Matt-038 (Halo Fanfiction)

Chapter 42: Silent Cartographer

Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

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Chapter 42: Silent Cartographer

Location: Surface of Halo

D +44:38:19 (SPARTAN-II Blue Team Mission Clock)

The security system neutralized, the Spartans made their way back through the alien construct and headed toward the surface. Time to find this "Silent Cartographer" and complete this phase of the mission.

"Mayday! Mayday! Bravo 22 taking enemy fire! Repeat, we are taking fire and losing altitude." The dropship pilot's strained voice was harsh and grating—the sound of a man about to lose it.

"Understood," Cortana replied. "We're on our way."

Then, in an aside to Matt, Crystal said, "I don't like the sound of that—I'm not certain they're going to make it."

"We can still try and save them," the Chief said. "Let's get moving."

Matt nodded in agreement.

Matt agreed, and in his eagerness to get topside, made a potentially fatal error. Having just cleared the room adjacent to what appeared to be the ringworld's Security Center, he assumed that it was still clear.

Fortunately, the Elite—equipped with another of the Covenant's camouflage devices—announced his presence with a throaty roar just prior to firing his weapon. Plasma fire still splashed Matt's chest, followed by a brief moment of disorientation as he tried to figure out where the attack was coming from. His motion sensor detected movement, and he aimed his weapon as best he could. He fired a sustained burst and was rewarded with an alien scream of pain.

As the Covenant warrior fell, Matt made a mad dash for the ramp that led up toward the surface, reloading as he went. Walking into the once-cleared room too quickly had been stupid—and he was determined not to make the same mistake again. The fact that Crystal was there, seeing the world via his sensors, made such errors that much more embarrassing. Somehow, for reasons he hadn't had time to sort out, the human wanted the AI's approval. Silly? Maybe so, if one thought of Crystal as little more than a fancy computer program, but she was more than that. In Matt's mind at least.

Matt smiled at the irony of the thought. The human-AI interface meant that, in many ways, Crystal was literally in Matt's mind, using some of his wetware for processing power and storage.

The Spartans made their way up the ramp, through a hall, and out into bright sunlight. Matt paused on a platform, and dropped to the slope below, as Cortana and Crystal cautioned them to keep an eye peeled for Bravo 22.

Covenant troops were patrolling the beach below—a mix of Jackals and Grunts. Matt drew his sidearm, switched to the 2X magnification, and decided to work from right to left. He nailed the first Jackal, missed the next, and killed a pair of Grunts who were waddling around on top of the mesa opposite his position.

As they moved farther down the slope, Matt could see Bravo 22's wreckage, half-buried in the side of the mesa. There were no signs of life. Either the crew and passengers had been killed on impact, or some had survived and been executed by the enemy.

The possibility made Matt particularly angry. He turned to the right, caught the surviving Jackal on the move, and put him down. Matt switched to his MA5B and made his way down the grassy slope to the sand beyond. It was a short walk to the smoking wreckage and the scattering of bodies. Plasma burns on some of the bodies served to confirm the Spartans' suspicions.