The Flood

CHAPTER EIGHT

D+58:36:31 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock)

Pelican Echo 419, approaching Covenant arms cache

Echo 419’s engines roared as the Pelican descended through the darkness and rain into the swamp. The surrounding foliage whipped back and forth in response to the sudden turbulence, the water beneath the transport’s metal belly was pressed flat, and the stench of rotting vegetation flooded the aircraft’s cargo compartment as the ramp splashed into the evil-looking brew below.

Foehammer was at the controls and it was her voice that came over the radio. “The last transmission from the Captain’s ship was from this area. When you locate Captain Keyes, radio in and I’ll come pick you up.”

The Master Chief stepped down off the ramp and immediately found himself calf-deep in oily-looking water. “Be sure to bring me a towel.”

The pilot laughed, fed more fuel to the engines, and the ship pushed itself up out of the swamp. In the three hours since she had plucked the Spartan off the top of the pyramid, he’d scarfed a quick meal and a couple hours of sleep. Now, as Foehammer dropped her passenger into the muck, she was glad to be an aviator. Ground-pounders worked too damn hard.

Keyes floated in a vacuum. A gauzy white haze clouded his vision, though he could occasionally make out images in lightning-fast bursts – a nightmare tableau of misshapen bodies and writhing tentacles. A muted gleam of light glinted from some highly polished, engraved metal. In the distance, he could hear a droning buzz. It had an odd, musical quality, like Gregorian chant slowed to a fraction of its normal speed.

He realized with a start that the images were from his own eyes. The knowledge brought back a flood of memory – of his own body. He struggled, and realized in mounting horror that he could just barely feel his own arms. They seemed softer somehow, as if filled with a spongy, thick liquid.

He couldn’t move. His lungs itched, and the effort of breathing hurt.

The strange droning chant suddenly sped into an insect buzz, painfully echoing through his consciousness. There was something... distant, something definitively other about the sound.

Without warning, a new image flashed across his mind, like images on a video screen.

The sun was setting over the Pacific, and a trio of gulls wheeled overhead. He smelled salt air, and felt gritty sand between his toes.

He felt a sickening sensation, a feeling of indescribable violation, and the comforting image vanished. He tried to remember what he was seeing, but the memory faded like smoke. All he could feel now was a sense of loss. Something had been taken from him... but what?

The insistent buzz returned, painfully loud now. He could sense tendrils of awareness – hungry for data – wriggling through his confused mind like diseased maggots. A host of new images filled him.

...the first time he killed another human being, during the riots on Charybdis IX. He smelled blood, and his hands shook as he holstered the pistol. He could feel the heat of the weapon’s barrel...

...the pride he felt after graduating at the Academy, then a hitch – as if a bad holorecord was being scrolled back – then a knot in his gut. Fear that he wouldn’t be able to meet the Academy’s standards...

...the sickening smell of lilacs and lilies as he stood over his father’s coffin...

Keyes continued to float, mesmerized by the parade of memories that began to pile on him, each one appearing faster than the last. He drifted through the fog. He didn’t notice, or indeed care, that as soon as the bursts of memory ended, they disappeared entirely.

The strange otherness receded from his awareness, but not entirely. He could still sense the other probing him, but he ignored it. The next burst of memory passed... then another... then another...

The Chief checked his threat indicator, found nothing of concern, and allowed the swamp to close in around him. “Make friends with your environment.” That’s what Chief Mendez had told him many years ago – and the advice had served him well. By listening to the constant patter of the rain, feeling the warm humid air via his vents, and seeing the shapes natural to the swamp, the Spartan would know what belonged and what didn’t. Knowledge that could mean the difference between life and death.

Satisfied that he was attuned to the environment around him, and hopeful of gaining a better vantage point, he climbed a slight rise. The payoff was immediate.

The Pelican had gone in less than sixty meters from the spot where Echo 419 had dropped him off – but the surrounding foliage was so thick Foehammer had been unable to see the crash site from the air.

The Chief moved in to inspect the wreckage. Judging from appearances, and the fact that there weren’t many bodies lying around, the ship had crashed during takeoff, rather than on landing. The impression was confirmed when he discovered that while they were dressed in fatigues, all of the casualties wore Naval insignia.

That suggested that the dropship had landed successfully, discharged all of its Marine passengers, and was in the process of lifting off when a mechanical failure or enemy fire had brought the aircraft down.

Satisfied that he had a basic understanding of what had taken place, the Chief was about to leave when he spotted a shotgun lying next to one of the bodies, decided it might come in handy, and slipped the sling over his right shoulder.

He followed a trail of bootprints away from the Pelican and toward the glow of portable work lights – the same kind of lights he’d seen in the area around the Truth and Reconciliation. The aliens were certainly industrious, especially when it came to stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down.

As if to confirm his theory regarding Covenant activity in the area, it wasn’t long before the Spartan came across a second wreck, a Covenant dropship this time, bows down in the swamp muck. Aside from swarms of moth-like insects and the distant chirp of swamp birds, there were no signs of life.

Cargo containers were scattered all around the crash site, which raised an interesting question. When the transport nosed in, were the aliens trying to deliver something, weapons perhaps, or taking material away? There was no way to be certain.

Whatever the case, there was a strong likelihood that Keyes had been attracted to the lights, just as he had, followed them to the crash site, and continued from there.

With that in mind, he swung past a tree that stood on thick, spider-like roots, followed a trail up over a rise, and spotted a lone Jackal. Without hesitation, he snapped the assault rifle to his shoulder and brought the alien down with a burst.

He crouched, waiting for the inevitable counterattack – which never came. Curious. Given the lights, the crash site, and the scattering of cargo modules, he would have expected to run into more opposition.

A lot more.

So where were they? It didn’t make sense. Just one more mystery to add to his growing supply.

The rain pattered against the surface of his armor, and swamp water sloshed around his boots as the Master Chief pushed his way through some foliage and suddenly came under fire. For one brief moment it seemed as if his latest question had been answered, that Covenant forceswere still in the area, but the opposition soon proved to be little more than a couple of hapless Jackals, who, upon hearing the sound of gunfire, had come to investigate. As usual they came in low, crouching behind their shields, so it was almost impossible to score a hit from directly in front of them.

He shifted position, found a better angle, and fired. One Jackal went down, but the other rolled, and that made it nearly impossible to hit him. The Spartan held his fire, waited for the alien to come to a stop, and cut him down.

He worked his way up the side of a steep slope, and Chief spotted a Shade sited on top of the ridge. It commanded both slopes, or would have, had someone been at the controls. He paused at the top of the ridge and considered his options. He could jump on the Shade, hose the ravine below, and thereby let everyone know that he had arrived, or slip down the slope, and try to infiltrate the area more quietly.

The Chief settled on the second option, started down the slope in front of him, and was soon wrapped in mist and moist vegetation. Not too surprisingly, some red dots appeared on the Spartan’s threat indicator. Rather than go around the enemy, and expose his six, the Master Chief decided to seek them out. He slung the MA5B and drew out the shotgun – better suited for close-up work. He pumped the slide, flicked off the safety, and moved on.

Broad variegated leaves caressed his shoulders, vines tugged at the barrel of the shotgun, and the thick half-rotten humus of the jungle floor gave way under the Chief’s boots as he made his way forward.

The Grunt perhaps heard a slight rustling, debated whether to fire, and was still in the process of thinking it over when the butt of the shotgun descended on his head. There was a solid thump! as the alien went down, followed by two more, as more methane breathers rushed to investigate.

Satisfied with his progress so far, the Spartan paused to listen. There was the gentle patter of rain on wide, welcoming leaves, and the constant sound of his own breathing, but nothing more.

Confident that the immediate perimeter was clear, the Master Chief turned his attention to the Forerunner complex that loomed off to his right. Unlike the graceful spires of other installations, this one appeared squat and vaguely arachnid.

He crept down onto the flat area immediately in front of it. He decided that the entrance reminded him of a capital A, except that the top was flat, and was bracketed by a pair of powerful floodlights.

Was this what Keyes had been looking for? Something caught his eye – a pair of twelve-gauge shotgun shells, and a carelessly discarded protein bar wrapper, tossed near the entrance.

Once through the door he came across a half dozen Covenant bodies lying in a pool of commingled blood. Struck once again by the absence of serious opposition, the Master Chief knelt just beyond the perimeter established by the blood, and peered at the bodies.

Had the Marines killed them? No, judging from the nature of their wounds it appeared as if the aliens had been hosed with plasma fire. Friendly fire perhaps? Humans armed with Covenant weapons? Maybe, but neither explanation really seemed to fit.

Perplexed, he stood, took a long, slow look around, and pushed deeper into the complex. In contrast with the swamp outside, where the constant drip, drip, drip of the rain served to provide a constant flow of sound, it was almost completely silent within the embrace of the thick walls. The sudden sound of machinery startled him, and he spun and brought the shotgun to bear.

Summoned by some unknown mechanism, a lift surfaced right in front of him. With nowhere else to go, the Master Chief stepped aboard.

As the platform carried him downward a group of overlapping red blobs appeared on his threat indicator, and the Spartan knew he was about to have company. There was a screech of tortured metal as the lift came to a stop, but rather than rush him as he expected them to, the blobs remained stationary.

They had heard the lift many times before, the Chief reasoned, and figured it was loaded with a group of their friends. That suggested Covenant, stupid Covenant.

His favorite kind, in fact – apart from the dead kind.

Careful to avoid the sort of noise that might give him away, he completed a full circuit of the dimly lit room, and discovered that the blobs were actually Grunts and Jackals, all of whom were clustered around a hatch.

The Chief suppressed a grin, slung the shotgun, and unlimbered the assault rifle.

Their punishment for not guarding the lift consisted of a grenade, followed by forty-nine rounds of automatic fire, and a series of shorter bursts to finish them off.

The hatch opened onto a large four– or five-story-high room. The Master Chief found himself on a platform along with a couple of unsuspecting Jackals. He immediately killed them, heard a reaction from the floor below, and moved to the right. A quick peek revealed a group of seven or eight Covenant, milling around as if waiting for instructions.

The noncom dropped an M9 HE-DP calling card into their midst, took a step back to avoid getting hit by the resulting fragments, and heard a loud wham! as the grenade detonated. There were screams, followed by wild firing. The Spartan waited for the volume of fire to drop off and moved forward again. A series of short controlled bursts was sufficient to silence the last Covenant soldiers.

He jumped down off the platform to check the surrounding area.

Still looking for clues as to where Keyes might have gone, the Master Chief conducted a quick sweep of the room. It wasn’t long before he picked up some plasma grenades, circled a cargo container, and came across the bodies.

Two Marines, both killed by plasma fire, their weapons missing.

He cursed under his breath. The fact that both dog tags had been taken suggested that Keyes and his team had run into the Covenant just as he had, taken casualties, and pushed on.

Certain he was on the right trail, the Spartan crossed the trough-like depression that split the room in two, and was forced to step over and around a scattering of Covenant corpses as he approached the hatch. Once through the opening he negotiated his way through a series of rooms, all empty, but painted with Covenant blood.

Finally, just as he was beginning to wonder if he should turn back, he entered a room and found himself face-to-face with a fear-crazed Marine. His eyes jerked from side to side, as if seeking something hidden within the shadows, and his mouth was twisted into a horrible grimace. There was no sign of the soldier’s assault weapon, but he had a pistol, which he fired at a shadow in the corner. “Stay back! Stay back! You’re not turning me into one of those things!”

