Matt-038 (Halo Fanfiction)

Chapter 81: Explosive Exit

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 81: Explosive Exit

Location: Tau Ceti system, Aboard Covenant battle station Unyielding Hierophant

September 13, 2552

1820 hours

Matt accelerated his Banshee to its top speed.

There was another explosion at the temple, and plumes of steam geysered into the air from the heat-exchange plant. The circling formations of Banshees scattered.

Matt tucked as close as he could to his flier's fuselage and coaxed every bit of speed from the craft.

A pair of Banshees swooped in, one off his port, the other on his starboard. Their plasma weapons heated; Matt rolled back and forth to throw their aim. He braced for impact... but there was none.

Matt craned his head back and saw the pilot of the lead Banshee slump, slide off the flier, and plummet to the ground. The trailing Banshee was riderless as well... only a blood-spattered cockpit and cowling.

Linda still had him covered—had taken out both pilots with precise fire. She had to be close.

Matt scanned the area. There were spires and water-reclamation towers, transport tubes and catwalks that crisscrossed the center of the interior. There was a nexus of walkways near the beam of illumination that ran down the center of the station, a location with enough glare that a sniper might hide in the open undetected.

He risked keying Linda's private COM channel. "Thought you might need a ride, so I—"

An energy mortar blasted over Matt's shoulder, burning the air like a sun in close orbit and draining his shields to half. It impacted a water tower, and the structure detonated into a cloud of blinding steam.

Matt punched the Banshee through the cloud, glanced down, and saw a Wraith tank tracking his trajectory. He ducked and weaved but kept moving toward Linda's probable location.

His mission countdown timer read 7:06. There was no time for fancy evasive maneuvers.

Did Linda even want to be found? Maybe she wanted him to get to safety and leave her behind? It's what he would have done. "Position report, Linda," Matt barked over the COM. "That's a direct order."

Three seconds ticked off his mission clock and then the six-tone "Oly Oly Oxen Free" song whistled through Matt's speakers and a NAV marker appeared on his heads-up display.

The triangular marker centered on a rope that ran between two transit tubes and dangled perilously close to the high-intensity light beam. It was a barely discernible thread that ran through a hard shadow cast by a nearby catwalk.

Matt hit his image enhancers. Through the glare of the light, and in the depths of the shadow, he caught the flicker of reflected optics.

Linda used both the brilliant light and the darkness to hide.

Matt angled the Banshee to her. He clipped the tether line from his belt to the frame of the Banshee and squeezed his thighs tighter onto the seat.

When he was thirty meters away, he made visual contact. Linda had the rope coiled about a boot and wrapped about one forearm. She held her sniper rifle in one arm, and Matt could only surmise that she had been firing from such an impossible position.