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HALO: FIRST STRIKE

"Allow me, Sergeant." John grasped the two-hundred-kilogram

machine and lifted it with one hand.

The Master Chief exited the dropship, and he and the other

Spartans assembled outside. He stowed the arc welder and took

his position at the head of the Spartan formation.

Admiral Whitcomb looked them over once and then said, "I'd

wish you luck, Master Chief, but you Spartans seem to make

your own luck. So let me just say I'll see you all when this is

over."

He saluted them and they returned the salute.

"Just one last order," the Admiral said.

"Sir?"

"Give'em hell."

Summary of Contents for First Strike Games

Page 1: ...FIRST STRIKE ERIC NYLUND BALLANTINE BOOKS NEW YORK ...

Page 2: ...CE BETRAYALS by Dean Wesley Smith CRIMSON SKIES by Eric Nylund Michael B Lee Nancy Berman and Eric S Trautmann Books published by The Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium educational fund raising and special sales use For details please call 1 800 733 3000 ...

Page 3: ...rnational and Pan American Copyright Conventions Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group a division of Random House Inc New York and si multaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited Toronto Bungie Halo Xbox the Xbox logo and the Microsoft Game Studio logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and or other...

Page 4: ...notably Eric S Trautmann Special Ops field agent The people in Section Two a k a Microsoft s User Experience Group Jo Tyo Matt Whiting Dana Fos and Jason Groce Logistics officers at Ballantine Del Rey Keith Clayton Nancy Delia Betsy Mitchell and Steve Saffel And the Bungie troopers who are slugging it out on virtual battlefields across the universe to bring you the best game ever Jason Jones Peter...

Page 5: ...SECTION REACH ...

Page 6: ...ovenant were en route to Reach the last of the United Na tions Space Command s major military strongholds Fred couldn t help but wonder what use ground troops would be in a ship to ship engagement The knife spun Around him his squadmates loaded weapons stacked gear and prepped for combat their efforts redoubled since the ship s Captain had personally come down to the mustering area to brief the te...

Page 7: ...s calm the Captain s grip on the pipe was white knuckle tight as he outlined the situation A single space vessel docked in Reach s orbital facilities had failed to delete its navigational database If the NAV data fell into Covenant hands the enemy would have a map to Earth Master Chief the Captain said I believe the Covenant will use a pinpoint Slipspace jump to a position just off the space dock ...

Page 8: ... and prep two dropships We ll launch you He consulted with Cortana in five minutes Aye Captain We ll be ready Good luck Captain Keyes said and the viewscreen went black Fred snapped to attention as the Master Chief turned to face the Spartans Fred began to step forward but Kelly beat him to it Master Chief she said permis sion to lead the space op She had always been faster damn her Denied the Mas...

Page 9: ...atellite broke apart disintegrating into glittering shards Better hang on Mitchell announced to his passengers in the dropship s troop bay Company s coming A swarm of Seraphs the Covenant s scarablike attack fighters fell into tight formation and arced through space on an intercept course for the dropship The Pelican s engines flared and the bulky ship plummeted toward the surface of Reach The ali...

Page 10: ...ed beneath the de fense platform s ring shaped superstructure Mitchell sent the Pelican into the planet s atmosphere Va porous flames flickered across the ship s stunted nose and the Pelican jounced from side to side Bravo One adjust attack angle the Longsword pilot ad vised You re coming in too hot Negative Mitchell said We re getting to the surface fast or we re not getting there at all Enemy co...

Page 11: ...h the increasingly dense air Fred hit the COM and barked Brace yourselves The ship lurched and he struggled to keep his footing SPARTAN 087 Kelly moved nearer and opened a frequency Chief we ll get that COM malfunction squared away after we hit planetside she said Fred winced when he realized that he d just broadcast on FLEETCOM 7 He d spammed every ship in range Damn it He opened a private channe...

Page 12: ...or She wouldn t have accidentally touched him unless she meant it and the gesture spoke volumes Before he could say anything to her the Pelican angled and gravity settled the Spartans stomachs Rough ride ahead the pilot warned The Spartans bent their knees as the Pelican rolled into a tight turn A crate broke its retaining straps bounced and stuck to the wall The COM channel blasted static and res...

Page 13: ... commands onto the keyboard mounted on the wall The fingers of his left hand dug into the metal bulkhead Kelly crawled along the starboard frame held there by the spinning motion of the out of control Pelican She headed aft of the passenger compartment and punched a keypad priming the explosive bolts on the drop hatch Fire in the hole she yelled The Spartans braced The hatch exploded and whipped a...

Page 14: ...tructure might be enough to withstand a high speed crash landing but not a supersonic impact It was a dangerous gamble If Joshua couldn t slow the Peli can s descent they d be paste Twelve thousand meters to go Kelly shouted still leaning over the edge of the aft door Fred told the Spartans Ready and aft Jump on my mark The Spartans grabbed their gear and moved toward the open hatch The Pelican s ...

Page 15: ... didn t work The port engine exploded and the Pelican tum bled out of control Kelly and the Spartans near the aft drop hatch dropped out No more time Jump Fred shouted Spartans Go go go The rest of the Spartans crawled aft fighting the gee forces of the tumbling Pelican Fred grabbed Joshua and they jumped ...

Page 16: ...activated his motion sensors boosting the range to maxi mum His team appeared as blips on his heads up display With a sigh of relief he saw that all twenty six of them were present and pulling into a wedge formation Covenant ground forces could be tracking the Pelican Fred told them over the COM Expect AA fire The Spartans immediately broke formation and scattered across the sky Fred risked a side...

Page 17: ...ve toward it but keep your incoming angle flat Aim for the treetops Let them slow you down If you can t aim for water and tuck in your arms and legs before impact Twenty six blue acknowledgment lights winked confirming his order Overpressurize your hydrostatics just before you hit That would risk nitrogen embolisms for his Spartans but they were coming in at terminal velocity which for a fully loa...

Page 18: ...ared and he slowly rolled onto his hands and knees Something hurt inside like his stomach had been torn out diced into little pieces and then stitched back together all wrong He took a ragged breath That hurt too The pain was good it helped keep him alert Status he coughed His mouth tasted like copper Kelly knelt next to him and on a private COM channel said Al most everyone has minor damage a few...

Page 19: ... ups There was no time though They d been sent to protect those generators and the Covenant sure as hell weren t sitting around waiting for them to make the first move The columns of smoke that marked where Reach HighCom once stood testified to that Assemble the team Fred told her Formation Beta We re heading toward the generators on foot Pack out our wounded and dead Send those with weapons ahead...

Page 20: ... knowledgment light immediately winked in response to his call for backup The Jackals suddenly turned to their right and sniffed rapidly A fist sized rock whizzed in from the aliens left It slammed into the lead Jackal s occipital crest with a wet crack The creature squawked and dropped to the ground in a pool of purple black blood Fred darted ahead and in three quick steps closed with the re main...

Page 21: ... of barbed wire and it pro pelled itself riderless in an endless orbit The generator complex on the far side of this battlefield was intact however Reinforced concrete bunkers bristling with ma chine guns surrounded a low building The generators were deep beneath there So far it looked as if the Covenant had not man aged to take them though not for lack of trying Contacts ahead Joshua whispered Fo...

Page 22: ...es that had once been a Warthog The men looked as if they had been to hell and back They all sported burns abrasions and the kilometer long stare indicative of near shock They gaped at Fred mouths open it was a reac tion that he had often seen when soldiers first glimpsed a Spar tan two meters tall half a ton of armor splashed with alien blood It was a mix of awe and suspicion and fear He hated it...

Page 23: ...unition Satisfied that the situation was as stable as possible he sat and began to remove portions of his armor Under normal circum stances a team of techs would assist in such work but over time the Spartans had all learned how to make rudimentary field re pairs He located a broken pressure seal and quickly replaced it with an undamaged one he d recovered from SPARTAN 059 s armor Fred scowled He ...

Page 24: ...lied Mission status Ten chainguns recovered and now provide blanketing fields of fire around the generator complex Will said We ve got three Banshee fliers working We ve also recovered thirty of those arm mounted Jackal shield generators plus a few hundred assault rifles plasma pistols and grenades Ammo We need it Affirmative sir Will said Enough to last for an hour of continuous fire There was a ...

Page 25: ...ons of Grunts three full squadrons of Elites piloting Banshees plus at least a dozen Wraith tanks It didn t make much sense though Why didn t the cruiser get closer and open fire Or did the Covenant think there might be another air strike The Covenant never hesitated during an as sault but the fact that he was still alive meant that the enemy s rules of engagement had somehow changed Fred wasn t s...

Page 26: ...o you know who lam son Yes sir Fred said wincing as the Admiral identified him self If the Covenant were eavesdropping on this transmission the senior officer had just made himself a giant target My staff and I are pinned down in a gully southeast of where HighCom used to be Whitcomb continued Get your team over here and extract us on the double Negative sir I cannot do that I have direct orders t...

Page 27: ...fatigued Marines who d been through hell once already They had to repel a massive Covenant force They had to extract Admiral Whitcomb too And as usual their survival was at best a tertiary consideration He had weapons to defend the installation grenades chain guns and missiles Fred paused Perhaps this was the wrong way to look at the tactical situation He was thinking about defending the installa ...

Page 28: ...d Red Twenty through Red Four you re on generator defense Understood Chief Team Alpha He selected Kelly Joshua and himself Awaiting orders sir Joshua said We re going to that valley to kill anything there that isn t human Fred and Kelly faced the three Banshee fliers that had been dragged into the makeshift compound Fred peered inside the cockpit of the nearest craft and tabbed the activation knob...

Page 29: ...it Tape Kelly ripped off a length of tape and handed it over Fred smoothed the adhesive strip and secured the launcher in place We ll play this one as quiet as we can he said She considered Fred s plan for a moment and then asked So assuming we fool them into letting us into their lines then what As much as I d like to we can t use the tac nukes Joshua mused not in the far valley The intervening r...

Page 30: ...ched the moun tain that separated Zawaz s cadre from the distant human forces He reached for the warning klaxon but relaxed as his detector identified the contacts Banshee fliers He peered over the dirt edge of his protective hole to confirm this He spotted three of the bulbous aircraft on approach Zawaz snorted It was odd that the flight wasn t listed on his patrol schedule He considered alerting...

Page 31: ...rom mobile treaded bases ten meters tall and topped with plasma turrets The rules had indeed changed In more than a hundred battles Fred had never seen the Covenant set up encampments of such magnitude All they did was kill Floating behind all this activity almost brushing against the far hills the Covenant cruiser sat thirty meters off the ground It looked like a great bloated fish with stubby st...

Page 32: ...anguages not their written words Odd curling characters scrolled across the Ban shee s displays Fred hit one of the response symbols There was a pause the display cleared and dozens more sym bols flashed twice as fast Fred clicked the display off Three kilometers to go and his heart beat so hard he heard it thunder in his ears Kelly pulled slightly ahead of them She was now thirty me ters off the ...

Page 33: ...ow the nuclear device as if it were a shotput The Covenant cruiser came to life and its weapons tracked the Banshees A dozen fingers of plasma ripped the air white blue arcs of fire reached for them One bolt connected with Joshua s ship The Banshee s impro vised shields overloaded and vanished The canards of the flier melted and bent The alien airship lurched into a spin as its con trol surfaces w...

Page 34: ...e came about and throttled back The Banshees drifted slowly to the ground The sky turned white Fred s faceplate polarized to its darkest setting Thunder rolled though his body Fire and molten metal blossomed over the ridge boiled skyward and rained back into the valley The granite top of the intervening mountain shattered into dust and the snow on their side melted in muddy rivulets Fred s visor s...

Page 35: ...s Kelly s Banshee appeared alongside his and their canards bumped The shadows overhead sharpened three Covenant cruisers broke through the clouds and drifted toward the generator com plex Their plasma artillery flickered and glowed with energy Fred snapped open his COM channel and boosted the signal strength to its maximum Delta Team Fall back Fall back now Static hissed over the channel and sever...

Page 36: ...drawn as a fireball a hundred meters across roared over their position He saw the faint out lines of dozens of Covenant battleships in low orbit Plasma bombardment Fred whispered He d seen this before They all had When the Covenant con quered a human world they fired their main plasma batteries at the planet fired until its oceans boiled and nothing was left but a globe of broken glass That s it K...

Page 37: ...SECTION I THRESHOLD ...

Page 38: ...lled and the Covenant glassed the planet and Red Team Then the time spent in a Pillar of Autumn cryotube the flight from Reach and the discovery of Halo And the Flood He stared out from the front viewport and fought down his revulsion at the memory of the Flood outbreak Whoever had constructed Halo had used it to contain the sentient virulent xenoform that had nearly claimed them all The rapidly h...

Page 39: ...er arms over her chest visibly irritated with the Master Chief s request If you don t find something out there we can use he told her we re dead This ship has no Slipspace drive and no cryo There s no way to get back and report Power fuel air food water we only have enough for a few hours So he concluded as patiently as he could manage Scan Again Cortana sighed explosively and her hologram dissolv...

Page 40: ... then another and then three more Status he whispered his hands hovering over the weapons controls Have they spotted us They re using the same scanning frequencies as our system Cortana said in his helmet speaker How strange No mention of this phenomenon in any of the UNSC or ONI files on the Cove nant Why do you suppose they d use the same frequencies Never mind that the Chief said They re here a...

Page 41: ... Where the cryo unit was supposed to be there was a new con trol panel The Chief examined it and discovered it was a Moray space mine laying system He didn t power it on The Moray system could dispense up to three dozen free floating mines The mines had tiny chemical fuel drives that allowed them to keep a fixed position or move to track specific targets These would come in handy He moved to the w...

Page 42: ...hing The aft hatch resealed and John heard the faint hiss as the internal compart ments pressurized One of the sleek Covenant cruisers slowed and turned toward them Picking up increased scanning signal activity and strength Cortana reported The Chief s hand hovered over the weapons system console It would take several seconds for the weapons to power up The 110mm rotary cannons could fire immediat...

Page 43: ...he rock She highlighted its contours rotated the polygon and overlaid this onto a sche matic of a Pelican dropship Match with a tolerance of fifty eight percent she said They might have parked there to avoid detection as you suggested The Chief thought he detected a hint of irritation in her voice as if she resented him for thinking of something she had not Or Cortana continued more likely the cra...

