The Fall of Reach

CHAPTER FOUR

0530 Hours, September 24, 2517 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach Military Complex, planet Reach

“Wake up, trainee!”

John rolled over in his cot and went back to sleep. He was dimly aware that this wasn’t his room, and that there were other people here.

A shock jolted him—from his bare feet to the base of his spine. He yelled in surprise and fell off the cot. He shook off the disorientation from being nearly asleep and got up.

“I said up, boot! You know which way up is?”

A man in a camouflage uniform stood over John. His hair was shorn and gray at his temples. His dark eyes didn’t look human—too big and black and they didn’t blink. He held a silver baton in one hand; he flicked it toward John and it sparked.

John backed away. He wasn’t afraid of anything. Only little kids were afraid... but his body instinctively moved as far away from the instrument as possible.

Dozens of other men roused the rest of the children. Seventy-four boys and girls screamed and jumped out of their cots.

“I am Chief Petty Officer Mendez,” the uniformed man next to John shouted. “The rest of these men are your instructors. You will do exactly as we tell you at all times.”

Mendez pointed to the far end of the cinderblock barracks. “Showers are aft. You will all wash and then return here to dress.” He opened a trunk at the foot of John’s cot and pulled out a matching set of gray sweats.

John leaned closer and saw his name stenciled on the chest: JOHN-117.

“No slacking. On the double!” Mendez tapped John between his shoulder blades with the baton.

Lightning surged across John’s chest. He sprawled on the cot and gasped for breath.

“I mean it! Go Go GO!”

John moved. He couldn’t inhale—but he ran anyway, clutching his chest. He managed a ragged breath by the time he got to the showers. The other kids looked scared and disoriented. They all stripped off their nightshirts and stepped onto the conveyor, washed themselves in lukewarm soapy water, then rinsed in an icy cold spray.

He ran back to his bunk, got into underwear, thick socks, pulled on the sweats and a pair of combat boots that fit his feet perfectly.

“Outside, trainees,” Mendez announced. “Triple time... march!”

John and the others stampeded out of the barracks onto a strip of grass.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the edge of the sky was indigo. The grass was wet with dew. There were dozens of rows of barracks, but no one else was up and outside. A pair of jets roared overhead and arced up into the sky. Far away, John heard a metallic crackle.

Chief Petty Officer Mendez barked, “You will make five equal-length rows. Fifteen trainees in each.” He waited a few seconds as they milled about. “Straighten those rows. You know how to count to fifteen, trainee? Take three steps back.”

John stepped into the second row.

As he breathed the cold air he began to wake up. He started to remember. They had taken him in the middle of the night. They injected him with something and he slept for a long time. Then the woman who had given him the coin told him he couldn’t go back. That he wouldn’t see his mother or father—

“Jumping jacks!” Mendez shouted. “Count off to one hundred. Ready, go.” The officer started the exercise and John followed his lead.

One boy refused—for a split-second. An instructor was on him instantly. The baton whipped into the boy’s stomach. The kid doubled over. “Get with the program, boot,” the trainer snarled. The boy uncurled and started jumping.

John had never done so many jumping jacks in his life. His arms and stomach and legs burned. Sweat trickled down his back.

“Ninety-eight—99—100.” Mendez paused. He drew in a deep breath. “Sit-ups!” He dropped onto the grass. “Count off to one hundred. No slacking.”

John threw himself on the ground.

“The first crewmen who quits,” Mendez said, “gets to run around the compound twice—and then comes back here and does two hundred sit ups. Ready... count off! One... two... three... .”

Deep squats followed. Then knee bends.

John threw up, but that didn’t buy him any respite. A trainer descended on him after a few seconds. John rolled back over and continued.

“Leg lifts.” Mendez continued like he was a machine. As if they all were machines.

John couldn’t go on—but he knew he’d get the baton again if he stopped. He tried; he had to move. His legs trembled and only sluggishly responded.

“Rest,” Mendez finally called. “Trainers: get the water.”

The trainers wheeled out carts laden with water bottles. John grabbed one and gulped down the liquid. It was warm and slightly salty. He didn’t care. It was the best water he’d ever had.

He flopped on his back in the grass and panted.

The sun was up now. It was warm. He rolled to his knees and let the sweat drip off him like a heavy rain.

He slowly got up and glanced at the other children. They crouched on the ground, holding their sides, and no one talked. Their clothes were soaked through with perspiration. John didn’t recognize anyone from his school here.

So he was alone with strangers. He wondered where his mother was, and what—

“A good start, trainees,” Mendez told them. “Now we run. On your feet!”

The trainers brandished their batons and herded the trainees along. They jogged down a gravel path through the compound, past more cinderblock barracks. The run seemed to go on forever—they ran alongside a river, over a bridge, then by the edge of a runway where jets took off straight into the air. Once past the runway, Mendez led them on a zigzagging path of stone.

John wanted to think about what had happened, how he got here, and what was going to happen next... but he couldn’t think straight. All he could feel was the blood pounding through him, the ache in his muscles, and hunger.

They ran into a courtyard of smooth flagstones. A pole in the center flew the colors of the UNSC, a blue field with stars and Earth in the corner. At the far end of the yard was a building with a scalloped dome and white columns and dozens of wide steps leading to the entrance. The words NAVAL OFFICERS ACADEMY were chiseled into the arch over the entrance.

A woman stood on the top step and beckoned to them. She wore a white sheet wrapped around her body. She looked old to John, yet young at the same time. Then he saw the motes of light orbiting her head and knew she was an AI. He had seen them on vids. She wasn’t solid, but she was still real.

“Excellent work, Chief Petty Officer Mendez,” she said in a resonant, silk-smooth voice. She turned to the children. “Welcome. My name is Déjà and I will be your teacher. Please come in. Class is about to start.”

John groaned out loud. Several of the others grumbled, too.

She turned and started to walk inside. “Of course,” she said, “if you prefer to skip your lessons, you may continue the morning calisthenics.”

John double-timed it up the steps.

It was cool inside. A tray with crackers and a carton of milk had been laid out for each of them. John nibbled on the dry stale food, then gulped down his milk.

John was so tired he wanted to lay his head down on the desk and take a nap—until Déjà started to tell them about a battle and how three hundred soldiers fought against thousands of Persian infantry.

A holographic countryside appeared in the classroom. The children walked around the miniature mountains and hills and let the edge of the illusionary sea lap at their boots. Toy-sized soldiers marched toward what Déjà explained was Thermopylae, a narrow strip of land between steep mountains and the sea. Thousands of soldiers marched toward the three hundred who guarded the pass. The soldiers fought: spears and shields splintered, swords flashed and spilled blood.

John couldn’t take his eyes off the spectacle.

Déjà explained that the three hundred were Spartans and they were the best soldiers who had ever lived. They had been trained to fight since they were children. No one could beat them.

John watched, fascinated, as the holographic Spartans slaughtered the Persian spearmen.

He had eaten his crackers but he was still hungry, so he took the girl’s next to him when she wasn’t looking, and munched them down as the battle raged on. His stomach still growled and grumbled.

When was lunch? Or was it dinnertime already?

The Persians broke and ran and the Spartans stood victorious on the field.

The children cheered. They wanted to see it again.

“That’s all for today,” Déjà said. “We’ll continue tomorrow and I’ll show you some wolves. Now it’s time for you to go to the playground.”

“Playground?” John said. That was perfect. He could finally just sit on a swing, relax, and think for a moment.

He ran out of the room, as did the other trainees.

Chief Petty Officer Mendez and the trainers waited for them outside the classroom.

“Time for the playground,” Mendez said, and waved the children closer. “It’s a short run. Fall in.”

The “short run” turned into two miles. And the playground was like nothing John had ever seen. It was a forest of twenty-meter tall wooden poles. Rope cargo nets and bridges stretched between the poles; they swayed, crossed and crisscrossed one another, a maze suspended in the air. There were slide poles and knotted climbing ropes. There were swings and suspended platforms. There were ropes looped through pulleys and tied to baskets that looked sturdy enough to hoist a person.

“Trainees,” Mendez said, “form three lines.”

The instructors moved in to herd them, but John and the others made three rows without comment or fuss.

“The first person in every row will be team number one,” Mendez said. “The second person in each row will be team number two... and so on. If you do not understand this, speak up now.”

No one spoke.

John looked to his right. A boy with sandy hair, green eyes, and darkly tanned skin gave him a weary smile. Stenciled on his sweat top was SAMUEL-034. In the row beyond Samuel was a girl. She was taller than John, and skinny, with a long mane of hair dyed blue. KELLY-087. She didn’t look too happy to see him.

“Today’s game,” Mendez explained, “is called ‘Ring the Bell.’ ” He pointed to the tallest pole on the playground. It stood an additional ten meters above the others and had a steel slide pole next to it. Hung at the very top of that pole was a brass bell.

“There are many ways to get to the bell,” he told them. “I leave it up to each team to find their own way. When every member of your team has rung the bell, you are to get groundside double time and run back here across this finish line.”

Mendez took his baton and scratched a straight line in the sand.

John raised his hand.

Mendez glared at him for a moment with those black unblinking eyes. “A question, Trainee?”

“What do we win?”

Mendez cocked one eyebrow and appraised John. “You win dinner, Number 117. Tonight, dinner is roast turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, brownies, and ice cream.”

A murmur of approval swept though the children.

“But,” Mendez added, “for there to be winners there must be a loser. The last team to finish goes without food.”

They children fell silent—and then looked at each other warily.

“Make ready,” Mendez said.

“I’m Sam,” the boy whispered to John and the girl on their team.

She said, “I’m Kelly.”

John just looked at them and said nothing. The girl would slow him down. Too bad. He was hungry and he wasn’t about to let them make him lose.

“Go!” Mendez shouted.

John ran through the pack of children and scrambled up a cargo net onto a platform. He raced across the bridge—jumped onto the next platform, just in time. The bridge flipped and sent five others into the water below.

He paused at the rope tied to the large basket. It ran up through a pulley and then back down. He didn’t think he was strong enough to pull himself up in it. Instead, he tackled a knotted climbing rope and scrunched his body up. The rope swung wildly around the center pole. John looked down and almost lost his grip. It looked twice as far down as it had looked from the ground. He saw all the others, some climbing, others floundering in the water, getting up and starting over. No one was as close to the bell as he was.

He swallowed his fear and kept climbing up. He thought of the ice cream and chocolate brownies and how he was going to win.

John got to the top, grabbed the bell, and rang it three times. He then clasped the steel pole and slid all the way to the ground, falling into a pile of cushions.

He got up and ran smiling all the way to the Chief Petty Officer. John crossed the finish line and gave a victory cry. “I was first,” he said, panting.

