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“Yeah,” the Admiral muttered. “I’ve seen that, too. All right, Keyes, good work. You’ll get everythingwe can send.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You just hang in there, son. Good luck. FLEETCOM out.”
The view screen snapped off.
“Sir?” Lieutenant Hall turned around. “How many Covenant ships?”
“I’d estimate four medium-tonnage vessels,” he said. “The equivalent of our frigates.”
“FourCovenant ships?” Lieutenant Jaggers muttered. “What canwe do?”
“Do?” Commander Keyes said. “Our duty.”
“Begging the Commander’s pardon, but there arefour Cov—” Jaggers began to protest.
Keyes cut him off with a glare. “Stow that, mister.” He paused, weighing his words. “Sigma OctanusFour has seventeen million citizens, Lieutenant. Are you suggesting that we just stand by and watch theCovenant glass the planet?”
“No, sir.” His gaze dropped to the deck.
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“We will do the best we can,” Commander Keyes said. “In the meantime, remove all weapons systemlocks, order missile crews to readiness, warm up the MAC guns, and remove the safeties from one of ournukes.”
“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Hikowa said.
An alarm sounded at ops. “Reactor hysteresis approaching failure levels,” Lieutenant Hall reported.“Superconducting magnets overloading. Coolant breakdown imminent.”
“Vent primary coolant and pump in the reserve tanks,” Commander Keyes ordered. “That will buy usanother five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Commander Keyes fumbled with his pipe. He didn’t bother to light the thing, just chewed on the end.Then he put it away. The nervous habit wasn’t setting the right example for his bridge officers. He didn’thave the luxury of showing his apprehension.
The truth was, he was terrified. Four Covenant ships would be an even match forseven destroyers. Thebest he could hope for was to get their attention and outrun them—hopefully distract them until the fleetgot here.
Of course . . . those Covenant ships could outrun theIroquois as well.
“Lieutenant Jaggers,” he said, “initiate the Cole Protocol. Purge our navigation databases, and thengenerate an appropriate randomized exit vector from the Sigma Octanus System.”
“Yes, sir.” He fumbled with his controls. He hung his head, steadied his hands, and slowly typed in thecommands.
“Lieutenant Hall: make preparations to override reactor safeties.”
His junior officers all paused for a second. “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Hall whispered.
“We’re receiving a transmission from the system’s edge,” Lieutenant Dominique announced.“FrigatesAlliance andGettysburg are on an inbound vector at maximum speed. ETA . . . one hour.”
“Good,” Commander Keyes said.
That hour might as well be a month. This battle would be over in minutes.
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He could not fight the enemy—he was severely outgunned. He couldn’t outrun them, either. There hadto be another option.
Hadn’t he always told his students that when you were out of options, then you were using the wrongtactics? You had to bend the rules. Shift perspective—anything to find a way out of a hopeless situation.