Suddenly they were pulled back. A sensation of flight, then. A blessed numbness and strange alertness. Looking up for a moment to see that she‘d done it—that Henry and Lopez, framed by the doorway, firing away, were far enough away to close the door on both them and the Flood. Yeah, they were shooting her and Clarence, but they didn‘t mean any harm. They would never mean her any harm.

Clarence writhed in the embrace of what looked like part of Simmons, screaming, ―Don‘t let them take me!" It was too late for that. She wanted to say, ―Relax, Clarence. You‘ve got my back," but her mouth didn‘t work quite right. Don’t want to wake up. Not now. Not for this sad party.

Last thing she remembered: Lopez‘s face clenched in concentration, standing in Henry‘s shadow, as Henry fired point-blank into the Flood and into her. Thought she saw Lopez raising an arm in a gesture of good-bye.

Tried to hold onto that image as the Flood repurposed her.

Lopez, 1624 hours

Lopez, tired as hell, blinked, and . . .

Henry roared, deep and eternally Covenant, and next to the discord of the Flood, something welcome and familiar to Lopez‘s ears. He fired into the mob that had taken Benti, ammunition spent in an instant. Hurled the rifle hard enough to knock an infected prisoner off its feet. Raised his cricket bat. Lopez opened fire, taking no specific aim. A glance at her ammo counter.

―Benti!" Brought back only to be taken away.

The ammo counter ran down.

―Clarence!"

All her beads gone. All her kids gone.

She couldn‘t see them in the throng anymore. Couldn‘t pick them out. Couldn‘t spare . . . anyone.

A handful of infection forms scuttled across the ceiling. She lifted her sights. Shot them as they launched at Henry. Small pops. Puffs of green powder.

She dropped and Henry swung his bat, smashing an infection form she hadn‘t seen away from her.

She rolled back into the airlock. Slapped the controls as Henry joined her, beating away at a transformed Elite. Beating it into a green froth before the airlock sealed.

With infection forms on the inside.

She twisted, firing a crazy line around the airlock, chasing the zoomy little maggots. Had no swearwords left to use on them. One popped. Two popped. Henry pushed her aside. Swung his bat.

Four popped. Punched the last so hard against the wall the panel dented, green sludge on his fist. He reeled back from the puff of spores, waving them from his face.

Safe.

They looked at each other. The small room thundered with the pounding at the door.

The ship‘s PA crackled again.

―Shiva armed. Targeting lasers online. Initiating launch sequence in forty-five seconds—"

The airlock door dented inward, and both flinched, taking a step away from it. A step toward the last pod. Henry was big. There was only room for one. This alien, this enemy, had carried Benti to safety. On this ship of messed-up humans.

Finally understood how this was all going to go down. Some little backwater side action, maybe a footnote in some ONI operative‘s field report.

And beyond the door, something bigger and badder than all of them.

It’s a big, bad universe, Sergeant.

Henry‘s four jaws flexed. Lopez narrowed her eyes. Put her finger on the trigger. Noticed Henry‘s grip on the cricket bat tighten.

Covenant aren’t the worst of it.

No.

But they were pretty damn hideous.

―Sorry, Henry," she said, ―but there‘s only one pod."

She pulled the trigger.

Click.

No ammo.

Lobbed the last curse she had in her, and hefted the rifle like a club.

―. . . thirty seconds—"

The Covenant Elite snarled, jaws spread, and raised his bat.

And they went at it.

ICON

ICON Soldiers forged from youth to serve as tools of war—weapons of direct and conclusive destruction—the men and women of the classified military project known as the SPARTAN-II program will live on in legend following their exploits during the Human-Covenant War.

Prepared for the harsh realities of combat against known enemies, but thrust into battle with forces unimaginable—and terrifyingly alien—the Spartan-IIs, and later the Spartan-IIIs, delivered numerous decisive victories against the overwhelming might of the Covenant.

Altered to a level far beyond that of normal human, the warriors of the Spartan-II program were humanity‘s best, and possibly only, hope when faced with the threat of extinction from an advanced alien collective bent on our eradication in the name of false prophecies and hidden agendas.

Rising through the flames of war, echoing through the silent vacuum of space, word of the

Spartans‘ deeds spread throughout the human colonies—offering salvation, offering a faint glimpse at ultimate victory.