Page 44: ... pods If he spun just right as he passed the cryotubes it would give him enough extra reach to make contact He hoped He rotated back almost standing up now Three meters He stretched his arms until the elbow joints creaked and popped he stretched his hands willed his fingers to elongate His fingertips brushed against the smooth surface of the lead ing cryopod It slid off and over and touched the se...

Page 45: ...in hunt ing live prey than the motionless Longsword The Chief gave one final yank on the tether He and the pods flew through the aft hatch and crashed into the deck of the Longsword Cortana immediately sealed the hatch and fired the engines The Chief climbed into the system ops seat just as they accel erated and turned toward the cruisers He activated the weapons systems The two Covenant cruisers ...

Page 46: ...mpacted The explosion smeared across the hull At first the Chief thought it had hit the shield but then he saw that the explosion was inside the shimmering envelope of en ergy The plasma turrets fired their energy was immediately ab sorbed into the cloud of dust and vapor around the ship Dull red plasma ballooned inside the cruiser s shield obscuring its sen sors The ship listed to port momentaril...

Page 47: ...on code Tango Alpha Three Four Zero Copy Copy a woman s voice answered Warrant Officer Polaski here Other voices argued in the background Damn good to hear you Chief Polaski proceed at maximum burn to this position He dropped a NAV point on the display directly on the Covenant flagship He included an exit vector indicating a rough course There was silence over the COM Copy Polaski I copy Plotting ...

Page 48: ...V point over the flagship into the gravity well of Basis to slingshot us around Done Cortana replied I still Hey they ve stopped firing The Chief tapped the aft camera The six cruisers continued their pursuit but the tips of their weapons cooled as they pow ered down I was counting on this We re on the same line of fire as their flagship They won t shoot Pelican now twelve hundred kilometers and c...

Page 49: ... had sleek lines relatively flat top to bot tom but it curved from stem to stern into three distinct bulb sections Along its hull ran glowing blue conduits of super heated plasma surrounding the ship was a faint shimmer of sil ver energy shields He eased back into his seat The Chief hadn t realized that he d been holding his breath and he exhaled Good he said Very good Burning into a high slingsho...

Page 50: ...ut and propelled both of them against the hull With a lightning quick motion he drew the newcomer s pistol and aimed it squarely at the man s forehead You were dead the Chief said I saw you die On Jenkins s mission record The Flood got you The black man smiled a set of perfect white teeth The Flood Hell Chief it ll take more than that pack of walking alien horror show freaks to take out Sergeant A...

Page 51: ...aped infec tious bastards Johnson said They ambushed me Jenkins and Keyes He paused at the Captain s name then shook his head and went on They swarmed all over us Jenkins and Keyes were taken but I guess I didn t taste too good The Flood doesn t taste anything Cortana interjected The Infection Forms rewrite a victim s cellular structure and convert him into a Combat Form then later a Carrier Form ...

Page 52: ...g hypothermic shock We don t have that much time left before we reengage the Covenant Reengage the Sergeant said savoring the word He smiled Good For a second I thought we were running away from a per fectly good fight The Sergeant opened the hatch to the Pelican The barrel of an MA5B assault rifle extended through the opening The Sergeant reached down and pulled it up A Marine Corporal drifted th...

Page 53: ... difficulty distinguishing one Spartan from another How had this young officer so quickly identified him The Chief saw the round insigne on the man s shoulder the black and silver eagle wings over a trio of stars Inscribed above the eagle wings were the Latin words SEMPER VIGILANS Ever Vigilant Haverson was with the Office of Naval Intelligence Good Haverson said He glanced quickly at Locklear and...

Page 54: ...ed his back to the Chief and paced deep in thought The Master Chief respected the chain of command wnich meant that he had to obey Lieutenant Haverson But officer or not the Spartan had never liked it when people turned their backs to him And he certainly didn t like the way Haverson as sumed he was in charge The Chief had already gotten his orders and he intended to follow them whether or not Hav...

Page 55: ... told him We only have a few minutes while we re on the far side of this moon Grab any thing we can use extra weapons ammunition grenades Keep linked up to my COM so you can hear the briefing Locklear stood there glared into the Chief s faceplate and tensed Sergeant Johnson opened his mouth but the Chief made a subtle cutting gesture with his hand The Sergeant kept whatever he had to say to himsel...

Page 56: ...close to the flagship Haverson said and crossed his arms over his chest Are we going nose to nose with a ship with a thousand times our firepower Or are you planning an other flyby Neither The Chief pointed to the flagship s fighter launch bay That s our LZ Polaski squinted at the comparatively tiny opening in the belly of the flagship That s a hell of a window to hit coming in this fast but she b...

Page 57: ...the Chief cut in When we re close you ll need to shut down its weapons Jam its communications Sending an unescorted lady ahead to do your dirty work Cortana sighed I suppose I m the only one who can Lieutenant Haverson the Chief said I ll need you to pro gram the Moray mines to release and attach onto the Pelican before we exit this orbit Set half for detonation on impact Program the rest to detac...

Page 58: ...ht and the Chief saw meteors rain upon the planetoid leaving craters and tiny puffs of dust as they impacted Polaski snapped the display port camera centered on the Covenant cruisers They were waiting for us she cried Eva sive maneuvers The Pelican rolled to starboard Accelerating to the flagsh The flagship was close Too close It must have anticipated their orbital trajectory But it hadn t counted...

Page 59: ...nt battlenet Cortana announced over the ship COM Accessing their weapons systems Stand by Ahead the Pelican intercepted a second torpedo and burst into flames vaporized and smeared across the night as a cloud of sparkling ionized metal The flagship appeared on the forward viewscreen no larger than a dinner plate No more time to play around Polaski muttered She hit the afterburners and rocketed tow...

Page 60: ...he floor with one hand with the other he held on to the Sergeant and kept him from flying across the ship Polaski changed the viewscreen to a spilt view fore and aft She maneuvered with the ship s thrusters adjusting their ap proach to the launch bay opening Onscreen the small opening grew larger alarmingly fast Hang on hang on The engines whined and the ship slowed but it wasn t going to be enoug...

Page 61: ...up and move around the cabin Locklear scrambled to his feet Yeah he whooped The young Helljumper yanked his MA5B s charging lever and racked a round into the chamber Let s rock Good work people the Chief said standing He readied his own assault rifle But that was just the easy part ...

Page 62: ...oor Guns clear Polaski announced Bye boys She brought up a targeting reticle and swept it around the bay A hail of 120mm rounds tore through the Grunts cover Fuel pods and unshielded fighters detonated and sent metal frag ments and alien soldiers hurtling to the deck The air exploded into roiling flame which billowed toward the ceiling and then subsided Pools of burning fuel and the charred bodies...

Page 63: ...d it in the back of his helmet There was a moment of vertigo and then the familiar mercury and ice sensation flooded his skull as Cortana interfaced Still plenty of room in here I see she said He ignored her customary quip and nodded at Johnson and Locklear Let s go Sergeant Johnson hit the door release and the side hatch slid open Locklear shouldered his rifle and poured fire through the opening ...

Page 64: ...t fighter bay was similar to the interior of the other Covenant ship the Chief had recently been inside the Truth and Reconciliation Low indirect lights illumi nated the dark purple walls The alien metal appeared to be sten ciled with odd faintly luminescent geometric patterns that overlapped each other The ceiling was vaulted and unneces sarily high maybe ten meters In contrast to a human ship it...

Page 65: ...he pair of Elites dropped to the deck Their comrades on either side of the door howled and at tacked The whine of plasma rifle fire echoed through the bay as blue white energy bolts crashed into the Chief s own shields His shield dropped away and the insistent drone of a warning indicator pulsed in his helmet His vision clouded from the flare of energy weapon discharges and he struggled to draw a ...

Page 66: ...s up display The Chief turned and spotted a hatch to his right He pointed to the hatch and signaled his team to move then ran to the hatch and touched the control panel The small door slid open to reveal a narrow corridor beyond snaking into the darkness He didn t like it The corridor was too dark and too narrow a perfect place for an ambush He briefly considered heading back to the primary bay do...

Page 67: ... had the support staff of a refit vessel Stop here Cortana said The Chief halted and killed his external speakers so he could speak freely Problem No A lucky break maybe Look to your left and down twenty centimeters The Chief squinted and noticed that a portion of the wall ex truded into a circular opening no larger than the tip of his thumb That s a data port or what passes for one with the Coven...

Page 68: ...d on her own She was the ultimate thief and electronic spy She slipped into the Covenant system It was easy the first time she had entered their network as the Longsword had approached the flagship She had set their weap ons systems into a diagnostic mode The Covenant had deter mined the problem and quickly reset the system but it had given Polaski the precious seconds her sluggish human reflexes ...

Page 69: ...of feedback teased through the data stream Cortana locked onto the source of that feedback listened dis cerned a nonrandom pattern to the signal then cut off contact She had no time to play hide and seek with whatever else was in this system Cortana had to finally admit to herself that she didn t have the power to contend with a possible enemy artificial construct She had absorbed a tremendous vol...

Page 70: ...and Locklear you take the escape pod route She continued to track both teams and the relative positions of the Covenant parties She replicated additional ghost signals to confuse the enemy Cortana picked up increasing communications bandwidth be tween the flagship and the cruisers Reports of the invaders a call for help a warning to be relayed to the home world There were references to the holy on...

Page 71: ... concentration There were sounds of plasma bolts and automatic weapons fire We ve got Elites in active camouflage in the passage We need a way around this intersection She had not considered the Elites light bending technology She was doing too much spreading herself too thin She halted her ongoing study of the Covenant technology and found the Chief a way around the intersection She rebooted her ...

Page 72: ...s mandibles snapping at air that was no longer there they toppled and suffocated An impulse flickered through her ethics subroutine and gen erated an interrupt command designed to make her stop and re think her decisions But Cortana knew it was either kill or be killed She rerouted all signals from her ethics routine and shut it down She couldn t afford to be slowed down by such secondary consider...

Page 73: ...t encased the bridge one of the alien weapons more useful properties He moved around the corner of the pas sage and shielded Haverson and Polaski Five seconds elapsed and a flash filled the hallway The Chief moved back to the doors They shone mirror bright where the grenade had detonated but were otherwise unharmed A hundred grenades wouldn t have blasted through these doors but when Covenant plas...

Page 74: ...eplied Locklear dropped to one knee and fired through the opening Johnson stood and fired over the younger Marine s head The Chief rebooted his shielding control software Nothing His shield system was dead The shooting stopped I m out Locklear said And I m in the Chief said He rushed into the room and stepped over the dead Elite on the floor before him Its torso had been ripped open shot as it tri...

Page 75: ...red on the deck but it shrugged off the wound and kept coming Haverson charged into the room and leveled his pistol Hold it he yelled and thumbed off the weapon s safety The Elite drew a plasma pistol and fired at the Lieutenant but never took its eyes off the Chief Haverson cursed and scrambled out of the room as the plasma charge slashed at him The Chief altered his grip on the rifle and crouche...

Page 76: ...y missed the Chief The MJOLNIR s internal temperature skyrocketed He couldn t risk dancing at this range so the Master Chief did the last thing the creature expected He stepped closer and grabbed its wrists The bands of muscle on the Elite s arms were iron hard and it struggled to free itself from the Chief s grasp The Chief wrenched the alien s sword arm and forced the blade away but this took mo...

Page 77: ...fired a single shot but it glanced off the Elite s shield The alien glanced at the source of the fire and growled in its guttural warbling tongue Get the Lieutenant out of here the Master Chief barked He raised his knee to his chest and lashed out with a straight kick His boot connected with the Elite s breastplate The alien s en ergy shield flared then faded and its breastplate cracked like porce...

Page 78: ...ergy blade cut into the Master Chief s armor boiling through the alloy that protected his upper arm Sergeant now Firer Gunfire exploded from the hatch oddly muffled because the rounds impacted directly into the Elite s back The alien snarled and contorted but it held on to the Master Chief The alien war rior sawed the blade deeper cutting through the tough crys talline layers of the MJOLNIR armor ...

Page 79: ... clutched his chest and grimaced in pain from the sword wound Polaski set her hand on the Master Chief s shoulder That s bad she whispered Let me get a first aid kit from the Pelican and The Chief shrugged off her touch Later He saw her con cerned expression melt into one of what Fear Confusion Cortana show me what to do the Chief said and made his way to the raised platform in the center of the b...

Page 80: ...generator but without the system powered up were not going anywhere There s a Covenant AI Haverson muttered and raised an eyebrow Upload the coordinates to power coupling the Master Chief said I ll take care of it Two more plasma torpedoes impacted and splashed across the shield Energy shields collapsing Cortana said Brace The last shot collided with the flagship The hull heated and plasma boiled ...

Page 81: ...y here the Chief said If you insist Haverson muttered his face pale Blood trick led from the wound in his chest The Master Chief looked at Johnson and Locklear Don t let the Covenant retake the bridge Not a problem Chief Sergeant Johnson said He stopped to kick the dead Elite once in the teeth then slapped a fresh clip into his MA5B He yanked the weapon s charge handle fed a round into the chamber...

Page 82: ...lasma tor pedoes at the incoming salvo The plasma turrets warmed and belched superheated flame but it dispersed into a dull red cloud only a few meters from the point of fire thinned and then dissolved She saw a subsystem linked to the weapons control an ac companying magnetic field multiplier That was how the Cove nant shaped and guided their charges of plasma It acted as a sophisticated focusing...

Page 83: ...stals But their ship no longer had shields The friction heated the hull to three hundred degrees Celsius as she brushed against the upper reaches of Threshold On her aft cameras Cortana saw the trailing Covenant ships open fire Their shots followed her like a pack of predator birds Come and get me she muttered She adjusted the attack angle of the flagship so it nosed up which produced a slight amo...

Page 84: ...ighed and slowly slid apart Funny how the creature didn t care what or who John was Didn t it know their races were enemies It was clearly intelli gent and could communicate Maybe it didn t care about ene mies or allies Maybe all it wanted to do was its job There was a corridor ahead five meters wide with a vaulted ceiling Past a final arch the passage opened up into the cav ernous reactor room Th...

Page 85: ...nts Chief Cortana said over the COM Are you there yet I m down to one last option The Master Chief replied in a whisper Almost Be careful Your armor is breached You can no longer func tion in a compromised atmosphere He flashed an acknowledgment to Cortana and concentrated on the problem at hand Using grenades was not an option a plasma grenade or a frag near those reactor coils could breach the c...

