D+68:03:27 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock) /Halo Control Room.
The vast platform that extended out over the Control Room’s black abyssfelt small and confining as the Master Chief was attacked from everydirection at once. Ruby red energy beams sizzled, and the smell of ozonefilled the air as the airborne Sentinels circled, searching for a chink inhis armor. All they needed was one good hit, a chance to put him down, andthey would be able not only to take his head, but the Index as well.
Cortana’s intrusion skills had become much less conventional since thelanding on Halo. He had been surprised when she’d used his suit comm as ade facto modem to broadcast her way into the Control Room computers. He wasalso unprepared for her sudden return. After so much time in the ring’smassive systems, she felt somehow larger. He pondered her unusual behavior—her shortness, the flare of temper.
There was no time to consider Cortana’s “mental state.” There was still amission to achieve: protect Cortana, and keep Spark the hell away from theIndex. For his part the Spartan wove back and forth, conscious of the factthat the walkway had no rails, and how easy it would be to fall off theedge. That made hitting his targets a great deal more difficult. Still, hehad seen the Flood bring Sentinels down, and figured that if the combatforms could do it, so could he. He decided to tackle the lowest machinesfirst.
He was careful to get a good lead on each target. The assault riflestuttered, and the nearest target exploded. He switched to the shotgun andfired methodically. He pumped a new round into the chamber, and fired again.
Thanks to the broad pattern provided by each shell, the pump gun soon proveditself to be an extremely effective weapon against the Sentinels.
One of the machines exploded, another hit the deck with a loud clang, and athird trailed smoke as it spiraled into the darkness below.
The battle became somewhat easier after that, as there was less and lessincoming fire, and he was able to knock three more robots out of the air inquick succession.
He started to move, reloading as he went. One especially persistent machinetook advantage of the interlude to score three hits on his back, whichtriggered the audible alarm, and pushed his shield to the very edge.
With only four shells in his weapon, the Chief turned, blew the robot out ofthe air, and spun to nail another. Then, weapon raised, he turned in acircle, searching for more targets. There weren’t any.
“So,” he said as he lowered the shotgun and pushed more shells into thereceiver, “don’t tell me—let me guess. You have a plan.”
“Yes,” Cortana replied unabashedly, “I do. We can’t let the Monitoractivate Halo. We have to stop him—we have to destroy Halo.”
The Spartan nodded and flexed his stiff shoulders. “And how do we dothat?”
“According to my analysis of the available data I believe the best courseof action is somewhat risky.”
Naturally,the Chief thought.
“An explosion of sufficient size,” Cortana explained, “will helpdestabilize the ring—and will cut through a number of primary systems. Weneed to trigger a detonation on a large scale, however. A starship’s fusionreactors going critical would do the job.
“I’m going to find out where thePillar of Autumn went down. If the ship’sfusion reactors are still relatively intact, we can usethem to destroyHalo.”
“Is thatall ?” the Spartan inquired dryly. “Sounds like a walk in thepark. By the way, it’s nice to have you back.”
“It’s nice tobe back,” Cortana said, and he knew she meant it. Althoughthere were any number of “natural” bio-sentients that she thought of asfriends, the bond the AI shared with the Spartan was unique. So long as theyshared the same armor they would share the same fate. Ifhe died thenshedied. Relationships don’t get any more interdependent than that, somethingthat struck Cortana as both wonderful and frightening.
His boots made a hollow sound as he approached the gigantic blast doors andhit the switch. They parted to reveal a battle in progress between a groupof Sentinels and Covenant ground troops. Red lasers split the air intojagged shapes as robots burned a Jackal down. The contest was far from onesided, however, as one of the machines exploded and showered the Covenantwith bits of hot metal.
The room was a long rectangular affair with a strangely corrugated floor.
Standing at one end of the space, and well out of harm’s way, the Spartanwas content to watch and let the two groups whittle each other down.
However, when the last robot crashed, leaving two Elites still on theirfeet, the Master Chief knew he’d have to take them on.
The Covenant spotted the human, knew he’d have to come to them, and stoodwaiting. The Chief took advantage of what little bit of cover there was andmade his way down the length of the room. With only half a clip of ammo leftin his assault rifle, he had little choice but to tackle them with theshotgun—far from ideal at this range.
He fired a couple of rounds just to get their attention, waited for theElites to charge, and lobbed a plasma grenade into the gap between them. Theexplosion killed one soldier and wounded the other. A single blast from theshotgun was sufficient to finish the job. Striding though the carnage, heexchanged the assault weapon for a plasma rifle.
From there it was a short journey through an empty room and out onto the toplevel of the pyramid. It was dark, and a fresh layer of snow had fallensince the time when the noncom had battled his way up to the Control Roomfrom the valley below.
There were guards, but all of them had their backs to the hatch, and didn’tbother to turn until the doors were halfway open. That was when they saw thehuman, did a series of double takes, and started to respond. But the Chiefwas ready and used the energy weapon to hose them down. The Elites jerkedand fell, quickly followed by several Jackals and Grunts.
Then, just as suddenly as the violence had started, it was over. Snowswirled around the sole figure who remained standing, began the long,painstaking job of covering each body with a shroud of white, and fosteredan illusion of peace.
