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 youup,” Rawley said. Her eyes were glued to her scopes as SPARTAN-117 took thelead and the Marines left the ancient complex and entered the fetid embraceof the swamp. The rain and some kind of interference from the structureplayed hell with the Pelican’s detection gear, but she was damned if shewas going to lose this team now. She had a reputation to maintain, afterall.
“Roger that,”the Chief replied,“we’re on our way.”
She kept the Pelican circling, her eyes peeled for trouble. There was noimmediate threat. That made her even more nervous. Ever since they’d madeit down to the surface of the ring, trouble always seemed to strike withoutwarning.
For the hundredth time since lifting off from Alpha Base, she cursed thelack of ammunition for the Pelicans.
Knowing the dropship was somewhere above the mist, and eager to get the hellout, the Marines forged ahead. The Spartan cautioned them to slow down, tokeep their eyes peeled, but it wasn’t long before he found himself backtoward the middle of the pack.
The tower Foehammer had mentioned appeared up ahead. The base of the columnwas 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 besaid 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 firedon full automatic. A host of red dots had appeared on the Spartan’s threatindicator. He saw a dozen of the spherical infection forms bounce out of themist and knew that any possibility of containing the creatures undergroundhad been lost.
The Pelican’s sensors suddenly painted dozens—correction, hundreds—of newcontacts 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, butdidn’t shoot at the air cover? Maybe the Covenant were getting stupid aswell as ugly.
She hit the radio to warn the troops and winced as the muffled pop ofautomatic weapons fire burst from her headset. “Heads up, ground team!”
she yelled. “Multiple contacts on the ground—they’re right on top ofyou!”
The radio squealed, then static filled her speakers. The interferenceworsened. 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 copilot, followed his gaze, and her own eyeswidened. “Okay,” she said, “any idea what the hellthat is?”
The Chief fired short bursts from his assault weapon, popped dozens of thealien pods, and turned to confront a combat form. It was armed with a plasmapistol but chose to throw itself forward rather than fire. The Chief’sautomatic weapon was actually touching the creature when he pulled thetrigger. The ex-Elite’s chest opened like an obscene flower and theinfection form hidden within exploded into fleshy pieces.
He heard a burst of static in his comm system. Interference whined as theMJOLNIR’s powerful communications gear tried to scrub the signal, to noavail. It sounded like Foehammer, but he couldn’t be sure.
It hovered in front of the Pelican’s cockpit for a moment, and lightstabbed Rawley’s eyes. It was made from some kind of silvery metal, roughlycylindrical but with angular edges. Winglike, squarish fins shifted and slidlike rudders as the device bobbed in the air. It—whateverit was—shone abright light into the cockpit, then turned away and dropped altitude. Belowher, 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 thecomm system and punch me a hole in this interference. I need to talk to theground teamnow .”
The tide of hostiles fell back into the ankle-deep water and regrouped. Adozen exotic-looking cylindrical machines drifted out of the trees to floatover the clearing. The nearest Marine yelled, “What are they?” and wasabout 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 produceda beam of energy, speared one of the hostiles, and burned it down.
Some of the combat forms took exception to this treatment, and attempted toreturn fire, but were soon put out of action by the combined efforts of theMarines and their newfound allies.
Despite the help, the Marines didn’t fare well. There were just too many ofthe hostile creatures around. The squad dwindled until a pair of PFCsremained, then one, then finally the last of the Marines fell beneath acluster of the little infectious bastards.
As the newcomers overhead rained crimson laser fire on a cluster of thecombat forms, the Chief slogged through the swamp toward the tower. Highground—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 hefired 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 discoverthatanother machine had approached him from behind. Where the othernewcomers were cylindrical in design, with angular, winglike cowlings, thisconstruct 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 GuiltySpark. Someone has released the Flood. My function is to prevent it fromleaving this installation. I require your assistance. Come this way.”
The voice sounded artificial. This “343 Guilty Spark” was some kind ofartificial 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? Thosethings down there are called ‘Flood’?”
“Of course,” 343 Guilty Spark replied, a note of confusion in itssynthesized voice. “What an odd question. We have no time for this,Reclaimer.”
Reclaimer?The Chief wondered. He was about to ask what the little machinemeant by that, but his words never came. Rings of pulsating gold lighttraveled the length of his body, he felt light-headed, and saw an explosionof white light.
Rawley had just gotten the Pelican into position for a run on the tower, andcould see the distinctive bulk of the Spartan standing on the structure. Sheeased the throttle forward, and the Pelican slid ahead, and nosed toward thestructure. She glanced up just in time to see the Spartan disappear in acolumn 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 doexcept pick up the Marines, and hope for the best.
