TIME:OATE ERROR Estimated 0530 hours, September 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)Aboard captured Covenant dropship, Epsilon Eridani system, en route tosurface of Reach.

The Master Chief stood on the deck of the Covenant dropship. He stood because the crashseats had been designed for Elites and Jackals and none of the contours fit his human backbone. It didn't matter—he preferred  to stand.

They drifted through the upper atmosphere of Reach, de.scending like a spider on a thousand-kilometer thread of silk. They passed close to a hundred other ships moving inorbital arcs—Seraph fighters, other dropships,  scavenger craft with grappling tentacles that dragged sections of salvaged metal. Dominating the skies were a pair of threehundred-meter-long cruisers.

The cruisers accelerated toward them.

The Chief moved up to the cockpit where Polaski and Haver-son sat in the seats they hadremoved from the Pelican and welded in place.

"They're pinging us," Polaski whispered.

"Nice and easy, Warrant Officer," Lieutenant Haverson whis.pered. "Just use theprogrammed response Cortana gave us.""Aye aye, Lieutenant," Polaski replied and concentrated on the Covenant scripts thatscrolled across the display on her left. "Sending now." She tapped a holographic icon.

Sergeant Johnson and Corporal Locklear stood two meters behind the Chief, both of them nervous. Johnson chewed his stub of cigar and scowled at the incoming Covenant warships.

174HALO: FIRST STRIKELocklear's trigger finger twitched, and beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

"Cortana has this stuff wired tight," Sergeant Johnson whis.pered. "No worries.""I got plenty of worries here," Locklear muttered. "Man, I'd rather be in a HEV pod on fire and out of control than up here. We're sitting ducks.""Quiet," Lieutenant Haverson hissed at Locklear. "Let the lady concentrate."Polaski kept one eye on the communications screen and one eye on the external displays as the twin cruisers grew larger, fill.ing the holographic space before her. Both her hands hovered over the flight yoke, not  touching it, but twitching in anticipation.

Three Seraph fighters burned out of their orbits and took a closer pass.

"Is that an attack vector?" Lieutenant Haverson asked.

"I don't think so," Polaski saii"'d. But its hard to tell with those things."Locklear inhaled deeply, and the Chief noticed that he didn't exhale. He set his hand on the man's shoulder and pulled him aside. "Relax, Marine," he whispered. "That's an order,"Locklear exhaled and ran a hand over his smoothly shaven head. "Right ... right, Chief." With effort, the Marine forced himself to calm down.

A red light flashed on the control panel. "Collision warning," Polaski said with thepracticed nonchalance all Navy pilots had in the face of imminent death. She reached for the yoke.

"Hold your course," the Lieutenant ordered.

"Yes, sir," she said, and released the controls. "Fighters one hundred meters and closing.""Hold your course," Lieutenant Haverson repeated. "They're just taking a closer look," hewhispered to himself, "and there's nothing to see. Nothing to see at all."When the Seraph fighters were only ten meters away, they tumbled to either side of thedropship. Their engine pods flared blue and they looped overhead ... then moved to rejointhe cruisers.

The larger ships passed directly overhead and blotted out the sun. In the darkness, thecockpit lights automatically adjustedERIC NYLUND175and flooded the display panels with the purple-blue frequency the Covenant favored.

The Master Chief realized that he, too, had been holding his breath. Maybe he and Locklear were more alike than he had realized.

He took a closer look at the ODST: The wild, desperate look in his eyes and the flaming-comet tattoo covering his left deltoid seemed almost alien to the Master Chief. The man had survived the Covenant and the Flood  on Halo, and he had been lucky and resourcefulenough to escape in one piece. True, his emotional responses were uncontained ... butgive him the same aug.mentations and a set of MJOLNIR armor and what was  thedifference between the two of them? Experience? Training? Discipline?

Luck?

John had always felt the other men and women in the UNSC were different; he'd felt atease only with the other Spartans. But weren't they all fighting and dying for the same reason?

The ruddy light from Epsilon Eridani suddenly filled the cockpit as the two cruisers passed on.

Polaski sighed, slumped forward, and wiped the sweat from her brow.

Locklear reached into his shirt pocket, removed a clean and pressed red bandanna, andoffered it to Polaski.