Cortana took advantage of the momentary pause to update the Spartanregarding her plan. “We need to buy some time in case the Monitor or hisSentinels find a way to activate Halo’s final weapon without the Index.
“The machines in these canyons are Halo’s primary firing mechanisms. Theyconsist of three phase pulse generators that amplify Halo’s signal andallow it to fire deep into space. If we damage or destroy the generators,the Monitor will need to repair them before Halo can be used. That shouldbuy us some time. I’m marking the location of the nearest pulse generatorwith a nav point. We need to move and neutralize the device.”
“Roger that,” the Chief said, as he made his way down the first ramp tothe platform below. Once again the element of surprise worked in his favor.
He killed two Elites, caught a couple of Jackals as they tried to run, andnailed a Grunt as it appeared from below.
The wind whistled around the side of the pyramid. The Spartan left a trailof large bootprints as he made his way down to the point where the ramp metthe next level walkway, crossed to the other side of the structure, and raninto a pair of Elites as they hit the top of the up ramp and rounded thecorner.
There wasn’t enough time to do anything but fire, and keep on firing, in anattempt to overwhelm the Covenant armor. It wouldn’t have worked had thealiens been farther away, but the fact that the plasma pulses were poundingthem in close made all the difference. The first Elite made a horriblegurgling sound as he fell and the second got a shot off but lost half of hisface. He brought his hands up to the hole, made a gruesome discovery, andwas just about to scream when an energy bolt took his life.
Then, as the Spartan prepared to descend into the valley below, Cortanasaid, “Wait, we should commandeer one of those Banshees. We’ll need it toreach the pulse generator in time.” Like many of the AI’s suggestions,this was easier said than done, but the Chief was in favor of speed, andfiled the possibility away.
Now, as he came down off the pyramid, he saw lots of Covenant, but no Flood,and felt a strange sense of relief. The Covenant were tough, but heunderstood them, and that lessened his apprehension.
The alien plasma rifle lacked the precision offered by an M6D pistol or asniper’s rifle, but the Chief did the best he could to pick off some of theCovenant below. Still, he had only nailed three of the aliens when hisefforts attracted the attention of a Wraith tank, along withmore troops.
There was nothing he could do except retreat back uphill.
The Wraith, which continued to hurl plasma bombs up-slope, actually helpedby preventing other Covenant forces from charging after him. That advantagewouldn’t last long, though, which meant that he had to find some additionalfire power, and find it fast.
Even though there was no sign of the Flood at the moment, some of theirhalf-frozen bodies lay scattered about, suggesting that there had been asignificant battle within the last couple of hours. He knew the Floodcarried weapons acquired from dead victims, so the Chief ran from corpse tocorpse, looking for what he required. For a while it seemed hopeless as heuncovered a series of M6Ds, energy pistols, combat knives, and other gear—anything and everything except what he needed most.
Then, just when he had nearly given up hope, he saw a few inches of olivedrab tubing protruding from under a dead combat form. He rolled the ex-Eliteover, and felt a rising sense of excitement. Was the launcher loaded? If so,he was in luck.
A quick check revealed that the weaponwas loaded, and as if to prove thatluck comes in threes, the Spartan found two reloads only a few meters away.
Armed with the launcher, he was ready to go to work. The Wraith representedthe most significant threat, so he decided to deal with that first. It tooktime to make his way back across the face of the pyramid to a point where hecould get a clear shot, but he did. The monster was dangerously close as heput a pair of rockets into the mortar tank, and watched it explode.
He ejected the spent rocket tubes, slammed a reload home, and shifted hisaim. Two more rockets lanced ahead, and detonated in clusters of Covenantsoldiers. He fell back and slung the rocket launcher; he had a limitedsupply of rockets, and once they were gone, he had no choice but to go downonto the valley floor and finish the job the hard way.
He crept up on the pair of Elites who stood guard near a Banshee. They wentdown from deadly, spine-cracking blows and he stepped past their fallencorpses. He examined the Banshee’s controls while Cortana pulled up filesthe tech boys in Intel had prepared based on examinations of captured craft.
He boarded the single-seat aircraft, and activated its power plant. Hewondered why the aliens hadn’t used the ship against him, was thankful thatthey hadn’t, and eyed the instrument panel. The Master Chief had neverflown one of the attack ships before, but was qualified to fly most of theUNSC’s atmospheric and spacegoing ships so, between his own experience andthe tech files Cortana provided, he found the controls relatively easy tounderstand. The takeoff was a bit wobbly, but it wasn’t long before theflight began to smooth out, and the Banshee started to climb.
It was dark, and snow continued to fall, which meant that visibility waspoor. He kept a close eye on both the nav point Cortana had projected ontohis HUD and the instrument panel. The design was different, but an alienturn and bank indicator still looked like what it was, and helped the humanmaintain his orientation.
The attack ship made good speed, and the valleys were quite close together,so it wasn’t long before the Spartan spotted the well-lit platform whichjutted out from the face of the cliff, as well as the enemy fire whichlashed up to greet him. The word was out, it seemed—and the Covenantdidn’t want any visitors.
Rather than put down under fire, he decided to carry out a couple ofstrafing runs first. He swooped low and used the Banshee’s plasma and fuelrod cannons to sweep the platform clear of sentries before decelerating forwhat he hoped would be an unopposed landing.
