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And if it was the latter possibility, an artifact of another alien race . . . that could be even moreproblematic. Colonel Ackerson and some of the brass had immediately considered the logistics offighting two alien enemies at once. Utterly ridiculous. They couldn’t even fight one. The UNSC couldnever hope to survive a war on two fronts.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Despite the grim conclusions, there was a silver lining in all this.
After the meeting, a new mandate had become the official secret policy of Fleet Command’s Special
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Operations Command—the parent organization for Naval Special Warfare, the Spartans’ service branch.ONI had new marching orders: to step up funding of Intel and reconnaissance missions by an order ofmagnitude. Small stealth ships were to be deployed to search remote systems and find where theCovenant were based.
And Dr. Halsey had finally received the green light to unleash MJOLNIR.
She had mixed feelings about it. The truth be told, she always had.
It would be the culmination of her life’s greatest work. She knew the risks—like spinning a roulettewheel, it was long odds, but the payoff was potentially huge.
It meant victory against the Covenant . . . or the death of all her Spartans.
The holographic crystals overhead warmed and Cortana appeared, sitting cross-legged on Dr. Halsey’sdesk—actually she sat hovering a centimeter off the table’s edge.
Cortana was slender. The hue of her skin varied from navy blue to lavender, depending on her mood andthe ambient lighting. Her “hair” was cropped short. Her face had a hard angular beauty. Lines of codeflickered up and down her luminous body. And if Dr. Halsey viewed her from the right angle, she couldcatch a glimpse of the skeletal structure inside her ghostly form.
“Good morning, Dr. Halsey,” Cortana said. “I’ve read the committee’s report—”
“—which was classified as Top Secret, Eyes Only.”
“Hmm . . . ” Cortana mused. “I must have overlooked that.” She hopped off the desk and circled aroundDr. Halsey once.
Cortana had been programmed with ONI’s best insurgency software, as well as the determination to usethose code-cracking skills. While this had been necessary for her mission, when she grew bored, shecaused chaos with ONI’s own security measures . . . and she often grew bored.
“I assume you have examined the classified data brought back from Sigma Octanus Four?” Halsey asked.
“I might have seen that somewhere,” Cortana said matter-of-factly.
“Your analysis and conclusions?”
“There is much more evidence to consider than the data in the committee’s files.” She looked off intospace as if reading something.
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“Oh?”
“Forty years ago a geological survey team on Sigma Octanus Four found several igneous rocks withsimilar—though not identical—anomalous compositions. UNSC geologists believe that these sampleswere introduced onto the planet via meteorite impacts—they typically are found in long-eroded impactcraters on the planet surface. Isotopic dating of the site place those impact craters at present minus sixtythousand years—” Cortana paused as a hint of a smile played across her holographic features. “—thoughthat figure may be inaccurate due to human error, of course.”