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194
HALO: FIRST STRIKE
tapped into the software; it had infinite loops and dead-end code
lines—things that had to be errors.
Yet there were also slender crystalline translation vectors that
she would never have thought of on her own. She copied those
and slaved them to her dynamic lexicon.
The distant Covenant transmissions poured though her mind,
now somewhat more coherent: Inner temple layers penetrated;
Infidels present, and Cleansing operation ongoing; Victory is as-
sured, and The Great One's purity will burn the infidels; The
holy light cannot be tainted.
She picked up on the urgent undertone to these transmissions,
as if the notorious Covenant confidence were not entirely genuine.
Since these messages made reference to an infestation to be
cleansed, and since these transmissions occurred many hours
before the Ascendant Justice had entered the Epsilon Eridani
system, the Master Chief had been correct in his conclusions:
There were human survivors on Reach. Likely Spartans.
His correct analysis of the situation based on the six-note sig-
nal irritated Cortana. It annoyed her more that she had not con-
cluded this as well. It made her realize how dangerously close to
the edge of her intellectual capacity she operated.
One of her alert routines triggered. An access hatch on the
route from the bridge to the reactor room—one that she had
specifically directed Sergeant Johnson not to weld shut—just
opened.
"The trap is loaded," she whispered.
Cortana scanned the region with the ship's internal sensors.
There was nothing ... unless that "nothing" was actually a
group of camouflaged Elites—perhaps the "Guardian of the Lu-
minous Key" mentioned in the Covenant's greeting communique.
She tripped the emergency hull breach shut on four bulkhead
doors—two on each side of this opened hatch.
"Trap is sprung," she remarked.
Cortana vented the atmosphere in this sealed section.
She hoped that they had left the vent system open behind
them—dooming any others left behind to a similar asphyxiation.
Her sensors picked up a plasma grenade detonation on the in-
ner port set of doors she had sealed and locked. The discharge
scrambled those circuits and disabled the locks. She noted that