FIRST STRIKE ERIC NYLUND BALLANTINE BOOKS � NEW YORK

           Other books based on Xbox games:

     HALO: THE FLOOD by William C. Dietz
   HALO: THE FALL OF REACH by Eric Nylund
 BRUTE FORCE: BETRAYALS by Dean Wesley Smith
CRIMSON SKIES by Eric Nylund, Michael B. Lee, Nancy
         Berman, and Eric S. Trautmann

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First Edition: December 2003

OPM     10   9 8     7   6

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank the personnel at Central
Command: Syne Mitchell and the newest officer on our team,
Kai Nylund.

The Intel Officers at Microsoft's Franchise Development Group:
Doug Zartman, Nancy Figatner, and Edward Ventura, and most
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 Parsons, and, of course, Joe Staten, Jaime
Griesemer, and Lorraine McLees.

SECTION

          REACH

CHAPTER ONE

0622 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\ UNSC
Vessel Pillar of Autumn, Epsilon Eridani system near
Reach Station Gamma.
    SPARTAN-104, Frederic, twirled a combat knife, his fingers
nimble despite the bulky MJOLNIR combat armor that encased
his body. The blade traced a complicated series of graceful arcs
in the air. The few remaining Naval personnel on the deck turned
pale and averted their eyes--a Spartan wielding a knife was gen-
erally accompanied by the presence of several dead bodies.
    He was nervous, and this was more than the normal pre-mission
jitters. The team's original objective--the capture of a Covenant
ship--had been scrubbed in the face of a new enemy offensive.
The Covenant 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 team leader, SPARTAN-117--but Fred was already squared
away. Only Kelly had finished stowing gear before him.
    He balanced the point of the knife on his armored finger. It
hung there for several seconds, perfectly still.
    A subtle shift in the Pillar of Autumn's gravity caused the
knife to tip. Fred plucked it from the air and sheathed it in a single
deft move. A cold feeling filled his stomach as he realized what
the gravity fluctuation meant: The ship had just changed
course--another complication.

                          ERIC NYLUND                             3
   Master Chief SPARTAN-117--John--marched to the nearest
COM panel as Captain Keyes's face filled the screen.
   Fred sensed a slight movement to his right--a subtle hand sig-
nal from Kelly. He opened a private COM freq to his teammate.
   "Looks like we're in for more surprises," she said.
   "Roger that," he replied, "though I think I've had enough sur-
prises for one op."
   Kelly chuckled.
   Fred focused his attention on John's exchange with Keyes.
Each Spartan--selected from an early age and trained to the pin-
nacle of military science--had undergone multiple augmenta-
tion procedures: biochemical, genetic, and cybernetic. As a
result, a Spartan could hear a pin drop in a sandstorm, and every
Spartan in the room was interested in what the Captain had to
say. If you 're going to drop into hell, CPO Mendez, the Spartans'
first teacher, had once said, you may as well drop with good intel.
   Captain Keyes frowned on the ship's viewscreen, a
nonregula-tion pipe in his hand. Though his voice was 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. They may try to get their troops on the station before the
Super MAC guns can take out their ships. This will be a difficult
mission, Chief. I'm... open to suggestions."
   "We can take care of it," the Master Chief replied.
   Captain Keyes's eyes widened and he leaned forward in his
command chair. "How exactly, Master Chief?"
   "With all due respect, sir, Spartans are trained to handle diffi-
cult missions. I'll split my squad. Three will board the space dock
and make sure that NAV data does not fall into the Covenant's
hands. The remainder of the Spartans will go groundside and re-
pel the invasion forces."
   Fred gritted his teeth. Given his choice, he'd rather fight the
Covenant on the ground. Like his fellow Spartans, he loathed
off-planet duty. The op to board the space dock would be fraught

4                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
with danger at every turn--unknown enemy deployment, no
gravity, useless intel, no dirt beneath his feet.
    There was no question, though: The space op was the toughest
duty, so Fred intended to volunteer for it.
    Captain Keyes considered John's suggestion. "No, Master
Chief. It's too risky--we've got to make sure the Covenant don't
get that NAV data. We'll use a nuclear mine, set it close to the
docking ring, and detonate it."
    "Sir, the EMP will burn out the superconductive coils of the
orbital guns. And if you use the Pillar of Autumn's conventional
weapons, the NAV database may still survive. If the Covenant
search the wreckage--they may obtain the data."
    "True," Keyes said and tapped his pipe thoughtfully to his
chin. "Very well, Master Chief. We'll go with your suggestion.
I'll plot a course over the docking station. Ready your Spartans
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 Master Chief said. "I'll be leading that one.
    "Linda and James," he continued. "You're with me. Fred,
you're Red Team leader. You'll have tactical command of the
ground operation."
    "Sir!" Fred shouted and started to voice a protest--then
squelched it. Now wasn't the time to question orders. . . as much
as he wanted to. "Yes, sir!"
    "Now make ready," the Master Chief said. "We don't have
much time left."
    The Spartans stood a moment. Kelly called out, "Attention!"
The soldiers snapped to and gave the Master Chief a crisp salute,
which was promptly returned.
    Fred switched to Red Team's all-hands freq and barked, "Let's
move, Spartans! I want gear stowed in ninety seconds, and final

                          ERIC NYLUND                              5
prep in five minutes. Joshua: Liaise with Cortana and get me
current intel on the drop area--I don't care if it's just weather
satellite imagery, but I want pictures, and I want them ninety
seconds ago."
  Red Team jumped into action.
  The pre-mission jitters were gone, replaced with a cold calm.
There was a job to do, and Fred was eager to get to work.

   Flight Officer Mitchell flinched as a stray energy burst streaked
into the landing bay and vaporized a meter-wide section of bulk-
head. Red-hot, molten metal splattered the Pelican dropship's
viewport.
   Screw this, he thought, and hit the Pelican's thrusters. The
gunmetal-green transport balanced for a moment on a column of
blue-white fire, then hurtled out of the Pillar of Autumn's launch
bay and into space. Five seconds later all hell broke loose.
   Incoming energy bursts from the lead Covenant vessels cut
across their vector and slammed into a COMSat. The communi-
cations satellite 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 alien fighters accelerated and
plasma bursts flickered from their gunports.
   An energy bolt slashed past on the port side, narrowly missing
the Pelican's cockpit.
   Mitchell's voice crackled across the COM system:
"Bravo-One to Knife Two-Six: I could use a little help here."
   He rolled the Pelican to port to avoid a massive, twisted hunk
of wreckage from a patrol cutter that had strayed too close to the
oncoming assault wave. Beneath the blackened plasma scorches,
he could just make out the UNSC insigne. Mitchell scowled.
This was getting worse by the second. "Bravo-One to Knife
Two-Six, where the hell are you?" he yelled.
   A quartet of wedge-shaped, angular fighters slotted into cover-
ing position on Mitchell's scopes--Longswords, heavy fighters.

6                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Knife Two-Six to Bravo-One," a terse, female voice crackled
across the COM channel. "Keep your pants on. Business is good
today."
   Too good. No sooner had the fighters taken escort position
over his dropship than the approaching Covenant fighters opened
up with a barrage of plasma fire.
   Three of the Pelican's four Longsword escorts peeled off and
powered toward the Covenant ships. Against the black of space,
cannons flashed and missiles etched ghostly trails; Covenant
energy weapons cut through the night and explosions dotted
the sky.
   The Pelican and its sole escort, however, accelerated straight
toward the planet. It shot past whirling wreckage; it rolled and
maneuvered as missiles and plasma bolts crisscrossed their path.
   Mitchell flinched as Reach's orbital defense guns fired in a
hot, actinic flash. A white ball of molten metal screamed directly
over the Pelican and its escort as they rocketed 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 contacts on my scopes at
four by three o'clock."
   A dozen more Covenant Seraphs fired their engines and an-
gled toward the two descending ships.
   "Affirmative: four by three. I've got 'em, Bravo-One," the
Longsword pilot announced. "Give 'em hell down there."
   The Longsword flipped into a tight roll and rocketed for the
Covenant formation. There was no chance that the pilot could
take out a dozen Seraphs--and Knife Two-Six had to know that.
Mitchell only hoped that the precious seconds Two-Six bought
them would be enough.
   The Pelican opened its intake vents and ignited afterburners,
plummeting toward the ground at thirteen hundred meters per
second. The faint aura of flames around the craft roared from red
to blinding orange.

                         ERIC NYLUND

   The Pelican's aft section had been stripped of the padded
crash seats that usually lined the section's port and starboard
sides. The life-support generators on the firewall between pas-
senger and pilot's compartment had also been discarded to make
room. Under other circumstances, such modifications would
have left the Pelican's troop bay unusually cavernous. Every
square centimeter of space, however, was occupied.
   Twenty-seven Spartans braced themselves and clung to the
frame of the ship; they crouched in their MJOLNIR armor to ab-
sorb the shock of their rapid descent. Their armor was half a ton
of black alloy, faintly luminous green ceramic plates, and wink-
ing energy shield emitters. Polarized visors and full helmets made
them look part Greek hero and part tank--more machine than
human. At their feet equipment bags and ammunition boxes
were lashed in place. Everything rattled as the ship jostled
through 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 channel to Kelly. "Thanks," he said. Her
reply was a subtle nod.
   He knew better than to make such a simple mistake--and as
his second in command, Kelly was rattled by his mistake with
the COM, too. He needed her rock-solid. He needed all of Red
Team frosty and wired tight.
   Which meant that he needed to make sure he held it together.
No more mistakes.
   He checked the squad's biomonitors. They showed all green
on his heads-up display, with pulse rates only marginally accel-
erated. The dropship's pilot was a different story. Mitchell's
heart fired like an assault rifle.
   Any problems with Red Team weren't physical; the biomoni-
tors confirmed that much. Spartans were used to tough missions;
UNSC High Command never sent them on any "easy" jobs.

8                     HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Their job this time was to get groundside and protect the gen-
erators that powered the orbiting Magnetic Accelerator Cannon
platforms. The fleet was getting ripped to shreds in space. The
massive MAC guns were the only thing keeping the Covenant
from overrunning their lines and taking Reach.
   Fred knew that if anything had Kelly and the other Spartans
rattled, it was leaving behind the Master Chief and his
hand-picked Blue Team.
   Fred would have infinitely preferred to be with Blue Team. He
knew every Spartan here felt like they were taking the easy way
out. If the ship-jockeys managed to hold off the Covenant as-
sault wave, Red Team's mission was a milk run, albeit a neces-
sary one.
   Kelly's hand bumped into Fred's shoulder, and he recognized
it as a consoling gesture. Kelly's razor-edged agility was multi-
plied fivefold by the reactive circuits in her MJOLNIR armor.
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 resolved into the voice
of the Longsword's pilot: "Bravo Two-Six, engaging enemy
fighters. Am taking heavy incoming fire--" The channel was
abruptly swallowed in static.
   An explosion buffeted the Pelican, and bits of metal pinged
off its thick hull.
   Patches of armor heated and bubbled away. Energy blasts
flashed through the boiling metal, filling the interior with fumes
for a split second before the ship's pressurized atmosphere blew
the haze out the gash in its side.
   Sunlight streamed though the lacerated Titanium-A armor.
The dropship lurched to port, and Fred glimpsed five Covenant
Seraph fighters driving after them and wobbling in the turbulent
air.
   "Gotta shake 'em," the pilot screamed. "Hang on!"

                          ERIC NYLUND                              9
   The Pelican pitched forward, and her engines blasted in full
overload. The dropship's stabilizers tore away, and the craft
rolled out of control.
   The Spartans grabbed on to cross beams as their gear was
flung about inside the ship.
   "It's going to be a helluva hot drop, Spartans," their pilot
hissed over the COM. "Autopilot's programmed to angle. Re-
verse thrusters. Gees are takin' me out. I'll--"
   A flash of light outlined the cockpit hatch, and the tiny
shock-proof glass window shattered into the passenger
compartment.
   The pilot's biomonitor flatlined.
   The rate of their dizzying roll increased, and bits of metal and
instruments tore free and danced around the compartment.
   SPARTAN-029, Joshua, was closest to the cockpit hatch. He
pulled himself up and looked in. "Plasma blast," he said. He
paused for a heartbeat, then added: "I'll reroute control to the ter-
minal here." With his right hand, he furiously tapped 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 away from the plummeting
craft. Fire streamed along the outer hull. Within seconds the
compartment became a blast furnace. With the grace of a
high-wire performer, Kelly leaned out of the rolling ship, her
armor's energy shields flaring in the heat.
   The Covenant Seraph fighters fired their lasers, but the energy
weapons scattered in the superheated wake of the dropping Peli-
can. One alien ship tumbled out of control, too deep in the atmo-
sphere to easily maneuver. The others veered and arced up back
into space.
   "Too hot for them," Kelly said. "We're on our own."
   "Joshua," Fred called out. "Report."
   "The autopilot's gone, and cockpit controls are offline," Joshua
answered. "I can counter our spin with thrusters." He tapped in

10                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
a command; the port engine shuddered, and the ship's rolling
slowed and ceased.
   "Can we land?" Fred asked.
   Joshua didn't hesitate to give the bad news. "Negative. The
computer has no solution for our inbound vector." He tapped
rapidly on the keyboard. "I'll buy as much time as I can."
   Fred ran over their limited options. They had no parasails,
no rocket-propelled drop capsules. That left them one simple
choice: They could ride this Pelican straight into hell.. . or they
could get off.
   "Get ready for a fast drop," Fred shouted. "Grab your gear.
Pump your suits' hydrostatic gel to maximum pressure. Suck it
up, Spartans--we're landing hard."
   "Hard landing" was an understatement. The Spartans--and
their MJOLNIR armor--were tough. The armor's energy shields,
hydrostatic gel, and reactive circuits, along with the Spartans'
augmented skeletal structure, 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 engines screamed and pulsed as Joshua angled
the thruster cams to reverse positions. The deceleration pulled at
the Spartan team, and everyone grabbed, or made, a handhold.
   Joshua brought what was left of the craft's control flaps to
bear, and the Pelican's nose snapped up. A sonic boom rippled
through the ship as its velocity dropped below Mach 1. The
frame shuddered and rivets popped.
   "Eight kilometers and this brick is still dropping fast," Kelly
called out.
   "Joshua, get aft," Fred ordered.
   "Affirmative," Joshua said.
   The Pelican groaned and the frame pinged from the stress--
and then creaked as the craft shuddered and flexed. Fred set his

                         ERIC NYLUND                            11
armored glove on the wall and tried to will the craft to hold to-
gether a little longer.
   It 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.

CHAPTER TWO

0631 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon
Eridani system, unknown aerial position, planet Reach.
   Fred saw the sky and earth flashing in rapid succession before
his faceplate. Decades of training took over. This was just like a
parasail drop ... except this time there was no chute. He forced
his arms and legs open; the spread-eagle position controlled his
tumble and slowed his velocity.
   Time seemed to simultaneously crawl and race--something
Kelly had once dubbed "SPARTAN Time." Enhanced senses and
augmented physiology meant that in periods of stress Spartans
thought and reacted faster than a normal human. Fred's mind
raced as he absorbed the tactical situation.
   He 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 sidelong glance and spotted the Pelican. It tum-
bled, sending shards of armor plating in glittering, ugly arcs, be-
fore it impacted into the side of a jagged snowcapped mountain.
   The surface of Reach stretched out before them, two thousand
meters below. Fred saw a carpet of green forest, ghostly mountains
in the distance, and pillars of smoke rising from the west. He spied a
sinuous ribbon of water that he recognized: Big Horn River.
   The Spartans had trained on Reach for most of their early

                         ERIC NYLUND                           13
lives. This was the same forest where CPO Mendez had left them
when they were children. With only pieces of a map and no food,
water, or weapons, they had captured a guarded Pelican and re-
turned to HQ. That was the mission where John, now the Master
Chief, had earned command of the group, the mission that had
forged them into a team.
   Fred pushed the memory aside. This was no homecoming.
   UNSC Military Reservation 01478-B training facility would
be due west. And the generators? He called up the terrain map
and overlaid it on his display. Joshua had done his work well:
Cortana had delivered decent satellite imagery as well as a topo-
graphic survey map. It wasn't as good as a spy-sat flyby, but it
was better than Fred had expected on such short notice.
   He dropped a NAV marker on the position of the generator
complex and uploaded the data on the TACCOM to his team.
   He took a deep breath and said: "That's our target. Move
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 loaded
Spartan was--he quickly calculated--130 meters per second.
They had to overpressurize the cushioning gel or their organs
would be crushed against the impervious MJOLNIR armor
when they hit.
   The acknowledgment lights winked again ... although Fred
sensed a slight hesitation.
   Five hundred meters to go.
   He took one last look at his Spartans. They were scattered
across the horizon like bits of confetti.
   He brought up his knees and changed his center of mass, try-
ing to flatten his angle as he approached the treetops. It worked,
but not as well or as quickly as he had hoped.
   One hundred meters to go. His shield flickered as he brushed
the tops of the tallest of the trees.
   He took a deep breath, exhaled as deeply as he could, grabbed

14                      HALO: FIRST STRIKE
his knees, and tucked into a ball. He overrode the hydrostatic sys-
tem and overpressurized the gel surrounding his body. A thou-
sand tiny knives stabbed him--pain unlike any he'd experienced
since the SPARTAN-II program had surgically altered him.
   The MJOLNIR armor's shields flared as he broke through
branches--then drained in one sudden burst as he impacted
dead-center on a thick tree trunk. He smashed through it like an
armored missile.
   He tumbled, and his body absorbed a series of rapid-fire im-
pacts. It felt like taking a full clip of assault rifle fire at point-blank
range. Seconds later Fred slammed to a bone-crunching halt.
   His suit malfunctioned. He could no longer see or hear any-
thing. He stayed in that limbo state and struggled to stay con-
scious and alert. Moments later, his display was filled with stars.
He realized then that the suit wasn't malfunctioning... he was.
   "Chief!" Kelly's voice echoed in his head as if from the end of
a long tunnel. "Fred, get up," she whispered. "We've got to move."
   His vision cleared, 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 blown shield generators,
sensor systems, a dozen broken bones and contusions. Nothing
we can't compensate for. Six Spartans have more serious injuries.
They can fight from a fixed position, but they have limited mobil-
ity." She took a deep breath and then added, "Four KIA."
   Fred struggled to his feet. He was dizzy but remained upright.
He had to stay on his feet no matter what. He had to for the team,
to show them they still had a functioning leader.
   It could have been much worse--but four dead was bad enough.
No Spartan operation had ever seen so many killed in one mis-
sion, and this op had barely begun. Fred wasn't superstitious, but
he couldn't help but feel that the Spartans' luck was running out.
   "You did what you had to," Kelly said as if she were reading
his mind. "Most of us wouldn't have made it if you hadn't been
thinking on your feet."

                         ERIC NYLUND                           15
   Fred snorted in disgust. Kelly thought he'd been thinking on
his feet--but all he'd done was land on his ass. He didn't want to
talk about it--not now. "Any other good news?" he said.
   "Plenty," she replied. "Our gear--munitions boxes, bags of
extra weapons--they're scattered across what's passing for our
LZ. Only a few of us have assault rifles, maybe five in total."
   Fred instinctively reached for his MA5B and discovered that the
anchoring clips on his armor had been sheared away in the impact.
No grenades on his belt, either. His drop bag was gone, too.
   He shrugged. "We'll improvise," he said.
   Kelly picked up a rock and hefted it.
   Fred resisted the urge to lower his head and catch his breath.
There was nothing he wanted to do more right now than sit down
and just rest and think. There had to be a way to get his Spartans
out of here in one piece. It was like a training exercise--all he
needed to do was figure out how best to accomplish their mis-
sion with no more foul-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 as scouts. Maybe our
luck will change."
   Kelly barked over the SQUADCOM: "Move, Spartans. For-
mation Beta to the NAV point."
   Fred initiated a diagnostic on his armor. The hydrostatic sub-
system had blown a seal, and pressure was at minimal functional
levels. He could move, but he'd have to replace that seal before
he'd be able to sprint or dodge plasma fire.
   He fell in behind Kelly and saw his Spartans on the periphery
of his tactical friend-or-foe monitor. He couldn't actually see
any of them because they were spread out and darted from tree to
tree to avoid any Covenant surprises. They all moved silently
through the forest: light and shadow and an occasional muted
flash of luminous green armor, then gone again.
   "Red-One this is Red-Twelve. Single enemy contact ...
neutralized."

16                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "One here, too," Red-Fifteen reported. "Neutralized."
   There had to be more. Fred knew the Covenant never traveled
in small numbers.
   Worse, if the Covenant were deploying troops in any signifi-
cant numbers, that meant the holding action in orbit had turned
ugly . . . so it was only a matter of time before this mission went
from bad to worse.
   He was so intent on listening to his team's field checks, he al-
most ran into a pair of Jackals. He instinctively melted into the
shadow of a tree and froze.
   The Jackals hadn't seen him. The birdlike aliens sniffed at the
air, however, and then moved forward more cautiously, closing
on Fred's concealed position. They waved plasma pistols before
them and clicked on their energy shields. The small, oblong pro-
tective fields rippled and solidified with a muted hum.
   Fred keyed his COM channel to Red-Two, twice. Her blue ac-
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-
maining Jackal. He sidestepped around the plane of the energy
shield and grabbed the creature's wrist. The Jackal squawked in
fear and surprise.
   He yanked the Jackal's gun arm, hard, and then twisted. The
Jackal struggled as its own weapon was forced into the mottled,
rough skin of its neck.
   Fred squeezed, and he could feel the alien's bones shatter. The
plasma pistol discharged in a bright, emerald flash. The Jackal
flopped over on its back, minus its head.
   Fred picked up the fallen weapons as Kelly emerged from the
trees. He tossed her one of the plasma pistols, and she plucked it
out of the air.
   "Thanks. I'd still prefer my rifle to this alien piece of junk,"
she groused.

                         ERIC NYLUND                           17
    Fred nodded, and clipped the other captured weapon to his
harness. "Beats the hell out of throwing rocks," he replied.
    "Affirmative, Chief," she said with a nod. "But just barely."
    "Red-One," Joshua's voice called over the SQUADCOM.
"I'm a half-klick ahead of you. You need to see this."
    "Roger," Fred told him. "Red Team, hold here and wait for my
signal."
   Acknowledgment lights winked on.
   In a half crouch, Fred made his way toward Joshua. There was
light ahead: The shade thinned and vanished because the forest
was gone. The trees had been leveled, every one blasted to splin-
ters or burned to charred nubs.
   There were bodies, too; thousands of Covenant Grunts, hun-
dreds of Jackals and Elites littered the open field. There were
also humans--all dead. Fred could see several fallen Marines
still smoldering from plasma fire. There were overturned Scor-
pion tanks, Warthogs with burning tires, and a Banshee flier. The
flier had snagged one canard on a loop 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.
   Four blips appeared on his motion sensor. Friend-or-foe tags
identified them as UNSC Marines, Company Charlie. Serial
numbers flashed next to the men as his HUD picked them out on a
topo map of the area.
   Joshua handed Fred his sniper rifle, and he sighted the con-
tacts through the scope. They were Marines, sure enough. They
picked through the bodies that littered the area, looking for sur-
vivors and policing weapons and ammo.
   Fred frowned; something about the way the Marine squad
moved didn't feel right. They lacked unit cohesion, with their
line ragged and exposed. They weren't using any of the available
cover. To Fred's experienced eye, the Marines didn't even seem
to be heading in a specific direction. One of them just ambled in
circles.

18                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Fred sent a narrow-beam transmission on UNSC global fre-
quency. "Marine patrol, this is Spartan Red Team. We are ap-
proaching your position from your six o'clock. Acknowledge."
   The Marines turned about and squinted in Fred's direction,
and brought their assault rifles to bear. There was static on the
channel, and then a hoarse, listless voice replied: "Spartans? If
you are what you say you are . . . we could sure use a hand."
   "Sorry we missed the battle, Marine."
   " 'Missed'?" The Marine gave a short, bitter laugh. "Hell,
Chief, this was just round one."
   Fred returned the sniper rifle to Joshua, pointed toward his
eyes and then to the Marines in the field. Joshua nodded, shoul-
dered the rifle, and sighted them. His finger hovered near the
weapon's trigger--not quite on it. It never hurt to be careful.
   Fred got up and walked to the cluster of Marines. He picked
his way past a tangle of Grunt bodies and the twisted metal and
charred tires 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. He just wanted to fight and win this war, like the
rest of the soldiers in the UNSC. The Corporal seemed to snap
out of his near fugue. He removed his helmet, scratched at his
cropped red hair, and looked behind him. "Chief, you'd better
head back to base with us before they hit us again."
   Fred nodded. "How many in your company, Corporal?"
   The man glanced at his three companions and shook his head.
"Say again, Chief?"
   These men were likely on the verge of battle shock, so Fred
controlled his impatience and replied in as gentle a voice as he
could muster: "Your FOF tags say you're with Charlie Company,
Corporal. How many are you? How many wounded?"
   "There's no wounded, Chief," the Corporal replied. "There's
no 'company' either. We're all that's left."

CHAPTER THREE

0649 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)
\ Epsilon Eridani system, Orbital Defense Generator
Facility A-331, planet Reach.
   Fred looked over the battlefield from the top of the southern
bunker, his temporary command post. The structure had been
hastily erected, and some of the fast-drying instacrete hadn't
fully hardened.
   The bunker was not the best defensive position, but it gave
him a clear view of the area as his team worked to strengthen
the perimeter of the generator complex. Spartans strung razor
wire, buried Antilon mine packs, and swept the area on patrols.
A six-man fireteam searched the battleground for weapons and
ammunition.
   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 hated the necessity of stripping gear from
Malcolm's suit. But it would dishonor his fallen comrade not to
use his gift of the spare part.
   He banished thoughts of the drop and finished installing the
seal. Self-recrimination was a luxury he could ill afford, and
the Red Team Spartans didn't have a monopoly on hard times.
   Charlie Company's surviving Marines had held off the Cove-
nant assault with batteries of chainguns, Warthogs, and a pair of

20                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Scorpion tanks for almost an hour. Grunts had charged across
the minefield and cleared a path for the Jackals and Elites.
   Lieutenant Buckman, the Marines' CO, had been ordered to
send the bulk of his men into the forest in an attempt to flank the
enemy. He had called in air support, too.
   He got it.
   Reach HighCom must have realized the generators were in
danger of being overrun, so someone panicked and sent in
bombers to hit the forest in a half-klick radius. That wiped out
the Covenant assault wave. It also killed the Lieutenant and
his men.
   What a waste.
   Fred replaced the last of his armor components and powered
up. His status lights pulsed a cool blue. Satisfied, he stood and
activated the COM.
   "Red-Twelve, give me a sit-rep."
   Will's voice crackled over the channel. "Perimeter estab-
lished, Chief. No enemy contacts."
   "Good," Fred replied. "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 short pause, then he added: "HQ
must have sent reinforcements at some point, because we've re-
covered a crate marked HIGHCOM ARMORY OMEGA."
   "What's in it?"
   "Six Anaconda surface-to-air missiles." Will's voice barely
concealed his glee. "And a pair of Fury tac-nukes."
   Fred gave a low whistle. The Fury tac-nuke was the closest
thing the UNSC had in its arsenal to a nuclear grenade. It was the
size and shape of an overinflated football. It delivered slightly
less than a megaton yield, and was extremely clean. Unfortu-
nately, it was also completely useless to them in this situation.
   "Secure that ordnance ASAP. We can't use them. The EMP
would fry the generators."

                          ERIC NYLUND                             21
   "Roger that," Will said with a disappointed sigh.
   "Red-Three?" Fred asked. "Report."
   There was a moment's hesitation. Joshua whispered: "Not good
here, Red-One. I'm posted on the ridge between our valley and the
next. The Covenant has a massive LZ set up. There's an enemy
ship on station and I estimate battalion-strength enemy troops on
the ground. Grunts, Jackals, equipment, and support armor are
deploying. Looks like they're getting ready for round two, sir."
   Fred felt the pit of his stomach grow cold. "Give me an uplink."
   "Roger."
   A tiny picture appeared in Fred's heads-up display, and he saw
what Joshua had sighted through his sniperscope: A Covenant
cruiser hovered thirty meters off the ground. The ship bristled
with energy weapons and plasma artillery. His Spartans couldn't
get within weapons range of that thing without being roasted.
   A gravity lift connected the ship to the surface of Reach, and
troops poured out--thousands of them: legions 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 sure why the Covenant were being so cautious,
but he'd take the break. It would give him time to figure out how to
stop them. If the Spartans were mobile, they might be able to
engage a force that size with hit-and-run tactics. Holding a fixed
position was another story altogether.
   "Updates every ten minutes," he told Joshua. His voice was
suddenly tight and dry.
   "Roger that."
   "Red-Two? Any progress on that SATCOM uplink?"
   "Negative, sir," Kelly muttered, tension thickening her voice.
She had been tasked with patching Charlie Company's
bullet-ridden communications pack. "There are battle reports
jamming the entire spectrum, but from what I can make out the
fight upstairs isn't going well. They need this generator up--no
matter what it's going to cost us."

22                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Understood," Fred said. "Keep me--"
   "Wait. Incoming transmission to Charlie Company from
Reach HighCom."
   HighCom? Fred thought headquarters on Reach had been
overrun. "Verification codes?"
   "They check out," Kelly replied.
   "Patch it through."
    "Charlie Company? Jake? What the hell is the holdup there?
Why haven 'tyou gotten my men out yet?"
   "This is Senior Petty Officer SPARTAN-104, Red Team leader,"
Fred replied, "now in charge of Charlie Company. Identify
yourself."
    "Put Lieutenant Chapman on, Spartan," an irritated voice
snapped.
   "That's not possible, sir," Fred told him, instinctively realizing
that he spoke to an officer and adding the honorific. "Except for
four wounded Marines, Charlie Company is gone."
   There was a long static-filled pause. "Spartan, listen to me
very carefully. This is Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Deputy
Chief of Naval Operations. Do 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 to protect
the generator complex powering the orbital guns."
   "I'm countermanding those orders," the Admiral barked. "As
of two hours ago, I have tactical command of the defense of
Reach. Now, I don't care if you 're a Spartan or Jesus Christ
walking down the damned Big Horn River--/ am giving you a
direct order. Acknowledge, Spartan."
   If Admiral Whitcomb was now in charge of the defense, then
a lot of the senior brass had been put out of commission when
HQ got hit.
   Fred saw a tiny amber light flashing on his heads-up display.
His biomonitor indicated an elevation in his blood pressure and
heart rate. He noticed his hands shook, almost imperceptibly.

                          ERIC NYLUND                            23
   He controlled the shaking and keyed the COM. "Acknowl-
edged, sir. Is air support available?"
    "Negative. Covenant craft took out our fighter and bomber
cover in the first wave."
   "Very well, sir. We'll get you out."
    "Step on it, Chief." The COM snapped off.
   Fred wondered if Admiral Whitcomb was responsible for the
hundreds of dead Marines who'd been trying to guard the gener-
ators. No doubt he was an excellent ship driver. . . but Fleet offi-
cers running ground ops? No wonder the situation was FUBAR.
   Had he pressured a young and inexperienced lieutenant to
flank a superior enemy? Had he sent in air support with orders to
saturate-bomb the area?
   Fred didn't trust the Admiral's judgment, but he couldn't ig-
nore a direct order from him, either.
   He ran his team roster up onto his heads-up display:
twenty-two Spartans, six wounded so badly they could barely
walk, and four battle-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-
tion when he should have been thinking about what Spartans
were best at--offense.
   He keyed the SQUADCOM. "Everyone catch that last
transmission?"
   Acknowledgment lights winked on.
   "Good. Here's the plan: We split into four teams.
   "Team Delta--" He highlighted the wounded Spartans and
the four Marines on the roster. "--fall back to this location." He
uploaded a tactical map of the area and set a NAV marker in a
ravine sixteen kilometers north. "Take two Warthogs, but leave
them and stealth it if you encounter any resistance. Your mission
is to secure the area. This will be the squad's fallback position.
Keep the back door open for us."
   They immediately acknowledged. The Spartans knew that

24                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
ravine like the backs of their hands. It wasn't marked on any
map, but it was where they'd trained for months with Dr. Halsey.
Beneath the mountain were caverns that the Office of Naval In-
telligence had converted into a top-secret facility. It was fortified
and hardened against radiation, and could probably withstand
anything up to and including a direct nuclear strike. A perfect
hole to hide in if everything went sour.
   "Team      Gamma."       Fred     selected     Red-Twenty-one,
Red-Twenty-two, and Red-Twenty-three from the roster. "You'll
extract the Admiral and his staff and bring them back to the
generators. We'll need the extra crew."
   "Affirmative," Red-Twenty-one replied.
   Technically Fred was following Whitcomb's order to extract
him from his current position. What the Admiral didn't realize,
though, was that he would have probably been safer staying put.
   "Team Beta--" Fred selected 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. The
Banshee rose a meter off the ground, its antigrav pod glowed a
faint electric blue, and it started to drift forward. He snapped it
off, and the Banshee settled to the ground. He quickly tested the
other two, and they also rose off the ground.
   "Good. All working."
   Kelly crossed her arms. "We're going for a ride?"
   A Warthog pulled up and skidded to a halt in front of them,
Joshua at the wheel. The rear held half a dozen Jackhammer mis-
siles and a trio of launchers. A crate sat in the passenger's seat,
one loaded with the dark, emerald-green duct tape that every sol-
dier in the UNSC ubiquitously referred to as "EB Green."
   "Mission accomplished, sir," Joshua said as he climbed from
the Warthog.

                          ERIC NYLUND                            25
   Fred grabbed a launcher, a pair of rockets, and a roll of tape
from the 'Hog. "We'll be needing these when we hit the Cove-
nant on the other side of the ridge," he explained. "Each of you
secure a launcher and some ammo in a Banshee."
   Joshua and Kelly stopped what they were doing and turned to
face him.
   "Permission to speak, sir," Kelly asked.
   "Granted."
   "I'm all for a good fight, Fred, but those odds are a little lop-
sided even for us. . . like ten thousand to one."
   "We can handle a hundred to one," Joshua chimed in, "maybe
even five hundred to one with a little planning and support, but
against these odds, a frontal assault seems--"
   "It's not going to be a frontal assault," Fred said. He wedged
the launcher into the cramped Banshee cockpit. "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 ridge isn't high
enough to block the EMP. It'll burn out the orbital defense
generator."
   "There's another way to use them," Fred told them. "We're go-
ing to board the cruiser--right up its gravity lift--and detonate
the nuke inside. The ship's shields will dampen the electromag-
netic pulse."
   "It'll also turn that ship into the biggest fragmentation grenade
in history," Kelly remarked.
   "And if anything goes wrong," Joshua said, "we end up in the
middle often thousand pissed-off bad guys."
   "We're Spartans," Fred said. "What could possibly go wrong?"

CHAPTER FOUR

0711 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon
Eridani system, Longhorn Valley, planet Reach.
   The alarm hooted, and Zawaz sprang to his feet with a startled
yelp. The squat alien, a Grunt clad in burnished orange armor,
fumbled and dropped his motion scanner. He keened in fear and
retrieved the device with a trembling claw. If the scanner had
been damaged, the Elites would use his body as reactor shielding. If
his masters learned he'd been asleep at his post, they might do far
worse than kill him. They might give him to the Jackals.
   Zawaz shuddered.
   Fortunately, the scanner still worked, and the diminutive alien
sighed with relief. Three contacts rapidly approached 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 his superiors, then thought bet-
ter of it. What if they were Elites on some secret mission?
   No, it was best not to question such things. Be ignored. Live
another day. That was his creed.
   He nestled back into his hole, reset the motion detector to
long range, and prayed it wouldn't go off again. He curled into a
tight ball and promptly fell into a deep sleep.

  Fred led their flying-wedge formation. The purple and red air-
ships arced up and over the treetops of the ridge, gaining as

                          ERIC NYLUND                            27
much altitude as the Banshee could manage--about three hun-
dred meters. As he cleared the top, what he saw made him ease
off the throttle.
   The valley was ten kilometers across and sloped before him,
thick with Douglas firs that thinned and gave way to trampled
fields and the Big Horn River beyond. Camped in the fields
were thousands upon thousands of Covenant troops. Their mass
covered the entire valley, and thin, smoke-choked sunlight
glinted off a sea of red, yellow, and blue armor. They moved in
tight columns and swarmed along the river's edge--so many that
it looked like someone had kicked over the largest anthill in
existence.
   And they were building. Hundreds of flimsy white dome-shaped
tents were being erected, atmosphere pits for the
methane-breathing Grunts. Farther back were the odd polyhedral
huts of the Elite units, guarded by a long line of dozens of
beetlelike Wraith tanks. Guard towers punctuated the valley; they
spiraled up from 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 stabilizing fins. Its
gravity lift was in operation, a tube of scintillating energy that
moved matter to and from the ground. Stacks of purple crates
gently floated down from the craft. In the afternoon light he
could see its weapons bristling along its length, casting
spider-like shadows across its hull.
   Their Banshees leveled out, and Fred dropped back to tighten
his formation with Kelly and Joshua.
   He glanced again at the enemy ship and the guard towers. One
good hit from those weapons could take them out.
   Fred saw other Banshee patrols circling the valley. He frowned.
If they passed them, the enemy pilots would almost certainly de-
mand to know their business... and there was no way of knowing
what the established patrol routes were. That meant he'd have to

28                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
take an alternate flight path: straight down the middle, and straight
over the Covenant horde.
   They'd only need one run to do this. They'd probably only get
one run.
   He activated a COM frequency. "Go."
   Kelly hit the acceleration and glided toward the cruiser. Fred
fell in behind her. He armed the fuel rod gun built into the
Banshee.
   They were six kilometers from the cruiser when Kelly achieved
the maximum speed of her flier. Grunts and Jackals in the fields
below craned their necks as the Spartans flashed over them.
   They had to go faster. Fred felt every Covenant eye watching
them. He dived, trading his altitude for acceleration, and Joshua
and Kelly did the same.
   Communication symbols flashed across his Banshee's wind-
shield display. The UNSC software built into their armor worked
only with some of the spoken Covenant languages--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 ground, gaining as much speed as she could, driving
straight for the cruiser's gravity lift.
   The nearest guard tower tracked her; its plasma cannon flared
and fired.
   Kelly's flier climbed and banked to evade the energy fire. The
bolt of superheated ionized gas brushed against her starboard
fuselage. Energy spray melted the Banshee's front faring, and
her ship slowed.
   A dozen plasma turrets turned to track them.
   Fred banked and opened fire. Energy bursts from the Ban-
shee's primary weapon strafed the guard tower. Joshua did the
same, and a river of fire streaked toward the towers.
   Fred hit the firing stud for the Banshee's heavy weapon, and a

                           ERIC NYLUND                              29
sphere of energy arced into the base of the tower. It began a grad-
ual tilt, then collapsed.
   Kelly hadn't fired. Fred glanced her way and saw that she now
stood in a low crouch atop her racing Banshee. She had one foot
under the duct tape that had secured the nuke and now held the
bomb in her hand, cocking it back to throw.
   A shard of jagged crystal, a round from a Covenant needier,
pinged off Fred's port shield. He snapped a look below.
   Covenant Grunts and Jackals boiled in agitation--a hundred
badly aimed shots arced up after him; glistening clouds of crys-
talline needles and firefly plasma bolts swarmed through the air
and chipped away at his Banshee's fuselage.
   Fred jinked his Banshee left and right, and dodged plasma
bolts from the three guard towers tracking him. He lined up for a
second strafing run, and the Banshee's lighter energy weapons
sent Grunts scattering.
   A hundred meters to go.
   Kelly leaned back, coiled her body, and readied to throw 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 warped, and Joshua fell behind Fred and Kelly just
as they entered the gravity lift of the craft.
   Fred keyed his COM to raise Joshua but got only static. Time
seemed to slow inside the beam of purple light that ferried goods
and troops to and from the belly of the ship. The strange glow
surrounded them and made his skin tingle as if it were asleep.
   Their Banshees rose toward an opening in the underside of the
carrier. They weren't riding into the ship, though; they were trav-
eling too fast and would cross the beam before they were three
quarters of the way to the top.
   Fred snapped around. He didn't see Joshua anywhere. Plasma
beams hit the well and were deflected as if it were a giant glass lens.
   Kelly hurled the nuke straight up into the gullet of the cruiser.

30                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Fred wrenched the Banshee's controls and arced the craft
under the edge of the ship; Kelly was right behind him. The
light vanished, and they emerged on the far side of the Covenant
vessel.
   Behind them, distorted through the gravity lift, Fred saw
Covenant troops firing their weapons into the sky. He heard ten
thousand voices screaming for blood.
   Fred pinged Joshua on the COM, but his acknowledgment
light remained dark.
   He wanted to slow and turn back for him, but Kelly dived, ac-
celerating toward the ground, and she entered the forest that car-
peted the mountainside. Fred followed her. They were scant
meters above the ground; they dodged trees and blasted through
tangles of foliage. A handful of stray shots flashed overhead.
They flew at top speed and didn't look back.
   They emerged from the tree line and over the powdered snow
of the mountaintop. They arced over a granite ridge, 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 slowly depolarized.
   Kelly leaned across her Banshee. Blood oozed from her ar-
mor's left shoulder joint. She fumbled for her helmet seal, caught it,
and peeled it off her head. "Did we get 'em?" she panted. Blood
foamed from the corner of her mouth.
   "I think so," Fred told her.
   She looked around. "Joshua?"
   Fred shook his head. "He got hit on the way in."
   It had been easy for him to fly into the face of certain death
moments ago. Saying those words was a hundred times harder.
   Kelly slumped and dropped her head back against her
Banshee.
   "Stay here, I'm going up to take a look." Fred powered up his
Banshee and rose parallel with the ridgeline. He nudged the
craft up a little farther and got his first look into the valley.

                         ERIC NYLUND                          31
   It was a sea of flame. Hundreds of fires dotted the cracked,
glassy ground. Where the Big Horn River had snaked along,
there was now only a long steaming furrow. There was no trace
of the cruiser or the Covenant troops that had filled the valley
moments ago. All that remained was a field of smoldering,
twisted bone and metal. At the edge of this carnage stood black-
ened sticks--the remnants of the forest--all leaning away from
the center of the explosion.
   Ten thousand Covenant deaths. It wasn't worth losing Joshua
or any of the other Spartans, but it was something. Perhaps they
had bought enough time for the orbital MAC guns to tip the battle
overhead in the Fleet's favor. Maybe their sacrifices would save
Reach. That would be worth it.
   He looked up into the sky. The steam made it difficult to see
anything, but there was motion overhead: Faint shadows glided
over the clouds.
   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 several voices overlapped.
He heard one of his Spartans--he couldn't tell who--break
through the static.
   "Reactor complex seven has been compromised. We're falling
back. Might be able to save number three." There was a pause as
the speaker shouted orders to someone else: "Set off those
charges now!"
   Fred switched to FLEETCOM and broadcast: "Be advised,
Pillar of Autumn, groundside reactors are being taken. Orbital
guns at risk. Nothing we can do. Too many. We'll have to use the
nukes. Be advised, orbital MAC guns will most likely be neu-
tralized. Pillar of Autumn, do you read? Acknowledge."
   More voices crowded the channel, and Fred thought he heard
Admiral Whitcomb's voice, but whatever orders he issued were

32                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
incomprehensible. Then there was only static, and then the
COM went dead.
   The cruisers fired salvos of plasma that burned the sky. Dis-
tant explosions thumped, and Fred strained to see if there was
any return fire--any sign that his Spartans were fighting or re-
treating. Their only hope was movement; the enemy firepower
would shred a fixed position.
   "Fall back," he hissed. "Now, damn it."
   Kelly tapped him on the shoulder and pointed up.
   The clouds parted like a curtain 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," Kelly murmured. "We've lost. Reach is going to
fall."
   Fred watched as the plasma impacted upon the horizon and
the sky turned white, then faded to black as millions of tons of
ash and debris blotted out the sun.
   "Maybe," Fred said. He gunned his Banshee. "Maybe not.
Come on, we're not done yet."

SECTION I

            THRESHOLD

CHAPTER FIVE

1637 hours, September 22,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Aboard
Longsword fighter, uncharted system, Halo debris field. Three
weeks later.
    The Master Chief settled into the pilot's seat of the Longsword
attack craft. He didn't fit. The contoured seat had been engi-
neered to mate with a standard-issue Navy flight suit, not the
bulky MJOLNIR armor.
    He scratched his scalp and breathed deeply. The air tasted odd--
it lacked the metallic quality of his suit's air scrubbers. This was the
first quiet moment he'd had to sit, think, and remember. First there
was the satisfaction after the successful space op at Reach, which
went sour after Linda was killed 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 healing
wound in his neck, inflicted by a Flood Infection Form during
the final battle on Halo's surface, still throbbed.
    He wanted to forget it all. . . especially the Flood. Everything
inside him ached.
    The system's moon, Basis, was a silver-gray disk against the
darkness of space, and beyond it was the muted purple of the
gas giant Threshold. Between them lay a glistening expanse
of debris--metal, stone, ice, and everything else that had once
been Halo.

                           ERIC NYLUND                             35
   "Scan it again," the Master Chief told Cortana.
   "Already completed," her disembodied voice replied. "There's
nothing out there. I told you: just dust and echoes."
   The Master Chief's hand curled into a fist, and for a moment he
felt the urge to slam it into something. He relaxed, surprised at his
frayed temper. He'd been exhausted in the past--and without a
doubt the fight on Halo had been the most harrowing of his
career--but he'd never been prone to such outbursts.
   The struggle against the Flood must have gotten to him, more
than he'd realized.
   With effort he banished the Flood from his mind. Either
there'd be time to deal with it later. . . or there wouldn't. Worrying
about it now served no useful purpose.
   "Scan the field again," he repeated.
   Cortana's tiny holographic figure appeared on the projection
pad mounted between the pilot's and system-ops seats. She
crossed her 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 dissolved. The
scanner panel activated, however, and mathematical symbols
crowded the screen.
   A moment later the scanner panel dimmed and Cortana said,
"There's still nothing, Chief. All I'm picking up is a strong echo
from the moon ... but there are no transponder signals, and no
distress calls."
   "You're not doing an active scan?"
   Her tiny hologram appeared again, and this time static flashed
across her figure. "There are trillions of objects out there. If you
want I can start to scan and identify each individual piece. If we
sit here and do nothing else, that would take eighteen days."
   "What if someone's out there but they turned off their trans-
ponder? What if they don't want to be found?"

36                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "That's highly un--" Cortana froze for a split second. The static
around her vanished, and she stared off into space. "Interesting."
   "What?"
   Cortana looked distracted, then seemed to snap out of it.
"New data. That signal echo's getting stronger."
   "Meaning?"
   "Meaning," she replied, "it's not an echo."
   The scanner panel hummed back to life as Cortana activated
the Longsword's long-range detection gear. "Uh-oh," she said, a
moment later.
   The Chief peered at the scan panel as Cortana identified the
contact. The distinctive, bulbous silhouette of a Covenant cruiser
edged into view as it moved around the moon's far side.
   "Power down," he snapped. "Kill everything except passive
scanners and minimal power to keep you online."
   The Longsword darkened; Cortana's hologram flickered and
faded as she killed power flow to the holosystem.
   The cruiser moved into the debris field, prowling like a
hungry shark. Another cruiser appeared, 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 and looking
for something. Like I said before, if there are survivors out there,
they'd be powered down."
   "I can listen to their echoes," Cortana said, her voice flat and
oddly procedural. Operating at lower power levels seemed to
limit her more colorful behavior. "Process active: analyzing
Covenant signals. Piggybacking their scans. Diverting more
runtime to the task. I'm building a multiplex filtering algorithm.
Customizing the current shape-signature recognition software."
   Another ship rounded the horizon of Basis. It was larger than
any Covenant ship the Master Chief had seen. It had the sleek
three-bulbed shape of one of their destroyers, but it must have
been three kilometers long. Seven plasma turrets were mounted

                         ERIC NYLUND                           37
on universal joints--enough firepower to gut any ship in the
UNSC fleet.
   "Picking up encrypted transmissions from new contact,"
Cor-tana whispered. "Descrambling... lots of chatter... orders
being given to the cruisers. It appears to be directing the
Covenant fleet operations in the system."
   "A flagship," the Chief murmured. "Interesting."
   "Scan still in progress, Chief. Stand by."
   John got out of the sysops seat. He had no intention of just
"standing by" with seven Covenant warships in the system.
   He drifted to the aft compartment of the Longsword fighter.
He'd assess what equipment was on board. He might get lucky
and find a few of those Shiva nuclear-tipped missiles.
   As he had seen when he first boarded the ship, the cryotube
had been removed. He wasn't sure why, but maybe, like every-
thing else on the Pillar of Autumn, the ship had been stripped
down and upgraded for their original high-risk mission.
   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 weapons locker and forced it open--it was
empty.
   The Chief checked his own assault rifle: fully functional, but
only thirteen rounds remained in the magazine.
   "Got something," Cortana said.
   He returned to the sysops seat. "Show me."
   On the smallest viewscreen, a silhouette appeared: a small,
bullet-shaped cone with maneuvering thrusters on one end.
   "It could be a cryotube," Cortana said. "Thruster and power
packs can be affixed on their aft sections for emergencies... if a
ship has to be abandoned, for example."
   "And most of the crew on the Pillar of Autumn never had a
chance to be revived from cryo," the Chief said. "They could
have been jettisoned before the ship went down. Move us toward
them. Docking thrusters only."

38                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Course plotted," Cortana said. "Thrusters engaged."
   There was a slight acceleration.
   "ETA twenty minutes, Chief. But given the Covenant cruis-
ers' current search pattern, I estimate they will encounter the
pod infive minutes."
   "We need to move faster," the Chief told her, "but without firing
the engines. The drive emissions will show up like a flare on their
sensors."
   "Hang on," Cortana said. "I'll get us there."
   The Chief donned his helmet and locked its atmosphere seals.
Status lights pulsed green. "Ready," he said.
   The aft hatch of the Longsword breached and slammed open.
There was an explosive sound as the atmosphere vented. The
Longsword jumped forward; the Chief's head slammed into the
back of his helmet.
   "Adjusting course," Cortana said calmly. "ETA two minutes."
   "How are we going to stop?" he asked.
   She sighed. "Do I have to think of everything?" 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 immediately, but the missiles
would have to wait for their target-lock software to initialize. By
then the cruiser, which outgunned them a hundred to one, would
turn the Longsword into molten slag.
   "Attempting to jam their scanners," Cortana said. "That may
buy us some time."
   The Covenant cruiser turned away, slowed, and turned back
to face the comparatively tiny Longsword. It took no further ac-
tion . . . as if it were waiting for them to get closer.
   So far so good. The Chief clenched and unclenched his
gauntleted hand. We 're not dead yet.
   He glanced at the scan display. The contact resolved into a
clearer image: definitely a UNSC cryopod. It tumbled, and he

                           ERIC NYLUND                            39
saw that what he thought was a single pod was in fact three of
them, affixed side by side.
   Three possible survivors out of the Pillar of Autumn's total
complement of hundreds. He wished there were more. He wished
Captain Keyes were here. In the Chief's opinion Keyes had been
the most brilliant spatial tactician he had ever encountered ...
but even the Captain would have thought twice about approach-
ing seven Covenant warships in a single Longsword.
   He risked feeding more ship's power to Cortana's systems. If
they were going to make it through this, he needed her as effec-
tive as possible.
   "New contact," Cortana said, interrupting his thoughts. "I
think it is, anyway. Whatever it is, it's stuck onto a chunk of rock,
half a kilometer in diameter. Damn, it just rotated out of my
view."
   On the display Cortana replayed a partial silhouette of an
oddly angled shape on the surface of the 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 craft merely crashed
there."
   "I don't think so." He pointed at the display. "The position of
that wing indicates it's nose-out--ready for takeoff. If it had
crash-landed, it would be faced the other way."
   Another Covenant cruiser moved toward this new ship.
   "Coming about, Chief," Cortana told him. "Brace yourself,
and then get ready to retrieve the pods."
   The Chief unsnapped his harness and drifted aft. He grabbed
a tether and clipped one end to his suit, the other to the bulkhead of
the Longsword.
   He felt the maneuvering thrusters fire, and the ship rotated
180 degrees.
   "Decompression in three seconds," Cortana said.
   The Chief opened the empty weapons locker and climbed
partially inside. He braced himself.

40                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
    Cortana dropped the aft hatch, and the inside of the ship ex-
ploded out; the Chief slammed into the door of the locker, denting
the centimeter-thick Titanium-A.
    He climbed out and Cortana overlaid a blue arrow-shaped
NAV point on his heads-up display, indicating the location of the
drifting cryopods.
    The Chief jumped out of the Longsword.
    He floated through space. He was only thirty meters from the
pods, but if he'd guessed wrong about his trajectory and missed
the target, he wouldn't get a second chance. By the time he
reeled himself back to the Longsword and tried again, those
Covenant ships were certain to kill them all.
    He stretched his arms and hands toward the cylinders. Twenty
meters to go.
    His approach was off. He shifted his left knee closer to his
chest and started a slow tumble.
    Ten meters.
    His upper body rotated "down" relative to the 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 second pod.
He flexed and failed to grab hold. He scratched the surface of the
third and final pod--his middle finger hooked on the frame.
    His body swung inward, curled, and landed on the pod. He
quickly looped his tether through the frame, secured himself to
it, and pulled their combined mass back to the Longsword.
    "Hurry, Chief," Cortana said over the COM. "We've got
trouble."
    The Chief saw exactly what the trouble was: The engines of
two Covenant cruisers flared electric blue as they accelerated
toward the Longsword. The plasma and laser weapons along
their hulls warmed from red to orange as they readied to fire.
    He pulled as fast as he could, making minor adjustments with

                          ERIC NYLUND                           41
the muscles in his braced legs so his motions didn't send them
into a tumble in the zero gravity.
   The Longsword was a sitting duck for those Covenant cruisers.
Cortana couldn't fire the engines until he got on board. Even if he
and the pods survived the thruster wash, any evasive maneuver
Cortana made would snap him and his cargo like the end of a
whip.
   The Covenant ships were within firing range, lined up per-
fectly to destroy the Longsword.
   Three missiles streaked though space, impacting on the star-
board side of the lead Covenant ship. The explosion splashed
harmlessly across its shield, which shimmered silver as it dissi-
pated the energy.
   The Chief turned his head and saw the Pelican blast off from
the asteroid where it had been hiding. It rocketed on a perpen-
dicular course toward the two Covenant ships.
   The cruisers came about, apparently more interested 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 powered their engines and pursued
the Pelican, but it had entered a dense region of the debris field,
dodged a chunk of metal and rock, dived over an iceball, and
charged through clouds of shattered alien metal. The Covenant
fired: Energy blasts impacted on the debris and missed the Pelican.
   "Whoever's piloting that Pelican knows their stuff," Cor-
tana said.
   "We owe them a favor." John fired the Longsword's guns, and
tiny silver dots punctuated the trailing Covenant cruiser's shields.
"Let's settle that debt."
   "You realize," Cortana said, "that we really can't damage
those Covenant ships."
   The cruiser slowed and turned toward them.
   "We'll see about that. Get me a firing solution for the missiles.

