Halo_ Ghosts of Onyx - Eric S. Nylund [76]
He retrieved the ONI datapad, newly updated with Covenant translation software, and set it upon the control panel. Purple lights flickered on the panel near the pad as the pad's
network-infiltration programs booted… and it slipped into the Covenant ship's system.
He was in. Just like having Cortana around… without the chatter.
Fred searched intership messages and found an alert: the team unloading the nukes was
overdo to report. A Brute team had been sent to see what was wrong.
Will and Linda took cover inside the dropship's cockpit. Fred wished he could join them. They powered up the ship. It lifted, turned, and backed into the far corner to protect the nukes from the next phase of his plan.
Fred returned to the datapad. He had little time before the entire ship was alerted to the invading army of three.
He scrolled through ship systems and found the icon he needed: an arrow encircling twin dots. Pressurized molecular oxygen. John had shown them that one. Fred overrode the ship's self-seal bulkheads—jammed them open. Every pressure door he secured—ajar. The ONI hackware churned as it stripped away security protocols. He primed the ship's life pods
and froze their air-lock hydraulics.
He flashed his red, amber, and green status lights to give Will and Linda a countdown.
As the green winked off, Fred gripped a handle on the wall and clutched the datapad.
As the amber light dimmed he slaved the controls for the
energy shield on the shuttle bay, the emergency life-pod releases, and the air-lock
overrides.
On red… he punched the master release.
A drum roll of thumps pounded the destroyer's hull.
The shuttle bay's energy shield vanished.
A hurricane pulled at Fred, blew out cargo pods, bodies, tools, small repair ships, and the
bodies of Jackals and Grunts.
He clung to the handle; one side of the metal bar bent and pulled free, but then the tremendous gale subsided. All the air had evacuated into space.
Fred rechecked his atmospheric reserves. They had been in combat and on the COE for a long time where no one was taking tiny breaths. His MJOLNIR suit had seven minutes of air left.
He went back to the datapad and checked: all corridors and rooms read zero pressure.
Unless there were Covenant forces in pressure suits, this ship was a ghost ship now.
Will and Linda joined him.
Fred routed power and the doors slid apart.
Blue Team entered the hallway and quickly made their way toward the bridge. Six dead Brutes lay on the floor. For all their ferocity, even they had to breathe.
Fred halted at another set of pressure doors and accessed the control panels. Linda knelt by his side, sniper rifle butted to her shoulder, aimed at the center of the doors. Will stood on the opposite side, a grenade in each hand, ready to throw.
Fred touched his helmet to the bulkhead, and listened, boosting his aural sensors. Nothing.
He then keyed the doors open.
The oval bridge was empty save for a single Covenant Hunter who miraculously clung to the railing of the command console. Inside the monster's eight-centimeter-thick armor, its body, composed of a colony of eel creatures, had oozed out and freeze dried onto the deck.
The three Spartans checked the life-pod hatches for any sign
of the enemy. Fred saw the open space beyond, stars… and the other Covenant destroyer turning toward them.
He moved onto the command platform and set the datapad in the interface location. Fred had to hurry; he had to move slow, too. Rushing now might cause errors that could cost them more time. It took all he had to focus on language matrices, numbers, and icons.
Will watched from a life-pod hatch, and whispered over TEAMCOM, "Destroyer on intercept vector."
Fred accessed the datapad's memory and got the Slipspace jump solution provided by a NAV Officer on Cairo Station. He hoped the Covenant ship would accept the human mathematics or they'd be stuck here.
Linda joined Will by the open hatch, peering through her Oracle sniper scope. "Ten thousand kilometers and closing fast," she said.
"Arm FENRIS warheads," Fred told