"Descend to five thousand meters and circle that camp," she ordered.

"Aye aye," the AI replied.

The Beatrice dropped, and a shudder started from the port wing and continued to thrum.

Kelly would make the most of their aerial reconnaissance. She had a feeling once this bird set down, it would never fly again.

On-screen Kelly saw other objects in the airspace—glints of dull gold.

"Radar contacts," Jerrod said. "Identical configuration to orbital pursuit craft."

A silhouette appeared and magnified on the display: three booms floating about a central sphere.

Dozens of those things circled the camp. They either hadn't noticed them yet, or didn't care.

"Move us off five kilometers to the west."

"Answering new course, aye."

There was a small clearing in the jungle. "Scan local airspace," Kelly said, "and if it's clear, put us down here."

She didn't want to give up the mobility this vessel afforded her, but she wasn't going to stay up here and be a target, either.

If she could camouflage the ship, then she might be able to keep her flight options open.

"No radar contact," the AI informed her. "Glide path calculated." Rumbling came from the undercarriage. "Horizontal attitude thrusters partially functional. Make ready to land."

She went aft to see if there was anything else she could salvage. From the mess she took plasticized blocks of F-rations and three jugs of water. She glanced into the engine compartment. Her armor's radiation counter clicked wildly. The plasma coils were half melted.

She returned to the bridge.

"Ma'am?" the AI said, uncertainty creeping into its voice. "Will you be taking me as well?"

Dr. Halsey would probably need the AI and it was effective in combat. "You're covered."

"Thank you, ma'am. Touchdown in three seconds."

Kelly watched the screens. There were no fliers. She was going to assume, though, that they had already spotted her.

There was a bump and the engines whined down.

Kelly yanked the laptop and tossed it into a duffel. She unharnessed the Doctor and gently threw her over her shoulder. She palmed the release hatch. The door eased down, becoming a gangplank.

The terrain outside was more swamp than meadow. Insects buzzed, but nothing else moved. She ran for the trees, covering the distance in ten long strides.

In the dark of the jungle she set Dr. Halsey against a tree and rechecked her vitals. Still strong and steady.

Kelly scanned the sky. No company.

She considered moving back to the ship and camouflaging it, but that might not be necessary The matte-black stealth craft blended almost perfectly with the shady tree line.

Kelly tried her COM, clicking on the E-Band.

"— expect an immediate threat response. This is automated general distress code Bloody Arrow. All UNSC personnel heed and stand to. We are under attack and require assistance. Camp Currahee and the northern peninsula have been invaded by unknown, possible Covenant, hostiles. Suggest orbital bombardment of the northern region as these entities are equipped with high-heat-output beam weapons. Our forces will remain under cover. Land in force and expect an immediate threat response—"

Across the swamp came a whisper rustle.

Kelly took cover, leveled her MA5B, and held her breath.

Two figures emerged from the jungle. Humanoid. Covenant? They were shrouded in active camouflage. Their textures adjusted, and they looked like they were part leaf, part shadow. She'd seen Orbital Drop Shock Troopers experiment with this technology… but they'd never gotten it to work in the field.

The two figures halted. It was difficult to tell, but it looked almost as if one made a hand signal, thumb pressing into palm and other fingers inwardly curled.

That was the Spartan signal for "Unknown ahead. Wait."

She'd take a chance. If they were human and wearing the latest UNSC armor, they should be nonhostiles.

She eased one hand out from cover. She flashed her index finger once, and then again, and then the "come forward" gesture.

There was more rustling around her—flanking units.

Of course, no one was going to close across open terrain. Even friendlies.

Still, Kelly's combat training clicked on. She had to reposition, but that would mean leaving Dr. Halsey vulnerable.

One of the unknown was near; she couldn't hear it… just a tickling in the back of her mind, a sixth sense that told her she was being watched, and whatever was doing the watching was now too close for comfort.

There was motion in Kelly's peripheral vision, a blur.

She spun and saw a ghostly figure, moving toward her— faster than any human could move.

Kelly sidestepped, grabbed the arm, twisted.

Her opponent reverse-twisted and countered the lock.

Whatever it was, it wasn't human; otherwise Kelly would have ripped its human arm from the socket.