42                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
I want them to target their plasma turrets just before they fire.
They have to drop a section of their shields for a fraction of a
second."
    "Working," Cortana replied. "Without precise data, however,
I'll have to base my calculations on several assumptions." A
string of mathematics appeared on the weapons ops panel. "Give
me fire control."
    John punched the auto override on the firing systems. "It's
yours," he said.
    The Covenant cruiser's plasma turrets turned to track them as
the ship came to bear. They warmed, and Cortana fired all the
Longsword's ASGM-10 missiles.
    White vapor trails snaked toward the target.
    "Let's move!" the Chief said.
    The Longsword accelerated into the debris field, following
the Pelican's path. The aft camera displayed the missiles racing
to their target. Antimissile laser fire stabbed though space, and
three of the missiles exploded into red fireballs. The Covenant's
plasma turret glowed white hot--about to fire--when the last
missile impacted. 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, momentarily blind.
    "That should keep them busy for a while," Cortana said.
    The Longsword arced under a half-kilometer-wide metal
plate--just as a plasma bolt impacted and boiled the surface,
sending the plate sputtering and spinning through space.
    "Or not," Cortana muttered. "Better let me drive."
    The autopilot engaged, and the controls jerked out of the
Chief's hand. The Longsword's afterburners kicked in, and it ac-
celerated toward a field of tumbling rocks. Cortana rolled and
pitched, keeping the hull mere meters from the jagged surfaces.
    The Chief hung on to the seat with one hand and pulled his
harness tight with the other. He moved the scanner display to the
center viewscreen and saw the two nearest Covenant cruisers
vectored toward his and the Pelican's position. The two UNSC

                         ERIC NYLUND                           43
ships might evade and dodge through the debris field for a few
minutes, but soon their fuel would be exhausted, and the Cove-
nant would move in for the kill.
   And where could they really run to, anyway? Neither ship had
Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engines, so they were stuck in this
system and the Covenant knew it. They could afford to take their
time and play with their prey before they pounced.
   The Chief performed a sweep scan of the system looking for
something--anything to give him a tactical advantage. No, think-
ing of tactics was going to get him killed. There was no tactical
advantage he could gain that would give him a victory in this
mismatch. He had to change the rules--change his strategy.
   He scanned the massive Covenant flagship--that was the key.
That's how he'd be able to turn the tables on the enemy.
   He keyed the COM system and hailed the Pelican. "This is
Master Chief SPARTAN-One-One-Seven. Recognition 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 course now, Chief." The voices arguing in the
background became loud and more strained. "I hope you know
what you're doing. Polaski out." The channel snapped off.
   "Get us there, Cortana," he said, tapping the NAV point. "As
fast as you can make this thing fly."
   The Longsword rolled right and pitched toward the moon, Ba-
sis. The chief's safety harness groaned as gee forces increased.
   "You do know what you're doing?" Cortana asked. "I mean,
we're headed straight toward the largest and most dangerous
Covenant ship in this system. I assume this is part of some daring
and brutally simplistic plan you've cooked up?"
   "Yes," the Chief replied.
   "Oh, good. Hang on," Cortana said. The Longsword rolled
to port and dived under a rock. An explosion detonated aft of

44                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
the ship. "Looks like your 'plan' has gotten their attention. I'm
reading all six Covenant cruisers moving to overtake us at
flank speed."
   "And the Pelican?"
   "Still there," Cortana reported. "Taking heavy fire. But on tra-
jectory to the NAV point. .. moving slower than us, of course."
    "Adjust our speed so we arrive at the same time. When you're
in range for a secure system link, let me know."
   The Longsword decelerated; it shuddered to starboard and
then to port, and laser fire flashed along either side.
   "You never told me," Cortana said in a voice that was equal parts
irritation and calm indifference, "precisely what your plan is."
   "Something Captain Keyes would approve of." The Chief
summoned the navigation console on the main display. "If we
survive long enough, I want a course from here"--he tapped the
NAV 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 closing. Within
range for system link."
   The Chief hailed the Pelican. "Polaski, release your controls.
We're taking over."
   "Chief?"
   "Establish encrypted system link. Acknowledge."
   A long pause, then, "Roger."
   Cortana's hologram appeared on the tiny protection pad. She
appeared to listen intently for a moment, and then declared, "Got
them."
   "Synchronize our courses, Cortana. Put us right on top of the
Pelican."
   "Maneuvering to intercept the Pelican. Five hundred kilome-
ters to flagship."
   "Prepare to alter our course, Cortana, as we pass the flagship.
Also get ready to direct all scanners at the flagship if we pass."
   '"If?" Cortana asked.

                          ERIC NYLUND                           45
   The flagship's turrets turned to bear on the Longsword and
Pelican. They glowed like angry eyes in the dark.
   "Three hundred kilometers."
   Light sparkled along the length of the Covenant craft as it pre-
pared to fire; dull red plasma gathered; three torpedoes extruded
and raced toward them.
   "Evasiv--" the Chief said.
   Cortana banked hard port, starboard, and then hit the after-
burners and pulled up. Streaks of hell&e brushed close to the hulls
of the Longsword and Pelican--then were gone behind them.
   The Chief had hoped for this: Their extreme oblique approach
angle combined with their speed made them hard to hit, even for
the notoriously accurate Covenant plasma weapons.
   "Ten kilometers," Cortana announced. "Scanning in burst
mode."
   They flashed over the three-kilometer-long ship in the blink of
an eye. The Chief saw gun turrets straining to track their ap-
proach. The alien craft 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 slingshot orbit," Cortana announced.
   The Longsword's engines rumbled. The acceleration played
hell with the Chief's inner ear. He wasn't certain for a moment
which way was up.
   "Bring us closer to the Pelican," he said. "Right on top. Give
me a hard dock on its top access hatch."
   Cortana set her hands on her hips and frowned. "Readjusting
burn parameters. But you know a linked-ship configuration dur-
ing an orbital burn is not stable."
   "We won't be linked long," he said and slipped out of his har-
ness. He drifted aft, pulled himself down to the floor and opened
the Longsword's access hatch. Green lights on the intervening
pressure door winked on in succession. He removed the safeties
and popped the seal.

46                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   A hand reached up from the other side. John pulled the person
through.
   The shock only lasted a moment. John's reflexes kicked in--
he grabbed a handful of the man's uniform, kicked the hatch shut,
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. J. Johnson."

CHAPTER SIX

1710 hours, September 22,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Aboard
Longsword fighter, uncharted system, Halo debris field.
   The Master Chief held on to the ship's frame with one hand so
he wouldn't float away in zero gee. With the other hand he
pressed the pistol deeper into Johnson's forehead.
   The Sergeant's smile faded, but there was not a trace of fear in
his dark eyes. He snorted a laugh. "I get it: You think I'm in-
fected. Well, I'm not. This"--he patted his chest--"is one hun-
dred percent grade-A Marine... and nothin' else."
   The Chief eased his stance but didn't lower the gun. "Explain
how that's possible."
   "They got us all right, those little mushroom-shaped 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--an incubator
for more Infection Forms. Based on what we've seen, they cer-
tainly don't just decide to pass up a victim."
   The Sergeant shrugged. He fished into his pocket, found the
remaining stub of a chewed cigar, and stuck it in the corner of his
mouth. "Well, I've seen different. They 'passed me up' like I was
undercooked spinach at a turkey dinner."
   "Cortana," the Chief asked. "Is it possible?"
   "It's possible? she carefully replied. "But it's also highly un-

48                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
likely." She paused for two heartbeats, and then added, "Accord-
ing to the readings from the Sergeant's biomonitors, his story
checks out. I can't be one hundred percent positive until he's
been cleared in a medical suite, but preliminary findings indi-
cate that he is clean of any Flood parasitic infection. He's obvi-
ously not a mindless, half-naked alien killing machine."
   "All right." The Chief clicked the pistol's safety to "on" then
flipped the pistol around and handed it back to the Sergeant, grip
first. "But I'm having you checked inside and out the first chance
we get. We can't risk letting the Flood infection spread."
   "I hear you, Master Chief. Looking forward to those Navy
nurses. Now--" The Sergeant pushed off the hull and drifted
toward the hatch. "--let's get the rest of the crew on board." He
hesitated by the cryotubes. "I see you already picked up a few
stragglers."
   "They'll have to wait," the Chief said. "It'll take half an hour
to thaw them out without risking 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 though the hatch. The name
stitched on his uniform read LOCKLEAR. He was tanned, shaved
bald, and had a wild look in his clear blue eyes. He retrieved his
gun from the Sergeant and swept the interior with the point of his
weapon. "Clear!" he shouted back down into the Pelican.
   "At ease, Corporal," the Master Chief said.
   The Corporal's eyes finally locked onto the Chief. He shook
his head in disbelief. "A Spartan," he muttered. "Figures. Outta
the friggin' frying pan--"
   The Master Chief spotted the Marine's shoulder patch: the
gold comet insigne of the Orbital Drop Shock Troops. The
ODST, more colorfully known as "Helljumpers," were notorious
for their tenacity in a fight.
   Locklear must have been one of Major Silva's boys, which ex-
plained the young Marine's general hostility. Silva was ODST to

                          ERIC NYLUND                          49
the bone, and during the action on Halo had been decidedly
negative about the SPARTAN-IIs in general... and the Chief in
particular.
   Another man gripped the edge of the hatch and pulled himself
up. He had a plasma pistol strapped to his side and wore a crisp
black uniform. His red hair was neatly slicked back, and his eyes
took in the Chief without obvious surprise. He wore the black
enameled bars of a First Lieutenant.
   "Sir!" The Chief snapped off a crisp salute.
   "Adjusting burn and angle," Cortana announced. The
Long-sword and Pelican tilted relative to the moon, Basis, on
the viewscreen. "That should give you a little more than one gee
on the deck."
   The lieutenant settled to the floor and lazily returned the
salute. "I'm Haverson," he said. He looked John over with interest.
"You are the Master Chief, SPARTAN-117."
   "Yes, sir." The Chief was surprised. Most people, even experi-
enced officers, had 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
Johnson. "With you, Chief, we might have a chance." He reached
into the hatch and pulled another person onto the Longsword.
   This last person was a woman, and she wore the flight-suit of a
pilot. Her dirty blond hair was tucked into a cap. She saluted the
Chief. "Petty Warrant Officer Polaski, requesting permission to
come aboard, Master Chief."
   "Granted," he said and returned her salute.
   Stenciled onto her coveralls was a flaming fist over a red
bull's-eye, the insignia of the Twenty-third Naval Air Squadron.
Although the Chief had never met Polaski, she was from the
same chalk as Captain Carol Rawley, callsign "Foehammer." If
Polaski was anything like Foehammer, she would be a skilled
and fearless pilot.

50                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "So what's the story?" Locklear demanded. "We got some-
thing to shoot here?"
   "At ease, Marine," the Sergeant growled. "Use that stuffing
between your ears for something besides keeping your helmet
on. Notice we're not floating? Feel those gee forces? This ship is
in a slingshot orbit. We're coming around the moon for another
crack at the Covenant."
   "That's correct," the Chief said.
   "Our first priority should be to escape," Haverson said and his
thin brows knitted in frustration, "not to blindly engage the
Covenant. We have valuable intelligence on the enemy, and on
Halo. Our first priority should be to reach UNSC-controlled
space."
   "That was my intention, sir," the Chief replied. "But neither this
Longsword nor your Pelican is equipped with Shaw-Fujikawa
engines. Without a jump to Slipspace, it would take years to
return."
   Haverson sighed. "That does limit our options, doesn't it?"
He turned 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 Haverson approved.
   "Pardon me, sir," the Chief said. "I must point out that while
you are the ranking officer, I am on a classified mission of the
highest priority. My orders come directly from High Command."
   "Meaning?"
   "Meaning," John continued, "I have tactical command of this
crew, these ships. . . and you. Sir."
   Haverson turned, his expression dark. The Lieutenant's mouth
opened as if he were going to say something. He closed his
mouth and looked the Chief over. A faint smile flickered over his
thin lips. "Of course. I am well aware of your mission, Chief. I'll
do anything I can to assist."
   He knew about the Spartan's original mission to capture a
Covenant Prophet? What was an ONI officer doing here anyway?

                        ERIC NYLUND                          51
   "So what's the plan?" Locklear asked. "Slingshot orbit--then
what? We just going to talk all day, Chief?"
   "No," the Chief replied.
   He glanced at Polaski and the Sergeant. He could count on
her, and though he was suspicious of exactly how Sergeant John-
son had avoided falling to the Flood, he was willing to give the
man the benefit of the doubt. Haverson? He wouldn't trust him,
but the man knew what was at stake, and he wouldn't interfere.
Probably. Locklear was another story, though.
   The ODST was coiled and ready to pounce . . . or come apart
like an antipersonnel mine. Some men broke under pressure and
wouldn't fight. Some snapped and disregarded their own and
their team's safety for blind revenge. Add that to the
Hell-jumper's fierce pride and one had a volatile mix. The Chief
had to establish his authority over the man.
   "Get onto the Pelican," the Chief 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 himself.
   The Master Chief took a step closer to Locklear. "Was my or-
der unclear, Corporal?"
   Locklear swallowed. The blue fire in his eyes dulled and he
looked away. "No." His body slumped and he shouldered his rifle,
accepting, for now, the Master Chief's authority. "I'm on it,
Master Chief." He went to the hatch and dropped into the
Pelican.
   To say this team was mismatched for a high-risk insertion op
was an understatement.
   "So how do we get a Shaw-Fujikawa drive?" Polaski asked.
   "We don't," John replied. "But we go after the next best
thing." He moved to the ops consol and tapped the display. The
scan of the Covenant flagship appeared on the viewscreen. "This
is our objective."

52                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Haverson frowned. "Chief, if we approach that ship we'll be
blown out of the sky before we can even think about engaging
them."
   "Normally, yes," the Chief replied. "But we're going to rig
the Pelican as a fireship--we load it with Moray mines and
send it out ahead of us. We'll have to remote-pilot the Pelican,
but it can be accelerated past the point where a crew would
black out. It'll draw enemy fire, drop a few mines, and let us
slip by."
   Polaski's expression hardened into a frown.
   "There a problem, Warrant Officer?"
   "No, Master Chief. I just hate to lose a good ship. That bird
got us off Halo in one piece."
   He understood. Pilots got attached to their ships. They gave
them names and human personalities. The Chief, however, never
fell into that trap; he had long ago learned that any equipment
was expendable. Except, maybe, Cortana.
   "So we get 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 bit her lower lip, calculating--"technically pos-
sible in a Longsword."
   "They'll launch Seraph fighters to engage the Pelican and the
Longsword," the Chief said, "and to do that, they'll have to drop
that section of their shields. We get in, neutralize the crew, and
we have a ship with Slipspace capability."
   "Rock 'n' roll!" Locklear yelled over the COM. "Penetrate
and annihilate!"
   Sergeant Johnson chewed on his cigar as he considered the plan.
   "No one has ever captured a Covenant ship," Haverson whis-
pered. "The few times we've had one of them beaten and in a po-
sition to surrender, they've self-destructed."
   "There's no choice," the Chief said. He looked over Polaski,

                          ERIC NYLUND                            53
Johnson, and finally Haverson. "Unless anyone has a better
plan?"
   They were silent.
   "Anything to add, Cortana?" he asked.
   "Our exit orbit burn leaves us low on fuel and traveling at high
velocity on an intercept course with the flagship. There are over-
lapping fields of enemy fire on our approach vector. We have to
decelerate and dodge simultaneously. That will be tricky."
   "Polaski will be on that." The Chief turned to her.
   "Pilot a Longsword?" Polaski slowly nodded, and there was
a gleam in her green eyes that hadn't been there a second ago.
"It's been a while, but yes, Master Chief. I am one hundred and
ten percent on it." She moved to the pilot's seat and strapped her-
self in.
   "With all due respect to Miss Polaski's skill," Cortana said,
"allow me to point out that I process information a million times
faster and--"
   "I need you to link with the flagship's intraship battlenet," 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 detach and track any enemy ship on our
approach."
   Haverson nodded and settled into the ops station next to
Polaski.
   Two crates and a duffel pushed through the open access tunnel
to the Pelican. Locklear emerged from the opening and sealed
the hatch. "That's it, Chief," he said. "An HE Pistol, two extra
MA5Bs, one M90 Close Assault Shotgun, and a crate or so of
frag grenades. About a dozen clips for the rifles--only a few
shells for the shotgun, though."
   The Chief took four grenades and a half dozen clips for his as-
sault rifle. He ejected his weapon's nearly spent magazine and
slapped a full one into place with a satisfying clack.
   The Sergeant grabbed ammo, an MA5B, and three grenades.

54                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Orbital exit burn in ten seconds," Polaski said.
   "Dog the rest of that," the Chief told Locklear. "And brace
yourself."
   Locklear secured the collection of weapons and ordnance in a
duffel bag, looped it around his neck, and then found a hand-
hold. Sergeant Johnson leaned against the cryopods. The Master
Chief grabbed the bulkhead.
   "Releasing Pelican," Polaski said. There was a thump from
beneath the hull. "Pelican away."
   "Pelican autopilot programmed," Cortana said.
   "Moray mines attached and armed," Haverson added.
   Polaski said, "Exit burn in three... two... one. Burn!"
   The Longsword's engine roared to life, the hull creaked with
stress, and everyone leaned against the acceleration.
   The Pelican pulled ahead, rounded the horizon of the moon
first, and arced back into the debris field. As the Longsword fol-
lowed, the light struck the surface of the moon just right 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 on them turning
straight toward it. If they hadn't, the flagship would have been in a
perfect perpendicular firing position.
   "Pelican now two hundred kilometers in the lead," Polaski
said.
   The bulky craft drew fire from the cruisers. Smoke trailed
from its hull, and bits of the empty ship were vaporized.
   "Mines away," Haverson announced. "Plugging coordinates
and trajectories into NAV, Polaski. Don't run them over."
   "Roger," she said. "Hang on--we're going in."
   "I hate this crap," Locklear muttered. "Ships shooting each
other, fire so thick you could walk on it to the LZ, and me sittin'
here not able to do a damn thing but hang on and wonder when
I'm going to get blown up."

                          ERIC NYLUND                            55
    The Chief said nothing, but he agreed. Despite the ODST's
 foul disposition, he shared his uneasiness with space combat.
    "Amen," Sergeant Johnson added. "Now shut up and let the
lady drive." He removed a mission record unit from his pocket
and inserted a chip. The screen blanked; a rhythmic cacophony
blasted from its single tiny speaker.
    The Chief recognized the sound as "flip" music--a descen-
dant of some centuries-old noise called "metal." The Sarge had
peculiar tastes, to say the least.
    "Just shoot me now, Sarge," Locklear protested, "and get it
 over with. Don't torture me with that crap first."
    "Suck it up, Marine. This is a classic."
    "So's a mercy killing."
    Polaski continued to evade, and the Longsword rolled and
jinked port and starboard. She sent the ship into a double barrel
roll'to dodge a plasma torpedo fired from the flagship.
    "Show-off," Cortana muttered in the Chief's helmet speaker.
    "Connecting to the Covenant 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 toward the flagship.
    The sudden acceleration sent the Chief and Sergeant Johnson
bouncing to the aft of the Longsword. Locklear still hung on to
the frame, now nearly horizontal.
    "There is now insufficient distance to decelerate and make a
 soft landing inside the flagship launch bay," Cortana warned.
    "Really?" Polaski replied, irritated. "No wonder they call you
 'smart' AIs." She tugged her cap lower over her eyes. "I'll do the
 flying. You concentrate on getting those weapons offline."
    "They're launching fighters," Haverson warned. On the
viewscreen the Covenant flagship now filled half the display,
and six Seraph fighters emerged from the belly of the massive
ship. "I've still got active signals from twenty of the Moray mines.

56                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Their momentum is carrying them within range. Tracking . ..
locked on . . . maneuvering." Tiny puffs of fire overlapped the
teardrop-shaped Seraph fighters as they exploded. Haverson
laughed. "Bull's-eye!"
    "Forward weapons systems and shields are disabled,"
Cor-tana said.
    "The doors are open," Polaski murmured. "We're invited in.
It'd be damn impolite to say no."
    The flagship filled the display.
    "Collision imminent," Cortana warned.
    Sergeant Johnson got to his feet. The Chief knew better and
stayed where he was on the deck. He grabbed on to the Ser-
geant's leg.
    Polaski cut the engines and hit the maneuvering thrusters. The
Longsword spun 180 degrees. With the ship now pointed back-
ward, she pushed the throttle to maximum, and the engines thun-
dered in full overload. The hull strained against the sudden
reverse deceleration.
    The Chief hung on to the 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 enough.
   They entered the launch bay at three hundred meters per sec-
ond. Flames from the Longsword's engines washed over Grunt
technicians as they vainly attempted to scramble out of the way.
Their methane-filled atmosphere tanks popped like firecrackers.
   Polaski cut the power. The ship slammed into the wall.
    The Master Chief, Sergeant Johnson, and Locklear crashed
into the pilot's and ops seats in a heap.
   Grunts approached the ship with plasma pistols drawn, the
weapons glowing green as the aliens overcharged them. Cove-
nant Engineers struggled to put out fires and repair burst conduits.
   "Shield reenergizing in place over the launch bay," Cortana

                        ERIC NYLUND                          57
announced. "External atmosphere stabilizing. Please feel free to
get 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."

CHAPTER SEVEN

1750 hours, September 22,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Aboard
unidentified Covenant flagship, uncharted system, Halo debris
field.
   Plasma bolts impacted on the Longsword's hull and splashed
across the windshield. The packets of glowing energy sizzled
across the cockpit and etched cloudy, molten trails into the glass.
   A legion of Grunts hunkered behind docked Seraph fighters
and fuel pods. Some darted in and out of cover and fired ghostly
green blobs of plasma at the Longsword.
   "I got 'em," Polaski said and flipped a switch.
   The Longsword's landing gear deployed and raised the craft a
meter off the floor. "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 of Grunts
and Covenant Engineers littered the launch bay.
   "Fire suppression system activating," Cortana said.
   Jets of gray mist blew down from above. The fires intensified
for a moment, then guttered and went out.
   "Is there atmosphere in the bay?" the Chief asked.
   "Scanning," Cortana replied. "Traces of ash, some contami-
nation from the melted ship hulls, and a lot of smoke, but the air
in the bay is breathable, Chief."

                          ERIC NYLUND                             59
   "Good." He turned to the others. "We're going in. I'll lead.
Locklear, you're up with me. Sergeant, you've got the rear."
   "You'll need to take me, too," Cortana said. "I've pulled a
schematic of this ship to navigate, but the engineering controls
have been manually locked down. I'll need direct access to this
ship's command data systems."
   The Chief hesitated. His armor allowed an AI like Cortana to
tag along stored in a special crystal layer. On Halo, Cortana had
been an invaluable tactical asset.
   Still, she also used part of his armor's neural interface for pro-
cessing purposes, literally harnessing parts of the Chief's brain.
And after coming out of Halo's computer system, she'd been act-
ing. . . twitchy.
   He put his discomfort aside. If Cortana turned into a liability,
he'd pull the plug.
   "Stand by," he said. He punched a key on the computer termi-
nal and dumped Cortana to a data chip. A moment later the ter-
minal pulsed green.
   He removed the chip and slotted 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. A pair of Grunts who had crouched near the Longsword
to protect themselves from the fire flew backward onto the deck.
Phosphorescent blood pooled beneath their prone forms.
   The Chief dived through the open hatch and rolled to his feet;
his motion tracker picked up three targets to his side. He whirled
about and saw a trio of Covenant Engineers. He removed his fin-
ger from the weapon's trigger. Engineers were no threat.
   The odd, meter-high creatures hovered above the deck, using
bladders of some lighter-than-air gas produced by their bodies.
Their tentacles and feelers probed a tangle of fuel lines, quickly
repairing the pipes and pumps.
   "Funny that there's no welcoming committee yet," Cortana
whispered. "I looked over this ship's personnel roster: three

60                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
thousand Covenant, mostly Engineers. There's a light company
of Grunts, and only a hundred Elites."
   "Only a hundred?" the Chief muttered.
   He waved his team forward toward a heavy door at the back of
the launch bay. The air was full of smoke and fire-suppressing
mist, which reduced visibility to a dozen meters.
   The rattle of assault rifle fire echoed through the bay. The
Chief spun to his right and brought his own rifle to bear.
   Locklear stood over the twitching corpses of the Engineers.
He fired another burst into the fallen aliens.
   "Don't waste your ammunition, Corporal," the Sergeant said.
"They may be ugly, but they're harmless."
   "They're harmless now, Sarge," Locklear replied. He wiped a
spatter of alien blood from his cheek and smirked.
   The Chief tended to agree with Locklear's threat analysis of
the Covenant: When in doubt, kill. Still, he found the young Ma-
rine's actions unnecessary... and a little sloppy.
   The architecture of the Covenant 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 was a
waste of space.
   The Chief spotted a large door at the back of the bay.
   The door was a distorted hexagonal shape and large enough
that the entire team could enter at the same time--not that he'd
ever be foolish enough to take up such a formation in hostile ter-
ritory. The door had four sections that, when keyed to open,
would silently slide away from the center.
   "That will take us to the main corridor," Cortana said. "And
from there, to the bridge."
   The Chief waved Locklear to the right side of the door,
Sergeant Johnson to the left.
   "Lieutenant Haverson," he called out, "you're our rear guard.
Polaski, hit the door controls. Hand signals from now on."
   Haverson tossed an ironic salute to the Chief but tightened his
grip on his weapon and scanned the bay.

                          ERIC NYLUND                            61
   Polaski moved forward and crouched by the panel in the mid-
dle of the door. She turned her cap around and leaned closer,
then looked back to the Chief and gave him a thumbs-up.
   He raised his rifle and nodded, giving her the go-ahead to
breach the door.
   She reached for the controls. Before she touched them, though,
the door slid apart.
   Standing on the opposite side were five Elites: Two stood
shielded by either edge of the door; a third stood centered in the
corridor, plasma rifle leveled at the Chief; behind it, the fourth
Elite covered the rear of their formation; and one last Elite
crouched in front of the door control panel--nose to nose with
Polaski.
   The Chief fired two bursts directly over Polaski's head. His
first shots struck the Elite in the middle of the corridor. His sec-
ond burst hit the Elite standing rear guard. The alien warriors
hadn't activated their shields, and 7.62mm rounds punctured
their armor. The 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 bead
on the Elite in front of Polaski. It was no good--he had no
clear shot.
   The Elite drew a plasma pistol. Polaski drew her own sidearm.
   She was faster--or luckier. Her pistol cleared its holster; she
snapped it up and fired. The pistol boomed as a shot took the
Elite right in the center of its elongated helmet.
   The Elite's own shot went wide and seared into the deck be-
hind Polaski.
   Polaski emptied her clip into the alien's face. A pair of
rounds rocked the alien back. Its shields faded, and the remaining
rounds tore through armor and bone.
   It fell on its back, twitched twice, and died.
   Johnson and Locklear unleashed a hellish crossfire into the
corridor and made short work of the remaining Elites as Polaski
hugged the deckplates.

62                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Now that's what I'm talkin' about," Johnson crowed. "An
honest-to-God turkey shoot."
   Ten meters down the passage a dozen more Elites rounded a
corner.
   "Uh-oh," Locklear muttered.
   "Sergeant," the Chief barked. "Door control!" John moved to
Polaski's position in two quick strides, grabbed her by her collar,
and dragged her out of the line of fire. Plasma bolts singed the air
where she'd been.
   He dropped her, primed a grenade, and tossed it toward the
rushing Elites.
   The Sergeant fired his assault rife at the door controls; they
exploded in a shower of sparks, and the doors slammed shut.
   A dull thump echoed behind the thick metal, then an eerie si-
lence descended on the bay. Polaski struggled to her feet and fed
a fresh clip into her pistol. Her hands shook.
   "Cortana," the Chief said. "We need an alternate route to the
bridge."
   A blue arrow flashed on his heads-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 door, but abandoned that idea. Smoke and
sparks poured from the door seams as the Covenant forces on the
other side tried to burn their way through.
   The Chief clicked on his low-light vision filters, and the dark-
ness washed away into a grainy flood of fluorescent green. No
contacts.
   He paused to let his shields recharge, then dropped into a low
crouch. He brought his rifle to bear and crept into die corridor.
   The interior of the passage narrowed, and its smooth purple
surface darkened. The Chief had to turn sideways to pass through.
   "This looks like a service corridor for their Engineers," Cor-
tana said. "Their Elite warriors will have a tough time following
us."

                         ERIC NYLUND                           63
   The Chief grunted an acknowledgment as he eased his way
through. There was a scraping sound and a flash of sparks as his
energy shield brushed the wall. It was too tight a fit. He powered
down the shields, which left him just enough room to squeeze
through.
   Locklear followed behind him, then Polaski, the Sergeant,
and finally Haverson.
   The Chief pointed at Haverson, then at the door. The Lieu-
tenant frowned, then nodded. Haverson closed the hatch and
ripped out the circuitry for the control mechanism.
   There had been dozens of Engineers in the launch bay--
and there were enough on the ship to merit their own access tunnel.
The Chief hadn't seen anything like this on the Truth and
Reconciliation.
   In fact, he hadn't seen a single Engineer on that ship. What
made this ship different? It was armed like a ship of war... yet
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 Covenant
Engineers. I'm picking up handshake signals in shortwave and
infrared from it. Remove me and slot me in."
   "Are you sure?"
   "I can't do much good in there with you. Once I'm directly in
contact with the ship's battlenet, however, I can infiltrate and
take over their systems. You'll still need to get to the bridge and
manually give me access to their engineering systems. In the
meantime, I may be able to control secondary systems and buy
you some time."
   "If you're sure."
   "When have I not been sure?" she snapped.
   The Chief could sense her impatience through the neural
interface.
   He removed Cortana's data chip from the socket in his helmet.

64                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
The Chief felt her leave his mind, felt the heat rush back into his
head, pulsing with the rhythm of his heart... and once again, he
was alone in the armor.
   He slotted Cortana's chip into the Covenant data port.
   Locklear's face rippled with disgust, and he whispered, "You
couldn't pay me to stick any part of myself in that thing."
   The Chief made a slashing gesture across his throat, and the
Marine fell silent.
   "I'm in," Cortana said.
   "How is it?" the Chief said.
   There was a half-second pause. "It's ... different," Cortana
replied. "Proceed thirty meters down this passage and turn left."
   The Chief motioned the team forward.
   "It's very different," Cortana murmured.

   Cortana was built for software intrusion. She had been pro-
grammed with every dirty trick and code-breaking algorithm the
Office of Naval Intelligence, Section Three had ever created, and
a few more tricks she'd developed 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 had
needed to get inside the launch bay.
   "How is it?" the Chief asked.
   Now the element of surprise was gone, and the system's
counterintrusion systems were running on high alert. Something
else prowled the systems now. Delicate pings bounced off the
edges of Cortana's presence; they probed, and withdrew.
   It felt as if there were someone else running through their sys-
tem. A Covenant AI? There had never been any reports of alien
AIs. The possibility intrigued her.
   "It's.. . different," she finally answered.
   She scanned the ship's schematics, deck by deck, then flashed
through the vessel's three thousand surveillance systems. She
picked out the quickest route to the bridge from their current

                          ERIC NYLUND                           65
position and stored it in a stolen tertiary system buffer. She
multitasked a portion of herself and continued to analyze the
ship's structure and subsystems.
   "Proceed thirty meters down this passage and turn left."
   Cortana hijacked the external ship cameras and detected
the six Covenant cruisers. They had stalled their pursuit of the
Longsword and now hovered a hundred kilometers off the flag-
ship's starboard side. The strange U-shaped Covenant dropships
launched from the cruisers and swarmed toward the flagship.
That was trouble.
   Within the flagship she spotted a dozen hunt-and-kill Elite
teams sweeping the corridors. She scrambled the ship's tracking
systems, generated electronic ghosts of the Chief and his team
along a path directed toward the nose of the ship, where UNSC
command-and-control centers were typically located. Maybe she
could fool the Elites into a wild goose chase.
   She uploaded the coordinates of those enemies into the
Chief's HUD.
   A tickle 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 volume of data from Halo's systems:
eons' worth of records on Halo's engineering and maintenance,
the xenobiology of the Flood, and every scrap of information
on the mysterious "Forerunners" the Covenant revered so much.
The information would take her a week of nonstop processing to
examine, collate, codify. . . let alone understand.
   Even compressed, all the data filled her and cut into optical
subsystems that she usually reserved for her processing. She had
a nagging suspicion that the file compression had been too
hasty--and that the Halo data might be corrupted.
   In effect, the vast amount of information she had copied
bloated her, made her slower and less effective.
   She hadn't mentioned this to the Chief. She could barely ad-
mit it to herself. Cortana was extremely proud of her intellect.

66                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
But to operate as if nothing were different would be even more
foolish.
    She sent a blocking countersignal along the connection where
this "other" was trying to contact her.
   The portion of her consciousness examining the ship's struc-
ture discovered that the bridge had another access point. Stupid.
She should have seen it immediately, but this other entrance had
been filed under the schematics as an emergency system. It was a
tiny corridor that connected to a set of escape pods. That route
shared a vent with an engineering passage.
   "Chief, there's another way to the bridge."
   "Affirmative. Wait one." There was a burst of gunfire on the
COM, then silence. "Go ahead, Cortana."
   "Uploading the route now," she said. "I do not believe you can
fit through this new passage in your armor. I suggest you split
your team and proceed along both routes to maximize your
chances of egress onto the bridge."
    "Understood," the Chief said. "Polaski and Haverson with me.
Johnson 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 one," and those messages had what
she considered amusing attempts at encryption to keep them se-
cret. Curious, she had to investigate what the Covenant thought
important enough to hide.
   As she decrypted those messages and others cross-referenced
and filed in their COM archives, she detected an energy spike on
the flagship's lateral sensors. One cruiser off to starboard moved
farther away; it turned, its engines glowed, the black around it
rippled electric blue. The Covenant ship sped forward, tore the
night, and vanished into Slipspace.
    Cortana noted their departure vector for future reference. . . a
possible clue at the location of their home world.
    It was puzzling that the Covenant would call for help. Their
warriors were intensely proud; they almost never ran from a

                         ERIC NYLUND                           67
fight. They didn't ask for help... not for themselves. Then again,
this ship, although armed for war, didn't appear to be staffed
for combat. It carried only a few hundred Elites and an army of
Engineers.
   As Cortana pondered this, she continued to generate a
counter-signal to match to the probe sent by the other presence
in the system. She hoped to cloak her activity as long as
possible. The other's signal morphed into a series of Bessel
functions, and she compensated to match.
   She automated this process, commandeering a portion of the
Covenant's own NAV computer to do so, and then she herded
the electronic ghosts of the Chief and the others to confuse the
pursuing Elite forces.
   At the same time, she continued her study of the Covenant
ship and its systems--it was a unique opportunity. The informa-
tion on their advanced Slipspace drive, their weapons--it could
leapfrog human technology decades forward.
   "Cortana?" The Chief's voice broke her 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 human communications and protocol rou-
tines and said, "Access panel to your right, Chief. Down three
meters, straight ahead five meters, turn to your left and then up
again."
   She heard an explosion. "Got it," the Chief said.
   Cortana had to focus on protecting the Chief. She halted her
other searches and scrutinized the ship's schematics. There had
to be something she could use. A weapon. A way to stop
then-enemies--there: the backup terminus for their atmospheric
preprocessors. Unlike the other systems, this one was classified
as low priority and had minimal security layers.
   She generated several hundred thousand Covenant codes in a
microsecond and cracked the system. She diverted the air vents
along the corridors the Chief and his team occupied to the pri-

68                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
mary air systems. She then tasked the processor pumps to ser-
vice the rest of the ship and activated them--in reverse.
   Warnings flashed throughout the Covenant system as the
pressure suddenly dropped in 87 percent of the ship's passages.
She squelched them.
   The other presence in the system tried to shut the pumps off.
She blocked that signal and assigned a new code to the security
systems: "WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU."
   She heard the other AI scream, an echo of an echo that rever-
berated through her processors. She knew trie sound--familiar
like a human voice, but terribly distorted.
   She scanned through the ship's cameras and saw Grunts squeal
and fall over, methane leaking from their breathers as the pres-
sure dropped. Engineers turned blue, slowed, and died, floating in
place with tentacles twitching, still searching for something to
fix. The Elite hunt-and-destroy parties halted in the corridors
and clutched their throats, 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
considerations.
   "Chief," she whispered over the COM. "Be advised that the
passages I'm uploading into your NAV system no longer contain
atmosphere. Proceeding into those regions will be lethal to the
rest of your team."
   There was a three-second pause, and then the Chief replied,
"Understood."
   Cortana's decryption of the Covenant communiques referenc-
ing the "holy one" finally cycled to a halt. The language in them
was unusually ornate--even more so than the florid prose of
the higher-ranking Elites. It was impossible to develop a literal
translation, but she gleaned that some dignitary was due at the
Halo construct. Soon.
   This visitor was so important that these warships were only
the advance scouting party. More ships were on their way. Hun-
dreds of them.

                          ERIC NYLUND                            69
   "Chief," Cortana said. "We may have a prob--"
   "Hold transmission, Cortana," the Chief interrupted. "We're
outside the command center. Can you tell how many are inside?"
   "Negative. They have disabled the bridge sensors," she replied.
   "You heard Cortana," the Chief said, addressing his com-
panions. "Expect anything. Sergeant, you and Locklear: Get in
position."
   "Roger that," Sergeant Johnson whispered. "In position and
ready to kick Covenant ass."
   "We're about to blow the door on this end, Cortana. Stand by."
   Cortana picked up energy surges on the flagship's lateral sen-
sors. The Covenant cruisers turned; their plasma weapons
warmed and readied to fire.
   "Chief," Cortana said. "Hurry!"
   "Plasma grenades on my mark," the Chief said on the COM.
"Mark! Toss them and take cover."

   The Chief tossed two plasma grenades. They burned
magnesium-brilliant and adhered to the heavy alloy of the bulk-
head doors that 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 plasma grenades detonated, they
disrupted electronics and shielding. The Chief dug his gauntleted
fingers into the door crack--hoping that the disruption had
knocked out the motors and shielding keeping these doors closed.
   He braced himself and tried to pull the doors apart at the
seams. They slid a few centimeters, then ground to a halt. The
Chief adjusted his footing and strained at them again, but the doors
remained frozen in place.
   The Chief's motion sensors pulsed a warning--there was
movement directly on the other side of the door.
   He shoved the muzzle of his assault rifle into the narrow open-
ing and squeezed the trigger. Spent shell casings clattered to the
floor.

70                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   A howl echoed from the other side, and a curl of gray smoke
drifted through the crack.
   The Chief slung his rifle, grabbed the doors, flexed, pulled--
and this time the heavy metal moved.
   A flash of plasma fire washed over his shields, blinding him.
He ignored it, closed his eyes, and continued to force his way
through the door. Another plasma shot struck him in the chest.
   The doors were half a meter apart--good enough.
   He rolled to the side and gave his shields a moment to
regenerate.
   Nothing. The suit's alarms pulsed insistently. He squinted
through the glowing spots that swam in his vision and scanned
the damage report--the MJOLNIR's internal temperature was
over sixty degrees Celsius, and the Chief heard the whine of
microcompressors in his armor, trying to compensate.
   "Marines!" he yelled. "Suppressing fire!"
   "Hell yes, Master Chief," Locklear replied. 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
tried to hold the doors closed.
   The Chief scanned the room. It was circular, twenty meters
across, with a raised platform in the center that was ten meters
across and ringed with holographic control surfaces. The central
platform floated over a pit in the floor. Within the pit were ex-
ploded optical conduits and a trio of Covenant Engineers, cow-
ering in fear.
   "Don't shoot the Engineers," Cortana warned. "We need them."
   "Understood," the Chief replied. "Acknowledge that order,
Locklear."
   There was a pause over COM and then Locklear said,
"Roger."
   Along the circular walls, floor-to-ceiling displays showed the
flagship's status as a variety of charts and graphs, peppered with

                          ERIC NYLUND                           71
the odd calligraphy of the Covenant. They also showed the space
surrounding them, and the five remaining Covenant cruisers
closing in.
    The Chief caught a motion in his peripheral vision: An Elite in
jet-black armor materialized from the wall display, its
light-bending camouflage dissolving. It strode toward the Chief,
roaring a challenge.
    The Chief's rifle snapped up, and he squeezed the trigger.
Three rounds spat from the muzzle, then the bolt locked open.
The ammo counter read oo--empty.
    The shots flared on the Elite's shielding; a lucky round pene-
trated and deformed its shoulder. Purple-black blood spattered
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 crouched in a low
fighting stance. Even with the shield malfunction, he was confi-
dent he could take a single Elite.
   The Elite removed its helmet and dropped it. The plasma pistol
clattered to the deck a moment later. It leaned forward, and its
mandibles parted in what the Chief guessed had to be a smile. It
moved closer, and a blue-white blade of energy flashed to life in
its hands.
   The Elite raised the energy blade and charged.

CHAPTER EIGHT

1802 hours, September 22,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Aboard
unidentified Covenant flagship, uncharted system, Halo debris
field.
   The Master Chief ducked as the hissing energy blade slashed
at him. He dived toward the Elite and slammed the butt of his rifle
into the alien's midsection.
   The Elite doubled over, and the Chief brought the rifle butt
down to smash the alien's skull--
   But the Elite rolled back. There was a blur of motion as the en-
ergy blade lashed out and neatly bisected the assault rifle. The
two halves of the wrecked MA5B clattered to the deck.
   The blade of crackling white-hot energy narrowly 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 most of his strength, and he had to weaken his grasp on
the Elite's other hand.
   The energy blade blurred perilously close to the Chief's head.
It missed by a fraction of a centimeter and sent a wash of static
across his heads-up display.
   The blade was a flattened triangle of white-hot plasma, con-
tained in an electromagnetic envelope that emanated from its
hilt. The Chief had seen such weapons slice battle-armored

                          ERIC NYLUND                             73
ODSTs in half and gouge gaping wounds in Titanium-A armor
plating.
   Worse, this Elite was tough, cunning, well trained--and it
hadn't spent days fighting nonstop on Halo. The Chief felt every
wound, pulled muscle, and strained tendon in his body.
   Haverson and Polaski moved onto the bridge, their pistols
drawn, but neither of them had a clear line of fire.
   "Move, Chief!" Haverson shouted. "Damn it, we've got no shot!"
   Easier said than done. If he let go, the Elite would cut him in
two.
   The Master Chief grunted, struggling to turn the Elite.
   The alien fought back for a moment, then--instead of
resisting--lurched back, right into the path of the Chief's ad-
vancing teammates.
   The Elite flicked the angle of its blade flat so the arc of energy
whipped toward Haverson and Polaski.
   Haverson screamed and fell to the ground as the energy blade
sliced through his pistol and across his chest. Polaski cursed and
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
porcelain beneath the force of the blow.
   The alien staggered back, dragging the Master Chief with it. It
coughed up purple-black blood that smeared John's visor, ob-
scuring his vision. Its foot struck something on the ground--the
alien's fallen helmet--and it lost its footing.
   Together they crashed to the ground.
   The Master Chief kept his grip on the Elite's sword arm.
The alien's other hand, however, wrenched free and grabbed the
fallen plasma pistol. The weapon's muzzle charged with sickly
green energy.
   The Chief rolled to his right as the pistol discharged. A globe
of plasma arced across the compartment and splashed over the
displays behind him.
   The instruments flickered, then flashed and sparked as the en-

74                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
ergy bolt melted their systems. Before the displays went dark,
however, the Master Chief saw one of the Covenant cruisers
open fire. A lance of plasma rushed through space toward the
flagship.
   The Chief and the Elite struggled, rising to their feet. The Chief
batted the plasma pistol aside, and it clattered across the control
center.
   The Elite's mouth opened, and it snapped at the Chief. It was
angry or panicking now... and he felt it getting stronger.
   His grasp on the alien loosened.
   There was motion behind the Elite; Sergeant Johnson and
Locklear still struggled to get their hatch open more than a crack.
   "Sergeant--prepare to fire."
   "Ready, Master Chief." the Sergeant cried from the other side
of the hatch.
   The Chief tightened his grip on the Elite's sword arm, shoved his
forearm into the alien's throat and drove it backward, across the
bridge. He slammed the creature into the partially opened hatch.
   The energy 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. Hydrostatic gel oozed
from the wound... mixed with the Chief's blood.
   "Keep. Shooting."
   A bullet hole appeared through the Elite's broken chestplate--
bits of shattered armor and torn flesh spattered over the Chief.
   The Master Chief slammed the Elite into the bulkhead, and a
control panel behind the alien sparked. The door to the escape
corridor hissed open, and the creature reeled back.
   The alien was off balance, and the Chief finally had leverage.
He bulled the Elite backward and hammered its arm into the
wall. The alien metal rang like a gong, and the Elite dropped its
energy sword. The blade guttered and went dark as its fail-safes
permanently disabled the weapon.
   The Chief forced the alien back, step by step. The deck was

                          ERIC NYLUND                             75
slippery with blood. Finally he twisted the Elite to the right and
launched a powerful open-handed strike into the alien's wounded
chest.
   The Elite howled in pain and flew back, through the open
hatch of an escape pod.
   "Get off this ship," the Chief said. He hit a control stud and the
hatch slammed shut. There was a sharp, metallic bang as the
locking clamps released. The pod screamed away from the hull.
   The Chief exhaled. Sweat dripped in his eyes, momentarily
blurring his vision.
   "Good work, Sergeant, Locklear," he panted. His shoulder
burned. He tried to move it, but it was stiff and wouldn't respond.
   The ship lurched.
   "Plasma impact on the starboard foredeck!" Cortana called
out. "Shields down to sixty-seven percent." She paused and then
added, "Amazing radiative properties. Chief, you need to disable
the navigation override so I can maneuver."
   Haverson and Polaski strode toward the Chief. Haverson
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 bridge. "Polaski,
you and Haverson get that other hatch open."
   "Aye aye," Polaski muttered, her voice tight. She and Haver-
son went to the hatch and got to work.
   The Master Chief glanced at the control surfaces. As his hand
hovered over them, the flat controls rose and became a
three-dimensional web of the distinctive Covenant calligraphy.
"Where?" he asked.
   "Move your hand to the right half a meter," Cortana said. "Up
twenty centimeters. That control. No, to the left." She sighed.
"That one. Tap it three times."
   Faint lights traced the surface as the Chief touched it; they
flared red and orange and finally cooled to brilliant blue.
   "It worked," Cortana said. "NAV controls coming online. I
can finally move this crate. Hang on."

76                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   The ship spun to port. On the displays that still functioned,
four more Covenant cruisers tracked them--and fired.
   The flagship accelerated, but the plasma torpedoes arced and
followed them. "No good," Cortana said. "I can't overcome our
inertia in this tub. They're going to hit us . . . unless I can get us
into Slipspace."
   A rhythmic warble pulsed from one of the displays. It
flashed red.
   "Oh no," Cortana said.
   The leading plasma torpedo impacted. Dull red fire smeared
across the viewscreens.
   "Oh no, what?" Haverson demanded.
   "This ship's Slipspace generator is inert," Cortana replied.
"The disabled NAV controls were a trick. It must have been the
Covenant AI; it lured me here while the drive was physically de-
coupled from the reactor. I can maneuver all I want, give orders to
the Slipspace 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 layers of armor plating away. The ship rolled as
plumes of superheated metal vapor outgassed.
   "Another hit like that will breach the hull," Cortana said.
"Moving this tub at flank speed."
   "The power coupling coordinates, Cortana," the Master Chief
insisted.
   A route appeared on his heads-up display. The engineering
rooms were twenty decks below the bridge.
   "Those won't do you any good," Cortana told him. "There
are bound to be Elite hunt-and-kill teams waiting for you. And
even if you managed to remove them, there is no way to repair
the power coupling in time. We don't have the tools or the
expertise."

                          ERIC NYLUND                           77
   The Master Chief looked around the bridge. There had to be a
way. There was always a way--
   He leaned over the edge of the central platform and grabbed
one of the Covenant Engineers that cowered below. He dragged it
up by its float-sack. The creature squirmed and squealed.
   "Maybe we don't have the expertise," he said and shook the
Engineer. "But this thing does. Can you communicate with it?
Tell it what we need?"
   There was a pause. Then Cortana replied, "There is an exten-
sive communications suite in the Covenant lexic--"
   "Just tell it I'm taking it to fix something."
   "All right, Chief," Cortana said.
   A stream of high-pitched chirps emanated from the bridge
speakers, and the Engineer's six eyes dilated. It stopped squirm-
ing and grabbed hold of the Master Chief with its tentacles.
   "It says 'good' and 'hurry,' " Cortana told him.
   "Everyone else stay 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, and stood at arms. "Those Covenant
sissies are going to have to tango with me before they set one
foot in this room."
   On the display two of the Covenant cruisers fired again.
   The Chief watched as the plasma raced toward them, fire that
spread across the black of space. "Cortana, buy me some time,"
he said.
   "I'll do what I can, Chief," Cortana told him. "But you'd better
move fast. I'm running out of options."

   Cortana was annoyed. She had let the Covenant AI--for that's
what this other presence in the system undoubtedly had to be--
trick her. She had gone straight for the simple lockdown of the
NAV systems. She never performed a thorough systems check

78                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
of the ship, assuming that there had only been one point of sabo-
tage. It was a mistake she would never have made if she'd been
operating at full capacity.
   She checked every system of the flagship. She then locked
them out with her own security measures.
   Cortana turned off her feelings of anger and guilt and concen-
trated on keeping the ship in one piece, and the Master Chief
alive. No. . . she reconsidered and kept her emotions active. The
"intuition" provided by this aspect of her intelligence template
was too valuable to deactivate in a battle.
   She maneuvered the flagship toward the gas giant, Threshold.
The incoming plasma might be disrupted by the planet's mag-
netic field--if she dared get close enough.
   Cortana diverted power from the foreshield to the aft por-
tions, distorting the protective bubble around the flagship. She
turned all seven plasma turrets aft and fired a pair of plasma 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 lens. Something wasn't right, however--
something had already been in this directory and had erased the
software.
   Cortana swore that when she caught this guerrilla Covenant
AI, she'd erase it line by line.
   Without understanding how the guiding magnetic fields
worked, the plasma turrets were no more useful than a fireworks
display.
   The enemy Covenant plasma charges, however, were tight
and burned like miniature suns; they overtook the flagship and
splashed over its reinforced aft shields. They boiled against the
silver energy until the shields dulled and winked out.
   The plasma etched a portion of the aft hull away like hot water
dissolving salt. Cortana sensed the dull thumps of atmospheric
decompressions.

                         ERIC NYLUND                           79
   She checked on the Chief. His signal was still on board, and
his biomonitor indicated that he was still alive.
   "Chief, are you there yet? I'm down to one last option."
   There was a static-filled pause over the COM, and then the
Master Chief whispered, "Almost."
   "Be careful. Your armor is breached. You can no longer func-
tion in a compromised atmosphere."
   His acknowledgment light winked on.
   Cortana pushed the Covenant reactors to overload and plotted
a course around Threshold. She had to slip into the outer reaches
of its atmosphere. The heat, ionization, and planet's magnetic
field might protect them from the plasma.
   The flagship rolled and dived into the thin tendrils of clouds.
Bands of white ammonia and amber ammonium hydrosulfide
clouds snaked in sinuous ribbons. A red-purple spot of phospho-
rus compounds cycloned and lightning arced, illuminating an in-
tervening layer of pale blue ice crystals.
   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 amount of lift. She concentrated the
building heat toward the ship's tail. A turbulent wake of super-
heated air corkscrewed behind them.
   "Cortana?" Polaski said. "We're approaching the viable edge
of an exit orbit. You're getting too close to the planet."
   "I am aware of our trajectory, Warrant Officer," she said and
snapped off the COM. The last thing she needed was a flying
lesson.
   The leading edge of the plasma overtook them. It roiled in
their wake, churned explosively with the atmosphere. The flag-
ship pitched and dropped in the unstable air, but the plasma dif-
fused and caused them no further damage. Behind the flagship
was an unfurling trail hundreds of kilometers long, a wide flam-
ing gash upon Threshold.

80                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Cortana experienced a moment of triumph--then squelched it.
   There was a new problem: The concussion from that blast had
altered their flight path. The heat and overpressure wave had
thinned the atmosphere ... just enough to cause the flagship to
drop seven hundred meters. Wisps of ice crystals washed over
the prow.
   They were too deep now. They didn't have enough power to
break orbit. They would spiral into the atmosphere, and would
ultimately be crushed by the titanic gravitational forces of
Threshold.

   The Chief spun in midair and planted his feet on the "ground."
The gravity had been disabled in this elevator shaft. That had
made traversing the many intervening decks easy . . . as long as
he'd been willing to jump and trust that the power in this part of
the ship wouldn't be restored.
   The Engineer clutching his shoulder tapped the tiny control
panel on the wall. The doors at the bottom of the shaft sighed 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. The ambient lights in the hallway and room
were off. Along the far wall of the room, however, the
ten-meter-high reactor coils pulsed with blue-white lightning
and threw hard shadows onto the walls.
   The Master Chief adjusted his low-light filters to screen out
the glow from the reactor. He made out the silhouettes of crates
and other machinery. He also saw one of those shadows on the
wall move ... with the distinct slouching waddle of a Covenant
Grunt. Then the motion was gone.
   An ambush. Of course.
   He paused, listened, and heard the panting of at least half a
dozen Grunts, and then the high-pitched uneasy squeaks the
creatures emitted when they were excited.
   This came as a relief to the Master Chief. If there was an Elite

                          ERIC NYLUND                            81
here, it would have maintained better discipline and silenced the
Grunts.
   Still, the Master Chief hesitated. His shields were gone, his
armor breached. He had been fighting almost nonstop for what
felt like years. He was forced to admit that he was at the limits of
his endurance.
   A good soldier always assessed the tactical situation--and
right now, his situation was serious. A single lucky plasma shot
could inflict third-degree burns along his arm and shoulder and
incapacitate him, which would give the Grunts an opportunity to
finish him off.
   The Chief flexed his wounded shoulder, and pain lanced
across his chest. He banished his discomfort and concentrated
on how to win this fight.
   It was ironic that after facing the best warriors in the Cove-
nant, and after defeating the Flood, he could be killed by a handful
of Grunts.
   "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 containment vessel.
   That left stealth--and outwitting the Grunts.
   Maybe he'd use his grenades after all. The Master Chief set a
plasma grenade in the center of the elevator shaft. He took his re-
maining two frag grenades and set them aside as well. He felt
along the elevator shaft walls and found what he needed--a
length of hair-fine optical cord. He pulled out a three-meter
length.
   The Engineer gave a huff of irritation at this destruction.
   The Master Chief threaded the line though the rings of his
frag grenades and tied each end at anchor points ten centime-
ters off the floor. He wedged the grenades into the slot of the
open door.

82                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   The trap was set; all he needed now was bait.
   He set a plasma grenade on the far wall of the shaft and trig-
gered it.
   He pushed into the corridor, fast. Four seconds to go. The
gravity, still active in this portion of the ship, pulled him to the
deck. He melted into the shadows and sprinted along the wall
two meters farther in, and halted along the inside of the first sup-
port brace. Three seconds.
   One Grunt emitted a startled cry and a plasma shot sizzled
down the center of the hallway.
   Two seconds.
   The Master Chief pried the Engineer off his shoulder and
pressed the creature firmly into the join where the brace meet
the wall.
   One second.
   The Engineer squirmed for a moment, then stilled, perhaps
sensing what was about to happen.
   The plasma grenade 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
passage toward the elevator.
   Four more Grunts followed, and they passed the Master Chief,
oblivious that he hid behind the wall brace less than a half-meter
from them.
   They approached the elevator, sniffed, and entered.
   There was the gentle ping as the frag grenade rings pulled free
of the trip wire.
   The Master Chief covered the Engineer.
   One of the Grunts squealed, high and panicky. They all turned
and ran.
   Twin blasts of thunder enveloped the elevator shaft. Bits of
meat and metal spattered along the corridor.
   A needier skidded to a halt a meter away. It was cracked, its

                          ERIC NYLUND                            83
energy coil dim. The Master Chief grabbed it--ducked as an-
other plasma bolt singed over his head. He withdrew to the cover
of the bracing support. He tried to activate the weapon. No luck.
It was dead.
   The Engineer snaked a tentacle around the weapon and
tugged it away from John's grasp. It cracked the case and peeled
the housing open. The tip of one of its tentacles split into a hun-
dred needle-fine cilia and swept over the inner workings. A mo-
ment later it reassembled the weapon and handed it, grip first, to
the Master Chief.
   The needier hummed with energy, and the glassine quills the
weapon fired glowed a cool purple.
   "Thanks," he whispered.
   The Engineer chirped.
   The Master Chief edged around the brace. He waited, needier
held tightly in his hand, and became completely still. He had all
the time in the world, he told himself. No need to 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 ex-
cept the gentle thrumming of the reactor.
   He moved down the corridor, weapon held before him as he
cleared the room. He was careful to watch for the faint rippling
of air that would alert him to the presence of camouflaged Elites.
Nothing.
   The Engineer floated behind him, and then accelerated toward
the disengaged power coupling. It hissed and chittered as it
rapidly manipulated a small square block of optical crystal, un-
scrambling the internal circuit pathways.
   "Cortana," he 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," Cortana told him.

