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CHAPTER EIGHT
0930 Hours, September 11, 2525 (Military Calendar) / Epsilon Eridani System, Reach UNSC
Military Complex, planet Reach

Dr. Halsey reclined in Mendez’s padded chair. She considered pilfering one of the Sweet William cigars
from the box on his desk—see why he considered them such a treat. The stench wafting from the box,
however, was too overwhelming. How did he stand them?
The door opened and CPO Mendez halted in the doorway. “Ma’am,” he said, and stood straighter. “I
wasn’t informed that you would be visiting today. In fact, I had understood that you were out of the
system for another week. I would have made arrangements.”
“I’m sure you would have.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Our situation has changed. Where are my
Spartans? They are not in their barracks, nor on any of the ranges.”
Mendez hesitated. “They can no longer train here, ma’am. We had to find them . . . other facilities.”
Dr. Halsey stood and smoothed the pleats in her gray skirt. “Maybe you should explain that statement,
Chief.”
“I could,” he replied, “but it will be easier to show you.”
“Very well,” Dr. Halsey said, her curiosity piqued. Mendez escorted her to his personal Warthog parked
outside his office. The all-terrain combat vehicle had been refitted; the heavy chain-gun on the back had
been removed and replaced with a rack of Argent V missiles.
Mendez drove them off the base and onto winding mountain roads. “Reach was first colonized for its
rich titanium deposits,” Mendez told her. “There are mines in these mountains thousands of meters deep.
The UNSC uses them for storage.”
“I presume you do not have my Spartans taking inventory today, Chief?”
“No, ma’am. We just need the privacy.”
Mendez drove the Warthog past a manned guardhouse and into a large tunnel that sloped steeply
underground.
The road wound down in a spiral, deeper into sold granite. Mendez said, “Do you remember the Navy’s
first experiments with powered exoskeletons?”
“I’m not sure I see the connection between this place, my Spartans, and the exoskeleton projects,” Dr.
Halsey replied, frowning, “but I’ll play along a bit further. Yes, I know all about the Mark I prototypes.
We had to scrap the concept and redesign battle armor from the ground up for the MJOLNIR project.
The Mark Is consumed enormous energy. Either they had to be plugged into a generator or use
inefficient broadcast power—neither option is practical on a battlefield.”
Mendez decelerated slightly as he approached a speed bump. The Warthog’s massive tires thudded over
the obstacle.
“They used the units that weren’t scrapped,” Dr. Halsey continued, “as dock loaders to move heavy
equipment.” She cocked one eyebrow. “Or might they have been dumped in a place like this?”
“There are dozens of the suits here.”
“You haven’t putmy Spartans in some of those antiques?”
“No. Their trainers are using them for their own safety,” Mendez replied. “When the Spartans recovered
from microgravity therapy, they were eager to get back to their routine. However, we experienced some
—” He paused, searching for the right word. “ . . . difficulties.”
He glanced at his passenger. His face was grim. “Their first day back, three trainers were accidentally
killed during hand-to-hand combat exercises.”
Dr. Halsey cocked an eyebrow. “Then they are faster and stronger than we anticipated?”
“That,” Mendez replied, “would be understating the situation.”
The tunnel opened into a large cavern. There were lights scattered on the walls, overhead a hundred
meters up on the ceiling, and along the floor, but they did little to dissipate the overwhelming darkness.
Mendez parked the Warthog next to a small, prefabricated building. He jumped out and helped Dr.
Halsey step from the vehicle. “This way, please.” Mendez gestured to the room. “We’ll have a better
view from inside.”
The building had three glass walls and several monitors marked MOTION, INFRARED, DOPPLER,
and PASSIVE. Mendez pushed a button and the room climbed a track along the wall until they were
twenty meters off the floor.
Mendez keyed a microphone and spoke: “Lights.”
Floodlights snapped on and illuminated a section of the cavern the size of a football field. In the center
stood a concrete bunker. Three men in the primitive Mark I power armor stood on top. Six more stood
evenly spaced around the perimeter. A red banner had been planted in the center of the bunker.
“Capture the flag?” Dr. Halsey asked. “Past all that heavy armor?”
“Yes. The trainers in those exoskeletons can run at thirty-two KPH, lift two tons, and have a thirtymillimeter
minigun mounted on self-targeting armatures—stun rounds, of course. They’re also equipped
with the latest motion sensors and IR scopes. And needless to say, their armor is impervious to standard
light weapons. It would take two or three platoons of conventional Marines to take that bunker.”
Mendez spoke again in the microphone, and his voice echoed off the cavern walls: “Start the drill.”
Sixty seconds ticked by. Nothing happened. One hundred twenty seconds. “Where are the Spartans?”
Dr. Halsey asked.
“They’re here,” Mendez replied. Dr. Halsey caught a glimpse of motion in the dark: a shadow against
shadows, a familiar silhouette.
“Kelly?” she whispered.
The trainers turned and fired at the shadow, but it moved with almost supernatural quickness. Even the
self-targeting systems couldn’t track it.
From above, a man free-rappelled down from the girders and gantries overhead. The newcomer landed
behind one of the perimeter guards, quiet as a cat. He punched the guard’s armor twice, denting the
heavy plates, then dropped low and swept the target’s legs out from under him. The guard sprawled on
the ground.
The Spartan attached his rappelling line to the trainer. A moment later the writhing guard shot upward,
into the darkness.
Two other guards turned to attack.
The Spartan dodged, rolled, and melted into the shadows.
Dr. Halsey realized the trainer’s exoskeleton wasn’t being pulled up—it was being used as a
counterweight.
Two more Spartans, dangling from the other end of that rope, dropped unnoticed into the center of the
bunker. Dr. Halsey immediately recognized one of them, although he was dressed entirely in black, save
his open eye slits—Number 117. John.
John landed, braced, and kicked one guard. The man landed in a heap . . . eight meters away.
The other Spartan jumped off the bunker; he flipped end over end, evading the stun rounds that filled the
air. He threw himself at the farthest guard and they skidded together into the shadows. The guard’s gun
strobed once, and then it was dark again.
On top of the bunker, John was a blur of slashing motions. A second guard’s exosuit erupted in a
fountain of hydraulic fluid and then collapsed under the armor’s weight.
The last guard on the bunker turned to fire at John. Halsey gripped the edge of her chair. “He’s at point
blank range! Even stun rounds can kill at that distance!”
As the guard’s gun fired, John sidestepped. The stun rounds slashed through the air, a clean miss. John
grabbed the weapon’s armature—twisted—and with a screech of stressed metal, wrenched it free of the
exoskeleton. He fired directly into the man’s chest and sent him tumbling off the bunker.
The remaining quartet of perimeter guards turned and sprayed the area with suppression fire.
A heartbeat later, the lights went out.
Mendez cursed and keyed the mike. “Backups. Hit the backup lights now!”
A dozen amber floods flickered to life.
Not a Spartan was in sight, but the nine trainers were either unconscious or lay immobile in inert battle
armor.
The red flag was gone.

CHAPTER NINE
0605 Hours, September 12, 2525 (Military Calendar) / UNSC DestroyerPioneer , en route to
Eridanus System.

John and the other Spartans stood at ease.
The briefing room aboard the UNSC DestroyerPioneer made him uncomfortable. The holographic
projectors at the fore end of the triangular room showed the field of stars visible off the bow of the ship.
John wasn’t used to seeing so much space; he kept expecting the room to decompress explosively.
The stars flickered and faded and the overhead lights warmed. Chief Petty Officer Mendez and Dr.
Halsey entered the room.
The Spartans snapped to attention.
“At ease,” Mendez said. He clasped his hands behind his back and clenched his jaw muscles. The Chief
looked almost . . . nervous.
That made John nervous, too.
Dr. Halsey walked to the podium. The overhead light reflected off her glasses. “Good morning,
Spartans. I have good news for you. The word has come down. Command has decided to test your
unique abilities. You have a new mission: an insurgent base in the Eridanus System.”
A star map appeared on the wall and zoomed in to show a warm orange sun ringed with twelve planets.
“In 2513, an armed insurrection in this system was suppressed by the UNSC force—Operation:
TREBUCHET.”
An intersystem tactical map appeared, and tiny icons representing destroyers and carriers winked on.
They engaged a force of a hundred smaller ships. Pinpoints of fire appeared against the dark.
“The insurrection was put down,” Dr. Halsey continued. “However, elements of the rebel forces escaped
and regrouped in the local asteroid belt.”
The map tilted and moved into the circle of debris around the star.
“Billions of rocks,” Dr. Halsey said, “where they hid from our forces . . . and continue to hide to this
day. For some time ONI believed that the rebels were disorganized, and were lacking in leadership. That
appears to have changed.
“We believe that one of these asteroids has been hollowed out, and that a formidable base has been
constructed within. UNSC explorations into the belt have met either with no contact or with an ambush
by superior forces.”
She paused, pushed up her glasses, and added, “The Office of Naval Intelligence has also confirmed that
FLEETCOM has discovered a security breach within their organization—a rebel sympathizer leaking
information to these forces.”
John and the other Spartans shifted uneasily. A leak? It was possible. Déjà had shown them many
historical battles that had been won and lost because of traitors or informants. But it never occurred to
him that it could happen in the UNSC.
A flat picture flashed over the star map: a middle-aged man with thinning hair, a neatly trimmed beard,
and watery gray eyes.
“This is their leader,” Dr. Halsey said. “Colonel Robert Watts. The original photo was taken after
Operation: TREBUCHET and has been computer aged.
“Your mission is to infiltrate the rebel base, capture Watts, and return him—alive and unharmed—to
UNSC-controlled space. This will deprive the rebels of their new leadership. And it will provide ONI a
chance to interrogate Watts and root out traitors within FLEETCOM.”
Dr. Halsey stepped aside. “Chief Mendez?”
Mendez exhaled and unclasped his hands. He strode to the podium and cleared his throat. “This
operation will be different from your previous missions. You will be engaging the enemy using live
rounds and lethal force. They will be returning the favor. If there is any doubt, any confusion—and
make no mistake: in combat, there will be confusion—takeno chances. Kill first, ask questions later.
“Support on this mission will be limited to the resources and firepower of this destroyer,” Mendez
continued. “This is to minimize the chance of a leak in the command structure.”
Mendez walked to the star map. The face of Colonel Watts snapped off and blueprints for a Parabolaclass
freighter appeared.
“Although we don’t know the location of the rebel base, we believe they receive periodic shipments
from Eridanus Two. The independent freighterLaden is due to leave space dock in six hours for a routine
recertification of her engines. She is being loaded with enough food and water to supply a small city.
Additionally, her captain has been identified as a rebel officer thought to have been killed during
Operation: TREBUCHET.
“You will slip aboard this freighter and hopefully hitch a ride to the rebel base. Once there, infiltrate the
installation, grab Watts, and get off of that rock any way you can.”
