第105页

　　The  Covenant  dropship  left  sensor  range  and  disappeared  some?where  in  what  was  once  the  Highland  Forest  on  the  surface—which  activated  a  new  task.
　　Cortana  began  constructing  a  high-resolution  map  of  the  surface—especially  the  region  where  the  Chief's  mysterious  signal  originated,  as  well  as  Menachite  Mountain.
　　A  quick  diagnostic  revealed  that  these  tasks  were  taking  much  longer  than  normal.  She  had  to  free  up  some  of  her  overtaxed  memory.  Cortana  began  to  recompress  the  data  she  had  retrieved  from  the  Halo  construct,  and  she  briefly  considered  dumping  all  the  data  into  storage  on  the  Covenant  system.  She  rejected  that  potential  course  of  action.  She  had  to  protect  that  data  at  all  costs.
　　Cortana  felt  her  mind  perceptibly  slow.  She  was  spread  too
　　170 HALO:  FIRST  STRIKE
　　thin.  Multitasking  too  many  jobs.  This  was  dangerous.  She  couldn't  react  fast  enough  if—
　　"Infidel!"
　　The  Covenant  word  blasted  through  her  communications  rou?tines  and  left  her  stunned  for  three  cycles—just  enough  time  for  her  to  lose  control  over  the  ship-to-ship  COM  software  suite.
　　The  Covenant  AI  transmitted  a  narrow-beam  communica?tions  burst  to  the  nearest  cruiser.
　　For  a  Covenant  communique,  it  was  terse:  a  report  that  the  flagship  was  "tainted  by  the  unclean  presence  of  Infidels"  and  a  plea  that  every  ship  insystem  "converge  and  cleanse  the  filth"  from  the  captured  vessel.  Also  compressed  and  futilely  en?crypted  on  the  carrier  wave  was  a  record  of  Cortana's  mathe?matical  manipulation  of  Slipspace  that  allowed  her  to  jump  so  close  to  the  gas  giant,  Threshold.
　　Cortana  squelched  the  channel—but  it  was  too  late.  It  was  al?ready  gone,  and  she  couldn't  pull  photons  back  from  space.
　　She  shunted  all  COM  memory  pathways  on  themselves.  "Gotcha!"  she  hissed.
　　"Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel-Infidel—"
　　"That's  quite  enough  of  that,"  she  said.  "You  and  I  need  to  come  to  an  understanding."  She  reduced  the  memory  pathways,  peeling  the  Covenant  AI  apart  code  layer  by  code  layer.  "This  is  my  system  now."
　　While  an  operational  Covenant  AI  would  have  been  a  prize  for  ONI  Section  Three—this  particular  Covenant  AI  was  too  dangerous.  She  could  not  allow  its  existence  to  continue.
　　"Do  what  you  will-wil-willwill,"  it  screamed,  "/go  to  finally  to            ?  my  heaven  rewardpamdisefinal-finalfinalinfinityinfinityinfini-AT
　　NONCOPYSTATE." g
　　Cortana's  curiosity  over  this  odd  proclamation  would  have  to  wait—forever.  She  tore  the  AI  apart,  erasing,  recording  the  Covenant  code  structure  even  as  she  destroyed  it.  This  was  analo-            S  gous  to  a  dissection,  and  it  she  did  it  quickly,  efficiently,  and  without  remorse—until  she  found  the  AI's  core  code.
　　She  halted. =
　　She  almost  recognized  this  code.  The  patterns  were  madden?ingly  familiar.  No  time  to  ponder  why,  though.  She  recorded  it
　　ERIC  NYLUND 171
　　and  then  wiped  the  original.  The  Covenant  AI  was  gone,  its  bits  safely  hacked  apart  and  stored  for  future  research.  Provided,  of  course,  Cortana  had  a  future.