CHAPTER SIXTEEN

0300 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC destroyer Iroquois on routine patrol in the Sigma Octanus Star System Commander Jacob Keyes stood on the bridge of the Iroquois . He leaned against the brass railing and surveyed the stars in the distance. He wished the circumstances of his first command were more auspicious, but experienced officers were in short supply these days. And he had his orders.

He walked around the circular bridge examining the monitors and displays of engine status. He paused at the screens showing the stars fore and aft; he couldn’t quite get used to the view of deep space again.

The stars were so vivid . . . and here, so different from the stars near Earth.

The Iroquois had rolled out of space dock at Reach—one of the UNSC’s primary naval yards—just three months ago. They hadn’t even installed her AI yet; like good officers, the elaborate artificially intelligent computer systems were also in dangerously short supply. Still, Iroquois was fast, well armored, and armed to the teeth. He couldn’t ask for a finer vessel.

Unlike the frigates that Commander Keyes had toured on before, the Meriwether Lewis and Midsummer Night , this ship was a destroyer. She was almost as heavy as both those vessels combined, but she was only seven meters longer. Some in the fleet thought the massive ships were unwieldy in combat—too slow and cumbersome. What those critics forgot was that a UNSC destroyer sported two MAC guns, twenty-six oversized Archer missile pods, and three nuclear warheads. Unlike other fleet ships, she carried no single-ship fighters—instead her extra mass came from the nearly two meters of titanium-A battleplate armor that covered her from stem to stern. The Iroquois could dish out and take a tremendous amount of punishment.

Someone at the shipyard had appreciated the Iroquois for what she was, too—two long streaks of crimson war paint had been applied to her port and starboard flanks. Strictly nonregulation and it would have to go . . . but secretly, Commander Keyes liked the ornamentation.

He sat in the Commander’s chair and watched his junior officers at their stations.

“Incoming transmissions,” Lieutenant Dominique reported. “Status reports from Sigma Octanus Four and also the Archimedes Sensor Outpost.”

“Pipe them through to my monitor,” Commander Keyes said.

Dominique had been one of his students at the Academy—he had transferred to Luna from the Université del’ Astrophysique in Paris after his sister was killed in action. He was short, nimbly athletic, and he rarely cracked a smile—he was always business. Keyes appreciated that.

Commander Keyes was less impressed, however, with the rest of his bridge officers.

Lieutenant Hikowa manned the weapons console. Her long fingers and slender arms slowly checked the status of the ordnance with all the deliberation of a sleepwalker. Her dark hair was always falling into her eyes, too. Oddly, her record showed that she had survived several battles with the Covenant . . . so perhaps her lack of enthusiasm was merely battle fatigue.

Lieutenant Hall stood post at ops. She seemed competent enough. Her uniform was always freshly pressed, her blond hair trimmed exactly at the regulation sixteen centimeters. She had authored seven physics papers on Slipspace communications. The only problem was that she was always smiling, and trying to impress him . . . occasionally by showing up her fellow officers. Keyes disapproved of such displays of ambition.

Manning navigation, however, was his most problematic officer: Lieutenant Jaggers. It might have been that navigation was the Commander’s strong suit, so anyone else in that position never seemed to be up to par. On the other hand, Lieutenant Jaggers was moody, and when Keyes had come aboard, the man’s small hazel eyes seemed glazed. He could have sworn he had caught the man on duty with liquor on his breath, too. He had ordered a blood test—the results were negative.

“Orders, sir?” Jagger asked.

“Continue on this heading, Lieutenant. We’ll finish our patrol around Sigma Octanus and then accelerate and enter Slipspace.”

“Aye, sir.”

Commander Keyes eased into his seat and detached the tiny monitor from the armrest. He read the hourly report from the Archimedes Sensor Outpost. The log of the large mass was curious. It was too big to be even the largest Covenant carrier . . . yet something was oddly familiar about its shape.

