1637 hours, September 22,2552 (Military Calendar) Aboard Longsword fighter,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 mate with a standard-issue Navy flight suit,not the bulky MJOLNIR armor.

He scratched his scalp and breathed deeply. The air tasted odd— it lacked the metallicquality 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 RedTeam. Then the time spent in a Pillar of Autumn cryotube, the flight from Reach, and  thediscovery of Halo.

And the Flood.

He stared out from the front viewport and fought down his revulsion at the memory ofthe Flood outbreak. Whoever had constructed Halo had used it to contain the sentient,virulent xenoform that had nearly claimed  them all. The rapidly healing wound in hisneck, inflicted by a Flood Infection Form during the final battle on Halo's surface, stillthrobbed.

He wanted to forget it all... especially the Flood. Everything inside him ached.

The system's moon, Basis, was a silver-gray disk against the darkness of space, and beyond it was the muted purple of the gas giant Threshold. Between them lay a glistening expanse of debris—metal, stone, ice, and  everything else that had once been Halo.

ERIC NYLUND 35"Scan it again," the Master Chief told Cortana.

"Already completed," her disembodied voice replied. "There's nothing out there. I toldyou: just dust and echoes."The Master Chief's hand curled into a fist, and for a moment he felt the urge to slam it into something. He relaxed, surprised at his frayed temper. He'd been exhausted in the past— and without a doubt the fight on Halo  had been the most harrowing of his career—buthe'd never been prone to such outbursts.

The struggle against the Flood must have gotten to him, more than he'd realized.

With effort he banished the Flood from his mind. Either there'd be time to deal with itlater... or there wouldn't. Worry.ing 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 thepilot's and system-ops seats. She crossed her arms over her chest, visibly irritated withthe Master Chief's request.

"If you don't find something out there we can use," he told her, "we're dead. This ship hasno 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.

"So," he concluded as patiently as he could manage. "Scan. Again."Cortana sighed explosively, and her hologram dissolved. The scanner panel activated,however, and mathematical symbols crowded the screen.

A moment later the scanner panel dimmed and Cortana said, "There's still nothing, Chief.

All I'm picking up is a strong echo from the moon ... but there are no transponder signals,and no distress calls.""You're not doing an active scan?"Her tiny hologram appeared again, and this time static flashed across her figure. "Thereare trillions of objects out there. If you want I can start to scan and identify eachindividual piece. If we sit here and do nothing else, that would take eighteen days.""What if someone's out there but they turned off their trans.ponder? What if they don'twant to be found?"36 HALO: FIRST STRIKE"That's highly un—" Cortana froze for a split second. The static around her vanished, andshe stared off into space. "Interesting.""What?"Cortana looked distracted, then seemed to snap out of it. "New data. That signal echo'sgetting stronger.""Meaning?""Meaning," she replied, "it's not an echo."The scanner panel hummed back to life as Cortana activated the Longsword's long-rangedetection gear. "Uh-oh," she said, a moment later.

The Chief peered at the scan panel as Cortana identified the contact. The distinctive,bulbous silhouette of a Covenant cruiser edged into view as it moved around the moon's far side.

"Power down," he snapped. "Kill everything except passive scanners and minimal power to keep you online."The Longsword darkened; Cortana's hologram flickered and faded as she killed power flow to the holosystem.

The cruiser moved into the debris field, prowling like a hungry shark. Another cruiser appeared, then another, and then three more.

"Status?" he whispered, his hands hovering over the weapons controls. "Have they spotted us?""They're using the same scanning frequencies as our system," Cortana said in his helmetspeaker. "How strange. No mention of this phenomenon in any of the UNSC or ONI files on the Cove.nant. Why do you suppose  they'd use the same frequencies?""Never mind that," the Chief said. "They're here and looking for something. Like I saidbefore, if there are survivors out there, they'd be powered down.""I can listen to their echoes," Cortana said, her voice flat and oddly procedural. Operatingat lower power levels seemed to limit her more colorful behavior. "Process active:analyzing Covenant signals. Piggybacking their  scans. Diverting more runtime to the task.I'm building a multiplex filtering algorithm. Customizing the current shape-signature recognition software."Another ship rounded the horizon of Basis. It was larger than any Covenant ship theMaster Chief had seen. It had the sleek three-bulbed shape of one of their destroyers, butit must have been three kilometers long.  Seven plasma turrets were mountedERIC NYLUND 37on universal joints—enough firepower to gut any ship in the UNSC fleet.

