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The Longsword's engine roared to life, the hull creaked with stress, and everyone leaned against the acceleration.
The Pelican pulled ahead, rounded the horizon of the moon first, and arced back into the debris field. As the Longsword fol?lowed, the light struck the surface of the moon just right and the Chief saw meteors rain upon the planetoid, leaving craters and tiny puffs of dust as they impacted.
Polaski snapped the display port camera centered on the Covenant cruisers. "They were waiting for us," she cried. "Eva?sive maneuvers." The Pelican rolled to starboard. "Accelerating to the flagsh—"
The flagship was close. Too close. It must have anticipated their orbital trajectory. But it hadn't counted on them turning straight toward it. If they hadn't, the flagship would have been in a perfect perpendicular firing position.
"Pelican now two hundred kilometers in the lead," Pola?ski said.
The bulky craft drew fire from the cruisers. Smoke trailed from its hull, and bits of the empty ship were vaporized.
"Mines away," Haverson announced. "Plugging coordinates and trajectories into NAV, Polaski. Don't run them over."
"Roger," she said. "Hang on—we're going in."
"I hate this crap," Locklear muttered. "Ships shooting each other, fire so thick you could walk on it to the LZ, and me sittin' here not able to do a damn thing but hang on and wonder when I'm going to get blown up."
ERIC NYLUND
55
The Chief said nothing, but he agreed. Despite the ODST's foul disposition, he shared his uneasiness with space combat.
"Amen," Sergeant Johnson added. "Now shut up and let the lady drive." He removed a mission record unit from his pocket and inserted a chip. The screen blanked; a rhythmic cacophony blasted from its single tiny speaker.
The Chief recognized the sound as "flip" music—a descen?dant of some centuries-old noise called "metal." The Sarge had peculiar tastes, to say the least.
"Just shoot me now, Sarge," Locklear protested, "and get it over with. Don't torture me with that crap first."
"Suck it up, Marine. This is a classic."
"So's a mercy killing."
Polaski continued to evade, and the Longsword rolled and jinked port and starboard. She sent the ship into a double barrel roll'to dodge a plasma torpedo fired from the flagship.
"Show-off," Cortana muttered in the Chief's helmet speaker.
"Connecting to the Covenant battlenet," Cortana announced over the ship COM. "Accessing their weapons systems. Stand by."
Ahead, the Pelican intercepted a second torpedo and burst into flames, vaporized, and smeared across the night as a cloud of sparkling ionized metal.
The flagship appeared on the forward viewscreen—no larger than a dinner plate.
"No more time to play around," Polaski muttered. She hit the afterburners and rocketed toward the flagship.
The sudden acceleration sent the Chief and Sergeant Johnson bouncing to the aft of the Longsword. Locklear still hung on to the frame, now nearly horizontal.
"There is now insufficient distance to decelerate and make a soft landing inside the flagship launch bay," Cortana warned.