0127 Hours (Ship’s Time), September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ UNSC CruiserPillar of Autumn , location unknown.

ThePillar of Autumn shuddered as her Titanium-A armor took a direct hit.

Just another item in the Covenant’s bottomless arsenal,Captain Jacob Keyesthought.Not a plasma torpedo, or we’d already be free-floating molecules.

The warship had taken a beating from Covenant forces off Reach and it was amiracle that the hull remained intact and even more remarkable that they’dbeen able to make a jump into Slipspace at all.

“Status!” Keyes barked. “What just hit us?”

“Covenant fighter, sir. Seraph-class,” the tactical officer, LieutenantHikowa, replied. Her porcelain features darkened. “Tricky bastard must havepowered down and slipped past our sentry ships.”

A humorless grin tugged at Keyes’ mouth. Hikowa was a first-rate tacticalofficer, utterly ruthless in a fight. She seemed to take the Covenantfighter pilot’s actions as a personal insult. “Teach him a lesson,Lieutenant,” he said.

She nodded and tapped a series of orders into her panel—new orders fortheAutumn ’s fighter squadron.

A moment later, there was radio chatter as one of theAutumn ’s C709Longsword fighters went after the Seraph, followed by a cheer as the tinyalien ship transformed into a momentary sun, complete with its own system ofco-orbiting debris.

Keyes wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead. He checked his display—they’d reverted back into real space twenty minutes ago.Twenty minutes ,and the Covenant picket patrols had already found them and started shooting.

He turned to the bridge’s main viewport, a large transparent bubble slungbeneath theAutumn ’s bow superstructure. A massive purple gas giant—Threshold—dominated the spectacular view. One of the Longsword fightersglided past as it continued its patrol.

When Keyes had been given command of thePillar of Autumn , he’d beenskeptical of the large, domed viewport. “The Covenant are tough enough,”

he had argued to Admiral Stanforth. “Why give them an easy shot into mybridge?”

He’d lost the argument—captains don’t win debates with admirals, and inany case there simply hadn’t been time to armor the viewport. He had toadmit, though, the view was almost worth the risk. Almost.

He absently toyed with the pipe he habitually carried, lost in thought. Itran completely counter to his nature to slink around in the shadow of a gasgiant. He respected the Covenant as a dangerous, deadly enemy, and hatedthem for their savage butchery of human colonists and fellow soldiers alike.

He had never feared them, however. Soldiers didn’t hide from the enemy—they met the enemy head-on.

He moved back to the command station and activated his navigation suite. Heplotted a course deeper in-system, and fed the data to Ensign Lovell, thenavigator.

“Captain,” Hikowa piped up. “Sensors paint a squadron of enemy fightersinbound. Looks like boarding craft are right behind them.”

“It was just a matter of time, Lieutenant.” He sighed. “We can’t hidehere forever.”

ThePillar seemed to glide out of the shadow cast by the gas giant, and intobright sunlight.

Keyes’ eyes widened with surprise as the ship cleared the gas giant. He hadexpected to see a Covenant cruiser, Seraph fighters, or some other militarythreat.

He hadn’t expected to see the massive object floating in a Lagrange pointbetween Threshold and its moon, Basis.

The construct was enormous—a ring-shaped object that shimmered and glowedwith reflected starlight, like a jewel lit from within.

The outer surface was metallic and seemed to be engraved with deep geometricpatterns. “Cortana,” Captain Keyes said. “Whatis that?”

A foot-high hologram faded into view above a small holopad near thecaptain’s station. Cortana—the ship’s powerful artificial intelligence—frowned as she activated the ship’s long-range detection gear. Long linesof digits scrolled across the sensor displays and rippled the length ofCortana’s “body” as well.

“The ring is ten thousand kilometers in diameter,” Cortana announced,“and twenty-two point three kilometers thick. Spectroscopic analysis isinconclusive, but patterns do not match any known Covenant materials, sir.”

Keyes nodded. The preliminary finding was interesting,very interesting,since Covenant ships had already been present when theAutumn dropped out ofSlipspace and right into their laps. When he first saw the ring, Keyes had asinking feeling that the construct was a large Covenant installation—onefar beyond the scope of human engineering. The thought that the constructmight also be beyondCovenant engineering held some small comfort.

It also made him nervous.

Under intense pressure from enemy warships in the Epsilon Eridani system—the location of the UNSC’s last major naval base, Reach—Cortana had beenforced to launch the ship toward a random set of coordinates, a standardprocedure to lead the Covenant forces away from Earth.

Now it appeared that the men and women aboard thePillar of Autumn hadsucceeded in leaving their original pursuers behind, only to encounter evenmore Covenant forceshere . . . wherever “here” was.

Cortana aimed a long-range camera array at the ring and a close-up snappedinto focus. Keyes let out a long, slow whistle. The construct’s innersurface was a mosaic of greens, blues, and browns—trackless desert,jungles, glaciers, and oceans. Streaks of white clouds cast deep shadows onthe terrain below. The ring rotated and brought a new feature into view: atremendous hurricane forming over a large body of water.

Equations again scrolled across the AI’s semitransparent body as shecontinued to evaluate the incoming data. “Captain,” Cortana said, “theobject is clearly artificial. There’s a gravity field that controls thering’s spin and keeps the atmosphere inside. I can’t say with one hundredpercent certainty, but it appears that the ring has an oxygen-nitrogenatmosphere, and Earth-normal gravity.”

Keyes raised an eyebrow. “If it’s artificial, who the hell built it, andwhat in God’s name is it?”

Cortana processed the question for a full three seconds. “I don’t know,sir.”

Regulations be damned,Keyes thought. He took out his pipe, used an old-fashioned match to light it, and produced a puff of fragrant smoke. The ringworld shimmered on the status monitors. “Then we’d better find out.”

Sam Marcus rubbed his aching neck with hands that trembled with fatigue. Therush of adrenaline that had flooded him when he’d received Tech ChiefShephard’s instructions had worn off. Now he just felt tired, strung out,and more than a little afraid.

He shook his head to clear it and surveyed the small observation theater.

Each cryostorage bay was equipped with such a station, a central monitoringfacility for the hundreds of cryotubes the storage bays held. By shipboardstandards, the Cryo Two Observation Theater was large, but the proliferationof life-sign monitors, diagnostic gauges, and computer terminals—tieddirectly into the individual cryotubes stored in the bay below—made theroom seem cramped and uncomfortable.