Mendez nodded and made a check on his clipboard.

John watched as the others made it and up rang the bell then raced across the finish line. Kelly and Sam had trouble. They got stuck in a line to get to the bell as everyone bunched up at the end.

They finally rang the bell, slid down together... but they crossed the finish line last. They glared at John.

He shrugged.

“Good work, Trainees,” Mendez said, and he beamed at them all. “Let’s get back to the barracks and chow down.”

The children, covered in mud and leaning on each another, cheered.

“—all except team three,” Mendez said, and looked at Sam, Kelly, and then John.

“But I won,” John protested. “I was first.”

“Yes, you were first,” Mendez explained, “but your team came in last.” He then addressed all the children. “Remember this: you don’t win unless your team wins. One person winning at the expense of the group means that you lose.”

John ran in a stupor all the way back to the barracks. It wasn’t fair. He had won. How can you win and still lose?

He watched as the others stuffed themselves with turkey, white meat dripping with gravy. They spooned down mountains of vanilla ice cream and left the mess hall with chocolate encrusting the corners of their mouths.

John got a liter of water. He drank it, but it didn’t have any taste. It did nothing to fill his hunger.

He wanted to cry, but he was too tired. He collapsed in his bunk, thinking of ways to get even with Sam and Kelly for messing him up—but he couldn’t think. Every muscle and bone ached.

John fell asleep as soon as his head hit the flat pillow.

The next day was the same—calisthenics and running all morning, then class until the afternoon.

Today Déjà taught them about wolves. The classroom became a holographic meadow, and the children watched seven wolves hunt a moose. The pack worked together, striking wherever the giant beast wasn’t facing. It was fascinating and horrifying to watch the wolves track down, and then devour, an animal many times their size.

John avoided Sam and Kelly in the classroom. He stole a few extra crackers when no one was looking but they didn’t dull his hunger.

After class, they ran back to the playground. Today it was different. There were fewer bridges and more complicated rope-and-pulley systems. The pole with the bell was now twenty meters taller than any of the others.

“Same teams as yesterday,” Mendez announced.

Sam and Kelly walked up to John. Sam shoved him.

John’s temper flared—he wanted to hit Sam in the face, but he was too tired. He’d need all his strength to get to the bell.

“You better help us,” Sam hissed, “or I’ll push you off one of those platforms.”

“And I’ll jump on top of you,” Kelly added.

“Okay,” John whispered. “Just try not to slow me down.”

John examined the course. It was like doing a maze on paper, only this one twisted and turned into and out of the page. Many bridges and rope ladders led to dead ends. He squinted—then found one possible route.

He nudged Sam and Kelly then pointed. “Look,” he said, “that basket and rope on the far side. It goes straight to the top. It’s a long pull, though.” He flexed his biceps, uncertain if he could make it in his weakened state.

“We can do it,” Sam said.

John glanced at the other teams; they were searching the course as well. “We’ll have to make a quick run for it,” he said. “Make sure no one else gets there first.”

“I’m fast,” Kelly said. “Real fast.”

“Trainees, get ready,” Mendez shouted.

“Okay,” John said. “You sprint ahead and hold it for us.”

“Go!”

Kelly shot forward. John had never seen anyone move like her. She ran like the wolves he had seen today; her feet seemed barely to touch the ground.

She got to the basket. John and Sam were only halfway there.

One boy beat them to the basket. “Get out,” he ordered Kelly. “I’m going up.”

Sam and John ran up and pushed him back. “Wait your turn,” Sam said.

John and Sam joined Kelly in the basket. Together they pulled on the rope and raised themselves up. There was a lot of rope—for every three meters they pulled, they only rose one meter. A breeze made the basket sway and bounce into the pole.

“Faster,” John urged.

They pulled as one person, six hands working in unison, and accelerated into the sky.

They didn’t get there first. They were third. Each of them got to ring the bell, though—Kelly, Sam, and John.

They slid down the pole. Kelly and Sam waited for John to land, and then together they ran across the finish line.

Chief Petty Officer Mendez watched them. He didn’t say anything, but John thought he saw a smile flicker across his face.

Sam clapped John and Kelly on their backs. “That was good work,” Sam said. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “We can be friends... I mean, if you want. It’d be no big deal.”

Kelly shrugged and replied, “Sure.”

“Okay,” John said. “Friends.”

CHAPTER FIVE

0630 Hours, July 12, 2519 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach Military Wilderness Training Preserve, planet Reach

John held on tight as the dropship accelerated up and over a jagged snowcapped mountain range. The sun peeked over the horizon and washed the white snow with pinks and oranges. The other members of his unit pressed their faces to the windows and watched.

Sam sat next to him and looked outside. “Nice place for a snowball fight.”

“You’ll lose,” Kelly said. She leaned over John’s shoulder to get a better look at the terrain. “I’m a dead aim with snowballs.” She scratched the stubble of her shorn hair.

“Dead is right,” John muttered. “Especially when you load them with rocks.”

CPO Mendez stepped from the cockpit into the passenger compartment. The trainees stood and snapped to attention. “At ease, and sit down.” The silver at Mendez’s temples had grown to a band across the side of his closely shaved hair, but if anything he had gotten stronger and tougher since John had first laid eyes on him two years ago.

“Today’s mission will be simple for a change.” Mendez’s voice easily penetrated the roar of the dropship’s engines. He handed a stack of papers to Kelly. “Pass these out, Recruit.”

“Sir!” She saluted smartly and handed one paper to each of the seventy-five children in the squad.

“These are portions of maps of the local region. You will be set down by yourselves. You will then navigate to a marked extraction point and we will pick you up there.”

John turned his map over. It was just one part of a much larger map—no drop or extraction point marked. How was he supposed to navigate without a reference point? But he knew this was part of the mission, to answer that question on his own.

“One more thing,” Mendez said. “The last trainee to make it to the extraction point will be left behind.” He glanced out a window. “And it’s a very long walk back.”

John didn’t like it. He wasn’t going to lose, but he didn’t want anyone else to lose, either. The thought of Kelly or Sam or any of the others marching all the way back made him uneasy... if they could make it all the way back alone over those mountains.

“First drop in three minutes,” Mendez barked. “Trainee 117, you’re up first.”

“Sir! Yes, sir!” John replied.

He glanced out the window and scanned the terrain. There was a ring of jagged mountains, a valley thick with cedars, and a ribbon of silver—a river that fed into a lake.

John nudged Sam, pointed to the river, then jerked his thumb toward the lake.

Sam nodded, then pulled Kelly aside and pointed out the window. Kelly and Sam moved quickly down the line of seated trainees.

The ship decelerated. John felt his stomach rise as they dropped toward the ground.

“Trainee 117: front and center.” Mendez stepped to the rear of the compartment as the ship’s tail split and a ramp extended. Cold air blasted into the ship. He patted John on the shoulder. “Watch out for wolves in the forest, 117.”

“Yes, sir!” John looked over his shoulder at the others.

His teammates gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Good, everyone got his message.

He ran down the ramp and into the forest. The dropship’s engines roared to life and it rose high into the cloudless sky. He zipped up his jacket. He wore only fatigues, boots, and a heavy parka—not exactly the gear he’d pack for a prolonged stay in the wilderness.

John started toward one particularly sharp peak he had spotted from the air; the river lay in that direction. He’d follow it downstream and meet the others at the lake.

He marched through the woods until he heard the gurgling of a stream. He got close enough to see the direction of the flow, then headed back into the forest. Mendez’s exercises often had a twist to them—stun mines on the obstacle course, snipers with paint pellet guns during parade drills. And with the Chief up in that dropship, John wasn’t about to reveal his position unless he had a good reason.

He passed a blueberry bush and took the time to strip it before he moved on.

This was the first time in months he had been alone and could just think. He popped a handful of berries into his mouth and chewed.

He thought about the place that had been his home, his parents... but more and more that seemed like a dream. John knew it wasn’t, and that he had once had a different life. But this was the life he wanted. He was a soldier. He had an important job to train for. Mendez said they were the Navy’s best and brightest. That they were the only hope for peace. He liked that.

Before, he never knew what he would be when he grew up. He never really thought about anything other than watching vids and playing—nothing had been a challenge.

Now every day was a challenge and a new adventure.

John knew more things, thanks to Déjà, than he ever thought he could have learned at his old school: algebra and trigonometry, the history of a hundred battles and kings. He could string a trip line, fire a rifle, and treat a chest wound. Mendez had shown him how to be strong... not only with his body, but strong with his head, too.

He had a family here: Kelly, Sam, and all the others in his squad.

The thought of his squadmates brought him back to Mendez’s mission—one of them was going to be left behind. There had to be a way to get them all home. John decided he wasn’t going to leave if he couldn’t figure it out.

He arrived at the edge of the lake; stood and listened.

John heard an owl hooting in the distance. He marched toward the sound. “Hey, owl,” he said when he was close.

Sam stepped out from behind a tree and grinned. “That’s ‘Chief Owl’ to you, Trainee.”

They walked around the circumference of the lake, gathering the rest of the children in the squad. John counted them to make sure: sixty-seven.

“Let’s get the map pieces together,” Kelly suggested.

“Good idea,” John said. “Sam, take three and scout the area. I don’t want any of the Chief’s surprises sneaking up on us.”

“Right.” Sam picked Fhajad, James, and Linda and then the four of them took off into the brush.

Kelly collected the map pieces and settled in the shade of an ancient cedar tree. “Some of these don’t belong, and some are copies,” she said, and she laid them out. “Yes, here’s an edge. Got it—this is the lake, the river, and here... ” She pointed to a distant patch of green. “That’s got to be the extraction point.” She shook her head and frowned. “If the legend on this map is right, it’s a full day’s hike, though. We better get started.”

John whistled and a moment later Sam and his scouts returned.

“Let’s move out,” John said.

No one argued. They fell into line behind Kelly as she navigated. Sam blazed the trail ahead. He had the best eyes and ears. Several times he stopped and signaled everyone to freeze or hide—but it turned out to be just a rabbit or a bird.

After several miles of marching, Sam dropped back. He whispered to John, “This is too easy. It’s not like any of the Chief’s normal field exercises.”

John nodded. “I’ve been thinking that, too. Just keep your eyes and ears sharp.”

They stopped at noon to stretch and eat berries they had gathered along the trail.

Fhajad spoke up. “I want to know one thing,” he said. He paused to wipe the sweat off his dark skin. “We’re going to get to the extraction point at the same time. So who’s getting left behind? We should decide now.”

“Draw straws,” someone suggested.

“No,” John said, and stood. “No one’s being left behind. We’re going to figure a way to get all of us out.”