Page 86: ...de detonated A flash of intense light flooded the hallway and the room beyond The rest of the Grunts cried out plasma bolts and a hail of crystalline needles filled the passage impacting inside the ele vator shaft The Grunts ceased fire A lone Grunt cautiously stepped out from behind a crate and crept forward It gave a barking nervous laugh and then encountering no resistance waddled down the pass...

Page 87: ... rush Let the enemy come to you All the time A Grunt poked its nose over a crate trying to spot its enemy it took a blind shot down the corridor and missed The Master Chief remained where he was raised the needier and fired A flurry of crystal shards propelled down the passage and impaled the Grunt It toppled backward and the shards detonated The Master Chief waited and listened There was nothing ...

Page 88: ...t a trail of molten metal in an explosive wake Shocks rippled along the frame as the overpressure shed off the bow in waves The friction from the planet s dense atmosphere would shred the ship in a matter of seconds Cortana the Master Chief said I ve gotten to the coupling The Engineer appears to know what it s doing You should have power for the Slipspace generator in a moment It s too late Corta...

Page 89: ...ped filaments She rejected the possibility at their current velocity any attempt to maneuver the ship would send it into a chaotic tumble from which they d never recover Try something the Chief said to her with amazing calm Try anything Cortana sighed Roger Chief She booted the Covenant Slipspace generators the software streamed through her consciousness The UNSC Shaw Fujikawa Slipspace generators...

Page 90: ...ted directly before them a pinhole that be came a gyrating wormhole fluxing and spinning Threshold s atmosphere throbbed and jumped through the hole sucked into the vacuum of the alternate dimension Cortana dedicated all her runtime to monitoring the space around the ship and risked making microscopic course correc tions to maneuver them into the fluctuating path Sparks danced along the length of ...

Page 91: ...ntually outthink the Covenant given enough access to the enemy s technologies Cortana real ized the humans actually had a chance to win this war All they needed was time Cortana Status please the Master Chief said Stand by Cortana reported The Chief felt decompressive explosions reverberate through the deck thunder that suddenly silenced itself as the atmosphere vented He waited for an explosion t...

Page 92: ...ff the deck and floated upward in the null gravity The Chief kept his eyes and ears sharp for any hint of a threat as he moved through the corridors to the bridge Everything was quiet and still At the open bridge door he paused and watched as Warrant Officer Polaski supervised a Covenant Engineer while it re moved the blasted door control panels The Engineer turned a melted piece of polarizing cry...

Page 93: ...shield generator housing on his back Normally it took a team of three technicians to remove the safety catches and get to the radioactive power source The Chief shifted uneasily He didn t like this one bit but Cortana had al ways known what she was doing Locklear watched this and ran a hand over his shaved head He stood on the raised center platform and turned to the other Covenant Engineer as it ...

Page 94: ...Shaw Fujikawa event horizon With the Covenant s Slipspace matrices however I had greatly increased resolution I was able to compensate Amazing he whispered Goddamned lucky Polaski muttered She tugged on the rim of her cap It worked the Master Chief told them For now that s all that matters He faced his team trying to ignore the motions of the Covenant Engineer attached to his back We have to plan ...

Page 95: ...s eyes Typical Navy suicide mission No the Master Chief replied It was a long shot but we had a chance We have a better chance now that we have this ship Excuse me Master Chief Polaski said She removed her cap and wrung it in her hands You re not suggesting that you re going to continue that half assed op are you We barely sur vived four days of hell It was a miracle we got away from Reach survive...

Page 96: ...ads and maybe buy some shore leave I vote for that plan He saluted Haverson Hell yeah This isn t a democracy the Master Chief said his voice both calm and dangerous Locklear twitched but didn t back down Yeah maybe it isn t he said but last time I checked I take my orders from the Corps not from some swabbie Sir The Sergeant scowled at the ODST and moved to his side You better get it together Mari...

Page 97: ...ds his own life if that s what it took but he d never considered that he d have to sacrifice his dignity and pride as well for the greater good He sighed and nodded Very well Lieutenant Haverson We ll do it your way I hereby relinquish my tactical command Good Haverson said Thank you He faced the others and continued Sergeant You Polaski and Locklear get back down to the Pelican and grab whatever ...

Page 98: ...verson raised an eyebrow Go ahead Chief I m intrigued The first possibility John said is that the Covenant have glassed the planet and moved on In which case there might be a derelict but serviceable UNSC craft that we could repair and take to Earth We d leave the Covenant flagship in low orbit and return with the proper scientific staff and equipment to effect a salvage operation Haverson nodded ...

Page 99: ...m and cluttered with excitement Diagnostic routines scrolled upon the Chief s heads up dis play In the upper right corner the shield recharge bar flickered red and slowly filled They work the Master Chief said John was relieved to have his shields back He wouldn t forget what it was like to fight without them though It had been a wake up call not to become dependent upon technology It was also a r...

Page 100: ...e through its head and spattered gore across the display the alien had been repairing Haverson Cortana cried The other Engineer turned and squealed then a blinking light on the broken display captured its attention and it returned to its work oblivious Haverson knelt by the dead Engineer and holstered his gun I had no other choice he whispered He touched the creature s odd slick skin Its color fad...

Page 101: ...ht Haverson muttered I really hate this shit too I understand Cortana finally replied but her voice was so cold it could have frozen helium Haverson sighed and looked at his hands The Engineer s blood tattooed his skin with tiny pinpoints of blue black Do you think that the Master Chief will find what he s really looking for on Reach What do you mean really looking for Cortana said Her voice was s...

Page 102: ...t for the press and civilian tours Today there was no time for pleasantries In another hour the apparent calm and efficiency of HighCom would be shattered into a billion pieces Only a few of the brass knew that the UNSC s mightiest outpost Reach was now noth ing more than a cinder Wagner approached the receptionist s station under the watchful eyes of a trio of armored Marine MPs Keeping Reach s f...

Page 103: ...d onto the scanner and a needle stabbed his index finger They d check his DNA against the sample on file He blinked once and then rested his chin on the retinal scanner Good morning Lieutenant a sweet female voice whispered in his ear Good morning Lysithea How are you today Very well now that I see that you have returned safely from your mission I assume everything went as expected You know that s...

Page 104: ... a reason to delay anything that would keep him out of the room at the end of this corridor He sighed and overcame his inertia No one kept the Security Com mittee for the UNSC waiting A pair of MPs snapped to as he approached the set of double doors They didn t salute and their hands rested on their hol stered sidearms They stared straight ahead but Wagner knew that if he twitched the wrong way he...

Page 105: ...ehind the small of his back and moved his feet slightly apart but otherwise didn t relax a mil limeter One was never at ease when in the presence of lions sharks and scorpions Hood turned to Ackerson Decimate is the wrong word Colonel We would have been decimated if we lost one ship out of every ten He voice rose slightly Instead we lost ten of our ships for every one that managed to limp away It ...

Page 106: ...d onto the surface of Reach with their tactical forces and took out the orbital gun generators that was the end Well I saw only the start of the end They glassed the planet starting with the poles Wagner who d two years ago had a third of his body burned by Covenant plasma and not once screamed or shed a tear paused and blinked away the moisture blurring his vision I trained at the Naval Academy o...

Page 107: ...pre vent his secret from getting back to Section Three After what seemed a century of uncomfortable silence Admi ral Hood cleared his throat The Pillar of Autumn Lieutenant Wagner Was that ship destroyed Or did she jump There is no mention in your report She jumped sir Telemetry indicates the Autumn was pur sued by several enemy ships however so her fate can only be speculated upon I did not menti...

Page 108: ...otry in check Colonel Do you understand My apologies Ackerson muttered I asked you a direct question Admiral Hood barked Sir Ackerson said I understand completely Admiral It will not happen again His face burned bright red Wagner however didn t think this was the color of shame It was anger The Spartans Hood whispered Doctor Halsey Whit comb We lost too many good people on Reach Not to mention doz...

Page 109: ...olunteer for the duty Ackerson got up and strode to Wagner He stood a centimeter from his face and their eyes locked Ackerson s gaze was full of poison Wagner did his best not to recoil but he couldn t help it One look and he knew this man wanted him dead for whatever reason that he had heard of Ackerson s alternative program to the SPARTAN IIs that he didn t want trouble over Reach or maybe as Ly...

Page 110: ...ave already seen a dozen times before Reach is gone He inched closer to Wagner Everything on it is blasted to bits burned glassed over and vaporized Everyone on Reach is dead He jabbed a finger into Wagner s chest for emphasis Dead Dead Dead ...

Page 111: ...SECTION 2 DEFENSE OF CASTLE BASE ...

Page 112: ...d to focus on keeping his remaining team members alive Fred called up the mapping system on his heads up display A blue NAV marker nestled in the crux of topological lines identi fied their fallback position ONI Section Three s secure and secret research facility buried under Menachite Mountain Two decades ago it had been a titanium mine and then the abandoned tunnels were used as storage until Se...

Page 113: ...blistering wakes across the swollen sky For a split second panic seized Fred s throat Then his training kicked in and his mind turned cold and metallic and filtered through every fact he had on Covenant plasma bombardments He had to think or die So he thought Something didn t fit Covenant plasma bombardment had al ways proceeded in an orderly crisscrossing pattern across a planet until every squar...

Page 114: ...rod gun mounted on its arm at Fred The barrel pulsed green The Hunter fired Fred killed the power and his Banshee dropped ten meters There was a flash as the orb of destructive energy split the air where his flier had been a second before The Banshee hit the ground skidding through fist sized rocks The battered craft flipped and tossed him to the ground The Banshee rolled end over end and crashed ...

Page 115: ...Didn t you see while we were airborne Kelly said concern tightening her voice There s about half the entire Covenant as sault force just ahead Ground troops Fred said boosting his speed to a full sprint How far Haifa klick That didn t make sense either Why have forces groundside when you were destroying the planet from orbit Something s not right he told her Let s see what they re up to Kelly s ac...

Page 116: ...ncrete or flesh it all vaporized Marines called these tanks Wraiths because you usually got one look at them before they made you one There were a handful of Grunts milling about the tanks as well as dozens of the floating Covenant Engineers The Engi neers swarmed over and under the machinery Most interesting to Fred the vehicles hatches were open I can t think of a better disguise Kelly whispered...

Page 117: ...plays sprang into the air before him and showed a 360 degree view Through the armored shell he felt the rumble and roar of Kelly s tank starting Fred didn t understand any of the symbols yet something seemed familiar about them Some of the controls were similar to the Banshee but nothing was an exact match He relaxed as best he could given the situation and his hands drifted over the controls He t...

Page 118: ...e two tanks They think we re on their side Fred said They re going to see what attacked them Let s not show them otherwise until we have to Kelly s acknowledgment light winked on and she pushed a path through the onrushing Grunts who quickly parted before her Half a kilometer ahead was a stand of hexagonal gold and silver structures the shielded tents of the Elites There were half a dozen stationa...

Page 119: ...already destroyed For a split second the ground was the surface of a sun it flared faded and then was nothing but ash Fred fired his mortar as fast as the tank s power supply would cycle He lobbed three silver white projectiles at the con centration of Elites and plasma turrets They had shields that protected them for a microsecond before they overloaded and collapsed They flared like the strike a...

Page 120: ...ng over you Kelly yelled over the COM Get out Fred popped the hatch and crawled out Overhead a dozen Banshee fliers turned to strafe his crip pled tank Fred jumped rolled to his feet and ran A NAV marker ap peared on his heads up display over a gash in the side of the mountain where the cavern entrance used to be A red hot sledgehammer hit him squarely in the back a plasma pistol on overload He re...

Page 121: ...w from chemical light sticks Fred tightened his grip on the cable and his descent slowed A meter from the bottom of the shaft he let go and landed in a crouch He moved out of the way The other Spartans landed next to him This way Will said and moved ahead through a set of eleva tor doors that had been forced open Fred noticed that Will moved with a severe limp and remem bered the Spartans he had s...

Page 122: ...d There s voice access which we ve tried but there s no re sponse This door must be a meter thick so without cutting tools or a hundred kilos of explosive we re stuck on this side You spoke to the people on the other side Kelly asked The channel is open Will said But there s been no reply Everyone on the other side probably bugged out Or maybe you re just not saying anything they want to hear Kell...

Page 123: ...y compensated and enhanced the image he saw it was human slight of figure female She wore a gray pleated skirt and a white lab coat with a data pad stuffed into the breast pocket He caught the glimmer of her eyeglasses black rimmed with faint bifocal lines Her gray hair was coiled into a tight bun But it was her face that caught and held his focus he recog nized the tight smooth skin that wrinkled...

Page 124: ... Come in she said briskly And hurry From the sounds of things upstairs we haven t much time The Spartans stood there a moment undoubtedly communi cating with one another through a mixture of externally silent COM channels and minute body language She noticed the tick of a finger the slight nod of a head They then moved together picked up their equipment and walked through the threshold of the vaul...

Page 125: ...rs I assume you re not here to let me know it s safe to come out Yes ma am Fred replied I mean no ma am It s not safe The Fleet engaged the Covenant but the enemy managed to land ground forces on Reach We were sent to the surface to protect the orbital gun generators He stopped took a deep breath and continued We were not successful in that mission Covenant forces overwhelmed our position He glanc...

Page 126: ...tal iris big enough to drive a Warthog through and set her hand on a palm scanner The medical wing she explained She spoke into the nearby microphone I shall do no harm The door opened for them High intensity lights flickered on in the large room beyond There were a dozen medical diagnosis tables and a row of dis plays along the far wall The lime colored floor was brightly polished and sterile The...

Page 127: ...you have a cracked tibia and some internal bleed ing Get some biofoam into that wound and avoid strenuous mo tions for the next day She turned to face Fred and Will You two are in the best shape I want you to go to Level Aqua Section Lambda and retrieve a few things Yes ma am Fred said Dr Halsey was only a civilian but the Spartans had always ac cepted her authority Perhaps because she had acted a...

Page 128: ...ed and reinserted incorrectly which is pinching off the blood vessels I ll get you both fixed up in a moment but first I want you to survey the route we took here and suggest further perimeter defenses Yes ma am they replied cast a look at Kelly and left Dr Halsey concentrated on Kelly s internal scans Her injuries were by far the worst She had seen that from the extremely low blood pressure and h...

