Not for her, not for any of them.
―Take ‘em down!" she roared. ―Take ‘em all down!"
As if they needed telling.
>Benti 1318 hours
Even though she was just following orders, some small part of Benti thought careening off into the darkness with an unknown number of hostiles in the area added up to a big heaping dose of crazy .
The larger part of her didn‘t care.
―To the left!" Orlav shouted, her flashlight beam glancing off the storage containers, breaking off into the distant ceiling. It caught in freeze-frame wide sprays of blood. The floor was sticky with it.
They were following drag marks, and over the top, wide stumpy footprints. Fresh.
A bark of gunfire, but no flash, hidden somewhere beyond the containers. Percy and Ayad shouting over the roar of a Covenant Elite. Lopez swearing. Some damn powerful swearing—wouldn‘t be
surprised if some Covie didn‘t drop dead just from hearing it.
Benti almost fell over a collapsed makeshift barricade, turning too hard around a corner, following the footprints, dimly aware the others weren‘t around her.
She slipped on the blood-slick floor, caught the impression of movement in front of her, and pulled the trigger without waiting. The bullets punched into the Elite‘s gut and purple blood splashed down on her face and neck. It doubled over, massive hands cupping its belly. Got a full-on cough of the creature‘s fetid breath, those four spiny jaws twitching beneath the clenched fist of a head flexed wide in surprise, anger, or some emotion she‘d never understand. Especially without their armor, they always looked like they were intensely thinking. But that couldn‘t be it, and she wasn‘t going to give it a chance to think.
Her rifle roared until the Elite dropped, collapsing on top of her.
―Crap!" Being crushed seemed a poor reward for doing her job.
But then Clarence was there, grabbing her harness and hauling her from beneath the Elite by the scruff of the neck. Covie blood had soaked her. It glowed in the dark and smelled a bit like armpit mixed with wet cat.
No time to wipe it off: sporadic gunfire throughout the hangar couldn‘t mask the distinctive footfalls approaching, fast and heavy.
A second Covenant Elite burst out from behind a damaged loader, seeing but ignoring them as they pivoted to face it. The Elite vaulted over an operation console and into the darkness.
―It‘s going for the Pelican!"
They took off after it.
―Orlav, you back there? One coming your way!"
Benti spat, trying not to think about the alien blood in her mouth and everything she knew about hygiene.
Again she followed the footprints, down one narrow corridor, then another. The container crates formed a kind of maze. Clarence dropped back, checking the corners, not happy about rushing past so many places ripe for more Elites to pop out at them from behind.
The Elite clearly wasn‘t heading for the Pelican. Instead, it was—
Well, crap. It was right there , against the wall of crates.
Crouched, but not hiding, its head tilted, listening. She noticed its muscles were withered and its limbs lined with scars and wounds, not all of them old, and then realized it was naked. No armor at all. How strange, how perfect.
―I‘m going to kill you," Benti whispered. ―I‘m going to—"
It held up one finger. It shushed her. Pointed toward the darkness in front of them.
That surprised her so much she shut up, listened with the alien.
Benti heard a last bark of gunfire, the moaning gargle of a dying Elite on the far side of the hangar.
Status reports back and forth on the radio. The alien‘s breathing. Her breathing. Nothing more.
It looked over at her.
Benti was no expert on Covie expressions, but she could tell it was relieved .
Nothing more, nothing less.
Even unarmed, a Covenant Elite was more than capable of overpowering any Marine with its bare hands. They never stopped, they never gave up until you put them down. Yet this one remained crouching, unthreatening. Listening.
It wasn‘t afraid of her. She knew that.
But it was afraid of something .
The muzzle of Clarence‘s rifle entered her peripheral vision, spat fire, and deafened her in one ear.
The Covenant Elite smashed back against a container, half its face shorn off.
Face impassive, Clarence looked at her, a faint judgment, a question, only manifesting in the set of shoulders. He‘d seen her hesitate. Crap. She stared back at him, reduced to silence, feeling a flare of irritation she knew was her embarrassment eating itself: Who’re you to judge? You could’ve frozen up a hundred times before in combat for all I know. But she knew, in her gut, that was a lie. Rumor had it no one had killed more Covies than Clarence.
Lopez, from off to the left: ―Marines! Four Covie dead over here. The rest of you, report! Watch for active camo. Keep those flashlights on."
