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Kelly's hand bumped into Fred's shoulder, and he recognized it as a consoling gesture. Kelly's razor-edged agility was multi?plied fivefold by the reactive circuits in her MJOLNIR armor. She wouldn't have "accidentally" touched him unless she meant it, and the gesture spoke volumes.
Before he could say anything to her, the Pelican angled and gravity settled the Spartans' stomachs.
"Rough ride ahead," the pilot warned.
The Spartans bent their knees as the Pelican rolled into a tight turn. A crate broke its retaining straps, bounced, and stuck to the wall.
The COM channel blasted static and resolved into the voice of the Longsword's pilot: "Bravo Two-Six, engaging enemy fighters. Am taking heavy incoming fire—" The channel was abruptly swallowed in static.
An explosion buffeted the Pelican, and bits of metal pinged off its thick hull.
Patches of armor heated and bubbled away. Energy blasts flashed through the boiling metal, filling the interior with fumes for a split second before the ship's pressurized atmosphere blew the haze out the gash in its side.
Sunlight streamed though the lacerated Titanium-A armor. The dropship lurched to port, and Fred glimpsed five Covenant Seraph fighters driving after them and wobbling in the turbu?lent air.
"Gotta shake 'em," the pilot screamed. "Hang on!"
ERIC NYLUND 9
The Pelican pitched forward, and her engines blasted in full overload. The dropship's stabilizers tore away, and the craft rolled out of control.
The Spartans grabbed on to cross beams as their gear was flung about inside the ship.
"It's going to be a helluva hot drop, Spartans," their pilot hissed over the COM. "Autopilot's programmed to angle. Re?verse thrusters. Gees are takin' me out. I'll—"
A flash of light outlined the cockpit hatch, and the tiny shock-proof glass window shattered into the passenger compartment.
The pilot's biomonitor flatlined.
The rate of their dizzying roll increased, and bits of metal and instruments tore free and danced around the compartment.
SPARTAN-029, Joshua, was closest to the cockpit hatch. He pulled himself up and looked in. "Plasma blast," he said. He paused for a heartbeat, then added: "I'll reroute control to the ter?minal here." With his right hand, he furiously tapped commands onto the keyboard mounted on the wall. The fingers of his left hand dug into the metal bulkhead.
Kelly crawled along the starboard frame, held there by the spinning motion of the out-of-control Pelican. She headed aft of the passenger compartment and punched a keypad, priming the explosive bolts on the drop hatch.
"Fire in the hole!" she yelled.
The Spartans braced.
The hatch exploded and whipped away from the plummeting craft. Fire streamed along the outer hull. Within seconds the compartment became a blast furnace. With the grace of a high-wire performer, Kelly leaned out of the rolling ship, her armor's energy shields flaring in the heat.
The Covenant Seraph fighters fired their lasers, but the energy weapons scattered in the superheated wake of the dropping Peli?can. One alien ship tumbled out of control, too deep in the atmo?sphere to easily maneuver. The others veered and arced up back into space.