She looked at it for a second, then glanced at the Corporal, then took it. "Thanks,Locklear." She folded it into a headband, flipped her blond hair from her face, and tied itaround her forehead.

"No problem, ma'am," Locklear replied. "Anytime.""Locking onto the signal source," Lieutenant Haverson said. "Course two-three-zero byone-one-zero.""Two-three-zero by one-one-zero, aye," Polaski said. She gently pushed forward andturned the yoke.

The dropship smoothly banked into a gentle dive. The surface of Reach disappeared from the screens as the dropship entered the thick clouds of smoke that wreathed the planet.

There was a quiet beep, and the display filters activated. A moment later, images resolvedon the display screens—hundreds of thousands of hectares of raging firestorms and blackened char where there had once stood  forests and fields.

176HALO: FIRST STRIKEJohn tried not to think of this as Reach anymore—it was only one more world theCovenant had taken.

"That canyon," Lieutenant Haverson said and pointed at a fis.sure where the earth hadbeen eroded in a sinuous twisting scar. "Scanners are just picking up surface information.Let's get a closer look.""Understood." Polaski inverted the ship, executed a reversed roll, and dropped into thecanyon. When she righted the drop-ship, sculpted rock walls raced past them only thirtymeters to either side.

The Lieutenant reached for the backpack COM system they had removed from thePelican. He fine-tuned the frequency of the unusual signal they were homing in on; a six-tone message played, followed by a two- second pause, and then it repeated.

"Open a channel on that E-bandand", Lieutenant,the Master Chief said. "I'll need to send thecountersignal.""Channel open, Chief. Go ahead."The Master Chief linked his COM and encrypted the channel so only those people sendingthe signal would hear him. "Oly Oly Oxen Free," he spoke into his microphone. "All out inthe free. We're all free."The beeping over the backpack COM speaker suddenly stopped.

"Signal's gone." Lieutenant Haverson snapped his head around and stared at the MasterChief. "I'm not sure what you just told them, but whatever it was, they heard you.""Good," the Master Chief replied. "Set us down somewhere safe. They'll find us.""There's an overhang ahead," Polaski said. She moved the ship toward a deep shadowalong the starboard side where the cliff angled out from the canyon. "I'll put us downthere." She spun the ship, backed into the darkness, and set it down light as a feather.

"Open the side hatch," the Chief told Polaski. "I'll go out alone and make sure it's safe.""Alone?" Lieutenant Haverson asked. He rose from his seat. "Are you certain that's wise,Chief?""Yes, sir. This was my idea. If it's a trap, I want to be the one to set it off. You stay here andback me up."ERIC NYLUND 177Haverson drummed his long fingers across his chin, thinking. "Very well, Chief.""I got your six, Master Chief," Locklear said and unslung his assault rifle.

The Spartan nodded to Locklear and marched down the ramp. The Chief wanted them onboard the dropship for two reasons. First, if this was a trap and they were all caught outin the open, he wouldn't have time to save them and himself. Second, if the Covenantwere here, waiting, then Haverson and the others had to get away and get Cortana back toEarth. He could buy them the time to make it out alive.

At the bottom of the ramp, he hesitated as his motion tracker pinged off a single signal.

There—thirty meters ahead, just be.hind a large boulder: The friend-or-foe identificationsystem tagged the contact as neither Covenant nor UNSC.

The Chief drew his pistol, crouched, and crept forward.

A private COM channel snapped on: "Master Chief, relax. It's me."Another Spartan stepped out from the cover of the rock. His armor—while not as battered as John's—was covered with scuffs and burns; the left shoulder pauldron hadbeen dented.t from the cover of the rock. His  armor—while not as battered as John's—was covered with scuffs and burns; the left shoulder pauldron hadbeen dented.

The Master Chief felt a surge of relief. His teammates, his family, hadn't all been killed. He recognized the Spartan from his voice and the subtle way he glanced right and left. It was SPARTAN-044, Anton. He was one of the  unit's best scouts. The two stood there a moment and then Anton moved his hand, mak.ing a quick, short gesture with his index and forefinger over the faceplate of his helmet where his mouth would be. That was  theirsignal for a smile—the closest any Spartan got to an emo.tional outburst.

John returned the............