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―In for a penny, in for a pound," Four said
When a diode on one end flashed, indicating the upload was complete, Four yanked the wafer out and handed it to Tho stuck it into her helmet too One was prepared to order Three to do the same but that proved unnecessary Soon all four of their HUDs featured translucent V-shaped arroith range meters that indicated the direction of their individual pylons
―Everybody set countdown timers forT-minus ten minutes," One said ―This spot is Rally Point Alpha Return here once your blow packs are set Then we‘ll have Hopalong give his buggers the good news they‘ve been liberated We‘ll evacuate the the C-12"
One pointed at Hopalong, then pointed at the ground ―You stay here and wait ‘til we coot led his eneral direction
Spartan: Black checked their assault rifles one last tiet soly," Three declared
Then they headed off, alone, in four different directions
Black-Two‘s HUD led her doide rabbit hole that snaked several levels deeper into the earth so narrowly that she had to scale down feet-first At the nadir of the passage, where it began snaking back up again, a fissure in the side of the tunnel faced a er cavern beyond
Two turned on the horizontal lantern over her visor and peered through The beans in Spanish in the human-hewn tunnel on the other side
She flicked the light off and looe counter in her HUD said she ithin fifty rav pylon The tunnel eh enough for her to stand up all the way again
As soon as she did so, a Jackal rounded a bend, his beak pointed doard at a translucent
glowing cube in his hands
Right before he walked into her, he looked up, sensing an obstruction, and Black-Two unloaded her assault rifle into his face and neck The deafening digging sounds reverberating off every inch of the warren co-Yar dropped without a cry
Black-Two crouched behind the bend in the tunnel, but no coed
Her motion sensor remained clear of red dots The countdown on her HUD hadn‘t quite reached eightone wall, she found a crevice big enough to stuff the Jackal‘s corpse into in case any hostiles decided to coravel to cover the purple bloodstains on the tunnel floor and accidentally kicked the s As the cube bounced across the floor she thought she could see three-dies in the center of it She picked it up and turned it over in her hands
The sides of the cube were perfectly clear, and its interior was filled with a cloudy gel that churned and swirled as if it had its own internal air currents In the center of the e of a Yans extended A few Covenant characters floated near its feet Black-Two had studied her Interrogator enough to recognize these characters as numbers--years, in fact Two dates about a decade apart
A trio of buttons appeared beneath Black-Two‘s fingers on the surface of the cube She tapped one, and the e of the Drone, and started cycling through a series of ies inside an is, abdoray blood Interspersed ahter were scenes of ss, presumably Yanainst the lu insides scooped out and oozing across the floor The sae, every time
The countdown on her HUD reached five ator from her forearm and waved its optical scanner over the cube until it picked up the Jackal word
While she waited for the Interrogator‘s wheel icon to stop rotating, she played with the cube a little bitwhere they took her In all cases, the e and replaced it with another 360 degree three-die of an individual Drone, attached to various scenes of hive carnage, all acco-Yar character
At last, the Interrogator flashed at her ―Untranslatable," it claie Nearest analogue(s): ‗Unmutual‘ (43 accuracy), ‗Incapable of Socialization‘
(51 accuracy)"
Two shrugged, dropped the cube, and made her way to the mouth of the tunnel One of the
Beacon‘s pylons passed a full story over her head as she peeked just over the ground level An erupted heap of asphalt four or five paces away uard--three Jackals and two Hunters--but they soonin the direction of the pylon at all, but were fixated on the Drone swarm as it fell like titaniu belly, crisscrossing with a second curtain that showered upward, into its bowels
The counter on Two‘s HUD ticked down below one ht adrenaline slammed into her veins Her heart rate shot up to a dance-floor drumbeat
Ten seconds She flexed her hands around the AR
―Engage," Black-One whispered across her helmet speakers
Immediately, the sharp rattle of Black-Four‘s battle rifle could be heard even over the noise of the excavation The Hunters turned and began bounding toward the opposite pylon
Black-Two popped out of her hole and fired three short bursts at the back of the Jackals‘ heads as they fell in behind the Hunters Jets of purple spray squirted skyward as they pitched forward