Her opponent twisted her wrist and escaped from Kelly's grip.

Kelly was still faster—her other hand lashed out, palm flat, and impacted the solar plexus.

The other figure flew back two meters, hit a tree, and slumped.

"Stand down. Spartan!"

Kelly whirled. She recognized the voice—not Mendez's but another voice from the past… one that couldn't be. That person was dead.

Before her stood a figure wavering as if a mirage, then the active camouflage faded, and a person in what looked like cut-down MJOLNIR armor was there, one hand holding an MASK rifle pointed at the ground, the other held up.

"No time to explain, Kelly," this man said over the COM. "Move! Hostiles in—"

An explosion tore through the jungle.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

1045 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM, PLANET ONYX \ NEAR RESTRICTED REGION KNOWN AS ZONE 67

Kelly ducked and placed herself between the blast and Dr. Halsey. Splinters and stones pelted the energy shield of her MJOLNIR armor.

When the dust cleared, the other person—the one that had sounded impossibly like Kurt—had vanished. So was the soldier she had knocked out.

Her questions would have to wait, because Kelly saw the source of that explosion: a drone identical to the ones they had seen in space now hovered ten meters off the jungle floor, moving like a moray eel through the trees and vines.

She aimed her MA5B and fired.

A burst of three rounds hit and deflected off a gold shimmer of shields.

It turned toward Kelly, and its central sphere heated.

Kelly sprinted to draw the fire away from Dr. Halsey. Five strides, darting between trees, and she suddenly stopped, spun— jumped.

A flash of light blinded her, and then the world detonated where she had stood a second before.

The overpressure propelled her into the air. Kelly's shields drained to half, and she felt the heat prick her skin.

She hit the ground, chest first, rolled awkwardly, wobbled, and got to her feet.

A direct hit from that energy weapon would collapse her shield, and possibly melt her armor… and her.

Pistol fire crackled through the brush. The drone's shields glimmered, and the thing turned and moved away.

Kelly made out the camouflaged outlines of three soldiers, drawing it toward them.

She appreciated the help, but it was suicide for them.

Kelly started toward them.

An amber acknowledgment light flashed twice. That was the Spartan team "wait" signal.

She took cover behind a tree trunk.

The drone aligned for a clean shot on the two. Its center sphere glowed molten.

The trees to either side of the drone blasted into smoke and splinters. It was the sharp crack of high explosives that Kelly recognized as a LOTUS antitank mine detonated above ground.

Two of the drone's booms twisted, bent inward by the force of the blast. The machine fell to the ground with a thud.

The trees that had held the antitank mines toppled as well and their two-meter trunks crushed the drone, the wood bursting into flames.

"One more," a voice said over her TEAMCOM. "Ten o'clock. Coming in fast."

She saw the new threat gliding toward them.

That was defmatly Kurt's voice. His last words had haunted Kelly's dreams for years. She remembered him tumbling into the black of space. "/'// be okay. I'll be o—"

She started to reply, but then realized he wasn't talking to her.

"Team Saber," Kurt continued, "move and draw fire. LOTUS mines out of range."

Green acknowledgment lights winked on her display, lights that been reserved exclusively for the Spartans of Blue Team.

Kelly had the fastest reflexes of any Spartan, a fact she was keenly proud of, and she practiced every day with twitch-response drills and Zen "no-thought" fire practice to keep them razor honed. But her physical reflexes weren't the only things that were lightning fast.

In a flash, several facts correlated in her brain.

Those drones had shields, but they didn't operate continuously. The antitank mines had caught the one with its shields down.

The drone had, however, seen her, anticipated her rifle fire, and countered. That meant either it had purposely activated shields or they were automatically triggered by motion or radar.

So she had, possibly, a way to take them out. It'd be risky but she wasn't going to stand by while Kurt's vulnerable team drew its fire and got roasted for their trouble.

"Hold your fire," she said over TEAMCOM.

With four pumping strides that gouged deeply into the jungle loam she accelerated to her top speed of sixty-two kilometers per hour.

Kelly angled away from the drone, toward a tree just to its right.

