Oblivion - Gauss Cannon 2

By then the Wraiths were slowing to a halt and swinging their noses toward Sarpesi Ridge. Their only weapons capable of returning fire across the kilometer-wide Samalat Gorge were their plasma mortars, and those were mounted on fixed bases that required the vehicle to face its target.

Linda and Kelly each hit the CBV with a second burst, riddling the operators’ cabin with star-shaped holes and coating the remnants of the shattered canopy in Jackal blood.

A volley of white mortar shells arced away from the four Wraiths closest to the CBV. Too slow. Kelly and Linda were running for their next position before the rounds reached their zenith. John and Fred opened fire, each targeting the operators’ cabin. Flames and smoke started to billow out through the shattered canopy, so they ran their second bursts down the cargo cylinder.

The bridging vehicle veered sharply toward the gorge, but John had no intention of hanging around to see what happened. Scooping up the Gauss cannon in both arms, he launched himself from his scrape like a sprinter out of the blocks. There was no anti-infantry attack quite as horrifying as a plasma strike, which unleashed such a searing blast that anything inside the impact zone was flash-incinerated, while anything nearby by was merely knocked down and immolated. John had seen direct hits reduce concrete bunkers to swirling clouds of white-hot dust and near-misses leave men standing on smoking pegs of charred bone.

- Halo: Oblivion, Chapter 2