Page 129: ...e I understand Kelly rasped Dr Halsey wondered if she did if Kelly understood that getting shot and burned and having your internal organs trauma tized wasn t supposed to happen to you every day unless you were a Spartan She wished the war were over She wished her Spartans had some measure of peace Doctor Kalmiya whispered through the tiny private speaker bud in Dr Halsey s glasses There is an ano...

Page 130: ...roper clearance is a treasonable offense Doctor They can come and arrest me then Do as I have instructed Kalmiya Dr Halsey said Override your ethics center subrou tine four alpha Nullification code Whateverittakes Dr Halsey found a half full cup of coffee on the floor and gin gerly picked it up She sniffed its contents and satisfied it wasn t rancid swirled it once then downed its cold contents Ye...

Page 131: ...ut looking tapped in line commands accessing the base s root directory You are in violation of UNSC military security code 447 R27 Araqiel stated with a growl This has been recorded and the proper authorities have been notified You will cease and desist all activities Dr Halsey snorted and continued to type I m the only au thority left here Araqiel For a smart AT you are extremely thick She glance...

Page 132: ... mind flow And this she quickly typed in another command is the code that activates your personal fail safe It generates a pulse beam of high frequency UV light in your Riemann cycling thought matrix clearing your high thought functions It will effectively erase you No Araqiel said and reared back Flames roared about his crystalline skull Don t Dr Halsey punched the ENTER key Araqiel vanished Dr H...

Page 133: ... origins their childhood vaccinations their parents their extensive injuries and treatments during their train ing even the experimental procedures used to enhance their strength agility and mental resiliency What the hell was he up to she muttered She felt her pulse quicken as she scoured his records There were DNA profiles on each Spartan and there were extensive files on the old flash clone tec...

Page 134: ...ppeared on her desk Dr Halsey noted that this holographic representation of the base was much larger than she had been led to believe While her security clearance was the highest possible for a civilian she apparently had seen only a third of the facility she had worked in for the last decade Dr Halsey tapped open the second file It was the transcripts of the debriefing at Camp Hathcock August 12 ...

Page 135: ...rough No if it was as simple as that why would Ackerson be interested And why then classify this data as level X ray How does this connect to the alien artifact on Cote d Azur I can t say Kalmiya replied but perhaps there s a back door you can use to escape Yes yes Dr Halsey downloaded all of Ackerson s secret files to her data pad I ll consider that later Right now we should concentrate Detecting...

Page 136: ...t along the far wall Every surface was spotless and every seam had been precision milled to prevent explosives or acids from penetrating One moment please Kalmiya told them I m attempting to access the locks now Please stand by Will stood at the doorway and watched their backs It didn t make Fred feel any more at ease The abandoned ONI base was somehow more intimidating than facing the Covenant in...

Page 137: ...tol He found three boxes of clips at the bottom of the locker opened one and took out a clip Whatever this new handgun shot it was high caliber slugs the size of his thumb He slid the clip into the gun and it secured with a satisfying click Now it was perfectly balanced far better than the standard issue sidearm He secured the weapon and turned to see what Will had found Will examined a plastic wr...

Page 138: ...the lab When they got to the medical wing the lights were dead and Fred saw Kelly s helmet lights cut through the velvet rich dust filled darkness She had Dr Halsey draped over her shoulder Blood ran from the doctor s nostrils Her office collapsed Kelly told them Support beam missed her by a centimeter Dr Halsey looked up and whispered I m fine Really She pushed away from Kelly stood and teetered ...

Page 139: ...ter I understand Doctor There was a pause and the AI spoke again her voice sad Voice and fingerprint accepted and veri fied Fail safe code verified It has been a pleasure working with you Doctor Halsey The pleasure has been mine Kalmiya She stood straighter and said Fail safe override access Ragnarok Give us a three minute countdown A three minute counter appeared in the corner of Fred s heads up ...

Page 140: ...l Kelly halted ten meters before a five way intersection The Spartans froze and waited She crouched set the can of talc on the floor and then stood with her knees bent She waited another heartbeat then gave a slight shake of her head from side to side their signal for trouble ahead Vinh moved next to Fred s flank and Fred set Dr Halsey down and stood in front of her Will crouched next to the docto...

Page 141: ...he floor The Elite had bugged out and it was most likely gathering reinforcements That wasn t what Covenant Elites usually did Their pride de manded that they fight and die fighting if need be They would hurl themselves headlong into battle no matter the odds and die by the hundreds if necessary They never ran away Nothing about this engagement had been usual Fred glanced at Will and Dr Halsey Wil...

Page 142: ...ent light winked on Fred entered next sliding through the vent duct It twisted and turned and finally dumped him into a long tunnel of roughly hewn granite The ceiling was ten meters high and judging from the three meter wide tire tracks in the dust big enough for heavy equipment to have rolled through Will slid out of the duct with Dr Halsey riding on his chest Vinh and Isaac came after them Ther...

Page 143: ...sion for the last five days Dr Halsey and the Spartans had explored the extensive caverns hoping to find two things a way out and what Dr Halsey called the most impor tant discovery of the millennium She had however refused to speculate on what exactly this discovery would be I m a scien tist she d told them not a soothsayer Fred would have settled for finding an airhole to the surface but he reco...

Page 144: ...ield generator even a shoe box sized clone tank for organ duplication She had also installed the new MJOLNIR parts in their exist ing armor These upgrades were in field testing and not certified she had explained but she gauged their need sufficient to justify the risk of using the new equipment Kelly received an improvement to her neural induction cir cuits giving her twitch response time a speed...

Page 145: ...ed and almost seemed to be absorbed by the minerals He flicked off his helmet lights The symbols in the rock emit ted a faint illumination of their own a soft reddish glow like heated metal The light intensified and spread across the spiral on the wall starting from where his blood had fallen those sym bols warmed to a pleasant orange then yellow gold A new symbol in the center of the spiral appea...

Page 146: ...finally said over the COM Don t move Fred And don t touch anything Excellent work Kelly Isaac Vinh Will meet me at Fred s location Fred wanted to stare at the gold symbols and the light they cast but something warned him that this would be dangerous He had long ago learned to listen to that inner voice when on pa trol or in the heat of battle It had saved him from dozens of am bushes He kept his e...

Page 147: ...he armor pulled it snug and sealed the locking collar around his wrist Diagnostics ran and confirmed that his armor was whole again His motion tracker pulsed on his heads up display The hallway changed as they continued down its length The golden light faded along the ceiling and inky black covered its expanse tiny stars winked on and twinkled Fred added color to his display he wanted to see this ...

Page 148: ... to maximum gain He heard the creak of their armored joints and five faint heartbeats but other than that silence They ve stopped Fred said and pointed overhead The digging I don t like it Dr Halsey said The Covenant aren t known for giving up on anything they start We d better continue Kelly removed the clip from her magnum cleared the cham ber and then slid a self installing piton down the lengt...

Page 149: ... blur He focused on his motion tracker and saw that the Spartans and Dr Halsey were now separated across two dozen meters Everyone stop he said Regroup We re getting scattered They halted and edged back into formation There must be another way Dr Halsey said She reached into her lab coat pocket and removed a ball bearing The floor slopes toward the center she observed She set the bearing on the fl...

Page 150: ...diation warning flared red and then faded Radiation spike he said Analysis says lots of neutrinos but I m unable to determine the type it s something not in the computer s database Is it safe now Dr Halsey asked peering into the crystal she gripped in her tiny hand Seems so Fred told her but Doc No time for debate she said Neutrino radiation will pene trate the rock between us and the surface They...

Page 151: ...ke our six Will you re with me on Doctor Halsey Kelly find us a way out Kelly ran in a line directly away from the gravity beam A dozen Elites floated down through the shaft and fired while still in the air Plasma bolts slashed at them from the distance Fred and Will grabbed Dr Halsey and moved her behind the pedestal out of the line of fire Isaac and Vinh fell back and opened fire Suppression fir...

Page 152: ... turned and bumped up his display s magnification Hundreds of Covenant Elites and Jackals poured from the grav shaft They swarmed over the floor of the great chamber a living tide as unstoppable as the ocean They weren t shooting anymore though Dr Halsey was cor rect They wanted the crystal she d taken Go Fred said Kelly blow the hallway Let s move Kelly hesitated a heartbeat Fred saw her searchin...

Page 153: ...SECTION 3 RESCUE ...

Page 154: ...was for the best considering the extent of her injuries but he would have given anything to see her face one last time Linda had been unique among the Spartans with her bloodred hair and dark emerald eyes but her appearance was not what set her apart She was the unit s best sniper scout and could hit tar gets the rest of them couldn t While the other Spartans pre ferred to operate as a team Linda ...

Page 155: ...hief hesitated and looked back atthecryotube Don t you worry about her Johnson said Hell I been hit worse and she s three times the soldier I am She ll pull through The Chief sealed the hatch without comment He had heard the same hollow promises a hundred times before with critically wounded men Why was it that soldiers would face their own deaths without blinking an eye but when faced with the de...

Page 156: ...ffect at these Slip space velocities Although technically velocity acceleration and for that matter even time have no meaning in the folds of Slipspace I thought I told you all this she said Irritation crept into her voice The Chief looked to the Sergeant who shook his head and shrugged Cortana sounded more than distracted and she didn t just forget things It was a bad sign They depended on her to...

Page 157: ... the Lieutenant saluted and gave her report on her efforts to master the Covenant dropship s controls Locklear edged closer to the Chief and the Sergeant What do you think Sarge he whispered and cast a furtive glance at Polaski I mean about her Sure there s that Marine Navy thing to get over but I can get past that You think there s a chance that she and I I mean I d give you the same odds as spac...

Page 158: ...ng stand by Haverson tapped one of the screens and magnified the image My God he whispered A planet appeared on the screen He sucked in his breath as he saw a world smoldering from pole to equator Fires raged over its surface and a hurricane of black spiraled through the atmosphere The Master Chief felt as if the ship had suddenly decelerated His hands clenched He d sent the majority of his team d...

Page 159: ... circling over that spot Forget what I just said Haverson whispered If the Covenant are so interested in this region then we should be as well as long as our cover holds Cortana take us in closer Yes Lieutenant Cortana replied The Covenant flagship smoothly accelerated insystem They re hailing us Cortana said Preparing the proper counter response John counted the ships on the display There were hu...

Page 160: ...g up a new signal Weaker than the others Not on a Cove nant frequency It s the UNSC E band Lieutenant Haverson licked his lips Play it he said A message beeped through the speakers six tones then a two second pause it repeated The Master Chief stiffened That s it Cortana said Just those six notes over and over It originates here A tiny NAV triangle appeared on the edge of the intact region on the ...

Page 161: ...lly and Fhajad appeared ghostlike from their camouflaged positions nearby They crouched outside the cedar stump and watched for patrols From a distance they looked like soldiers on field maneuvers Each was tall fit and agile and looked to be in their late teens or early twenties Closer observation told a different story Each Spartan was no more than twelve years old Weapons check John told Fred an...

Page 162: ...etting pretty tired of losing Fred remarked with a wry smile That s not a good thing Linda told him and flipped a stray strand of red hair out of her face They re not going to play fair You heard the sniper we captured He said that this time their Captain told them to win no matter what even if they had to bloody a few of us to do it John nodded So we ll return the favor and do whatever it takes t...

Page 163: ...s eyes and ran over the details of his plan again in his head Yes everything gelled their odds were good He knew they d win Don t come out from hiding at the LZ until I give the all clear signal he reminded them We could be captured they could make us talk They all nodded remembering what Tango Company had done to James He fell down a flight of stairs as they had escorted him from cell to cell in ...

Page 164: ...e pulled a Kevlar poncho over his head I m not gonna take a dart in my ass if it is Cover me The man riding shotgun got out and walked around the truck Looks clear he whispered Hurry The driver jumped out of the cab moved to the rocks and rolled them off the road John ran from the brush and crawled under the vehicle He pulled himself up and wedged tight against the undercarriage close enough that ...

Page 165: ...d rapped the side of the truck You re clean How are the dogs the driver asked Still sick the guard muttered Not sure what the heck they all ate last night but they re still squirting Damn the driver said He started the engine and rolled into Tango Company s base camp Last night Fred had fed the guard dogs a paste made of a few squirrels they d caught some unripe berries and the antibacterial ointm...

Page 166: ...nto the darkness Sam and Fhajad moved off as well making their way to the barracks houses they had previously reconnoitered There was a crawl space under each building John sprinted to the farthest barracks and slipped underneath He paused for a moment listening for any noise a footfall an alarm it was still quiet They were undetected which would last for only another five minutes He took three st...

Page 167: ... unfolded their green striped flag He attached one corner to a lanyard dangling from the pole John glanced at the distant forest The woods past the fence of Tango Company s camp had been clear cut He knew it was more than a hundred meters closer to two hundred There was no guarantee that Fred or Linda could hit anything at that range He drew his dart pistol and clicked off its safety At 0500 flash...

Page 168: ... down as she sprinted and closed on the chain link fence She tucked and threw herself into the steel mesh Just before she hit John spotted the smoking outlines on the fence where she had applied the battery acid The fence broke in a jagged outline and Kelly rolled to her feet on the other side without missing a stride John waved his team through He went last pausing only a fraction of a second to ...

Page 169: ...hatch popped open Fhajad started to move but John set his hand on his shoulder Too early he whispered When is the Chief not perfectly on time Fhajad Kelly and Sam grimly nodded I ll go John said You guys back up Blue Team They gave him a thumbs up Sam patted him on the back and whispered Don t worry I won t let them do anything to you I know John whispered back He pulled the flag from his shirt an...

Page 170: ...ept around the open hatch and swept the interior Empty He scrambled into the cockpit and pulsed the Pelican s radar He got a contact bearing of 110 fourteen kilometers out but it moved on a parallel course to their position John left the Pelican and ran across the field Red and Blue Teams were still hidden and they would stay hidden forever until he gave the all clear Their all clear signal wasn t...

Page 171: ... she analyzed the Covenant pattern of movement in the Epsilon Eridani system and discerned three important things First the Covenant warships had extremely regular elliptical orbits about Reach There were a total of thirteen heavy cruisers and three carriers moving three hundred kilometers above the surface of the planet Two exceptions to this patrol pattern were a pair of light cruisers hovering ...

