第87页
"COM probe almost out of our range," Endless Summer said. "Slipstream space matrix collapse imminent."
Dr. Halsey rapidly typed on her laptop. "Link to the COM probe," she told Endless Summer, "and amend our message with this. Calculate a frequency shift to match Cortana's signal, and resend our message from the probe inside Slipspace."
"Linked with probe." Endless Summer stared into space. "Stand by."
If this worked, Cortana's signal would act as a transluminal carrier wave. If the Slipstream space monitoring station on Earth had its ears open, their message would get to FLEETCOM in minutes instead of weeks. Possibly in time to do some good.
"Done," Endless Summer announced, "but verification impossible. Slipstream matrix has collapsed."
Dr. Halsey sighed, hoping the amended message had gotten through, and hoping she had done the right thing.
So much depended on her lies.
She glanced at the additional message she had typed.
"HOOD, YOU'LL HAVE YOUR HANDS FULL. REVISE REQUEST: SEND ELITE STRIKE TEAM TO RECOVER TECHNOLOGICAL ASSETS FROM ONYX. SEND SPARTANS."
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← ^ → CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
1440 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDARS \ SLIPSTREAM SPACE-UNKNOWN VECTOR\ ABOARD UNSC PROWLER DUSK
Commander Richard Lash hovered over Lieutenant Yang's shoulder, watching the screen for a blip—waiting for a single titanium ion to be sniffed by the sensor array on the Dusk's nose.
Lieutenant Yang shifted in his chair. "Sir, it's been fifteen minutes. I'm going to purge the collectors and recalibrate."
"Wait," Lash said.
"Yes, sir." Yang smoothed over his eyebrow, a nervous habit.
Five minutes ticked off on the clock as Yang and Commander Lash waited.
"Accurate timekeeping" was an oxymoron in Slipstream space. Still, Lash held on to some illusion that he was in control and not flying blind, chasing a trail so faint it might qualify as nonexistent after a Covenant capital ship and the UNSC destroyer In Amber Clad.
A single spark lit the screen.
"Got one," Lieutenant Yang cried. "Mass spectrometer pegs it as titanium-50. Consistent with UNSC battle plate. One of ours, sir."
"Very good." Commander Lash clapped his hand on Yang's shoulder. "Keep watching." He pushed off and drifted back to the captain's chair.
Lash felt uneasy sitting here; it really belonged to Captain [glesias, but he was in rehab back on Earth. Radiation treatment for six months. This war would probably be over by then.
He sat and clicked the harness on. For better or worse he was in charge now.
Probably for the worse, because this mission was a cross between a wild-goose chase and pure suicide.
His prowler, Dusk, had been close enough to act when In Amber Clad had entered the Covenant capital ship Slipspace rift as it left New Mombassa. They were one of four UNSC ships with charged Slipspace capacitors, and nimble enough to make the transition before the overpressure wave generated by an in-atmosphere transition crushed them.