The Banshee crunched into the platform, bounced once, then ground to a halt.
The Chief dismounted, passed through a hatch, and entered the tunnel beyond.
“We need to interrupt the pulse generator’s energy stream,” Cortanainformed him. “I have adjusted your shield system so that it will deliveran EMP burst and disrupt the generator . . . but you’ll have to walk intothe beam to trigger it.”
The Master Chief paused just shy of the next hatch. “I’ll have todowhat ?”
“You’ll have to walkinto the beam to trigger it,” the AI repeated matterof-factly. “The EMP blast should neutralize the generator.”
“Should?”the Chief demanded. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours,”Cortana replied firmly. “We’re in this together—remember?”
“Yeah,I remember,” the Spartan growled. “But you’re not the one with thebruises.”
The AI chose to remain silent as the Chief passed through a hatch, paused tosee if anyone would attempt to cancel his ticket, and followed the navindicator to the chamber located at the center of the room.
Once he was there the pulse generator was impossible to miss. It was sointensely white that his visor automatically darkened in order to protecthis eyes. Not only that, but the Chief could feel the air crackle around himas he approached the delta-shaped guide structures, and prepared to step inbetween them. “I have to walk into that thing?” the Chief inquireddoubtfully. “Isn’t there some easier way to commit suicide?”
“You’ll be fine,” Cortana replied soothingly. “I’m almost sure of it.”
The Spartan took note of the “almost,” clenched his teeth, and pushedhimself into the blindingly intense light. The response was nearlyinstantaneous. There was something akin to an explosion, the light startedto pulsate, and the floor shook in response. The Chief hurried to disengage,felt a bit of suction, but managed to pull free. As he did so he noticedthat his shields had been drained. His skin felt sunburned.
“The pulse generator’s central core is off-line,” Cortana said. “Welldone.”
Another squadron of Sentinels arrived. They swooped into the cramped pulse-generator chamber like vultures, fanned out, and seared the area with ruby-red energy beams. Not only did the Monitor take exception to the damage—hewas after the Index too.
But the Chief knew how to deal with the mechanical killers, and proceeded tododge their lasers as he destroyed one after another. Finally, the air thickwith the stench of ozone, he was free to withdraw. He went back through thesame tunnel to the platform where the Banshee waited.
“The second pulse generator is located in an adjacent canyon,” Cortanaannounced easily. “Move out and I’ll mark the nav point when we getcloser.”
The Master Chief sent the Banshee into a wide bank, and toward the nextobjective.
Minus the refrigeration required to preserve them, the bodies laid out onthe metal tables had already started to decay, and the stench forced Silvato breathe through his mouth as he entered the makeshift morgue and waitedfor McKay to begin her presentation.
Six heavily armed Helljumpers were lined up along one wall ready to respondif one or more of the Flood suddenly came back to life. It seemed unlikelygiven the level of damage each corpse had sustained, but the creatures hadproven themselves to be extremely resilient, and had an alarming tendency toreanimate.
McKay, who was still trying to deal with the fact that more than fifteenMarines under her command had lost their lives in a single battle, lookedpale. Silva understood, even sympathized, but couldn’t allow that to show.
There was simply no time for grief, self-doubt, or guilt. The CompanyCommander would have to do whathe did, which was to suck it up and keep ongoing. He nodded coolly.
“Lieutenant?”
McKay swallowed in an attempt to counter the nausea she felt. “Sir, yessir. Obviously there’s still a great deal that we don’t know, but based onour observations during the fight, and information obtained from CovenantPOWs, here’s the best intelligence we have. It seems that the Covenant camehere searching for ‘holy relics’—we think that means useful technology—and ran into a life form they refer to as ‘the Flood.’ ” She gestured atthe fallen creatures on the slab. “Thoseare Flood.”
“Charming,” Silva muttered.
“As best we can figure out,” McKay said, “the Flood is a parasitic lifeform which attacks sentient beings, erases their minds, and takes control oftheir bodies. Wellsley believes that Halo was constructed to house them, tokeep them under control, but we have no direct evidence to support that.
Perhaps Cortana or the Chief can confirm our findings when we’re able tomake contact with them again.
“The Flood manifests in various forms starting withthese things,” McKaysaid, using her combat knife to prod a flaccid infection form. “As you cansee, it has tentacles in place of legs, plus a couple of extremely sharppenetrators, which they use to invade the victim’s central nervous systemand take control of it. Eventually they work their way inside the host bodyand take up residence there.”
Silva tried to imagine what that might feel like and felt a shiver run downhis spine. Outwardly he was unchanged. “Please continue.”
McKay said, “Yes, sir,” and moved to the next table. “This is what theCovenant call a ‘combat form.’ As you can see from what remains of itsface, this one was human. We think she was a Navy weapons tech, based on thetattoos still visible on her skin. If you peek through the hole in her chestyou can see the remains of the infection form that deflated itself enough tofit in around her heart and lungs.”
Silva didn’twant to look, but felt he had to, and moved close enough to seethe wrinkled scalp, to which a few isolated clumps of filthy hair stillclung. His eyes catalogued a parade of horrors: the sickly looking skin; thealarmingly blue eyes which still bulged, as if in response to someunimaginable pain; the twisted, toothless mouth; the slightly puckered7.62mm bullet hole through the right cheekbone; the lumpy, penetrator-filledneck; the bony chest, now split down the middle so that the woman’s flatbreasts hung down to either side; the grossly distorted torso, punctured bythree overlapping bullet wounds; the thin, sinewy arms; and the strangelygraceful fingers, one of which still bore a silver ring.