Page 172: ... to rendezvous at a Coordinates already optimized she replied and projected the Covenant blind spot on the bridge displays Enemy patrols miss this nine thousand cubic kilometer region Further opti mization reveals that all ships will be farthest from this point at oh seven fifteen hours I suggest we meet there at that time Cortana felt a pulse of satisfaction at their perplexed looks over her seem...

Page 173: ...e name of their captured ship Ascendant Justice from one of the 122 simultaneous communiques from every Covenant ship insystem She correlated the numerous religious allusions that laced the communications and continued to build a language translation subroutine She diverted additional pro cessing power to the task of tracking the millions of floating ob jects around her searching for lifepods cryo...

Page 174: ...all COM memory pathways on themselves Gotcha she hissed Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel I nfidel Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel Infidel That s quite enough of that she said You and I need to come to an understanding She reduced the memory pathways peeling the Covenant AI apart code layer by code layer This is my system now While an operational Coven...

Page 175: ... pulse charges herded the plasma on target For an advanced race the Covenant s weapons relied on crude brute force calculations and were terribly slow and wasteful She booted the new system she had devised to control the plasma It used EM pulses a priori to align the stochastic mo tions of the plasma atoms herding their trajectories and eleven degrees of electronic freedom into a laser fine column...

Page 176: ...the Covenant capturing her refinements to their technology Cortana fired Ascendant Justice s aft plasma turrets and laser like beams flickered across space A squadron of Seraph fighters disintegrated as they launched from the closest carrier Explosions bubbled and mushroomed inside the carrier s launch bay She didn t stay to watch the fireworks Cortana dived at flank speed straight toward the cent...

Page 177: ...hips scavenger craft with grappling tentacles that dragged sections of salvaged metal Dominating the skies were a pair of three hundred meter long cruisers The cruisers accelerated toward them The Chief moved up to the cockpit where Polaski and Haver son sat in the seats they had removed from the Pelican and welded in place They re pinging us Polaski whispered Nice and easy Warrant Officer Lieuten...

Page 178: ...eeply and the Chief noticed that he didn t exhale He set his hand on the man s shoulder and pulled him aside Relax Marine he whispered That s an order Locklear exhaled and ran a hand over his smoothly shaven head Right right Chief With effort the Marine forced himself to calm down A red light flashed on the control panel Collision warning Polaski said with the practiced nonchalance all Navy pilots...

Page 179: ...on The ruddy light from Epsilon Eridani suddenly filled the cockpit as the two cruisers passed on Polaski sighed slumped forward and wiped the sweat from her brow Locklear reached into his shirt pocket removed a clean and pressed red bandanna and offered it to Polaski She looked at it for a second then glanced at the Corporal then took it Thanks Locklear She folded it into a headband flipped her b...

Page 180: ...l Channel open Chief Go ahead The Master Chief linked his COM and encrypted the channel so only those people sending the signal would hear him Oly Oly Oxen Free he spoke into his microphone All out in the free We re all free The beeping over the backpack COM speaker suddenly stopped Signal s gone Lieutenant Haverson snapped his head around and stared at the Master Chief I m not sure what you just ...

Page 181: ...It s me Another Spartan stepped out from the cover of the rock His armor while not as battered as John s was covered with scuffs and burns the left shoulder pauldron had been dented The Master Chief felt a surge of relief His teammates his family hadn t all been killed He recognized the Spartan from his voice and the subtle way he glanced right and left It was SPARTAN 044 Anton He was one of the u...

Page 182: ...e Master Chief and Anton into the cavern Li remained to operate the guns The Master Chief blinked as his eyes adjusted to the harsh fluorescent lights that illuminated the interior of the cavern The walls had a grooved texture as if they d been dug out by machin ery Standing before a foldout card table in the center of the cavern was another man in a Navy uniform The Master Chief stiffened and sal...

Page 183: ...its eccentric caretaker 343 Guilty Spark He hesitated then described his encounters with the Flood and subsequent destruction of Halo ending with his capture of the Covenant flagship During the story Lieutenant Haverson and the others from the dropship arrived They remained silent as the Master Chief told the tale The Admiral listened without speaking a word As John fin ished the man gave a slow l...

Page 184: ...ngs didn t quite turn out as planned and we got caught flat footed with those Novas on the ground So I decided to repurpose them Lieutenant Haverson s face wrinkled with confusion He didn t dare interrupt but the Admiral saw his expression and said Think son All that ordnance around with plenty of Cove nant to blow up Haverson shook his head I m sorry sir I still don t understand Intelligence offi...

Page 185: ... said they were falling back He walked to the table unrolled an old paper topological map and pointed at Menachite Mountain Here Where ONI had their CASTLE base He paused But the Covenant are tearing that mountain apart rock by rock I want to believe they re still there but we ve counted at least a dozen companies Those Covenant have air support close orbit patrols and on the ground armor The plac...

Page 186: ... flagship we ve captured Cortana s Slipspace calculations alone could turn the tide of this war for us I know all that the Admiral replied tersely And you re three hundred percent correct Lieutenant But he tapped the map again with his meaty forefinger I won t leave a single man or woman behind on this planet for the Covenant to tear apart for sport No way And that goes double for a Spartan We re ...

Page 187: ...missions from the convoy I guess they don t like strays Polaski muttered calmly looking at the Cove nant calligraphy They re not shooting the Admiral said gripping the back of Polaski s seat We re fine Just fly Warrant Officer He turned to the Master Chief Get em ready son The Chief nodded and moved aft to the rest of the squad His three Spartans as well as Lieutenant Haverson Locklear and Sergean...

Page 188: ...s crate straight down but ease up a tad on the en gines and let their grav beam do the work It ll take us all the way down to whatever s at the bottom With respect Admiral Polaski said I m not sure we ll fit The Admiral squinted at the hole We ll fit he said I have every confidence in you Warrant Officer Now make it quick I don t think anyone topside is going to think us going down there is a good...

Page 189: ...it them back three times harder Then you get Anton on point and see if he can t locate your Spartans I m guessing they ve gone to ground Before the Chief could reply the Admiral moved aft and grabbed an assault rifle and two HE pistols He clipped plasma and frag grenades to his belt Thirty seconds Polaski called out She cut the engines and the dropship coasted on the grav beam only There s somethi...

Page 190: ...one else haul ass Take them out people The Admiral s plan was sound He wasn t risking the dropship their only means of escape by landing too close to the enemy They still had the element of surprise the Covenant would have never anticipated an assault on the heart of their operation But how long would this advantage last How long before that cruiser blasted their dropship to atoms The Covenant wer...

Page 191: ...all In the intense light the Master Chief saw that a dozen Jackals had braced themselves along the wall and overlapped their en ergy shields to create a phalanx Behind them five Elites readied plasma rifles Down he shouted and dived to one side Grace hit the floor and rolled away Plasma bolts sizzled over their heads and the Master Chief s shields drained as a shot hit too close The barrage turned...

Page 192: ...ain everything I will later Let s get the hell out of here first Kelly quickly reached out and swiped her two fingers across John s faceplate He wanted to return the smile but at that moment Admiral Whitcomb running full force skidded to a stop next to the Spar tans He was followed in short order by Haverson Locklear and Johnson who kept looking over his shoulder to scan the huge empty room around...

Page 193: ... any thing across the entire three kilometer wide cavern Had it picked up a camouflaged Elite No the dust in the air would have certainly given it away No one move the Admiral whispered John saw them then He saw them all He had missed them before because he had thought it was the haze in the air rippling the dust maybe the distance causing a miragelike image He hadn t thought it possible for so ma...

Page 194: ...e they could get halfway to the tun nel at their backs A Hunter pair roared with rage they leveled their fuel rod cannons at John and his team and with steady aim discharged their weapons A split second later the rest of the alien horde opened fire ...

Page 195: ...reflections It reminded Cortana of the snowglobe that Dr Halsey had kept on her desk the Matterhorn and a little Swiss climber scaling its three centimeter height all swirling in the center of a micro scopic blizzard The frozen Oort cloud around her was significantly larger but it was still a charming effect and a welcome sight from the abyss ofSlipspace Cortana had fled the Epsilon Eridani system...

Page 196: ...ity for the last five days And now she was thinking with a large por tion of her mind occupied by the data absorbed from the Halo construct She again toyed with the idea of dumping that data into Ascen dant Justice s onboard memory Now that the other AI had been erased it should be safe Yet one piece of technological data had already been leaked to the enemy and that could have ex treme repercussi...

Page 197: ...r hardware though there was little she could do to improve their effectiveness Power She needed more if she was going to head back insystem to rendezvous with the Master Chief The Covenant weren t go ing to sit by and wait for them to hook up bid a fond adieu and then escape Logically there was only one way to do this She was going to have to fight and kill them all She could conserve her ship s p...

Page 198: ... correct analysis of the situation based on the six note sig nal irritated Cortana It annoyed her more that she had not con cluded this as well It made her realize how dangerously close to the edge of her intellectual capacity she operated One of her alert routines triggered An access hatch on the route from the bridge to the reactor room one that she had specifically directed Sergeant Johnson not...

Page 199: ...so many times And with so many errors This theory didn t track however Smart AIs like her had an operational life span of approximately seven years After that the processing memory became too interconnected and developed fatal endless feedback loops In essence smart AIs became too smart and suffered an exponential attenuation of function they literally thought themselves to death So if the Covenan...

Page 200: ...port on the lower decks Since the lower decks were now evacuated and cold life support was moot She carefully severed the con nections from that subsystem to the rest of the ship She also rechecked her thinking This copying software was likely responsible for the Covenant AI s fractured thinking Her thinking however was being squeezed to nothing There had to be a balance between these two deleteri...

Page 201: ...rconnection errors were already present and they always would be despite the number of copies generated She remembered the strange fractured speech patterns of the Covenant AI and wondered how many times it had been copied Her thoughts were interrupted as the Covenant transmissions became clear It was suddenly as if she had a new set of eyes and ears to hear them Excavation proceeding new sublayer...

Page 202: ...deployment orders for hundreds of ships carriers destroyers tenders a massive fleet They were to meet at select locations join up refuel gather resources and then orient for the next Slipspace jump Cortana knew how to translate these simple symbols into stel lar coordinates There a jump to the Lambda Serpentis system to gather tri tium gas for their reactors And there another jump to the Hawking s...

Page 203: ...SECTION 4 GAMBIT ...

Page 204: ...motion and stepped in front of Dr Halsey John and Fred moved to either side of Kelly while Anton grabbed the Admiral and threw the older man behind them The blinding white hot plasma charges struck the Spartans shields and splashed over their chests John s shield drained completely The overpressure forced him to take a step backward and the skin on his forearms blistered Then the heat was gone and...

Page 205: ...she was in shock and her suit s heat pumps were strained to the failure point He had to get her to safety From the uppermost gallery a Covenant Elite in golden armor raised its energy sword high into the air and shouted Translation software in John s helmet whispered half a second later Take them but the next one to fire at the holy light will be skinned alive Go Dr Halsey pressed the arm of her g...

Page 206: ...es detonated with thunderous force The Jackals who followed their masters on the ropes landed in the middle of the carnage maneuvered in front of the Elites and overlapped energy shields It was typical Elite bravado they had to be the first into the battle even if that meant they d die for that honor The Chief had no problem satisfying their honor He slapped a fresh clip into his rifle and continu...

Page 207: ...made his way to the cockpit Polaski hunched over the controls She pushed the Covenant dropship into a hyperbolic ascent and entered the hole in the ceiling of the great room The Master Chief grabbed hold of the walls and braced himself The dropship however slowed and pitched forward so it was once again horizontal Problem Polaski announced and rapidly tapped the controls Big problem The purple lig...

Page 208: ...oached It apparently has an effect on artificial gravity fields as well I can t wait to get this into a lab The dropship emerged from the hole and sunlight flooded the interior Once out of the grav beam the slender stone folded back upon itself closing petal like fragments melding back into a single smooth shard Dr Halsey plucked up the stone and slipped it back into her lab coat pocket she return...

Page 209: ... Polaski said and decelerated their ship Warrant Officer the Admiral said and set a hand gently on her shoulder Ram them Full speed Polaski swallowed Aye sir One of her hands cinched her crash harness tight The other hand passed over the velocity stripe on the control panel and shoved it to full power The dropship jumped straight toward the Seraph fighters in their path The two fighters tumbled as...

Page 210: ...earched for their captured ship on any display and saw only the enemy Cortana and Ascendant Justice reappeared in space it was a tight fit This particular jump required precision to the centimeter and although she loathed admitting it a large measure of luck She had often wondered what would happen if a ship transi tioned to normal space too close to a planet or other mass in this case another shi...

Page 211: ... the local space alongside her thousands of brave men and women who had died fighting Her sensors flicked over the silhouettes of the UNSC light ships There were corvettes with bisected hulls leaking radio active coolant from their nuclear start up reactors Although they were more suitable for her purpose the damage to them was too great She didn t find one with a single intact fusion reactor She ...

Page 212: ...rride code quickly accepted and entered the Gettysburg s NAV computer There was no other computer intelligence on board The cap tain of the Gettysburg had flatlined the NAV system and the AI as per the Cole Protocol Cortana extended her presence through the empty systems The Gettysburg was a wreck all thrusters offline It wouldn t be moving on its own power ever again but its heart still beat The ...

Page 213: ...Gettysburg s reactor into Ascendant Justice s energy grid Perfect she purred It was 0712 hours She had less than three minutes to prepare for the next phase of her plan Cortana checked and rechecked the calculations for what had to be the shortest Slipspace jump ever from the floating junk yard to the rendezvous coordinates a mere three thousand kilo meters She scanned that region of space and dis...

Page 214: ...lipspace At T minus ten she wrote a quick program to target the distant ships near her exit coordinates and keep them targeted when she reappeared Ascendant Justice moved slightly forward into the rip in space light enveloped the craft She vanished from the field of floating debris and reappeared in an eyeblink The full face of Reach filling her lateral starboard displays The port displays were cr...

Page 215: ...eated gas came in contact with the atmosphere inside the ships plastic flesh and metal caught fire and roiled throughout their interiors Two of the targeted cruisers immediately detonated as the plasma beams found the reactors Billowing clouds of vaporized metal mushroomed across the night and obscured her from the advancing ships Pinpricks of light appeared around Ascendant Justice ERROR Cortana ...

