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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

0500 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Iroquois ,on the bridge of the Iroquois and surveyed the devastation

The space near Sigma Octanus IV was littered with debris: the dead hulks of Covenant and UNSC ships spun lazily in the vacuued pieces of decies, and heat-blackened ets The debris field would clutter this systeational hazard for the next decade

They had recovered nearly all the bodies froht the remnants of the Cradle as the blasted space dock spun past The kiloh orbit around the planet She was slowly being torn apart froirders and ravitational stresses on the ship increased

The Covenant plash ten decks of super-hard metal and armor like so many layers of tissue paper Thirty volunteers on the repair station had died piloting the unwieldy craft

Adotten his "win"but at a tremendous cost

Keyes brought up the casualty figures and dae estimates on his data pad He scowled as the data scrolled across his screen

The UNSC had lost more than twenty ships, and those that survived had all suffered heavy da repair at a shipyard Nearly one thousand people were killed in the battle, and hundreds more ounded, many critically Add to that the sixteen hundred Marine casualties on the surface--and the three hundred thousand civilians murdered in Côte d’Azur at the hands of the Covenant

Soht bitterly

Côte d’Azur was now a sma Octanus IV was still a human-held world They had saved everyone else on the planet, nearly thirteen million souls So perhaps it had been worth it

So many lives and deaths had been measured in this battle Had the balance of the odds tipped slightly against the he had never taught any of his students at the Academy--how much victory depended on luck as well as skill

Captain Keyes saw the last of the Marine dropships returning from the planet surface They docked with the Leviathan , and then the huge carrier turned and accelerated out of the system

"Sensor sweep complete," Lieutenant Dominique reported "I think that was the last of the lifeboats we picked up, sir"

"Let’s make certain, Lieutenant," Keyes replied "One n Lovell, plot a course and take us around again"

"Yes, sir," Lovell wearily replied

The bridge creas exhausted, physically and emotionally They had all pulled extended shifts as they searched for survivors Captain Keyes would rotate shifts after this next pass

As he looked at this crew he noticed that so was different Lieutenant Hikowa’sshe did noould decide their next battle; it ic efficiency Lieutenant Hall’s false exuberance had been replaced by genuine confidence Do a report to FLEET- COM Even Ensign Lovell, despite his exhaustion, stepped lively

Maybe Adht Maybe the fleet needed this win more than he had realized

They had beaten the Covenant Although not widely known, there had been only three sements in which the UNSC fleet had decisively defeated the Covenant And not since Adement on this scale A complete victory--a world saved

It would show everyone that winning was possible, that there was hope

But, he otten lucky--and had twice as many ships as the Covenant And, he suspected, they had beaten the Covenant because the Covenant’s real objective hadn’t been to win

Naval Intelligence officers had coratulated Captain Keyes on his perforle bit of data they had intercepted from the Covenant planetside trans any explanation