"Okay, she's dead in the water," Mal called. "Blowing hatches in ten seconds. Stand by to close the airlock."

The dropship lifted off Piety and peeled away. Mal and Vaz were already at the hatches on either side of the ship, placing shaped charges on them as Naomi took a short run at the bow. Her boot hit the vessel's nose and propelled her five meters up onto the sloping forward hatch right above the bridge. BB, used to predicting with certainty what his physical anchor would do-be it ship, circuit, or data drive-was left in the wake of real events for the first time in his existence.

He had no idea what Naomi would do or feel in the next fraction of a second, or the second after that, even though he detected the impulses in her brain before the muscles engaged.

She landed knees first on the hatch. The exposed deck was still pulling at one G, and BB felt the hatch cover deform slightly with the impact of four hundred kilos. Naomi sprang back immediately, boots planted either side of the hatch frame, and reached down to rip out the emergency release plate. BB could calculate precisely how much force it took to do that. But it didn't give him half as much information as feeling the contraction in Naomi's latissimus muscles and the pressure on her palms as she gripped and pulled. A glittering mist of fine ice crystals sprayed out from the edges of the hatch like escaping steam. The ship was venting atmosphere.

"Hull breached-seal the hangar!"

BB felt Piety shudder. The charges had detonated on her side hatches. Naomi pulled the nose hatch clear and dropped through the opening feet first, rifle clutched tight to her chest as the hangar doors shut.

She's ripped open a shuttle craft. She's torn metal apart like cardboard. Her heart rate's near 180 and I can feel it in her throat-my throat-and it's like nothing else I've experienced. She's lost her depth perception. But I won't step in yet....

Somewhere else in the ship automatic fire hammered in short bursts, but in Naomi's ears it faded into the background. She landed in the cockpit between two Jiralhanae apparently mired in slow motion. She didn't even raise her rifle. There wasn't enough space, and that was a stroke of luck: the Brutes couldn't make full use of their massive weight. She brought her fist straight up under the first Brute's chin and snapped his head back so hard that BB felt the small shock wave of his breaking spine travel back up her arm. The blow didn't kill the Brute outright, but he went down.

The other swung at her, bellowing. He was a head taller but Naomi got her hand around his trachea and dug her fingers in hard while she brought the stock of her rifle down hard on the top of his skull. It took her a good seven or eight pounding blows to stun him before she could lean back and fire into his face at point-blank range. BB, attuned to what she perceived, saw her depth perception fade back in along with clear, full-volume sound.

Adrenaline. Even in a Spartan, its effect is-messy. But carry on, dear. You're doing okay without any help from me.

"Cockpit clear. Two hostiles down."

"Four contacts back here," Mal said. "One down. No Engineer yet. Oh-"

Mal was drowned out by weapons fire and raw, animal bellowing.

"Mal?" Naomi pushed through the cockpit hatch and into the cargo compartment, charging through a gap between stacked crates. "Mal!"

She almost fell over Vaz. One Brute lay twitching on the deck and another had Vaz pinned down one-handed. But the marine wasn't giving up without a fight. He had a tight grip on his knife, now buried up to the hilt in the roaring, snarling Brute's neck. BB, whose every process was tied to his system clock, felt two separate time frames happening-his own, real and objective, and Naomi's, suddenly very much slower and more densely packed with only the data she needed to fight and win.

So that's what adrenaline does to her time perception. Extraordinary.

Naomi grabbed the Brute by the collar and jerked it off Vaz in one movement, freeing his arm so he could aim his carbine. He shoved the muzzle in the Brute's mouth and pulled the trigger. Another layer of noise vanished. Naomi reacted to the bursts of fire that were still coming from the aft section.

"One down." Vaz scrambled to his feet. "Mal, talk to me."

"Two not down-the bastards."

Naomi shoved past Vaz and followed the noise. BB felt her heart rate fall to 140 as her adrenaline steadied, and she moved forward with her rifle trained-much more deliberate, thinking more consciously. The next thing she saw spiked her heart rate for a couple of seconds and she'd already opened fire on it before her frontal lobes identified it as a Brute.