Page 216: ...g fog There a contact And another And then a dozen more Fourteen Covenant cruisers resolved from the blue mist Cortana the Master Chief said What s our status Same as ever Cortana replied We re in trouble The Covenant warships fired Damn Cortana muttered She initiated her last option She fired back hoping to take some of them to hell with her ...

Page 217: ...en of fish that lived at the bottom of Earth s oceans swarms of phosphorescing lights and razor sharp teeth He marched toward the edge of the launch bay and stood a centimeter from where the ship s energy shield abutted the open ing to the space beyond He looked directly into the vast blue fields and the giant warships far too close for his liking We jumped to Slipspace didn t we Lieutenant Havers...

Page 218: ...affect ing our passage through Slipspace Apparently so Dr Halsey said and stepped next to John to get a better look outside The Admiral joined her and watched as the Covenant ships turrets heated Can they even fire those things in Slipspace If they can we re sitting ducks The Master Chief could make out more ships in the distance The Covenant vessels flickered faded disappeared and then reappeared...

Page 219: ... the massive ship like a child s pinwheel Hot damn Sergeant Johnson crowed All we have to do is wait for those trigger happy bastards to take themselves out Look they re firing again The Covenant weapons heated and squeezed out a second salvo of plasma The guided bolts of fire veered off course swarmed disappeared reappeared and spun out of control though the local ized Slipspace bubble No Sergean...

Page 220: ...ck tilted The crew stumbled and Dr Halsey fell to the deck Turrets one and seven destroyed Cortana announced Whitcomb helped Dr Halsey up off her knees She glanced nervously up and down the passage I d guess the alien artifact we ve brought with us into Slipspace has expanded the region Physicists believe Slipstream space is a highly compressed ver sion of normal space layered over and under itsel...

Page 221: ... defeat of Xerxes by the Athenian Navy Deja had told them however that one thing was greater than any human enemy on the sea nature Tidal waves and typhoons could crush the mightiest of battle ships and ignored the tactics of the most brilliant captain Ascendant Justice was in the center of a sea of fire and it was being battered apart Thunder ripped through Ascendant Justice s hull a geyser of fl...

Page 222: ...rtana said It s taken a hit I m shutting down engines to conserve power The Master Chief squinted That was no plasma hit he mut tered It was too precise and too inconvenient this had to be sabotage Admiral Whitcomb scowled Chief take your team and pre pare for a zero gee repair of the plasma conduit Yes sir Polaski stepped forward I ll go too sir she said Locklear grasped her by the arm and tried ...

Page 223: ...ny wounded member of his team Li Blue Three was the team s zero gee combat specialist He had trained extensively with microgravity equipment and mar tial arts at the UNSC s extreme conditions facility on Chiron in orbit about Mars He was as much at home in free fall as the rest of them were on solid land and John was glad to have him on this mission Anton Blue Four had John worried He spent most o...

Page 224: ...Covenant had most likely glassed that world Blue Team Polaski s voice broke over the COM Local conditions are as calm as they re going to get Exiting in three two one John felt the acceleration in the pit of his stomach He rose moved to the hatch and popped it open Outside Ascendant Jus tice s hull moved past them almost every square centimeter of the flagship s polished alloy skin had been scarre...

Page 225: ...d got out of here the better John turned and swept his rifle over the terrain There were bumpy sensor nodes kilometers of conduits and a dozen gaping canyons in the hull A legion of Covenant warriors could hide in this mess No enemy contact Nothing on his motion sensors either He stepped close to the main drive conduit and examined the hole The pipe was five meters across and still red hot even th...

Page 226: ...e noise and the motion sensors blurred as did the active camouflage shielding of the six Elites who had been slowly and until a moment ago imperceptibly crawling toward their position Enemy contacts John shouted He crouched behind the dome of a sensor node and opened fire A hail of bullets caught the closest Elite dead center in its chest The gunfire punched through its shielding and then tore int...

Page 227: ... electrical discharges jolted his flesh and buzzed through his muscles and ligaments Temperature warnings blared Boiling hydrostatic gel vented through his MJOLNIR armor s emergency ducts Through blurry eyes John saw the Covenant Elites flash va porize Downship Ascendant Justice s hull heated to a glowing yellow and softened Then the light and heat vanished and the torrent of fire trailed aft like...

Page 228: ... hull There was another danger in the blue fog ghost ships that ap peared and faded from sight more than half of them disabled engulfed in fire or their hulls broken How many of those Cove nant craft were still capable of engaging Ascendant Justice How many could they take out before they risked the jump back to normal space Lieutenant Haverson stood next to him The young man was invaluable for hi...

Page 229: ...stood what drove the man pure cold hatred of the enemy The Admiral could ap preciate that Dr Halsey tended the Spartan called Kelly on the deck The doctor was brilliant but a total mystery to him They had met half a dozen times before at upper echelon social gatherings and he d found her to be charming and outwardly likable But he d read enough reports of her projects that he d found it im possibl...

Page 230: ... He loved the men and women un der his command as if they were his own sons and daughters It was the old axiom of command To be a good leader you had to love the service To be a great commander you had to be willing to destroy that which you loved Static crackled and the Master Chief reported in We re in position Admiral ETA for repairs is two minutes Roger Chief Admiral Whitcomb replied When you ...

Page 231: ...p them inverted Is the launch bay on the Gettysburg intact Can it hold an atmosphere Cortana blinked Yes sir It has a slow leak of thirty two kilo pascals per Pressurize the bay Acknowledged Admiral However Cortana replied that will leave our air reserves dangerously low The Admiral stared at the ships surrounding them a plasma bolt struck a distant cruiser head on and its nose buckled Gouts of fl...

Page 232: ...sions rever berated through the deck Fire on decks eight through twelve Cortana reported We have lost plasma turret five Distance to enemy ship six thousand kilometers and closing Initiate a roll Cortana Make it thirty degrees per second That ll spread out the damage over more surface area Roll maneuver aye Attitude thrusters set to maximum burn She exhaled and her holographic image flickered with...

Page 233: ... Lieutenant Haverson s jaw clenched and his hands trembled over the controls The enemy cruiser filled the displays Its plasma turrets re cycled and glowed a dull red One thousand kilometers Cortana announced Admiral Lieutenant Haverson asked Hold your fire Five hundred kilometers Cortana said Three hundred two collision imminent The Admiral s fist clenched He barked Fire All turrets fire Cortana d...

Page 234: ...hull She s got a smart Captain the Admiral muttered So we can t use the same trick twice Five explosions rattled Ascendant Justice and the ambient blue light on the bridge flickered Meteor impact Cortana replied We just lost plasma tur rets two and three All functionality on decks eight and below has been lost The structural integrity of this ship sir is in danger of imminent collapse Another minu...

Page 235: ...lision course The turrets on the Covenant carrier heated to white hot but they held their fire Eight thousand kilometers to enemy ship Cortana announced Hold this course Cortana Six thousand kilometers sir Stand by the Admiral ordered and gripped the railing again with his sweating hands Two thousand kilometers Full reverse power now The engines rumbled and the hull of Ascendant Justice shuddered ...

Page 236: ...fire and became an inferno That s the best we can do Admiral Whitcomb whispered Cortana get us out of here Transition to normal space Cortana s holographic silhouette blackened with swarming calculations Engaging Slipspace matrix Blotches of inky black welled within the sea of fire Tiny stars winked on within those pools of darkness The plasma charged atmosphere faded and the enemy ships ablaze va...

Page 237: ...SECTION 5 MASSACRE AT ERIDANUS SECUNDUS ...

Page 238: ...eight and reactive circuits of his MJOLNIR armor surrounding him The coppery tinged flavor of biofoam coated his mouth so he also surmised that his injuries had been recently treated And there was gravity The press against his back was a great comfort to the Master Chief The next time someone wanted him to go on a zero gee op he d Welcome back Cortana said interrupting his thoughts A faint light f...

Page 239: ...I remember the Master Chief murmured The repair part of it at least There was an explosion A plasma bolt Cortana corrected She sighed I m sorry Chief but only you and SPARTANS 093 043 and 104 sur vived that blast Grace Will and Fred were alive but Li Anton and Warrant Officer Polaski had been killed in action He remembered Po laski s scream then Anton s outline as the flash of white hot fire swept...

Page 240: ... the flash clone banks for replacement organs pending transplant So she s alive the Master Chief asked Technically Cortana replied no For a moment there was a look of genuine concern on her face but it quickly vanished The doctor and Admiral Whitcomb have debated the risk of at tempting to revive SPARTAN 058 before we reach a major medical facility Doctor Halsey I m sure will brief you when she ha...

Page 241: ... wise it would be weeks before we would be able to contact UNSC High Command HighCom Two facts suddenly clicked into place the Admi ral s need to contact the rest of the Admiralty no matter the price and Dr Halsey s attempts to revive Linda What s compelling the Admiral s tactics Cortana Cortana s holographic outline softened I told you this be fore Chief but apparently it did not stick in your se...

Page 242: ...e Unyielding Hierophant When they have sufficient force they will collec tively make the jump to Earth The Master Chief moved toward the medical bay s doors They automatically parted Where is Admiral Whitcomb The Admiral is currently on the bridge Cortana replied But Doctor Halsey gave me strict orders that you are not to I don t take orders from civilians he snapped Not even her The Master Chief ...

Page 243: ...aid What s your status Chief Haverson asked Doctor Halsey told us it would be days before you recovered I m one hundred percent sir he said As if she had heard this statement Dr Halsey opened a COM channel and a tiny video feed popped onto his heads up display Her glasses reflected an ambient orange light from wherever she was and he could not see her eyes John I need to speak with you I m with Ad...

Page 244: ...mp may have been caused by the energy added to Slipspace by our battle with the Covenant In any case Admiral Whitcomb said if we learn what makes this crystal tick it d give us a hell of an edge on the Covenant I see sir The Chief scrutinized their location not quite the definition of the middle of nowhere but close He noted that there were three star systems within the circle Haverson also peered...

Page 245: ...iral stared thoughtfully at him You sure Sure enough to bet our lives and Earth on that hunch Chief The Master Chief looked again at the tiny dot on the map It wasn t Eridanus he was thinking of It was the surrounding asteroid belt and a mission he and his team had executed twenty years ago Yes sir I m sure ...

Page 246: ...e alphanumeric symbolic keyboard on her lap Perched precariously on the side tray were Styrofoam cups of half drunk coffee She waved the Chief forward I see you are ignoring sound medical advice by moving before you have fully healed I m fine ma am he replied She snorted in disbelief John I ve never known you to tell an outright lie I m picking up telemetry from your armor right now She swiveled o...

Page 247: ...stering guilt She took a deep breath and refocused her attention on the video records before her On screen played mission logs that showed Covenant and Marines in firefights the odd Forerunner architec ture in the interior of the Halo construct and the terrifying omni parasitic life form known as the Flood She replayed the mission record of Private Jenkins and the first Flood attack John stiffened...

Page 248: ...fleeting moment she remembered when she had first read Alexander Dumas s Man in the Iron Mask She had felt terror when the noble prisoner had been encased within that metal shell How did John cope with the constant suffocating enclosure The Master Chief finally said I don t see the connection be tween the Sergeant s sickness and his surviving the Flood Boren s Syndrome Dr Halsey explained is chara...

Page 249: ... technology to counter an initial Flood infestation The second includes the source material Private Jenkins s and Sergeant Johnson s mission logs and the Sergeant s medical files She downloaded the reports onto two data crystals and ejected them from the port on the chair s arm She set the clear cubes on the tray and gestured for John to take them I leave it up to you which to deliver to Lieutenan...

Page 250: ...en me all my life to realize She cleared her throat of the lump thickening there I m giving you the chance to make the deci sion that I thought I couldn t make She glanced at the clock on her display I m sorry Linda is almost prepped for surgery and I have several things I must ac complish before then You should go The Master Chief obediently turned and strode toward the exit but halted in the doo...

Page 251: ...s pertaining to Ser geant Avery Johnson Cortana give me an update on your core memory Recompiling of routines has resulted in a memory processing footprint reduction of sixteen percent Doctor Thank you That gives me a little more room to think I m afraid that s all we dare risk Dr Halsey said The Halo and Covenant AI data could become corrupted if I do more And there is no place safe enough to sto...

Page 252: ...You and John were on an event path intersecting the crystal She moved the curves over one another the time and space surfaces were a perfect match You had to be there at that place and time to recover us and remove the crystal time and space warped to make that event occur Cortana gave a derisive laugh That s circular logic Doctor It directly contravenes several well established theories And it fi...

Page 253: ...reports of Spartan losses could cause a crip pling loss of morale Consequently any Spartan casualties are listed as MIA or WIA in order to maintain the illusion that Spar tans do not die Spartans never die she whispered Dr Halsey swiveled out of the contoured chair and pushed the monitors out of her way with a sudden violence If only that were true There was so much to do and so little time left f...

Page 254: ...son leaned over the ops console and flicked through several screens Residual radiation fading he said Navigation systems and scanners coming back online Fred stood at the Engineering station and reported Reactors at sixty percent Slight hysteresis leak in coil ten Compensating Plasma the Admiral asked as he settled into the Captain s chair Cortana s ghostly image flickered onto the holographic pad...

Page 255: ...ans first real mission an infiltration into a rebel base We captured their leader and got him to ONI for debriefing I didn t even know the Spartans were around in 2525 Lieu tenant Haverson said Yes sir Fred answered We just didn t have MJOLNIR ar mor or the advanced weaponry we have today We looked like any other NavSpecWar team I very much doubt that Haverson said under his breath The Admiral rai...

Page 256: ...Covenant War not everyone wanted to be part of an Earth ruled government Rebels Haverson said I ve read about them But why con tinue to stay separated from UNSC forces when the Covenant War started Surely their chances of survival would be better with us The Admiral snorted a derisive laugh Some people didn t want to fight son Some just wanted to hide in this case liter ally under a rock Maybe the...

Page 257: ... the Admiral asked Only one is rotating fast enough to generate a three quarter gravity internal environment Cortana replied That s it the Master Chief replied and nodded toward the central display The rock hadn t changed much in the last twenty years Was it possible the place had been abandoned The D band transmission that Cortana detected could have been an automated signal weak from years of dr...

