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“Yes, sir,” she said.
Admiral Stanforth’s image appeared in the holotank. His forehead had a gash across it, and bloodtrickled into his eyes. He wiped it away with a shaking hand, his eyes blazing with anger. “Keyes?Where the hell isIroquois ?”
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“Sir,Iroquois is in geosynchronous orbit over Cote d’Azur. We’ve destroyed a Covenant stealth ship andare in the process of intercepting a secure transmission from the planet.”
The Admiral stared at him a moment unbelievingly, then nodded as if this made sense to him. “Proceed.”
“We have a Covenant destroyer leaving the battle . . . bearing down on us. I think the reason for theCovenant’s invasion may be in this coded transmission. And they don’t want us to know, sir.”
“Understood, son. Hang on. The Cavalry’s on its way.”
On the aft screen, the remaining eight UNSC ships broke their attacks and turned toward the incomingdestroyer. Three MAC guns fired and impacted on the Covenant vessel. Its shields only lapsed for a splitsecond; it took a round through her nose . . . but it continued toward theIroquois at flank speed.
“Transmission ended, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique announced. “Cut off in midpacket. The signal wasterminated at the source.”
“Damn.” Captain Keyes considered staying and trying to reacquire that signal—but only for a moment.He decide to take what they had and run with it. “Ensign Lovell, get us the hell out of here.”
“Sir!” Lieutenant Hall said. “Look.”
The Covenant destroyer was changing course . . . along with the rest of the surviving Covenant vessels.They were scattering, and accelerating out of the system.
“They’re running,” Lieutenant Hikowa said, her normal iron calm replaced by astonishment.
Within minutes, the Covenant ships accelerated and vanished into Slipstream space.
Captain Keyes looked aft and counted only seven UNSC ships intact, with the balance of the fleetdestroyed or disabled.
He sat in his command chair. “Ensign Lovell, take us back the way we came. Make ready to take onwounded. Repressurize all uncompromised decks.”
“Jesus,” Lieutenant Hall said. “I think we actually . . . won that one.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. We won,” Keyes replied.
But Captain Keyes wondered exactly what they had won. The Covenant had come to this system for areason—and he had a sinking feeling that they may have gotten what they had come for.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
2010 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar) /Sigma Octanus IV, Cote d’Azur
It was time to arm the nuke.
The small device held the power to destroy Cote d’Azur—wipe the Covenant infection clean off theplanet.
John carefully removed the bonding strips on the HAVOK tactical nuclear device and attached it to thewall of the sewer. The adhesive on the black half sphere stuck and hardened to the concrete. He slippedthe detonator key into a thin slot on the unit’s face. There were no external indicators on the device;instead, a tiny screen winked on his heads-up display indicating the nuke was armed.