Chief Mendez gazed at them all. “Questions?”
“Sir,” John said. “What are our extraction options?”
“You have two options: a panic button that will relay a distress signal to a preestablished listening ship.
Also, thePioneer will stay on-station . . . briefly. Our window here is thirteen hours.” He tapped the star
map on the edge of the asteroid belt and it glowed with a blue Nav marker. “I’ll leave the extraction
choice up to you. But let me point out that this asteroid belt has a circumference of more than a billion
kilometers . . . making it impossible to canvass with ONI surveillance craft. If things get hot, you will be
on your own.
“Any other questions?”
The Spartans sat, silent and immobile.
“No? Well, listen up, Recruits,” Mendez added. “This time I’ve told you all the twists that I know of. Be
prepared for anything.” His gaze fixed on John. “Squad Leader, you are hereby promoted to the rank of
Petty Officer Third Class.”
“Sir!” John snapped to attention.
“Assemble your team and equipment. Be ready to muster at 0300. We’ll drop you off at the Eridanus
Two docks. You’re on your own from there.”
“Yes, sir!” John said.
Mendez saluted. He and Dr. Halsey then left the room.
John turned to face his teammates. The other Spartans stood at attention. Thirty-three—too many for this
operation. He needed a small team: five or six maximum.
“Sam, Kelly, Linda, and Fred, meet me in the weapons locker in ten minutes.” The other Spartans sighed
and their gazed dropped to the deck. “The rest of you fall out. You’ll have the more difficult part of this
mission: You’ll have to wait here.”
The weapons locker of thePioneer had been stocked with a bewildering array of combat equipment. On
a table were guns, knives, communication gear, body armor explosives, medical packs, survival gear,
portable computers, even a thruster pack for maneuvering in space.
More important than the equipment, however, John assessed his team.
Sam had recovered from the augmentation faster than any of the other Spartans. He paced impatiently
around the crates of grenades. He was the strongest of them all. He stood taller than John by a head. He
had grown out his sandy hair to three centimeters. Chief Mendez had warned him that he was going to
look like a civilian soon.
Kelly, in contrast, had taken the longest to recover. She stood in the corner with her arms crossed over
her chest. John had thought she wasn’t going to make it. She was still gaunt and her hair had yet to grow
back. Her face, however, still had its rough, angular beauty. She scared John a little, too. She was fast
before . . . now no one could touch her if she didn’t allow it.
Fred sat cross-legged on the deck, twirling a razor-edged combat knife in glittering arcs. He always
came in second in all the contests. John thought he could have come in first, but he just didn’t like the
attention. He was neither too short nor too tall. He wasn’t overly muscled or slim. His black hair was
shot with streaks of silver—a feature he hadn’t had before the augmentation. If anyone in the group
could blend into a crowd, it would be him.
Linda was the quietest member of the group. She was pale, had close-cropped red hair, and green eyes.
She was a crack shot, an artist with a sniper rifle.
Kelly circled the table once, and then selected a pair of grease-stained blue coveralls. Her name had been
sloppily embroidered on the chest. “These our new trainee uniforms?”
“ONI provided them,” John said. “They’re supposed to match what the crew of theLaden wears.”
Kelly held the coveralls up and frowned. “They don’t give a girl much to work with.”
“Try this on for size.” Linda held a black body suit up to Kelly’s long slender frame.
They had used these black suits before. They were form-fitting, lightweight polymer body armor. They
could deflect a small-caliber round and had refrigeration/heating units that would mask infrared
signatures. The integrated helmet had encryption and communications gear, a heads-up display, and
thermal and motion detectors. Sealed tight, the unit had a fifteen-minute reserve of oxygen to let the
wearer survive in vacuum.
The suits were uncomfortable, and they were tricky to repair in the field. And they always needed
repairs.
“They’re too tight,” Kelly said. “It’ll limit my range of motion.”
“We wear them for this op,” John told her. “There are too many places between here and there with
nothing to breathe but vacuum. As for the rest of your equipment, take what you want—but stay light.
Without recon data on this place, we’re going to be moving fast . . . or we’ll be dead.”
The team started selecting their weapons first.
“Three-ninety caliber?” Fred asked.
“Yes,” John replied. “Everyone take guns that use .390-caliber ammunition so we can share clips if we
have to. Except Linda.”
Linda gravitated to a matte-black long-barreled rifle—the SRS99C-S2 AM. The sniper rifle system had
modular sections: scopes, stocks, barrels, even the firing mechanism could be swapped. She quickly
stripped the rifle down and reconfigured it. She assembled a flash-and-sound suppression barrel, and
then to compensate for the lower muzzle velocity, she increased the ammunition caliber to .450. She
ditched all the sights and scopes and settled for an integrated link to her helmet’s heads-up display. She
pocketed five extended ammunition clips.
John also chose an MA2B, a cut-down version of the standard MA5B assault rifle. It was tough and
reliable, with electronic targeting and an ammo supply indicator. It also had a recoil-reduction system,
and could deliver an impressive fifteen rounds per second.
He picked up a knife: twenty-centimeter blade, one serrated edge, nonreflective titanium carbide, and
balanced for throwing.
John grabbed the panic button—a tiny single-shot emergency beacon. It had two settings. The red setting
alerted thePioneer that it had hit the fan, and to come in guns blazing. The green setting merely marked
the location of the base for later assault by the UNSC.
He took a double handful of ammo clips—then paused. He set them down and pocketed five. If they got
into a firefight where he’d need that much firepower, their mission was over anyway.
Everyone took similar equipment, with a few variations. Kelly selected a small computer pad with IR
links. She also had their field medical kit.
Fred packed a standard-issue lockbreaker.
Linda selected three nav marker transmitters, each the size of a tick. The trackers could be adhered to an
object and would broadcast that object’s location to the Spartans’ heads-up displays.
Sam hefted two medium-size backpacks—“damage packs.” They were filled with C-12, enough high
explosives to blow through three meters of battleship armor plate.
“You have enough of that stuff?” Kelly asked him wryly.
“You think I should take more?” Sam replied, and smiled. “Nothing like a little fireworks to celebrate
the end of a mission.”
“Everyone ready?” John asked.
Sam’s smile disappeared and he slapped an extended clip into his MA2B. “Ready!”
Kelly gave him John a thumbs-up.
Fred and Linda nodded.
“Then let’s go to work.”

John held up three fingers, two, then one, and then he and Sam silently pulled open the elevator doors.
There were five guards standing in the room. They wore light body armor and helmets and carried oldermodel
HMG-38 rifles. Two of them turned.
Kelly, Fred, and Linda opened fire. The walnut paneling behind the guards became pockmarked with
bullet holes and was spattered with blood.
The team slid inside the room, moving quickly and quietly. Sam policed the guards’ weapons.
There were two doors. One led to a balcony; the other featured a peephole. Kelly checked the balcony,
then whispered over the channel in their helmets: “This overlooks the alley between buildings. No
activity.”
John checked the nav marker. The blue triangles flashed a position directly behind the other door.
Sam and Fred flanked the door. John couldn’t get any reading on motion or thermal. The walls were
shielded. There were too many unknowns and not enough time.
The situation wasn’t ideal. They knew there were at least three men inside—the ones who had carried
the crate upstairs. And there might be more guards . . . and to complicate the situation, their target had to
be taken alive.
John kicked the door in.
He took in the entire situation at a glance. He was standing on the threshold of a sumptuous apartment.
There was a wet bar boasting shelves of amber-filled bottles. A large, round bed dominated the corner,
decorated with shimmering silk sheets. Windows on all sides had sheer white curtains—John’s helmet
automatically compensated for the glare. Red carpet covered the floor. The crate with the cigars and
champagne sat in the center of the room. It was black and armored, sealed tight against the vacuum of
space.
There were three men standing behind the armored crate, and one man crouched behind them. Colonel
Robert Watts—their “package.”
John didn’t have a clear shot. If he missed, he could hit the Colonel.
The three men, however, didn’t have that problem. They fired.
John dove to his left. He caught three rounds in his side—knocking the breath from his body. One bullet
penetrated his black suit. He felt it ping off his ribs and pain slashed through him like a red-hot razor.
He ignored the wound and rolled to his feet. He had a clear line of fire. He squeezed the trigger once—a
three-round burst caught the center guard in the forehead.
Sam and Fred wheeled around the door frame, Sam high, Fred low. Their silenced weapons coughed and
the remaining pair of guards went down.
Watts remained behind the crate. He brandished his pistol. “Stop!” he screamed. “My men are coming.
You think I’m alone? You’re all dead. Drop your weapons.”
John crawled to the wet bar and crouched there. He willed the pain inside his stomach to go away. He
signaled Sam and Fred and held up two fingers, then pointed the fingers over his head.
Sam and Fred fired a burst of rounds over Watts. He ducked.
John vaulted over the bar and leaped onto his quarry. He grabbed the pistol and wrenched it out of his
hand, breaking the man’s index finger and thumb. John snaked his arm around Watts’s neck and choked
the struggling man into near-unconsciousness.
Kelly and Linda entered. Kelly took out a syringe and injected Watts—enough polypseudomorphine to
keep him sedated for the better part of a day.
Fred fell back to cover the elevator. Sam entered and crouched by the windows, watching the street
below for any signs of trouble.
Kelly went to John and peeled back his black suit. Her gloves were slick with his blood. “The bullet is
still inside,” she said, and bit her lower lip. “There’s a lot of internal bleeding. Hang on.” She dug a tiny
bottle from her belt and inserted the nozzle into the bullet hole. “This might sting a little.”
The self-sealing biofoam filled John’s abdominal cavity. It also stung like a hundred ants crawling
through his innards. She pulled the bottle out and taped up the hole. “You’re good for a few hours,” she
said, and then gave him a hand up.
John felt shaky, but he’d make it. The foam would keep him from bleeding to death and stave off the
shock . . . for a while, at least.
“Incoming vehicles,” Sam announced. “Six men entering the building. Two taking up position
outside . . . but just the front.”
“Get our package inside that crate and seal it up,” John ordered.
He left the room, got his duffel, and went to the balcony. He secured a rope and tossed it down twelve
stories into the alley. He rappelled down, took a second to scan the alley for threats, then clicked his
throat mike once—the all-clear signal.
Kelly snapped a descent rig on the crate and pushed it off the balcony. It zipped down the line and
thudded to a halt at the bottom.
A moment later the rest of the team glided down the rope.
They quickly donned their coveralls. Sam and Fred carried the crate as they entered the adjacent
building. They exited on the street a half block down and walked as quickly as they could back to the
docks.
Dozens of uniformed men ran from the dock toward the city. No one challenged them.
They reentered the now-deserted public showers.
“Everyone check your seals,” John said. “Sam, you go ring the doorbell. Meet us on the dropship.”
