Halo: Retribution by Troy Denning;

Author:Troy Denning;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2017-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

Fred ducked under the Turaco and saw Veta Lopis kneeling in the open, twenty meters ahead, her weapon pointing toward a pair of fleeing Jiralhanae. He swung his assault rifle around and saw why she was holding her fire. The armored Brute in the lead was carrying two human prisoners and laying fire on Mark and Ash. The second Brute was unarmored, but only half a step behind the first, and he was staring back at Lopis, raising a spiker in her direction.

Unable to take a kill shot without risking a through-and-through that would hit the prisoners, Fred did the next best thing: he put a round through the Brute’s spiker hand. The weapon spun away in a spray of blood; then Lopis fired.

The Jiralhanae was already ducking away from Fred’s attack, and her round passed high. The Brute dodged in front of his power-armored companion, and Lopis’s next two shots were deflected by shock plates. Then the two Jiralhanae were surrounded by a couple of dozen fellow Keepers who were now rushing back to protect them, and the enemy fire began to build.

Kelly ducked under the Turaco and started to launch grenades in their direction. Then Olivia entered the fray, lowering the boarding ramp and opening fire with a S99 Sniper Rifle that she had probably found in an onboard weapons locker. The Keepers lost half their number in the space of a few breaths and reluctantly began to fall back once more.

Still, it was clear to Fred that the enemy was far from defeated—and the shock of Blue Team’s initial assault had clearly worn off. He checked his TACMAP and saw that Keeper survivors were starting to regroup on both flanks, and that reinforcements were headed in from all around the landing site’s perimeter.

Fred activated TEAMCOM. “Olivia, can you fly that thing?”

“Affirmative,” she replied. “The Dark Moon AI seems to be disabled. Or maybe she’s just finally cooperating. But I have control—”

“That’s all we need. Fire up. Ferrets, get boarded. Kelly and I have the perimeter.” Fred signaled Kelly to cover the Turaco’s tail arc, then turned to take the nose arc. “Linda, how are you coming with those cylinder replacements?”

“Six Brightboys ready,” Linda reported, citing the nickname for the Havok nuclear devices. Clearly, she had encountered no opposition boarding the Stolen Faith—at least none that would slow down a Spartan-II—and now she was busy fitting the weapons with functional tritium booster cylinders. “Three to go.”

“Six is enough,” Fred said. “Set tamper triggers with a five-minute tango and get back here.”

Fred changed his ammunition magazine and continued to fire into the Keeper cluster that had emerged to meet the two Jiralhanae. In his experience, when a bunch of irregulars risked their lives to save one individual, that individual was usually their commander. Keeping him under fire would disrupt their efforts to regroup and counterattack.

“Fred, five minutes isn’t enough!” Lopis said over TEAMCOM. She remained on a knee, looking back toward the detention center entrance. “There are captives inside. A lot of them—probably hostages the Keepers are holding for ransom.

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