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It was a tremendous feat of engineering. It was as if the sta?tion's builders had hewn this from a seed asteroid and built the rest of the installation around it.
Will pointed across the room to three Jackals who walked along a catwalk. Blue Team held position and didn't move.
"There," Cortana announced. "Across the platform is a termi?nal on the reactor subsystem."
John held up a hand to Will and Fred, waited for the Jackal guards to pass, and then sprinted across the platform. He re?moved Cortana's chip and inserted it into the terminal.
After three seconds, she reported: "I'm in. Very few Covenant counterintrusion measures in this system. I can accomplish the overload.
"I've found an exit route for Blue Team and uploaded it into your NAV systems," she continued. "It should be stealthy enough for you to return to the repair bay undetected. Once there, give me the order and I can begin. It will take ten minutes for the overload to build. There's no stopping once I start this, Chief, so be sure."
"This station and the Covenant fleet might jump to Earth in the next ten minutes," John said. He looked to Fred and Will, and they nodded as if they could read his mind.
"Proceed with the overload now, Cortana."
ERIC NYLUND
317
The light from the reactors shifted; blue plasma tinged white and spread like a poison through the interconnecting conduits.
"Overload commencing," the copy of Cortana announced. "I suggest Blue Team move at top speed to the exit."
A NAV triangle indicated a ladder that ran to the catwalk overhead. John held up two fingers at Will and Fred and then nodded to the patrolling Jackals. Fred and Will knelt, braced, and waited for him to go ahead.
John climbed the ladder. As he neared the top, three shots rang out behind him. The sound was nearly drowned out by the inten?sifying reverberations from the reactors. He cleared the top of the ladder and saw three dead Jackals on the catwalk. He swept both directions with his rifle and then waved Will and Fred forward.
His countdown timer read 9.47. The heat and light from the re?actors grew stronger, and John's shields flared slightly.
Blue Team jogged down the catwalk to an elevator. They got inside, the doors closed, and the car immediately ascended.
When the doors opened again, artificial blue sunlight filled the car—as did the shadows cast by two Elites waiting for the elevator. Blue Team opened fire and cut down the Elites, leaving a spray of blood across the ground.
The Chief edged around the frame of the elevator door and saw a tangle of pipes and fountains and one of the curious spiral waterways that fell up from its center. This was a heat exchange plant for the reactors below. Already the water in the canals steamed and boiled.
He saw that Covenant Elite and Hunter pairs had converged at the entrance to the temple a hundred meters to his right. Over the temple dozens of Banshee fliers circled the carnage.
A gang of Grunts managed to clear an opening to the temple. There was a flash of light and fire that roiled out in a long plume, burning them as well as their Elite overseers.