“Why have we paused?” Rojka asked the Spartans.
“The closer we get to the device, and to Hekabe, the more impact the cannon will have,” Jai said, walking back. “The governor says we are not close enough yet.”
“Then it is my time,” Rojka announced. He had known this would come. “Spartans, we must surround and trap Hekabe.”
“What?” Melody looked at him, then back at the wall of Sharquoi at the end of the bridge. “We’re the ones surrounded, Rojka.”
“If you live,” Rojka shouted at her as he moved down the bridge toward the waiting Sharquoi, “speak of my bravery! I want my bloodline to add it to their battle poem!”
“What are you going to do?” Melody asked.
“I will be the spear of our assault,” Rojka told her. He pulled his energy sword, but didn’t activate it yet. “Wait until you see me scatter them in confusion. Then you will know it is time to press your own attack!”
Rojka ran ahead in a dead sprint. He knew the Sharquoi could tell he was coming. Echolocation would track his movement. He launched down the bridge, leaving the others behind. It felt good to run and stretch his legs far out. Ready to kill. To hunt.
These creatures were not to be feared. Rojka would pass them like a whirlwind.
Would Hekabe be able to trap him eventually? Possibly. But not before Rojka got close enough. Not before Rojka tied up Hekabe’s attention on his own suicidal attack.
As Rojka approached the end of the bridge, the Sharquoi retreated toward a dais at the very front of the Forerunner structure’s entrance. There were towers behind the large wall. It was a strange keep, certainly a fortress of some kind, Rojka thought. And through the entry and beyond the wall, he saw his Jiralhanae enemy, gravity hammer at his side.
Hekabe waited inside the structure, surrounding himself with Sharquoi like a wall. Still visible pieces of the Forerunner machine coiled inside his head reflected the cavern’s light.
Sharquoi jumped from one and two levels above Rojka down to the base of the bridge, abandoning some kind of perch at the top of the towers. Apparently Hekabe took this sudden, sole threat against him rather seriously.
“Hekabe!” Rojka screamed, snapping on his energy sword. “Hekabe, I am here!”
It was madness, of course. Ten Sharquoi moved directly in front of him with incredible speed. Alone, Rojka stood no chance.
But Rojka fought to be remembered, for his honor, and to give this strange team of allies he stood with a chance to kill Hekabe and save countless worlds.
The Sharquoi charged, and the Sangheili met them in kind.
As he struck the first beast, sword flaring brightly, Rojka heard the humans’ vehicle roar and gunfire chatter as the team rushed down the bridge after him.
Dropping low to the ground, Rojka slashed his sword through yielding Sharquoi flesh that sizzled as he cut the trunk-like legs off at the knees. The creature’s large claws snapped through the air over his head.
Two of the Spartans joined the attack, their armored boots stomping the stone floor as they landed nearby. Rocket-propelled grenades from two militia soldiers exploded around him, and the death cries of Sharquoi filled his ears. Maybe Hekabe was taken off guard by the direct attack, maybe the Jiralhanae was being defensive, doing his best to keep a wall between him and the Spartans who had already nearly dealt him a mortal blow. Either way, the creatures seemed to scramble to deal with the swarm of enemies around them.
A Spartan engaged one of the Sharquoi off to Rojka’s side. The demon dodged the creature’s blow near the ledge, throwing it off-kilter. It swung around and threw the Sharquoi over the side and into the lava below, no ammunition wasted as they ran toward the dais.
Far behind them, at the other end of the bridge, the remaining human soldiers struggled to slow the Sharquoi rushing down from the rear. They had brought the heaviest of their infantry weapons to deal with these monsters. But the humans fell one by one, inexorably. All they really could do was buy the Spartans time. Time to get the vehicle and its cannon further down along the bridge, without the Sharquoi destroying it.
The floor around Rojka shook. Sharquoi streamed out of the towers and the walls that enclosed them. Dozens more emerged from the magestic alcoves that shimmered with blue energy. This must have been where the Forerunners had kept them all these thousands of years.