Sam nodded and sprinted out of the building, both packs of C-12 looped around his shoulder.
John took out the panic button. He triggered the green-mode transmission and tossed it into an empty
locker. If they didn’t make it out, at least the UNSC fleet would know where to find the rebel base.
“Your suit is breached,” Kelly reminded John. “We better get to the ship now, before Sam sets off his
fireworks.”
Linda and Fred checked the seals on the crate then carried it out. Kelly took point and John brought up
the rear.
They boarded the Pelican dropship and John sized up her armaments—dented and charred armor, a pair
of old, out-of-date 40mm chain guns. The rocket pods had been removed. Not much of a warhorse.
There was a flash of lightning at the far end of the dock. The thunder roiled through the deck, and then
through John’s stomach.
While John watched, a gaping hole materialized in the airlock door amid a cloud of smoke and shattered
metal. Black space loomed beyond. With an earsplitting roar, the atmosphere held in the docks abruptly
transformed into a hurricane. People, crates, and debris were blasted out of the ragged tear.
John pulled himself inside the dropship and prepared to seal the main hatch.
He watched as emergency doors descended over the breached airlock. There was a second explosion,
and the drop door paused, then fell and clattered to the deck, crushing a light transport vessel underneath.
Behind them, large bay doors closed, sealing the docks off from the city. Dozens of workers still on the
docks ran for their lives, but didn’t make it.
Sam sprinted across the deck, perfectly safe inside his sealed black suit. He cycled through the Pelican’s
emergency airlock.
“Back door’s open,” he said with a grin.
Kelly fired up the engines. The Pelican lifted, maneuvered through the dock, and then out through the
blasted hole and into open space. She pushed the throttle to maximum burn.
Behind them, the insurgent base looked like any other rock in the asteroid belt . . . but this rock was
venting atmosphere and starting to rotate erratically.
After five minutes at full power, Kelly eased the engines back. “We’ll hit the extraction point in two
hours,” she said.
“Check on our prisoner,” John said.
Sam popped open the crate. “The seals held. Watts is still alive and has a steady pulse,” he said.
“Good,” John grunted. He winced as the throbbing pain in his side increased.
“Something bothering you?” Kelly asked. “How’s that biofoam holding up?”
“It’s fine,” he said without even looking at the hole in his side. “I’ll make it.”
He knew he should feel elated—but instead he just felt tired. Something didn’t sit right about the
operation. He wondered about all the dead dockworkers and civilians back there. None of them were
designated targets. And yet, weren’t they all rebels on that asteroid?
On the other hand, it was like the Chief said—he had followed his orders, completed his mission, and
gotten his people out alive. What more did he want?
John stuffed his doubts deep in the back of his mind.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, and squeezed Kelly’s shoulder. John smiled. “What could be wrong? We
won.”

CHAPTER TWELVE
1750 Hours, November 27, 2525 (Military Calendar) / UNSC frigateCommonwealth en route to the
UNSC Damascus Materials Testing Facility, planet Chi Ceti 4

The view screen in the bunkroom of the UNSC frigateCommonwealth clicked on as the ship entered
normal space. Ice particles showered the external camera and gave the distant yellow sun, Chi Ceti, a
ghostly ring.
John watched and continued to ponder the wordMjolnir as they sped in-system. He had looked it up in
the education database. Mjolnir was the hammer used by the Norse god of thunder. Project MJOLNIR
had to be some kind of weapon. At least he hoped it was; they neededsomething to fight the Covenant.
If it was a weapon, though, why was it here at the Damascus testing facility, on the very edge of UNSCcontrolled
space? He had only even heard of this system twenty-four hours ago.
He turned and surveyed the squad. Although this bunkroom had one hundred beds, the Spartans still
clustered together, playing cards, polishing boots, reading, exercising. Sam sparred with Kelly—
although she had to slow herself down considerably to give him a chance.
John was reminded that he didn’t like being on starships. The lack of control was disturbing. If he
wasn’t stuck in “the freezer”—the starship’s cramped, unpleasant cryo chamber—he was left waiting
and wondering what their next mission would be.
During the last three weeks the Spartans had handled a variety of minor missions for Dr. Halsey. “Tying
up loose ends,” she had called it. Putting down rebel factions on Jericho VII. Removing a black-market
bazaar near the Roosevelt military base. Each mission had brought them closer to the Chi Ceti System.
John had made sure every member of his squad had participated in these missions. They had performed
flawlessly. There had been no losses. Chief Mendez would have been proud of them.
“Spartan-117,”Dr. Halsey’s voice blared over the loudspeaker.“Report to the bridge immediately.”
John snapped to attention and keyed the intercom. “Yes, ma’am!” He turned to Sam. “Get everyone
ready, in case we’re needed. On the double.”
“Affirmative,” Sam said. “You heard the Petty Officer. Dog those cards. Get into uniform, soldier!”
John double-timed it to the elevator and punched the code for the bridge. Gravity faded out and then
back again as the elevator passed between rotating sections of the ship.
The doors parted and he stepped onto the bridge. Every wall had a screen. Some showed stars and the
distant red smear of a nebula. Other screens displayed the fusion reactor status and spectrums of
microwave broadcasts in the system.
A brass railing ringed the center of the bridge, and within sat four Junior Lieutenants at their stations:
navigation, weapons, communications, and ship operations.
John halted and saluted Captain Wallace, then nodded to Dr. Halsey.
Captain Wallace stood with his right arm crooked behind his back. His left arm was missing from the
elbow down.
John remained saluting until the Captain returned the gesture.
“Over here, please,” Dr. Halsey said. “I want you to see this.”
John walked across the rubberized deck and gave his full attention to the screen Dr. Halsey and Captain
Wallace were scrutinizing. It displayed deconvoluted radar signals. It looked like tangled yarn to John.
“There—” Dr. Halsey pointed to a blip on the screen. “It’s there again.”
Captain Wallace stroked his dark beard, thinking, then said, “That puts our ghost at eighty million
kilometers. Even if it were a ship, it would take a full hour to get within weapons range. And besides—”
He waved at the screen. “—it’s gone again.”
“May I suggest that we go to battle stations, Captain,” Dr. Halsey told him.
“I don’t see the point,” he said condescendingly; the Captain was clearly less than pleased about having
a civilian on his bridge.
“We haven’t let this be widely known,” she said, “but when the aliens were first detected at Harvest,
they appeared at extreme range . . . and then they were suddenly much closer.”
“An intrasystem jump?” John asked.
Dr. Halsey smiled at him. “Correctly surmised, Spartan.”
“That’s not possible,” Captain Wallace remarked. “Slipstream space can’t be navigated that accurately.”
“You meanwe cannot navigate with that kind of accuracy,” she said.
The Captain clenched and unclenched his jaw. He clicked the intercom. “General quarters: all hands to
battle stations. Seal bulkheads. I repeat: all hands, battle stations. This is not a drill. Reactors to ninety
percent. Come about to course one two five.”
The bridge lights darkened to a red hue. The deck rumbled beneath John’s boots and the entire ship tilted
as it changed heading. Pressure doors slammed shut and sealed John on the bridge.
TheCommonwealth stabilized on her new heading, and Dr. Halsey crossed her arms. She leaned over
and whispered to John, “We’ll be using theCommonwealth ’s dropship to go to the testing facility on Chi
Ceti Four. We have to get to Project MJOLNIR.” She turned back and watched the radar screen.
“Beforethey do. So get the others ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.” John keyed the intercom. “Sam, muster the squad in Bay Alpha. I want that Pelican
loaded and ready for drop in fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll have it done in ten,”Sam replied.“Faster if those Longsword interceptor pilots get out of our
way.”
John would have given anything to be belowdecks with the others. He felt as if he were being left behind.
The radar screen flashed with blobs of eerie green light . . . almost as if the space around
theCommonwealth were boiling.
The collision alarm sounded.
“Brace for impact!” Captain Wallace said. He laced his arm around the brass railing.
John grabbed an emergency handhold on the wall.
Something appeared three thousand kilometers off theCommonwealth ’s prow. It was a sleek oval with a
single seam running along its lateral edge from stem to stern. Tiny lights winked on and off along its
hull. A faint purple-tinged glow emitted from the tail. The ship was only a third the size of
theCommonwealth .
“A Covenant ship,” Dr. Halsey said, and she involuntarily backed away from the view screens.
Captain Wallace scowled. “COM officer: send a signal to Chi Ceti—see if they can send us some
reinforcements.”
“Aye, sir.”
Blue flashes flickered along the hull of the alien ship—so bright that even filtered through the external
camera, they still made John’s eyes water.
The outer hull of theCommonwealth sizzled and popped. Three screens filled with static.
“Pulse lasers!” the lieutenant at the ops station screamed. “Communication dish destroyed. Armor in
sections three and four at twenty-five percent. Hull breach in section three. Sealing now.” The
Lieutenant swiveled in his seat, sweat beaded on his forehead. “Ship AI core memory overloaded,” he
said.
With the AI offline, the ship could still fire weapons and navigate through Slipstream space, but John
knew it would take more time to make jump calculations.
“Come to heading zero three zero, declination one eight zero,” Caption Wallace ordered. “Arm Archer
missile pods A through F. And give me a firing solution.”
“Aye aye,” the navigation and weapons officers said. “A through F pods armed.” They furiously tapped
away on their keypads. Seconds ticked by. “Firing solution ready, sir.”
“Fire.”
“Pods A through F firing!”
TheCommonwealth had twenty-six pods, each loaded with thirty Archer high-explosive missiles. On
screen, pods A through F opened, and launched—180 plumes of rocket exhaust that traced a path from
theCommonwealth to the alien ship.
The enemy changed course, rotated so that the top of the ship faced the incoming missiles. It then moved
straight up at an alarming speed.
The Archer missiles altered their trajectory to track the ship, but half their number streaked past the
target, clean misses.
The others impacted. Fire covered the skin of the alien ship.
“Good work, Lieutenant,” Captain Wallace said, and he clapped the young officer on the shoulder.
Dr. Halsey frowned and stared at the screen. “No,” she whispered. “Wait.”
The fire flared, then dimmed. The skin of the alien ship rippled like heat wavering off a hot road in the
summer. It fluttered with a metallic silver sheen, then brilliant white—and the fire faded, revealing the
ship beneath.
It was completely undamaged.
“Energy shields,” Dr. Halsey muttered. She tapped her lower lip, thinking. “Even ships this small have
energy shielding.”
“Lieutenant,” the Captain barked at the nav officer. “Cut main engines and fire maneuvering thrusters.
Rotate and track so that we’re pointing at that thing.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The distant rumbling of theCommonwealth ’s main engines dimmed and stopped and she turned about.
Her inertia kept the ship speeding toward the testing facility—now flying backward.
