Halo: First Strike

"What happened?"

Cortana sighed. "Are you referring to what happened since I left you on Reach? Or the outcome of the Slipspace battle? Or do you mean what happened since that battle?"

"The battle, first," he said and struggled to get up. "I presume we won."

Standing was too painful, though, and the strength seemed to have been drained from his muscles. He eased himself back to his original horizontal position.

Cortana's pale blue light dimmed and her gaze dropped to the deck. "Blue Team successfully repaired the main-engine conduit."

"I remember," the Master Chief murmured. "The repair part of it, at least. There was an explosion..."

"A plasma bolt," Cortana corrected. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Chief, but only you and SPARTANS-093, -043, and -104 survived that blast."

Grace, Will, and Fred were alive, but Li, Anton, and Warrant Officer Polaski had been killed in action. He remembered Po-laski's scream, then Anton's outline as the flash of white-hot fire swept over the hull.

"Acknowledged," he said as graciously as he could muster, but he heard bitterness give an edge to his voice.

It struck him as odd that Polaski's death affected him as well.

He'd seen thousands of UNSC soldiers die. She hadn't hesitated to transport Blue Team on a mission that was insanely danger- ous. She had survived the battle of Reach, the crash landing on Halo, the Flood, and everything else—then she had bravely vol- unteered for this mission, too, and perhaps saved all their lives.

She might have made a good Spartan. There were worse eulogies.

The Master Chief sighed, called up his team roster on his heads-up display, and marked Anton and Li as Missing in Action.

He paused to view all the others on that list; his first and best friend, Sam, was there ... and he hadn't even realized a dozen more had been listed as MIA.

He saved the changes to the roster and closed the file.

"What about Kelly and Linda?" he asked Cortana.

Cortana looked up and flipped the hair from her luminous eyes. She paced a small circle on the holographic pad and then said, "SPARTAN-087, Kelly, is recovering from second-degree burns on seventy-two percent of her body. Doctor Halsey has ac- celerated tissue regrowth with dermacortic steroids. She should be fully healed in a matter of days... although her mobility will be severely hampered until then."

"And Linda?"

"Accessing status." Cortana paused for a full second. "Doctor Halsey has SPARTAN-058 currently in medical facility alpha, three decks above us. She still has her in a cryogenic state and is presently performing exploratory surgery. She has given me several orders to prepare the flash clone banks for replacement organs pending transplant."

"So she's alive?" the Master Chief asked.

"Technically," Cortana replied, "no." For a moment there was a look of genuine concern on her face—but it quickly vanished.

"The doctor and Admiral Whitcomb have debated the risk of at- tempting to revive SPARTAN-058 before we reach a major medical facility. Doctor Halsey, I'm sure, will brief you when she has all the facts, Chief."

John frowned at this lack of detail. He didn't appreciate Cor-tana's increasingly difficult attitude, one that had slowly shifted ever since she interfaced with the Forerunner computer system on Halo. He made a mental note to ask Dr. Halsey about Linda later... and he'd ask her about Cortana, too.

"All other hands on board are accounted for?" the Master Chief asked, "Yes, Chief. They are all engaged in repairs to the conjoined ships. We took tremendous damage in the expanded Slipspace from plasma bombardments and mass impacts. Both ships' super- structures, however, remain intact. The Gettysburg's reactor is online and operating at sixty-seven percent capacity. Ascendant Justice's reactor is offline undergoing repairs. Five of our seven plasma turrets require refit. And worst, Ascendant Justice's engines are crippled. We have less than three percent operational thrust."

"Can the ship still jump to Slipspace? Are we stranded out here?"

"A jump is possible," Cortana said. She shook her head the way an older sister might when her baby brother asked a naive question. "It wouldn't do us any good, though. The alien artifact in Doctor Halsey's possession emits high levels of radiation in Slipspace. This unknown radiation even penetrates your suit's shields. I estimate lethal exposure in just under seventy-two hours. Also, that radiation would serve as a beacon for any Cove- nant ships prowling Slipspace, searching for us."

"So we're stuck between systems."

