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Then the heat was gone, and he blinked away the black dots that swarmed in his vision. Kelly lay at his feet. Her armor smol?dered and hydrostatic gel boiled from the emergency release vent along her left side.
A thousand more shots rang out from the gallery, and John in?stinctively crouched to cover his fallen comrade. He braced for the inevitable burning energy impact.
Plasma bolts and crystalline needles crisscrossed the galleries
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overhead, a spiderweb of energy and projectiles. Every shot was directed at the pair of Hunters who had fired upon John and his team.
The Hunter pair raised their shields in unison and ducked be?hind them—the quarter-meter-thick slabs of metal could repel almost any single weapon's fire ... but not this merciless bar?rage. These mightiest Covenant soldiers burned, their armor and shields ignited as well, and John caught their outlines for only a split second before they were vaporized.
The section of gallery where they had stood blasted into dust and smoke, and the debris rained onto the floor ... along with dozens of Grunts and Jackals who had been unfortunate enough to be standing too near the pair.
Three heartbeats pounded in John's chest. Neither the humans nor the Covenant hosts in the great room moved.
"What the hell is this?" Sergeant Johnson muttered. "Shouldn't we be dead by now?"
John linked to Kelly's biomonitors; she was in shock, and her suit's heat pumps were strained to the failure point. He had to get her to safety.
From the uppermost gallery a Covenant Elite in golden armor raised its energy sword high into the air and shouted. Translation software in John's helmet whispered half a second later: "Take them—but the next one to fire at the holy light will be skinned alive! Go!"
Dr. Halsey pressed the arm of her glasses tighter against the back of her ear, listening as the built-in translator whispered. "The crystal," she murmured. "They're after the crystal."
Teams of Elites dropped slithering, plasticine ropes, which glowed a ghostly blue. They rappelled to the floor. A hundred Grunts squealed with excitement and danced from one foot to the other. Jackals followed their Elite leaders on the ropes.
"Polaski!" Admiral Whitcomb shouted into his COM. "Get down here ASAP! We need immediate extraction!"
"Roger that," Polaski replied in her cool never-flinch Navy flier voice.
Fred, Grace, and Anton turned and fired three-round bursts straight up as a team of Elites tried to descend on their position. The Elites fell, spattering purple blood across the tiled floor.
202 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Dr. Halsey stuffed the alien crystal into her lab coat pocket and knelt next to Kelly. She checked her vitals on the data pad and shook her head. She looked at John, her expression grim. "She's alive ... barely. She needs help."
"Let's not be rude," Admiral Whitcomb barked. "Welcome our guests, Master Chief!"
"Perimeter fire," the Master Chief ordered. "Keep it tight. Dispersion pattern Delta. Go!"