The Master Chief raised a hand, palm out. “Put the weapon down, Marine... we’re on the same side.”

But the Marine wasn’t having any of that, and pressed his back against the solidity of the wall. “Get away from me! Don’t touch me, you freak! I’ll die first!”

The pistol discharged. The Spartan felt the impact as the 12.7mm slug rocked him back onto his heels, and decided that enough was enough.

Before the Marine had time to react, the Chief snatched the M6D out of his hand. “I’ll take that,” he growled. The Marine leaped to his feet, but the Chief planted his feet and gently but firmly shoved the soldier back to the floor.

“Now,” he said, “where is Captain Keyes, and the rest of your unit?”

The private turned fierce, his features contorted, spittle flying from his lips. “Find your own hiding place!” he screamed. “The monsters are everywhere! God, I can still hear them! Just leave me alone.”

“What monsters?” the Spartan asked gently. “The Covenant?”

“No! Not the Covenant. Them!”

That was all the Spartan could get from the crazed Marine. “The surface is back that way,” the Master Chief said, pointing toward the door. “I suggest that you reload this weapon, quit wasting ammo, and head topside. Once you get there hunker down and wait for help. There’ll be a dust-off later on. Do you read me?”

The Private accepted the weapon, but continued to blather. A moment later he curled into a fetal ball, whimpered, then fell silent. The man would never make it out alone.

One thing was clear from the Marine’s ramblings. Assuming that Keyes and his troops were still alive, they were in a heap of trouble. That left the Chief with little choice; he had to put the greatest number of lives first. The young soldier had clearly been through the wringer – but he’d have to wait for help until the Master Chief completed his mission.

Slowly, reluctantly, he turned to investigate the rest of the room. The remains of a badly shattered ramp led up over a small fire toward the walkway on the level above. He felt heat wash around him as he stepped over a dead Elite, took comfort from the fact that the body had been riddled with bullets, and made his way up onto a circular gallery. From there, the Master Chief proceeded through a series of doorways and mysteriously empty rooms, until he arrived at the top of a ramp where a dead Marine and a large pool of blood caused him to pause.

He had long ago learned to trust his instincts – and they nagged at him now. Something felt wrong. It was quiet, with only a hollow booming sound to disturb the otherwise perfect silence. He was close to something, he could feel it, but what?

The Chief descended the ramp. He arrived on the level spot at the bottom, and saw the hatch to his left. Weapon at the ready, he cautiously approached the metal barrier.

The door sensed his presence, slid open, and dumped a dead Marine into his arms.

The Spartan felt his pulse quicken, as he bent slightly to catch the body before it crashed into the ground. He held the MA5B one-handed and covered the room beyond as best he could, searching for a target. Nothing.

He stepped forward, then spun on his heel and pointed the gun back the way he’d come.

Damn it, it felt like eyes bored into the back of his head. Someone was watching him. He backed into the room, and the door slid shut.

He lowered the body to the ground, then stepped away. The toe of his boot hit some empty shell casings which rolled away. That’s when he realized that there were thousands of empties – so many that they very nearly carpeted the floor.

He noticed a Marine helmet, and bent to pick it up. A name had been stenciled across the side. JENKINS.

A vid cam was attached, the kind worn by the typical combat team so they could critique the mission when they returned to base, feed data to the ghouls in Intelligence, and on occasions like this one, provide investigators with information regarding the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

The Spartan removed the camera’s memory chip, slotted the device into one of the receptacles on his own helmet, and watched the playback via a window on his HUD.

The picture was standard quality – which meant pretty awful. The night-vision setting was active, so everything was a sickly green, punctuated by white flares as the camera panned across a light source.

The picture bounced and jostled, and intermittent spots of static marred the image. It was pretty routine stuff at first, starting with the moment the doomed dropship touched down, followed by the trek through the swamp, and their arrival in front of the A-shaped structure.

He spooled ahead, and the video became more ominous after that, starting with the dead Elite, and growing even more uncomfortable as the team opened the final door and went inside. Not just any door, but the same door through which the Master Chief had passed only minutes before, only to have a dead Marine fall into his arms.

He was tempted to kill the video, back his way through the hatch, and scrub the mission, but he forced himself to continue watching as one of the Marines said something about a “...bad feeling.” A badly garbled radio transmission came in, odd rustling noises were heard, a hatch gave way, and hundreds of fleshy balls rolled, danced, and hopped into the room.

That was when the screaming started, when the Master Chief heard Keyes say that they were “surrounded,” and saw the picture jerk as something hit Jenkins from behind, and the video snapped to black.

For the first time since parting company with the AI back in the Control Room, he wished that Cortana were with him. First, because she might understand what the hell was going on, but also because he had come to rely on her company, and suddenly felt very much alone.

However, even as one aspect of the Spartan’s mind sought comfort, another part had directed his body to back toward the hatch, and was waiting to hear the telltale sound as it opened. But the door didn’t open, something which the Master Chief knew meant trouble. It caused a rock to form at the bottom of his gut.

As he stood there, gripped by a growing sense of dread, he saw a flash of white from the corner of his eye. He turned to face it, and that was when he saw one, then five, twenty, fifty of the fleshy blobs dribble into the room, pirouette on their tentacles, and dance his way. His motion sensor painted a sudden blob of movement – speeding closer by the second.

The Spartan fired at the ugly-looking creatures. Those which were closest popped like air-filled balloons, but there were more, many more, and they rolled toward him over the floor and walls. The Spartan opened up in earnest, the obscene-looking predators threw themselves forward, and the battle was joined.

It was dark outside. Only one mission had been scheduled for that particular night, and it had returned to the butte at 02:36 arbitrary. That meant the Navy personnel assigned to the Control Center didn’t have much to do, and were busy playing a round of cards when the wall-mounted speakers burped static, and a desperate voice was heard.“This is Charlie 2-1-7, repeat 217, to any UNSC forces... Does anyone copy? Over.”

Com Tech First Class Mary Murphy glanced at the other two members of her watch and frowned. “Has either one of you had previous contact with Charlie 217?”

The techs looked at each other and shook their heads. “I’ll check with Wellsley,” Cho said, as he turned toward a jury-rigged monitor.

Murphy nodded and keyed the boom-style mike that extended in front of her lips. “This is UNSC Combat Base Alpha. Over.”

“Thank God!” the voice said fervently. “We took a hit after clearing the Autumn, put down in the boonies, and managed to make some repairs. I’ve got wounded on board – and request immediate clearance to land.”

Wellsley, who had been busy fighting a simulation of the battle of Marathon, materialized on Cho’s screen. As usual, the image that he chose to present was that of a stern-looking man with longish hair, a prominent nose, and a high-collared coat. “Yes?”

“We have a Pelican, call sign Charlie 217, requesting an emergency landing. None of us have dealt with him before.”

The AI took a fraction of a second to check the myriad of data stored within his considerable memory and gave a curt nod. “There was a unit designated as Charlie 217 on board the Autumn. Not having heard from 217 since we abandoned ship, and not having received any information to the contrary, I assumed the ship was lost. Ask the pilot to provide his name, rank, and serial number.”

Murphy heard and nodded. “Sorry, Charlie, but we need some information before we can clear you in. Please provide name, rank and serial number. Over.”

The voice that came back sounded increasingly frustrated. “This is First Lieutenant Rick Hale, serial number 876-544-321. Give me a break, I need clearance now. Over.”

Wellsley nodded. “The data matches... but how would Hale know that Alpha Base even existed?”

“He could have picked up our radio traffic,” Cho offered.

“Maybe,” the AI agreed, “but let’s play it safe. I recommend you bring the base to full alert, notify the Major, and send the reaction force to Pad Three. You’ll need the crash team, the emergency medical team, and some people from Intel all on deck. Hale should be debriefed before he’s allowed to mix with base personnel.”

The third tech, a Third Class Petty Officer named Pauley, slapped the alarm button, and put out the necessary calls.

“Roger that,” Murphy said into her mike. “You are cleared for Pad Three, repeat, Pad Three, which will be illuminated two minutes from now. A medical team will meet your ship. Safe all weapons and cut power the moment you touch down. Over.”

“No problem,” Hale replied gratefully. Then, a few moments later, “I see your lights. We’re coming in. Over.”

The pilot keyed his mike off and turned to his co-pilot. Bathed in the green glow produced by the ship’s instrument panel, the Elite looked all the more alien. “So,” the human inquired, “how did I do?”

“Extremely well,” Special Operations Officer Zuka ’Zamamee said from behind the pilot’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

And with that ’Zamamee dropped what looked like a circle of green light over Hale’s head, pulled the handles in opposite directions, and buried the wire in the pilot’s throat. The human’s eyes bulged, his hands plucked at the garrote, and his feet beat a tattoo against the control pedals.

The Elite who occupied the co-pilot’s position had already taken control of the Pelican and, thanks to hours of practice, could fly the dropship extremely well.

’Zamamee waited until the kicking had stopped, released the wire, and smelled something foul. That’s when the Elite realized that Hale had soiled himself. He gave a grunt of disgust, and returned to the Pelican’s cargo compartment. It was crammed with heavily armed Elites, trained for infiltration. They carried camouflage generators, along with their weapons. Their job was to take as many landing pads as possible, and hold them until six dropships loaded with Grunts, Jackals, and more Elites could land on the mesa.

The troops saw the officer appear and looked expectant.

“Proceed,” ’Zamamee said. “You know what to do. Turn on the stealth generators, check your weapons, and remember this moment. Because this battle, this victory, will be woven into your family’s battle poem, and sung by generations to come.

“The Prophets have blessed this mission, have blessed you, and want every soldier to know that those who transcend the physical will be welcomed into paradise. Good luck.”

A blur of lights appeared out of the darkness, the dropship shed altitude, and the warriors murmured their final benedictions.

Like most AIs, Wellsley had a pronounced tendency to spend more time thinking about what he didn’t have rather than what he did, and sensors were at the very top of his list. The sad truth was that while McKay and her company had recovered a wealth of supplies from the Autumn, there had been insufficient time to strip the ship of the electronics that would have given the AI a real-time, all-weather picture of the surrounding air space. That meant he was totally reliant on the data provided by remote ground sensors which the patrols had planted here and there around the butte’s ten-kilometer perimeter.

All of the feeds had been clear during the initial radio contact with Charlie 217, but now, as the Pelican flared in to land, the package in Sector Six started to deliver data. It claimed that six heavy-duty heat signatures had just passed overhead, that whatever produced them was fairly loud, and that they were inbound at a speed of approximately 350 kph.

Wellsley reacted with the kind of speed that only a computer is capable of – but the response was too late to prevent Charlie 217 from putting down. Even as the AI made a series of strongly worded recommendations to his human superiors, the Pelican’s skids made contact with Pad 3’s surface, thirty nearly invisible Elites thundered down the ramp, and the men and women of Alpha Base soon found themselves fighting for their lives.

One level down, locked into a room with three other Grunts, Yayap heard the distant moan of an alarm, and thought he knew why. ’Zamamee had been correct: The human who wore the strange armor, and was believed to be responsible for more than a thousand Covenant casualties, did frequent this place. Yayap knew that because he had seen the soldier more than six units before, triggered the transmitter hidden inside his breathing apparatus, and thereby set the raid in motion.