"Four down," she said. "Two left."

More fire rattled behind the bulkhead of the next compartment. BB stood by to give her some neural assistance but she still showed no sign of needing it. She punched her way through the flimsy hatch and stepped into a hail of needle projectiles that skidded off her armor. BB's sole sources of imaging right then were Naomi's helmet cam and her optic nerve. He looked into the wide-open, fanged mouth of a Brute and turned-against his will-to watch Mal finish off the last one standing with a full clip emptied into its chest. The creature still took a surprisingly long time to stop moving.

No amount of biological studies, data, recon footage, or any other kind of third-hand input could have prepared BB for this. His choices were either to see what Naomi saw or disconnect from her optic nerve, a very limited but intense set of options compared to the freedom of infiltrating every circuit, system, and carrier wave in his electronic existence. This was her experience of the world, however much he could use his processing power to enhance her nerve signals. He swallowed the microscopic detail and understood.

"All clear," she called.

The world suddenly changed color, shifting from near-monochrome to the full spectrum. Someone had opened Piety's loading bay and the bright lights of the hangar flooded in. Naomi didn't need the ODST's night-vision visors to see in very low light, one of those little details that BB knew but had to experience to truly appreciate. The ODSTs took off their helmets and both scratched their scalps like a pair of bookends.

They're okay. Good. We need that Huragok more than they realize, but they'd be a high price to pay for getting it.

BB still didn't want to be human. Poor old Cortana. How cruel, Halsey. But he liked some humans, he found even the ones he disliked fascinating, and he marveled at the ability of all of them to do so much with such limited hardware.

"Clear. Six down." Mal got his breath back. "Now where's the flying jellyfish?"

"Racist," BB said.

"I'm looking at you, Naomi, but all I can hear is Square Blue Thing. Are you possessed? Any projectile vomiting?"

Naomi stifled a laugh. BB could feel the last of her adrenaline metabolizing as she wound down from the fight. The uncharacteristic laughter was all part of it.

"I'm bearing up," she said. "Everyone okay?"

"Where's Devereaux?" Vaz asked.

Osman came on the radio. "Docked on the top hatch, waiting for a parking space. Good work, people. But have we got a live Engineer?"

"Looking, ma'am." Mal started opening lockers and tapping on panels. "It's hiding. It's not daft."

"Might have been hit by a stray round."

"Thanks, Vaz. Big morale booster."

It wasn't a big ship. Naomi had only gone a few meters back toward the cockpit when Vaz called out.

"Aww, look," he said. He squatted in front of an opening and held out his hand. "It's terrified. Hey, come on out. It's okay. You're safe now."

Naomi went aft again and squatted to look into the ventilation duct. The Huragok was huddled inside. Then it shot out of the opening in a flurry of tentacles, aiming for the nearest opening.

"Whoa-"

"Grab it!"

Vaz tackled it rugby-style at the cargo door and crashed down onto the hangar deck. It started squealing like a balloon losing air. Mal pitched in and subdued it with a headlock, no easy feat given the Huragok anatomy. He got to his feet with his arm still tight around its neck.

It was wearing the explosive harness that the San'Shyuum fitted to stop Engineers falling into enemy hands. Mal took a long, slow breath.

"Okay, who's good at EOD?" he asked quietly. "And I do mean really good."

Osman came clattering down the ladder from the gantry but Naomi gestured at her to stay back.

"I'll do it." Naomi took out a few tools from her belt and assessed the locking mechanisms. "What do you reckon, BB?"

"I just happen to have an ONI schematic ... there. How's that look?"

Her focus adjusted to the diagram in her HUD. "Great. Keep still, Mal."

"Tell that to jelly boy here."

Naomi fed the release codes into each port on the harness in the right order-with just the tiniest blip of adrenaline-and the harness slid onto the deck with a thud. Osman didn't wait to be given the all-clear and jogged across to take a look.

