SECTION III

SIGMA OCTANUS

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

0000 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Remote Scanning Outpost Archimedes , on the edge of the Sigma Octanus Star System Ensign William Lovell scratched his head, yawned, and sat down at his duty station. The wraparound view screen warmed to his presence.

“Good morning, Ensign Lovell,” the computer said.

“Morning, sexy,” he said. It had been months since the Ensign had seen a real woman—the cold female voice of the computer was the closest thing he was getting to a date.

“Voiceprint match,” the computer confirmed. “Please enter password.”

He typed: ThereOncewasAgirl

The Ensign had never taken his duty too seriously. Maybe that’s why he only made it through his second year at the Academy. And maybe that’s why he had been on Archimedes station for the last year, stuck with third shift.

But that suited him fine.

“Please reenter password.”

He typed more carefully this time: ThereOnceWasAGirl .

After first contact with the Covenant, he had almost been conscripted straight out of school; instead, he had actually volunteered.

Admiral Cole had defeated the Covenant at Harvest in 2531. His victory was publicized on every vid and holo throughout the Inner and Outer Colonies and all the way to Earth.

That’s why Lovell didn’t try to dodge the enlistment officers. He had thought he’d watch a few battles from the bridge of a destroyer, fire a few missiles, rack up the victories, and be promoted to Captain within a year.

His excellent grades gave him instant admission to OCS on Luna.

There was one small detail, however, the UNSC propaganda machine had left out of their broadcasts: Cole had won only because he outnumbered the Covenant three to one . . . and even then, he had lost two-thirds of his fleet.

Ensign Lovell had served on the UNSC frigate Gorgon for four years. He had been promoted to First Lieutenant then busted down to Second Lieutenant and finally to Ensign for insubordination and gross incompetence. The only reason they hadn’t drummed him out of the service was that the USNC needed every man and woman they could get their hands on.

While on the Gorgon , he and the rest of Admiral Cole’s fleet had sped among the Outer Colonies chasing, and being chased by, the Covenant. After four years’ space duty, Lovell had seen a dozen worlds glassed . . . and billions murdered.

He had simply broken under the strain. He closed his eyes and remembered. No he hadn’t broken; he was just scared of dying like everyone else.

“Please keep your eyes open,” the computer told him. “Processing retinal scan.”

He had drifted from office work to low-priority assignments and finally landed here a year ago. By that time there were no more Outer Colonies. The Covenant had destroyed them all and were pressing inexorably inward, slowly taking the Inner Colonies. There had been a few isolated victories . . . but he knew it was only a matter of time before the aliens wiped the human race out of existence.

“Login complete,” the computer announced.

Ensign Lovell’s identity record was displayed on the monitor. In his Academy picture, he looked ten years younger: neatly trimmed jet-black hair, toothy grin, and sparkling green eyes. Today his hair was unkempt and the spark was long gone from his eyes.

“Please read General Order 098831A-1 before proceeding.”

The Ensign had memorized this stupid thing. But the computer would track his eye motions—make sure he read it anyway. He opened the file and it popped on-screen:

United Nations Space Command Emergency Priority Order 098831A-1

Encryption Code:Red

Public Key:file /first light

From:UNSC/NAVCOM Fleet H. T. Ward

To:ALL UNSC PERSONNEL

Subject:General Order 098831A-1 (“The Cole Protocol”)

Classification:RESTRICTED (BGX Directive)

The Cole Protocol

To safeguard the Inner Colonies and Earth, all UNSC vessels or stations must not be captured with intact navigation databases that may lead Covenant forces to human civilian population centers.

If any Covenant forces are detected:

1. Activate selective purge of databases on all ship-based and planetary data networks.

2. Initiate triple-screen check to ensure all data has been erased and all backups neutralized.

3. Execute viral data scavengers. (Download from UNSCTTP://EPWW:COLEPROTOCOL/Virtualscav

fbr.091)

4. If retreating from Covenant forces, all ships must enter Slipstream space with randomized vectors NOT directed toward Earth, the Inner Colonies, or any other human population center.

