Six years.
I'd been stuck in this hell for six years, always wishing that I could cancel this accursed program and return the children to their homes, safe and sound… and always knowing that it was impossible. That ONI would never dare cancel the program, for they didn't have the self-awareness necessary to realize that it had been a mistake from the start.
Yet once more, it seemed that the only true constant in the universe was its desire to spite me.
Sitting in front of a crowd of ONI officers and my own children, and now of all times – now, of all the damned times in the past six years! – they wanted to ask some hard questions about it.
Why couldn't Section Zero have stuck its nose in all those years ago? Because it would have been too easy for me, apparently!
It was so tempting to tell them the truth. To spit out the truth and see how Internal Affairs handled the bombshell of incompetence and failure to perform the most basic background checks.
But no. This wasn't an inquest into the origins of my project. It was an inquisition against my personal conduct.
This wasn't about my Spartans, it was about me. This entire investigation was a witch-hunt, prompted by that bastard Wilson and whoever he'd convinced to support his revenge.
Canceling the program wasn't truly on the table. They wanted to cancel me, not my work.
"Doctor Catherine Halsey," said one of the Rear Admirals from Section Zero – the one who hadn't spoken up yet. I believe that his name was Laborde. "Two months ago, you ordered the transportation of two hundred individuals from your classified compound to the Holloman Air Base. There, you conducted a training exercise with Air Force pilots attached to SPECWARCOM. Is that correct?"
"Yes," I confirmed.
Were they going to go over every single order I'd ever given? The thought was ludicrous, but, well, so much of this situation was already ludicrous…
"Until this event, no personnel from the UNSC Air Force were aware of your program," Rear Admiral Laborde continued. "Is this correct?"
"To the best of my knowledge, yes," I answered again.
"That means that you violated UNSC Military Security Code 447-R27," he said severely, looking down on me from his elevated position.
By technicality, yes. That code prohibited any unauthorized disclosure of classified information by or involving a civilian contractor. It was a minor example of ONI's cleverness when it came to the project; a neat little psychological trick.
You see, if you cited a regulation that most were unfamiliar with, it heightened their wariness and respect for the unknown. Once they became aware that it was a 'lesser' regulation to the UNSC Security Act, then they would relax, lowering their guard.
It also worked to disguise the program from anyone who happened across limited scraps of information, and stumbled across a mention of that precise code. After all, clearly such a project wasn't too important, if it involved civilian contractors. It was the same trick that America had pulled against my homeland in Pacific War, naming their new radar-proximity fuses with the letters 'VT' – thus, if anyone ever uncovered mention of a VT fuse, they were more likely to believe it was simply an acronym for the already existing variable timer fuses, as opposed to a new wunder weapon.
I didn't reply to the Admiral. I sat there, mouth closed, staring at him.
"Doctor Halsey?" Laborde prompted me, after a few seconds.
"I'm sorry, was that a statement, or a question?" I asked.
It might have sounded like procedural nonsense, but it was actually quite important.
If that was a statement, then I had no need to reply. This was ONI. If they said I was guilty, then there was no point in trying to protest my innocence. The best option was to wait in silence until they said what my punishment would be.
But if it was a question, then they were trying to trick me, to trap me. To get me to say something incriminating. In this case, if I agreed with Rear Admiral Laborde, then he might try to argue that I had knowingly violated that security regulation: coaxing out a confession of guilt from me.
"Why did you arrange the cross-training with the Air Force?" said Rear Admiral Darlan, taking over the questioning without any hint of respect for Laborde – and more importantly, without answering my question.
Had it been a statement? Had it been a question? Or, for a third option, had it merely been a bluff to try to catch me out? If so, perhaps my failure to give a decisive answer had defanged it.
"Because the program's training schedule required it," I said, giving the easy answer.
"You wrote the training program, is that correct?" Darlan asked, only to continue as I opened my mouth to respond. "Both the original paper for the training program, and the current schedule as executed?"
"…Yes," I replied, after waiting a moment to make sure Darlan had finished speaking.
"Why did you include the Air Force in the training program?" Darlan pressed, combining the two questions.
"Are you asking me to explain the logic behind the training program as a whole," I asked him carefully, keeping my face as emotionless as I could, so as to not give away any weaknesses that they might exploit. "Or simply why I included the Air Force in specific, exclusive of any other section?"