"Negative," Cortana replied, and her voice took on a new chill. "Admiral Whitcomb is quite adamant that we risk another Slipspace transition—regardless of the cost in human life. Other- wise, it would be weeks before we would be able to contact UNSC High Command."

HighCom? Two facts suddenly clicked into place: the Admi- ral's need to contact the rest of the Admiralty—no matter the price—and Dr. Halsey's attempts to revive Linda.

"What's compelling the Admiral's tactics, Cortana?"

Cortana's holographic outline softened. "I told you this be- fore, Chief, but apparently it did not stick in your semiconscious state." She then came into sharp focus and crossed her arms over her chest. "The Covenant have discovered the location of Earth."

The Master Chief stood, suddenly wide awake and alert. He set aside his pain and fatigue.

"Explain," he demanded.

Cortana outlined her discovery of the encoded subchannel within normal Covenant communiques. She explained how the Covenant's military orders were disseminated with startling effi- ciently, and she then showed him symbols that represented the coordinates for Sol... and Earth.

He stood mute and listened. The UNSC had worked so hard, for so long, to preserve this secret. It was only a matter of time; he had always known that the Covenant had to find Earth sooner or later. He had, however, always thought it would be later ...

and never now.

The Master Chief stared at the tiny triangles, squares, dots, and bars that made up the spatial coordinates. "We've seen these before, on Cote d'Azur."

"Yes. And according to Doctor Halsey, her team on Reach found similar markings in the underground vaults."

"What's the connection?"

"Unknown."

The Master Chief put these facts aside for the moment; the greater meaning of the symbols and translation he'd leave up to Cortana and ONI. The only insight that mattered to him was that the Covenant were going to attack Earth.

"Was there a timetable or any other data encoded on the sub- channel?" he asked.

"Affirmative. There's a coordinated series of orders to Cove- nant warships scattered across the galaxy to rendezvous with a mobile command-and-control base they call the 'Unyielding Hierophant.' When they have sufficient force, they will collec-tively make the jump to Earth."

The Master Chief moved toward the medical bay's doors.

They automatically parted. "Where is Admiral Whitcomb?"

"The Admiral is currently on the bridge," Cortana replied.

"But Doctor Halsey gave me strict orders that you are not to—"

"I don't take orders from civilians," he snapped. "Not even her."

The Master Chief passed out of the medical bay and marched down the corridor.

"You know," Cortana said, her voice now coming from his helmet speaker, "your attitude has degraded since we started this mission—even before the battle for Reach."

"Noted," he replied.

The dim white light flooding the Gettysburg's passages was a welcome change from the blue illumination the Covenant used on their ships. John was glad to have his feet once more firmly planted on the raw steel decks of a human vessel, even if the walls of this passage were soot-stained.

He entered the Command elevator and punched the button for the bridge. The gentle acceleration made new pain flare along his arms, and ligaments popped in his chest—but he gritted his teeth and banished the pain from his awareness.

When the doors parted, the Master Chief paused, taking in the sad state of the Gettysburg's bridge. The front viewports had been blown out and recently replaced with welded plates of hull armor. A trio of monitors had been hastily bolted in place over them. Crystallized freeze-dried blood covered the navigation and ops consoles. Only three control stations were lit: engineer- ing, computer status, and MAC ops.

But most disconcerting was that only Admiral Whitcomb and Lieutenant Haverson were present on a bridge that usually needed a staff of thirty officers. The room was as still and empty as a tomb.

"Master Chief," Admiral Whitcomb said, slightly surprised.

"Sir." He stood at attention and snapped off a crisp salute.

"Permission to enter the bridge."

"Granted, son," the Admiral said.

"What's your status, Chief?" Haverson asked. "Doctor Halsey told us it would be days before you recovered."

"I'm one hundred percent, sir," he said.

As if she had heard this statement, Dr. Halsey opened a COM channel, and a tiny video feed popped onto his heads-up display.

Her glasses reflected an ambient orange light from wherever she was, and he could not see her eyes.

"John, I need to speak with you."

"I'm with Admiral Whitcomb and Lieutenant Haverson, ma'am.