"Picking up encrypted transmissions from new contact," Cor-tana whispered."Descrambling... lots of chatter... orders be.ing given to the cruisers. It appears to bedirecting the Covenant fleet operations in the system.""A flagship," the Chief murmured. "Interesting.""Scan still in progress, Chief. Stand by."John got out of the sysops seat. He had no intention of just "standing by" with seven Covenant warships in the system.

He drifted to the aft compartment of the Longsword fighter. He'd assess what equipmentment of the Longsword fighter. He'd assess what equipmentwas on board. He might get lucky and find a few of those Shiva nuclear-tipped missiles.

As he had seen when he first boarded the ship, the cryotube had been removed. He wasn'tsure why, but maybe, like every.thing else on the Pillar of Autumn, the ship had beenstripped down and upgraded for their original high-risk mission.

Where the cryo unit was supposed to be there was a new con.trol panel. The Chiefexamined it and discovered it was a Moray space-mine laying system. He didn't power iton. The Moray system could dispense up to three dozen free-floating mines. The mineshad tiny chemical-fuel drives that allowed them to keep a fixed position or move to trackspecific targets. These would come in handy.

He moved to the weapons locker and forced it open—it was empty.

The Chief checked his own assault rifle: fully functional, but only thirteen roundsremained in the magazine.

"Got something," Cortana said.

He returned to the sysops seat. "Show me."On the smallest viewscreen, a silhouette appeared: a small, bullet-shaped cone withmaneuvering thrusters on one end.

"It could be a cryotube," Cortana said. "Thruster and power packs can be affixed on theiraft sections for emergencies... if a ship has to be abandoned, for example.""And most of the crew on the Pillar of Autumn never had a chance to be revived fromcryo," the Chief said. "They could have been jettisoned before the ship went down. Moveus toward them. Docking thrusters only."38 HALO: FIRST STRIKE"Course plotted," Cortana said. "Thrusters engaged."There was a slight acceleration.

"ETA twenty minutes, Chief. But given the Covenant cruis.ers' current search pattern, Iestimate they will encounter the pod infive minutes.""We need to move faster," the Chief told her, "but without fir.ing the engines. The driveemissions will show up like a flare on their sensors.""Hang on," Cortana said. "I'll get us there."The Chief donned his helmet and locked its atmosphere seals. Status lights pulsed green.

The aft hatch of the Longsword breached and slammed open. There was an explosivesound as the atmosphere vented. The Longsword jumped forward; the Chief's headslammed into the back of his helmet.

"Adjusting course," Cortana said calmly. "ETA two minutes.""How are we going to stop?" he asked.

She sighed. "Do I have to think of everything?" The aft hatch resealed, and John heard thefaint hiss as the internal compart.ments pressurized.

One of the sleek Covenant cruisers slowed and turned toward them.

"Picking up increased scanning signal activity and strength," Cortana reported.

The Chief's hand hovered over the weapons system console. It would take severalseconds for the weapons to power up. The 110mm rotary cannons could fireimmediatel , but the missiles would have to wait for their  target-lock software toinitialize. Byyy then the cruiser, which outgunned them a hundred to one, would turn theLongsword into molten slag.

"Attempting to jam their scanners," Cortana said. "That may buy us some time."The Covenant cruiser turned away, slowed, and turned back to face the comparativelytiny Longsword. It took no further ac.tion ... as if it were waiting for them to get closer.

So far so good. The Chief clenched and unclenched his gauntleted hand. We 're not deadyet.

He glanced at the scan display. The contact resolved into a clearer image: definitely aUNSC cryopod. It tumbled, and heERIC NYLUND39saw that what he thought was a single pod was in fact three of them, affixed side by side.

Three possible survivors out of the Pillar of Autumn's total complement of hundreds. Hewished there were more. He wished Captain Keyes were here. In the Chief's opinionKeyes had been the most brilliant spatial tactician  he had ever encountered ... but eventhe Captain would have thought twice about approach.ing seven Covenant warships in asingle Longsword.

He risked feeding more ship''s power to Cortanas systems. If they were going to make itthrough this, he needed her as effec.tive as possible.

