Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [55]
Ensign Lovell sat up straighter in his chair.
Beta probe cycled back. The mass was still there and as solid as before. It was the largest reading Ensign Lovell had ever seen: twenty thousand tons. That couldn’t be a Covenant ship—they didn’t get that big. And the silhouette was a bumpy spherical shape; it didn’t match any of the Covenant ships in the database. It had to be a rogue asteroid.
He tapped his stylus on the desk. What if it wasn’t an asteroid? He’d have to purge the database and enable the self-destruct mechanism for the outpost. But what could the Covenant want way out here?
Gamma probe reappeared. The mass readings were unchanged. Spectroscopic analysis was inconclusive, which was normal for probe reading at this distance. The mass was two hours out at its present velocity. Its projected trajectory was hyperbolic—a quick swing near the star, and then it would pass invisibly out of the system and be forever gone.
He noted that its trajectory bought it close to Sigma Octanus IV . . . which, if the rock were in real space, would be cause for alarm. In Slipspace, however, it could pass “through” the planet, and no one would notice.
Ensign Lovell relaxed and sent the retrieval drones after the three probes. By the time they got the probes back, though, the mass would be long gone.
He stared at the last image on screen. Was it worth sending an immediate report to Sigma Octanus COM? They’d make him send his probes out without a proper recovery, and the probes would likely get lost after that. A supply ship would have to be sent out here to replace them. The station would have to be inspected and recertified—and he’d receive a thorough lecture on what did and did not constitute a valid emergency.
No . . . there was no need to bother anyone over this. The only ones who would be really interested were the high-forehead types at UNSC Astrophysics, and they could review the data at their leisure.
He logged the anomaly and attached it to his hourly update.
Ensign Lovell kicked up his boots and reclined, once again feeling perfectly safe in his little corner of the universe.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
0300 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNSC destroyerIroquois on routine patrol in the Sigma Octanus Star System
Commander Jacob Keyes stood on the bridge of theIroquois . He leaned against the brass railing and surveyed the stars in the distance. He wished the circumstances of his first command were more auspicious, but experienced officers were in short supply these days. And he had his orders.
He walked around the circular bridge examining the monitors and displays of engine status. He paused at the screens showing the stars fore and aft; he couldn’t quite get used to the view of deep space again. The stars were so vivid . . . and here, so different from the stars near Earth.
TheIroquois had rolled out of space dock at Reach—one of the UNSC’s primary naval yards—just three months ago. They hadn’t even installed her AI yet; like good officers, the elaborate artificially intelligent computer systems were also in dangerously short supply. Still,Iroquois was fast, well armored, and armed to the teeth. He couldn’t ask for a finer vessel.
Unlike the frigates that Commander Keyes had toured on before, theMeriwether Lewis andMidsummer Night , this ship was a destroyer. She was almost as heavy as both those vessels combined, but she was only seven meters longer. Some in the fleet thought the massive ships were unwieldy in combat—too slow and cumbersome. What those critics forgot was that a UNSC destroyer sported two MAC guns, twenty-six oversized Archer missile pods, and three nuclear warheads. Unlike other fleet ships, she carried no single-ship fighters—instead her extra mass came from the nearly two meters of titanium-A battleplate armor that covered her from stem to stern. TheIroquois could dish out and take a tremendous amount of punishment.
Someone at the shipyard had appreciated theIroquois for what she was,