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“Rebecca has verified his story.”

It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t the truth, either.

“I’m going to kill him,” she whispered. “I’m going to—”

Foucault ignored her. “Having witnessed this ‘Flood’ firsthand, Sergeant, what is your assessment? If it were to reach one of the outer colonies, for example?”

“I’m not paid to think, sir. Remember?” Bitter. Furious. Knew what Foucault was driving at, knew that the coward wanted her to have to say it. To have to accept it.

The pounding on the door increased. Rakesh wasn’t alone anymore. Now he had friends.

“Nevertheless.”

Officers. Officers. Making decisions from a distance.

“We have no defense against such a foe,” Rebecca said, sparing Foucault from uttering the words. “Any planet infected by the Flood would be overrun in a matter of days. More food for the Flood. More knowledge of where to find food. They retain all useful information. Outpost coordinates, more pilots, increased numbers with which to commandeer ships, to reach more colonies. You know this to be true.”

Lopez found herself quoting Smith. “ ‘It’s a big, bad universe, Commander. Covenant aren’t the worst of it.’ ” Found herself agreeing with him, as he’d wanted her to.

Rebecca again, in a soothing tone that didn’t soothe at all: “The Flood represents the greatest threat to humanity since the Covenant. A cure must be sought—”

“A cure?!” Realized she was digging her nails into MacCraw’s arm. Couldn’t let go. Served him right for elbowing her before. “There is no goddamn cure! According to the files, this was never about a cure, this was about control, about creating mindless monster soldiers you could control. Who knows what Smith was doing that isn’t in the record. But a cure? If you’d seen what we’ve seen . . .”

“We have, Sergeant,” Foucault said. “We have . . .”

Lopez loosened her grip on MacCraw’s arm. He put his hand over hers, palm sweaty. “I guess I thought we were better than the Covenant. Not just a little better. Really better.”

“Research is always necessary, Sergeant.” Rebecca was calm, assured, implacable. But she hadn’t had the worst day in the history of worst days.

“The research was useless,” Lopez said. “Totally useless. We’ve known about this thing for weeks and all we’ve done in that time is expose ourselves to more risk. That gas giant was drawing in the debris, crushing it. It would have vacuumed up everything. And what did we do? We sent a goddamned cab.”

MacCraw’s silence grew heavier beside her.

A pause, and Foucault again: “Our orders are to destroy the Mona Lisa. We cannot allow any of the Flood to survive. Rebecca has informed me that there are two remaining escape pods on the lower deck. The launching mechanisms appear disabled, so they may need manual releasing. Once Major Smith is on board, you will have until we are in position and the Shiva is armed, and then we will open fire. We cannot delay any further. The major has brought the attention of the Covenant capitol ship upon us.”

“You knew.” Those two words saturated with grief, fury, betrayal. Betrayed twice, three times over. For nothing. Didn’t want to come close to acknowledging the hope Foucault had held out in the form of the two pods.

A force rippled through the ship, made the bridge almost flip for a second. Lopez went flying, righted herself before she crashed into the wall. Saw that McCraw tried to hold onto the console before falling. The ship settled, but Lopez could hear tearing sounds in the metal, a booming through the air ducts like a giant smashing something with a huge hammer.

“What was that?” Foucault asked, urgent.

“I don’t know. But it’s gone and passed,” said Lopez. “And we’re still here.” Making it sound accusatory.

A moment of silence. For all of them. She hoped that was Foucault’s conscience knifing him.

“Eight, maybe ten minutes, Sergeant,” he said finally, and she could hear the shame in his voice. Hoped even harder it knifed him for the rest of his life.

Lopez pulled MacCraw to his feet.

“Good luck,” Foucault said, already becoming distant.

“You know what you