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Fred's visor slowly depolarized

Kelly leaned across her Banshee Blood oozed from her ar- mor's left shoulder joint She fuht it, and peeled it off her head "Did we get 'em?" she panted Blood foamed from the corner of her mouth

"I think so," Fred told her

She looked around "Joshua?"

Fred shook his head "He got hit on the way in"

It had been easy for hi those words was a hundred tiainst her Banshee

"Stay here, I' up to take a look" Fred powered up his Banshee and rose parallel with the ridgeline He nudged the craft up a little farther and got his first look into the valley

It was a sea of flaround Where the Big Horn River had snaked along, there was now only a long stea furrow There was no trace of the cruiser or the Covenant troops that had filled the valley , twisted bone and e stood black- ened sticks--the re away from the center of the explosion

Ten thousand Covenant deaths It wasn't worth losing Joshua or any of the other Spartans, but it was soh tiuns to tip the battle overhead in the Fleet's favor Maybe their sacrifices would save Reach That would be worth it

He looked up into the sky The stea, but there was lided over the clouds

Kelly's Banshee appeared alongside his, and their canards bumped

The shadows overhead sharpened; three Covenant cruisers broke through the clouds and drifted toward the generator coloith energy

Fred snapped open his COM channel and boosted the signal strength to its maximum "Delta Team: Fall back Fall back now!"

Static hissed over the channel, and several voices overlapped

He heard one of his Spartans--he couldn't tell who--break through the static

"Reactor coht be able to save number three" There was a pause as the speaker shouted orders to soes now!"

Fred switched to FLEETCOM and broadcast: "Be advised, Pillar of Autuuns at risk Nothing we can do Too uns will most likely be neu- tralized Pillar of Autue"

More voices crowded the channel, and Fred thought he heard Admiral Whitcomb's voice, but whatever orders he issued were incomprehensible Then there was only static, and then the COM went dead

The cruisers fired salvos of plasma that burned the sky Dis- tant explosions thumped, and Fred strained to see if there was any return fire--any sign that his Spartans were fighting or re- treating Their only hope was movement; the enemy firepoould shred a fixed position

"Fall back," he hissed "Now, damn it"

Kelly tapped him on the shoulder and pointed up

The clouds parted like a curtain drawn as a fireball a hundred meters across roared over their position He saw the faint out- lines of dozens of Covenant battleships in low orbit

"Plasma bombardment," Fred whispered

He'd seen this before They all had When the Covenant con- quered a human world they fired their main plasma batteries at the planet--fired until its oceans boiled and nothing was left but a globe of broken glass

"That's it," Kellyto fall"

Fred watched as the plasma impacted upon the horizon and the sky turned white, then faded to black as millions of tons of ash and debris blotted out the sun

"Maybe," Fred said He gunned his Banshee "Maybe not

Come on, we're not done yet"

SECTION I

THRESHOLD

CHAPTER FIVE

1637 hours, Septehter, uncharted system, Halo debris field Three weeks later

The Master Chief settled into the pilot's seat of the Longsword attack craft He didn't fit The contoured seat had been engi- neered to ht suit, not the bulky MJOLNIR armor

He scratched his scalp and breathed deeply The air tasted odd-- it lacked the metallic quality of his suit's air scrubbers This was the first quiet moment he'd had to sit, think, and remember First there was the satisfaction after the successful space op at Reach, which went sour after Linda was killed and the Covenant glassed the planet and Red Team Then the tiht from Reach, and the discovery of Halo

And the Flood

He stared out froht down his revulsion at the memory of the Flood outbreak Whoever had constructed Halo had used it to contain the sentient, virulent xenofor wound in his neck, inflicted by a Flood Infection For the final battle on Halo's surface, still throbbed

He wanted to forget it allespecially the Flood Everything inside hiainst the darkness of space, and beyond it was the listening expanse of debris-- else that had once been Halo

"Scan it again," the Master Chief told Cortana

"Already co out there I told you: just dust and echoes"

The Master Chief's hand curled into a fist, and for aHe relaxed, surprised at his frayed temper He'd been exhausted in the past--and without a doubt the fight on Halo had been theof his career--but he'd never been prone to such outbursts

The struggle against the Flood otten to him, more than he'd realized

With effort he banished the Flood from his mind Either there'd be ti about it now served no useful purpose

"Scan the field again," he repeated

Cortana's tiny holographic figure appeared on the projection pad mounted between the pilot's and system-ops seats She crossed her arms over her chest, visibly irritated with the Master Chief's request

"If you don't find so out there we can use," he told her, "we're dead This ship has no Slipspace drive, and no cryo

There's no way to get back and report Power, fuel, air, food, water--we only have enough for a few hours