Darlan frowned, and didn't respond immediately. He looked to his side, towards the woman seated at the center of the panel, clearly looking for some kind of direction or instruction.
I'd never met her, but I knew who she was. Captain Stanforth, my erstwhile and loose ally of convenience, had long ago informed me of the major players within ONI, and Vice Admiral Evelyn Caldwell was the second biggest fish in the pond.
"The latter," Vice Admiral Caldwell said, speaking for the first time. "We will cover the former if necessary at a later time."
Darlan nodded, and turned back to me.
Interesting, I thought to myself. She said 'if necessary'.
It makes sense that this investigation into me, personally, would not include the merits of the program itself… but perhaps that's a weakness of theirs. Maybe Vice Admiral Caldwell knows that if I start talking about the program's origins, it would open too wide a crack in Pandora's box.
"The Air Force was involved in order to train the cadets in basic flight skills," I explained, putting that thought aside for now. "While flight training is expensive and time consuming, that assumes intensive fighter pilot training with high performance airplanes or spacecraft. Basic piloting with a trainer aircraft is much cheaper, and will allow the cadets to pilot their own entry and extraction vehicles. Pelicans, civilian birds, things of that nature. That would reduce the necessary manpower on operations that require stealth insertions."
"Yet those skills did not require the Air Force to teach," Laborde countered, leaning forward slightly. "You could have used Navy pilots already assigned to ONI. Why didn't you?"
I tightened my fist inside my coat pocket, pressing the edges of my Type 97 against my palm. I'd been drawing the tiniest amount of a reflex formula from it, just enough to enhance my thinking speed.
I'd pay the price for drawing on that energy later, but it was worth it.
Of course, just having it on me was a lucky break. ONI had allowed me to carry it into the meeting after I'd explained that it was a keepsake. Not without scanning it, of course, but the intricate clockwork hadn't drawn more than a raised eyebrow from them. They could have easily denied it anyway, exerting that petty authority just to reinforce that I was under their control… but they hadn't.
"The goal of the program was to create the best soldiers possible," I said, speaking deliberately slowly and calmly. "To achieve that, the best possible instructors are utilized. In this instance, the best instructors still reside at UNSC Naval Station Miramar on Earth, and as such were unavailable. The Air Force was the next best option that would maximize our results while minimizing the exposure."
"Minimal exposure is not zero exposure," Laborde scolded.
Once again, it was only thanks to the magical formula in my veins that I could resist the urge to purse my lips or glare back at him.
Zero exposure was impossible, and if Rear Admiral Laborde had ever been anywhere near a training program like this, he would have known that! This wasn't the good old days when you could send me off with a battalion of hardened, veteran soldiers into the Alps for a few months to polish to a higher standard! I had seventy-five complete novices that I'd been told to turn into monsters! I couldn't do it alone!
"That risk was acknowledged and accepted by the Office of Naval Intelligence," I replied coldly.
By the surface value, that statement was worthless. I was defending my decision by reminding ONI that they had already given permission… as if they could never change their minds or revoke permission for anything.
But under the surface, I wasn't talking about the decision to ask the Air Force to train my Spartans in basic piloting. I was talking about the program itself – the entire thing. They'd already taken vastly higher risks than asking a few Air Force aces on detachment to SPECWARCOM.
And I was tired of pretending that this program was spotless and perfect.
Laborde frowned at me, but he didn't continue. Darlan's eyebrows twitched a little, but he smoothly took up the baton, as if this had been choregraphed in advance.
"Four months ago, you brought thirty individual soldiers, some retired or otherwise discharged from service, onto your compound for 'auxiliary training'," Darlan quoted from a datapad. "Is that correct?"
"Yes," I replied.
"In doing so, you summarily granted them authorization to the project's classified details, even going so far as to give them a full briefing," Darlan said. "Far more than you gave to the Air Force, or any of your other 'joint training' operations. Why was that?"
Because I wanted to bribe them into backing me up if it came to things like this, like an optimistic fool, I thought to myself, keeping my eyes from rolling with an effort of will and a pulse of magic. If it make my eyes glow by the tiniest, undetectable amount, then whatever – it wasn't like they'd actually notice. It was far below human-detectable limitations.
Not that the Orions have lifted a single finger to help me. Even the damn ODSTs aren't speaking up in my defense. What a waste.
"They were the only subject matter experts available on a highly classified portion of the program," I answered instead. "As such, I cannot answer that question in full detail at this time and place, without breaching confidentiality and classification status of multiple other ONI operations."
