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"Can you find this place?" Kurt asked Dr. Halsey. "Can you move us there?"
She chewed on her lower lip. Her hands moved quickly over symbols, rotating the holographic projection of the planet around them at a dizzying rate.
"Got it," she said.
Endless Summer bowed and winked off.
Kurt motioned for the Spartans to fall back to the center of the room.
"Do it," he said. "Now."
The walls of the chamber exploded inward.
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← ^ → CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
2050 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM, PLANET ONYX \ SENTINEL MANUFACTURING FACILITY UNDER NORTHERN POLAR REGION
Kurt crawled to the edge where Linda and Chief Mendez had posted, and peered out upon the vast factory, although the word "factory" was wholly inappropriate to describe the engineering wonderland.
From his perch stretched a cavernous space so large that he detected the slight arc of the planet's curve in the distance. The roof was beyond the range finder on Linda's Oracle sniper scope, and thin black clouds drifted two-thirds of the way from (he ceiling.
A machine the size of a battleship spewed a river of molten alloy into the air. This liquefied metal arced up and then cascaded into a hollow tower that pulsed with bioluminescent colors. From the bottom tumbled countless tiny parts winking with light. These parts were whisked away by ribbons of shimmering energy so thick with distortion that Kurt couldn't see what occurred within… but from the opposite end streamed a never-ending procession of three-meter cylinders.
A pyramid five times the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza sat kilometers from Kurt's vantage. Instead of stone blocks, however, the structure was composed of floating golden spheres that turned and glowed with Forerunner hieroglyphs etched upon their surfaces.
Every six seconds a sphere from the apex of the pyramid ascended in a shaft of silver light. As it rose, the light intensified so even with maximum polarization on his faceplate Kurt could not discern what occurred there. When the sphere emerged, three rods accompanied it, all parts spinning in null gravity, flexing, until the pieces settled into their deadly recognizable configuration— a Sentinel of Onyx.
The new drone flew off into the clouds overhead… which Kurt could only estimate were thousands of completed units.
He blinked, wondering how they were going to shut this place down, and backed away from the edge.
Deeper in the shadows of the wide ledge sat a four-meter-diameter platform and a tiny holographic console: Dr. Halsey's "translocation" device.
She knelt in the middle, scanned the drifting symbols, and occasionally tapped one that interested her.
She had saved them—moved them from the map room to this Sentinel factory in the blink of an eye.
Fred, Kelly, and Will crouched around the platform, sniper rifles leveled. Not that shooting would have done any good, but at least they'd see any approaching Sentinel.