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"FLEETCOM online, sir," Lieutenant Dominique said

The weathered face of Admiral Michael Stanforth appeared on the h of relief Ad reasonable and intelligent He’d understand the logic of the situation

"Commander Keyes," the Admiral said "The old ‘Schoolmaster’ himself, huh? This is the priority channel, son This better be an enored the obvious condescension He knewbut a classrooht he didn’t deserve that

"The Sigma Octanus System is about to come under attack, sir"

Admiral Stanforth cocked an eyebrow and leaned closer to the screen

"I’ that all ships in-syste systeot, Keyes," the Admiral said

Commander Keyes displayed the silhouette from the sensor outpost first "Covenant ships, sir Their silhouettes are overlapped Our probes resolve theravity more easily than nor

"You’ve fought the Covenant, sir You kno precisely they can h the Slipstream I’ve seen a dozen alien craft appear in normal space, in perfect formation, not a kilometer apart"

"Yeah," the Adood work You’ll get everything we can send"

"Thank you, sir"

"You just hang in there, son Good luck FLEETCOM out"

The view screen snapped off

"Sir?" Lieutenant Hall turned around "How e vessels," he said "The equivalent of our frigates"

"Four Covenant ships?" Lieutenant Jaggers muttered "What can we do?"

"Do?" Co the Coan to protest

Keyes cut hi his words "Sigma Octanus Four has seventeenthat we just stand by and watch the Covenant glass the planet?"

"No, sir" His gaze dropped to the deck

"We will do the best we can," Commander Keyes said "In the meantime, remove all weapons systeuns, and remove the safeties from one of our nukes"

"Yes, sir!" Lieutenant Hikowa said

An alar failure levels," Lieutenant Hall reported

"SuperconductingCoolant breakdown imminent"

"Vent primary coolant and pump in the reserve tanks," Commander Keyes ordered "That will buy us another five minutes"

"Yes, sir"

Coht the thing, just chewed on the end

Then he put it away The nervous habit wasn’t setting the right exae officers He didn’t have the luxury of showing his apprehension

The truth was, he was terrified Four Covenant ships would be an even match for seven destroyers The best he could hope for was to get their attention and outrun theot here

Of coursethose Covenant ships could outrun the Iroquois as well

"Lieutenant Jaggers," he said, "initiate the Cole Protocol Purge our navigation databases, and then generate an appropriate randoma Octanus Syste his head, steadied his hands, and slowly typed in the commands

"Lieutenant Hall: make preparations to override reactor safeties"

His junior officers all paused for a second "Aye, sir," Lieutenant Hall whispered

"We’re receiving a transe," Lieutenant Do are on an inbound vector at maximum speed ETAone hour"

"Good," Coht as well be a month This battle would be over in unned He couldn’t outrun them, either There had to be another option

Hadn’t he always told his students that when you were out of options, then you were using the wrong tactics? You had to bend the rules Shift perspective--anything to find a way out of a hopeless situation

The black space near Sight

"Ships entering nor his voice

Co There weren’t four Covenant frigates A pair of ene a destroyer and a carrier

His blood ran cold He had seen battles in which a Covenant destroyer had made Swiss cheese of UNSC

ships Its plash the Iroquois ’ two meters of titaniuht-years ahead of the UNSC’s

"Their weapons," Commander Keyes muttered under his breath Yeshe did have a third option

"Continue at e zero three two"

Lieutenant Jaggers swiveled in his seat "That will put us on collision course with their destroyer, sir"

"I know," Co just that"