“How?” Kelly asked, scratching her head. “Mendez said—”

“I know what he said. But there’s got to be a way—I just haven’t thought of one yet. Even if it has to be me that stays behind—I’ll make sure everyone gets back to the base.” John started marching again. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”

The others fell in behind him.

The shadows of the trees lengthened and melted together and the sun turned the edge of the sky red. Kelly halted and motioned for everyone else to stop. “We’re almost there,” she whispered.

“Me and Sam will scout it out,” John said. “Everyone fall out... and keep quiet.”

The rest of the children silently followed his orders.

John and Sam crept through the underbrush and then hunkered down at the edge of a meadow.

The dropship sat in the center of the grassy field; her floodlights illuminated everything for thirty meters. Six men sat on the open launch ramp, smoking cigarettes and passing a canteen between themselves.

Sam motioned to drop back. “You recognize them?” he whispered.

“No. You?”

Sam shook his head. “They’re not in uniform. They don’t look like any soldiers I’ve ever seen. Maybe they’re rebels. Maybe they stole the dropship and killed the Chief.”

“No way,” John said. “Nothing can kill the Chief. But one thing’s for sure: I don’t think we can just walk up there and get a free ride back to the base. Let’s go back.”

They crept back into the woods and then explained the situation to the others.

“What do you want to do?” Kelly asked him.

John wondered why she thought he had an answer. He looked around and saw everyone was watching him, waiting for him to speak. He shifted on his feet. He had to say something.

“Okay... we don’t know who these men are or what they’ll do when they see us. So we find out.”

The children nodded, seeming to think this was the right thing to do.

“Here’s how,” John told them. “First, I’ll need a rabbit.”

“That’s me,” Kelly said, and sprang to her feet. “I’m the fastest.”

“Good,” John said. “You go to the edge of the meadow—and then let them see you. I’ll go along and hide nearby and watch. In case anything happens to you, I’ll report back to the others.”

She nodded.

“Then you lure a few back here. Run right past this spot. Sam, you’ll be out in the open, pretending like you’ve broken your leg.”

“Gotcha,” Sam said. He walked over to Fhajad and had him scrape his shin with his boot. Blood welled from the wound.

“The rest of you,” John said, “wait in the woods in a big circle. If they try to do anything but help Sam... ” John made a fist with his right hand and slammed it into his open palm. “Remember the moose and the wolves?”

They all nodded and grinned. They had seen that lesson many times in Déjà’s classroom.

“Get some rocks,” John told them.

Kelly stripped off her parka, stretched her legs and knees. “Okay,” she said, “let’s do this.”

Sam lay down, clutching his leg. “Oooh—it hurts, help me.”

“Don’t overdo it,” John said, and kicked some dirt on him. “Or they’ll know it’s a setup.”

John and Kelly then crept toward the meadow and halted a few meters form the edge. He whispered to her, “If you want me to be the rabbit...”

She slugged him in the shoulder—hard. “You think I can’t do my part?”

“I take it back,” he said, rubbing his shoulder.

John moved off ten meters to her flank, took cover, and watched.

Kelly emerged at the edge of the meadow, stepping into the illumination from the dropship’s floodlights.

“Hey!” she said, and waved her arms over her head. “Over here. You got any food? I’m starving.”

The men slowly stood and pulled out stun batons. “There’s one,” John heard them whisper. “I’ll get her. The rest of you stay here and wait for the others.”

The man cautiously approached Kelly, a stun baton held behind his back so she couldn’t see it. She stayed put and waited for him to get closer.

“Hang on a sec,” she said. “I dropped my jacket back there. I’ll be right back.” She turned and ran. The man leaped after her, but she had already vanished into the shadows.

“Stop!”

“This will be too easy,” one of other men said. “Kids won’t know what hit them.” Another remarked, “Fish in a barrel.”

John had heard enough. He ran after Kelly, but realized that neither he nor the other man had a chance to catch her. He halted when he got close to where Sam lay.

The man stopped. He looked around, his eyes not quite adjusted to the dark, then spotted Sam on the ground holding his bloody leg.

“Please, help me,” Sam whimpered. “It’s broken.”

“I got your broken leg right here, kid.” The man raised his baton.

John picked up a rock. He threw it, but missed.

The man spun around. “Who’s there?”

Sam rolled to his feet and darted away. There was a rustling in the forest, then a hail of stones whistled through the trees, pelting the man.

Kelly appeared and sidearmed a rock as hard as she could—and hit the man dead center in the forehead.

He toppled and slammed into the ground.

The other children moved in. “What do we do with him?” Sam asked.

“It’s just an exercise, right?” Fhajad said. “He has to be with Mendez.”

John rolled the man over. A trickle of blood snaked from his head into his eye socket.

“You heard him,” John whispered. “You saw what he was going to do to Sam. Mendez or our trainers would never do that to us. Ever. He’s got no uniform. No insignias. He’s not one of us.”

John kicked the man in the face and then the ribs. The man reflexively curled into a ball. “Get his baton.”

Sam grabbed the weapon. He kicked him, too.

“Now we go back and get the others,” John told them. “Kelly, you be the rabbit again. Just get them to the edge of the clearing. Duck out, and let us do the rest.”

She nodded and started back to the meadow. The rest of the squad fanned out, collecting rocks along the way.

After a minute Kelly stepped onto the grassy field and shouted, “That guy fell and hit his head. Over here!”

The five remaining men stood and ran toward her.

When they were close enough, John whistled.

The air suddenly swarmed with stones. The men held up their hands and tried to protect themselves. They dropped and covered their heads.

John whistled again and sixty-seven children charged screaming toward the bewildered men. The men got up to defend themselves. They looked stunned—like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

Sam smashed his baton over a man’s head. Fhajad was hit squarely in the face by one man’s fist, and he fell.

The men were overwhelmed by a wave of flesh, beaten to the ground with fists and stones and boots until they no longer moved.

John stood over their bleeding bodies. He was mad. They would have hurt him and his squad. He wanted to kick in their skulls. He took a deep breath and then exhaled. He had better things to do and bigger problems to figure out—anger would have to wait.

“Want to call Mendez now?” Sam asked as he pulled Fhajad shakily to his feet.

“Not yet,” John told him. He marched onto the dropship. No one else was on board.

John accessed the COM system and opened the mail link. He linked up with Déjà. Her face appeared, a scratchy hologram hovering over the terminal.

“Good evening, Trainee 117,” she said. “Do you have a homework question?”

“Kind of,” he replied. “One of CPO Mendez’s assignments.”

“Ah.” After moment’s pause she said, “Very well.”

“I’m in a Pelican dropship. There’s no pilot, but I need to get home. Teach me to fly it, please.”

Déjà shook her head. “You are not rated to fly that craft, Trainee. But I can help. Do you see the winged icon in the corner of your screen? Tap it three times.”

John tapped it and a hundred icons and displays filled the screen.

“Touch the green arrows at nine o’clock twice,” she told him.

He did and then the words autopilot activated flashed onscreen.

“I have control now,” Déjà said. “I will get you home.”

“Hang on a second,” John said and ran outside. “Everyone onboard—double time!”

The children ran onto the ship.

Kelley paused and asked, “Who’s getting left behind?”

“No one,” John said. “Just get in.” He made sure he was the last on the ship, then said, “Okay, Déjà, get out us out of here.”

The dropship’s jets roared to life and it rose into the sky.

John stood at attention in Chief Petty Officer Mendez’s office. He had never been in here. No one had. A trickle of sweat dripped down his back. The dark wood paneling and the smell of cigar smoke made him feel claustrophobic.

Mendez glowered at John as he read the report on his clipboard.

The door opened and Dr. Halsey walked in. Mendez stood, gave her a curt nod and then sat back in his padded chair.

“Hello, John,” Dr. Halsey said. She sat across from Mendez, crossed her legs, and then adjusted her gray skirt.

“Dr. Halsey,” John replied instantly. He saluted. None of the other grown-ups called him by his first name, ever. He didn’t understand why she did.

“Trainee 117,” Mendez snapped. “Tell me again why you stole UNSC property... and why you attacked the men I had assigned to guard it.”

John wanted to explain that he was just doing what had to be done. That he was sorry. That he would do anything to make it up. But John knew the Chief hated whiners, almost as much as he hated excuses.

“Sir,” John said. “The guards were out of uniform. No insignia. They failed to identify themselves, sir!”

“Hmm,” Mendez mused over the report again. “So it seems. And the ship?”

“I took my squad home, sir. I was the last onboard—so if anyone should have been left—”

“I didn’t ask for a passenger list, Crewman.” His voice softened to a growl and he turned to Dr. Halsey. “What are we going to do with this one?”

“Do?” She pushed her glasses higher on her nose and examined John. “I think that’s obvious, Chief. Make him a Squad Leader.”

CHAPTER SIX

1130 Hours March 09, 2525 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Office of Naval Intelligence Medical Facility, in orbit around planet Reach

“I want that transmission decoded now,” Dr. Halsey snapped at Déjà.

“The encryption scheme is extremely complex,” replied Déjà with a hint of irritation in her normally glass-smooth voice. “I don’t even know why they bothered. Who else but Beta-5 Division even has the resources to use this data?”

“Spare me the banter, Déjà. I’m not in the mood. Just concentrate on the decryption.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Dr. Halsey paced across the antiseptic white tile of the Observation Room. One side of the room was filled with floor-to-ceiling terminals that monitored the vital signs of the children—test subjects, she corrected herself. They displayed drug uptake rates and winking green, blue, and red status indicators: EKGs, pulse rates, and a hundred other pieces of medical data.

The other side of the observation room overlooked dozens of translucent domes, windows into the surgical bays on the level below. Each bay was a sealed environment, staffed with the best surgeons and biotechnicians that the Office of Naval Intelligence could drum up. The bays had been scrubbed and irradiated and were in the final preparation stages to receive and hold the special biohazardous materials.

“Done,” Déjà announced. “The file awaits your inspection, Doctor.”

Dr. Halsey stopped her pacing and sat. “On my glasses, please, Déjà.”

Her glasses scanned retinal and brain patterns, and the security barrier of the file lifted. With a blink of her eyes, she opened the file.

It read:

She winced at the veiled rebuke in the Admiral’s communiqué. He had never approved of her decision to work with the Office of Naval Intelligence, and made his disappointment with his star pupil evident every time she visited Hopeful.

It was hard enough to justify the morality of the course she was about to embark upon. Jeromi’s disapproval only made her decision more difficult.

Dr. Halsey gritted her teeth and returned to the report.

Dr. Halsey closed the file. She erased all traces of it—sent Déjà to track the file pathways all the way back to Hopeful and destroy Admiral Jeromi’s notes and files relative to this incident.

She removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I’m sorry,” Déjà said. “I, too, had hoped there would be some new process to lower the risks.”

Dr. Halsey sighed. “I have doubts, Déjà. I thought the reasons so compelling when we first started project SPARTAN. Now? I... I just don’t know.”

“I have been over the ONI projections of Outer Colony stability three times, Doctor. Their conclusion is correct: massive rebellion within twenty years unless drastic military action is taken. And you know the ‘drastic military action’ the brass would like. The SPARTANS are our only option to avoid overwhelming civilian losses. They will be the perfect pinpoint strike force. They can prevent a civil war.”

“Only if they survive to fulfill that mission,” Dr. Halsey countered. “We should delay the procedures. More research needs to be done. We could use the time to work on MJOLNIR. We need time to—”

“There is another reason to proceed expeditiously,” Déjà said. “Although I am loath to bring this to your attention, I must. If the Office of Naval Intelligence detects a delay in their prize project, you will likely be replaced by someone who harbors... fewer doubts. And regrettably for the children, most likely someone less qualified.”

“I hate this.” Dr. Halsey got up and strode to the fire exit. “And sometimes, Déjà, I hate you, too.” She left the observation room.

Mendez was waiting for her in the hallway.

“Walk with me, Chief,” she said.

He followed without a word as they took the stairs to the pre-op wing of the hospital.

They entered room 117. John lay in bed and an IV drip was attached to his arm. His head had been shaved and incision vectors had been lasered onto his entire body. Despite these indignities, Dr. Halsey marveled at what a spectacular physical specimen he had grown into. Fourteen years old and he had the body of an eighteen-year-old Olympic athlete, and a mind the equal of any Naval Academy honors graduate.

Dr. Halsey forced the best smile she could muster. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, ma’am,” John replied groggily. “The nurse said the sedation would take effect soon. I’m fighting it to see how long I can stay awake.” His eyelids fluttered. “It’s not easy.”

John spotted Mendez and he struggled to sit up and salute, but failed. “I know this is one of the Chief’s exercises. But I don’t know what the twist is. Can you tell me, Dr. Halsey? Just this time? How do I win?”

Mendez looked away.

Dr. Halsey leaned closer to John as he closed his eyes and started to breathe deeply.

“I’ll tell you how to win, John,” she whispered. “You have to survive.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

0000 Hours March 30, 2525 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Carrier Atlas en route to the Lambda Serpentis system

“And so we commit the bodies of our fallen brothers to space.”

Mendez solemnly closed his eyes for a moment, the ceremony completed. He pressed a control and the ash canisters moved slowly into the ejection tubes... and the void beyond.

John stood rigidly at attention. The carrier’s missile launch bays—normally cramped, overcrowded, and bustling with activity—were unusually quiet. The Atlas’s firing deck had been cleared of munitions and crew. Long, unadorned black banners now hung from the bay’s overhead gantries.

“Honors... ten hut!” Mendez barked.

John and the other surviving Spartans saluted in unison.

“Duty,” Mendez said. “Honor and self sacrifice. Death does not diminish these qualities in a soldier. We shall remember.”

A series of thumps resounded through the Atlas’s hull as the canisters were hurled into space.

The view screen flickered and displayed a field of stars. The canisters appeared one by one, quickly falling behind the carrier as it continued on its course.

John watched. With each of the stainless-steel cylinders that drifted by, he felt that he was losing a part of himself. It felt like leaving his people behind.

Mendez’s face might as well been chiseled from stone, for all the emotion it showed. He finished his protracted salute and then said, “Crewmen, dismissed.”

Not everything had been lost. John glanced around the launch chamber; Sam, Kelly, and thirty others still stood at attention in their black dress uniforms. They had made it unharmed through the last—mission wasn’t quite the right word. More or less.

There were a dozen others, though, who had lived... but were no longer soldiers. It hurt John to look at them. Fhajad sat in a wheelchair, shaking uncontrollably. Kirk and René were in neutral-buoyancy gel tanks, breathing through respirators; their bones had been so twisted they no longer looked human. There were others, still alive, but with injuries so critical they could not be moved.

Orderlies pushed Fhajad and the other injured toward the elevator.

John strode toward them and stopped, blocking their path. “Stand fast, Crewman,” he demanded. “Where are you taking my men?”

The orderly halted and his eyes widened. He swallowed and then said, “I, sir... I have my orders, sir.”

“Squad Leader,” Mendez called out. “A moment.”

“Stay,” John told the orderly, and marched to face Chief Mendez. “Yes, sir.”

“Let them go,” Mendez said quietly. “They can’t fight anymore. They don’t belong here.”

John inadvertently glanced at the view screen and the long line of canisters as they shrank in the distance. “What will happen to my men?”

“The Navy takes care of its own,” Mendez replied, and lifted his chin a little higher. “They may no longer be the fastest or the strongest soldiers—but they still have sharp minds. They can still plan missions, analyze data, troubleshoot ops ...”

John exhaled a sigh of relief. “That’s all any of us ask for, sir: a chance to serve.” He turned to face Fhajad and the others. He snapped to attention and saluted. Fhajad managed to raise one shaking arm and return the salute.

The orderlies wheeled them away.

John looked at what remained of his squad. None of them had moved since the memorial ceremony. They were waiting for their next mission.

“Our orders, sir?” John asked.

“Two days full bed rest, Squad Leader. Then microgravity physical therapy aboard the Atlas until you recover from the side effects of your augmentation.”

Side effects. John flexed his hand. He was clumsy now. Sometimes he could barely walk without falling. Dr. Halsey had assured him that these “side effects” were a good sign. “Your brain must relearn how to move your body with faster reflexes and stronger muscles,” she told him. But his eyes hurt, and they bled a little in the morning, too. He had constant headaches. Every bone in his body ached.

John didn’t understand any of this. He only knew that he had a duty to perform—and now he feared he wouldn’t be able to. “Is that all, sir?” he asked Mendez.

“No,” the Chief replied. “Déjà will be running your squad through the dropship pilot simulator as soon as they are up to it. And,” he added, “if they are up for the challenge, she wanted to cover some more organic chemistry and complex algebra.”

“Yes, sir,” John replied, “we’re up to the challenge.”

“Good.”

John continued to stand fast.

“Was there something else, Squad Leader?”

John furrowed his brow, hesitated, and then finally said, “I was Squad Leader. The last mission was therefore my responsibility... and members of my squad died. What did I do wrong?”

Mendez stared at John with his impenetrable black eyes. He glanced at the squad, then back to John. “Walk with me.” He led John to the view screen. He stood and watched as the last of the canisters vanished into the darkness.

“A leader must be ready to send the soldiers under his command to their deaths,” Mendez said without turning to face John. “You do this because your duty to the UNSC supersedes your duty to yourself or even your crew.”

John looked away from the view screen. He couldn’t look at the emptiness anymore. He didn’t want to think of his teammates—friends who were like brothers and sisters to him—forever lost.

“It is acceptable,” Mendez said, “to spend their lives if necessary.” He finally turned and meet John’s gaze. “It is not acceptable, however, to waste those lives. Do you understand the difference?”

“I... believe I understand, sir,” John said. “But which was it on this last mission? Lives spent? Or lives wasted?”

Mendez turned back toward the blackness of space and didn’t answer.

0430 Hours, April 22, 2525 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Carrier Atlas on patrol in the Lambda Serpentis System

John oriented himself as he entered the gym.

From the stationary corridor, it was easy to see that this section of the Atlas rotated. The constant acceleration gave the circular walls a semblance of gravity.

Unlike the other portions of the carrier, however, this section wasn’t cylindrical, but rather a segmented cone. The outer portion was wider and rotated more slowly than the narrower inner portion—simulating gravitational forces from one quarter to two gravities along the length of the gym.

There were free weights, punching and speed bags, a boxing ring, and machines to stretch and tone every muscle group. No one else was up this early. He had the place to himself.

John started with arm curls. He went to the center section, calibrated at one gee, and picked up a twenty-kilogram dumbbell. It felt wrong—too light. The spin must be off. He set the weights down and picked up a forty-kilogram set. That felt right.

For the last three weeks the Spartans had gone through a daily routine of stretching, isometric exercises, light sparring drills, and lots of eating. They were under orders to consume five high-protein meals a day. After every meal they had to report to the ship’s medical bay for a series of mineral and vitamin injections. John was looking forward to getting back to Reach and his normal routine.

There were only thirty-two soldiers left in his squad. Thirty candidates had “washed out” of the Spartan program; they died during the augmentation process. The other dozen, suffering from side effects of the process, had been permanently reassigned within the Office of Naval Intelligence.

He missed them all, but he and the others had to go on—they had to recover and prove themselves all over again.

John wished Chief Mendez had warned him. He could have prepared. Maybe that was the trick to the last mission—to learn to be prepared for anything. He wouldn’t let his guard down again.

He took a seat at the leg machine, set it to the maximum weight—but it felt too light. He moved to the high-gee end of the gym. Things felt normal again.

John worked every machine, then moved to a speed bag, a leather ball attached to the floor and ceiling by a thick elastic band. There were only certain allowed frequencies at which the bag could be hit, or it gyrated chaotically.

His fist jabbed forward, cobra-quick, and struck. The speed bag moved, but slowly, like it was underwater... far too slowly considering how hard he had hit it. The tension on the line must be turned way down.

He twanged the line and it hummed. It was tight.

Was everything broken in this room?

He pulled a pin from the locking collar on the bench press. John walked to the center section—supposedly one gee. He held the pin a meter off the deck and dropped it. It clattered on the deck.

It looked as if it had fallen normally... but somehow it also looked slow to John.

He set the timer on his watch and dropped the pin again. Forty-five-hundredths of a second.

One meter in about a half second. He forgot the formula for distance and acceleration, so he ran through the calculus and rederived the equation. He even did the square root.

He frowned. He had always struggled with math before.

The answer was a gravitational acceleration of nine point eight meters per second squared. One standard gee.

So the room was rotating correctly. He was out of calibration.

His experiment was cut short. Four men entered the gym. They were out of uniform, wearing only shorts and boots. Their heads were cleanly shaven. They were all heavily muscled, lean, and fit. The largest of the four was taller than John. Scars covered one side of his face.

John could tell they were Special Forces—Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. The ODSTs had the traditional tattoos burned onto their arms: DROP JET JUMPERS and FEET FIRST INTO HELL.

“Helljumpers”—the infamous 105th. John had overheard mess hall chatter about them. They had a reputation for success... and for brutality, even against fellow soldiers.

John gave them a polite nod.