That was the good news. The bad news was that ’Zamamee’s quarry might very well have left the base during the intervening period of time. If so, and the mission was categorized as a failure, the Grunt had little doubt as to who would receive the blame. But there was nothing Yayap could do but grip the crudely welded bars with his hands, listen to the distant sounds of battle, and hope for the best.

At this point, “the best” would likely be a quick, painless death.

All the members of the crash team, half the medics, and a third of the reaction team were already dead by the time McKay had rolled out of her rack, scrambled into her clothes, and grabbed her personal weapons. She followed the crowd up to the landing area to find that a pitched battle was underway.

Energy bolts seemed to stutter out of nowhere, plasma grenades materialized out of thin air, and throats were slit by invisible knives. The landing party had been contained, but just barely, and threatened to break out across the neighboring pads.

Silva was there, naked from the waist up, shouting orders as he fired short bursts from an assault weapon. “Flood Pad Three with fuel! But keep it inside the containment area. Do it now!”

It was a strange order, and civilians would have balked, but the soldiers reacted with unquestioning obedience and a Naval rating ran toward the Pad 3 refueling station. He flipped the safety out of the way, and grabbed hold of the nozzle.

The air seemed to shimmer in the floodlit area off to the sailor’s right, and Silva fired a full clip into what looked like empty air. A commando Elite screamed, seemed to strobe on and off as his camo generator took a direct hit, and folded at the waist.

Undeterred, and unaware of his close call with death, the rating turned, gave the handgrip a healthy squeeze, and sent a steady stream of liquid out onto the surface of Pad 3. A Covenant work crew had been forced to build a curb around the area during the days immediately after the butte had been taken. The purpose of the barrier was to contain fuel spills, and it worked well, as the high-octane fuel crept in around the Pelican’s skids and wet the area beyond.

“Get back!” Silva shouted, and rolled a fragmentation grenade in under Charlie 217’s belly. There was an explosion followed by a loud whump! as the fuel went up and the rating shut off the hose.

The general effect was to turn those Elites who remained on the pad into shimmering torches – screaming, dancing torches. The response was immediate as the Marines opened fire, put the commandos down, and were then forced to turn their efforts to fire fighting. Charlie 217 was fully involved by that time, and shuddered as the fuel in one of her tanks blew.

But there were other Pelicans to protect and while some had lifted off, others remained on their pads.

Silva turned to McKay. “Show time,” the Major said, as Wellsley spoke into his ear. “This was little more than a warm-up, no pun intended. The real assault force is only five minutes out. Six Covenant dropships, if Wellsley has it right. They can’t land here, so they’ll put down out on the mesa somewhere. I’ll handle the pads – you take the mesa.”

McKay nodded, said, “Yes, sir,” and spotted Sergeant Lister and waved him over. The noncom had a squad of her Marines in tow. “Round up the rest of my company, tell them to dig in up-spin of the landing pads, and get ready to handle an attack from the mesa. Let’s give the bastards a warm reception.”

Lister tossed a glance at the raging fires and grinned at McKay’s unintentional pun. “Yes, ma’am!” he said and trotted away.

Elsewhere, out along the butte’s irregularly shaped rim, the commandeered Shade emplacements opened fire. Pulses of bright blue energy probed the surrounding blackness, found the first ship, and cut the night into slices.

’Zamamee and a file of five commando Elites had already cleared the landing pad by the time the humans flooded Pad 3 with fuel. In fact, the Elite officer wasn’t even on the surface of the Forerunner installation during the ensuing inferno – he and his commandos were already one level down, moving from room to room, slaughtering every human they could find. There had been no sign of the one enemy soldier they wanted most, but it was early yet, and he could be around the next corner.

Murphy had just taken the safeties off the 50mm MLA autocannons, and delegated control to Wellsley, when she felt something brush her shoulder. The petty officer started to turn, saw blood spray, and realized that it belonged to her. An Elite produced a deep throaty chuckle as both Cho and Pauley met similar fates. The Control Room was neutralized.

But Wellsley witnessed the murders via the camera mounted over the main video monitor, killed the lights, and notified Silva. Within a matter of minutes six three-person fire teams, all equipped with heat-sensitive night-vision goggles, were busy working their way down through the maze-like complex. The Covenant’s camo generators didn’t block heat, they actually generated it, and that put both sides on an even footing.

In the meantime, thanks to a dead officer’s personal initiative, Wellsley had a 50mm surprise waiting for the incoming dropships. Though effective against Banshees, the Shades lacked the power necessary to knock a dropship out of the sky, something the Covenant had clearly known in advance.

But, just as an Elite couldn’t withstand fifty rounds of 7.62mm armor-piercing ammo, the enemy transports proved vulnerable to the 50mm high explosive shells that suddenly blasted their way. Not only that, but the fifties were computer-controlled – which was to say Wellsley controlled, which meant that nearly every round went exactly where it was supposed to.

Control had been delegated too late for the AI to nail the first dropship, but the second was right where he wanted it to be. It exploded as a dozen rounds of HE went off inside the fuselage. Ironically, the compartments that held the troops preserved most of their lives so they could die when the aircraft hit the foot of the butte.

But there were only two of the guns, one to the west, and one to the east, which meant that the surviving transports were safely through the eastern MLA’s field of fire before the AI could fire on them. Still, the destruction of that single ship had reduced the assault force by one sixth, which struck Wellsley as an acceptable result.

Machine-generated death stabbed the top of the mesa as the Covenant dropships made use of their plasma cannons to strafe the landing zone. A fire team was caught out in the open and cut to shreds even as a barrage of shoulder-fired rockets lashed up to meet the incoming transports. There were hits, some of which inflicted casualties, but none of the enemy aircraft was destroyed.

Then, hovering like obscene insects, the U-shaped dropships turned down-ring, and spilled troops out their side slots, scattering them like evil seeds across the top of the mesa. McKay did the mental math. Five remaining transports, times roughly thirty troops each, equaled an assault force of about one hundred and fifty troops.

“Hit ’em!” Lister shouted. “Kill the bastards before they can land!”

The response was a steady crack! crack! crack! as the company’s snipers opened fire, and Elites, Grunts, and Jackals alike tumbled to the ground dead.

But there were plenty left – and McKay steeled herself against the coming assault.

The lights had gone off for reasons that the Grunt could only guess at, a factor which added to the fear he felt. Unable to do anything more, Yayap listened to the muffled sounds of battle, and wondered which side to root for. He didn’t like being a prisoner but was starting to wonder if he wouldn’t be better off with the humans. For a while at least, until–

A blob of light appeared, slid down the opposite wall, crossed the floor, and found its way into the cell. “Yayap? Are you in there?”

There were other lights now, and the Grunt saw the air shimmer in front of him. It was ’Zamamee! Much to Yayap’s amazement, the Elite had kept his word and actually come looking for him. Realizing that the breathing apparatus made it difficult for others to tell his kind apart, the Grunt pushed his face up against the bars.

“Yes, Excellency, I am here.”

“Good,” the Elite said. “Now stand back so we can blow the door.”

All of the Grunts in the cell retreated to the back of the room while one of the commandos attached a charge to the door lock, backed away, and made use of a remote to trigger it. There was a small flash of light, followed by a subdued bang! as the explosive was detonated. Hinges squeaked as Yayap pushed the gate out of the way.

“Now,” ’Zamamee said eagerly, “lead us to the human. We’ve been through most of the complex, but haven’t run into him yet.”

So, Yayap thought to himself, the only reason you came looking for me was to find the human. I should have known. “Of course, Excellency,” the Grunt replied, surprised by his own smoothness. “The aliens captured some of our Banshees. The human was assigned to guard them.”

Yayap expected ’Zamamee to challenge the claim, to ask how he knew, but the Elite took him at his word. “Very well,” ’Zamamee replied. “Where are the aircraft kept?”

“Up on the mesa,” Yayap answered truthfully, “west of the landing pads.”

“We will lead the way,” the Elite said importantly, “but stay close. It would be easy to become lost.”

“Yes, Excellency,” the Grunt replied, “whatever you say.”

Unable to land on or near the pads as originally planned, Field Master ’Putumee had been forced to drop his assault team on the area up-spin of the Forerunner complex. That meant that his troops would have to advance across open ground, with very little cover, and without benefit of heavy weapons to clear the way.

The wily field officer had a trick up his sleeve, however. Rather than release the dropships, he ordered them to remain over the LZ, and strafe the ground ahead of his steadily advancing troops. It wasn’t what the transports had been designed for, and the pilots didn’t like it, but so what? ’Putumee, who saw all aviators as little more than glorified chauffeurs, wasn’t especially interested in how they felt.

So, the U-shaped dropships drifted down toward the human fortifications, plasma cannons probing the ground below, while volleys of rockets lashed upward, exploding harmlessly against their flanks.

The field officer, who advanced along with the second rank of troops, waved his Jackals forward as the humans were forced to pull out of their firing pits, and withdraw to their next line of defense.

’Putumee paused next to one of the now empty pits and looked into it. Something about the excavation bothered him, but what? Then he had it. The rectangular hole was too neat, too even, to have been dug during the last half unit. What other preparations had the aliens made, the officer wondered?

The answer came in a heartbeat. McKay said, “Fire!” and the Scorpion’s gunner complied. The tank lurched under the officer’s feet as the shell left the main gun and the hull started to vibrate as the machine gun opened up. The explosion, about six hundred meters downrange, erased an entire file of Grunts. The other MBT, one of two which Silva had ordered his battalion to bring topside, fired two seconds later. That round killed an Elite, two Jackals, and a Hunter.

Marines cheered and McKay smiled. Though doubtful that the Covenant would try to put troops on the mesa, the Major was a careful man, which was why he ordered the Helljumpers to dig firing pits up-ring of the installation, and create bunkers for the tanks.

Now, firing with their barrels nearly parallel to the ground, the MBTs were in the process of turning the area in front of them into a moonscape as each shell threw half a ton of soil up into the air, and carved craters out of the plateau.

Unbeknownst to McKay, or any other human, for that matter, the third shell to roar down range blew Field Master ’Putumee in half. The assault continued, but more slowly now, as lower-ranked Elites assumed command, and tried to rally their troops.

Though pursuing his own sub-mission, ’Zamamee had been monitoring the command net, and knew that the assault had stalled. It was only a matter of time before the dropships would be ordered to swoop in, pick up those who could crawl, walk, or run to them, and leave for safer climes.

That meant that he should be pulling out, looking for a way to slip through the human lines, but the session with the Prophet continued to haunt him. His best chance, no, his only chance, was to find the human and kill him. He would keep his head, all would be forgiven, and who knew? A lot of Elites had been killed – so there might be a promotion in the offing.

Thus reassured, he drove ahead.

The commandos were up on the first level by then, just approaching a door to the outside, when one of three waiting Marines saw a line of green blobs start to pass the alcove in which he was hiding, and opened fire.

There was complete pandemonium as the humans ran through clip after clip of ammunition, Grunts were blown off their feet, Elites fired in every direction, and soon started to fall.

’Zamamee felt his plasma rifle cycle open as it attempted to cool itself, and knew he was about to die, when a plasma grenade sailed in among the humans and locked onto a human soldier’s arm. He yelled, “No!” but it was already too late, and the explosion slaughtered the entire fire team.

Yayap, who had appropriated both the grenade and a pistol from one of the dead commandos, tugged on ’Zamamee’s combat harness. “This way, Excellency... Follow me!”