A chime sounded and Sam’s eyes swept across the status monitors. There wasonly one active cryotube in this bay, and its monitor pinged for hisattention. He double-checked the main instrument panel, then keyed theintercom. “He’s coming around, sir,” he said. He turned and looked outthe observation bay’s window.

Tech Chief Thom Shephard waved up at Sam from the floor of Cryostorage UnitTwo. “Good work, Sam,” he called back. “Almost time to pop the seal.”

The status monitors continued to feed information to the observationtheater. The subject’s body temperature was approaching normal—at least,Sam assumed it was normal; he’d never awakened a Spartan before—and mostof the chemicals had already been flushed out of his system.

“He’s in a REM cycle now, Chief,” Sam called out, “and his brainwaveactivity shows he’s dreaming—that means he’s pretty much thawed.

Shouldn’t be long now.”

“Good,” Shephard replied. “Keep an eye on those neuro readings. We packedhim in wearing his combat armor. There may be some feedback effects to watchout for.”

“Acknowledged.”

A red light winked to life on the security terminal, and a new series ofcodes flashed across the screen:

>WAKE-UP SERIES STANDBY. SECURITY LOCK [PRIORITY ALPHA] ENGAGED.

>x-CORTANA.1.0—CRYOSTOR.23.4.7“What the hell?” Sam muttered. He keyed the bay intercom again. “Thom?

There’s something weird here . . . some kind of security lockout from thebridge.”

“Acknowledged.” There was a static-spotted click as Shephard looped in thebridge channel. “Cryo Two to Bridge.”

“Go ahead, Cryo Two,” a female voice replied, laced with the telltalewarble of synthesized speech.

“We’re ready to pop the seal on our . . . guest, Cortana,” Shephardexplained. “We need—”

“—the security code,” the AI finished. “Transmitting. Bridge out.”

Almost instantly, a new line of text scrolled across the security screen:

>UNSEAL THE HUSHED CASKET.

Sam hit the execute command, the security lockout dropped away, and acountdown timer began marking time until the wake-up sequence would becompleted.

The soldier was coming around. Respiration was up, ditto his heart rate, asboth returned to normal levels.Here he is, Sam thought,a real honest-to-godSpartan. Not just any Spartan, but maybe thelast Spartan. The shipboardscuttlebutt said that the rest of them had bought the farm at Reach.

Like his fellow techs, Sam had heard of the program, though he’d never seenanactual Spartan in person. In order to deal with increasing civil turmoilthe Colonial Military Administration had secretly launched Project ORIONback in 2491. The purpose of the program was to develop supersoldiers, code-named “Spartans,” who would receive special training and physicalaugmentation.

The initial effort was successful, and in 2517 a new group of Spartans, theII-series, had been selected as the next generation of supersoldier. Theproject had been intended to remain secret, but the Covenant War had changedall that.

It was no secret that the human race was on the verge of defeat. TheCovenant’s ships and space technology were just too advanced. While humanforces could hold their own in a ground engagement, the Covenant wouldsimply fall back into space and glass the planet from orbit.

As the situation grew increasingly grim, the Admiralty was faced with theugly prospect of fighting a two-front war—one against the Covenant inspace, and another against the collapsing human society on the ground. Thegeneral public and the rank-and-file in the military needed a morale boost,so the existence of the SPARTAN-II project was revealed.

There were now successful heroes to rally behind, men and women who hadtaken the fight to the enemy and won several decisive battles. Even theCovenant seemed to fear the Spartans.

Except they were gone now, all but one, sacrificed to protect the human racefrom the Covenant and the very real possibility of extinction. Sam gazed onthe soldier in front of him with something akin to awe. Here, about to riseas if from a grave, was a true hero. It was a moment to remember, and if hewas lucky enough to survive, to tell his children about.

It didn’t make him any less afraid, however. If the stories were true, theman gradually regaining consciousness in the bay below was almost as alien,and certainly as dangerous, as the Covenant.

He was floating in the never-never land somewhere between cryo and fullconsciousness when the dream began.

It was a familiar dream, a pleasant dream, and one which had nothing to dowith war. He was on Eridanus II—the colony world he’d been born on, longsince destroyed by the Covenant. He heard laughter all around.

A female voice called him by name—John. A moment later, arms held him, andhe recognized the familiar scent of soap. The woman said something nice tohim, and he wanted to say something nice in return, but the words wouldn’tcome. He tried tosee her, tried to penetrate the haze that obscured herface, and was rewarded with the image of a woman with large eyes, a straightnose, and full lips.

The picture wavered, indistinct, like a reflection in a pond. In aneyeblink, the woman who held him transformed. Now she had dark hair,piercing blue eyes, and pale skin.

He knew her name: Dr. Halsey.

Dr. Catherine Halsey had selected him for the SPARTAN-II project. While mostbelieved that the current generation of Spartans had been culled from thebest of the UNSC military, only a handful of people knew the truth.

Halsey’s program involved the actual abduction of specially-screenedchildren. The children were flash-cloned—which made the duplicates prone toneurological disorders—and the clones covertly returned to the parents, whonever suspected that their sons and daughters were duplicates. In many ways,Dr. Halsey was the only “mother” that he had ever known.

But Dr. Halseywasn’t his mother, nor was the pale semitranslucent image ofCortana that appeared to replace her.

The dream changed. A dark, nebulous shape loomed behind theMother/Halsey/Cortana figure. He didn’t know what it was, but it was athreat—of that he was certain.

His combat instincts kicked in, and adrenaline coursed through him. Hequickly surveyed the area—some kind of playground, with high wooden poles,distantly familiar—and decided on the best route to flank the new threat.

He spied an assault rifle, a powerful MA5B, nearby. If he placed himselfbetween the woman and the threat, his armor could take the brunt of anattack, and he could return fire.

He moved quickly, and the dark shape howled at him—a fierce and terrifyingwar cry.

The beast was impossibly fast. It was on him in seconds.

He grabbed the assault rifle and turned to open fire—and discovered to hishorror that he couldn’t lift the weapon. His arms were small,underdeveloped. His armor was gone, and his body was that of a six-year-oldchild.

He was powerless in the face of the threat. He roared back at the beast inrage and fear—angry not just at the threat, but at his own suddenpowerlessness . . .

The dream started to fade, and light appeared in front of the Spartan’seyes. Vapor vented, swirled, and began to dissipate. A voice came, as iffrom a great distance. It was male and matter-of-fact.

“Sorry for the quick thaw, Master Chief—but things are a bit hectic rightnow. The disorientation should pass quickly.”