Page 258: ... their hulls sleek civilian pleasure craft carrying missiles as large as themselves single man engineering pods that sputtered with arc cutters and one ship that was fifty meters long with oddly angled black stealth surfaces That s a Chiroptera class vessel Haverson said awed It s an antique ONI decommissioned them all forty years ago and sold them for scrap Is it a threat the Admiral asked Lieute...

Page 259: ...f this port What can we do for you First Admiral Whitcomb said I am not a Captain I am a Vice Admiral the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Second you will order your fleet to reverse course and get out of my gun sights before I forget my manners And third we insist that you make ready to let us dock on that rock of yours for emergency repairs and refit Jiles considered these requests and then thre...

Page 260: ...a three kilometer long stone tumbling through the asteroid belt Its surface heated to orange yellow and then white sputtering blobs of molten iron and jets of vapor that caused the massive stone to spin faster The plasma cut through the rock in a wide arc punched through the opposite side The uneven internal heat caused the rock to fracture and explode into fragments The debris pinwheeled away lea...

Page 261: ...hose sections so would Covenant sensors Impressive Governor Jiles strolled across the deck flipped his black fur cap over one shoulder and shook Admiral Whitcomb s hand Jiles nodded to Haverson His smile vanished however when he looked at the Master Chief and Fred in their MJOLNIR armor Jiles recovered his grin and bowed low to Dr Halsey There are half a dozen guards armed with old MA 3 rifles and...

Page 262: ...alf the far wall retracted revealing thick red velvet curtains which also slowly pulled away and exposed the half meter thick windows that overlooked the asteroid field Beyond was a gentle ballet of rocks tumbling rotating and bouncing off one another in slow motion Men carried in a long table threw a white silk cloth over it and smoothed it down Then a succession of women carried in silver trays ...

Page 263: ...sifiable radiation that would lead the Covenant through Slipspace to here As he spoke Governor Jiles set his feet onto the floor and his relaxed position solidified He leaned forward and set his elbows on the table His congenial smile slowly tightened into a scowl Bloody Elisa he shouted jumped to his feet and swept a decanter off the table The glass shattered and ruby colored brandy spattered acr...

Page 264: ...to the brim He downed the drink in one gulp And the other option he asked coldly I help you And together we fight the Cove nant If they come in the force you claim what difference will it make If you help us the Admiral said get my ship repaired so we can make the jump to Earth I ll evacuate all your people I promise you and your crew amnesty Jiles laughed His cordial smile returned and he asked D...

Page 265: ...any systems we overlooked Lieutenant move us away from the enemy on course one eight zero by two seven zero One eight zero by two seven zero aye Haverson replied He strapped himself into the NAV station and his fingers danced over the controls Coming about Admiral Gettysburg Ascendant Justice turned and moved deeper into the asteroid field The Master Chief stepped up to Weapons Station One He was ...

Page 266: ...etly Very smart Jiles You ll just have to use the seven plasma turrets on your ship Admiral Governor Jiles remarked That should be more than enough to The Admiral chuckled and he smiled in the same mocking fashion as Jiles We bluffed too We only have one turret and it s not working so well It appears we have both overestimated the other Jiles said Under different circumstances this might be amusin...

Page 267: ...lied The Gettysburg Ascendant Justice glided toward the large rock and the Covenant cruiser rapidly closed on them The enemy ship vanished on the displays as they rounded to the dark side of the asteroid New course Come about to one eight zero the Admiral or dered Full emergency power to the engines and answer all stop Thrasters spun the ship around and vibrations rumbled through the weakened hull...

Page 268: ...o supersonic velocities and Magnetic coils Sir the Master Chief said We may have a way to fire the plasma turret after all The Gettysburg s MAC gun has seventeen superconducting coils Cortana might be able to use them to shape and aim the plasma Yes the Admiral said nodding Maybe Cortana amended and stared off into space think ing Calculating field strength drop off now The mathematic symbols scro...

Page 269: ...s online the Master Chief said and pushed the video feed to the forward screen Doubled images of the Covenant cruiser appeared Along its three bulbous sections lateral plasma conduits glowed and every turret bristled with energy ready to fire Their laser batteries oblit erated the large asteroids in their path while the smaller ones sim ply bounced off their shields The warship accelerated as it e...

Page 270: ...ering compartment shattered their reactors and the entire warship blossomed into fire and ejected trails of golden sparks and dying flickers of static electricity The five plasma bolts that the Covenant cruiser fired at the Gettysburg dispersed into a red haze There was no longer any magnetic force to shape and guide them to their intended target The bridge crew watched the explosions fade from th...

Page 271: ...s six remaining teammates sat in the Gettysburg s machine shop The room was large enough to fit a Longsword in side and the walls ceilings and deck had robotic arms tipped with welders multitools and hydraulic presses Three of the arms had high intensity spotlights directed onto the walls and provided a clear cool indirect illumination that the Master Chief found soothing after having one too many...

Page 272: ...ed Grace and they sat up shaking their helmets 0400 Kelly told them That was six hours Felt like a fifteen minute nap Grace muttered I just closed my eyes You re kidding right Kelly looked over to Linda and drew her two fingers across her helmet in the smile gesture Linda returned a rare bare smile to her The smile looked odd to John He wanted to smile too but nothing much apart from Linda in a lo...

Page 273: ...ly She slowly stretched stood sighed and marched out of the room I ll be right back she said flexing her burned hands Don t plan the overthrow of the Covenant Empire without me She s on her way Doctor The COM snapped off The Master Chief turned to his Spartans and the Marines Let s go over what we know and see if we ve missed anything any way to exploit the enemy s plan He set down a data pad with...

Page 274: ...we can take the fight to them Locklear said He unclenched his fist and dropped his gaze to the deck Sometimes he whispered I really hate this war Sergeant Johnson worked his mouth but said nothing He set his hand on Locklear s wide shoulder and whispered Stand tall Marine Try to The Sergeant s gaze fell on the data pad and the star map Hang on a second What was it you said about no ground to fight...

Page 275: ...mageddon The Master Chief gave rapid fire orders Fred Will Get Linda s suit back together ASAP Locklear you re on weapons detail again Scrounge every pistol rifle ammo bag and scrap of explosives on this vessel and haul it to Ascendant Justice s launch bay Grace Linda and Sergeant Johnson Get that Covenant drop ship ready for its last flight Reinforce the hull for a Slipspace to normal space trans...

Page 276: ...al Four Dr Halsey buzzed her in Reporting for treatment Doctor she said Kelly hesitated a moment as she glanced about at the unsterile environment the doctor had been working in Styrofoam cups littered the surgical instrument trays thermal printout paper curled from the biomonitors and the radiation emitting crystal they had found on Reach sat on a nearby instrument tray I thought that crystal was...

Page 277: ...e more than two hours By that time they d both be far enough along that there d be no turning back Dr Halsey swiveled one of the displays to face her She exe cuted the memory erase command wiping clean Cortana s recollection of the research they had done on old ONI lockdown codes She folded the printout of their results and stuffed it into her pocket Cortana Yes Doctor she replied Her voice throug...

Page 278: ...l Your hand please He looked puzzled but held out his hand Dr Halsey took it and turned it palm up She set the long lu minous blue artifact in his grasp The light emitted by the alien artifact shone onto their faces and made the interior of the eleva tor colder This is what the Covenant so desperately want They tore up Reach to get it They followed us into Slipspace And Po laski died protecting th...

Page 279: ... table into the Gettysburg s launch bay Where do you want her The bay was a beehive of activity A hundred of Governor Jiles s crew jogged to and from passages carrying data pad schematics and field multiscanners robotic dollies carried fat Archer missiles spiderlike Antilon mines and slender pods of deuterium fuel for the Gettysburg s auxiliary reactors three Longsword fighter craft were being rep...

Page 280: ...he Admiral of his first strike mission plan He had to convince him there was no risk to their primary goal of returning to Earth and a huge payoff if they succeeded The only thing Admiral Whitcomb might object to was the high risk to his team The Chief s second task would be more difficult He touched the belt pouch containing Dr Halsey s data crystals One was her analysis of the Flood infection me...

Page 281: ... gives us sixteen missiles hot and ready to go sir I d like to know where Jiles got those missiles Lieutenant Haverson muttered They re UNSC military contraband He is zpirate Lieutenant Cortana said Good work the Admiral told Cortana Keep me posted He turned toward the Chief You had something Master Chief Before the Master Chief could speak his mind Haverson said Admiral He pointed at the forward ...

Page 282: ...ccelerated in a sudden burst Pinpoints of light appeared around the craft that elongated and smeared The ship vanished A Slipspace transition Cortana said I thought you told me the Admiral said slowly turning on Haverson that that ship was locked down That vital compo nents were removed when it was decommissioned That there was no way it could make a Slipspace jump Yes sir I did And would you care...

Page 283: ...us Cortana with all the radio chatter ships and leaking radiation I bet they re just figuring out how best to kill us Governor Jiles turned to someone off screen and then said Admiral Whitcomb given this new development I would like to evacuate my people off the Gettysburg and out of harm s way Of course Governor Do what you have to The number three screen snapped off and the stars reappeared And ...

Page 284: ...ded to ice blue Sir additional contacts at system s edge Three No additional transitions from Slipspace counting eighteen now thirty Cove nant ships of various classes Positions zero three zero Zero nine one one eight zero Sir they have us enveloped The star chart vanished in a wink and a map of the Eridanus system appeared with tiny triangles representing Covenant ships now encircling the perimet...

Page 285: ...n our situation resources and our enemy s determination then no I see no way to win or survive Neither do I Admiral Whitcomb stood straight Cortana get ready to jump Chief accelerate to flank speed course zero five five by two nine zero Prepare to transition out of normal space on my mark Aye sir the Chief and Cortana answered in unison We re leaving Governor Jiles and his people Cortana asked Adm...

Page 286: ...munition crates and enough C 7 foaming explosive to blow a half kilometer crater in the side of the Gettysburg He made his way to the cargo elevator and then down to B Deck He had seen on the Gettysburg s inventory that that was where they stored medical supplies and he wanted a few cans of biofoam handy for the Master Chief s extremely well planned suicide mission Not that Locklear had anything a...

Page 287: ...d Cortana s voice said Cor poral Locklear I have an urgent request from Admiral Locklear squelched his COM Enough chatter lady he murmured The bar just opened The location for MED34 CH3CH2OH popped on screen B I N G O hesang Locklear jumped up Come on amigo You and me are going to throw a party The deck lurched under Locklear s feet What the We re moving He turned the inventory display to face him...

Page 288: ... to guard She said because the ONI spooks wouldn t have the guts to get rid of it if they had to would maybe even let it fall into Covenant hands That made sense but at the same time there was something not quite right with that explanation Locklear looked at the monitor and the pinpoints of light that now almost blotted out the stars Screw it He had his own reasons to blow this thing up like not ...

Page 289: ...SECTION 6 OPERATION FIRST STRIKE ...

Page 290: ... s walnut paneled walls were polished to a rich glow Hung along those walls was the UNSC gold fringed blue flag There were also gold and silver citation plaques for merito rious gallantry There were photos of officers and past Captains of the Gettysburg And most interesting to the Master Chief were tin Civil War daguerreotypes that displayed battlefields full of charging men and cavalry and cannon...

Page 291: ... Well that s one small blessing And here s evidence that Doctor Halsey s crystal was indeed destroyed Lieutenant Haverson said as he entered the room He paused to seal the door behind him Haverson sat next to the Admiral and set a small plastic bag flat on the table I found Locklear exactly where Cortana said he would be B Deck the medical storage room Overloaded electronics at the site are consis...

Page 292: ...that But he was an ODST tough as nails and twice as sharp and used to getting pounded He wouldn t crack He had a reason Doctor Halsey Haverson remarked and narrowed his eyes She had to have set this up John started to defend Dr Halsey but he stopped himself from arguing with an officer Yes her actions were inexplicable She had exfiltrated Kelly left them when they needed her the most and given Loc...

Page 293: ...ropship clears the gravitational influence of the Gettysburg and the Ascendant Justice the Slipspace field will deteriorate and we will enter normal space You need never even stop And only a minor course correction puts the Gettysburg on the correct trajectory Has a drop out of Slipspace ever been attempted in a ship so small the Admiral asked His heavy brows knitted together Yes sir Cortana said ...

Page 294: ...turned to the table carrying a bottle of whiskey and three intact crystal tumblers I assume you Spartans won t join me in a drink No sir John replied answering for his team Thank you sir The Admiral set a glass before Haverson the Sergeant and himself But before he poured he set the bottle down and shook his head as if a drink were suddenly the last thing he wanted You realize Chief that you and y...

Page 295: ...ook up the interface to the base of his neck This should feel just like a nor mal download he said Chilled mercury filled John s mind just like it always did when Cortana entered and fused with his thoughts This pres ence however warmed too quickly as if it were just thin ice melting against his body s heat It was like a recollection of Cor tana inside his head not the real thing Initializing MJOL...

Page 296: ...e never let you down sir I don t plan on doing so now He nodded What John wanted to do however was order her to stay be hind But he d need her uncanny skill with the sniper rifle on this mission He d need her so they could survive just long enough to stop the Covenant If he could have accomplished this mission alone he would have made everyone on Blue Team stay His team however knew the risks and ...

Page 297: ...illion to one shot that he could save billions of lives So the mathematics of the situation were almost even What had Dr Halsey said about saving every person no mat ter what the cost No John had sworn an oath to protect all of humanity His duty was clear He reached for the crystal containing the com plete files and handed it to Lieutenant Haverson She said it would help fight the Flood sir I m no...

Page 298: ...assembled outside He stowed the arc welder and took his position at the head of the Spartan formation Admiral Whitcomb looked them over once and then said I d wish you luck Master Chief but you Spartans seem to make your own luck So let me just say I ll see you all when this is over He saluted them and they returned the salute Just one last order the Admiral said Sir Give em hell ...

Page 299: ...rom chemical light sticks activated and tossed inside before they departed Those plastic sticks had cracked and their lumi nous contents had balled into a million microscopic blobs in the zero gee Although the hydrostatic gel inside his MJOLNIR armor had been pressurized to its maximum safe value John s bones still felt as if they were being shaken apart This violent ride started when they had cle...

Page 300: ...d in This isn t so bad The last insertion I made we hit the ground before the dropship Now that was a rough ride We were The dropship lurched violently and cut off Fred s story Cracks appeared along the armor welded to the port wall Molten lead oozed from the rupture Despite the hydrostatic gel and the padding a jolt slammed the Master Chief s head against the front of his helmet with force enough...