Like the rest of the battalion’s officers, McKay had worked long into thenight supervising efforts to restore the butte’s badly mauled defenses,ensure that the wounded received what care was available, and restoresomething like normal operations.
Finally, at about 0300, Silva ordered her below, pointing out that someonehad 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 battlestill flickering through her brain, the Company Commander found itimpossible to sleep. Instead she tossed, turned, and stared at the ceilinguntil approximately 0430 when she finally drifted off.
At 0730, with only three hours of sleep, McKay paused to collect a mug ofinstant coffee from the improvised mess hall before climbing a flight ofbloodstained stairs to arrive on top of the mesa. The wreckage of what hadbeen Charlie 217 had been cleared away during the night, but a large patchof 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 acombat zone, which meant it was inappropriate for the enlisted ranks tosalute their superiors lest they identify them to enemy snipers. But therewere other ways to signal respect, and as McKay made her way past thelanding pads and out onto the battlefield beyond, it seemed as if all theMarines 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 shewas there, strolling through the plasma-blackened defenses with a cup ofcoffee in her hand, served to reassure the troops.
“Look,” one of them said as she walked past, “there’s the Loot. Cool asice, man. Did you see her last night? Standing on that tank? It was likenothin’ could touch her.” The other Marine didn’t say anything, justnodded in agreement, and went back to digging a firing pit.
Somehow, without consciously thinking about it, McKay’s feet carried herback to the Scorpions and the point from which her particular battle hadbeen fought. The Covenant knew about the metal behemoths now, which was whyboth machines were being dug out and run up onto solid ground.
The officer wondered what Silva planned to do with them, and sipped the lastof her coffee before wandering onto the plateau beyond. Covenant POWs, allchained together at the ankles, were busy digging graves. One section formembers of their armed forces, and one for the humans. It was a soberingsight, 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 theCovenant found them.
There was a lot to do—the morning passed quickly. Major Silva was back onduty by 1300 hours and sent a runner to find McKay. As she entered hisoffice she saw that he was sitting behind his makeshift desk, working at acomputer. 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 moreoften! 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 achance to read the report Wellsley put together?”
A crate of small but powerful wireless computers like the one sitting on theMajor’s desk had been recovered from theAutumn but McKay had yet to turnhers on. “I’m afraid not, sir. Sorry.”
Silva nodded. “Well, based on information acquired during routinedebriefings, our digital friend believes that the raid was both less andmore than we assumed.”
McKay allowed her eyebrows to rise. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that rather than the real estate itself, the Covies were aftersomething, or more preciselysomeone they thought they would find here.”
“Captain Keyes?”
“No,” the other officer replied, “Wellsley doesn’t think so, and neitherdo I. A group of their stealth Elites were able to penetrate the lowerlevels of the complex. They killed everyone they came into contact with, orthought they did, but one tech played dead, and another was knockedunconscious. They were in different rooms but both told the same story. Oncein the room, and having gained control of it, one of those commando Elites—the bastards in the black combat suits—would momentarily reveal himself. Hespoke passable standard—and asked both groups the same question. ‘Where isthe human with the special armor?’ ”
“They were after the Spartan,” McKay said thoughtfully.
“Exactly.”
“So, whereis the Chief?”
“That,”Silva replied, “is a very good question. Where indeed? He wentlooking for Keyes, surfaced in the middle of a swamp, told Foehammer thatthe 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 toomuch difference if he were. No, I suspect that he and Cortana are out thereplaying games.”
With Keyes out of the picture once more, Silva had reassumed command, andMcKay could understand his frustration. The Master Chief was an asset, orwould have been if he were around, but now, out freelancing somewhere, theSpartan was starting to look like a liability. Especially given how many ofSilva’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’tsympathize with it. Not after seeing the Chief in that very room, his skinunnaturally white after too much time spent in his armor, his eyes filledwith—what? Pain? Suffering? A sort of wary distrust?
The officer wasn’t sure, but whatever it was didn’t have anything to dowith ego, with insubordination, or a desire for personal glory. Those weretruths that McKay could access, not because she was a seasoned soldier, butbecause she was a woman, something Silva could never aspire to be. But itwouldn’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 chairsighed as Silva leaned back. “Like the old saying goes, ‘a good defense isa good offense.’ Rather than just sit around and wait for the Covenant toattack again, let’s take the hurt to them. Nothing big, not yet anyway, butthe 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 bymorning.”
