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Keyes toyed with his pipe, replaying the battle in his mind No The Covenant had lost because they were really after soe was the key

"Sir," Lieutenant Do orders froh to my station, Lieutenant," Captain Keyes said as he sat in his coerprints and then decoded the e He read on the small monitor:

United Nations Space Command Priority Transhtning- Officer, UNSC Leviathan / USNC Sector Three Commander/ (UNSC Service Nu officer UNSC Iroquois / (UNSC Service Number: 01928-19912-JK)

Subject:ORDERS FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE CONSIDERATION

Classification:SECRET (BGX Directive)

/start file

Keyes,

Drop whatever you’re doing and head back to the barn We’re both wanted for i by ONI at REACH Headquarters ASAP

Looks like the spooks at Naval Intelligence are up to their norars and brandy afterward

Regards,

Stanforth

"Very well," he muttered to himself "Lieutenant Don Lovell, generate a randomized vector as per the Cole Protocol, and make ready to leave system

Take us out for an hour in Slipstream space, then we’ll reorient and proceed to the REACH Military Instillation"

"Aye, sir Randomized jump vector ready--our tracks are covered"

"Lieutenant Hall: start organizing shore leave for the crew We’re heading back for repairs and son Lovell said

That wasn’t technically in his orders, but Captain Keyes would ot the rest they deserved That was the least he could do for them

The Iroquois slowly accelerated on an out-systema Octanus IV The battle was overso why did he feel like he was headed into another fight?

The Iroquois plowed through a haze of titanium dust--condensed from a UNSC battleplate vaporized by Covenant plas it look like the destroyer sailed through an ocean of blood

When there was time, a HazMat team would sweep the area and clean up In thein size from microscopic up to thirty-meter sections of Cradle --still drifted in the system

One piece of debris in particular floated near the Iroquois

It was suishable from any of a thousand other softball-sized blobs that cluttered radar scopes and polluted therh, however, they would have seen that this particular piece of metal drifted in the opposite direction from all the otherIroquoisand edged closer, h, it extended tiny electrouided it to the baffles at the base of the Iroquois ’ nuine shield It blended in perfectly with the other vanadiule photo eye and gazed at the stars, collecting data to reference its current position It would continue to do this for several days During that tie When it reached critical energy, a tiny sliver of thallium nitride ht, and a enerate around it If its trajectory was perfect, it would intercept a Covenant receiver located at precise coordinates in the alternate space

and the tiny automated probe would reveal to the Covenant every place the Iroquois had been