The Elite did. The Grunt led the officer out through a door, down a walkway, and onto the platform where ten Banshees stood in an orderly row. There were no guards. ’Zamamee looked around. “Where is he?”

Yayap shrugged. “I have no idea, Excellency.”

’Zamamee felt a mixture of anger, fear, and hopelessness as a dropship passed over his head and disappeared down-spin. The entire effort had been a failure.

“So,” he said harshly, “you lied to me. Why?”

“Because you know how to fly one of these things,” the Grunt answered simply, “and I don’t.”

The Elite’s eyes seemed to glow as if lit from within. “I should shoot you and leave your body for the humans to throw off the cliff.”

“You can try,” Yayap said as he pointed the plasma pistol at his superior’s head, “but I wouldn’t advise it.” It took all the courage the Grunt could muster to point his weapon at an Elite – and his hand shook in response to the fear he felt. But not much, not enough so that an energy bolt would miss, and ’Zamamee knew it.

The Elite nodded. Moments later, a heavily loaded Banshee wobbled off the ground, slipped over the edge of the butte, and immediately began to lose altitude. A Shade gunner caught a glimpse of it, and sent three bursts of plasma racing after the assault craft, but the Banshee was soon out of range.

The battle for Alpha Base was over.

The Spartan fired into what seemed like a tidal wave of tentacled horrors, backed away, and resolved to keep moving. He was vulnerable, in particular from behind, but the armor would help, especially since the monsters liked to jump on people.

What happened next wasn’t clear, but could make Marines scream, and put them out of action in a relatively short period of time. Ammo would be a concern, he knew that, so rather than fire wildly, he forced himself to aim, trying to pop as many of the things as he could.

They came at him in twos, threes, and fours, flew into fleshy bits as the bullets ripped them apart and seemed to melt away. The problem was that there were hundreds of the little bastards, maybe thousands, which made it difficult to keep up as they flooded in his direction.

There were strategies, though, things the Chief could do to help even the odds, and they made all the difference. The first was to run, firing as he went, stretching their ragged formation thin, forcing them to skitter from one end of the room to the other. They were numerous and determined, but not particularly bright.

The second was to watch for breakouts, concentrations of the creatures where a well-thrown grenade could destroy hundreds of them all at once.

And the third was to switch back and forth between the assault weapon and the shotgun, thereby maintaining a constant rate of fire, only pausing to reload when there was a momentary lull in the fighting.

These strategies suddenly became even more critical as something new leaped out of the darkness. A mass of tattered flesh and swinging limbs lashed at his head. During the first moments of the attack the Chief wondered if a corpse had somehow fallen on him from above, but soon learned the truth, as more of the horribly misshapen creatures appeared and hurled themselves forward. Not just ran, but vaulted high into the air, as if hoping to crush him under their weight.

The creatures were roughly humanoid, hunchbacked figures that looked partially rotted. Their limbs seemed to be stretched to the breaking point. Clusters of tentacles protruded from ragged holes in the skin.

They were susceptible to bullets, however, something for which the Chief was thankful, although it often took fifteen or twenty rounds to put one down for good. Strangely, even the live ones looked like they were dead, which on reflection the Master Chief was starting to believe they were. That would explain why some of the ugly sons of bitches had a marked resemblance to Covenant Elites, or to what an Elite would look like if you killed him, buried the body, and dug it up two weeks later.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, two of the reanimated Elites barged in through the hatch, and were promptly put down. That provided the Chief with an opportunity to escape.

There were more of the two-legged freaks right on his tail, though, along with a jumble of the tumbling, leaping swarms of spherical creatures, and it was necessary to scrub the entire lot of them with auto fire before he could disengage and slip through a door.

The Spartan found himself on the upper gallery of a large, well-lit room. It was packed with the bipedal, misshapen creatures, but none seemed to be aware of him. He intended to keep it that way, and slid silently along the right-hand wall to a hatch.

A short journey brought the Chief to a similar space where what looked like full-fledged battle was underway between Covenant troops and the new hostiles.

The Spartan briefly considered engaging the targets – there was certainly no shortage of them. He held his fire instead, and lingered behind a fallen cargo module. After a hellish battle, the combatants had annihilated one another, which left him free to cross the bridge that led to the far end back along the walkway, and exit via the side door.

Another of the hunchbacked creatures dropped from above and slammed into him. The Spartan staggered back, dipped, and hurled the monster back over his shoulder. It crunched into the wall and left a trail of mottled gray-green, viscous fluid as it slid to the floor.

The Master Chief turned to continue on, when his motion sensor flickered red – illuminating a contact right behind him. He spun and was startled to see the crumpled, badly damaged creature struggle to its feet. Its left arm dangled uselessly and brittle bone protruded from its pale, gangrenous flesh.

The thing’s right arm was still functional, however. A twisting column of tentacles burst from the creature’s right wrist and he could hear the bones inside break as they forced its right hand roughly aside.

The tentacle flashed out, cracked like a whip and hurled the Master Chief to the floor. His shields were almost completely drained from the single blow.

He rolled into a crouch and opened fire. The 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds nearly cut the monster in half. He kicked the fallen hostile, put two in its chest. This time, the damn thing should stay dead, he thought.

He moved farther along the hallway. Two Marines lay where they had fallen, proving that at least some of the second squad had managed to get this far, which opened the possibility that more had escaped as well.

The Master Chief checked, discovered that they still wore their dog tags, and took them. He crept through the wide galleries and narrow corridors, past humming machinery and entered a dark, gloomy vault. His motion tracker flashed crimson warnings – he was in Hostile Central.

Another of the misshapen bipedal hostiles shambled by, and he recognized the shape of the creature’s head – the long, angular snout of an Elite faced him. What held his fire was where the head was located.

The alien’s skull was canted at a sickening angle, as if the bones of its neck had been softened or liquefied. It hung limply down the creature’s back, lifeless – like a limb that needed amputation.

It was as if something had rewritten the Elite, reshaped it from the inside out. The Spartan felt an unaccustomed emotion: a trill of fear. An image of helplessness – of screaming at a looming threat, powerless – flashed through his mind, a snapshot of his cryo-addled dreams aboard the Pillar of Autumn.

No way is that going to happen to me, he thought. No way.

The beast shuffled by, and moved out of sight.

He took a deep breath, exhaled, then burst from his position and charged for the center of the room. He battered aside the shambling beasts, and crushed a handful of the small spherical creatures beneath his boots. His shotgun boomed and thick, green blood splashed the floor.

He reached his objective: a large lift platform, identical to the one he’d ridden down into this hellhole. He reached for the activation panel, and hoped that he’d find the up button.

One of the hostiles leaped high in the air and landed next to him.

The Chief dropped to one knee, shoved the barrel of the shotgun into the creature’s belly and fired. The beast flipped end over end, and fell back into a clot of the smaller, round hostiles.

He dove for the activation panel, and stabbed at the controls.

The elevator platform dropped like a rock, so far down and so fast that his ears popped.

Where the hell was Cortana when you needed her? Always telling him to “go through that door,” “cross that bridge,” or “climb that pyramid.” Annoying at times, but reassuring as well.

The basement, if that’s what it was, had all the charm of a crypt. A passageway took him into another large space where he had to fight his way across the floor to a door and the tunnel-like corridor beyond. That’s when the Spartan came face-to-face with something he hadn’t seen before and would have preferred never to see again: one of the combative, bipedal beasts – this one a horribly mutated human. Though the creature was distorted by whatever had ravaged his body, the Chief recognized him nonetheless.

It was Private Manuel Mendoza, the soldier that Sergeant Johnson loved to yell at, and one of the Marines who had been with Keyes when he disappeared into this nightmare.

Though twisted by what had been done to him, the Private’s face still retained a trace of humanity, and it was that which caused the Master Chief to remove this finger from the shotgun’s trigger, and try to make contact.

“Mendoza, come on, let’s get the hell out of here. I know they did something to you but the medics can fix it.”

The reanimated Marine, now possessed of superhuman strength, struck the Chief with such force that it nearly knocked him off his feet, and triggered the suit’s alarm. Mendoza – or rather, the thing that had once been Mendoza – waved a whiplike tentacle and lashed out again. The Spartan staggered backward, pulled the trigger, and was subsequently forced to pull it again as the twelve-gauge buckshot tore what had been Mendoza apart.

The results were both spectacular and disgusting. As the corpse-like horror came apart, the Chief saw that one of the small, spherical creatures had taken up residence inside the soldier’s chest cavity, and seemed to have extended its tentacles into other parts of what had been Mendoza’s body. A third shotgun blast served to destroy it as well.

Was that how these things worked? The little round pod-things infected their hosts, and mutated the victim into some kind of combat form. He considered the possibility that this was some kind of new Covenant bio-weapon, and discarded it. The first of these combat forms he’d seen had once been Elites.

Whatever these damned things were, they were lethal to humans and Covenant alike.

He quickly fed shells into his shotgun, then moved on. The Spartan moved as fast as he could – at a dead run. He charged into another room, scrambled up onto the gallery above, blew an Elite form right out of his boots, and ducked through a waiting door.

The area on the other side was more of a challenge. The Chief had the second floor to himself, but an army of the freaks owned the floor below, and that’s where he needed to go.

Height conferred advantages. Some well-placed grenades, followed by a jump from the walkway, and sixty seconds of close-quarters action were sufficient to see him through. Still, it was a tremendous relief to pass through a completely uncontested space, and into a compartment where he found anew development to cope with.

In addition to their battering attacks, the creatures had acquired both human and Covenant weapons from their victims, and these combat forms were even more dangerous as a result. The combat forms weren’t the smartest foes he’d ever encountered, but they weren’t mindless automatons, either – they could operate machines and fire weapons.

Bullets pinged from the metal walls, plasma fire stuttered through the air, and a grenade detonated as the Master Chief cleared the area, discovered a place where some Marines had staged a last stand on top of a cargo container. He paused to recover their dog tags, scavenged some ammo, and kept on going.

Something nagged at him, but what was it? Something he’d forgotten?

It came to him all at once: He had nearly forgotten his own name.

Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.

The droning chant that had lurked at the edge of his awareness buzzed more loudly, and he felt some kind of pressure – some sense of anger.

Why was he angry?

No, something else was angry... because he’d remembered his own name?

Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.

Where was he? How did he get here? He struggled to find the memory.

He remembered parts of it now. There was a dark, alien room, hordes of some terrifying enemy, gunfire, then a stabbing pain...

They must have captured him. That was it. This might be some new trick by the enemy. He’d give them nothing. He struggled to remember who the enemy was.

He repeated the mantra in his head: Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.

The buzzing pressure increased. He resisted, though he was unsure why. Something about the drone frightened him. The sense of invasion deepened.

Is this a Covenant trick? he wondered. He tried to scream, “It won’t work. I’ll never lead you to Earth,” but couldn’t make his mouth work, couldn’t feel his own body.

As the thought of his home planet echoed through Keyes’ consciousness, the tone and tenor of the drone changed, as if pleased. He – Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK – was startled when new images played across his mind.

He realized, too late, that something was sifting through his mind, like a grave robber looting a tomb. He had never felt so powerless, so afraid...

His fear vanished in a flood of emotion as he felt the warmth of the first woman he’d ever kissed...

He tried to scream as the memory was ripped from him and discarded.

Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.

As each of the fragments of his past played out and was sucked into the void, he could feel the invader enveloping him like an ocean of evil. But, like the pieces of flotsam that remain after a ship has gone down, random pieces of himself remained, a sort of makeshift raft to which he could momentarily cling.

