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ERIC NYLUND
325
John spotted a dropship drifting a kilometer ahead, dead in
space.
He clicked his COM once and dropped a NAV marker onto a
Covenant craft. Fred and Will's acknowledgment lights winked on.
John pulsed the Banshee's engines once and let its inertia
carry them to the dropship. He hoped the rest of the Covenant
Fleet was trying to figure out what had just happened... and not
paying any attention to one more piece of debris floating in
space.
The Banshees gently impacted onto the tumbling dropship.
John grasped the hull, and Linda scrabbled over him, opened the
port access hatch, and entered. Fred and Will drifted closer, and
John helped them aboard.
He hesitated and took another look at the Covenant fleet.
Hundred of ships without control. But how long would that last?
Even if the station's reactors chained and blew... the Covenant
still had enough force to destroy Earth's defenses and burn it to a
cinder.
All they had done was buy a little time: as long as it took for
someone to take charge of the Covenant fleet. That wasn't
enough, but John wasn't sure what else to do.
He crawled to the hatch, entered the ship, and sealed it be-
hind him.
Linda stood at the pilot's console while Fred stood beside her
manning the ops station. An engine schematic appeared in front
of Linda, and power pulsed through its plasma coils. The interior
lights dimly glowed.
"Where to, Chief?" Linda asked.
"Away," John said and looked at the system NAV display. He
pointed to the tiny moon orbiting the nearby planet. "Get us into
the moon's shadow. But slow. Try not to attract any attention."
His countdown timer read 5:12. They might still have time.
"Roger," Linda said.
The dropship spun about and gently moved away from the sta-
tion, almost imperceptibly accelerating toward the tiny moon
covered with black and silver pockmarks.
Fred hunched over his console. Thick spiky lines representing
the Covenant F- through K-bands fluxed and flickered on his
screen. "Covenant COM channels are jammed," he reported.