Filter
Top Products
ERIC NYLUND
67
fight. They didn't ask for help... not for themselves. Then again,
this ship, although armed for war, didn't appear to be staffed
for combat. It carried only a few hundred Elites and an army of
Engineers.
As Cortana pondered this, she continued to generate a
counter-signal to match to the probe sent by the other presence
in the system. She hoped to cloak her activity as long as
possible. The other's signal morphed into a series of Bessel
functions, and she compensated to match.
She automated this process, commandeering a portion of the
Covenant's own NAV computer to do so, and then she herded
the electronic ghosts of the Chief and the others to confuse the
pursuing Elite forces.
At the same time, she continued her study of the Covenant
ship and its systems—it was a unique opportunity. The informa-
tion on their advanced Slipspace drive, their weapons—it could
leapfrog human technology decades forward.
"Cortana?" The Chief's voice broke her concentration. There
were sounds of plasma bolts and automatic weapons fire. "We've
got Elites in active camouflage in the passage. We need a way
around this intersection."
She had not considered the Elites' light-bending technology.
She was doing too much, spreading herself too thin. She halted
her ongoing study of the Covenant technology and found the
Chief a way around the intersection.
She rebooted her human communications and protocol rou-
tines and said, "Access panel to your right, Chief. Down three
meters, straight ahead five meters, turn to your left and then up
again."
She heard an explosion. "Got it," the Chief said.
Cortana had to focus on protecting the Chief. She halted her
other searches and scrutinized the ship's schematics. There had
to be something she could use. A weapon. A way to stop
then-enemies—there: the backup terminus for their atmospheric
preprocessors. Unlike the other systems, this one was classified
as low priority and had minimal security layers.
She generated several hundred thousand Covenant codes in a
microsecond and cracked the system. She diverted the air vents
along the corridors the Chief and his team occupied to the pri-