They just brushed past him and started on the high-gravity free weights. The largest ODST lifted the bar of the bench press. He struggled and the bar wavered unsteadily. The iron plates on the right end slid off and fell to the deck. The opposite end of the bar tilted, and he dropped the weight, almost crushing his spotter’s foot.

Startled by the noise, John jumped up.

“What the—” The big ODST stood and glared at the locking collar that had slipped off. “Someone took the pin.” He growled and turned to John.

John picked up the pin. “The error was mine,” he said and stepped forward. “My apologies.”

The four ODSTs moved as one toward John. The big guy with the scars stood a hand’s breadth away from John’s nose. “Why don’t you take that pin and shove it, meat?” he said, grinning. “Or better yet, maybe I should make you eat it.” He nodded to his friends.

John only knew three ways to react to people. If they were his superior officers, he obeyed them. If they were part of his squad, he helped them. If they were a threat, he neutralized them.

So when the men surrounding him moved... he hesitated.

Not because he was afraid, but because these men could have fallen into any of John’s three categories. He didn’t know their rank. They were fellow servicemen in the UNSC. But, at the moment, they didn’t seem friendly.

The two men flanking him grabbed John’s biceps. The one behind him tried to slip an arm around his neck.

John hunched his shoulders and tucked his chin to his chest so he couldn’t be choked. He whipped his right elbow over the hand holding him, pinned it to his side, and then straight punched the man and broke his nose.

The other three reacted, tightening their grips and stepping closer—but like the dropped pin, they moved slowly.

John ducked and slipped out of the unsuccessful headlock. He spun free, breaking the grasp of the man on his left at the same time.

“Stand down!” A booming voice echoed across the gym.

A sergeant stepped into the gym and strode toward them. Unlike Mendez, who was fit and trim and was always serious, this man’s stomach bulged over his belt, and he looked bemused.

John snapped to attention. The others stood there and continued to glare at John.

“Sarge,” the man with the bleeding nose said. “We were just—”

“Did I ask you a question?” the Sergeant barked.

“No, Sergeant!” the man replied.

The Sergeant eyed John, then the ODSTs. “You’re all so eager to fight, get in the ring and go to it.”

“Sir!” John said. He went to the boxing ring, slipped through the ropes, and stood there waiting.

This was starting to make sense. It was a mission. John had received orders from a superior officer, and the four men were now targets.

The big ODST pushed through the ropes and the others gathered to watch. “I’m going to rip you to pieces, meat,” he grunted through clenched teeth.

John sprang off his back foot and launched his entire weight behind his first strike. His fist smashed into the man’s wide chin. John’s left hand followed and impacted on the soldier’s jaw.

The man’s hands came up; John stepped in, pinned one of the man’s arms to his chest, and followed through with a hook to his floating ribs. Bones broke.

The man staggered back. John took a short step, brought his heel down on the man’s knee. Three more punches and the man was against the ropes... then he stopped moving, his arm and leg and neck tilted at unnatural angles.

The three other men moved. The one with the bloody nose grabbed an iron bar.

John didn’t need orders this time. Three attackers at once—he had to take them out before they surrounded him. He might be faster, but he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.

The man with the iron bar swung a vicious blow at John’s ribs; John sidestepped, grabbed the man’s hand, and clamped it to the bar. He twisted the bar and crushed the bones of his attacker’s wrist.

John snapped a side kick toward the second man, caught him in the groin, crushing the soft organs and breaking his target’s pelvis.

John pulled the bar free—whipped around and caught the third man in the neck, hitting him so hard the ODST was propelled over the ropes.

“At ease, Number 117,” Chief Petty Officer Mendez barked.

John obeyed and dropped the bar. Like the pin, it seemed to take too long for the impromptu weapon to hit the deck.

The ODSTs lay crumpled on the ground, either unconscious or dead.

Mendez, at the far end of the gym, strode toward the boxing ring.

The Sergeant stood with his mouth open. “Chief Mendez, sir!” He snapped a crisp salute. “What are you—” He turned to John, his eyes widened, and he murmured, “He’s one of them, isn’t he?”

“Medics are on their way,” Mendez said calmly. He stepped closer to the Sergeant. “There are two intel officers waiting for you in Ops. They’ll debrief you ... ” He stepped back. “I suggest you report to them immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant said. He almost ran out of the gym. He looked once over his shoulder at John; then he moved even faster.

“Your workout is over for today,” Mendez told John.

John saluted and left the ring.

A team of medics entered with stretchers and rushed toward the boxing ring.

“Permission to speak, sir?” John said.

Mendez nodded.

“Were those men part of a mission? Were they targets or teammates?”

John knew that this had to be some sort of mission. The Chief had been too close for it to be a coincidence.

“You engaged and neutralized a threat,” Mendez replied. “That action seems to have answered your question, Squad Leader.”

John wrinkled his forehead as he thought it through. “I followed the chain of command,” he said. “The Sergeant told me to fight. I was threatened and in imminent danger. But they were still UNSC Special Forces. Fellow soldiers.”

Mendez lowered his voice. “Not every mission has simple objectives or comes to a logical conclusion. Your priorities are to follow the orders in your chain of command, and then to preserve your life and the lives of your team. Is that clear?”

“Sir,” John said. “Yes, sir.” He glanced back at the ring. Blood was seeping into the canvas mat. John had an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He hit the showers and let the blood rinse off him. He felt strangely sorry for the men he had killed.

But he knew his duty—the Chief had even been unusually verbose in order to clarify the matter. Follow orders and keep himself and his team safe. That’s all he had to focus on. John didn’t give the incident in the gym another thought.

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 put my 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 thirty-millimeter 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.

“Show me that again,” Dr. Halsey said unbelievingly. “You recorded all that, didn’t you?”

“Of course.” Mendez tapped a button but the monitors played back—static. “Damn it. They got to the cameras, too,” he muttered, impressed. “Every time we find a new place to hide them, they disable the recording devices.”

Dr. Halsey leaned against the glass wall staring at the carnage below. “Very well, Chief Mendez, what else do I need to know?”

“Your Spartans can run at bursts of up to fifty-five KPH,” he explained. “Kelly can run a little faster, I think. They will only get quicker as they adjust to the ‘alterations’ we’ve made to their bodies. They can lift three times their body weight—which, I might add, is almost double the norm due to their increased muscle density. And they can virtually see in the dark.”

Dr. Halsey pondered this new data. “They should not be performing so well. There must be unexplained synergistic effects brought on by the combined modifications. What are their reaction times?”

“Almost impossible to chart. We estimate it at twenty milliseconds,” Mendez replied. He shook his head, then added, “I believe it’s significantly faster in combat situations, when their adrenaline is pumping.”

“Any physiological or mental instabilities?”

“None. They work like no team I’ve ever seen before. Damn near telepathic, if you ask me. They were dropped in these caves yesterday, and I don’t know where they got black suits or the rope that for that maneuver, but I can guarantee they haven’t left this room. They improvise and improve and adapt.

“And,” he added, “they like it. The tougher the challenge, the harder the fight... the better their morale becomes.”

Dr. Halsey watched as the first trainer stirred and struggled to get out of his inert armor. “They might as well have been killed,” she murmured. “But can the Spartans kill, Chief? Kill on purpose? Are they ready for real combat?”

Mendez looked away and paused before he spoke. “Yes. If we ordered them to, they would kill quite efficiently.” His body stiffened. “May I ask what ‘real combat’ you mean, ma’am?”

She clasped her hands and wrung them nervously. “Something has happened, Chief. Something ONI and the Admiralty never expected. The brass wants to deploy the Spartans. They want to test them in a real combat mission.”

“They’re as ready for that as I can make them,” Mendez said. He narrowed his dark eyes. “But this is far ahead of your schedule. What happened? I’ve heard rumors there was some heavy action near Harvest colony.”

“Your rumors are out-of-date, Chief,” she said, and a chill crept into her voice. “There’s no more fighting at Harvest. There is no more Harvest.”

Dr. Halsey punched the descent button, and the observation room slowly lowered to the floor.

“Get them out of this hole,” she said crisply. “I want them ready to muster at 0400. We have a briefing at 0600 tomorrow aboard the Pioneer. We’re taking them on a mission ONI has been saving for the right crew and the right time. This is it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mendez replied.

“Tomorrow we see if all the pain they’ve been through has been worth it.”

CHAPTER NINE

0605 Hours, September 12, 2525 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Destroyer Pioneer, en route to Eridanus System

John and the other Spartans stood at ease.

The briefing room aboard the UNSC Destroyer Pioneer 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—take no 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 Parabola-class freighter appeared.

“Although we don’t know the location of the rebel base, we believe they receive periodic shipments from Eridanus Two. The independent freighter Laden 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, the Pioneer 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 the Pioneer 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 the Laden 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 the Pioneer 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.”

CHAPTER TEN

1210 Hours, September 14, 2525 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Eridanus 2 space dock, civilian Cargo Ship, Laden (registry number F-0980W)

“Spartan 117: in position. Next check-in at 0400.” John clicked off the microphone, encrypted the message, and fed it into his COM relay. He triggered a secure burst transmission to the Athens, the ONI prowler ship on station a few AUs distant.

He and his teammates climbed onto the upper girders. In silence, the team rigged a web of support nets so they could rest in relative comfort. Below them lay a hundred thousand liters of black water, and surrounding them, two centimeters of stainless steel. Sam rigged the fill sensor so the reservoir’s computer wouldn’t let any more water flow into the storage tank. The lights in their helmets cast a pattern of crossing and crisscrossing reflection lines.

A perfect hiding spot—all according to plan, John thought, and allowed himself a small grin of triumph. The tech specs that ONI had procured on the Laden showed a number of hydroponic pods mounted around the ship’s carousel system—the massive water tanks used gravity feed to irrigate the ship’s space-grown crops.

Perfect.

They had easily slipped past the lone guard in the Laden’s main cargo bay and into the nearly deserted center section. The water tank would mask their thermal signatures, and block any motion sensors.

The only risky element entered the picture if the center section stopped spinning... things could get very messy inside the tank, very fast. But John doubted that would happen.

Kelly set up a tiny microwave relay outside the top hatch. She propped her data pad on her stomach and linked to the ship’s network. “I’m in,” she reported. “There’s no AI or serious encryption... accessing their system now.” She tapped the pad a few more times and activated the intrusion software—the best that ONI could provide. A moment later the pad pulsed to indicate success.

“They’ve got a nav trajectory to the asteroid belt. ETA is ten hours.”

“Good work,” John said. “Team: we’ll sleep in shifts.” Sam, Fred, and Linda snapped off their flashlights.

The tank reverberated as the Laden’s engines flared to life. The water tilted as they accelerated away from the orbital docking station.