The image of a smiling woman, a ball spiraling through the air, a crowded street, a man with half his face blown away, tickets to a show he couldn’t remember, the gentle sound of wind chimes, and the smell of newly baked bread.

But the sea was too rough, waves crashed down on the raft, and broke it apart. Swells lifted Keyes up, others pushed him down, and the final darkness beckoned. But then, just as the ocean was about to consume him, Keyes became aware of the one thing the creature that raped his mind couldn’t consume: the CNI transponder’s carrier wave.

He reached for it like a drowning man, clutched the lifeline with all his might, and refused to let go. For here, deep within his watery grave, was a thread that led back to what he had been.

Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.

The Master Chief fired the last of his shotgun rounds into the collapsed hulk of a combat form. It twitched and lay still.

After winding through the confusion of subterranean chambers and passageways for what seemed like hours, he’d finally found a lift to the surface. He carefully tapped the activation panel – worried for a moment that this lift would also drop him deeper into the facility – and felt the lift lurch into a rapid ascent.

As the lift climbed, Foehammer’s worried voice crackled from his comm system.

“This is Echo 419. Chief, is that you? I lost your signal when you disappeared inside the structure. What’s going on down there? I’m tracking movement all over the place.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” the Master Chief replied, his voice grim, “and believe me: you don’t want to know. Be advised: Captain Keyes is missing, and is most likely KIA. Over.”

“Roger that,” the pilot replied. “I’m sorry to hear it, over.”

The lift jerked to a halt, the Spartan stepped off, and found himself surrounded by Marines. Not the shambling combat forms he’d spent the last eternity fighting, but normal, unchanged human beings. “Good to see you, Chief,” a Corporal said.

The Chief cut the soldier off. “There’s no time for that, Marine. Report.”

The young Marine gulped, then started talking. “After we lost contact we headed for the RV point, and these things, they ambushed us. Sir: Advise we get the hell out of here, ASAP.”

“That’s command thinking, Corporal,” the Chief replied. “Let’s go.”

It was a short walk up the ramp and into the rain. Strangely, and much to his surprise, it felt good to enter the stinking swamp. Very good indeed.

CHAPTER NINE

D+60:33:54 (Flight Officer Captain Rawley Mission Clock)

Pelican Echo 419, above Covenant arms cache

“There’s a large tower a few hundred meters from your current position. Find a way above the fog and foliage canopy and I can move in and pick you up,” Rawley said. Her eyes were glued to her scopes as SPARTAN-117 took the lead and the Marines left the ancient complex and entered the fetid embrace of the swamp. The rain and some kind of interference from the structure played hell with the Pelican’s detection gear, but she was damned if she was going to lose this team now. She had a reputation to maintain, after all.

“Roger that,” the Chief replied, “we’re on our way.”

She kept the Pelican circling, her eyes peeled for trouble. There was no immediate threat. That made her even more nervous. Ever since they’d made it down to the surface of the ring, trouble always seemed to strike without warning.

For the hundredth time since lifting off from Alpha Base, she cursed the lack of ammunition for the Pelicans.

Knowing the dropship was somewhere above the mist, and eager to get the hell out, the Marines forged ahead. The Spartan cautioned them to slow down, to keep their eyes peeled, but it wasn’t long before he found himself back toward the middle of the pack.

The tower Foehammer had mentioned appeared up ahead. The base of the column was circular, with half-rounded supports that protruded from the sides, probably for stability. Farther up, extending out from the column itself, were winglike platforms. Their purpose wasn’t clear, but the same could be said for the entire structure. The top of the shaft was lost in the mist.

The Master Chief paused to look around, heard one of the leathernecks yell “Contact!” quickly followed by the staccato rip of an assault weapon fired on full automatic. A host of red dots had appeared on the Spartan’s threat indicator. He saw a dozen of the spherical infection forms bounce out of the mist and knew that any possibility of containing the creatures underground had been lost.

The Pelican’s sensors suddenly painted dozens – correction, hundreds – of new contacts on the ground. Rawley cursed and wheeled the Pelican around, expecting ground fire.

No fire was directed at the dropship. “What the hell?” she muttered. First, the contacts appeared out of nowhere, charged into the open, but didn’t shoot at the air cover? Maybe the Covenant were getting stupid as well as ugly.

She hit the radio to warn the troops and winced as the muffled pop of automatic weapons fire burst from her headset. “Heads up, ground team!” she yelled. “Multiple contacts on the ground – they’re right on top of you!”

The radio squealed, then static filled her speakers. The interference worsened. She thumped the radio controls with a gloved fist. “Damn it!” she yelled.

“Uh, boss,” Frye said. “You better take a look at this.”

She glanced back at her co-pilot, followed his gaze, and her own eyes widened. “Okay,” she said, “any idea what the hell that is?”

The Chief fired short bursts from his assault weapon, popped dozens of the alien pods, and turned to confront a combat form. It was armed with a plasma pistol but chose to throw itself forward rather than fire. The Chief’s automatic weapon was actually touching the creature when he pulled the trigger. The ex-Elite’s chest opened like an obscene flower and the infection form hidden within exploded into fleshy pieces.

He heard a burst of static in his comm system. Interference whined as the MJOLNIR’s powerful communications gear tried to scrub the signal, to no avail. It sounded like Foehammer, but he couldn’t be sure.

It hovered in front of the Pelican’s cockpit for a moment, and light stabbed Rawley’s eyes. It was made from some kind of silvery metal, roughly cylindrical but with angular edges. Winglike, squarish fins shifted and slid like rudders as the device bobbed in the air. It – whatever it was – shone a bright light into the cockpit, then turned away and dropped altitude. Below her, she could see dozens of the things flying in a loose line. In seconds, they dropped below the tree line and out of sight.

“Frye,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry, “tell Chief Cullen to work the comm system and punch me a hole in this interference. I need to talk to the ground team now.”

The tide of hostiles fell back into the ankle-deep water and regrouped. A dozen exotic-looking cylindrical machines drifted out of the trees to float over the clearing. The nearest Marine yelled, “What are they?” and was about to shoot at them when the Chief raised a cautionary hand. “Hold on, Marine... let’s see what they do.”

What happened next was both unexpected and gratifying. Each machine produced a beam of energy, speared one of the hostiles, and burned it down.

Some of the combat forms took exception to this treatment, and attempted to return fire, but were soon put out of action by the combined efforts of the Marines and their newfound allies.

Despite the help, the Marines didn’t fare well. There were just too many of the hostile creatures around. The squad dwindled until a pair of PFCs remained, then one, then finally the last of the Marines fell beneath a cluster of the little infectious bastards.

As the newcomers overhead rained crimson laser fire on a cluster of the combat forms, the Chief slogged through the swamp toward the tower. High ground – and the possibility of signaling Foehammer for evac – drew him on.

He climbed a supporting strut and pulled himself onto one of the odd, leaflike terraces that ringed the tower. He had a good field of fire, and he fired a burst into a combat form that strayed too close.

He tried the radio again, but was rewarded with more static.

The Spartan heard what sounded like someone humming and turned to discover that another machine had approached him from behind. Where the other newcomers were cylindrical in design, with angular, winglike cowlings, this construct was rounded, almost spherical. It had a single, glowing blue eye, a wraparound housing, and a cheerfully businesslike manner.

“Greetings! I am the Monitor of installation zero-four. I am 343 Guilty Spark. Someone has released the Flood. My function is to prevent it from leaving this installation. I require your assistance. Come this way.”

The voice sounded artificial. This “343 Guilty Spark” was some kind of artificial construct, the Spartan realized. From above the little machine, he could see Foehammer’s Pelican moving into position.

“Hold on,” the Chief replied, trying to sound friendly. “The Flood? Those things down there are called ‘Flood’?”

“Of course,” 343 Guilty Spark replied, a note of confusion in its synthesized voice. “What an odd question. We have no time for this, Reclaimer.”

Reclaimer? The Chief wondered. He was about to ask what the little machine meant by that, but his words never came. Rings of pulsating gold light traveled the length of his body, he felt light-headed, and saw an explosion of white light.

Rawley had just gotten the Pelican into position for a run on the tower, and could see the distinctive bulk of the Spartan standing on the structure. She eased the throttle forward, and the Pelican slid ahead, and nosed toward the structure. She glanced up just in time to see the Spartan disappear in a column of gold light.

“Chief!” Foehammer said. “I lost your signal! Where did you go? Chief! Chief!”

The Spartan had vanished, and there was very little the pilot could do except pick up the Marines, and hope for the best.

Like the rest of the battalion’s officers, McKay had worked long into the night supervising efforts to restore the butte’s badly mauled defenses, ensure that the wounded received what care was available, and restore something like normal operations.

Finally, at about 0300, Silva ordered her below, pointing out that someone had to be in command at 0830, and it wasn’t going to be him.

With traces of adrenaline still in her bloodstream, and images of battle still flickering through her brain, the Company Commander found it impossible to sleep. Instead she tossed, turned, and stared at the ceiling until approximately 0430 when she finally drifted off.

At 0730, with only three hours of sleep, McKay paused to collect a mug of instant coffee from the improvised mess hall before climbing a flight of bloodstained stairs to arrive on top of the mesa. The wreckage of what had been Charlie 217 had been cleared away during the night, but a large patch of scorched metal marked the spot where the fuel had been set ablaze.

The officer paused to look at it, wondered what happened to the human pilot, and continued her tour. The entire surface of Halo had been declared a combat zone, which meant it was inappropriate for the enlisted ranks to salute their superiors lest they identify them to enemy snipers. But there were other ways to signal respect, and as McKay made her way past the landing pads and out onto the battlefield beyond, it seemed as if all the Marines wanted to greet her.

“Morning, ma’am.”

“How’s it going, Lieutenant? Hope you got some sleep.”

“Hey, skipper, guess we showed them, huh?”

McKay replied to them all and continued on her way. Just the fact that she was there, strolling through the plasma-blackened defenses with a cup of coffee in her hand, served to reassure the troops.

“Look,” one of them said as she walked past, “there’s the Loot. Cool as ice, man. Did you see her last night? Standing on that tank? It was like nothin’ could touch her.” The other Marine didn’t say anything, just nodded in agreement, and went back to digging a firing pit.

Somehow, without consciously thinking about it, McKay’s feet carried her back to the Scorpions and the point from which her particular battle had been fought. The Covenant knew about the metal behemoths now, which was why both machines were being dug out and run up onto solid ground.

The officer wondered what Silva planned to do with them, and sipped the last of her coffee before wandering onto the plateau beyond. Covenant POWs, all chained together at the ankles, were busy digging graves. One section for members of their armed forces, and one for the humans. It was a sobering sight, as were the rows of tarp-covered bodies, and all for what?

For Earth, she told herself, and the billions who would go unburied if the Covenant found them.

There was a lot to do – the morning passed quickly. Major Silva was back on duty by 1300 hours and sent a runner to find McKay. As she entered his office she saw that he was sitting behind his makeshift desk, working at a computer. He looked up and pointed to a chair salvaged from a lifeboat. “Take a load off, Lieutenant. Nice job out there. I should take naps more often! How are you feeling?”

McKay dropped into the chair, felt it adjust to fit her body, and shrugged. “I’m tired, sir, but otherwise fine.”

“Good,” Silva said, bringing his fingers together into a steeple. “Because there’s plenty of work to do. We’ll have to drive everyone hard – and that includes ourselves.”

