I'd like you all to welcome Zimu Yang, my new beta-reader on this story.

Red In Tooth And Claw
Chapter 26: Right Of Passage

"You're right: I don't like it." Adama leaned against the war-room map table, his knuckles white with rage, "In fact, I think you're out of your fraking mind if you thought, even for a moment, that I'd go along with this, this, insanity!"

"I was asked if I had any suggestions, and I have given them." The Master Chief remained cool and calm, his voice never wavering, "It is up to you to accept my assistance or not."

"But you want us to turn over control of the fleet to someone whom even you don't know if we can trust." Apollo pointed out, "While I agree that your plan is in principle sound, having Cortana play such an important part is potentially... suicidal."

"The plan is workable without her, but it would be harder to carry out without her assistance." The Spartan unfolded a large sheet of paper and put it down on the map table, "First off, we have to accept that there is no way to get every ship through in one jump. But, if we temporarily transfer the civilians from some of the ships over to the Pegasus, we can use the Bad Moon Rising to plot the necessary jump coordinates. We could use Raptors, but we'd need one for each civilian ship, and the radiation shielding isn't sufficient to fully protect the pilots. Even with your anti-radiation meds, they'd take potentially dangerous doses, maybe even deadly in some cases."

"That I get." Adama nodded, "But couldn't you or one of our pilots handle the calculations?"

"Yes, but again, it's a matter of time." The Master Chief stood up, folding his arms across his chest, "Each ship would require its own set of jump-coordinates, and that's a lot of calculations, even with the faster computer."

"If we use Raptors, how many jumps are we talking about?" Apollo asked.

"That's not the bottleneck; it's the same either way." Sharon handed out the calculations, "Given the space and life-support limitations on the Pegasus, five transits of two jumps each. Now that's two jumps from here to the algae planet, and two jumps back. The engineers have gone over the Pegasus, and assure us that she can handle the radiation, so that's not a problem."

"With all due respect for your Raptors and their crews, they were never intended or trained for this kind of operation." The Chief pointed out, "Neither is the Rising, but she has better radiation shielding, and her navigational and sensor systems are designed to work in areas of high background radiation."

"I think that we can all accept that the Rising is the correct choice." Apollo sort out the middle ground, "But I still don't understand why you want Cortana's help?"

"The calculations needed are extremely complicated." The Chief explained, "The navigational computer can handle them, but it will take a lot longer. Even using the dumbed-down copy of herself Cortana created before the attack on New Caprica, there's still the risk that with their own navigational systems blinded, some of the civilian ships could drift out of formation and become lost amid the background radiation." He looked the Admiral in the eyes, "I was under the impression that we needed every advantage we could get."

"And time is critical." Apollo nodded, "We have less than a week's supply of food, and as it is, people are starting to get sick from malnutrition. We've had reports of violence on more than one of the civilian ships as people start to fight over what little we have left. The sooner we can show them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, the sooner things will calm down."

"All right, Gods damn you." Adama hissed, his eyes gaze falling upon Sharon and the Master Chief, "But I want a kill switch put in place, and your word that you'll pull the plug the moment you even suspect she may be acting against our interests."

"Sir." Sharon came sharply to attention.

"Agreed." The Master Chief sounded like the voice of doom, but he nodded his agreement. His word his bond.

"Make whatever preparations you need and lets gets this over with." Adama stormed off towards the door, Apollo following closely behind.

"He's not very happy." Sharon signed once the hatch had slammed shut again, "But I'm sure Cortana will be willing to help us."

"That could be problem itself." The Master Chief frowned, "There is very little information about meta-stability, simply because there are so few examples of it ever happening. But there are reports of A.I.'s acting in ways that at first may seem to be against the best interests of humanity, but are ultimately proven to be the best possible course of action." He looked at the closed hatch, "I'm just hoping that, if she is meta-stable, that Cortana doesn't do anything that gives the Admiral the excuse he needs to have her shot."

"She's as ready as I can make her." Chief Tyrol stood wiping his hands on a rag, "The FTL drive's still a little temperamental, so keep an eye on it; we're all kind of relying on it right now."

"Understood, Chief." Sharon nodded with a smile, "We're just waiting on Cortana."

"Like hell you are." Shaw appeared as if out of nowhere, "What? The Admiral wanted an insurance policy."

"That's not a good idea." The Master Chief stood in his armour, arms folded defiantly, "The radiation levels within the cabin are going to reach near lethal levels."

