Halo_ First Strike - Eric S. Nylund [134]
He saluted them and they returned the salute.
"Just one last order," the Admiral said.
"Sir?"
"Give'em hell."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
0530 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military Calendar)\Aboard captured Covenant dropship, in Slipspace.
The dropship rolled, inverted, and spun out of control. It tumbled and pitched, and one of the I-beams solidly welded to the hull bucked and snapped.
The Spartans of Blue Team were strapped to the hull in quick-release harnesses. No one, however, gave any thought to the red quick-release button in the center of their chests. They were all hanging on for their lives.
The forward monitor was black because there was nothing for them to see in Slipspace. The only light inside the dropship came from chemical light sticks activated and tossed inside before they departed. Those plastic sticks had cracked, and their luminous contents had balled into a million microscopic blobs in the zero gee.
Although the hydrostatic gel inside his MJOLNIR armor had been pressurized to its maximum safe value, John's bones still felt as if they were being shaken apart.
This violent ride started when they had cleared Ascendant Justice's launch bay and entered the inky void of Slipspace. This "normal" Slipspace was nothing like John had experienced before. Without the smoothing effect of Dr. Halsey's alien crystal—this ride was a thousand times worse.
Radiation levels spiked and dipped... but so far the dosages getting into the lead-lined dropship were survivable. "Now I know," Linda said, "why only big ships travel through Slipspace."
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"You know those SS probes?" Fred asked. "They're almost solid Titanium-A."
The Master Chief checked his team's biosigns: erratic but still within normal operational parameters. Grace's heart skipped a beat or two, but then returned to a normal strong rhythm. No broken bones or signs of internal bleeding yet, either. It was also a good sign that Blue Team were reasonably calm about their dire situation. The Chief knew it was all they could do until they cleared the Slipspace field generated by Ascendant Justice.
He ran a diagnostic on his MJOLNIR shields. They still recharged faster than they were drained by the ambient radiation that stormed invisibly around them. He wished the real Cortana were with him. She would have said something to distract him.
"Status?" John asked. Four blue acknowledgment lights winked on, and four Spartans gave him thumbs-up signals.
Fred chimed in, "This isn't so bad. The last insertion I made, we hit the ground before the dropship. Now, that was a rough ride. We were—"
The dropship lurched violently and cut off Fred's story. Cracks appeared along the armor welded to the port wall. Molten lead oozed from the rupture.
Despite the hydrostatic gel and the padding, a jolt slammed the Master Chief's head against the front of his helmet with force enough to make black stars explode in his eyes. Another jolt slammed his head into the back of his helmet. The inside of the dropship went entirely dark.
"Chief? Chief?" Cortana's voice whispered through his helmet speaker. "Chief, respond please."
John's vision came into focus. His biosigns sluggishly pulsed on his heads-up display. Beyond the display, it was completely dark. He activated his external lights and pointed his head along the interior of the dropship.
His Spartans hung limp in their harnesses. Aside from spheres of lead that had melted under the hull armor, resolidified, and now floated like champagne bubbles in the interior of the vessel, there was no other discernible motion.
"We made it?"
"Affirmative," the cloned Cortana answered. "I'm picking up a tremendous volume of Covenant COM traffic on the F-through K-bands. They've pinged us three times already for a response, Chief. Awaiting orders."
"How can you pick up any signal inside this lead-lined hull?"
"The hull is breached in many sections, Chief. The COM traffic is also unusually strong, indicating extremely close