Silva watched the Company Commander exit his office, wasted five secondswishing he had six more just like her, and went back to work.
The Master Chief felt himself rush back together like a puzzle with amillion pieces, wondered what had happened, and where he was. He feltdisoriented, nauseated, and angry.
A quick look around was sufficient to ascertain that the machine named 343Guilty Spark had somehow transported him from the swamp into the bowels of adark, brooding structure. He saw the machine hovering high above, glowing athin, ghostly blue.
The Spartan raised his assault weapon, and fired half a clip into it. Thebullets were dead on, but had no effect other than to elicit a bemusedresponse.
“That was unnecessary, Reclaimer. I suggest that you conserve yourammunition for the effort ahead.”
No less angry, but with little choice but to accept the situation, the Chieflooked 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 onit. I am grateful to see that some of them survived to reproduce.”
“ ‘Survived’? ‘Reproduce’? What the hell are you talking about?” theChief demanded.
“We must collect the Index,” Spark said, leaving the Spartan’s questionsunanswered. “And time is of the essence. Please follow me.”
The blue light zipped away at that point, forcing the Chief to follow, or beleft behind. He checked both his weapons as he walked. “Speaking ofyou ,who the hell are you, and what’s your function?”
“Iam 343 Guilty Spark,” the machine said, pedantically. “I am theMonitor, or more precisely, a self-repairing artificial intelligence chargedwith maintaining and operating this facility. But you are the Reclaimer—soyou know that already.”
The Master Chief didn’t know anything of the kind, but it seemed wise toplay along, so he did. “Yes, well, refresh my memory . . . how long has itbeen since you were left in charge?”
“Exactly 101,217 local years,” the Monitor replied cheerfully, “many ofwhich were quite boring. But not anymore!Hee, hee, hee. ”
The Spartan was taken aback by the sudden giggle from the small machine. Heknew that the AIs humans used could, over time, develop personalitiespolitely described as “quirky.” 343 Guilty Spark had been here for tens ofthousands of years.
It was quite possible that the little AI was insane.
The Monitor chattered on, nattering about “effecting repairs to substationnine” 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 fightingfor his life again, moving back and forth to stretch the enemy out, blastinganything that moved.
That was when he first identified anew Flood form. They were large misshapenthings that would explode when fired upon, spewing up to a dozen infectionforms in every direction, thereby multiplying the number of targets that theshooter had to track and kill.
Finally, like water turned off at a tap, the assault came to an end, and theChief had a chance to reload his weapons.
The Monitor hovered nearby, all the while humming to himself, andoccasionally 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 intothe shotgun and hurried to follow.
“This is the Library,” the machine explained, hovering so the human couldcatch up. “The energy field above us contains the Index. We must get upthere.”
The Spartan was about to ask, “Index? What Index?” when a combat formlurched out of an alcove and opened fire. The Chief fired in return, saw thecreature fall, and saw it jump back up again. The next burst took theFlood’s left leg off.
“That should slow you down,” he said as he turned to deal with a new hordeof shambling, leaping hostiles. A steady stream of brass arced away from theChief’s assault weapon as he worked the mob over, felt something strike himfrom behind, and spun around to discover that the one-legged combat form hadlimped back into the fight.
The Spartan blew the creature’s head off this time, sidestepped to evade acharging carrier form, and shot the bulbous monster in the back. There wasan explosion of green mist mixed with balloonlike infection forms and piecesof wet flesh. The next ten seconds were spent popping pods.
After that the Monitor took off again and the noncom had little choice butto follow. He soon arrived in front of a huge metal door. Built to containthe Flood perhaps? Maybe, but far from effective, since the slimy bastardsseemed to be leaking out of every nook and cranny.
The Monitor hovered over the human’s head. “The security doors are lockedautomatically. 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 inparticular as a red blob appeared on his threat indicator, quickly joined bya half dozen more.
Then, as part of what would become a familiar pattern, combat forms leapedfifteen meters through the air, only to shrivel as the 7.62mm slugs torethem apart. Carrier forms waddled up like old friends, came apart like wetcardboard, and spewed pods in every direction. Infection forms danced ondelicate legs, dodging this way and that, each hoping to claim the human asits very own.
But the Chief had other ideas. He killed the last of them just as the doubledoors started to part, and followed the monitor through. “Please followclosely,” 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.
“Moredoors. 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 humancompanion into still another ambush. And so it went, as the Chief worked hisway through Flood-infested galleries, subfloor maintenance tunnels, andmoregalleries, before rounding a corner to confront yet another group ofmonstrosities.