Darlan's lips twitched slightly. For a moment, I almost thought that he looking approvingly at me – but that couldn't be correct. I was getting twitchy, being isolated like this and staked out to die like a scapegoat for ONI's sins.
"Eight months ago," Darlan said, changing topics. "You brought five members of the UNSC's Precision Targeting Group to your compound for two months of sniper instruction, despite your training staff already including several qualified snipers and sniper school instructors."
"The cadets needed a better challenge," I replied without hesitation. "I have zero complaints about my current training staff or their capabilities. They are all excellent soldiers. However, most, if not all of the cadets had already exceeded their abilities in regards to precision marksmanship nearly six months prior to that."
This got an actual raised eyebrow from Darlan, and a scoff from Laborde.
Yet Vice Admiral Caldwell didn't move a millimeter. I wondered if it was just a supreme control of her body responses, like the galaxy's best poker face, or if she truly didn't care. Disturbingly, I couldn't tell.
"You expect us to believe that the candidates were able to beat the best snipers in the UNSC?" Laborde demanded, speaking before Darlan could ask his next question.
He didn't mention the age of the cadets, at merely ten years old, though I'm sure he would have loved to do so – if it wouldn't have been a breach in security regulations, and therefore made him guilty of the exact same thing they were investigating me for.
"Not at all," I demurred. "Only one cadet proved capable of matching the five attached snipers. The rest were inferior to them… though still far better than the training staff."
"Moving on," Caldwell interjected, staring back at me with a face far more emotionless than I believed was healthy for an individual.
"Yes…" Darlan said, drawling as he scrolled down his datapad with a finger.
A few moments passed before he found his next example. I waited patiently – on the surface, anyway. My hand was still clenched around my mage orb at the avalanche of bullshit they were trying on me.
When will they take this seriously? I wondered.
"A year ago, you brought in a company of Army Rangers to perform one-on-one hunter-killer missions against the candidates," Darlan continued. "Afterwards, you took them all to a private resort for R&R, allowing the Rangers to intermingle with the candidates and your training staff, despite minimal briefing on the matter. Why did you take that risk?"
I was tempted to make a comment about how, despite the Office of Naval Intelligence's institutional dislike, merely talking to the Army did not constitute treason. I didn't say it, of course. It was merely a fleeting thought that, in a better world, I could have said without fearing for my life.
"That specific resort is secure enough to be used for regular meetings of HIGHCOM and the UNSC Security Council," I answered. "There was no increased risk compared to normal operations at the compound."
Not that the resort had helped me much. I'd expected some kind of payoff to my deal with the devil that was James Ackerson, but in the end, the man had only been an Army Captain, and apparently he hadn't passed on my quiet little offer to Army Intelligence.
Bribery is a fool's game, I mused to myself, darkly. Like so many criminal deeds, nobody ever upholds their end of the bargain faithfully. It's all backstabs and betrayal the moment you can get away with it. You'd think that they'd realize the market will only ever punish them for defecting, but there's a sucker born every minute.
"Moving away from the joint operations," Laborde cut in, perhaps realizing that I wasn't about to perjure myself or admit to guilt. "There is also the issue of your actions with cross-departmental affairs that have severely jeopardized the secrecy of your program."
As usual, I didn't reply, but I wanted to scoff, for this was an even bigger load of bullshit.
How could it be a security risk to the Spartan-II program when I offered a little consultation to ONI's propaganda department on how to better appeal to the Outer Colonies? Or the purely technological side of Project GUNGNIR? Or sharing David's Surgery Team with ONI's most injured personnel?
What were they going to argue? That someone knowing my name was somehow a security risk? Did they think that I was a cognito-hazard from some bad pulp horror? Some cryptid or urban fairytale.
Don't say her name three times, or Doctor Halsey will appear in the nearest reflection and criticize your incompetence!
A burble of laughter started to force its way up my throat at that ludicrous thought. I strangled it, chest squeezing tight. Scoffing at the man would have been bad enough – but openly laughing at him? They'd have shot me just for the disrespect!
"In particular, your proposal and work on turning several of your program's… experiments… into publicly accessible procedures," Laborde said, biting out the words almost piecemeal. "Including the involvement of no less than one thousand civilians over the past three years. What do you have to say about that, Doctor Halsey?"
