第183页

　　"You're  good,"  she  told  him.
　　John  then  returned  the  favor  and  examined  her  suit.  Fred  and  Will  had  done  an  excellent  job  integrating  the  replacement  parts  into  Linda's  armor.  Aside  from  their  pristine  condition,  they  were  a  perfect  match.
　　He  patted  her  on  the  shoulder  and  gave  her  a  thumbs-up  to  in?dicate  that  her  armor  was  in  working  order.
　　"Ordnance  load  out,"  Grace  said  and  unraveled  the  duffel  bags  they  had  tied  to  the  hull.  The  packages  had  been  wrapped  with  lead  foil,  layers  of  thermal  padding,  and  then  a  layer  of  utility  tape.  "Heavy  or  light?"  she  asked.
　　"We  go  in  heavy,"  John  said.  "Except  Linda."
　　Linda  started  to  object,  but  he  explained,  "We'll  need  you  to  hang  back  and  cover  us  with  your  sniper  rifle.  I  want  you  fast  and  deadly.  Take  a  close-range  weapon,  extra  ammo,  and  whatever  you  need  to  keep  your  sniper  rifle  working  in  the  field."
　　"Roger,"  Linda  said.  Her  voice  was  cold,  hard,  and  brittle.  This  was  the  voice  John  had  heard  as  she  reported  in  while  snip?ing  targets  around  the  team.  John  sometimes  found  it  a  little  too  cold...  but  he  knew  this  was  a  good  sign.  Linda  was  preparing  to  do  what  she  did  best:  kill  with  a  single  shot.
　　"The  rest  of  us  will  take  whatever  we  can  carry.  Once  we're  in  I  have  a  feeling  we  won't  be  able  to  come  back.  If  we  have  to,  we  can  always  lighten  our  load."
　　300 HALO:  FIRST  STRIKE
　　The  Chief  grabbed  a  battle  rifle  and,  for  close  use,  a  pair  of  submachine  guns.  He  took  a  pair  of  silencers  for  the  SMGs  and  hip  holsters  for  the  smaller  weapons.  He  picked  up  a  dozen  frag  grenades  in  their  plastic  ring  carrier  and  slotted  that  into  the  left  thigh  section  of  his  armor.
　　He'd  need  ammunition,  a  lot  of  it,  if  things  got  hot.  So  he  took  extra  clips  for  the  SMGs  and  the  battle  rifle  and  taped  them  onto  his  chest,  arms,  and  right  thigh.  More  clips  went  into  a  back?pack,  along  with  two  Lotus  antitank  mines,  a  few  cans  of  C-7  ex?plosive,  detonators,  timers,  two  field  first-aid  kits,  and  a  fiber-optic  probe.
　　While  the  rest  of  Blue  Team  got  their  gear  together,  John  told  them,  "Stay  off  the  COM  from  now  on."
　　They  all  nodded.
　　Lead  lining  or  not,  they  were  close  to  too  many  listening  Covenant  ears  to  take  any  more  chances  with  the  COM.
　　He  moved  to  the  still-open  port  hatch,  slid  the  fiber-optic  probe  outside,  and  plugged  it  into  his  helmet.  Grainy  images  ap?peared  on  his  heads-up  display.
　　Hundreds  of  Covenant  ships  swarmed  into  view.  In  their  midst  a  speck  glowed  and  grew  larger  until  the  Master  Chief  saw  it  was  a  ship  of  similar  design  to  their  own:  two  U-shaped  hulls,  each  the  size  of  their  dropship,  sat  on  top  of  one  another.  This  ship  accelerated  toward  them  and  separated—one  part  moved  to  their  dropship's  stern  and  the  other  drifted  to  the  nose.
　　The  clanging  of  metal  on  metal  reverberated  through  the  hull,  and  the  Master  Chief  felt  a  gentle  motion  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach.
　　He  looked  back  and  passed  on  a  thumbs-up  to  Fred,  indicating  that  their  tow  had  arrived,  and  Fred  passed  this  signal  on  to  the  rest  of  the  team.