The Spartan had help this time, as a dozen of the hunter-killer machineshe’d seen in the swamp appeared in the air above the scene, and attackedthe Flood forms congregated below.
“These Sentinels will assist you, Reclaimer,” the Monitor trilled. Lasershissed and sizzled as the robots struck their opponents down, and havingdone so, moved in to sterilize what remained.
The Spartan watched in fascination as the machines took care of the heavylifting. He lent a helping hand when that seemed appropriate, and started togag when the air that came through his filters grew thick with the stench ofcooked flesh.
As the Spartan fought his way through the facility, the Monitor, who floatedabove it all, offered commentary. “These Sentinels will supplement yourcombat systems. But I suggest you upgrade to at least a Class Twelve CombatSkin. Your current model only scans as a Class Two—which is unsuited forthis kind of work.”
If there’s a battle suit six times as powerful as MJOLNIR armor,hethought,I’ll be first in line to try it on.
He jumped to avoid an attack from one of the Flood combat forms, pressed theshotgun muzzle into its back, and blew a foot-wide hole through thecreature.
Finally, after the hardworking Sentinels had reduced the Flood to littlemore than a lumpy paste, the Spartan made his way through the carnage andout onto a circular platform. It was enormous, easily large enough to handlea 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 upabove, maybe the Flood hadn’t reached that level yet, he thought. Hedidn’t hold out much hope, however. So far, nothingelse had gone right onthis mission.
Deep within the recesses of Halo, Flood specimens were confined tofacilitate future study, and to prevent them from escaping. Aware of theextreme danger the Flood posed, and their capacity to multiply exponentiallyas well as take over even advanced life forms, the ancient ones constructedthe 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 morethan a hundred thousand years.
Then the intruders came, broke the prison open, and nourished the Flood withtheir bodies. With a way to escape, and food to sustain it, the tendrils ofthe malevolent growth slithered through the maze of tunnels and passagewaysthat lay below Halo’s skin, and gathered wherever there was a potentialroute to the surface.
One such location was in a chamber located beneath a tall butte, wherelittle more than a metal grating prevented the Flood from bursting out ofits underground lair and shooting to the surface. Unbeknownst to the men andwomen of Alpha Base, they had anew enemy—and it lived directly below theirfeet.
The lift jerked to a halt. The Master Chief made his way through a narrowpassageway into the gallery beyond. The Flood attacked immediately, but withno threat at his back, he was free to retreat into the corridor from whichhe had just come, which forced the mob of monstrosities to come at himthrough the same narrow channel. Before long, the bodies of the fallen Floodbegan to accumulate.
He paused, waiting for another wave of attackers, then shoved aside a pileof the dead and moved into the next section of the complex. They gave underhis feet, made gurgling sounds, and vented foul-smelling gas. The Chief wasgrateful when his boots were back on solid ground again.
The Sentinels reappeared shortly thereafter and led the Spartan past a rowof huge blue screens. “So, where were you bastards a few minutes ago?” thehuman inquired. But if the robots heard him, they made no reply as theyglided, circled, and bobbed through the hallway ahead.
“Flood activity has caused a failure in a drone control system. I mustreset the backup units,” 343 Guilty Spark said. “Please continue on—Iwill rejoin you when I have completed my task.”
The Monitor had left him on his own before—and each absence coincided witha fresh wave of Flood attackers. “Hold on,” the human protested, “let’sdiscuss this—” but it was too late. 343 Guilty Spark had already dartedthrough an aperture in the wall and disappeared down some kind of travelconduit.
Sure enough, no sooner had the Monitor left than a lumpy-looking carrierform 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 theresulting mess, while he conserved his ammo.
A fresh onslaught of Flood came out of the woodwork, and the Spartan adopteda more cautious strategy: He allowed the sentry robots to mop them up. Atfirst, the defense machines mowed through a wave of the podlike infectionforms with little difficulty. Then more of the hostiles appeared, thenmore ,then still more. Soon, the Chief was forced to fall back. He crushed one ofthe pods with his foot, smashed another out of the air with the butt of hisassault 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 ofdisapproval. “The Sentinels can use their weapons to manage the Flood for ashort 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 theSpartan deeper into the Library’s gloomy halls. They passed through anumber of large open gates prior to arriving in front of one that wasclosed. The Chief paused for a moment, expecting that 343 Guilty Spark mightopen it for him, but the Monitor had disappeared. Again.
