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>Lopez 1440 hours

Lopez popped the cap from a bottle of antiseptic and splashed it liberally on the open gash on MacCraw’s arm. Second time he’d gotten wounded, this time from tripping over a barricade. He really needed to do a better job of looking where he was going.

“Quit yelping,” she ordered, tasting caustic medicine in her nose and throat. “You a man or a mouse?”

“It burns!”

“Poor mouse,” she said, entirely without sympathy. They hadn’t found Ayad, might never find Ayad. Lopez would take a gash against being lost in that darkness any day.

When MacCraw kept complaining, she poured the last of the antiseptic in a rush all over the wound. “Be glad Mama Lopez knows what’s good for you.”

Never expected they’d stop in the infirmary on the way to the bridge, MacCraw’s boo-boo notwithstanding, but there were no direct routes left in the Mona Lisa. Hatches jammed, barricades erected, some of them still holding, some not. Too many obstacles in unknown terrain, and she’d drastically revised their ETA to the bridge, to the point that she didn’t have one any more. Could only hope they could gain access when they got there.

The infirmary itself had remained immune to all of the destruction around it. Did their first aid work on Covenant? Probably not. No reason for the buggers to ransack the joint.

They’d pushed over a pathetic blockade at the entrance with ease. For the first time, Lopez saw graffiti, scrawled in blood across a turned-over chair, and running across the wall: “Tell Ma I didn’t do it. I didn’t. Not any of it. God bless.—George Crispin.” Smaller scritchings across the floor were obscene or devolved into nonsense words.

The place was also surprisingly small, given the size of the ship and the number of cell blocks they’d come across. Maybe the staff hadn’t been big on treating prisoners. Just figured they were tough, could take their chances.

MacCraw grunted when she slapped a pad of gauze over the gash. It needed stitches, but that would do for now.

As she put away her medic kit, Lopez noticed a detail that suddenly had her full attention.

“Singh,” she said, tilting her head toward the far wall. “What do you make of that?” A sealed chamber, without windows or cameras, the seal around the door so subtle she’d almost missed it. No handle, either.

The technician shouldered his rifle and ran a hand around the seam. “I’ve seen these before. The opposite of cells. Safe rooms. You can only open them from the inside.”

“In case the prisoners get out . . .”

“Exactly.”

MacCraw crossed the room—fleeing Mama Lopez’s tender ministrations—and put an ear against the surface, like it was a safe he wanted to crack. Now he rapped a knuckle on the door. Da-dada-da-da, da, da.

“MacCraw . . .” A tone she’d used a thousand times before.

But Singh said, “No, let him do that again.”

MacCraw obliged.

A concealed speaker clicked on, a muffled hiss speckling the silence. Sounding a lot cleaner and more immediate than the static over their radios.

Lopez grinned at both of them. Good boys. “Anyone home? This is Sergeant Lopez of the UNSC Red Horse.” Remembering John Doe, still the only living person from the Mona Lisa she’d met.

Of course, it might be Covie in there.

A pause, and then a voice: “UNSC?” Male. Nervous. Dry.

“The one and only.” All five of us. At your service. Or not. Depending.

She took a step back and leveled her rifle at the door. Motioned for the others to do the same.

“How do I know you’re really UNSC?”

“You can either take my word for it, or I can prove it to you. One of these is the fun option, but not for you.”

Mahmoud and Percy joined the ring, Rakesh keeping an eye on the corridor. Four rifles on the door, just waiting for it to open.

Something like confidence entered the voice: “I’d hate to take away your fun . . .”

Lopez frowned. She didn’t find that clever. She’d been counting her eleven rosary beads nonstop since Ayad, and she wasn’t taking any chances with the rest of them. Didn’t care if a party of gung-ho Spartans was behind that door. Well, okay, that’s not true.