A second voice welcomed him back and it took the Spartan a moment toremember where he’d been prior to entering the cryotube. There had been abattle, a terrible battle, in which most if not all of his Spartan brothersand sisters had been killed. Men and women with whom he had been raised andtrained since the age of six, and who, unlike the dimly remembered woman ofhis dreams, constituted hisreal family.

With the memory, plus subtle changes to the gas mix that filled his lungs,came strength. He flexed his stiff limbs. The Spartan heard the tech saysomething about “freezer burn,” and pushed himself up and out of thecryotube’s chilly embrace.

“God in heaven,” Sam whispered.

The Spartan was huge, easily seven feet tall. Encased in pearlescent greenbattle armor, the man looked like a figure from mythology—otherworldly andterrifying. Master Chief SPARTAN-117 stepped from his tube and surveyed thecryo bay. The mirrored visor on his helmet made him all the more fearsome, afaceless, impassive soldier built for destruction and death.

Sam was glad that he was up here in the observation theater, rather thandown on the Cryo Two main floor with the Spartan.

He realized that Thom was waiting for diagnostic data. He checked thedisplays—neural pathways clear, no fluctuations in heartbeat or brainwaveactivity. He opened an intercom channel. “I’m bringing his health monitorson-line now.”

Sam watched as Thom led the Spartan to the various test stations in the bay,pitching in where he was required. In short order, the soldier’s gear hadbeen brought on-line—recharging shield system, real-time health monitors,targeting and optical systems all read in the green.

The suit—code-named MJOLNIR armor—was a marvel of engineering, Sam had toadmit. According to the specs he’d received, the suit’s shell consisted ofa multilayered alloy of remarkable strength, a refractive coating that coulddisperse a fair amount of directed energy, a crystalline storage matrix thatcould support the same level of artificial intelligence usually reserved fora starship, and a layer of gel which conformed to the wearer’s skin andfunctioned to regulate temperature.

Additional memory packets and signal conduits had been implanted into theSpartan’s body, and two externally accessible input slots had beeninstalled near the base of his skull. Taken together, the combined systemsserved to double his strength, enhance his already lightning-fast reflexes,and make it possible for him to navigate through the intricacies of anyhigh-tech battlefield.

There were substantial life-support systems built into the MJOLNIR gear.

Most soldiers went into cryo naked, since covered skin generally reactedbadly to the cryo process. Sam had once worn a bandage into the freezer anddiscovered the affected skin blistered and raw when he woke up.

The Spartan’s skin must have hurt like hell, he realized. Through it all,though, the soldier remained silent, simply nodding when asked questions orquietly complying with requests from Thom. It was eerie—he moved withmechanistic efficiency from one test to the next, like a robot.

Cortana’s voice rang from the shipwide com: “Sensors show inbound Covenantboarding craft. Stand by to repel boarders.”

Sam felt a pang of fear—and sorrow for the Covenant troops that would haveto face this Spartan in combat.

The neural interface which linked the Master Chief to his MJOLNIR armor wasworking perfectly, and immediately fed data to his helmet’s heads-updisplayon the inside surface of his visor.

It felt good to move around, and the Master Chief quietly flexed hisfingers. His skin itched and stung, a side effect of the cryo gases, but hequickly banished the pain from his awareness. He had long ago learned how todisassociate himself from physical discomfort.

He’d heard Cortana’s announcement. The Covenant were on their way. Good.

He scanned the room for weapons, but there was no arms locker present. Thelack of weapons wasn’t of great concern to him; he’d taken weapons awayfrom Covenant soldiers before.

The intercom crackled again: “Bridge to Cryo Two—this is Captain Keyes.

Send the Master Chief to the bridge immediately.”

One of the techs started to object, pointing out that more tests wererequired, when Keyes cut in. He said, “On the double, crewman,” and therating gave the only reply he could.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The tech chief turned and faced him. “We’ll find weapons later.”

The Master Chief nodded and was about to move for the door when an explosionechoed through the cryo bay.

The first blasts slammed into the observation theater’s door with a noisethat made Sam jump. His heart pounded as he quickly hit the door controls,engaging an emergency lockout. A heavy metal barrier slammed into place witha crash—then began to glow red as Covenant energy weapons burned their waythrough.

“They’re trying to get through the door!” he yelled.

He glanced down into the bay and saw Thom, a stricken look on his face. Samcould see his own startled reflection in the Spartan’s mirrored visor.

Sam lunged for the alarm, and had time to call in an alert. Then, thesecurity door exploded in a shower of fire and molten steel.

He heard the whine of plasma rifle fire, then felt something punch him inthe chest. His vision blurred, and he groped to feel the wound. His handscame away sticky with blood.It doesn’t hurt, he thought.It should hurt,shouldn’t it?

He felt disoriented, confused. He could see a flurry of movement, as armoredfigures swarmed into the observation theater. He ignored them and focused onhis wife’s picture—smeared with his own blood—which had somehow fallen tothe deckplates. He fell to his knees and scrambled for the photograph, hishands shaking.

His field of vision narrowed as he struggled to reach the discarded photo.

It was only inches away now, but the distance felt like miles. He’d neverbeen so tired. His wife’s name echoed in his mind.

Sam’s fingers had just brushed the edge of the photograph when an armoredboot pinned his arm to the deck. Long, clawed fingers plucked the picturefrom the floor.

Sam cursed weakly and struggled to face his attacker. The alien—an Elite—cocked his head at the image in puzzlement. He glanced down, as if noticingSam for the first time. The human continued to reach for the picture.

He dimly heard Thom’s voice call out in anguish: “Sam!”

The Elite aimed the plasma rifle at Sam’s head and fired.

The Master Chief bristled. Covenant forces were in close proximity, and afellow soldier had just died. He longed to climb to the observation bay andengage the enemy—but orders were orders. He needed to get to the bridge.

The cryo tech keyed open a hatchway. “Come on!” he yelled, “we’ve got toget the hell out of here!”

The Master Chief followed the crewman through the hatch and down thecorridor. A sudden explosion blew the next door to smithereens, hurled whatremained of the technician’s body down the passageway, and caused theChief’s shields to flare.

He mentally reviewed the schematics of the Halcyon-class line of ships anddoubled back. He vaulted over a pair of power conduits, and landed in thedimly lit maintenance hallway beyond. An emergency beacon strobed and alarmswailed. The rumble of a second explosion echoed down the corridor.