The hell with it,he thought. The little machine was rapidly draining hisreserves 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 steeplysloping ramp emerged from below, followed it downward, and soon foundhimself in a maintenance corridor packed with Flood.
But the narrow confines of the passageway again made it that much easier tokill the parasitic life forms, and five minutes later the human walked up aramp 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 toanother enormous door. Machinery whirred, and the Chief was forced to pauseas the doors started to part. Then he heard a clank, followed by a groan, asthe movement stopped.
“Please wait here,” Spark said, and promptly vanished.
Just as the Master Chief pulled a fresh clip and rammed it home, dozens ofred dots appeared on his threat indicator. He stood with his back to thedoor 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 mightroll him under, the Chief threw a grenade into their midst, and half hisopponents went up in a single blast. It took a few minutes plus a fewhundred rounds of ammo to put the rest of them down, but the Spartan managedto do so.
That was when the machinery restarted, the doors opened, and the Monitorreappeared, humming to itself. “I am a genius!”
He had moved through the new chamber—a high, vaulted gallery, dimly litwith pools of gold-yellow light. For the first time since Spark had draggedhim here, he had a moment of respite. Ever since entering the Library, theSpartan’s head had been on a swivel. Wave after wave of hostile creatureshad attacked him from all sides.
He popped a stim-pack, downed a nutrient supplement, and gathered up hisweapon. Time to move out.
As he proceeded deeper into the Library, he found a corpse—a human one. Hestooped to examine the body.
It wasn’t pretty. The Marine’s body was so mangled that even the Floodcouldn’t make use of him. He lay at the center of a large bloodstainwreathed by spent brass.
“Ah,” 343 Guilty Spark said, peering down over the Spartan’s shoulder.
“Theother Reclaimer. His combat skin proved even less suitable thanyours.”
The soldier looked up over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“Is this a test, Reclaimer?” the Monitor seemed genuinely puzzled. “Ifound him wandering through a structure on the other side of the ring, andbrought him to the same point whereyou started.”
The Chief looked down at the body and marveled at the fact that anyone couldmake it that far. Even with his physical augmentation, and the advantages ofhis armor, the Spartan was reaching the end of his endurance.
He checked, found the leatherneck’s dog tags, and read the name. MOBUTO,MARVIN, STAFFSERGEANT,followed by a service number.
The Chief put the tags away. “I didn’t know you, Sarge, but I sure as hellwish 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 MarvinMobuto been there to hear it, he would have approved.
A good trap requires good bait, which was why McKay had one of the Pelicanspick up Charlie 217’s burned-out remains and drop them into the ambush siteduring the hours of darkness. It took three trips to transport a sufficientamount of wreckage, followed by hours of backbreaking effort to spread thepieces around in a realistic way, then position her troops in the rocksabove.
Finally, just as the sun speared the area with early morning light,everything was ready. A phony distress call went out, and a speciallyprepared fire was lit deep within the wreckage. Scattered around the “crashsite” were some “volunteers”—the bodies of comrades killed on the buttehad 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 locatedbetween a low, flat-topped rise and a rocky hillside, covered with a jumbleof large boulders. The wreckage, complete with a trickle of smoke, lookedquite realistic.
Wellsley believed that having first dismissed the Marines and Navalpersonnel as little more than a nuisance, the enemy had since been forced tochange their minds, and had started to take them more seriously. That meantmonitoring human radio traffic, conducting regular recon flights, and allthe 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. Thatwas the plan, at any rate, and McKay didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’twork.
The sun inched higher in the sky, and down among the rocks the temperaturerose. The Marines took advantage of any bit of shade that they could find,though McKay was privately pleased that the customary bitching about theheat was kept to a minimum.
Thirty minutes into the wait McKay heard a sound like the whine of amosquito and started to quarter the sky with her binoculars. It wasn’t longbefore she spotted a speck coming down-spin. Very quickly, the speck grewinto 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 growsuspicious. She didn’thave to say much more, though. Her Marines knew whatto do.
As the enemy aircraft came closer, members of the third squad, some of whomwere made up to look as if they were injured, hurried out into the open,shaded their eyes as if watching for an incoming Pelican, pantomimedsurprise as they spotted the Banshee, fired a volley of shots at it, thenran for the safety of the rocks.
The pilot sent a series of plasma bolts racing after them, circled the crashsite twice, and flew off in the direction from which he had come. McKaywatched it go. The hook had been set, the fish was on the line, and it wouldbe her job to reel it in.
