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ERIC NYLUND
151
John wiped away the condensation that formed over her
hel-meted head. She was neither dead nor alive. She was in
some twilight place in between.
That uncertainty was worse than seeing her broken and burned
body on Gamma Station. It felt like an open wound in John's
chest.
Linda's prognosis was good. The occupants of the other two
cryopods hadn't made it. Some kind of energy discharge had de-
activated the units, and those inside had died cold bleak deaths.
There was a gentle knock on the hull of the Pelican, and
Sergeant Johnson pulled himself inside. "Master Chief," he said.
"You got the air scrubbers? The remote COM? Polaski says she's
ready to call it a day with that Covenant dropship. We need to get
on board and work."
The Master Chief stood and nodded to the aft hatch, where he
had stripped the air scrubbers and COM from the Pelican.
The Sergeant picked up the gear, and then he and the Chief
crawled out of the Pelican. The Chief hesitated and looked back
atthecryotube.
"Don't you worry about her," Johnson said. "Hell, I been hit
worse and she's three times the soldier I am. She'll pull through."
The Chief sealed the hatch without comment. He had heard the
same hollow promises a hundred times before with critically
wounded men. Why was it that soldiers would face their own
deaths without blinking an eye... but when faced with the death of a
squadmate, they turned away and lied to themselves?
They silently marched across the hangar. It had been cleared
of debris and bodies, and Warrant Officer Polaski had, for the
last six hours, been practicing inside the space with the intact
Covenant dropship. She spun the odd U-shaped craft around on
its center axis, shimmied to port, rose, and then floated down for a
landing.
Johnson squinted his dark eyes at her performance and nod-
ded approvingly. "She says that she's figured out the weapon
controls, too. No way to test them in here, of course."
"Understood," the Master Chief replied. "And the rest of the
team's progress?"
"I've got the doors from here to the bridge and to the engine
room welded shut," Sergeant Johnson told him. "If those tran-