“Oh, good,” the Spartan replied. “I was afraid it might be complicated.”

The Chief reopened the hatch, stepped out into the Engine Room, and an infection form flew straight at his faceplate.

The attack on the Truth and Reconciliation came with mind-numbing speed as a wing of fifteen Banshees came screaming out of the sun, attacked the nearly identical number of Covenant aircraft assigned to fly cover over the cruiser, and knocked half of them out of the sky during the first sixty seconds of combat.

Then, even as individual dogfights continued, Lieutenant “Cookie” Peterson and his fellow Pelican pilots delivered Silva, Wellsley, and forty-five heavily armed Marines into the enemy cruiser’s shuttle bay, where the first leathernecks off the ramps smothered the Covenant security team in a hail of bullets, secured all the hatches, and sent a team of fifteen Helljumpers racing for the ship’s Control Room.

Conscious of the fact that occupying the Control Room wouldn’t mean much unless they owned engineering as well, the humans launched a nearly simultaneous ground attack. Thanks to the previous effort, in which the Master Chief and a group of Marines had entered the ship looking for Captain Keyes, McKay had the benefit of everything learned during that mission, including a detailed description of the gravity lift, video of the interior corridors, and operational data which Cortana had siphoned out of the ship’s systems.

Not too surprisingly, security around the gravity lift had been tripled since the previous incursion, which meant that even though McKay and her force of Helljumpers had been able to creep within meters of the hill on which the gravity field was focused, they still had six Hunters, twelve Elites, and a mixed bag of Grunts and Jackals to cope with before they could board the vessel above.

Having anticipated that problem, McKay had equipped her fifteen-person team with eight rocket launchers, all of which were aimed squarely at the Hunters.

The Covenant-flown Banshees had just come under attack, and the spined monsters were staring up into a nearly cloudless sky, when McKay gave the word: “Now!”

All eight launchers fired one, then two rockets, putting a total of sixteen of the shaped charges on the aliens, so that the Hunters never had a chance to fight as a series of red-orange explosions blew them apart.

Even as gobbets of raw meat continued to rain out of the sky, the launchers were reloaded, and another flight of rockets was sent on its way.

Three or four of the Elites had been killed during the initial attack, which meant that some of the survivors were targeted by as many as two missiles, and simply ceased to exist as the powerful 102mm rounds detonated.

Those who survived the volley, and there weren’t many, fell quickly as the rest of the team hurled grenades into the enemy positions, and hosed them with automatic fire. Total elapsed time: 36 seconds.

A full minute was consumed racing up the hill and greasing the guard at the top, which meant that 1:36 had passed by the time the murderous humans appeared inside the Truth and Reconciliation , slaughtered the Grunts on guard duty, and deactivated the lift.

Jenkins was chained between a pair of burly Marines. McKay waved the trio forward. “Let’s go, Marines. We’re supposed to take the Engine Room—so let’s get to work.”

Jenkins, or what remained of Jenkins, could smell the Flood. They were there, hiding in the ship, and he struggled to tell McKay that. But the only thing that came out was a series of grunts and hoots. The humans had taken the ship, but they had taken something else as well, something that could kill every single one of them.

’Zamamee ushered Yayap into the heavily guarded Covenant Communications Center—and gave the Grunt a moment to look around. The space had once housed all of the communications gear associated with the Pillar of Autumn ’s auxiliary fighters, shuttles, and transports. Human gear had been ripped out to make room for Covenant equipment, but everything else was pretty much in the same configuration. A team of six com techs were on duty, all with their backs to the center of the room, banks of equipment arrayed in front of them. A constant murmur of conversation could be heard via the overhead speakers, some of which was punctuated by the sounds of combat, as orders went out and reports came back in.

“This is where you will sit,” the Elite explained, pointing toward a vacant chair. “All you have to do is listen to the incoming traffic, make note of the reports that pertain to the human, and pass the information along to me by radio.

“He has an objective, we can be sure of that, and once we know where he’s going, I’ll be there to greet him. I know you would prefer to be in on the kill, but you’re the only individual I can trust to handle my communications, so I hope you’ll understand.”

Yayap, who didn’t want to be anywhere near the kill, tried to look downcast.

“I’ll do my part, Excellency, and take pleasure in the team’s success.”

“That’s the spirit!” ’Zamamee said encouragingly. “I knew I could count on you. Now sit down at the console, put on that headset, and get ready to take some notes. We know he left what the humans refer to as ‘the bridge,’ fought a battle near the Maintenance Control Room, and was last spotted heading toward the Engine Room. We don’t have any personnel in that compartment at the moment, but that doesn’t matter, because the real challenge is to figure out where he’s headed next . You feed the information to me, I’ll take my combat team to the right place, and the human will enter the trap. The rest will be easy.”

Yayap remembered previous encounters with the human, felt a chill run down his spine, and took his seat. Something told him that when it came to a final confrontation between the Elite and the human, it might be many things, but it wouldn’t be easy.