Half a klick away from the phony crash site, another Marine, or whathad beena Marine, emerged from a subsurface air shaft, and felt the sun hit hishorribly ravaged face. Well, nothis face, because ever since the infectionform had inserted its penetrator into his spine, Private Wallace A. Jenkinshad been sharing his physical form with something he thought of as “theother.” A strange being that didn’t have any thoughts, none that the humancould access, at any rate, and seemed unaware of the fact that its hoststill retained some cognitive and possibly motor functions.
That awareness was entirely unique to him insofar as the leatherneck couldtell, because in spite of the fact that some of the bodies in the group hadonce belonged to his squad mates, repeated attempts to communicate with themhad failed.
Now, as the untidy collection of infection forms, carrier forms, and combatforms emerged to bounce, waddle, and walk across Halo’s surface, Jenkinsknew that wherever the column was headed it was for one purpose: to find andsubsume sentient life. He could dimly sense the other’s yawning, icyhunger.
Hisgoal, however, was considerably different. After it had been convertedinto a combat form, his body was still capable of handling a weapon. Some ofthe other forms had them—and that’s what Jenkins wanted more thananything. An M6D would be perfect, but an energy weapon could do the job, aswould any grenade. Not for use on the Covenant, or the Flood, butonhimself . Or what had been him. That’s why he’d been careful to concealthe full extent of his awareness from the other. So he had a chance ofdestroying the body in which he had been imprisoned and escape the horror ofeach waking moment.
The Flood came to a hill and, following one of the carrier forms, soonstarted 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 dropshipsappeared, circled the phony crash site, and settled in for a landing. Oncefree of the ship the Elites, Jackals, and Grunts would be easy meat for theMarines 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 seeplus acouple of Hunters. The mean-looking bastards would be hard to kill and couldrip the platoon to shreds.
The officer swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat, keyedher mike, and whispered some instructions. “Red One to all snipers androcket jockeys. Put everything you have on the Hunters. Do itnow . Over.”
It was hard to say who killed the Hunters, given the sudden barrage ofbullets and rockets that came their way, but McKay didn’t care, so long asthe walking tanks weredead . . . which they definitely were. That was thegood news.
The bad news was that the dropship returned, hosed the boulders with plasmafire, and forced the Helljumpers to duck or lose their heads.
Encouraged by the air support, the Covenant ground troops rushed to enterthe jumble of rocks, eager to find some cover, and kill the treacheroushumans. They were forced to pay a price, however, as the snipers on the hillpicked off five of the alien soldiers before the dropship moved in to exactits revenge.
The Marines were forced to dive deep as the enemy aircraft marched a doubleline of plasma bolts across the top of the tiny mesa, killing two of thesnipers and wounding a third.
Things soon started to get ugly on the rock-strewn hillside as both humansand Covenant hunted one another between the huge, weather-smoothed boulders.
Energy bolts flew and assault weapons chattered, as both sides took part ina deadly game of hide-and-seek. This wasnot what McKay had envisioned, andshe was looking for a way to disengage, when a wave of new hostiles enteredthe fight.
A torrent of the bizarre creatures attackedboth groups from the other sideof the hill. McKay had a glimpse of corpse-flesh, twisted and mangledbodies, and swarms of tiny little spheres that bounced, leaped, and climbedover the rocks.
The first problem was that while the Covenant forces seemed familiar withthe creatures, the Helljumpers weren’t, and three members of the secondsquad had already gone down under the combined weight of multiple forms, andone member of the third had been slaughtered by a grotesque biped, beforeMcKay understood the extent of the danger.
Even as the officer fought her way uphill through the maze of boulders theradio 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 confusionof screams, requests for orders, and pleas for extraction, that the Marinesmight as well have spoken in tongues.
McKay cursed. No way. No way were thesethings going to break them. No way.
She rounded a boulder, saw a Grunt running downhill with two of thespherical creatures clinging to its back. The Grunt squealed and spun andshe got her first close look at the creatures. A sustained burst from theassault weapon brought all three of them down.
As the Marine worked her way farther uphill, she soon discovered that thenew enemy tookother forms as well. McKay killed a two-legged form, saw aprivate put half a clip into a lumpy-looking monster, and watched in disgustas the dying creature spewed evenmore grotesqueries out into the world.
That was the moment when the third form emerged from between a couple ofboulders, saw the human, and launched itself into the air.
Jenkins had the same view that the others did, spotted the Lieutenant, andhoped 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 herweapon 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 onit. “Give me a hand!” she shouted. “I want this one alive!”