He pushed ahead, past a dead crewman, and into the next section of hallway.

The Master Chief saw a hatch, its security panel pulsing green, and hurriedforward. There was a third explosion, but his armor deflected the force ofthe blast.

The Spartan forced open the partially melted door, saw an opening to hisleft, and heard someone scream. A naval crewman fired his sidearm at atarget the Master Chief couldn’t see—and the deck shuddered as a missilestruck theAutumn ’s hull.

The Master Chief ducked under a half-raised door just in time to see thecrewman take an energy bolt through the chest as the rest of the humancounterboarders returned fire. Covenant forces backed through a hatch andwere forced to retreat into an adjoining compartment.

Chaos reigned as the ship’s crew did the best they could to push theboarders back toward the air locks or to trap them in compartments wherethey could be contained and dispatched later.

Unarmed, and well aware of the fact that Captain Keyes needed him on thebridge, the Master Chief had little choice but to follow the signs, andavoid the firefights that raged all around. He made his way down a darkenedaccess corridor—the Covenant boarders must have shorted out theillumination circuits in this compartment—and nearly ran headlong into aCovenant Elite.

The alien’s personal shields sparked and he roared in surprise and anger.

The Spartan crouched and prepared to meet the alien soldier’s charge—thenducked, as a Marine fire-team unleashed a barrage of assault-rifle fire atthe Elite. Purple gore splashed the bulkhead, and the alien dropped in acrumpled heap.

The Marines moved forward to secure the area, and the Chief nodded in thanksto the squad leader. He turned, sprinted down the passageway, and made it tothe bridge without further incident.

He looked out through the main viewport, saw the strange-looking constructthat floated out beyond the cruiser’s hull, and was momentarily curiousabout what it was. No doubt the Captain would fill him in. He strode towardthe captain’s station, near the center of the bridge.

A variety of naval personnel sat hunched at their consoles as they struggledto control their beleaguered vessel. Some battled the latest wave of Seraphfighters, others worked on damage control, and one grim-faced Lieutenantmade use of the ship’s environmental systems to suck the atmosphere out ofthose compartments which had been occupied by Covenant forces. Some of theenemy carried their own atmosphere, but some of them didn’t, and that madethem vulnerable. There were crew in some of those spaces, perhaps some sheknew personally, but there was no way to save them. If she didn’t killthem, then the enemy would.

The Chief understood the situation well. Better a quick death in vacuum thanat the hands of the Covenant.

He spotted Keyes near the main tactical display. Keyes studied the screensintently, particularly a large display of the strange ring.

The Spartan came to attention. “Captain Keyes.”

Captain Keyes turned to face him. “Good to see you, Master Chief. Thingsaren’t going well. Cortana did her best—but we never really had achance.”

The AI arched a holographic eyebrow. “A dozen Covenant battleships againsta single Halcyon-class cruiser . . . With those odds we still had three—”

She paused, as if distracted, then amended: “—make thatfour kills.”

Cortana looked at the Chief. “Sleep well?”

“Yes,” he replied. “No thanks to your driving.”

Cortana smiled. “So, youdid miss me.”

Before he could reply, another blast rocked the entire ship. He grabbed anearby support pillar and braced himself, as several crewers crashed to thedeck nearby.

Keyes grabbed onto a console for support. “Report!”

Cortana shimmered blue. “It must have been one of their boarding parties.

My guess is an antimatter charge.”

The fire control officer turned in his seat. “Ma’am! Fire control for themain cannon is off-line!”

Cortana looked at Keyes. The loss of the ship’s primary weapon, theMagnetic Accelerator Cannon, was a crippling blow to their holding action.

“Captain, the cannon was my last defensive option.”

“All right,” Keyes said gruffly, “I’m initiating Cole Protocol, ArticleTwo. We’re abandoning theAutumn . That means you too, Cortana.”

“While you do what? Go down with the ship?” she shot back.

“In a manner of speaking,” Keyes replied. “The object we found—I’mgoing to try and land theAutumn on it.”

Cortana shook her head. “With all due respect . . . this war has enoughdead heroes.”

The Captain’s eyes locked with hers. “I appreciate your concern, Cortana—but it’s not up to me. The Protocol is clear. The destruction or capture ofshipboard AI is absolutely unacceptable. That means youare abandoning ship.

Lock in a selection of emergency landing zones and upload them to my neurallace.”

The AI paused, then nodded. “Aye, aye, sir.”

“Which is whereyou come in,” Keyes continued as he turned to face theSpartan. “Get Cortana off this ship. Keep her safe from the enemy. If theycapture her, they’ll learn everything. Force deployment, weaponsresearch.” He paused, then added: “Earth.”

The Spartan nodded. “I understand.”

Keyes glanced at Cortana. “Are you ready?”

There was a pause as the AI took one last look around. In many ways the shipwas her physical body and she was reluctant to leave it. “Yank me.”

Keyes turned to a console, touched a series of controls, and turned backagain.

The holo shivered and Cortana’s image swirled into the pedestal below anddisappeared from view. Keyes waited until the holo had disappeared, removeda data chip from the pedestal, and offered it to the Spartan, along with hissidearm. “Good luck, Master Chief.”

SPARTAN-117 accepted the chip and reached back to slot the device into theneural interface, located at the base of his skull. There was a positiveclick, followed by a flood of sensation as the AI joined him within theconfines of the armor’s neural network. At first it felt as if someone hadpoured a cup of ice water into his mind, followed by a momentary jab ofpain, and a familiar presence. He’d worked with Cortana before—just priorto the disaster at Reach.

The AI-human interface was intrusive in a way, yet comforting too, since heknew what Cortana could do. He would depend on her during the hours and daysahead—just as she would depend on him. It was like being part of a teamagain.

The Master Chief saluted and left the bridge. The sounds of fighting wereeven louder now, indicating that, in spite of the crew’s best efforts,Covenant forces had still managed to fight their way out of the areasadjacent to the air locks and made it all the way up to the area around thecommand deck.

Bodies lay strewn around the corridor, roughly fifty meters from the bridge.

The human defenders had pushed them back, but the Chief could tell that thelast assault had been close. Too close.

The Master Chief paused to kneel next to a dead ensign, took a moment toclose her eyelids, and appropriated the fallen trooper’s ammo. The pistolthe Captain had given him was standard Navy issue; it fired 12.7mm semi-armor piercing high-explosive ammo from twelve-round clips. Not what hewould choose to tackle an Elite with—but good enough for Grunt work.

