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He marched toward the edge of the launch bay and stood a centimeter from where the ship's energy shield abutted the open?ing to the space beyond. He looked directly into the vast blue fields and the giant warships far too close for his liking.
"We jumped to Slipspace, didn't we?" Lieutenant Haverson asked uncertainly.
"Yes," Dr. Halsey replied. "And no."
She withdrew the crystal from her lab coat pocket and frowned as she discovered that it was no longer a slender shard. The facets had rearranged like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle... but in a configuration that differed from the one the artifact displayed in the Covenant grav beam. This time it was a starburst of edges and refracted light.
214 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
"We jumped," she said, examining her reflection in the arti-fact's mirrored planes. "But not to the Slipspace we know."
The Master Chief's radiation counter clicked and a shrill alarm screamed through his helmet.
"Secure that, Anton," he said and nodded toward the glowing stone. "Get it into the reactor compartment of the Pelican."
Anton relieved the crystal from Dr. Halsey, who only reluc?tantly released it from her grasp. He sprinted toward the wrecked Pelican.
"There was a radiation surge, Doctor," the Chief explained. "And that thing is the source." The Chief noticed that the inten?sity of the radiation did not drop off as Anton moved it into the Pelican.
"Whatever it is," Dr. Halsey said as she scrutinized the blue field outside their ship, "it warps space. When we first ap?proached it in the great room, space curled around the crystal. And again in the grav beam, it dispersed that field potential."
"And now?" Admiral Whitcomb asked. "This tiling is affect?ing our passage through Slipspace?"
"Apparently so," Dr. Halsey said, and stepped next to John to get a better look outside.
The Admiral joined her and watched as the Covenant ships' turrets heated. "Can they even fire those things in Slipspace? If they can, we're sitting ducks."
The Master Chief could make out more ships in the distance. The Covenant vessels flickered, faded, disappeared, and then reappeared in the fog. The nearest enemy Covenant ships fired. Amorphous balls of superheated gas belched from their turrets and accelerated toward them, tingeing the blue space purple.
The Master Chief saw Locklear as he helped Polaski out of the Covenant dropship. He kept her hand in his, and they watched together as the plasma sped toward them.
The balls of plasma streaked on—then curled and spiraled off their trajectories. Several simply winked out of existence, only to reappear somewhere else. The enemy shots raced up, down, sideways—any direction but toward Ascendant Justice.
"What the hell is this?" Sergeant Johnson said and he stepped next to the Master Chief to watch the display. "I didn't think their ships could fire in Slipspace. Ours sure as hell can't."
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Dr. Halsey removed her glasses, and her eyes widened. "Nor?mally, they can't. If they can fire, then logically, we're not in Slipspace. And wherever we are," she murmured, "the rules have changed."