Halo_ First Strike - Eric S. Nylund [148]
"Away," John said and looked at the system NAV display. He pointed to the tiny moon orbiting the nearby planet. "Get us into the moon's shadow. But slow. Try not to attract any attention."
His countdown timer read 5:12. They might still have time.
"Roger," Linda said.
The dropship spun about and gently moved away from the station, almost imperceptibly accelerating toward the tiny moon covered with black and silver pockmarks.
Fred hunched over his console. Thick spiky lines representing the Covenant F-through K-bands fluxed and flickered on his screen. "Covenant COM channels are jammed," he reported.
"Communiques and queries to and from every ship in the fleet wondering what the hell is going on. And the station's COM channels are all full of those copied Cortanas ... and she's just repeating different system error codes."
"What's this?" John asked, leaning over Fred's shoulder. He pointed to one COM band with only a single spike.
Fred looked at the Covenant calligraphy for a long moment, and then inhaled sharply. "If the translation software is working right," he whispered, "that's the E-band... it's one of ours."
Fred snapped on the external speakers. Six tones beeped, stopped, and then repeated. "Oly Oly Oxen Free," John breathed. "Send the countersign, Fred."
"Aye, Chief. Sending now."
Who could have sent that signal? There was no other living Spartan in this system. Unless it was Dr. Halsey and Kelly. Had they somehow tracked them?
"It's about time you showed up." The drawling voice of Admiral Whitcomb was loud and clear over the COM. "Switch to encryption scheme 'Rainbow.' "
John nodded to Fred, who ran a shunt from the Covenant COM into the data port in the back of his helmet. "Decryption online," Fred reported.
"Admiral," John said. "With all due respect, sir, why are you here?"
"Lieutenant Haverson suggested we drop out of Slipspace on the edge of this system—hide in the Oort cloud and gather a little intel." The Admiral sighed. "Well, I took one look and figured that even if you took out that station... hell, son, there'd still be a couple of hundred Covenant ships within spittin' distance of Earth. Me getting there and warning them about it wouldn't make a lick of difference. So I'm going to do something about it here and now. You've done your part, Chief. Leave the rest to me."
There was a pause, then the Admiral asked in a low, serious tone, "You did get it done, didn't you, son? You got that station rigged to blow?"
"Yes, sir." John linked his mission timer to the COM. "Four minutes thirty-two seconds and counting."
"Perfect, Master Chief. Bring 'em on back to the barn. Stay on your heading. Your instincts are dead on. We're on the far side of the moon and are waiting for you."
John motioned to Linda to increase their velocity. She pushed the acceleration stripe to three quarters power.
"Waiting, sir?"
"Whitcomb over and out." The COM went dead.
John looked to Will, Fred, and Linda, and they all shrugged.
He pushed the acceleration stripe to full velocity, and the dropship entered a high orbit around the splotchy moon, arcing around to the far side, where the battered Gettysburg waited for them.
But only the Gettysburg.
"Where's Ascendant Justice?" John whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
1825 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military Calendar)\Aboard UNSC vessel Gettysburg, near Covenant battle station Unyielding Hierophant.
The Master Chief and Blue Team stepped off the lift and onto the bridge of the Gettysburg. "Sir—" John started to salute Admiral Whitcomb, but neither the Admiral nor Lieutenant Haverson was there.
The only two on the bridge were Sergeant Johnson, who stared at the forward viewscreens, and Cortana, whose holographic figure burned bright blue and streamed with code symbols and mathematics beyond John's comprehension.
Sergeant Johnson turned toward them. He looked the Spartans over and frowned, noting that not all of them had returned.
"I'm not sure what that thing is." The Sergeant nodded to view-screen one, centered on the Covenant command-and-control