“Sir, yes sir.”

“So,” Silva continued, “I know you’ve been busy, but did you get a chance to read the report Wellsley put together?”

A crate of small but powerful wireless computers like the one sitting on the Major’s desk had been recovered from the Autumn but McKay had yet to turn hers on. “I’m afraid not, sir. Sorry.”

Silva nodded. “Well, based on information acquired during routine debriefings, our digital friend believes that the raid was both less and more than we assumed.”

McKay allowed her eyebrows to rise. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that rather than the real estate itself, the Covies were after something, or more precisely someone they thought they would find here.”

“Captain Keyes?”

“No,” the other officer replied, “Wellsley doesn’t think so, and neither do I. A group of their stealth Elites were able to penetrate the lower levels of the complex. They killed everyone they came into contact with, or thought they did, but one tech played dead, and another was knocked unconscious. They were in different rooms but both told the same story. Once in the room, and having gained control of it, one of those commando Elites – the bastards in the black combat suits – would momentarily reveal himself. He spoke passable standard – and asked both groups the same question. ‘Where is the human with the special armor?’”

“They were after the Spartan,” McKay said thoughtfully.

“Exactly.”

“So, where is the Chief?”

“That,”Silva replied, “is a very good question. Where indeed? He went looking for Keyes, surfaced in the middle of a swamp, told Foehammer that the Captain was probably dead, and disappeared a few minutes later.”

“Think he’s dead?” McKay inquired.

“I don’t know,” Silva replied grimly, “although it wouldn’t make too much difference if he were. No, I suspect that he and Cortana are out there playing games.”

With Keyes out of the picture once more, Silva had reassumed command, and McKay could understand his frustration. The Master Chief was an asset, or would have been if he were around, but now, out freelancing somewhere, the Spartan was starting to look like a liability. Especially given how many of Silva’s troops had died in order to defend a man who wasn’t even there.

Yes, McKay could understand the Major’s frustration, but couldn’t sympathize with it. Not after seeing the Chief in that very room, his skin unnaturally white after too much time spent in his armor, his eyes filled with – what? Pain? Suffering? A sort of wary distrust?

The officer wasn’t sure, but whatever it was didn’t have anything to do with ego, with insubordination, or a desire for personal glory. Those were truths that McKay could access, not because she was a seasoned soldier, but because she was a woman, something Silva could never aspire to be. But it wouldn’t do any good to say that, so she didn’t.

Her voice was level. “So, where does that leave us?”

“Situation normal: We’re cut off and probably surrounded.” The chair sighed as Silva leaned back. “Like the old saying goes, ‘a good defense is a good offense.’ Rather than just sit around and wait for the Covenant to attack again, let’s take the hurt to them. Nothing big, not yet anyway, but the kind of pinpricks that still draw blood.”

McKay nodded. “And you want me to come up with some ideas?”

Silva grinned. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Yes, sir,” McKay said, coming to her feet. “I’ll have something by morning.”

Silva watched the Company Commander exit his office, wasted five seconds wishing he had six more just like her, and went back to work.

The Master Chief felt himself rush back together like a puzzle with a million pieces, wondered what had happened, and where he was. He felt disoriented, nauseated, and angry.

A quick look around was sufficient to ascertain that the machine named 343 Guilty Spark had somehow transported him from the swamp into the bowels of a dark, brooding structure. He saw the machine hovering high above, glowing a thin, ghostly blue.

The Spartan raised his assault weapon, and fired half a clip into it. The bullets were dead on, but had no effect other than to elicit a bemused response.

“That was unnecessary, Reclaimer. I suggest that you conserve your ammunition for the effort ahead.”

No less angry, but with little choice but to accept the situation, the Chief looked around. “So where am I?”

“The installation was specifically built to study and contain the Flood,” the machine answered patiently. “Their survival as a race was dependent on it. I am grateful to see that some of them survived to reproduce.”

“‘Survived’? ‘Reproduce’? What the hell are you talking about?” the Chief demanded.

“We must collect the Index,” Spark said, leaving the Spartan’s questions unanswered. “And time is of the essence. Please follow me.”

The blue light zipped away at that point, forcing the Chief to follow, or be left behind. He checked both his weapons as he walked. “Speaking of you, who the hell are you, and what’s your function?”

“I am 343 Guilty Spark,” the machine said, pedantically. “I am the Monitor, or more precisely, a self-repairing artificial intelligence charged with maintaining and operating this facility. But you are the Reclaimer – so you know that already.”

The Master Chief didn’t know anything of the kind, but it seemed wise to play along, so he did. “Yes, well, refresh my memory... how long has it been since you were left in charge?”

“Exactly 101,217 local years,” the Monitor replied cheerfully, “many of which were quite boring. But not anymore! Hee, hee, hee.”

The Spartan was taken aback by the sudden giggle from the small machine. He knew that the AIs humans used could, over time, develop personalities politely described as “quirky.” 343 Guilty Spark had been here for tens of thousands of years.

It was quite possible that the little AI was insane.

The Monitor chattered on, nattering about “effecting repairs to substation nine” and other non sequiturs.

His dialogue was interrupted as a variety of Flood forms bounced, waddled, and leaped out of the surrounding darkness. Suddenly the Chief was fighting for his life again, moving back and forth to stretch the enemy out, blasting anything that moved.

That was when he first identified a new Flood form. They were large misshapen things that would explode when fired upon, spewing up to a dozen infection forms in every direction, thereby multiplying the number of targets that the shooter had to track and kill.

Finally, like water turned off at a tap, the assault came to an end, and the Chief had a chance to reload his weapons.

The Monitor hovered nearby, all the while humming to himself, and occasionally giggling. “There’s no time to dawdle! We have work to do.”

“What kind of work?” the Chief inquired as he stuffed the final shell into the shotgun and hurried to follow.

“This is the Library,” the machine explained, hovering so the human could catch up. “The energy field above us contains the Index. We must get up there.”

The Spartan was about to ask, “Index? What Index?” when a combat form lurched out of an alcove and opened fire. The Chief fired in return, saw the creature fall, and saw it jump back up again. The next burst took the Flood’s left leg off.

“That should slow you down,” he said as he turned to deal with a new horde of shambling, leaping hostiles. A steady stream of brass arced away from the Chief’s assault weapon as he worked the mob over, felt something strike him from behind, and spun around to discover that the one-legged combat form had limped back into the fight.

The Spartan blew the creature’s head off this time, sidestepped to evade a charging carrier form, and shot the bulbous monster in the back. There was an explosion of green mist mixed with balloonlike infection forms and pieces of wet flesh. The next ten seconds were spent popping pods.

After that the Monitor took off again and the noncom had little choice but to follow. He soon arrived in front of a huge metal door. Built to contain the Flood perhaps? Maybe, but far from effective, since the slimy bastards seemed to be leaking out of every nook and cranny.

The Monitor hovered over the human’s head. “The security doors are locked automatically. I will go access the override to open them. I am a genius,” the Monitor said matter-of-factly. “Hee, hee, hee.”

“A pain in the ass is more like it,” the Master Chief said to no one in particular as a red blob appeared on his threat indicator, quickly joined by a half dozen more.

Then, as part of what would become a familiar pattern, combat forms leaped fifteen meters through the air, only to shrivel as the 7.62mm slugs tore them apart. Carrier forms waddled up like old friends, came apart like wet cardboard, and spewed pods in every direction. Infection forms danced on delicate legs, dodging this way and that, each hoping to claim the human as its very own.

But the Chief had other ideas. He killed the last of them just as the double doors started to part, and followed the monitor through. “Please follow closely,” 343 Guilty Spark admonished. “This portal is the first of ten.”

The Chief replied as he followed the AI past a row of huge blue screens. “More doors. I can hardly wait.”

343 Guilty Spark appeared immune to sarcasm as it babbled about the first-class research facilities that surrounded them – and blithely led its human companion into still another ambush. And so it went, as the Chief worked his way through Flood-infested galleries, subfloor maintenance tunnels, and more galleries, before rounding a corner to confront yet another group of monstrosities.

The Spartan had help this time, as a dozen of the hunter-killer machines he’d seen in the swamp appeared in the air above the scene, and attacked the Flood forms congregated below.

“These Sentinels will assist you, Reclaimer,” the Monitor trilled. Lasers hissed and sizzled as the robots struck their opponents down, and having done so, moved in to sterilize what remained.

The Spartan watched in fascination as the machines took care of the heavy lifting. He lent a helping hand when that seemed appropriate, and started to gag when the air that came through his filters grew thick with the stench of cooked flesh.

As the Spartan fought his way through the facility, the Monitor, who floated above it all, offered commentary. “These Sentinels will supplement your combat systems. But I suggest you upgrade to at least a Class Twelve Combat Skin. Your current model only scans as a Class Two – which is unsuited for this kind of work.”

If there’s a battle suit six times as powerful as MJOLNIR armor, he thought, I’ll be first in line to try it on.

He jumped to avoid an attack from one of the Flood combat forms, pressed the shotgun muzzle into its back, and blew a foot-wide hole through the creature.

Finally, after the hardworking Sentinels had reduced the Flood to little more than a lumpy paste, the Spartan made his way through the carnage and out onto a circular platform. It was enormous, easily large enough to handle a Scorpion, and in reasonably good repair.

Machinery hummed, bands of white light pulsated down from somewhere above, and the lift carried the human upward. Maybe things would be better up above, maybe the Flood hadn’t reached that level yet, he thought. He didn’t hold out much hope, however. So far, nothing else had gone right on this mission.

Deep within the recesses of Halo, Flood specimens were confined to facilitate future study, and to prevent them from escaping. Aware of the extreme danger the Flood posed, and their capacity to multiply exponentially as well as take over even advanced life forms, the ancient ones constructed the walls of their prison with great care, and trained their guards well. With nothing to feed upon, and nowhere to go, the Flood lay dormant for more than a hundred thousand years.

Then the intruders came, broke the prison open, and nourished the Flood with their bodies. With a way to escape, and food to sustain it, the tendrils of the malevolent growth slithered through the maze of tunnels and passageways that lay below Halo’s skin, and gathered wherever there was a potential route to the surface.

One such location was in a chamber located beneath a tall butte, where little more than a metal grating prevented the Flood from bursting out of its underground lair and shooting to the surface. Unbeknownst to the men and women of Alpha Base, they had a new enemy – and it lived directly below their feet.

The lift jerked to a halt. The Master Chief made his way through a narrow passageway into the gallery beyond. The Flood attacked immediately, but with no threat at his back, he was free to retreat into the corridor from which he had just come, which forced the mob of monstrosities to come at him through the same narrow channel. Before long, the bodies of the fallen Flood began to accumulate.

He paused, waiting for another wave of attackers, then shoved aside a pile of the dead and moved into the next section of the complex. They gave under his feet, made gurgling sounds, and vented foul-smelling gas. The Chief was grateful when his boots were back on solid ground again.

The Sentinels reappeared shortly thereafter and led the Spartan past a row of huge blue screens. “So, where were you bastards a few minutes ago?” the human inquired. But if the robots heard him, they made no reply as they glided, circled, and bobbed through the hallway ahead.

“Flood activity has caused a failure in a drone control system. I must reset the backup units,” 343 Guilty Spark said. “Please continue on – I will rejoin you when I have completed my task.”

