1751 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military Calendar)Aboard Covenantbattle station Unyielding Hierophant.

John struggled and tried to pry the hands from his throat. The tendons in the Brute'sforearms were solid bands of steel—and the creature was so determined to rip John'shead off that a full clip from a rifle into its chest hadn't even slowed it down.

Behind him, John felt another explosion thunder though the stone floor, followed by thestaccato rattle of rifle fire.

Blue Team was busy with another threat. He was on his own.

John blinked. The darkness dimming the edge of his vision wouldn't clear.

John watched his shield bar flicker and sluggishly recharge. If it built up enough repulsiveforce, he might have a chance to wriggle out of the Brute's grasp. If he tried too quickly,though, the Brute wouldn't lose its grip and could pound his shield flat again.

The Brute bellowed, and globules of spittle spattered onto the Chief's visor. It leanedcloser, screwing its massive hands tighter around his throat.

John's vision narrowed. His windpipe swelled, and he gagged.

Shields were at one quarter charge. It'd have to be enough.

John had been in similar death-grip holds before—endless hours of training on thewrestling mats with his teammates and martial arts specialists provided by Chief Mendez.There were ways to escape a larger, stronger  opponent. And there were al.wayscountermoves to those escapes. And countermoves to those counters. It was like a gameof chess, except the pieces were armsERIC NYLUNO313and legs, torque and your center of mass ... and most impor.tantly your mind.

He pulled his knees to his chest, and tucked his torso toward his pelvis at the same time.He twisted ninety degrees and shot out both legs and arms, and uncoiled his body. Themaneuver was called "shrimping."John's head slipped from the Brute's grasp.

He used the monster's split second of disorientation to scram.ble onto its back. Johnbrought his elbow down on the base of the Brute's neck. He swept out its elbow,wrenched the joint around, and pushed it as far as it  would go—far past the point anyhu.man's or Elite's would have sna ped. John scissored his legs wide and pushed againstthe floor, leveraging his body to keeppp the Brute pinned.

It growled and pushed itself and John up with its one free arm.

"No. You. Don't."John still clutched a frag grenade in his left hand. He flicked the arming pin—reachedaround and under, and thrust it into the Brute's belt—then withdrew, sweeping out itsone arm holding them up.

The Brute dropped onto the floor and screamed with rage.

The grenade detonated. It lifted them both a meter, and they landed again ... this timeaccompanied by a wet, pulpy smack as the Brute's dead hulk slammed into the ground.

The Master Chief rolled off and sprang to his feet and looked for Blue Team.and sprang to his feet and looked for Blue Team.

The large pillars blocked his view, but he saw on his motion tracker that Fred was behinda pillar down and to John's left, and Will behind the pillar to the right. There was no tag indicating Grace's location. There were,  however, blurry motion contacts beyond thewide arched entrance to the temple.

And there was one other thing—neither Will nor Fred checked John's status over theCOM. That silence meant trouble.

John fumbled for his fiber-optic probe, but it had been lost in the scuffle with the Brute.He eased around the basalt pillar.

Grace lay face-first on the floor, five meters from the temple en.trance. A puddle ofhydrostatic gel and blood spread across the floor.

John clicked the COM once, a status query.

314HALO: FIRST STRIKEThe instant he did this, two Brutes wheeled from their cover on either side of theentrance archway. They held rifles with large-caliber muzzles and padded stocks, fixedwith razor-edged blades. One of the Brutes saw John,  aimed, and fired.

John darted back behind the basalt pillar; he saw the flash and thunder of a grenadelaunched from the weapon—heard two more rounds fired immediately after that.

The first grenade impacted on the opposite side of the pillar and exploded. The overpressure rattled his teeth.

The Chief turned and dived, hoping to get behind the next stone column before——the second and third grenades impacted and detonated on the pillar he had stoodbehind a split second before. The solid stone crumbled into fist-sized chunks.

He skidded and scrambled for cover as the upper part of that column collapsed, raining stones that shattered the floor... and would have crushed him.

