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John flipped the safety off and then punched in the code to open the Pelican’s tail. The mechanismopened soundlessly in the vacuum. Outside was infinite blackness. He had a feeling of falling throughspace—but the vertigo quickly passed.
He positioned himself on the edge of the ramp, both hands gripping a safety handle overhead.
The Covenant ship was a tiny dot in the center of his helmet’s view screen. He plotted a course and firedthe thruster pack on maximum burn.
Acceleration slammed him into the thruster harness. He knew the others would launch right after him,but he couldn’t turn to see them.
It occurred to him then that the Covenant ship might identify the Spartans as incoming missiles—andtheir point-defense lasers were too damn accurate.
John clicked on the COM channel. “Doctor, we could use a few decoys if Captain Wallace can sparethem.”
“Understood,”she said.
The Covenant vessel grew rapidly in his display. A burst from its engines and it turned slightly.
Traveling at one hundred million kilometers an hour, even a minor course correction meant that he couldmiss by tens of thousands of kilometers. John carefully corrected his vector.
The pulse laser on the side of the Covenant ship glowed, built up energy, until they were dazzling neonblue, then discharged—but not at him.
John saw explosions in his peripheral vision. TheCommonwealth had fired a salvo of her Archermissiles. Around him in the dark were puffballs of red-orange detonations—utterly silent.
John’s velocity now almost matched that of the ship. He eased toward the hull—twenty meters, ten,five . . . and then the Covenant ship started to pull away from him.
It was traveling too fast. He tapped his attitude thrusters and pointed himself perpendicular to the hull.
The Covenant hull accelerated under him . . . but he was dropping closer.
He stretched out his arms. The hull raced past his fingertips a meter away.
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John’s fingers brushed against something—it felt semiliquid. He could see his hand skimming a near-invisible, glassy, shimmering surface: the energy shield.
Damn. Their shields were still up. He glanced to either side. The huge hole in their hull was nowhere insight.
He slid over the hull, unable to grab hold of it.
No.He refused to accept that he had made it this far, only to fail now.
A pulse laser flashed a hundred meters away; his faceplate barely adjusted in time. The flash nearlyblinded him. John blinked and then saw a silvery film rush back around the bulbous base of the laserturret.
The shield dropped to let the laser fire?
The laser started to build up charge again.
He would have to act quickly. His timing had to be perfect. If he hit that turret before it fired, he’dbounce off. If he hit the turretas it fired . . . there wouldn’t be much left of him.
The turret glowed, intensely bright. John set his thrust harness on a maximum burn toward the laser,noting the rapidly dwindling fuel charge. He closed his eyes, saw the blinding flash through his lids, feltthe heat on his face, then opened his eyes—just in time to crash and bounce into the hull.