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ERIC NYLUND
203
climbed. There were thousands of them—on the floor, clinging
to the walls, overflowing the galleries. They looked like a swarm
of angry ants.
The hatch sealed and the Master Chief moved forward, toward
the cockpit. As he passed through the compartment, he saw
Kelly. She was slumped over; thin trails of smoke curled from
the holes in her armor.
He helped Dr. Halsey strap Kelly down. Halsey's eyes locked
onto the wounded Spartan's erratic vitals as they squiggled across
her data pad. She set the elongated crystal next to Kelly... but it
didn't lie flat. It defied gravity, floating—one sharp, slender end
pointed at the surface.
"How very odd," Halsey whispered.
John had to agree; it was unusual. Almost as odd as being un-
der the guns of a thousand angry Covenant soldiers—yet none
of them had fired a shot.
"Take care of her," he told Dr. Halsey, then he stood and made
his way to the cockpit.
Polaski hunched over the controls. She pushed the Covenant
dropship into a hyperbolic ascent and entered the hole in the
ceiling of the great room. The Master Chief grabbed hold of the
walls and braced himself.
The dropship, however, slowed and pitched forward so it was
once again horizontal.
"Problem," Polaski announced and rapidly tapped the controls.
"Big problem."
The purple light of the grav beam in the hole darkened; it
seemed to fade from view... but it also began to hurt to look at.
"They're pushing us back," Admiral Whitcomb said. "Li,
crawl topside and launch a couple of Jackhammers up this pipe."
"Yes, sir," Li replied—eager to return to the fight. He nodded
at John, grabbed a Jackhammer rocket launcher, and moved to
the hatch.
The Admiral frowned and shook his head. "No way a rocket
will make it up a kilometer of this tunnel. Gotta try anyway."
The dropship stopped rising, bobbed in place a moment, and
slowly sank back down through the tunnel.
Li opened the side hatch. The intense purple light from the
grav beam flooded the interior of the ship.