"That's why I have these." Shaw opened a pocket on the arm of her flight suit to reveal several hypodermic syringes, "Anti-radiation meds, and I've got a detector badge to tell me when I've reached the limit. Either way, I should be able to make at least one trip without all my hair falling out."

"It's your funeral." The Spartan shrugged and stepped to one side, knowing that it was best not to push the Admiral in his current state of mind.

"By the Gods..." One of the deck-crew gasped, followed by the sound of a heavy tool hitting the deck with a loud clang.

Cortana made her way along the flight deck, somehow making the standard issue UNSC flight-suit she had found amid the salvage from the Forward Unto Dawn accent rather than hide her figure. More than one member of the deck-crew looked at her with a longing, and the occasional wolf whistle echoed after her. There was an unmistakable swagger in the way she waked, and it was clear that she was fully aware of the reaction she was getting; her hips swayed just a little more than was absolutely necessary, and while her flight helmet was tucked under one arm, the other was held against her waist in a way that only served to accent her hour-glass figure.

The Master Chief looked at her for a moment, and had to admit to himself that her new form was physical attractive. While it was true that the human growth hormone implants that boosted growth of skeletal and muscle tissues amongst the Spartans that survived the augmentation procedure also suppressed their libido, he was no stranger to the physiological reactions the human body underwent when aroused, or the acts that traditionally followed such a state. And while his experience might have been considered rather limited by some people, he could understand and appreciate the crews reactions to Cortana.

He was interested to see that a few of the female crew members present were also showing an interest, and mentally filed the information away in case it ever proved useful in the future.

"Well?" Cortana asked with an unmistakable twinkle in her eye, "You're just jealous that I have a better wardrobe then you."

The Master Chief looked at her uniform and took note of the silver leaf insignia on her collar and raised his right eyebrow the faintest fraction on an inch: a statement of surprise for a Spartan.

"What?" Cortana asked, realising what had drawn his eye, "It's not like I haven't earned it."

"Get in the ship." The Spartan stepped to one side and allowed the three women to make their way up the ramp into the Bad Moon Rising before following them.

The cockpit was cramped, full of extra equipment needed for the mission. Cortana took the co-pilots seat, while the Master Chief sat at the helm, leaving Sharon and Shaw the two axillary stations. The entire shop shook slightly as it was moved up onto the flight deck by the hydraulic lifts.

"Bad Moon Rising, this is flight operations." Captain Kelly's voice came over the radio loud and clear, "You are go for take off; the sky is clear."

"Flight-opps, this is Bad Moon Rising; clearance confirmed." The Master Chief responded as he fed power to the engines, lifting the Prowler up off of the deck and forward, gaining speed as he went. The bulkheads passed by in a blur, and then they were clear and out into open space. He lifted the jet-black spy ships nose up and to the left, clearing the forward section of the Galactica.

"The Odyssey and the Defender will follow us through this time, while the Galactica stays with the other civilian ships." Cortana reported as she pulled off her gloves and started to prepare herself, "She'll come through on the last trip."

A small, clear tray had been attached to the controls just in front of the navigational computer, wires linking it to both the ships main computer core and the backup systems added to handle the new FTL drive. Opening a thermos-flask, Cortana filled the tray half full with an oddly metallic looking liquid.

"What is that?" Shaw asked.

"Liquid reactive metallic-crystals." Cortana explained as she attached medical sensor pads to her forehead and hooked them up to the complex system, "They were developed to help translate the slightest nerve or muscle impulses into faster and more accurate movements by the Mjolnir armour systems. The increase over previous systems is somewhere in the region of a factor of five." She flexed the fingers in her right hand, stretchering them out as far as she could, "But with a little tinkering to the relays and it also works as a highly efficient neural relay. We wouldn't need any of this if I had a neural interface, but we don't have one, and even if we did, I doubt the Admiral would allow Dr Cottle to implant one in me."

"So what's it for?" Shaw asked, still confused.

"This." Cortana sunk her hand into the ice-cold liquid, and her head rocked back as she established a direct connection between her mind and the linked nav-coms. In her minds eye she saw the cabin fade away, only to be replaced by a universe of data and equations. Her physical body was gone, replaced with something that looked a lot like her holographic Avatar. A series of calculations hung in the air in front of her, and she double checked them before taking the results and feeding them into the FTL drive.

"We're receiving the first set of jump coordinates." Sharon reported, "Feeding them to the other ships."

"All ships in first wave confirm ready." The Master Chief nodded as he fed power to the FTL drive, "Jump in 3...2...1...JUMP!"

To Be Continued