There was a metallicclick as the first clip slid into the pistol’s handle,followed by the sudden appearance of a blue circle in his HUD—a targetingreticle—as his armor made electronic contact with the weapon in his hand.

Then, conscious of the need to get Cortana off the ship, he made his waydown the corridor. He heard the strange high-pitched squeaks and barksbefore he actually saw the Covenant Grunts themselves. Consistent with hisstatus as a veteran, the first alien to come around the corner wore red-trimmed armor, a methane rig, and a Marine’s web pistol belt. The alienwore the captured gear Pancho Villa–style and dragged it across the deck.

Two of his comrades brought up the rear.

Confident that there were more of the vaguely simian aliens on the way, theMaster Chief paused long enough to let more of them appear, then openedfire. The recoil compensators in his armor dampened the effect, but he couldstill feel the handgun kick against his palm. All three of the Grunts wentdown from head shots. Phosphorescent blue ichor spattered the deck.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

The Master Chief stepped over their bodies and moved on.

A lifeboat. That was hisreal goal—and he would do whatever it took to findone.

Ashamed by the ignominy of it, but consistent with his orders, the Elitenamed Isna ’Nosolee waited until the Grunts, Jackals, and two members ofhis own race had charged out through the human air lock before leaving theassault boat himself. Though armed with a plasma pistol, plus a half-dozengrenades, he was there to observe rather than fight, which meant that theElite would rely on both his energy shielding and active camouflage to keephim alive.

His role, and an unaccustomed one at that, was to function as an“Ossoona,” or Eye of the Prophet. The concept, as outlined to ’Nosolee byhis superior, was to insert experienced officers into situations whereintelligence could be gleaned, and to do so early enough to obtain high-quality information.

Though both intelligent and brave, the Prophets felt that the Elites had anunfortunate tendency to destroy everything in their path, leaving verylittle for their analysts to analyze.

Now, by adding Ossoonas to the combat mix, the Prophets hoped to learn moreabout the humans, ranging from data on their weapons and force deploymentsto the greatest prize of all: the coordinates for their home planet,“Earth.”

’Nosolee had three major objectives: to retrieve the enemy ship’s AI, tocapture senior personnel, and to record everything he saw via the camerasattached to his helmet. The first two goals were bound to be difficult, buta quick check confirmed that the video gear was working, and the thirdobjective was assured.

So, even though the assignment was empty of honor, ’Nosolee understood itspurpose, and was determined to succeed, if only as a means to return to theregular infantry where he belonged.

The Elite heard the rhythmic clatter of a human weapon as a group of theirMarines backed around a corner, closely pursued by a pack comprised ofGrunts and Jackals. The Ossoona considered killing the humans, thoughtbetter of it, and flattened himself against a bulkhead. None of thecombatants noticed the point where the metal appeared to be slightlydistorted, and a moment later the spy slipped away.

It seemed as if theAutumn was infested with chrome-armored demons spoutingplasma fire. The Master Chief had acquired an MA5B assault rifle along withclose to four hundred rounds of 7.62mm armor piercing ammunition. In thissituation, with plenty of ordnance lying around, he preferred to reload whenthe ammo indicator on his weapon dropped to around 10. Failure to do socould result in disaster if he ran into serious opposition. With that inmind, the Chief hit the release, allowed a nearly empty magazine to fall,and shoved a new clip into its place. The weapon’s digital ammo counterreset, as did its cousin in his HUD.

“We’re closer,” Cortana said from someplace just outside his head. “Duckthrough the hatch ahead and go up one level.”

The Master Chief ran into a shimmery, black-clad Elite, and opened fire.

There were Grunts in the area as well, but he knew that the Elite posedthereal danger. He expertly sprayed a trio of bursts at the alien.

The Elite roared defiance and fired in return, but the sheer volume of thespecially hardened 7.62mm projectiles caused the Elite’s shielding toflare, overload, and fail. The bulky alien fell to his knees, bent forward,and collapsed. Frightened by what had happened to their leader, the Gruntsmade barking noises, turned, and began to scurry away.

Individually, the Grunts were cowards, but the Spartan had seen what a packof the creatures could do. He opened fire again. Alien bodies tumbled andfell.

He continued on through a hatch, heard more firing, and turned in thatdirection. Cortana called out: “Covenant! On the landing above us!”

He ran toward a flight of metal stairs, and charged straight for thelanding.

Boots rang on metal as he slammed a fresh magazine into the weapon’sreceiver and passed a wounded Marine. The Spartan remembered the soldierfrom his last action on one of Reach’s orbiting defense stations. TheMarine held a dressing to a plasma burn and managed to smile. “Glad youcould make it, Chief . . . we saved some party favors just for you.”

The Spartan nodded, paused on the landing, and took aim at a Jackal. Thevaguely birdlike aliens carried energy shields—handheld units, rather thanthe full-body protection the Elites favored. The Jackal shifted to take aimat the wounded Marine, and the Chief saw his opening. He fired a burst atthe Jackal’s unprotected flank and the alien hit the deckplates, dead.

He continued the climb up the flight of stairs, and came nearly visor-tovisorwith another Elite. The alien roared, charged forward, and attemptedto use his plasma rifle like a club. The Master Chief evaded the blow—he’dfought Elites hand-to-hand before, and knew they were dangerously strong—and backed away. He leveled the assault weapon at the Elite’s belly, andsqueezed the trigger.

The Covenant soldier seemed to absorb the bullets like a sponge, continuedto advance, and was just about to swing when a final round cut through hisspinal cord. The alien soldier slammed into the deck, twitched once, anddied.

SPARTAN-117 reached for another magazine. Another Elite roared, asdidanother . There was no time to reload, so the Master Chief turned to takethem on. He discarded the assault rifle and drew his sidearm. There were apair of dead Marines at the aliens’ feet, roughly twenty-five metersaway.Well within range, he thought, and opened fire.

The lead Elite snarled as the powerful handgun rounds tore into theshielding around his head. Sensing the Spartan’s threat, the aliens shiftedall of their fire in his direction only to watch as it dissipated againsthis shields and armor.

Now, free to direct their fire wherever they chose, the Marines launched ahastily organized counterattack. A fragmentation grenade blew one Elite intobloody ribbons, shredded the Jackals who had the poor judgment to stand nextto him, and sent pieces of shrapnel flying across the stairwell to slam intothe bulkhead.