Thus came a ―Demon"—a hero, a soldier, a man. One Spartan above all others; equal, but for one defining factor—one immeasurable advantage. Like his brothers and sisters, he was trained to fight, to win, a master of the latest weapons of war. But Spartan-117, the Master Chief, had one intangible asset few others possessed—luck.

Added to an unmatched drive to win—whether it be a simple game, or heated combat—Spartan-117‘s uncanny combination of finely honed skills and unprecedented good fortune made for the ultimate warrior in a battle against impossible odds.

Never one to give in, never one to relent, the Master Chief, and each of his fellow Spartans, did more than engage the enemy; they delivered hope—with each burst of gunfire, with every battle won.

PALACE HOTEL

ROBT MCLEES

THE HASTILYconcocted mission to board the Covenant carrier that dominated the sky over New Mombasa ended almost as soon as it had begun. A single Scarab—one of the Covenant‘s ultra-heavy ground-based weapons platforms—had knocked the entire assault group out of the air, leaving Master Chief Petty Officer ―John" Spartan-117 to pull himself out of the burning wreckage.

―Aside from the Covenant discovering the location of Earth and our being on the ground with no viable means of transportation to our objective, I‘d say we‘re in pretty good shape." Cortana‘s voice seemed to come from just over the Spartan‘s shoulder. The AI had been put in his care a little over a month ago and he still wasn‘t used to the intimacy of its communication.

―How‘s that?" John said, glancing over his left shoulder, half expecting to see her.

―We have one of the top-ranking members of the Covenant leadership within our reach—there‘s a Prophet Hierarch on that ship. On top of that? We‘re still alive, Chief. And while there isn‘t anything I can do about the Covenant being here, I am working diligently to devise a viable solution to our other problem at hand."

John moved between what meager cover the few abandoned vehicles littering the toll plaza afforded him. As he closed in on a row of toll booths, he found his eyes drawn to the mouth of the outbound tunnel of the Mtangwe Underpass. It looked like a kiln—exhaling heat and light. Cutting across the plaza was a smear of molten glassiness three feet wide leading to the tunnel mouth and then up away from it along the face of the city‘s famous sea wall. Curiously, the inbound tunnel was undamaged. A dull smile crossed his lips behind his visor as he considered his options. He thought back. The correct choices have always been this obvious. He had always been able to see the tiger and the lady—doors had never factored into the equation.

A thin whine from above signaled the arrival of Banshees. John dashed beneath the canopy of concrete that sheltered the island of toll booths—he was less concerned about the Banshees‘ effectiveness as attack aircraft and more about remaining out of sight. He flattened himself out against one of the booths momentarily and looked through its clouded and sagging polycarbonate window. The attendant, still seated within, wasn‘t much more than a partially articulated skeleton hung with the charred remains of a uniform and fused to an ergonomic seat bolted to the floor.

―His name was Carlos Wambua, age fifty-two, widower, three adult children. The oldest still—"

Cortana rattled off before John cut in.

―He just sat there—the position of his feet," John pointed at the man‘s smoldering shoes with his chin for emphasis. ―He didn‘t even try to get away. From his position he would‘ve been able to see the tee forty-seven even before it crested the bridge—that‘s a little over eight hundred meters out."

He gave his gear a shake test then moved to the corner of the structure.

―Your point being?" Cortana challenged. ―Do the words ‗transfixed with terror‘ mean anything to you? You may find this hard to believe, but most people find Scarabs to be rather unsettling."

With a barely noticeable shrug he began looking for a path to the mouth of the inbound tunnel—moving along the line of booths until he found a straight shot with no obstructions. It was seventy-three meters to the entrance. That meant he would be out in the open for about four and a half seconds—enough time for one of the Banshees in the air overhead to make a positive ID. He slung his rifle and hunkered down.

Kelly had always been the fastest in their class—easily making her the fastest human being who had ever lived—but as he tore across the plaza, he was certain that his performance would have made even her take notice.

Once he was within the tunnel, John slid to a stop against a burnt-out sedan. He unlimbered his rifle and considered the path ahead. This section of the tunnel was littered with vehicles; some gutted or otherwise destroyed, others merely abandoned. The area would have been perfect for an ambush.

