Matt-038 (Halo Fanfiction)

Chapter 66: Escape from Reach

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 66: Escape from Reach

Location: Epsilon Eridani system, tunnel complex below surface of Reach

Date:Time Record Anomaly

Estimated Date: September 23, 2552

Estimated Time: 0640 hours

Matt tensed as he watched the thousands of Covenant crowding on the galleries surround him and his team. He didn't dare move; his team was on the wrong end of too much firepower. They couldn't win this fight.

On the third gallery off the floor of the great room, at the four o'clock position, a Hunter pair roared with anger. They raised their fuel rod cannons and then leveled their weapons—and fired.

Kelly moved before anyone; she was a blur of motion and stepped in front of Dr. Halsey. Matt and Fred moved to either side of Kelly, while Anton grabbed the Admiral and threw the older man behind them.

The blinding white-hot plasma charges struck the Spartans' shields and splashed over their chests. Matt's shield drained completely. The overpressure forced him to take a step backward, and the skin on his forearms blistered.

Then the heat was gone, and he blinked away the black dots that swarmed in his vision. Kelly lay at his feet. Her armor smoldered and hydrostatic gel boiled from the emergency release vent along her left side.

A thousand more shots rang out from the gallery, and John instinctively crouched to cover his fallen comrade. He braced for the inevitable burning energy impact.

Plasma bolts and crystalline needles crisscrossed the galleries overhead, a spiderweb of energy and projectiles. Every shot was directed at the pair of Hunters who had fired upon Matt and his team.

The Hunter pair raised their shields in unison and ducked behind them—the quarter-meter-thick slabs of metal could repel almost any single weapon's fire... but not this merciless barrage.

These mightiest Covenant soldiers burned, their armor and shields ignited as well, and John caught their outlines for only a split second before they were vaporized.

The section of the gallery where they had stood blasted into dust and smoke and the debris rained onto the floor... along with dozens of Grunts and Jackals who had been unfortunate enough to be standing too near the pair.

Three heartbeats pounded in Matt's chest. Neither the humans nor the Covenant hosts in the great room moved.

"What the hell is this?" Sergeant Johnson muttered. "Shouldn't we be dead by now?"

Matt linked to Kelly's biomonitors; she was in shock, and her suit's heat pumps were strained to the failure point. He had to get her to safety.

From the uppermost gallery, a Covenant Elite in golden armor raised its energy sword high into the air and shouted. Translation software in Matt's helmet whispered half a second later: "Take them—but the next one to fire at the holy light will be skinned alive! Go!"

"Holy light?" Crystal questioned. "What the hell is he talking about?"

Dr. Halsey pressed the arm of her glasses tighter against the back of her ear, listening as the built-in translator whispered. "The crystal," she murmured. "They're after the crystal."