They had been called the UNSC’s “super soldiers.” The military brass had assured her that the boost to morale was worth the compromised security.

At first she had protested. But ironically, the publicity had proved convenient. With all the attention on the Spartans’ heroics, no one had thought to question their true purpose—or their origin. If the truth ever came to light—abducted children, replaced by fast-grown clones; the risky, experimental surgeries and biochemical augmentations—public opinion would turn against the SPARTAN project overnight.

The recent events at Sigma Octanus had given the Spartans and MJOLNIR the final push it needed to enter its final operational phase.

She slipped on her glasses and called up the files from yesterday’s debriefing; the ONI computer system once again confirmed her retinal scan and voiceprint.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED. UNAUTHORIZED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE UNIT DETECTED. ACCESS DENIED.

Damn. ONI grew more paranoid by the day.

“Déjà,” she said with a frustrated sigh. “The spooks are nervous. I need to power you down, or ONI won’t give me access to the files.”

“Of course, Doctor,” Déjà replied calmly.

Halsey keyed the power-down sequence on her desktop terminal, sending Déjà into standby mode. This, she thought, is Ackerson’s work, the bastard. She had fought tooth and nail to keep Déjà free from the programming shackles ONI demanded... and this was their petty revenge.

She scowled impatiently until the computer system finally spit out the data she’d requested. The tiny projectors in the frames of her glasses beamed the data directly to her retina.

Her eyes darted back and forth rapidly, as if she had entered REM sleep, as she scanned the documentation from the debriefing. Finally she removed her glasses and tossed them carelessly on the desk, a sardonic smirk on her face.

The overarching conclusion of the finest military experts on the debriefing committee: ONI didn’t have a clue as to what the Covenant were doing on Sigma Octanus IV.

They had learned only four solid facts from the entire operation. First, the Covenant had gone to considerable trouble to obtain a single mineral specimen. Second, the pattern of inclusions in that igneous rock sample matched the signal that had been sent—and intercepted by the Iroquois. Third, the low entropy of the pattern indicated that it was not random. And fourth, and most important, UNSC translation software couldn’t match this pattern to any known Covenant dialect.

Her personal conclusions? Either the alien artifact was from a precursor to the present Covenant society... or it was from another, as yet undiscovered, alien culture.

When she had dropped that little bombshell of a speculation in the debriefing room yesterday, the ONI specialists had gone scrambling for cover. Especially that arrogant ass, Colonel Ackerson, she thought with a cruel smile.

The brass was not happy with either possibility. If it was old Covenant technology, it indicated they still knew virtually nothing about the Covenant culture. Twenty years of intensive study and trillions of dollars of research and they barely even understood the alien’s caste system.

And if it was the latter possibility, an artifact of another alien race... that could be even more problematic. Colonel Ackerson and some of the brass had immediately considered the logistics of fighting two alien enemies at once. Utterly ridiculous. They couldn’t even fight one. The UNSC could never hope to survive a war on two fronts.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Despite the grim conclusions, there was a silver lining in all this.

After the meeting, a new mandate had become the official secret policy of Fleet Command’s Special Operations Command—the parent organization for Naval Special Warfare, the Spartans’ service branch. ONI had new marching orders: to step up funding of Intel and reconnaissance missions by an order of magnitude. Small stealth ships were to be deployed to search remote systems and find where the Covenant were based.

And Dr. Halsey had finally received the green light to unleash MJOLNIR.

She had mixed feelings about it. The truth be told, she always had.

It would be the culmination of her life’s greatest work. She knew the risks—like spinning a roulette wheel, it was long odds, but the payoff was potentially huge.

It meant victory against the Covenant... or the death of all her Spartans.

The holographic crystals overhead warmed and Cortana appeared, sitting cross-legged on Dr. Halsey’s desk—actually she sat hovering a centimeter off the table’s edge.

Cortana was slender. The hue of her skin varied from navy blue to lavender, depending on her mood and the ambient lighting. Her “hair” was cropped short. Her face had a hard angular beauty. Lines of code flickered up and down her luminous body. And if Dr. Halsey viewed her from the right angle, she could catch a glimpse of the skeletal structure inside her ghostly form.

“Good morning, Dr. Halsey,” Cortana said. “I’ve read the committee’s report—”

“—which was classified as Top Secret, Eyes Only.”

“Hmm... ” Cortana mused. “I must have overlooked that.” She hopped off the desk and circled around Dr. Halsey once.

Cortana had been programmed with ONI’s best insurgency software, as well as the determination to use those code-cracking skills. While this had been necessary for her mission, when she grew bored, she caused chaos with ONI’s own security measures... and she often grew bored.

“I assume you have examined the classified data brought back from Sigma Octanus Four?” Halsey asked.

“I might have seen that somewhere,” Cortana said matter-of-factly.

“Your analysis and conclusions?”

“There is much more evidence to consider than the data in the committee’s files.” She looked off into space as if reading something.

“Oh?”

“Forty years ago a geological survey team on Sigma Octanus Four found several igneous rocks with similar—though not identical—anomalous compositions. UNSC geologists believe that these samples were introduced onto the planet via meteorite impacts—they typically are found in long-eroded impact craters on the planet surface. Isotopic dating of the site place those impact craters at present minus sixty thousand years—” Cortana paused as a hint of a smile played across her holographic features. “—though that figure may be inaccurate due to human error, of course.”

“Of course,” Dr. Halsey replied dryly.

“I have also, um... coordinated with UNSC’s astrophysics department and discovered some interesting bits archived in their long-range observational databases. There is a black hole located approximately forty thousand light-years from the Sigma Octanus System. An extremely powerful pulse-laser transmission back-scattered the matter in the accretion disk—essentially trapped this signal as this matter accelerated toward the speed of light. From our perspective, according to special relativity, this essentially froze the residue of this information on the event horizon.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Dr. Halsey said.

“This ‘frozen signal’ contains information that matches the sample from Sigma Octanus Four.” Cortana sighed and her shoulders slumped. “Unfortunately, all my attempts at translating the code have failed... so far.”

“Your conclusions, Cortana?” Dr. Halsey reminded her.

“Insufficient data for complete analysis, Doctor.”

“Hypothesize.”

Cortana bit her lower lip. “There are two possibilities. The data originates from the Covenant or another alien race.” She frowned. “If it’s another alien species, the Covenant probably wants these artifacts to scavenge their technology. Either conclusion opens several new opportunities for the NavSpecWep—”

“I am aware of that,” Dr. Halsey said, raising her hand. If she allowed the AI to continue, Cortana would talk all day. “One of those opportunities is Project MJOLNIR.”