0610 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military Calendar) Aboard Covenantbattle station Unyielding Hierophant.

A rubbery tentacle reached in along the seam of the drop-ship's hatch.

John raised his hand and signaled Linda to stand down. He recognized the alien limb—thesplitting cilia feelers and globu.lar sensory organs could belong only to a Covenant Engineer.

The Engineer pushed open the hatch and entered the ship, floating past John and Linda as if they weren't there. It chittered and squawked as it ran its tentacles over the foreign armor plates and spatters of lead. Two  more Engineers bolted through the open hatchand joined the first.

As long as they left the single-minded aliens to their work, they wouldn't raise an alarm.But what else was out there?

John eased against the frame of the hatch and slid the fiber.optic probe outside. Therewas a line of dropships, Seraph fight.ers, and other singleships that stretched away into the shadows. Swarms of Engineers, thousands of the creatures, hovered and driftedthroughout the area. They moved parts,  disassembled and reassembled sections of shiphulls, and plumbed plasma coils. There was no trace of a welcome party of Elites waitingfor Blue Team.

John turned the optic probe up and saw a latticework deck overhead with tools, welders,and spotlights hanging like jungle vines. It was as good a place as any to get theirbearings.

John turned and pointed at Linda and Will, then out the hatch and up. They nodded and moved out.

304HALO: FIRST STRIKEFive seconds later acknowledgment lights from Blue Four and Three winked on. It was safe for the rest of them.

John grabbed the upper lip of the hatchway and flipped up onto the top of the dropship.He grabbed a dangling cord and pulled himself onto the latticework deck where Fred and Linda perched, watching and making  sure the bay was clear.

Grace and Fred disembarked and scrambled silently up into the darkness, joining them.

John pointed two fingers at his eyes and then made a flat fan motion across the space ofthe bay. The Spartans moved to care.fully scan the area.

From his shadowy overview John saw that this place was a repair-and-refit facility, withslots for hundreds of singleships. The room curved out of view three hundred meters ineither di.rection. It must run the  circumference of the station's hub.

Apart from the thousands of busy Engineers, John spotted only two Grunts wearing whitemethane-breather masks. It was not a color designation he had seen before. They pushedcarts containing barrels of sloshing  fluids. They would be easy to avoid.

One side of the bay had a series of sealed doors that he pre.sumed led to air locks. The opposite wall of the bay had a meter-thick window through which poured an intense blue light.

Every thirty meters along that transparent wall was a recessed alcove. Overflowing from the nearest alcove were purple poly.hedral cargo barrels, old charred plasma coils, and plates of the silver-blue Covenant alloy. But  what piqued John's interest was what was next to this pile of junk: a holographic terminal.

John clicked his COM to get Blue Team's attention, pointed to the junk pile, held up two fingers, and then pointed again at the alcove.

Everyone nodded, understanding his order.

Fred and Linda silently dropped to the deck, ran across the bay, and melted into theshadows behind a cut section of hull. Grace followed.

John looked up and down and side to side across the bay, mak.ing sure no Grunts werevisible. He and Will crossed and took cover behind a plasma coil the size of a Warthoglight reconnais.sance vehicle.

ERIC NYLUND305He used both hands to point at Fred and Linda, turned his hands so they pointed tohimself, and then nodded to the data terminal.

Linda la flat and slithered to the edge of the alcove shadows on his right; Fred took theleft. Theyyy would cover him while he moved to the terminal.

John reached to the back of his neck and pulled Cortana's chip from his skull. He crawledon his stomach, hugging the wall un.til he got to the terminal. He slid Cortana's chip intothe input slot and then eased back into the  shadows.

"I'm in," Cortana reported over the COM. "I have secured our own channel and encryptedthe signal so we're free to use the interteam COM.""Good work," John told her. "Is there a central reactor in this station? How well defendedis it?""Stand by. I have to move carefully. There are Covenant secu.rity AIs in this system."John hoped that this copy of Cortana's infiltration routines was as good as the realCortana.

"I have schematics for the station," she told him. "The good news is, each lobe has acentral reactor complex with five hun.dred twelve-terawatt units similar in design to thepinch fusion reactors on their ships. Apparently  this energy is used to power a shieldgenerator that can repel the collision of a small moon. I can overload one reactor, causingthe melting of its field coils, which will saturate the surrounding—""Will it explode?" John asked impatiently.

"Yes—an explosion of sufficient force to vaporize both sections.""That's the good news? Whatt'"s the bad?

"The reactor's control system is isolated. I cannot reach it from this terminal. You willhave to physically deliver me there.""Where is 'there'?""The nearest reactor-control access point is seven kilometers farther into the station'stop lobe."John considered this. If they were careful and lucky, it might be possible.

"Is there a way to leave you in the central system until we need306HALO: FIRST STRIKEyou?" he asked. "It would be handy to have you monitor the Covenant security systems."The duplicate Cortana was silent a full three seconds. "There is a way," she finally replied.

"When I was copied from the origi.nal Cortana, the duplicating software was copied aswell—it becomes an inseparable part of all subsequent copies. I can use this to copymyself into this system.""Perfect.""There are risks, however," Cortana told him. "Each succes.sive copy containsaberrations that I cannot correct. There may be unforeseen complications associated withusing a copy of a copy.""Do it," John ordered. "I'll take that chance. But I'm not will.ing to take a chance oncrossing seven kilometers behind enemy lines without a way to bypass their securitysystems.""Standby," Cortana said. "Working."A minute ticked off John's mission timer. Then the data chip ejected from the terminal.

"Done," Cortana said over the interteam COM. "I'm in. There's an exit to this bay thirtymeters to your left. I will black out the security cameras there and open the door intwenty seconds. Hurry."John retrieved the chip and reinserted it into his skull. There was a flash of cold mercuryin his mind.

"Move out," John told Blue Team. "Stay low."Fred's and Linda's acknowledgment lights flickered, indicat.ing the way was clear.

Blue Team ran, crouching, for thirty meters. A small access panel slid open, they piledthrough—then the door snapped shut behind them.

They proceeded, hunched over; they crawled on their hands and knees, on theirstomachs, and through ducting so tight they had to shut down their shields and scrape byon bare armor over metal. For kilometers they  followed Cortana's directions, halt.ing as she ran motion sensors through diagnostics until they passed ... twisting and turning and shimmying down long lengths of pipe, dodging the giant blades of circulation fans, and  edging by transformer coils so close that sparks arced across their shields.

ERIC NYLUND307According to John's mission timer they had followed this route for eleven hours—when itdead-ended.

"New welds," Fred said, running his gauntlet over the seams in the alloy plate blockingtheir path.

Cortana broke in over the COM, "It must be a repair not logged into the station manifest."John said. "Options?"Cortana replied, "I have only limited mission-planning rou.tines. There are three obvious options. You can blow............