Rojka fought like a demon himself, jumping, diving, weaving for his life. For all their lives. He was drawing the Sharquoi into a close-quarters battle where they were forced to fight against their numbers, often damaging each other with their great size and powerful blows. Here, in the thick of their mob, their great strength was turned against them.
Four Sharquoi lay dead by Rojka’s hand as he pierced the protective wall of creatures, and now Hekabe himself stood just a few bounds away, just through the Forerunner wall. Hekabe turned his attention from Rojka to the humans and then back again.
Without warning, a Sharquoi slammed into Rojka before he could get inside, throwing his body across the ground toward the lava pit. Rojka’s sight blurred and the world darkened as he momentarily blacked out from the intensity of the strike. Instinctively, he jammed the blade of his sword into the cavern’s floor as he tumbled toward the edge. His weapon snapped free from his hand, but Rojka caught the ledge just as he slid over, nearly falling to his death. He glanced over his shoulder at the lava below him, then pulled his way back up and rolled to the right.
As his vision returned, he paused for a moment to assess the battle.
His gambit had worked. Hekabe had pulled the Sharquoi to himself in a protective reflex. That had given the Spartans and human militia time to get down here. The Sharquoi’s concentrated numbers actually played to the Spartans’ advantage, making the smaller and nimbler targets difficult to kill.
But as Rojka watched, a Sharquoi fell from the air and struck the front of the small human vehicle as it moved toward the base of the bridge. Sparks and flames erupted from its front end as the one called Mike leapt free, rolled to the side, and shot the creature at point-blank range. The beast reeled backward and fell over the side of the bridge.
The governor ran up to the pulse cannon from her safe position behind the vehicle, where she and the envoy had remained during the battle. Jai and Adriana darted back to join her, providing cover fire as Sharquoi pressed toward their position.
Rojka looked back toward Hekabe, still within the Forerunner walls. Dozens of new Sharquoi flowed around him, coming from the base of another cylindrical tower at the very heart of the Forerunner structure. They poured out of the front gate.
Overhead, more of the creatures began to leap from ramps and bridges connecting the towers high above them. They would fall for hundreds of meters, then strike the bridge as living bombs. Each impact jostled everything on the bridge as the creatures landed with defeaning thuds. Rojka wondered how long the bridge could hold under such duress.
The governor and the Spartans reached the burning vehicle at the same time. The small human machine had held their best hope to stop Hekabe. Now it looked irreparably damaged.
Rojka roared in frustration and returned his focus to the Jiralhanae and the muscled wall of gray surrounding him.
“It is time to die with honor!” Rojka shouted.
He leapt at the Sharquoi, his eyes fixed only on Hekabe behind them.
CHAPTER 25
* * *
* * *
Ellis skidded to a stop next to the wreckage of the Jackrabbit. She climbed onto its back to examine the weapon.
“Keep pushing it forward!” she screamed at the Spartans. Sharquoi bodies struck nearby, gore exploding across the bridge, each strike shaking the entire structure to its moorings. The further they got toward the Forerunner towers and Hekabe, the harder it would be for the falling Sharquoi to hit them.
Jai grabbed the two wrecked front booms of the Jackrabbit and lifted the vehicle up. He started pushing it as Ellis shoved damaged pieces of equipment aside and trie
d to figure out if the cannon could still work.
Adriana and Mike provided cover, unleashing a torrent of fire at encroaching Sharquoi.
“The cannon?” Adriana asked, walking backward with them.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Ellis muttered, her mouth dry. The Sharquoi had hit the front of the Jackrabbit; the back had snapped up into the air and remained there, the frame bent. Mike had kept the Sharquoi from doing any more damage, but it may have been too late.
She watched the readout run through a quick self-assessment as she also hurriedly checking the wiring. “It has power. It’s functional!”
“It will take too long to push it closer,” Jai said, turning back to her.
He stepped forward and grabbed the mount. He ripped it slowly free from what was left of the vehicle. She could hear his power armor groan under the stress, then the shriek of metal as the weapon tore free from the back of the Jackrabbit. The Spartan hoisted it above his shoulder to awkwardly carry the massive cannon, its framing hanging by his chest and waist. This was a death trap, if the enemy got close enough.
