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It was a short distance to the burned-out bridge, where a Covenant security team was on duty. Word had been passed: They knew the human was on his way, and opened fire the moment they saw him.
Once again the Spartan made use of a grenade to even the odds—then crushed the head of an Elite with his fist. The alien’s head was turned to pulp and its body collapsed like a puppet with no strings. The armor gave him enough strength to flip a Warthog over. Then, just when he thought the battle was done, a Grunt shot him in the back. The audible went off as his armor sought to recharge itself. A second shot, delivered with sufficient speed, would kill him.
Time seemed to slow as the Master Chief turned toward his right.
The Grunt, who had been hiding inside an equipment cabinet, froze as the armored alien not only survived what should have been a fatal shot, but turned to face him. They were only an arm’s length away from each other, which meant that the Master Chief could reach out, rip the breather off his assailant’s face, and close the door on him.
There was a loudclick followed by wild hammering as the Chief made his way forward to the spot where Captain Keyes had issued his orders. Cortana appeared over the control panel in front of him. Everywhere the AI looked she saw burned-out equipment, bloodstained decks, and smashed viewports.
She shook her head sadly. “I leave home for a few days, and look what happens.”
Cortana brought a hand up to her semitransparent forehead. “This won’t take long— There, that should give us enough time to make it to the lifeboat, and put some distance between ourselves and Halobefore detonation.”
The next voice the Chief heard belonged to 343 Guilty Spark. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”
Cortana groaned. “Oh, hell.”
The Chief brought his weapon up but saw no sign of the Monitor or his Sentinels. That didn’t prevent the construct from babbling in his ears, though—the AI had tapped into his comm system. “Ridiculous! That you would imbue your warship’s AI with such a wealth of knowledge. Wouldn’t you worry that it might be captured? Or destroyed?”
Cortana frowned. “He’s in my data arrays—a local tap.”
Though nowhere near the bridge, the Monitorwas on board, and flitted from one control panel to the next, sucking information out of Cortana’s nonsentient subprocessors with the ease of someone vacuuming a set of drapes. “You can’t imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all our lost time. Oh, how I will enjoy every moment of categorization. To think that you would destroy this installation, as well as this record . . . I amshocked . Almost too shocked for words.”
“He stopped the self-destruct sequence,” Cortana warned.
“Why do you continue to fight us, Reclaimer?” Spark demanded. “You cannot win! Give us the construct—and I will endeavor to make your death relatively painless and—”
The rest of 343 Guilty Spark’s words were chopped off as if someone had thrown a switch. “At least I still have control over the comm channels,” Cortana said.