“Orders, sir?” Jagger asked.

“Continue on this heading, Lieutenant. We’ll finish our patrol around Sigma Octanus and then accelerate and enter Slipspace.”

“Aye, sir.”

Commander Keyes eased into his seat and detached the tiny monitor from the armrest. He read the hourly report from the Archimedes Sensor Outpost. The log of the large mass was curious. It was too big to be even the largest Covenant carrier... yet something was oddly familiar about its shape.

He retrieved his pipe from his jacket, lit it, inhaled a puff, and exhaled the fragrant smoke through his nose. Keyes would never even have thought about smoking on the other vessels he had served on, but here... well, command had its privileges.

He pulled up his files transferred from the Academy—several theoretical papers that had recently caught his interest. One, he thought, might apply to the outpost’s unusual reading.

That paper had initially sparked his interest because of its author. He had never forgotten his first assignment with Dr. Catherine Halsey... nor the names of any of the children they had observed.

He opened the file and read:

Commander Keyes switched back to the silhouette from the Archimedes report. The leading edge almost looked like the bulbous head of a whale. That realization chilled him to the core.

He quickly opened the UNSC database of all known Covenant ships. He scanned them until he found the three-dimensional representation of one of their medium-sized warships. He rotated it into three-quarters profile. He overlaid the image on the silhouette, scaled it back a little.

It was a perfect match.

“Lieutenant Dominique, get FLEETCOM ASAP. Priority Alpha.”

The Lieutenant snapped straight in his chair. “Yes, sir!”

The bridge officers looked at the Commander then exchanged glances with one another.

Commander Keyes brought up a map of the system on his data pad. The silhouette monitored by the outpost was on a direct course for Sigma Octanus IV. That confirmed his theory.

“Bring us about to course zero four seven, Lieutenant Jaggers. Lieutenant Hall, push the reactors to one hundred ten percent.”

“Aye, Commander,” Lieutenant Jaggers replied.

“Reactor running hot, sir,” Hall reported. “Now exceeding recommended operational parameters.”

“ETA?”

Jaggers calculated, then looked up. “Forty-three minutes,” he replied.

“Too slow,” Commander Keyes muttered. “Reactor to one hundred thirty percent, Lieutenant Hall.”

She hesitated. “Sir?”

“Do it!”

“Yes, sir!” She moved as if someone had electrically shocked her.

“FLEETCOM online, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said.

The weathered face of Admiral Michael Stanforth appeared on the main view screen.

Commander Keyes breathed a sigh of relief. Admiral Stanforth had a reputation for being 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 emergency.”

Commander Keyes ignored the obvious condescension. He knew many at FLEETCOM thought he deserved to command nothing but a classroom—and some probably thought 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’m requesting that all ships in-system rendezvous with the Iroquois at Sigma Octanus Four. And any ships in neighboring systems make best speed here.”

“Show me what you’ve got, Keyes,” the Admiral said.

Commander Keyes displayed the silhouette from the sensor outpost first. “Covenant ships, sir. Their silhouettes are overlapped. Our probes resolve them as one mass because Slipspace is bent by gravity more easily than normal space.”

The Admiral listened to his analysis, frowning.

“You’ve fought the Covenant, sir. You known how precisely they can maneuver their ships through the Slipstream. I’ve seen a dozen alien craft appear in normal space, in perfect formation, not a kilometer apart.”

“Yeah,” the Admiral muttered. “I’ve seen that, too. All right, Keyes, good 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 many Covenant ships?”

“I’d estimate four medium-tonnage vessels,” he said. “The equivalent of our frigates.”

“Four Covenant ships?” Lieutenant Jaggers muttered. “What can we do?”

“Do?” Commander Keyes said. “Our duty.”

“Begging the Commander’s pardon, but there are four Cov—” Jaggers began to protest.

Keyes cut him off with a glare. “Stow that, mister.” He paused, weighing his words. “Sigma Octanus Four has seventeen million citizens, Lieutenant. Are you suggesting that 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 system locks, order missile crews to readiness, warm up the MAC guns, and remove the safeties from one of our nukes.”

“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Hikowa said.

An alarm sounded at ops. “Reactor hysteresis approaching failure levels,” Lieutenant Hall reported. “Superconducting magnets overloading. Coolant breakdown imminent.”

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

“Yes, sir.”

Commander Keyes fumbled with his pipe. He didn’t bother to light the thing, just chewed on the end. Then he put it away. The nervous habit wasn’t setting the right example for his bridge 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 them—hopefully distract them until the fleet got here.

Of course... those 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 randomized exit vector from the Sigma Octanus System.”

“Yes, sir.” He fumbled with his controls. He hung 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 transmission from the system’s edge,” Lieutenant Dominique announced. “Frigates Alliance and Gettysburg are on an inbound vector at maximum speed. ETA... one hour.”

“Good,” Commander Keyes said.

That hour might as well be a month. This battle would be over in minutes.