5. In case of imminent capture by Covenant forces, all UNSC ships MUST self-destruct.

Violation of this directive will be considered an act of TREASON, and pursuant to USNC Military Law Articles JAG 845-P and JAG 7556-L, such violations are punishable by life imprisonment or execution.

/end file

PressENTER if you understand these orders.

Ensign Lovell pressed ENTER.

The UNSC wasn’t taking any chances. And after everything he had seen, he didn’t blame them.

His scanning windows appeared on the view screen, full of spectroscopic tracers and radar—and lots of noise.

Archimedes station cycled three probes into and out of Slipstream space. Each probe sent out radar pings and analyzed the spectrum from radio to X rays, then reentered normal space and broadcast the data back to the station.

The problem with Slipstream space was that the laws of physics never worked the way they were supposed to. Exact positions, times, velocities, even masses were impossible to measure with any real accuracy. Ships never knew exactly where they were, or exactly where there were going.

Every time the probes returned from their two-second journey, they could appear exactly where they had left . . . or three million kilometers distant. Sometimes they never returned at all. Drones had to be sent after the probes before the process could be repeated.

Because of this slipperiness in the interdimensional space, UNSC ships traveling between star systems might arrive half a billion kilometers off course.

The curious properties of Slipspace also made this assignment a joke.

Ensign Lovell was supposed to watch for pirates or black-market runners trying to sneak by . . . and most importantly, for the Covenant. This station had never logged so much as a Covenant probe silhouette—and that was the reason he had specifically requested this dead-end assignment. It was safe.

What he did see with regularity were trash dumps from UNSC vessels, clouds of primordial atomic hydrogen, even the occasional comet that had somehow plowed into the Slipstream.

Lovell yawned, kicked his feet up onto the control console, and closed his eyes. He nearly fell out of his chair when the COM board contact alert pinged.

“Oh no,” he whispered, fear and shame at his own cowardice forming a cold lump in his belly. Don’t let it be the Covenant. Don’t let it . . . not here.

He quickly activated the controls and traced the contact signal back to the source—Alpha probe.

The probe had detected an incoming mass, a slight arc to its trajectory pulled by the gravity of Sigma Octanus. It was large. A cloud of dust, perhaps? If it was, it would soon distort and scatter.

Ensign Lovell sat up straighter in his chair.

Beta probe cycled back. The mass was still there and as solid as before. It was the largest reading Ensign Lovell had ever seen: twenty thousand tons. That couldn’t be a Covenant ship—they didn’t get that big.

And the silhouette was a bumpy spherical shape; it didn’t match any of the Covenant ships in the database. It had to be a rogue asteroid.

He tapped his stylus on the desk. What if it wasn’t an asteroid? He’d have to purge the database and enable the self-destruct mechanism for the outpost. But what could the Covenant want way out here?

Gamma probe reappeared. The mass readings were unchanged. Spectroscopic analysis was inconclusive, which was normal for probe reading at this distance. The mass was two hours out at its present velocity.

Its projected trajectory was hyperbolic—a quick swing near the star, and then it would pass invisibly out of the system and be forever gone.

He noted that its trajectory bought it close to Sigma Octanus IV . . . which, if the rock were in real space, would be cause for alarm. In Slipspace, however, it could pass “through” the planet, and no one would notice.

Ensign Lovell relaxed and sent the retrieval drones after the three probes. By the time they got the probes back, though, the mass would be long gone.

He stared at the last image on screen. Was it worth sending an immediate report to Sigma Octanus COM? They’d make him send his probes out without a proper recovery, and the probes would likely get lost after that. A supply ship would have to be sent out here to replace them. The station would have to be inspected and recertified—and he’d receive a thorough lecture on what did and did not constitute a valid emergency.

No . . . there was no need to bother anyone over this. The only ones who would be really interested were the high-forehead types at UNSC Astrophysics, and they could review the data at their leisure.

He logged the anomaly and attached it to his hourly update.

Ensign Lovell kicked up his boots and reclined, once again feeling perfectly safe in his little corner of the universe.