The surprise party was over. A sound-off around the hangar, which didn‘t seem nearly so big now that their eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
―We‘re good, Sarge," Benti said, punching Clarence in the shoulder in an attempt to gloss over the awkward strain between them. ―Two confirmed kills." She turned her back on the dead, naked alien and followed Clarence to where the flashlights were converging.
―No kills here, just thrills," Gersten said from somewhere off to the right. ―That small transport got smashed up good, Sarge. Someone drunk driving, I dunno."
Only one wounded Marine, as it turned out, and that was MacCraw, who had a gash in his shoulder from smashing into a metal hook.
―I think Rakesh wet his pants." MacCraw sounded a little shaky even as he tried to joke.
―Only if you pissed on me, MacCraw."
―No sign of the crew or passengers," Orlav said.
Benti could see that idiot Cranker posing with his boot on a Covie torso, like some kind of conquering hero. That sobered her mood as much as Clarence‘s look. Bad luck, being not just overconfident but a jerk about it.
Percy crouched by Cranker‘s leg, examining the body. ―Interesting outfit they‘re running," he said.
―No weapons, no gear. Think they‘re running out of money."
―Maybe we can buy them out!"
―Shut it, MacCraw. Where‘s Rabbit?"
No answer.
>Lopez 1327 hours
Taking out the second Covie hadn‘t been as satisfying to Lopez as taking out the first. The third was less satisfying to her than that. She‘d just watched by the time her Marines took out the fourth.
Mechanically gone through the all-clear and found that Rabbit was missing.
Something was bothering her, even as she ordered a sweep of the hangar just to find Rabbit. It had been too easy. These were Covenant Elites. They‘d presumably boarded the Mona Lisa and had been hard-core enough to take the ship without too much bungling. But: they‘d allowed themselves to be cut down like so many, well, rabbits. She knew her Covies, and they were better than that.
Something didn‘t scan again, and it had her scar itching. Had there been some breakdown in
command-and-control? And why hadn‘t they been able to keep power on in the ship? Had most of them left in the escape pods? If so, you‘d think the Red Horse would‘ve already picked up a few.
The sweep didn‘t locate her missing Marine.
―She was with me," Mahmoud said, when they‘d regrouped by the main door. ―We wasted that dog over there by the messed-up transport, she said she heard something, then another Covie popped up." He shrugged in his armor, dropping his eyes. ―Sorry, Sarge, I thought she was with me."
Lopez worried away at a single rosary bead named Rabbit , as she opened a channel. ―Okay, Burgundy, you‘ve a lovely way with words, talk to me."
―Can‘t raise the Red Horse right now," Burgundy said. ―And this ship smells. I mean, it really smells."
―Keep trying. Seal up, sit tight. Don‘t want no Covies getting in and stinking up your bird even more." Then she turned to the rest of the crew. ―Cranker, Maller, Simmons, Sydney, maintain position here. You‘re base camp. Clean up those bodies you‘re so fond of standing on. The rest of us are going wabbit hunting. Move out."
She stopped in front of Benti. Looked the little medic down and down. She was practically neon.
―I think this color suits me."
―Yeah, it brings out your eyes," Lopez said with distaste. ―Take the rear." Didn‘t always know what to make of Benti, thought she should take things a little more seriously sometimes.
The corridor beyond was pitch-black, the emergency lighting off, except for one flickering light in the distance. On the wall, a smear of blood where a hand had dragged down to the floor only to join a larger, thicker pool that was red and human and old. Something had then been dragged through the blood, the trail heading aft. Through the drag mark, Lopez could see the telltale marks left by regulation boots.
―There was lots of blood in the hangar, too," Tsardikos ventured hesitantly. ―Enough for a few people to have bled out. But I didn‘t see any bodies."
―No small-arms fire or plasma burns, either," Orlav said.
―Maybe the Covenant really are running out of money."
―MacCraw, one more lame joke out of you and I‘ll push you out an airlock," Lopez growled, and the chatter shut down. The real Mona Lisa was famed for her enigmatic smile, but Lopez still wasn‘t in the mood for mysteries.
Rabbit‘s trail faded, crossed more blood pools, and strengthened again. Fifty meters and still going.
Damn fool bunny. Went too far on her own. Lopez ground her teeth, already reaming the soldier out in her head, when a surprised shout barked up the corridor. Cut off abruptly. More Covenant.