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CHAPTER ELEVEN
0930 hours, September 4,2552 (Military Calendar)
\ UNSC High Command (HighCom) Facility Bravo-6,
Sydney, Australia, Earth. Two and a half weeks ago.
Lieutenant Wagner walked through metal- and
explosive-detector gates and into the atrium entrance of the large,
vaguely conical structure. Officially designated UNSC HighCom
Facility B-6, the sprawling edifice had been nicknamed "the
Hive."
It was overcast in Sydney. Gray light filtered in through the
crystal dome overhead.
He marched past officers and NCOs moving with purpose to
whatever destinations occupied their time. He ignored the dis-
plays of acacia trees and exotic ferns meant for the press and
civilian tours. Today there was no time for pleasantries.
In another hour the apparent calm and efficiency of HighCom
would be shattered into a billion pieces. Only a few of the brass
knew that the UNSC's mightiest outpost, Reach, was now noth-
ing more than a cinder.
Wagner approached the receptionist's station under the
watchful eyes of a trio of armored Marine MPs.
Keeping Reach's fate quiet was not the UNSC's biggest se-
cret, not by a country mile. Virtually no one in the civilian popu-
lation of the Inner Colonies knew how perilously close they
were to losing this war. ONI Section Two had done a brilliant job
of preserving the fiction that Earth forces held their own against
the Covenant.
And what did the citizens of the Outer Colonies think? Those
who hadn't fled to remote outposts and hidden privateer bases