Experiments? Publicly accessible procedures? What the hell was he talking about?
I was terribly confused for a few moments. I had done nothing of the sort! Yet even with how low my opinion of ONI was, I didn't think that they would completely fabricate criminal charges against me. Certainly not on this kind of stage.
But… then a thought struck me.
All the world was a stage, and right now, I was quite literally sitting in the center of it. Behind me sat my Spartans, and behind them sat various officers from the intelligence branches of the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, and the Marines.
Section Zero had not yet spoken of the full scope of the Spartan-II project. They hadn't mentioned the augmentations, the power armor, the conscription of the children. Some of those elements were obvious, to be sure. Nobody but a complete idiot could mistake the children sitting right behind me as anything other than conscripts, given that they were only twelve years old.
And if Rear Admiral Laborde didn't want to reveal those still secret elements, then he had to speak circumspectly about them.
This is about the augmentations, I thought to myself, realizing it slowly. The side-project they demanded of me; making a commercial treatment for Ehlers-Danlos and brittle bones out of the Spartan augmentations.
I'd suspected, nearly three years ago when we'd done those first experimental procedures on the volunteers in New Alexandria, that ONI had laid that additional labor on my not-so-Herculean shoulders, that it was a trap for me. A way to ensure that they possessed a deterrent against me without revealing their own complicity in the Spartan-II Program.
But now they were claiming that I'd violated the security regulations by working on those procedures, for the experimental surgeries that David Meyer had performed on those sickly children to heal them. They'd even counted the numbers of civilians that had been treated – though I suspected they were also including the children's parents in their recollection, as we had only performed some three hundred test surgeries thus far, not over a thousand.
Those clever bastards, I thought to myself, anger stirring in my chest. They've got me screwed both ways! If I get any children killed in the experimental surgeries, they gain the blackmail they want over me. And even now, with a perfect record of successes without a single death, they've still got me bent over the barrel just because I involved civilians at all – after all, it was an unofficial demand, not a formal order on the record!
Damn it. Yet again, I'd been too hasty, and ONI had exploited my foolishness!
"Without guidance on what level I may discuss this topic, I am unable to respond to this question at this time," I replied to Rear Admiral Laborde.
"Are you sure you wish to give that answer?" Laborde shot back, almost instantly.
I wanted to bite my own cheek. The speed and certainty of that response… he was almost daring me to double-down on my mistake, offering me a tantalizing hint that I was wrong and that I should back down.
But no. I would not back down. The various ONI, ODST, Army, and Air Force officers behind me were clearly authorized to learn about the joint training sessions, judging by how easily these Section Zero interrogators had talked about them. This question was in clear contrast to the caution which Laborde had asked this one.
"I am," I told him, my voice firm and unyielding.
Laborde glared down at me, then pressed some button and leaned over to Vice Admiral Caldwell. Before anyone could try to read his lips, a small opaque glass barrier rose upwards from the tribunal's desk, blocking them from sight. The microphones didn't pick anything up either. He must have deactivated them.
They really need to get better at bluffing, I scoffed inside my head. Oh, yes, after making a big deal about me violating security regulations, Section Zero is going to consider breaking those same regulations. What a crock of shit. They just want to mess with me. A weapon that you refuse to use is no weapon at all.
I waited as the three Admirals discussed quietly behind their little divider.
There was no point in worrying further about this topic, I knew. I'd managed to defang their attempted blackmail by reminding them of my own blackmail on them. It wouldn't come up again. Better to start preparing for whatever their next gambit was.
What would their next gambit be? Arguing that I'd wasted too much of a literally unlimited budget? Possible. Obviously, no budget could be entirely unlimited, no matter that Keeler had told me. I doubted it would lead to criminal charges, but it was probably just an opinion play.
If Caldwell and her ilk brought that up, it would be so that they could turn the crowd of intelligence officers against me. It's hard to like someone that was incredibly rich, when you were incredibly poor. It's even harder to do when you have proof that they're just wasting all that wealth.
Of course, that depends if I had wasted too much of my budget. I didn't think I had – well, maybe that island resort was a bit much, but that was also one of the only times that I'd ever actually 'indulged' in that kind of thing.
The divider slid back down after about a minute of silence, and I redirected my attention back to them.
Vice Admiral Caldwell looked back out at me. Larborde and Darlan had settled down, and didn't look like they were going to speak up.
