第23页
Another ship rounded the horizon of Basis. It was larger than any Covenant ship the Master Chief had seen. It had the sleek three-bulbed shape of one of their destroyers, but it must have been three kilometers long. Seven plasma turrets were mounted
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on universal joints—enough firepower to gut any ship in the UNSC fleet.
"Picking up encrypted transmissions from new contact," Cor-tana whispered. "Descrambling... lots of chatter... orders be?ing given to the cruisers. It appears to be directing the Covenant fleet operations in the system."
"A flagship," the Chief murmured. "Interesting."
"Scan still in progress, Chief. Stand by."
John got out of the sysops seat. He had no intention of just "standing by" with seven Covenant warships in the system.
He drifted to the aft compartment of the Longsword fighter. He'd assess what equipment was on board. He might get lucky and find a few of those Shiva nuclear-tipped missiles.
As he had seen when he first boarded the ship, the cryotube had been removed. He wasn't sure why, but maybe, like every?thing else on the Pillar of Autumn, the ship had been stripped down and upgraded for their original high-risk mission.
Where the cryo unit was supposed to be there was a new con?trol panel. The Chief examined it and discovered it was a Moray space-mine laying system. He didn't power it on. The Moray system could dispense up to three dozen free-floating mines. The mines had tiny chemical-fuel drives that allowed them to keep a fixed position or move to track specific targets. These would come in handy.
He moved to the weapons locker and forced it open—it was empty.
The Chief checked his own assault rifle: fully functional, but only thirteen rounds remained in the magazine.
"Got something," Cortana said.
He returned to the sysops seat. "Show me."
On the smallest viewscreen, a silhouette appeared: a small, bullet-shaped cone with maneuvering thrusters on one end.
"It could be a cryotube," Cortana said. "Thruster and power packs can be affixed on their aft sections for emergencies... if a ship has to be abandoned, for example."
"And most of the crew on the Pillar of Autumn never had a chance to be revived from cryo," the Chief said. "They could have been jettisoned before the ship went down. Move us toward them. Docking thrusters only."
38 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
"Course plotted," Cortana said. "Thrusters engaged."
There was a slight acceleration.
"ETA twenty minutes, Chief. But given the Covenant cruis?ers' current search pattern, I estimate they will encounter the pod infive minutes."
"We need to move faster," the Chief told her, "but without fir?ing the engines. The drive emissions will show up like a flare on their sensors."
"Hang on," Cortana said. "I'll get us there."
The Chief donned his helmet and locked its atmosphere seals. Status lights pulsed green. "Ready," he said.
The aft hatch of the Longsword breached and slammed open. There was an explosive sound as the atmosphere vented. The Longsword jumped forward; the Chief's head slammed into the back of his helmet.