“What are you doing, Captain?” Dr. Halsey asked.
“Arm the MAC,” Captain Wallace told the weapons officer. “A heavy round.”
John understood: Turning your back to an enemy only gave them an advantage.
The MAC—Magnetic Accelerator Cannon—was theCommonwealth ’s main weapon. It fired a superdense
ferric tungsten shell. The tremendous mass and velocity of the projectile obliterated most ships on
impact. Unlike the Archer missiles, a MAC round was an unguided projectile; the firing solution had to
be perfect in order to hit the target—not an easy thing to do when both ships were moving rapidly.
“MAC capacitors charging,” the weapons officer announced.
The Covenant ship turned its side toward theCommonwealth .
“Yes,” the Captain murmured. “Give me a bigger target.”
Pinpoints of blue light glowed and then flared along the alien hull.
The tactical view screens on the nose of theCommonwealth went dead.
John heard sizzling overhead—then the muffled thumps of explosive decompressions.
“More pulse laser hits,” the ops officer reported. “Armor in section three through seven down to four
centimeters. Navigation dish destroyed. Hull breaches on decks two, five, and nine. We have a leak in
the port fuel tanks.” The Lieutenant’s hand shakily danced over the controls. “Pumping fuel to starboard
reverse tanks. Sealing sections.”
John shifted on his feet. He had to move. Act. Standing here—unable to get to his squad, not doing
anything—was counter to every fiber of his being.
“MAC at one hundred percent,” the weapons officer shouted. “Ready to fire!”
“Fire!” Captain Wallace ordered.
The lights on the bridge dimmed and theCommonwealth shuddered. The MAC bolt launched through
space—a red-hot metal slug moving at thirty thousand meters per second.
The Covenant ship’s engines flared to life and the ship veered away—
—Too late. The heavy round closed and slammed into the target’s prow.
The Covenant ship reeled backward through space. Its energy shields shimmered and glowed lightningbright
. . . then flickered, dimmed, and went out.
The bridge crew let out a victory cheer.
Except Dr. Halsey. John watched the view screen as she adjusted the camera controls and zoomed in on
the Covenant ship.
The vessel’s erratic spinning slowed and it came to a stop. The ship’s nose was crumpled and
atmosphere vented into vacuum. Tiny fires flickered inside. The ship slowly came about and started
back toward them—gaining speed.
“It should have been destroyed,” she whispered.
Tiny red blobs appeared on the hull of the Covenant ship. They glowed and intensified and drifted
together, collecting along the lateral line of the craft.
Captain Wallace said, “Make ready another heavy round.”
“Aye aye,” the weapons officer said. “Charge at thirty percent. Firing solution online, sir.”
“No,” Dr. Halsey said. “Evasive maneuvers, Captain. Now!”
“I won’t have my command second-guessed, ma’am.” The Captain turned to face her. “And with respect,
Doctor , second-guessed by someone with no combat experience.” He stiffened and placed his hand
behind his back. “I cannot have you removed from the bridge because the bulkheads are sealed . . . but
another outburst like that, Doctor, and Iwill have you gagged.”
John shot a quick glance to Dr. Halsey. Her face flushed—he couldn’t tell from shame or rage.
“MAC at fifty percent charge.”
The red light continued to collect along the lateral line of the Covenant ship until it was a solid band. It
brightened.
“Eighty percent charge.”
“They’re turning, sir,” the nav officer announced. “She’s coming to starboard.”
“Ninety-five percent charge—one hundred,” the weapons officer announced.
“Send them to Hades, Lieutenant. Fire.”
The lights dimmed again. TheCommonwealth shuddered and a bolt of thunder and fire tore through the
blackness.
The Covenant ship stood its ground. The bloodred light that had pooled on its lateral line burst forth—
streaked toward theCommonwealth , passing the MAC round a mere kilometer away. The red light
glowed and pulsed almost as if it were liquid; its edges roiled and fluttered. It elongated into a teardrop
of ruby light five meters long.
“Evasive maneuvers,” Captain Wallace cried. “Emergency thrusters to port!”
TheCommonwealth slowly moved out of the trajectory path of the Covenant’s energy weapon.
The MAC round struck the Covenant vessel amidships. Its shield shimmered and bubbled . . . then
disappeared. The MAC round punched through the craft and sent it spinning out of control.
The inbound ball of light moved, too. It started tracking the Commonwealth.
“Engines—full power astern,” the Captain ordered. TheCommonwealth rumbled and slowed.
The light should have sped past them; instead, it sharply arced and struck her port amidships.
The air filled with a popping and sizzling. TheCommonwealth listed to starboard, then rolled completely
over and continued to tumble.
“Stabilize,” the Captain cried. “Starboard thrusters.”
“Fire reported in sections one through twenty,” the ops officer said, panic creeping into his voice.
“Decks two through seven in section one . . . have melted, sir. They’re gone.”
It grew noticeably hotter on the bridge. Sweat beaded on John’s back and trickled down his spine. He
had never felt so helpless. Were his teammates below decks alive or dead?
“All port armor destroyed. Decks two through five in sections three, four, and five, are now out of
contact, sir. It’s burning through us!”
Captain Wallace stood without saying a word. He stared at their one remaining view screen.
Dr. Halsey stepped forward. “Respectfully, Captain, I suggest that you alert the crew to get on respirator
packs. Give them thirty seconds then vent the atmosphere on all decks, except the bridge.”
The COM officer looked to the Captain.
“Do it,” the Captain said. “Sound the alert.”
“Deck thirteen destroyed,” the ops officer announced. “Fire is getting close the reactor. Hull structure
starting to buckle.”
“Vent atmosphere now,” Captain Wallance ordered.
“Aye aye,” the ops officer replied.
There was the sound of thumping through the hull . . . then nothing.
“Fire is dying out,” the ops officer said. “Hull temperature cooling—stabilizing.”
“What the hell did they hit us with?” Captain Wallace demanded.
“Plasma,” Dr. Halsey replied. “But not any plasma we know . . . they can actually guide its trajectory
through space, without any detectable mechanism. Amazing.”
“Captain,” the navigator said. “Alien ship is pursuing.”
The Covenant vessel—a red-rimmed hole punched through its center—turned and started toward
theCommonwealth .
“How . . . ?” Captain Wallace said unbelievingly. He quickly regained his wits. “Ready another MAC
heavy round.”
The weapons officer slowly said, “MAC system destroyed, Captain.”
“We’re sitting ducks, then,” the Captain murmured.
Dr. Halsey leaned against the brass railing. “Not quite. TheCommonwealth carries three nuclear missiles,
correct, Captain?”
“A detonation this close would destroy us as well.”
She frowned and cupped her hand to her chin, thinking.
“Excuse me, sir,” John said. “The alien’s tactics thus far have been unnecessarily vicious—like those of
an animal. They didn’t have to take that second MAC round while they fired at us. But they wanted to
position themselves to fire. In my opinion sir, they would stop and engageanything that challenged
them.”
The Captain looked to Dr. Halsey.
She shrugged and then nodded. “The Longsword interceptors?”
Captain Wallace turned his back to them and covered his face with his one hand. He sighed, nodded, and
clicked on the intercom.
“Longsword Squadron Delta, this is the Captain. Get your ships into the black, boys, and engage the
enemy ship. I need you to need to buy us some time.”
“Roger that, sir. We’re ready to launch. On our way.”
“Turn us around,” the Captain told the nav officer. “Give me best speed on a vector toward Chi Ceti
Four orbit.”
“Coolant leaks in the reactor, sir,” the ops officer said. “We can push the engines to thirty percent. No
more.”
“Give me fifty percent,” he said. He turned to the weapons officer. “Arm one of our Shiva warheads. Set
proximity fuse to one hundred meters.”
“Yes, sir.”
TheCommonwealth spun about. John felt the change in his stomach and he tightened his grip on the
railing. The spinning slowed, stopped, then the ship accelerated.
“Reactor red-lining,” the ops officer reported. “Meltdown in twenty-five seconds.”
Over the speakers, there was a crackle, a hiss of static, then:“Longsword interceptors engaging the
enemy, sir.”
On the remaining aft camera, there were flickers of light—the cold blue strobes of Covenant energy
weapons, and the red-orange fireballs of the Longswords’ missiles.
“Launch the missile,” the Captain said.
“Meltdown in ten seconds.”
“Missile away.”
A plume of exhaust divided the darkness of space.
“Five seconds to meltdown,” the ops officer said. “Four, three, two—”
“Shunt drive plasma to space,” the Captain ordered. “Cut power to all systems.”
The Covenant ship was silhouetted for a split second by pure white—then the view screen snapped off.
The bridge lights went dead.
John could see everything, though. The bridge officers, Dr. Halsey as she clutched onto the railing, and
Captain Wallace as he stood and saluted the pilots he had just sent to die.
The hull of theCommonwealth rumbled and pinged as the shock wave enveloped them. It grew louder, a
subsonic roar that shook John to his bones.
The noise seemed to go on forever in the darkness. It faded . . . then it was completely silent.
“Power us back up,” the Captain said. “Slowly. Give me ten percent from the reactors if we can
manage.”
The bridge lights came on, dimly, but they worked.
“Report,” the Captain ordered.
“All sensors offline,” the op officer said. “Resetting backup computer. Hang on. Scanning now. Lots of
debris. It’s hot back there. All Longsword interceptors vaporized.” He looked up, the color drained from
his face. “Covenant ship . . . intact, sir.”
“No,” the Captain said, and made a fist.
“It’s moving off, though,” the op officer said with a visible sigh of relief. “Very slowly.”
“What does it take to destroy one of those things?” the Captain whispered.
“We don’t know if our weaponscan destroy them,” Dr. Halsey said. “But at least we know we can slow
them down.”
The Captain stood straighter. “Best speed to the Damascus testing facility. We will execute a flyby orbit,
and then proceed to a point twenty million kilometers distant to make repairs.”
“Captain?” Dr. Halsey said. “A flyby?”
“I have orders to get you to the facility and retrieve whatever Section Three has stowed there, ma’am.
As we fly by, a dropship will take you and your—” He glanced at John. “—crew planet side. If the
Covenant ship returns, we will be the bait to lure them away.”
“I understand, Captain.”
“We’ll rendezvous in orbit no later than 1900 hours.”
Dr. Halsey turned to John. “We need to hurry. We don’t have much time—and there is a great deal I
need to show the Spartans.”
“Yes, ma’am,” John said. He took a long look at the bridge, and hoped he never had to return.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
2037 Hours, November 27, 2525 (Military Calendar) /
In orbit over Chi Ceti 4

John piloted the Pelican through the exit burn of their orbital path, then sent the ship toward the last
known position of theCommonwealth . The frigate had moved ten million kilometers in-system from
their rendezvous point.
