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278
HALO: FIRST STRIKE
my personal property when I have showed nothing but good
faith in this—"
"Hold on to your shirttail, Governor," Admiral Whitcomb
snapped. "I'm in the middle of finding out who took your ship
and what precisely is going on. Cortana, any response to our
hail?"
"An automated code, sir," she said. Her mouth opened in as-
tonishment. "UNSC Code Three-Nine-Two."
"Three-Nine-Two?" the Admiral asked. He stared into space,
trying to recall the obscure code.
The Master Chief cleared his throat and told him, "Admiral,
that is an official 'nonresponse' code, sir. Special Warfare teams
use it to ignore hails... due to a higher-priority mission."
"God damn it." The Admiral's face flushed, and he ground his
teeth. "You mean the good doctor just told me to go to hell."
On the forward screen the Chiroptera, its batlike wings nearly
invisible against the black of space, accelerated in a sudden burst.
Pinpoints of light appeared around the craft that elongated and
smeared. The ship vanished.
"A Slipspace transition," Cortana said.
"I thought you told me," the Admiral said, slowly turning
on Haverson, "that that ship was locked down. That vital compo-
nents were removed when it was decommissioned. That there
was no way it could make a Slipspace jump?"
"Yes, sir, I did."
"And would you care to explain why that ship just disap-
peared, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, Admiral. I was wrong," Haverson replied without meet-
ing the Admiral's eyes. "Doctor Halsey apparently found a way
to circumvent the ONI lockout on the ship's systems."
On screen, Jiles said, "This is most unfortunate, Admiral. I ex-
pect to be compensated
1
—"
"You bet it's unfortunate," Admiral Whitcomb said. "If I'd
known there was a chance we could have used that ship to jump
to Earth.. . I would have done it an hour ago. Cortana, what was
her trajectory?"
"Not Earth," Cortana said. "Doctor Halsey's course points to
no known system in my database."
The Admiral scrutinized the forward screen: Jiles's face, the