The Monitor had left him on his own before – and each absence coincided with a fresh wave of Flood attackers. “Hold on,” the human protested, “let’s discuss this–” but it was too late. 343 Guilty Spark had already darted through an aperture in the wall and disappeared down some kind of travel conduit.

Sure enough, no sooner had the Monitor left than a lumpy-looking carrier form waddled out into the light, spotted its prey, and hurried to greet it. The Spartan shot the Flood form, but let the Sentinels clean up the resulting mess, while he conserved his ammo.

A fresh onslaught of Flood came out of the woodwork, and the Spartan adopted a more cautious strategy: He allowed the sentry robots to mop them up. At first, the defense machines mowed through a wave of the pod-like infection forms with little difficulty. Then more of the hostiles appeared, then more, then still more. Soon, the Chief was forced to fall back. He crushed one of the pods with his foot, smashed another out of the air with the butt of his assault rifle, and killed a dozen more with a trio of quick AR bursts.

The Monitor drifted back into the chamber, spun as if surveying the carnage, and made an odd, metallic clicking that sounded very much like a cluck of disapproval. “The Sentinels can use their weapons to manage the Flood for a short time, Reclaimer. Speed is of the essence.”

“Then let’s go,” the Master Chief growled.

The Monitor made no reply, but scooted ahead. The small construct led the Spartan deeper into the Library’s gloomy halls. They passed through a number of large open gates prior to arriving in front of one that was closed. The Chief paused for a moment, expecting that 343 Guilty Spark might open it for him, but the Monitor had disappeared. Again.

The hell with it, he thought. The little machine was rapidly draining his reserves of patience.

Determined to move ahead with or without the services of his on-again, off-again guide, the Chief retraced his steps to the point where a steeply sloping ramp emerged from below, followed it downward, and soon found himself in a maintenance corridor packed with Flood.

But the narrow confines of the passageway again made it that much easier to kill the parasitic life forms, and five minutes later the human walked up a ramp on the other side of the metal door to find that the Monitor was there, humming to himself.

“Oh, hello! I’m a genius.”

“Right. And I’m a Vice Admiral.”

The Monitor darted ahead, leading him across a circular depression to another enormous door. Machinery whirred, and the Chief was forced to pause as the doors started to part. Then he heard a clank, followed by a groan, as the movement stopped.

“Please wait here,” Spark said, and promptly vanished.

Just as the Master Chief pulled a fresh clip and rammed it home, dozens of red dots appeared on his threat indicator. He stood with his back to the door as what looked like a platoon of Flood forms prepared to rush him. Rather than simply open up on them, and risk the possibility that they might roll him under, the Chief threw a grenade into their midst, and half his opponents went up in a single blast. It took a few minutes plus a few hundred rounds of ammo to put the rest of them down, but the Spartan managed to do so.

That was when the machinery restarted, the doors opened, and the Monitor reappeared, humming to itself. “I am a genius!”

He had moved through the new chamber – a high, vaulted gallery, dimly lit with pools of gold-yellow light. For the first time since Spark had dragged him here, he had a moment of respite. Ever since entering the Library, the Spartan’s head had been on a swivel. Wave after wave of hostile creatures had attacked him from all sides.

He popped a stim-pack, downed a nutrient supplement, and gathered up his weapon. Time to move out.

As he proceeded deeper into the Library, he found a corpse – a human one. He stooped to examine the body.

It wasn’t pretty. The Marine’s body was so mangled that even the Flood couldn’t make use of him. He lay at the center of a large bloodstain wreathed by spent brass.

“Ah,” 343 Guilty Spark said, peering down over the Spartan’s shoulder. “The other Reclaimer. His combat skin proved even less suitable than yours.”

The soldier looked up over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Is this a test, Reclaimer?” the Monitor seemed genuinely puzzled. “I found him wandering through a structure on the other side of the ring, and brought him to the same point where you started.”

The Chief looked down at the body and marveled at the fact that anyone could make it that far. Even with his physical augmentation, and the advantages of his armor, the Spartan was reaching the end of his endurance.

He checked, found the leatherneck’s dog tags, and read the name. MOBUTO, MARVIN, STAFF SERGEANT, followed by a service number.

The Chief put the tags away. “I didn’t know you, Sarge, but I sure as hell wish I had. You must have been one hard-core son of a bitch.”

It wasn’t much as eulogies go, but he hoped that, had Sergeant Marvin Mobuto been there to hear it, he would have approved.

A good trap requires good bait, which was why McKay had one of the Pelicans pick up Charlie 217’s burned-out remains and drop them into the ambush site during the hours of darkness. It took three trips to transport a sufficient amount of wreckage, followed by hours of backbreaking effort to spread the pieces around in a realistic way, then position her troops in the rocks above.

Finally, just as the sun speared the area with early morning light, everything was ready. A phony distress call went out, and a specially prepared fire was lit deep within the wreckage. Scattered around the “crash site” were some “volunteers” – the bodies of comrades killed on the butte had been laid out where they could be seen from the air.

As half of the first platoon tried to get some sleep, the rest kept watch. McKay used her glasses to scan the area. The fake crash site was located between a low, flat-topped rise and a rocky hillside, covered with a jumble of large boulders. The wreckage, complete with a trickle of smoke, looked quite realistic.

Wellsley believed that having first dismissed the Marines and Naval personnel as little more than a nuisance, the enemy had since been forced to change their minds, and had started to take them more seriously. That meant monitoring human radio traffic, conducting regular recon flights, and all the other activities of modern warfare.

Assuming the AI was correct, the aliens would pick up the distress call, backtrack to the source, and send a team to check the situation out. That was the plan, at any rate, and McKay didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work.

The sun inched higher in the sky, and down among the rocks the temperature rose. The Marines took advantage of any bit of shade that they could find, though McKay was privately pleased that the customary bitching about the heat was kept to a minimum.

Thirty minutes into the wait McKay heard a sound like the whine of a mosquito and started to quarter the sky with her binoculars. It wasn’t long before she spotted a speck coming down-spin. Very quickly, the speck grew into a Banshee. She keyed her mike.

“Red One to squad three – it’s show time.”

The officer didn’t dare say more lest any Covenant eavesdroppers grow suspicious. She didn’t have to say much more, though. Her Marines knew what to do.

As the enemy aircraft came closer, members of the third squad, some of whom were made up to look as if they were injured, hurried out into the open, shaded their eyes as if watching for an incoming Pelican, pantomimed surprise as they spotted the Banshee, fired a volley of shots at it, then ran for the safety of the rocks.

The pilot sent a series of plasma bolts racing after them, circled the crash site twice, and flew off in the direction from which he had come. McKay watched it go. The hook had been set, the fish was on the line, and it would be her job to reel it in.

Half a klick away from the phony crash site, another Marine, or what had been a Marine, emerged from a subsurface air shaft, and felt the sun hit his horribly ravaged face. Well, not his face, because ever since the infection form had inserted its penetrator into his spine, Private Wallace A. Jenkins had been sharing his physical form with something he thought of as “the other.” A strange being that didn’t have any thoughts, none that the human could access, at any rate, and seemed unaware of the fact that its host still retained some cognitive and possibly motor functions.

That awareness was entirely unique to him insofar as the leatherneck could tell, because in spite of the fact that some of the bodies in the group had once belonged to his squad mates, repeated attempts to communicate with them had failed.

Now, as the untidy collection of infection forms, carrier forms, and combat forms emerged to bounce, waddle, and walk across Halo’s surface, Jenkins knew that wherever the column was headed it was for one purpose: to find and subsume sentient life. He could dimly sense the other’s yawning, icy hunger.

His goal, however, was considerably different. After it had been converted into a combat form, his body was still capable of handling a weapon. Some of the other forms had them – and that’s what Jenkins wanted more than anything. An M6D would be perfect, but an energy weapon could do the job, as would any grenade. Not for use on the Covenant, or the Flood, but on himself. Or what had been him. That’s why he’d been careful to conceal the full extent of his awareness from the other. So he had a chance of destroying the body in which he had been imprisoned and escape the horror of each waking moment.

The Flood came to a hill and, following one of the carrier forms, soon started to climb. The other, with Jenkins in tow, tagged along behind.

McKay knew the trap was going to work when one of the U-shaped dropships appeared, circled the phony crash site, and settled in for a landing. Once free of the ship the Elites, Jackals, and Grunts would be easy meat for the Marines hidden in the rocks and the snipers stationed on top of the flat-topped hill.

But war is full of surprises, and when the Covenant ship took off again, McKay found herself looking at everything she had expected to see plus a couple of Hunters. The mean-looking bastards would be hard to kill and could rip the platoon to shreds.

The officer swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat, keyed her mike, and whispered some instructions. “Red One to all snipers and rocket jockeys. Put everything you have on the Hunters. Do it now. Over.”

It was hard to say who killed the Hunters, given the sudden barrage of bullets and rockets that came their way, but McKay didn’t care, so long as the walking tanks were dead... which they definitely were. That was the good news.

The bad news was that the dropship returned, hosed the boulders with plasma fire, and forced the Helljumpers to duck or lose their heads.

Encouraged by the air support, the Covenant ground troops rushed to enter the jumble of rocks, eager to find some cover, and kill the treacherous humans. They were forced to pay a price, however, as the snipers on the hill picked off five of the alien soldiers before the dropship moved in to exact its revenge.

The Marines were forced to dive deep as the enemy aircraft marched a double line of plasma bolts across the top of the tiny mesa, killing two of the snipers and wounding a third.

Things soon started to get ugly on the rock-strewn hillside as both humans and Covenant hunted one another between the huge, weather-smoothed boulders. Energy bolts flew and assault weapons chattered, as both sides took part in a deadly game of hide-and-seek. This was not what McKay had envisioned, and she was looking for a way to disengage, when a wave of new hostiles entered the fight.

A torrent of the bizarre creatures attacked both groups from the other side of the hill. McKay had a glimpse of corpse-flesh, twisted and mangled bodies, and swarms of tiny little spheres that bounced, leaped, and climbed over the rocks.

The first problem was that while the Covenant forces seemed familiar with the creatures, the Helljumpers weren’t, and three members of the second squad had already gone down under the combined weight of multiple forms, and one member of the third had been slaughtered by a grotesque biped, before McKay understood the extent of the danger.

Even as the officer fought her way uphill through the maze of boulders the radio calls continued to boom through her earpiece.

“What the hell is that thing?”

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

“Get it off me!”

The radio traffic tripled and the command freq turned into such a confusion of screams, requests for orders, and pleas for extraction, that the Marines might as well have spoken in tongues.

McKay cursed. No way. No way were these things going to break them. No way. She rounded a boulder, saw a Grunt running downhill with two of the spherical creatures clinging to its back. The Grunt squealed and spun and she got her first close look at the creatures. A sustained burst from the assault weapon brought all three of them down.

As the Marine worked her way farther uphill, she soon discovered that the new enemy took other forms as well. McKay killed a two-legged form, saw a private put half a clip into a lumpy-looking monster, and watched in disgust as the dying creature spewed even more grotesqueries out into the world.

That was the moment when the third form emerged from between a couple of boulders, saw the human, and launched itself into the air.

Jenkins had the same view that the others did, spotted the Lieutenant, and hoped she was a good shot. This was better than suicide – this was...

But it wasn’t meant to be.

McKay tracked the incoming body, sidestepped, and used the butt of her weapon to clip the side of the creature’s head. It landed in a heap, flailed around, and was just about to jump up when the Lieutenant pounced on it. “Give me a hand!” she shouted. “I want this one alive!”