Dr. Halsey sat in the copilot’s seat, fidgeting with her space suit. In the aft compartment were the
Spartans, the three technicians from the Damascus facility, and a dozen spare MJOLNIR suits.
Missing, however, were the AIs John had seen when they had first arrived. All Dr. Halsey had time to do
was remove their memory processor cubes. It was a tremendous waste to leave such expensive
equipment behind.
Dr. Halsey examined the ship’s short-range detection gear, then said, “Captain Wallace may be trying to
use Chi Ceti’s magnetic field to deflect the Covenant’s plasma weapon. Try and catch up, Petty Officer.”
“Yes, ma’am.” John pushed the engines to 100 percent.
“Covenant ship to port,” she said, “three million kilometers and closing on theCommonwealth .”
John bumped up the magnification onscreen and spotted the ship. The alien vessel’s hull was bent at a
thirty-degree angle from the impact of the MAC heavy round, but it still moved at almost twice the
speed of theCommonwealth .
“Doctor,” John asked, “does the MJOLNIR armor operate in vacuum?”
“Of course,” she replied. “It was one of our first design considerations. The suit can recycle air for
ninety minutes. It’s shielded against radiation and EMP as well.”
He then spoke to Sam over his COM link. “What kind of missiles is this bird carrying?”
“Wait one, sir,”Sam replied. His voice returned a moment later.“We have two rocket pods with sixteen
HE Anvil-IIs each.”
“I want you to assemble a team and go EVA. Remove those warheads from the wing pods.”
“I’m on it,”Sam said.
Halsey tried to push her glasses up higher on her nose—instead she bumped up against the faceplate of
her suit’s helmet. “May I ask what you have in mind, Squad Leader?”
John left his COM channel open so the Spartans would hear his reply.
“Requesting permission to attack the Covenant ship, ma’am.”
Her blue eyes widened. “Most certainly not,” she said. “If a warship like theCommonwealth couldn’t
destroy it, a Pelican is certainly no match for them.”
“Not the Pelican, no,” John agreed. “But I believe we Spartans are. If we getinside the enemy ship, we
can destroy her.”
Doctor Halsey considered, tapping her lower lip. “How will you get onboard?”
“We go EVA and use thruster packs to intercept the Covenant ship as it passes en route to
theCommonwealth .”
She shook her head. “One slight error in your trajectory, and you could miss by kilometers,” Dr. Halsey
remarked.
A pause.
“I don’t miss, ma’am,” John said.
“They have reflective shields.”
“True,” John replied. “But the ship is damaged. They may have had to lower or reduce shielding in order
to conserve power—and if we have to, we can use one of our own warheads to punch a small hole in the
barrier.” He paused, then added, “There’s also a large hole in their hull. Their shield may not cover that
space entirely.”
Dr. Halsey whispered, “It’s a tremendous risk.”
“With respect, ma’am, it’s a bigger risk to sit here and do nothing. After they finish with
theCommonwealth . . . they’ll come for us and we’ll have to fight them anyway. Better to strike first.”
She stared off into space, lost in thought.
Finally she sighed in resignation. “Very well. Go.” She transferred the pilot controls to her station. “And
blow the hell out of them.”
John climbed into the aft compartment.
His Spartans stood at attention. He felt a rush of pride; they were ready to follow him as he leaped
literally into the jaws of death.
“I’ve got the warheads,” Sam said. It was hard to mistake Sam even with his reflective blast shield
covering his face. He was the largest Spartan—even more imposing encased in the armor.
“Everyone’s got one.” Sam continued as he handed John a metal shell. “Timers and detonators are
already rigged. Stuck on a patch of adhesive polymer; they’ll cling to your suit.”
“Spartans,” John said, “grab thruster packs and make ready to go EVA. Everyone else—” He motioned
to the three technicians. “—get into the forward cabin. If we fail, they’ll be coming after the Pelican.
Protect Dr. Halsey.”
He moved aft. Kelly handed him a thruster pack and he slipped it on.
“Covenant ship approaching,” Halsey called out. “I’m pumping out your atmosphere to avoid explosive
decompression when I drop the back hatch.”
“We’ll only get one shot at this,” John said to the other Spartans. “Plot an intercept trajectory and fire
your thrusters at max burn. If the target changes course, you’ll have to make a best guess correction on
the fly. If you make it, we’ll regroup outside the hole in their hull. If you miss—we’ll pick you up after
we’re done.”
He hesitated, then added, “And if we don’t succeed, then power down your systems and wait for UNSC
reinforcements to retrieve you. Live to fight another day. Don’t waste your lives.”
There was a moment of silence.
“If anyone has a better plan, speak up now.”
Sam patted John on the back. “This is a great plan. It’ll be easier than Chief Mendez’s playground. A
bunch of little kids could pull it off.”
“Sure,” John said. “Everyone ready?”
“Sir,” they said. “We’re ready, sir!”
John flipped the safety off and then punched in the code to open the Pelican’s tail. The mechanism
opened soundlessly in the vacuum. Outside was infinite blackness. He had a feeling of falling through
space—but the vertigo quickly passed.
He positioned himself on the edge of the ramp, both hands gripping a safety handle overhead.
The Covenant ship was a tiny dot in the center of his helmet’s view screen. He plotted a course and fired
the thruster pack on maximum burn.
Acceleration slammed him into the thruster harness. He knew the others would launch right after him,
but he couldn’t turn to see them.
It occurred to him then that the Covenant ship might identify the Spartans as incoming missiles—and
their point-defense lasers were too damn accurate.
John clicked on the COM channel. “Doctor, we could use a few decoys if Captain Wallace can spare
them.”
“Understood,”she said.
The Covenant vessel grew rapidly in his display. A burst from its engines and it turned slightly.
Traveling at one hundred million kilometers an hour, even a minor course correction meant that he could
miss by tens of thousands of kilometers. John carefully corrected his vector.
The pulse laser on the side of the Covenant ship glowed, built up energy, until they were dazzling neon
blue, then discharged—but not at him.
John saw explosions in his peripheral vision. TheCommonwealth had fired a salvo of her Archer
missiles. Around him in the dark were puffballs of red-orange detonations—utterly silent.
John’s velocity now almost matched that of the ship. He eased toward the hull—twenty meters, ten,
five . . . and then the Covenant ship started to pull away from him.
It was traveling too fast. He tapped his attitude thrusters and pointed himself perpendicular to the hull.
The Covenant hull accelerated under him . . . but he was dropping closer.
He stretched out his arms. The hull raced past his fingertips a meter away.
John’s fingers brushed against something—it felt semiliquid. He could see his hand skimming a nearinvisible,
glassy, shimmering surface: the energy shield.
Damn. Their shields were still up. He glanced to either side. The huge hole in their hull was nowhere in
sight.
He slid over the hull, unable to grab hold of it.
No.He refused to accept that he had made it this far, only to fail now.
A pulse laser flashed a hundred meters away; his faceplate barely adjusted in time. The flash nearly
blinded him. John blinked and then saw a silvery film rush back around the bulbous base of the laser
turret.
The shield dropped to let the laser fire?
The laser started to build up charge again.
He would have to act quickly. His timing had to be perfect. If he hit that turret before it fired, he’d
bounce off. If he hit the turretas it fired . . . there wouldn’t be much left of him.
The turret glowed, intensely bright. John set his thrust harness on a maximum burn toward the laser,
noting the rapidly dwindling fuel charge. He closed his eyes, saw the blinding flash through his lids, felt
the heat on his face, then opened his eyes—just in time to crash and bounce into the hull.
The hull plates were smooth, but had grooves and odd, organic crenellations—perfect fingerholds. The
difference between his momentum and the ship’s nearly pulled his arms out of their sockets. He gritted
his teeth and tightened his grip.
He had made it.
John pulled himself along the hull toward the hole theCommonwealth ’s MAC round had punched in the
ship.
Only two other Spartans waited for him there.
“What took you so long?” Sam’s voice crackled over the COM channel. The other Spartan lifted her
helmet’s reflective blast shield. He saw Kelly’s face.
“I think we’re it,” Kelly said. “I’m not getting any other responses over the COM channels.”
That meant either the Covenant ship shielded their transmissions . . . or there were no Spartans left to
communicate with. John pushed that last thought aside.
The hole was ten meters across. Jagged metal teeth pointed inward. John looked over the edge and saw
that the MAC heavy round had indeed passed all the way through. He saw tiers of exposed decks,
severed conduits, and sheared metal beams—and through the other side, black space and stars.
They climbed down.
John immediately fell down on the first deck.
“Gravity,” he said. “And with nothing spinning on this ship.”
“Artificial gravity?” Kelly asked. “Dr. Halsey would love to see this.”
They continued inward, scaling the metal walls, past alternating layers of gravity and free fall, until they
were approximately in the middle of the ship.
John paused and saw the stars wheel outside either end of the hole. The Covenant ship must be turning.
They were engaging theCommonwealth .
“We better hurry.”
He stepped onto an exposed deck, and the gravity settled his stomach—giving him an up-and-down
orientation.
“Weapons check,” John told them.
They examined their assault rifles. The guns had made the journey intact. John slipped in a clip of armorpiercing
rounds, noting with pleasure that the suit immediately aligned the sight profile of the gun with
his targeting system.
He slung the weapon and checked the HE warhead attached to his hip. The timer and detonator looked
undamaged.
John faced a sealed set of sliding pressure doors. It was smooth and soft to his touch. It could have been
made of metal or plastic . . . or could have been alive, for all he knew.
He and Sam grabbed either side and pulled, strained, and then the mechanism gave and the doors
released. There was a hiss of atmosphere, a dark hallway beyond. They entered in formation—covering
each other’s blind spots.
The ceiling was three meters high. It made John feel small.
“You think they need all this space because they’re so large?” Kelly asked.
“We’ll know soon,” he told her.
They crouched, weapons at the ready, and moved slowly down the corridor, John and Kelly in front.
They rounded a corner and stopped at another set of pressure doors. John grabbed the seam.
“Hang on,” Kelly said. She knelt next to a pad with nine buttons. Each button was inscribed with runic
alien script. “These characters are strange, but one of them has to open this.” She touched one and it lit,
then she keyed another. Gas hissed into the corridor. “At least the pressure is equalized,” she said.
John double-checked sensors. Nothing . . . though the alien metal inside the ship could be blocking the
scans.
“Try another,” Sam said.
She did—and the doors slid apart.
The room was inhabited.
An alien creature stood a meter and half tall, a biped. Its knobby, scaled skin was a sickly, mottled
yellow; purple and yellow fins ran along the crest of its skull and its forearms. Glittering, bulbous eyes
protruded from skull-like hollows in the alien’s elongated head.
The Master Chief had read the UNSC’s first contact scenarios—they called for cautious attempts at
communication. He couldn’t imagine communicating with something like this . . . thing. It reminded
him of the carrion birds on Reach—vicious and unclean.
