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"Chief," Admiral Whitcomb said "Make sure you come back alive That's an order, son"

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TIME:DATE RECORD [[ERROR]]ANOMALY\Date unknown

\ Captured Covenant dropship near flagship Ascendant Justice, in anomalous Slipspace bubble

The faintly blue luminous walls of the Covenant dropship pressed in, which htly claustrophobic It was ironic when he stopped to think about it, because he was always inside his skintight armor His fellow Spartans sat in the bay be- side hinated Blue-Two on this ht in reat leader and a quick thinker Sometimes he took the respon- sibility of his co too deeply with any wounded ee coravity equipment and mar- tial arts at the UNSC's extreme-conditions facility on Chiron in orbit about Mars He was as much at home in free fall as the rest of thelad to have him on this mission

Anton, Blue-Four, had John worried He spent round He'd cross-trained in tracking, cae, and stealth, and had been used alround-based operations More than once he had expressed discoee situations

Will, Blue-Five, was quiet, but had never failed to coh When he was younger he was the one with the jokes and riddles that kept the tea had hardened in him over the yearsas it had in the special had been lost

Grace, Blue-Six, had a knack for explosives She could shape a charge to cut through a single steel bolt with only a whisper sound, or rig a hundred thousand liters of kerosene to blow into a firestorm from hell Ironically her temper was nonexistent

John opened a COM channel "Give hts winked on

"This reminds me of the underwater mission Chief Mendez sent us on at Eed half our air tanks? And we ended up stealing his"

"And after," Anton said, laughing, "we ditched hi to do but light bonfires, bake clams, and surf"

"Mmrnmm," Grace added, "calamari"

John wondered if Emerald Cove even existed anyo The Covenant had lassed that world

"Blue Team" Polaski's voice broke over the COM "Local conditions are as cal in three

two one!' John felt the acceleration in the pit of his stomach He rose, moved to the hatch, and popped it open Outside, Ascendant Jus- tice's hull ship's polished alloy skin had been scarred by heat and micrometeors; tendrils of metal vapor snaked and shimmered in the vacuu shadow of the inverted UNSC frigate Gettysburg still miraculously attached It was on fire, pock atmosphere, but it was remarkably intact If not for the thousands of dead Naval personnel undoubtedly on board, he ht have christened the ship "lucky"

The dropship slowed and Polaski drifted, turned, and de- scended onto the surface of the ship

"Latch engaged," she said over the COM "All yours, Chief"

"Fred, Grace, and I will reconnoiter," he told Blue Teaet ready to ed fronal"

John eased his boots onto the hull Theirclick

Polaski had landed the Covenant dropship so that its ave them some shelter

Overhead, Slipspace was on fire It looked as if sonited it Bloody, boiling streaks of flaht-blue sky Meteors flashed past and sprayedStardust

A fist-sized projectile blurred past the Master Chief and rammed into the ship's starboard side Sparks and liquefied alloy spattered into space His shields flickered as debris ricocheted from the armor's protective field

They had to alley The quicker they sealed that hole and got out of here--the better

John turned and swept his rifle over the terrain There were bu canyons in the hull A legion of Covenant warriors could hide in thison his motion sensors, either

He stepped close to the main-drive conduit and examined the hole The pipe was five h Cortana had shut it down three ap, with ragged edges that all pointed inward

"If that was from a plasma strike," Grace said, "the metal would have been boiled away If it was froes would be scraped on one side, compacted on the other This hole was deliberately uess is cainal crew still alive

Blue-Three, -Four, and -Five--ed fro an arc welder, while Will and Li maneuvered the three-by-three-meter hull plates

"Fred and Grace, you're on the welders," John ordered "Anton, post on top of the dropship Li, you're at three o'clock Will at nine I'll take the six"

Blue acknowledghts winked on

John helped Fred and Grace set the plates in position Grace and Fred fired up the arc welder, and pinpoints of metal liquefied beneath their tips A shower of sparks swirled around them in the evacuated environment like a swarm of fireflies

"We're in position, Admiral," John reported "ETA for repairs is two er, Chief," Admiral Whitcomb replied Ionization ive the word and get secure--we'll be accelerating iht Just another minute or two

A strealed, crisscrossed Slipspace around the fire fifty meters overhead; it moved port to starboard--and van- ished back into the void

The COM shattered into white noise, and the e shielding of the six Elites who had been slowly--and until atoward their position

"Enemy contacts!" John shouted

He crouched behind the doht the closest Elite dead-center in its chest The gunfire punched through its shielding and then tore into its armor It tumbled backward and spun off the hull

In his peripheral vision John saw the silent lanced back; Fred and Grace hadn't moved They stared at the beads of molten alloy under their arc welder's tip