第48页

　　"Another  hit  like  that  will  breach  the  hull,"  Cortana  said.  "Moving  this  tub  at  flank  speed."
　　"The  power  coupling  coordinates,  Cortana,"  the  Master  Chief  insisted.
　　A  route  appeared  on  his  heads-up  display.  The  engineering  rooms  were  twenty  decks  below  the  bridge.
　　"Those  won't  do  you  any  good,"  Cortana  told  him.  "There  are  bound  to  be  Elite  hunt-and-kill  teams  waiting  for  you.  And  even  if  you  managed  to  remove  them,  there  is  no  way  to  re?pair  the  power  coupling  in  time.  We  don't  have  the  tools  or  the  expertise."
　　ERIC  NYLUND 77
　　The  Master  Chief  looked  around  the  bridge.  There  had  to  be  a  way.  There  was  always  a  way—
　　He  leaned  over  the  edge  of  the  central  platform  and  grabbed  one  of  the  Covenant  Engineers  that  cowered  below.  He  dragged  it  up  by  its  float-sack.  The  creature  squirmed  and  squealed.
　　"Maybe  we  don't  have  the  expertise,"  he  said  and  shook  the  Engineer.  "But  this  thing  does.  Can  you  communicate  with  it?  Tell  it  what  we  need?"
　　There  was  a  pause.  Then  Cortana  replied,  "There  is  an  exten?sive  communications  suite  in  the  Covenant  lexic—"
　　"Just  tell  it  I'm  taking  it  to  fix  something."
　　"All  right,  Chief,"  Cortana  said.
　　A  stream  of  high-pitched  chirps  emanated  from  the  bridge  speakers,  and  the  Engineer's  six  eyes  dilated.  It  stopped  squirm?ing  and  grabbed  hold  of  the  Master  Chief  with  its  tentacles.
　　"It  says  'good'  and  'hurry,'  "  Cortana  told  him.
　　"Everyone  else  stay  here,"  the  Chief  said.
　　"If  you  insist,"  Haverson  muttered,  his  face  pale.  Blood  trick?led  from  the  wound  in  his  chest.
　　The  Master  Chief  looked  at  Johnson  and  Locklear.  "Don't  let  the  Covenant  retake  the  bridge."
　　"Not  a  problem,  Chief,"  Sergeant  Johnson  said.  He  stopped  to  kick  the  dead  Elite  once  in  the  teeth,  then  slapped  a  fresh  clip  into  his  MA5B.  He  yanked  the  weapon's  charge  handle,  fed  a  round  into  the  chamber,  and  stood  at  arms.  "Those  Covenant  sissies  are  going  to  have  to  tango  with  me  before  they  set  one  foot  in  this  room."
　　On  the  display  two  of  the  Covenant  cruisers  fired  again.
　　The  Chief  watched  as  the  plasma  raced  toward  them,  fire  that  spread  across  the  black  of  space.  "Cortana,  buy  me  some  time,"  he  said.
　　"I'll  do  what  I  can,  Chief,"  Cortana  told  him.  "But  you'd  better  move  fast.  I'm  running  out  of  options."
　　Cortana  was  annoyed.  She  had  let  the  Covenant  AI—for  that's  what  this  other  presence  in  the  system  undoubtedly  had  to  be—  trick  her.  She  had  gone  straight  for  the  simple  lockdown  of  the  NAV  systems.  She  never  performed  a  thorough  systems  check
　　78 HALO:  FIRST  STRIKE
　　of  the  ship,  assuming  that  there  had  only  been  one  point  of  sabo?tage.  It  was  a  mistake  she  would  never  have  made  if  she'd  been  operating  at  full  capacity.
　　She  checked  every  system  of  the  flagship.  She  then  locked  them  out  with  her  own  security  measures.
　　Cortana  turned  off  her  feelings  of  anger  and  guilt  and  concen?trated  on  keeping  the  ship  in  one  piece,  and  the  Master  Chief  alive.  No...  she  reconsidered  and  kept  her  emotions  active.  The  "intuition"  provided  by  this  aspect  of  her  intelligence  template  was  too  valuable  to  deactivate  in  a  battle.