The creature stood there, frozen for a moment—staring at the human interlopers. Then it screeched and
reached for something on its belt, its movements darting and birdlike.
The Spartans shouldered their weapons and fired a trio of bursts with pinpoint accuracy.
Armor-piercing rounds tore into the creature, shredding its chest and head. It crumpled into a heap
without a sound, dead before it hit the deck. Thick blood oozed from the corpse. “That was easy,” Sam
remarked. He nudged the creature with his boot. “They sure aren’t as tough as their ships.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” John replied.
“I’m getting a radiation reading this way,” Kelly said. She gestured deeper into the vessel.
They continued down the corridor and took a side branch. Kelly dropped a NAV marker, and its double
blue triangle pulsed once on their heads-up displays.
They stopped at another set of pressure doors. Sam and John took up flanking positions to cover her.
Kelly punched the same buttons she had punched before and the doors slid apart.
Another of the creatures was there. It stood in a circular room with crystalline control panels and a large
window. This time, however, the vulture-headed creature didn’t scream or look particularly surprised.
This one looked angry.
The creature held a clawlike device in its hand—leveled at John.
John and Kelly fired. Bullets filled the air and pinged off a silver shimmering barrier in front of the
creature.
A bolt of blue heat blasted from the claw. The blast was similar to the plasma that had hit
theCommonwealth . . . and boiled a third of it away.
Sam dove forward and knocked John out of the blast’s path; the energy burst caught Sam in the side.
The reflective coating of his MJOLNIR armor flared. He fell clutching his side, but still managed to fire
his weapon.
John and Kelly rolled on their backs and sprayed gunfire at the creature.
Bullets peppered the alien—each one bounced and ricocheted off the energy shield.
John glanced at his ammo counter—half gone.
“Keep firing,” he ordered.
The alien kept up a stream of answering fire—energy blasts hammered into Sam, who fell to the deck,
his weapon empty.
John charged forward and slammed his foot into the alien’s shield and knocked it out of line. He jammed
the barrel of his rifle into the alien’s screeching mouth and squeezed the trigger.
The armor-piercing rounds punctured the alien and spattered the back wall with blood and bits of bone.
John rose and helped Sam up.
“I’m okay,” Sam said, holding his side and grimacing. “Just a little singed.” The reflective coating on his
armor was blackened.
“You sure?”
Sam waved him away.
John paused over the remaining bits of the alien. He spotted a glint of metal, an armguard, and he picked
it up. He tapped one of three buttons on the device, but nothing happened. He strapped in onto his
forearm. Dr. Halsey might find it useful.
They entered the room. The large window was a half-meter thick. It overlooked a large chamber that
descended three decks. A cylinder ran the length of the chamber and red light pulsed along its length,
like a liquid sloshing back and forth.
Under the window, on their side, rested a smooth angled surface—perhaps a control panel? On its
surface were tiny symbols: glowing green dots, bars, and squares.
“That’s got to be the source of the radiation,” Kelly said, and pointed to the chamber beyond. “Their
reactor . . . or maybe a weapons system.”
Another alien marched near the cylinder. It spotted John. A silver shimmer appeared around it. It
screeched and wobbled in alarm, then scrambled for cover.
“Trouble,” John said.
“I’ve got an idea.” Sam limped forward. “Hand me those warheads.” John did as he asked, so did Kelly.
“We shoot out that window, set the timers on the warheads, and toss them down there. That should start
the party.”
“Let’s do it before they call in reinforcements,” John said.
They turned and fired at the crystal. It crackled, splintered, then shattered.
“Toss those warheads,” Sam said, “and let’s get out of here.”
John set the timers. “Three minutes,” he said. “That’ll give us just enough time to get topside and get
away.”
He turned to Sam. “You’ll have to stay and hold them off. That’s an order.”
“What are you talking about?” Kelly said.
“Sam knows.”
Sam nodded. “I think I can hold them off that long.” He looked at John and then Kelly. He turned and
showed them the burn in the side of his suit. There was a hole the size of his fist, and beneath that, the
skin was blackened and cracked. He smiled, but his teeth were gritted in pain.
“That’s nothing,” Kelly said. “We’ll get you patched up in no time. Once we get back—” Her mouth
slowly dropped open.
“Exactly,” Sam whispered. “Getting back is going to be a problem for me.”
“The hole.” John reached out to touch it. “We don’t have any way to seal it.”
Kelly shook her head.
“If I step off this boat, I’m dead from the decompression,” Sam said, and shrugged.
“No,” Kelly growled. “No—everyone gets out alive. We don’t leave teammates behind.”
“He has his orders,” John told Kelly.
“You’ve got to leave me,” Sam said softly to Kelly. “And don’t tell me you’ll give me your suit. It took
those techs on Damascus fifteen minutes to fit us. I wouldn’t even know where to start to unzip this
thing.”
John looked to the deck. The Chief had told him he’d have to send men to their deaths. He didn’t tell
him it would feel like this.
“Don’t waste time talking,” Sam said. “Our new friends aren’t going to wait for us while we figure this
out.” He started the timers. “There. It’s decided.” A three-minute countdown appeared in the corner of
their heads-up displays. “Now—get going, you two.”
John clasped Sam’s hand and squeezed it.
Kelly hesitated, then saluted.
John turned and grabbed her arm. “Come on, Spartan. Don’t look back.”
The truth was, it was John who didn’t dare look back. If he had, he would have stayed with Sam. Better
to die with a friend than leave him behind. But as much as he wanted to fight and die alongside his
friend, he had to set an example for the rest of the Spartans—and live to fight another day.
John and Kelly pushed the pressure doors shut behind them.
“Good-bye,” he whispered.
The countdown timer ticked the seconds off inexorably.
2:35 . . .
They ran down the corridor, popped the seal on the outer door—the atmosphere vented.
1:05 . . .
They climbed up through the twisted metal canyon that the MAC round had torn through the hull.
0:33 . . .
“There,” John said, and pointed to the base of a charged pulse laser. They crawled toward it, waited as
the glow built to a lethal charge.
0:12 . . .
They crouched and held onto one another.
The laser fired.
The heat blistered John’s back. They pushed off with all their strength, multiplied through the
MJOLNIR armor.
0:00.
The shield parted and they cleared the ship, hurtling into the blackness.
The Covenant ship shuddered. Flashes of red appeared inside the hole—then a gout of fire rose and
ballooned, but curled downward as it hit and rebounded off their own shield. The plasma spread along
the length of their vessel. The shield shimmered and rippled silver—holding the destructive force inside.
Metal glowed and melted. The pulse laser turrets absorbed into the hull. The hull blistered, bubbled, and
boiled.
The shield finally gave—the ship exploded.
Kelly clung to John.
A thousand molten fragments hurled past them, cooling from white to orange to red and then
disappearing into the dark of the night.
Sam’s death had shown them that the Covenant were not invincible. They could be beaten. At a high
cost, however.
John finally understood what the Chief had meant—the difference between a life wasted and a life spent.
John also knew that humanity had a fighting chance . . . and he was ready to go to war.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
0300 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC destroyerIroquois on routine patrol in the Sigma Octanus Star System

Commander Jacob Keyes stood on the bridge of theIroquois . He leaned against the brass railing and
surveyed the stars in the distance. He wished the circumstances of his first command were more
auspicious, but experienced officers were in short supply these days. And he had his orders.
He walked around the circular bridge examining the monitors and displays of engine status. He paused
at the screens showing the stars fore and aft; he couldn’t quite get used to the view of deep space again.
The stars were so vivid . . . and here, so different from the stars near Earth.
TheIroquois had rolled out of space dock at Reach—one of the UNSC’s primary naval yards—just three
months ago. They hadn’t even installed her AI yet; like good officers, the elaborate artificially intelligent
computer systems were also in dangerously short supply. Still,Iroquois was fast, well armored, and
armed to the teeth. He couldn’t ask for a finer vessel.
Unlike the frigates that Commander Keyes had toured on before, theMeriwether Lewis andMidsummer
Night , this ship was a destroyer. She was almost as heavy as both those vessels combined, but she was
only seven meters longer. Some in the fleet thought the massive ships were unwieldy in combat—too
slow and cumbersome. What those critics forgot was that a UNSC destroyer sported two MAC guns,
twenty-six oversized Archer missile pods, and three nuclear warheads. Unlike other fleet ships, she
carried no single-ship fighters—instead her extra mass came from the nearly two meters of titanium-A
battleplate armor that covered her from stem to stern. TheIroquois could dish out and take a tremendous
amount of punishment.
Someone at the shipyard had appreciated theIroquois for what she was, too—two long streaks of
crimson war paint had been applied to her port and starboard flanks. Strictly nonregulation and it would
have to go . . . but secretly, Commander Keyes liked the ornamentation.
He sat in the Commander’s chair and watched his junior officers at their stations.
“Incoming transmissions,” Lieutenant Dominique reported. “Status reports from Sigma Octanus Four
and also theArchimedes Sensor Outpost.”
“Pipe them through to my monitor,” Commander Keyes said.
Dominique had been one of his students at the Academy—he had transferred to Luna from the
Université del’ Astrophysique in Paris after his sister was killed in action. He was short, nimbly athletic,
and he rarely cracked a smile—he was always business. Keyes appreciated that.
Commander Keyes was less impressed, however, with the rest of his bridge officers.
Lieutenant Hikowa manned the weapons console. Her long fingers and slender arms slowly checked the
status of the ordnance with all the deliberation of a sleepwalker. Her dark hair was always falling into
her eyes, too. Oddly, her record showed that she had survived several battles with the Covenant . . . so
perhaps her lack of enthusiasm was merely battle fatigue.
Lieutenant Hall stood post at ops. She seemed competent enough. Her uniform was always freshly
pressed, her blond hair trimmed exactly at the regulation sixteen centimeters. She had authored seven
physics papers on Slipspace communications. The only problem was that she was always smiling, and
trying to impress him . . . occasionally by showing up her fellow officers. Keyes disapproved of such
displays of ambition.
Manning navigation, however, was his most problematic officer: Lieutenant Jaggers. It might have been
that navigation was the Commander’s strong suit, so anyone else in that position never seemed to be up
to par. On the other hand, Lieutenant Jaggers was moody, and when Keyes had come aboard, the man’s
small hazel eyes seemed glazed. He could have sworn he had caught the man on duty with liquor on his
breath, too. He had ordered a blood test—the results were negative.
“Orders, sir?” Jagger asked.
“Continue on this heading, Lieutenant. We’ll finish our patrol around Sigma Octanus and then accelerate
and enter Slipspace.”
“Aye, sir.”
Commander Keyes eased into his seat and detached the tiny monitor from the armrest. He read the
hourly report from theArchimedes Sensor Outpost. The log of the large mass was curious. It was too big
to be even the largest Covenant carrier . . . yet something was oddly familiar about its shape.
