
Olivia, posted at seven o'clock, waved Kurt closer. He limped to her.
"They just pulled back," she whispered.
From the hill base, the Hunter and the surviving Elites had re-formed their line and were retreating, already fifty meters away.
Kurt made his way to the twelve o'clock point, to Mendez, Mark, and Tom. Chief Mendez met him. The old man had never looked so grim.
"They're pulling back here, too, sir," Mendez said. "Doesn't make sense. Covenant always fight to the last one."
Kurt called up the roster on his display, still stained by his own blood, and checked TEAMBIO.
Will's vitals were flatlined. Holly's signal… was entirely missing.
Over TEAMCOM he said, "Eyes peeled, everyone. Kelly, get Will. Linda, cover her."
They moved, but no green acknowledgment lights flashed, the only sign of their numbing grief.
Kurt sat down, suddenly too tired to think.
Then he noticed his bio signs: failing blood pressure, erratic heartbeat, electrolytes all wrong. There was internal bleeding. He found a can of biofoam, inserted its tip into his armor's mid line injection port, and emptied it.
The expanding liquid polymer chilled his chest.
He closed his eyes, and when he looked again his blood pressure had stabilized. His head had cleared.
Fred made a short come-here gesture and Kurt groggily rose and went to his comrade.
"There." Fred pointed to far side of the core room. "Three hundred fifty meters. Step up polarization to ninety-five percent, sir, and you'll see them." His voice trembled with rage.
Kurt darkened his faceplate, and then understood the reason for the Covenant's retreat.
Over a hundred fresh Elites massed behind energy-shield generators. Banshee fliers zipped back and forth over them. Plasma cannons were assembled by squads of Grunts. In the very front, Kurt spied a glint of gold armor, their leader— staring back at him.
"They softened us up before the main offensive," Kurt whispered.
"Orders, sir?" Fred asked.
Between the mental shock of losing Holly, Will, and Dante, and the physiological shock his body fought off, Kurt had forgotten he was in charge. His duty to get the alien technology and preserve the entire human race came back with crushing weight.
In truth, there were few options left.
They could fight: advance to meet this new threat before their forces fully crystallized. In the open terrain though, without artillery or armor or air support, even Spartans would be cut down.
They could run: use the Slipspace rift in the core. The Covenant force would certainly follow, possibly destroy them, and gain more Forerunner technologies. That was not acceptable. Not when it had cost them so much to get this far.
There was still his last option: the nukes. If he couldn't stop the Covenant, he could deny them their prize. He'd take the warheads to the core and blow it all to hell.
"Keep me posted and stand by," he told Fred, and then limped down to the center.