It took four Marines to subdue the creature, get restraints on both itswrists and ankles, and finally bring it under control. Even at that, one ofthe 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 withone another to concentrate on the new enemy. The moment the last bulbousform was popped, however, they were back at it again, tracking one anotherthrough the maze in a contest of life and death, no quarter asked and nonegiven.
McKay radioed for assistance, and with help from the Reaction Force, plustwo Pelicans and four captured Banshees, she was able to drive the Covenantdropship away and kill those ground troops who weren’t willing tosurrender.
Then, on McKay’s orders, the Helljumpers combed the area for reasonablyintact specimens of thenew enemy which could be taken back to Alpha Base foranalysis.
Finally, after the bodies were recovered, Jenkins was the only specimen thatwas still alive. In spite of the way that he jerked, bucked, and tried tobite his captors they threw him onto the Pelican, roped him to the D-ringsrecessed into the deck, and delivered a few kicks for good measure.
With fully half of her Marines making the return trip in body bags, McKaysat through the seemingly endless journey to Alpha Base. Tears cut tracksdown through the grime on the Helljumper’s face to wet the deck between herboots. The Covenant had been bad enough—but now there was an even worseenemy to fight. Now, for the first time since the landing on Halo, McKayfelt nothing but despair.
The Spartan left Sergeant Mobuto’s body behind and approached one of thelarge metal doors, pleased to see that it was open. He crouched and passedthrough. 343 Guilty Spark disappeared on one of his mysterious errands a fewmoments later, and, like clockwork, the Flood came out to play.
He was ready for them. The Flood swept into the room—dozens of the bulbousinfection forms scuttling along the walls and floor, with another half dozenof the combat forms in tow.
They paused, as if in confusion. One of the combat forms looked up—and theSpartan dropped from the pillar he’d shimmied up. His metal boots pulpedthe creature’s face. Assault rifle fire raked the leading edge of thecluster of infection forms. The pods detonated in a chain-reaction string.
Thatgot their attention , he thought. The Chief turned and ran. He jumped uponto 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, scroungedammo off the Flood combat forms, and followed 343 Guilty Spark out onto alift 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 waitedout in the hall, then emerged to lend a hand. There was a loudboom! as oneof the combat forms leaped from an archway and landed right on top of aSentinel. Its whip-tendril flailed at the hovering robot’s back and wasrewarded with a series of sparks and a gout of flame. A moment later, theSentinel exploded, and the Flood and the wrecked drone crashed into thefloor in a ball of flesh, bone, and metal. The resulting shower of shrapnelcut three Flood forms down and wounded a score of others.
The Spartan took another out with a burst from his assault weapon and theother robots moved in to fry the remains.
Once that contingent of freaks had been dealt with, the Chief followed theMonitor down a hall lined with blue screens, through an area that wasinfested with Flood, and out onto a lift that looked different from the lastone he’d been on. Geometric patterns split the floor into puzzlelikeshapes, a series of raised panels stood guard around a column of translucentblue light, and the whole thing seemed to glow.
The Master Chief stepped on board, felt a slight jerk as ancient machineryreacted to his presence, and saw the walls start to rise. He was headed downthis 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 ahuge cluster of Flood every time he traveled on a lift.
The lift made hollow, rumbling sounds, fell a long way, and stopped with areverberating thud.
343 Guilty Spark hovered over his shoulder as the Spartan stepped off thelift and approached a pedestal. “You may now retrieve the Index,” theMonitor said. The artifact glowed lime green; it was shaped like the letterT. It slowly rose from the top of the cylindrical tube in which it had beenkept for so many millennia. A series of metal blocks that encircled thedevice 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 tubularsheath. He held it up to examine the glowing artifact—and was startled whena gray beam lanced from Spark. The Index was yanked from his hand anddisappeared 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 thatI take possession of the Index for transport.”
343 Guilty Spark swooped and dived, then floated in place. “Your biologicalform renders you vulnerable to infection. The Index must not fall into thehands of the Flood before we reach the Control Room and activate theinstallation.
“The Flood is spreading! We must hurry.”
The Master Chief was about to reply when he saw the bands of pulsating lightflowing down around his body, knew he was about to be teleported, and againfelt light-headed.
It wanted something,Keyes realized. The memories that replayed like anendless library of video clips were being sifted for something. The buzzingpresence in his mind sought . . .what?
He grasped at the thought, and pushed back against the wall of resistancethe other that burrowed through his consciousness had erected. He brushed upagainst it and it almost slipped away . . .
Then he had it—escape. Whatever this thing was, it wantedoff the ring. Ithungered, and there was a perfect feeding ground to be found.