"Textbook," she said. "Absolutely textbook. What do we do with it now, BB?"

However many bells and whistles the Huragok could add to a ship, BB wanted to play it safe for now. "We need to confine it where it can't access me or any other critical systems. You know what they're like. It'll start tinkering and next thing you know ... well, we don't know. Proceed with caution."

"So what are we going to do to keep it occupied?" Mal asked. "Give it a coloring book?"

"Let me talk to it. But if it gets into me, then it assimilates all my knowledge. That's classified ONI intelligence. It'll siphon it up and share it with the next computer or Engineer it meets. Even if it only shares that data with UNSC systems, you'll have an interesting time explaining that to Admiral Parangosky."

"Bloody good point, BB." Mal still had hold of the Engineer by its neck. "Can it pick locks? I mean, can we secure it in a compartment, or is it going to rebuild the security systems?"

"Give it something noncritical to play with," Naomi said. "Upgrade the basic ODST armor or something. You're not going to need it now everyone's got their ONI rig."

The Engineer gave up trying to squirm out of Mal's headlock and wrapped its tentacles around his shoulders like a scared child.

"Yeah, okay," Mal said. "Steady on, son. Don't throttle me. Come on, BB, talk to it."

BB decided he'd collated enough data on Huragok sign language to attempt a conversation. He projected a set of holographic tentacles and began signing. The Engineer's head whipped around and it let out a long, soft trill that BB hoped was an oooooh of amazement.

< Not going to hurt, > BB signed.

The Engineer seemed totally riveted by the unexpected conversation.< Where are the others? What will not hurt? > BB made a rapid recalculation of his syntax. He was used to total mastery of every subject he encountered, but his pidgin Huragok obviously wasn't perfect. He tried again.

< We will not hurt you. What others? >< My brothers. We need to repair one another. >< Where did you come from? >< I waited in a damaged ship until the Jiralhanae came. It was a lot of work for one. > BB had hoped the Huragok would have a team of little friends waiting somewhere for him, but it didn't look like it.< We do not know any others. What is your name? >< Requires Adjustment. But you are an AI. So like the Forerunner ones. > Oh, really? The Forerunner comment intrigued BB but he'd return to that later. Right now his priority was to keep the Engineer out of their systems until they'd worked out what to do with him. Perhaps just asking him not to tinker with the ship would be enough. The creature was certainly intelligent enough to understand their reluctance.

< I am Black-Box. Address me as BB. Do not access the ship's systems until we ask you. I have some fascinating work for you to do, but first we must take you on a journey. > Requires Adjustment seemed satisfied for the moment.< Good, > he signed.< Good. > "So?" Mal twisted his head as far as he could to see where the tentacles had wound around his backpack. "What was all that about?"

"It's a he and he's called Requires Adjustment," BB said, resolving into a tidy box again. "I think I'm going to call him the Adj. Gives him a quasi-military chumminess, I think."

"Well, we're never going to sign well enough to speak to him direct, so I suppose that makes you his agent," Vaz said.

He reached out a wary finger to touch Adj as if he'd never seen a Huragok before. These ODSTs had led relatively sheltered lives by ONI's standards, but in intelligence terms, they were clean; no complicated associations with other ONI officers or senior commanders, or any previous knowledge of the service other than a healthy dread. BB thought that was a smart move. They were just efficient, willing, intelligent marines, top-grade raw material for Osman to shape to her own unique needs.

And you'll need them when the Admiral finally passes the baton to you, Captain. You really will.

The Adj slithered one tentacle around Mal's neck and slackened his grip, visibly calmer.

"They're very appealing, aren't they?" Vaz said.

"Well, you can take him for walks, then." Mal went over to the armor racks with Adj still draped around his shoulders and tapped his old helmet to encourage the Engineer to look at a new toy. "Go on, Adj. Look at that nice armor. Lovely armor. Isn't that fun? Good boy! Do the business."

