Halo_ First Strike - Eric S. Nylund [106]
SECTION 5
MASSACRE AT ERIDANUS SECUNDUS
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TIME-.DATE RECORD [[ERROR]]ANOMALY\Date unknown\Captured Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, in anomalous Slipspace bubble.
The Master Chief woke.
Consciousness, however, was a slight overestimation of his condition. His blurry vision came into focus slowly... but there was nothing to see except the interior of his visor. Amber status lights winked on.
Pain washed over his feet, his right thigh, and his hand. Good. He was alive. He knew from previous experience that this was the tail end of shock ... and the stunning, numbing effects of that state were wearing off.
He felt the familiar weight and reactive circuits of his MJOLNIR armor surrounding him. The coppery-tinged flavor of biofoam coated his mouth, so he also surmised that his injuries had been recently treated.
And there was gravity. The press against his back was a great comfort to the Master Chief. The next time someone wanted him to go on a zero-gee op, he'd—
"Welcome back," Cortana said, interrupting his thoughts. A faint light flickered on to his left.
He turned onto his side. The burns on his extremities protested and shot lances of pain up his hand and feet.
He was in a med bay. The lights were turned down low, and he saw that he was the only person occupying a recovery bed. Biomonitors pulsed along one wall, displaying his vital signs and MRI snapshots.
A holographic projection pad stood next to his bed. Cortana's tiny figure, strobing with symbolic logic code, waved to him, and when he didn't immediately respond she crossed her arms impatiently. "MRIs show no concussion, no subdural or epidural hematomas. You must have a thicker skull than I thought."
"Where am I?"
"Deck thirty-two on the UNSC frigate Gettysburg" Cortana told him. "Or what's left of it, anyway." "What happened?" Cortana sighed. "Are you referring to what happened since I
left you on Reach? Or the outcome of the Slipspace battle? Or do you mean what happened since that battle?" "The battle, first," he said and struggled to get up. "I presume we won."
Standing was too painful, though, and the strength seemed to have been drained from his muscles. He eased himself back to his original horizontal position.
Cortana's pale blue light dimmed and her gaze dropped to the deck. "Blue Team successfully repaired the main-engine conduit." "I remember," the Master Chief murmured. "The repair part of it, at least. There was an explosion..."
"A plasma bolt," Cortana corrected. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Chief, but only you and SPARTANS-093, -043, and -104 survived that blast."
Grace, Will, and Fred were alive, but Li, Anton, and Warrant Officer Polaski had been killed in action. He remembered Po-laski's scream, then Anton's outline as the flash of white-hot fire swept over the hull.
"Acknowledged," he said as graciously as he could muster, but he heard bitterness give an edge to his voice.
It struck him as odd that Polaski's death affected him as well. He'd seen thousands of UNSC soldiers die. She hadn't hesitated to transport Blue Team on a mission that was insanely dangerous. She had survived the battle of Reach, the crash landing on Halo, the Flood, and everything else—then she had bravely volunteered for this mission, too, and perhaps saved all their lives.
She might have made a good Spartan. There were worse eulogies. The Master Chief sighed, called up his team roster on his heads-up display, and marked Anton and Li as Missing in Action.
He paused to view all the others on that list; his first and best friend, Sam, was there ... and he hadn't even realized a dozen more had been listed as MIA.
He saved the changes to the roster and closed the file.
"What about Kelly and Linda?" he asked Cortana.
Cortana looked up and flipped the hair from her luminous eyes. She paced a small circle on the holographic pad and then said, "SPARTAN-087, Kelly, is recovering from second-degree burns on seventy-two percent of her body. Doctor Halsey has accelerated tissue regrowth with dermacortic steroids. She