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John didn't understand what he saw—the optical probe must have malfunctioned. The image looked impossibly distorted. But there was no motion nearby ... so he risked poking his head out.
He was in the end of an alley with walls towering ten meters to either side, casting dark shadows over the waste access hole. A
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group of Jackals passed the mouth of the alley only five meters from his position. He ducked ... and none of the vulturelike creatures saw him in the dark.
When they passed he looked up and saw that the fiber-optic probe had not been broken after all.
The space station was hollow inside, and a light beam shot lengthwise through its center: a blue light that provided full day?light illumination. Along the curved inner surface were needle-thin spires, squat stair-step pyramids, and columned temples. Catwalks with moving surfaces crisscrossed the space, as did tubes with capsules that whisked passengers. Water flowed along the walls in inward-spiral patterns and then waterfalled "up" into great hollow towers that sprouted from the opposite wall.
Banshees flew in formation through the center space of the great room, as did flocks of headless birds and great clouds of butterflies. It could have been an Escher etching come to life.
John felt extreme vertigo for a moment. Then he understood that with advanced Covenant gravity technology, there didn't have to be an up or down here.
Odd that a military station would have so much unnecessary ornamentation. Yet Fleet HQ had a large atrium in their lobby. Maybe this was the Covenant equivalent—multiplied a hundredfold.
John spied a band of translucent material set into a far wall, glistening. "Is that the window to the repair bays, Cortana?"
"Correct," she replied.
"Then at least we know the way out. And the structure we need to enter?"
"One o'clock," she said. "The one with the carved columns. It is the most direct route to the reactor chambers."
John moved out of the hole and hugged the nearby wall. The shadows in the bright daylight would do a decent job of camou?flaging them.
"Okay, Blue Team. Get oriented... as much as you can. Our target is the columned building at one o'clock. I make it to be a three-hundred-meter sprint across open ground. We'll make a break for it. Unless anyone has a better plan?"
Linda emerged, looked around, and said, "Permission to post on the rooftop and provide cover."
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"Do it," John said. "Let me know when you're in position and ready."
Linda retrieved a padded grappling hook and rope from her pack, twirled it, and tossed it up and over the adjacent roof. She tugged it once, it caught, and then she quickly ascended.
The remaining Spartans joined John in the shadows. He shouldered his battle rifle and thumbed the safety off.
Linda's acknowledgment light winked once.
John tensed and ran. It took him three strides to build to his top-speed sprint. His adrenaline spiked and it made his blood burn. He felt time slow, his perception running at an overclocked pace. He focused on speed—putting one foot in front of the other. His boots dug into cobblestones, crushed rock, and sent a fine spray of gravel behind him. He saw three obstacles in his path: a group of startled Grunts. He slammed the butt of his rifle into the nearest one, and crushed its skull. The dead Grunt spun end over end and landed in a heap. He heard squawks and shouts around him but didn't stop to look.