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Chief McRobb knew, though, there had been another military base that was once thought too strong toattack—and the military had paid the price for their lack of vigilance. He wasn’t about to let Reachbecome another Pearl Harbor. Not on his watch.
“Probes returning, sir,” Lieutenant Brightling announced. “Alpha reentering normal space in three . . .two . . . one. Scanning sectors. Signal acquired at extraction point minus forty five thousand kilometers.”
“Process the signals and send out the recovery drone, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir. Getting signal lock on—” The Lieutenant squinted at his monitor. “Sir, would you take a lookat this?”
“On the board, Lieutenant.”
Radar and neutron imager silhouettes appeared on-screen—and filled the display. Chief McRobb hadnever seen anything like it in Slipstream space.
“Confirm that the data stream is not corrupted,” the Chief ordered. “I’m estimating that object is threethousand kilometers in diameter.”
“Affirmative . . . thirty-two-hundred-kilometer diameter confirmed, sir. Signal integrity is green. We’llhave a trajectory for the planetoid as soon as Beta probe returns.”
It was rare for any natural object this large to be in Slipstream space. An occasional comet or asteroidhad been logged—UNSC astrophysicists still weren’t sure how the things got into the alternatedimension. But there had never been anything like this. At least, not since—
“Oh my God,” McRobb whispered.
Not since Sigma Octanus.
“We’re not waiting for Beta probe,” Chief McRobb barked. “We are initiating the Cole Protocol.Lieutenant Streeter, purge the navigational database, and I meanright now . Lieutenant Brightling,remove the safety interlocks on the station’s reactor.”
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His junior officers hesitated for a moment—then they understood the gravity of their situation. Theymoved quickly.
“Initiating viral data scavengers,” Lieutenant Streeter called out. “Dumping main and cache memory.”He turned in his seat, his face white. “Sir, the science library is offline for repairs. It has every UNSCastrophysics journal in it.”
“With navigation data on every star within a hundred light-years,” the Chief whispered. “Including Sol.Lieutenant, you get someone down there and destroy that data. I don’t care if they have to hit it with agoddamn sledgehammer—make sure that data is wiped.”
“Aye, sir!” Streeter turned to the COM and began issuing frantic orders.
“Safety interlocks red on the board,” Lieutenant Brightling reported. His lips pressed into a single whiteline, concentrating. “Beta probe returning, sir, in four . . . three . . . two . . . one. There. Off target onehundred twenty thousand kilometers. Signal is weak. The probe appears to be malfunctioning. Trying toscrub the signal now.”
“It’s too much of a coincidence that it’s malfunctioning, Streeter,” the Chief said. “Get FLEETCOM onAlpha channel on the double! Compress and send the duty log.”
“Aye, sir.” Lieutenant Streeter’s fingers fumbled with the keypad as he typed—then had to retype thecommand. “Logs sent.”