Unfortunately he was the one who had to move through it. The vehicles appeared to thin out some eighty meters farther in, but to get there would require patience. And so he began snaking his way through the environment—moving quickly but cautiously between cover. He checked the most

likely hiding spots and the least, keeping his eye on his armor‘s motion sensor and listening intently for any sound that seemed out of place. Working his way deeper into the underpass, he heard muffled curses and other sounds of agitated goings-on from about 150 meters ahead. He came to a stop alongside a lorry in pale green Technique Electronics livery and looked off to his right. The Moi Avenue junction was sealed off by heavy blast doors.

―The main route is locked down as well," Cortana huffed; the frustration in her voice was unmistakable.

John hesitated a moment, waiting for Cortana to continue. The main Mtangwe route, a 390-meter tunnel that resurfaced in the center of New Mombasa‘s industrial zone, had been his best bet to gain entrance into the city without being spotted by the enemy. The activity up ahead was promising and he hoped it was from a maintenance crew who could release either set of blast doors; if not, his only choice was to head back to the surface.

―That‘s it?" John asked, finally. ―It‘s locked down and nothing else?"

―I‘m having a little trouble accessing the local net," Cortana replied. ―I‘ll have it in a moment."

The Spartan edged around the cab of one of the omnipresent SinoViet lorries. About thirty meters away, near the blast door, were two M831s—the primary UNSC wheeled troop carriers that had

become nearly as common in New Mombasa as the freight lorries over the past few weeks—and a squad of Marines who were busily pulling any useful bits of equipment out of them.

―They‘re from one of the ghost battalions out of Eridanus Two," Cortana said with a near-audible sigh of relief. ―First Battalion, Seventh Regiment; more specifically, this is Third Squad, First Platoon, Kilo Company."

ONE OF the Marines signaled the Spartan‘s arrival to the rest of the squad and moved forward cautiously to greet him.

―Holy crap," Private Jemison blurted. ―Sorry, sir, but holy crap, you‘re a Spartan!"

―Yes," John said dryly as he jogged toward the Marine, but before he had the chance to utter another syllable, the distinctive report of a fuel rod gun rang out from behind him.

―Get to cover," John yelled as he brought his BR55 to bear, spun on his heel, acquired a sight picture of his target, and put a single bullet through the neck of the green-clad Grunt. Private Jemison‘s MA5B flashed to his shoulder and fired off a long burst as the first shot from the fuel rod gun sailed past the Spartan and the Marines and slammed into the tunnel wall a little more than twelve meters away. The nearly decapitated Grunt reflexively fired a second shot, which impacted the roadway less than a meter away from where it was standing. The resulting explosion killed half of the aliens that were visible in the tunnel, including their commander—an Elite in red armor.

The stray first shot had dug a four-meter-wide hole in the wall and dumped a literal ton of smoking, shattered concrete out onto the tunnel floor. Dark, brackish slop lazily spilled out, accompanied with a stomach-curdling stench—making it very clear that an opening had been punched into an

adjoining sewer line. As if on cue, brilliant purple light washed along the walls as the massive, bulbous form of a Wraith slid into view from behind an abandoned commuter bus. Its carapace seemed to crack open—broad curving plates folded out of the way of its deadly plasma mortar.

―Crap," Jemison howled as he backpedaled. ―Corporal, what do we do?"

A tall, broad-shouldered redhead hopped down out of the back of the lead troop carrier and

motioned with her left hand toward the opening in the wall. ―Jump in that hole—it ain‘t no worse than it is out here! Move it!"

Jemison continued to back up until he reached the edge of the rubble, all the while firing burst after burst from his assault rifle into the advancing enemies. Corporal Palmer approached the Spartan, tapped his shoulder, and shouted, ―You wanna come, big guy?" She moved through the rubble to the breach, motioning for the rest of the squad to follow. And in they went, one by one.

John shouldered his rifle, took one step back toward the way he had come, and fired a burst into a mob of Grunts that had swarmed in past the Wraith, killing two and forcing the rest to scatter and dive for cover.

―Chief, you should probably follow those Marines—they look like they need the help—and there are three more Wraiths on the way," Cortana said thoughtfully.

As the walls of the tunnel reverberated with the sounds of the charging plasma mortar John dashed over to the rent in the tunnel wall—firing three more bursts from his battle rifle back at the advancing enemies as he went—then turned and disappeared into the breach. He had made it no more than thirteen meters when the mortar round slammed into the opening, sending a wall of concussion and heat that drove him to his knees and caused his shields to overload and drop. John got back to his feet, but Private Jemison, the second-to-last man to make it into the breach, was lying facedown in the now boiling muck—his organs ruptured and bones splintered from that same blast.

