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320
HALO: FIRST STRIKE
repair bays. John settled his Banshee next to theirs, turned his
backpack around, reached in, and tossed Fred his last Lotus anti-
tank mine.
"Get that on the window and set for a remote trigger." He then
risked an open COM channel to the copy of Cortana in the
station's system. "Cortana, can you open the air locks in the re-
pair bay?"
A flurry of voices filled the COM, all speaking at the same
time, shouting to be heard over one another ... all Cortana's
voices. One finally broke through. "Chief, I've spun off a copy
dedicated exclusively to communicating with you. Go ahead."
"How many copies are there of you?"
"Unknown. Hundreds. The Covenant AI overwhelmed me.
Had to. This is difficult. Many errors in my systems. Filtering
overall subchannels of information.
"To answer your initial question: yes. I can override safety
lockouts and open the air locks. My systems are fragmenting. I
cannot exist in a coherent state much longer."
John looked out across the kilometers of curving cityscape.
Wraith tanks rolled into the streets; legions of Grunts, Jackals,
and Elites raced from building to building and shot at targets that
weren't there. Banshees and Ghosts buzzed through the air like
clouds of flies.
John's mission countdown timer read 7:45.
"Linda's back there," he told Fred and Will. Fred started to say
something, but John cut him off. "If I'm not back in three min-
utes, blow that window and exit."
Fred hesitated but then nodded.
"I can't leave her," John said and gunned his Banshee's throttle.
"Not if she's still alive."
Dr. Halsey's last words to him resonated in John's mind: I should
have been trying to save every single human life—no matter
what it cost.
He'd get to Linda. He'd get her out alive—or die trying.