第52页

　　A  needier  skidded  to  a  halt  a  meter  away.  It  was  cracked,  its
　　ERIC  NYLUND 83
　　energy  coil  dim.  The  Master  Chief  grabbed  it—ducked  as  an?other  plasma  bolt  singed  over  his  head.  He  withdrew  to  the  cover  of  the  bracing  support.  He  tried  to  activate  the  weapon.  No  luck.  It  was  dead.
　　The  Engineer  snaked  a  tentacle  around  the  weapon  and  tugged  it  away  from  John's  grasp.  It  cracked  the  case  and  peeled  the  housing  open.  The  tip  of  one  of  its  tentacles  split  into  a  hun?dred  needle-fine  cilia  and  swept  over  the  inner  workings.  A  mo?ment  later  it  reassembled  the  weapon  and  handed  it,  grip  first,  to  the  Master  Chief.
　　The  needier  hummed  with  energy,  and  the  glassine  quills  the  weapon  fired  glowed  a  cool  purple.
　　"Thanks,"  he  whispered.
　　The  Engineer  chirped.
　　The  Master  Chief  edged  around  the  brace.  He  waited,  needier  held  tightly  in  his  hand,  and  became  completely  still.  He  had  all  the  time  in  the  world,  he  told  himself.  No  need  to  rush.  Let  the  enemy  come  to  you.  All  the  time—
　　A  Grunt  poked  its  nose  over  a  crate,  trying  to  spot  its  enemy;  it  took  a  blind  shot  down  the  corridor  and  missed.
　　The  Master  Chief  remained  where  he  was,  raised  the  needier,  and  fired.  A  flurry  of  crystal  shards  propelled  down  the  passage  and  impaled  the  Grunt.  It  toppled  backward,  and  the  shards  detonated.
　　The  Master  Chief  waited  and  listened.  There  was  nothing  ex?cept  the  gentle  thrumming  of  the  reactor.
　　He  moved  down  the  corridor,  weapon  held  before  him  as  he  cleared  the  room.  He  was  careful  to  watch  for  the  faint  rippling  of  air  that  would  alert  him  to  the  presence  of  camouflaged  Elites.  Nothing.
　　The  Engineer  floated  behind  him,  and  then  accelerated  toward  the  disengaged  power  coupling.  It  hissed  and  chittered  as  it  rapidly  manipulated  a  small  square  block  of  optical  crystal,  un?scrambling  the  internal  circuit  pathways.
　　"Cortana,"  he  said.  "I've  gotten  to  the  coupling.  The  Engineer  appears  to  know  what  it's  doing.  You  should  have  power  for  the  Slipspace  generator  in  a  moment."
　　"It's  too  late,"  Cortana  told  him.
　　CHAPTER  NINE
　　1827  hours,  September  22,2552  (Military  Calendar)  \  Aboard  unidentified  Covenant  flagship,  uncharted  system,  Halo  debris  field.
　　The  flagship  plunged  through  Threshold's  churning  atmo?sphere.  Cortana  could  not  hold  the  ship's  attitude.  It  wobbled  and  blasted  a  fiery  scar  through  the  clouds,  slowly  rolling  to  port  on  its  central  axis.
　　Without  shields,  the  flagship's  hull  continued  to  heat  to  seven?teen  hundred  degrees  Celsius.  The  nose  glowed  a  dark  red,  which  spread  into  an  amber  smear  along  the  midsection  and  be?came  a  white-hot  plume  at  the  ship's  tail.  Conduits  and  feathery  antenna  arrays  melted,  separated,  and  left  a  trail  of  molten  metal  in  an  explosive  wake.  Shocks  rippled  along  the  frame  as  the  overpressure  shed  off  the  bow  in  waves.  The  friction  from  the  planet's  dense  atmosphere  would  shred  the  ship  in  a  matter  of  seconds.
　　"Cortana,"  the  Master  Chief  said.  "I've  gotten  to  the  coupling.  The  Engineer  appears  to  know  what  it's  doing.  You  should  have  power  for  the  Slipspace  generator  in  a  moment."