Then, suspicious, he angled his helmet so that the light was playing across the floor directly in front of his feet. That was when he saw the problem—there was no more floor. He didn’t know if the vast gap blocking their way was part of the architecture or if a chunk of it had simply collapsed, but its jagged shape hinted toward the latter. Man, this place was beat to hell. Within moments, he found the other side, but it looked remarkably far away. He wasn’t sure that he could clear it.
	Spartan Holt stepped in behind him. “What do you think?”
	“Can you make it across in one leap?” said N’tho.
	Kodiak didn’t answer immediately. He was running some mental calculations.
	“I think we can,” said Holt, but he didn’t sound terribly sure. “Use our jump-jets, right?”
	The jump-jets were standard-issue thrusters found on their current iteration of Mjolnir armor. They were generally reserved for low-gravity contexts, but in this case, they’d be damn helpful. The main difference between the Spartans and the Elites here was a few hundred kilograms of armor. This was a pretty big deficit, and the Elites knew it.
	“If you wish,” N’tho continued, “We could try to find another way around.”
	But Kodiak cut him off before he could finish the sentence. “I don’t need to find another way around,” Kodiak said in irritation. “We can make it. What about you, though? Perhaps you need to look for another way.”
	N’tho made some sort of odd noise that Kodiak realized was distaste. “I assure you, we can easily make it.”
	“All right,” said Kodiak. “Back up.”
	He began shoving debris into the pit, clearing a path so that he could get enough speed. He listened carefully as it fell, waiting to hear when it struck. Nothing. That’s not good.
	Once he’d finished clearing a lane for himself, he backed up a good six meters and then took a deep breath. N’tho stood to the side, looking utterly disengaged, as if he didn’t care whether Kodiak made it across or not—but then again, that’s how Elites always looked when they weren’t killing things. Zon was also watching intently, however, perhaps toying with the idea that the Spartans might fail and they’d have to explain that to the others.
	Then Kodiak launched like a MagLev freighter, picking up speed with every step. Faster and faster he moved, and then, the instant he hit the edge of the pit, he vaulted—and punched his jump-jets to gain speed—soaring through the air, his arms stretched out in front of him, hoping that he reached the other side before simple gravity took over. As he hurled across the open space, he briefly mused about what bothered him more: the thought of dying or the prospect of coming up short with N’tho watching. If the galaxy somehow survived, Kodiak could just imagine N’tho recounting the story to his brood: I was once on an adventure with an ally, a Spartan who preferred to die in dishonor rather than admitting his limitations.
	And suddenly the floor was under Kodiak. He stumbled forward, the weight of his armor thudding heavily into the ground. He almost fell before he caught himself, and then looked around. He had cleared the jump by more than a meter. I’ll be damned, he thought before calling out, “Who’s next?”
	“Okay, then, coming over now. Step back,” said Holt, who was obviously feeling a bit better about the jump. He matched Kodiak’s starting point, and then broke into a run. Kodiak braced on the other side as Holt vaulted over the space and punched his thrusters at about the midpoint. Kodiak was pleased (and admittedly, somewhat annoyed) to see that Holt landed a full meter past where he himself had hit.
	“Good job, Spartan,” he said to Holt.
	“Thanks.”
	“All right, then,” N’tho called over. “Stand back and give me room.”
	N’tho moved back from the gap, just as Kodiak and Holt had, and started to run. His muscular saurian legs pumped with a fierceness that they had yet to see, accelerating at an astonishing rate. Even Kodiak had to admit that the Elite’s speed would easily carry him across.

Hunters in the Dark Ch 15