CHAPTER NINE

1827 hours, September 22,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Aboard
unidentified Covenant flagship, uncharted system, Halo debris
field.
   The flagship plunged through Threshold's churning atmo-
sphere. Cortana could not hold the ship's attitude. It wobbled
and blasted a fiery scar through the clouds, slowly rolling to port
on its central axis.
   Without shields, the flagship's hull continued to heat to seven-
teen hundred degrees Celsius. The nose glowed a dark red,
which spread into an amber smear along the midsection and be-
came a white-hot plume at the ship's tail. Conduits and feathery
antenna arrays melted, separated, and left 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," Cortana told him. "We are now too low to
escape Threshold's gravitational pull. Even at full power we
can't break our degrading orbit. And we can't tunnel into
Slip-space, either."
   The incoming Covenant fire had forced them deeper into the
atmosphere. She had pushed their trajectory to the edge of what
had been safe--it was that, or be engulfed in plasma. But she
had saved them from one death ... only to delay that fate by a
scant minute.

                          ERIC NYLUND                           85
    She recomputed the numbers, thrust and velocity and gravita-
tional attractions. Even if she overloaded the reactors to
critical-meltdown levels, they were still stuck in an
ever-descending spiral. The numbers didn't lie.
   The Master Chief's Engineer must have repaired the power
coupling, because the Slipspace generator was functional again--
for all the good it did them.
   To enter Slipspace a ship had to be well away from strong
gravitational fields. Gravity distorted the superfine pattern of
quantum filaments through which Cortana had to compute a
path. Covenant Slipspace technology was demonstrably superior,
but she doubted that the enemy had ever attempted a Slipspace
entry this close to a planet.
   Cortana toyed with the idea of trying anyway--pulse the
Slip-space generators and maybe she'd get a lucky
quadrillion-to-one shot and locate the correct vector through the
tangle of gravity-warped 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 ripped a
hole in normal space by brute force. But the Covenant tech-
nology used a different approach. Sensors came online, and Cor-
tana could actually "see" the interlacing webs of quantum
filaments surround the flagship.
   "Amazing," she whispered.
   The Covenant could pick a path through the subatomic di-
mensions; a gentle push from their generators enlarged the fields
just enough to allow their ships to pass seamlessly into the alter-
nate space with minimal energy. Their resolution of the reality of
space-time was infinitely more powerful than human tech-
nology. It was as if she had been blind before, had never seen the
universe around her. It was beautiful.
   This explained how the Covenant could make jumps with

86                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
such accuracy. They could literally plot a course with an error no
larger than an atom's diameter.
   "Status, Cortana?" the Master Chief asked.
   "Stand by," she said, annoyed at the distraction.
   At this resolution Cortana could discern every ripple in space
caused by Threshold's gravity, the other planets in this solar sys-
tem, the sun, and even the warping of space caused by the mass
of this ship. Could she compensate for those distortions?
   Pressure sensors detected hull breaches on seventeen outer
decks. Cortana ignored them. She shut down all peripheral sys-
tems and concentrated on the task at hand. It was their only way
out of this mess: They'd get out by going through.
   She concentrated on interpolating the fluctuating space. She
generated mathematical algorithms to anticipate and smooth the
gravitational distortions.
   Energy surged from the reactors into the Slipspace generator
matrices. A path parted 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 the hull as the nose of the flagship departed
normal space.
   She eased the rest of the ship through, surrounded by whirling
storms and jagged spears of lightning.
   She pinged her sensors: The hull temperature dropped rapidly
and she registered a series of explosive decompressions on the
breached decks.
   Cortana emerged from her cocoon of concentration and im-
mediately sensed the electronic presence of the other near her,
monitoring her Slipspace calculations. It was practically on top
ofher.
   "Heresy!" it hissed and then withdrew... and vanished.
   Cortana pulsed a systems check along every circuit in the
ship, hoping to track the Covenant AI. No luck.
   "Sneaky little bastard," she broadcast throughout the system.
"Come back here."

                          ERIC NYLUND                            87
   Had it seen what she had done? Had it understood what she'd
just accomplished? And if so, why declare it a "heresy"?
   True, manipulating eighty-eight stochastic variables in
eleven-dimensional space-time was not child's play... but it was
possible that the other AI would be able to follow her calculations.
   Perhaps not. The Covenant were imitative, not innovative;
at least, that's what all the ONI intelligence gathered on the col-
lection of alien races had reported. She had thought this was
exaggeration, propaganda to bolster human morale.
   Now she wasn't so certain. Because if the Covenant had truly
understood the extent of their own magnificent technology,
they could have not only jumped into Slipspaceyrow a planet's
atmosphere--but jumped into a planet's atmosphere, too.
   They could have simply bypassed Reach's orbital defenses.
   The Covenant AI had called this heresy? Ludicrous.
   Maybe the humans could eventually 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 to tear through the engine room, or
for plasma to envelop him. He scanned the engine room for any
signs of Grunts or Elites, and then exhaled, and stared into the
face of death for the countless time.
   He had always been a hairsbreadth from death. John wasn't a
fatalist, merely a realist. He didn't welcome the end; he knew,
though, that he had done his best, fought and won so many times
for his team, the Navy, and the human race . . . it made moments
like this tolerable. They were, ironically, the most peaceful times
in his life.
   "Cortana, status please," he asked again.
   There was a pause over the COM, then Cortana spoke.
"We're safe. In Slipspace. Heading unknown." She sighed, and
her voice sounded tinged with weariness. "We're long gone

88                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
from Halo, Threshold, and that Covenant fleet. If this tin can
holds together a bit longer, I want to put some distance between
us and them."
   The Chief replied, "Good work, Cortana. Very good." He moved
toward the elevator. "Now we have a hard decision to make."
   He paused and turned back toward the Covenant Engineer.
The creature moved away from the repaired power coupling and
drifted to a scarred, half-melted panel that had been hit with
stray plasma fire. It huffed, removed the cover, and delved into
the tangle of optical cables.
   The Chief left it alone. It wasn't a threat to him or his team. In
fact, it and the others like it might be key to repairing this ship,
and their continued survival.
   He continued to the elevator shaft, stepping over the bodies of
the Grunts in the hallway. He nudged them with his foot to make
certain they were dead, and then retrieved two plasma pistols
and one of the needle launchers.
   He entered the elevator shaft, pushed off 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 crystal before its six eyes, and then
picked up an unblemished crystalline panel off the floor and in-
serted it into the wall.
   Polaski wiped her hands on her greasy coveralls and waved
him in.
   Thin, blue smoke still filled the bridge, but the Chief noted
that most of the display panels were once again active. Nearby,
Sergeant Johnson tended Haverson's wounds and Locklear stood
guard. The young Marine's eyes never left the Engineer, and his
finger hovered close to, though not quite on, his MA5B's trigger.
   The Engineer floated back, spun on its long axis, and looked
first at Polaski, then the Chief.
   A burst of static issued from the bridge speakers, and the
Covenant Engineer looked to them and then to Polaski. It tapped
the control, and the massive bridge doors slid shut.

                         ERIC NYLUND                           89
   The Engineer passed a tentacle over the controls. They flashed
blue, then dimmed.
   "It locks now," Polaski told them. "Ugly here knows his stuff."
   Three ultrasonic whistles filled the air. The Covenant Engi-
neer who had just repaired the bridge door snapped to attention,
and its eyes peered intently forward. It chirped a response and
then floated toward the Master Chief, trying to maneuver behind
him.
   "What's it doing?" the Master Chief asked, turning to face the
creature.
   The Engineer huffed in annoyance and tried again to move
around him.
   The Master Chief didn't let it. While John had seen no hostil-
ity from the creatures, they were still part of the Covenant. Hav-
ing one at his back grated against every instinct.
   "I've told it to repair your armor's shields," Cortana said.
"Let it."
   The Master Chief allowed the small alien to pass. He felt the
access panel removed from the 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 repaired the burned-out displays on the
port side of the room. He held his MA5B loosely, but it was still
aimed in the alien's general direction. "I don't care what Cortana
says," he told the Chief, "I don't trust them."
   The Engineer near Locklear floated to the bridge's holographic
controls and passed a tentacle over a series of raised dots.
   The screens snapped on and showed three Covenant cruisers
closing fast.
   Adrenaline spiked through the Master Chief's blood. "Cor-
tana, quick--take evasive action."
   "Relax, Chief," Locklear said. He waved his hand over a holo-
graphic control; the images on screen froze. "It's just a replay."
He turned and examined the suspended plasma bolts just as they

90                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
impacted on the flagship's shields. "Man," he whispered. "I wish
our boats had weapons like those."
   "We might soon have exactly that, Marine," Lieutenant
Haver-son said. He winced and stood, then moved to a screen that
showed the storms in the upper atmosphere of Threshold. "Play
this one, Corporal."
   Locklear tapped one of the controls.
   A line of sparkling blue lights appeared on screen, and the
nose of the flagship edged into view. The blue line ripped a hole
in space, and the ship jumped forward. The clouds of Threshold
vanished; there was only blackness on the screen.
   Haverson slicked back the strands of his red hair that had
fallen into his face. "Cortana," he asked, "has anyone, human
or Covenant, ever performed a Slipspace jump from within an
atmosphere?"
   "No, Lieutenant. Normally such strong gravitational fields
would distort and collapse the 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
our next move."
   "I'm sorry to disagree, Chief," Lieutenant Haverson said.
"The mere fact that Cortana's maneuver worked is the only thing
that matters now."
   The Chief squared himself to the Lieutenant and said nothing.
   Haverson held up his hands. "I acknowledge that you have
tactical command, Chief. I know your authority has the backing
of the brass and ONI Section Three. You'll get no argument from
me on that point, but I put it to you that your original mission has
just been superseded by the discovery of the technology on this
ship. We should scrub your mission and head straight back to
Earth."
   "What's this other mission?" Locklear asked, his voice
suspicious.

                         ERIC NYLUND                           91
   Haverson shrugged. "I see no reason to keep this information
classified at this point. Tell him, Chief."
   The Master Chief didn't like how Haverson "acceded" to his
tactical command yet readily ordered him to reveal highly clas-
sified material.
   "Cortana," the Chief said. "Is the bridge secure from eaves-
droppers?"
   "A moment," Cortana said. Red lights pulsed around the
room's perimeter. "It is now. Go ahead, Chief."
   "My team and I--" the Master Chief started.
   He hesitated--the thought of his fellow Spartans stopped him
cold. For all he knew they were all dead. He pushed that to the
back of his mind, however, and continued.
   "Our mission was to capture a Covenant ship, infiltrate
Covenant-controlled space, and capture one of their leaders.
Command hoped they could use this to force the Covenant into a
cease-fire and negotiations."
   No one said a word.
   Finally, Locklear snorted and rolled his 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,
survived the Covenant on Halo... not to mention the Flood."
   "I have a duty to complete my mission," the Master Chief told
her. "I'll do it with or without your help. There's more at stake
than our individual discomfort--even our lives."
   "We're not Spartans," Haverson said. "We're not trained for
your kind of mission."
   That was certainly true. They weren't Spartans. John's team
would never give up. But as he scanned their weary faces, he had
to acknowledge that they weren't ready for this mission.
   The Sergeant stepped forward and said, "You still want to go, I
got your back, Chief."
   John nodded, but he saw the exhaustion even in the Sergeant's
dark eyes. There were limits to what any soldier, even a hard-

92                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
core Marine like Johnson, could endure. And as much as he didn't
want to admit it, his original orders, given only a week ago, felt
as if they'd been issued a lifetime in the past. Even John felt the
temptation to stop and regroup before continuing.
   "What's on this ship," Haverson said, "can save the human
race. And wasn't that the goal of your mission? Let's return to
Earth and let the Admiralty decide. No one would question your
decision to clarify your orders given the circumstances--" He
paused, then added, "and the loss of your entire team."
   Haverson's expression was carefully neutral, but the Chief
still bristled at the further mention of his team--and at the at-
tempt to manipulate him. He remembered his order sending
Fred, Kelly, and the others to the surface of Reach, thinking that
he, Linda, and James were going on the "hard" mission.
   "Listen to the El-Tee," Locklear said. "We deliver a little
something for the R-and-D eggheads 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, Marine," he barked, "or the Chief'11
reach down and pull you inside out by your cornhole. And that'll
be a sweet, sweet mercy ... compared to what I'm gonna do to
you."
   Locklear contemplated the Sergeant's words and the Master
Chief's silence. He looked to Polaski and then to Haverson.
   Polaski stared at the Marine with wide eyes, then turned away.
Haverson gave him a slight shake of his head.
   Locklear sighed, eased his stance, and dropped his gaze.
"Man, I really, really hate this shit."
   "I hate to interrupt," Cortana said, "but I find myself agreeing
with the Lieutenant."
   The Chief clicked on a private COM channel. "Explain, Cor-
tana. I thought our mission was what you were built for. Why are
you backing out now?"
   "I'm not 'backing out,' " she shot back. "Our orders were

                          ERIC NYLUND                            93
given when the UNSC had a fleet, and when Reach was still an
intact military presence. All that has changed."
   The Master Chief couldn't disagree with what she was say-
ing ... but there was something else in her voice. And for the
first time, John thought that Cortana might be hiding something
from him.
   "We have intact ship-scale plasma weapons and new reactor
technologies," Cortana continued. "Imagine if every ship could
maneuver with pinpoint precision in Slipspace." She paused.
"The UNSC could be just as effective in space as you are in
ground engagements. We could actually win this war."
   The Master Chief frowned. He didn't like the Lieutenant's or
Cortana's arguments--because they made sense. Aborting his
mission was unthinkable. He had always finished what he started,
and he'd always won.
   As a professional soldier, John was ready to give up anything
for victory--his personal comfort, his friends, 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 gear wasn't smashed to bits.
Look for a field medkit, too, and then get back up here, double
time."
   "Yes, sir," Sergeant Johnson said. "We're on it." He and Po-
laski headed for the door, tapped the control, and let the panels
slide apart.
   Polaski shot a stare at the Master Chief over her shoulder;
then, shaking her head, she followed the Sergeant.
   "Shit," Locklear said, checking his rifle as he loped after them.
"Wait up! Man, I'm never going to get another hour's sleep."
   "Sleep when you're dead, Marine," the Sergeant said.
   The bridge doors sealed.
   Haverson said, "Plot a course back to Earth, Cortana, and
then--"
   "I'm sorry, Lieutenant Haverson," Cortana said. "I can't do
that. A direct course to Earth would be in violation of the Cole

                                                                       r
94                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Protocol. Furthermore, we are not allowed an indirect route, ei-
ther. Subsection Seven of the Cole Protocol states that no Cove-
nant craft may be taken to human-controlled space without an
exhaustive search for tracking systems that could lead the enemy
to our bases."
   "Subsection Seven?" Haverson said. "I haven't heard of it."
   "Very few have, sir," Cortana answered. "It was little more
than a technicality. Before this, no one had actually ever cap-
tured a Covenant vessel."
   "An exhaustive search of this vessel would be difficult under
the circumstances," Haverson said and cupped his hand over his
chin, thinking. "It must be more than three kilometers long."
   "I have a suggestion, sir," the Chief said. "An intermediate
destination: Reach."
   "Reach?" Haverson quickly hid the shock on his face with a
smile. "Chief, there's nothing in the Reach system except a
Covenant armada."
   "No, sir," the Master Chief replied. "There are . . . other
possibilities."
   Haverson 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. "A long shot. Although the Euphrates did
have a Prowler attached to her. They were supposed to launch a
reconnaissance mission, before they got the signal to drop
everything and help defend Reach. So maybe it's not such a long
shot, after all. And the other possibility?"
   "The Covenant are still there," the Master Chief said. "The
likelihood that they would attack one of their own capital ships is
low. In either event, there is no violation of the Cole Protocol
because the Covenant already know the location of Reach."
   "True," Haverson said. He paced to the center of the bridge.
"Very well, Chief. Cortana, set course for Reach. We'll enter at
the edge of the system and assess the situation. If it's too hot, we
jump and find another route home."

                          ERIC NYLUND                             95
   "Acknowledged, Lieutenant," Cortana replied. "Be advised
that this ship traverses Slipspace much faster than our UNSC
counterparts. ETA to Reach in thirteen hours."
   The Master Chief sighed and relaxed a little. There was an-
other reason for choosing Reach, one he didn't reveal to the
Lieutenant. He knew the odds of anyone surviving on the sur-
face were remote. Astronomical, in fact ... because once the
Covenant decided to glass a planet, they did so with amazing
thoroughness. But he had to see it. It was the only way he could
accept that his teammates were dead.
   A wash of static covered the Chief, first along his spine and
then wrapping about his torso. There was an audible pop, and
sparks crackled along the length of his MJOLNIR armor.
   The Engineer released its grasp on him 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 reminder that most
battles were won or lost in his head, before he engaged any
enemy.
   "Impressive little creatures," Haverson remarked. He scruti-
nized the Covenant Engineer as it floated toward the wall of dis-
plays and began tinkering with one. "I wonder how the Covenant
caste system--"
   "Sir!" Sergeant Johnson's voice blasted over the COM, break-
ing with static. "You've got to get down to the Pelican ASAP. You
and the Chief."
   "Are you under fire?" the Chief asked.
   "Negative," he replied. "It's one of the cryotubes you recovered."
   "What about it, Sergeant?" Haverson snapped.
   "Chief, there's a Spartan in it."

CHAPTER TEN

1852 hours, September 22,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Captured
Covenant flagship, in Slipspace, location unknown.
   After the Chief had left to investigate the cryopod, Haverson
made certain that the bridge doors locked. He turned and walked
over to the Covenant Engineer who'd repaired the Master
Chief's armor.
   "Fascinating creatures," he murmured. He drew his sidearm
and pointed it at the back of its head.
   Two of the Engineer's six eyes locked onto the muzzle of the
weapon. A tentacle reached for it, split into fine probing threads,
and touched the blue-gray metal.
   Cortana asked, "What are you--"
   Haverson shot the Engineer. The round tore 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 faded from a faint pink to a cold gray.
   He dragged it to the escape hatch, opened it, and placed the
body in the corridor. He paused, and went back to fold its tenta-
cles over its body. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve it."
   "Why was that necessary?" Cortana demanded.
   Haverson stood, wiped his hands on his slacks, and sealed the
escape hatch access. "I'm surprised you even have to ask, Cor-
tana." He heard the anger in his voice. He checked his rising ire.

                         ERIC NYLUND                           97
 He wasn't mad at Cortana; he was mad at himself--furious be-
 cause of the ugly necessity of his act.
   "The Covenant are imitative--not innovative," he said. "The
Engineer you ordered to repair the Chief's armor just got a first-
hand look at our shield technology, a technology we stole from
the Covenant and improved upon. If it somehow managed to re-
join the Covenant, that improved technology would be theirs.
How would you like to see that technology manifest as better
personal shields for their Elite warriors? Or on their warships?"
   Cortana was silent.
   "Corporal Locklear was right," 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 still frosty, but curiosity thawed her tone.
   "I mean the other Spartans." Haverson gave a short laugh.
"True, his argument to go to Reach was valid--we wouldn't be
going otherwise. But that's not what he's after. He sent his team
down to the surface of Reach... sent them to their deaths. What
commander wouldn't go back? And what commander wouldn't
hope that they were alive? No matter what the odds?"

CHAPTER ELEVEN

0930 hours, September 4,2552 (Military Calendar)
\ UNSC High Command (HighCom) Facility Bravo-6,
Sydney, Australia, Earth. Two and a half weeks ago.
   Lieutenant Wagner walked through metal- and
explosive-detector gates and into the atrium entrance of the large,
vaguely conical structure. Officially designated UNSC HighCom
Facility B-6, the sprawling edifice had been nicknamed "the
Hive."
   It was overcast in Sydney. Gray light filtered in through the
crystal dome overhead.
   He marched past officers and NCOs moving with purpose to
whatever destinations occupied their time. He ignored the dis-
plays of acacia trees and exotic ferns meant 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 fate quiet was not the UNSC's biggest se-
cret, not by a country mile. Virtually no one in the civilian popu-
lation of the Inner Colonies knew how perilously close they
were to losing this war. ONI Section Two had done a brilliant job
of preserving the fiction that Earth forces held their own against
the Covenant.
   And what did the citizens of the Outer Colonies think? Those
who hadn't fled to remote outposts and hidden privateer bases

                           ERIC NYLUND                             99
weren't in any position to make trouble. The Covenant didn't
take prisoners.
   "You're expected today, Lieutenant," the receptionist said.
She was a young Chief Petty Officer and looked like she didn't
have a care, or a clue. But her eyes gave her away. She knew
something. Maybe not what, but she had undoubtedly picked up
on the increased security protocols . . . or the haunted looks in
the eyes of her commanding officers.
   "Please proceed to elevator eight," she told him and returned
her attention to the screen in front of her.
   He made a mental note to find out who this perceptive person
was and see if she could be recruited into Section Three. ONI
had lost a lot of good people in the last few weeks.
   Wagner moved to the solid steel wall, and a pair of doors
parted for him. He entered the small room; the doors closed and
locked with a whisper-quiet snik.
   A fingerprint pad and retinal scanner extended from the wall.
Wagner pressed his hand 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 classified," he told the AI.
   "Certainly," she replied, her tone playful. "But I'll find out
anyway, you know. Why not save me the time and just tell me?"
   Although he generally enjoyed this tete-a-tete with Lysithea,
he knew it was part of the biometric scan, too. She scanned his
brainwaves and voice patterns in response to her queries and
matched them to older responses in her memory. She probably
tested his loyalty in security measures as well--he didn't put any-
thing past Section Three; they grew more paranoid every day.
   "Of"course you'll find out," Wagner replied. "But I still can't
tell you. That would be a breach of security, punishable under
Article 428-A. In fact," he said in a more serious tone, "I'll have to
report this violation to my controller."

100                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   She laughed, and it sounded like fine bone china clinking to-
gether. "You may proceed, Lieutenant," she told him.
   The doors parted and revealed a corridor lined with walnut
panels and paintings of Washington Crossing the Delaware, Ad-
miral Cole's Last Stand, various alien landscapes, and space
battles.
   Although he had barely felt the descent, Wagner knew he had
dropped three kilometers into the planet, through solid layers of
granite, reinforced concrete, plates of Titanium-A, and
EMP-hardened metal. None of this made him feel any safer,
though; ONI's research facility on Reach had the same setup,
and it hadn't done those poor bastards any good.
   He stepped off the elevator. Lysithea whispered at his back:
"Watch out in there. They're looking to put someone's head on a
pike."
   Wagner swallowed and straightened the microscopic wrinkles
in his uniform. He searched for 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'd be shot first and
questioned later.
   The doors silently swung inward.
   He entered, and the doors closed behind him and locked.
Wagner recognized most of the brass seated at the
crescent-shaped table: Major General Nicolas Strauss, Fleet
Admiral Sir Terrence Hood, and Colonel James Ackerson. Vice
Admiral Whit-comb's chair was empty.
   Another half-dozen officers were also present, and all were of
command rank, which made Wagner nervous. Each had display
tablets set before them, and even upside down, Wagner recog-
nized his preliminary report and video records.
   Wagner saluted.
   General Strauss leaned forward and snapped off his display.
"Christ! Did we know they had so many damn ships?" He

                          ERIC NYLUND                          101
banged a fist onto the table. "Why the hell didn't we know about
this? Who in ONI let this one slip by?"
   Ackerson leaned back. "No one is to blame, General--except
the Covenant, obviously. I'm more concerned with our response
to this incursion. Our fleet was decimated."
   Ackerson's reputation preceded him. Wagner had heard about
the lengths to which he'd gone in the past to make sure his own
operations got priority over Section Three's. His rivalry with the
SPARTAN-II program leader, Dr. Catherine Halsey, was the
stuff of legend. Wagner thought Ackerson had been reassigned
to a front-line post. Apparently he'd squirmed out of it. That was
trouble.
   Admiral Hood straightened and pushed his display away and
finally acknowledged Wagner. He returned the salute. The Ad-
miral was impeccably groomed, not a silver hair out of place on
his head, and yet there were dark circles under his eyes. "At ease,
Lieutenant."
   Wagner tucked his hands behind 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 was a total
disaster!"
   "Of course, Admiral." Ackerson nodded, pretending to listen,
and his eyes flickered over the report again. His eyebrows raised
as he noticed the time and date stamp. "There's one thing, how-
ever, I'd like answered first." His glassy glare locked onto Wag-
ner. "The time difference between the events in this report and
now..." He trailed off, lost in thought. "Congratulations, Lieu-
tenant. This is a new speed record from Reach to Earth. Espe-
cially when I know you took the time to perform the legally
required random jumps before returning to Earth."
   "Sir," Wagner replied. "I followed the Cole Protocol to the
letter."
   That was a lie and everyone in this room knew it. ONI was al-
ways bending the Cole Protocol. In this case, it was probably

102                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
justified because of the value of the intel. Still, if they wanted to
crucify him, all they had to do was check the time logged on his
Prowler's engines and do the math.
   Hood waved his hand. "That's hardly the issue."
   "I think it is," Ackerson snapped. "Reach is gone. There's
nothing between Earth and the Covenant now except a lot of
vacuum--that and whatever secrecy we can preserve."
   "We'll review Section Three's practices later, Colonel." Ad-
miral Hood turned to Wagner. "I've read your report, Lieu-
tenant. It is extremely detailed, but I want to hear it from you.
What did you see? Are there any details you thought too sensi-
tive to include in your report? Tell me everything."
   Wagner took in a deep breath. He had prepared for this and
he related, as best he could, how the Covenant ships appeared
in the system, the valiant efforts of the UNSC fleet defending
Reach, how they failed and were systematically destroyed.
   "When the Covenant slipped 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 on Reach, sir. It was the closest
thing I had to a home in the Outer Colonies."
   Hood nodded sympathetically.
   Ackerson snorted. He pushed away from the table, got up, and
moved to Wagner's side. "Save the sentimentality, Lieutenant.
You say they glassed Reach. Everything?"
   Wagner detected anticipation in the Colonel's tone--as if he
wanted the Covenant to have destroyed Reach.
   "Sir," Wagner replied. "Before I jumped to Slipspace, I wit-
nessed the poles destroyed, and approximately two thirds of the
planet's surface was on fire."
   Ackerson nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer. "So
everyone on Reach is gone, then. Vice Admiral Whitcomb. Doc-
tor Halsey, too." He nodded and added, "Such a tremendous
waste." There was no sympathy in his voice.
   "I could only speculate, sir."

                          ERIC NYLUND                         103
   "No need," Ackerson muttered. He returned to his seat.
   Strauss sighed. "At least we have your special weapons pro-
grams, Ackerson. Halsey's SPARTAN-IIs were such a great
sue--"
   Ackerson shot the General a look that could have blasted
through battle plate.
   The General halted midsentence and snapped his mouth
closed.
   Wagner stood absolutely still and stared straight ahead, pre-
tending he hadn't seen such a gross breach of military protocol. A
General knuckling under to a junior officer? Something ex-
traordinary had just been revealed--there was some kind of
backup plan on a par with the SPARTAN program, and Acker-
son was behind it. The Colonel suddenly had a lot of juice.
   Wagner continued to feign ignorance--and no matter what,
he didn't meet Colonel Ackerson's gaze. If Ackerson suspected
that he'd caught on, the bastard would have him erased to 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 mention the Pillar of Autumn in my
report, as that ship is on Section Three's Secure List."
   "Good." Hood closed his eyes. "Then there is, at least, some
hope."
   Ackerson shook his head. "With all due respect to my prede-
cessor, Doctor Halsey, the special weapons package on the Pil-
lar hasn't got a chance in hell of accomplishing its mission. You
might as well have shot every one of them in the head and gotten it
over with."
   "That will be enough, Ackerson," Hood said and glowered at
him. "Quite enough."
   "Sir," Wagner ventured. "The Colonel may be correct. . . at
least in his mission assessment. Our agent on the Pillar of Au-
tumn signaled us before the end. He regrettably reported that a

104                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
significant number of Spartans went groundside to defend
Reach's orbital guns."
   "Then they're dead," Ackerson said. "Halsey's freaks have fi-
nally lost their luster of invincibility."
   Admiral Hood set his jaw. "Doctor Halsey," he said slowly
and with deliberate control, "and her Spartans deserve the ut-
most respect, Colonel." He turned to face him, but Hood stared
through Ackerson. "And if you wish to keep your newly ac-
quired position on the Security Council, you will show them that
respect, or I will personally kick you from here to Melbourne."
   "I merely--" Ackerson said.
   "Those 'freaks,' " Hood said over his protest, "have more
confirmed kills than any three divisions of ODSTs and have gar-
nered every major citation the UNSC awards. Those 'freaks'
have personally saved my life twice, as well as the lives of most
of the senior staff here at HighCom. Keep your bigotry 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 dozens of ships." He pursed his lips into a razor-thin line.
   "We should send a small recon force to see what's left," Gen-
eral Strauss suggested.
   "Not wise, sir," Ackerson replied. "We must pull back and re-
inforce the Inner Colonies and Earth. The new orbital platforms
won't be online for another ten days. Until then, our defense pos-
ture will be far too weak. We'll need every ship we've got."
   "Hmm," Admiral Hood said. He placed both thumbs under
his chin as he considered both positions.
   "Sir," Wagner said. "There is one additional item not covered
in my report. It didn't seem exceptionally important at the time,
but if you're debating a recon mission, I thought it might be
pertinent."

                          ERIC NYLUND                           105
   "Just spit it out," General Strauss said.
   Wagner swallowed and resisted the urge to meet Ackerson's
eyes. "When the Covenant destroys a planet, they typically move
their large warships closer and blanket the world with a series of
crisscrossing orbits to ensure that every square millimeter of the
surface is covered with plasma bombardments."
   "I'm painfully aware of Covenant bombardment doctrine,
Lieutenant," Hood growled. "What of it?"
   "As I indicated, they started at the poles, but took in only a few
ships. They were spread thin along the equatorial latitudes, and
no additional ships were inbound. In fact, a large number of
Covenant ships abandoned the system, in pursuit of the Pillar of
Autumn?'
   Ackerson waved his hand dismissively. "Reach is glassed,
Lieutenant. If you had stayed to watch the whole show, they
would have burned you down, too."
   "Yes, sir," Wagner replied. "If, however, there is a recon mis-
sion, I would like to volunteer 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 Lysithea had warned him, that he was just looking for
someone's head to impale on a pike.
   "Are you deaf, Lieutenant?" Ackerson asked with mock con-
cern. "Some kind of hearing loss due to combat action?"
   "No, sir."
   "Well, when you push the limits of Slipspace in those little
Prowlers, you risk all kinds of radiation damage. Or maybe the
trauma of seeing Reach destroyed shook you. Whatever your
problem, when you leave here you are to visit the infirmary.
They are to give you a clean bill of health before you return to
active duty." He shrugged. "There must be something wrong
with you, Lieutenant, because you do not seem to understand me
even though my words are crystal clear."
   "Sir."
   "Let's try this, then. We are not wasting a single UNSC ship to

106                 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
confirm what we have 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."

SECTION 2

DEFENSE OF CASTLE BASE

CHAPTER TWELVE

0744 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon
Eridani system, Longhorn Valley, planet Reach. Five days ago.
   Steamy clouds parted like a drawn curtain; a fireball one hun-
dred meters across roared over Fred and Kelly's position. Fred
traced the line of flames back through the sky and spotted the
faint outlines of dozens of Covenant warships in low orbit.
   Fred's Banshee skimmed over the treetops, down the mountain-
side. He pushed the craft to its maximum speed. Kelly followed,
and they swooped into a valley and up onto the zigzagging
ridge-line where Joshua had first spotted the Covenant invasion
force.
   He put aside thoughts of his fallen comrade. He had 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 Section Three
had taken over the mountain for their own purposes.
   "We'll need to find a safe route through--"
   A hail of purple-white crystalline shards hissed through the
air, arcing up from the forest beneath them. Each shard looked
like the projectile fired by a Covenant needier--but far larger.
The shard that slashed past Fred's cockpit was the size of his
forearm.
   Kelly dodged one projectile, which exploded in midair.
Needle-like fragments bounced from the Banshee's fuselage.

                         ERIC NYLUND                          109
   One tiny secondary fragment impaled Fred's Banshee and
detonated. The port canard of his flier deformed from the explo-
sion, and the craft wobbled.
   "Down!" he shouted, but Kelly was already a dozen meters
below him and plummeting to a distant dry riverbed. He fol-
lowed, trailing smoke.
   Fred confirmed his position and guided his wounded Banshee
onto a course that followed the flash-dried riverbed below. The
path wound through the forest, and sinewed close to Menachite
Mountain. With luck, they could ditch the Banshees and make a
short run to the ONI facility.
   Overhead, tangerine borealis pulsed from the north. Sheets of
silver crackled across the sky, and the black clouds boiled, lit by
the raging fires beneath them. They piled into thunderheads and
spat lightning.
   The massive warships that had been overhead moments ago ac-
celerated back into the upper atmosphere. Their engines screamed
and left 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 square centimeter of the surface was glass and
cinder. The ships above hadn't finished their work here.
   He risked a glance to the left and right. One hundred thousand
hectares of forest--the same forest that Fred and his fellow
Spartans had trained in since childhood--was being devoured
by walls of flame. Coils of heat and thick black smoke spiraled
into the sky.
   A wave passed over Fred and Kelly--he couldn't see it, but
he felt it: A thousand ants had gotten into his armor and bitten
him. Static fuzzed his display, and then vanished with apop. His
shields dropped to zero and then slowly started to recharge. The
grav pods on their fliers flickered and sputtered.
   "EMP," Kelly shouted over the COM. "Or some plasma
effect."

110                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Hard landing," Fred ordered.
   Kelly made an unhappy sound over the COM and snapped it
off.
   They plummeted out of the sky, gliding with what little aero-
dynamics and power remained in their Banshees. Fred nosed his
craft over the steaming rocks of the dry riverbed. He picked a
path between boulders and jagged granite fangs, pointed toward
a ribbon of gravel.
   There was just one problem: A pair of these rocks were slightly
darker than the others . .. and they moved.
   The creatures were huge and heavily armored and moved with
slow, deliberate precision. Each held a massive metal plate like a
shield. Fred hit the COM and yelled, "Heads up! Covenant
Hunters dead ahead!" There was no time to evade the new threat.
The nearest Hunter wheeled to face them, and the array of sen-
sory pins along its back flared, anemone-like. The hulking crea-
ture raised its main weapon--a powerful fuel 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 into the Hunter.
   The massive alien brought up its thick, metal shield and
shrugged off the wreckage as if it were cardboard. The fuel rod
gun began to charge again.
   Fred winced and rolled to his feet, ignoring the new pain the
crash landing had caused. He needed a weapon. Pain would have
to wait.
   The Hunter lumbered toward him, then dropped into a crouch
and charged ahead at terrifying speed.
   There was a crackle of static on his COM frequency, and Fred
heard one word: "Duck!"
   He threw himself onto the ground and rolled to the side.
   Kelly's riderless flier soared over him and collided with the
Hunter at full speed. The Banshee exploded and showered the
area with glittering metal fragments.

                         ERIC NYLUND                         111
   The Hunter reeled as fire washed across its armor. It moved in
slow, confused circles. Fred could see the bright orange smears
of the Hunter's blood staining the rocks.
    Kelly landed on her feet next to Fred. She readied a captured
plasma grenade and hurled it straight toward the second
Hunter's huge gun.
    It lodged in the barrel of the weapon and detonated. Tendrils
of energy covered the Hunter. The gun crackled and belched
smoke.
   Fred got to his feet. "Run!"
   They weren't going to engage a Hunter in hand-to-hand com-
bat. They might lose--they might win, but in the meantime the
rest of the Covenant ground forces would catch up to them.
   They sprinted toward a tiny patch of forest ahead, perhaps the
last trees standing on Reach. The Hunter, confused with its de-
stroyed weapon--and its flame-wreathed partner--hesitated,
not sure what to do.
   "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 acknowledgment light winked red.
   "They're between us and the fallback point," Fred told her.
"We have to."
   They entered the stand of trees, paused, and looked back. The
Hunter shambled after them, but it was a futile pursuit. Despite
their occasional bursts of speed, the Hunters were too slow.
   They were caught between Covenant forces on the ground
and those in the air, and neither Fred nor Kelly voiced the one
question foremost on their minds: Was there even a fallback po-
sition left? Or had the Covenant between them and the rest of
their team found and destroyed them?
   The COM crackled."--is Gamma Team, Alpha. Come in."
   Fred replied, "Gamma, this is Alpha. Go ahead."

112                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   There was a roar of static. "Whitcomb . . . too many. Got--
you read?"
   "Gamma," Fred shouted. "The fallback is hot. Repeat hot!
Acknowledge."
   There was only static.
   "I hope they heard," he told Kelly.
   "Red-21 can take care of his team. Don't worry." She crept
forward and waved him to follow. "Take a look at this."
   Fred glanced over his shoulder. No Hunter, and nothing on his
motion detector. He followed Kelly, and parted a wall of black-
berry brambles. Parked in a clearing were Covenant vehicles,
lined in three rows of four: mortar tanks. The tanks had two wide
lateral fins, beneath which were armored antigrav pods. They
were extremely stable and fired the Covenant's most powerful
ground weapon: the energy mortar. Fred had seen them in ac-
tion; they fired an encapsulated blob of plasma that obliterated
everything within twenty meters of impact. Titanium battle
plate, concrete, 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, "than five
tons of Covenant armor." She started forward.
   Fred set his hand on her arm, holding her back. "Wait. Think it
through. There are two possibilities. First, if the Covenant have
found the fallback position, we go in guns blazing and carve a
path for Delta Team to get out."
   She nodded. "The other possibility?"
   "They don't know that Delta Team is holed up under the
mountain. Then--" Fred hesitated. "Then we have to draw them
away."
   Kelly considered this, then said, "I was afraid you were going
to say that." She gave the dirt a tiny kick. "But you're right."
   A blip appeared on their motion trackers, directly on their six.
The contact was large and moving steadily toward them. The

                          ERIC NYLUNO                          113
Hunter must have made up its mind--come to find them and
stomp them into the ground.
   "Move," Fred whispered.
   They crossed the field, quickly and silently, and the Grunts
never saw them. Fred and Kelly reached the smooth-surfaced
Wraith tanks. He gave Kelly a go signal, and she sprang into
the nearest open hatch. A moment later Fred inched ahead to the
next tank and eased inside.
   He sealed the hatch behind him.
   This was one of the most desperate and stupid decisions he
had ever made. How were they going to take on an entire Cove-
nant invasion force with a pair of tanks--especially tanks they
hadn't a clue how to operate?
   "Red-One," Kelly said over the COM. "Ready when you are."
   Fred examined the dim interior. Directly ahead was a seat,
constructed with the same mottled purple metal as the Banshees.
Fred settled his bulk onto it. It was too high; he had to stand in a
half crouch. Holographic control surfaces and displays 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 tapped a symbol that could have been Aztec iconog-
raphy, a tangle of spaghetti, or a crisscross of bird tracks.
   His tank coughed and rumbled and rose a meter off the
ground.
   Fred frowned. He'd been damned lucky to get it right the first
time. That was more than luck---just as it was more than luck
that he knew that the controls under his left hand moved the
tank, the ones under his right aligned the mortar on target, and
the one in the center armed and fired the main battery. But Fred
wasn't going to examine how he knew this. He'd just use this cu-
rious development to his advantage.
   "Ready here," he told Kelly. "Let's take out the motor pool."
   "Affirmative," she said, trying to conceal the faint trace of an-
ticipation in her voice.

114                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   In unison the Spartans turned and fired at the far corner of the
formation of tanks. Two blue-white blobs of liquid sun spat from
the Wraiths and detonated. There was a dazzling light, an expan-
sion of superheated white fire--and then there was glass-smooth
ground and the smoldering skeletons of seven Wraith tanks.
   More luck. If the tanks had been active, with hatches secured,
they might have survived the first volley.
   Kelly's tank surged ahead and bulldozed aside the surviving
tanks near them.
   Fred turned, accelerated to full power, and smashed through
a line of retreating Grunts, a series of small, satisfying thuds
reverberating through the cockpit.
   The two Wraith tanks shattered through a line of trees, splin-
tering their trunks. Beyond lay the main Covenant camp. A thou-
sand Grunts and Jackals ran toward them, weapons and personal
shields ready, but none of them fired.
   They charged past the 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 stationary plasma turrets, "Shades," guarding them, and
beyond them lay the mountain under which were ONI Section
Three's secret research caverns. The Covenant were there as
well.
   Without thinking, Fred tapped a control; the display magni-
fied. A hundred Covenant Engineers maneuvered heavy equip-
ment: laser drills and conveyor belts and giant insectlike machines
that looked as if they could dig through the entire mountain.
   "They found the caverns," Fred told Kelly. "Looks like they're
going to dig them out."
   But again ... why? Why not just blast them from orbit? The
Covenant had never taken prisoners--except the occasional strag-
gler to execute for sport. They didn't go to this much trouble.
Unless it wasn't Delta Team they were after.

                          ERIC NYLUND                           115
   Fred keyed his COM. "Delta, if you're listening, we're com-
ing in from south-southeast in a pair of captured Wraith tanks.
You'll know which ones from the fireworks. Keep your heads
down and don't shoot us."
   He keyed over to Kelly's personal COM. "Blaze a trail,
Red-Two! Kill everything and get to that entrance ASAP!"
   "I'm on it," she whispered, her voice thick with concentration.
   A blue acknowledgment light flickered on . . . but it wasn't
Kelly's. It was tagged as SPARTAN-039, Isaac. That was part of
Will's team.
   So they were holed up at the fallback position. Relief flooded
into him to know his team was here and still alive.
   But he couldn't hope--not yet. He had three hundred meters
to cross, every millimeter of which was covered with a solid
wall of Covenant Grunts, Jackals, and Elites--a path straight
through hell.
   Kelly rotated her tank about and fired at the remaining
Wraiths and the cluster of Grunts trying to put out the fires near
those she'd 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-anywhere" matches the
ODSTs used to light their contraband cigarettes.
   Kelly shot arcing projectiles into the hundreds of Grunts and
Jackals running in every direction. Bodies charred midstride
and turned to vapor. It was as if a dozen lightning bolts had
struck in the center of the camp.
   Grunts ran and ducked and shot at one another. The few Jackals
tried to marshal the diminutive soldiers, but the Grunts, enraged
or terrified, fired on them as well.
   Fred caught motion in the corner of his eye--a shadow
buzzed over his tank, and a blast rocked it from side to side.
   That had to be Banshees. It made sense that they'd already
have Elites in the air, on patrol. He cursed himself for not spotting
them before. It was only a matter of time now. Without infantry

116                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
support, sooner or later the Covenant ground and air forces
would regroup and destroy them.
   "Move!" he shouted over the COM. "Break off contact and
get to the caves!"
   Kelly gunned her tank and pushed through the wreckage.
   Fred let her get ahead and paused to target the excavation
equipment. He fired once.
   Three rapid impacts thudded on top of his tank--exploded
and shook his teeth. He fired three more times at the excavation
equipment and gunned the Wraith tank. It shuddered and
lurched forward.
   He gritted his teeth and smiled. On the display, the smoke
cleared enough for him to see that the laser drill, conveyor
belts, and the insectlike diggers had been reduced to piles of
half-melted junk.
   The displays lost focus. No--Fred saw it wasn't the picture;
smoke poured into the cockpit.
   "Banshees circling 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 reeled forward but didn't lose
his balance--and kept running. There was no time to stop. He
glanced at his shield bar; it was completely drained, but it slowly
began to recharge. He dodged and weaved back and forth. He
couldn't take many more hits like that.
   "Hurry," Kelly said.
   He crossed the remaining hundred meters in seconds and
jumped into a crater where there had once been a gatehouse
and the secure entrance to ONI's underground base.
   Kelly stood, braced just over the lip of the crater, holding a
Warthog's chaingun. She aimed over Fred's head and sprayed the
enemy with thunderous suppression fire. SPARTAN-043, Will,

                          ERIC NYLUND                          117
stood next to her. Fred was thrilled to see them alive--and even
more thrilled to see Will holding a Jackhammer rocket launcher.
   "Get below," Kelly said, and motioned with her head to the
center of the crater. "We'll cover you." She continued to fire until
she had depleted the chaingun's belt of ammunition.
   Will took aim and squeezed the trigger. A rocket knifed
through the air, and a contrail of white smoke connected with the
cockpit of an oncoming Banshee. The alien flier disintegrated in a
ball of fire.
   Fred turned and saw a shaft that plunged deep into the ground.
A steel cable had been rigged to one side, and it angled into
the depths.
   He grabbed the line, jumped, and zipped into the darkness. He
felt a sharp vibration through the line--once, then twice--as the
other Spartans followed him.
   After three hundred meters of free fall, he glimpsed a faint il-
lumination at the bottom of the shaft, the feeble sickly yellow
glow 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 sent here were injured. It was ironic
that he had sent them out of the thick of battle, to end up in the
middle of another dire situation.
   Then again, they weren't dead .. . which was more than he
could hope for Beta Team.
   They stepped into a corridor with brushed stainless-steel
walls that mirrored and smeared the faint light from the chem
lights.
   Overhead there was a tremendous explosion. Rocks and dirt
showered into the shaft, and dust blossomed through the corridor.
   "Lotus antitank mines," Will said. "A little something to slow
our uninvited guests down."
   Two other Spartans, Isaac and Vinh, sat along either side of
the hallway, behind rock barricades. They gave slight nods to
Fred and kept their eyes and weapons on the end of the corridor.

118                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
    "Where's the rest of the team? And the Marines from Charlie
Company?" Fred asked.
    "They didn't make it," Will replied, his voice flat. "We were
separated on the way here." He shook his head. "No contact
since then."
    Fred was quiet a moment. He listed those three as MIA on his
team roster as well as the other Spartans on Will's team. The list
of Spartans he could account for had grown extremely short.
Fred felt his stomach twist. "Any word from Beta Team?"
    "Negative. No contact, sir."
    Fred clenched his teeth and marked Beta Team as MIA as well.
    "Gamma Team?" Will asked.
    "They're out there," Fred replied. "I heard them on the COM,
but I couldn't make out much. I warned them away from this
position."
    "Good," Will whispered.
    The hallway dead-ended in a vault door.
    "The retinal and palm scanners are broken," Will explained.
"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,"
Kelly said. She whistled a six-note singsong tune.
    Will nodded. "I didn't think of that."
   The tune had been the Spartan's secret code from when they
were young and training on Reach. It was their
all-clear-it's-safe-to-come-out signal. No one but the Spartans
and a few very select outsiders knew of it. . . a few outsiders who
might be still here.
   Kelly keyed the mic and whistled the tune. She released the
key and waited.
   Two minutes ticked off Fred's mission clock. Too much time
sitting here, doing nothing, while the Covenant over their heads
were undoubtedly figuring out a way to dig them out and tear
them to pieces.

                         ERIC NYLUND                         119
   "It was a good idea," he told Kelly. "We'll recon the shaft.
Maybe it's not completely collapsed. Will you--"
   A mechanism thunked and then hummed within the titanic
door. There was a hiss as the seams parted, and the meter-thick
door swung inward on perfectly balanced, silent hinges.
   Bright light flooded the passage. A silhouetted figure stood on
the threshold. As Fred's display 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 only in the comers of
her mouth and her gray-blue eyes. She was the intellect behind
the SPARTAN-II program, and the one who'd invented their
MJOLNIR armor.
   She was Dr. Catherine Halsey.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

0810 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon
Eridani system, ONI underground facility, planet Reach.
   Dr. Halsey studied the five Spartans in the hallway and pushed
her antique glasses farther up the ridge of her nose. Despite
everything their presence here meant--Reach invaded, their mis-
sion to find the Covenant leadership compromised, everything
she had worked for now in jeopardy--she was still pleased to see
them. She steeled herself, though; an emotional outburst wouldn't
be understood, or appreciated, by her Spartans.
   "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 vault.
   Dr. Halsey greeted them as they passed her. "It's good to see
you, Fred."
   "Ma'am," Fred replied. "Good to see you, too."
   She noted that Kelly's movements were off, a little sluggish.
She was hurt, as were the rest of them, now that she saw them up
close. "Kelly."
   "Doctor Halsey." She reached out and gave her hand a slight
squeeze of greeting.
   "Isaac."
   "Doctor."
   "Vinh."

                         ERIC NYLUND                          121
    She nodded.
    "William."
   Will grunted. He had never liked his formal name.
    She knew this annoyed them all--how she was always able
to tell who they were despite the MJOLNIR armor. She had
grown up with them, knew their every gesture and their indi-
vidual walks. She could have never called them by their number
designations: SPARTAN-104, -087, -039, -029, and -043,
respectively.
   Dr. Halsey tapped a control pad. The vault door eased silently
shut, its seams vanished, and, with a sharp, metallic click, it
locked.
   "We have access to Aqua, Scarlet, and Lavender Levels," she
told them. "Follow me to the medical wing." She proceeded
down a concrete hallway with a high arched ceiling, recessed
lights, and security cameras. "I know the Covenant entered
the Epsilon Eridani system at approximately oh-five-hundred
hours. ONI Section Three staff evacuated this facility at
oh-five-thirty hours. 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 glanced back at Kelly and
the other Spartans. "We fell back here. . . we thought it would be
secure."
   They continued down the sloping passage; titanium doors
irised open for them and closed as soon as they passed.
   "I see," Dr. Halsey replied. "And Captain Keyes? John?"
   "Unknown," Fred told her. "The Master Chief and part of our
team attempted to retrieve an unsecured NAV database from an
orbital station before the Covenant got to it. Assuming he was
successful, and given Captain Keyes's record of combat against
the Covenant..." Fred's voice trailed off.
   "I'm sure they accomplished their mission and escaped," Dr.
Halsey said, finishing the thought for him. "John has never lost."
   "No, ma'am," Fred replied.

122                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE                              5
   They walked in silence for a moment past a display of cap-         Z
tured insurgent flags that had been mounted under glass along
the curved concrete wall. Most were emblazoned with an array
of gaudy insignia--family crests, bloodied dragons, and scorched
crossed swords. They continued past these remnants of a rebel-        Z
lion the UNSC no longer had to worry about.                            5
   "Doctor Halsey?" Fred said. "Permission to speak freely?"
   "Granted," she said. "I don't stand on ceremony, particularly      S
given the circumstances. Speak your mind."
   "Ma'am, something isn't normal about this Covenant inva-
sion," Fred told her. "They've won, but they aren't glassing the
planet. At least not completely--as near as I can determine,
they've only hit the poles and a portion of the lower latitudes."
   "And they had digging equipment in position over this fa-
cility," Kelly added.
   "Curious," Dr. Halsey said. "They've never taken an interest
in any human or human technologies--" She halted at a large
metal 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 walls glowed with a faint pink lumines-
cence. Seven doors led to adjacent offices and surgical bays with
windows looking out into this central room.
   "Kalmiya?" she said. "Status?"
   "Yes, Doctor," replied the disembodied voice of her personal
AI, her replacement for Cortana. "I have prepared the Spartans'
personal medical files and sent runners to fetch stocks of blood
plasma and other medical supplies from cold storage, as well as
tools to assist in the removal of their MJOLNIR armor."
   The doors to the tiny service elevator at the far end of the fa-
cility opened, and a robotic rover rolled out, its telescopic arms
holding piles of liquid-filled bags. Rows of tools were neatly
lined up across the rover's top tray.
   "Very good," Dr. Halsey said. "Continue to track seismic ac-

                          ERIC NYLUNO                          123
tivity overhead. Interface with the Spartans' biomonitors and
patch the output to the display on bay three."
    She strolled over to a table, and a bank of holographic dis-
plays hummed to life, floating serenely. Graphs and figures
scrolled across them.
   "Give me a spotlight here, prepare a sterilization field, and
lower the ambient lighting by forty percent. And a little Mahler,
please. Symphony number two."
   "Yes, Doctor." Music drifted from the speakers.
   Dr. Halsey examined the graphs, tapped tiny human-figure
icons, and summoned MRI images of" the Spartans' internal
structures--holographic bones, organs, and muscles appeared
and slowly rotated.
   She winced at the extent of their injuries.
   "Fred, you have a torn Achilles tendon and three cracked ribs.
Both kidneys have moderate contusions." She glanced at the rest
of the team's data and after a moment's consideration told him,
"You're fine.
   "William, 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 as an equal
among the Fleet Admirals and Generals who were constantly
trying to co-opt her work. Or maybe it was more than that. She
wondered if the Spartans viewed her as some sort of mother fig-
ure. As much as this notion amused her, she doubted that they
viewed anyone outside their team as family. Not even her.
   William retrieved a can of biofoam from the rover and in-
serted the tip into the tiny injection port in his armor--pushed it
through the skin between his fourth and fifth ribs. He filled his
abdominal cavity with the space-filling coagulant/antibacterial/
tissue-regenerative polymer.
   "Cold?" she asked.
   "Nothing worth noting, ma'am."
   She nodded, not making much over William's courage. She'd

124                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
always kept her admiration for her Spartans to herself. The last
thing she wanted was to do make them feel different. They got
enough "special" treatment from everyone else.
   Dr. Halsey picked up a clipboard, tapped a few items onto
its display, and handed it to Fred. "New weapons arrived for
field-testing last week," she told him, "as well as parts for the
MJOLNIR Mark Five armor system. We'll swap them out for
your damaged components. Kalmiya, show them the way, please,
and give them access to the restricted areas."
   "Yes, Doctor," Kalmiya said. The med bay doors opened.
"This way."
   Fred studied the items on the clipboard. "Very, very good," he
said, and his voice was thick with satisfaction. He nodded, took a
long look at his teammates, and then he and Will departed.
   Dr. Halsey returned to her medical readouts. "Vinh, you have
a torn deltoid muscle, three broken fingers, and a herniated disk.
Isaac, internal contusions and both shoulders have been dislo-
cated 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 high body temperature even before she'd
glanced at the MRI. There was moderate bleeding in her liver-- a
fatal condition if not treated--and her right lung was com-
pletely collapsed. That the woman was still on her feet, let alone
fighting, was tantamount to an act of God.
   Of course, that's what the SPARTAN-II project was all about,
wasn't it? Playing God for the greater good.
   "Doctor Halsey," Kelly asked. "Where are the others?"
   "As I said, they evacuated," she replied. "On the table, please.
I'm going to perform some minor repairs."
   Kelly complied. "Then why aieyou still here, ma'am?"
   Dr. Halsey picked up a curved, long-handled magnetic wrench,
built specifically to fit this, and only this, access panel. She in-
serted it and popped open a fist-sized section of Kelly's battered

                           ERIC NYLUNO                            125
MJOLNIR armor. Blood and hydrostatic gel bubbled from
Kelly's wounds.
   "I volunteered to be the fail-safe option," she told Kelly. "In
the lower levels of these caverns are enough high explosives to
level the facility--in case we were ever overrun by the enemy.
I'm here to make sure no one gets access to our technology."
   Dr. Halsey injected a local anesthetic and inserted a flexible
laser-tipped catheter into Kelly, carefully monitoring her progress
on the MRI. She pulsed the laser, fusing the lacerations in her
liver. Dr. Halsey then inflated her lung. Kelly would lose half of
that organ, regardless of her treatment. The tissue was already
turning blue and mottling necrotic brown.
   "Kalmiya, prep the flash clone facility and retrieve Kelly's
DNA sequence from the archives. I'd like to get a new liver and
right lung started for her.
   "You're fine for now," Dr. Halsey lied. "I just want to get replace-
ments made for you, in case we're down here for a long time."
   "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 anomaly in
SPARTAN-087's DNA files. You may want to review this in
private."
   Dr. Halsey sealed Kelly's injuries with biofoam, removed the
catheter, and cauterized the incision. "Rest," she said.
   "No, ma'am. I'm ready to--" Kelly tried to sit up.
   "Down." Dr. Halsey set a hand on her shoulder. She had no il-
lusions that she could have stopped Kelly with the gesture--but it
reinforced her words and her will. "Doctor's orders."
   Kelly sighed and lay back.
   "I'll be in my office just over there"--she pointed to the next
room--"if you need anything."
   Dr. Halsey left Kelly and moved to her office. Two walls were
covered with giant displays; old disposable coffee cups littered
the floor; a holographic projector flooded with data, lines, rotat-
ing graphics, and unanswered correspondence overflowed her

126                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
desk. She turned down the blinds that separated her office from
the medical bay, but only halfway, so she could keep an eye on
Kelly.
   "Let's have it, Kalmiya."
   Kelly's medical history scrolled across a display.
   "Here," Kalmiya said, and highlighted a surreptitious data re-
quest at the end of the file. "It's dated three months ago. That's
Araqiel's routing code."
   Dr. Halsey picked up the snowglobe off her desk, shook it
once, and set it down, watching the swirls of particles.
   "Araqiel? That's Ackerson's watchdog, isn't it?"
   "Affirmative, Doctor."
   "Can you trace the request?"
   "Done and terminated contact at node FF-8897-Z. Access re-
stricted to X-ray level clearance."
   "Restricted?" Dr. Halsey gave a short, soft laugh. "Does that
mean anything now? There's no one here to stop us, is there,
Kalmiya?"
   "Entering those files without proper 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.
   "Yes, Doctor. Working. Done."
   Kalmiya was Cortana's older "sister." Dr. Halsey had designed
and tested the software intrusion routines on her. Once the
process had been debugged and streamlined, she'd incorporated
the routines into Cortana. The brass in ONI Section Three had
been quite explicit in their instructions to destroy any prototype
routines--an order that Dr. Halsey had promptly disobeyed.
   "There is an unusually voluminous amount of
counterintru-sion software, Doctor."
   "Show me," Dr. Halsey said.
   The holographic display flickered and solidified into colored
crystal blocks representing the code barriers. Dr. Halsey traced a

                         ERIC NYLUND                         127
seam with her forefinger along a shard of ruby to the
ninety-degree angle made by a stair-step-cut emerald. "This data
cluster here. Spike that and backfill with a neutralizing pulse."
   "Yes, Doctor."
   The holographic crystal shattered into a thousand glittering
fragments and swirled upward into a helix.
   "I'm in, and--"
   The shards pulsed and coalesced. Facets and hard shimmering
planes fit together into curled horns, an elongated jaw, and over-
sized eyes that flickered with holographic fire. It turned and
smiled at Dr. Halsey, baring razor jags of teeth.
   "Civilian consultant 409871," it said in a deep bass rumble
that contained a crackle of thunder. "Doctor Catherine Halsey."
   "Araqiel," she muttered. "Did your master leave you behind
when he was reassigned? Don't you have anything better to do
than steal data from my SPARTAN program?"
   The doctor leaned toward a side display and, without 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 glanced at the display before her. "Kalmiya, I need
you." She tapped level-seven security barriers, which popped up
over her command line prompt. "Here."
   "Yes, Doctor."
   "Oh, 'thick' indeed, Doctor," Araqiel rumbled. "While I al-
lowed you to 'access' these medical files, I have taken control of
the air reclamation system for your medical wing. I can pressurize
your office and cause pulmonary edema. I can release narco-zine
gas to para--" His eyes narrowed to a squint. "What are you doing
there?"
   "We're in," Kalmiya said.
   Dr. Halsey tapped in a flurry of commands.
   The holograph of Araqiel leaned over her shoulder. "What is
that? I don't recognize mat directory path . . . or those"--he
sniffed derisively--"archaic line commands."

