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 wr............