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The hull plates were smooth, but had grooves and odd, organic crenellations—perfect fingerholds. Thedifference between his momentum and the ship’s nearly pulled his arms out of their sockets. He grittedhis teeth and tightened his grip.
He had made it.
John pulled himself along the hull toward the hole theCommonwealth ’s MAC round had punched in theship.
Only two other Spartans waited for him there.
“What took you so long?” Sam’s voice crackled over the COM channel. The other Spartan lifted herhelmet’s reflective blast shield. He saw Kelly’s face.
“I think we’re it,” Kelly said. “I’m not getting any other responses over the COM channels.”
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That meant either the Covenant ship shielded their transmissions . . . or there were no Spartans left tocommunicate with. John pushed that last thought aside.
The hole was ten meters across. Jagged metal teeth pointed inward. John looked over the edge and sawthat the MAC heavy round had indeed passed all the way through. He saw tiers of exposed decks,severed conduits, and sheared metal beams—and through the other side, black space and stars.
They climbed down.
John immediately fell down on the first deck.
“Gravity,” he said. “And with nothing spinning on this ship.”
“Artificial gravity?” Kelly asked. “Dr. Halsey would love to see this.”
They continued inward, scaling the metal walls, past alternating layers of gravity and free fall, until theywere approximately in the middle of the ship.
John paused and saw the stars wheel outside either end of the hole. The Covenant ship must be turning.They were engaging theCommonwealth .
“We better hurry.”
He stepped onto an exposed deck, and the gravity settled his stomach—giving him an up-and-downorientation.
“Weapons check,” John told them.
They examined their assault rifles. The guns had made the journey intact. John slipped in a clip of armor-piercing rounds, noting with pleasure that the suit immediately aligned the sight profile of the gun withhis targeting system.
He slung the weapon and checked the HE warhead attached to his hip. The timer and detonator lookedundamaged.
John faced a sealed set of sliding pressure doors. It was smooth and soft to his touch. It could have beenmade of metal or plastic . . . or could have been alive, for all he knew.
He and Sam grabbed either side and pulled, strained, and then the mechanism gave and the doorsreleased. There was a hiss of atmosphere, a dark hallway beyond. They entered in formation—coveringeach other’s blind spots.
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The ceiling was three meters high. It made John feel small.
“You think they need all this space because they’re so large?” Kelly asked.
“We’ll know soon,” he told her.
They crouched, weapons at the ready, and moved slowly down the corridor, John and Kelly in front.They rounded a corner and stopped at another set of pressure doors. John grabbed the seam.