1827 hours, September 22,2552 (Military Calendar) Aboard unidentified Covenant flagship, uncharted system, Halo debris field.

The flagship plunged through Threshold's churning atmo.sphere. Cortana could not holdthe ship's attitude. It wobbled and blasted a fiery scar through the clouds, slowly rollingto port on its central axis.

Without shields, the flagship's hull continued to heat to seven.teen hundred degreesCelsius. The nose glowed a dark red, which spread into an amber smear along themidsection and be.came a white-hot plume at the  ship's tail. Conduits and featheryantenna arrays melted, separated, and left a trail of molten metal in an explosive wake.Shocks rippled along the frame as the overpressure shed off the bow in waves. Thefriction from the  planet's dense atmosphere would shred the ship in a matter of seconds.

"Cortana," the Master Chief said. "I've gotten to the coupling. The Engineer appears toknow what it's doing. You should have power for the Slipspace generator in a moment.""It's too late," Cortana told him. "We are now too low to escape Threshold's gravitationalpull. Even at full power we can't break our degrading orbit. And we can't tunnel into Slip-space, either."The incoming Covenant fire had forced them deeper into the atmosphere. She had pushedtheir trajectory to the edge of what had been safe—it was that, or be engulfed in plasma.But she had saved them from one  death ... only to delay that fate by a scant minute.

ERIC NYLUND 85She recomputed the numbers, thrust and velocity and gravita.tional attractions. Even ifshe overloaded the reactors to critical-meltdown levels, they were still stuck in an ever-descending spiral. The numbers didn't lie.

The Master Chief's Engineer must have repaired the power coupling, because theSlipspace generator was functional again— for all the good it did them.

To enter Slipspace a shi had to be well away from strong gravitational fields. Gravitydistorted the superfine pppattern of quantum filaments through which Cortana had tocompute a path. Covenant Slipspace technology was demonstrably superior, but shedoubted that the enemy had ever attempted a Slipspace entry this  close to a planet.

Cortana toyed with the idea of trying anyway—pulse the Slip-space generators andmaybe she'd get a lucky quadrillion-to-one shot and locate the correct vector through thetangle of gravity-warped filaments. She  rejected the possibility; at their current velocity,any attempt to maneuver the ship would send it into a chaotic tumble from which they'dnever recover.

"Try something," the Chief said to her with amazing calm. "Try anything."Cortana sighed. "Roger, Chief."She booted the Covenant Slipspace generators; the software streamed through herconsciousness.

The UNSC Shaw-Fujikawa Slipspace generators ripped a hole in normal space by bruteforce. But the Covenant tech.nology used a different approach. Sensors came online, andCor.tana could actually "see" the interlacing webs of quantum filaments surround theflagship.

"Amazing," she whispered.

The Covenant could pick a path through the subatomic di.mensions; a gentle push fromtheir generators enlarged the fields just enough to allow their ships to pass seamlesslyinto the alter.nate space with minimal energy.  Their resolution of the reality of spacetimewas infinitely more powerful than human tech.nology. It was as if she had beenblind before, had never seen the universe around her. It was beautiful.

This explained how the Covenant could make jumps with86 HALO: FIRST STRIKEsuch accuracy. They could literally plot a course with an error no larger than an atom'sdiameter.

"Status, Cortana?" the Master Chief asked.

"Stand by," she said, annoyed at the distraction.

At this resolution Cortana could discern every ripple in space caused by Threshold'sgravity, the other planets in this solar sys.tem, the sun, and even the warping of spacecaused by the mass of this ship. Could she  compensate for those distortions?

Pressure sensors detected hull breaches on seventeen outer decks. Cortana ignored them.She shut down all peripheral s s.tems and concentrated on the task at hand. It was theironly way out of this mess: Theyyy'd get out by going through.

She concentrated on interpolating the fluctuating space. She generated mathematicalalgorithms to anticipate and smooth the gravitational distortions.

Energy surged from the reactors into the Slipspace generator matrices. A path parteddirectly before them—a pinhole that be.came a gyrating wormhole, fluxing and spinning.

Threshold's atmosphere throbbed and jumped through the hole—sucked into thevacuum of the alternate dimension.

Cortana dedicated all her runtime to monitoring the space around the ship, and riskedmaking microscopic course correc.tions to maneuver them into the fluctuating path.S arks danced along the length of the hull as the  nose of the flagship departed normalspppace.

She eased the rest of the ship through, surrounded by whirling storms and jagged spears of lightning.

She pinged her sensors: The hull temperature dropped rapidly and she registered a series of explosive decompressions on the breached decks.

Cortana emerged from her cocoon of concentration and im.mediately sensed theelectronic presence of the other near her, monitoring her Slipspace calculations. It was practically on top ofher.

"Heresy!" it hissed and then withdrew... and vanished.

Cortana pulsed a systems check along every circuit in the ship, hoping to track theCovenant AI. No luck.

"Sneaky little bastard," she broadcast throughout the system. "Come back here."ERIC NYLUND 87Had it seen what she had done? Had it understood what she'd just accomplished? And ifso, why declare it a "heresy"?

True, manipulating eighty-eight stochastic variables in eleven-dimensional space-time was not child's play... but it was possi.ble that the other AI would be able to follow her calculations.

Perhaps not. The Covenant were imitative, not innovative; at least, that's what all the ONIintelligence gathered on the col.lection of alien races had reported. She had thought thiswas exaggeration, propaganda to bolster  human morale.

