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"Most space is, Jerrod. Show me."
A glowing ball of white gold appeared on-screen, with spectroscopic analysis, and a list of planets scrolled by. There was nothing habitable: ice balls and gas giants.
"The Zeta Doradus system," Jerrod remarked. "There is a peculiar lack of data."
Indicating something hidden? Dr. Halsey had gambled everything on something being here.
Ackerson's "S-III." This was an obvious reference to SPARTAN-III. What else could it be with all the Spartan biomedical data he had accumulated in that folder? The confirming clue was the "CPOMZ" reference attached to the celestial coordinates—Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez, the man who had trained her SPARTAN-IIs.
Since Ackerson could not destroy her Spartan program, he had funded and recruited trainers for his own? It chilled her to think what shortcuts he might be taking… and what he might be doing with his own private army of Spartans.
She looked back at Kelly's unconscious form. Dr. Halsey couldn't save her Spartans, they were already indoctrinated and on the front lines… but she might be able to do something about these new, as yet theoretical, SPARTAN-IIIs.
Dr. Halsey settled in the padded captain's chair. "Screens off, Jerrod."
The displays faded.
She squinted her eyes shut. She had betrayed everyone, John and Admiral Whitcomb, abandoned them, and stolen this ship to pursue… what? Wild geese? Why?
"Lights," she told Jerrod. "Wake me in six hours."
"Yes, ma'am." The lights dimmed and only the NAV station LEDs gleamed.
Dr. Halsey didn't want to think about "why," but the ugly truth wouldn't go away: the human race faced extinction.
She had thought it bad enough fighting the Covenant, but now they knew the location of Earth. Humanity's homeworld
had withstood centuries of attempts at self-destruction, but soon the aliens would amass a fleet and make all their struggles moot.
To this, she factored in the horrific Forerunner weapon. Halo, which could annihilate all life throughout the galaxy.
And then there was the Flood, a nightmare parasite that may or may not have escaped the Halo construct, an organism that even the Forerunners had feared.
Her conclusion was irrefutable.
The UNSC, her Spartans, all the people she admired, would struggle against the inevitable. It was human instinct. But it was wrong. They could never win this war. They could only survive it. And then, only if they were very lucky.
So it was up to her to take the only logical action: run.
John and the other Spartans would never turn away from a fight, but she might be able to convince these other Spartans, trick them if necessary, into surviving.
They were humanity's last chance to endure the coming darkness.
Dr. Halsey awoke with a start.
"Time, Jerrod. And lights, please."
The lights on the bridge warmed to half intensity.
"It is five hours fifty-seven minutes since we last spoke. Doctor. I was about to wake you. We are close to our destination."
Dr. Halsey grabbed her medical bag and rummaged though its contents. She found a syringe of narcolytic metabolase, an enzyme that would consume all analgesic agents in Kelly's bloodstream. She removed the line from her MJOLNIR armor port and injected the drug.