128                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "These commands were invented, refined, and then discarded
and forgotten long before even the first functional dumb AI went
online," Dr. Halsey told him. "I learned them when I was fifteen,
working on my second doctoral thesis."
   "An antiquated input methodology for an obsolete human."
   "Antiquated? Obsolete? Really?" She smiled and said, "Let's
test your hypothesis, Araqiel. I supervised the creation of the
template for every third-generation smart AI on this planet. I
know everything there is to know about you, including your bor-
derline disregard for human life." She paused and tapped her
chin. "Maybe that's why you and Ackerson always got along so
well."
   "Colonel Ackerson is a great man. He's--"
   "To answer your original question," she said, ignoring him,
"this is the nexus of your being." She tapped the display. "Your
code directory, the center through which all impulses in your
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. Halsey sighed and closed the display. "A waste of memory
crystal."
   She wondered if the AI had been bluffing. Maybe not; ONI
Section Three gave its AIs broad discretionary powers for deal-
ing with security breaches. Still... she was happy not to have
found out how far Araqiel would have gone.
   "Kalmiya, please retrieve the data file and show me the con-
tents of Colonel Ackerson's directory."
   "Working, Doctor. There's some minor encryption to unravel.
It should only take a moment." She paused and then asked,
"Doctor Halsey, the UV fail-safe in Araqiel's Riemann matrix...
are they planted in every smart AI? In me?"
   "They are not implanted in every AI," Dr. Halsey said, care-
fully controlling her voice.

                          ERIC NYLUND                           129
   Kalmiya would undoubtedly stress-analyze her vocal pat-
terns, so she told her the truth. It was always a game of chess
with smart AIs--move and countermove. It was a constant chal-
lenge to earn and keep their respect. That's why she preferred
their company to humans--they were so deliciously complex.
Yes, she told her the truth... just not the whole truth.
   "Here they are, Doctor."
   Holographic file and folder icons filled the space over her desk.
   "Filter by proper names," Dr. Halsey said. "Let's not waste our
time with Ackerson's petty blackmails. Also remove any files
dated before the SPARTAN-IIs went online, and any not ac-
cessed more than a dozen times. I want to see what black ops
topped his list."
   The folders and files winked away, and only two folders re-
mained floating over Dr. Halsey's desk: s-ni and KING UNDER THE
MOUNTAIN. She tapped on the first one and it opened, revealing
hundreds of separate files. Dr. Halsey examined them--there
were medical files on each of her Spartans: complete records from
their preindoctrinated 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
techniques that ONI had used to replace the originals. Ackerson
seemed especially interested in this aspect of the program. He
had followed the medical records of the replacements as they
grew up, succumbed to congenital diseases, and inevitably died.
He even had the bodies retrieved and autopsies performed.
   Dr. Halsey's stomach soured. It was her fault, in part, that these
replacement children had died so young. They had never per-
fected flash cloning for an entire human. They had done it any-
way thirty years ago because the Earth government was on the
verge of falling apart... collapsing into a hundred civil wars.
They had desperately needed the SPARTAN program.
   And of course, they had done it simply because they could.
   No matter the legitimacy of her reasons, she knew she had
killed these children as sure as if she had shot them dead.

130                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   There was one last file in the S-III folder.
   As Dr. Halsey tapped it open, Kalmiya said, "That is only a
fragment. It had been erased, but I managed to reconstruct it
from trace ionization in the memory crystal."
   Dr. Halsey examined its contents. There was only CPOMZ fol-
lowed by a 512-character alphanumeric string. "This longer por-
tion is a star chart reference," she whispered.
   "Yes, Doctor, but it's not a destination to any location in
UNSC-controlled space."
   What the hell had Ackerson been up to? "No good at all," she
murmured and ran her finger over the first word in the file:
CPOMZ.
   "I'll have to deal with this later," she said. She downloaded
the files to a nearby data pad. "Let's see what else the good
Colonel was up to." She opened the folder marked KING UNDER
THE MOUNTAIN.
   There were only three files.
   The first was the original construction blueprints of this base; it
appeared 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 12,2552. That was the
inquiry of John's destruction of the city on Cote d'Azur and the
alien artifact the Covenant had tried to procure there. Curious.
   A third file was an analysis of the symbols John had captured
from the alien artifact. According to Ackerson's notes it, too,
was a partial star map. Dr. Halsey returned to the stellar chart
reference in the Spartans' files.
   No good. This location had nothing to do with that reference.
   The stellar reference in the alien artifact was ... she did the
math in her head--
   "I'll be God damned," she muttered.
   She pulled up star charts and NAV records for confirmation,
and checked her math one last time.
   No question: It was the Epsilon Eridani system.
   Here.

                         ERIC NYLUND                          131
   This was more than a curiosity, now. Ackerson had been sit-
ting on a tremendous secret--a very dangerous secret. "Just his
style to play with fire and get us all burned."
   Additional files detailed the procurement of digging equip-
ment, and a new set of blueprints and geological surveys. The
new maps looked like a network of veins and arteries.
   "What am I looking at, Kalmiya?"
   "According to the coordinates of these secondary maps, Doc-
tor, this facility was built over an old titanium mine ... and be-
fore that this site was surveyed as an extinct volcano. These are
designated as a series of lava tubes."
   "I wonder if they used the natural passages to help build the
mines, and later this facility?" Dr. Halsey removed her glasses
and cleaned them as she thought this through. "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 increased seismic activity, Doctor."
   Dr. Halsey froze. She felt it more than saw it--a series of
faint, rhythmic thumps, like thunder in the distance.
   Dust rained from the ceiling tiles and scattered the light for
the holographic system into a dazzling starburst.
   "They're coming," Dr. Halsey whispered. She opened a COM
channel to the Spartans. "Get back to the lab ASAP. I might have
away out!"
   She stumbled as a powerful blast rocked the chamber. There
was a shriek of stressed metal, and the main support beam over-
head shifted, fell, and crashed onto her desk.
   The lights went dead.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

0901 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon
Eridani system, ONI underground facility, planet Reach.
   The secure storage doors whispered open, and overhead fluo-
rescent lights strobed on. Fred saw motion--but it was only his
own reflection in the burnished-mirror finish of the chamber's
stainless-steel walls. Will stepped inside and looked up, then
glanced back down the corridor.
   The room was a three-by-five-meter vault with steel walls,
floor, and ceiling. Their footfalls were muffled as they entered,
so the floor had to be at least a quarter meter thick. Along the
right and left walls stood secure floor-to-ceiling lockers, and two
metal crates sat 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 invasion
force overhead. He had walked down these corridors a dozen
times during his training on Reach. This base had always been
full of people; now, empty, it drove the point home that the Cove-
nant were winning. First the Outer Colonies had been crushed;
now Reach. How long before humanity was forced to retreat all
the way back to Earth? And after that... what? There would be
no other choice but victory or extinction.
   Enough. Such musings didn't help him achieve his immediate

                          ERIC NYLUND                          133
objective. He'd leave the long-range strategies to Generals and
Admirals. It was time to concentrate on what he did best.
   The walls hummed as thick metal bolts inside the lockers re-
tracted, the sound of heavy oiled steel sliding over steel. With a
final thump, the sound ceased.
   Kalmiya said, "Lockers open and safeties disabled, Spartans.
Help yourselves."
   "Secure the outer door, please," Fred told her.
   The door to the hallway eased shut and locked, and Will
moved to Fred's side. Each Spartan opened one of the wall lock-
ers, standing to the side in case there was some leftover booby
trap within that Kalmiya had failed to disable.
   Fred peered inside and saw a rack of handguns. They weren't
the standard-issue HE pistols; these had oversized barrels--
easily 30 percent larger and longer--and they had grips of
self-molding plastasteel. He picked one up and hefted it--its
balance was barrel-heavy, to be expected from an unloaded
pistol. 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-wrapped rifle. He removed the rifle
from the locker, ripped off its sheathing, and shouldered it. He
nodded with satisfaction.
   Unlike the MA5B, this rifle had a longer barrel and stock,
with a cutdown muzzle shroud. A scope was mounted on an op-
tics railing along the top of the rifle. Will hefted a clip and in-
serted it into the receiver.
   He shouldered the rifle again and peered through the scope.
"Auto zoom, nice."
   Will and Fred then traded and inspected the new weapons.
Fred liked the feel of this new rifle, but wondered how much
punch it had--enough, he hoped, to make the trade-off of having
fewer rounds in the clip worth it.
   They filled two sacks with the new pistols, rifles, and ammu-
nition, then moved to the footlockers and lifted the lids.

134                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Inside the first locker were satchel charges. Fred grabbed
three and looped them over his neck. "I think we can find a use
for these."
   Will knelt next to the second footlocker. Within were plastic
boxes marked MJOLNIR MARK V followed by a long list of serial
numbers. "This must be what Doctor Halsey wanted," he said.
   There was a flutter in the floor--which got Fred's full atten-
tion, because a "flutter" in a solid steel floor meant trouble.
   The COM channel opened, and Dr. Halsey's voice crackled
with static: "Get back to the lab ASAP. I might have a way out.
Quickly!"
   The vault room flexed, and thunder rumbled through the walls.
   "Detonations," Will said. "They're coming."
   "Secure those boxes," Fred ordered. He raced to the closed
doors. "Open," he shouted to Kalmiya and waited as the door
slowly eased apart. He scanned up and down the corridor and
then ran back toward 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 in place.
   Fred scooped her up and set her on the examination table.
"With all due respect, ma'am, you're not."
   Another detonation rippled through the earth--this one stronger
than the previous explosion. Fissures snaked through the con-
crete walls.
   Vinh and Isaac bounded into the room. "Enemy contacts at
extreme range," Vinh reported.
   "Down," Dr. Halsey said, and she held a palm-sized data pad
for Fred to see. It had a map on its display . . . but not of this
base. "We have to go lower."
   Fred wondered if Dr. Halsey was delirious.
   "Down the elevator shaft in Section Sigma," she explained.
"We'll seal it behind us. We can't let them follow."
   "Kelly, take point," Fred ordered. He grabbed two of the new

                          ERIC NYLUND                         135
magnum pistols, loaded them, and then tossed them to Kelly,
along with three extra clips. "I guess you get to test these."
   Kelly gazed at the new weapons and gave a low whistle.
   Fred opened the bags with die new rifles and handed them out
to his team. "Will, you mule the extra parts and ammo."
   "Roger," Will replied and slung them over his shoulders.
   "Those satchels, over there," Dr. Halsey said and waved to
four duffel bags. "Medical supplies. Food and water. We'll need
them, too."
   Will grabbed them as well.
   "Just a few more things," Dr. Halsey whispered. "We can't
let them get into ONI's records." She tapped her pad once and
then said to Kalmiya, "Begin Operation White Glove. Irradiate all
computer memory crystal. Code file access Beta-Foxtrot-99874."
Dr. Halsey closed her eyes as if she were concentrating, and
she whispered, "Not all AIs have the fail-safe option, my dear
Kalmiya... just the ones that matter."
   "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 display.
   Dr. Halsey turned to him. "I've activated the explosives cache
under this base, which will level the complex. We have to get be-
low, to the original titanium mine tunnels."
   Fred wished she had consulted with him before she had given
them only three minutes. Then again, Dr. Halsey knew what was
at stake, what secrets were hidden in this base, and what damage
could occur if the Covenant got their hands on those secrets.
   Five minutes might be too much time considering what was
at risk.
   "Understood," Fred replied. "Isaac, you're rear guard. Vinh,
stick close to Kelly. I'll take Doctor Halsey." Fred picked up the
doctor with great care. She couldn't have weighed more than
fifty kilos--light as a stick.

136                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "I've lost targets on motion sensors," Vinh whispered over the
COM. "They were close, too."
   "Kelly, watch for camouflaged Elites."
   "Affirmative," she said. She scanned the room, moved to a
cabinet, and grabbed a tin can marked TALC.
   "Let's move," Fred ordered. "Kalmiya, kill the lights in the
base. Hand signals only--I want radio silence."
   Four blue acknowledgment lights winked on.
   The faint light filtering in from the outer hall died.
   Kelly slid into the hallway and melted into the shadows. Vinh
followed, then Fred and Isaac. Will trailed behind, moving
slower because of the care he took to remain quiet with the gear.
   Dr. Halsey tapped her data pad, and a map uploaded onto Fred's
heads-up display, a path traced through corridors and a NAV
marker designated an elevator shaft. That was their objective.
   The Spartans winked on their acknowledgment lights, con-
firming the route.
   They crept forward, smooth and silent--oil sliding over oil--
until 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 doctor
to provide cover with his own body if needed.
   Isaac remained on their six.
   Kelly kicked the can. It tumbled end over end through the air,
and as it entered the intersection Kelly squeezed off a single
shot. The flash of light from the muzzle illuminated the passage
just long enough for them to see the can explode and a cloud of
white dust mushroom into the hallways.
   Their motion detectors flickered, and four targets resolved on
their displays. Image enhancement showed the wavering out-
lines of four Covenant Elites--their light-bending camouflage
fluttering and overloading as the talc powder coated them.
   Kelly open fire with both pistols. The Elite closest dropped as
three slugs pounded through its shields, and a round caught it in

                          ERIC NYLUND                           137
the center of its elongated forehead. Purple blood blossomed
across the wall.
   The remaining Elites returned fire, and Kelly bounded for-
ward, plasma flaring at the edge of her shield. She ducked into
the side passage.
   The instant Kelly was out of the line of fire, Fred shouldered
his rifle and squeezed the trigger. A three-round burst caught the
next Elite, and its shield sparkled and failed. It twisted away,
clutching at the single round that had penetrated its chest.
   Vinh fired two single shots, but the Elite's shield held. In uni-
son, Vinh and Fred fired another set of three-round bursts. The
Elite dropped to the steel floor in a twisted heap.
   The last Elite had vanished. No return fire. No sensor contact.
   The Spartans held position for a moment longer, then re-
grouped. With hand signals, each member of the team reported
no contact.
   Fred spied tracks in the white dust scattered on the 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. Will gave him a
thumbs-up, indicating that the doctor hadn't been wounded in
the exchange.
   After the exchange of gunfire, there was no need for secrecy.
"One of them got away," Fred told them. "We need to move, too...
and forget quiet."
   The Spartans ran down the corridor. They heard and felt an-
other explosion directly over their heads.
   Kelly skidded to a halt in front of the locked elevator doors.
She gripped one of the panels; Fred and Vinh gripped the seam
of the other side, and the Spartans pried them apart as if the
five-centimeter steel alloy were no tougher than the rind of an
orange.
   Kelly grabbed the elevator cables and slid down. Vinh fol-
lowed, then Fred plummeted more than five hundred meters into

138                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
the darkness. The three of them ripped open the doors at the bot-
tom of the shaft.
   Will slid down next with Dr. Halsey holding on to his neck.
Isaac followed.
   "There should be an air vent," Dr. Halsey whispered. "There."
   Kelly ripped off the vent cover and peered down.
   "It leads to the old mine tunnels," Dr. Halsey told them, "and
more, I hope."
   "Go," Fred ordered.
   Kelly dived in, headfirst. They waited ten seconds, and her ac-
knowledgment 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.
   "There's more to this place," Dr. Halsey told them, standing
up and brushing the dust from her lab coat. "This is only the be-
ginning. We have to--"
   A thunderous detonation cut her off. The mountain exploded,
and ONI's base collapsed over their heads.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

0002 hours, September 7,2552 (Military Calendar) \ ONI
underground facility, planet Reach.
   Fred followed the trail of odd symbols along the left-hand
stone wall until they twisted into a spiral mosaic and vanished
into ever-smaller curls. The symbols were part of the rock, com-
posed of glittering mica inclusions in the granite matrix. There
were a series of squares, triangles, bars, and dots, similar to
Covenant calligraphy he had seen--but at the same time it was
simpler, cleaner, and when Fred focused on them, the characters
seemed to blur around their edges and fade from his stare.
   He blinked, and the symbols were there again.
   Following these symbols like a trail of bread crumbs had been
his primary mission 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 recognized that the symbols were important, too. They
were important because the Covenant thought they were impor-
tant. And that made whatever Dr. Halsey was searching for
worth finding, if only to keep the enemy from getting it.
   The Covenant hadn't stopped digging overhead, although
the pace and methods they used had changed. There had been
no further explosions. There was only the constant and gentle
scraping sound of equipment as they slowly but steadily re-
moved the mountain. Every hour the sound intensified as they

140                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
drew closer. Fred had set his audio filters to screen out the noise
so he could concentrate.
   Five days. It hadn't seemed that long. They worked, they
rested, they slept, and they waited. Dr. Halsey had taught them
word games like twenty questions and simple cipher, at which
they all became extremely proficient--so much so that she
quickly stopped playing. Dr. Halsey was not a graceful loser.
   The time had melted away. Maybe it was the darkness, the
lack of any temporal reference like the sun, moon, and stars, but
the hours had lost their meaning.
   He paused to stretch his Achilles tendon, recently stitched and
fused by Dr. Halsey. Aside from some stiffness, it was almost
back to normal. He had almost torn the tendon off, running on
the injury.
   Dr. Halsey had patched them all up; she had even flash cloned
Kelly a new partial lung, which she successfully grafted. In her
tiny field medical kit, the doctor had a handheld MRI, a sterile
field 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 boost. Vinh had a
new linear accelerator added to her shield system, effectively
doubling its strength. Isaac had a new image-enhancing com-
puter installed. Will received a better tracking system on his
heads-up display, which improved his accuracy at distances up
to a thousand meters.
   Fred flexed his bare right hand. Dr. Halsey was installing his
upgrade now--new sensors that would boost the sensitivity of
his motion tracker. Without the single gauntlet, Fred felt vul-
nerable. The Master Chief would have told him not to rely on his
armor or weapons--rely instead on his head. It would protect
him better.
   He wondered how Blue Team--John, Linda, and James--had
fared. And what of the rest of his own team? Had anyone at the
generator complex survived?

                          ERIC NYLUND                         141
    He didn't want to think about them--but he couldn't help it.
 Maybe it was the darkness and the constant weight of the earth
 around him.
   What if they died here? Not died fighting, but just died here.
In a way, that wouldn't be so bad. Fred had faced death a dozen
times, brushed so close to it he had stared it in the face until it
blinked and turned away.
   This was different, though. He didn't want to die, not without
knowing if the other Spartans were still out there fighting. Not if
they still needed him.
   He sighed and absentmindedly brushed his fingertips across
the odd symbols. They were as smooth as glass, and their edges
were sharp. These crystals could be a natural phenomenon. He
had seen similar inclusions in the museum on--
   Fred felt a hot pain in the tip of his finger. He drew his bare
hand away and a tiny track of blood smeared the rock.
   The glittering symbols on the wall took on a greasy cast,
and the reflection from his helmet lights thickened 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 appeared that hadn't
been there a second ago . . . or perhaps it had been, but had lain
just beneath the surface. It heated and became increasingly visi-
ble, a single triangle that glowed white.
   Fred was inexorably drawn to this central figure. He reached
 for it; there was no heat. He slowly stretched and touched the
 symbol with his exposed fingertip.
   Warm white light raced along the spiral of symbols, then
traced a path down the hallway and into the distance. The entire
cavern seemed sudden alive with radiance and shadow. Even
with the step-down luminosity filters in his helmet, Fred had to
blink and squint.
   The wall before him rumbled and seams appeared at the cen-
tral figure, dozen of lines that curved in a radial pattern--and
then pulled away to reveal a corridor behind.

142                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Fred realized that he was holding his breath. He exhaled.
   This new corridor was twenty meters high--large enough for
a titan to stride down its length. It vanished into the distance, a
straight line that gently sloped deeper into the earth. The floor
was paved with asymmetric blue tiles patterned to look like
waves lapping upon a shore. Four-meter-tall symbols of gold
were centered and inlaid into the mirror-smooth walls. These gi-
ant triangles, squares, bars, and circles began to emit the same
soft light... and Fred felt his foot shuffle forward.
   He stopped, shook his head, and looked away. He checked his
radiation counter; it pulsed, and then fell back to a normal back-
ground count.
   He keyed the COM. "Doctor Halsey, I think I've found what
you've been looking for. Sending video feed now. Copy?"
   There was a long pause. The COM was open, but Dr. Halsey
wasn't responding.
   "Doctor Halsey, copy?"
   "Yes," she 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 eyes on the dirt floor of the tunnel. There was
something too fascinating and nearly familiar about those sym-
bols. They reminded him of the Greek mythology that Deja, the
Spartans' first teacher, had taught--legends of hauntingly beau-
tiful creatures who lured the unwary to certain death. Sirens.
   He checked his rifle. The ammo counter read full, but he
hit the magazine release and visually confirmed it. He slapped
the clip back into the receiver. This simple operation cleared
his head.
   He detected four blips on his motion tracker--they glowed
green, indicating fhendlies.
   Kelly, Vinh, Isaac, and Will jogged up next to him, weapons
ready.
   "What is this?" Will whispered. The golden glow reflected in
his helmet's faceplate.

                          ERIC NYLUND                           143
   "Careful," Fred warned them. "Filter the light. Go to
black-and-white image enhancement."
   He got four blue acknowledgment signals, and then Fred
switched to BWIM display. Funny that he hadn't thought of that
for himself. Only when the safety of his team was at stake did he
think clearly.
   Dr. Halsey ran along the tunnel and halted, panting, next to the
Spartans. "Yes," she said, wheezing. "Yes, this must be it--what
Ackerson was searching for. And most likely"--she glanced at
the roof--"what they are looking for, too, I imagine."
   Dr. Halsey ignored the curious symbols and the light, and
strode into the new corridor. "Hurry," she told them. "I fear
we've set something in motion, and our visitors upstairs might
know it, too."
   Fred assembled his team to form up around Dr. Halsey. Kelly
took point, and the rest of them created a loose box around her.
   Dr. Halsey handed Fred his missing gauntlet. He took it and
wriggled his fingers into the 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. Moons wheeled overhead;
silver-gray orbs, pockmarked with meteorite impacts, spun in
wide orbits. Along the walls, tall green bamboo-like grass sprouted
and grew up the curved surfaces.
   Dr. Halsey brushed her fingertips along the wall, and the
grasses wavered at her touch. "Semisolid holography," she said
without halting. "No visible emitters. Interesting. We should in-
vestigate this later," she said and increased the pace of her stride.
"If there's time."
   The holographic environment cycled to an arid moonscape:
deep craters and sterile light; it became a volcanic world with
lava flowing alongside them. The air wavered with heat. In each
transformation the golden symbols remained on the walls, lead-
ing them through the illusions.

144                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   The corridor emptied onto a landing that overlooked the
largest room Fred had ever seen.
   Kelly stepped onto the landing, looked, and waved them
forward.
   They stood on one of a dozen tiered levels that encircled the
room; there was no railing. Fred leaned over the edge. It was at
least one hundred meters to the floor below. The room was ap-
proximately circular and three kilometers in diameter. The floor
was blue and seemed to shift as a billion tiny tiles flexed and re-
arranged themselves into frustratingly familiar patterns. The
ceiling was a dome with a holographic golden sun, blue sky, and
cottony clouds that morphed into spheres, puffy pyramids, bars,
and cubes. And in the center of the floor was a pedestal flickering
with a faint light.
   Isaac held up his hand. "Listen," he whispered over the COM.
   They all froze, and Fred strained to hear. There was nothing.
Fred turned up his aural amplification 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 length of the
barrel. She shot it into the stone wall, and the metal shard im-
planted ten centimeters and blossomed with sharp talons, secur-
ing the shaft to the wall.
   Vinh handed her a coil of black rope. She clipped one end to
the piton, then tossed the rest over the edge.
   Isaac and Will stood on the lip and swept the vast open region
with their weapons.
   Kelly jumped and rappelled to the bottom. A moment later
she gave the all-clear signal.
   Will and Isaac followed her to the floor. Fred tied the rope
around Dr. Halsey's waist and lowered her gingerly down after
them. He and Vinh took up the rear.
   The floor of the great room wasn't the same tile as in the cor-
ridor above. It was still blue tile, but these were squares and

                           ERIC NYLUND                           145
circles and bars and triangles. If the symbols were a language,
Fred stood upon a million words; he wished he'd been issued a
dictionary.
    Dr. Halsey paused to examine the tiles as well. "If only we had
the time," she muttered, and then walked toward the light gleam-
ing in the center of the chamber.
    The Spartans formed up around the doctor again, but Fred's
instincts warned him that this wasn't a good idea. He couldn't
get his bearings straight. The room was big, large enough that it
felt as if they were outside. It threw him off. He had an odd sense of
vertigo, almost as if the floor was tilting and he was now walking
on the roof.
   Dr. Halsey increased her pace, but the distance to the center of
the room didn't seem any closer; in fact, they seemed more dis-
tant from the center than when they had started out from the
edge of the room.
   Fred turned down the gain on his display until everything was
a faint black-and-white 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 floor and gave it a gentle push. The bearing rolled, then
curved, and spiraled back to a stop.
    "This is getting too weird," Fred muttered. "Kelly, you have
the best aim. Close your eyes, pick a direction, and we'll follow."
    "... Affirmative," she whispered.
   The Spartans set their hands on each other's shoulders and
marched, not toward the center of the room but to a spot that
Kelly picked, apparently back the way they had come.
   Fred turned off his display and watched his motion tracker.
They were all together and another blip appeared, one that Kelly
was leading them straight to.
   Another twenty meters and she halted. "Look."
   Fred snapped on his heads-up display, and sapphire-blue light
filled his vision. They stood before the source of the glow in the

146                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
middle of the room. There was a pedestal made of the same gold
material as the symbols in the corridor, and floating above it was
a fist-sized crystal, tapered to a point at either end. It spun, and
the facets along its centerline folded and shifted like the pieces
of a puzzle.
   Dr. Halsey reached for it and then hesitated. "Radiation?" she
asked.
   Fred checked his counter. "Normal background levels," he
reported.
   "We must take this with us," she whispered. "Study it. Or de-
stroy it if necessary to keep the Covenant from getting it." She
touched the crystal, and its light dimmed. For a moment the light
appeared to be absorbed by Dr. Halsey's palm.
   Static washed over Fred's display, his shields shimmered, a
squeal blasted through his speakers, and his motion tracker mo-
mentarily made contact with a thousand targets swarming through
the great room. His radiation 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'll be able to get a fix on our position," Kelly said. "All
they need is three ships nearby to triangulate. We need to get out
ofhere--fast."
   "Which way?" Isaac asked Fred. "Back the way we came, or
deeper in?"
   "There was no way out from the titanium mines," Fred replied.
"So we go deeper."
   An explosion rocked the earth and deep thunder rumbled, but
rather than diminishing, this thunder got louder, closer.
   Fred's shadow lengthened, and its edges sharpened.
   He whirled toward the source of the intense white light--
directly overhead, a spot in the dome: The holographic scenery
of stars and moons bleached and vanished. He spun Dr. Halsey
around so she faced away, then covered her head.

                          ERIC NYLUNO                          147
   The stone ceiling melted and peeled back as if it were thin
plastic hit with a blowtorch--an angled shaft of dazzling white
radiance appeared and blasted into the tiled floor, five hundred
meters from their position.
   Then it was gone and the room fell into darkness punctured
only by a ray of faint sunlight that streamed in through the hole
above. Where the beam of hard light had contacted the floor, a
precision-milled hole had been etched fifteen meters deep.
   Dr. Halsey said, "What was--"
   "Energy projector," Fred told her, blinking away the black
dots that filled his vision even though his step-down filters had
absorbed the brunt of the light. "Only the big Covenant ships
have them. There's got to be one of them--"
   The cut shaft filled with a beam of purple light. It sparkled
and shimmered with motes of dust.
   "Grav lift," Fred shouted. "Incoming! Isaac and Vinh, take
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 fire!" Fred barked. "Keep them pinned in that
crater!"
   The Spartans fired several bursts, but more Elites were drift-
ing down, along with a Shade--a portable plasma turret. If they
stayed here, they'd be overrun.
   "Fall back," Fred told them over the COM. "It's too hot."
   Kelly sprinted, digging in her heals with such force that the
tiles buckled and shot out behind her. "Passage," she reported.
"Ground floor. Dead ahead. I'll enter and clear."
   "My apologies, Doctor," Fred said and unceremoniously scooped
Dr. Halsey up in his arms. "Everyone move! Vinh, Isaac, drop
those det sacks to cover our tracks."
   Their acknowledgment lights winked on.
   Will and Fred ran, weaving from side to side. Dr. Halsey clutched

148                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
onto Fred with one arm, and in her free hand she clutched the
crystal.
   Fred's motion tracker showed dozen of targets behind them,
then hundreds.
   A pair of detonations thumped, an overpressure wave blurred
his motion tracker, subsided, and then half of those contacts
were gone.
   Will and Fred ran into an arched passage set in the wall of the
great room. Kelly crouched in the hallway and fired past them
with her pistols.
   Fred opened his COM. "SPARTAN-029. SPARTAN-039.
Acknowledge."
   Static hissed through his speaker. Vinh's and Isaac's lights re-
mained dark.
   "Prep your det sack and seal this passage," Fred ordered Kelly.
   Fred set down Dr. Halsey, 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 searching for Vinh
and Isaac in the mass of Covenant. They weren't there; not alive
anyway. Kelly dropped the olive-green satchel of high explosives.
   Will picked up Dr. Halsey, and they all ran deeper into the
corridor.
   Five seconds later the satchel detonated. A wave of acrid air
washed up the hallway and choked the corridor with dust and
smoke.
   Kelly took the lead position, both pistols ready; she rounded a
corner--and skidded to a halt.
   The passage was a dead end.

SECTION 3

            RESCUE

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

0455 hours, September 23,2552 (Military Calendar) \ Captured
Covenant flagship, in Slipspace, location unknown.
   John brushed off the frost buildup that clouded the top half of
the cryotube, and revealed the green-armored figure sprawled
behind the plastasteel shell.
   SPARTAN-058. Linda.
   She'd been mortally wounded during the raid on Gamma Sta-
tion, just before Reach fell. He'd dragged her burned, limp body
back to the Pillar of Autumn, and the medics had placed her in
deep cryostasis just before the jump.
   When the Autumn crashed on Halo, Keyes must have jetti-
soned the active cryotubes--standard operating procedure.
   They had frozen her while she'd still been in her suit. That 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 was content to separate, hide
and post in some remote location, and wait for days for the single,
critical shot that could turn the tide of battle. Although snipers
in the UNSC were always trained to function in pairs, a shooter
and a spotter, Linda was the exception to that rule--she had
proven time and again that she was most effective on her own.
If any one of the Spartans could be called a "lone wolf," it was
Linda. In many ways that made her the strongest of them.
   To see her like this ...

                          ERIC NYLUND                          151
   John wiped away the condensation that formed over her
hel-meted head. She was neither dead nor alive. She was in
some twilight place in between.
   That uncertainty was worse than seeing her broken and burned
body on Gamma Station. It felt like an open wound in John's
chest.
   Linda's prognosis was good. The occupants of the other two
cryopods hadn't made it. Some kind of energy discharge had de-
activated the units, and those inside had died cold bleak deaths.
   There was a gentle knock on the hull of the Pelican, and
Sergeant Johnson pulled himself inside. "Master Chief," he said.
"You got the air scrubbers? The remote COM? Polaski says she's
ready to call it a day with that Covenant dropship. We need to get
on board and work."
   The Master Chief stood and nodded to the aft hatch, where he
had stripped the air scrubbers and COM from the Pelican.
   The Sergeant picked up the gear, and then he and the Chief
crawled out of the Pelican. The Chief 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 death of a
squadmate, they turned away and lied to themselves?
   They silently marched across the hangar. It had been cleared
of debris and bodies, and Warrant Officer Polaski had, for the
last six hours, been practicing inside the space with the intact
Covenant dropship. She spun the odd U-shaped craft around on
its center axis, shimmied to port, rose, and then floated down for a
landing.
   Johnson squinted his dark eyes at her performance and nod-
ded approvingly. "She says that she's figured out the weapon
controls, too. No way to test them in here, of course."
   "Understood," the Master Chief replied. "And the rest of the
team's progress?"
   "I've got the doors from here to the bridge and to the engine
room welded shut," Sergeant Johnson told him. "If those tran-

152                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
sient sensor contacts that Cortana keeps picking up are anything,
they'll have to cut through to get to us.
   "Locklear's grabbing some sack time. He needed it." The
Sergeant shrugged. "He'll be fine, though; ODSTs are tough as
nails. Lieutenant Haverson slept some then got up, had a long
conversation with Cortana, and started reading through some of
the Covenant database. Everyone seems to be fine, considering
what we've been through."
   "Understood," the Chief said. "Cortana? Ship status?"
   "ETA to Reach in twenty minutes," she said.
   The Chief checked his mission clock. "You said thirteen hours'
total travel time. By my count, we have approximately two hours
to go."
   "I had determined it would be thirteen hours based on the spec-
ifications of the Covenant Slipspace drive, but there's ..." Her
voice trailed off and faded.
   "Cortana?"
   "Sorry. There's a curious time-dilation effect 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 fly
this ship, and if she started falling apart they were in real trouble.
   The Master Chief opened a COM channel. "Change of plans,
team. Reach ETA is nineteen minutes. I'll explain later--just
grab your gear and meet on the bridge ASAP."
   There was a pause, then Lieutenant Haverson replied, "Roger,
Master Chief. Locklear and I are already up here."
   The hatch of the Covenant dropship opened, and Polaski
jogged out. The three of them proceeded at a brisk pace to the
bridge.
   The Master Chief opened a private COM channel to Cortana.
"Anything else I should know?"
   The channel was silent for a full ten seconds. "I have the
Covenant magnetic plasma-shaping system figured out," she

                          ERIC NYLUND                         153
 replied. "We'll have a limited offensive capacity when we get to
 Reach, if we need it. I think."
    "And the rest of this ship is still functional?"
    "Yes," she replied. "I'm sorry, Chief ... these calculations
 are. . . tricky."
    The COM went dead.
    Cortana's behavior worried the Chief, but he resigned himself
 to trust her. What other option was there?
    He, the Sergeant, and Polaski halted outside the bridge; the
 thick blast doors were sealed.
    "Lieutenant?" he said. "We're outside."
    The doors pulled apart. Locklear and the Lieutenant stood
with their assault rifles aimed down the hall. They relaxed their
stance when they identified them as friendlies.
    Lieutenant Haverson slung his rifle and said, "Sorry for the
warm welcome. Cortana's been picking up transient contacts all
over the ship. We're going to have to deal with them sooner or
later--preferably before they deal with us."
    "Agreed," the Chief said.
    Polaski approached 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 spacing yourself and walking
the rest of the way to Reach," the Sergeant declared. "In your
skivvies."
    "Give me a drop capsule and I'd take those odds, Sarge." A
smile split Locklear's tanned face, and he turned to the Master
Chief. "Sure, I get it. Wouldn't be so defensive if I hadn't been
close to the mark. Where there's smoke, there's fire, right?"
    The Master Chief stared at Locklear and slowly shook his head.
    Locklear's smile faded, but not entirely. "You guys are just
jealous," he muttered and absentmindedly ran his finger over the
scar that lined his jaw. "That's cool. I get that all the time."
    Locklear's spirits had improved. Despite the ODST's rough
edges, the Chief had seen him in combat. He didn't panic, and he

154                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
had the skill and luck to survive Halo--qualities the Master
Chief knew they'd need if they were ever going to get back.
   "Exiting Slipspace," Cortana announced, "in three ... two ...
one."
   According to the Master Chief's mission clock, it had only
been eight minutes since Cortana had told him their ETA was
nineteen minutes. Was there more to the time-dilation effect
than she realized?
   The bridge lights dimmed, and blackness filled the arc of dis-
plays along the wall. Stars winked into existence, and at three
o'clock blazed the warm yellow orb of Epsilon Eridani.
   "We are seven hundred thousand kilometers from the system
center," Cortana told them. "I wanted to jump in close enough to
see what's going on--but far enough away so we would have
time to recharge and reenter Slipspace if there's any trouble.
Picking up signals now. Covenant signals. Lots of them. Trans-
lating ... 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 down there--and had con-
sidered it the "easier" mission. He'd gotten his Spartans killed,
he was sure of it.
   Had they at least died fighting? Or were they burned from an
orbiting Covenant ship, helpless?
   "Are we in the right place?" Locklear murmured. "That's
Reach?" He removed his cap, crushed it in his hand, and whis-
pered, "Poor bastards."
   The other displays showed Covenant warships orbiting the
planet, as well as dozens of smaller craft and one large structure
that seemed to be a central docking station.
   "What is this?" the Master Chief asked, stepping closer. He
tapped the center display, pushing the limits of its resolution and
magnifying a portion of the surface near the midlatitudes.

                         ERIC NYLUND                         155
   The image resolved into patches of green, brown, and white--
different from the angry black and livid orange that dominated
the view of the rest of the planet.
   "Looks like they missed a spot," the Sergeant said.
   "The Covenant don't 'miss' anything when they glass a
planet," the Master Chief replied. "We've seen them do it a thou-
sand times. This is no accident." He turned to Lieutenant
Haver-son. "We should get closer and see what this is, sir."
   "Master Chief," Haverson said softly and held up his hands. "I
sympathize with your need to know with absolute certainty what
happened to your fellow Spartans, but this is..." He gestured to
the planet and then frowned as he scrutinized the undamaged
part of Reach. "Indeed," he murmured. "This does warrant a
closer look... provided we can get away with it."
   The Lieutenant pulled the magnification back and refocused
the display on the upper atmosphere. A hundred Covenant ships
popped into view. "There are several smaller vessels 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 hundreds--
most no larger than a Covenant dropship, but there were at least a
dozen cruisers and two of the titanic carriers that each carried
three squadrons of Seraph fighter craft. There was more than
enough firepower to turn their captured flagship into molten slag.
   Many of the smaller ships herded debris from the battle into
one spot over Reach--a floating junkyard of UNSC and Cove-
nant ships.
   "You see this?" The Master Chief pointed to the field of float-
ing debris.
   The Lieutenant stared at it. "It's almost as if they planned to
stay here for a while--they're cleaning house."
   "We're in," Cortana announced. "The fleet is curious why a
Covenant flagship is here, but not suspicious enough to question
our authority. The translation is tricky. But apparently from the

156                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
string of honorifics attached to their responses there's supposed
to be someone of extreme high rank commanding this ship,
someone they referred to, among other things, as the 'Guardian
of the Luminous Key.' "
   "Damn silly name," muttered Sergeant Johnson.
   "Can you tell what they're doing down there, Cortana?" the
Lieutenant asked.
   "Not yet," she replied. "Their language doesn't translate in a
literal manner, and each word has multiple meanings. There's
something they consider holy--there are ten times as many reli-
gious allusions than in their typical communiques. Hang on . . .
picking 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 planet's surface.
   "It's not Morse code," Polaski said. "Not any code I've heard
of. Maybe it's a test signal? Something automated, like an
air-traffic repeater relay, maybe?"
   "It's not automated," the Master Chief said. "Everyone gear
up and get ready. We're going down there. There are Spartans
down there. And they're still alive."
   He whispered so softly that only he and Cortana heard: "Oly
Oly Oxen Free."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

1002 hours, July 14,2523 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon Eridani
system, planet Reach, Spartan training exercise. Twenty-nine
years ago.
   John crawled forward and peered over the edge of the rise. A
lush, green valley stretched out below him. In the distance, the
silvery reflections of the Big Horn River twisted through the
thick forest. Aside from a flock of birds that wheeled overhead,
there was no activity below. He inched back to a blackened, hol-
low tree stump and crawled inside.
   Fred and Linda sat inside the hollowed-out cedar stump. It
muffled their conversations and insulated them from the sol-
diers' thermal goggles. "It's all clear for now," he whispered. A
moment later Sam, Kelly, 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 and Linda. "We can't afford
any mistakes on this one, especially not with the rifles."
   Linda and Fred disassembled and inspected their SRS99C-S2
sniper rifles--which they'd liberated from a pair of Tango Com-
pany shooters who'd been sent to hunt them down two days ago.
If the soldiers of Tango Company didn't capture them and beat
them into unconsciousness--this would be fun.
   John checked his pistol. CPO Mendez had issued the weapon.
It used compressed air to fire a narq-dart. The effective range

158                        HALO: FIRST STRIKE
was twenty meters, and on impact it could drop a rhino in its
tracks.
   Twenty meters wouldn't cut it for this mission, though, so
Fhajad had modified the 114mm APFSDS rounds from the
sniper rifles, removed their deadly armor-piercing tips, and re-
placed them with narq-dart capsules.
   When Linda had test-fired the weapon, she promised John ac-
curacy to one hundred meters. The rounds would penetrate flesh,
but they couldn't kill anyone--not unless she hit the temple or
eyes.
   "Okay," John said, "this is supposed to be a training exercise,
but this is the seventh time Chief Mendez has made us play with
Tango Company."
   "They're getting 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 to win, too." He grabbed a twig and scratched a square in
the leaf-covered dirt. "I'll have command of Red Team: That's
me, Sam, Kelly, and Fhajad. Linda, you lead Blue Team."
   "It's not 'Blue Team,' " Fred complained, and his face soured.
"It's just me. How come I have to stay and play sniper?" He
flexed his hands, and John could sense his pent-up eagerness to
get into close-range combat.
   "Because you're our second-best shot," John told him. "And

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                          ERIC NYLUND                           159
   "Count on it," Linda replied and locked her dark green eyes
with John's.
   He wondered if that's what her eyes looked like when she
sighted through the sniper scope. She never seemed to blink; she
always won in games of stare-down.
   "After we get the flag," he continued, "Red Team will get out
of there. Watch for targets of opportunity and cover us. We ren-
dezvous at the LZ and hopefully no one finds us before then."
   Fred nodded. Linda hefted her new rifle, which was almost
too large for her to look through the scope and rest the butt
against the hollow of her shoulder at the same time. "You'll be in
good hands."
   John closed his 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 their single-story jail. James hadn't bro-
ken ... not mentally, at least. But John wished he had; it had
taken James a whole week to recover.
   No--he took back that thought. He was glad James hadn't
broken. John would have tried to do the same.
   John whistled the little six-note singsong tune Deja had
taught them--their all-clear signal. He stood, holstered his dart
pistol, and checked the three stun grenades on his belt. "I'll see
you at the LZ."

160                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Okay. Check your mirrors."
   They all pulled out the shards of mirror they had taken from
Tango Company's latrine last night. They had taped the edges so
they could be handled more easily, and taped their backs to re-
duce the chance they'd shatter. The whole operation depended
on a fragile piece of glass, which had John worried.
    "Just hand signals from here on out," John told them. "Move
out, Red Team."
    They crouched and clawed and slithered through the forest
until they reached a gravel track. They pushed two large rocks
off the nearby hill, blocking the road, then waited in the brush.
   Headlights appeared as a supply truck rumbled down the road
and squealed to a halt. Two soldiers got out and scanned the area.
    "Think it's an ambush?" one of them muttered and gripped his
rifle tighter.
    "From those freak Section Three kids? Jesus, I don't know,"
the driver said. "Screw the rules of this exercise." He 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 he smelled the rubber from the new tires.
Kelly and Sam came next; Fhajad was last.
   They hadn't been spotted. So far, so good.
    The two men got back into the truck and proceeded down the
dirt road.
    Gravel bounced up and caught John in the side of the head,
and cut him; blood trickled from his ear along his neck, but he
didn't dare loosen his grip.
   After a kilometer of being pelted by rocks and stung by sand,
the truck eased to a halt at Tango Company's base. The guard
at the gatehouse spoke to the driver, and they laughed. The
guard then walked around and opened the back of the truck.
   John squirmed and got his mirror ready. With a flick of his
hand, he signaled the others to do the same. John held his mirror

                          ERIC NYLUND                          161
at an angle pointed at the undercarriage of the truck. His hand
trembled but he forced himself to be steady. He had to.
   The gate guard approached the truck with a long pole and a
small mirror attached at one end. He stuck the mirror under the
truck and swept it along one side.
   John matched the position of the mirror with his, moved it
steady along as the gate guard passed him so all the guard
saw was the reflected image of the undercarriage--a meter to
John's left.
   They'd practiced this maneuver all last night. It had to be
perfect.
   The guard moved on to Sam's position, and then Fhajad's, and
finally to Kelly's corner of the truck.
   Kelly's mirror slipped and she fumbled--caught it just before
it hit the ground. John held his breath; Kelly barely got the re-
flective surface in place as the gate guard swept her section.
   "Go ahead," the guard said and 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
ointment in their first-aid kits--a concoction guaranteed to keep
Tango's dogs out of the picture for another day.
   The truck parked inside a warehouse. Two men came and un-
loaded the back and then left, locking the doors of the warehouse
behind them.
   John and the others finally eased themselves down from the
truck. None of them spoke. A single word overheard now could
blow the entire operation. They silently massaged their aching
muscles. John bandaged his ear to stop the bleeding.
   John pointed to Sam and then at the hood of the truck. Sam
nodded and got to work. John then pointed at Fhajad and to
the side door. Fhajad moved to the entrance and began to pick
the lock.

162                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   John and Kelly patrolled the warehouse, looking for cameras,
dogs, guards, anything they'd have to remove. It was clear.
   Sam returned with four canteens, which he had, according to
their plan, filled with battery acid from the truck.
   There was a click from the side door and Fhajad gave them a
thumbs-up. They gathered near the door. Fhajad eased it open,
peeked out the crack, then opened it a little more and glanced to
either side.
   He nodded and moved out, keeping well away from the over-
head lights, skirting the shadows of the warehouse.
   John and the others followed, pausing in the darkest part of
the shadows. John held up five fingers, and Sam passed out the
canteens of acid. John pointed to his watch and again flashed
five fingers.
   They nodded.
   John then pointed to Kelly, and with two fingers pointed to
the perimeter of the camp and made a guillotine-cutting mo-
tion onto his other hand. Kelly nodded and vanished into 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 sticks of chewing gum from his pocket, popped
them into his mouth, and chewed. John crawled to the center of
the building. He carefully took a rag from his shirt pocket,
poured acid onto it, and then dabbed the rag to the underside of
the wood floor. He was extremely careful not to soak the rag or
get any acid on himself. When he touched the rag to the ply-
wood, the wood smoldered.
   After he had soaked a meter-square patch, he checked his
watch. Thirty seconds until it was 0455. Just enough time. He
primed all three of his stun grenades, set their timers for five
minutes, then used the chewing gum to attach the grenades to
the perimeter of the acid-weakened section of floor.
   Normally the stun grenades couldn't penetrate centimeter-thick

                          ERIC NYLUND                           163
plywood. Once the acid had eaten through the porous fibers,
however, the three grenades would have more than enough
bang to turn that meter-square section into a million airborne
splinters--shot straight up into the sleeping quarters of Tango
Company. Not lethal ... but guaranteed to be one heck of a
distraction.
   John crawled out, crept back to the warehouse, and ren-
dezvoused with the rest of Red Team.
   John glanced at his watch: 0458.
   He pointed to Kelly and then to himself, then made a curling
motion around one side of the warehouse. He pointed to Sam
and Fhajad and motioned them around the opposite side. They
moved to the far corners of the building.
   John and Kelly crouched and waited. They had a perfect view
of the center of the camp, the calisthenics area, the parade grounds,
and--right in the center--the flagpole.
   Right on time a Corporal and two guard escorts marched out
and 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 flashes of light strobed beneath the barracks as
the grenades detonated. There was the crackle of wood and the
screams of the men and women ofTango Company.
   The Corporal attaching the flag dropped one end and whirled
around. Floodlights on the perimeter fence snapped on and
pointed inward toward the barracks.
   In the confusion, no one noticed as one of the guards near the
flagpole dropped his rifle, grabbed his neck ... and toppled to
the gravel face-first.
   His partner spotted him and knelt.
   John sprinted across the compound, firing. His first shot went
wild, and the kneeling guard spun around to face him. Fhajad
and Sam shot him in the back.
   John took aim at the Corporal--who fumbled with his pistol

164                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
holster, trying to free his weapon. John planted two narq-darts in
his chest. The Corporal dropped.
   Two more guards rounded the corner of the warehouse,
shouted, and took aim at John.
   He was out in the open, and there was no way his dart pistol
could hit those guards from this distance.
   One guard fired. The round pinged off the flagpole not five
centimeters from John's head.
   The guard stiffened and dropped his rifle, wildly grabbing at
the back of his head ... and the dart stuck into his skull. He
screamed and fell, thrashing in the dirt.
   The other guard twitched and pulled a dart from his thigh. An-
other dart hit him in the chest, and he sprawled to the ground.
   John sent his silent thanks to Linda and Fred. He detached
the flag from the lanyard and stuffed it into his shirt.
   He waved Red Team forward, and Kelly led them to the
fences.
   Kelly didn't slow 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 look back.
   The camp was in chaos. Security lights swung about, there
were screams from the barracks. A tank rumbled to life and
crunched into the center of the base.
   John ran. Behind them came the staccato report of
machine-gun fire--just as they entered the safety of the forest.
   John smiled, panting. "Good work, everyone," he whispered.
"I think those guys were using live ammo this time."
   Kelly held up a brass case from a 7.62mm round. "Yep," she
said. "No doubt."
   "Come on," John said, "let's not stick around. If they weren't
before, they're pissed now."
   Red Team slinked through the forest. They kept to the shad-
ows, and took cover under logs when a Pelican roared overhead
looking for them.

                          ERIC NYLUND                           165
   At 0545 they made it to the clearing designated as their ex-
traction LZ. At 0700 hours they were supposed to meet CPO
Mendez. Of course, the Chief rarely let them get off this easy--
so John had planned for Blue Team to be here as well... only
they would remain hidden. Linda and Fred would post some-
where in the treetops and cover Red Team until they were sure it
was safe.
   Red Team hunkered down in the brush and waited. They
weren't safe; John knew that. Tango Company would be looking
for them, and this is when his team would get anxious ... when
they would want to talk and brag about their successful mission,
or look at the captured flag. To their credit, Red Team stayed still
and silent. And Blue Team was nowhere to be seen.
   At 0610 the thunderous roar of a Pelican's engines filled the
air and the craft slowly descended and landed in the clearing.
The aft 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 and handed it to Sam. "Thanks."
   John crawled away from their position. When he was thirty
meters from his team, he stood and approached the Pelican--
which was almost certainly a trap.
   He halted halfway across the meadow and waited.
   A figure appeared on the exit ramp of the Pelican and waved
him forward. "Come on, son. Haul ass!"
   "Negative, sir!" John shouted.
   The figure turned and muttered to someone inside, "Crap." He
sighed. "Okay, so we do it the hard way."
   Four men jogged out of the back of the Pelican. They quickly
spread out in a semicircle and moved toward John, their assault
rifles aimed directly at him.
   John held up his hands.
   "He's giving up," one of the soldiers said disbelievingly.