Adj reached out a tentacle and explored the helmet for a few seconds, then let go of Mal and floated free. BB decided the language barrier wasn't going to be a major problem. Adj worked over the armor in a flurry of tentacles and cilia, removing components and parking them in his free tentacles while he made adjustments and generally tinkered.

Osman had that half-lidded look that said she was pleased. "Parangosky's going to love this."

"But we need another one," BB pointed out. How odd to look at Osman through human eyes. "And it's cruel to keep one on its own, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Naomi said. BB decided to take that at face value.

Osman looked over Adj wistfully. "I know I should send him back to HQ, but he really would be useful on a mission like this. Let's see what the Admiral's got to say. Was there any food for him in the ship? They do need nutrients, don't they?"

"If there isn't, I can formulate an amino acid mix." BB wanted to search Piety anyway. There was plenty of work to do to her before she was sent on her Marie Celeste-like way. "Come on, Naomi. Housekeeping time."

Naomi climbed back into Piety and dragged the dead Jiralhanae aside to get at the crates. She pried one lid open and rummaged around inside, turning over assorted hand weapons and spare power packs.

"BB," she said, "are you sure this ship was heading toward Sanghelios, not away from it?"

"Definitely. Plug me into her nav computer and I'll confirm it. Why do you ask?"

"Have you scanned this stuff for tags?"

He hadn't. The only tags he would check for would be those on the arms supplied to 'Telcam, and this shipment didn't fall under that heading.

"I'll do that right now," he said, embarrassed, and activated the signal via her radio. "Oh..."

He got a return. Four, in fact. There were four weapons in this shipment that had been supplied by ONI and handed over to 'Telcam.

"Maybe there's a simple explanation for this," Naomi said. "Let's check Piety's nav computer."

URBAN STRUCTURE, FORERUNNER DYSON SPHERE, ONYX: LOCAL DATE NOVEMBER 2552.

The Forerunners must have been pretty confident about their engineering skills, because there were no stairs here.

Mendez stood in the lobby and looked around for an alternative to stepping into a rectangular opening that looked exactly like an elevator. He already had one Spartan missing. He didn't plan on adding any more.

Who'd build a tower block with no goddamn emergency stairs?

"Clear right, Chief," Linda called. She backed out of a small side lobby, rifle raised, and rejoined the cluster of Spartans watching the main entrance and the doors leading onto the lobby. "I'm not picking up any movement on my HUD. And no EM. Nothing at all. It's deserted."

The lobby was built in the same pale gold stone as the towers, completely empty and with no sign of ever having been used or occupied. Mendez had cleared plenty of abandoned buildings in his time on colony worlds, kicking doors open and checking room by room for booby traps. The floors were usually scattered with the sad debris of normal lives that had been interrupted for one reason or another, even if it was just scraps of paper or broken glass. But he'd never seen anything as sterile as this. There wasn't a single trace of dust or evidence of wear on anything. The place could have been constructed yesterday, except he'd never seen a new building quite this clean.

"Well, if we want a vantage point," he said, "we have to get up top somehow."

Mendez walked outside again and stood back to count the windows. There were seven openings top to bottom, but he had no way of telling if the spacing meant there were a few floors with very high ceilings, or if some floors just didn't have any natural light. He went back in and paused at the entrance to the elevator.

I hope that's what it is, anyway. Assumptions get you killed.

"Come on, Chief." Fred put one boot on the floor of the elevator cage. "Nobody goes anywhere on their own until we figure out how this maze works. Everyone else-stay put."

Mendez stepped in beside Fred. The two of them stood there for a moment, looking around for anything that resembled controls. Maybe it was a gravity lift: there were no signs on the walls at all, recognizable or otherwise. The ceiling of the elevator cage didn't give Mendez any clues either, but then his stomach lurched and he realized he was moving. The entrance vanished below them.

"Okay, people, going up," Fred said. "I don't know what the Chief did, but it worked."

"I just looked up," Mendez said.

"Okay, so maybe it responds to that. Up for up, down for down..."

"And stop?"