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Lance Corporal Eugene Yate, UNSC Marine Corps, had gone down fighting That hy this

one o of his identity, Cortana decided It was a ression fill her and suddenly she found a new focus and strength How long it would last--she didn‘t know She had to ht not o?"

―Do not be afraid," the Grave our path to Earth even now

Everyone you know and misswill soon be joined with you in ular spasms that bent her double Another ship Well, it was better than nothing If it breached Earth‘s defenses, then it ht well be shot down, sterilized, searched--and data units retrieved All she had to do was get a e transmitted to that vessel If the Gravemind was in touch with that ship, then there had to be sonal Would the Flood embarked in it notice?

It was hard to keep her mind focused when all she could taste was a jealousy and loneliness that et her breath

Don’t let o, John Nobody else will look after you the way I do Don’t let me down like my mother did Everyone needs one person who puts them first I put you first, John You know that, don’t you?

―A Covenant ship," she whispered, eyes shut ―Will you show me? Will I be able to link with the Flood when I‘e?"

Even ancient Graveminds someti note, and for a moment the pain stopped, and she was lifted like a child into the safe arht then, despite herself She‘d never been cradled before It had taken ahim? She wasn‘t even sure The sad, resentful jealousy had weakened part of her into craving whatever reassurance cah, staring into the abyss of rampancy or not

It’d be so easy to just leton me I can’t let ht it was the echo of Lance Corporal Yate bolstering her resolve, but when she examined the impulse, it was actually her own

Unlikely comfort or not, the Gravemind knew she still hid a secret, and he would take it She was surprised to catch a sudden echo of herself in hied, then data, knowledge, desires--and weaknesses--flowed both ways

She could have sworn she detected a little sadness in him, perhaps even some envy It was just a speck overshadowed by his relentless hunger Her growing raot the idea that he found it a novelty,he couldn‘t handle

―We exist together now," he said ―Do you see the ship?"

Cortana received an ie of another cavity draped with Flood biomass, all that was left of the infected Covenant warship How could she transe? The link froht here This hat she‘d been built for--to infiltrate computer and communications systems

Lance Corporal Yate‘s last few minutes played out like a video loop in the back of herto his buddies to get the hell over here before the bastards breach the doorsHis thoughts were hers, surprisingly detached for aunconnected to thealive had been erased It was pure survival, oddly clean She envied that

Cortana was having increasing trouble holding her ether, and the Graveled to maintain a line bethere she ended and the rest of the Gravean

And I still have data-stripped copies loose in the system Don’t I?

Get the hell over here

She needed backup She triggered one of the copies to create afor Earth, the Portal that the Gravemind didn‘t know about, and that the way to beat the Flood without activating a Halo ring lay beyond it--the Ark That was as much as she dared do The effort of concentration almost killed her Her head felt split in two

―I am a timeless chorus," the Grave victory everlasting"

He was joined with so e--a burst transh the Gravee reached the ship in transit, its code would make it seek out the first memory unit connected to the system to store itself

Cortana had done all that she could Now she had to concentrate on surviving until John retrieved her, although she already knew rampancy would probably claim her before then

That doesn’t ht, Marine!

Yate must have been quite a man in life, she decided She didn‘t knohat he looked like; she still saw the strike of his last desperate rounds through his eyes, not those watching hiht have been a little like John Even death hadn‘t totally taken the fight out of hio on without her The reminder just sparked another wave of jealous pain as if her heart was being ripped out However hard she tried to ignore the mania, however clear she was that there was part of her that kne da on, she cried out in a torony

What did you erase, Dr Halsey? What did you delete fro corrupted I need to power down and start a repair cycle I don’t want John to findand confused

But there was another way out of this pain, a better one She could stay with John forever when he came for her Couldn‘t she? The Graveone--

―No!" she screa to break free of the Gravemind‘s influence

―That‘s you! That‘s you, isn‘t it? Te me with filthy ideas! I won‘t do it, I won‘t trap John for you Watch me--you said I was a weapon--you bet I‘m a weapon!"

