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ERIC NYLUND
323
slowed them down—but there was no other way to fit two people
on the craft.
"Coming in hot," John said over the COM to Fred and Will.
"Open the door and get ready for a quick exit, Blue Team."
Fred's acknowledgment light winked on.
"Cortana, breach those air locks. Now!"
A cacophony of voices filled John's COM. There were so
many copies of Cortana speaking at the same time he couldn't
make out anything coherent.
"Cortana, the air locks."
There was apop of static. "Apologies, Chief," Cortana replied.
"I've spun off a dedicated copy to. .. to... speak with you."
John thought she had already made a copy to talk directly with
him. What had happened to it?
"Override the air lock safeties, Cortana. Open the external
and repair bay doors."
"Working, Chief. There's too much system COM traffic. So
many of us. Near saturation level. Have to fight to get. . . Stand
by..."
An explosion appeared a kilometer away along the far wall.
The Lotus antitank mine became a blossom of flame and black
smoke that drifted and diffused and left a spiderweb of cracks on
the meter-thick translucent section.
But the window held.
That Lotus antitank mine could have sheared through that
wall even if it had been reinforced steel, but this wall had re-
mained in one piece.
They were stuck inside.
Three hundred meters to the window.
"Cortana!"
In John's peripheral vision he saw clouds of Banshees and
Ghost fliers gaining on them.
"Cortana—it's now or never!"
"In ..." Cortana's voice was faint. "Intersystem failure
08934-EE. Global system error 9845-W. Resetting. Inner doors
open. Override in progress. System lockdo—"
The COM went dead.
A hundred meters away, beyond the cracked window, the
atmosphere turned white for a split second then cleared. Spaced