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"There are risks, however," Cortana told him. "Each successive copy contains aberrations that I cannot correct. There may be unforeseen complications associated with using a copy of a copy."

"Do it," John ordered. "I'll take that chance. But I'm not willing to take a chance on crossing seven kilometers behind enemy lines without a way to bypass their security systems."

"Standby," Cortana said. "Working." A minute ticked off John's mission timer. Then the data chip ejected from the terminal.

"Done," Cortana said over the interteam COM. "I'm in. There's an exit to this bay thirty meters to your left. I will black out the security cameras there and open the door in twenty seconds. Hurry."

John retrieved the chip and reinserted it into his skull. There was a flash of cold mercury in his mind.

"Move out," John told Blue Team. "Stay low."

Fred's and Linda's acknowledgment lights flickered, indicating the way was clear.

Blue Team ran, crouching, for thirty meters. A small access panel slid open, they piled through—then the door snapped shut behind them.

They proceeded, hunched over; they crawled on their hands and knees, on their stomachs, and through ducting so tight they had to shut down their shields and scrape by on bare armor over metal. For kilometers they followed Cortana's directions, halting as she ran motion sensors through diagnostics until they passed ... twisting and turning and shimmying down long lengths of pipe, dodging the giant blades of circulation fans, and edging by transformer coils so close that sparks arced across their shields.

According to John's mission timer they had followed this route for eleven hours—when it dead-ended. "New welds," Fred said, running his gauntlet over the seams in the alloy plate blocking their path. Cortana broke in over the COM, "It must be a repair not logged into the station manifest."

John said. "Options?"

Cortana replied, "I have only limited mission-planning routines. There are three obvious options. You can blow the obstructing plate with a Lotus antitank mine. You can return to the repair bay where we might find a less obvious way in. Or there is a faster, alternative route, but it has drawbacks."

"Time is running out," John said. "The Covenant aren't going to stick around much longer before they strike Earth. Give me the faster route."

"Backtrack four hundred meters, turn bearing zero-nine-zero, proceed another twenty meters, and exit through a waste access cover. From there you will move in the open for seven hundred meters, pass through a structure, and then down a guarded corridor to the reactor chambers."

Grace interrupted, "What do you mean 'in the open'? This is a space station; there should be no open spaces."

"See for yourself," Cortana said.

A schematic of the "open space" appeared on their heads-up displays. John wasn't able to make much sense of the diagram, but he could tell there were several catwalks, buildings, and even waterways—as Cortana indicated, lots of open areas for them to be seen in.

"Let's take a look," John said.

He led his team back the way they had come and pushed open the waste access duct. Blue light flooded the tunnel. John blinked and let his eyes adjust, then pushed the fiber-optic probe through the opening.

John didn't understand what he saw—the optical probe must have malfunctioned. The image looked impossibly distorted. But there was no motion nearby . . . so he risked poking his head out.

He was in the end of an alley with walls towering ten meters to either side, casting dark shadows over the waste access hole. A group of Jackals passed the mouth of the alley only five meters from his position. He ducked ... and none of the vulturelike creatures saw him in the dark.

When they passed he looked up and saw that the fiber-optic probe had not been broken after all.

The space station was hollow inside, and a light beam shot lengthwise through its center: a blue light that provided full daylight illumination. Along the curved inner surface were needle-thin spires, squat stair-step pyramids, and columned temples. Catwalks