"New contact," Cortana said, interrupting his thoughts. "I think it is, anyway. Whatever itis, it's stuck onto a chunk of rock, half a kilometer in diameter. Damn, it just rotated out ofmy view."On the display Cortana replayed a partial silhouette of an oddly angled shape on thesurface of the rock. She highlighted its contours, rotated the polygon, and overlaid thisonto a sche.matic of a Pelican dropship.

"Match with a tolerance of fifty-eight percent," she said. "They might have parked there toavoid detection, as you suggested."The Chief thought he detected a hint of irritation in her voice, as if she resented him forthinking of something she had not.

"Or," Cortana continued, "more likely, the craft merely crashed there.""I don't think so." He pointed at the display. "The position of that wing indicates it's noseout—ready for takeoff. If it had crash-landed, it would be faced the other way."Another Covenant cruiser moved toward this new ship.

"Coming about, Chief," Cortana told him. "Brace yourself, and then get ready to retrievethe pods."The Chief unsnapped his harness and drifted aft. He grabbed a tether and clipped one endto his suit, the other to the bulkhead of the Longsword.

He felt the maneuvering thrusters fire, and the ship rotated 180 degrees.

"Decompression in three seconds," Cortana said.

The Chief opened the empty weapons locker and climbed partially inside. He bracedhimself.

40 HALO: FIRST STRIKECortana dropped the aft hatch, and the inside of the ship ex.ploded out; the Chiefslammed into the door of the locker, dent.ing the centimeter-thick Titanium-A.

He climbed out and Cortana overlaid a blue arrow-shaped NAV point on his heads-updisplay, indicating the location of the drifting cryopods.

The Chief jumped out of the Longsword.

He floated through space. He was only thirty meters from the pods, but if he'd guessedwrong about his trajectory and missed the target, he wouldn't get a second chance. By thetime he reeled himself back to the Longsword and tried again, those Covenant ships werecertain to kill them all.

He stretched his arms and hands toward the cylinders. Twenty meters to go.

His approach was off. He shifted his left knee closer to his chest and started a slowtumble.

Ten meters.

His upper body rotated "down" relative to the pods. If he spun just right as he passed thecryotubes, it would give him enough extra reach to make contact. He hoped.

He rotated back... almost standing "up" now.

Three meters.

He stretched his arms until the elbow joints creaked and popped; he stretched his hands,willed his fingers to elongate.

His fingertips brushed against the smooth surface of the lead.ing cryopod. It slid off andover and touched the second pod. He flexed and failed to grab hold. He scratched thesurface of the third and final pod—his middle finger hooked on the frame.

His body swung inward, curled, and landed on the pod. He quickly looped his tetherthrough the frame, secured himself to it, and pulled their combined mass back to theLongsword.

"Hurry, Chief," Cortana said over the COM. "We've got trouble."The Chief saw exactly what the trouble was: The engines of two Covenant cruisers flaredelectric blue as they accelerated toward the Longsword. The plasma and laser weaponsalong their hulls warmed from red to orange as they readied to fire.

He pulled as fast as he could, making minor adjustments withERIC NYLUND41the muscles in his braced legs so his motions didn't send them into a tumble in the zero gravity.

The Longsword was a sitting duck for those Covenant cruis.ers. Cortana couldn't fire theengines until he got on board. Even if he and the pods survived the thruster wash, any evasive ma.neuver Cortana made would  snap him and his cargo like the end of a whip.

The Covenant ships were within firing range, lined up per.fectly to destroy theLongsword.

Three missiles streaked though space, impacting on the star.board side of the leadCovenant ship. The explosion splashed harmlessly across its shield, which shimmeredsilver as it dissi.pated the energy.

The Chief turned his head and saw the Pelican blast off from the asteroid where it hadbeen hiding. It rocketed on a perpen.dicular course toward the two Covenant ships.

The cruisers came about, apparently more interested in hunt.ing live prey than themotionless Longsword.

The Chief gave one final yank on the tether. He and the pods flew through the aft hatchand crashed into the deck of the Longsword.

Cortana immediately sealed the hatch and fired the engines.

The Chief climbed into the system-ops seat just as they accel.erated and turned towardthe cruisers. He activated the weapons systems.

The two Covenant cruisers powered their engines and pursued the Pelican, but it hadentered a dense region of the debris field, dodged a chunk of metal and rock, dived over an iceball, and charged through clouds of  shattered alien metal. The Covenant fired:Energy blasts impacted on the debris and missed the Pelican.