One of the Hunters instantly spun its spiny head around and pointed its blank gaze at Black-Two
She despised the daray nonfaces, for they had no expressions to read, no way to tell if they had spotted you or not--
Until they started lus with frightening rapidity, as this one did now
Two leapt all the way out of the hole She sprinted for the teepee-shaped pile of a collapsed concrete kiosk half a block away
When she turned to let off a few bursts in the Hunter‘s direction, the eht into her chest with a deafening roar of static, lifting her off her feet and sla knocked over saved her life, for as she thudded onto her back a second green ray of incendiary plasy shields co a furious warning at her, the second blast would have cut her in half
Two looked up over her chest and saw both Hunters ruracefully behind the rubble cover and willed her shields to recharge, but the Hunter was loo over her before she had a chance to catch her breath The arle-shaped shield over its head, ready to bring it down on her in a crushing blow
Instinct took over The Hunter was tall enough for her to sos, and her maneuver caused it to siuillotined its arm down
Until her shields returned, she didn‘t stand a chance olo But she had an equalizer: the blow pack She slung one off her shoulder and hung it by its strap onto one of the Hunter‘s long spines jutting fro up over the Hunter as it tried to reach back to grab the pack and rip it off--but its armored arms siboard and backflipped over the pile of rubble, ree as she landed
She would have been vaporized if the concrete pile of the kiosk hadn‘t been between her and the blast The Hunter disappeared inside an abrupt ballooning mushroom of dust that radiated outward and completely subsumed Two
When it finally receded, there was nothing left of the Mgalekgolo but a few sizzling bits of chitin fused to the ground and carbonized ropes of blackened worm The concrete kiosk had been
pulverized into powder
The ground trembled beneath her feet and Black-Thirled around just in ti furiously toward her Her shield bar hummed back to full power The barrel of the Hunter‘s assault cannon swirled a fierce eed for a second blast, but Two threw hi to throw up its shield to protect itself
They danced like this for a few seconds--the Hunter recharging, Two sidestepping and firing, the Hunter forced to stop and defend itself Two knew she couldn‘t keep this up all day For one thing, the Mgalekgolo had more armor than she had ammo She had to maneuver herself into a position to land soe flesh between the armored plates around the neck and
sure to keep those areas blocked with his shield
Sudden ht drew the barrel of her AR in that direction, but when she saw Hopalong cla out of the hole she lowered her rifle He hop-flew in shallow, graceless parabolas toward the underbelly of the Beacon She looked in that direction and saw that the Yan Instead, they swar curtain Unnervingly, every one of their a Hopalong with burning intensity
Much to her shock, as soon as the Hunter spotted Hopalong too, he swiveled around and lu all about Black-Two He stopped once to aireen streah altitude on his s to levitate out of the way
It was then that she spotted the s‘s claws, the one she had left behind in the tunnel
It all clicked instantly in her mind at just that moment
Unmutual
Incapable of Socialization
Dead Drones and eggs
A jolt of fear electrified Black-Two‘s spine She found herself running after the Hunter, who continued to fire andShe dropped to one knee and let off an AR burst at the Drone, but the gun was spent Cursing, she snapped in a fresh clip as fast as she could
Hopalong was far enough away that Two couldn‘t be sure, but it looked like the cube in his claws flashed as his digits flew across the device‘scrystalline flashes as, one by one, the collars fell off the necks of the Drones waiting patiently on the Beacon
The Hunter fired again, and ain
―Black-One, this is Black-Two, please come in immediately, Black-One"
―Black-One here I don‘t have tiot a Hunter with a fuel rod cannon wither problems, Chief If anyone‘s placed their packs I say we evac our asses ASAP"
―What? Why? What do you see?"
At that moment the last few collars fell off the Drones‘ necks
―We‘ve been tricked," Two said, desperation creeping into her voice ―This is no ordinary
collection of Drones--they haven‘t been ‗enslaved‘ here--"
When the Hunter turned around and started running away, the bottom of Two‘s stomach fell out
― This is a penal colony! " Two shouted
Like an explosive cloud of shrapnel, the Drones launched themselves off the Beacon toward
Black-Two in a spinning, chittering horde, each massand defiler of their hives clicking and whining out the saain, the only Yan had repeated it so urgently back in the penthouse:
"FREEDOM"
THREE