1825 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date, Military Calendar)Aboard UNSC vesselGettysburg, near Covenant battle station Unyielding Hierophant.

The Master Chief and Blue Team stepped off the lift and onto the bridge of the Gettysburg.

"Sir—" John started to salute Admiral Whitcomb, but neither the Admiral nor LieutenantHaverson was there.

The only two on the bridge were Sergeant Johnson, who stared at the forwardviewscreens, and Cortana, whose holographic fig.ure burned bright blue and streamedwith code symbols and mathematics beyond John's comprehension.

Sergeant Johnson turned toward them. He looked the Spar.tans over and frowned, noting that not all of them had returned.

"I'm not sure what that thing is." The Sergeant nodded to view-screen one, centered on the Covenant command-and-control sta.tion. "Don't look like any 'uneven elephant' tome—more like two squid kissing. Whatever  it is, damned glad it's going to blow up. Nice job—almost as good as if we sent in the Marines." One corner of his mouth quirked into a smile.

"Where's the Admiral?" the Master Chief asked. "And Lieu.tenant Haverson?"The Sergeant's half smile vanished, and his eyes darkened. He moved to Weapons Station One. "I'll show you. A Clarion spy drone is nearly in position."The center viewscreen fuzzed with static and then resolved to show the Ascendant Justice moving out of the shadow of the moon. The once formidable Covenant flagship was a wreck; itsERIC NYLUND329hull was breached in a dozen places, its skeletal frame exposed, and only a handful ofplasma conduits flickered with life.

"I don't understand," the Chief said. He stepped closer to Cortana's hologram. Being near the real Cortana—not one of her fragmented copies—reassured him that everything was un.der control. "What's going on?""Stand by, Chief," she replied. "I'm attempting to attune As.cendant Justice's Slipspace drive to the Gettysburg's mass and profile.""That's what we were up to while you were off sight-seeing," the Sergeant told him. "We pulled the Slipspace matrix out of our piggybacked ship and slapped it into theGettysburg."John wheeled and faced the viewscreens. Ascendant Justice couldn't jump? Then why was it headed straight toward the Covenant fleet? A decoy? He glanced at the countdown timer: 2:09 left.

"Not a decoy," he whispered,"... a lure. Sergeant, get a signal to Ascendant Justice. Bounce it off that spy drone if you have to.""Roger, Chief," Sergeant Johnson said and tapped in com.mands. An error warningblared. He shook his head, puzzled, and tried again, carefully retyping.

"Linda, take the NAV station. Fred, you're on Ops. Will, give the Sergeant a hand atWeapons One."Blue Team jumped to their assigned stations.

Will edged the Sergeant aside and quickly tapped three but.tons. "COM patchestablished," he reported. "On viewscreen two."The bridge of Ascendant Justice appeared on screen. Lieu.tenant Haverson and AdmiralWhitcomb stood on the central raised dais, adjusting the holographic controls. Behindthem, the wall displays showed Covenant ships closing on their position.

Admiral Whitcomb smiled. "Glad to see you made it safely aboard, son.""Sir, that fleet will destroy you before you can fire a single salvo.""I don't think so, Master Chief," he replied and tapped the holographic display. A slim bluecrystalline shard appeared— an exact copy of the alien artifact they found on Reach. "I'm330HALO: FIRST STRIKEsending this image to every ship in the system and letting them know it's theirs for thetaking ... if they dare to board this ship and face Earth's best warriors." He laughed. "Ithink that'll ap.peal to those Elites and their overinflated sense of honor."John nodded. "Yes, sir. It will."He looked at the countdown timer: 1:42.

The Covenant fleet turned and moved toward the incoming Ascendant Justice. A cloud ofcruisers and carriers. Hundreds of them. Impossible odds.

"Fire turret four, Lieutenant," the Admiral ordered.

"Firing!" Haverson replied, his face set in grim determination.

A lance of plasma discharged, arced, and impacted upon the nose of the nearest carrier.

The energy splashed over their shields and dissipated.

"Turret five, Lieutenant. Take them down.""Firing five, sir," Haverson said.

A second plasma bolt followed the first. It blasted the carrier's weakened shields andmelted armor and hull, exploding through the foredecks. The ship rolled and crashed intoa cruiser that had come too close.

"Nice shooting, Lieutenant," the Admiral murmured.

The Covenant fleet responded with a blinding volley of laser fire. Pinpoints of energy concentrated on Ascendant Justice's aft decks, boiled armor off in thick layers—shearedthrough to the other side, severing its engines.

The Admiral smiled. "A sound tactical response. Good thing they don't know we're justusing that slingshot around the moon and our inertia to do the rest of the job." He glancedat the dis.plays and the station growing  larger on them. "Hang on, Lieu.tenant. Brace for impact."Ascendant Justice drifted closer to the station.

It crashed into the central ring, crushing the structure, and continued forward, dimplingthe hull of the pinched center sec.tion ... and finally ground to a halt with its nose impaledwithin the Unyielding Hierophant.

The center viewscreen on the bridge of the Gettysburg shat.tered into static and then slowly resolved. The wavering image of Admiral Whitcomb pulled himself upright. A gashfrom his temple to the corner of his mouth  wept blood. Lieutenant Haver-ERIC NYLUND331son groggily got to his feet as well, his arm held at an odd angle, broken.