He retrieved his pipe from his jacket, lit it, inhaled a puff, and exhaled the fragrant smoke through his
nose. Keyes would never even have thought about smoking on the other vessels he had served on, but
here . . . well, command had its privileges.
He pulled up his files transferred from the Academy—several theoretical papers that had recently caught
his interest. One, he thought, might apply to the outpost’s unusual reading.
That paper had initially sparked his interest because of its author. He had never forgotten his first
assignment with Dr. Catherine Halsey . . . nor the names of any of the children they had observed.
He opened the file and read:
United Nations Space Command Astrophysics Journal 034-23-01
Date:May 097, 2540 (Military Calendar)
Encryption Code:None
Public Key:NA
Author(s):Lieutenant Commander Fhajad 034 (service number [CLASSIFIED]), UNSC Office of Naval
Intelligence
Subject biggrin imensional-Mass Space Compressions in Shaw-Fujikawa (a.k.a. “Slipstream”) Space.
Classification:NA
/start file/
Abstract:The space-bending properties of mass in normal space are well described by Einstein’s general
relativity. Such distortions however, are complicated by the anomalous quantum gravitational effects in
Shaw-Fujikawa (SF) spaces. Using loop-string analysis, it can be shown that a large mass bends space in
SF space more than general relativity predicts by an order of magnitude. This bending may explain how
several small objects clustered closely together in SF space have been reported erroneously as a single
larger mass.
PressENTER to continue.
Commander Keyes switched back to the silhouette from theArchimedes report. The leading edge almost
looked like the bulbous head of a whale. That realization chilled him to the core.
He quickly opened the UNSC database of all known Covenant ships. He scanned them until he found
the three-dimensional representation of one of their medium-sized warships. He rotated it into threequarters
profile. He overlaid the image on the silhouette, scaled it back a little.
It was a perfect match.
“Lieutenant Dominique, get FLEETCOM ASAP. Priority Alpha.”
The Lieutenant snapped straight in his chair. “Yes, sir!”
The bridge officers looked at the Commander then exchanged glances with one another.
Commander Keyes brought up a map of the system on his data pad. The silhouette monitored by the
outpost was on a direct course for Sigma Octanus IV. That confirmed his theory.
“Bring us about to course zero four seven, Lieutenant Jaggers. Lieutenant Hall, push the reactors to one
hundred ten percent.”
“Aye, Commander,” Lieutenant Jaggers replied.
“Reactor running hot, sir,” Hall reported. “Now exceeding recommended operational parameters.”
“ETA?”
Jaggers calculated, then looked up. “Forty-three minutes,” he replied.
“Too slow,” Commander Keyes muttered. “Reactor to one hundred thirty percent, Lieutenant Hall.”
She hesitated. “Sir?”
“Do it!”
“Yes, sir!” She moved as if someone had electrically shocked her.
“FLEETCOM online, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said.
The weathered face of Admiral Michael Stanforth appeared on the main view screen.
Commander Keyes breathed a sigh of relief. Admiral Stanforth had a reputation for being reasonable
and intelligent. He’d understand the logic of the situation.
“Commander Keyes,” the Admiral said. “The old ‘Schoolmaster’ himself, huh? This is the priority
channel, son. This better be an emergency.”
Commander Keyes ignored the obvious condescension. He knew many at FLEETCOM thought he
deserved to command nothing but a classroom—and some probably thought he didn’t deserve that.
“The Sigma Octanus System is about to come under attack, sir.”
Admiral Stanforth cocked an eyebrow and leaned closer to the screen.
“I’m requesting that all ships in-system rendezvous with theIroquois at Sigma Octanus Four. And any
ships in neighboring systems make best speed here.”
“Show me what you’ve got, Keyes,” the Admiral said.
Commander Keyes displayed the silhouette from the sensor outpost first. “Covenant ships, sir. Their
silhouettes are overlapped. Our probes resolve them as one mass because Slipspace is bent by gravity
more easily than normal space.”
The Admiral listened to his analysis, frowning.
“You’ve fought the Covenant, sir. You known how precisely they can maneuver their ships through the
Slipstream. I’ve seen a dozen alien craft appear in normal space, in perfect formation, not a kilometer
apart.”
“Yeah,” the Admiral muttered. “I’ve seen that, too. All right, Keyes, good work. You’ll get everything
we can send.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You just hang in there, son. Good luck. FLEETCOM out.”
The view screen snapped off.
“Sir?” Lieutenant Hall turned around. “How many Covenant ships?”
“I’d estimate four medium-tonnage vessels,” he said. “The equivalent of our frigates.”
“FourCovenant ships?” Lieutenant Jaggers muttered. “What canwe do?”
“Do?” Commander Keyes said. “Our duty.”
“Begging the Commander’s pardon, but there arefour Cov—” Jaggers began to protest.
Keyes cut him off with a glare. “Stow that, mister.” He paused, weighing his words. “Sigma Octanus
Four has seventeen million citizens, Lieutenant. Are you suggesting that we just stand by and watch the
Covenant glass the planet?”
“No, sir.” His gaze dropped to the deck.
“We will do the best we can,” Commander Keyes said. “In the meantime, remove all weapons system
locks, order missile crews to readiness, warm up the MAC guns, and remove the safeties from one of our
nukes.”
“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Hikowa said.
An alarm sounded at ops. “Reactor hysteresis approaching failure levels,” Lieutenant Hall reported.
“Superconducting magnets overloading. Coolant breakdown imminent.”
“Vent primary coolant and pump in the reserve tanks,” Commander Keyes ordered. “That will buy us
another five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Commander Keyes fumbled with his pipe. He didn’t bother to light the thing, just chewed on the end.
Then he put it away. The nervous habit wasn’t setting the right example for his bridge officers. He didn’t
have the luxury of showing his apprehension.
The truth was, he was terrified. Four Covenant ships would be an even match forseven destroyers. The
best he could hope for was to get their attention and outrun them—hopefully distract them until the fleet
got here.
Of course . . . those Covenant ships could outrun theIroquois as well.
“Lieutenant Jaggers,” he said, “initiate the Cole Protocol. Purge our navigation databases, and then
generate an appropriate randomized exit vector from the Sigma Octanus System.”
“Yes, sir.” He fumbled with his controls. He hung his head, steadied his hands, and slowly typed in the
commands.
“Lieutenant Hall: make preparations to override reactor safeties.”
His junior officers all paused for a second. “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Hall whispered.
“We’re receiving a transmission from the system’s edge,” Lieutenant Dominique announced.
“FrigatesAlliance andGettysburg are on an inbound vector at maximum speed. ETA . . . one hour.”
“Good,” Commander Keyes said.
That hour might as well be a month. This battle would be over in minutes.
He could not fight the enemy—he was severely outgunned. He couldn’t outrun them, either. There had
to be another option.
Hadn’t he always told his students that when you were out of options, then you were using the wrong
tactics? You had to bend the rules. Shift perspective—anything to find a way out of a hopeless situation.
The black space near Sigma Octanus IV boiled and frothed with motes of green light.
“Ships entering normal space,” Lieutenant Jaggers announced, panic tingeing his voice.
Commander Keyes got to his feet.
He had been wrong. There weren’t four Covenant frigates. A pair of enemy frigates emerged from
Slipspace . . . escorting a destroyer and a carrier.
His blood ran cold. He had seen battles in which a Covenant destroyer had made Swiss cheese of UNSC
ships. Its plasma torpedoes could boil through theIroquois ’ two meters of titanium-A battleplate in
seconds. Their weapons were light-years ahead of the UNSC’s.
“Their weapons,” Commander Keyes muttered under his breath. Yes . . . hedid have a third option.
“Continue at emergency speed,” he ordered, “and come about to heading zero three two.”
Lieutenant Jaggers swiveled in his seat. “That will put us on collision course with their destroyer, sir.”
“I know,” Commander Keyes replied. “In fact, I’m counting on doing just that.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
0600 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
UNSCIroquois , military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV

Commander Keyes had a sinking feeling that although he had won the battle, it would be the first of
many to come in the Sigma Octanus System.
He watched the four dozen other UNSC ships orbit the planet: frigates and destroyers, two carriers, and
a massive repair and refitting station—more vessels than Admiral Cole had at his disposal during his
four-year-long campaign to save Harvest. Admiral Stanforth had pulled out all the stops.
Although Commander Keyes was grateful for the quick and overwhelming response, he wondered why
the Admiral had dedicated so many ships to the area. Sigma Octanus wasn’t strategically positioned. It
had no special resources. True, the UNSC had standing orders to protect civilian lives, but the fleet was
spread dangerously thin. Commander Keyes knew there were more valuable systems that needed
protection.
He pushed these thoughts aside. He was sure Admiral Stanforth had his reasons. Meanwhile the repair
and resupply of theIroquois was his top priority—he didn’t want to get caught half ready if the Covenant
returned.
Or rather,when they returned.
It was a curious thing: the aliens dropping their ground forces and then retreating. That was not their
usual mode of operation. Commander Keyes suspected this was just an opening move in a game he
didn’t yet understand.
A shadow crossed the fore camera of theIroquois as the repair stationCradle maneuvered closer.Cradle
was essentially a large square plate with engines. Large was an understatement; she was over a square
kilometer. Three destroyers could be eclipsed by her shadow. The station running at full steam could
refit six destroyers, three from her lower surface and three on her upper surface, within a matter of hours.
Scaffolds deployed from her surfaces to facilitate repairs. Resupply tubes, hoses, and cargo trams fed
into theIroquois . It would take the full attention ofCradle thirty hours to repair theIroquois , however.
The aliens had not landed a single serious shot. Nonetheless, theIroquois had almost been destroyed
during the execution of what some in the fleet were already calling the “Keyes Loop.”
Commander Keyes glanced at his data pad and the extensive list of repairs. Fifteen percent of the
electronic systems had to be replaced—burned out from the EMP when the Shiva missile detonated.
TheIroquois ’ engines required a full overhaul. Both coolant systems had valves that had been fused
from the tremendous heat. Five of the superconducting magnets had to be replaced as well.
But most troublesome was the damage to the underside of theIroquois . When they had told Commander
Keyes what had happened, he went outside in a Longsword interceptor to personally inspect what he had
done to his ship.
The underside of theIroquois had been scraped when they passed over the prow of the alien destroyer.
He knew there was some damage . . . but was not prepared for what he saw.
UNSC destroyers had nearly two meters of titaniuma
battleplate on their surfaces. Commander Keyes
had abraded throughall of it. He had breached every bottom deck of theIroquois . The jagged serrated
edges of the plate curled away from the wound. Men in EVA thruster packs were busy cutting off the
damaged sections so new plates could be welded into place.