The other plunged a barbed-wire tendril into his mind and ripped forth animage of a lunar Earthrise, which blurred into images of cattle in aslaughterhouse. He felt the other’s tendrils eagerly grasp at the image ofEarth.Where? It thundered.Tell.
The pressure increased and battered through Keyes’ resistance, and indesperation he summoned up a new memory. The alien presence seemed startledat the image of Keyes and a childhood friend kicking a soccer ball on avibrant 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 wasripped away and discarded forever. He quickly summoned up another—the tasteof a favorite meal. He began to feed his memories to the invading presencein his mind, one scrap at a time.
Of all the battles he’d ever fought, this one was the toughest—and themost important.
The Chief rematerialized back on the walkway which seemed to float over theblack abyss below—the Control Room. He saw the replica of Halo which archedabove, the globe that floated at the center of the walkway, and the controlpanel 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 ateither end. An endless light show played across the surface of the panel asvarious aspects of the ring world’s extremely complicated electronic andmechanical machinery fed a constant flow of data to the display, all ofwhich 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’spulse, respirations, and brain waves. Reports that provided information onthe rate of spin, the atmosphere, the weather, the highly complex biosphere,the machinery that kept all of it running, plus the activities of thecreatures around whom the world had been formed: the Flood. It was awesometo look at—and even more awesome to consider.
343 Guilty Spark hovered above the control panel and looked down on thehuman who stood in front of him. There was something supercilious about thetone of the construct’s voice. “My role in this particular endeavor hascome to an end. Protocol does not allow units from my classification toperform a task as important as the reunification of the Index with theCore.”
The Monitor zipped around to hover at the Master Chief’s side. “That finalstep is reserved foryou , 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 ofhim. One likely-looking slot pulsed the same glowing green that shone fromthe Index. He slid it home. The T-shaped device fit perfectly.
The control panel shivered as if stabbed, the displays flared as if inresponse to an overload, and an electronic groan was heard. 343 Guilty Sparktilted 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 figureappeared and continued to grow until she towered over the control panel. Hereyes were bright pink, data scrolled across her body, and the Chief knew shewas pissed. “Oh, really?” she said. She gestured, and the Monitor fell outof 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 youtoady about helping that . . .thing get set to slit our throats.”
The Chief turned toward the Monitor and back. “Hold on now. He’s afriend.”
Cortana brought a hand up to her mouth in mock surprise. “Oh, I didn’trealize. He’s yourpal , is he? Yourchum ? Do you have any idea what thatbastard almost made you do?”
“Yes,” the Spartan said patiently. “Activate Halo’s defenses and destroythe 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 frontof her. “You meanthis ?”
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 andsputter.”
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 themout.”
Cortana looked down on the human with an expression of pity. “You have noidea how this ring works, do you? Why the Forerunners built it?”
She leaned forward, her face grim. “Halo doesn’t kill Flood—it killstheirfood . Human, Covenant, whatever. You’re all equally edible. The onlyway to stop the Flood is to starve them to death. And that’s exactly whatHalo is designed to do. Wipe the galaxy clean ofall sentient life. Youdon’t believe me?” the AI finished. “Askhim !” and she pointed to 343Guilty Spark.
The ramifications of what Cortana said hit home, and he gripped his MA5Btightly. 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 amaximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years, but once theothers follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at leastany life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood.
“But you already knew this,” the AI continued contritely. The littledevice sounded genuinely puzzled. “I mean, howcouldn’t you?”
Cortana glowered at the Chief. “Left out that little detail, did he?”
“We followed outbreak containment procedure to the letter,” the Monitorsaid defensively. “You were with me each step of the way as we managed theprocess.”
“Chief,” Cortana interrupted, “I’m picking up movement—”
“Why would you hesitate to do what you’ve already done?” 343 Guilty Sparkdemanded.
“We need to go,” Cortana insisted. “Rightnow !”
“Last time you asked me: if it were my choice, would I do it?” the Monitorcontinued, as a flock of Sentinels arrayed themselves behind him. “Havinghad considerable time to ponder your query, my answer has not changed. Thereis 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 saidconversationally. “Still, I must have the Index. Give your construct to meor I will be forced to take it from you.”
The Spartan looked up at Spark and the machines arrayed in the air behindhim. The assault weapon came up ready to fire. “That’s not going tohappen.”
“So be it,” the Monitor said wearily. Then, in a comment directed to theSentinels, he added: “Save his head. Dispose of the rest.”