I'm glad I finally got through. The network is a mess.

I don't need to tell you that we're in rough shape. I do need to tell you how rough, though, so that we can plan a way out of this pickle.

Able squadron's crash can't have been an accident. Three Pelicans, all brought down as they took off? No chance.

We haven't linked up with LT.Demarais' team yet, so I don't have full details, but I do know that they eventually forced an entry through the main doors by using Enkidu to hack the lock controls. They had to; they reported that even large charges of C-12 could not cut through the few vent covers they could find on the building.

Once inside they found computer equipment of highly advanced design. The team needed Enkidu's processing power to continue making headway in that network, so LT.Demarais interfaced Enkidu's box with the equipment and managed an upload. Don't ask me how, she's the computer genius.

Ever since then her team has been missing.

I don't think the upload took correctly. I'm guessing he patched the gaps with routines from the alien network. Something is running in those terminals, but it's no longer the Enkidu we knew.

When we came back around the sun he remapped our battlenet into the system here. I'm glad that we have something now that the Lebanon is destroyed, but the net is maddeningly erratic and I worry that he's censoring the info.

To make matters worse, the lifeboats scattered us all over this planet. Many survivors have managed to enter the underground tunnel system though hidden entrances, I think Enkidu is holding the doors open for us, but we're badly scattered... the tunnel system is huge. However, small groups can defend themselves fairly well in the confined spaces and we're running into new groups every day. We're safe from any Covenant bombardment down here short of a full glassing. They haven't tried that yet. We don't know why they haven't, and what I don't know worries me.

I'm also worried about the ground tremors we keep feeling. They don't match up with libration stresses or anything we can think of. There does seem to be some correlation between them and waves of Covenant reinforcements, but without good intelligence we just can't figure out why this would be so.

You've got to get Enkidu to cooperate with us. We don't know why he's taken such a shine to you, but you're the only one who seems to get coherent info back from him. The rest of us just get orders, poetry, obscure literature references, and gibberish. We need to know what's going on up on the surface, he's the only one with any kind of sensor access up there, and you're the only one who can communicate in any meaningful way with him.

Only an unexpected outage in his network blocks allows me to get through. Fighting the Covenant seems to be increasing his instab)#!~$%&#@--- [transfer interrupted]

I'm not unstable. I'm busy dealing with your stupid friends. I think you've had enough of this blather.