"Whoever's piloting that Pelican knows their stuff," Cor.tana said.

"We owe them a favor." John fired the Longsword's guns, and tiny silver dots punctuatedthe trailing Covenant cruiser's shields. "Let's settle that debt.""You realize," Cortana said, "that we really can't damage those Covenant ships."The cruiser slowed and turned toward them.

"We'll see about that. Get me a firing solution for the missiles.

42 HALO: FIRST STRIKEI want them to target their plasma turrets just before they fire. They have to drop a section of their shields for a fraction of a second.""Working," Cortana replied. "Without precise data, however, I'll have to base my calculations on several assumptions." A string of mathematics appeared on the weaponsops panel. "Give me fire controre contro"l.

John punched the auto override on the firing systems. "It's yours," he said.

The Covenant cruiser's plasma turrets turned to track them as the ship came to bear.They warmed, and Cortana fired all the Longsword's ASGM-10 missiles.

White vapor trails snaked toward the target.

"Let's move!" the Chief said.

The Longsword accelerated into the debris field, following the Pelican's path. The aftcamera displayed the missiles racing to their target. Antimissile laser fire stabbed thoughspace, and three of the missiles exploded into red  fireballs. The Covenant's plasma turretglowed white hot—about to fire—when the last missile impacted. The explosion smearedacross the hull.

At first the Chief thought it had hit the shield, but then he saw that the explosion was inside the shimmering envelope of en.ergy. The plasma turrets fired; their energy was immediately ab.sorbed into the cloud of dust  and vapor around the ship. Dull red plasma ballooned inside the cruiser's shield, obscuring its sen.sors. The ship listed to port,momentarily blind.

"That should keep them busy for a while," Cortana said.

The Longsword arced under a half-kilometer-wide metal plate—just as a plasma boltimpacted and boiled the surface, sending the plate sputtering and spinning throughspace.

"Or not," Cortana muttered. "Better let me drive."The autopilot engaged, and the controls jerked out of the Chief's hand. The Longsword'safterburners kicked in, and it ac.celerated toward a field of tumbling rocks. Cortana rolled and pitched, keeping the hull mere  meters from the jagged surfaces.

The Chief hung on to the seat with one hand and pulled his harness tight with the other.He moved the scanner display to the center viewscreen and saw the two nearestCovenant cruisers vectored toward his and the  Pelican's position. The two UNSCERIC NYLUND 43ships might evade and dodge through the debris field for a few minutes, but soon theirfuel would be exhausted, and the Cove.nant would move in for the kill.

And where could they really run to, anyway? Neither ship had Shaw-Fujikawa TranslightEngines, so they were stuck in this system and the Covenant knew it. They could afford totake their time and play with their prey  before they pounced.

The Chief performed a sweep scan of the system looking for something—anything to givehim a tactical advantage. No, think.ing of tactics was going to get him killed. There was no tactical advantage he could gain that  would give him a victory in this mismatch. He hadto change the rules—change his strategy.

He scanned the massive Covenant flagship—that was the key. That's how he'd be able toturn the tables on the enemy.

He keyed the COM system and hailed the Pelican. "This is Master Chief SPARTAN-OneOne-Seven. Recognition code Tango Alpha Three Four Zero. Copy.""Copy," a woman's voice answered. "Warrant Officer Polaski here." Other voices argued inthe background. "Damn good to hear you, Chief.""Polaski, proceed at maximum burn to this position." He dropped a NAV point on thedisplay directly on the Covenant flagship. He included an exit vector indicating a roughcourse.

There was silence over the COM.

"Copy, Polaski?""I copy. Plotting course now, Chief." The voices arguing in the background became loudand more strained. "I hope you know what you're doing. Polaski out." The channelsnapped off.

"Get us there, Cortana," he said, tapping the NAV point. "As fast as you can make this thingfly."The Longsword rolled right and pitched toward the moon, Ba.sis. The chief's safetyharness groaned as gee forces increased.

"You do know what you're doing?" Cortana asked. "I mean, we're headed straight towardthe largest and most dangerous Covenant ship in this system. I assume this is part ofsome dar.ing and brutally simplistic plan  you've cooked up?""Yes," the Chief replied.

