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But after another forty s, he did it anyway

"You ever feel a sense of injustice about your life, Fred?" This was man-to-man now At some point Mendez would need to say sorry, but it had to be more than a word and it had to be discussed "About the life you never had, I mean"

Fred didn’t answer for a fewsilence "I don’t recal that life," he said "But wherever I caht not otherwise have lived And how et to fulfil their ful potential? I’m okay with it, Chief"

Mendez wasn’t sure if it was just a kind answer for his benefit, a rationalization because regret was a sour and painful thing, or if it was simply the way Fred real y felt

And how can I be sorry if I went and did it all over again with the next batch of Spartans?

Linda’s voice ca to conclusions, but I think we’ve found a food warehouse First doood news"

"Got you," Fred said "On our way"

Mendez jogged down the street after hi outside the arched entrance to what could have been a spa, hands on hips She didn’t say a word She jerked her head at the

The interior re open tiled floor with a kind of colonnade on three sides The dome had looked opaque from the outside but from in here he could see the sky, blue and marbled ispy clouds The place was another ih, there were plenty of Forerunner glyphs on the wal s and above the doors

"Mind the tables," Linda said

Fred was a few paces ahead of Mendez "What tables?"

Linda put her left hand out to her side as she walked, then stood stilWhere her hand cast a shadow, the tiles defor almost like extruded plastic It rose up in a coluht, then spread horizontal y like aIt was now a table

"Wel , at least we knohere sorunted "Neat technology"

"And eren’t far off the h the wal , either" Linda kept going and see the colonnade "Look"

She was a meter from the hen it parted It didn’t slide apart: it dissolved That was the only way Mendez could describe it As he stood on the threshold, he could feel soht was a constant breeze, but knowing the Forerunners it couldn’t be that simple The room he stared into was lined with completely plain shelves

"Is this a cold store?" he asked

"Not sure if it’s chil ed" Linda walked inside and cast around with that head h the different filters in her visor "But the atmosphere is different in here I can’t swear to this, either, because I can’t even begin to guess how the Forerunners cleaned premises, but I don’t think this place has ever been stocked I’anic material in my filters"

Mark, Ash, and To on the tiles Their silence was tel ing They looked around and eventual y To that they started building this place but never finished it?" he said

Yes, that was exactly how it looked Mendez wasn’t sure just how s, but it did raise a question What had stopped the Forerunners? A civilization like that didn’t shelve projects because the budget ran out

But it was thousands of years ago, so

"Come on," he said "Lucy’s stil out there somewhere"

UNSC PORT STANLEY, URS SYSTEM: FEBRUARY 2553

"It’s just like Earth," Philips said "You sel arms to some bunch of revolutionaries you think are on your side, and before you know it, the stuff ends up in the wrong hands Wel , that’s why you tagged the weapons, isn’t it? Just to work out who’s in cahoots ho"

Osain toelse of use that she could strip fro around the ship’s syste himself Every few minutes she heard him say "Yoink…"

"That’s true," Osman said "I don’tas they’re squabbling between the us I just want to know the supply route"

"Venezia," BB said suddenly "There’s a link to Venezia in the co"

"How?" Osman knew BB could process information in nanoseconds He’d taken his tie No slipspace drive, for a start"

"No, but they are in touch with a party of Kig-Yar who appear to be trans from within the Venezia sector"

Osht back to the Covenant AA battery that Venezia had fired at Monte Cassino She’d wondered how the colonists had acquired missiles, and now she knew Bastard Jackals The afterovernment col apse in a as usual y a free-for-al with the hardware

Who was left to keep an inventory? It wasn’t a surprise, but it did coood and bad ways The Prophets hadn’t trusted the Kig-Yar any more than she did, and restricted the slipspace drives they were al owed access to The Kig-Yar got what the UNSC diplomatical y termed the de-enriched spec

Well, I’d ot the monkey model, too But Venezia doesn’t care They need the ar vessels now

"Any indication of how chuineer e business," BB said "The flight path suggests they were avoiding another ship So the Kig-Yar probably knew"