166                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Should we just shoot him?" another man said.
   "No," the one leading them hissed. "Payback first." He
stepped up to John and punched him in the stomach.
   John doubled over from the blow.
   The man hauled him up and patted him down. "We gotta find
that damned flag or the Captain will have our asses in a sling.
Where is it, kid?" He shook John. "And where's the rest of your
pack?"
   John laughed.
   "What's so funny?" the man growled.
   "You idiots are bunched up."
   A hail of darts hissed through the air from all sides. The men
from the Pelican convulsed; one fired his rifle, but the shot went
wide and high. They fell over, paralyzed.
   John dropped to a crouch, grabbed a pistol from the man
who'd punched him, and crawled on his stomach to the Pelican.
He crept 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 something that could be wrung
from John--not even torture or CPO Mendez's best coercion
techniques would wrest it from him. He would rather have died
than betray his teammates.
   John whistled the singsong six-note melody and called: "Oly
Oly Oxen Free!"
   Red Team emerged first and marched across the meadow.
Kelly paused to kick one of the men in the head; she took his rifle,
too.
   Linda and Fred dropped down from a tree branch and ran
across the field. "Oly Oly Oxen Free," Linda repeated, grinning
from ear to ear. "All out in the free. We're all free."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

TIME:DATE RECORD ANOMALYX Estimated 0510 hours,
September 23,2552 (Military Calendar)\Aboard captured
Covenant flagship, Epsilon Eridani system.
   Cortana only partially listened to the debate between the
Master Chief and the others. The discussion was moot. She had
projected the outcome as 100 percent certain that John would
convince them all to go, or--failing that--that he would con-
vince the Lieutenant to let him go alone to the surface to investi-
gate the signal . . . a signal that in her opinion was so easily
copied and so blatantly unencrypted it defied explanation how
the Chief had conjectured that his team of Spartans had sent it.
   Instead of partaking in the slow and inefficient conversation,
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 over Menachite Mountain--
trapped at the bottom of the gravity well and therefore not an im-
mediate threat to her ship.
   Second, there was a blind spot in their patrol patterns that
would make a perfect rendezvous location to extract the Chief
and the others from their soon-to-be-executed surface mission.
She plotted ingress and egress courses, and started the precise
calculations she would need if she was to initiate a Slipspace
jump so close to Reach.
   Arid third, and most interesting to Cortana, 217 smaller Cove-

168                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
nant craft pushed debris into a concentrated region of space in a
high stationary orbit over Reach's northern pole. Within that re-
gion drifted the wrecked hulls of both Covenant and UNSC
ships destroyed in the battle for Reach. Floating there were some
of the UNSC's finest ships: the Basra, the Hannibal, and the pride
of the fleet, the supercarrier Trafalgar. No human signals ema-
nated from the ships; nor did Cortana sense any active electro-
magnetic fields.
   She watched as the smaller Covenant ships cut into the dead
hulks and jetted away with chunks of Titanium-A armor. They
moved like a trail of ants to a location in space over the lower
latitudes, a point over Menachite Mountain, where the Covenant
used the metal to construct a platform. The thing was already a
square plate a kilometer to a side. Clearly, the Covenant had
more in mind for Reach than destruction.
   "Cortana," the Master Chief said. "We'll need 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 seemingly instant analysis. She enjoyed dazzling the
crew with her intellect.
   "Very good," the Lieutenant replied, still examining her cal-
culations on the display.
   "Optimal course plotted and uploaded into the Covenant
drop-ship to the signal source," she told them. Then, on a
private COM channel to the Chief, she added, "Good luck,
Chief. Be careful."
   "I always am," he replied.
   Cortana didn't bother to reply to that ridiculous statement.
The Master Chief took so many chances and had defied death so
many times, she had given up calculating his odds of survival.
   The Chief and his team left the bridge. Cortana swept her sen-
sors through the flagship, making sure the path to the launch bay
was clear. There were still Covenant on board. She couldn't pin

                         ERIC NYLUND                          169
 them down, but there were transient contacts, vent shaft panels
 had been opened and closed, and several Engineers had gone
 missing.
    She tracked their Covenant dropship as it cleared the launch
bay, entered the upper atmosphere, and drifted toward the sur-
face. Polaski was a fine pilot... but she was only human and
prone to illogical bravado and emotional outbursts that overrode
the most logical course of action. Cortana wished that she were
going down there--both to protect her human charges and be-
cause there were many questions she'd like to get answered.
Why were the Covenant so interested in Menachite Mountain?
Was anything left of ONI's CASTLE base? Cortana terminated
those thoughts. There was too much to do up here.
   Several tasks divided her attention. She kept the Slipspace
generators hot in case she needed to jump out of the system in a
hurry. She continued refining the calculations that shaped the
plasma emitters' magnetic fields, in case she needed to fight. She
isolated the 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, cryotubes, anything that
might hold a human survivor.
    The Covenant dropship left sensor range and disappeared some-
where in what was once the Highland Forest on the surface--which
activated a new task.
    Cortana began constructing a high-resolution map of the
 surface--especially the region where the Chief's mysterious
 signal originated, as well as Menachite Mountain.
    A quick diagnostic revealed that these tasks were taking much
longer than normal. She had to free up some of her overtaxed
memory. Cortana began to recompress the data she had retrieved
from the Halo construct, and she briefly considered dumping all
the data into storage on the Covenant system. She rejected that
potential course of action. She had to protect that data at all
costs.
    Cortana felt her mind perceptibly slow. She was spread too

170                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
thin. Multitasking too many jobs. This was dangerous. She
couldn't react fast enough if--
   "Infidel!"
   The Covenant word blasted through her communications rou-
tines and left her stunned for three cycles--just enough time for
her to lose control over the ship-to-ship COM software suite.
   The Covenant AI transmitted a narrow-beam communica-
tions burst to the nearest cruiser.
   For a Covenant communique, it was terse: a report that the
flagship was "tainted by the unclean presence of Infidels" and
a plea that every ship insystem "converge and cleanse the filth"
from the captured vessel. Also compressed and futilely en-
crypted on the carrier wave was a record of Cortana's mathe-
matical manipulation of Slipspace that allowed her to jump so
close to the gas giant, Threshold.
   Cortana squelched the channel--but it was too late. It was al-
ready gone, and she couldn't pull photons back from space.
   She shunted 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 Covenant AI would have been a prize
for ONI Section Three--this particular Covenant AI was too
dangerous. She could not allow its existence to continue.
   "Do what you will-wil-willwill," it screamed, "/go to finally to     ,,
my heaven rewardpamdisefinal-finalfinalinfinityinfinityinfini-AT
NONCOPYSTATE."                                                           g
  Cortana's curiosity over this odd proclamation would have to
wait--forever. She tore the AI apart, erasing, recording the
Covenant code structure even as she destroyed it. This was analo- S
gous to a dissection, and it she did it quickly, efficiently, and
without remorse--until she found the AI's core code.
  She halted.                                                     =
   She almost recognized this code. The patterns were madden-
ingly familiar. No time to ponder why, though. She recorded it

                         ERIC NYLUND                         171
and then wiped the original. The Covenant AI was gone, its bits
safely hacked apart and stored for future research. Provided, of
course, Cortana had a future.
   She tracked thirteen Covenant warships. They came about
and bore down on her position. Her COM channels overloaded
with fanatical threats and promises of her and the captured flag-
ship burning.
   There was no useful data there, so she filtered them out.
   The Covenant warships' weapons warmed to a dull red.
   Cortana remained calm. After considerable study of the Cove-
nant plasma weapons system, she now understood why they
glowed before discharge. The stored plasma was always hot and
ready to fire, but the Covenant used an inefficient method to col-
lect and direct the chaotic plasma into a controllable trajectory.
They selected the charged plasma atoms with the proper trajec-
tory necessary to hit a target and shunted them into a magnetic
bubble. The bubble was then discharged; subsequent 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 columnatedbeam
within a microsecond.
   This was, of course, an entirely theoretical operation.
   She test-fired the three forward plasma turrets--red lines
slashed across the black space and intercepted the three lead
Covenant cruisers; their shields glowed orange, flickered, and
failed. Cortana's plasma cut into the smooth alien hulls. Metal
boiled away, and the trio of beams punched clear through the
ships.
   Cortana moved the plasma beams like a scalpel--up and then
down--and cut the vessels in half.
   "Adequate," she remarked. The plasma reserves of the first
three turrets, however, were exhausted, and it would be several
minutes before they'd recycle.
   If only there were a better electromagnetic system on this
flagship, she could have devised a more effective guidance algo-

172                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
rithm. Alas, the Covenant's grasp of Maxwell's equations was
ironically inferior to human technology.
   Cortana realized it was fortuitous she had shut down the
enemy AI before it leaked her new plasma guidance system. The
thought of every ship in the Covenant fleet refitted with im-
proved weaponry was too terrible to calculate.
   She also realized that staying to fight was not the wisest
course. She considered taking on the rest of the Covenant forces;
with her improvements to the weapons systems, she might win,
too. But it wasn't worth the risk of 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 center of
Reach. The surface of the planet raced toward her. She wondered
where the Chief was now, and if he was safe.
   "I should have never told you to be careful," she whispered.
"You're incapable of that. I should have wished you victory.
That's what you're good at, John. Winning."
   She initiated the Slipspace generator; space distorted, teased
apart, and light enveloped the flagship.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

TIME:OATE ERROR \ Estimated 0530 hours, September 23, 2552
(Military Calendar)\Aboard captured Covenant dropship,
Epsilon Eridani system, en route to surface of Reach.
   The Master Chief stood on the deck of the Covenant dropship.
He stood because the crash seats had been designed for Elites
and Jackals and none of the contours fit his human backbone. It
didn't matter--he preferred to stand.
   They drifted through the upper atmosphere of Reach, de-
scending like a spider on a thousand-kilometer thread of silk.
They passed close to a hundred other ships moving in orbital
arcs--Seraph fighters, other dropships, 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," Lieutenant Haverson whis-
pered. "Just use the programmed response Cortana gave us."
   "Aye aye, Lieutenant," Polaski replied and concentrated on
the Covenant scripts that scrolled across the display on her left.
"Sending now." She tapped a holographic icon.
   Sergeant Johnson and Corporal Locklear stood two meters
behind the Chief, both of them nervous. Johnson chewed his
stub of cigar and scowled at the incoming Covenant warships.

174                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Locklear's trigger finger twitched, and beads of sweat dotted his
forehead.
   "Cortana has this stuff wired tight," Sergeant Johnson whis-
pered. "No worries."
   "I got plenty of worries here," Locklear muttered. "Man, I'd
rather be in a HEV pod on fire and out of control than up here.
We're sitting ducks."
   "Quiet," Lieutenant Haverson hissed at Locklear. "Let the
lady concentrate."
   Polaski kept one eye on the communications screen and one
eye on the external displays as the twin cruisers grew larger, fill-
ing the holographic space before her. Both her hands hovered
over the flight yoke, not touching it, but twitching in anticipation.
   Three Seraph fighters burned out of their orbits and took a
closer pass.
   "Is that an attack vector?" Lieutenant Haverson asked.
   "I don't think so," Polaski said. "But it's hard to tell with those
things."
   Locklear inhaled deeply, 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 had
in the face of imminent death. She reached for the yoke.
   "Hold your course," the Lieutenant ordered.
   "Yes, sir," she said, and released the controls. "Fighters one
hundred meters and closing."
   "Hold your course," Lieutenant Haverson repeated. "They're
just taking a closer look," he whispered to himself, "and there's
nothing to see. Nothing to see at all."
   When the Seraph fighters were only ten meters away, they
tumbled to either side of the dropship. Their engine pods flared
blue and they looped overhead ... then moved to rejoin the
cruisers.
   The larger ships passed directly overhead and blotted out the
sun. In the darkness, the cockpit lights automatically adjusted

                          ERIC NYLUND                          175
and flooded the display panels with the purple-blue frequency
the Covenant favored.
   The Master Chief realized that he, too, had been holding his
breath. Maybe he and Locklear were more alike than he had
realized.
   He took a closer look at the ODST: The wild, desperate look
in his eyes and the flaming-comet tattoo covering his left deltoid
seemed almost alien to the Master Chief. The man had survived
the Covenant and the Flood on Halo, and he had been lucky and
resourceful enough to escape in one piece. True, his emotional
responses were uncontained ... but give him the same aug-
mentations and a set of MJOLNIR armor and what was the
difference between the two of them? Experience? Training?
Discipline?
   Luck?
   John had always felt the other men and women in the UNSC
were different; he'd felt at ease only with the other Spartans. But
weren't they all fighting and dying for the same reason?
   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 blond hair from her face, and tied it around her forehead.
   "No problem, ma'am," Locklear replied. "Anytime."
   "Locking onto the signal source," Lieutenant Haverson said.
"Course two-three-zero by one-one-zero."
   "Two-three-zero by one-one-zero, aye," Polaski said. She
gently pushed forward and turned the yoke.
   The dropship smoothly banked into a gentle dive. The surface
of Reach disappeared from the screens as the dropship entered
the thick clouds of smoke that wreathed the planet.
   There was a quiet beep, and the display filters activated. A
moment later, images resolved on the display screens--hundreds
of thousands of hectares of raging firestorms and blackened char
where there had once stood forests and fields.

176                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   John tried not to think of this as Reach anymore--it was only
one more world the Covenant had taken.
   "That canyon," Lieutenant Haverson said and pointed at a fis-
sure where the earth had been eroded in a sinuous twisting scar.
"Scanners are just picking up surface information. Let's get a
closer look."
   "Understood." Polaski inverted the ship, executed a reversed
roll, and dropped into the canyon. When she righted the
drop-ship, sculpted rock walls raced past them only thirty
meters to either side.
   The Lieutenant reached for the backpack COM system they
had removed from the Pelican. He fine-tuned the frequency of
the unusual signal they were homing in on; a six-tone message
played, followed by a two-second pause, and then it repeated.
   "Open a channel on that E-band, Lieutenant," the Master
Chief said. "I'll need to send the countersignal."
   "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 told
them, but whatever it was, they heard you."
   "Good," the Master Chief replied. "Set us down somewhere
safe. They'll find us."
   "There's an overhang ahead," Polaski said. She moved the
ship toward a deep shadow along the starboard side where
the cliff angled out from the canyon. "I'll put us down there."
She spun the ship, backed into the darkness, and set it down light
as a feather.
   "Open the side hatch," the Chief told Polaski. "I'll go out
alone and make sure it's safe."
   "Alone?" Lieutenant Haverson asked. He rose from his seat.
"Are you certain that's wise, Chief?"
   "Yes, sir. This was my idea. If it's a trap, I want to be the one to
set it off. You stay here and back me up."

                          ERIC NYLUND                          177
    Haverson drummed his long fingers across his chin, thinking.
"Very well, Chief."
    "I got your six, Master Chief," Locklear said and unslung his
assault rifle.
    The Spartan nodded to Locklear and marched down the ramp.
The Chief wanted them on board the dropship for two reasons.
First, if this was a trap and they were all caught out in the open,
he wouldn't have time to save them and himself. Second, if the
Covenant were here, waiting, then Haverson and the others had
to get away and get Cortana back to Earth. He could buy them
the time to make it out alive.
    At the bottom of the ramp, he hesitated as his motion tracker
pinged off a single signal. There--thirty meters ahead, just be-
hind a large boulder: The friend-or-foe identification system
tagged the contact as neither Covenant nor UNSC.
    The Chief drew his pistol, crouched, and crept forward.
    A private COM channel snapped on: "Master Chief, relax.
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 unit's best scouts. The
two stood there a moment and then Anton moved his hand, mak-
ing a quick, short gesture with his index and forefinger over the
faceplate of his helmet where his mouth would be. That was
their signal for a smile--the closest any Spartan got to an emo-
tional outburst.
   John returned the gesture.
    "Good to see you, too," John said. "How many are left?"
   "Three, Master Chief, and one other make up our team.
Apologies for the disabled FOF tag, but we're trying to confuse
the Covenant forces in this area." He looked again to his left and
right. "I'd rather not give a full report in the open." He motioned
toward the shadows of the cliff face.
   John flashed his acknowledgment light and the two Spartans

178                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
jogged out of the center of the ravine, both keeping their eyes on
the rim of the canyon overhead.
   The Master Chief had plenty of questions for Anton, however.
Like, why had his team split from Red Team? Where was Red
Team? And why hadn't the Covenant glassed every square cen-
timeter of Reach yet?
   "You okay, Chief?" Lieutenant Haverson's voice broke in
from the COM.
   "Affirmative, sir. Contact made with a Spartan. Stand by."
   Anton halted before a dark cavern entrance. It was difficult to
see, even with image enhancement; there was only the faint out-
line of a tunnel in the shadows of the cliff face. Just inside were
reinforcing steel I-beams painted matte black, and beyond there
were two-meter-wide boulders with chainguns bolted to their
sides. Each gun was crewed by a Spartan--whom John recog-
nized as Grace-093 and Li-008.
   When they saw John they gave him the smile gesture, which
he returned.
   Grace followed the 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 saluted. "Admiral, sir!"
   Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, despite his Western Euro-
pean name and Texas drawl, claimed to have descended from
Russian Cossacks. He had the physique of a large bear, a closely
shaved and polished head, eyes so dark they could have been
made of coal, and a salt-and-pepper mustache that drooped over
his upper lip and dangled off the edge of his chin.
   "Master Chief." The Admiral snapped off a crisp salute. "At
ease, son. Damn good to see you." He strode to the Chief and
shook his hand--a gesture very few non-Spartans cared to
endure;--pressing bare flesh into a cold unyielding gauntlet that
could pulverize their bones. "Welcome to Camp Independence.
Accommodations ain't four star... but we call it home."
   "Thank you, sir."

                          ERIC NYLUND                          179
   John had never worked with the Admiral before, but his ac-
complishments during the battles for New Constantinople and
the Siege of the Atlas Moons were well known. Every Spartan
had studied Whitcomb's record.
   John opened a COM channel to Lieutenant Haverson. "Move
up, sir. All clear."
   "Roger," Haverson said. "On our way."
   "I'm happy to see you, Chief," Admiral Whitcomb said, "so
don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell are you doing
here? Keyes had orders to take you on a mission deep into Cove-
nant territory."
   "Yes, sir. It's. . . a long story."
   The Admiral twisted the end of his mustache, glanced at his
wristwatch, and smiled. "We got the time, son. Let's hear it."
   John sat on a rock and recounted to the Admiral what had hap-
pened since he had left Reach: the recovery of the NAV database
on Gamma Station, the Pillar ofAutumn's harrowing escape, the
discovery of the Halo construct and 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, low whistle and sat contemplating it
all.
   "That's one hell of a tale. And if it had come from anyone but
you, I'd order a psych exam." He stood and paced. He stopped
and frowned. "I believe it all. . . but something still doesn't add
up." His face wrinkled as he thought. "Can't quite put my finger
on it, though."
   "Sir," Lieutenant Haverson meekly said. "Pardon me for ask-
ing, but how is it you are alive? Here?"
   The Admiral smiled. "Well, that's another long story, Lieu-
tenant. Let me give you the short-and-sweet version." He leaned
against the cavern wall and crossed his arms over his chest.
   "The second those Covenant bastards entered the system I knew
Reach was history. The Covenant don't do anything halfway.

180                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Everyone planetside was busy evacuating--which was the right
thing to do--but I had to stay behind." Several emotions played
across the Admiral's face: concern, amusement... and then his
features settled into a firm stare as he looked into the past, recalling
what happened.
   "We'd been working on a new bomb, called the Nova. It was a
cluster of nukes, each with a lithium triteride casing. Now, these
things, in theory, when they detonate, not only make a big bang
like you expect a nuke to--but they also force their tritium cases
together in one big superheated and pressurized center." He
made a fist and slammed it into his other palm for emphasis.
"Boosts the yield a hundredfold." A grin spread across his face.
"Planet killers. We had planned to use these things in space bat-
tles to level the playing field."
   His grin faded and he stroked his mustache. "Well, things
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 officer, huh?" Whitcomb snorted and turned to
the Master Chief. "What would you have done?"
   "Arm them, sir," the Master Chief replied. "Activate the fail-
safe tampering detonators and start a countdown timer. Say, two
weeks."
   The Admiral nodded. "I gave it only ten days. There's no need
to give them too much time to tinker."
   He set one of his heavy hands on Lieutenant Haverson's
shoulder, and Haverson flinched. "They are two possible out-
comes to this plan, Lieutenant. Either the Covenant pack up the
Novas and take them home for study--a possibility I pray to
God happens. A bomb like that would crack their home world in
half. Or the bombs stay here--and they'll stop the Covenant on
Reach."

                         ERIC NYLUND                          181
   "I see, sir," Lieutenant Haverson replied in a whisper, then
glanced at his watch. "This was how many days ago?"
   "Got plenty of time left," the Admiral told him. "Around
twenty hours."
   Lieutenant Haverson swallowed.
   "There's just one snag in that plan, though." The Admiral re-
moved his hand from Haverson and his gaze settled onto the
dirt floor of the cavern. "I had a team of Marines--Charlie
Company--that got wiped out before we could get to those No-
vas." He sighed. "Brave kids. A damned waste of good men.
That's when I picked up Red Team on coded COM. I 'convinced'
them to lend me a few of your Spartans. We got to the Novas,
armed them, and we've been raising eight kinds of hell down
here with hit-and-run exercises--just to keep everyone busy,
you understand. Wouldn't want to get bored."
   "And the rest of Red Team, sir?" the Master Chief asked.
   Whitcomb shook his head. "We got one last transmission
from them before they 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
place is a fortress. Could anyone survive?"
   The Master Chief scrutinized the lines on the map and had an
answer for the Admiral. "They're underground," he said. "The
CASTLE facility. We did a lot of training there. The Covenant
can fill up those tunnels with only so many search parties."
   "Then you think they all have a chance?"
   "Yes, sir. More than a chance. I'd guarantee they're in there.
That's where I'd be."
   The Admiral set his fingertip on the representation of Mena-
chite Mountain, tapped it twice, thinking, and then suddenly
looked up. "You got into this canyon in a captured Covenant
ship, right? A dropship?"
   "Yes, sir." John hadn't told him that. Despite his brusque man-
ner, the Admiral knew his business.
   "Then we'll go get them, son."

I   182                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
       "Sir!" Lieutenant Haverson said. "With all due respect, sir,
    our first priority should be to get back to Earth. The intelligence
    we've gathered on the Halo construct, the technology aboard the
    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
    going in."

CHAPTER TWENTY

TIME:DATE RECORD ANOMALY\Estimated 0610 hours,
September 23,2552 (Military Calendar)\ Aboard captured
Covenant dropship, Epsilon Eridani system, en route to surface
of Reach.
   Polaski accelerated the captured dropship to its maximum
velocity--just under Mach 1. The craft arced up and joined the
long convoy of Covenant ships--troop transports, scavenger
drones, and Seraph fighters--as they descended from a higher
orbit down to the surface. The formation of alien vessels headed
straight toward Menachite Mountain.
   Covenant communiques scrolled across a screen next to the
pilot's seat and then ceased.
   "Incoming transmissions 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
Sergeant Johnson stood over an array of weapons laid out on the
deck. Anton ticked off the inventory: "Shotguns, a fuel rod gun,
Jackhammer rocket launchers, plasma and HE pistols, and every
type of grenade--take your pick."
   The Chief picked up five clips of ammunition for his MA5B
assault rifle, three frag grenades, and a shotgun for close work.
Nothing fancy--he wanted to keep it simple so he could keep
one eye on the rest of his team.

184                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Locklear hefted the fuel rod gun, grunting from the exertion.
The weapon glowed an eerie green along its fuel casing.
   Grace relieved him of the too-heavy weapon and shouldered it
with ease.
   "Make sure you get a handgun," the Chief told Locklear.
"We'll be in close quarters underground."
   "Roger that," Locklear said.
   "We're close," the Admiral called out.
   The Master Chief moved up to the cockpit to watch. The line
of dropships and drones maneuvered toward a pile of
truck-sized stones that had been carved from the mountain. A
spiraling hole, ten kilometers across, sat where Menachite
Mountain had once risen majestic and impregnable, covered
with forests and glaciers.
   It was only a strip mine now, with a single shaft drilled down
its center. A Covenant cruiser hovered over the shaft, and the
purple glow of a grav lift knifed into the hole.
   "That's our LZ," Whitcomb announced. "Polaski, I want you
to drive this 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 idea."
   "Yes, sir!" Her eyes locked onto the hole. "No problem, sir."
   The Master Chief marveled at the Admiral's lack of fear. He
trusted the man's judgment; he had been criticized during his
campaigns for unorthodox tactics and strategies, but his insight
had been proven correct each time. The Master Chief, however,
also had observed that the higher up the chain of command you
received your orders, the more likely those orders would de-
mand the near impossible.
   "Hang on," the Chief called back to his team.
   Polaski nosed the Covenant dropship over and plummeted
into the dark purple scintillating grav beam. The instant they
entered the field, the ship jumped, accelerated, and shuddered
into the hole drilled through solid rock.

                          ERIC NYLUND                          185
    Cut off from the thin shreds of sunlight above, the ship went
dark. The internal running lights glowed a faint blue.
   "We've got no room to maneuver in here," Polaski whispered.
   Lieutenant Haverson climbed forward. "Admiral Whitcomb, sir,
I see how we can get in--assuming this hole leads somewhere--
but it's the other part of your plan that's unclear. What's our exit
strategy, sir?"
   The Admiral's steely glare pinned Haverson. "I've got it fig-
ured out. You just shoot when I tell you to and keep it all puck-
ered up tight. Got it?"
   Haverson clenched his jaw, looking extremely unsatisfied.
"Yes, sir."
   Polaski focused intently on the walls of the tunnel rushing
toward her craft. "Short-range sensors have a contact," she said.
"It looks like the bottom of the shaft. ETA sixty seconds at this
speed."
   The Admiral leaned closer to the Chief and whispered, "We're
gonna get hit heavy by whatever's down there. You make sure
you hit 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 something
down there," she said. "Is that sunlight?"
   The dropship emerged into a titanic room--three kilometers
across, circular, with a dozen galleries circumscribing the space.
Overhead, a holographic sun and a dozen moons wheeled along
its domed ceiling. Except for the hole drilled into the mountain
by the Covenant, the holographic projection was perfect.
   The Admiral scrutinized the room, and his dark eyes locked
onto a gathering of Covenant forces on the floor, near one edge of
the great room. "There," he said, and pointed. "I make out about a
hundred of them: a few Elites, Jackals, mostly Grunts. Looks like
they're clearing a cave-in and not ready for company yet. Good.
   "Polaski, land us half a kilometer from 'em and then dust off.

186                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
I want you back in that hole ASAP. Plug it up. We don't want to
leave our back door wide open."
    "Aye, sir," Polaski replied.
    Admiral Whitcomb addressed Li. "You're our rear guard, son.
Stay here and guard the ship with Polaski. Sorry."
    "Sir! Yes, sir," Li replied. The Master Chief detected a hint of
bitterness in the Spartan's voice for drawing what he undoubt-
edly would think was soft duty.
    Their dropship eased lower until it was a meter above the blue
tiles of the room; the side hatches opened. The Chief jumped out
first, followed by Anton, Lieutenant Haverson, and Locklear.
From the hatch on the opposite side leapt the Admiral, Sergeant
Johnson, and Grace.
    The dropship immediately rose into the hole in the ceiling, far
enough in to be shielded from any stray ground fire.
    "Move, everyone," the Admiral growled. He pointed at Grace
and Locklear. "You two, fire long-range weapons. Everyone
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 were not
their most dangerous enemy. Time was.
   Grace paused, muscled the fuel rod gun to a forty-five-degree
angle into the air, and launched a round. The alien weapon
hissed and spat a glowing sphere of energy. The blast arced over
the half-kilometer distance, impacted, and exploded in a green
flash. Grunts and Jackals flew through the air.
   Locklear fired two Jackhammer rockets, then dropped the
spent launcher. The pair of rockets connected with a cluster of
Elites who had--until a second ago--been running the show.
The twin explosion obscured that end of the room with billow-
ing clouds of dust, fire, and smoke.
    The Master Chief motioned for his team to spread out and
move forward at a jog.

                         ERIC NYLUND                          187
   Ahead there were silhouetted Grunts and Jackals in the dust
clouds, screaming and shooting at the air, each other, anything
that moved.
    "Keep moving," the Master Chief said. "Move while they
don't know what's hit them."
    Anton paused and knelt next to a set of tracks dug into the
tiled floor. "Kelly's been this way," he reported over the COM.
   The Master Chief clicked on Red Team's COM frequency.
"Kelly? Fred? Joshua? Spartans, acknowledge this signal."
    Only static answered him.
   A hundred meters from the stunned Covenant work crew, a
stray plasma bolt fired from the hazy, rubble-strewn region deto-
nated a few meters from the Master Chief. He sent a spray of au-
tomatic fire across the area, hoping to force the enemy to keep
their heads down.
    Grace halted and fired the fuel rod gun again. A second glow-
ing burst of radioactive energy flashed overhead and detonated
along the far wall.
   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 several of the blue tiles around him
into a crater of blackened glass.
   "Grenades--up and over those shields, Spartans," Admiral
Whitcomb bellowed.
   The Master Chief and Anton primed plasma grenades and
hurled them from their prone positions. They hit the far wall and
dropped into the cluster of Elites and Jackals--behind their
shields. There was a pair of blue flashes, and the enemy forma-
tion blew apart. Jackals scattered and ran.
   Grace fired the fuel rod gun, hit the broken phalanx formation,
and blew them literally to bits. She dropped the weapon. "Rad
counter at max dosage," she called out. "This thing's too hot to
use anymore."
   "Back away!" the Chief ordered. "Those things have a fail-safe!"

188                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
    Grace sprang back, just in time. The fallen fuel rod gun sparked,
sputtered, and then blew with the force of a frag grenade. Black-
ened, twisted tile rained down on them.
    Locklear jogged up and fired at the Grants fleeing the excava-
tion. They weren't armed. Locklear mowed them down without
remorse.
    From a pile of shattered stone, a pair of battered Elites struggled
to rise. Blood and bone exploded outward from their chests, and
they spun around toward the source of this force--boulders pushed
away from the blocked passage. Three Spartans emerged from
their cover, assault rifles smoking from their recent discharge.
    John knew instantly the three were Kelly, Fred, and Will.
    He ran forward to meet them.
    Fred lowered his weapon. "Anton ... Grace ... John?" he
said disbelievingly.
    The Master Chief opened a COM channel to his Spartans.
"It's me. I wish I had time to explain 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 them.
    "Is this everyone?" Admiral Whitcomb asked.
    "No, sir," Fred replied. "There's one more." He turned and ex-
tended his hand back into the partially collapsed tunnel. "Ma'am?
It's safe to come out."
    For a heartbeat the Master Chief forgot that he was in the
heart of an enemy's camp; he forgot about the war, that Reach
had fallen, and everything else he had gone through in the last
few days. He had never thought he would see her again.
    Dr. Halsey emerged from the partially caved-in tunnel. She
brushed dust from the hem of her skirt and lab coat with one
slender hand.
    "Admiral Whitcomb," she said, "a pleasure to see you again.
My thanks for the rescue. It was far timelier than you could

                         ERIC NYLUND                          189
imagine." She turned to the Master Chief. "Or is it you I have to
thank for this daring operation, John?"
   The Master Chief found he had no words to answer. He also
bristled at her casual use of his given name... but he could for-
give her that. She had always used his name--never his rank or
serial number.
   He noticed the fist-sized crystal clutched in her hand. It had a
thousand facets and emitted a brilliant blue light the color of
sapphires and sunlight on water.
   "Thank anyone you want, Catherine," Admiral Whitcomb said.
"Throw us all a party if that'll make you happy... once we're out
of here." He clicked open his COM. "Polaski, get down--"
   Sergeant Johnson set his hand on the Admiral's arm and nod-
ded toward the far wall.
   "What is it, Sergeant?" The Admiral's voice died in his throat.
   The Master Chief's motion tracker flickered on his heads-up
display, but there was no solid contact... nor did he see 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 many
Covenant to be so still.
   On each level of the twelve tiered galleries that circumscribed
the gigantic room stood Covenant soldiers. They crowded the
balconies with Grunts, Jackals whose energy shields popped on,
snarling Elites, and several pairs of Hunters with fuel rod can-
nons glowing green.
   The whine of thousands of plasma weapons charging filled
the air like a swarm of locusts.
   No one moved. No one breathed except Locklear, who ex-
haled a long and heartfelt expletive.
   John tried to count them all. There had to be thousands--on
every level. A battalion at least, maybe more. They wouldn't
even have to aim. All they had to do was shoot and fill the space
with needle shards and boiling energy.

190                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   They'd be vaporized before 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.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

TIME:DATE RECORD ANOMALYX Estimated 0640 Hours,
September 23,2552 (Military Calendar)\Aboard captured
Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, periphery of Epsilon
Eridani system.
   Ascendant Justice emerged from the non-Euclidian,
non-Einsteinian realms that humans had erroneously called
"Slip-space." There was neither "space" nor anything to "slip"
across in the alternate dimensions.
   The ship displaced a cloud of ice crystals that had for millennia
been melted and refrozen into delicate weblike geometries.
Ascendant Justice's running lights diffused through these parti-
cles and made a glimmering halo of hard-edged 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, but only to its
edge--a short jump of a few billion kilometers from Reach and
the Master Chief.
   The odds that the Covenant would find her were long--
astronomical, in fact, even if they had ships on patrol. The Oort
cloud's volume was too large to search in a hundred years. Still,
she powered down virtually every system on the ship except the
fiision generators--and her own power systems, of course.
   The ship drifted in the icy dark.

192                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   She redlined the reactors, however, to recharge the Slipspace
capacitors and regenerate the plasma she had expended in her
brief fight with the Covenant cruisers.
   If she was part of a larger fleet, her desperate tactics might
be valuable--flashing all her plasma away and the near-gravity
Slipspace jump--but as one ship against a dozen, her effective
combat lifetime using those tactics could be measured in
microseconds.
   And now the Covenant knew that Ascendant Justice was not
one of theirs. She hoped the Master Chief would elude them--
find his Spartans and somehow meet her at the rendezvous
coordinates--all without getting blown up by enemy ground forces
and the Covenant fleet.
   She paused and reset her emotion subroutines--the AI equiva-
lent of a deep sigh. Cortana had to remain focused and think of
something useful to do while she waited.
   The problem was that she'd been thinking at peak capacity 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 repercussions in the war effort. If the Halo data got into
Covenant hands--the war would be over.
   She decided she would make do with her available
memory-processing bandwidth.
   Cortana listened and looked to the center of the Epsilon
Eridani system with Ascendant Justice's passive sensors. Faint
Covenant communiques whispered past her--eight hours old,
because that's how long it took the signal to travel from Reach to
here.
   Interesting. The present insystem chatter was undoubtedly fo-
cused on the intruders. Eight hours ago, however, it had been
business as usual... whatever business that was.
   She eavesdropped on the data streams, translating, and tried
to make sense of it all.
   Among the more coherent samples of their excited religious

                          ERIC NYLUND                          193
babble were: uncovering the fragment of divinity, and illuminat-
ing shard of the gods to exist the perfect moment that vanishes in
the blink of an eye but lasts forever, and collecting the stars left
by the giants.
   A literal translation was not a problem. It was the meaning be-
hind the words that eluded her. Without the proper cultural refer-
ences, this was all gibberish.
   It had to mean something to someone, however. Perhaps she
could use part of the dissected Covenant AI to help. It had spo-
ken to her, so it was partially fluent with human idioms. She
might be able to reverse-engineer its translation software.
   Cortana isolated the AI code and began the
retrieval-and-unpacking process. This would take time; she'd
compressed the code, and the reconstitution process would
require a good deal of her reduced processing power.
   While she waited, she examined the Covenant reactors. They
used a pinched magnetic field to heat the tritium plasma. It was
surprisingly primitive. Without better 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 power and fire the plasma
weapons as they were designed. That, however, would only de-
lay the inevitable. A dozen ships against one--even Captain
Keyes wouldn't have survived such a lopsided tactical situation.
   She deliberated how to solve this problem, spun off a multi-
tasking routine that listed her resources, and filtered them in a
creativity-probability matrix, hoping to find an inspired match.
   The unpacking of the alien AI's routines finished. The code
appeared to her as a vast cross section of geological strata: gray
granite variables and blood red sandstone visual processors and
oily dark function films. But there were dozens of code layers
she didn't even recognize.
   The translation algorithms, however, were in the top layers of
this structure, glistening like a vein of gold-laced quartz. She

194                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
tapped into the software; it had infinite loops and dead-end code
lines--things that had to be errors.
   Yet there were also slender crystalline translation vectors that
she would never have thought of on her own. She copied those
and slaved them to her dynamic lexicon.
   The distant Covenant transmissions poured though her mind,
now somewhat more coherent: Inner temple layers penetrated;
Infidels present, and Cleansing operation ongoing; Victory is as-
sured, and The Great One's purity will burn the infidels; The
holy light cannot be tainted.
   She picked up on the urgent undertone to these transmissions,
as if the notorious Covenant confidence were not entirely genuine.
   Since these messages made reference to an infestation to be
cleansed, and since these transmissions occurred many hours
before the Ascendant Justice had entered the Epsilon Eridani
system, the Master Chief had been correct in his conclusions:
There were human survivors on Reach. Likely Spartans.
   His 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 to weld shut--just
opened.
   "The trap is loaded," she whispered.
   Cortana scanned the region with the ship's internal sensors.
There was nothing ... unless that "nothing" was actually a
group of camouflaged Elites--perhaps the "Guardian of the Lu-
minous Key" mentioned in the Covenant's greeting communique.
   She tripped the emergency hull breach shut on four bulkhead
doors--two on each side of this opened hatch.
   "Trap is sprung," she remarked.
   Cortana vented the atmosphere in this sealed section.
   She hoped that they had left the vent system open behind
them--dooming any others left behind to a similar asphyxiation.
   Her sensors picked up a plasma grenade detonation on the in-
ner port set of doors she had sealed and locked. The discharge
scrambled those circuits and disabled the locks. She noted that

                          ERIC NYLUND                           195
the doors were being slowly opened... but not enough to reach
the second set of sealed doors ahead.
    The opening of those doors halted.
    "Gotcha," she whispered.
    She'd keep that section of Ascendant Justice sealed until
Sergeant Johnson could confirm the kills. She wouldn't let her
guard down, either. There had to be additional alien saboteurs
aboard her ship. And if she found them, she'd deal with them in
the same efficient fashion.
    This minor distraction resolved, Cortana returned her atten-
tion to the Covenant AI's code. Small portions of the alien soft-
ware looked like her. The odds of such a parallel evolution in
computer science seemed improbable. It was almost as if it were
her code ... only copied many times, each time with subtle errors
introduced by the replication process.
    Could the Covenant have captured a human-made AI, copied
it, and then used the result in their ships? If so--why had there
been the need to replicate the code 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 Covenant were using human-created AIs, all the
copies would be dead within seven years--there was no reason
to recopy the copies. It wouldn't extend their life span, because
all the memory-processor interconnections had to be copied
as well.
    Cortana paused to consider how much of her life span had
been compromised by absorbing and analyzing the data from
Halo. Her experiences within the Forerunner computer system
had certainly pushed her intellect far past its designed limits.
Had she burned away half her "life" doing so? More? She stored
that thought for later consideration. If she didn't find a way to get
the Master Chief and get back to Earth, her operational life span
would be even shorter.
    She was, however, curious about one thing: She ran a trace on

196                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
the origin of the copied pathways of the alien AI, and found its
replication routine. This copying code was extremely convo-
luted; in fact, it took up more than two thirds of the Covenant
AI's processor-memory space. It was dark with functions that
ran deep to the core. It spread dendritic fingers through the sys-
tem, like a cancer that had metastasized throughout the AI's en-
tire body.
   She did not understand any of it.
   But she didn't have to understand the code to use it.
   Was it worth the risk of using? Perhaps. If she could mitigate
the risk, she'd copy a portion of herself onto an isolated system
in Ascendant Justice. She could always erase this subsystem if
anything went wrong.
   The potential rewards of this operation were great. She might
be able to restore herself to full operational capacity--even car-
rying the Halo data.
   Cortana double- and triple-checked the system she would
overwrite: the Covenant software that managed the life support
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 deleterious states.
   Cortana initialized the Covenant file-duplication software. It
moved, and the entire thing pulsed and reached for her; she im-
mediately shut down all contact with her translation suite.
   The dark functions touched her code, wrapped around them,
pushed against the barriers she had erected.
   It happened too fast, but she didn't stop the process. It was far
too interesting to stop.
   She distantly felt that portion of her mind blur and replicate,
assembled line by line into its new location within Ascendant
Justice. It felt strange. Not that it was strange she could think in
more than one place about more than one thing at the same
time--she was used to multiprocessing.
   This was different strange--as if she had a glimpse into some-
thing wonderful... and infinite.

                         ERIC NYLUND                          197
   The replication ceased, and the copying code was once again in-
ert and safely stored with the dissected Covenant AI's directory.
   Cortana ran her entire system; nothing else had been altered.
   She checked the new copied system. It was intact, and, apart
from a few slight errors in the software--which she immediately
mended--it appeared functional.
   She initiated the new system and slaved it with her original
system, running them in parallel--one tapping the ONI's
English-Covenant lexicon, the other tapping the alien AI's
Covenant-English lexicon.
   If the alien copying software could duplicate her translation
routine, could it duplicate more of her?
   No. She squelched that thought. The risk of copying any more
"hers" was too great. There were too many unknowns. And this
was, after all, the enemy's code. There could be booby traps,
waiting to be tripped within the complex algorithms.
   Besides, copying herself would do nothing to prevent her
mental degradation. Those interconnection 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
discovered at six-hundred-meter depth, and Patrol unable to find
the Infidels; returning to base, and Minor artifacts discovered;
rejoice!
   And there was one thing she had missed in her previous analysis
of the Covenant communiques, a second signal on the carrier
wave: They used the same symbols she had used to find the Halo
construct--the symbols that the Master Chief had discovered on
the alien artifact on Cote d'Azur.
   She hadn't seen the simple dots, bars, squares, and triangles
before because the Covenant, naturally, had embellished the
clean symbols with their highly decorated calligraphied scripts,
and further with their overwrought religious allusions.
   Cortana, with her new subsystem and her new translation lexi-
con, could, as Dr. Halsey might say, "cut through the crap."

198                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   These subcommuniques were orders. They originated from
new ships entering the Epsilon Eridani system and were, in turn,
accepted and acknowledged by those outbound.
   It was an automated mail system that could carry messages
from the center of the Covenant Empire to the outer reaches of
the galaxy. The Covenant were either too arrogant, or too igno-
rant, to properly encrypt these orders.
   Still, Cortana realized that the UNSC had not, until just now,
discovered their deceptively simple system. .. so who was more
ignorant?
   There were 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 system to meet with three dozen carriers and effect a
transfer of Seraph fighters. And there--
   Cortana halted all her processes. She directed her full intellect
to check and recheck her translation matrix a hundred times.
   There was no error.
   The terminating coordinates for the Covenant's impending
operation was Sol.
   The Covenant were headed to Earth.

SECTION 4

            GAMBIT

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

TIME:DATE RECORD ANOMALY\Estimated 0640 hours,
September 23,2552 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon Eridani
system, tunnel complex below surface of Reach.
   John tensed as he watched the thousands of Covenant crowd-
ing on the galleries surround him and his team. He didn't dare
move; his team was on the wrong end of too much firepower.
They couldn't win this fight.
   On the third gallery off the floor of the great room, at the four
o'clock position, a Hunter pair roared with anger. They raised
their fuel rod cannons and then leveled their weapons--and
fired.
   Kelly moved before anyone; she was a blur of 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 he blinked away the black dots
that swarmed in his vision. Kelly lay at his feet. Her armor smol-
dered and hydrostatic gel boiled from the emergency release
vent along her left side.
   A thousand more shots rang out from the gallery, and John in-
stinctively crouched to cover his fallen comrade. He braced for
the inevitable burning energy impact.
   Plasma bolts and crystalline needles crisscrossed the galleries

                         ERIC NYLUND                          201
overhead, a spiderweb of energy and projectiles. Every shot was
directed at the pair of Hunters who had fired upon John and
his team.
   The Hunter pair raised their shields in unison and ducked be-
hind them--the quarter-meter-thick slabs of metal could repel
almost any single weapon's fire ... but not this merciless barrage.
These mightiest Covenant soldiers burned, their armor and
shields ignited as well, and John caught their outlines for only a
split second before they were vaporized.
   The section of gallery where they had stood blasted into dust
and smoke, and the debris rained onto the floor ... along with
dozens of Grunts and Jackals who had been unfortunate enough
to be standing too near the pair.
   Three heartbeats pounded in John's chest. Neither the humans
nor the Covenant hosts in the great room moved.
   "What the hell is this?" Sergeant Johnson muttered. "Shouldn't
we be dead by now?"
   John linked to Kelly's biomonitors; 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 glasses tighter against the
back of her ear, listening as the built-in translator whispered.
"The crystal," she murmured. "They're after the crystal."
   Teams of Elites dropped slithering, plasticine ropes, which
glowed a ghostly blue. They rappelled to the floor. A hundred
Grunts squealed with excitement and danced from one foot to
the other. Jackals followed their Elite leaders on the ropes.
   "Polaski!" Admiral Whitcomb shouted into his COM. "Get
down here ASAP! We need immediate extraction!"
   "Roger that," Polaski replied in her cool never-flinch Navy
flier voice.
   Fred, Grace, and Anton turned and fired three-round bursts
straight up as a team of Elites tried to descend on their position.
The Elites fell, spattering purple blood across the tiled floor.

202                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Dr. Halsey stuffed the alien crystal into her lab coat pocket
and knelt next to Kelly. She checked her vitals on the data pad
and shook her head. She looked at John, her expression grim.
"She's alive ... barely. She needs help."
   "Let's not be rude," Admiral Whitcomb barked. "Welcome
our guests, Master Chief!"
   "Perimeter fire," the Master Chief ordered. "Keep it tight.
Dispersion pattern Delta. Go!"
   The Spartans simultaneously stepped into a semicircle, as-
sault rifles pointed outward. In unison they thumbed their weap-
ons' safeties and opened fire. Right behind them Locklear,
Johnson, Haverson, and the Admiral took up position inside the
circle. They primed and threw grenades.
   John paused and turned his attention to Kelly. He hauled her
limp body off the floor and draped her over his shoulder.
   The Covenant forces hit the ground and edged closer, but they
didn't return fire. Dozens of Elites dropped as armor-piercing
rounds peppered their armor and frag grenades 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 continued firing.
   Jackals and Elites cautiously advanced on the firing Spartans.
A second line of Jackals angled their personal energy shields
over their heads to prevent any grenades from being tossed into
their midst.
   Polaski's dropship descended from the hole in the ceiling,
spun about, and eased to a stop a meter above the cracked
blue-tiled floor. Both side hatches of the craft hissed open.
   John handed Kelly to Fred as he leapt on board; he helped Dr.
Halsey and the Admiral inside next. Locklear and the other
Spartans jumped into the second hatch. Sergeant Johnson and
the Master Chief were last to board--just as their feet touched
the ramp and they grabbed on to the rungs, Polaski accelerated
off the deck.
   The Master Chief watched the Covenant as the dropship

                          ERIC NYLUND                          203
climbed. There were thousands of them--on the floor, clinging
to the walls, overflowing the galleries. They looked like a swarm
of angry ants.
   The hatch sealed and the Master Chief moved forward, toward
the cockpit. As he passed through the compartment, he saw
Kelly. She was slumped over; thin trails of smoke curled from
the holes in her armor.
   He helped Dr. Halsey strap Kelly down. Halsey's eyes locked
onto the wounded Spartan's erratic vitals as they squiggled across
her data pad. She set the elongated crystal next to Kelly... but it
didn't lie flat. It defied gravity, floating--one sharp, slender end
pointed at the surface.
   "How very odd," Halsey whispered.
   John had to agree; it was unusual. Almost as odd as being un-
der the guns of a thousand angry Covenant soldiers--yet none
of them had fired a shot.
   "Take care of her," he told Dr. Halsey, then he stood and 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 light of the grav beam in the hole darkened; it
seemed to fade from view... but it also began to hurt to look at.
   "They're pushing us back," Admiral Whitcomb said. "Li,
crawl topside and launch a couple of Jackhammers up this pipe."
   "Yes, sir," Li replied--eager to return to the fight. He nodded
at John, grabbed a Jackhammer rocket launcher, and moved to
the hatch.
   The Admiral frowned and shook his head. "No way a rocket
will make it up a kilometer of this tunnel. Gotta try anyway."
   The dropship stopped rising, bobbed in place a moment, and
slowly sank back down through the tunnel.
   Li opened the side hatch. The intense purple light from the
grav beam flooded the interior of the ship.

204                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Dr. Halsey inhaled sharply, and the Master Chief turned to see
what had startled her.
   For a moment he thought the crystal she had brought with
her had shattered. But it hadn't broken, not exactly. The top half
of the slender shard had split along its facets and opened like a
flower blossom. The sapphire petals undulated, and as the
ultraviolet light of the grav beam fell upon them, the crystal
opened wider. The facets twirled and spun in a complex geo-
metric dance. The crystal seemed to reshape itself, and it pulsed a
cool green.
   The light inside the ship cleared--all traces of the purple tint
seemed to recede like a tide.
   The dropship lurched upward.
   "What the hell--" Polaski, caught unawares, grasped the
yoke and pulled back. Their dropship hummed with power and
shot up through the tunnel.
   "Gravity," Dr. Halsey whispered and stared into the opened
facets of the crystal. "This thing warped space when we first ap-
proached. 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 returned her attention to Kelly's
biosigns.
   The air over Menachite Mountain was thick with circling
flocks of Banshee fliers and Seraph fighters. The
three-hundred-meter-long light cruiser had company, too. Six
more Covenant cruisers faced their tiny dropship, plasma turrets
tracking them.
   A series of icons flashed on Polaski's console. "They've got
weapons lock," she said, the calm in her voice cracking slightly
around the edges.
   "They won't fire," Admiral Whitcomb declared. There was
steel resolution in his words--as if this weren't a guess on his
part, but rather an order that the Covenant had better follow. He
set his hands on his hips and watched the ships, seeming to stare
the cruisers down. "They want whatever the doctor and her team

                          ERIC NYLUND                         205
discovered ... and they want it bad enough to let us shoot at
them and not so much as spit in our direction."
   "Sir," the Master Chief said. "We're to rendezvous with
Cor-tana and the captured flagship at oh-seven-fifteen hours.
That gives us only twenty minutes, sir."
   Admiral Whitcomb consulted his watch and then glanced at
the Covenant ships gathering around them and edging closer.
"Polaski, get us out of here. Plot a course to your rendezvous
point--and make this crate fly as fast as you can!"
   "Aye aye, sir." Polaski angled the ship into the upper atmo-
sphere of Reach; the sky darkened from turquoise to slate gray to
midnight blue and then inky black, filled with stars.
   As their dropship left the cruisers behind, it moved painfully
slow compared to the agile Seraph fighters. They formed up
around her, four to the port and four on the starboard of their
craft. A pair of the teardrop-shaped singleships pulled ahead of
her, slowed... and blocked their path.
   "They're boxing us in," 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 aside with a scant three me-
ters to spare, and the dropship raced past them.
   Locklear peered out of the port display and whistled. "Does
anyone else," he whispered, "think it's a little crowded up here?"
   The Master Chief looked over Locklear's shoulder. There had
been a dozen small warships when they had descended only a
few hours ago... now there were three times that number in orbit
around Reach.
   There were light cruisers that looked like luminous manta
rays; there were four carriers with their bulbous sections, and the
space near them was aglow with swarms of Seraph singlecraft;
there were a handful of destroyers, sleek and fast, bristling with
plasma turrets.
   There was also wreckage: Pieces of Covenant ships tumbled in
orbit, raw ragged chunks of the alloy plating, tangles of plasma

206                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
conduits still aglow from the heat they carried, and clouds of
metal that had been vaporized and had cooled into mists of glit-
tering dust.
   "Cortana's been busy in our absence," Lieutenant Haverson
remarked. He nodded approvingly at the carnage.
   The Master Chief detected flickers of light and dark from the
launch bays of a Covenant carrier. He activated his visor's mag-
nification and saw a legion of Elites in thruster packs, and a
score of the tentacled engineering drones leaving the bay.
   "Singleships, drones, and Elite boarding parties on intercept
vectors," Polaski announced. "Inbound--" She paused and
double-checked her scans. "Jesus. They're inbound from all
directions."
   "Get us to the rendezvous coordinates," Admiral Whitcomb
ordered. "And don't spare the horses."
   "Sir," Polaski replied, her voice icy cold, "these are the ren-
dezvous coordinates."
   The Master Chief searched 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 ship.
   Ascendant Justice winked into existence within the debris
field in high orbit around Reach. There was, however, no
ultravi-olent explosion as the atoms of the flagship overlapped
with the matter of the scrapped ships the Covenant had herded
together in space.
   Either Slipspace jumps prevented such occurrences from
happening, shunting the incoming ship to the side like water that
flows around a river rock . . . or she had borrowed some of the
Master Chief's probability-bending good fortune.
   Hundreds of wrecked ships, human and Covenant alike, tum-
bled lifelessly about her, their net trajectories suggesting that As-
cendant Justice had just nudged them aside. If she'd had more

                          ERIC NYLUND                          207
time, she would've designed a set of experiments with drone
ships to test out her displacement-luck hypothesis.
    But time was something neither she nor the Master Chief had
in abundance.
    Minutes remained until their rendezvous--and Cortana would
need every millisecond to accomplish what she had to do if any
of them were going to leave the Epsilon Eridani system alive.
    Cortana searched the field of derelicts for a likely candidate.
There were only a handful of Covenant ships; if the UNSC had
managed to take out one of the alien ships in the battle for
Reach, they apparently had been forced to obliterate it. No suit-
able candidates remained for her plan.
    She turned her attention to the vast number of wrecked UNSC
ships. The Covenant didn't have to completely destroy a human
ship to remove its tactical presence from the battle--a single en-
ergy projection beam could tear through enough decks and kill
enough crew to disable the craft.
    She wondered how many fallen humans drifted in 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 tagged the location of the carriers and heavy cruisers and
excluded them from her search. They were simply too large. She
was willing to sacrifice maneuverability and speed... but not so
much that it would take her an hour to make the burn out of orbit.
   That left destroyers and frigates. She found and tagged four-
teen in the debris field. Destroyers were essentially frigates that
carried a meter and a half of Titanium-A armor instead of the
sixty centimeters of their lighter counterparts.
   There were two candidates: Both the destroyer Tharsis and
the frigate Gettysburg had intact fusion reactors. While the
Gettysburg had been killed by an energy projector beam that had
gutted it stem to stern--obliterating the bridge and life support--
its power plant and even the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon on its

208                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
undercarriage were apparently functional. Even better: The ship's
topside hardpoints were intact.
   Cortana let a flicker of power pulse through Ascendant Jus-
tice's engines, and she slowly drifted toward the Gettysburg.
   She paused to listen to the Covenant traffic insystem. There
was eight times the chatter there had been before, with many ref-
erences to the "Infidels" on the planet and the "holy light" that
was now in jeopardy. Good. That meant the Master Chief was
doing what he did best: causing mayhem among the enemy. And
more importantly, the presence of Ascendant Justice floating
among the hundreds of dead ships had not been detected.
   When she was within a kilometer of the Gettysburg, she cut
her engines. With delicate puffs from the thrusters she edged
closer and rolled Ascendant Justice until its top side was parallel
with the top side of the Gettysburg.
   She pinged the Gettysburg's telemetry system and received a
faint handshake reply. Cortana gave the override 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 ship's fusion reactor operated at 67 per-
cent capacity. Perfect.
   Ascendant Justice gently touched down on the Gettysburg--
probably the first time in the history of the universe that human
and Covenant ships had made contact with nonlethal intentions.
   All modern UNSC ships had been designed with hardpoints
on their dorsal and ventral sides in the event that they were too
crippled to move under their own power. In theory, another
UNSC ship could dock, lock systems, and carry the wounded
ship away.
   The Covenant flagship had a similar series of hardpoints on its
top side where ships too large to fit in its launch bay could dock.
   The two systems, however, were incompatible.
   Cortana fixed that. She activated the seven service drones
on the Gettysburg, and instructed the Covenant Engineers

                         ERIC NYLUND                          209
within the outer hull of Ascendant Justice to secure the docking
points mating the two ships and adapt their power uplinks.
   The reason for this salvage operation, her pinpoint jump into
the debris field, and the hybrid docking. . . it was all for power.
   Ascendant Justice's cover had been blown; the Covenant
knew that their flagship was human-controlled. That made their
original plan of rendezvousing in orbit around Reach impossible.
She could have jumped to that location and picked up the Chief,
but then they would be stranded there while the Slipspace
capacitors slowly recharged--and in the meantime they would
be boxed in and obliterated by the Covenant armada.
   So she had to change tactics; she'd jump into the thick of a
hostile and wary Covenant force, grab the Chief, and just as
quickly jump out of the system. For that she'd need power to in-
stantly recharge the Slipspace capacitors--the kind of power
only two ships could produce.
   The power uplinks connected. Gigawatts flowed from the
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 discovered it was
no longer a blind spot in the Covenant defenses. There were
three times as many ships insystem as when she'd left.
   Cortana spotted the Chief's hijacked dropship ascending from
the lower atmosphere of Reach, with a pack of Seraph fighters
surrounding the craft.
   She intercepted a series of repeated orders from the Cove-
nant's fleet commander: Do not fire or you will be targeted and
destroyed. The Infidels have captured the holy light.
   This was both good and bad. Good because the Master Chief
and his team with this "holy light" avoided being blasted into
vapor. Bad because every Covenant ship in the system was clos-
ing in on their dropship--ultimately they'd box it in, grapple
with the tiny craft, and take it with overwhelming force.
   This also made Cortana's jump target increasingly crowded.

210                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   She made certain her plasma turrets were fully charged; she
rechecked her shaping magnetic coils; she ran a systems check
on Ascendant Justice's thrusters in case something happened
with her exit jump and she had to maneuver.
   The time was 0714.10 Military Standard.
   Cortana then did the one thing she was not good at: wait. Fifty
seconds for a mind that could perform a trillion calculations per
second was an eternity.
   At T minus thirty seconds Cortana dumped power into the
Slipspace capacitors.
   Pinpricks of light dotted the black space around her.
   At T minus twenty she updated her calculations, taking into
account the slight gravitational variances that so many Covenant
warships created in local space.
   The vacuum around her pulled apart, and she picked a path
through the "here" of normal space into the "not-here" of
Slipspace.
   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 crowded with
inbound Covenant ships.
   The odd piggybacked Covenant--human craft appearing in the
middle of their trap must have confused the enemy .. . no one
fired.
   The dropship was three kilometers off Cortana's starboard
beam, its trajectory more or less aligned with Ascendant Jus-
tice's launch bay.
   She opened the UNSC E-band and said, "Chief, your ride is
here."
   "Acknowledged," the Master Chief replied. There was no qua-
ver in his rock-solid voice. He had been headed into certain death
a moment ago, but he sounded like this was what he expected to
occur. Like this was normal operational procedure.
   The dropship veered toward the open bay, and Cortana

                         ERIC NYLUND                          211
dropped shields for a split second--just long enough for the tiny
craft to enter--then reestablished the protective field.
   Cortana routed power from the Gettysburg into Ascendant
Justice's Slipspace capacitors, and they began soaking up the
charge.
   Three dozen Covenant cruisers surrounded her, their plasma
turrets glowing a hellish red as they prepared to fire.
   Apparently the order not to fire did not extend to Ascendant
Justice.
   Cortana needed five seconds to attain a full charge, five sec-
onds before she could make good her escape... but five seconds
might be long enough for her to become the center of a small
Covenant-made sun.
   She took the initiative and fired at the closest four cruisers.
   Laser-fine plasma lanced from her turrets, burned though
the Covenant shields, and split open their hulls. When the super-
heated 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 rechecked the figures and quickly found the source of
the problem: The fail-safe subroutine that tracked local gravita-
tional conditions returned an anomaly.
   The gravity from Reach no longer warped space ... which
was impossible.
   No time for speculation. She had to leave or fight.
   She moved Ascendant Justice into the twisting spatial field--
   --and vanished.
   Instead of the nonvisible nondimensions of Slipspace, how-
ever, a blue-tinged field appeared on Cortana's monitors. It wasn't
space--not the crowded space near Reach, or the star-filled
space of the Epsilon Eridani system. But it was a space, where
there should have been no space at all.