"Systemwide transmission," Admiral Whitcomb barked to Haverson.

"Aye, sir," Haverson said and clumsily adjusted the COM.

"Come on, mighty Covenant warriors," the Admiral shouted. "We're here in the middle ofyour fleet with your 'holy of holies.' " He flicked his ringer at the holographic shard, and itpinged as if actually struck. "Come and  get it!" He laughed again.

Hundreds of Covenant ships moved toward them. Grapple lines and grav beams attachedto the broken hull of the Ascen.dant Justice. A thousand dropships and Elites in thrustpacks filled the space around the flagship.

The Master Chief watched the countdown timer: 0:27.

Along the ten-kilometer dorsal bulb of the space station, patches warmed to a dull red,the heat from the overloading reac.tors becoming outwardly visible.

"Move us back, Linda," John said. "Keep us in the moon's shadow. Use as much power as we can spare.""Aye, Chief," Linda replied. "Forward thrusters answering one third reverse power.Course one-eight-zero.""Cortana," he asked, "Slipspace generator status?""Almost ready, Chief," Cortana said. She bit her lower lip in concentration. "Capacitor charge at eighty percent. Adjusting fi.nal calculations. Stand by."On screen the Admiral wheeled toward the bulkhead sealing the flagship's bridge. Sparkscascaded along the seam as arc cut.ters on the other side penetrated. "Master Chief, Ihave final or.ders for you.""Sir," John said.

"You watch and see what's left of this rabble when we're done with 'em. Do not engage under any circumstances. You get the intel and hightail it back to Earth and make your report.""Understood, sir.""Now listen, son, remember when we talked about the Alamo? You know every one of thebrave defenders in those fights died. They knew the odds, but they hurt the enemy." He gritted his teeth in pain. "Both were  tactical defeats, but in the end they were also brilliant strategic victories. They made the enemy332HALO: FIRST STRIKEafraid. Just a few good soldiers fighting for what's right made the difference.""Yes, sir."John remembered all those who had made a difference for him. Sam. James. CPO Mendez.Captain Keyes. The men and women who had fought and died on Halo. And now two more names to add to that list: Whitcomb  and Haverson.

The bulkhead blasted off its mounts and clattered onto the deck of the Ascendant Justice'sbridge. Silhouetted in the pas.sage were dozens of Elites, their energy swords blurs ofmotion and light. Admiral Whitcomb fired a  submachine gun.

The central viewscreen dissolved into static.

John watched for a moment, hoping the Admiral and the Lieu.tenant would reappear ...but screen number two remained offline.

Video feed from the Clarion spy drone filled the side screens. There were two hundredwarships clustered tightly about the figure-eight-shaped Unyielding Hiewphant. A similar number of ships circled in loose orbital  trajectories. The formation reminded John of aminiature spiral galaxy... with a supernova core.

The dorsal bulb of the space station shot with color—red, or.ange, and blurred with blue-white heat in a heartbeat; plasma tendrils erupted from the surface like solar flares.Internal explo.sions chained down the station's  length through the narrow cen.ter portion and into the ventral bulb, shattering that section and discharging bolts oflightning that arced along the station's frag.ments and to the nearby ships.

The Unyielding Hierophant became a roiling cloud of fiery plasma and smoke and staticcharges that enveloped the ships that had come to engage Ascendant Justice, ships thatflashed white hot and, in an instant,  vaporized.

This thunderhead of superheated and pressurized gas bal.looned outward to engulf therest of the orbiting flotilla; heated their shields, which shimmered silver and popped likesoap bub.bles; melted their hulls and  consumed them.

The blast cooled and the cloud dissipated—but ejected debris continued outward, leavingcomet trails, and impacted on stray ships not near the epicenter.

"Move the drone back into the moon's shadow," John ordered.

ERIC NYLUND333"Aye, Chief," Will said. "Thrusters responding."The side viewscreens showed a hailstorm of molten metal streaking toward the drone'scameras—then their view was obscured by the black-and silver-pockmarked surface ofthe tiny moon.

"Cortana, is the Gettysburg ready to jump?" the Chief asked.

"Slipspace capacitors charged, Master Chief. Ready when you are.""Stand by." John waited a minute. No one spoke. "Will, bring the drone back out.""Roger, Chief."The side viewscreen changed from moonscape to space. There was little left of the fleet orthe command-and-control station—only clouds of smoke, glittering metal, and ashes.

A few Covenant warships survived. Those that could slowly moved away from the blastsite ... others drifted dead in space. Perhaps a dozen of their original five hundred crafthad come through the explosion.

"A brilliant strategic victory," John whispered, the Admiral's last words echoing in hismind.

"Cortana, get us out of here."The Master Chief stood on the bridge of the Gettysburg and watched the stars blur and vanish into the absolute blackness of Slipspace.

They had jumped away from the battle zone over the Unyield.ing Hierophant, emerged innormal space, and plotted their po.sition. Cortana adjusted their course, and now they were finally on their way to Earth.  Although they had overwhelming evidence that the............