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Port Stanley’s bow dipped as the corvette did a sether likeinsects, slid up and out of Osar, stand by," she said

It was al so silent, so s on inside the ship The stars swept up past her as if she was fal ing and then she was facing out into a different star field, rock steady To the right of the viewscreen, the HUD icons of the ODSTs and Naoar, fil ing their field of view

The radio fizzed again and the EMP indicator flared

"I don’t think it’s the Huragok" BB sounded oddly breathless He’s an AI He can’t be But he was integrated with Nao ain just to be on the safe side In she coirls," Mal said "Our brave Brute boys are real y pissed off"

Osman could see that Two of the Jiralhanae creere at Piety’s forward viewscreen, harshly lit by the landing lights facing outward Their lips were drawn back in a snarl over huge white fangs The view shuddered for a moment Piety had been forced down onto the deck, and the three HUD vieent haywire Mal’s veered one way, Vaz’s veered to the other, and Naomi’s--Naomi’s just seemed to jet into the air

Osman had never heard an AI whoop before

CHAPTER TEN

MESSAGE PRIORITY: FLASH FROM: CO UNSC GLAMORGAN TO: CINCONI CYCLICALLY FLUCTUATING ANOMALY LOCATED 5,000 KM FROM ONYX COORDINATES READINGS AT PEAK CONSISTENT WITH 137 SOLAR MASSES SPHERICAL FORM, 23 CM (TWENTY THREE CENTIMETER) DIAMETER SEE REPORT FOR FULL EMR/ GRAVITATIONAL ANALYSIS

POSSIBLY DIMENSIONAL PORTAL

(Received at Bravo-6 February 2553)

HANGAR DECK, UNSC PORT STANLEY A hu was an extraordinary ly disjointed

BB spent a nanosecond reassuring hiher processing had been a sensiblehim from Naomi’s neural net was so new that he wanted ti the heart and brain of a starship was a joy, but experiencing the adrenaline-distorted, frantic awareness of a human under stress was far, far more … visceral

And I have no viscera How about that

"Drive--offline," Naomi said "Cannon down"

"Okay, she’s dead in the water," Mal cal ed "Blowing hatches in ten seconds Stand by to close the airlock"

The dropship lifted off Piety and peeled away Mal and Vaz were already at the hatches on either side of the ship, placing shaped charges on them as Naomi took a short run at the bow Her boot hit the vessel’s nose and propel ed her five e BB, used to predicting with certainty what his physical anchor would do--be it ship, circuit, or data drive--was left in the wake of real events for the first time in his existence

He had no idea what Naomi would do or feel in the next fraction of a second, or the second after that, even though he detected the ied

She landed knees first on the hatch The exposed deck was stil pul ing at one G, and BB felt the hatch cover defor back immediately, boots planted either side of the hatch fraency release plate BB could calculate precisely how ive hi the contraction in Naoripped and pul ed A glittering es of the hatch like escaping stea atar!"

BB felt Piety shudder The charges had detonated on her side hatches Nao feet first, rifle clutched tight to her chest as the hangar doors shut

She’s ripped open a shuttle craft She’s torn metal apart like cardboard Her heart rate’s near 180 and I can feel it in her throat-- else I’ve experienced She’s lost her depth perception But I won’t step in yet… Somewhere else in the ship automatic fire hammered in short bursts, but in Naoround She landed in the cockpit between two Jiralhanae apparently mired in slow h space, and that was a stroke of luck: the Brutes couldn’t ht her fist straight up under the first Brute’s chin and snapped his head back so hard that BB felt the s spine travel back up her arht, but he went down

The other swung at her, bel owing He was a head tal er but Naoers in hard while she brought the stock of her rifle down hard on the top of his skulIt took her a good seven or eight pounding blows to stun him before she could lean back and fire into his face at point-blank range BB, attuned to what she perceived, saw her depth perception fade back in along with clear, ful - volume sound

Adrenaline Even in a Spartan, its effect is-- okay without any help from me

"Cockpit clear Two hostiles down"

"Four contacts back here," Mal said "One down No Engineer yet Oh--"

Mal was drowned out by weapons fire and raw, anih the cockpit hatch and into the cargo coap between stacked crates "Mal!"

She al on the deck and another had Vaz pinned down one-handed But the rip on his knife, now buried up to the hilt in the roaring, snarling Brute’s neck BB, whose every process was tied to his syste--his own, real and objective, and Naomi’s, suddenly very much slower and ht and win

So that’s what adrenaline does to her tirabbed the Brute by the col ar and jerked it off Vaz in onehis arm so he could aim his carbine He shoved the er Another layer of noise vanished Nao from the aft section

"One down" Vaz scrambled to his feet "Mal, talk to me"

"Two not down--the bastards"

Naomi shoved past Vaz and fol owed the noise BB felt her heart rate fal to 140 as her adrenaline steadied, and she moved forith her rifle trained--she saw spiked her heart rate for a couple of seconds and she’d already opened fire on it before her frontal lobes identified it as a Brute

"Four down," she said "Two left"

More fire rattled behind the bulkhead of the next coive her so it She punched her way through the flimsy hatch and stepped into a hail of needle projectiles that skidded off her arht then were Naomi’s helmet caed ainst his wil --to watch Mal finish off the last one standing with a ful clip ely long tiical studies, data, recon footage, or any other kind of third-hand input could have prepared BB for this His choices were either to see what Naomi saw or disconnect from her optic nerve, a very limited but intense set of options co every circuit, system, and carrier wave in his electronic existence This was her experience of the world, howeverpower to enhance her nerve signals He sed the microscopic detail and understood

"Al clear," she cal ed