1820 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military Calendar)Aboard Covenantbattle station Unyielding Hierophant.

The Master Chief accelerated his Banshee to its top speed.

There was another explosion at the temple, and plumes of steam geysered into the airfrom the heat-exchange plant. The circling formations of Banshees scattered.

John tucked as close as he could to his flier's fuselage and coaxed every bit of speed fromthe craft.

A pair of Banshees swooped in, one off his port, the other on his starboard. Their plasmaweapons heated; John rolled back and forth to throw their aim. He braced for impact... butthere was none.

The Chief craned his head back and saw the pilot of the lead Banshee slump, slide offtheflier, and plummet to the ground. The trailing Banshee was riderless as well... only ablood-spattered cockpit and cowling.

Linda still had him covered—had taken out both pilots with precise fire. She had to beclose.

John scanned the area. There were spires and water-reclamation towers, transport tubesand catwalks that crisscrossed the center of the interior. There was a nexus of walkwaysnear the beam of il.lumination that ran down the center of the station, a location withenough glare that a sniper might hide in the open undetected.

He risked keying Linda's private COM channel. "Thought you might need a ride, so I—"An energy mortar blasted over John's shoulder, burning the air like a sun in close orbitand draining his shields to half. It322HALO: FIRST STRIKEimpacted a water tower, and the structure detonated into a cloud of blinding steam.

John punched the Banshee through the cloud, glanced down, and saw a Wraith tank tracking his trajectory. He ducked and weaved but kept moving toward Linda's probablelocation.

His mission countdown timer read 7:06. There was no time for fancy evasive maneuvers.

Did Linda even want to be found? Maybe she wanted him to get to safety and leave her behind? It's what he would have done.

"Position report, Linda," John barked over the COM. "That's a direct order."Three seconds ticked off his mission clock and then the six-tone "Oly Oly Oxen Free " song whistled through John's speak.ers and a NAV marker appeared on his heads-up display.

The triangular marker centered on a rope that ran between two transit tubes and dangledperilously close to the high-intensity light beam. It was a barely discernible thread thatran through a hard shadow cast by a  nearby catwalk.

John hit his image enhancers. Through the glare of the light, and in the depths of theshadow, he caught the flicker of reflected optics.

Linda used both the brilliant light and the darkness to hide.

John angled the Banshee to her. He clipped the tether line from his belt to the frame of theBanshee and squeezed his thighs tighter onto the seat.

When he was thirty meters away, he made visual contact. Linda had the rope coiled abouta boot and wrapped about one forearm. She held her sniper rifle in one arm, and Johncould only surmise that she had been  firing from such an impossible position.

She uncoiled the rope from her boot, swung, released at the apex of the arc—and felltoward him.

John forced the Banshee's cowling up against straining hy.draulics and stretched out hisarm, his fingers touched hers— and her hand slapped firmly into his gauntlet.

He swung her around and over his shoulder. Linda landed in front of him, straddling theseat.

John spun the Banshee about and accelerated back to the win.dows. The craft's forwardcowling remained wrenched up andERIC NYLUND323slowed them down—but there was no other way to fit two people on the craft.

"Coming in hot," John said over the COM to Fred and Will. "Open the door and get readyfor a quick exit, Blue Team."Fred's acknowledgment light winked on.

"Cortana, breach those air locks. Now!"A cacophony of voices filled John's COM. There were so many copies of Cortana speakingat the same time he couldn't make out anything coherent.

"Cortana, the air locks."There was apop of static. "Apologies, Chief," Cortana replied. "I've spun off a dedicatedcopy to... to... speak with you."John thought she had already made a copy to talk directly with him. What had happenedto it?

"Override the air lock safeties, Cortana. Open the external and repair bay doors.""Working, Chief. There's too much system COM traffic. So many of us. Near saturationlevel. Have to fight to get... Stand by..."An explosion appeared a kilometer away along the far wall. The Lotus antitank minebecame a blossom of flame and black smoke that drifted and diffused and left aspiderweb of cracks on the meter-thick translucent section.

But the window held.

That Lotus antitank mine could have sheared through that wall even if it had beenreinforced steel, but this wall had re.mained in one piece.

They were stuck inside.

Three hundred meters to the window.

"Cortana!"In John's peripheral vision he saw clouds of Banshees and Ghost fliers gaining on them.

"Cortana—it's now or never!

""In ..." Cortana's voice was faint. "Intersystem failure 08934-EE. Global system error 9845-W. Resetting. Inner doors open. Override in progress. System lockdo—"The COM went dead.

A hundred meters away, beyond the cracked window, the atmosphere turned white for a split second then cleared. Spaced324HALO: FIRST STRIKEevery twenty meters along the bay walls, the air lock doors were opening. Beyond, stars shone upon velvet black.

Fred and Will's Banshees appeared off John's starboard ca.nard. John pointed and together they dived, accelerating toward a bull's-eye pattern of cracks on the translucentportion of the wall.

That web of fissures spread: fingers that stretched and split along the length of thewindow... slowed and stopped.

John fired the Banshee's plasma cannons. Fred opened fire as well, and four blobs ofplasma splashed across the glassy surface fifty meters away.

The window flexed, crackled, tiny flakes popped off... but the translucent materialremained stubbornly intact.

John was thirty meters from the surface—he'd have to veer off now, or impact upon it. He grit............