"Please answer the question fully, Doctor Halsey," the grey-haired woman said, her eyes locked on me without any deviation or hesitation. "Including all details necessary. At this stage of the Spartan-II program, it is acceptable for the officers behind you to be briefed on what, precisely, this program is about."
A hammer smashed into my chest. I was a gong that had been rung, and the vibrations shook through my limbs like echoes.
My mouth had dropped open. I barely kept myself from blurting out an incredulous exclamation of some kind.
"As you wish," I heard myself reply, though I didn't remember consciously saying the words at all, so distant was my mind at that moment.
This was it. Now, all the men that I'd been trying to win over to my side, to gain as allies against ONI's machinations, would learn exactly what I'd done – and they would blame me, of course. I had created the program, after all.
No.
No, I didn't need to do that. I was under investigation for violating security clearances, and they were strictly speaking about that. 'All details necessary' didn't mean all details in total.
Calm down, I told myself, though I knew it was pointless.
"The program includes experimental surgeries," I said, picking my words carefully. "These surgeries are best described as augmentations to the human body, and have been under development for the duration of the project. However, the surgeries are invariably risky. We have been working on reducing the chance of rejection and complications, but there was a limit to purely theoretical work. Simply put, we needed live trials."
There was some noise behind me. I didn't know what kind, because I didn't dare look. Maybe the ONI officers in the crowd were shifting uneasily in their seats. Maybe my Spartans were the ones looking at each other, uncomfortable with what I had done. The former thought didn't worry me nearly as much as the latter one, I have to admit.
I'm sorry, children, a voice in the back of my head whispered. I'm not as nice of a person as you might think. But it was all for you, I swear.
"Beginning three years ago, Section Three began reaching out to individual families who had young children suffering from a variety of birth defects or developmental factors," I continued. "These included children with muscular dystrophy, brittle bones, various hypoplasia conditions, and more. We worked with volunteers only, and in return for addressing their medical conditions, we received valuable data that helped refine and improve the experimental procedures, lowering the risk of the future surgeries."
"Which lead to the involvement of over a thousand unaffiliated civilians," Rear Admiral Laborde said, repeating his earlier words, as he leaned forward and glared at me. "Tell us, Doctor Halsey, how much have the odds improved? What percentage improvement did you get for that level of risk?"
I couldn't keep up my stoic façade any longer. I glared up at Laborde, letting my contempt show. The man barely reacted.
"It depends on how you calculate the odds," I answered him. "I could tell you the odds, before and after, for any given cadet suffering a complication. I could tell you the odds for all of them coming out without complications."
"What are they, then?" Laborde asked. "Both of those."
"Three years ago, the odds of any given cadet succeeding with no complications was seventy percent," I told him. I didn't have to dredge up the numbers. They had been etched into my brain as if by an engraver's chisel. I could not forget the numbers. Not now, perhaps not ever.
"Today, the odds of no complications are ninety-five percent. Of course, with seventy five cadets, those odds grow worse. The odds of total success, with not a single complication among all cadets, is now two point three percent."
"Two percent," the Rear Admiral said, disbelieving. "You risked discovery of possibly the most controversial program in ONI's history for a two percent chance of total success?"
"Perhaps you'd understand the math better in a more colloquial form," I shot back, my hackles rising as my voice grew louder, trying to speak over him. "Two point three percent means the 'betting odds' are one in forty-two point five. Before we refined the surgeries, the odds were one in three hundred and fifty four-"
"That's nothing!" Laborde interrupted, his face growing red.
"Three hundred and fifty four billion," I snapped back as I finished my statement, my face growing red hot as I tried to strangle the man with nothing but my mind and my spite. "If you tried to write that number in percentage chances, you'd need to use scientific notation instead of decimal."
Laborde didn't reply. I guess my glare was finally enough to get Laborde to realize exactly how badly he'd overstepped.
There was a pressure in my jaw. I opened my mouth to take a breath, like a hard reset of my anger, and realized abruptly that I'd been grinding my teeth together.
"That is a persuasive argument, Doctor Halsey," said Darlan, the more conciliatory Rear Admiral stepping up to defuse the tension a little. "However, your actions were still a considerable risk."
"The risk was calculated, and approved by Section Three through Captain Stanforth and Vice Admiral Keeler," I argued back.
I regretted the words almost immediately. Darlan was far friendlier to me than Laborde, and I absolutely could not afford to lose a potential ally after I'd lost so many of them already. Arguing with him over trivial details like this was absolutely a mistake.