Page 301: ...ual release of the hatch and it eased open Beyond was the velvet black of space filled with stars that shone yellow and amber and red He clipped a tether onto his suit and then onto the hull and leaned out the hatch As Cortana had indicated there were Covenant forces in close proximity A cruiser glided silently past them three hundred me ters away All John could see was its silver blue hull its pl...

Page 302: ...stop this gathering offeree It wouldn t but it might buy Earth enough time to come up with a plan to counter this seemingly invincible armada You said they ve pinged us three times John asked Cortana Affirmative They ve been curious about our status but not as much as you might expect There s a tremendous amount of COM traffic They re probably only interested in us as a naviga tion hazard Send a s...

Page 303: ... the replacement parts into Linda s armor Aside from their pristine condition they were a perfect match He patted her on the shoulder and gave her a thumbs up to in dicate that her armor was in working order Ordnance load out Grace said and unraveled the duffel bags they had tied to the hull The packages had been wrapped with lead foil layers of thermal padding and then a layer of utility tape Hea...

Page 304: ...helmet Grainy images ap peared on his heads up display Hundreds of Covenant ships swarmed into view In their midst a speck glowed and grew larger until the Master Chief saw it was a ship of similar design to their own two U shaped hulls each the size of their dropship sat on top of one another This ship accelerated toward them and separated one part moved to their dropship s stern and the other dr...

Page 305: ...tructure clicked into place The carriers looked like toys The twin teardrop shapes had to be thirty kilometers end to end This could only be the Covenant command and control center the Unyielding Hierophant The tug moved directly toward the station It was precisely where they had to go so it was a lucky break but ironically it was also the last place the Master Chief wanted to be There was no tell...

Page 306: ...HALO FIRST STRIKE have to face it head on There was nowhere to hide inside the re inforced and too cramped interior of their dropship The port hatch cracked and squeaked open Linda and John aimed their rifles ...

Page 307: ...nd joined the first As long as they left the single minded aliens to their work they wouldn t raise an alarm But what else was out there John eased against the frame of the hatch and slid the fiber optic probe outside There was a line of dropships Seraph fight ers and other singleships that stretched away into the shadows Swarms of Engineers thousands of the creatures hovered and drifted throughou...

Page 308: ... masks It was not a color designation he had seen before They pushed carts containing barrels of sloshing fluids They would be easy to avoid One side of the bay had a series of sealed doors that he pre sumed led to air locks The opposite wall of the bay had a meter thick window through which poured an intense blue light Every thirty meters along that transparent wall was a recessed alcove Overflow...

Page 309: ...ystem John hoped that this copy of Cortana s infiltration routines was as good as the real Cortana I have schematics for the station she told him The good news is each lobe has a central reactor complex with five hun dred twelve terawatt units similar in design to the pinch fusion reactors on their ships Apparently this energy is used to power a shield generator that can repel the collision of a s...

Page 310: ... the terminal Done Cortana said over the interteam COM I m in There s an exit to this bay thirty meters to your left I will black out the security cameras there and open the door in twenty seconds Hurry John retrieved the chip and reinserted it into his skull There was a flash of cold mercury in his mind Move out John told Blue Team Stay low Fred s and Linda s acknowledgment lights flickered indic...

Page 311: ...r From there you will move in the open for seven hundred meters pass through a structure and then down a guarded corri dor to the reactor chambers Grace interrupted What do you mean in the open This is a space station there should be no open spaces See for yourself Cortana said A schematic of the open space appeared on their heads up displays John wasn t able to make much sense of the diagram but ...

Page 312: ...Escher etching come to life John felt extreme vertigo for a moment Then he understood that with advanced Covenant gravity technology there didn t have to be an up or down here Odd that a military station would have so much unnecessary ornamentation Yet Fleet HQ had a large atrium in their lobby Maybe this was the Covenant equivalent multiplied a hundredfold John spied a band of translucent materia...

Page 313: ...p He heard squawks and shouts around him but didn t stop to look He was on the stairs of the building worn smooth stone steps that he bounded up five at a time John saw three friendly con tacts behind him on his motion tracker and at the periphery of its range a solid mass of enemy contacts You re good so far Linda reported There are Elites but they re unarmed No wait A Hunter pair is advancing on...

Page 314: ... behind John Grace had their backs There was a flicker on his motion sensor just ahead It vanished John held up his hand Blue Team froze His motion detector was clear but there had been some thing there He pulled out a frag grenade The transient contact was back a shadow moved around the same pillar John used for cover It moved faster than an Elite as fast as John He fired his rifle point blank in...

Page 315: ...Even with his MJOLNIR armor John was not as strong as the alien It pounded on him with bare fists broke through his shield ing grabbed his neck and squeezed Red flashes played across John s vision He began to black out ...

Page 316: ...licker and sluggishly recharge If it built up enough repulsive force he might have a chance to wriggle out of the Brute s grasp If he tried too quickly though the Brute wouldn t lose its grip and could pound his shield flat again The Brute bellowed and globules of spittle spattered onto the Chief s visor It leaned closer screwing its massive hands tighter around his throat John s vision narrowed H...

Page 317: ...nder and thrust it into the Brute s belt then withdrew sweeping out its one arm holding them up The Brute dropped onto the floor and screamed with rage The grenade detonated It lifted them both a meter and they landed again this time accompanied by a wet pulpy smack as the Brute s dead hulk slammed into the ground The Master Chief rolled off and sprang to his feet and looked for Blue Team The larg...

Page 318: ... have crushed him So much for engaging these Brutes in a direct assault John wasn t up for another round of wrestling either Not with the clock ticking Not with every Covenant on this station about to tear them to pieces Complicating all this was the enemy s appar ent ability to locate them when they used the COM That only left one tactical option run He wasn t going to leave Grace behind though N...

Page 319: ...yre Let s move John said Cortana which way Proceed into the temple thirty meters Turn right There will be a sealed doorway an access hatch for Engineers I will open it and lock it behind you Hurry I m encountering increased resistance from the station s AIs While I have their security COM channels blocked word of intruders is speeding via private COMs There was a curious echo to her voice Maybe it...

Page 320: ... tremendous feat of engineering It was as if the sta tion s builders had hewn this from a seed asteroid and built the rest of the installation around it Will pointed across the room to three Jackals who walked along a catwalk Blue Team held position and didn t move There Cortana announced Across the platform is a termi nal on the reactor subsystem John held up a hand to Will and Fred waited for th...

Page 321: ...immediately ascended When the doors opened again artificial blue sunlight filled the car as did the shadows cast by two Elites waiting for the elevator Blue Team opened fire and cut down the Elites leaving a spray of blood across the ground The Chief edged around the frame of the elevator door and saw a tangle of pipes and fountains and one of the curious spiral waterways that fell up from its cen...

Page 322: ...and into the for est of steaming pipes They scattered took cover and aimed at the incoming Banshees The Banshees spread out slowed but then banked return ing to the temple John clicked his COM three times The Elite pilots immediately wheeled about and accelerated toward their position One Banshee flier nosed into a classic strafing dive Its plasma cannons warmed and crackled with en ergy indicatin...

Page 323: ...ds scraping and sparking along the stones He climbed aboard pushed the throttle forward and pointed to the far wall He held his hand flat and lowered it indicating that Fred and Will should skim low to the ground John veered off in a wide arc Maybe he could divert the atten tion away from them He rose slightly higher and buzzed the tops of gilt domes and statues of Elite heroes with raised swords ...

Page 324: ...information To answer your initial question yes I can override safety lockouts and open the air locks My systems are fragmenting I cannot exist in a coherent state much longer John looked out across the kilometers of curving cityscape Wraith tanks rolled into the streets legions of Grunts Jackals and Elites raced from building to building and shot at targets that weren t there Banshees and Ghosts ...

Page 325: ... was none The Chief craned his head back and saw the pilot of the lead Banshee slump slide offthe flier and plummet to the ground The trailing Banshee was riderless as well only a blood spattered cockpit and cowling Linda still had him covered had taken out both pilots with precise fire She had to be close John scanned the area There were spires and water reclamation towers transport tubes and cat...

Page 326: ...n through a hard shadow cast by a nearby catwalk John hit his image enhancers Through the glare of the light and in the depths of the shadow he caught the flicker of reflected optics Linda used both the brilliant light and the darkness to hide John angled the Banshee to her He clipped the tether line from his belt to the frame of the Banshee and squeezed his thighs tighter onto the seat When he wa...

Page 327: ... s too much system COM traffic So many of us Near saturation level Have to fight to get Stand by An explosion appeared a kilometer away along the far wall The Lotus antitank mine became a blossom of flame and black smoke that drifted and diffused and left a spiderweb of cracks on the meter thick translucent section But the window held That Lotus antitank mine could have sheared through that wall e...

Page 328: ... filled the air It shattered The entire length crumbled and instantly blasted into the vacuum of space swept out by the pressurized atmosphere fill ing the interior of the station John tried to maneuver the Banshee He bounced into the repair bay rolled the craft over and upright fell off tumbled though the air lock and drifted away into the darkness of space He flailed his limbs in the zero gravit...

Page 329: ...enses and burn it to a cinder All they had done was buy a little time as long as it took for someone to take charge of the Covenant fleet That wasn t enough but John wasn t sure what else to do He crawled to the hatch entered the ship and sealed it be hind him Linda stood at the pilot s console while Fred stood beside her manning the ops station An engine schematic appeared in front of Linda and p...

Page 330: ...me you showed up The drawling voice of Admi ral Whitcomb was loud and clear over the COM Switch to en cryption scheme Rainbow John nodded to Fred who ran a shunt from the Covenant COM into the data port in the back of his helmet Decryption online Fred reported Admiral John said With all due respect sir why are you here Lieutenant Haverson suggested we drop out of Slipspace on the edge of this syst...

Page 331: ... She pushed the acceleration stripe to three quarters power Waiting sir Whitcomb over and out The COM went dead John looked to Will Fred and Linda and they all shrugged He pushed the acceleration stripe to full velocity and the dropship entered a high orbit around the splotchy moon arcing around to the far side where the battered Gettysburg waited for them But only the Gettysburg Where s Ascendant...

Page 332: ...looked the Spar tans over and frowned noting that not all of them had returned I m not sure what that thing is The Sergeant nodded to view screen one centered on the Covenant command and control station Don t look like any uneven elephant to me more like two squid kissing Whatever it is damned glad it s going to blow up Nice job almost as good as if we sent in the Marines One corner of his mouth q...

Page 333: ...ered a lure Sergeant get a signal to Ascendant Justice Bounce it off that spy drone if you have to Roger Chief Sergeant Johnson said and tapped in com mands An error warning blared He shook his head puzzled and tried again carefully retyping Linda take the NAV station Fred you re on Ops Will give the Sergeant a hand at Weapons One Blue Team jumped to their assigned stations Will edged the Sergeant...

Page 334: ...h the foredecks The ship rolled and crashed into a cruiser that had come too close Nice shooting Lieutenant the Admiral murmured The Covenant fleet responded with a blinding volley of laser fire Pinpoints of energy concentrated on Ascendant Justice s aft decks boiled armor off in thick layers sheared through to the other side severing its engines The Admiral smiled A sound tactical response Good t...

Page 335: ...Linda John said Keep us in the moon s shadow Use as much power as we can spare Aye Chief Linda replied Forward thrusters answering one third reverse power Course one eight zero Cortana he asked Slipspace generator status Almost ready Chief Cortana said She bit her lower lip in concentration Capacitor charge at eighty percent Adjusting fi nal calculations Stand by On screen the Admiral wheeled towa...

Page 336: ...s The formation reminded John of a miniature spiral galaxy with a supernova core The dorsal bulb of the space station shot with color red or ange and blurred with blue white heat in a heartbeat plasma tendrils erupted from the surface like solar flares Internal explo sions chained down the station s length through the narrow center portion and into the ventral bulb shattering that section and disc...

Page 337: ...tory John whispered the Admiral s last words echoing in his mind Cortana get us out of here The Master Chief stood on the bridge of the Gettysburg and watched the stars blur and vanish into the absolute blackness of Slipspace They had jumped away from the battle zone over the Unyield ing Hierophant emerged in normal space and plotted their po sition Cortana adjusted their course and now they were ...

Page 338: ...n down the list designating all those who had died on Reach and af terward as Missing In Action James Li Grace and all his dead teammates who would never officially be allowed to die And in his mind they would never find any peace until this war was won He paused at Kelly s name John listed her as MIA too She was ironically the only Spar tan truly missing whisked away by Dr Halsey on some secret p...

Page 339: ...Sergeant Johnson crossed the bridge to the Master Chief There s one other thing Another ONI thing He held out a data crystal and his gaze fell to the deck Lieutenant Haverson gave this to me before he and the Admiral left He said you d have to deliver it for him John stared at the data crystal and reluctantly plucked it from the Sergeant s fingers as if it were a slug of unstable radioactive mater...

Page 340: ...set the crystal securely back into his belt Today they had won They had stopped the Covenant John would return to Earth with a warning and enough intel to keep scientists at ONI busy But what about tomorrow The Covenant didn t give up once they set their sights on a target They wanted Earth they d come for it Destroying their fleet would only delay that in evitable fact They had time though Maybe ...

Page 341: ...SECTION VII HARBINGER ...

Page 342: ...t unyielding destruction The High Charity drifted beneath this impervious network il luminated by the glow from scores of warship engines Deep within protected by legions of crack Covenant soldiers the Sanctum of the Heirarchs was an island of calm The walls floor and ceiling of the chamber were ornamented with mirrored shards made from the fused glass of countless worlds conquered by the Covenant...

Page 343: ...ut the Prophet saw the confusion on their features Good such igno rance and puzzlement had its uses The Brute Tartarus strode across the great room When he stood within three meters of the Prophet he fell to one knee The creature was a magnificent specimen of viciousness The Prophet marveled at its near unthinking potential for mayhem the rippling muscle under its dull gray skin could tear apart a...

Page 344: ... Your Grace Tartarus replied The renegade flagship Ascendant Justice was involved and destroyed We are unsure what triggered the station s detonation The recorded communications channels were flooded with system error reports prior to its destruction The Engineers are saying this is imp The Prophet held up one claw indicating silence Tartarus halted midsyllable A regrettable turn of events the Pro...

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