The underside was mirror smooth and perfectly flat. But Keyes knew that the appearance of benign
flatness was deceptive. Had the angle of theIroquois been tilted a single degree down, the force of the
two ships impacting would have shorn his ship in half.
The red war stripes that had been painted on theIroquois ’ side looked like bloody slashes. The
dockmaster had privately told Commander Keyes that his crew could buff the paint off—or even repaint
the war stripes, if he wanted.
Commander Keyes had politely refused the offer. He wanted them left exactly the way they were. He
wanted to be reminded that while everyone had admired what he had done—it had been an act of
desperation, not heroism.
He wanted to be reminded of how close a brush he had had with death.
Commander Keyes returned to theIroquois and marched directly to his quarters.
He sat at his antique oak desk and tapped the intercom. “Lieutenant Dominique, you have the bridge for
the next cycle. I am not to be disturbed.”
“Aye, Commander. Understood.”
Commander Keyes loosened his collar and unbuttoned his uniform. He retrieved the seventy-year-old
bottle of Scotch that his father had given him from the bottom drawer, and then poured four centimeters
into a plastic cup.
He had to attend to an even more unpleasant task: what to do about Lieutenant Jaggers.
Jaggers had exhibited borderline cowardice, insubordination and come within a hairbreadth of attempted
mutiny during the engagement. Keyes could have had him court-martialed. Every reg in the books
screamed at him to . . . but he didn’t have it in him to send the young man before a board of inquiry. He
would instead merely transfer the Lieutenant to a place where he would still do the UNSC some good—
perhaps a distant outpost.
Was all the blame his? As Commander, it was his responsibility to maintain control, to prevent a
crewman from even thinking that mutiny was a possibility.
He sighed. Maybe he should have told his crew what he was attempting . . . but there had simply been no
time. And certainly, no time for discussion as Jaggers would have wanted. No. The other bridge officers
had concerns, but they had followed his orders, as their duty required.
As much as Commander Keyes believed in giving people a second chance, this was where he drew the
line.
To make matters worse, transferring Jaggers would leave a hole in the bridge crew.
Commander Keyes accessed the service records ofIroquois ’ junior officers. There were several who
might qualify for navigation officer. He flipped through their files on his data pad, and then paused.
The theoretical paper on mass-space compression was still open, as well as his hastily calculated course
corrections.
He smiled and archived those notes. He might one day give a lecture on this battle at the Academy. It
would be useful to have the original source material.
There was also the data from theArchimedes Sensor Outpost. That report had been thoroughly made:
clean data graphs and a navigational course plotted for the object through Slipstream space—not an easy
task even with an AI. The report even had tags to route it to the astrophysics section of the UNSC.
Thoughtful.
He looked up the service record of the officer who had filed the report: Ensign William Lovell.
Keyes leaned closer. The boy’s Career Service Vitae was almost twice as long as his own. He had
volunteered and been accepted at Luna Academy. He transferred in his second year, having already
received a commission to Ensign for heroism in a training flight that had saved the entire crew. He took
duty on the first outbound corvette headed into battle. Three Bronze Stars, a Silver Cluster, and two
Purple Hearts, and he had catapulted to a full Lieutenant within three years.
Then something went terribly wrong. Lovell’s decline in the UNSC had been as rapid as his ascent. Four
reports of insubordination and he was busted to Second Lieutenant and transferred twice. An incident
with a civilian woman—no details in the files, although Commander Keyes wondered if the girl listed in
the report, Anna Gerov, was Vice Admiral Gerov’s daughter.
He had been reassigned to theArchimedes Sensor Outpost, and had been there for the last year, an
unheard of length of time in such a remote facility.
Commander Keyes reviewed the logs when Lovell had been on duty. They were careful and intelligent.
So the boy was still sharp . . . was he hiding?
There was a gentle knock on his door.
“Lieutenant Dominique, I said I was not to be disturbed.”
“Sorry to intrude, son,” said a muffled voice. The pressure door’s wheel turned and Admiral Stanforth
stepped inside. “But I thought I’d just stop by since I was in the neighborhood.”
Admiral Stanforth was much smaller in person than he appeared on-screen. His back was stooped over
with age, and his white hair was thinning at the crown. Still, he exuded a reassuring air of authority that
Keyes instantly recognized.
“Sir!” Commander Keyes stood at attention, knocking over his chair.
“At ease, son.” The Admiral looked around his quarters, and his gaze lingered a moment on the framed
copy of Lagrange’s original manuscript in which he derived his equations of motion. “You can pour me
a few fingers of the whiskey, if you can spare it.”
“Yes, sir.” Keyes fumbled with another plastic cup and poured the Admiral a drink.
Stanforth took a sip, then sighed appreciatively. “Very nice.”
Keyes righted his chair and offered it to the Admiral.
He sat down and leaned forward. “I wanted to congratulate you personally on the miracle you performed
here, Keyes.”
“Sir, I don’t—”
Stanforth held up a finger. “Don’t interrupt me, son. That was a helluva piece of astrogation you pulled
off. People noticed. Not to mention the morale boost it’s given to the entire fleet.” He took another sip of
the liquor and exhaled. “Now, that’s the reason we’re all here. We need a victory. It’s been too damn
long—us getting whittled to pieces by those alien bastards. So this hasgot to be a win. No matter what it
takes.”
“I understand, sir,” Commander Keyes said. He knew morale had been sagging for years throughout the
UNSC. No military, no matter how well trained, could stomach defeat after defeat without it affecting
their determination in battles.
“How is it going planetside?”
“Right now don’t you worry about that.” Admiral Stanforth eased back in his chair, balancing on two
legs. “General Kits has his troops down there. They’ve got the surrounding cities evacuated, and they’ll
be assaulting Côte d’Azur within the hour. They’ll paste those aliens faster than you can spit. You just
watch.”
“Of course, sir.” Commander Keyes looked away.
“You got something else to say, boy? Spit it out.”
“Well, sir . . . this isn’t the way the Covenant normally operates. Dropping an invasion force and leaving
the system? They either slaughter everything or die trying. This is something altogether different.”
Admiral Stanforth waved a dismissive hand. “You leave trying to figure out what those aliens are
thinking to the spooks in ONI, son. Just get theIroquois patched up and fit for duty again. And you let
me know if you need anything.”
Stanforth knocked back the last of his whiskey and stood. “Got to marshal the fleet. Oh—” He paused.
“One more thing.” He dug into his jacket pocket and retrieved a tiny cardboard box. He set it on the
Commander’s desk. “Consider it official. The paperwork will catch up with us soon enough.”
Commander Keyes opened the box. Inside were a pair of brass collar insignia: four bars and a single star.
“Congratulations,Captain Keyes.” The Admiral snapped a quick salute, then held out his hand.
Keyes managed to grasp and shake the Admiral’s hand. The insignia was real. He was stunned. He
couldn’t say anything.
“You’ve earned it.” The Admiral started to turn. “Give me a shout if you need anything.”
“Yes, sir.” Keyes stared at the brass star and stripes a moment longer then finally tore his gaze away.
“Admiral . . . there is one thing. I need a replacement navigation officer.”
Admiral Stanforth’s relaxed posture stiffened. “I heard about that. Ugly business when a bridge officer
loses their stomach. Well, you just say the candidate’s name and I’ll make sure you get him . . . as long
as you’re not pulling him off my ship.” He smiled. “Keep up the good work, Captain.”
“Sir!” Captain Keyes saluted.
The Admiral stepped out and closed the door.
Keyes practically fell into his chair.
He had never dreamed they’d make him a Captain. He turned the brass insignia over in his palm and
replayed his conversation with Admiral Stanforth in his mind. He had said, “Captain Keyes.” Yes. This
was real.
The Admiral had also brushed aside his concerns about the Covenant too quickly. Something didn’t
quite add up.
Keyes clicked on the intercom. “Lieutenant Dominique: track the Admiral’s shuttle when he leaves. Let
me know which ship he’s on.”
“Sir? We had an Admiral aboard? I wasn’t informed.”
“No, Lieutenant, I suspect you weren’t. Just track the next outbound shuttle.”
“Aye, sir.”
Keyes looked back on his data pad and reread Ensign Lovell’s CSV. He couldn’t take back what had
happened with Jaggers—there could be no second chance for him. But maybe he could somehow
balance the books by giving Lovell another chance.
He filled out the necessary paperwork for the transfer request. The forms were long and unnecessarily
complex. He transmitted the files to UNSC PERSCOM and sent a copy directly to Admiral Stanforth’s
staff.
“Sir?” Lieutenant Dominique’s voice broke over the intercom. “That shuttle docked with theLeviathan .”
“Put it on-screen.”
The screen over his desk snapped on to camera five, the aft-starboard view. Among the dozens of ships
in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV, he easily spotted theLeviathan . She was one of the twenty UNSC
cruisers left in the fleet.
A cruiser was the most powerful warship ever built by human hands. And Keyes knew they were being
slowly pulled out of forward areas and parked in reserve to guard the Inner Colonies.
A piece of shadow moved under the great warship, black moving on black. It revealed itself for only an
instant in the sunlight, then slithered back into the darkness. It was a prowler.
Those stealth ships were used exclusively by Naval Intelligence.
A cruiser and an ONI presence here? Now Keyes knew there was more going on here than a simple
morale boost. He tried not to think about it. It was best not to go too far when questioning the intentions
of one’s superior officer—especially when that officer was an Admiral. And especially not when Naval
Intelligence was literally lurking in the shadows.
Keyes poured himself another three fingers of Scotch, set his head on his desk—just to rest his eyes for a
moment. The last few hours had drained him.
“Sir.” Dominique’s voice over the intercom woke Captain Keyes. “Incoming fleet-wide transmission on
Alpha priority channel.”
Keyes sat up and ran his hand over his face. He glanced at the brass clock affixed over his bunk—he had
slept for almost six hours.
Admiral Stanforth appeared on-screen. “Listen up, ladies and gentlemen: we’ve just detected a large
number of Covenant ships massing on the edge of the system. We estimate ten ships.”
On-screen the silhouettes of the all-too-familiar Covenant frigates and a destroyer appeared as ghostly
radar smears.
“We’ll remain where we are,” the Admiral continued. “There’s no need to charge in and have those ugly
bastards take a shortcut through Slipspace and undercut us. Make your ships ready for battle. We’ve got
probes gathering more data. I’ll update you when we know more. Stanforth out.”
The screen went black.
Keyes snapped on the intercom. “Lieutenant Hall, what is our repair and refit status?”
“Sir,”she replied.“Engines are operational, but only with the backup coolant system. We can heat them
to fifty percent. Archer and nuclear ordnance resupply is complete. MAC guns are also operational.
Repairs to lower decks have just started.”
“Inform the dockmaster to pull his crew out,” Captain Keyes said. “We’re leaving theCradle . When we
are clear, fire the reactors to fifty percent. Go to battle stations.”