Matt-038 (Halo Fanfiction)

Chapter 67: Slipspace Bubble

Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

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Chapter 67: Slipspace Bubble

Location: Aboard captured Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, in Slipspace

Date:Time Record Anomaly Error

Date Unknown

Time Unknown

"Cortana?" Matt asked. "What's our status?"

Matt and the rest of his team scrambled out of the Covenant dropship. Fred carried a semiconscious Kelly out and laid her on the deck of the launch bay.

"Same as ever," Cortana replied. "We're in trouble."

Video feed from the ship's external cameras appeared on Matt's heads-up display. Covenant cruisers surrounded them, their plasma turrets aglow; they reminded Matt of pictures he had seen of fish that lived at the bottom of Earth's oceans—swarms of phosphorescing lights and razor-sharp teeth.

He marched toward the edge of the launch bay and stood a centimeter from where the ship's energy shield abutted the opening to space beyond. He looked directly into the vast blue fields and the giant warships far too close for his liking.

"We jumped to Slipspace, didn't we?" Lieutenant Haverson asked uncertainty.

"Yes," Dr. Halsey replied. "And no."

She withdrew the crystal from her lab coat pocket and frowned as she discovered that it was no longer a slender shard.

The facets had rearranged like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle... but in a configuration that differed from the one the artifact displayed in the Covenant grav beam. This time it was a starburst of edges and refracted light.

"We jumped," she said, examining her reflection in the artifact's mirrored planes. "But not to the Slipspace we know."

Matt's radiation counter clicked and a shrill alarm screamed through his helmet. "Secure that, Anton," he said and nodded toward the glowing stone. "Get it into the reactor compartment of the Pelican."

Anton relieved the crystal from Dr. Halsey, who only reluctantly released it from her grasp. He sprinted toward the wrecked Pelican.

"There was a radiation surge, Doctor," Matt explained. "And that thing is the source."

Matt noticed that the intensity of the radiation did not drop off as Anton moved it into the Pelican.

"Whatever it is," Dr. Halsey said as she scrutinized the blue field outside their ship, "it warps space. When we first approached it in the great room, space curled around the crystal. And again in the grav beam, it dispersed that field potential."

"And now?" Admiral Whitcomb asked.

"This tiling is affecting our passage through Slipspace?"

"Apparently so," Dr. Halsey said and stepped next to Matt to get a better look outside.

The Admiral joined her and watched as the Covenant ships' turrets heated. "Can they even fire those things in Slipspace? If they can, we're sitting ducks."

Matt could make out more ships in the distance. The Covenant vessels flickered, faded, disappeared, and then reappeared in the fog. The nearest enemy Covenant ships fired.