"William C. Dietz - Halo 1 - The Flood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dietz William)

The intercom buzzed again, and Sam swung himself out of the bunk. He jabbed at the comm control.
“Marcus here,” he growled.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Sam, but I need you down in Cryo Two.” Tech Chief Shephard sounded
exhausted. “It’s important.”

“Cryo Two?” Sam repeated, puzzled. “What’s the emergency, Thom? I’m not a cryo specialist.”

“I can’t give you specifics, Sam. The Captain wants it kept off the comm,” Shephard replied, his voice
almost a whisper. “Just in case we have eavesdroppers.”

Sam winced at the tone in his superior’s voice. He’d known Thom Shephard since the Academy and had
never heard the man sound so grim.

“Look,” Shephard said, “I need someone I can depend on. Like it or not, that’s you, pal. You’ve
cross-checked on cryo systems.”

Sam sighed. “Months ago . . . but yes.”

“I’m sending a feed to your terminal, Sam,” Shephard continued. “It’ll answer some of your questions
anyway. Dump it to a portable ’pad, grab your gear and get down here.”

“Roger,” Sam said. He stood, shrugged into his uniform tunic, and stepped over to his terminal. He
activated the computer and waited for the upload from Shephard.

As he waited, his eyes locked on a small two-dee photograph taped to the edge of the screen. Sam
brushed his fingers against the photo. The pretty young woman frozen in the picture smiled back at him.

The terminal chimed as the feed from Shephard appeared in Sam’s message queue. “Receiving the feed,
Chief,” he called out to the intercom pickup.

He opened the file. A frown creased his tired features as a new message scrolled across his screen.

>FILE ENCRYPTED/EYES ONLY/MARCUS, SAMUEL N./SN:18827318209-M.
>DECRYPTION KEY: [PERSONALIZED: “ELLEN’S ANNIVERSARY”]

He glanced back at the picture of his wife. He hadn’t seen Ellen in almost three years—since his last
shore leave on Earth, in fact. He didn’t know anyone on active duty who’d been able to see their loved
ones for years. The war simply didn’t allow for it.

Sam’s frown deepened. UNSC personnel generally avoided talking about the people back home. The
war had been going badly for so long that morale was rock-bottom. Thinking about the home front only
made things worse. The fact that Thom had personalized the security encoding was unusual enough;
reminding Sam of his wife in the process was completely out of character for Chief Shephard. Someone
was being security-conscious to the point of paranoia.

He punched in a series of numbers—the date of his wedding—and enabled the decryption suite. In
seconds, the screen filled with schematics and tech readouts. His practiced eye scanned the file—and
adrenaline suddenly spiked through his fatigue like a bolt of lightning.