So much for engaging these Brutes in a direct assault. John wasn't up for another round ofwrestling, either. Not with the clock ticking. Not with every Covenant on this station about to tear them to pieces. Complicating  all this was the enemy's appar.ent ability tolocate them when they used the COM.

That only left one tactical option: run.

He wasn't going to leave Grace behind, though. Not until he knew for certain she wasHe removed his backpack and took out one of his two Lotus antitank mines. The disk wasa quarter meter across with spikes set along the rim to stabilize it when buried. He set thedetona.tion selector to countdown  mode, seven seconds. He then slid around the edge ofthe column.

He threw the mine with a flick of his wrist. It spun in a wide arc across the temple halland embedded into the wall just over the entrance archway.

Two seconds until it blew.

John clicked on his COM and said: "Fire in the hole!"The Brutes again wheeled around from their cover and lev.eled their deadly grenadelaunchers.

The Lotus mine detonated—it was a flash and an instant ofERIC NYLUND315fire. The temple opening and Brutes vanished, replaced by a cloud of dust and a cascadeof stones that fell from the ceiling.

One gray arm remained exposed under the rubble, still flexing.

John moved up. The entrance was sealed. They were safe for a few seconds.

He knelt next to Grace. Her biosigns had flatlined. He tried to roll her upright—but there was no need. The detonations he had heard while wrestling the first Brute had been three of their high-velocity grenades... which  had blown Grace's midsection apart.

Fred and Will emerged from their cover. John looked at mem and shook his head.

John opened the tiny access panel on Grace's armor power pack and entered the fail-safecode. They still had a mission to finish, which meant they couldn't carry her out; it wouldslow them down too much. They  wouldn't be leaving her for the Covenant either, though.Her armor's tiny fusion reactor would overload and burn everything within a ten-meter radius— Grace's funeral pyre.

"Let's move," John said. "Cortana, which way?""Proceed into the temple thirty meters. Turn right. There will be a sealed doorway, an access hatch for Engineers. I will open it and lock it behind you. Hurry. I'm encounteringincreased resistance from the station's AIs. While I have their security COM channelsblocked, word of intruders is speeding via private COMs."There was a curious echo to her voice. Maybe it was feedback from the Covenanttriangulating on their signals. Or maybe there was some other effect at work. What hadshe warned him about? Unforeseen complications  using a copy of a copy of Cortana?

"Roger that," he said and waved Fred and Will forward. He took one last look at Grace,then marched quickly and silently ahead.

There were no more motion contacts in the temple. The Chief, however, saw Grunts andJackals, Elites and Hunters in murals painted on the walls. In the shadows and stained-glass filtered light, those pictures seemed to  move. They genuflected to some.thingfarther ahead. The Chief wished he had more time to take a full video record.

Blue Team moved thirty meters and turned to face a section of the wall. It parted. Thepassage could have fit two Engineers side316HALO: FIRST STRIKEby side, but John had to crouch and turn sideways to pass. Will and Fred followed;Cortana sealed the door behind them.

They continued until the narrow passage turned ninety de.grees and dropped straightdown. Will attached a rope and they rappelled down a hundred meters, landing on aplatform.

John overlooked a cavern hewn from rough stone that arched up ninety meters andvanished into the shadows in the distance. Five hundred twelve fusion reactors thatlooked like flatted spi.ral seashells filled the space,  stacked in rows and columns eightdeep. Each was the size of a Pelican dropship and thrummed with power, casting offwaves of wavering heat.

The open areas between the reactors were a tangle of plasma conduits and alive withswarms of thousands of buoyant Engi.neers as they tended the machinery. Faint wispyborealis com.prised of escaped plasma swirled,  whipped into a luminous froth by theintense magnetic vortices within the chamber.

It was a tremendous feat of engineering. It was as if the sta.tion's builders had hewn thisfrom a seed asteroid and built the rest of the installation around it.

Will ointed across the room to three Jackals who walked along a catwalk. Blue Teamheld ppposition and didn't move.

"There," Cortana announced. "Across the platform is a termi.nal on th............