When I'm done I can speak with you."

She was silent a moment, then said, "Very well." The COM winked off.

The Master Chief felt a pang of regret for being so terse with her.

"Get over here, son," the Admiral said. He returned his attention to the clear plastic wall dotted with stars and the diamond symbols that represented UNSC military outposts in this region of space. "We're in something of a tough spot."

He marched to the Admiral and Haverson and studied the chart with them. "Cortana's briefed me, sir. The Covenant know Earth's location and are on the move, most likely preparing a massive attack."

"That's the gist of it, I'm afraid," Haverson said, and the Chief noticed deep circles of fatigue ringing the younger man's eyes.

"To complicate matters, we can barely navigate. We've been working around the clock to restore our ships, but we'd need an engineering crew of a hundred and a space dock to get these wrecks into fighting shape."

Admiral Whitcomb frowned at the Lieutenant's dour assess- ment and added, "Another trick is that the crystal we picked up on Reach emits radiation in Slipspace. Enough to kill everyone after only a few more hours of exposure.

"But we're hanging on to the alien device. It changes the prop- erties of Slipspace, as you already saw—but with one more twist. In the few minutes we were in that tangled version of Slip-space, we traveled here"—he drew a tiny circle on the map, centered on their position—"which under normal circumstances should have taken us days."

"We attempted to briefly jump again," Haverson added, "but nothing extraordinary occurred. This unusually long jump may have been caused by the energy added to Slipspace by our battle with the Covenant."

"In any case," Admiral Whitcomb said, "if we learn what makes this crystal tick, it'd give us a hell of an edge on the Covenant."

"I see, sir."

The Chief scrutinized their location—not quite the definition of the middle of nowhere, but close. He noted that there were three star systems within the circle.

Haverson also peered at the chart. He touched one of the star symbols within their range, and statistics scrolled along- side the object. He sighed. "This system was glassed in 2530, so there's no chance there would be anyone to help us there. And the other two systems. .." He shook his head. "Uninhabited."

"Hell," Admiral Whitcomb said and tugged on his mustache, "we pulled out of this region of space almost as soon as the war started. The Covenant came in, burned Eridanus and the other Outer Colonies, and then moved on without batting an eye."

"Eridanus?" The Chief stepped closer and touched the data scrolling next to the tiny star. "I know this place." He turned to the Admiral. "And there is a human colony there, sir—just not one that the UNSC cares about anymore. If I had to guess, I'd bet that the Covenant never found it, either. We might be able to ex- pedite repairs there."

The Admiral stared thoughtfully at him. "You sure? Sure enough to bet our lives and Earth on that hunch, Chief?"

The Master Chief looked again at the tiny dot on the map.

It wasn't Eridanus he was thinking of. It was the surrounding asteroid belt ... and a mission he and his team had executed twenty years ago.

"Yes, sir. I'm sure."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

TIME:DATE STAMP [[ERROR]] ANOMALY\Revised date

estimated 0450, September 12,2552, captured Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, in Slipspace en route to Eridanus system.

Dr. Halsey buzzed the door open, and the Master Chief en- tered the clean room.

"You wanted to see me, Doctor?" He quickly looked the room over—taking in the adjoining surgical suites, and the strange orange sterile-field lamps set every meter into reflective recessions in the tiled walls.

Dr. Halsey had clamped five displays onto the arm of one of the contoured examination chairs in this room. She sat cross-legged in the chair and balanced a large alphanumeric-symbolic keyboard on her lap. Perched precariously on the side tray were Styrofoam cups of half-drunk coffee.

She waved the Chief forward. "I see you are ignoring sound medical advice by moving before you have fully healed."

"I'm fine, ma'am," he replied.

She snorted in disbelief. "John—I've never known you to tell an outright lie. I'm picking up telemetry from your armor, right now." She swiveled one of the monitors on her chair so he could see erratic biosigns pulsing on the screen. "What with the burns, contusions, fractures, and internal bleeding, you should be in shock. The only sleep you've gotten in a week was unconscious- ness brought on by your wounds. And you say you're 'fine'?"