The Major didn’t say anything, but his face must have telegraphed what hefelt, because McKay nodded. “It’s pretty awful, isn’t it, sir? I’ve seendeath before, sir—” she swallowed and shook her head, “—but nothing likethis.
“For what it’s worth Covenant victims don’t look any better. Thisindividual was armed with a pistol, her own probably, but the Flood seem topick up and use any weapon they can lay their hands on. Not only that, butthey pack a very nasty punch, which can be lethal.
“Most combat forms appear to be derived from humans and Elites,” McKaycontinued, as she moved to the last table. “We suspect that Grunts andJackals are deemed too small for first-class combat material, and aretherefore used as a sort of nucleus around which carrier forms can grow.
It’s hard to tell by looking at the puddle of crap on the table in front ofyou, but at one time this thing containedfour of the infection forms you sawearlier, and when it popped the resulting explosion had enough force toknock Sergeant Lister on his can.”
That, or the mental picture that it conveyed, was sufficient to elicitnervous grins from the Helljumpers who lined the back wall. Apparently theyliked the idea of something that could put Lister on his ass.
Silva frowned. “Does Wellsley have scans of this stuff?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. Nice job. Have the bodies burned, send these troops up for somefresh air, and report to my office in an hour.”
McKay nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Zuka ’Zamamee lay belly down on the hard-packed dirt and used his monocularto scan thePillar of Autumn . It wasn’t heavily guarded; the Covenant wasstretched too thin for that, but the Council had reinforced the securityforce subsequent to the human raid, and evidence of that was visible in theBanshees, Ghosts, and Wraiths that patrolled the area around the downedship. Yayap, who lay next to the Elite, had no such device and was forced torely on his own vision.
“This plan is insane,” ’Zamamee said out of the side of his mouth. “Ishould have killed you a long time ago.”
“Yes, Excellency,” the Grunt agreed patiently, knowing that the talk wasjust that. The truth was that the officer wasafraid to return to theTruthand Reconciliation , and now had very little choice but to accept Yayap’splan, especially in light of the fact that he had been unable to come upwith one of his own.
“Give it to me one more time,” the Elite demanded, “so I’ll know thatyou won’t make any mistakes.”
Yayap eyed the readout on his wrist. He had two, maybe two and a half unitsof methane left, before his tanks were empty and he would suffocate, aproblem which didn’t seem to trouble the Elite at all. It was tempting topull his pistol, shoot ’Zamamee in the head, and implement the strategy onhis own. But there were advantages to being in company with the warrior—plus a giddy sense of power that went with having threatened the warrior andsurvived. With that in mind Yayap managed to suppress both his panic and arising sense of resentment.
“Of course, Excellency. As you know, simple plans are often best, which iswhy there is a good chance this one will work. On the possibility that theCouncil of Masters is actively looking for Zuka ’Zamamee, you will chooseone of the commandos who died on the human encampment, and assume thatindividual’s identity.
“Then, with me at your side, we will report to the officer in charge ofguarding the alien ship, explain that we were taken prisoner in theaftermath of the raid, but were subsequently able to escape.”
“But what then?” the Elite inquired warily. “What if he submits my DNAfor a match?”
“Why would he do that?” the Grunt countered patiently. “He’sshorthanded, and here, as if presented by the great ones themselves, is acommando Elite. Wouldyou run the risk of having such a find reassigned? No,I think not. Under circumstances such as these you would seize theopportunity to add such a highly capable warrior to your command, and givethanks for the blessing.”
It sounded good, especially the “highly capable warrior” part, so’Zamamee agreed. “Fine. What about later?”
“Later, if thereis a later,” Yayap said wearily, “we will have to come upwith another plan. In the meantime this initiative will assure us of food,water, and methane.”
“All right,” ’Zamamee said, “let’s jump on the Banshee and make ourappearance.”
“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” the Grunt inquired tactfully. “Ifwe arrive on a Banshee, the commanding officer might wonder why we were soslow to check in.”
The Elite eyed what looked like a long, hard walk, sighed, and acquiesced.
“Agreed.” A hint of his former arrogance resurfaced. “Butyou will carrymy gear.”
“Of course,” Yayap said, scrambling to his feet. “Was there ever anydoubt?”
The inmate had attempted suicide twice, which was why the interior of hiscell was bare, and under round-the-clock surveillance. The creature that hadonce been Private Wallace A. Jenkins sat on the floor with both wristschained to an eyebolt located just over his head.
The Flood mind, which the human continued to think of as “the other,” hadbeen quiet for a while, but was present nonetheless, and glowered in whatamounted to a cognitive corner, angry but weak. Hinges squealed as the metaldoor swung open. Jenkins turned to look, and saw a male noncom enter theroom followed by a female officer.
The private felt an almost overwhelming sense of shame—and did what hecould to turn away. Earlier, before the guards secured his wrists to thewall, Jenkins had used pantomime to request a mirror. A well-meaningCorporal brought one in, held it up in front of the soldier’s devastatedface, and was frightened when he tried to scream. The initial suicideattempt followed thirty minutes later.
