CHAPTER NINE

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

Pelican Echo 419, above Covenant arms cache.

“There’s a large tower a few hundred meters from your current position.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She hit the radio to warn the troops and winced as the muffled pop of automatic weapons fire burst from her headset. “Heads up, ground team!”

she yelled. “Multiple contacts on the ground—they’re right on top of you!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chief!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Morning, ma’am.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a lot to do—the morning passed quickly. Major Silva was back on duty by 1300 hours and sent a runner to find McKay. As she entered his office she saw that he was sitting behind his makeshift desk, working at a computer. He looked up and pointed to a chair salvaged from a lifeboat.

“Take a load off, Lieutenant. Nice job out there. I should take naps more often! How are you feeling?”

McKay dropped into the chair, felt it adjust to fit her body, and shrugged.

“I’m tired, sir, but otherwise fine.”

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

“Sir, yes sir.”

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

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

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

McKay allowed her eyebrows to rise. “Meaning?”

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

“Captain Keyes?”

“No,” the other officer replied, “Wellsley doesn’t think so, and neither do I.

A group of their stealth Elites were able to penetrate the lower levels of the complex. They killed everyone they came into contact with, or thought they did, but one tech played dead, and another was knocked unconscious. They were in different rooms but both told the same story. Once in the room, and having gained control of it, one of those commando Elites—the bastards in the black combat suits—would momentarily reveal himself. He spoke passable standard—and asked both groups the same question. ‘Where is the human with the special armor?’ ”

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

“Exactly.”

“So, where is the Chief?”

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

“Think he’s dead?” McKay inquired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Spartan was taken aback by the sudden giggle from the small machine.

He knew that the AIs humans used could, over time, develop personalities politely described as “quirky.” 343 Guilty Spark had been here for tens of thousands of years.

It was quite possible that the little AI was insane.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Chief replied as he followed the AI past a row of huge blue screens.

“More doors. I can hardly wait.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Monitor made no reply, but scooted ahead. The small construct led the Spartan deeper into the Library’s gloomy halls. They passed through a number of large open gates prior to arriving in front of one that was closed.

The Chief paused for a moment, expecting that 343 Guilty Spark might open it for him, but the Monitor had disappeared. Again.

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

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

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

“Oh, hello! I’m a genius.”

“Right. And I’m a Vice Admiral.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

As he proceeded deeper into the Library, he found a corpse—a human one.

He stooped to examine the body.

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

“Ah,” 343 Guilty Spark said, peering down over the Spartan’s shoulder.

“The other Reclaimer. His combat skin proved even less suitable than yours.”

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

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

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

He checked, found the leatherneck’s dog tags, and read the name.

MOBUTO, MARVIN, STAFFSERGEANT,followed by a service number.

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

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

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

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

As half of the first platoon tried to get some sleep, the rest kept watch.

McKay used her glasses to scan the area. The fake crash site was located between a low, flat-topped rise and a rocky hillside, covered with a jumble of large boulders. The wreckage, complete with a trickle of smoke, looked quite realistic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

McKay knew the trap was going to work when one of the U-shaped dropships appeared, circled the phony crash site, and settled in for a landing.

Once free of the ship the Elites, Jackals, and Grunts would be easy meat for the Marines hidden in the rocks and the snipers stationed on top of the flat- topped hill.

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

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

Over.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What the hell is that thing?”

“Fire! Fire! Fire!”

“Get it off me!”

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

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

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

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

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

But it wasn’t meant to be.

McKay tracked the incoming body, sidestepped, and used the butt of her weapon to clip the side of the creature’s head. It landed in a heap, flailed around, and was just about to jump up when the Lieutenant pounced on it.

“Give me a hand!” she shouted. “I want this one alive!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

343 Guilty Spark hovered over his shoulder as the Spartan stepped off the lift and approached a pedestal. “You may now retrieve the Index,” the Monitor said. The artifact glowed lime green; it was shaped like the letter T.

It slowly rose from the top of the cylindrical tube in which it had been kept for so many millennia. A series of metal blocks that encircled the device rotated and spun, releasing their protective grip on the Index.

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

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

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

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

“The Flood is spreading! We must hurry.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The pressure eased as the hungry other examined the memory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, nothing.”

“Splendid. Shall we?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a sudden shimmer of light as Cortana’s holographic figure appeared and continued to grow until she towered over the control panel.

Her eyes were bright pink, data scrolled across her body, and the Chief knew she was pissed. “Oh, really?” she said. She gestured, and the Monitor fell out of the air and hit the deck with a clank.

The Spartan looked up at her. “Cortana—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Master Chief held both hands up. One held the assault rifle. “Enough!

The Flood is spreading. If we activate Halo’s defenses we can wipe them out.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Last time you asked me: if it were my choice, would I do it?” the Monitor continued, as a flock of Sentinels arrayed themselves behind him. “Having had considerable time to ponder your query, my answer has not changed.

There is no choice. We must activate the ring.”

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

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

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

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