Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [125]
finest moment . . . but he knew that it might also be their last moment. Chief Mendez had said that a leader would be required to spend the lives of those under his command.
The Master Chief knew he would lose comrades today—but would their deaths serve a necessary purpose . . . or would they be wasted?
Either way, they were ready.
John tapped the thrusters and rotated the Pelican dropship 180 degrees. He pushed the engines to full power to brake their forward momentum. ThePillar of Autumn had dropped them while she had been cruising at one-third full speed.
They’d need every millimeter of the ten thousand kilometers between them and the docking station to slow down.
The Master Chief had taken the Spartan’s modified Pelican, rigged with explosives. The station would be locked down—every airlock sealed. They’d have to blast their way in.
He glanced aft. Linda checked one of the three sniper rifle variants she had brought. James inspected his thruster pack.
He had picked Linda because no other single Spartan was as efficient at long-range combat. And that’s what the Master Chief wanted:long -range combat. If it came to hand-to-hand combat in zero gee with hordes of Covenant troopers . . . even his luck wouldn’t hold out too long.
He had picked James because James had never quit. Even when his hand had been burned off, he had shrugged off the shock—at least for a while—and helped them dispatch the Covenant behemoths on Sigma Octanus IV. The Master Chief would need that kind of determination on this mission.
He took a long look out the front of the Pelican. Their sister dropship initiated a burn and hurtled toward Reach.
Kelly, Fred, Joshua . . . all of them. Part of him longed to join them in the ground action.
The radar panel blinked a proximity warning; the Pelican was one thousand kilometers from the docking ring.
The Master Chief tapped the thrusters to align the dropship. He squelched the proximity alert.
The alert immediately re-sounded. Strange. He reached for the squelch again—then stopped as he saw the space around the Pelican change. Motes of green light appeared, pinpoints at first, which swelled like bruises on velvet black space. The green smears lengthened, compressed, and distorted the stars.
—a Slipstream entry point. The Master Chief cut the Pelican’s engines, slowing them for impact. A Covenant frigate materialized a kilometer from the dropship’s nose. Its prow filled their view screen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
0616 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNSC Pelican dropship, Epsilon Eridani System near Reach Station Gamma
“Brace for maneuvering!” the Master Chief barked. The Spartans dove for safety harnesses and strapped in. “All secure!” Kelly shouted. The Master Chief killed the Pelican’s forward thrusters and triggered a short, sudden reverse burn. The
Spartans were brutally slammed forward into their harnesses as the Pelican’s acceleration bled away.
The Master Chief quickly shut down the engines. The tiny Pelican faced the Covenant frigate. At a kilometer’s distance, the alien ship’s launch bay and pulse laser turrets looked close enough to touch on the view screen; enough firepower to vaporize the Spartans in the blink of an eye.
The Master Chief’s first instinct was to fire their HE Anvil-II missiles and autocannons—but he checked
his hand as he reached for the triggers. That would only attract their attention . . . which was the last thing he wanted. For the moment, the alien vessel ignored them—probably because the Master Chief had shut down the Pelican’s engines. But the ship also seemed dead in space: no lights, no single ships launched, and no plasma weapons charging.
The dropship continued toward the docking station, their momentum putting distance between them and the frigate.
Space around the Covenant ship boiled and pulled apart—and two more alien ships appeared. They, too, ignored the dropship. Was it too small to bother with? The Master Chief didn