McKay took a look at the prisoner’s dry, parched lips and guessed that hemight be thirsty. She called for some water, accepted a canteen, and startedacross the cell. “With respect, ma’am, I don’t think you should dothat,” the Sergeant said cautiously. “These suckers are incrediblyviolent.”
“Jenkins is a Private in the UNSC Marine Corps,” McKay replied sternly,“and will be referred to as such. And your concern has been noted.”
Then, like a teacher dealing with a recalcitrant child, she held the canteenout where Jenkins could see it. “Look!” she said, sloshing the water backand forth. “Behave yourself and I’ll give you a drink.”
Jenkins tried to warn her, tried to say “No,” but heard himself gabbleinstead. Thus encouraged, McKay unscrewed the canteen’s lid, took threesteps forward, and was just about to lean over when the combat formattacked. Jenkins felt his left arm break as the chain brought it up short—and fought to counter the other’s attempt to grab the officer in a scissorlock.
McKay stepped back just in time to evade the flailing legs.
There was a clacking sound as the guard pumped a shell into the shotgun’sreceiver and prepared to fire. McKay shouted, “No!” and held up her hand.
The noncom obeyed but kept his weapon aimed at the combat form’s head.
“Okay,” McKay said, looking into the creature’s eyes, “have it your way.
But, like it or not, we’re going to have a talk.”
Silva had entered the cell by then and stood behind the Lieutenant. TheSergeant saw the Major nod, and backed into a corner with his weapon stillheld at the ready.
“My name is Silva,” the Major began, “and you already know LieutenantMcKay here. First, let me say that both of us are extremely sorry about whathappened to you, we understand how you feel, and will make sure that youreceive the best medical care that the UNSC has to offer. But first we haveto fight our way off this ring. I think I know how we can do that—but itwill take some time. We need to hold this butte until we’re ready to makeour move. That’s whereyou come in. You know where we are now—and you knowhow the Flood move around. If you had my job, if you had to defend this baseagainst the Flood, where wouldyou focus your efforts?”
The other used his right hand to grab his left, jerked hard, and exposed ashard of broken bone. Then, as if hoping to use that as a knife, the combatform lunged forward. The chains brought the creature up short. Jenkins feltindescribable pain, began to lose consciousness, but fought his way back.
Silva looked at McKay and shrugged. “Well, it was worth a try, but it lookslike he’s too far gone.”
Jenkins half expected the other to lunge forward again, but having shared inthe human’s pain, the alien consciousness chose that moment to retreat. Thehuman surged into the gap, made hooting sounds, and used his good hand topoint at Silva’s right boot.
The officer looked down at his boot, frowned, and was about to say somethingwhen McKay touched his arm. “He isn’t pointing at your boot, sir, he’spointingdown . At the area under the butte.”
Silva felt something cold trickle into his veins. “Is that right, son? TheFlood could be directlybelow us?”
Jenkins nodded emphatically, rolled his eyes, and made inarticulate gaggingsounds.
The Major nodded and came to his feet. “Thank you, Private. We’ll checkthe basement and be back to speak with you some more.”
Jenkins didn’t want to talk, he wanted todie , but nobody cared. The guardsleft, the door clanged shut, and the Marine was left with nothing but abroken arm and the alien inside his head. Somehow, without actually dying,he had been sentenced to hell.
As if to confirm that conclusion the other surged to the fore, yanked at thechains, and beat its feet on the floor. Food had been present, food hadleft, and it remained hungry.
The Master Chief spotted the next way point, put the hijacked Banshee downon a platform, and entered the complex via an unguarded hatch. He heard thebattle before he actually saw it, made his way through the interveningtunnel, and peered through the next door. As had occurred before, theCovenant was busy taking it to the Flood and vice versa, so he gave bothgroups some time to whittle each other down, left the security of thetunnel, and proceeded to tidy up.
Then, eager to replenish his supplies, the Spartan made his ghoulish rounds,and soon was able to equip himself with an assault weapon, a shotgun, andsome plasma grenades. Even though he didn’t like to think about where itcame from, it felt good to dump the Covenant ordnance he’d been saddledwith, and lay his hands on some true-blue UNSC issue for a change.
Pulse generator one had been dealt with, and he was eager to disable numbertwo, then move on to his final objective. He stepped into the beam, saw theflash of light, felt the floor shake, and was in the process of pulling awaywhen the Flood attacked from every direction.
There was no time to think and no time to fight. The only thing he could dowas run. He turned and sprinted for the corridor he’d used to enter thechamber and took two powerful blows from a combat form. He bulled his waybetween two carrier forms and leaped out of the way as they detonated likegrenades. New infection forms spewed from their deflating corpses.
There was barely enough time to turn, hose the closest forms with 7.62mm,and toss a grenade at the group beyond. It went off with a loudwham! , brokeglass, and put three of the monstrosities down.
He was out of ammo by then, knew he lacked the time necessary to reload, andmade the switch to the shotgun instead. The gun blew huge holes through theoncoming mob. He charged through one of them, and ran like hell.
Then, with some pad to work with, the human turned to gun down the pursuers.
