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ERIC NYLUND
307
According to John's mission timer they had followed this
route for eleven hours—when it dead-ended.
"New welds," Fred said, running his gauntlet over the seams
in the alloy plate blocking their path.
Cortana broke in over the COM, "It must be a repair not
logged into the station manifest."
John said. "Options?"
Cortana replied, "I have only limited mission-planning rou-
tines. There are three obvious options. You can blow the ob-
structing plate with a Lotus antitank mine. You can return to the
repair bay where we might find a less obvious way in. Or there is a
faster, alternative route, but it has drawbacks."
"Time is running out," John said. "The Covenant aren't going
to stick around much longer before they strike Earth. Give me
the faster route."
"Backtrack four hundred meters, turn bearing zero-nine-zero,
proceed another twenty meters, and exit through a waste access
cover. From there you will move in the open for seven hundred
meters, pass through a structure, and then down a guarded corri-
dor to the reactor chambers."
Grace interrupted, "What do you mean 'in the open'? This is a
space station; there should be no open spaces."
"See for yourself," Cortana said.
A schematic of the "open space" appeared on their heads-up
displays. John wasn't able to make much sense of the diagram,
but he could tell there were several catwalks, buildings, and even
waterways—as Cortana indicated, lots of open areas for them to
be seen in.
"Let's take a look," John said.
He led his team back the way they had come and pushed open
the waste access duct. Blue light flooded the tunnel. John
blinked and let his eyes adjust, then pushed the fiber-optic probe
through the opening.
John didn't understand what he saw—the optical probe must
have malfunctioned. The image looked impossibly distorted.
But there was no motion nearby .. . so he risked poking his
head out.
He was in the end of an alley with walls towering ten meters to
either side, casting dark shadows over the waste access hole. A