CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

0500 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Iroquois , military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV

Captain Keyes leaned against the brass railing on the bridge of the Iroquois and surveyed the devastation.

The space near Sigma Octanus IV was littered with debris: the dead hulks of Covenant and UNSC ships spun lazily in the vacuum, surrounded by clouds of wreckage: jagged pieces of decimated armor plate, shattered single-ship fuselages, and heat-blackened metal fragments created a million radar targets. The debris field would clutter this system and make for a navigational hazard for the next decade.

They had recovered nearly all the bodies from space.

Captain Keyes’ gaze caught the remnants of the Cradle as the blasted space dock spun past. The kilometer-wide plate was now safely locked in a high orbit around the planet. She was slowly being torn apart from her own rotation; girders and metal plates warped and bent as the gravitational stresses on the ship increased.

The Covenant plasma weapons had burned through ten decks of super-hard metal and armor like so many layers of tissue paper. Thirty volunteers on the repair station had died piloting the unwieldy craft.

Admiral Stanforth had gotten his “win” . . . but at a tremendous cost.

Keyes brought up the casualty figures and damage estimates on his data pad. He scowled as the data scrolled across his screen.

The UNSC had lost more than twenty ships, and those that survived had all suffered heavy damage; most would require months of time-consuming repair at a shipyard. Nearly one thousand people were killed in the battle, and hundreds more were wounded, many critically. Add to that the sixteen hundred Marine casualties on the surface—and the three hundred thousand civilians murdered in Côte d’Azur at the hands of the Covenant.

Some “win,” Keyes thought bitterly.

Côte d’Azur was now a smoldering crater—but Sigma Octanus IV was still a human-held world. They had saved everyone else on the planet, nearly thirteen million souls. So perhaps it had been worth it.

So many lives and deaths had been measured in this battle. Had the balance of the odds tipped slightly against them—everything could have been lost. That was something he had never taught any of his students at the Academy—how much victory depended on luck as well as skill.

Captain Keyes saw the last of the Marine dropships returning from the planet surface. They docked with the Leviathan , and then the huge carrier turned and accelerated out of the system.

“Sensor sweep complete,” Lieutenant Dominique reported. “I think that was the last of the lifeboats we picked up, sir.”

“Let’s make certain, Lieutenant,” Keyes replied. “One more pass through the system please. Ensign Lovell, plot a course and take us around again.”

“Yes, sir,” Lovell wearily replied.

The bridge crew was exhausted, physically and emotionally. They had all pulled extended shifts as they searched for survivors. Captain Keyes would rotate shifts after this next pass.

As he looked at this crew he noticed that something was different. Lieutenant Hikowa’s movements were crisp and determined, as if everything she did now would decide their next battle; it made a startling contrast to her normally lethargic efficiency. Lieutenant Hall’s false exuberance had been replaced by genuine confidence. Dominique almost seemed happy—his hands lightly typing a report to FLEET- COM. Even Ensign Lovell, despite his exhaustion, stepped lively.

Maybe Admiral Stanforth was right. Maybe the fleet needed this win more than he had realized.

They had beaten the Covenant. Although not widely known, there had been only three small engagements in which the UNSC fleet had decisively defeated the Covenant. And not since Admiral Cole had retaken Harvest colony had there been an engagement on this scale. A complete victory—a world saved.

It would show everyone that winning was possible, that there was hope.

But, he mused, was there really? They won because they had gotten lucky—and had twice as many ships as the Covenant. And, he suspected, they had beaten the Covenant because the Covenant’s real objective hadn’t been to win.

Naval Intelligence officers had come aboard the Iroquois immediately after the battle. They congratulated Captain Keyes on his performance . . . and then copied and purged every single bit of data they had intercepted from the Covenant planetside transmission.

Of course, the ONI spooks left without offering any explanation.

Keyes toyed with his pipe, replaying the battle in his mind. No. The Covenant had lost because they were really after something else on Sigma Octanus IV—and the intercepted message was the key.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Incoming orders from FLEETCOM.”

“Put it through to my station, Lieutenant,” Captain Keyes said as he sat in his command chair. The computer scanned his retina and fingerprints and then decoded the message. He read on the small monitor:

United Nations Space Command Priority Transmission 09872H-98

Encryption Code:Red

Public Key:file /lightning-matrix-four

From:Admiral Michael Stanforth, Commanding Officer, UNSC Leviathan / USNC Sector Three Commander/ (UNSC Service Number: 00834-19223-HS)

To:Captain Jacob Keyes, Commanding officer UNSC Iroquois / (UNSC Service Number: 01928-19912-JK)

Subject:ORDERS FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE CONSIDERATION

Classification:SECRET (BGX Directive)

/start file

Keyes,

Drop whatever you’re doing and head back to the barn. We’re both wanted for immediate debriefing by ONI at REACH Headquarters ASAP.

Looks like the spooks at Naval Intelligence are up to their normal cloak-and-dagger tricks.

Cigars and brandy afterward.

Regards,

Stanforth

“Very well,” he muttered to himself. “Lieutenant Dominique: send Admiral Stanforth my compliments.

Ensign Lovell, generate a randomized vector as per the Cole Protocol, and make ready to leave system.

Take us out for an hour in Slipstream space, then we’ll reorient and proceed to the REACH Military Instillation.”

“Aye, sir. Randomized jump vector ready—our tracks are covered.”

“Lieutenant Hall: start organizing shore leave for the crew. We’re heading back for repairs and some well-deserved R and R.”

“Amen to that,” Ensign Lovell said.

That wasn’t technically in his orders, but Captain Keyes would make sure his crew got the rest they deserved. That was the least he could do for them.

The Iroquois slowly accelerated on an out-system vector.

Captain Keyes took one long last look at Sigma Octanus IV. The battle was over . . . so why did he feel like he was headed into another fight?

The Iroquois plowed through a haze of titanium dust—condensed from a UNSC battleplate vaporized by Covenant plasma. The fine particles caught the light from Sigma Octanus and sparkled red and orange, making it look like the destroyer sailed through an ocean of blood.

When there was time, a HazMat team would sweep the area and clean up. In the meantime, junk—

ranging in size from microscopic up to thirty-meter sections of Cradle —still drifted in the system.

One piece of debris in particular floated near the Iroquois .

It was small, almost indistinguishable from any of a thousand other softball-sized blobs that cluttered radar scopes and polluted thermal sensors.

If anyone had been looking close enough, however, they would have seen that this particular piece of metal drifted in the opposite direction from all the other masses nearby. It trailed behind the accelerating Iroquois . . . and edged closer, moving with purpose.

When it was close enough, it extended tiny electromagnets that guided it to the baffles at the base of the Iroquois ’ number-three engine shield. It blended in perfectly with the other vanadium steel components.

The object opened a single photo eye and gazed at the stars, collecting data to reference its current position. It would continue to do this for several days. During that time it would slowly build up a charge. When it reached critical energy, a tiny sliver of thallium nitride memory crystal would be ejected at nearly the speed of light, and a minute Slipstream field would generate around it. If its trajectory was perfect, it would intercept a Covenant receiver located at precise coordinates in the alternate space.

. . . and the tiny automated probe would reveal to the Covenant every place the Iroquois had been.