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Mal stuck his head through the cockpit hatch, squeezing Vaz out of the way "You got a sitrep, Dev? How bad is it?"

"How bad do you want? Phil ips ran into ‘Telcam, and ‘Telcam asked him what he knew about Jul ‘Mdama"

"Oh, Christ So our cover’s blown"

"No idea There was an explosion, and the last thing Os Phil ips that it wasn’t them, whatever that means" Devereaux paused and the dropship suddenly shot up alrab for a handrail He should have buckled in "Then she lost the signal"

That hat ca at the Arbiter while arious zealots anted to overthrow hiet in the way Wel , ONI had certainly succeeded in keeping Sanghelios off balance That hat Parangosky wanted: to kick the hinge-heads while they were down, to kick theain Vaz didn’t have a probleled

The patch of sky framed in the cockpit screen faded from blue to violet to black They were clear of the planet now Devereaux turned the shuttle over to the onboard AI with a tap on the console She didn’t look back over her seat

"He’l be okay, Dev," Mal said

She sounded a little hoarse "Yeah"

Her tone was resigned Vaz realized he hadn’t picked up so that Mal already had So Devereaux was fond of Phil ips It wasn’t until Vaz heard that slight crack in her voice that he realized it was more than a comradely concern for his safety

"I mean it, Lian" Mal’s voice dropped to firm, quiet reassurance, the first time Vaz had heard him cal Devereaux by her actual name There was a rock-solid fatherly certainty about hi in three alien languages Chin up, kid"

Devereaux just nodded So black void, the ONI corvette Port Stanley lurked with an iet more bad news after a very bad week, and an AI who’d lost part of hiation plot showed the ship as a delicate green ht

"So hoas your day?" Devereaux seeain "Track down any bad guys?"

It was hard to answer As Kilo-Five’s co officer, Osman should have been told first, but then Naoht to know before anyone else On the other hand, Devereaux was ODST, 10th battalion, one of their own, and Vaz didn’t like keeping fel ow led with the news Mal didn’t step in to help him out

"We did," Vaz said at last "And it’s complicated"

HANGAR DECK, UNSC PORT STANLEY: VENEZIA ORBIT Pain was a strange sensation when you didn’t have a body

BB was an entity of pure thought, beyond the reach of aches and injuries, but now he realized what a traument while it was stored in Phil ips’s radio cam Then there’d been an explosion The link had been cut And it hurt

That was the only way he could describe it It was the interruption of his thought processes, unpleasant, disorienting, and lingering He felt soone forever

But I’ contact with the around Bravo-6 in Sydney, too, and I’m out of touch with that all the time I could split off a dozen more, no problem This feels different

He’d been inserted into Naoed into her nervous system in combat, so he knehat stress and adrenaline felt like to a hu too much with flesh and blood His existence, his body, was input and data: suddenly pul ing the plug was like having a chunk of hiht is all I a Without it, I’ht have shut down the radio Just a blast? Surely not ONI kit was farwhen their owner stepped on a mine

Well, there’s only one way to find out … BB was spread around Port Stanley’s syste events light-years beyond the ship

Each sensor was his eyes, ears, nose, and fingertips, but he could detect and interpret inputs far beyond a human’s senses He knew more than any individualexperience for hinorance … isn’t

"Tart-Cart to Port Stanley--put the kettle on, BB ETA fourcheerfulness but betrayed by the slight rise in the pitch of her voice BB knew the dropship’s position to ten centimeters and exactly when he’d need to seal the interior bulkheads and activate the hangar doors He wasn’t the only one struggling, then "Any news?"

"No" BB could hear a conversation going on behind Devereaux, just broken snatches while she was trans the Arbiter’s people requires souing BB could detect the changes in frequency that indicated clenched jaw ht half a phrase from Vaz, his Russian accent ry: --mi, then I will "Okay, then Tart-Cart out"

BB was linked only to the dropship’s onboard nav now, talking ht path, he speculated on what the rest of that overheard sentence was, and what had preceded it

Mi Nao … mi "Then I will" … usually preceded by "If you don’t"

So if Mal didn’t do so Nao, tel her so? The last crisis before the Venezia hastly stuff, details that would disturb any woineered to cope with trau left over from that Naomi had asked Vaz to read her file and break the bad news to her, so he was best placed to make the decision on what to tel her and when Yes, that hat it was al about BB decided to keep an eye on things and make sure everyone was okay--or as okay as they could be under the circu Mal was a staff sergeant; Vaz was a corporal Vaz also had an inflexible uray areas