Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [94]
She had, of course, declined. Now the brass and VIPs that wanted to see her had to spend half the day just getting through the security barriers to her lair. She relished the irony—her banishment had become a bureaucratic weapon.
But none of that really mattered. It was just a means to an end for Dr. Halsey . . . a means to getting Project MJOLNIR back on track.
She reached for her coffee cup and knocked a stack of papers off her desk. They fell, scattered onto the floor, and she didn’t bother to retrieve them. She examined the mud-brown dregs in the bottom of the mug; it was several days old.
The office of the most important scientist in the military was not the antiseptic clean-room environment most people expected. Classified files and papers littered the floor. The holographic projector overhead painted the ceiling with a field of stars. Rich maple paneling covered the walls and hanging there were framed photographs of her SPARTAN IIs, receiving awards, and the plethora of articles about them that appeared when the Admiralty had made the project public three years ago.
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 theIroquois . 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