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"Hold your course," the Lieutenant ordered.
"Yes, sir," she said, and released the controls. "Fighters one hundred meters and closing."
"Hold your course," Lieutenant Haverson repeated. "They're just taking a closer look," he whispered to himself, "and there's nothing to see. Nothing to see at all."
When the Seraph fighters were only ten meters away, they tumbled to either side of the dropship. Their engine pods flared blue and they looped overhead ... then moved to rejoin the cruisers.
The larger ships passed directly overhead and blotted out the sun. In the darkness, the cockpit lights automatically adjusted
ERIC NYLUND
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and flooded the display panels with the purple-blue frequency the Covenant favored.
The Master Chief realized that he, too, had been holding his breath. Maybe he and Locklear were more alike than he had realized.
He took a closer look at the ODST: The wild, desperate look in his eyes and the flaming-comet tattoo covering his left deltoid seemed almost alien to the Master Chief. The man had survived the Covenant and the Flood on Halo, and he had been lucky and resourceful enough to escape in one piece. True, his emotional responses were uncontained ... but give him the same aug?mentations and a set of MJOLNIR armor and what was the difference between the two of them? Experience? Training? Discipline?
Luck?
John had always felt the other men and women in the UNSC were different; he'd felt at ease only with the other Spartans. But weren't they all fighting and dying for the same reason?
The ruddy light from Epsilon Eridani suddenly filled the cockpit as the two cruisers passed on.
Polaski sighed, slumped forward, and wiped the sweat from her brow.
Locklear reached into his shirt pocket, removed a clean and pressed red bandanna, and offered it to Polaski.
She looked at it for a second, then glanced at the Corporal, then took it. "Thanks, Locklear." She folded it into a headband, flipped her blond hair from her face, and tied it around her forehead.
"No problem, ma'am," Locklear replied. "Anytime."
"Locking onto the signal source," Lieutenant Haverson said. "Course two-three-zero by one-one-zero."
"Two-three-zero by one-one-zero, aye," Polaski said. She gently pushed forward and turned the yoke.
The dropship smoothly banked into a gentle dive. The surface of Reach disappeared from the screens as the dropship entered the thick clouds of smoke that wreathed the planet.
There was a quiet beep, and the display filters activated. A moment later, images resolved on the display screens—hundreds of thousands of hectares of raging firestorms and blackened char where there had once stood forests and fields.
176 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
John tried not to think of this as Reach anymore—it was only one more world the Covenant had taken.
"That canyon," Lieutenant Haverson said and pointed at a fis?sure where the earth had been eroded in a sinuous twisting scar. "Scanners are just picking up surface information. Let's get a closer look."