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HALO: FIRST STRIKE
impacted a water tower, and the structure detonated into a cloud
of blinding steam.
John punched the Banshee through the cloud, glanced down,
and saw a Wraith tank tracking his trajectory. He ducked and
weaved but kept moving toward Linda's probable location.
His mission countdown timer read 7:06. There was no time for
fancy evasive maneuvers.
Did Linda even want to be found? Maybe she wanted him to
get to safety and leave her behind? It's what he would have done.
"Position report, Linda," John barked over the COM. "That's
a direct order."
Three seconds ticked off his mission clock and then the
six-tone "Oly Oly Oxen Free " song whistled through John's
speakers and a NAV marker appeared on his heads-up display.
The triangular marker centered on a rope that ran between two
transit tubes and dangled perilously close to the high-intensity
light beam. It was a barely discernible thread that ran through a
hard shadow cast by a nearby catwalk.
John hit his image enhancers. Through the glare of the light,
and in the depths of the shadow, he caught the flicker of reflected
optics.
Linda used both the brilliant light and the darkness to hide.
John angled the Banshee to her. He clipped the tether line
from his belt to the frame of the Banshee and squeezed his thighs
tighter onto the seat.
When he was thirty meters away, he made visual contact.
Linda had the rope coiled about a boot and wrapped about one
forearm. She held her sniper rifle in one arm, and John could
only surmise that she had been firing from such an impossible
position.
She uncoiled the rope from her boot, swung, released at the
apex of the arc—and fell toward him.
John forced the Banshee's cowling up against straining hy-
draulics and stretched out his arm, his fingers touched hers—
and her hand slapped firmly into his gauntlet.
He swung her around and over his shoulder. Linda landed in
front of him, straddling the seat.
John spun the Banshee about and accelerated back to the win-
dows. The craft's forward cowling remained wrenched up and