John remembered Eridanus 2—vaguely recalled that it once was home. He wondered if his old school, his family, were still there—

He squelched his curiosity. Speculation made for a fine mental exercise, but the mission came first. He had to stay alert—or failing that, grab some sleep so he would be alert when he needed to be. Chief Mendez must have told them a thousand times: “Rest can be as deadly a weapon as a pistol or grenade.”

“I’ve got something,” Kelly whispered, and handed him her data pad.

It displayed the cargo manifest for the Laden. John scrolled down the list: water, flour, milk, frozen orange juice, welding rods, superconducting magnets for a fusion reactor... no mention of weapons.

“I give up,” he said. “What am I looking for?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Kelly replied. “The Chief smokes them.”

John flicked back through the list. There: Sweet William cigars. Next to them on the manifest was a crate of champagne, a Beta Centauri vintage. There were fast-chilled New York steaks, and Swiss chocolates. These items were stored in a secure locker. They had the same routing codes.

“Luxury items,” Kelly murmured. “I bet they’re headed straight for a special delivery to Colonel Watts or his officers.”

“Good work,” John replied. “We’ll tag this stuff and follow it.”

“Won’t be that easy,” Fred said from the darkness. He flicked on his flashlight and peered back at John. “There are a million ways this can go wrong. We’re going in without recon. I don’t like it.”

“We only have one advantage on this mission,” John said. “The rebels have never been infiltrated—they’ll feel relatively safe and won’t be expecting us. But every extra second we stay... that’s another chance for us to be spotted. We’ll follow Kelly’s hunch.”

“You questioning orders?” Sam asked Fred. “Scared?” There was a slight hint of challenge in his voice.

Fred thought for a moment. “No,” he whispered. “But this is no training mission. Our targets won’t be firing stun rounds.” He sighed. “I just don’t want to fail.”

“We’re not going to fail,” John told him. “We’ve accomplished every mission we’ve been on before.”

That wasn’t entirely true: the augmentation mission had wiped out half of the Spartans. They weren’t invincible.

But John wasn’t scared. A little nervous, maybe—but he was ready.

“Rotate sleep cycles,” John said. “Wake me up in four hours.”

He turned over and quickly nodded off to the sound of the sloshing water. He dreamed of gravball and a coin spinning in the air. John caught it and yelled, “Eagle!” as he won again.

He always won.

Kelly nudged John’s shoulder and he was instantly awake, hand on his assault rifle.

“We’re decelerating,” she whispered, and pointed her light into the water below. The liquid tilted at a twenty-degree inclination.

“Lights off,” John ordered.

They were plunged into total darkness.

He popped the hatch and snaked the fiber-optic probe—attached to his helmet—through the crack. All clear.

They climbed out, then rappelled down the back of the ten-meter-tall tank. They donned their grease-stained coveralls and removed their helmets. The black suits looked a little bulky beneath the work clothes, but the disguise would hold up to a cursory inspection. With their weapons and gear in duffel bags, they’d pass as crew... from a distance.

They crept through a deserted corridor and into the cargo bay. They heard a million tiny metallic pings as gravity settled the ship. The Laden must be docking to a spinning station or a rotating asteroid.

The cargo bay was a huge room, stacked to its ceiling with barrels and crates. There were massive tanks of oil. Automated robot forklifts scurried between rows, checking for items that might have come loose in transit.

There was a terrific clang as a docking clamp grabbed the ship.

“Cigars are this way,” Kelly whispered. She consulted her data pad, then tucked it back into her pocket.

They moved out, clinging to the shadows. They stopped every few meters, listened, and made sure their fields of fire were clear.

Kelly held up her hand and made a fist. She pointed to the secure hatch on the starboard side of the hold.

John signaled Fred and Kelly and motioned them to go forward. Fred used the lockbreaker on the door and it popped open. They entered and closed it behind them.

John, Sam, and Linda waited. There was a sudden motion and the Spartans snapped their weapons to firing positions—

A robot forklift passed down an adjacent aisle.

The massive aft doors of the cargo hold parted with a hiss. Light spilled into the hold. A dozen dockworkers dressed in coveralls entered.

John gripped his MA2B tighter. One man looked down the aisle where they crouched in the shadows. He stooped, paused—

John raised his weapon slowly, his hands steady, and sighted on the man’s chest. “Always shoot for center of mass,” Mendez had barked during weapons training. The man stood, stretched his back, and moved on, whistling quietly to himself.

Fred and Kelly returned, and Kelly opened and closed her hand, palm out—she had placed the marker.

John grabbed his helmet from his duffel bag and slipped it on. He pinged the navigation marker and saw the blue triangle flash once on his heads-up display. He returned Kelly’s thumbs-up and removed the helmet.

John stowed his helmet and MA2B and motioned for the rest of the team to do the same. They casually walked out of the Laden’s aft cargo hold and onto the rebel base.

The docking bay was hewn from solid rock. The ceiling stretched a kilometer high. Bright lights overhead effectively illuminated the place, looking like tiny suns in the sky. There were hundreds of ships docked within the cavern—tiny single craft, Mako-class corvettes, cargo freighters, and even a captured UNSC Pelican dropship. Each craft was held by massive cranes that traveled on railroad tracks. The tracks led toward a series of large airlock doors. That’s how the Laden must have gotten inside.

There were people everywhere: workers and men in crisp white uniforms. John’s first instinct was to seek cover. Every one of them was a potential threat. He wished he had his gun in hand.

He remained calm and strode among these strangers. He had to set the right example for his team. If his recent encounter with the ODSTs in the gym of the Atlas had been any indication, he knew his team wouldn’t interact well with the natives.

John made his way past dockworkers and robotic trams full of cargo and vendors selling roasted meat on sticks. He walked toward a set of double doors set in the far rock wall, marked: PUBLIC SHOWERS. He pushed through and didn’t look back.

The place was almost empty. One man was singing in the shower, and there were two rebel officers undressing near the towel dispensers.

John led his team to the most distant corner of the locker room and hunkered down on one of the benches. Linda sat with her back to them, on lookout duty.

“So far so good,” John whispered. “This will be our fallback position if everything falls apart and we get separated.”

Sam nodded. “Okay—we have a lead on how to find the Colonel. Anyone have any ideas how to get off this rock once we grab him? Back into the Laden’s water tank?”

“Too slow,” Kelly said. “We’ve got to assume that when Colonel Watt goes missing, his people are going to look for him.”

“There was a Pelican on the dock,” John said. “We’ll take it. Now let’s figure out how to operate the cranes and airlocks.”

Sam hefted his pack of explosives. “I know just the way to politely knock on those airlock doors. Don’t worry.”

Sam tapped his left foot. He only did that when he was eager to move. Fred’s hands were clenched into fists; he might be nervous, but he had it under control. Kelly yawned. And Linda sat absolutely still. They were ready.

John got his helmet, donned it, and checked the nav marker.

“Bearing 320,” he said. “It’s on the move.” He picked up his gear. “And so are we.”

They left the showers and strode through the dock, past massive drop doors and into a city. This part of the asteroid looked like a canyon carved into the rock; John could barely make out the ceiling far overhead. There were skyscrapers and apartment buildings, factories, and even a small hospital.

John ducked into an alley, slipped on his helmet, and pinpointed the blue nav marker. It overlay a cargo tram that silently rolled down the street. There were three armed guards riding in the back.

The Spartans followed at a discreet distance.

John checked his exit routes. Too many people, and too many unknowns. Were the people here armed? Would they all engage if fighting started? A few of the people gave him strange looks.

“Spread out,” he whispered to his team. “We look like we’re on a parade ground.”

Kelly stepped up her pace and pulled ahead. Sam fell behind. Fred and Linda drifted to the right and left.

The cargo tram turned and made its way slowly through a crowded street. It stopped at a building. The structure was twelve stories tall, with balconies on every floor.

John guessed these were barracks.

There were two armed guards in white uniforms at the front entrance. The three men in the tram got out and carried the crate inside.

Kelly glanced at John. He nodded, giving her the go-ahead.

She approached the two guards, smiling. John knew her smile wasn’t friendly. She was smiling because she was finally getting a chance to put her training to the test.

Kelly waved to the guard and pulled open the door. He asked her to stop and show her identification.

She stepped inside, grabbed his rifle, twisted, and dragged him inside with her.

The other guard stepped back and leveled his rifle. John sprang at him from behind, grabbed his neck and snapped it, then dragged his limp body inside.

The entry room had cinderblock walls and a steel door with a swipe-card lock. A security camera dangled limply over Kelly’s head. The guard she had dragged in lay at her feet. She was already running a cracking program on the lock, using her data pad.

John retrieved his MA2B and covered her. Fred and Linda entered and slipped out of their coveralls, then donned their helmets.

“Nav marker is moving,” Linda reported. “Mark 270, elevation ten meters, twenty... thirty-five and holding. I’d say that’s the top floor.”

Sam entered, pulled the door shut behind him, and then jammed the lock. “All clear out there.”

The inner door clicked. “Door’s open,” Kelly said.

John, Kelly, and Sam slipped out of their coveralls as Fred and Linda covered them. John activated the motion and thermal displays in his helmet. The target sight glowed as he raised his MA2B.

“Go,” John said.

Kelly pushed open the door. Linda stepped in and to the right. John entered and took the left.

Two guards were seated behind the lobby’s reception desk. Another man, without a uniform, stood in front of the desk, waiting to be helped; two more uniformed men stood by the elevator.

Linda shot the three near the desk. John eliminated the targets by the elevator.

Five rounds—five bodies hit the floor.

Fred entered and policed the bodies, dragging them behind the counter.

Kelly moved to the stairwell, opened the door, and gave the all-clear signal.

The elevator pinged and its doors opened. They all wheeled, rifles leveled... but the car was empty.

John exhaled, then motioned them to take the stairs; Kelly took point. Sam brought up the rear. They silently went up nine double flights of stairs.

Kelly halted on an upper landing. She pointed to the interior of the building, then pointed up.

John detected faint blurs of heat on the twelfth floor. They’d have to pick a better route, a way in that no one would expect.

John opened the door. There was an empty hallway. No targets.

He went to the elevator doors and pried them open. Then he turned on his black suit’s cooling elements to mask his thermal signature. The others did the same... and faded from his thermal imaging display.

John and Sam climbed up the elevator cable. John glanced down: a thirty-meter plunge into darkness. He might survive that fall. His bones wouldn’t break, but there would be internal damage. And it would certainly compromise their mission. He tightened his grip on the cable and didn’t look down again.

When they had climbed up the last three floors, they braced themselves in the corners by the closed elevator door. Kelly and Fred snaked up the cable after them. They braced in the far corners to overlap their fields of fire. Linda came up last. She climbed as far as she could, hooked her foot on a cross brace, and hung upside down.

