Halo_ First Strike - Eric S. Nylund [68]
"My apologies, Doctor," Fred said and unceremoniously scooped Dr. Halsey up in his arms. "Everyone move! Vinh, Isaac, drop those det sacks to cover our tracks."
Their acknowledgment lights winked on.
Will and Fred ran, weaving from side to side. Dr. Halsey clutched
onto Fred with one arm, and in her free hand she clutched the crystal. Fred's motion tracker showed dozen of targets behind them, then hundreds.
A pair of detonations thumped, an overpressure wave blurred his motion tracker, subsided, and then half of those contacts were gone.
Will and Fred ran into an arched passage set in the wall of the great room. Kelly crouched in the hallway and fired past them with her pistols.
Fred opened his COM. "SPARTAN-029. SPARTAN-039. Acknowledge." Static hissed through his speaker. Vinh's and Isaac's lights remained dark.
"Prep your det sack and seal this passage," Fred ordered Kelly.
Fred set down Dr. Halsey, turned, and bumped up his display's magnification.
Hundreds of Covenant Elites and Jackals poured from the grav shaft. They swarmed over the floor of the great chamber, a living tide as unstoppable as the ocean.
They weren't shooting anymore, though. Dr. Halsey was correct: They wanted the crystal she'd taken.
"Go!" Fred said. "Kelly, blow the hallway. Let's move."
Kelly hesitated a heartbeat; Fred saw her searching for Vinh and Isaac in the mass of Covenant. They weren't there; not alive anyway. Kelly dropped the olive-green satchel of high explosives. Will picked up Dr. Halsey, and they all ran deeper into the corridor.
Five seconds later the satchel detonated. A wave of acrid air washed up the hallway and choked the corridor with dust and smoke.
Kelly took the lead position, both pistols ready; she rounded a corner—and skidded to a halt. The passage was a dead end.
SECTION 3
RESCUE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
0455 hours, September 23,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Captured Covenant flagship, in Slipspace, location unknown.
John brushed off the frost buildup that clouded the top half of the cryotube, and revealed the green-armored figure sprawled behind the plastasteel shell.
SPARTAN-058. Linda.
She'd been mortally wounded during the raid on Gamma Station, just before Reach fell. He'd dragged her burned, limp body back to the Pillar of Autumn, and the medics had placed her in deep cryostasis just before the jump.
When the Autumn crashed on Halo, Keyes must have jettisoned the active cryotubes—standard operating procedure.
They had frozen her while she'd still been in her suit. That was for the best, considering the extent of her injuries ... but he would have given anything to see her face one last time.
Linda had been unique among the Spartans with her bloodred hair and dark emerald eyes, but her appearance was not what set her apart. She was the unit's best sniper-scout and could hit targets the rest of them couldn't. While the other Spartans preferred to operate as a team, Linda was content to separate, hide and post in some remote location, and wait for days for the single, critical shot that could turn the tide of battle. Although snipers in the UNSC were always trained to function in pairs, a shooter and a spotter, Linda was the exception to that rule—she had proven time and again that she was most effective on her own. If any one of the Spartans could be called a "lone wolf," it was Linda. In many ways that made her the strongest of them.
To see her like this ...
John wiped away the condensation that formed over her helmeted head. She was neither dead nor alive. She was in some twilight place in between.
That uncertainty was worse than seeing her broken and burned body on Gamma Station. It felt like an open wound in John's chest.
Linda's prognosis was good. The occupants of the other two cryopods hadn't made it. Some kind of energy discharge had deactivated the units, and those inside had died cold bleak deaths.
There was a gentle knock on the hull of the Pelican, and Sergeant Johnson pulled himself inside. "Master Chief," he said. "You got the air scrubbers? The remote