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"Evade her"
"I cannot I--we’ve been hit, we’ve been hit--"
The deck suddenly rippled under Raia like a wave, rabbed blindly as she slid doas now a steep slope, then a vertical walForze’s hand clamped on her wrist An alarm screamed, so loud that the noise fil ed her nose and ainst so break, but couldn’t tel if it was her bones or the object she’d hit Then she stopped fal ing Others didn’t She was a rock in a river, hunkered down against a fierce torrent of bodies The air was thick with acrid s from somewhere Then she realized it was fire
"Raia, hang on," Forze roared "Raia, we’ve survived one crash We’l survive this, I swear"
More bodies hit her, warriors who could grab nothing to stop their fal as the frigate--the entire world--turned inside out and upside down in a groaning, screa chorus of metal as it twisted and tore apart
"Forze! Forze! "
But Forze tuone She didn’t knoas stil holding her in place She was on a ledge, the end of a console of soht was getting brighter: fire eeping the deck She could feel the heat on her face
The co-Yar, was stil cursing Galur for delaying "Idiot, " she shrieked "Why didn’t you listen?
I tried, you fool, I tried"
Raia found her heartbeats were noing into days, giving her pause to think, freezing ti Jul had been about Kig-Yar And Forze had lied for al the right reasons, because there was no surviving this
She was fal ing The ship was fal ing
Her last thoughts shouldn’t have been regrets, but they were She regretted this venture, and she regretted that neither she nor Jul would ever knohat happened to the other
No, this was not the last thought that would ever be on her ht of her sons, and was glad of the moment left to do it She wondered if they would think of her, and forgive her for never co home
UNSC PORT STANLEY, EN ROUTE FOR NEW LLANELLI, BRUNEL SYSTEM: KNOWN AS LAQIL TO THE SANGHEILI Adj and Leaks had worked high-speed miracles on the slipspace comms BB tested the relays and felt a little put out that he didn’t quite grasp al the subtleties of the ok were to be petted and fed, not subjected to intrusive dental exaet them to explain it to him later
"So, shal weable to talk to Tart-Cart and col ect her, Captain?" BB asked "She’s got quite a slog ahead to catch up with us, and the sooner we disembark ‘Telcam, the happier everyone wil be Especial y Mal And ‘Telcae with her arms folded, distracted She stared out the viewscreen at absolute slipspace nothingness and tossed a chunk of crystal ized ginger in her pal to flip
"Yes, BB Let’s get her docked"
"And then there’s the new nav systeuesswork"
"Yes Great We’l need to lock up the Huragok or keep ‘Telca anything of Stanley, either, even if it has deterrent value"
"You’re babbling Is there so?"
Osman turned around She didn’t have to But she addressed his avatar just like the rest of the crew did, so he was starting to think of hira a body
"Shaht I’d hear myself say that"
"But three ood result"
Ose BB had wondered whether to justThere was a lot of consternation about the destruction of the three cruisers Maybe he should have done a lotup and no longer being a worry, but the less he interfered with Aine’s data, the less there was to go wrong and unravel On the other hand, he’d started hares running about Kig-Yar having nukes, but there was nothing he could do about that now
It was nowhere near as worrying as their acquiring a Covenant ship with a ventral energy bea-Yar with fast translight drives, big weapons, or the fanified fit about the nukes, leaning on the chart table on both hands while Del Rio and Lasky stood back and watched Parangosky lounged in a nearby chair, cane resting across her lap
"Yes, Margaret, yes, I accept that the Kig-Yar pick up assets that they shouldn’t," Hood said "But I want to knohere they acquired sonature very like a Rudra, and why the Arbiter’s cruisers couldn’t acquire a target They could detect it They just couldn’t hit anything How? Why?"
"I’d love to know, too," Parangosky said "I thought I made it clear that’s why I want that ship in one piece Leave it to Os with this I let that vessel escape But daaret, this had better be worth it, because the Arbiter knoe’re not incapable He’l think we’re unwilling And I gave him my word"
BB saw Os a distressing uilty for upsetting Hood, but she was going to have to get used to it ONI did that on a daily basis Parangosky was so used to this ga it under control She was so far beyond that stage that she radiated a co her teeth She could fend off Hood without even consciously noticing
"Trust -Yar activity, Terrence" She had her gravel voice on, heavy on the vocal fry, the tigress ru at the back of her throat to stop her boisterous cubs fro we need to worry about a great dealfar worse hardware than nukes"
"So we’ve risked a rift with the Arbiter so that you can bust a stolen warship racket, as the less articulate ht say"
"Indeed You can tel him that He stands to benefit as much as we do Get him to crunch a few nuhter, and piece of ordnance hen the Covenant flushed itself down the pan Tel hi about which bazaar the war machine ends up in when a major power col apses Do you want me to draw a picture for him? What does he think attacked his keep, ter Parangosky made herself n who handed her a steahed and turned her back on the viewscreen "Let’s pick up Tart-Cart"
"Don’t get al angsty over this That’s a quiet day for ONI"