Halo Lighting System First Strike Games - Manual (Page 41)

ERIC NYLUND 37
on universal joints—enough firepower to gut any ship in the
UNSC fleet.
"Picking up encrypted transmissions from new contact,"
Cor-tana whispered. "Descrambling... lots of chatter... orders
being given to the cruisers. It appears to be directing the
Covenant fleet operations in the system."
"A flagship," the Chief murmured. "Interesting."
"Scan still in progress, Chief. Stand by."
John got out of the sysops seat. He had no intention of just
"standing by" with seven Covenant warships in the system.
He drifted to the aft compartment of the Longsword fighter.
He'd assess what equipment was on board. He might get lucky
and find a few of those Shiva nuclear-tipped missiles.
As he had seen when he first boarded the ship, the cryotube
had been removed. He wasn't sure why, but maybe, like every-
thing else on the Pillar of Autumn, the ship had been stripped
down and upgraded for their original high-risk mission.
Where the cryo unit was supposed to be there was a new con-
trol panel. The Chief examined it and discovered it was a Moray
space-mine laying system. He didn't power it on. The Moray
system could dispense up to three dozen free-floating mines.
The mines had tiny chemical-fuel drives that allowed them to
keep a fixed position or move to track specific targets. These
would come in handy.
He moved to the weapons locker and forced it open—it was
empty.
The Chief checked his own assault rifle: fully functional, but
only thirteen rounds remained in the magazine.
"Got something," Cortana said.
He returned to the sysops seat. "Show me."
On the smallest viewscreen, a silhouette appeared: a small,
bullet-shaped cone with maneuvering thrusters on one end.
"It could be a cryotube," Cortana said. "Thruster and power
packs can be affixed on their aft sections for emergencies... if a
ship has to be abandoned, for example."
"And most of the crew on the Pillar of Autumn never had a
chance to be revived from cryo," the Chief said. "They could
have been jettisoned before the ship went down. Move us toward
them. Docking thrusters only."