He retrieved his pipe from his jacket, lit it, inhaled a puff, and exhaled the fragrant smoke through his nose. Keyes would never even have thought about smoking on the other vessels he had served on, but here . . . well, command had its privileges.

He pulled up his files transferred from the Academy—several theoretical papers that had recently caught his interest. One, he thought, might apply to the outpost’s unusual reading.

That paper had initially sparked his interest because of its author. He had never forgotten his first assignment with Dr. Catherine Halsey . . . nor the names of any of the children they had observed.

He opened the file and read:

United Nations Space Command Astrophysics Journal 034-23-01

Date:May 097, 2540 (Military Calendar)

Encryption Code:None

Public Key:NA

Author(s):Lieutenant Commander Fhajad 034 (service number [CLASSIFIED]), UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence

Subject:Dimensional-Mass Space Compressions in Shaw-Fujikawa (a.k.a. “Slipstream”) Space.

Classification:NA

/start file

Abstract:The space-bending properties of mass in normal space are well described by Einstein’s general relativity. Such distortions however, are complicated by the anomalous quantum gravitational effects in Shaw-Fujikawa (SF) spaces. Using loop-string analysis, it can be shown that a large mass bends space in SF space more than general relativity predicts by an order of magnitude. This bending may explain how several small objects clustered closely together in SF space have been reported erroneously as a single larger mass.

PressENTER to continue.

Commander Keyes switched back to the silhouette from the Archimedes report. The leading edge almost looked like the bulbous head of a whale. That realization chilled him to the core.

He quickly opened the UNSC database of all known Covenant ships. He scanned them until he found the three-dimensional representation of one of their medium-sized warships. He rotated it into three-quarters profile. He overlaid the image on the silhouette, scaled it back a little.

It was a perfect match.

“Lieutenant Dominique, get FLEETCOM ASAP. Priority Alpha.”

The Lieutenant snapped straight in his chair. “Yes, sir!”

The bridge officers looked at the Commander then exchanged glances with one another.

Commander Keyes brought up a map of the system on his data pad. The silhouette monitored by the outpost was on a direct course for Sigma Octanus IV. That confirmed his theory.

“Bring us about to course zero four seven, Lieutenant Jaggers. Lieutenant Hall, push the reactors to one hundred ten percent.”

“Aye, Commander,” Lieutenant Jaggers replied.

“Reactor running hot, sir,” Hall reported. “Now exceeding recommended operational parameters.”

“ETA?”

Jaggers calculated, then looked up. “Forty-three minutes,” he replied.

“Too slow,” Commander Keyes muttered. “Reactor to one hundred thirty percent, Lieutenant Hall.”

She hesitated. “Sir?”

“Do it!”

“Yes, sir!” She moved as if someone had electrically shocked her.

“FLEETCOM online, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said.

The weathered face of Admiral Michael Stanforth appeared on the main view screen.

Commander Keyes breathed a sigh of relief. Admiral Stanforth had a reputation for being reasonable and intelligent. He’d understand the logic of the situation.

“Commander Keyes,” the Admiral said. “The old ‘Schoolmaster’ himself, huh? This is the priority channel, son. This better be an emergency.”

Commander Keyes ignored the obvious condescension. He knew many at FLEETCOM thought he deserved to command nothing but a classroom—and some probably thought he didn’t deserve that.

“The Sigma Octanus System is about to come under attack, sir.”

Admiral Stanforth cocked an eyebrow and leaned closer to the screen.

“I’m requesting that all ships in-system rendezvous with the Iroquois at Sigma Octanus Four. And any ships in neighboring systems make best speed here.”

“Show me what you’ve got, Keyes,” the Admiral said.

Commander Keyes displayed the silhouette from the sensor outpost first. “Covenant ships, sir. Their silhouettes are overlapped. Our probes resolve them as one mass because Slipspace is bent by gravity more easily than normal space.”

The Admiral listened to his analysis, frowning.