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 older-model 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 ELEVEN

0600 Hours, November 2, 2525 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach UNSC Military Complex, planet Reach

John wondered who had died. The Spartans had been called to muster in their dress uniforms only once before: funeral detail.

The Purple Heart awarded to him after his last mission glistened on his chest. He made sure it was polished to a high sheen. It stood out against the black wool of his dress jacket. Occasionally John would look at it, and make sure it was still there.

He sat in the third row of the amphitheater and faced the center platform. The other Spartans sat quietly on the concentric rings of risers. Spotlights flicked on the empty stage.

He had been in Reach’s secure briefing chamber before. This is where Dr. Halsey had told them they were going to be soldiers. This is where his life had changed and he had been given a purpose.

Chief Mendez entered the room and marched to the center platform. He wore his black dress uniform as well. His chest was covered with Silver and Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts, the Red Legion of Honor award, and a rainbow of campaign ribbons. He had recently shaved his head.

The Spartans rose and stood at attention.

Dr. Halsey entered. She looked older to John, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth more pronounced, streaks of gray in her dark hair. But her blue eyes were as sharp as ever. She wore gray slacks, a black shirt, and her glasses hung about her neck on a gold chain.

“Admiral on deck,” Mendez announced.

They all snapped straighter.

A man ten years Dr. Halsey’s senior strode to the stage. His short silver hair looked like a steel helmet. His gait had a strange lope to it—what crewmen called “space walk”—from spending too much time in microgravity. He wore a simple, unadorned black dress UNSC uniform. No medals or campaign ribbons. The insignia on the forearm of his jacket, however, was unmistakable: the single gold star of a Rear Admiral.

“At ease, Spartans,” he said. “I’m Admiral Stanforth.”

The Spartans took their seats in unison.

Dust swirled onstage and collected into a robed figure. Its face was obscured within the shadows of its hood. John could discern no hands at the end of its sleeves.

“This is Beowulf,” Admiral Stanforth said as he gestured to the ghostly creature. Stanforth’s voice was calm, but distaste was evident on his face. “He is our AI attaché with the Office of Naval Intelligence.”

He turned away from the AI. “We have several important issues to cover this morning, so let’s get started.”

The lights dimmed. An amber sun appeared in the center of the room with three planets in close orbit.

“This is Harvest,” he said. “Population of approximately three million. Although on the periphery of UNSC-controlled space, this world is one of our more productive and peaceful colonies.”

The holographic view zoomed in on the surface of the world and showed grasslands and forests and a thousand lakes swarming with schools of fish.

“As of military calendar February 3, at 1423 hours, the Harvest orbital platform made long range radar contact with this object.”

A blurry outline appeared over the stage. “Spectroscopic analysis proved inconclusive,” Admiral Stanforth said. “The object is constructed of material unknown to us.”

A molecular absorption graph appeared on a side screen, spikes and jagged lines indicating the relative proportions of elements.

Beowulf raised a cloaked arm and the image darkened. The words CLASSIFIED—EYES ONLY appeared over the blackened data.

Admiral Stanforth shot a glare at the AI.

“Contact with Harvest,” he continued, “was lost shortly thereafter. The Colonial Military Administration sent the scout ship Argo to investigate. That ship arrived in-system on April twentieth, but other than a brief transmission to confirm their exit Slipstream position, no further reports were made.

“In response, Fleet Command assembled a battle group to investigate. The group consisted of the destroyer Heracles, commanded by Captain Veredi, as well as the frigates Arabia and Vostok. They entered the Harvest System on October seventh and discovered the following.”

The holograph of the planet Harvest changed. The lush fields and rolling hills transformed, morphing into a cratered, barren desert. Thin gray sunlight reflected off a glassy crust. Heat wavered from the surface. Isolated regions glowed red.

“This is what was left of the colony.” The Admiral paused for a moment to stare at the image, and then continued. “We assume that all inhabitants are lost.”

Three million lives lost. John couldn’t fathom the raw force it had taken to kill so many—for a moment he was torn between horror and envy. He glanced at the Purple Heart pinned to his chest and remembered his lost comrades. How did one simple bullet wound compare with so many wasted lives? He was suddenly no longer proud of the decoration.

“And this is what the Heracles battlegroup found in orbit,” Admiral Stanforth told them.

The blurry outline that was still visible, hanging in the air, sharpened into crisp focus. It looked smooth and organic, and the hull possessed an odd, opalescent sheen—it looked more like the carapace of an exotic insect than the metal hull of a spacecraft. Recessed into the aft section were pods that pulsed with a purple-white glow. The prow of the craft was swollen like the head of a whale. John thought it possessed an odd, predatory beauty.

“The unidentified vessel,” the Admiral said, “launched an immediate attack against our forces.”

Blue flashes strobed from the ship. Red motes of light then appeared along its hull. Bolts of energy coalesced into a fiery smear against the blackness of space. The deadly flashes of light impacted on the Arabia, splashed across its hull. Its meter of armor plating instantly boiled away, and a plume of ignited atmosphere burst from the breach in the ship’s hull. “Those were pulse lasers,” Admiral Stanforth explained, “and—if this record is to be believed—some kind of self-guided, superheated plasma weapon.”

The Heracles and Vostok launched salvos of missiles toward the craft. The enemy’s lasers shot half before they reached their target. The balance of the missiles impacted, detonated into blossoms of fire... that quickly faded. The strange ship shimmered with a semitransparent silver coating, which then vanished.

“They also seem to have some reflective energy shield.” Admiral Stanforth took a deep breath and his features hardened into a mask of grim resolve. “The Vostok and Arabia were lost with all hands. The Heracles jumped out of the system, but due to the damage she sustained, it took several weeks for Captain Veredi to make it back to Reach.

“These weapons and defensive systems are currently beyond our technology. Therefore... this craft is of nonhuman origin.” He paused, then added, “The product of a race with technology far in advance of our own.”

A murmur buzzed through the chamber.

“We have, of course, developed a number of first contact scenarios,” the Admiral continued, “and Captain Veredi followed our established protocols. We had hoped that contact with a new race would be peaceful. Obviously this was not the case—the alien vessel did not open fire until our task force attempted to initiate communications.”

He paused, considering his words. “Fragments of the enemy’s transmissions were intercepted,” he continued. “A few words have been translated. We believe they call themselves ‘The Covenant.’ However, before opening fire, the alien ship broadcast the following message in the clear.”

He gestured at Beowulf, who nodded. A moment later, a voice thundered from the amphitheater’s speakers. John stiffened in his seat when he heard it; the voice from the speakers sounded odd, artificial—strangely calm and formal, but laden with rage and menace.

“Your destruction is the will of the Gods... and we are their instrument.”

John was awestruck. He stood.

“Yes, Spartan?” Stanforth said.

“Sir, is this a translation?”

“No,” the Admiral replied. “They broadcast this to us in our language. We believe they used some kind of translation system to prepare the message... but it means they’ve been studying us for some time.”

John took his seat.

“As of November 1, the UNSC has been ordered to full alert,” Stanforth said. “Vice Admiral Preston Cole is mobilizing the largest fleet action in human history to retake the Harvest System and confront this new threat. Their transmission made one thing perfectly clear: they’re looking for a fight.”

Only years of military discipline kept John rooted to his seat—otherwise he would have stood up and asked to volunteer on the spot. He would have given anything to go and fight. This was the threat he and the other Spartans had been training for all their lives—he was certain of it. Not scattered rebels, pirates, or political dissidents.

“Because of this UNSC-wide mobilization,” Admiral Stanforth continued, “your training schedule will be accelerated to its final phase: Project MJOLNIR.”

He stepped away from the podium and clasped his hands behind his back. “To that end, I’m afraid I have another unpleasant announcement.” He turned to the Chief. “Chief Petty Officer Mendez will be departing us to train the next group of Spartans. Chief?”

John grabbed the edge of the riser. Chief Mendez had always been there for them, the only constant in the universe. Admiral Stanforth might as well have told him that Epsilon Eridani was leaving the Reach System.

The Chief stepped to the podium and clasped its edges.

“Recruits,” he said, “soon your training will be complete, and you will graduate to the rank of Petty Officer Second Class in the UNSC. One of the first things you will learn is that change is part of a soldier’s life. You will make and lose friends. You will move. This is part of the job.”

He looked to his audience. His dark eyes rested on each one of them. He nodded, seemingly satisfied with what he saw.

“The Spartans are the finest group of soldiers I have ever encountered,” he said. “It has been a privilege to train you. Never forget what I’ve tried to teach you—duty, honor, and sacrifice for the greater good of humanity are the qualities that make you the best.”

He was silent a moment, searching for more words. But finding none, he stood at attention and saluted.

“Attention,” John barked. The Spartans rose as one and saluted the Chief.

“Dismissed, Spartans,” Chief Mendez said. “And good luck.” He finished his salute.

The Spartans snapped down their arms. They hesitated, and then reluctantly filed out of the amphitheater.

John stayed behind. He had to talk to Chief Mendez.

Dr. Halsey spoke briefly with the Chief and the Admiral, then she and the Admiral left together. Beowulf backed toward the far wall and faded away like a ghost.

The Chief gathered his hat, spotted John, and walked to him. He nodded to the hologram of the scorched colony, Harvest, still rotating in the air. “One final lesson, Petty Officer,” he said. “What tactical options do you have when attacking a stronger opponent?”

“Sir!” John said. “There are two options. Attack swiftly and with full force at their weakest point—take them out quickly before they have a chance to respond.”

“Good,” he said. “And the other option?”

“Fall back,” John replied. “Engage in guerrilla actions or get reinforcements.”

The Chief sighed. “Those are the correct answers,” he said, “but it may not be enough to be correct this time. Sit, please.”

John sat, and the Chief settled next to him on the riser.

“There’s a third option.” The Chief turned his hat over in his hands. “An option that others may eventually consider... .”

“Sir?”

“Surrender,” the Chief whispered. “That, however, is never an option for the likes of you and me. We don’t have the luxury of backing down.” He glanced up at Harvest—a glittering ball of glass. “And I doubt that an enemy like this will let us surrender.”

“I think I understand, sir.”

“Make sure you do. And make sure you don’t let anyone else give up.” He gazed into the shadows beyond the center platform. “Project MJOLNIR will make the Spartans into something... new. Something I could never forge them into. I can’t fully explain—that damned ONI spook is still here listening—just trust Dr. Halsey.”

The Chief dug into his jacket pocket. “I was hoping to see you before they shipped me out. I have something for you.” He set a small metal disk on the riser between them.

“When you first came here,” the Chief said, “you fought the trainers when they took this away from you—broke a few fingers as I recall.” His chiseled features cracked into a rare smile.