Howls from the darkness told him that Jemison wasn‘t the only casualty. He ran past Private First-Class Locke, whose split and blistered flesh and raw bone were visible through smoldering holes in his BDUs. He stepped over Private First-Class Galliard, who had been felled by a piece of rebar that entered just below the nape of his neck and exited through the bridge of his nose—the still-glowing chunk of steel protruded from the sewer wall ten yards farther ahead.

When John reached the flow-through tunnel below the spillway, the remaining Marines skipped their eyes past him and looked back down the tunnel.

―Where the hell‘s the rest of my squad?" demanded Corporal Palmer as she stepped forward. ―The Wraith?"

―Affirmative," John replied flatly. ―They were killed in action."

―Then we‘ve gotta go back."

―We‘re going forward."

―No we‘re not." Palmer‘s brow furrowed. ―We are not just gonna leave them lying back there in this goddamn sewer!"

Cortana spoke to the entire group over their helmet-integrated comm units. ―They will be left behind just as the other twenty-three billion that preceded them were left behind. Because they could not be saved, and carrying them with us will only make us vulnerable."

They looked at John like he was a monster; like an alien. In some of their eyes he could detect something deeper. Not horror; astonishment? Betrayal? Of course it may have just been hearing Cortana speaking through his comms.

―Who was that?" Palmer spat.

―That was Cortana. She‘s . . ."

―She‘s a real fucking bitch."

The Spartan stood in silence, head cocked slightly to the right. ―Corporal, give me your TACPAD."

Corporal Palmer produced a notebook-sized device from her pack and passed it to the Spartan, and he flipped it open and showed them a traffic video with a time stamp from twenty-two minutes earlier four Wraiths and fifty light infantry entering the Mtangwe Underpass.

―It‘s amazing how persuasive an argument overwhelming force can be," Cortana whispered to the Spartan. John shrugged and moved toward what appeared to be a series of rungs imbedded in a flat section of the sewer wall.

Cortana was the first smart AI he had ever worked with directly. Sadly, whoever died to make this AI possible had to have been a genius among geniuses. For example: The section they were in wasn‘t on the grid; it dated from before construction had even started on the Mombasa

Tether—itself more than two hundred years old. Cortana had plucked the plans for them out of the ether before he could finish his request. As far as equipment went, the AI was cutting edge. The only thing that bothered him about Cortana was her excessive familiarity; she was more like a pushy civilian that just happened to fit on a data crystal than a true military AI.

―You can tell her that the rest of their unit has begun to dig in at Beria Plaza," Cortana‘s voice buzzed in his ear. ―That‘s a little under two kilometers away."

―Corporal Palmer, does Beria Plaza mean anything to you?"

―It was between where that door came slamming down in front of us and where we were going."

―That‘s where the rest of your unit is. It‘s about two clicks due east of our current position. You‘ll go up here," John said, indicating the ladder. ―It‘ll take you up to the surface." Cortana may have been busy looking for some way to get him onto the Covenant assault carrier, but not so busy that she couldn‘t provide him the occasional blueprint, video feed, or other intel—whether it was helpful to his situation or not.

―Okay." Palmer nodded. ―So you gonna follow this pipe all the way out to the Mombasa Quays?"

―No. I‘m going to make sure the rest of you make it out of here alive."

―Gosh! That‘s awfully nice of you," Palmer mugged—then the smile faded. ―Look, you may be a Spartan, but . . ."

―Exactly, Corporal. And if we had all been Spartans back there none of us would have died. Now let me do my job."

Palmer‘s jaw dropped. After about a second and a half she closed her mouth, snapped off a smug salute, pivoted on her heel, and then jogged over to the rest of the Marines.

As the Marines stacked up at the base of the ladder, John readied his service rifle, swapped in a full magazine, and took station on the other side of the tunnel so he could keep an eye on them as well as keep an eye out for pursuers. He glanced over at the Marines as they moved into position to climb to the upper part of the spillway—and out of the sewer they had been slogging through for the past twenty minutes. While it may have only been a storm sewer, it hardly mattered this close to the Kilindini Harbor. He wondered if the oppressive stench was the reason for the soldiers‘ sour expressions.