“You’ve fought the Covenant, sir. You known how precisely they can maneuver their ships through the Slipstream. I’ve seen a dozen alien craft appear in normal space, in perfect formation, not a kilometer apart.”

“Yeah,” the Admiral muttered. “I’ve seen that, too. All right, Keyes, good work. You’ll get everything we can send.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You just hang in there, son. Good luck. FLEETCOM out.”

The view screen snapped off.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Hall turned around. “How many Covenant ships?”

“I’d estimate four medium-tonnage vessels,” he said. “The equivalent of our frigates.”

“Four Covenant ships?” Lieutenant Jaggers muttered. “What can we do?”

“Do?” Commander Keyes said. “Our duty.”

“Begging the Commander’s pardon, but there are four Cov—” Jaggers began to protest.

Keyes cut him off with a glare. “Stow that, mister.” He paused, weighing his words. “Sigma Octanus Four has seventeen million citizens, Lieutenant. Are you suggesting that we just stand by and watch the Covenant glass the planet?”

“No, sir.” His gaze dropped to the deck.

“We will do the best we can,” Commander Keyes said. “In the meantime, remove all weapons system locks, order missile crews to readiness, warm up the MAC guns, and remove the safeties from one of our nukes.”

“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Hikowa said.

An alarm sounded at ops. “Reactor hysteresis approaching failure levels,” Lieutenant Hall reported.

“Superconducting magnets overloading. Coolant breakdown imminent.”

“Vent primary coolant and pump in the reserve tanks,” Commander Keyes ordered. “That will buy us another five minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Commander Keyes fumbled with his pipe. He didn’t bother to light the thing, just chewed on the end.

Then he put it away. The nervous habit wasn’t setting the right example for his bridge officers. He didn’t have the luxury of showing his apprehension.

The truth was, he was terrified. Four Covenant ships would be an even match for seven destroyers. The best he could hope for was to get their attention and outrun them—hopefully distract them until the fleet got here.

Of course . . . those Covenant ships could outrun the Iroquois as well.

“Lieutenant Jaggers,” he said, “initiate the Cole Protocol. Purge our navigation databases, and then generate an appropriate randomized exit vector from the Sigma Octanus System.”

“Yes, sir.” He fumbled with his controls. He hung his head, steadied his hands, and slowly typed in the commands.

“Lieutenant Hall: make preparations to override reactor safeties.”

His junior officers all paused for a second. “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Hall whispered.

“We’re receiving a transmission from the system’s edge,” Lieutenant Dominique announced.

“Frigates Alliance and Gettysburg are on an inbound vector at maximum speed. ETA . . . one hour.”

“Good,” Commander Keyes said.

That hour might as well be a month. This battle would be over in minutes.

He could not fight the enemy—he was severely outgunned. He couldn’t outrun them, either. There had to be another option.

Hadn’t he always told his students that when you were out of options, then you were using the wrong tactics? You had to bend the rules. Shift perspective—anything to find a way out of a hopeless situation.

The black space near Sigma Octanus IV boiled and frothed with motes of green light.

“Ships entering normal space,” Lieutenant Jaggers announced, panic tingeing his voice.

Commander Keyes got to his feet.

He had been wrong. There weren’t four Covenant frigates. A pair of enemy frigates emerged from Slipspace . . . escorting a destroyer and a carrier.

His blood ran cold. He had seen battles in which a Covenant destroyer had made Swiss cheese of UNSC

ships. Its plasma torpedoes could boil through the Iroquois ’ two meters of titanium-A battleplate in seconds. Their weapons were light-years ahead of the UNSC’s.

“Their weapons,” Commander Keyes muttered under his breath. Yes . . . he did have a third option.

“Continue at emergency speed,” he ordered, “and come about to heading zero three two.”

Lieutenant Jaggers swiveled in his seat. “That will put us on collision course with their destroyer, sir.”

“I know,” Commander Keyes replied. “In fact, I’m counting on doing just that.”