Halo: Indelible Past/Chapter Fourteen

David Kahn kept his pistol trained on the hallway in front of him, keenly aware that the young woman behind him was also armed and not exactly friendly.

"How do you know Nimue?" she asked for the fifth time. "When did you train her?"

"Not too long ago," he said vaguely. It was best to use her curiosity against her; as long as she wanted to know more about Nimue, she'd want to keep him alive. "If we all make it out of this, I'll tell you more."

The doctor didn't answer. She was a professional after all, or at least an ex-professional. For all her youth, there was more to this altruist--and David rarely met anyone worthy of the term--than met the eye. He knew trained soldiers when he met them, and this one had definitely been trained by someone. The only question was by whom.

They passed room after empty room, stripped bare by looters and rebels as the UNSC's net had tightened across the city. Yuri Rosch might have been the least subtle agent in the history of the Office of Naval Intelligence, but he was ruthlessly thorough. David was beginning to wonder if the good commander hadn't held off on the hospital's demolition for just this purpose, to hound him until he took refuge there and then send in the Spartans to finish the job.

David came up short at the end of the hallway as it opened into a large atrium. Shadowy stairways leading up into one of the hospital's upper towers circled the walls, the glass paneling beneath their railings glistening dully in the bad light.

"This was where she called in last," the doctor told him, faceless behind her broad-visored helmet. She gestured up at the stairways with her own pistol. "She's probably taking cover up there."

"Not if this is the same Nimue I trained," David replied. He was already scanning the upper tower, his helmet's filters piercing the darkness in search of movement. "Too easy to be pinned down. No, she's somewhere else."

"Then I'll call her. We get her, then pull back. I won't fight Spartans."

"Smart," David replied, but there was an edge to her voice that told him her refusal was more than just self-preservation. He was already trying to decide what he'd say to Nimue. It had been three years. Three years since...

And then an explosion tore through one of the upper stairways.



"Hooked in?" Felix asked Team Jian.

Both S-IIIs nodded as they mounted the railings and gripped their rappel lines. Felix opened the com channel to Rosch.

"We're about to descend," he reported. "Is everything ready?"

"The militia units are preparing to clear the first floor," the commander replied. "We will begin issuing the demolition warning in two minutes."

"Copy that." Rosch would be giving everyone in the building a chance to surrender to the militia before he did what he did best: blast the entire hospital into next week. Jian's task would be to get down to the front floor as quickly as possible. If they engaged Kahn on the way, excellent. If not, he would have nowhere to run but into the troops securing the first floor.

"Haven't done a rapid descent in a while," Jake admitted over the team channel. "Hope the railing holds."

"On my signal," Felix ordered, climbing up alongside Jian. He was keenly aware of how much heavier his armor made him than the SPI-clad Jian commandos. The railing groaned under their combined weight.

"Descend!" he barked, and then they dropped. The floors slid past them as they clattered against railing after railing, the ground growing closer with every stop.

Felix glanced down again. Only about twenty meters to the atrium floor.

The air was suddenly filled with smoke and fire, blasting all three Spartans clear off their rappel lines and sending them hurtling towards the ground.