The entire battle consumed no more than two minutes but it left the Chiefshaken. Could Cortana detect the slight tremor in his hands as he reloadedboth weapons? Hell, she had unrestricted access to all of his vital signs,so she knew more about what was going on with his body than he did. Still,if the AI was conscious of the way he felt, there was no sign of it in herwords. “Pulse generator deactivated—good work.”
The Chief nodded wordlessly and made his way back through the tunnel to thepoint where the Banshee waited. “ThePillar of Autumn is located twelvehundred kilometers up-spin,” Cortana continued. “Energy readings show herfusion reactors are still powered up! The systems on thePillar of Autumnhave fail-safes even I can’t override without authorization from theCaptain. We’ll have to find him, or his neural implants, to start thefusion core detonation.
“Onetarget remaining. Let’s take care of the final pulse generator.”
A nav indicator appeared on the noncom’s HUD as he lifted off, took firefrom a neighboring installation, and put the attack ship into a steep dive.
The ground came up fast, he pulled out, and guided the alien assault craftthrough a pass and into the canyon beyond. The nav indicator pointed towardthe light that spilled out of a tunnel. The Banshee began to take groundfire, and the Spartan knew his piloting skills were about to be severelytested.
A rocket flashed by as he pushed the Banshee down onto the deck, fired theaircraft’s weapons, and cut power. Flying into the tunnel was bad enough—but flying into it at high speed verged on suicidal.
Once inside the passageway the challenge was to stay off the walls and makethe tight right- and left-hand turns without killing himself. A few secondslater the Spartan saw double blast doors and flared in for a jarringlanding.
He hopped down, made his way over to the control panel, hit the switch, andheard a rumbling sound as the doors started to part. Then there was abang!
as something exploded and the enormous panels came to a sudden stop. Theresulting gap was too small for the Banshee, but sufficient for two carrierforms to scuttle through. The beasts scrambled toward him on short, stubbylegs. The humpbacked bladders that formed their upper torsos pulsed andwriggled as the infection forms within struggled for release.
The Chief blew both monsters away with twin shotgun blasts, and mopped upthe rest of the infection forms with another shot. He paused and reloaded;there were bound to be more of the creatures on the far side of the doors.
Resigned to a fight, he stepped through the crack and paused. There was nosound beyond the gentle roar of machinery, thedrip, drip, drip of water offto his right, and the rasp of his own breathing. The threat indicator wasclear, and there were no enemies in sight, but that didn’t mean much. Notwhere the Flood were concerned. They had a habit of coming out of nowhere.
The cave, if that was the proper word for the huge cavernlike space,featured plenty of places to hide. Enormous pipes emerged from the walls anddived downward, mysterious installations stood like islands on the platformaround him, and there was no way to know what might lurk in the darkcorners. Lights, mounted high above, provided what little illumination therewas.
The human stood on a broad platform that ran the full length of the openarea. A deep chasm separated his platform from what appeared to be anidentical structure on the other side of the canyon. One of two bridges thathad once spanned the gorge was down, leaving only one over which he couldpass—a made-to-order choke point for anyone who wanted to establish anambush.
There wasn’t a hell of a lot of choice, so he marched down to the pointwhere the remaining span was anchored, and started across. He hadn’t gonemore than thirty paces before fifty or sixty infection forms emerged fromhiding and danced out to block the way.
The Spartan held his position, waited for the Flood forms to come a littlecloser, and tossed a fragmentation grenade into the center of the group.
The cavern ate some of the sound, but the explosive device still managed toproduce abang , and the resulting shrapnel laid waste to all but a handfulof the creatures.
There were two survivors, though, both optimists, who continued to bounceforward in spite of the way in which the rest of the group had beenannihilated. A single shotgun blast was sufficient to kill both of them.
He slipped some additional shells into the gun’s magazine tube, took a deepbreath, and moved forward again. He made it about halfway to the other sidebefore a mixed force of combat forms, carrier forms, and infection formsstarted to gather at the far end of the span. Another grenade inflictedcasualties, but they charged him after that, and the Master Chief was forcedto retreat, firing the assault weapon as he did so.
It was nip and tuck for a few seconds as combat forms launched themselvesfifteen meters through the air, carriers charged straight in, and theomnipresent infection forms swarmed through the gaps. Retreating, theSpartan had already reloaded three times before his back hit the wall, andthe last combat form collapsed at his feet, started to rise, and took ablast in the head.
Once again it was time to reload both weapons, step out onto the gore-splattered bridge deck, and attempt another crossing. This one wassuccessful, with only light opposition on the other side, and an opportunityto replenish his ammo.
The next set of blast doors opened flawlessly, allowing the Spartan to entera relatively short section of tunnel that led back to the surface.
Determined to use stealth if at all possible, he slipped out of thepassageway, scrambled up over the snow embankment to his right, and ran intoa group of four Flood. A grenade took care of two—and the assault weaponfinished the rest.
A Banshee swooped in, burned a long line of dashes into the snow, andcontinued up the valley. The Chief was surprised to get off so lightly, butgiven the darkness and all of the confusion, it was possible that the pilothad mistaken him for a combat form. A worthy target, to be sure, but notsomething to turn around for. Particularly not when the valley was full ofcombat forms.
He was careful to hug the face of the cliff and stay within the coverprovided by the boulders and trees that lined the edge of the valley. Theincessant thud of automatic weapons and the whine of plasma weaponstestified to the intensity of a conflict raging off to his left.