It took four Marines to subdue the creature, get restraints on both its wrists and ankles, and finally bring it under control. Even at that, one of the Helljumpers suffered a black eye, another wound up with a broken arm, and a third bled from a ragged bite wound on his arm.

The ensuing battle lasted for a full fifteen minutes, an eternity in combat, with both humans and Covenant forces taking time out from their battle with one another to concentrate on the new enemy. The moment the last bulbous form was popped, however, they were back at it again, tracking one another through the maze in a contest of life and death, no quarter asked and none given.

McKay radioed for assistance, and with help from the Reaction Force, plus two Pelicans and four captured Banshees, she was able to drive the Covenant dropship away and kill those ground troops who weren’t willing to surrender.

Then, on McKay’s orders, the Helljumpers combed the area for reasonably intact specimens of the new enemy which could be taken back to Alpha Base for analysis.

Finally, after the bodies were recovered, Jenkins was the only specimen that was still alive. In spite of the way that he jerked, bucked, and tried to bite his captors they threw him onto the Pelican, roped him to the D-rings recessed into the deck, and delivered a few kicks for good measure.

With fully half of her Marines making the return trip in body bags, McKay sat through the seemingly endless journey to Alpha Base. Tears cut tracks down through the grime on the Helljumper’s face to wet the deck between her boots. The Covenant had been bad enough – but now there was an even worse enemy to fight. Now, for the first time since the landing on Halo, McKay felt nothing but despair.

The Spartan left Sergeant Mobuto’s body behind and approached one of the large metal doors, pleased to see that it was open. He crouched and passed through. 343 Guilty Spark disappeared on one of his mysterious errands a few moments later, and, like clockwork, the Flood came out to play.

He was ready for them. The Flood swept into the room – dozens of the bulbous infection forms scuttling along the walls and floor, with another half dozen of the combat forms in tow.

They paused, as if in confusion. One of the combat forms looked up – and the Spartan dropped from the pillar he’d shimmied up. His metal boots pulped the creature’s face. Assault rifle fire raked the leading edge of the cluster of infection forms. The pods detonated in a chain-reaction string.

That got their attention, he thought. The Chief turned and ran. He jumped up onto a raised platform as he fought, disengaged, and fought again. Finally, as the last body fell, both the Monitor and the Sentinels reappeared.

The Spartan looked at them in disgust as he reloaded his weapons, scrounged ammo off the Flood combat forms, and followed 343 Guilty Spark out onto a lift that was identical to the last one he’d been on.

The platform carried the human up to a still higher level, where he got off, paused to let the Sentinels soften up the Flood welcome wagon that waited out in the hall, then emerged to lend a hand. There was a loudboom! as one of the combat forms leaped from an archway and landed right on top of a Sentinel. Its whip-tendril flailed at the hovering robot’s back and was rewarded with a series of sparks and a gout of flame. A moment later, the Sentinel exploded, and the Flood and the wrecked drone crashed into the floor in a ball of flesh, bone, and metal. The resulting shower of shrapnel cut three Flood forms down and wounded a score of others.

The Spartan took another out with a burst from his assault weapon and the other robots moved in to fry the remains.

Once that contingent of freaks had been dealt with, the Chief followed the Monitor down a hall lined with blue screens, through an area that was infested with Flood, and out onto a lift that looked different from the last one he’d been on. Geometric patterns split the floor into puzzlelike shapes, a series of raised panels stood guard around a column of translucent blue light, and the whole thing seemed to glow.

The Master Chief stepped on board, felt a slight jerk as ancient machinery reacted to his presence, and saw the walls start to rise. He was headed down this time – and hoped that his journey was near an end. Without hesitation, he slammed fresh ammo into his weapon; it seemed as if he emerged into a huge cluster of Flood every time he traveled on a lift.

The lift made hollow, rumbling sounds, fell a long way, and stopped with a reverberating thud.

343 Guilty Spark hovered over his shoulder as the Spartan stepped off the lift and approached a pedestal. “You may now retrieve the Index,” the Monitor said. The artifact glowed lime green; it was shaped like the letter T. It slowly rose from the top of the cylindrical tube in which it had been kept for so many millennia. A series of metal blocks that encircled the device rotated and spun, releasing their protective grip on the Index.

The Spartan took hold of the device, and pulled it up and out of its tubular sheath. He held it up to examine the glowing artifact – and was startled when a gray beam lanced from Spark. The Index was yanked from his hand and disappeared inside a storage chamber in the Monitor’s body.

“What the hell are you doing?” the Spartan demanded.

“As you know, Reclaimer,” Spark said, as if addressing an errant child, “protocol requires that I take possession of the Index for transport.”

343 Guilty Spark swooped and dived, then floated in place. “Your biological form renders you vulnerable to infection. The Index must not fall into the hands of the Flood before we reach the Control Room and activate the installation.

“The Flood is spreading! We must hurry.”

The Master Chief was about to reply when he saw the bands of pulsating light flowing down around his body, knew he was about to be teleported, and again felt light-headed.

It wanted something, Keyes realized. The memories that replayed like an endless library of video clips were being sifted for something. The buzzing presence in his mind sought... what?

He grasped at the thought, and pushed back against the wall of resistance the other that burrowed through his consciousness had erected. He brushed up against it and it almost slipped away...

Then he had it – escape. Whatever this thing was, it wanted off the ring. It hungered, and there was a perfect feeding ground to be found.

The other plunged a barbed-wire tendril into his mind and ripped forth an image of a lunar Earth rise, which blurred into images of cattle in a slaughterhouse. He felt the other’s tendrils eagerly grasp at the image of Earth. Where? It thundered. Tell.

The pressure increased and battered through Keyes’ resistance, and in desperation he summoned up a new memory. The alien presence seemed startled at the image of Keyes and a childhood friend kicking a soccer ball on a vibrant green field.

The pressure eased as the hungry other examined the memory.

Keyes felt a stab of regret. He knew what he had to do now.

He dragged all he remembered of Earth – its location, his ability to find it, its defenses – and shoved them down, as deep as he could.

Keyes felt the gaping sense of loss as the memory of the soccer field was ripped away and discarded forever. He quickly summoned up another – the taste of a favorite meal. He began to feed his memories to the invading presence in his mind, one scrap at a time.

Of all the battles he’d ever fought, this one was the toughest – and the most important.

The Chief rematerialized back on the walkway which seemed to float over the black abyss below – the Control Room. He saw the replica of Halo which arched above, the globe that floated at the center of the walkway, and the control panel where he had last seen Cortana. Was she still there?

343 Guilty Spark hovered above his head. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing.”

“Splendid. Shall we?”

The Spartan made his way forward. The control board was long and curved at either end. An endless light show played across the surface of the panel as various aspects of the ring world’s extremely complicated electronic and mechanical machinery fed a constant flow of data to the display, all of which appeared as a mosaic of constantly morphing glyphs and symbols.

Here, if one knew how to read it, were the equivalents of the ring world’s pulse, respirations, and brain waves. Reports that provided information on the rate of spin, the atmosphere, the weather, the highly complex biosphere, the machinery that kept all of it running, plus the activities of the creatures around whom the world had been formed: the Flood. It was awesome to look at – and even more awesome to consider.

343 Guilty Spark hovered above the control panel and looked down on the human who stood in front of him. There was something supercilious about the tone of the construct’s voice. “My role in this particular endeavor has come to an end. Protocol does not allow units from my classification to perform a task as important as the reunification of the Index with the Core.”

The Monitor zipped around to hover at the Master Chief’s side. “That final step is reserved for you, Reclaimer.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” the Chief asked. Spark kept silent.

The Spartan shrugged, accepted the Index, and gazed at the panel in front of him. One likely-looking slot pulsed the same glowing green that shone from the Index. He slid it home. The T-shaped device fit perfectly.

The control panel shivered as if stabbed, the displays flared as if in response to an overload, and an electronic groan was heard. 343 Guilty Spark tilted slightly as if to look at the control board.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Spark chirped.

There was a sudden shimmer of light as Cortana’s holographic figure appeared and continued to grow until she towered over the control panel. Her eyes were bright pink, data scrolled across her body, and the Chief knew she was pissed. “Oh, really?” she said. She gestured, and the Monitor fell out of the air and hit the deck with a clank.

The Spartan looked up at her. “Cortana–”

The AI stood with hands on hips. “I spent hours cooped in here watching you toady about helping that... thing get set to slit our throats.”

The Chief turned toward the Monitor and back. “Hold on now. He’s a friend.”

Cortana brought a hand up to her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh, I didn’t realize. He’s your pal, is he? Your chum? Do you have any idea what that bastard almost made you do?”

“Yes,” the Spartan said patiently. “Activate Halo’s defenses and destroy the Flood. Which is why we brought the Index to the Control Center.”

Cortana’s image plucked the Index out of its slot and held it out in front of her. “You mean this?”

Now reanimated, 343 Guilty Spark hovered just off the floor. He was furious. “A construct in the core? That is absolutely unacceptable!”

Cortana’s eyes glowed as she bent forward. “Piss off.”

The Monitor darted higher. “What impertinence! I shall purge you at once.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Cortana inquired as she waved the Index, then added the data contained within it to her memory.

“How dare you!” Spark exclaimed. “I’ll–”

“Do what?” Cortana demanded. “I have the Index. You can float and sputter.”

The Master Chief held both hands up. One held the assault rifle. “Enough! The Flood is spreading. If we activate Halo’s defenses we can wipe them out.”

Cortana looked down on the human with an expression of pity. “You have no idea how this ring works, do you? Why the Forerunners built it?”

She leaned forward, her face grim. “Halo doesn’t kill Flood – it kills their food. Human, Covenant, whatever. You’re all equally edible. The only way to stop the Flood is to starve them to death. And that’s exactly what Halo is designed to do. Wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life. You don’t believe me?” the AI finished. “Ask him!” and she pointed to 343 Guilty Spark.

The ramifications of what Cortana said hit home, and he gripped his MA5B tightly. He rounded on the Monitor. “Is it true?”

Spark bobbed slightly. “Of course,” the construct said directly. Then, sounding more like his officious self again, “This installation has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years, but once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood.

“But you already knew this,” the AI continued contritely. The little device sounded genuinely puzzled. “I mean, how couldn’t you?”

Cortana glowered at the Chief. “Left out that little detail, did he?”

“We followed outbreak containment procedure to the letter,” the Monitor said defensively. “You were with me each step of the way as we managed the process.”

“Chief,” Cortana interrupted, “I’m picking up movement–”

“Why would you hesitate to do what you’ve already done?” 343 Guilty Spark demanded.

“We need to go,” Cortana insisted. “Right now!”

“Last time you asked me: if it were my choice, would I do it?” the Monitor continued, as a flock of Sentinels arrayed themselves behind him. “Having had considerable time to ponder your query, my answer has not changed. There is no choice. We must activate the ring.”

“Get. Us. Out. Of. Here,” Cortana said, her eyes tracking the Sentinels.

“If you are unwilling to help – I will simply find another,” Spark said conversationally. “Still, I must have the Index. Give your construct to me or I will be forced to take it from you.”

The Spartan looked up at Spark and the machines arrayed in the air behind him. The assault weapon came up ready to fire. “That’s not going to happen.”

“So be it,” the Monitor said wearily. Then, in a comment directed to the Sentinels, he added: “Save his head. Dispose of the rest.”