She jumped, hit the trunk three meters up—pushed off, flipped, propelling herself through the air straight at the hovering machine.

No shields to stop her.

She grabbed the port and starboard booms and swung both legs onto the bottom spar.

Its central metal eye fixed her and heated to white-hot intensity.

She let go and braced as best as she could on the slippery bottom boom, balled her hands into fists, and then hit the thing as hard as she could—impacting the eye dead center.

Her shields flared as it repelled the intense heat.

The sphere dented and spun backward.

The drone spun as well from the momentum, and Kelly scrambled to regain purchase.

She drew back once more, and before the thing could recover and blast her—she again struck a hammer blow.

A crack appeared in the sphere's metal skin. Inside was a ball of blue-white heat. The metal edges of the sphere curled away from this breach, melting, bubbling.

Kelly crouched and leapt, diverting all power to her shields.

The air ignited a dazzling white. Her heads-up display flared with static. Kelly tumbled end over end, enveloped in fire and smoke—hit a tree, bounced, and fell to the jungle floor.

She blinked and saw nothing but the red glare of flames. The jungle canopy was on fire; a shower of burning leaves rained down. Her vision cleared and she saw a blur of three figures approaching in active camouflage armor.

She got to her feet.

One of these figures had a curious handprint dent in their chest armor where Kelly had struck. The camo patterns there were misaligned, part shadow, part flames.

The three stepped back, their MA5Ks pointed at the ground.

Another camouflaged figure appeared and stepped between her and these soldiers.

"Stand down, everyone," he said. "Welcome to my neck of the woods, Kelly"

The voice was a perfect match from her memories. "Kurt?" she whispered.

"I'm glad you remember."

As if she could ever forget him. "Let me see your face," she said, keeping her hands up.

The active camouflage faded and the gold mirrored faceplate unpolarized.

Kelly peered inside the helmet. The slight cleft in his chin, the hazel eyes, the quick smile—it was Kurt.

Around them, Kelly detected motion: two more in the curious armor, taking up good firing positions. That was smart. They were well trained.

Kelly dropped her hands. "What's going on here?"

"I'll explain everything," he said, "but we need to move. They hunt in threes now. A pair on patrol and one at high altitude on overwatch. They'll have our location."

Kurt pointed to two on his team and then at the unconscious Dr. Halsey.

Two soldiers went to her and wrapped her in a thermally reflective blanket. They carried her off between them.

Kurt told Kelly, "Go COM silent." He then motioned to her and to his team to follow.

They moved quickly and silently through the brush.

Kelly admired the caution, speed, and professionalism of these soldiers. Not a word from them. The two carrying Dr. Halsey kept up with the rest of them. No one broke the loose V formation.

Still, something about these soldiers made her uneasy. It was nothing she could quantify, but as Kurt had often said, just a feeling.

"Who's this Team Saber?" she asked Kurt in a whisper.

"I'm disappointed you haven't guessed," he whispered back. "They're Spartans."

CHAPTER TWENTY

1125 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM, PLANET ONYX \ RESTRICTED REGION KNOWN AS ZONE 67

The pounding in Dr. Halsey's head brought her rudely to consciousness. She smelled burnt metal and blinked open her eyes. She was in a concrete room with a slit of a window high on one long wall.

As her vision adjusted to the indirect light she saw Kelly and a figure in body armor next to her. The armor was a hybrid between the MJOLNIR and something older… like legionnaire armor, but it was difficult to tell the precise geometry as the light seemed to slide off its edges.

In the far comer she spotted Chief Mendez, confirming at least part of her theories about this place. He considered an angle of light that streamed through the window. He puffed on his favorite, a Sweet William cigar, and blew smoke rings.

There were seven others, sitting in the far corner, two sleeping, and five playing cards.

Their helmets and boots were off, and their MA5Ks, cut-down versions of the standard MA5B assault rifle, were close at hand.

At first, she thought they were ODSTs wearing pieces of what she now recognized as experimental infiltration armor systems. She had reviewed the technical specs on the systems: photo-reactive panels able to mimic surrounding textures, and underneath was a cushioning layer of liquid nanocrystals that provided more ballistic protection than three centimeters of Kelvar diamond weave without the bulk.