John picked up the disk and examined it. It was an ancient silver coin. He flipped it between his fingers.

“It has an eagle on one side,” Mendez said. “That bird is like you—fast and deadly.”

John closed his fingers around the quarter. “Thank you, sir.”

He wanted to say that he was strong and fast because the Chief had made him so. He wanted to tell him that he was ready to defend humanity against this new threat. He wanted to say that without the Chief, he would have no purpose, no integrity, and no duty to perform. But John didn’t have the words. He just sat there.

Mendez stood. “It has been an honor to serve with you.” Instead of saluting, he held out his hand.

John got to his feet. He took the Chief’s hand and they shook. It took a great deal of effort—every instinct screamed at him to salute.

“Good-bye,” Chief Mendez said.

He turned briskly on his heel and strode from the room.

John never saw him again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

1750 Hours, November 27, 2525 (Military Calendar)

UNSC frigate Commonwealth en route to the UNSC Damascus Materials Testing Facility, planet Chi Ceti 4

The view screen in the bunkroom of the UNSC frigate Commonwealth 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 word Mjolnir 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 needed something to fight the Covenant.

If it was a weapon, though, why was it here at the Damascus testing facility, on the very edge of UNSC-controlled 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 mean we 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.

The Commonwealth stabilized on her new heading, and Dr. Halsey crossed her arms. She leaned over and whispered to John, “We’ll be using the Commonwealth’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. “Before they 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 the Commonwealth 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 the Commonwealth’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 the Commonwealth.

“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 the Commonwealth 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!”

The Commonwealth 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 the Commonwealth 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 the Commonwealth’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 the Commonwealth’s main weapon. It fired a super-dense 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 the Commonwealth.

“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 the Commonwealth 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 the Commonwealth 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 lightning-bright... 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 I will 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. The Commonwealth 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 the Commonwealth, 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!”

The Commonwealth 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. The Commonwealth 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. The Commonwealth 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 the Commonwealth.

“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. The Commonwealth 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 engage anything 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.”

The Commonwealth 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 the Commonwealth 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 weapons can 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 THIRTEEN

1845 Hours, November 27, 2525 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Damascus Materials Testing Facility, planet Chi Ceti 4

How far down was the testing facility? John and the other Spartans had been confined to a freight elevator for fifteen minutes, and the entire time it had been rapidly descending into the depths of Chi Ceti 4.

The last place John wanted to be was in another confined space.

The doors finally slid open, and they emerged in what appeared to be a well-lit hangar. The far end had an obstacle course set up with walls, trenches, dummy targets, and barbed wire.

Three technicians and at least a dozen AI figures were busy in the center of the room. John had seen AIs before—one at a time. Déjà had once told the Spartans that there were technical reasons why AIs couldn’t be in the same place at the same time, but here were many ghostly figures: a mermaid, a samurai warrior, and one made entirely of bright light with comets trailing in her wake.

Dr. Halsey cleared her throat. The technicians turned—the AIs vanished.

John had been so focused on the holograms that he hadn’t noticed the forty Plexiglas mannequins set up in rows. On each was a suit of armor.

The armor reminded John of the exoskeletons he had seen during training, but much less bulky, more compact. He stepped closer to one and saw that the suit actually had many layers; the outer layer reflected the overhead lights with a faint green-gold iridescence. It covered the groin, outer thighs, knees, shins, chest, shoulders, and forearms. There was a helmet and an integrated power pack—much smaller than standard Marine “battery sacks.” Underneath were intermeshed layers of matte-black metal.

“Project MJOLNIR,” Dr. Halsey said. She snapped her fingers and an exploded holographic schematic of the armor appeared next to her.

“The armor’s shell is a multilayer alloy of remarkable strength. We recently added a refractive coating to disperse incoming energy weapon attacks—to counter our new enemies.” She pointed inside the schematic. “Each battlesuit also has a gel-filled layer to regulate temperature; this layer can reactively change in density. Against the skin of the operator, there is a moisture-absorbing cloth suit, and biomonitors that constantly adjust the suit’s temperature and fit. There’s also an onboard computer that interfaces with your standard-issue neural implant.”

She gestured and the schematic collapsed so that it only displayed the outer layers. As the image changed, John glimpsed veinlike microcapillaries, a dense sandwich of optical crystal, a circulating pump, even what looked like a miniature fusion cell in the backpack.

“Most importantly,” Dr. Halsey said, “the armor’s inner structure is composed of a new reactive metal liquid crystal. It is amorphous, yet fractally scales and amplifies force. In simplified terms, the armor doubles the wearer’s strength, and enhances the reaction speed of a normal human by a factor of five.”

She waved her hand through the hologram. “There is one problem, however. This system is so reactive that our previous tests with unaugmented volunteers ended in—” She searched for right word. “—failure.” She nodded to one of the technicians.

A flat video appeared in the air. It showed a Marine officer, a Lieutenant, being fitted with the MJOLNIR armor. “Power is on,” someone said from offscreen. “Move your right arm, please.”

The soldier’s arm blurred forward with incredible speed. The Marine’s stoic expression collapsed into shock, surprise, and pain as his arm shattered. He convulsed—shuddered and screamed. As he jerked in pain John could hear the sounds of bones breaking.

The man’s own agony-induced spasms were killing him.

Halsey waved the video away. “Normal humans don’t have the reaction time or strength required to drive this system,” she explained. “You do. Your enhanced musculature and the metal and ceramic layers that have been bonded to your skeleton should be enough to allow you to harness the armor’s power. There has been... insufficient computer modeling, however. There will be some risk. You’ll have to move very slowly and deliberately until you get a feel for the armor and how it works. It cannot be powered down, nor can the response be scaled back. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” the Spartans answered.

“Questions?”

John raised his hand. “When do we get to try them, Doctor?”

“Right now,” she said. “Volunteers?”

Every Spartan raised a hand.

Dr. Halsey allowed herself a tiny smile. She surveyed them, and finally, she turned to John.

“You’ve always been lucky, John,” she said. “Let’s go.”

He stepped forward. The technicians fitted him as the others watched and the pieces of the MJOLNIR system were assembled around his body. It was like a giant three-dimensional puzzle.

“Please breathe normally,” Dr. Halsey told him, “but otherwise remain absolutely still.”

John held himself as motionless as he could. The armor shifted and melded to the contours of his form. It was like a second skin... and much lighter than he had thought it would be. It heated, then cooled—then matched the temperature of his body. If he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t have known he was encased.

They set the helmet over his head.

Health monitors, motion sensors, suit status indicators pulsed into life. A targeting reticle flickered on the heads-up display.

“Everyone move back,” Halsey ordered.

The Spartans—from their expressions, they were concerned for him, but still intensely curious—cleared a ring with a radius of three meters around him.

“Listen carefully to me, John,” Dr. Halsey said. “I just want you to think, and only think, about moving your arm up to chest level. Stay relaxed.”

He willed his arm to move, and his hand and forearm sprang forward to chest level. The slightest motion translated his thought to motion at lightning speed. It had been so fast—if he hadn’t been attached to his arm, he might have missed that it had happened at all.

The Spartans gasped.

Sam applauded. Even lightning-fast Kelly seemed impressed.

Dr. Halsey slowly coached John through the basics of walking and gradually built up the speed and complexity of his motions. After fifteen minutes he could walk, run, and jump almost without thinking of the difference between suit motion and normal motion.

“Petty Officer, run through the obstacle course,” Dr. Halsey said. “We will proceed to fit the other Spartans. We don’t have a great deal of time left.”

John snapped a salute without thinking. His hand bounced off his helmet and a dull ache throbbed in his hand. His wrist would be bruised. If his bones hadn’t been reinforced, he knew they would have been pulverized.

“Carefully, Petty Officer. Very carefully, please.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

John focused his mind on motion. He leaped over a three-meter-high wall. He punched at concrete targets—shattering them. He threw knives, sinking them up to their hafts into target dummies. He slid under barbed wire as bullets zinged over his head. He stood, and let the rounds deflect off the armor. To his amazement, he actually dodged one or two of the rounds.

Soon the other Spartans joined him on the course. Everyone ran awkwardly through the obstacles, though they had no coordination. John expressed his worries to Dr. Halsey. “It will come to you soon enough. You’ve already received some subliminal training during your last cryo sleep—” Dr. Halsey told them, “—now all you need is time to get used to the suits.”

More worrisome to John was the realization that they’d have to learn how to work together all over again. Their usual hand signals were too exaggerated now—a slight wave or tremble translated into full-force punches or uncontrolled vibrations. They would have to use the COM channels for the time being.

As soon as he thought of this, his suit tagged and monitored the other MJOLNIR suits. Their standard-issue UNSC neural chip—implanted in every UNSC soldier at induction—identified friendly soldiers and displayed them on their helmet HUDs. But this was different—all he had to do was concentrate on them, and a secure COM channel opened. It was extremely efficient.

And much to his relief, after drilling for thirty minutes, the Spartans had recovered all of their original group coordination, and more.

On one level, John moved the suit and, in return, it moved him. On another level, however, communication with his squad was so easy and natural, he could move and direct them as if they were an extension of his body.

Over the hangar’s speakers, the Spartans heard Dr. Halsey’s voice: “Spartans, so far so good. If anyone is experiencing difficulties with the suit or its controls, please report in.”

“I think I’m in love,” Sam replied. “Oh—sorry, ma’am. I didn’t think that was an open channel.”

“Flawless amplification of speed and power,” Kelly said. “It’s like I’ve been training in this suit for years.”

“Do we get to keep them?” John asked.

“You’re the only ones who can use them, Petty Officer. Who else could we give them to? We—” A technician handed her a headset. “One moment, please. Report, Captain.”

Captain Wallace’s voice broke over the COM channels. “We have contact with the Covenant ship, ma’am. Extreme range. Their Slipspace engines must still be damaged. They are moving toward us via normal space.”

“Your repair status?” she asked.

“Long-range communications inoperable. Slipstream generators offline. MAC system destroyed. We have two fusion missiles and twenty Archer missile pods intact. Armor plating is at twenty percent.” There was a long hiss of static. “If you need more time... I can try and draw them away.”

“No, Captain,” she replied, and carefully scrutinized John and the other armored Spartans. “We’re going to have to fight them... and this time we have to win.”

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 the Commonwealth. 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 the Commonwealth.”

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 the Commonwealth.

“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 the Commonwealth 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 get inside 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 the Commonwealth.”

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 the Commonwealth... 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. The Commonwealth 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 near-invisible, 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 turret as 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 the Commonwealth’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 the Commonwealth.

“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 armor-piercing 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 the Commonwealth... 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.