Halo Evolutions 9

"What's happening?" Now he whispered.

"I'll tell you as you move, but right now if you don't put on some clothes and do as I say you will be dead in a couple of minutes." Mo Ye was using a tone he'd never heard before. He started moving.
In less than a minute, he was up, dressed, and fastening his boots. The confusion and torpor of the drugs were still softening the edges of everything. This still didn't feel real. Mo Ye be-
gan to brief him. The news wasn't good. But it certainly was real.

"They were waiting for us when we dropped out of slipspace," she whispered.

"Covenant?" he blurted, embarrassed even as he spoke the obvious. "Yes. A small group. Not a formation we've encountered before. At least according to my records. One Cruiser and four
completely new ships escorting it. All dark gray, no surface features or lights and no weapons systems that I could discern. What they did have was a bellyful of boarding craft. And our
ONI contact group was not there."

"So we were boarded?"

"Almost as soon as we dropped out of slipspace. Perfect targeting. As if they knew exactly where we were going to exit. Inside the range of our weapons systems before I could react. Punctured the hull in two hundred different locations and swarmed us before we could sound a general alarm. It was like
exiting in the middle of a meteor storm."

"What about the crew? What about the men?"

"Dead."

"All of them?!" There was a tremor of outrage, of fear as he raised his voice.

"Ssssh!" she repeated. "They're still here and I suspect they're heading here to the medbay for another look." This was all happening too fast.

"How long was I out?"

"Twenty-three hours. And that's why you're still alive."

"Why didn't they just destroy the ship? What do they want?" he hissed back, his breath forming a frozen cloud like a literal ellipsis after the question.

"Me," she said. "And Earth."-Chpt.4 pg.85-86