"That may be, but your program was already a gamble," Darlan pointed out, not unkindly. "The fundamental concept of elite soldiers is to invest more resources into your best soldiers in order to gain better outcomes. You're doing the same thing. To a much greater degree, admittedly. But fundamentally, losses are an inevitability, either in the augmentations, or in combat."
Anger surged through my chest. How many times I'd been told this line of logic. How much I'd wanted to snap it in two and cram it down the speaker's mouth. Oh, yes, soldiers die in war, therefore, let's just kill them in training, it's no different!
"You want to talk about losses?" I asked the Rear Admiral, barely keeping the venom out of my voice. "Fine. Three years ago, the expected number of casualties from the augmentations was twenty-three dead. We would have lost a third of the cadets to the surgeries alone. Now, thanks to the efforts of the surgical team and the civilian volunteers, our expected number of casualties is four."
Darlan leaned back in his seat at those words, perhaps taken by surprise. It was a substantial jump, and it was vindication for Paul Wu's originally hesitant proposal for the experimental procedures. Financially, it was worth it. We were investing seven years of effort into training the cadets to the highest possible standard, and losing them would be a waste of all those man-hours and those brilliant young minds. As well, ONI had already paid the surgeons for seven years of labor, just to sit around, for crying out loud!
And yet, statistically speaking, four of my Spartans would die on the table.
Visha would die on the table.
I couldn't allow that.
Who were they to second-guess me? Who were they to complain about my secrecy violations, when this entire investigation was based on Major Wilson throwing a tantrum and trying to get me fired? That was a breach of classification all on its own, but ONI didn't care!
ONI only cared about results, and that was why they'd started this damned program in the first place – for the results! Complaining about how I got those results now, of all times, was blatant bullshit!
Control yourself, a distant voice shrieked in the back of my head. You can't kill your way out of this one! Anger isn't going to save Visha's life! Moral indignation is neither action nor deed, argument nor logic!
Slowly, inch by inch, I pressed my rage back down to where it belonged.
"While impressive, this investigation is not about the odds of success for your program, Doctor Halsey," Rear Admiral Darlan said, with only the slightest hint of softness in his words as an implied apologies. "It is about the potential of a security breach that could expose classified information to the public. By admitting the existence of UNSC research to augment human capabilities to civilians, you put the entire Office of Naval Intelligence at risk."
"I admitted no such thing to the civilians," I countered, breathing slowly and deeply to try to manage my anger. "Our cover story was that the UNSC is developing surgeries to help treat several common yet untreatable health issues. That is a perfectly understandable and believable explanation for any civilian."
"And when no surgeries come out of it, what then?" Laborde interrupted, leaning forward and lowering his head to stare at me. "Your cover story is contingent on the civilians believing that the UNSC is actively developing these treatments. When decades pass, and no such treatments arrive, they may talk about their experiences. Any security breach for this program is an existential threat to the UNSC, no matter how long it takes for that security breach to fully bloom. This program was created only because the Insurrection and a potential civil war is a greater existential threat."
I blinked, unable to help the bemused expression that crossed my face at that.
Does Laborde not know? I wondered, staring at the man in confusion. Perhaps… perhaps he has only partially read up on the program. Or perhaps the plan to blackmail me wasn't revealed to him. Nevertheless…
"There is no risk of that," I replied, calmer than I had been in many minutes, as I played the hand of cards that I had just been dealt. "My Augmentation and Surgery team leaders have been pushing quite hard to make viable, commercial grade surgeries out of those procedures. In fact, at our current rate of progress, the treatments should be ready for mass trials in three years."
Now it was Laborde's turn to lean back, his eyes widening as he looked at me with clear disbelief.
"Ahem."
We all turned to look at Vice Admiral Caldwell, who had made the small noise to grab our attention.
"While this discussion is fascinating," the Vice Admiral said, her flat voice implying the opposite, "thus far, we have covered only a small section of the alleged breaches of security classifications that you are accused of, Doctor Halsey."
My eyes met the old woman's, and I saw no yield in them. They were stony-gray, like cold iron.
"We will continue with the next alleged breach," Caldwell said, turning to her subordinate, Rear Admiral Darlan, and giving him a small nod.
Darlan nodded back, and paged through his datapad once more, before clearing his throat and starting to speak, yet again.