Then, just as he was starting to believe that he could slide by withoutfiring a shot, he came up over a slight rise to see that the Covenant andFlood were engaged in hand-to-hand combat within the depression below. Agrenade followed with bursts of fire from the MA5B decimated both groups.
Snow crunched as the human made his way down through the bloodstained snow,past the spot where a trio of greedy infection forms squabbled over awounded Elite, and up another rise to a stand of trees where a combat formand a carrier tried to jump him. Both of the Flood staggered as bursts of7.62mm slugs cut them down, and they flopped onto the snow.
Having broken through the perimeter of the battle, the Master Chief was ableto follow the nav indicator into a second valley where he came upon a groupof dead Marines, loaded up on ammo, and tried to decide whether to stay withthe scatter gun or trade it in for a sniper’s rifle or a rocket launcher.
It would have been nice to have all three, but that many weapons would beunwieldy, not to mention damned heavy. In the end he went with the rifle andshotgun and hoped it was the right decision.
The Spartan checked the Marines for dog tags, discovered that they hadalready been taken by someone else, and took the time required to drag thebodies into a nearby cave in the hope that the infection forms wouldn’tfind them. That seemed like a good place to stash the extra weapons—sothat’s what he did.
Then, having followed the second valley to the point where it opened ontoathird valley, he came across a now-familiar scene. The Covenant werebattling the Flood with everything they had, including Shades, a brace ofGhosts, and two extremely active Wraiths, but the Flood had plenty of bodiesto throw back at them and didn’t hesitate to do so.
What the Chief wanted was the Banshee that was parked at the head of thevalley, but in order to get at the aircraft it would be necessary to cutboth groups down to size. He stayed right, slipped along the cliff face,made use of a thin screen of trees and boulders to hide his movements fromthose out toward the center of the valley. Finally, having passed behind ahouse-sized rock and found a vantage point that allowed him to look out onthe area where the vast majority of the Covenant were congregated, theSpartan unlimbered the S2 AM, selected the 10X setting for the scope, andbegan his bloody work.
In this particular situation he selected the softest targets first, startingwith the Grunts on the Shades, followed by the outlying Jackals, all in hopethat he could inflict a lot of casualties before the Elites took notice andsent the tank to get him.
The problem was that the little world inside the scope was all-consuming—afact that caused him to let down his guard. The first hint he had that aFlood form had come up behind him was when it whacked the Spartan in thehead.
The blow would have killed anyone else, but the armor saved him, and theChief rolled in the direction of the blow. The long-barreled S2 wasn’t wellsuited for close-in combat but that’s what he had in his hands. There wasno time to aim as the Flood form charged, only time to fire, and that’swhat he did.
The slug caught the ex-Elite in the chest. The combat form didn’t evenflinch as the bullet passed through its spongy center of mass. A tiny spurtof gray-green ichor trailed from the entry wound, as the creature swung avicious blow at the Master Chief.
He ducked the attack and dropped the rifle. He dived, tucked into a roll andcame up with his sidearm in his hand. He emptied the clip into the beast.
One round blew its left arm off, and the final round made a foot-wide exitwound in the Flood’s back.
He kicked in the creature’s chest, crushing the infection form within. Hecollected the S2, and frowned. He studied the fallen Flood for a moment, andsaw that the creature’s insides were rapidly liquefying. The velocity ofthe S2’s projectile had passed through the nonvital mass of the creature’schest and just kept going.
Another nasty surprise, courtesy of the Flood.
After a quick look around to make sure that there weren’t anymore surpriseslurking in the vicinity, with his heart still beating like a trip-hammer,the Chief went back to his grisly work. Three more Covenant warriors fellbefore a barrage of fireballs arced high into the air to land all around hisposition. One came so close that just the bleed off it was enough to pushhis shielding into the red and trigger the alarm.
He pulled back, switched to the assault weapon long enough to ice a coupleof overly ambitious Grunts, and switched back to the S2 as he rounded theopposite side of the big boulder. He selected a spot where he could go towork on both the Covenantand the Flood, and settled in.
He wanted to nail the Elites now and, thanks to the powerful 14.5mm armor-piercing rounds, he could drop most of them with a single shot. Combat formswere a different story, so he switched to the pistol. It was less accurate,but did the job. It wasn’t long before more than a dozen bodies were laidout in the snow. But then the word was out. Soon the mortar tank moved intoposition to bombard his new position, and it was necessary to pull back.
The Wraith was a problem, aserious problem, which meant there was only onething the Spartan could do: hike back to the weapons cache and trade therifle for the launcher. It was a major pain in the ass, but he didn’t havemuch choice, so he pulled out.
It took a full half hour to make the round trip between the valley and theweapons cache, so he expected things to have calmed down a bit by the timehe returned. That wasn’t the case, however, which suggested that the Floodhad thrown even more forms into the battle.
The Chief followed his own footprints back to the hiding place next to thebig boulder, put the launcher on his shoulder, and hit the zoom. The Wraith,which was busy hurling bombs down valley, seemed to leap forward. As ifsomehow aware of his presence, the tank spun on its axis, and launched abomb toward the rock.