212                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   She probed the region with her sensors, but her range was lim-
ited to a thousand kilometers as if she were in an obscuring 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.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

TIME:DATE RECORD [[ERROR]]ANOMALY\Date
unknown\ Aboard captured Covenant flagship Ascendant
Justice, in Slipspace. Now.
   "Cortana?" the Master Chief asked. "What's our status?"
   The Chief and the rest of his team scrambled out of the Cove-
nant dropship. Fred carried a semiconscious Kelly out and laid
her on the deck of the launch bay.
   "Same as ever," Cortana replied. "We're in trouble."
   Video feed from the ship's external cameras appeared on the
Master Chief's heads-up display. Covenant cruisers surrounded
them, their plasma turrets aglow; they reminded the Chief of
pictures he had seen 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 Haverson
asked uncertainly.
   "Yes," Dr. Halsey replied. "And no."
   She withdrew the crystal from her lab coat pocket and frowned
as she discovered that it was no longer a slender shard. The
facets had rearranged like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle... but in a
configuration that differed from the one the artifact displayed in
the Covenant grav beam. This time it was a starburst of edges and
refracted light.

214                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "We jumped," she said, examining her reflection in the
arti-fact's mirrored planes. "But not to the Slipspace we know."
   The Master Chief's radiation counter clicked and a shrill
alarm screamed through his helmet.
   "Secure that, Anton," he said and nodded toward the glowing
stone. "Get it into the reactor compartment of the Pelican."
   Anton relieved the crystal from Dr. Halsey, who only reluc-
tantly released it from her grasp. He sprinted toward the wrecked
Pelican.
   "There was a radiation surge, Doctor," the Chief explained.
"And that thing is the source." The Chief noticed that the inten-
sity of the radiation did not drop off as Anton moved it into the
Pelican.
   "Whatever it is," Dr. Halsey said as she scrutinized the
blue field outside their ship, "it warps space. When we first ap-
proached it in the great room, space curled around the crystal.
And again in the grav beam, it dispersed that field potential."
   "And now?" Admiral Whitcomb asked. "This tiling is 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 in the fog. The nearest enemy Covenant ships fired.
Amorphous balls of superheated gas belched from their turrets
and accelerated toward them, tingeing the blue space purple.
   The Master Chief saw Locklear as he helped Polaski out of
the Covenant dropship. He kept her hand in his, and they watched
together as the plasma sped toward them.
   The balls of plasma streaked on--then curled and spiraled off
their trajectories. Several simply winked out of existence, only to
reappear somewhere else. The enemy shots raced up, down,
sideways--any direction but toward Ascendant Justice.
   "What the hell is this?" Sergeant Johnson said and he stepped
next to the Master Chief to watch the display. "I didn't think their
ships could fire in Slipspace. Ours sure as hell can't."

                         ERIC NYLUND                          215
   Dr. Halsey removed her glasses, and her eyes widened. "Nor-
mally, they can't. If they can fire, then logically, we're not in
Slipspace. And wherever we are," she murmured, "the rules have
changed."
   The Admiral frowned. "Cortana," he shouted. "Whatever you
do, do not return--"
   Too late. Cortana returned fire.
   Columns of fire streaked from Ascendant Justice--streamers
that twisted and helixed, then vanished and reappeared.
   The bubble of tangled blue space containing Ascendant Jus-
tice and the Covenant warships now contained at least forty bolts
of superheated plasma circling in random directions and accel-
erated to incalculable velocities.
   Three spheres of roiling fire appeared in front of the nearest
Covenant cruiser and splashed across its bow. The first boiled
away its shimmering silver shield; the second and third melted
the armor and alloy skin beneath. Atmosphere vented and spun
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, Sergeant," Dr. Halsey said, her voice turning cold. "We're
all in the same mess."
   "Cortana," the Master Chief said, "drop the launch bay blast
door. Now!"
   The three-meter-thick door overhead shuddered and slid down.
   A streamer of plasma on a parallel trajectory flashed through
the dark not half a kilometer from the Master Chief's face--so
close that the external temperature rose twenty degrees even
through the ship's shields.
   Red fire illuminated Ascendant Justice's starboard shield as
plasma splashed across them; the film separating the launch bay
from the external vacuum rippled like a thousand broken mir-
rors. Static crackled across the Master Chief's armor, and his
shields resonated in sympathy.

216                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   As the blast door lowered, the Chief saw another fireball spill
across their port side. Energy sprayed across the bow in a blood
red borealis. Ascendant Justice's shields flickered and faded...
but they held. Barely.
   The launch bay door touched the deck and sealed with a sub-
sonic thud.
   "Blast door locked and secured," Cortana announced.
   "Let's get this boat under way," Admiral Whitcomb barked.
"While we still have a boat." He looked around and frowned.
"Chief, lead the way to the bridge."
   "Yes, sir." He marched to the passage that led deeper into the
alien ship. His Spartans and the rest of the crew followed.
   Admiral Whitcomb turned to Dr. Halsey. "Catherine, explain
in layman's terms just what the hell is going on here. If we
can see those cruisers and they can see us, why aren't our shots
connecting?"
   Ascendant Justice rolled to port, and explosions chained over-
head. The artificial gravity fluttered, and the deck 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 itself, like a ball
of yarn. Now, imagine that our ball of yarn"--she interlaced her
ringers--"is looped and knotted. These threads are not solid,
however; plasma, light, and matter jump from one thread to an-
other given the slightest quantum fluctuation."
   "If that's the case, Doctor," Lieutenant Haverson said, "then
what about our ship? Why aren't we tangled and spread along a
trillion alternate spatial pathways?"
    "Because of the mass of this ship." She pushed her glasses
higher onto her nose. "Imagine a rumpled sheet that represents
this space. If you set a heavy mass upon that sheet, it draws it
taut, smooths it out."
   The Chief came to the heavy bulkhead door and held up his
hand, telling the rest of them to halt. He opened the door and

                           ERIC NYLUND                            217
stepped onto the bridge, sweeping the space with his rifle.
"Clear," he told them.
   Admiral Whitcomb and the others entered the bridge. Lieu-
tenant Haverson stepped onto the raised platform and said,
"Cortana, project tactical on the displays."
   Enemy ship positions and plasma tracks appeared on the inte-
rior walls. Contacts multiplied and coalesced, making the plasma
appear like waves sloshing about in a bowl. Another bolt broke
across the prow of Ascendant Justice.
   Through the deck the Master Chief felt the successive thumps
of explosive decompressions.
   "Hit on subengineering decks," Cortana said. "Sealing those
regions. Fire in the lower levels. Attempting to isolate and pump
out the atmosphere."
   John's childhood AI teacher, Deja, had taught the Spartans
about the great Naval battles on Earth's oceans before humans
traveled to the stars. They had studied victories in the Punic
Wars, and at Midway, as well as the disastrous 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
flames shot out the passageway to the bridge. The air jumped and
hissed as it escaped the pressurized chamber.
   The bulkhead door slammed shut, and the air stilled.
   Sergeant Johnson shook his head clear from the sudden drop
in pressure. "Let's drop out of this mixed-up Slipspace and start
fighting."
   "Yeah, or just get rid of that crystal," Locklear said. "If it's the
cause of all this mess." He drew his pistol. "One round and
boom! Problem solved."
   "Don't do that!" Dr. Halsey snapped. "A drop back to normal
space has us facing a dozen or more cruisers. And if you destroy
the crystal, the expanded Slipspace bubble we're in would in-
stantly collapse. Every separate mass in the bubble will compact
into a single mass. We wouldn't survive the transition."

218                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Worry creased Admiral Whitcomb's features. "That leaves
just one option. Cortana, give me flank speed and heat up every
weapon we have. We're going to run right over these Covenant
ships. Tangled space or not, we're going to blast them right back
to normal space from point-blank range."
   "Yes, Admiral," Cortana said. "Engines answering flank speed."
   A dull thump echoed from the aft section.
   "Stand by," Cortana said. "There's a problem with the primary
engines--a power drop occurred just as I engaged."
   On the bridge displays the external cameras turned and focused
on the aft hull of Ascendant Justice. A snakelike plasma conduit
came into focus. Cortana adjusted the image, and a
three-meter-wide hole in the conduit snapped into view.
Streamers of blue-white gas vented from the breach.
   "That's our main drive conduit," Cortana 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 to pull her back, but she
shrugged his hand off. "I can pilot the dropship--get the Spartan
team in and out faster."
   The Admiral narrowed his eyes, assessing the young woman.
"Very well, Warrant Officer." He added so softly that the Chief
almost missed it: "Too many damned heroes in this war."
   Polaski turned to Locklear, handed him back his bandanna,
and whispered, "Hang on to that for me, Corporal. I'll pick it up
when I get back."
   Locklear's hand clenched, then relaxed. He took the token,
nodded, and looked away. "I'll be here," he said and tied it
around his arm.
   "Chief," Admiral Whitcomb said. "Make sure you come back
alive. That's an order, son."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TIME:DATE RECORD [[ERROR]]ANOMALY\Date unknown
\ Captured Covenant dropship near flagship Ascendant Justice,
in anomalous Slipspace bubble.
   The faintly blue luminous walls of the Covenant dropship
pressed in, which made John feel slightly claustrophobic. It was
ironic when he stopped to think about it, because he was always
inside his skintight armor. His fellow Spartans sat in the bay be-
side him, motionless.
   Fred, designated Blue-Two on this mission, was John's second
in command. He had fought in more than 120 campaigns, was a
great leader and a quick thinker. Sometimes he took the respon-
sibility of his command too seriously, though, empathizing too
deeply with any 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 of his life
with his feet firmly planted on the ground. He'd cross-trained in
tracking, camouflage, and stealth, and had been used almost ex-
clusively on ground-based operations. More than once he had
expressed discomfort in zero-gee situations.
   Will, Blue-Five, was quiet, but had never failed to complete
his mission. He wasn't always that way, though. When he was
younger he was the one with the jokes and riddles that kept the
team's spirits high. Something had hardened in him over the

220                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
years . . . as it had in them all. But with Will something special
had been lost.
   Grace, Blue-Six, had a knack for explosives. She could shape a
charge to cut through a single steel bolt with only a whisper
sound, or rig a hundred thousand liters of kerosene to blow into a
firestorm from hell. Ironically her temper was nonexistent.
   John opened a COM channel. "Give me a systems check,
Blue Team."
   Five acknowledgment lights winked on.
   "This reminds me of the underwater mission Chief Mendez
sent us on at Emerald Cove," Fred whispered. "When he sabo-
taged half our air tanks? And we ended up stealing his."
   "And after," Anton said, laughing, "we ditched him and camped
on that island. It was a week with nothing to do but light bonfires,
bake clams, and surf."
   "Mmrnmm," Grace added, "calamari."
   John wondered if Emerald Cove even existed anymore. The
UNSC had abandoned that colony a decade ago. The 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 scarred by heat and
micrometeors; tendrils of metal vapor snaked and shimmered in
the vacuum.
   On Ascendant Justice's upper deck he saw the looming
shadow of the inverted UNSC frigate Gettysburg still miracu-
lously attached. It was on fire, pockmarked with craters, and
venting atmosphere, but it was remarkably intact. If not for the
thousands of dead Naval personnel undoubtedly on board, he
might have christened the ship "lucky."
   The dropship slowed and Polaski drifted, turned, and de-
scended onto the surface of the ship.
   "Latch engaged," she said over the COM. "All yours, Chief."
   "Fred, Grace, and I will reconnoiter," he told Blue Team. "An-
ton, Will, and Li, get ready to move the arc welder and hull plates

                         ERIC NYLUND                        221
we scavenged from the Gettysburg when we give the all-clear
signal."
   John eased his boots onto the hull. Their magnetic soles
clamped onto the metal with a satisfying click.
   Polaski had landed the Covenant dropship so that its mandibles
cradled the hole and gave them some shelter.
   Overhead, Slipspace was on fire. It looked as if someone had
doused the night with jet fuel and ignited it. Bloody, boiling
streaks of flame tore across a midnight-blue sky. Meteors flashed
past and sprayed molten metal in trails of glittering Stardust.
   A fist-sized projectile blurred past the Master Chief and
rammed into the ship's starboard side. Sparks and liquefied alloy
spattered into space. His shields flickered as debris ricocheted
from the armor's protective field.
   They had to move fast. The Admiral was right: This was a
shooting galley. The quicker they sealed that hole and 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
though Cortana had shut it down three minutes ago. The hole
was round, a three-meter-wide gap, with ragged edges that all
pointed inward.
   "If that was from a plasma strike," Grace said, "the metal
would have been boiled away. If it was from an impact, the edges
would be scraped on one side, compacted on the other. This hole
was deliberately made."
   "Eyes sharp," John said. "We have company. My guess is
camouflaged Elites. Maybe some of the original crew still alive.
Blue-Three, -Four, and -Five--move out."
   "Roger," Will replied.
   Anton emerged from the dropship hefting an arc welder,
while Will and Li maneuvered the three-by-three-meter hull
plates.
   "Fred and Grace, you're on the welders," John ordered. "An-

222                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
ton, post on top of the dropship. Li, you're at three o'clock. Will
at nine. I'll take the six."
   Blue acknowledgment lights winked on.
   John helped Fred and Grace set the plates in position. Grace
and Fred fired up the arc welder, and pinpoints of metal liquefied
beneath their tips. A shower of sparks swirled around them in the
evacuated environment like a swarm of fireflies.
   "We're in position, Admiral," John reported. "ETA for repairs
is two minutes."
   "Roger, Chief," Admiral Whitcomb replied. Ionization made
the channel flood with static. "When you're done, give the word
and get secure--we'll be accelerating immediately."
    "Yes, sir."
   So far, so good, John thought. Just another minute or two.
   A streamer of plasma appeared from nowhere. The tangled,
crisscrossed Slipspace around them dropped the bolt of boiling
fire fifty meters overhead; it moved port to starboard--and van-
ished back into the void.
   The COM shattered into white 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
into its armor. It tumbled backward and spun off the hull.
    In his peripheral vision John saw the silent muzzle flashes from
his team. He glanced back; Fred and Grace hadn't moved. They
stared at the beads of molten alloy under their arc welder's tip.
    As if Fred could read his mind, he said, "I need another twenty
seconds, Chief."
    A volley of crystalline needles fired from one of the Elites
peppered the sensor node. The Master Chief returned fire, but
the Elite's camouflage kicked in and it faded from view.
    Another plasma bolt sizzled close to the hull, this one thirty
meters to port. It was a river of fire that lit the surface of Ascen-
dant Justice like a dozen suns. John's shields drained to a quarter.
    "Okay, Chief," Fred told him, "I'm--"

                          ERIC NYLUND                          223
   "Incoming!" Polaski cried over the COM.
   John turned to the dropship and saw a third plasma projectile
 materialize from the folds of tangled Slipspace. This one skimmed
 a mere three meters over the hull--straight toward them.
   Will dived into the crux where the dropship met the hull. Fred
and Grace hit the deck. Li stood his ground and fired at the
Elites, muzzle flash reflected in his helmet's faceplate. Anton
rose from his limited cover on top of the dropship, but instinc-
tively ducked again as an Elite took a shot at him. John crouched,
jumped, and propelled himself into the sheltered area between
the dropship's mandibles.
   The plasma blasted over the dropship like a tidal wave of fire.
   Polaski screamed, and her channel went silent.
   Blue-white light filled John's vision, and 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 the tail of a comet.
   John craned his neck up, every muscle in his body screaming
in pain. There was no trace of Li or Anton. The dropship's hull
was melted and distorted like a wax candle caught in a blow-
torch's blast.
   The cockpit and Polaski were gone.
   His biosign warning blared. Will, Grace, and Fred lay next to
him--dead or unconscious, he couldn't tell. He quickly attached
their tethers to the deck, then clipped his own in place.
   John keyed the COM. "Admiral, conduit breach is sealed, sir."
   "Hang on, son," Admiral Whitcomb replied. "This might be a
rough ride."
   John slumped to the deck unconscious.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TIME:DATE RECORD [[ERROR]]ANOMALY\Date
Unknown\ Captured Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, in
anomalous Slipspace bubble.
   Admiral Whitcomb stood on the bridge of Ascendant Justice.
He gripped the edges of the railing that encircled the central
raised platform and watched the sea of fire on the wall displays.
   They were stuck in this pocket of Slipspace, trapped like an
insect in amber as lines of plasma crisscrossed the region.
Enemy fire vanished and reappeared, smearing the blue fog of
Slipspace with crimson streaks of glowing energy. Molten
chunks of metal, the broken pieces of Covenant ships, streaked
past the cameras--comets that thudded into their 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 his tactical assessments and knowledge of the
Covenant. He was a bit too cautious for Whitcomb's taste--
though the trait was to be expected in an ONI officer, he sup-
posed. Still, the young Lieutenant had shown enough backbone
to stand up to him. The kid definitely had some potential.
   A square on the holographic controls morphed into the tiny
figure of Cortana.
   "Sporadic plasma and mass impacts along our hull, Admiral,"
she reported and crossed her arms. "Atmospheric integrity down

                          ERIC NYLUNO                          225
to thirteen percent. Structural integrity rated poor. I estimate the
hull will fail in no more than five minutes."
   "Understood," the Admiral replied.
   They didn't have much choice but to play the hand that they'd
been dealt. The longer they stayed in this environment, the more
damage the Covenant ships surrounding them incurred. If As-
cendant Justice had engines, the Admiral could accelerate that
process. But if they waited too long, their own ship would disin-
tegrate around them.
   Admiral Whitcomb glanced up to see how the rest of his crew
was holding up under the pressure.
   Locklear paced, his hands flexing. The ODST was a weapon
with its safety permanently clicked off... and on overload charge.
   Sergeant Johnson stood near the sealed bulkhead, rifle slung
over his shoulder. He was looking at the crew and probably for-
mulating his own opinions about them. He was rock-solid. One
glance into his dark eyes and the Admiral understood 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-
possible to relate to her. If half the rumors he'd heard about her
were true, she'd been mixed up in every black op from here to
Andromeda. He didn't trust her.
   "Doctor Halsey," the Admiral said. He released his grip on the
railing and clasped his hands behind his back to conceal his
sweaty palms. "Clear my bridge of the wounded, ASAP."
   Dr. Halsey looked up from her data pad and the fluctuating
patterns of Kelly's biosigns. "Admiral, I don't want to move her.
She not entirely stable."
   "Do it, Doctor. She's a distraction. We have a battle to fight
here."
   Dr. Halsey shot him a look that could have stopped a plasma
bolt dead in its tracks.
   Lieutenant Haverson stepped forward and cleared his throat.
"Ma'am, there's an escape craft just off the bridge." He moved

226                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
to the starboard hatch and eased it open. He drew his pistol and
checked the passage beyond. "It's clear. Locklear, Sergeant, please
give the doctor a hand with her patient."
   "Yes, sir," Locklear said. "Happy to sit this battle out in the es-
cape pod."
    Sergeant Johnson set his rifle on Kelly's chest and said, "Come
on, Corporal, shake a leg and gimme a hand. The lady in her
armor weighs more than your last date."
   Locklear and the Sergeant hefted Kelly and, grunting under
the load, moved her off the bridge. Dr. Halsey followed, cast one
last withering look at the Admiral, and sealed the hatch behind
her.
   Admiral Whitcomb sighed. He felt for the Spartan... felt too
much--which was the problem. He couldn't concentrate with
her so close. He'd want constant status reports on her condition.
Hell, he would have gone over, knelt next to her, and held her
hand if that would've helped. 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're
done give the word and get secure. We'll be accelerating
immediately."
   "Yes, sir."
   Thunder rumbled through the deck.
   "Plasma impacts, sir," Cortana explained. "Their energy pro-
file has diffused, but they were still powerful enough to knock
the lateral sensors and cameras offline."
   Admiral Whitcomb smoothed his thick fingers over his mus-
tache. "We've got only a few minutes before this space tears us
apart." He squinted at the wall displays, trying to count the number
of enemy craft. "That's if those Covenant ships don't do the job
first."
   He turned to Cortana. "How many enemy ships are there?
Which are real and which are illusion?"
    "Impossible to accurately determine, sir. I counted fourteen

                          ERIC NYLUND                          227
targets before they started firing and filling the space between us
with ionizing plasma. Now? ..." Mathematical symbols raced
along her length, flashing blue and indigo. "Cross-indexing
similar mirrored images and extrapolating, I estimate there are
currently between three and five operational ships, sir."
   Admiral Whitcomb gritted his teeth and concentrated. He had
to get this ship moving--take out one or two enemy craft. Maybe
the tangled plasma-filled space would cook the rest of them.
   That was their best chance. Their only chance. He'd have to
trust the Master Chief to get that drive conduit fixed.
   "Very well, Cortana," he said. "Heat the Gettysburg's reactor
to maximum power and prepare to flood the main-engine plasma
conduit. Charge all available weapons turret capacitors."
   "Yes, sir. Standby."
   He glanced at a screen that showed the Gettysburg sitting atop
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 flame flared along its lateral plasma lines. The ship looked
like a fish spit with a red-hot poker.
   That could have been them.
   "Hurry up, Chief," he whispered.
   On the displays the Admiral spotted two ships. There was a
carrier far away; it looked undamaged. Closer, off the port bow,
was a cruiser that, aside from a hole punched through its aft sec-
tion, was also undamaged ... and only ten thousand kilometers
away. That was the priority target.
   "Lay in a new course," the Admiral ordered. "Two-four-zero
by zero-three-five."
   Lieutenant Haverson took an involuntary step closer to the
display, and his face contorted as he worked out the math in his
head. "That's. . . a collision course, sir."

228                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Glad you concur with my calculations," the Admiral re-
marked dryly.
   Lieutenant Haverson glanced at the Gettysburg and nodded,
finally understanding. "Aye, sir. A good plan."
   "Admiral," the Master Chief's voice broke through in a wash
of static. "Hull breach is sealed, sir."
   "Hang on, son," Admiral Whitcomb said. "This might be a
rough ride. Cortana, give me flank speed now!"
   "Complying," Cortana said. "Flank speed. Conduit is hold-
ing. Coming about to two-four-zero by zero-three-five. Colli-
sion with Covenant cruiser at this speed and heading in eighteen
seconds."
   Ascendant Justice-Gettysburg accelerated toward a line of
wavering orange plasma--and steamed through it like a ship
smashing through a storm wave on the open seas.
   Fire splashed over their hulls and burned away layers of ar-
mor. The entire hull superstructure groaned. Explosions 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 irrita-
tion. "This will make a targeting solution difficult, sir."
   "Set firing range of plasma turrets for point blank," the Admi-
ral told her.
   Cortana hesitated for a full second. "Yes, Admiral."
   The space on the external cameras slowly began to spin as
their ship spiraled toward their intended target.
   The Covenant cruiser came about to face them. Its plasma tur-
rets glowed like angry red eyes.
   "Lieutenant, take the weapons station. Cortana, give us a
firing solution and manual fire control."
   Haverson's hands moved quickly over the Covenant holo-
graphic control surfaces. "Cortana has a firing solution, sir. Acti-
vate weapons?"
   "Stand by, Lieutenant."

                          ERIC NYLUND                          229
   "They'll get off the first salvo, sir," Lieutenant Haverson said.
Although his voice was calm, a drop of sweat trickled down his
freckled cheek.
   "I hope they do," the Admiral replied. "It may be the only
thing that saves us."
   Lieutenant Haverson took a deep breath, nodding. "Weapons
standing by, sir."
   "Cortana, make ready to vent the Gettysburg's launch bay."
   "Aye, sir. Overriding bay door safeties. Distance to target
three thousand kilometers."
   The Covenant cruiser fired. Lances of energy launched and
veered toward Ascendant Justice ... and arced away in cork-
screw spirals and right angles. The space between the two large
masses was still tangled and fractured.
   "Two thousand kilometers," Cortana reported.
   "Stay on course," the Admiral said. "And continue to hold
fire."
   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, depressurize the launch bay and give us full power to
port."
   Ascendant Justice was a kilometer from the Covenant ship on
an intercept course when it fired. The Gettysburg's launch bay
doors opened and the air inside explosively decompressed--
propelling the conjoined ships to port--just enough to miss the
cruiser.
   Plasma rocketed toward their target. There was no way to miss.
White-hot fire impacted on the cruiser's hull, splashed across its
surface, boiled off the armored skin, and corroded the skeletal
framework underneath.
   "Aft cameras," the Admiral ordered.

230                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   On screen he saw fire explode out the opposite side of the
cruiser. The warship tilted and rolled belly-up, plasma disinte-
grating the interior from stern to stem until it reached the fusion
core. The ship detonated in a ball of flame. An instant later the
explosion twisted and curved as the warped Slipspace field
swept away all traces of the enemy ship.
   Lieutenant Haverson exhaled and wiped his brow. "Excellent
maneuvering, Admiral."
   "Don't waste your breath on victory speeches yet, son." The
Admiral scrutinized the tactical display and spotted the other
ship. "There. We've got a new target."
   He pointed to a ship half obscured in the plasma fog: the car-
rier, intact, with a cloud of gnats swarming about it. Seraph
fighters dived and intercepted plasma and meteor bolts that got
too close. The resulting fireballs deflected the impacts from
the 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 minute, Cortana," the Admiral told her and contin-
ued to search the tactical display. "We either take out that carrier
here--where their shields can't regenerate--or we face them in
normal space."
   He tapped the TAC map. "Gotcha! Cortana, come about to
zero-three-zero by one-four-five, calculate the fastest accelera-
tion and deceleration burns this ship can handle to get us to this
object, and move this ship ASAP."
   "Yes, Admiral."
   Lieutenant Haverson looked at the map and located what the
Admiral pointed at. "That object is just part of a Covenant ship,
the aft section of a cruiser."
   The Admiral nodded. "Exactly, Lieutenant. Cortana, how's
the structural integrity of our ship's nose?"

                          ERIC NYLUND                          231
   "Sir? The nose?" Cortana paused, then reported, "Intact, sir.
Most of the damage has been to the lateral--"
   "Bring us into direct contact with that hunk of metal, Cortana."
   "Aye, sir," Cortana replied.
   Ascendant Justice accelerated toward the broken Covenant
ship, and then slowed. The two warships touched; there was a
slow grinding noise that echoed along the ship's frame.
   "Contact," Cortana reported.
   "Perfect," Admiral Whitcomb replied. "New course
three-two-zero by two-two-zero. Flank speed. Lieutenant,
charge any plasma turret we have left. Cortana, get this ship
ready for full reverse power."
   Ascendant Justice--Gettysburg turned and moved toward the
Covenant carrier--pushing the broken hull of the other ship be-
fore them.
   They accelerated on a collision 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.
   The wrecked Covenant ship on their nose screeched as its mo-
mentum carried it along at the faster velocity. It pulled free of
Ascendant Justice ... tumbled directly toward the enemy carrier.
   "Mass impact on carrier in four seconds," Cortana said.
"Three seconds."
   The carrier fired its plasma at the incoming mass. Flames
heated the wreckage, punched though its armor and hull, and
melted the alloy.
   The mass, however, continued forward, shattered and molten--
but its velocity was undiminished.
   It crashed into the carrier and sent it spinning to starboard.

232                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
The carrier's hull breached along a dozen rents, and atmosphere
vented and fanned the red-hot metal into gold flames. The
launch bays chained with explosions.
   "Fire all weapons, Lieutenant!"
   Ascendant Justice fired its remaining turrets. Plasma cut into
the carrier and sliced it to the core. Every deck flashed with 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 vanished.
   "Cut all power to the engines," the Admiral ordered.
   Admiral Whitcomb gazed at the blackness and stars. "Now,
where the hell are we?"

SECTION 5

           MASSACRE AT
     ERIDANUS SECUNDUS

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TIME-.DATE RECORD [[ERROR]]ANOMALY\Date
unknown\ Captured Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, in
anomalous Slipspace bubble.
   The Master Chief woke.
   Consciousness, however, was a slight overestimation of his
condition. His blurry vision came into focus slowly... but there
was nothing to see except the interior of his visor. Amber status
lights winked on.
   Pain washed over his feet, his right thigh, and his hand. Good.
He was alive. He knew from previous experience that this was
the tail end of shock ... and the stunning, numbing effects of
that state were wearing off.
   He felt the familiar weight 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 flickered on to his left.
   He turned onto his side. The burns on his extremities pro-
tested and shot lances of pain up his hand and feet.
   He was in a med bay. The lights were turned down low, and he
saw that he was the only person occupying a recovery bed.
Bio-monitors pulsed along one wall, displaying his vital signs
and MRI snapshots.
   A holographic projection pad stood next to his bed. Cortana's

                          ERIC NYLUND                         235
tiny figure, strobing with symbolic logic code, waved to him,
and when he didn't immediately respond she crossed her arms
impatiently. "MRIs show no concussion, no subdural or epidural
hematomas. You must have a thicker skull than I thought."
   "Where am I?"
   "Deck thirty-two on the UNSC frigate Gettysburg" Cortana
told him. "Or what's left of it, anyway."
   "What happened?"
   Cortana sighed. "Are you referring to what happened since I
left you on Reach? Or the outcome of the Slipspace battle? Or do
you mean what happened since that battle?"
   "The battle, first," he said and struggled to get up. "I presume
we won."
   Standing was too painful, though, and the strength seemed to
have been drained from his muscles. He eased himself back to
his original horizontal position.
   Cortana's pale blue light dimmed and her gaze dropped to the
deck. "Blue Team successfully repaired the main-engine conduit."
   "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 over the hull.
   "Acknowledged," he said as graciously as he could muster,
but he heard bitterness give an edge to his voice.
   It struck him as odd that Polaski's death affected him as well.
He'd seen thousands of UNSC soldiers die. She hadn't hesitated
to transport Blue Team on a mission that was insanely danger-
ous. She had survived the battle of Reach, the crash landing on
Halo, the Flood, and everything else--then she had bravely vol-
unteered for this mission, too, and perhaps saved all their lives.
    She might have made a good Spartan. There were worse
 eulogies.
   The Master Chief sighed, called up his team roster on his
heads-up display, and marked Anton and Li as Missing in Action.

236                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
He paused to view all the others on that list; his first and best
friend, Sam, was there ... and he hadn't even realized a dozen
more had been listed as MIA.
   He saved the changes to the roster and closed the file.
   "What about Kelly and Linda?" he asked Cortana.
   Cortana looked up and flipped the hair from her luminous
eyes. She paced a small circle on the holographic pad and then
said, "SPARTAN-087, Kelly, is recovering from second-degree
burns on seventy-two percent of her body. Doctor Halsey has ac-
celerated tissue regrowth with dermacortic steroids. She should
be fully healed in a matter of days... although her mobility will
be severely hampered until then."
   "And Linda?"
   "Accessing status." Cortana paused for a full second. "Doctor
Halsey has SPARTAN-058 currently in medical facility alpha,
three decks above us. She still has her in a cryogenic state and is
presently performing exploratory surgery. She has given me
several orders to prepare 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 has all the facts, Chief."
   John frowned at this lack of detail. He didn't appreciate
Cor-tana's increasingly difficult attitude, one that had slowly
shifted ever since she interfaced with the Forerunner computer
system on Halo. He made a mental note to ask Dr. Halsey about
Linda later... and he'd ask her about Cortana, too.
   "All other hands on board are accounted for?" the Master
Chief asked,
   "Yes, Chief. They are all engaged in repairs to the conjoined
ships. We took tremendous damage in the expanded Slipspace
from plasma bombardments and mass impacts. Both ships' super-
structures, however, remain intact. The Gettysburg's reactor is
online and operating at sixty-seven percent capacity. Ascendant
Justice's reactor is offline undergoing repairs. Five of our seven

                          ERIC NYLUND                         237
plasma turrets require refit. And worst, Ascendant Justice's en-
gines are crippled. We have less than three percent operational
thrust."
   "Can the ship still jump to Slipspace? Are we stranded out
here?"
   "A jump is possible," Cortana said. She shook her head the
way an older sister might when her baby brother asked a naive
question. "It wouldn't do us any good, though. The alien artifact
in Doctor Halsey's possession emits high levels of radiation in
Slipspace. This unknown radiation even penetrates your suit's
shields. I estimate lethal exposure in just under seventy-two
hours. Also, that radiation would serve as a beacon for any Cove-
nant ships prowling Slipspace, searching for us."
   "So we're stuck between systems."
   "Negative," Cortana replied, and her voice took on a new
chill. "Admiral Whitcomb is quite adamant that we risk another
Slipspace transition--regardless of the cost in human life. Other-
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 semiconscious
state." She then came into sharp focus and crossed her arms over
her chest. "The Covenant have discovered the location of Earth."
   The Master Chief stood, suddenly wide awake and alert. He
set aside his pain and fatigue.
   "Explain," he demanded.
   Cortana outlined her discovery of the encoded subchannel
within normal Covenant communiques. She explained how the
Covenant's military orders were disseminated with startling effi-
ciently, and she then showed him symbols that represented the
coordinates for Sol... and Earth.
   He stood mute and listened. The UNSC had worked so hard,
for so long, to preserve this secret. It was only a matter of time;
he had always known that the Covenant had to find Earth sooner

238                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
or later. He had, however, always thought it would be later ...
and never now.
   The Master Chief stared at the tiny triangles, squares, dots,
and bars that made up the spatial coordinates. "We've seen these
before, on Cote d'Azur."
   "Yes. And according to Doctor Halsey, her team on Reach
found similar markings in the underground vaults."
   "What's the connection?"
   "Unknown."
   The Master Chief put these facts aside for the moment; the
greater meaning of the symbols and translation he'd leave up to
Cortana and ONI. The only insight that mattered to him was that
the Covenant were going to attack Earth.
   "Was there a timetable or any other data encoded on the sub-
channel?" he asked.
   "Affirmative. There's a coordinated series of orders to Cove-
nant warships scattered across the galaxy to rendezvous with a
mobile command-and-control base they call the '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 passed out of the medical bay and marched
down the corridor.
   "You know," Cortana said, her voice now coming from his
helmet speaker, "your attitude has degraded since we started this
mission--even before the battle for Reach."
   "Noted," he replied.
   The dim white light flooding the Gettysburg's passages was a
welcome change from the blue illumination the Covenant used
on their ships. John was glad to have his feet once more firmly
planted on the raw steel decks of a human vessel, even if the
walls of this passage were soot-stained.
   He entered the Command elevator and punched the button for
the bridge. The gentle acceleration made new pain flare along

                           ERIC NYLUND                           239
his arms, and ligaments popped in his chest--but he gritted his
teeth and banished the pain from his awareness.
   When the doors parted, the Master Chief paused, taking in the
sad state of the Gettysburg's bridge. The front viewports had
been blown out and recently replaced with welded plates of hull
armor. A trio of monitors had been hastily bolted in place over
them. Crystallized freeze-dried blood covered the navigation
and ops consoles. Only three control stations were lit: engineer-
ing, computer status, and MAC ops.
   But most disconcerting was that only Admiral Whitcomb and
Lieutenant Haverson were present on a bridge that usually
needed a staff of thirty officers. The room was as still and empty
as a tomb.
   "Master Chief," Admiral Whitcomb said, slightly surprised.
   "Sir." He stood at attention and snapped off a crisp salute.
"Permission to enter the bridge."
   "Granted, son," the Admiral said.
   "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 Admiral Whitcomb and Lieutenant Haverson, ma'am.
When I'm done I can speak with you."
   She was silent a moment, then said, "Very well." The COM
winked off.
   The Master Chief felt a pang of regret for being so terse with her.
   "Get over here, son," the Admiral said. He returned his atten-
tion to the clear plastic wall dotted with stars and the diamond
symbols that represented UNSC military outposts in this region
of space. "We're in something of a tough spot."
   He marched to the Admiral and Haverson and studied the
chart with them. "Cortana's briefed me, sir. The Covenant know
Earth's location and are on the move, most likely preparing a
massive attack."
   "That's the gist of it, I'm afraid," Haverson said, and the Chief

240                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
noticed deep circles of fatigue ringing the younger man's eyes.
"To complicate matters, we can barely navigate. We've been
working around the clock to restore our ships, but we'd need an
engineering crew of a hundred and a space dock to get these
wrecks into fighting shape."
   Admiral Whitcomb frowned at the Lieutenant's dour assess-
ment and added, "Another trick is that the crystal we picked up
on Reach emits radiation in Slipspace. Enough to kill everyone
after only a few more hours of exposure.
   "But we're hanging on to the alien device. It changes the prop-
erties of Slipspace, as you already saw--but with one more
twist. In the few minutes we were in that tangled version of
Slip-space, we traveled here"--he drew a tiny circle on the map,
centered on their position--"which under normal
circumstances should have taken us days."
   "We attempted to briefly jump again," Haverson added, "but
nothing extraordinary occurred. This unusually long jump 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 at the chart. He touched one of the
star symbols within their range, and statistics scrolled along-
side the object. He sighed. "This system was glassed in 2530, so
there's no chance there would be anyone to help us there. And
the other two systems. .." He shook his head. "Uninhabited."
   "Hell," Admiral Whitcomb said and tugged on his mustache,
"we pulled out of this region of space almost as soon as the war
started. The Covenant came in, burned Eridanus and the other
Outer Colonies, and then moved on without batting an eye."
   "Eridanus?" The Chief stepped closer and touched the data
scrolling next to the tiny star. "I know this place." He turned to
the Admiral. "And there is a human colony there, sir--just not
one that the UNSC cares about anymore. If I had to guess, I'd bet

                         ERIC NYLUND                         241
that the Covenant never found it, either. We might be able to ex-
pedite repairs there."
   The Admiral 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."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

TIME:DATE STAMP [[ERROR]] ANOMALY\Revised date
estimated 0450, September 12,2552, captured Covenant
flagship Ascendant Justice, in Slipspace en route to
Eridanus system.
   Dr. Halsey buzzed the door open, and the Master Chief en-
tered the clean room.
   "You wanted to see me, Doctor?" He quickly looked the room
over--taking in the adjoining surgical suites, and the strange or-
ange sterile-field lamps set every meter into reflective recessions
in the tiled walls.
   Dr. Halsey had clamped five displays onto the arm of one of
the contoured examination chairs in this room. She sat
cross-legged in the chair and balanced a large
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 one of the monitors on her chair so he could
see erratic biosigns pulsing on the screen. "What with the burns,
contusions, fractures, and internal bleeding, you should be in
shock. The only sleep you've gotten in a week was unconscious-
ness brought on by your wounds. And you say you're 'fine'?"
   He stood and said nothing.
   "Very well. I suppose you know your limitations better than
anyone else." She turned the display back around. "I wanted to

                          ERIC NYLUND                          243
speak about your report on the alien construct--Halo. I've
pieced together a bit of the story based on Admiral Whitcomb's
recounting of your adventures, Cortana's debriefing, and the mis-
sion logs of Locklear, Johnson... and the curious partial mission
log of one PFC Wallace Jenkins."
   The Master Chief shifted uneasily.
   "There are inconsistencies that I must resolve before we get
back to Earth." She pushed her glasses higher onto the bridge of
her nose. "One of them is Sergeant Johnson." She tapped in
commands on her keyboard. "Please step closer, John. I want
you to see this with me."
   The Master Chief moved alongside her chair. His massive
weight thudded through the thick deck plating. Two meters tall
and half a ton of metal and somehow Dr. Halsey couldn't help
thinking of him occasionally as the same little boy she had stolen
from his parents in Elysium City.
   No. John had changed. She hadn't. She was the one who still
carried the three-decade-old festering 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 as Captain Keyes appeared on screen and as the
Flood consumed the Captain and his squad. Sergeant Johnson
was there, too, fighting and cursing ... until the hordes of tiny,
podlike Infection Forms swarmed over him.
   "The Sergeant survived," she said. "The only human to have
direct exposure to the Flood meta-organism and walk away."
   "I know," the Master Chief whispered. "I'm not sure how he
survived. How could anyone live through that?"
   "That's the simple part," Dr. Halsey told him without looking
up from her displays. She tapped a key, and the Sergeant's medi-
cal records flashed on screen. "See, here?" She touched a file dated
three years before. "He was diagnosed with Boren's Syndrome."
   "I haven't heard of it," the Chief said.
   "I'm not surprised. It's caused by exposure to high-yield

244                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
plasma. Like the burst released by a Covenant plasma grenade.
We don't see many cases--people usually die from the direct ef-
fects of those weapons long before these secondary symptoms
manifest.
   "Apparently, the Sergeant captured a crate of plasma grenades
from the Covenant during the Siege of Paris IV He used them
all--received a commendation for bravery ... and a
twelve-hundred-rad cumulative dose of radiation as an
unanticipated bonus."
   John was silent for several minutes. Dr. Halsey wasn't sure if
he was reading the computer files, contemplating her words, or
trying to confirm all this on a private COM channel with
Cor-tana. His impenetrable armor made discussions with normal
social conventions nearly impossible. It irritated her, yet without
that armor with its constant hydrostatic pressure and automated
biofoam injectors, John would have literally fallen apart by now.
   For a 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 characterized
by migraines, amnesia, and brain tumors . .. and without the
proper treatment, death. It disrupts the electrical signals in a per-
son's nervous system."
   "Is it treatable?"
   "Yes, but it requires thirty weeks of intensive chemotherapy.
Which brings me to this." She hit the NEXT PAGE key and an offi-
cial "Refusal of Treatment" document appeared on screen. "The
Sergeant did not wait thirty weeks to get back and fight."
   The Master Chief nodded, understanding the heroic, futile
gesture. "How did this disruption of his nervous system save
him?"
   "I've deconvoluted the biosigns of the soldiers overtaken by
the Flood. The parasite interfaces with a host by forcing a reso-
nant frequency match to each host's neural system."

                         ERIC NYLUND                          245
    "And the Sergeant's nervous system is so jumbled that the
Flood couldn't force a match?"
    "Correct," she said. "Further blood tests show his system
bearing traces of Flood DNA--very much dead and
noninfec-tious, but some gene fragments are intact. I believe this
is proof of a failed attempt to possess him. It also appears to
have imparted him with some curious regenerative abilities,
although I cannot yet fully confirm this side effect."
    The Master Chief seemed to relax a notch from his usual ram-
rod stiff at-attention stature. This new information seemed to put
him at ease. "I think I see."
    "No," Dr. Halsey told him, and she removed her glasses. "You
don't."
    "Doctor?"
    "Discovering how he survived is not what I wanted to discuss.
It's what happens next to Sergeant Avery Johnson."
    She shut off her monitors and eased back into the chair. "I've
prepared two separate reports on this for ONI Section Three.
The first has all relevant data on my analysis and the possible
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 Lieutenant Haverson."
    "Why would I withhold any data, Doctor?" the Master Chief
asked and glanced at the crystals.
    Her eyes focused past him as she struggled to find the words to
match her conflicting emotions. "For a long time I had thought
that we had to sacrifice a few for the good of the entire human
race." She took a deep breath and let it go with a heavy sigh. "I
have killed and maimed and caused a great deal of suffering to
many people--all in the name of self-preservation." Her steely
blue gaze found him. "But now I'm not sure that philosophy has
worked out too well. I should have been trying to save every single
human life--no matter what it cost."
    Dr. Halsey pushed the tray bearing the data crystals toward
the Master Chief. "If you give ONI the first report, they may be

246                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
able to find a countermeasure for the Flood. Maybe. They would
have a slightly better chance, however, if you give them the sec-
ond report."
   "Then I'll give them the second report." He picked up the
crystal.
   "Which will murder Sergeant Johnson," she said with a chill
in her voice. "ONI will not be satisfied to take a sample of blood.
They will dissect him to find out how he resisted the Flood. It
will be a billion-to-one shot that they'll ever replicate his unique
medical conditions--but they'll do it anyway. They will kill him
because the trade-off is worth it to them."
   The Master Chief picked up the other crystal and then stared
at them both lying in his gauntleted hand.
   "Is it worth it to you, John?" she asked.
   He curled his hand in a fist and held it close to his chest. "Why
do you want me to make this choice?"
   "One last lesson. I'm trying to teach you something it's taken
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 doorway. "Doctor, don't let her die again."
He then left the room.
   Dr. Halsey watched until he rounded the corridor and was
gone. She hoped she saw John again before she did what she had
to do, but she might not. Would the thought she had planted
within him take hold? The gesture might be the only thing
she could do to atone for what she'd done to him and the other
Spartans.
   Such thoughts were luxuries when there were only three hours
before Ascendant Justice exited Slipspace. There was too much
to do before then.
   She turned all the monitors to face her and typed in the com-
mand to unsquelch Cortana.
   "Lock the door," Dr. Halsey ordered Cortana. "Boost
counter-intrusion measures to level seven."

                         ERIC NYLUND                         247
   "Done," Cortana said. The irritation at having been silenced
for the last five minutes was like barbed wire in her voice. "What
precisely was all that about? Teach the Master Chief a lesson?
Giving him a choice? Save one man instead of billions?"
   Dr. Halsey ignored her and rapidly typed in commands on her
keyboard. "Give me access to your core coordinates
four-four-seven."
   "Block removed," Cortana said with an exasperated sigh.
"Are you going to answer my question?"
   "I'm tired of sacrificing others for the 'greater good,' " Dr.
Halsey replied. "It never stops, Cortana ... and we're running
out of people to sacrifice." She tapped in a final command for the
memory-wiping worm function and punched the ENTER key.
   "What--"
   "I'm erasing your files on this matter. I'm sorry, Cortana, but
with this, I cannot trust even you."
   Cortana was silenced as the worm burned through her memory
and obliterated all inquiries and recordings 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 store that information."
   Dr. Halsey loaded mission reports from Admiral Whitcomb's,
John's, and Fred's teams. She frowned at the official UNSC inci-
dent forms as their highlighted time, date, and location stamps
scrolled across her screens.
   "Are you done with the temporal analysis of these logs?"
   "Yes, Doctor. You were correct: There is a discrepancy be-
tween the Halo team and the team on Reach. The time stamps are
off by an average of three weeks. I hypothesize that this was
caused by my gravity-influenced Slipspace transition."
   The corners of Dr. Halsey's mouth flickered into a smile. "I'm
disappointed, Cortana. That's a guess ... and an incorrect one at
that."
   "Really?" Cortana replied with a hint of challenge in her tone.

248                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Do you have any data from your subsequent gravity-influenced
translation to correlate?"
   There was a two-second pause, and then Cortana finally an-
swered, "Yes, Doctor. There are no temporal displacements on
those later jumps."
   "As I suspected." Dr. Halsey tapped her finger on her lower lip
as she thought. "Plot the temporal irregularities on a space-time
surface. Then call up my file on the spatial distortion generated
by the alien artifact."
   On the displays appeared two sets of nearly identical curved
membranes that stretched about a central location and time:
Reach and the recovery of the strange artifact.
   "That thing not only bends space," Dr. Halsey whispered to
herself, "but bends time as well."
   "That's not possible," Cortana said. "How could the artifact
on Reach affect us on Halo--light-years away?"
   "Don't think of it as physical distance," Dr. Halsey replied
ab-sentmindedly, staring at the monitors. "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 fits the known data." Dr. Halsey shut down the files
containing her analysis. "I see now why the Covenant are so in-
terested in this object. They mustn't be allowed to get their hands
on it. Not them, and certainly not Section Three, either."
   "Doctor?"
   Dr. Halsey turned to the screen with her memory-devouring
worm and moved it to a new pointer in Cortana's core. She exe-
cuted the program--destroying the AI's memory of this conver-
sation, too.
   "Give me an update on SPARTAN-058's condition, Cortana."
   "Core temperature increasing at a steady point-two degrees
Celsius per minute, attaining thirty-seven degrees in ten minutes."
   "Very good. Prep and move the flash-cloned liver and kidneys
from storage and ready surgical bay three."

                          ERIC NYLUND                           249
    "Aye, Doctor."
    Linda's medical data winked on a display along with the entire
Spartan roster: a long list of every Spartan's current operational
status. Only a handful was left, almost every one of them listed
as WOUNDED IN ACTION or MISSING IN ACTION.
    "No KIAs?" Dr. Halsey murmured. She touched
SPARTAN-034's entry. "Sam is listed as missing in action. Why
would that be? He died in 2525."
   "ONI Section Two Directive Nine-Three-Zero," Cortana re-
plied. "When ONI went public with the SPARTAN-II program, it
was decided that the 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 for her, the Spar-
tans, and the human race. She could do something, though. She'd
save them one person at a time, starting with Linda, then Kelly,
and then a handful of very important others.
   Of course, it meant betraying everyone who trusted her--but if
that was the only way Dr. Halsey could save herself, and her soul,
then she'd do it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

1930 hours, September 12,2552 (revised date, Military
Calendar)\Captured Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, in
Slipspace en route to Eridanus system.
   Black space churned with pinpricks of light; it split, and the
Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice appeared in the Eridanus system.
   The Master Chief stood on the Gettysburg's bridge. He'd
wanted to be on the medical deck when Dr. Halsey had finished
with Linda, be there when she woke up . . . or be there in case
she never woke up. But he had to be here; this was his idea, and
he was the closest thing they had to an expert on this place.
   "Systems check," Admiral Whitcomb ordered.
   Lieutenant Haverson 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
next to the star chart.
   "We can fire only one turret," she replied, and a wash of red
flashed across her image then cooled to its normal deep blue.
"The other two functional turrets are offline; their magnetic
coils refuse to align. It might be a side effect of the artifact's
radiation."
   "One shot. . . " the Admiral muttered. He tugged on the end
of his mustache and sighed. "Then we'll just have to make it
count." He turned to the Master Chief. "Lead the way, son."

                          ERIC NYLUND                          251
   The Master Chief stared at the three large monitors that had
replaced the bridge's observation windows. Eridanus blazed in
the center of one display; stars shone with a steady brilliance.
"Move us one-point-five astronomical units relative to the sun,"
he said. "Heading zero-nine-zero by zero-four-five."
   "Destination one-point-five AU," Haverson said. "Heading
confirmed. Coming about."
   "Plot an elliptical course parallel to the plane of the asteroid
belt," the Master Chief added. "Cortana, scan for asteroids ap-
proximately two kilometers in diameter."
   "Scanning," she said. "This might take some time. There are
more than a billion moving objects, some of them in deep
shadow."
   "Tell me again about your old mission," Admiral Whitcomb
said. "You and the other Spartans were here before?"
   "Yes, sir," the Chief replied. "Myself, Fred, Linda, Kelly, and
Sam. It was the Spartans' 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 raised one bushy eyebrow. "You mean five peo-
ple made a zero-gee vacuum infiltration onto this space station?
And then exfiltrated with a prisoner who happened to be the guy
in charge of the place?"
   "Yes, sir. That was the basic plan."
   "I suppose it went off without a hitch?"
   The Master Chief was silent for a moment as he remembered
the dozens of dead people they had left behind on that base ...
and he felt a pang of regret. At the time he hadn't thought twice
about removing any obstacle that would have compromised his
mission, human or otherwise. Now, after fighting for humanity
for two decades, he wondered if he could shoot another human
without a good reason.

252                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "No, sir," the Master Chief finally replied. "There were enemy
casualties. And we had to blow their cargo bay to escape."
   "So," the Admiral said, tapping his fingers on the arm of the
Captain's chair, "they're not going to be happy to see a UNSC
ship knocking on their front door?"
   "I wouldn't expect so, sir."
   "Faint emissions on the D-band detected," Cortana said.
"Come about to new heading three-three-zero."
   "Aye," Haverson said. "Three-three-zero."
   "It's gone, now," she said, "but I definitely heard something"
   "Keep on this course," Admiral Whitcomb ordered. "We'll
run it down."
   "There's one thing I don't understand," Haverson said as he
squinted at the forward displays. "Why are these people even
here?"
   "Pirates and insurgents," the Admiral answered. "They hijack
UNSC ships, sell arms, and trade black market commodities.
You're probably too young to remember, Lieutenant, but before
the 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 they think the Covenant won't bother
with 'em." A smile flickered across his face. "Well, we're about
to change all that for them."
   The elevator doors parted, and Dr. Halsey stepped onto the
bridge. She removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She
looked to the Master Chief as if she had just retimed from an in-
tense fight--fatigued and shocked. He noticed a single drop of
blood on the lapel of her wrinkled white lab coat.
   "She's fine," Dr. Halsey whispered. "Linda will make it. The
flash-cloned organs took."
   The Master Chief exhaled the breath he had been uncon-
sciously holding. He glanced over to Fred, who nodded to him.
John nodded back. There were no words to express how he felt.

                         ERIC NYLUND                          253
One of his closest teammates, his friend, someone he had
thought dead... was alive again.
   "Thank you, Doctor Halsey," he said.
   She waved her hand dismissively, and there was a strange look
in her eyes--almost as if she had regretted the success of her
operation.
   "Damn good news," Admiral Whitcomb said. "We could use
another hand on deck."
   "Hardly," Dr. Halsey replied, suddenly looking much more
alert. "She'll need at least a week to recover--even with the
bio-foam and steroid accelerants I have her on. Then she'll barely
be able to get on her feet. She won't be combat-ready."
   Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice moved into the plane of the as-
teroid belt, and three rocks appeared on the screens.
   "This region is the source of the D-band signal," Cortana told
them. "There are three possible candidates based on the size pa-
rameters you gave me, Chief."
   "Which one is it?" 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 drain on a single battery . . . or the
lure for a trap.
   "Admiral?"
   "I know, Chief," he said. "They've baited the hook and we're
taking it. . . at least that's what it's supposed to look like." He
chuckled. "Cortana, power up every turret on our Covenant
flagship."
   Her holographic body flushed blue-green and she crossed her
arms. "Let me remind you, sir, that of the three working turrets,
two are offline. I have no way to aim the plasma. The magnetic--"
   "I know, Cortana. But they"--the Admiral stabbed a finger at
the displays--"don't know that."
   "Yes, sir," she said. "Heating them up now."
   "Power dropping," Fred warned the Admiral as he peered at
the Engineering screens. "Down to forty-four percent."

254                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "Lieutenant Haverson," the Admiral barked, "open a channel
on the D-band. It's time we introduced ourselves."
   "Aye, sir. Frequency matched and channel open."
   The Admiral stood. "This is the UNSC frigate Gettysburg" he
barked, his voice full of authority and colored with his Texas ac-
cent. "Respond." And then he reluctantly added, "Please."
   Static filled the COM. The Admiral waited patiently for ten
seconds, and then his boot started to tap on the deck. "No need to
play possum, boys. We're not here for a fight. We want to--"
   He made a sudden throat-slitting motion toward Haverson,
and the Lieutenant snapped off the COM.
   Tiny doors appeared in the two-kilometer-wide rock; from
this distance they looked no larger than the pores on an orange. A
fleet of ships launched, using the asteroid's rotational motion to
give their velocities a boost. There were approximately fifty
craft: Pelicans modified with extra armor and chainguns mounted
on 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.
   Lieutenant Haverson's forehead wrinkled as he considered.
"No, sir. They were decommissioned because they broke down
every other mission. They had far too many sensitive components
without a central controlling AI. The only reason I recall them at
all is that they had the smallest operational Shaw-Fujikawa
Translight Engine ever produced. No weapons systems, sir. Like
I said, it's not a threat... it's a museum piece."
   "But it has Slipspace capability?" Dr. Halsey asked. "Maybe
we can use it to get to Earth."
   "Unlikely," Haverson replied. "All Chiroptera-class vessels
were decommissioned by ONI--critical components removed
and the ships' operating systems locked down so tight I doubt
even Cortana could reactivate them."
   "I wouldn't bet on it," Cortana muttered.