"Oh, good. Hang on," Cortana said. The Longsword rolled to port and dived under a rock.An explosion detonated aft of44 HALO: FIRST STRIKEthe ship. "Looks like your 'plan' has gotten their attention. I'm reading all six Covenant cruisers moving to overtake us at flank speed.""And the Pelican?""Still there," Cortana reporte"d. Taking heavy fire. But on tra.jectory to the NAV point. ..

moving slower than us, of course.""Adjust our speed so we arrive at the same time. When you're in range for a securesystem link, let me know."The Longsword decelerated; it shuddered to starboard and then to port, and laser fireflashed along either side.

"You never told me," Cortana said in a voice that was equal parts irritation and calmindifference, "precisely what your plan is.""Something Captain Keyes would approve of." The Chief summoned the navigationconsole on the main display. "If we survive long enough, I want a course from here"—hetapped the NAV point over the flagship—"into the gravity well of Basis to slingshot usaround.""Done," Cortana replied. "I still— Hey, they've stopped firing."The Chief tapped the aft camera. The six cruisers continued their pursuit, but the tips oftheir weapons cooled as they pow.ered down. "I was counting on this. We're on the sameline of fire as their flagship. They won't shoot.""Pelican now twelve hundred kilometers and closing. Within range for system link."The Chief hailed the Pelican. "Polaski, release your controls. We're taking over.""Chief?""Establish encrypted system link. Acknowledge."A long pause, then, "Roger."Cortana's hologram appeared on the tiny protection pad. She appeared to listen intentlyfor a moment, and then declared, "Got them.""Synchronize our courses, Cortana. Put us right on top of the Pelican.""Maneuvering to intercept the Pelican. Five hundred kilome.ters to flagship.""Prepare to alter our course, Cortana, as we pass the flagship. Also get ready to direct allscanners at the flagship if we pass."'"If?" Cortana asked.

ERIC NYLUND 45The flagship's turrets turned to bear on the Longsword and Pelican. They glowed likeangry eyes in the dark.

"Three hundred kilometers."Light sparkled along the length of the Covenant craft as it pre.pared to fire; dull redplasma gathered; three torpedoes extruded and raced toward them.

"Evasiv—" the Chief said.

Cortana banked hard port, starboard, and then hit the after.burners and pulled up.Streaks of hell&e brushed close to the hulls of the Longsword and Pelican—then were gone behind them.

The Chief had hoped for this: Their extreme oblique approach angle combined with theirspeed made them hard to hit, even for the notoriously accurate Covenant plasma weapons.

"Ten kilometers," Cortana announced. "Scanning in burst mode."They flashed over the three-kilometer-long ship in the blink of an eye. The Chief saw gun turrets straining to track their ap.proach. The alien craft had sleek lines, relatively flattop to bot.tom, but it curved from stem to  stern into three distinct bulb sections. Along its hull ran glowing blue conduits of super.heated plasma; surrounding the ship was a faint shimmer of sil.ver energy shields.

He eased back into his seat. The Chief hadn't realized that he'd been holding his breath,and he exhaled. "Good," he said. "Very good.""Burning into a high slingshot orbit," Cortana announced.

The Longsword's engines rumbled. The acceleration played hell with the Chief's inner ear. He wasn't certain for a moment which way was up.

"Bring us closer to the Pelican," he said. "Right on top. Give me a hard dock on its top access hatch."Cortana set her hands on her hips and frowned. "Readjusting burn parameters. But you know a linked-ship configuration dur.ing an orbital burn is not stable.""We won't be linked long," he said and slipped out of his har.ness. He drifted aft, pulledhimself down to the floor and opened the Longsword's access hatch. Green lights on theintervening pressure door winked on in  succession. He removed the safeties and poppedthe seal.

46 HALO: FIRST STRIKEA hand reached up from the other side. John pulled the person through.

The shock only lasted a moment. John's reflexes kicked in— he grabbed a handful of theman's uniform, kicked the hatch shut, and propelled both of them against the hull. With alightning-quick motion, he drew the  newcomer's pistol and aimed it squarely at the man'sforehead.

"You were dead," the Chief said. "I saw you die. On Jenkins's mission record. The Floodgot you."The black man smiled a set of perfect white teeth. "The Flood? Hell, Chief, it'll take morethan that pack of walking alien horror-show freaks to take out Sergeant A. J. Johnson."