The Spartan forced himself to ignore the artificial comet, locked onto thetarget, and triggered the rocket. There was an impact and a loudcrump!
followed by smoke—but the Wraith continued to fire nonetheless.
Now, with fireballs exploding all around him, the Master Chief had to take adeep breath, hold the tank at the center of his sight, and pull the triggeragain. The tube jerked, the second missile ran straight and true, and hitwith a loudcraack! The Wraith opened like a red flower, burped pitch-blacksmoke, and nosed into a snowbank.
“Nice shot,” Cortana said admiringly, “but watch the Ghost.”
It was good advice, because although the attack vehicle had held back up tothat point, it came skittering into sight, opened up with its plasmaweapons, and threatened to accomplish what the rest of the Covenant soldiershadn’t.
But the Chief had reloaded by then. The rocket tube was the right weapon forthe job, and a single missile was sufficient to send the attack vehicleflipping end-for-end to finally wind up with its belly in the air and flameslicking at the engine compartment.
With that problem out of the way the Chief came to his feet, slapped a freshload into the launcher, and made a beeline for the Banshee. He was halfwayacross, with nowhere to hide, when a pair of Hunters emerged from a jumbleof boulders.
Now, grateful that he still had some rockets, he had no choice but to stop,drop to one knee, and take them on. The first shot was dead on, hit thealien in the chest, and blew the bastard apart. Another rocket flew over thesecond Hunter’s right shoulder and cut a tree in half. The big alienstarted to lumber across open ground, picking up speed and charging its arm-mounted cannon.
It was a waste of ammo to pepper the front end of a Hunter with 7.62mmrounds, and slow though he was, the alien could still bring him down with ablast from his arm-mounted fuel rod cannon.
So he put his sight onto a target so big he didn’t need to zoom, and letfly.
The Hunter saw the missile coming, tried to deflect it with his shield, andfailed. Seconds later pieces of warm meat showered the area, melted holes inthe snow, and continued to steam.
The Chief ran past without a second look, jumped onto the Banshee, andstrafed the rest of the Covenant forces on his way down the valley. Judgingfrom the way the nav indicator was oriented, the Spartan needed altitude, alot of it, so he put the alien attack ship into a steep climb.
Finally, when the red delta flipped over, and started to point down, he knewhe was high enough. He did a nose-over and caught his first glimpse of theway point below. The surrounding area was dark, and snow continued to fall,but the platform was nicely lit. He lowered the Banshee onto the pad and hadjust bailed out of the pilot’s seat when the Sentinels attacked. “This isthe last one,” Cortana said. “The Monitor will do anything to stop us.”
The Chief blew three of the pesky machines out of the air, backed throughthe hatch, and let the door close on the rest.
“We’re close,” the AI commented. “The generator is up ahead.”
The Chief nodded, stepped out into a room, and felt a laser burn across thefront of his armor. It seemed that the Monitor had posted Sentinelsinsidethe complex, as well. Not only that, but these machines had benefit ofintermittent force fields, which were resistant to automatic weapons fire.
Still, he had a couple of 102mm surprises in store for the electromechanicalenforcers, which he fired into the center of the hovering pack. ThreeSentinels were blown out of the air. A fourth did loops as it tried to riditself of a plasma grenade, failed, and took another machine with it. Thefifth and sixth succumbed to a hail of bullets as their shields recharged,while the seventh slammed into a wall, crashed to the floor, and was busytrying to lift off again when the Chief stomped it to death.
The way was clear at that point and the Spartan was quick to take advantageof it. A few quick strides were sufficient to carry him into the centralchamber where he was free to approach the final pulse generator.
“Final target neutralized,” Cortana said as the noncom stepped back a fewmoments later. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Let’s find a ride and get to the Captain,” the Chief agreed, as heprepared to leave.
“No, that’ll take too long.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“There’s a teleportation grid that runs around Halo. That’s how theMonitor moves about so quickly,” the AI explained. “I learned how to tapinto the grid when I was in the Control Center.”
“So,” the Chief asked, somewhat annoyed, “why didn’t you justteleport usto the pulse generators?”
“I can’t. Unfortunately, each jump requires a rather consequentialexpenditure of energy, and I don’t have access to Halo’s power systems toreroute the energy we need.” She paused, then reluctantly continued.
“There may be another way, however.”
The Spartan frowned and shook his head. “Something tells me I’m not goingto like this.”
“I’m pretty sure I can pull the energy we need from your suitwithoutpermanently damaging your shield system or the armor’s powercells,” Cortana continued. “Needless to say, I think we should only trythis once.”
“Agreed. Tap into the Covenant network and see if you can find him. Ifwe’ve only got one shot at this, we should make it a good one.”
There was a pause as Cortana worked her magic with the intrusion and scansoftware. A moment later, she exclaimed, “I’ve got a good lock on CaptainKeyes’ CNI transponder signal. He’s alive! And the implants are intact!
There’s some interference from the cruiser’s damaged reactor. I’ll bringus in as close as I can.”
“Do it,” the Master Chief growled. “Let’s get this over with.”
No sooner had the Spartan spoken than bands of golden light started toripple down over his armor, the now-familiar feeling of nausea returned, andthe Master Chief seemed to vanish through the floor. Once he was gone only afew motes of amber light remained to mark his passing. Then, after a fewseconds, they too disappeared.