The other Elite was consumed by a hail of bullets. He seemed to wilt, fold,and fly apart. “That’s what I’m talking about!” a Marine crowed. Hefired acoup de grace into the alien’s head.

Satisfied that the area was reasonably secure, the Master Chief moved on. Hepassed through a hatch, helped a pair of Marines take out a group of Grunts,and marched down a corridor drenched with blood—both human and alien. Thedeck shook as theAutumn took a new hit from a ship-to-ship missile. Therewas a muffled clang, and a light flared beyond a viewport.

“The lifeboats are launching,” Cortana announced. “We should hurry!”

“Iam hurrying,” the Master Chief replied. “I’ll get there as soon as Ican.”

Cortana started to reply, reconsidered, and processed the equivalent of anapologetic shrug. Sometimes, fallible though they were, humans were right.

Flight Officer Captain Carol Rawley, better known to the ship’s Marinecontingent by her call sign, “Foehammer,” waited for the Grunt to roundthe corner. She shot him in the head, and the little methane-breathingbastard dropped like a rock. The pilot took a quick peek, verified that thenext corridor was clear, and motioned to those behind her. “Come on! Let’sget while the getting’s good!”

Three pilots, along with an equal number of ground crew, followed as Rawleythundered down the hall. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman, and she ranwith a flat-footed determination. The plan, if the wild-assed scheme she’dconcocted could be dignified as such, was to make it down to the ship’slaunch bay, jump into their D77-TC “Pelican” dropships, and get offtheAutumn before the cruiser smacked into the construct below. At best, itwould be a tricky takeoff, and a messy landing, but she’d rather die behindthe stick of her bird than trust her fate to some lifeboat jockey. Besides,maybe some transports would come in handy, if anybody actually made it offthe ship alive.

That was looking like an increasingly big maybe.

“They’re behind us!” somebody yelled. “Run faster!”

Rawley wasn’t a sprinter—she was a pilot, damn it. She turned to take aimon her pursuers, when a globe of glowing-green plasma sizzled past her ear.

“Screw this,” she yelled, then ran with renewed energy.

As the battle with the interlopers continued to rage, a Grunt named Yayapled a small detachment of his own kind through a half-melted hatch and cameupon the scene of a massacre. The nearest bulkhead was drenched inshimmering blue blood. Spent shell casings were scattered everywhere and atangled pile of Grunt bodies testified to an engagement lost. Yayap keenedin brief mourning for his fallen brethren.

That most of the dead were Grunts like Yayap didn’t surprise him. TheProphets had long made use of his race as cannon fodder. He hoped that theyhad gone to a methane-rich paradise, and was about to pass by the gruesomeheap, when one of the bodies groaned.

The Grunt paused and, accompanied by one of his fellows—a Grunt named Gagaw—he waded into the gory mess, only to discover that the noise wasassociated with a black-armored member of the Elite, one of the “Prophetblessed”

types who were in charge of this ill-considered raid. By law andcustom, Yayap’s race was required to revere the Elites as near-divineenvoys of the Prophets. Of course, the implementation of law and custom wassomewhat flexible on the battlefield.

“Leave him,” Gagaw advised. “That’s whathe would do if it were one of uslying wounded.”

“True,” Yayap said thoughtfully, “but it would take all five of us tocarry him back to the assault boat.”

It took Gagaw ten full heartbeats to assimilate the idea and finallyappreciate the genius of it. “We wouldn’t have to fight!”

“Precisely,” Yayap said, as the sounds of battle grew louder once more,“so let’s slap some dressings on his wounds, grab his arms and legs, anddrag his ass out of here.”

A quick check revealed that the Elite’s wounds weren’t mortal. A humanprojectile had punched its way through the warrior’s visor, sliced alongthe side of his head, and flattened itself on the inside surface of theElite’s helmet. The force of the blow had knocked him unconscious. Asidefrom that, and some cuts and bruises sustained when he fell, the Elite wouldsurvive.A pity, Yayap thought.

Satisfied that their ticket off the ship would live long enough to get themwhere they wanted to go, the Grunts grabbed the warrior’s limbs and waddleddown the corridor. Their battle was over.

TheAutumn ’s contingent of Orbital drop Shock Troopers, also known as ODST,or “Helljumpers,” had been assigned to protect the cruiser’s experimentalpower plant, which consisted of a unique network of fusion engines.

The engine room was served by two main access points, each protected by aTitanium-A hatch. Both were connected by a catwalk and were still underhuman control. The fact that Major Antonio Silva’s Marines had been forcedto stack the Covenant bodies like firewood in order to maintain clear fieldsof fire testified to how effective the men and women under his command hadbeen.

There had been human casualties as well,plenty of them, including LieutenantMelissa McKay, who waited impatiently while “Doc” Valdez, the platoon’smedic, bandaged her arm. There was a lot to do—and clearly McKay wanted toget up and do it.

“Got some bad news for you, Lieutenant,” the medic said. “The tattoo onyour bicep, the one with the skull and the letters ‘ODST,’ took a serioushit. You can get a new one, of course . . . but scar tissue won’t take theink in quite the same way.”

McKay knew the patter had a purpose, knew it was Doc’s way of taking hermind off Dawkins, Al-Thani, and Suzuki. The medic secured the bandage inplace and the officer rolled her sleeve down over the dressing. “You knowwhat, Valdez? You are truly full of it. And I mean that as a compliment.”

Doc wiped his forehead with the back of a sleeve. It came away with AlThani’s blood on it. “Thanks, El-Tee. Compliment accepted.”

“All right,” Major Silva boomed as he strode out onto the center of thecatwalk. “Listen up! Play time is over. Captain Keyes is tired of ourcompany and wants us to leave this tub. There’s a construct down there,complete with an atmosphere, gravity, and the one thing Marines love likebeer—and that’s dirt beneath our feet.”

The ODST officer paused at that point, allowing his bright, beady eyes tosweep the faces around him, his mouth straight as a crease. “Most of thecrew—not to mention your fellow jarheads—will be leaving the ship inlifeboats. They’ll ride to the surface in air-conditioned comfort, sippingwine, and nibbling on appetizers.

“Notyou , however. Oh no, you’re going to leave thePillar of Autumn by adifferent method. Tell me, boys and girls . . . How willyou leave?”

It was a time-honored ritual, and the ODST Marines roared the answer inunison. “WE GO FEET FIRST, SIR!”

“Damned right you do,” Silva barked. “Now let’s get to those drop pods.

The Covenant is holding a picnic down on the surface and every single one ofyou is invited. You have five minutes to strap in, hook up, and shove a corkin your ass.”

