第188页
Chief Mendez looked around and shook his head, unable or unwilling to accept her interpretation of the facts.
"If all this is true. Doctor," Fred said, "and the Forerunners built this as a refuge, a bomb shelter to protect them from the Halos or the Flood, then why aren't they here?"
Dr. Halsey shrugged and uttered the words no one thought her capable of: "I do not know." She closed her laptop. "Did something go wrong with their plan? Or did everything go as planned? We may never know. Why the Flood survives today and where the Forerunners went are mysteries we have yet to solve."
They remained there a minute, quiet, pondering the scale of this place, the eon-old Forerunner secrets, and tried to integrate it into the events of the last few weeks.
Fred then grabbed his rifle and said, "Ash, take your team and gather our supplies. We're deploying in five."
"Yes sir" Ash donned his helmet. He and the other SPARTAN-IIIs moved as if jolted by lightning.
"Chief," Fred told Mendez, "I want a count of every round of ammunition we have."
"Sir." Mendez jumped to his feet. "I'm on it."
"With all due respect. Lieutenant," Dr Halsey said, and remained sitting. "Where exactly do you intend to go? We should rest, think, and heal our wounds. We have lost so many…"
"Yes, we have," Fred replied. "Which is why we are moving out. Dante and Holly gave their lives fighting. Kurt stayed behind and made sure the Covenant wouldn't follow us. Now it's our duty to complete the mission: find Forerunner technologies and get them back to Earth." He lowered his voice and added, "Doing anything less would dishonor their sacrifices."
Linda moved next to him and said, "Suggest we start by finding a way to open Team Katana's cryo pods, sir. Get them up and running."
"Yes!" Kelly said, and joined them. "Crack the Slipspace fields on those things, and maybe we'll find some way to bust out of this place, too."
Dr. Halsey stared at them and pushed her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose. "I see. You do understand that while externally, this space may only be a few meters in diameter within the center of Onyx, internally, its compressed dimensionality gives it a surface area"—she cocked her head, calculating— "many times the surface of the Earth."
Fred looked to Kelly and Linda, and he said, "Then we better get started. We've got a lot of ground to cover."
Dr. Halsey stood, sighed deeply, and brushed grass from her lab coat. "Very well, I'll gather my things."
She strode off and the Spartans watched her go.
Kelly whispered, "You think John's still out there? 1 mean alive?"
"Yes," Linda said.
"He has to be," Fred told her. "He's the only one left to stop the Covenant."
"While we're stuck in here." Kelly kicked the grass. "What's your take on the others? Team Saber?"
"They're kids," Fred said. "But so were we once. I think they're Spartans, like us."
Ash trotted up to them, Olivia and Mark trailing behind, hefting packs.
"All ready, sir," Ash said.