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"I got its attention. Threw a rock at the thing. It chased me, got me pinned in a ravine. I started to broadcast in the open, to let Saber know you could get past its shields with a slow ballis-tic object—didn't have much to lose at that point. But the Sentinel attenuated my COM signal, and transmitted it back to me."
"Slow it down," Chief Mendez whispered. "Take your time. What happened next?"
"At first it didn't make any sense," Ash continued. "Like untranslated Covenant—only it was different. 'Pungent Juber' something. I tried to talk back to it. Told it that I didn't understand. It spoke again, still gibberish, but then it said 'non se-quitur' I was certain it spoke Latin."
"Linguistic analysis based on a microscopic sample set," Dr. Halsey said. "It tried to communicate with a root language."
"Then it said 'Security protocols enabled' and 'Shield in countdown mode. Exchange proper counterresponse. Reclaimer.' I told it that I meant it no harm. I guess that was the wrong thing to say,
because that's when it told me I was not a Reclaimer, and reclassified me as an 'aboriginal subspecies.'"
Dr. Halsey stared off into space, thinking. "Yes…" she murmured. "This all makes sense."
"It was about to flash me with its energy beam when the rest of Saber came along and dropped a few rocks on it." Ash shrugged. "That's it, sir,"
Kurt had heard enough… more important, he had seen Dr. Halsey's reaction. She knew much more than she was telling them. And it was time he found out what.
"Okay," Kurt said, "everyone grab the pods and move them to the translocation platform."
He stepped closer to Dr. Halsey. "I'd like a word with you, ma'am."
The Spartans maneuvered the pods back into the corridor. Mendez spared a look at Kurt and Dr. Halsey, and then left.
"We don't have much time," Kurt said to her.
She glanced at her watch. "Forty minutes, to be precise, until the core-room entrance shuts."
"You know what's inside."
There was the slightest hesitation, and then she replied, "How could I, Lieutenant Commander?"
"But you haven't told me everything."
Dr. Halsey's eyes hardened and her mouth set in what Mendez would have called a poker face.
"Doctor, I'm not going to risk my Spartans" lives without knowing everything. Even what you might consider an insignificant detail could have grave tactical repercussions."
"Indeed," she whispered, and her expression softened a bit. "If they mean that much to you, then tell me first about their neural augmentations."
Kurt tensed, unsure how to proceed. Dr. Halsey was a civilian outside his chain of command. There were rules and protocols dictating how the military interacted with the civilians under its
protection—all too slow, for his purposes. If he were not reliant upon her scientific expertise, Kurt would have considered more direct action; instead he tried again.
"I am not bartering. Doctor. You do not have the proper clearance for that information. Now please tell me about the core. You could save lives."