Halo: Ghosts of Onyx Read Online Free PDF

risking his life to get them all to safety.
    The Warthog billowed smoke, but its speed slowly increased to forty kilometers an hour. A sharp rattle came from the engine. A tire shredded and the vehicle swerved right and then left.
    Kurt regained control and kept going.
    The AP fire slowed and then stopped.
    "Brace!" Kurt said and downshifted.
    The Warthog barreled through the chain-link and concertina-wire barrier, over gravel
    fields, and into the forest.
    "Road 32-B to the PZ," Kurt said.
    "Road" was a creative overstatement. They bounced along, mowing down trees,
    fishtailing, and spraying mud.
    "Drones!" Kurt told them.
    "Get the hatch open," John ordered. Kelly and Fred pulled the midsection roof panels apart.
    John stuck his head out, and spotted three MAKO-class attack drones jetting toward them, each heavy with a fat missile. One direct hit would take out the Warthog. Even a near miss could destroy an axle.
    Linda popped up, her sniper rifle already in hand and eyes on the scope.
    John and Linda opened fire.
    The lead drone smoked and dropped into the trees. The next drone angled up, bobbing.
    It released its missile, and banked away. A line of smoke appeared, a tail of fire, and a missile accelerated toward them at a frightening rate.
    Linda fired, squeezing off the rounds as fast as the chamber could cycle. The missile started to spin… but it was still dead on course.
    "PZ three hundred meters," Kelly said, consulting her tablet. "Welcome committee has us in their sights."
    "Tell them we have the package," John said, "and we need a hand."
    "Roger that," she said.
    The missile was two kilometers from them—closing fast.
    Ahead, the forest turned into swamp. With a hurricane roar, a UNSC Pelican dropship rose over the treetops and its twin chain guns spat a cloud of depleted uranium slugs at the incoming missile—making it bloom into a flower of fire and smoke.
    "Stand by for pickup, Blue Team," the dropship's pilot said over their COM. "We got incoming single-craft hostiles. So hang tight, and go vacuum protocols."
    "Check suit integrity," John ordered. He remembered Sam
    and how his friend had sacrificed himself, remaining on a Covenant ship under siege because of a breach in his suit. If a single AP round had breached their MJOLNIR, they'd be in a similar jam.
    The Warthog, billowing thick black clouds, rattled to a stop.
    The Pelican settled over it and clamped tight.
    Blue Team came back all green status lights, and John relaxed; he had been holding his
    breath.
    The Pelican lifted the Warthog, laden with Spartans and warheads, into the air.
    "Make secure," the pilot said. "Bogies inbound on vector zero seven two."
    Acceleration tugged at John, but he stood fast, one hand bracing the nukes, the other
    against the punctured side of the Warthog. The clear blue light outside darkened to black and filled with the twinkle of stars.
    "Rendezvous with the Bunker Hill in fifteen seconds," the Pelican pilot announced. "Prepare for immediate out-system Slipspace jump."
    Kurt carefully eased out of the driver's seat and into the midsection to join them.
    "Nice work," Fred told him. "How did you know it was a trap?"
    "It was the guards loading ammunition off the Warthog," Kurt explained. "I saw it at the time, but it didn't register until it was almost too late. Those ammo canisters were marked as armor-piercing rounds. All of them. You wouldn't need that much AP unless you were taking on a few light tanks…"
    "Or a squad of Spartans," Linda said, catching on.
    "Us," Fred remarked.
    Kurt doggedly shook his head. "I should have figured it out sooner. I almost got everyone
    killed."
    "You mean you saved everyone," Kelly said and she butted her shoulder into his.
    "If you ever have another funny 'feeling,'" John told him, "tell me, and make me
    understand."
    Kurt nodded.
    John wondered about this man's "feelings," his instinctive subconscious awareness of the danger. CPO Mendez had made then all train so hard, lessons in