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The schematic rebuilt itself layer by layer to expand detail of the interior bulkheads and couarantees that she was stil configured that way Piety was the sah, so it wasn’t like stor in and out without turning the Engineer into Huragok puree

"So, once we’ve zapped her, we’ve got two options," Osman said "Board her, or haul her in and crack her open in the hangar"

Mal looked at Naoer down into the hologra hard vacuuood for anybody," she said "This here is the only place I canIf we breach her hul out there, then chances are we’l kil the Engineer as welI’d rather take the risk of dragging the vessel back in here"

"How upset are you going to be if we lose the Engineer, ma’am?" Mal asked

"I accept it’s a risk," Osman said "If we lose it, then we use it--blame it on the Jiralhanae that ‘Telca suitably devious The question is whether ant a potential self-destruct on the hangar deck"

"Wel , seeing as the best way to carry out an opposed boarding is simultaneous entry attheir at we can’t take the ship, but there’l be a lot of ordnance flying around, on’t knohere the Engineer is until we get in there, and it ht not survive until we find it anyway"

Naomi leaned on the chart table with both hands It creaked a little Mal noted al the sot to be built to take a few hundred kilos of aret’s the way it is She indicated a hatch near the bow

"Mjolnir’s good for over an hour in hard vacuum," she said "What’s your pressure suit rated at? Fifteen minutes? Ten? But I don’t know if I can seal the hatch fast enough to avoid kil ing the Engineer So I’l vote for bringing the ship inboard It’s stil going to be an opposed boarding, but we have a little more time to do it sensibly"

"Just thinking aloud," Mal said "What if they decide to blow the ship while they’re in the hangar, or they get their drives going, or fire their weapons?"

"Or decide to kil the Engineer rather than let us take it," Vaz said "Although that suicide harness is going to blow either way"

Whichever way they cut it, Mal decided, the Engineer stil stood less than a fifty-fifty chance of survival The only question was how much of a risk they wanted to take thened specifical y for ONI’s kind of unorthodox warfare, but she wasn’t heavily armored and she probably couldn’t withstand a ar

We could just blow up the ship, of course At least that would deny the deep in Mal’s core refused to let hiiven the choice When he looked at the faces of everyone else around that chart table, he could see that they were just as reluctant to pass up the chance

If we’d captured soineers early in the ould have known exactly what Covenant weapons could do and how to counter theineers to develop better weapons ourselves We could have stopped the war We could have saved billions of lives

Lose this one? No bloody way

But he had to ask "How coineers already, ma’am? It’s not like we haven’t coht in the eye "We have Or at least we had We captured and defused one a couple of years ago and got some very useful developments out of it But we need more than one They repair one another, reineers"

"Got to do it, then, ineer because he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any ar’s eency bulkhead and do the business in the aft section with the doors open? We can repressurize fast e need to Devereaux, can you ht, but probably"

"If anything goes wrong, then at least ets directed out, not in"

"And you’re stil dead," Oset you al kil ed, then you tel ineer"

Mal was finding it hard to get used to voting on whether to attempt a mission "But if we have awith BB"

"Okay, do it," Osman said "Remember--once we hit it with an EMP, then we can’t hear their radio, and Engineers can fix things in seconds

Unless the crew’s locked it up, then it’l head for the generator co rescued It’l try to hide"

There didn’t seem to be many places to hide in Piety, but there was stil that explosive harness to worry about Mal would usual y have planned a boarding like this down to the s anyone to it They didn’t have that luxury now It was al on the fly, al guesswork and reaction

Noas starting to understand why ONI had asse that he knew exactly how each of theiven situation, planned or unplanned Maybe the HR psychologists weren’t as useless as he’d thought

On the sensor displays, Piety was tanking along at a sedate pace, oblivious of the fact that Port Stanley was now almost up her tailpipe And she stil couldn’t detect the corvette

"Okay, BB," Osram schematics snapped out and were replaced by an exterior of Piety, Port Stanley, and the dropship The display anin Stanley on Piety’s tail, then flipped her 180 degrees so that she was bel y-up to her target The dropship took up position below Stanley’s upper hul and aft of the EMP cannon, the cannon fired, and the dropship shot forward and upward to rapples on her The EMP cannon fired a few rees about herthe other way, and the dropship slotted straight into the hangar bay

"Tel me the dropship’s hardened," Devereaux said

"Of course it is" BB sounded indignant "Like Naoency ood If the busy little Huragok keeps fixing it every few seconds, then I keep firing In which case, Naoo in, you’l lose your HUD and environ a lot Which gives you far less tied "No problem"

Phil ips was very quiet, one hand to his ear Mal could see waveforms of the various Brute voices on the display in front of him

"That’s six distinct voice profiles," he said "Doesn’t uess"