Now she wasn't so certain. Because if the Covenant had truly understood the extent oftheir own magnificent technology, they could have not only jumped into Slipspaceyrow a planet's atmosphere—but jumped into a  planet's atmosphere, too.

They could have simply bypassed Reach's orbital defenses.

The Covenant AI had called this heresy? Ludicrous.

Maybe the humans could eventually outthink the Covenant, given enough access to theenemy's technologies. Cortana real.ized the humans actually had a chance to win thiswar. All they needed was time.

"Cortana? Status please," the Master Chief said.

"Stand by," Cortana reported.

The Chief felt decompressive explosions reverberate through the deck, thunder thatsuddenly silenced itself as the atmosphere vented.

He waited for an explosion to tear through the engine room, or for plasma to envelop him.He scanned the engine room for any signs of Grunts or Elites, and then exhaled, and stared into the face of death for the  countless time.

He had always been a hairsbreadth from death. John wasn't a fatalist, merely a realist. Hedidn't welcome the end; he knew, though, that he had done his best, fought and won somany times for his team, the Navy, and  the human race ... it made moments like thistolerable. They were, ironically, the most peaceful times in his life.

"Cortana, status please," he asked again.

There was a pause over the COM, then Cortana spoke. "We're safe. In Slipspace. Headingunknown." She sighed, and her voice sounded tinged with weariness. "We're long gone88 HALO: FIRST STRIKEfrom Halo, Threshold, and that Covenant fleet. If this tin can holds together a bit longer, Iwant to put some distance between us and them."The Chief replied, "Good work, Cortana. Very good." He moved toward the elevator. "Nowwe have a hard decision to make."He paused and turned back toward the Covenant Engineer. The creature moved awayfrom the repaired power coupling and drifted to a scarred, half-melted panel that hadbeen hit with stray plasma fire. It huffed,  removed the cover, and delved into the tangle ofoptical cables.

The Chief left it alone. It wasn't a threat to him or his team. In fact, it and the others like itmight be key to repairing this ship, and their continued survival.

He continued to the elevator shaft, stepping over the bodies of the Grunts in the hallway.He nudged them with his foot to make certain they were dead, and then retrieved twoplasma pistols and one of the needle  launchers.

He entered the elevator shaft, pushed off the deck, and floated upward in the null gravity.The Chief kept his eyes and ears sharp for any hint of a threat as he moved through thecorridors to the bridge. Everything was  quiet and still.

At the open bridge door, he paused and watched as Warrant Officer Polaski supervised aCovenant Engineer while it re.moved the blasted door control panels. The Engineerturned a melted piece of olarizing crystal before  its six eyes, and then picked up anunblemished crystalline pppanel off the floor and in.serted it into the wall.

Polaski wiped her hands on her greasy coveralls and waved him in.

Thin, blue smoke still filled the brid e, but the Chief noted that most of the display panelswere once again active. Nearby, Sergggeant Johnson tended Haverson's wounds andLocklear stood guard. The young Marine's eyes never left the Engineer, and his fingerhovered close to, though not quite on, his MA5B's trigger.

The Engineer floated back, spun on its long axis, and looked first at Polaski, then the Chief.

A burst of static issued from the bridge speakers, and the Covenant Engineer looked tothem and then to Polaski. It tapped the control, and the massive bridge doors slid shut.

ERIC NYLUND89The Engineer passed a tentacle over the controls. They flashed blue, then dimmed.

"It locks now," Polaski told them. "Ugly here knows his stuff."Three ultrasonic whistles filled the air. The Covenant Engi.neer who had just repairedthe bridge door snapped to attention, and its eyes peered intently forward. It chirped aresponse and then floated toward the Master  Chief, trying to maneuver be.hind him.

"What's it doing?" the Master Chief asked, turning to face the creature.

The Engineer huffed in annoyance and tried again to move around him.

The Master Chief didn't let it. While John had seen no hostil.ity from the creatures, they were still part of the Covenant. Hav.ing one at his back grated against every instinct.

"I've told it to repair your armor's shields," Cortana said. "Let it."The Master Chief allowed the small alien to pass. He felt the access panel removed from the shield generator housing on his back. Normally it took a team of three technicians toremove the safety catches and get to the  radioactive power source. The Chief shifteduneasily. He didn't like this one bit, but Cortana had al.ways known what she was doing.

Locklear watched this and ran a hand over his shaved head. He stood on the raised center platform and turned to the other Covenant Engineer as it repaired the burned-outdisplays on the port side of the room. He held  his MA5B loosely, but it was still aimed inthe alien's general direction. "I don't care what Cortana says," he told the Chief, "I don'ttrust them."The Engineer near Locklear floated to the bridge's holographic controls and passed atentacle over a series of raised dots.

The screens snapped on and showed three Covenant cruisers closing fast.

Adrenaline spiked through the Master Chief's blood. "Cor.tana, quick—take evasiveaction.""Relax, Chief," Locklear said. He waved his hand over a holo.graphic control; the images on screen froze. "It's just a replay." He turned and examined the suspended plasma boltsjust as they90 HALO: FIRST STRIKEimpacted on the flagship's shields. "Man," he whispered. "I wish our boats had weapons like those.""We might soon have exactly that, Marine," Lieutenant Haver-son said. He winced and stood, then moved to a screen that showed the storms in the upper atmosphere ofThreshold. "Play this one, C............