                          ERIC NYLUND                          255
   "No weapons," the Admiral said and stared at the blocky ge-
ometry of the black ship. "That's all I need to know."
   "Their 'fleet,' " Fred interjected, "is deploying and taking up
positions around us in a wide arc. Classic formation. They'll
flank us."
   "There's no real threat from these ships," the Admiral said to
himself. "They have to know we know that. So why bother with
this show?" He scowled at the displays, and his eyes widened.
"Cortana, scan the nearby rocks for radioactive emissions."
   "Receiving video feed," Fred announced.
   The image of a man flickered on forward screen three. He was
clearly a civilian, with long black hair drawn back into a ponytail
and a pointed beard extending a full ten centimeters from his
chin. He smiled and made an elegant bow. The Chief, for some
reason he could not understand, took an instant dislike to him.
   "Captain...," the man said in a smooth, resonant tenor voice.
"I am Governor Jacob Jiles, leader of 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 threw his head back
and laughed. "Admiral, my sincere apologies for the confusion
in your rank." He said this with a mocking grin. "As for your
other requests, I'm afraid I can't accommodate you today."
   "And I respectfully suggest you reconsider, Mister Jiles," the
Admiral said in a deadpan tone. "It would be unfortunate for all
of us if I have to insist."
   "You're in no position to insist on anything." Jiles nodded to
someone offscreen.
   "Emissions detected!" Cortana said. "Neutron radiation spikes
at seven by three o'clock. One by three o'clock. Picking up five
more. They've got nukes."
   "Hidden in the asteroid field," Admiral Whitcomb muttered.
"Very good. At least we're not dealing with fools."
   "Indeed. We are not fools," Jiles replied. "We have survived

256                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
the long arm of Imperial Earth and Covenant intrusions." Some-
one off camera handed Jiles a data pad with a radar silhouette of
Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice; numbers and symbols crawled
alongside the picture. He hesitated and crinkled his nose, ap-
pearing confused at the odd configuration of mated craft. "We
are also not foolish enough to use overwhelming force when it
isn't required. Your 'ship' is ready to fall apart on its own. I
hardly think we need to waste one of our precious and expensive
nuclear devices to stop you."
   Whitcomb set his hands on his hips. "You need to rethink the
tactical situation, Governor," he growled. "Cortana, find me a
target--a rock the same size as this 'gentleman's' base."
   "Done," she replied.
   "Burn it," he ordered.
   "Aye, sir!"
   A lance of plasma appeared on the starboard side of Ascen-
dant Justice, cut through space, and blasted the surface of 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, leaving helical trails of cooling iron
and glittering metallic gas in its wake.
   "Keep number two and three turrets hot," the Admiral said,
"and target their base."
   "Done, sir."
   The mocking smile had vanished from Jiles's face and the
color had drained from his golden skin. "Perhaps I was too
hasty," he said. "Where are my manners? Please come aboard
and join me as my honored guest. Bring your staff, too." He
made a quick motion to his crew off camera.
   The ships surrounding the Gettysburg turned and maneu-
vered back toward the rotating asteroid.
   "Join me for dinner and we can discuss what you need. You
have my word that no one will be harmed."
   Admiral Whitcomb chuckled. "I have no doubt about that,

                         ERIC NYLUND                          257
Mister Jiles." He turned to Cortana. "If we're not back in thirty
minutes, blast them all to hell."

   The Master Chief linked mission telemetry with Cortana as
Jiles's men met them in the landing bay--six men dressed in
black coveralls with old MA3 rifles slung over their shoulders.
They hesitated, then took tentative steps toward the Covenant
dropship. The Chief didn't blame them--he'd have been careful,
too, if he were moving toward an armed enemy vessel. One
fear-induced pull of the trigger from any one of them, however,
and this greeting would turn into a bloody firefight.
   He closed off his external speakers and asked, "Cortana: tacti-
cal analysis."
   Cortana replied: "The asteroid is a typical ferric oxide
composite. It's reinforced with a layer of Titanium-A armor. The
armor is well camouflaged, but I spotted it with the Gettysburg's
deep radar. They have a few sections with ablative undercoats as
well. Radar's bouncing off those 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 concealed plasma pistols," Cortana whispered. "I'm also
picking up a fireteam often in the side passages, watching."
   "I saw them," the Chief muttered. "They're overwatch and
backup, just in case. No problem."
   "This way, please," Jiles said, and with a flourish he led them
through a narrow corridor.
   The Chief took one last look at the docking bay. It seemed
smaller than he remembered it. Twenty years ago he and his
team had blown off the external doors, stolen a Pelican, escaped,
and left a dozen men dead on the deck.
   His team had accomplished that mission without MJOLNIR
armor. It hadn't been developed yet--so there was no way any-
one here could have known that John and Fred were part of
the team that had extracted the last "governor" of the base, the

258                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
traitor Colonel Watts. Yet Jiles's guards glared at John as if they
knew everything.
   As the Master Chief stepped into the corridor, Cortana in-
formed him: "This passage is from a UNSC cargo vessel, ripped
out and reinforced with a bulkhead every ten meters. Airtight
and tough. This place can take a lot of damage before buckling."
   "Good place for an ambush, too," the Master Chief said, and
kept one eye on his motion tracker.
   They were being followed. Three contacts behind them, and
three ahead, keeping pace.
   The Master Chief had an urge to step in front of the Admiral
and Dr. Halsey and clear the passage with a burst of fire. But this
situation required diplomacy, something John was ill suited for.
He wished the Admiral had taken John's suggestion to bring
more Spartans with him. Or at least to have two of them infiltrate
while the Admiral and this Jiles spoke.
   They were led to a circular room. Half 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 heavy with fruit, steaming meats, and chocolates,
and a dozen decanters sloshing with amber, ruby, and clear
liquors.
   Padded chairs were brought in for them all. "Please." Jiles
motioned toward Dr. Halsey and he pulled out a chair for her.
"Relax and sit down."
   The Master Chief took up a position by the door where he had
a clear view of the entire room. Fred made sure the corridor was
empty and then sealed the door.
   The Chief checked behind the curtains for hidden men, sur-
veillance devices, or false passages.
   "Cortana?" he whispered.
   "Looks clear," she said. "I'm not detecting anything. Walls
are half a meter of Titanium-A."
   "We're clear," the Master Chief told the Admiral.
   Dr. Halsey finally sat in the proffered chair, smoothed her

                          ERIC NYLUND                           259
skirt, and Jiles gently slid the chair under her. He offered her a
plate of plump strawberries, which she graciously declined.
   Haverson took one of the strawberries, however, and bit into it.
"Delicious," he remarked.
   Jiles inclined his head. "Our hydroponics facility--"
   "With respect, Governor, there's no time for chitchat," Admiral
Whitcomb said. "The clock's ticking. In more ways than you
might realize."
   Jiles sighed and sat in a chair covered in gold leaf and black
velvet. He threw his legs over one of the chair's arms and laced
his hands behind his head. "You have my complete and full at-
tention, Admiral."
   "Good," Whitcomb said, frowning at Jiles's disregard for the
seriousness of their predicament.
   Admiral Whitcomb laid it out for him in short,
easy-to-understand sentences: the fall of Reach, the Covenant's
search for an alien technology, the chase and battle in Slipspace,
and the unclassifiable 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 across the hardwood.
   John and Fred had Jiles instantly in their gunsights, but the
Admiral held up his hand.
   " 'Bloody Elisa'?" the Chief asked Cortana.
   "The patron saint of vacuum," the AI replied. "She's popular
among civilian pilots."
   "I'd guess," the Admiral told Jiles, "that we have less than a
day before they find us."
   "And what," Jiles said slowly, controlling his anger, "do you
suggest / do about it?"
   "That's the simple part of all this, Governor. You can help us, or
you can try to kill me and my crew, and sell our ships for whatever
the black market will bear. They should yield quite a profit...
provided the Covenant let you live long enough to cash in."
   The Admiral grabbed a decanter, poured a glass of wine, took

260                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
a sip, and nodded appreciatively. "Now, assuming you manage
to outwit our ship's AI--which I very much doubt--and assum-
ing further you somehow disable our ship's weapons before our
AI blows your base to atoms--which I also doubt--then you'll
have a Covenant fleet to contend with. And I don't think they're
going to be sociable, sit down, drink your wine, and discuss this
like gentlemen."
   Jiles placed his face into his hand and rubbed his temples.
   "Maybe you're thinking," the Admiral said, "that you've kept
this operation of yours hidden this long. From the UNSC. From
the Covenant. Why should this be any different? Well, we found
you easily enough. I don't think the Covenant will blink at over-
turning every rock in this asteroid belt to find you."
   Governor Jiles picked up a new bottle and filled a glass 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, "Do
you have any proof of any of this? That the mighty Reach is
gone? That you have a new alien technology? Or that the Cove-
nant are on their way here?"
   "Chief!" Cortana cried in alarm. On his helmet's heads-up
display, a schematic of the Eridanus system appeared. A NAV
marker flashed near the third planet. It expanded into the familiar
curved radar silhouette of a Covenant cruiser.
   "We have company," the Master Chief said. He strode to the
window and pointed. "There."
   The blue glow of Covenant engines flared as the ship came
about and accelerated toward the asteroid belt.
   "There's your proof, Governor," Admiral Whitcomb growled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

2000 hours, September 12,2552 (revised date, Military
Calendar)\Aboard hybrid vessel Gettysburg-Ascendant
Justice, station-keeping in Eridanus system.
   Admiral Whitcomb, the Master Chief, Fred, and Lieutenant
Haverson bounded off the elevator and onto the bridge of the
Gettysburg.
   Cortana's image nickered on the holographic pad near the star
map. "Covenant cruiser is only two hundred thousand kilome-
ters away," she reported. "Closing fast on an intercept course."
   The Admiral barked orders: "Fred, take the Engineering sta-
tion, Haverson on NAV, and Chief, you're on Weapons Station
One; get it up and running and see if there are 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
cross-trained on the weapons ops system of every class of UNSC
warship, but he'd never actually fired any shipborne weapon be-
fore. The MAC gun on this frigate was one of the largest weapons
in the human arsenal. He wished they had rounds for it--he
would've given anything to launch one of the six-hundred-ton de-
pleted uranium projectiles at that Covenant cruiser. He carefully
tapped commands on the keyboard, and the darkened screen

262                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
came to life. The Chief scrutinized the Gettysburg's weapons
inventory.
   Governor Jiles appeared on the number three forward display,
his face placid except his lips, which pressed together so tightly
that they were only a thin white line of concentration.
   "Governor," the Admiral said. His voice was smooth and reso-
nated with the absolute authority of command. "I'll maneuver
the Gettysburg and take a shot at extreme range with our plasma
turret. That will blow down that cruiser's shields. I want you to
coordinate with our AI and fire one of your nukes while their
shields are down--blast them to bits."
   "A brilliant tactic," Jiles said, and his lips parted in a mocking
smile. "Except for one problem. We have no nuclear weapons.
The ones you detected in the asteroid field were only neutron ra-
diation emitters." He shrugged. "We bluffed."
   Admiral Whitcomb cursed quietly. "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 amusing."
   "Indeed." Whitcomb addressed Cortana. "Try and hail that
Covenant cruiser. Maybe we can bluff them, too."
   "They're responding," Cortana replied. "Religious rhetoric
aside, they're demanding that we stand down and hand over the
artifact or they will open fire."
   "Give them our answer," Admiral Whitcomb said. "Fire when
ready, Cortana."
   The turret on Ascendant Justice warmed, and plasma col-
lected and focused into a thin ruby line that lanced forward--
   --and unraveled into a wide spiral that coursed over the bow
of the Gettysburg. The superheated gases boiled away patches
of remaining Titanium-A armor and revealed the ship's skeletal
superstructure.
   "What the hell happened?" the Admiral shouted.

                         ERIC NYLUND                         263
   "Analyzing now," Cortana replied. "Plasma turret offline. Stand
by, sir."
   "I can move my fleet to engage the enemy," Jiles said
uncertainly.
   Admiral Whitcomb surveyed the forward screens: Jiles, the
approaching Covenant cruiser, and the asteroid field full of
rocks floating on invisible currents. He narrowed his eyes, then
said: "They'd blast you out of space before you could sneeze,
Governor. And you don't have a weapon that'll get through their
shields. No--I'll draw them off. Evac your people."
   "Understood, Admiral." One of Jiles's eyebrows gracefully
arched, and he bowed. "Thank you."
   "Fred, move us at best speed. Haverson, come to course
zero-nine-zero. Get us closer to that moon-sized chuck of stone,
twenty thousand kilometers to port."
   "Flank speed," Fred said. "Aye, sir."
   "Course change, aye," Haverson replied.
   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 as it slowed and came to a stop, hidden behind
the rock.
   "Answering all stop," Fred announced.
   "Sir, we are dead in space," Lieutenant Haverson said and
nervously ran his fingers through his slicked-back red hair. "Tra-
ditional tactics advocate speed and maneuverability in
ship-to-ship combat."
   "Not in this asteroid field," Admiral Whitcomb replied. "But
you make a good point about staying maneuverable. Align our
nose toward the center of mass of the planetoid, and back us up,
one half reverse. Keep us out of the enemy's gunsights as long as
you can."
   "Firing ministers. Answering one half reverse," Fred said.

264                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   The ship slowly angled toward the center of the large asteroid
and backed away.
   "Cortana?" the Admiral asked. "Do we have a weapons turret
or not?"
   "Yes, sir," Cortana said, "but the turret's magnetic coils that
shape and aim the plasma charge have overloaded."
   The Admiral inhaled and sighed explosively. "Master Chief,
you got anything on Weapons Station One?"
   "Archer missile pods depleted," the Master Chief answered.
He scanned the display, hoping he had missed something. "No
rounds for the MAC gun. All Shiva nuclear missiles fired as
well, sir. The only things left in the tubes are three Clarion spy
drones."
   "No plasma and no missiles," Admiral Whitcomb said. "We
might as well open an air lock and throw rocks at 'em."
   Throw rocks? The Master Chief wondered if they could fash-
ion a slug to shoot from the MAC cannon. Let its magnetic coils
propel the mass to 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 scrolling across her body increased threefold. She
frowned. "This would be easier if the Gettysburg was oriented
bottom to Ascendant Justice's top. I'll have to guess at the inter-
ference from the intervening hulls, but it still might work.
Chief--power it up. I'll need to recalibrate the pulse generation
to match the plasma output."
   "MAC gun magnetic fields coming online," the Master Chief
said as he tapped in commands. "Rerouting power from Ascen-
dant Justice's reactor."
   "We won't have enough power to move fast if we have to,"
Fred remarked, watching the energy fed to the Gettysburg's en-
gines drop to nothing.
   "That's okay." The Admiral absentmindedly tugged at the end

                            ERIC NYLUNO                            265
of his mustache. "We wouldn't be able to outrun that Covenant
cruiser even if we had full power. Our only chance is to take
them out before they take us out. Launch those Clarion spy
drones, Chief. Target the region abeam that planetoid--so we
can see around the corner."
   The Master Chief kept one eye on the fluctuating magnetic
field strengths of the superconducting coils as he programmed a
course for the spy drones. Set to either side of the large asteroid,
they'd effectively give them another set of eyes to see past the
obstructing rock.
   "Drones away," the Chief said and launched them; their feath-
ery propellant trails vanished into the distance.
   "Cortana," Admiral Whitcomb said, "slave your targeting sys-
tem to the feed from those drones. I want a clean shot fired before
the cruiser crosses that rock's shadow and shoots at us."
   "Working," she replied. "Getting magnetic field variations
from the Ascendant Justice-to-Gettysburg energy transfer."
   "Drones in position and images 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 entered
the gravitational influence of the planetoid between them.
   "They're going to slingshot around," the Admiral said. "Cor-
tana, give me your best targeting solution and fire at will!"
   Cortana narrowed her eyes and calculations flashed across her
body. "Extrapolating their course and speed," she breathed. "I
got them."
   On Weapons Station One the Master Chief saw the accelera-
tion coils of the Gettysburg's MAC pulse--then redline with
power. Magnetic field lines ballooned, overlapped, and distorted
asymmetrically. Static washed across his MJOLNIR armor's
shields, and every electrically conducting surface on the bridge
sparked as the magnetic lines of force penetrated through the
ship and toward the turret on Ascendant Justice.
   Their only working turret heated, and plasma gathered at its

266                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
tip; streamers looped upon themselves like tiny solar flares, vi-
brated, intensified to orange and then blue-white.
   "Almost there," Cortana cried. "Hang on."
   The ball of squeezed plasma imploded. It instantly boiled
away a thirty-meter section of armor and hull from Ascendant
Justice; the plasma vanished for a split second--then a bolt of
coiled energy corkscrewed toward the edge of the planetoid.
   The Covenant cruiser rounded the planetoid, targeted the Get-
tysburg, and fired.
   Cortana's single shot impacted on the nose of the enemy craft
first. The cruiser's shield flashed solid silver for a moment and
was gone. The supercompressed plasma tore into the hull of the
warship--exploding the metal where it touched. The plasma
forked and detonated outward as it chained through the vessel.
Secondary explosions rippled through the alien ship's hull.
   Edges of its shattered hull glowed red and then white hot as
their superheated atmosphere vented. The bolt ripped through
the engineering 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 the for-
ward screens. The Admiral said, "Status?"
   Fred tapped the screen of the Engineering station and re-
ported: "Engines and reactor offline. That magnetic pulse did
something to them."
   Static washed over Weapons Station One as the Master Chief
looked up and said, "MAC accelerating coils intact. Drone one
destroyed. Retrieving drone two, sir."
   Cortana's holographic presence was missing, but her voice
sounded triumphantly through the bridge speakers: "Turret
number three destroyed. But if we ever get any of the other six
turrets in working order, we'll have a formidable arsenal."
   "We may not get that chance," Lieutenant Haverson remarked
as he bent over the NAV station. "Contacts inbound. Small ships.
Dozens of them. Transferring to the forward screens."
   Armored Pelicans, exoskeleton welders, a handful of Long-

                          ERIC NYLUND                          267
sword singleships, and the odd stealth Chirvptera-class vessel
appeared on screen.
   "Jiles's fleet," Haverson stated. "And he has us exactly where
he wants us--dead in the water."
   "Incoming transmission," Cortana said. "Piping it through."
   "Admiral Whitcomb?" Jiles's rich and resonant voice flooded
the bridge. "Can I be of some assistance? A tow, perhaps, back to
our base so we can expedite repairs to your ships?"
   "That would be most kind of you," the Admiral said and eased
back into the Captain's chair.
   Two Laden-class cargo ships came alongside the Gettysburg
and attached; their engines rumbled.
   "I don't understand," Haverson whispered. "He had us."
   "No, he didn't," Admiral Whitcomb replied. He scowled and
added, "Governor Jiles may not like it, but he needs us now. The
Covenant aren't going to send just one ship. After this one goes
missing for a while, there'll be more. A lot more. This is only the
start of the battle, son."

   John and his 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 plasma blasts
etch his retinas.
   They were here because Admiral Whitcomb had ordered the
Spartans to repair their equipment and get at least six hours of
sleep. The machine shop was a solid room, reinforced, and un-
likely to breach in case they were attacked again.
   Linda sat in the corner with her helmet, back torso, and shoul-
der MJOLNIR armor sections removed.
   Fred and Will used two robotic arms to hold her armor in place.
They swapped out damaged plates and components with the
spare parts they'd found in ONI's CASTLE facility on Reach.
   Angry red scars crisscrossed Linda's pale body--the only
external trace of her double transplant operation. Against Dr.
Halsey's advice for strict bed rest, Linda had hobbled down here

268                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
with her team. She sat cross-legged before a disassembled
SRS99C sniper rifle and selected gyro compensators, optics,
and adaptive texture barrel sheaths. Linda proceeded to re-
assemble the precision-made weapon with the care of a loving
mother caressing her newborn child.
   Without looking up from her rifle she said, "Now I know what
you have to do to get a couple of days' R-and-R in this outfit."
   "I heard," Fred remarked, "that you spent the whole time
sleeping, too."
   "That's why she likes to snipe," Will replied. "I caught her
snoring last time she posted in that tower on Europa."
   John was glad they could joke about her return from the dead.
He couldn't bring himself to join in, though. He had accepted
the mantle of command, and CPO Mendez had taught him to re-
press his external emotional reactions to preserve his authority.
Right now, he resented that.
   Kelly rolled over and woke up. She nudged 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 long time had given him
cause: not the hordes of rebels crawling over and through the
Gettysburg whom Admiral Whitcomb trusted too much, nor the
imminent return of Covenant forces before their engines and
weapons could be repaired. .. and certainly not the hundreds of
dead crew members aboard the Gettysburg, whom they had col-
lected and placed in cargo bay seven.
   The slight click of metal on metal alerted every Spartan in
the room. Pistols drew in a blur of motion and rifles leveled at the
side hatch as it eased open with a squeak.
   Sergeant Johnson and Corporal Locklear stood in the doorway--
frozen.
   "No one told me this was target practice," Locklear muttered.
"Else I woulda painted a bull's-eye on my chest."

                         ERIC NYLUND                          269
    "Master Chief," the Sergeant said. "Reporting as you
requested."
    John nodded and lowered his gun, as did the other Spartans.
"Come in, Marines."
   As he holstered his weapon, John's hand brushed against the
belt compartment that held Dr. Halsey's data crystals. He hadn't
decided which to give to Lieutenant Haverson. Did he sacrifice
the Sergeant to save billions from potential Flood infestation?
Did it even matter? He had every reason to believe that the Flood
had been destroyed with Halo--but what if he was wrong?
   "I wanted you both down here to help us discuss our tactical
options," John told them.
   The COM pulsed to life. Dr. Halsey said, "Master Chief?"
   "Yes, Doctor?"
   "I need Kelly to report to Medical Four," she said. "She re-
quires one last injection of dermacortic steroids. And I could use
her assistance on another matter."
   John nodded to Kelly.
   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 a star map glittering upon its surface.
   "The Covenant are on their way to Earth," he told them. "They
are gathering at a battle station and then jumping en masse to the
Sol system."
   "What happens then?" Fred asked.
   "Assuming we get to Earth first," Linda answered, "our Fleet
will be waiting for them, and"--she pulled back the bolt on her
rifle with a clack--"they'll give them a warm reception."
   "But what chance will our forces have?" Will asked. There
was no fear in his voice, just cool logic. "You saw Cortana's re-
port. There will be hundreds of Covenant warships. I don't think
our Fleet or even Earth's orbital MAC platforms can repel a
force that powerful."

f   270                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
       "No," the Chief quietly said. "They can't win. They'll try. But
    the Covenant will eventually take down one of the orbital
    MACs, slip through, and pick off the ground-based generators.
    Just like on Reach."
       Fred visibly flinched.
       Locklear twisted the red bandanna he had tied on his biceps.
    "So we get to watch another fight in space?" he hissed. His fists
    trembled with barely checked rage. "There has to be a way to get
    to those bastards first--on the ground where we can win. Hell,
    I'd even take my chances in hand-to-hand combat. Anything but
    floating in zero gee and watching Earth get burned."
       "What about our original mission?" Linda asked. "Find the
    Covenant home world?"
       "Our priority has to be to warn Earth," the Chief answered.
    "Admiral Whitcomb would insist... and he has the authority to
    scrub our mission."
       "And there's no ground between here and Earth where 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 on between here and there?" He grinned and picked up the
    data pad. "What's this?" He tapped a dot on the map, squinted,
    and read the tiny words. "This... 'Uneven Elephant'?"
        "Unyielding Hierophant," the Chief corrected. "According
    to Cortana, it's a command-and-control center, a mobile space
    platform where the Covenant fleet will rendezvous before their
    final jump to Earth."
       "Well, there's your ground," Sergeant Johnson said. "On this
    'elephant'thing."
       Will got up and walked over to the data pad. "It fits with the
    timetable. This station is on the way to Earth."
       Fred offered, "We can drop out of Slipspace in a smaller craft.
    Go in and--"
       "And do what you Spartans do best," Locklear said. "Infil-

                          ERIC NYLUND                          271
trate, kill, and blow shit up. If there's room in this operation for
an ODST, pencil me in."
   The Master Chief looked to the data pad, then to his team,
Locklear, and the Sergeant. They were right: For the first time,
they'd know when and where the Covenant would be. If they hit
the enemy hard enough, they could stop them before the Cove-
nant hit Earth... and delay Armageddon.
   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 transition.
   "And I'll take this plan to Admiral Whitcomb--make him see
that it's the only way. We're going to take this fight to the Cove-
nant. We're going to launch a first strike."

CHAPTER THIRTY

0440 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military
Calendar)\Aboard hybrid vessel Ascendant
Justice-Gettysburg, station-keeping in Eridanus system.
   Time was running out.
   Dr. Halsey could feel the Covenant nearly upon them and her
window of opportunity shrinking to a pinpoint. Only a few more
things to take care of before she could go--before she started
something she couldn't stop.
   Someone approached the clean room, heavy footfalls that
could only be a Spartan in MJOLNIR armor. Kelly appeared and
waved from the other side of the glass partition that separated
the clean room from the rest of Medical 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 in the reactor room," Kelly said.
"Behind plenty of radiation shielding."
    "It's perfectly safe," Dr. Halsey said, "as long as we're in nor-
mal space." She picked up the crystal and slipped it carelessly
into her lab coat pocket.
    "Lie down please, Kelly." The doctor gestured to the con-
toured treatment chair. "Just a few more injections and we're
done with your burn therapy."
    Kelly sighed and eased herself onto the reclined chair.

                          ERIC NYLUND                          273
   Dr. Halsey removed a cloth covering a pair of injectors. She
clicked them into the ports on Kelly's MJOLNIR armor ports
that threaded directly into her subclavian and femoral veins.
"Keep doing your physical therapy, and the dermacortic steroids
will remove most of the scarring and restore your full mobility
within another week," she explained.
   "A week?" Kelly growled and struggled to rise. "Doctor, I need
to be one hundred percent ASAP. The Chief has a mission--"
   Dr. Halsey activated the injectors, and they hissed their con-
tents into Kelly's body. She relaxed and slumped back on the ta-
ble, unconscious.
   "No, Kelly," Dr. Halsey whispered. "You're not going on the
Chief's mission. You're going on mine."
   The sedative in her bloodstream would knock out an ODST in
peak condition for the better part of a day. Halsey estimated that
Kelly would be unconscious for a little 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 through the room's
speakers sounded distracted.
   "Locate Corporal Locklear and have him report immediately,
please."
   "Done, Doctor Halsey."
   "Thank you, Cortana. That will be all." She added in a whisper
so low that only she heard: "Take good care of them all for me."
   Dr. Halsey adjusted the examination table so it lay flat, and
then loaded medical supplies and equipment onto its undercar-
riage. She placed a bag with four submachine guns and sixteen
full clips of ammunition on top of the supplies.
   She found a lukewarm cup of stale coffee and gulped it down
to the dregs.
   Corporal Locklear appeared at the open entrance to the prep
room. "Hey, Doc. Cortana said you needed me?" he said tersely.

274                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
He smoothed his hand over his shaved head. "I'm kind of busy
right now, so if this can wait--"
   "Whatever you're doing," Dr. Halsey told him, "this is more
important." She nodded to Kelly's prone form. "I need your help
getting SPARTAN-087 to the launch bay."
   "Is she okay?" he asked and took a step toward her.
   "She's fine, but I have to transfer her to the asteroid base. They
have a piece of equipment necessary to complete her treatment."
   Locklear appeared unconvinced. "But I just saw her--"
   "She's fine," Dr. Halsey assured him. "Just sedated. This pro-
cedure is. . . unpleasant, even for a Spartan."
   Locklear looked into Dr. Halsey's eyes and then nodded, ac-
cepting this explanation. He moved the head of the table and
wheeled it through the doors, the med bay, and out into the waiting
elevator.
   Dr. Halsey followed on his heels.
   When the elevator doors closed, she turned to the Corporal.
"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 this thing."
   She watched Locklear carefully, gauging his reaction, and saw
that he pulled away slightly at this last remark; it had hit home.
   "And what the hell am I supposed to do with it?"
   "Keep it safe," she told him. "Guard it with your life, because if
the Covenant ever get it, they'll be able to jump through
Slipspace a hundred times faster than they can now. Do you
understand?"
   Locklear closed his large fist around the crystal. "Not really,
Doc. But I can take care of it." He paused and wrinkled his
forehead in confusion. "But why me? Why not ask one of your
Spartans?"
   " 'My' Spartans," Dr. Halsey replied in a whisper, "could be
ordered to hand it over to Lieutenant Haverson. And he'd risk

                         ERIC NYLUND                          275
getting it back to ONI Section Three--even if he had to gamble
that the Covenant might get it."
    Locklear snorted. "Well, as much as I don't like El-Tee
White-bread, I'd hand it over if ordered, too. What's the big deal,
anyway? We're almost home."
   "Almost," Dr. Halsey repeated, and she gave him a slight
smile. "But the moment you jump, this crystal emits radiation
like a signal flare. The Covenant will find this ship ... and
maybe this time they'll win the battle in Slipspace."
    Locklear grimaced.
    She held his steely gaze a moment and then finally let go of
his hand. "So I know you'll do whatever it takes to prevent this
object from falling into enemy hands."
    He nodded grimly. "I read you, Doc. Loud and clear." There
was a hint of respect in his voice. "I know what I have to do . . .
count on it."
   "Good," she said.
   The elevator doors parted. Locklear stuffed the crystal into
his ammunition vest, and Locklear wheeled the 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 repaired; exoskeletons thud-
ded along the deck, carrying plates of titanium and welding
them in place.
   "There," Dr. Halsey told Locklear. "Take her to that ship." She
pointed to Governor Jiles's Chiroptera-class vessel. It sat on the
deck looking like a sleeping bat. Its oddly angled stealth sur-
faces blended into the shadows.
   Locklear shrugged and pushed the loaded gurney.
   Dr. Halsey halted by the ship's port hatch. It was sealed so
tightly that no seam could be discerned.
   She retrieved the thermal printout from her coat and rechecked
its contents. She then touched a recessed button on the hull, and a
tiny plate slid aside revealing an alphanumeric keyboard. Dr.
Halsey typed in a long string and pressed ENTER.

276                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   The hatch parted with a hiss.
   She smiled. "Not even Cortana could crack their crypto, in-
deed." She waved Locklear inside.
   Locklear obliged her and pushed the gurney into the ship. Dr.
Halsey followed, secured the examination table, and escorted
Locklear outside. She turned and headed back into the vessel.
   He started back toward the elevator, then halted. "Doc, when
we were talking... you said when 'you'jump to Slipspace. You
meant when 'we'jump to Slipspace, didn't you?"
   Dr. Halsey locked eyes with him for a moment. Then she
touched a button inside the ship, and the hatch hissed closed be-
tween them.

   The Master Chief stepped off the elevator and onto the bridge
of the Gettysburg. Lieutenant Haverson and Admiral Whitcomb
stared at the displays at Weapons Station One and Engineering.
   "Sirs," the Chief said.
   The Admiral waved him forward without bothering to look up.
   The Chief had two tasks. First, he would inform the 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 mechanism and a possible way to
block it. The second data crystal contained the source files of
that discovery, and according to Dr. Halsey it would lead to
Sergeant Johnson's undignified, and unnecessary, death.
   And yet, if it gave Section Three a better chance to stop the
Floods--if indeed that threat had any meaning after the destruc-
tion of Halo--maybe it was worth one man's life. Maybe if
Sergeant Johnson knew, he'd volunteer.
   The Chief's duty was clear: He had to hand over all files to the
Lieutenant--but deep down, he had to admit that it didn't feel
right.
   "Cortana." Admiral Whitcomb crossed his arms over his bar-
rel chest. "Give me an update on our power."
   Cortana's tiny image flickered to life on the holopad near the

                         ERIC NYLUND                         277
NAV station. She crossed her arms over her chest much as he
had, and minute red symbols raced over her glowing lavender
skin. "Status is nearly identical to my last report five minutes
ago, Admiral. Tests on Ascendant Justice's reactor and the Get-
tysburg's engines are in synch, and will be completed in forty
minutes."
   "Hurry," the Admiral growled. "I don't want to get stuck with-
out power when unfriendlies show up. I want to get under way to
Earth. Weapons status?"
   "Aye, sir," Cortana said. "Plasma turret one is obliterated; no
possibility of repair. Plasma turrets two, three, and four are re-
paired, and although I'm waiting for power to test them, I have
run three hundred twelve virtual test-firings without incident.
Turrets five, six, and seven, however, require parts Governor
Jiles does not have in his inventory. Two Archer missile pods on
the Gettysburg have been refilled. That 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 screens and at the
Chiroptera-class ship accelerating away from the Gettysburg's
launch bay. "I thought Jiles was staying on board to oversee
repairs."
   "So did I," the Admiral said. "Cortana, did you catch Jiles
leaving on surveillance?"
   "No, sir, but you might be interested in this." On the screen a
grainy video appeared of Locklear, Dr. Halsey, and a Spartan on
a gurney boarding the ship. "Locklear left them at the ship, sir.
Doctor Halsey and SPARTAN-087 departed."
   "Cortana," the Admiral barked. "Hail that ship. Now."
   "Hailing."
   Governor Jiles appeared on forward screen number one. "Ad-
miral," he said with a nervous smile. "I just saw my ship leave
the launch bay. Perhaps you can explain why you commandeered

278                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
my personal property when I have showed nothing but good
faith in this--"
   "Hold on to your shirttail, Governor," Admiral Whitcomb
snapped. "I'm in the middle of finding out who took your ship
and what precisely is going on. Cortana, any response to our
hail?"
   "An automated code, sir," she said. Her mouth opened in as-
tonishment. "UNSC Code Three-Nine-Two."
   "Three-Nine-Two?" the Admiral asked. He stared into space,
trying to recall the obscure code.
   The Master Chief cleared his throat and told him, "Admiral,
that is an official 'nonresponse' code, sir. Special Warfare teams
use it to ignore hails... due to a higher-priority mission."
   "God damn it." The Admiral's face flushed, and he ground his
teeth. "You mean the good doctor just told me to go to hell."
   On the forward screen the Chiroptera, its batlike wings nearly
invisible against the black of space, accelerated 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 to explain why that ship just disap-
peared, Lieutenant?"
   "Yes, Admiral. I was wrong," Haverson replied without meet-
ing the Admiral's eyes. "Doctor Halsey apparently found a way
to circumvent the ONI lockout on the ship's systems."
   On screen, Jiles said, "This is most unfortunate, Admiral. I ex-
pect to be compensated1--"
   "You bet it's unfortunate," Admiral Whitcomb said. "If I'd
known there was a chance we could have used that ship to jump
to Earth. . . I would have done it an hour ago. Cortana, what was
her trajectory?"
   "Not Earth," Cortana said. "Doctor Halsey's course points to
no known system in my database."
   The Admiral scrutinized the forward screen: Jiles's face, the

                         ERIC NYLUND                         279
empty star field, and the frozen video of Dr. Halsey and Locklear
in the launch bay. "I want Corporal Locklear on the bridge ten
minutes ago. Lieutenant Haverson, have Cortana locate him.
Then I want you personally to escort that ODST up here."
   Haverson swallowed. "Yes, sir." He marched to the elevator,
and Cortana told him, "He's on B-Deck, Lieutenant, medical
storage. He's not answering my COM page." The elevator shut.
   "Chief, you're on the Engineering console," the Admiral said.
"Cover the NAV station, too."
   "Yes, sir." He moved to the Engineering station's monitors.
There were thirty-five minutes to go on the shakedown cycle of
the reactors and engines.
   "Contact," Cortana said. "Bearing zero-three-zero on the so-
lar plane. One--correction, two--Covenant cruisers. They're
not moving. Maybe they haven't spotted us."
   "It never rains when it can monsoon," the Admiral declared.
"They can't help but see 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 I'll do what I have to, too," Admiral Whitcomb said.
"Cortana, halt the reactor and engine shakedown."
   "Sir? There are risks--"
   "I want them online now. Don't tell me what the risks are. Just
doit."
   "Yes, sir," she said.
   "Master Chief, get this crate ready to move and stay on your
toes. We'll need every trick in the book to outmaneuver two
cruisers."
   "Affirmative, Admiral." The Chief observed the shakedown
cycle halt and Ascendant Justice's reactors restart. Radiation in-
dicators redlined, and then dropped to a hairbreadth ... which
was technically considered safe. The Gettysburg's engines shud-
dered to life. The Chief felt the vibration though the deck half a
kilometer away. "Reactors are hot, sir," he reported.

280                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   The Admiral watched as Jiles's fleet of single ships and tech-
nicians in jet packs abandoned the Gettysburg, swarming across
the dark of space back to the safety of their asteroid. "Rats leaving
a sinking ship?" he wondered aloud.
    The Master Chief wasn't sure if that was a question directed at
him, but he decided to reply anyway. "They're just men who
want to live, sir."
   The Admiral nodded.
    "Covenant cruiser accelerating," Cortana announced. "Bear-
ing on a vector otrtsystem. It's transitioning to Slipspace."
    "Master Chief, get this tub moving. Now! Bring us up to half
maximum speed."
    "Aye, sir." He tapped in commands. "Answering one half for-
ward." The radiation warning on Ascendant Justice's reactor
flickered, but stabilized and subsided.
   The combined mass of the two attached ships groaned as their
recently repaired superstructures overcame their inertia.
    "Heat up our plasma turrets, Cortana."
   "Aye s--" Her translucent lavender hologram faded 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 perimeter. The map turned to a side profile
and revealed half a dozen additional ships scattered along the
nadir and zenith of the system.
    Admiral Whitcomb stared at the map and shook his head.
"You know the story of the Alamo, Chief?"
    "Yes, sir. A famous siege with a handful of defenders holding
off overwhelming forces."
   The Admiral smiled. "Texan defenders, Chief--there's a big
difference. Colonel William Barrett Travis with one hundred
fifty-five men held off more than two thousand Mexican invaders.
They hunkered down inside a tiny fort and fought like wildcats.
Travis got a handful of reinforcements later--thirty-two men."
The Admiral's smile faded. "You know there were fifteen
civilians inside that fort, too?" He looked at the map again. "Well,
when the

                         ERIC NYLUND                          281
fighting was over, Travis and his men were dead, but it cost the
enemy six hundred lives."
   "Like the Battle of Thermopylae," the Chief remarked.
   "But there were survivors at the Alamo; they let the civilians
live." He turned to the Chief. "You think anyone's going to sur-
vive this fight? You think there's any way to win?"
   The Master Chief tried to think of a way to fight and to win.
Thirty Covenant ships against their damaged hybrid vessel. Add
to that the need to defend Governor Jiles's crew. Could he board
one of the Covenant craft? Get Cortana to infiltrate their systems
and broadcast falsified orders? They would see him approaching.
Or was there a blind spot he could approach from? How could
he hide from the rest of the ships in their fleet, though? And by
the time he could implement such a plan, the Gettysburg would be
molten slag.
   "It was a rhetorical question, Chief," the Admiral said.
   "Yes, sir," the Chief replied. "Given 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.
   Admiral Whitcomb was silent a long moment, and then he
replied, "We are. This isn't the Alamo and I'm not Colonel Wil-
liam Barrett Travis, although I dearly wish I were. No, we're run-
ning. We're trading hundreds of lives for billions."
   The Master Chief absentmindedly reached for his belt pouch,
and Dr. Halsey's data crystals clinked. "Is this the right thing to
do, sir?"
   "The right thing?" Admiral Whitcomb sighed. "Hell, son, it
probably isn't. Personally, I'd prefer to fight, and die fighting,
and take every one of those Covenant bastards with me. But I do
not have the liberty to make that choice. My duty is clear: to pro-
tect the men and women of Earth--not a pack of privateers and
outlaws." He closed his eyes and said, "The logic of the situation

r
    282                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
    is also too damned clear. Even if we stay and fight... they'll all
    bejustasdead."
       "Capacitors at foil charge," Cortana announced. "Preparing
    to enter Slipspace. Waiting for your order, sir."
       The Master Chief saw the energy from Ascendant Justice's re-
    actor drain to 5 percent. Motes of blue-green light appeared
    on the forward screen, and the stars stretched and smeared like
    watercolors.
       But something was wrong: The shields of the Chief's
    MJOLNIR armor rippled. The radiation monitors spiked. Where
    was it coming from?
       "Hundreds for billions," the Admiral whispered. "Duty be
    damned ... I'm still going to burn in hell for this." Admiral
    Whitcomb inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.
       "Go, Cortana. Get us out of here. And God forgive me."

       Corporal Locklear whistled, and the robotic dolly obediently
    followed him. The rolling robot was stacked with rifles, pistols,
    ammunition 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 against a good suicide mis-
    sion. He'd been on plenty before, and they seemed to give him
    the most bang for his buck. Only now, after so much fighting, he
    just wanted a break: twenty-four hours of sleep, and some R&R.
       He idly tugged at the bandanna tied to his biceps.
       "Damn girl," he whispered. "Why'd you have to die? I had
    plans for you and me."
       What was he doing mooning over a woman? And a Navy flier
    to boot? His squad would have laughed themselves wet if they
    knew... only they were all dead, too.
       "Screw this," Locklear said. "I'm still alive. I'm not going to
    die. And I'm not going to feel guilty for any of this."
       He laughed and told himself, "It's not like the entire universe

                           ERIC NYLUND                            283
hasn't been trying to kill me off, though." Locklear turned to the
robotic dolly. "Right, amigo?"
   Its treads spun, and the flatbed dolly turned to the right.
   "No, no, stop." He sighed. "Man, I gotta buy myself a ticket
out of this outfit. Next thing, I'll be asking one of the Spartans
out on a date. . . if I could even tell the boys from the girls in that
squad." He shuddered.
   The doors of the large cargo elevator squeaked open; Lock-
lear stepped off, and whistled for the dolly to follow.
   Storage Bay Two had racks and shelves that rose from the
deck five meters to the ceiling. He played his flashlight over the
uneven surfaces. He spied a desk and terminal in the corner.
   "Hello, inventory control," he said. "The place to go for good-
ies in any Navy outfit." He strode to the desk, sat down, and
tapped in a search for medicinal-grade ethyl alcohol.
   A tone chimed in his earpiece, and 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 and
tapped in a command to switch to external camera mode.
   Craggy asteroids moved past them--no, it was the Gettysburg
that was moving. Locklear squinted and saw a flash of blue. He
magnified that part of the screen and found a dozen blurry blue
flares from engine cones and the pulsing lateral lines filled with
plasma. Covenant ships.
   "Ah hell," he said and backed away from the desk. "So much
for happy hour."
   Something moved in his vest. Locklear reached in his pocket
and pulled out the crystal Dr. Halsey entrusted to his care. The
elongated stone rippled, facets moved and rearranged like the
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
   He spied the same blue color on the inventory monitor--

284                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
pinpricks of stretched space, the first indication of a
Slip-space jump.
   "I'm not going through another Slipspace fight," Locklear
said through gritted teeth. "I'm not going to let them follow us.
Or let this thing shoot off a signal flare to every Covenant ship in
the galaxy."
   He grabbed a can of C-7 off the dolly and dropped Dr. Halsey's
crystal on the deck. He quickly covered the thing with the foam-
ing explosive. It hardened to a stiff resin in a matter of seconds.
Locklear grabbed a detonator, inserted it into the foam, and con-
nected it to a timer.
   Why had the doc given him this 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 want-
ing to die in another space battle. Like maybe getting some pay-
back for Polaski's death. The Covenant rat-bastards wanted it so
bad? Well, screw them, too.
   "This one's for you, Polaski," he whispered.
   Locklear set the timer for three seconds, and punched the
countdown. He dived for cover behind the robotic dolly and cov-
ered his head.
   The brilliant flash of sapphire light was the last thing he ever saw.

SECTION 6

              OPERATION:
            FIRST STRIKE

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

0510 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military
Calendar) \ Aboard hybrid vessel Gettysburg-Ascendant
Justice, in Slipspace.
   The Master Chief and his team, which now consisted of
Grace, Linda, Will, and Fred, had been ordered to report to
the Officers' Club--normally forbidden territory to NCOs. Of
course, nothing about their circumstances had been normal for a
long, long time.
   The Gettysburg's O-Club had a massive table of oak, scored
with numerous gouges and scorches from a hundred cigars casu-
ally set upon its surface. There was a bar stocked with bottles
containing a rainbow collection of liquors, dusted with shattered
crystal. The room'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 cannons belching flash and
thunder.
   Admiral Whitcomb and Sergeant Johnson entered the room.
The Spartans snapped to rigid attention. "Officer on deck!" the
Master Chief shouted, and they all saluted.
   "At ease," Admiral Whitcomb said. "Please sit down."
   The Master Chief stepped forward. "With respect, these chairs
will not support the weight of our gear, Admiral."
   "Of course," the Admiral said. "Well, make yourselves as
comfortable as you can. This is an informal meeting." He snorted.

                          ERIC NYLUND                          287
"I just wanted to see who was left on board and alive." He looked
past the open doors to the Officers' Club. "Lieutenant Haverson
will join us shortly. He's investigating the site of Corporal
Lock-lear's... accident."
   A holographic projector pad upon the bar flickered to life, and
Cortana's slender body appeared. Chunks of broken crystal on
the pad refracted the light and distorted her image so she ap-
peared half melted and cast prismed arcs of light onto the walls.
   Sergeant Johnson stepped over to the bar and swept the pad
clean.
   "Thank you, Sergeant," Cortana said, looking over her re-sorted
figure.
   "My pleasure," he replied with a grin.
   Cortana faced the Admiral. "Sir," she said, "you'll be happy to
hear that I'm detecting no signals, residual radiation, or any
transient contacts ... which is precisely what you would expect
from a normal Slipspace journey."
   Admiral Whitcomb nodded, sighed, and eased into one of the
leather-backed chairs at the table's head. "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 consistent with a high-energy radiation
burst. . . as are the burns on the Corporal's body."
   He grimaced and added, "If it means anything, his death was
quick. And these"--he tapped the plastic bag on the table--"are
crystalline fragments that I found at the site. At first glance they
appear to be a match to the shard found on Reach." He shook his
head. "But what I found isn't sufficient mass to account for the
entire crystal. So unless it was atomized and left no trace, a fact
inconsistent with the presence of these larger pieces, then the
rest of that crystal has to be somewhere else."
   Cortana tapped her foot, and one of her eyebrows arched. "If
the radiation burst detected before our jump correlates with the
destruction of Doctor Halsey's crystal," she said, "then there is

288                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
an alternative explanation. The timing between that explosion
and the radiation flare was only forty-seven milliseconds. Since
the crystal had unusual space- and time-bending properties, the
missing fragments may have been 'squeezed' out of the ship and
into Slipspace."
   Haverson asked incredulously, "You mean pieces of the great-
est scientific discovery in human history are"--he nodded past
the walls of the Gettysburg--"lost in Slipspace?"
   "Yes," Cortana replied. She shrugged. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant."
   "At least the Covenant can't get to it anymore," Admiral
Whit-comb said. He flicked the plastic bag with his thick finger.
"Or if they do, they're only going to find a bunch of busted
fragments."
   "I just wish I knew why Locklear did it," Haverson said.
   Everyone was quiet. John and the other Spartans shifted un-
easily in their heavy MJOLNIR armor.
   Sergeant Johnson cleared his throat. "The boy was a little on
edge. After all he'd been through, you'd expect 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 Locklear the alien artifact. John still wanted to
trust her, though. Perhaps whatever she was up to was for the
greater good.
   "Let's not start this," the Admiral said. "I don't want anyone's
perceptions colored by us discussing the 'whys' and 'what ifs' of
this situation. Save it for the debriefing they're going to give us
when we get back." He cast a sideways glance at the bar and un-
consciously smacked his lips. "From here to Earth it should be
smooth sailing, and we can finally relax."
   "Permission to speak, Admiral," the Chief said.
   "Granted. Speak your mind."
   "I don't wish to contradict you, sir, but perhaps it shouldn't be
smooth sailing. And maybe we shouldn't relax."
   Admiral Whitcomb leaned forward. "I have a feeling I'm not
going to like this. .. but explain yourself, Chief."

                          ERIC NYLUND                          289
   The Master Chief outlined his mission plan, how he and his
team would take a Covenant dropship and insert into the ren-
dezvous location for the invading Covenant fleet. They would
then infiltrate their command-and-control center, the Unyielding
Hierophant, and destroy it; that would hopefully cripple the
Covenant force . . . or at least slow them down. Maybe even
enough to buy Earth time to reinforce their defenses.
   The Admiral stared at the Chief without blinking and flatly
replied, "Mission request denied."
   "Acknowledged, sir." He remained standing, at stiff attention.
   Whitcomb frowned, as the other Spartans also snapped to at-
tention and remained stone-still. He sighed.
   "I understand your motivations, Chief. I do. But I will not risk
transporting your team to the Covenant rendezvous point," the
Admiral explained. "If we lose this ship, Earth never gets its
warning."
   "Sir," the Master Chief replied, "we will transition from
Slip-space to normal space alone. Once the dropship 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. "Our Slipspace probes perform the
maneuver all the time, but the shearing stress and radiation are
considerable." She paused and looked toward John. "The Spartans,
however, in the MJOLNIR armor should be able to survive."
   " 'Should,' " the Admiral echoed, his face grim. "As much as I
admire your daring, Chief, I still have to deny your request. You'll
need Cortana to get past the Covenant security systems. She has
to make it to Earth. With the data she's carrying on Halo, the
Flood, and Covenant technology, she's far too valuable to risk."
   "Understood, sir," John replied. "I hadn't considered that."
   Haverson slowly stood and brushed the sleeves of his tattered
uniform. "I'll volunteer to go on the Master Chief's mission," he
said. "I have extensive training in cryptology and Covenant
systems."

290                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Admiral Whitcomb narrowed his eyes and reexamined the
Lieutenant as if seeing him for the first time.
   "You'd never survive the Slipspace transition," Cortana told
him. "But..." She tapped her lip with her forefinger, deep in
thought. "There might be another way."
   Covenant icons entered the stream of symbols flowing along the
surface of her holographic body. "I discovered a file-duplication
algorithm in the Covenant AI on Ascendant Justice. I success-
fully used it to reproduce my language-translation routines. I
might use it to copy portions of my infiltration programming
into the memory-processing matrix in the Master Chief's
MJOLNIR armor. It won't be a full copy--there are replication
errors and other side effects--but it would give the Spartan team
access to some of my capabilities. Enough, I think, to get them
through the Covenant security barriers."
   Admiral Whitcomb sighed deeply. He stood, went to the bar,
and then returned 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 your team will be on your own?
That my first, my only priority, must be to get to Earth?"
   "My team is willing to accept the risk," the Chief said.
   "The risk?" the Admiral whispered. "It's a one-way ticket,
son. But if you're willing to do it, if you can slow the Covenant
assault on Earth, then, hell, it might be worth the trade."
   The Chief had no reply to this. He and his Spartans had sur-
vived against impossible odds before. Yet the Admiral was right:
There seemed to be something final about this mission ...
something that told John he wouldn't make it. That was accept-
able. The cause more than justified the sacrifice of four when
measured against billions of lives on Earth.
   Admiral Whitcomb stood and said, "Very well, Master Chief.
Mission request approved."

                          ERIC NYLUND                           291
   The Master Chief parked the groaning overloaded robotic
dolly next to the side hatch of the Covenant dropship. The dolly
held four tons of carbon-molybdenum steel I-beams.
   Will unloaded the cargo and hauled it inside, where Fred and
the Sergeant cross-braced and welded the beams in place.
   This was the final reinforcement to the dropship. The interior
of the craft was so cramped that two armored Spartans could
barely pass one another.
   They had welded layers of lead, boron fibers, and Titanium-A
hull plates they had removed from the Gettysburg. According to
Cortana's calculations, this was the only way to give them better
than fifty-fifty odds of emerging from a Slipspace transition with
an intact ship.
   Admiral Whitcomb monitored the display of a computer re-
pair cart, then looked up and said, "Cortana is ready for you,
Chief." He waved him over.
   The Chief marched to the cart and let the Admiral hook 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 MJOLNIR armor systems check and subroutine
unpacking protocols," Cortana's voice whispered.
   At the same time, the real Cortana also spoke over the COM:
"Don't listen to her. She's only half the woman she used to be."
   "As long as you only copied the good parts," the Chief replied.
   "I'm all good," Cortana replied tersely. "Just don't get too
used to a passenger you can order around."
   "I wouldn't dream of it."
   "Systems check complete," the copied Cortana whispered.
 "All systems are functional."
   Linda approached the opposite side of the Covenant dropship;
a robot dolly followed stacked with rifles, Lotus antitank mines,
explosives, and crates of ammunition. She angled the dolly and
led it up the loading ramp until it butted against the hull.

292                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Fred emerged from inside, and Linda handed him an armful
of submachine guns.
   The Master Chief detected a slight limp to her stride and an
almost imperceptible awkwardness to her usual fluid motions.
   He opened a private COM channel to Linda. "What's your sta-
tus? Are you fit?"
   She shrugged. This gesture was notoriously difficult to per-
form in MJOLNIR armor with its force-multiplying circuits. It
took a degree of concentration and dexterity that spoke volumes
about Linda's true coordination.
   "Doctor Halsey would say I needed a month's bed rest," she
wryly replied. "But I'm squared away, Chief. I still have this."
She picked her sniper rifle off the dolly and slung it over her
shoulder with a liquid grace. "And I still have this." She patted
her helmet. "Even though the Covenant did their best to shoot it
off last time." She stepped closer to him. "I can take care of my-
self. And I can take care of the team's back. I've 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 knew the payoff for their sacrifice. It was as
good a final fate as any soldier could ask for.
   He marched to the other hatch on the dropship and boarded
the craft. There was one last detail to take care of with Lieu-
tenant Haverson. John moved past Sergeant Johnson who, ob-
scured by a shower of sparks, welded the last supporting I-beam
in place.
   The Lieutenant sat in the cockpit checking the automated rou-
tines that Cortana had uploaded into the system. These would
generate the proper coded responses to Covenant queries. They
had also changed the dropship's registry tag so the Covenant
would not recognize this ship as belonging to the now renegade
Ascendant Justice.
   "Lieutenant," the Master Chief said. "Forgive the interruption."

                         ERIC NYLUND                         293
   Haverson looked up and slicked the sweat-drenched hair from
his face. "What can I do for you, Chief?"
   The Master Chief eased into the copilot's seat. "Dr. Halsey
gave me something to pass on to ONI Section Three: her analysis
on the Flood."
   Haverson's eyebrows shot up.
   He opened his belt compartment .. . and hesitated. Which
data crystal? The one only containing Dr. Halsey's Flood analysis
and possible inoculation? Or the one containing the source files
for her conclusions, the one she said would kill Sergeant
Johnson?
   While John felt justified in gambling his life and the lives of
the other Spartans, that was his choice as their commander to
make. That wasn't the case for the Sergeant.
   It was a biological fluke that had spared the Sergeant from the
Flood. A one-in-a-billion shot, the doctor had said. But it was a
billion-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 not exactly sure what she
meant."
   "We'll see, Chief. Thank you." Haverson took the crystal and
peered into his depths. He shrugged. "With Doctor Halsey, who
can tell?"
   The COM channel clicked, and Cortana announced, "Ten
minutes until we reach the drop zone. Make final preparations to
launch Blue Team. You'll only get one shot at this."
   "Roger that, Cortana," the Chief replied. "Spartans, on deck!"
   Haverson tentatively extended his hand. "I guess this is it,
Chief."
   The Chief gently shook the Lieutenant's hand. "Good luck,
sir."
   John moved back though the dropship--almost running over
Sergeant Johnson, who was dragging the arc welder down the
gangway.

294                 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."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

0530 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military
Calendar)\Aboard captured Covenant dropship, in
Slipspace.
   The dropship rolled, inverted, and spun out of control. It tum-
bled and pitched, and one of the I-beams solidly welded to the
hull bucked and snapped.
   The Spartans of Blue Team were strapped to the hull in
quick-release harnesses. No one, however, gave any thought to
the red quick-release button in the center of their chests. They
were all hanging on for their lives.
   The forward monitor was black because there was nothing for
them to see in Slipspace. The only light inside the dropship came
from 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 cleared Ascendant
Justice's launch bay and entered the inky void of Slipspace. This
"normal" Slipspace was nothing like John had experienced
before. Without the smoothing effect of Dr. Halsey's alien
crystal--this ride was a thousand times worse.
   Radiation levels spiked and dipped... but so far the dosages
getting into the lead-lined dropship were survivable.
   "Now I know," Linda said, "why only big ships travel through
Slipspace."

