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ERIC NYLUND
297
"Affirmative," the cloned Cortana answered. "I'm picking up
a tremendous volume of Covenant COM traffic on the F- through
K-bands. They've pinged us three times already for a response,
Chief. Awaiting orders."
"How can you pick up any signal inside this lead-lined hull?"
"The hull is breached in many sections, Chief. The COM traffic
is also unusually strong, indicating extremely close proximity of
Covenant forces."
"Stand by," he told her. He hit the quick release on his harness
and floated free. He called up Blue Team's biosigns and found
them all unconscious, but alive. He grabbed a first-aid kit, in-
jected them each with a mild stimulant, and released them from
their safety restraints.
"Where are we?" Will asked.
The Master Chief looked instinctively to the forward moni-
tors, but they were dead. "There's only one way to find out," he
replied. "I'll take the portside hatch. Fred, you're on the
starboard."
"Roger, Blue-One," Fred replied.
The Chief rotated the manual release of the hatch and it eased
open. Beyond was the velvet black of space, filled with stars that
shone yellow and amber and red. He clipped a tether onto his
suit and then onto the hull and leaned out the hatch.
As Cortana had indicated, there were Covenant forces in close
proximity. A cruiser glided silently past them three hundred me-
ters away. All John could see was its silver-blue hull, its plasma
turrets with their lateral lines aglow with fire, and the flare of its
engine cones as it passed... and then John saw the rest of them.
There were Covenant cruisers and larger carriers; there were
even bigger vessels with five bulbous sections that were two
kilometers stem to stern and had a dozen deadly energy projec-
tors. Motes of dust swirled between the numerous ships: Seraph
fighters, dropships, and tentacled Engineer pods.
"How many ships," he asked Cortana, "are we looking at?"
"Two hundred forty-seven warships," she replied. "Estima-
tion of the total population based on the sampling from your lim-
ited field of vision puts that total number at more than five
hundred Covenant warships."
For the first time the Chief froze; his gauntlets locked onto the