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“Put it through to my station, Lieutenant,” Captain Keyes said as he sat in his command chair. Thecomputer scanned his retina and fingerprints and then decoded the message. He read on the smallmonitor:
United Nations Space Command Priority Transmission 09872H-98
Encryption Code:Red
Public Key:file /lightning-matrix-four/
From:Admiral Michael Stanforth, Commanding Officer, UNSCLeviathan / USNC Sector ThreeCommander/ (UNSC Service Number: 00834-19223-HS)
To:Captain Jacob Keyes, Commanding officer UNSCIroquois / (UNSC Service Number: 01928-19912-JK)
Subject:ORDERS FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE CONSIDERATION
Classification:SECRET (BGX Directive)
/start file/
Keyes,
Drop whatever you’re doing and head back to the barn. We’re both wanted for immediate debriefing byONI at REACH Headquarters ASAP.
Looks like the spooks at Naval Intelligence are up to their normal cloak-and-dagger tricks.
Cigars and brandy afterward.
Regards,
Stanforth
“Very well,” he muttered to himself. “Lieutenant Dominique: send Admiral Stanforth my compliments.
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Ensign Lovell, generate a randomized vector as per the Cole Protocol, and make ready to leave system.Take us out for an hour in Slipstream space, then we’ll reorient and proceed to the REACH MilitaryInstillation.”
“Aye, sir. Randomized jump vector ready—our tracks are covered.”
“Lieutenant Hall: start organizing shore leave for the crew. We’re heading back for repairs and somewell-deserved R and R.”
“Amen to that,” Ensign Lovell said.
That wasn’t technically in his orders, but Captain Keyes would make sure his crew got the rest theydeserved. That was the least he could do for them.
TheIroquois slowly accelerated on an out-system vector.
Captain Keyes took one long last look at Sigma Octanus IV. The battle was over . . . so why did he feellike he was headed into another fight?
TheIroquois plowed through a haze of titanium dust—condensed from a UNSC battleplate vaporized byCovenant plasma. The fine particles caught the light from Sigma Octanus and sparkled red and orange,making it look like the destroyer sailed through an ocean of blood.
When there was time, a HazMat team would sweep the area and clean up. In the meantime, junk—ranging in size from microscopic up to thirty-meter sections ofCradle —still drifted in the system.
One piece of debris in particular floated near theIroquois .
It was small, almost indistinguishable from any of a thousand other softball-sized blobs that clutteredradar scopes and polluted thermal sensors.
If anyone had been looking close enough, however, they would have seen that this particular piece ofmetal drifted in the opposite direction from all the other masses nearby. It trailed behind theacceleratingIroquois . . . and edged closer, moving with purpose.
When it was close enough, it extended tiny electromagnets that guided it to the baffles at the base oftheIroquois ’ number-three engine shield. It blended in perfectly with the other vanadium steelcomponents.