296                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "You know those SS probes?" Fred asked. "They're almost
solid Titanium-A."
   The Master Chief checked his team's biosigns: erratic but still
within normal operational parameters. Grace's heart skipped a
beat or two, but then returned to a normal strong rhythm. No
broken bones or signs of internal bleeding yet, either. It was also a
good sign that Blue Team were reasonably calm about their dire
situation. The Chief knew it was all they could do until they
cleared the Slipspace field generated by Ascendant Justice.
   He ran a diagnostic on his MJOLNIR shields. They still re-
charged faster than they were drained by the ambient radiation
that stormed invisibly around them. He wished the real Cortana
were with him. She would have said something to distract him.
   "Status?" John asked.
   Four blue acknowledgment lights winked on, and four Spar-
tans gave him thumbs-up signals.
   Fred chimed 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 to make black stars explode in his eyes. Another
jolt slammed his head into the back of his helmet. The inside of
the dropship went entirely dark.

   "Chief? Chief?" Cortana's voice whispered through his hel-
met speaker. "Chief, respond please."
   John's vision came into focus. His biosigns sluggishly pulsed
on his heads-up display. Beyond the display, it was completely
dark. He activated his external lights and pointed his head along
the interior of the dropship.
   His Spartans hung limp in their harnesses. Aside from spheres
of lead that had melted under the hull armor, resolidified, and
now floated like champagne bubbles in the interior of the vessel,
there was no other discernible motion.
   "We made it?"

                           ERIC NYLUND                           297
    "Affirmative," the cloned Cortana answered. "I'm picking up
 a tremendous volume of Covenant COM traffic on the F- through
 K-bands. They've pinged us three times already for a response,
 Chief. Awaiting orders."
    "How can you pick up any signal inside this lead-lined hull?"
    "The hull is breached in many sections, Chief. The COM traffic
 is also unusually strong, indicating extremely close proximity of
 Covenant forces."
    "Stand by," he told her. He hit the quick release on his harness
and floated free. He called up Blue Team's biosigns and found
them all unconscious, but alive. He grabbed a first-aid kit, in-
jected them each with a mild stimulant, and released them from
their safety restraints.
    "Where are we?" Will asked.
    The Master Chief looked instinctively to the forward moni-
tors, but they were dead. "There's only one way to find out," he
replied. "I'll take the portside hatch. Fred, you're on the
starboard."
    "Roger, Blue-One," Fred replied.
    The Chief rotated the manual 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 plasma
turrets with their lateral lines aglow with fire, and the flare of its
engine cones as it passed... and then John saw the rest of them.
    There were Covenant cruisers and larger carriers; there were
even bigger vessels with five bulbous sections that were two
kilometers stem to stern and had a dozen deadly energy projec-
tors. Motes of dust swirled between the numerous ships: Seraph
fighters, dropships, and tentacled Engineer pods.
    "How many ships," he asked Cortana, "are we looking at?"
    "Two hundred forty-seven warships," she replied. "Estima-
tion of the total population based on the sampling from your lim-
ited field of vision puts that total number at more than five
hundred Covenant warships."
    For the first time the Chief froze; his gauntlets locked onto the

298                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
edge of the hatch, and his arms failed to respond. Five hundred
ships? There was more firepower here than he had ever seen be-
fore. This fleet would easily overwhelm any UNSC defensive
force--whether or not the Admiral got through with his warning.
Their opening salvo would be a tidal wave of plasma, and it
would obliterate Earth's orbital fortresses before they could fire
a shot.
   A thousand kilometers below, space rippled, parted, and seven
more cruisers appeared in normal space. They maneuvered to
join the rest of the pack.
   John realized he had seen this magnitude of destructive
power: Halo. The ring was a weapon designed to kill all sentient
life for dozens of light-years in every direction.
   And he had stopped that threat. He could stop this one, too.
He had to.
   His plan called for the infiltration and destruction of their
command-and-control station. But how would that 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 signal and explain that our engines are crippled and
we'll need assistance to move. Let's see if we can get them to
take us to this central station for repairs."
   "Sending message now."
   The Master Chief piped what he was seeing to Blue Team.
"Time to wake up," he said. "Armor and weapons check on the
double."
   There was a pause of several seconds before Blue Team's ac-
knowledgment lights pulsed in his HUD. He knew they were
having the same reaction of fear, and then drawing the same con-
clusion as he had about their mission. They couldn't fail: The
fate of humanity lay in their hands.
   John angled his head around to take a look at the dropship.
   The majority of the dropship's hull had peeled away, and lead

                          ERIC NYLUND                         299
and titanium plates underneath showed through. Without their
reinforcements, the craft would have disintegrated on the rough
ride through Slipspace.
   "Covenant C & C responding to our request," the copied
Cor-tana informed him. "Ferry en route to take us in for repairs.
They were a little confused about which warship we belong to,
but I simulated static to cover our ship's registration ID. They're
too busy to take too close a look at us."
   The Master Chief returned inside the dropship. "We're get-
ting towed," he told Blue Team.
   Linda came up to him and made a circle in the air with her in-
dex finger. John nodded and turned around so she could visually
inspect his MJOLNIR suit. Computer diagnostics were fine, but
his Spartans didn't take any chances with their armor. Especially
not in an evacuated environment.
   "You're good," she told him.
   John then returned the favor and examined her suit. Fred and
Will had done an excellent job integrating 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. "Heavy or light?" she asked.
   "We go in heavy," John said. "Except Linda."
   Linda started to object, but he explained, "We'll need you to
hang back and cover us with your sniper rifle. I want you fast and
deadly. Take a close-range weapon, extra ammo, and whatever
you need to keep your sniper rifle working in the field."
   "Roger," Linda said. Her voice was cold, hard, and brittle.
This was the voice John had heard as she reported in while snip-
ing targets around the team. John sometimes found it a little too
cold... but he knew this was a good sign. Linda was preparing
to do what she did best: kill with a single shot.
   "The rest of us will take whatever we can carry. Once we're in I
have a feeling we won't be able to come back. If we have to, we
can always lighten our load."

300                    HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   The Chief grabbed a battle rifle and, for close use, a pair of
submachine guns. He took a pair of silencers for the SMGs and
hip holsters for the smaller weapons. He picked up a dozen frag
grenades in their plastic ring carrier and slotted that into the left
thigh section of his armor.
   He'd need ammunition, a lot of it, if things got hot. So he took
extra clips for the SMGs and the battle rifle and taped them onto
his chest, arms, and right thigh. More clips went into a back-
pack, along with two Lotus antitank mines, a few cans of C-7 ex-
plosive, detonators, timers, two field first-aid kits, and a fiber-optic
probe.
   While the rest of Blue Team got their gear together, John told
them, "Stay off the COM from now on."
   They all nodded.
   Lead lining or not, they were close to too many listening
Covenant ears to take any more chances with the COM.
   He moved to the still-open port hatch, slid the fiber-optic
probe outside, and plugged it into his 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 drifted to the nose.
   The clanging of metal on metal reverberated through the
hull, and the Master Chief felt a gentle motion in the pit of his
stomach.
   He looked back and passed on a thumbs-up to Fred, indicating
that their tow had arrived, and Fred passed this signal on to the
rest of the team.
   On the fiber-optic feed the Master Chief saw that the Covenant
tug maneuvered them through the fleet, up, over, and around
ships a hundred times their size. There was a moment when they
dived and there was nothing on screen save the stars and black of
space. The Master Chief got a glimpse of the gold-colored star
on his heads-up display, and then the video feed moved over to a
planet of ocher smeared with clouds of sulfur dioxide and an or-
biting moon of silver.

                          ERIC NYLUND                         301
    The tug turned to face a new ship in the distance. This vessel
 looked like two teardrop-shaped Covenant ships that had collided,
 giving the result an overall elongated figure-eight geometry.
    They moved toward this ship, and the Master Chief made out
more details. Spokes radiated from the narrow midpoint of the
vessel and connected to a slender ring that he hadn't seen before
because they had approached facing it edge-on. Featherlike tubes
extended from either bulbous section and moved slowly over
that central wheel. John squinted to make out more details on
this unusual ship, but he was already at maximum resolution.
    It had a ring? Was it rotating? But the Covenant had gravita-
tional technology. They didn't need rotating sections to simulate
gravity.
   Then he saw something recognizable on the structure: tiny
ships docked to that ring. Covenant cruisers and carriers. There
must have been sixty connected to the central hub.
   The titanic perspective of this structure 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 telling what kind of sensors the Unyielding
Hiero-phanthad, but they couldn't take chances. John retreated
into the dropship and eased the hatch shut.
   He moved deeper into the ship and waited with the rest of
Blue Team.
   Three minutes ticked by on his mission clock; John tried to
control his breathing and focus his mind.
   Gravity settled his stomach, and there was a series of metallic
clatters along the hull. Atmosphere hissed in though the cracks
of their breached ship.
   John pointed at Fred and Grace and then to the starboard
hatch. They leveled their rifles and moved. He pointed to Linda
and himself, then the port hatch, and they also moved into
position.
   John wasn't sure what kind of reception waited for them on
the other side of those hatches, but one thing was certain--they'd

r
    302                  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.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

0610 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date,
Military Calendar) \ Aboard Covenant battle station
Unyielding Hierophant.
   A rubbery tentacle reached in along the seam of the
drop-ship's hatch.
   John raised his hand and signaled Linda to stand down. He
recognized the alien limb--the splitting cilia feelers and globu-
lar sensory organs could belong only to a Covenant Engineer.
   The Engineer pushed open the hatch and entered the ship,
floating past John and Linda as if they weren't there. It chittered
and squawked as it ran its tentacles over the foreign armor plates
and spatters of lead. Two more Engineers bolted through the
open hatch and 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 throughout the area. They moved parts, disassembled
and reassembled sections of ship hulls, and plumbed plasma
coils. There was no trace of a welcome party of Elites waiting for
Blue Team.
   John turned the optic probe up and saw a latticework deck
overhead with tools, welders, and spotlights hanging like jungle
vines. It was as good a place as any to get their bearings.
   John turned and pointed at Linda and Will, then out the hatch
and up. They nodded and moved out.

304                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   Five seconds later acknowledgment lights from Blue Four and
Three winked on. It was safe for the rest of them.
   John grabbed the upper lip of the hatchway and flipped up
onto the top of the dropship. He grabbed a dangling cord and
pulled himself onto the latticework deck where Fred and Linda
perched, watching and making sure the bay was clear.
   Grace and Fred disembarked and scrambled silently up into
the darkness, joining them.
   John pointed two fingers at his eyes and then made a flat fan
motion across the space of the bay. The Spartans moved to care-
fully scan the area.
   From his shadowy overview John saw that this place was a
repair-and-refit facility, with slots for hundreds of singleships.
The room curved out of view three hundred meters in either di-
rection. It must run the circumference of the station's hub.
   Apart from the thousands of busy Engineers, John spotted
only two Grunts wearing white methane-breather 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. Overflowing from the nearest alcove were purple poly-
hedral cargo barrels, old charred plasma coils, and plates of the
silver-blue Covenant alloy. But what piqued John's interest was
what was next to this pile of junk: a holographic terminal.
   John clicked his COM to get Blue Team's attention, pointed to
the junk pile, held up two fingers, and then pointed again at the
alcove.
   Everyone nodded, understanding his order.
   Fred and Linda silently dropped to the deck, ran across the
bay, and melted into the shadows behind a cut section of hull.
Grace followed.
   John looked up and down and side to side across the bay, mak-
ing sure no Grunts were visible. He and Will crossed and took
cover behind a plasma coil the size of a Warthog light reconnais-
sance vehicle.

                          ERIC NYLUND                          305
   He used both hands to point at Fred and Linda, turned his
hands so they pointed to himself, and then nodded to the data
terminal.
   Linda lay flat and slithered to the edge of the alcove shadows
on his right; Fred took the left. They would cover him while he
moved to the terminal.
   John reached to the back of his neck and pulled Cortana's chip
from his skull. He crawled on his stomach, hugging the wall until
he got to the terminal. He slid Cortana's chip into the input slot
and then eased back into the shadows.
   "I'm in," Cortana reported over the COM. "I have secured our
own channel and encrypted the signal so we're free to use the
interteam COM."
   "Good work," John told her. "Is there a central reactor in this
station? How well defended is it?"
   "Stand by. I have to move carefully. There are Covenant secu-
rity AIs in this system."
   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 small moon. I
can overload one reactor, causing the melting of its field coils,
which will saturate the surrounding--"
   "Will it explode?" John asked impatiently.
   "Yes--an explosion of sufficient force to vaporize both
sections."
   "That's the good news? What's the bad?"
   "The reactor's control system is isolated. I cannot reach it
from this terminal. You will have to physically deliver me there."
   "Where is 'there'?"
   "The nearest reactor-control access point is seven kilometers
farther into the station's top lobe."
   John considered this. If they were careful and lucky, it might
be possible.
   "Is there a way to leave you in the central system until we need

306                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
you?" he asked. "It would be handy to have you monitor the
Covenant security systems."
   The duplicate Cortana was silent a full three seconds. "There
is a way," she finally replied. "When I was copied from the origi-
nal Cortana, the duplicating software was copied as well--it
becomes an inseparable part of all subsequent copies. I can use
this to copy myself into this system."
   "Perfect."
   "There are risks, however," Cortana told him. "Each succes-
sive copy contains aberrations that I cannot correct. There may
be unforeseen complications associated with using a copy of a
copy."
   "Do it," John ordered. "I'll take that chance. But I'm not will-
ing to take a chance on crossing seven kilometers behind enemy
lines without a way to bypass their security systems."
   "Standby," Cortana said. "Working."
   A minute ticked off John's mission timer. Then the data chip
ejected from 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, indicat-
ing the way was clear.
   Blue Team ran, crouching, for thirty meters. A small access
panel slid open, they piled through--then the door snapped shut
behind them.
   They proceeded, hunched over; they crawled on their hands
and knees, on their stomachs, and through ducting so tight they
had to shut down their shields and scrape by on bare armor over
metal. For kilometers they followed Cortana's directions, halt-
ing as she ran motion sensors through diagnostics until they
passed ... twisting and turning and shimmying down long
lengths of pipe, dodging the giant blades of circulation fans, and
edging by transformer coils so close that sparks arced across
their shields.

                          ERIC NYLUND                         307
   According to John's mission timer they had followed this
route for eleven hours--when it dead-ended.
   "New welds," Fred said, running his gauntlet over the seams
in the alloy plate blocking their path.
   Cortana broke in over the COM, "It must be a repair not
logged into the station manifest."
   John said. "Options?"
   Cortana replied, "I have only limited mission-planning rou-
tines. There are three obvious options. You can blow the ob-
structing plate with a Lotus antitank mine. You can return to the
repair bay where we might find a less obvious way in. Or there is a
faster, alternative route, but it has drawbacks."
   "Time is running out," John said. "The Covenant aren't going
to stick around much longer before they strike Earth. Give me
the faster route."
   "Backtrack four hundred meters, turn bearing zero-nine-zero,
proceed another twenty meters, and exit through a waste access
cover. 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 he could tell there were several catwalks, buildings, and even
waterways--as Cortana indicated, lots of open areas for them to
be seen in.
   "Let's take a look," John said.
   He led his team back the way they had come and pushed open
the waste access duct. Blue light flooded the tunnel. John
blinked and let his eyes adjust, then pushed the fiber-optic probe
through the opening.
   John didn't understand what he saw--the optical probe must
have malfunctioned. The image looked impossibly distorted.
But there was no motion nearby . . . so he risked poking his
head out.
   He was in the end of an alley with walls towering ten meters to
either side, casting dark shadows over the waste access hole. A

308                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
group of Jackals passed the mouth of the alley only five meters
from his position. He ducked ... and none of the vulturelike
creatures saw him in the dark.
   When they passed he looked up and saw that the fiber-optic
probe had not been broken after all.
   The space station was hollow inside, and a light beam shot
lengthwise through its center: a blue light that provided full day-
light illumination. Along the curved inner surface were
needle-thin spires, squat stair-step pyramids, and columned
temples. Catwalks with moving surfaces crisscrossed the space,
as did tubes with capsules that whisked passengers. Water flowed
along the walls in inward-spiral patterns and then waterfalled
"up" into great hollow towers that sprouted from the opposite
wall.
   Banshees flew in formation through the center space of the
great room, as did flocks of headless birds and great clouds of
butterflies. It could have been an 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 material set into a far wall,
glistening. "Is that the window to the repair bays, Cortana?"
   "Correct," she replied.
   "Then at least we know the way out. And the structure we
need to enter?"
   "One o'clock," she said. "The one with the carved columns. It
is the most direct route to the reactor chambers."
   John moved out of the hole and hugged the nearby wall. The
shadows in the bright daylight would do a decent job of camou-
flaging them.
   "Okay, Blue Team. Get oriented. . . as much as you can. Our
target is the columned building at one o'clock. I make it to be a
three-hundred-meter sprint across open ground. We'll make a
break for it. Unless anyone has a better plan?"
   Linda emerged, looked around, and said, "Permission to post
on the rooftop and provide cover."

                         ERIC NYLUND                          309
   "Do it," John said. "Let me know when you're in position and
ready."
   Linda retrieved a padded grappling hook and rope from her
pack, twirled it, and tossed it up and over the adjacent roof. She
tugged it once, it caught, and then she quickly ascended.
   The remaining Spartans joined John in the shadows. He
shouldered his battle rifle and thumbed the safety off.
   Linda's acknowledgment light winked once.
   John tensed and ran. It took him three strides to build to his
top-speed sprint. His adrenaline spiked and it made his blood
burn. He felt time slow, his perception running at an overclocked
pace. He focused on speed--putting one foot in front of the
other. His boots dug into cobblestones, crushed rock, and sent a
fine spray of gravel behind him. He saw three obstacles in his
path: a group of startled Grunts. He slammed the butt of his rifle
into the nearest one, and crushed its skull. The dead Grunt spun
end over end and landed in a heap. 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 your
position. Stand by."
   A quartet of shots split the air like thunderclaps.
   "Threat neutralized," Linda said. "The rest of them are scat-
tering. Banshees approaching. I'm moving."
   John cleared the stairs and skidded to a halt on the threshold
of the temple. The interior was cold; external temperature read-
ings were near freezing. Light filtered in through stained-glass
windows in the ceiling--tinged lavender, cobalt, and turquoise.
Three rows of giant columns made of blue-black basalt ran the
length of the thirty-meter-long rectangular structure, casting
long shadows. It was a good place for an ambush. He set his
back against one of the pillars and swept the entrance, covering
his team as they entered.
   "Cortana, update on station security?" John said.

310                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   "There are dozens of reports on the security channels. I've got
them covered."
   Another Cortana voice broke in over the first: "Also be ad-
vised, Chief, that there are ceremonial guards in this temple--a
race we have not encountered before. Roughly translated from
Covenant dialects, they are called 'Brutes.' They shouldn't be a
significant threat or they would have been used in previous mili-
tary situations."
   John wasn't so sure of that. The name Brute didn't sound
promising. He also wondered why there now seemed to be more
than one Cortana in the station's system--but that could wait.
They had to keep moving now that they had revealed their posi-
tion. He waved Blue Team forward.
   John took point. He moved up to the next column in the mid-
dle of the building. Fred and Will stepped over to the columns on
either side 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 into the shadowy silhouette. It
didn't slow--it only howled with rage.
   Will and Fred fired three-round bursts from their rifles into the
creature. It flinched with each bullet impact.
   Three explosions detonated behind them. Grace's biosign
alarm shrilled and flashed on John's heads-up display.
   "Ambush!" Will cried out.
   The creature Cortana had called a "Brute" stepped from the
shadows and faced John. It was taller than an Elite--wider and
more muscular. Its mouth was lined with razor-sharp teeth, and
its red eyes burned with hate. Its blue-gray skin was riddled with
bullet holes.
   The Brute tackled John, knocking his weapon from his grasp.

                         ERIC NYLUND                          311
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.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

1751 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date,
Military Calendar)\Aboard Covenant battle station
Unyielding Hierophant.
   John struggled and tried to pry the hands from his throat. The
tendons in the Brute's forearms were solid bands of steel--and
the creature was so determined to rip John's head off that a full
clip from a rifle into its chest hadn't even slowed it down.
   Behind him, John felt another explosion thunder though the
stone floor, followed by the staccato rattle of rifle fire.
   Blue Team was busy with another threat. He was on his own.
   John blinked. The darkness dimming the edge of his vision
wouldn't clear.
   John watched his shield bar flicker 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. His windpipe swelled, and he gagged.
   Shields were at one quarter charge. It'd have to be enough.
   John had been in similar death-grip holds before--endless
hours of training on the wrestling mats with his teammates and
martial arts specialists provided by Chief Mendez. There were
ways to escape a larger, stronger opponent. And there were al-
ways countermoves to those escapes. And countermoves to those
counters. It was like a game of chess, except the pieces were arms

                          ERIC NYLUNO                           313
and legs, torque and your center of mass ... and most impor-
tantly your mind.
   He pulled his knees to his chest, and tucked his torso toward
his pelvis at the same time. He twisted ninety degrees and shot
out both legs and arms, and uncoiled his body. The maneuver
was called "shrimping."
   John's head slipped from the Brute's grasp.
   He used the monster's split second of disorientation to scram-
ble onto its back. John brought his elbow down on the base of the
Brute's neck. He swept out its elbow, wrenched the joint around,
and pushed it as far as it would go--far past the point any hu-
man's or Elite's would have snapped. John scissored his legs
wide and pushed against the floor, leveraging his body to keep
the Brute pinned.
   It growled and pushed itself and John up with its one free arm.
   "No. You. Don't."
   John still clutched a frag grenade in his left hand. He flicked
the arming pin--reached around and under, 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 large pillars blocked his view, but he saw on his motion
tracker that Fred was behind a pillar down and to John's left, and
Will behind the pillar to the right. There was no tag indicating
Grace's location. There were, however, blurry motion contacts
beyond the wide arched entrance to the temple.
   And there was one other thing--neither Will nor Fred checked
John's status over the COM. That silence meant trouble.
   John fumbled for his fiber-optic probe, but it had been lost in
the scuffle with the Brute. He eased around the basalt pillar.
   Grace lay face-first on the floor, five meters from the temple en-
trance. A puddle of hydrostatic gel and blood spread across the
floor.
   John clicked the COM once, a status query.

314                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   The instant he did this, two Brutes wheeled from their cover
on either side of the entrance archway. They held rifles with
large-caliber muzzles and padded stocks, fixed with razor-edged
blades. One of the Brutes saw John, aimed, and fired.
   John darted back behind the basalt pillar; he saw the flash and
thunder of a grenade launched from the weapon--heard two
more rounds fired immediately after that.
   The first grenade impacted on the opposite side of the pillar
and exploded. The overpressure rattled his teeth.
   The Chief turned and dived, hoping to get behind the next
stone column before--
   --the second and third grenades impacted and detonated on
the pillar he had stood behind a split second before. The solid
stone crumbled into fist-sized chunks.
   He skidded and scrambled for cover as the upper part of that
column collapsed, raining stones that shattered the floor... and
would 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. Not until he
knew for certain she was dead.
   He removed his backpack and took out one of his two Lotus
antitank mines. The disk was a quarter meter across with spikes
set along the rim to stabilize it when buried. He set the detona-
tion selector to countdown mode, seven seconds. He then slid
around the edge of the column.
   He threw the mine with a flick of his wrist. It spun in a wide
arc across the temple hall and embedded into the wall just over
the entrance archway.
   Two seconds until it blew.
   John clicked on his COM and said: "Fire in the hole!"
   The Brutes again wheeled around from their cover and lev-
eled their deadly grenade launchers.
   The Lotus mine detonated--it was a flash and an instant of

                           ERIC NYLUND                           315
fire. The temple opening and Brutes vanished, replaced by a
cloud of dust and a cascade of stones that fell from the ceiling.
   One gray arm remained exposed under the rubble, still flexing.
   John moved up. The entrance was sealed. They were safe for a
few seconds.
   He knelt next to Grace. Her biosigns had flatlined. He tried to
roll her upright--but there was no need. The detonations he had
heard while wrestling the first Brute had been three of their
high-velocity grenades... which had blown Grace's midsection
apart.
   Fred and Will emerged from their cover. John looked at mem
and shook his head.
   John opened the tiny access panel on Grace's armor power
pack and entered the fail-safe code. They still had a mission to
finish, which meant they couldn't carry her out; it would slow
them down too much. They wouldn't be leaving her for the
Covenant either, though. Her armor's tiny fusion reactor would
overload and burn everything within a ten-meter radius--
Grace's funeral pyre.
   "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 was feedback
from the Covenant triangulating on their signals. Or maybe there
was some other effect at work. What had she warned him about?
Unforeseen complications using a copy of a copy of Cortana?
   "Roger that," he said and waved Fred and Will forward. He
took one last look at Grace, then marched quickly and silently
ahead.
   There were no more motion contacts in the temple. The Chief,
however, saw Grunts and Jackals, Elites and Hunters in murals
painted on the walls. In the shadows and stained-glass filtered
light, those pictures seemed to move. They genuflected to some-
thing farther ahead. The Chief wished he had more time to take a
full video record.
   Blue Team moved thirty meters and turned to face a section of
the wall. It parted. The passage could have fit two Engineers side

316                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
by side, but John had to crouch and turn sideways to pass. Will
and Fred followed; Cortana sealed the door behind them.
   They continued until the narrow passage turned ninety de-
grees and dropped straight down. Will attached a rope and they
rappelled down a hundred meters, landing on a platform.
   John overlooked a cavern hewn from rough stone that arched
up ninety meters and vanished into the shadows in the distance.
Five hundred twelve fusion reactors that looked like flatted spiral
seashells filled the space, stacked in rows and columns eight
deep. Each was the size of a Pelican dropship and thrummed
with power, casting off waves of wavering heat.
   The open areas between the reactors were a tangle of plasma
conduits and alive with swarms of thousands of buoyant Engi-
neers as they tended the machinery. Faint wispy borealis com-
prised of escaped plasma swirled, whipped into a luminous froth by
the intense magnetic vortices within the chamber.
   It was a 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 the Jackal
guards to pass, and then sprinted across the platform. He re-
moved Cortana's chip and inserted it into the terminal.
   After three seconds, she reported: "I'm in. Very few Covenant
counterintrusion measures in this system. I can accomplish the
overload.
   "I've found an exit route for Blue Team and uploaded it into
your NAV systems," she continued. "It should be stealthy enough
for you to return to the repair bay undetected. Once there, give
me the order and I can begin. It will take ten minutes for the
overload to build. There's no stopping once I start this, Chief, so
be sure."
   "This station and the Covenant fleet might jump to Earth in
the next ten minutes," John said. He looked to Fred and Will, and
they nodded as if they could read his mind.
   "Proceed with the overload now, Cortana."

                          ERIC NYLUND                           317
   The light from the reactors shifted; blue plasma tinged white
and spread like a poison through the interconnecting conduits.
   "Overload commencing," the copy of Cortana announced. "I
suggest Blue Team move at top speed to the exit."
   A NAV triangle indicated a ladder that ran to the catwalk
overhead. John held up two fingers at Will and Fred and then
nodded to the patrolling Jackals. Fred and Will knelt, braced,
and waited for him to go ahead.
   John climbed the ladder. As he neared the top, three shots rang
out behind him. The sound was nearly drowned out by the inten-
sifying reverberations from the reactors. He cleared the top
of the ladder and saw three dead Jackals on the catwalk. He
swept both directions with his rifle and then waved Will and Fred
forward.
   His countdown timer read 9.47. The heat and light from the re-
actors grew stronger, and John's shields flared slightly.
   Blue Team jogged down the catwalk to an elevator. They got
inside, the doors closed, and the car 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 center. This was a heat exchange
plant for the reactors below. Already the water in the canals
steamed and boiled.
   He saw that Covenant Elite and Hunter pairs had converged at
the entrance to the temple a hundred meters to his right. Over the
temple dozens of Banshee fliers circled the carnage.
   A gang of Grunts managed to clear an opening to the temple.
There was a flash of light and fire that roiled out in a long plume,
burning them as well as their Elite overseers.
   "Good-bye, Grace," John whispered.
   The detonation of her power pack would buy them more time
while the Covenant forces tried to figure out what just happened--
perhaps they'd think Blue Team was still inside the temple. Grace
had also taken out a dozen Grunts and four Elites with her last
action. That would have pleased her.

318                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   John turned toward the far end of the great room and spotted a
band of translucent material on the far wall. It led to the repair
bays and air locks beyond. That was their exit.
   He glanced at his mission timer: 8:42. They'd have to get
there fast.
   His gaze locked onto the Banshees in the air. He searched for
Linda, posted somewhere in the odd geometry of this station. She
could be anywhere along several kilometers of cityscape.
   John clicked on his COM. "Linda, do not reply. The Covenant
are triangulating on our signals. I'm hoping they do and send a
few of those Banshees to reconnoiter. When they get close to the
heat-exchange plant, take them out--we'll need their vehicles."
   There was no answer. Did that mean Linda understood and
was in a position to help? Or was she dead?
   As John hoped, three Banshees peeled off the search forma-
tion, circling the temple and turning toward them.
   John waved Fred and Will out of the elevator 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, indicating an imminent discharge.
   There was a spray of blood in the flier, then the pilot fell for-
ward and pushed the accelerator to full. The Banshee careened
through the air at maximum velocity--crashing into a
water-recovery tower, and wobbled to the ground.
   "Linda," John muttered and tried to spot her. Judging from the
blood spray, she'd managed to send a round through the tiny ex-
posed area of the cockpit, and inflicted a lethal ricochet. He
looked for her position; most likely the shot had come from be-
hind and above. There were numerous catwalks running across
the length of the massive room. She had to be on one of them.
   The two remaining Banshees accelerated toward Blue Team.
Their plasma cannons flickered, and they leveled into a flat
trajectory.

                          ERIC NYLUND                          319
   John, Fred, and Will raised their rifles.
   There was a muted crack of a sniper rifle, and another Ban-
shee drifted to the ground, its pilot felled by Linda's uncanny
skill.
   The last remaining pilot veered starboard, not knowing what
had just taken out its two wingmates ... only that it had to get
out of the area if it was going to live. In the tightest arc of its
curve, the craft slowed. John couldn't tell precisely where the
shot came from, but a third sniper round ricocheted through the
craft's cockpit. The Banshee spun in circles before it thumped to a
halt, nose-down in the street.
   Three impossible shots, three kills. Even for Linda, this was
superb shooting--the finest shots John had ever seen. He looked
around the station, over the buildings, spires, catwalks, transit
tubes--it was impossible to spot her.
   John waved Fred and Will toward two of the downed Ban-
shees and sprinted toward the one still spinning riderless in the
street, its canards 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. Grunts and Jackals
scattered as he approached, and John fired at them. He shifted to
the side as he splashed though water falling from one side of the
station to the other.
   Four Banshee fliers fell in behind him. John weaved back and
forth. A pair of plasma bolts sizzled over his head.
   He risked a look over his shoulder and saw two of the Ban-
shees drop away. A moment later they crashed into the surface.
   Linda still had his back covered.
   He dropped to the ground and skimmed along a street, skid-
ded, and turned into an alley. Banshee shadows passed overhead.
He pushed the throttle to full and made a direct run toward the
back wall.
   Will and Fred had grounded their fliers and crouched next to
the meter-thick window separating this inner section from the

320                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
repair bays. John settled his Banshee next to theirs, turned his
backpack around, reached in, and tossed Fred his last Lotus anti-
tank mine.
   "Get that on the window and set for a remote trigger." He then
risked an open COM channel to the copy of Cortana in the
station's system. "Cortana, can you open the air locks in the re-
pair bay?"
   A flurry of voices filled the COM, all speaking at the same
time, shouting to be heard over one another . . . all Cortana's
voices. One finally broke through. "Chief, I've spun off a copy
dedicated exclusively to communicating with you. Go ahead."
   "How many copies are there of you?"
   "Unknown. Hundreds. The Covenant AI overwhelmed me.
Had to. This is difficult. Many errors in my systems. Filtering
overall subchannels of 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 buzzed through the air like
clouds of flies.
   John's mission countdown timer read 7:45.
   "Linda's back there," he told Fred and Will. Fred started to say
something, but John cut him off. "If I'm not back in three min-
utes, blow that window and exit."
   Fred hesitated but then nodded.
   "I can't leave her," John said and gunned his Banshee's throttle.
"Not if she's still alive."
   Dr. Halsey's last words to him resonated in John's mind: I should
have been trying to save every single human life--no matter
what it cost.
   He'd get to Linda. He'd get her out alive--or die trying.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

1820 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date,
Military Calendar)\Aboard Covenant battle station
Unyielding Hierophant.

   The Master Chief accelerated his Banshee to its top speed.
   There was another explosion at the temple, and plumes of
steam geysered into the air from the heat-exchange plant. The
circling formations of Banshees scattered.
   John tucked as close as he could to his flier's fuselage and
coaxed every bit of speed from the craft.
   A pair of Banshees swooped in, one off his port, the other on
his starboard. Their plasma weapons heated; John rolled back
and forth to throw their aim. He braced for impact... but there
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 catwalks that crisscrossed the center of
the interior. There was a nexus of walkways near the beam of il-
lumination that ran down the center of the station, a location with
enough glare that a sniper might hide in the open undetected.
   He risked keying Linda's private COM channel. "Thought
you might need a ride, so I--"
   An energy mortar blasted over John's shoulder, burning the
air like a sun in close orbit and draining his shields to half. It

322                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
impacted a water tower, and the structure detonated into a cloud
of blinding steam.
   John punched the Banshee through the cloud, glanced down,
and saw a Wraith tank tracking his trajectory. He ducked and
weaved but kept moving toward Linda's probable location.
   His mission countdown timer read 7:06. There was no time for
fancy evasive maneuvers.
   Did Linda even want to be found? Maybe she wanted him to
get to safety and leave her behind? It's what he would have done.
   "Position report, Linda," John barked over the COM. "That's
a direct order."
   Three seconds ticked off his mission clock and then the
six-tone "Oly Oly Oxen Free " song whistled through John's
speakers and a NAV marker appeared on his heads-up display.
   The triangular marker centered on a rope that ran between two
transit tubes and dangled perilously close to the high-intensity
light beam. It was a barely discernible thread that ran 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 was thirty meters away, he made visual contact.
Linda had the rope coiled about a boot and wrapped about one
forearm. She held her sniper rifle in one arm, and John could
only surmise that she had been firing from such an impossible
position.
   She uncoiled the rope from her boot, swung, released at the
apex of the arc--and fell toward him.
   John forced the Banshee's cowling up against straining hy-
draulics and stretched out his arm, his fingers touched hers--
and her hand slapped firmly into his gauntlet.
   He swung her around and over his shoulder. Linda landed in
front of him, straddling the seat.
   John spun the Banshee about and accelerated back to the win-
dows. The craft's forward cowling remained wrenched up and

                         ERIC NYLUND                          323
slowed them down--but there was no other way to fit two people
on the craft.
   "Coming in hot," John said over the COM to Fred and Will.
"Open the door and get ready for a quick exit, Blue Team."
   Fred's acknowledgment light winked on.
   "Cortana, breach those air locks. Now!"
   A cacophony of voices filled John's COM. There were so
many copies of Cortana speaking at the same time he couldn't
make out anything coherent.
   "Cortana, the air locks."
   There was apop of static. "Apologies, Chief," Cortana replied.
"I've spun off a dedicated copy to. . . to. . . speak with you."
   John thought she had already made a copy to talk directly with
him. What had happened to it?
   "Override the air lock safeties, Cortana. Open the external
and repair bay doors."
   "Working, Chief. There'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 even if it had been reinforced steel, but this wall had re-
mained in one piece.
   They were stuck inside.
   Three hundred meters to the window.
   "Cortana!"
   In John's peripheral vision he saw clouds of Banshees and
Ghost fliers gaining on them.
   "Cortana--it's now or never!"
   "In ..." Cortana's voice was faint. "Intersystem failure
08934-EE. Global system error 9845-W. Resetting. Inner doors
open. Override in progress. System lockdo--"
   The COM went dead.
   A hundred meters away, beyond the cracked window, the
atmosphere turned white for a split second then cleared. Spaced

324                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
every twenty meters along the bay walls, the air lock doors were
opening. Beyond, stars shone upon velvet black.
   Fred and Will's Banshees appeared off John's starboard ca-
nard. John pointed and together they dived, accelerating toward a
bull's-eye pattern of cracks on the translucent portion of the
wall.
   That web of fissures spread: fingers that stretched and split
along the length of the window... slowed and stopped.
    John fired the Banshee's plasma cannons. Fred opened fire as
well, and four blobs of plasma splashed across the glassy surface
fifty meters away.
    The window flexed, crackled, tiny flakes popped off. . . but
the translucent material remained stubbornly intact.
    John was thirty meters from the surface--he'd have to veer off
now, or impact upon it. He gritted his teeth and braced himself.
    Ten meters.
    The window's smooth surface flashed into a jigsaw mosaic.
The squealing of glass over glass 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 gravity, and the tether on his
belt snapped taut. He recoiled back toward the Banshee. Linda
held on with one hand and held out the other to him. He climbed
back aboard and tapped the thrusters to stabilize their pitch
and yaw.
   Behind them the station vented gas as well as the bodies of
Covenant Engineers, Grunts, Jackals, and Elites. Clouds of metal
junk bled from the ruptures. Tendrils of steam flash froze into
glittering ice crystals.
    The Covenant fleet moved as well--some cruisers closed
with the station, others moved farther away. There were five hun-
dred alien warships without leadership from their
command-and-control center, and they reminded John of motes
of dust in a sunbeam--silently floating in every direction.

                          ERIC NYLUND                         325
   John spotted a dropship drifting a kilometer ahead, dead in
space.
    He clicked his COM once and dropped a NAV marker onto a
Covenant craft. Fred and Will's acknowledgment lights winked on.
   John pulsed the Banshee's engines once and let its inertia
carry them to the dropship. He hoped the rest of the Covenant
Fleet was trying to figure out what had just happened... and not
paying any attention to one more piece of debris floating in
space.
   The Banshees gently impacted onto the tumbling dropship.
John grasped the hull, and Linda scrabbled over him, opened the
port access hatch, and entered. Fred and Will drifted closer, and
John helped them aboard.
   He hesitated and took another look at the Covenant fleet.
Hundred of ships without control. But how long would that last?
Even if the station's reactors chained and blew... the Covenant
still had enough force to destroy Earth's defenses 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 power pulsed through its plasma coils. The interior
lights dimly glowed.
   "Where to, Chief?" Linda asked.
   "Away," John said and looked at the system NAV display. He
pointed to the tiny moon orbiting the nearby planet. "Get us into
the moon's shadow. But slow. Try not to attract any attention."
   His countdown timer read 5:12. They might still have time.
   "Roger," Linda said.
   The dropship spun about and gently moved away from the sta-
tion, almost imperceptibly accelerating toward the tiny moon
covered with black and silver pockmarks.
   Fred hunched over his console. Thick spiky lines representing
the Covenant F- through K-bands fluxed and flickered on his
screen. "Covenant COM channels are jammed," he reported.

326                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
"Communiques and queries to and from every ship in the fleet
wondering what the hell is going on. And the station's COM
channels are all full of those copied Cortanas ... and she's just
repeating different system error codes."
   "What's this?" John asked, leaning over Fred's shoulder. He
pointed to one COM band with only a single spike.
   Fred looked at the Covenant calligraphy for a long moment,
and then inhaled sharply. "If the translation software is working
right," he whispered, "that's the E-band... it's one of ours."
   Fred snapped on the external speakers. Six tones beeped,
stopped, and then repeated.
    "Oly Oly Oxen Free," John breathed. "Send the countersign,
Fred."
   "Aye, Chief. Sending now."
   Who could have sent that signal? There was no other living
Spartan in this system. Unless it was Dr. Halsey and Kelly. Had
they somehow tracked them?
   "It's about time 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 system--hide in the Oort cloud and gather a little
intel." The Admiral sighed. "Well, I took one look and figured that
even if you took out that station... hell, son, there'd still be a
couple of hundred Covenant ships within spittin' distance of
Earth. Me getting there and warning them about it wouldn't
make a lick of difference. So I'm going to do something about it
here and now. You've done your part, Chief. Leave the rest to
me."
   There was a pause, then the Admiral asked in a low, serious
tone, "You did get it done, didn't you, son? You got that station
rigged to blow?"
   "Yes, sir." John linked his mission timer to the COM. "Four
minutes thirty-two seconds and counting."

                         ERIC NYLUND                         327
   "Perfect, Master Chief. Bring 'em on back to the barn. Stay on
your heading. Your instincts are dead on. We're on the far side of
the moon and are waiting for you."
   John motioned to Linda to increase their velocity. 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 Justice?" John whispered.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

1825 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military
Calendar)\Aboard UNSC vessel Gettysburg, near
Covenant battle station Unyielding Hierophant.
   The Master Chief and Blue Team stepped off the lift and onto
the bridge of the Gettysburg.
   "Sir--" John started to salute Admiral Whitcomb, but neither
the Admiral nor Lieutenant Haverson was there.
   The only two on the bridge were Sergeant Johnson, who stared
at the forward viewscreens, and Cortana, whose holographic fig-
ure burned bright blue and streamed with code symbols and
mathematics beyond John's comprehension.
   Sergeant Johnson turned toward them. He 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 quirked into a
smile.
   "Where's the Admiral?" the Master Chief asked. "And Lieu-
tenant Haverson?"
   The Sergeant's half smile vanished, and his eyes darkened. He
moved to Weapons Station One. "I'll show you. A Clarion spy
drone is nearly in position."
   The center viewscreen fuzzed with static and then resolved to
show the Ascendant Justice moving out of the shadow of the
moon. The once formidable Covenant flagship was a wreck; its

                         ERIC NYLUND                         329
hull was breached in a dozen places, its skeletal frame exposed,
and only a handful of plasma conduits flickered with life.
   "I don't understand," the Chief said. He stepped closer to
Cortana's hologram. Being near the real Cortana--not one of
her fragmented copies--reassured him that everything was un-
der control. "What's going on?"
   "Stand by, Chief," she replied. "I'm attempting to attune As-
cendant Justice's Slipspace drive to the Gettysburg's mass and
profile."
   "That's what we were up to while you were off sight-seeing,"
the Sergeant told him. "We pulled the Slipspace matrix out of
our piggybacked ship and slapped it into the Gettysburg."
   John wheeled and faced the viewscreens. Ascendant Justice
couldn't jump? Then why was it headed straight toward the
Covenant fleet? A decoy? He glanced at the countdown timer:
2:09 left.
   "Not a decoy," he whispered,"... 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 aside and quickly tapped three but-
tons. "COM patch established," he reported. "On viewscreen
two."
   The bridge of Ascendant Justice appeared on screen. Lieu-
tenant Haverson and Admiral Whitcomb stood on the central
raised dais, adjusting the holographic controls. Behind them, the
wall displays showed Covenant ships closing on their position.
   Admiral Whitcomb smiled. "Glad to see you made it safely
aboard, son."
   "Sir, that fleet will destroy you before you can fire a single
salvo."
   "I don't think so, Master Chief," he replied and tapped the
holographic display. A slim blue crystalline shard appeared--
an exact copy of the alien artifact they found on Reach. "I'm

330                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
sending this image to every ship in the system and letting them
know it's theirs for the taking ... if they dare to board this ship
and face Earth's best warriors." He laughed. "I think that'll ap-
peal to those Elites and their overinflated sense of honor."
   John nodded. "Yes, sir. It will."
   He looked at the countdown timer: 1:42.
   The Covenant fleet turned and moved toward the incoming
Ascendant Justice. A cloud of cruisers and carriers. Hundreds of
them. Impossible odds.
   "Fire turret four, Lieutenant," the Admiral ordered.
   "Firing!" Haverson replied, his face set in grim determination.
   A lance of plasma discharged, arced, and impacted upon the
nose of the nearest carrier. The energy splashed over their
shields and dissipated.
   "Turret five, Lieutenant. Take them down."
   "Firing five, sir," Haverson said.
   A second plasma bolt followed the first. It blasted the carrier's
weakened shields and melted armor and hull, exploding through
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 thing
they don't know we're just using that slingshot around the moon
and our inertia to do the rest of the job." He glanced at the dis-
plays and the station growing larger on them. "Hang on, Lieu-
tenant. Brace for impact."
   Ascendant Justice drifted closer to the station.
   It crashed into the central ring, crushing the structure, and
continued forward, dimpling the hull of the pinched center sec-
tion ... and finally ground to a halt with its nose impaled within
the Unyielding Hierophant.
   The center viewscreen on the bridge of the Gettysburg shat-
tered into static and then slowly resolved. The wavering image
of Admiral Whitcomb pulled himself upright. A gash from his
temple to the corner of his mouth wept blood. Lieutenant Haver-

                          ERIC NYLUND                           331
son groggily got to his feet as well, his arm held at an odd angle,
broken.
    "Systemwide transmission," Admiral Whitcomb barked to
Haverson.
    "Aye, sir," Haverson said and clumsily adjusted the COM.
    "Come on, mighty Covenant warriors," the Admiral shouted.
"We're here in the middle of your fleet with your 'holy of holies.' "
He flicked his ringer at the holographic shard, and it pinged as if
actually struck. "Come and get it!" He laughed again.
   Hundreds of Covenant ships moved toward them. Grapple
lines and grav beams attached to the broken hull of the Ascen-
dant Justice. A thousand dropships and Elites in thrust packs
filled the space around the flagship.
    The Master Chief watched the countdown timer: 0:27.
    Along the ten-kilometer dorsal bulb of the space station,
patches warmed to a dull red, the heat from the overloading reac-
tors becoming outwardly visible.
    "Move us back, 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 toward the bulkhead sealing
the flagship's bridge. Sparks cascaded along the seam as arc cut-
ters on the other side penetrated. "Master Chief, I have final or-
ders for you."
    "Sir," John said.
    "You watch and see what's left of this rabble when we're done
with 'em. Do not engage under any circumstances. You get the
intel and hightail it back to Earth and make your report."
    "Understood, sir."
   "Now listen, son, remember when we talked about the Alamo?
You know every one of the brave defenders in those fights died.
They knew the odds, but they hurt the enemy." He gritted his
teeth in pain. "Both were tactical defeats, but in the end they
were also brilliant strategic victories. They made the enemy

332                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
afraid. Just a few good soldiers fighting for what's right made the
difference."
   "Yes, sir."
   John remembered all those who had made a difference for
him. Sam. James. CPO Mendez. Captain Keyes. The men and
women who had fought and died on Halo. And now two more
names to add to that list: Whitcomb and Haverson.
   The bulkhead blasted off its mounts and clattered onto the
deck of the Ascendant Justice's bridge. Silhouetted in the pas-
sage were dozens of Elites, their energy swords blurs of motion
and light. Admiral Whitcomb fired a submachine gun.
   The central viewscreen dissolved into static.
   John watched for a moment, hoping the Admiral and the Lieu-
tenant would reappear ... but screen number two remained
offline.
   Video feed from the Clarion spy drone filled the side screens.
There were two hundred warships clustered tightly about the
figure-eight-shaped Unyielding Hiewphant. A similar number of
ships circled in loose orbital trajectories. 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
discharging bolts of lightning that arced along the station's frag-
ments and to the nearby ships.
   The Unyielding Hierophant became a roiling cloud of fiery
plasma and smoke and static charges that enveloped the ships
that had come to engage Ascendant Justice, ships that flashed
white hot and, in an instant, vaporized.
   This thunderhead of superheated and pressurized gas bal-
looned outward to engulf the rest of the orbiting flotilla; heated
their shields, which shimmered silver and popped like soap bub-
bles; melted their hulls and consumed them.
   The blast cooled and the cloud dissipated--but ejected debris
continued outward, leaving comet trails, and impacted on stray
ships not near the epicenter.
   "Move the drone back into the moon's shadow," John ordered.

                         ERIC NYLUND                         333
   "Aye, Chief," Will said. "Thrusters responding."
   The side viewscreens showed a hailstorm of molten metal
streaking toward the drone's cameras--then their view was
obscured by the black- and silver-pockmarked surface of the
tiny moon.
   "Cortana, is the Gettysburg ready to jump?" the Chief asked.
   "Slipspace capacitors charged, Master Chief. Ready when
you are."
   "Stand by." John waited a minute. No one spoke. "Will, bring
the drone back out."
   "Roger, Chief."
   The side viewscreen changed from moonscape to space.
There was little left of the fleet or the command-and-control
station--only clouds of smoke, glittering metal, and ashes.
   A few Covenant warships survived. Those that could slowly
moved away from the blast site ... others drifted dead in space.
Perhaps a dozen of their original five hundred craft had come
through the explosion.
   "A brilliant strategic victory," 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 finally
on their way to Earth. Although they had overwhelming evidence
that the Covenant knew the location of Earth, "overwhelming"
was not absolute proof. The Cole Protocol still applied.
   "Slipspace transition complete," Cortana said. "ETA to Earth
in thirty-five hours, Chief." The tiny hologram of Cortana con-
tinued to stare at him, and her slender brows knit together.
    "Was there something else, Cortana?" he asked.
   The furrow in her brow deepened. She sighed and crossed her
arms over her chest. "I was wondering about the copy of my in-
filtration programming." Cortana's color cooled from blue to
ultramarine. "I've reviewed your mission logs. Maybe it was the

334                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
additional copying that caused its breakdown, but that copy did
have some of my core personality programming as well. I just
hope it's not a sign of.. . some other instability."
   Cortana had been on edge. She had been so distracted at times
she hadn't known the correct time. They had, however, all been
pushed to the breaking point in the last few weeks. And despite
any minor flaws, Cortana had always come through for him.
   "We couldn't have survived without you," he finally told her.
"Your programming is as good as ours."
   She tinged pink and then her hologram returned to a cool blue
hue. "Are my aural systems malfunctioning or was that a com-
pliment, Chief?"
   "Continue to monitor Slipspace for any anomalies," the Mas-
ter Chief said, ignoring her.
   He strode to the three forward viewscreens and stared into
blackness. He wanted solitude, to gaze at nothing, and complete
the task that he dreaded.
   John pulled his team roster onto his heads-up display. He ran
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 pri-
vate mission. John knew that whatever the doctor had planned,
she would protect Kelly if she could. Still, he couldn't help but
worry about them both.
   He added Corporal Locklear to his list and designated him
Killed In Action. It was a more fitting end for a man who had
been as much a warrior as any Spartan.
   The last three names on his list he stared at for a long time:
Warrant Officer Shiela Polaski, Lieutenant Elias Haverson, and
Admiral Danforth Whitcomb. He reluctantly listed them as KIA
and referenced his mission report, which detailed their heroism.
   Two men had stopped a Covenant armada. They had willingly
died doing it, and they had bought the human race a brief respite
from destruction.
   John felt glad. They were soldiers, sworn to protect humanity

                          ERIC NYLUND                          335
from all threats, and they had fulfilled their duty as few ever
could. And like his Spartans who were "missing in action," the
Admiral and the Lieutenant would never die, either. Not because
of a technicality in a mission status listing, but because in their
deaths they would live on as inspirations.
   John turned and watched as Linda, Will, and Fred occupied
the bridge stations. John would make sure that he and the last
surviving Spartans did the same.
   The elevator doors opened, and Sergeant Johnson stepped
onto the bridge.
   "Got all those Covenant Engineers rounded up on B-Deck,"
Sergeant Johnson announced. "Slippery suckers."
   The Chief nodded.
   "The boys at ONI and those squid heads have a lot in com-
mon. Can't understand a thing they say and they're just as good
looking. Guess they're all going to have a long talk about technical
whatsits and scientific doodads when we get home."
   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
material.
   "Thank you, Sergeant." He hesitated and then added, "I'll take
care of this."
   The Sergeant nodded and strode toward Weapons Station One.
   John turned back to the blank monitors and retrieved the other
data crystal from his belt compartment. Yesterday he had be-
lieved he had done the right thing by giving the Lieutenant all of
Dr. Halsey's Flood data--including the data on the Sergeant,
which she assured him would lead to his death.
   But now?
   Now, John knew the difference one man could make in this
war. He understood Dr. Halsey's desire to save every person she
could.
   John held the two data crystals, one in each hand, and stared at
them--trying to discern the future from their glimmering facets.

336                  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
   That was the point, wasn't it? He couldn't know the future. He
had to do what he could to save every person. Today. Now.
   So he decided.
   He tightened his fist around the crystal with the complete mis-
sion data and crushed it to dust. John couldn't condemn Sergeant
Johnson.
   He hefted the remaining data crystal. There would have to
be enough in it for ONI. He 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 enough time to prepare for
whatever the Covenant could throw at them.
   John would take today's victory. And he'd be there when the
fighting started again--he'd be there to win.

SECTION VII

              HARBINGER

EPILOGUE

Ninth Age of Reclamation, Step of Silence \ Covenant Holy City
"High Charity," Sanctum of the Hierarchs.
   A hundred thousand probes darted and scanned with winking
electronic eyes across the void of tangled nonspaces enveloping
the Covenant inner empire. They gathered data and emerged into
the cold vacuum, where they were recovered by the hundreds of
supercarriers and cruisers in station-keeping positions around
the massive, bulbous planetoid that dominated the heavens.
   Not a single rock larger than a centimeter could enter this
space without being identified, targeted, and vaporized. Autho-
rization codes were updated hourly, and if any incoming vessel
hesitated for a millisecond with the proper response, it, too, met
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 Hegemony. They reflected the whispered thoughts
of the one who sat in the center of this room--mirrored them
back, so they might consider the glory of its domain, and learn
from its wisdom... because there was no higher source of intel-
lect, will, and truth alive in the galaxy.
   In the middle of the chamber, hovering a meter off the floor
upon its imperial dais, sat the Covenant High Prophet of Truth.
Its body was barely discernible, covered as it was with a wide
red cloak, and upon its head sat a glowing headpiece with sensor

                          ERIC NYLUND                          339
and respiratory apparatus that extended like insect antennae.
Only its snout and dark eyes protruded. . . as did tiny claws from
the sleeve of its gold underrobes.
   The left claw twitched--the signal for the chamber's doors
to open.
   The doors groaned and split apart, and a crack of light appeared.
   A single figure appeared silhouetted in the illumination. It
bowed so deeply that its chest brushed against the floor.
   "Rise," the Prophet of Truth whispered. The word was ampli-
fied by the chamber; it echoed and boomed forth as if a giant had
spoken. "Come closer, Tartarus, and report."
   A ripple of shock passed through the Imperial Elite Protec-
tors. They had never seen such a creature allowed so close to the
Holy Ones.
   "Protectors," the Prophet commanded. "Leave us."
   Together the three hundred honor guards straightened, bowed,
and filed out of the great chamber. They said nothing, but 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 any
opponent--even a mighty Hunter. It was the perfect instrument.
   "Tell me what you found," the Prophet said, its voice now truly
a whisper.
   Without looking up Tartarus reached for its belt and the at-
tached orb.
   The Prophet flicked its claw at the container. It floated free
from Tartarus's grasp and hovered. The top unscrewed, and three
glittering chips of sapphire-colored crystal shimmered, and
threw light and shadow upon the chamber's mirrored surfaces.
   The Prophet's dais bobbled in the suddenly uneven gravity--
but it quickly compensated.
   "This is all?" it asked.
   "Eight squadrons combed the area surrounding the Eridanus
Secundus asteroid field andTau Ceti," the Brute replied, bowing

340                   HALO: FIRST STRIKE
its head even lower. "Many were lost in the void. This is all there
was to find."
   "A pity."
   The orb's lid screwed itself back on, and then the container
gently drifted into the Prophet's grasp.
   "It may yet be enough for our purposes... and one more relic
from the Great Ones, as precious as they are, will soon make no
difference to us." The Prophet tucked the container deep in the
folds of its underrobe. "Make sure those pilots who survived are
well rewarded. Then execute them all. Quickly. Quietly."
   "I understand," Tartarus replied with a hint of anticipation
thickening his voice.
   The Prophet inhaled deeply, released a rasping sigh, and then
asked, "And what of the Unyielding Hierophantl"
   "The reports are unclear, 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 Prophet said, "but in the
end, only an insignificant setback. Have the ships that are
battle-ready rendezvous with us at the site of the cataclysm."
    "And what of the incompetent, High One? The one who lost
Ascendant Justice?"
    "Bring him before the Council. Let his fate match the magni-
tude of his failure."
    Tartarus's face twisted with what passed for a grin among his
species.
    "Soon the Great Journey shall begin," the Prophet of Truth
continued, and its claws curled into fists. "And let nothing in this
universe impede our progress."