0510 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military Calendar) Aboard hybrid vesselGettysburg-Ascendant Justice, in Slipspace.

The Master Chief and his team, which now consisted of Grace, Linda, Will, and Fred, hadbeen ordered to report to the Officers' Club—normally forbidden territory to NCOs. Ofcourse, nothing about their circumstances  had been normal for a long, long time.

The Gettysburg's O-Club had a massive table of oak, scored with numerous gouges and scorches from a hundred cigars casu.ally set upon its surface. There was a bar stockedwith bottles containing a rainbow collection  of liquors, dusted with shattered crystal. The room's walnut-paneled walls were polished to a rich glow. Hung along those walls wasthe UNSC gold-fringed blue flag. There were also gold and silver citation plaques for merito.rious gallantry. There were photos of officers and past Captains of the Gettysburg.And most interesting to the Master Chief were  tin Civil War daguerreotypes thatdisplayed battlefields full of charging men and cavalry and cannons belching flash and thunder.

Admiral Whitcomb and Sergeant Johnson entered the room. The Spartans snapped torigid attention. "Officer on deck!" the Master Chief shouted, and they all saluted.

"At ease," Admiral Whitcomb said. "Please sit down."The Master Chief stepped forward. "With respect, these chairs will not support the weightof our gear, Admiral.""Of course," the Admiral said. "Well, make yourselves as comfortable as you can. This isan informal meeting." He snorted.

ERIC NYLUND287"I just wanted to see who was left on board and alive." He looked past the open doors tothe Officers' Club. "Lieutenant Haverson will join us shortly. He's investigating the site ofCorporal Lock-lear's... accident."A holographic projector pad upon the bar flickered to life, and Cortana's slender bodyappeared. Chunks of broken crystal on the pad refracted the light and distorted her image so she ap.peared half melted and cast  prismed arcs of light onto the walls.

Sergeant Johnson stepped over to the bar and swept the pad clean.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Cortana said, looking over her re-sorted figure.

"My pleasure," he replied with a grin.

Cortana faced the Admiral. "Sir," she said, "you'll be happy to hear that I'm detecting no signals, residual radiation, or any transient contacts ... which is precisely what you wouldexpect from a normal Slipspace journey."Admiral Whitcomb nodded, sighed, and eased into one of the leather-backed chairs at thetable's head. "Well, that's one small blessing.""And here's evidence that Doctor Halsey's crystal was indeed destroyed," LieutenantHaverson said as he entered the room. He paused to seal the door behind him.

Haverson sat next to the Admiral and set a small plastic bag flat on the table. "I found Locklear exactly where Cortana said he would be: B-Deck, the medical storage room.Overloaded electronics at the site are consistent  with a high-energy radiation burst... as are the burns on the Corporal's body."He grimaced and added, "If it means anything, his death was quick. And these"—he tapped the plastic bag on the table—"are crystalline fragments that I found at the site. Atfirst glance they appear to be a match to the  shard found on Reach." He shook his head."But what I found isn't sufficient mass to account for the entire crystal. So unless it was atomized and left no trace, a fact inconsistent with the presence of these larger  pieces,then the rest of that crystal has to be somewhere else."Cortana tapped her foot, and one of her eyebrows arched. "If the radiation burst detectedbefore our jump correlates with the destruction of Doctor Halsey's crystal," she said,"then there is288HALO: FIRST STRIKEan alternative explanation. The timing between that explosion and the radiation flare was only forty-seven milliseconds. Since the crystal had unusual space-and time-bendingproperties, the missing fragments may have  been 'squeezed' out of the ship and into Slipspace."Haverson asked incredulously, "You mean pieces of the great.est scientific discovery inhuman history are"—he nodded past the walls of the Gettysburg—"lost in Slipspace?""Yes," Cortana replied. She shrugged. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant.""At least the Covenant can't get to it anymore," Admiral Whit-comb said. He flicked theplastic bag with his thick finger. "Or if they do, they're only going to find a bunch ofbusted fragments.""I just wish I knew why Locklear did it," Haverson said.

Everyone was quiet. John and the other Spartans shifted un.easily in their heavy MJOLNIR armor.

Sergeant Johnson cleared his throat. "The boy was a little on edge. After all he'd been through, you'd expect that. But he was an ODST—tough as nails and twice as sharp andused to getting pounded. He wouldn't  crack. He had a reason.""Doctor Halsey," Haverson remarked and narrowed his eyes. "She had to have set thisup."John started to defend Dr. Halsey, but he stopped himself from arguing with an officer.Yes, her actions were inexplicable: She had exfiltrated Kelly, left them when they neededher the most, and given Locklear the alien artifact. John still wanted to trust her, though.Perhaps whatever she was up to was for the greater good.

"Let's not start this," the Admiral said. "I don't want anyone's perceptions colored by us discussing the 'whys' and 'what ifs' of this situation. Save it for the debriefing they're going to give us when we get back." He cast a  sideways glance at the bar and un.consciously smacked his lips. "From here to Earth it should be smooth sailing, and we can finally relax.""Permission to speak, Admiral," the Chief said.

"Granted. Speak your mind.""I don't wish to contradict you, sir, but perhaps it shouldn't be smooth sailing. And maybewe shouldn't relax."Admiral Whitcomb leaned forward. "I have a feeling I'm not going to like this. .. butexplain yourself, Chief."ERIC NYLUND289The Master Chief outlined his mission plan, how he and his team would take a Covenant dropship and insert into the ren.dezvous location for the invading Covenant fleet. They would then infiltrate their command-and- control center, the Unyielding Hierophant, and destroy it; that would hopefully cripple the Covenant force ... or at least slow them down. Maybe even enough to buy Earth time to reinforce their defenses.

The Admiral stared at the Chief without blinking and flatly replied, "Mission requestdenied.""Acknowledged, sir." He remained standing, at stiff attention.

Whitcomb frowned, as the other Spartans also snapped to at.tention and remainedstone-still. He sighed.

"I understand your motivations, Chief. I do. But I will not risk transporting your team tothe Covenant rendezvous point," the Admiral explained. "If we lose this ship, Earth never gets its warning.""Sir," the Master Chief replied, "we will transition from Slip-space to normal space alone.Once the dropship clears the gravi.tational influence of the Gettysburg and theAscendant Justice, the Slipspace field will deteriorate and we will enter normal space. Youneed never even stop. And only a minor course cor.rection puts the Gettysburg on thecorrect trajectory.""Has a drop out of Slipspace ever been attempted in a ship so small?" the Admiral asked.His heavy brows knitted together.

"Yes, sir," Cortana said. "Our Slipspace probes perform the maneuver all the time, but theshearing stress and radiation are considerable." She paused and looked toward John."The Spartans, however, in the MJOLNIR  armor should be able to survive."" 'Should,' " the Admiral echoed, his face grim. "As much as I admire your daring, Chief, Istill have to deny your request. You'll need Cortana to get past the Covenant securitysystems. She has to make it to Earth. With  the data she's carrying on Halo, the Flood, andCovenant technology, she's far too valuable to risk.""Understood, sir," John replied. "I hadn't considered that."Haverson slowly stood and brushed the sleeves of his tattered uniform. "I'll volunteer togo on the Master Chief's mission," he said. "I have extensive training in cryptology andCovenant systems."290HALO: FIRST STRIKEAdmiral Whitcomb narrowed his eyes and reexamined the Lieutenant as if seeing him forthe first time.

"You'd never survive the Slipspace transition," Cortana told him. "But..." She tapped herlip with her forefinger, deep in thought. "There might be another way."Covenant icons entered the stream of symbols flowing along the surface of herholographic body. "I ............