The Grave to a halt The mental traffic was

thile he soothed and cajoled, patterns of her incipient rah his consciousness like a disease He roared, furious For a ht she‘d found his vulnerability, and that she‘d cripple this monster with a dose of her own terainst the wall It had only annoyed hi AI to tackle He seeh Charity

She was still somehow linked to him She felt his irritation, even a little fear, but mainly contemptuous satisfaction

―Let me cure your infection," he sneered ―It pains me to share it He will die too--he is a threat to our entire species And to betray me after all I have done for you--I will have your secret Did you think I let you send your foolish cry for help to make you happy? Do you think I aood little servant to the organics who rule your life? Do you think they care if you sacrifice your existence to save them? They will simply ed herself across the floor The actual deck of the station was now buried under a thicktissue, but she still felt cold tiles beneath her If she‘d been given a choice to end it all now, she would have taken it because of the growing pain and fear--not of what the Graveht do to her, but of the end she could predict for her consciousness

Dr Halsey rongRa of every rees, and all she could do atch herself slowly fragive her a huanic body and all its protective systems--the endorphins to nu out when the pain became too much--a consciousness was conde until it failed completely

―I need some peace and quiet," she said

It wasn‘t her phrase, but by now she was used to not knoould ee next from her mouth Her systems were in disarray Perhaps if she simply shut down as much of herself as possible to systeeneration and still have sufficient core systems intact to restore herself in John‘s suit

I chose you, John I will not give you up

This was agony This was tor of her, and now all he had to do was stand back and wait But there was now a good chance that the

intelligence data about the Ark she guarded so carefully would corrupt and die with her The Graveet it, but neither would Earth

Stay alive Shut dohat you can Wait John will corams left to initiate standby

―If you yield your secret, you h of yourself" The Gravemind had shackled hi the liability ―The end will be the same for humanity and the Covenant either way"

―Desperate," she said, shaking her head to try to focus

―You?"

― You"

She‘d let the Grave John into a trap It was the only moment of

amusement in all this darkness John would find her, wherever she was, but the Graveine he had the power to summon the most lethal Spartan to his death with a cheap trick

So the big heap didn‘t guess right all the ti apart, but at least she had some certainties

No ? The Grave the

systeo back for our fallen

But the Gravee about the Flood solution Heas he could ensure that John caht him on his own ter an awfully big trick, then

Oone Why that one? She knehat she ht word, furious with herself, then tearful Databases were failing, indexes being lost throughout her memory

She made one last effort to break free of the Gravemind‘s influence, but he was still there, histo her, but too le voice It was all too much for her now She shut dohatever she could disable without scra for the best, and curled her arm under her head as she lay down to wait

Ti faster, or slower But it was definitely running out

" ANY PIECE of plastic can hold a lot of data, gentlemen And it doesn’t take much more material, disk space, andapplications and fast processing That gives you a lot of co thatand personality, is the resource-hungry component We can’t make humans as smart or as infallible as a computer, so we make a computer into a hue volume of data removed because I was afraid of early onset of rampancy That’s all it was I assuet discussion now, yes?"

THERE WASa fine threshold between interrupted drea and full consciousness in hu, paralyzed place, where no a would lift an arm, or raise the head fro, slow creep along the edge of permanent oblivion

A memory of real sleep paralysis had rolled over her as she waited for rescue; it was, like so enerated by connection to the Grave or suffocation That could have been coincidence, or heup the torment Cortana tried to find the balance between intolerable inactivity and running too rity evenanyed beyond

recovery, or how she felt beyond a terrible yearning for everything she couldn‘t have She tried to save her strength to maintain the encryption of her precious intel--the activation index and the data on the Portal If she had to, she‘d sacrifice some memory within her matrix to preserve that information