It was an old joke, one of their favorites, and the Marines laughed as ifthey had just heard it for the first time. Then they formed into squads, andfollowed their noncoms out into a corridor that ran down the port side ofthe ship.

McKay led her platoon down the hall, past the troopers assigned to guard theintersection, and through what had been a battlefield. Bodies lay sprawledwhere they had fallen, plasma burns marked the bulkheads, and a long line of7.62mm dimples marked the last burst that one of the dead soldiers wouldever fire.

They pounded around a corner, and into what the Marines referred to as“Hell’s waiting room.” The troopers streamed down the center of a longnarrow compartment that housed two rows of oval-shaped individual drop pods.

Each pod bore the name of an individual trooper, and was poised over a tubethat extended down through the ship’s belly.

Most combat landings were made via armed assault boats, but the boats wereslow, and subject to antiaircraft fire. That was why the UNSC had investedthe time and money necessary to create asecond way to deliver troops throughan atmosphere: the HEV, or Human Entry Vehicle.

Computer-controlled antiaircraft fire would nail some of the pods, but theymade small targets, and each hit would result in one death rather than adozen.

There was just one problem. As the ceramic skins that covered the HEVsburned away, the air inside the pods became unbelievably hot, sometimesfatally so, which was why ODST personnel were referred to as“Helljumpers.” It was an all-volunteer outfit, and it took a special kindof crazy to join up.

McKay remained on the central walkway until each of her men had entered hisparticular pod. She knew that meant she would have sixty seconds less tomake her own preparations, and was quick to enter her HEV once the lasthatch had closed.

Once inside, McKay’s hands were a blur as she secured her harness, ran theobligatory systems check, removed a series of safeties, armed her ejectiontube, and eyed the tiny screen mounted in front of her. TheAutumn ’s firecontrol computer had already calculated the force required to blow the podfree and drop the HEV into the correct entry path. All she had to do washang on, pray that the pod’s ceramic skin would hold long enough for thechute to open, and try to ignore how fragile the vehicle actually was.

No sooner had the officer braced her boots against the bulkhead, and lookedup at the countdown, than the last digit clicked from one to zero.

The pod dropped, accelerated out of the ejection tube, and fell toward thering-shaped world below. Her stomach lurched and her heart rate spiked.

Somebody popped a tiny disk into a data player, touched a button, and pushedthe hyped-up strains of the Helljumpers’ anthem out over the team freq. Theregs made it clear that unauthorized use of UNSC communications facilitieswas wrong,very wrong, but McKay knew that at that particular moment itwasright , and Silva must have agreed, because nothing came in over thecommand freq. The music pounded in her ears, the HEV shuddered as it hit theouter layer of the ring-construct’s atmosphere, and the Marines fell feetfirst through the ring.

The deck jumped as thePillar of Autumn absorbed yet another blow and thebattle continued to rage within. The Master Chief was close now, andprepared to sprint for a lifeboat. That was when Cortana said, “Behindyou!” and the Master Chief felt a plasma bolt hit him squarely between theshoulder blades.

He rolled with the blow and sprang to his feet. He whirled to face hisattacker and saw that a Grunt had dropped out of an overhead maintenanceway. The diminutive alien stood with his feet planted on the deck, a plasmapistol over-charging in his claws. The Master Chief took three stepsforward, used the assault rifle to knock the creature off its feet, andfollowed it with a three-round burst. The Grunt’s pistol discharged itsstored energy into the ceiling. Drips of molten metal sizzled on the MasterChief’s shields.

The armor-piercing rounds punctured the alien’s breathing apparatus,released a stream of methane, and caused the body to spin like a top.

A trio of additional Grunts landed on the Master Chief’s shoulders andgrabbed hold. It was almost laughable, until the Spartan realized that oneof them was trying to remove his helmet. A second alien carried an ignitedplasma grenade—the little bastards meant to drop the explosive into hisarmor.

He flexed his shoulders, and shook himself like a dog.

Grunts flew in every direction as the Master Chief used short controlledbursts to put them down. He turned toward the lifeboats. “Now!” Cortanaurged. “Run!”

The Spartan ran, just as the door started to close. A nearby Marine fellwhile running for the escape craft, and the Chief paused long enough toscoop the soldier up and hurl him into the boat.

Once inside, they joined a small group of crew members already on board theescape craft. “Now would be a very good time to leave,” Cortana commentedcoolly, as something else exploded and the cruiser shuddered in response.

The Master Chief stood facing the hatch. He waited for it to close all theway, saw the red light appear, and knew it was sealed. “Punch it.”

The pilot triggered the launch sequence and the lifeboat blasted free of theship, balanced on a column of fire. The boat skimmed along the surface oftheAutumn at dizzying speed. Plasma blasts from a Covenant warship slammedinto theAutumn ’s hull. In seconds, the lifeboat dropped away from thecruiser and dove toward the ring.

The Master Chief killed his external com system, and spoke directly toCortana. “So, any idea what this thing is?”

“No,” Cortana admitted. “I managed to slice some data out of the Covenantbattle network. They call it ‘Halo,’ and it has some kind of religioussignificance to them, but . . . your guess is as good as mine.” She paused,and the Spartan sensed the AI’s amusement. “Well,almost as good.”

“Halo,” he repeated. “Looks like we’re going to be calling it ‘home’

for a while.”

The lifeboat was too small to mount a Shaw-Fujikawa faster-than-light driveso there was nowhere to go but the ring. There were no shouts of jubilation,no high-fives, only silence as the boat fell through the blackness of space.

They were alive, but that was subject to change, and that left nothing tocelebrate.

One Marine said, “This duty station really sucks.” No one saw any reasonto contradict him.

Rawley and her companions skidded to a halt, turned back the way they hadcome, and let loose with everything they had. Their weaponry included twopistols, one assault rifle, and a plasma rifle that a pilot had scooped upalong the way. Not much of an arsenal but sufficient to knock three Jackalsoff their feet and put the aliens down for good. Rawley caved the lastJackal’s skull in with her boot.

Eager to get aboard their ships, the group ducked through the docking bayhatch, closed it behind them, and ran for the Pelicans. Foehammer spottedher bird, gave thanks for the fact that it was undamaged, and ran up theramp. As always, it was fueled, armed, and ready to fly. Frye, her copilot,dropped into position behind her, with Crew Chief Cullen bringing up therear.

