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they needed a final option. Fred didn't think they would need it… but it was best to cover all contingencies.
"What insurgent base?" Will asked, rolling over and waking up.
"It was twenty years ago," Fred explained. "Rebels in the Tauri System claimed they had nukes to trade. Blue Team was sent in to recover the warheads, but it turned out to be a trap." He shook his head. "Would have worked too, if it hadn't been for Kurt."
Linda took the canteen and hoisted it. "To absent friends," she whispered and sipped.
She passed the canteen to Will, who drank deeply.
A red octahedral flashed over the Covenant command console. It projected amber beams onto the surface and the holographic geometries shifted.
The Spartans dropped their faceplates.
Fred moved to the console, overrode the controls, but they reverted, seeming to have a mind of their own.
Were there Covenant still alive on this ship, attempting to regain control?
Translations scrolled across his datapad: "BLOODIED SPIRIT AUTOMATED…SYSTEM ACTIVATED…TO BATTLE SOUNDED…HEED THE CALL TO WAR…WARNING…SLIPSPACE ANOMALY…DIMENSION YED-4 DETECTED…CAUSE: SINGULARITY AFTERMATH."
"Trouble," he told Linda and Will.
Linda bounded to the weapons station and her hands moved over the surface. "Making plasma lines hot," she said. "I think. Laser capacitors charging."
Will stood at the NAV station. "We're approximately sixteen light-years from Onyx," he said. "No stellar systems or other significant bodies in the region. The Slipspace matrix is decon-voluting."
Fred tapped a hexagon—the Slipstream space matrix reinitialization command. It blinked once and faded.
"We're entering normal space," he said. "Stand ready."
Stars winked on in the bridge's holographic viewer along with four Covenant ships.
Three smaller ships gave chase to one larger. The small ones were two-thirds the tonnage of Bloodied Spirit. The larger ship was twice their size. The vessels' sleek outlines made Fred think of sharks hunting a whale.
Lances of plasma flashed from the three and shimmered as they impacted on the larger ship's shields.
"I think we dropped out of Slipspace because of some anomaly," Fred said. "Or… in response to a distress signal. I'm not sure which."
"From what ship?" Linda asked. "Which one do we target first?"
The central holographic viewer faded and a Brute materialized standing before them with blue-gray skin, a gorilla head, and red feral eyes. He spoke in a series of grunts and hisses.
A translation popped on Fred's datapad: "Brothers, the schism is here. We are free at last to crush the lesser races. We will no longer be led by—"
The Brute looked about the bridge, blinked, and then glared at Fred. It hissed and vanished.
On the translation pad a single word had appeared: "Demons."
One of the smaller ships turned toward them. Ultramarine spheres flashed over Linda's weapon console.
"It's targeting us," she said.
"That answers that," Fred muttered. "Target the smaller ships. Will, get me a best-guess Slipspace transition vector to Onyx."