“Let’s go, Governor,” he said, voice strained as he thudded forward. Adriana and Mike fell in before him to provide cover and Azikiwe trailed behind with a battle rifle raised.
The Sharquoi had congregated around the Forerunner structure that held Hekabe, evidently attempting to protect the chieftain from Rojka, who they could no longer see in the forest of gray bodies.
Ellis glanced behind to see her fellow Surakans had fallen back to the top of the bridge, which was now covered in viscera from the falling Sharquoi. The militia was attempting to stop Sharquoi from getting across the bridge. Corporal Wyse was bent over one of the few remaining squad members. Her hands dripped with blood as she tried to stop him from bleeding out. But the soldier pulled free to load a rocket-propelled grenade and fired it into the stampeding mass of Sharquoi coming toward them across the bridge.
One of the alien beasts reached the squad. It mercilessly grabbed for Wyse, claws ripping through her stomach and yanking her away from the wounded soldier. He managed to reload again and fired at it, but a second Sharquoi crossed the distance to join the slaughter. It kicked his head in, the gore splattering against the gray hide of its thick feet.
Ellis swallowed bile, wondering how many of the Sharquoi from the surface Hekabe had recalled to his position. Looking up, she saw more coming down the shaft’s side and making their way to the bridge by the second. She patted her side for the pistol she’d been given, but couldn’t pull it free. She realized she couldn’t fumble around with the weapon if she also needed to help with the pulse cannon.
She hurried to keep up with Jai. When she looked back behind her, all she could see were Sharquoi on the top of the bridge.
With her and the envoy at the rear, the Spartans pushed on, battling Sharquoi that broke forward from the huddle around Hekabe. Behind that, deeper into the Forerunner citadel, more chaos erupted as other Sharquoi massed to try and stop Rojka from getting close to Hekabe. Seeing even more of the creatures spilling out of the towers behind them left Ellis feeling dazed.
There are so many.
The entire cavern shook with the thunder of feet, open combat, and Sharquoi falling onto the span from above, many of them killing their own kind in mindless sacrifices.
Rojka, now surrounded by Sharquoi himself, saw the Spartans approach and howled defiance in words that Ellis could not understand.
“Rojka is right,” Jai said, dropping to a knee with the cannon. “This is as close as we get to Hekabe. Governor Ellis, fire it!”
Time felt like it slowed to a halt and everything went silent, like a dream, as Ellis scrambled up to Jai’s side and the jury-rigged cannon’s controls. He had sighted the gauss cannon aimed straight through the entrance at Hekabe, who was screened by a shifting, muscular wall of Sharquoi that he only occasionally appeared through.
A mist of purple blood burst over them as another Sharquoi struck the ground nearby, knocking four other creatures off the ledge and into the lava below. Out of the corner of her eye, Ellis saw yet another one just miss entirely and fall past the edge. A column of yellow and red magma rose from the surface with the impact, spilling across the bridge.
“Governor!” Melody shouted from behind her, panic clear in her voice. Ellis returned her focus to the readout. She could sense that the Sharquoi were close. Deadly close.
She powered up the cannon and quickly set its parameters.
One of the Spartans—she thought it was Mike—narrowly survived a massive blow from two Sharquoi. He was tossed across the ground toward the ledge, his pursuers close behind. Nearest to Hekabe, Rojka disappeared under a sea of corded gray muscle.
Ellis waited a split second for the shifting bulk of Sharquoi to reveal Hekabe, then quickly turned the switch and stabbed the firing button with a thumb.
The cannon whined. The blue Forerunner lighting in the structure ahead of them flickered, the EMP taking its toll. The blast was mostly silent and sightless, invisible to the naked eye.
A few last thuds and roars punctuated the cavern before an eerie silence dropped down over them. The Forerunner structure went dark with only the lava below to light the cavern interior.
Ellis could see enough to know that the cannon had worked. Hekabe stood stunned on the dais, his hammer dropped from his hand, as the Sharquoi suddenly lolled around him. One Sharquoi to her right staggered over to the side of the bridge and simply disappeared over the edge.