Once in the cockpit, Rawley strapped in, ran an abbreviated preflightchecklist, and started the transport’s engines. They joined with the restto create a satisfying roar. The outer hatch cycled open. Loose gear tumbledinto space as the bay explosively decompressed.

Moments later, the cruiser entered the ring world’s atmosphere, which meantthat the transports could depart . . . but they had to do it soon. Reentryfriction was already creating a wall of fire around the ship.

“Damn!” Frye exclaimed, “Look at that!” and pointed forward.

Rawley looked, saw a Covenant landing craft coming straight toward the bay,braving the heat generated by theAutumn ’s reentry velocity. There was alimited window of opportunity to get off this sinking ship, and the Covenantbastard was right in the way.

She swore and released the safety on the Pelican’s 70mm chin gun. Theweapon shook the entire ship, punched holes through alien armor, and hitsomething vital. The enemy vessel shuddered, lost control, and spun intotheAutumn ’s hull.

“All right,” the wing leader said over the ship-to-ship frequency,“Let’s go down and meet our hosts. See you on the ground. Foehammer out.”

She clicked off the transmitter and whispered, “Good luck.”

One by one the dropships left the bay, did a series of wingovers, anddropped through the overarching ring. Rawley struggled to maintain controlas the atmosphere tore at her ship. The status panel flashed a heat warningas friction created a massive thermal buildup along the Pelican’s fuselage.

The leading edges of the ship’s short, stubby wings started to glow.

“Jeez, boss,” Frye said, his teeth rattling from the constant jouncing ofthe Pelican, “maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

Foehammer made some adjustments, managed to improve the ship’s glide angle,and glanced to her right. “If you’ve got a better idea,” she yelled,“bring it up at the next staff meeting.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Until then,” she added, “shut the hell up and let mefly this thing.”

The Pelican hit an air pocket, dropped like a rock, and caught itself. Thetransport shook like a thing possessed. Rawley screamed with anger andbattled her controls as her ship plummeted toward the surface of the ring.

Covenant forces had launched a concerted attack on the command deck aboutfifteen minutes earlier but the defenders had beaten them back. Since thattime the fighting had lessened and there were reports that at least some ofthe aliens were using their assault boats to leave the ship.

It wasn’t clear whether that was due to the considerable number ofcasualties Covenant forces had suffered, or the realization that the shipwas in danger of falling apart, but it hardly mattered. The important thingwas that the area around the bridge was clear, which meant that Keyes, plusthe command team who remained to help him, could carry out their dutieswithout fear of being shot in the back. At least for the moment.

Their next task was to take theAutumn down into the atmosphere. No smallorder considering the fact that, like all vessels of her tonnage, thecruiser had been constructed in zero-gee conditions and wasn’t equipped tooperate in a planetary atmosphere.

Keyes believed it was possible. With that in mind he planned to close withthe ring world, hand control to the subroutine that Cortana had left forthat purpose, and use the last lifeboat to make his escape. Maybe the shipwould pancake in the way he had planned—and maybe it wouldn’t. Whateverthe case, it was almost sure to be a landing that would best be experiencedfrom a safe distance.

Keyes turned to look at the data scrolling across the nav screen anddetected motion out of the corner of his eye. He looked, saw the primaryweapons control station shimmer like a mirage in the desert, and rubbed hiseyes. By the time the Naval officer looked for asecond time, the phenomenahad vanished.

Keyes frowned, turned back to the nav screen, and began the sequence oforders that would put theAutumn in the place she wasleast equipped to go: onsolid ground.

Isna ’Nosolee held his breath. The human had looked straight into his eyes,given no alarm, and turned away. Surely his activities had been blessed bythose who went before and from whom all knowledge flowed.

The camouflage, combined with his own talent for stealth, had proven to beextremely effective. Since he had come aboard, ’Nosolee had toured both theship’s engine room and fire control center prior to arriving on the bridge.

Now, standing in front of a vent, the Elite contemplated what to do next.

The ship’s AI had either been removed or destroyed, he was sure of that. Atleast some senior personnel remained, however—which meant there was still achance.

In fact, based on the manner in which the other humans interacted with him,’Nosolee felt certain that the man named “Keezz” held the position ofShip Master. A very valuable prize indeed.

But how to capture the human? He wouldn’t come willingly, that was obvious,and his companions were armed. The moment ’Nosolee deactivated hiscamouflage they would shoot him. Individually, the humans were weaklings,but they were dangerous in packs. And animals grew all the more dangerousthe nearer they came to extinction.

No, patience was the key, which meant that the Elite would have to wait.

Vapor continued to roll out of the cold air vent, and the air seemed toshimmer, but no one noticed.

“All right,” Keyes said, “let’s put her down. . . . Stand by to fire thebow thrusters . . . Fire!”

The bow thrusters ignited and slowed the ship’s rate of descent. ThePillarof Autumn wobbled for a moment as it battled the ring’s gravity field, thencorrected its angle of entry.

Cortana took over after that, or rather, the part of herself that she hadleft behind did. TheAutumn ’s thrusters fired in increments so small thatthey were like single notes in an ongoing melody. The highly adaptivesubroutine tracked variables, monitored feedback, and made thousands ofdecisions per second.

The much-abused hull shuddered as it entered the atmosphere, started toshake, and sent a host of loose items tumbling to the deck. “That’s as faras we can take her,” Keyes announced. “Delegate all command and controlfunctions to Cortana’s cousin, and let’s haul ass off this boat.”

There was a ragged chorus of “Aye, ayes,” as the bridge crew disengagedfrom the ship they had worked so hard to save, took one last look around,and drew their sidearms. The fighting had died down, but that didn’tmeanall of the Covenant forces had left.

’Nosolee watched anxiously as the humans started to leave the bridge. Hewaited for the last person to exit, and fell into step behind. Thebeginnings of a plan had started to form in his mind. It was audacious—no,make that outrageous—but the Elite figured that made the scheme all themore likely to succeed.

The lifeboat reserved for the bridge crew was close by. Six Marines had beendetailed to guard it and three of them were dead. Their bodies had beendragged off to one side and laid in a row. A corporal shouted, “Attentionon deck!”

Keyes said, “As you were,” and gestured toward the hatch. “Thanks forwaiting, son. I’m sorry about your buddies.”

The corporal nodded stiffly. He must have been off duty when the attackbegan—one half of his face needed a shave. “Thank you, sir. They took adozen of the bastards with them.”

Keyes nodded. Three lives for twelve. It sounded like a good tr