―Chief," Cortana whispered, ―there was no way for you to save those three."

―Even so," he muttered, ―I could‘ve wiped out that entire unit."

―Four Wraiths," Cortana broke in. ―Four. You rely too much on your luck."

―The limited space and the abandoned vehicles in the tunnel would have restricted their mobility as well as their ability to use their main weapons, especially if they brought all four down—which they did. I‘ve been doing this for twenty-seven years, Cortana. And I know the exact limits of my luck."

―Then what? The rest of them die trying to support you?"

―They started running as soon as the shooting started."

―Yes, Chief, but Corporal Palmer‘s reasoning was sound—even without knowing about the other three Wraiths she had more sense than to go up against armor without any antiarmor weaponry."

John watched as the last Marine started up the ladder and fired a burst from his BR55 back down the way they had come. He heard the heavy rounds gouge the ancient concrete, followed by the panicked cries of Grunts in the distance as they dove for cover—and into the semigelatinous, ankle-deep liquid. Hopefully that would keep them from coming any closer, at least until the Marines were all safely up on the spillway. There was precious little cover within the confines of the sewer, certainly not enough to avoid any incoming fire. The spillway would allow them to break contact with their pursuers—then he could get back to his mission.

―Chief, I was serious about their being useful for getting us to our objective," Cortana whispered in the Spartan‘s ear.

―Thanks. So you strongly suggest following them?"

―I merely suggest we take them back to their unit," Cortana whispered very sweetly. ―They could be useful too."

Palmer called down from the top of the spillway, ―Your girlfriend say to wait there—you coming or what?"

―It‘s an AI."

―Nice," Cortana huffed.

John turned his attention to the ladder. He looped his arm behind the rungs and popped them out, three at a time, until he had pulled out all of them he could reach; it wouldn‘t stop their pursuers for good, but it didn‘t have to. All it needed to do was slow them down. He sent four more rounds ripping into the darkness before jumping three meters up to the top of the spillway and following the sounds of the boots retreating up one of the drainage tunnels. He could hear the sound of wind in the trees and the pounding of the surf somewhere up ahead, and beyond that the staccato chatter of gunfire and dull thudding of explosions in the distance.

The tunnel opened into a wide culvert that seemed to emerge from beneath the inner part of the island‘s western sea wall—and directly behind the parking area for the Kilindini Park Cultural Center. The Marines had flattened out against the walls, stopping just short of the tunnel mouth. A Covenant beam rifle leaned unattended against the end of the culvert twelve meters away. Straddling a deep rut a half meter beyond the end of the culvert was one of the large, vaguely birdlike aliens that most UNSC personnel called Jackals. Its back was to them—a thin stream of fluid fell into the rut between the alien‘s feet.

The Spartan inched forward in uncanny silence, carefully gauging the distance between himself and the Jackal. He positioned his feet on the tunnel floor, assessing his footing and evaluating the strength of the concrete beneath him. He was less than seven meters from the alien when its head snapped to the side with a start, inhaling sharply. John sailed forward—covering the distance in two strides, his left arm a blur shooting forward, index and middle fingers outstretched together to form a spike. The Spartan‘s gauntleted hand passed effortlessly through the Jackal‘s skull just behind its left eye. John backpedaled, retreating into the darkness of the drainage tunnel—the grisly remains of his quarry dangling limply from his forearm, leaving a streak of brilliant purple blood in their wake.

Corporal Palmer quailed momentarily and then glanced back at the group and motioned for

everyone to stay low and quiet. She scooted up to the edge of the culvert in a low crouch. When she reached the end she popped the covers on her scope and slowly swung her BR55 over the low

concrete wall. She could see the smoking remains of several variants of the UNSC‘s ubiquitous Warthogs—M831 troop transports, M12 reconnaissance vehicles, even a couple of M12G light

antiarmor rigs, all of which were arranged in a line partially shielding the main entrance of a squat concrete structure—a makeshift defensive wall. She could also see the Jackals overlooking the parking area from the roof and the bodies of men scattered about below them.

―It looks like a goddamn massacre out there," Corporal Palmer stage-whispered. ―There‘re bodies all over the place—there‘s a Grunt bleeding out and a Jackal standing not ten feet away from him poking at one of our boys. What the hell, man?"