“Strike confirmed,” Jai said. “Adriana, Mike! Report!”
“We’re going to get him again, just to be sure.” Ellis quickly reset the keys on the cannon, and fired again. Alarms flashed and buzzed on the weapon’s display. Wisps of smoke rose in the air from burned-out circuits unable to handle the sheer amount of power dumped through them.
She checked the screen of the power unit. “The cannon’s shot. The Havok powering it is still functional though. If it comes to that.”
The Sharquoi still wandered around, ambling as though blind or asleep. Ellis imagined that they were not sure what was happening, having been suddenly yanked free of their neural connection. Whatever it was, they likely had a limited window.
“Governor?” the envoy called out. “Did it work?”
Ellis didn’t answer but ran toward Hekabe, cautiously weaving between the lumbering Sharquoi before they could come to their senses. She passed under the massive Forerunner entrance and through the gate. Behind her, Jai heaved the pulse cannon to the ground and the other Spartans came up from behind, lights on their helmets activated.
She was close, so close now. The Jiralhanae crouched on the ground, vomit and blood pooling in front of him. It seemed as though his injuries were taking their toll without the Forerunner device functioning to hold him together.
This was her chance. Suraka would never be attacked again.
Forcing aside fear, Ellis swung her legs over onto the alien’s back and dug her fingers into the metallic pieces of the Forerunner device that stuck out of his skull. She began to pull. Pieces of the device slowly separated from his head with a sickly ripping sound. They flowed back to and joined each other in her hands as Ellis pulled them free of the Jiralhanae’s skull. Tendrils covered in blood and tissue slid out of Hekabe as Ellis yanked even harder.
“Governor!” Melody shouted.
Dozens of confused Sharquoi scuffled, bellowing and howling behind Ellis. Untold numbers of them filled the great chambers and passageways of the darkened Forerunner structure. They would be shaking free of the last of their confusion. But who knew what they would do when fully unhindered. They were like wild animals.
Ellis used her legs to push against Hekabe’s back to pull the last tendril free. The Jiralhanae cried out in pain as the final section of Forerunner machinery broke away. Ellis fell to the ground holding the device, which looked mangled and strange in her hands as it seemed to struggle to flow back into some memory of an original shape.
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“No!” Hekabe gurgled, clutching at his head as blood gushed down over his face. He slumped over and began to crawl, blindly searching for something.
“The Sharquoi are approaching us!” Adriana shouted.
“Don’t shoot them—they’re confused!” Jai announced. “Stay clear. Even better, stay still if you can!”
But stillness could only last so long. Gunfire lit up the dark near the far ledge, and Ellis caught a glimpse of a Sharquoi chasing down the third Spartan, Mike. He narrowly dodged its blow, but others had now been signaled. They approached threateningly from the side.
The Sharquoi might not be coordinated by Hekabe anymore, but there were hundreds of these things still up above in her city. How many more of her people would die, hunted by the Sharquoi now free of Hekabe’s control? What if Sharquoi found citizens being evacuated? Or the oases?
“It’s time for all this to stop,” Ellis said. She held up the gore-covered device. It shifted around in her hands, coming to life and slithering down her forearm as the Forerunner structure behind her returned to a blue glow. The EMP was wearing off. “My people will be safe once more.”
Ellis held the alien machine over her head and then let go. The Forerunner technology burrowed down through her temple and eagerly wormed its tendrils through her skin and into her skull. She screamed as blood—Hekabe’s and her own—dripped down her face as the artifact bore its way down into her brain.
Rojka scrabbled out from underneath a heap of dead Sharquoi in time to see the Forerunner machine burrow down onto the human governor’s head. As she began screaming, the now dying Hekabe jerked at the sound and fumbled about on the ground. His movements were confused, no doubt due to massive brain damage, as he appeared to look for something.
With a groan, Hekabe managed to stand up with the aid of his gravity hammer, swaying back and forth for a moment. Then he stumbled toward the human. Rojka wasn’t quite sure how the Brute could even survive after what had happened to him, yet Hekabe did, against all odds.
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