The Engine Room hatch opened, an infection form went for the Master Chief’s face, and he fired a quarter of a clip into it. A lot more bullets than the target required, but the memory of how the penetrator had slipped in under the surface of his skin was still fresh in his mind, and he wasn’t about to allow any of the pods near his face again, especially with a hole in his neck seal. A red nav indicator pointed the way toward a ramp at the far end of the enormous room.

He pounded his way up onto a raised platform, ran past banks of controls, and ducked through the hatch that led up to Level Two. He followed a passageway out into an open area, and then up the ramp to Level Three.

Near the top, a pair of combat forms fell to his well-placed fire. He policed the fallen creatures’ ammo and grenades and kept going.

“Not acceptable, Reclaimer,” 343 Guilty Spark intoned. “You must surrender the construct.”

The Chief ignored the Monitor, made his way up to Level Three, and encountered a reception party comprised of Flood. He opened fire, took two combat forms and a carrier down off the top, and backed away in order to reload.

Then, with a fresh clip in place, he opened fire, cut the nearest form off at the knees, tossed a grenade into the crowd behind him. The frag detonated, and blew them to hell.

Quick bursts of automatic fire were sufficient to finish the survivors and allow the Master Chief to reach the far end of the passageway. A group of forms were waiting there to greet him, but quickly gave way to a determined assault as he made his way up the blood-slicked steel, and through the hatch at the top of the ramp.

He moved onto the Level Three catwalk and immediately started to take fire.

There was total chaos as the Sentinels fired on the Flood, the Flood shot back, and everyone seemed to want a piece of him. It was important to concentrate, however, to focus on his mission, so the Spartan made a mad dash for the nearest control panel. He hit the control labeledOPEN , heard a beeper go off, followed by the sound of Cortana’s voice.

“Good! Step one complete! We have a straight shot into the fusion reactor.

We need a catalytic explosion to destabilize the magnetic containment field surrounding the fusion cell.”

“Oh,” the petty officer said as he jumped down onto a thick slab of duracrete, and felt it start to move. “I thought I was supposed to throw a grenade into a hole.”

“That’s what I said.”

The Chief grinned as a brightly lit rectangular slot appeared, and he tossed a grenade in through the opening.

The ensuing explosion threw bits of charred metal around the smoke-filled compartment.

One down, and three to go, the Spartan told himself as the Sentinels fired, and the laser beams hit his chest.

Thanks to the lightning-fast and extremely well coordinated nature of the attack, the humans controlled more than eighty percent of the Truth and Reconciliation , and were preparing to lift off. Those compartments not under human control could be dealt with later on. There hadn’t been any contact with Cortana for a while—and Silva intended to play it safe. If Halo was about to blow, he wanted to be far away when the event took place.

The cruiser’s Control Room was a scene of frantic activity as Wellsley wrestled with the ship’s nonsentient nav comp, Naval personnel struggled to familiarize themselves with all manner of alien control systems, and Silva gloated over his latest coup. The attack had been so fast, so successful, that his Helljumpers had captured a being who referred to himself as a “Prophet,”

and claimed to be an important member of the Covenant’s ruling class. Now, safely locked away, the alien was slated to become yet another element in Silva’s triumphant return to Earth. The officer smiled as the ship’s gravity locks were released, the hull swayed slightly in response, and the final preflight check began.

Many decks below, McKay felt someone touch her arm. “Lieutenant? Do you have a moment?”

Though not in the same chain of command, Lieutenant Commander Gail Purdy outranked the Helljumper, which was why McKay responded by saying, “Yes, ma’am. What can I do for you?”

Purdy was an Engineering officer, and one of those sixteen individuals who rated bodyguards, both of whom had their backs to the officer and were facing out. She was middle-aged and stout, with ginger-colored hair. Her eyes were serious and locked with McKay’s.

“Step over here. I’d like to show you something.”

McKay followed the other officer over to a large tube that served to bridge the one-meter gap between one blocky-looking installation and the next.

Jenkins, who had no choice but to go wherever his Marine guards went, was forced to follow.

“See that?” the Naval officer inquired, pointing at the tube.

“Yes, ma’am,” McKay answered, mystified as to what such a structure could possibly have to do with her.

“That’s an access point for the fiber-optic pathway that links the Control Room to the engines,” the Engineer explained. “If someone were to sever that connection, the power plants would run wild. There may be a bypass somewhere—but we haven’t found it. Given the fact that twenty percent of the ship remains under Covenant control I suggest that you post a guard on this piece of equipment until all of the Covenant are under lock and key.”

Purdy’s suggestion had the force of an order, and McKay said, “Yes, ma’am.

I’ll take care of it.”

The Naval officer nodded as the deck tilted and forced both women to grab onto the fiber channel. Two people were thrown to the deck. Purdy grinned.

“Pretty sloppy, huh? Captain Keyes would have a fit!”

Silva wasn’t worried about the finer points of ship handling as the final loads of UNSC personnel were deposited in the shuttle bay, the Pelicans were secured, the outer doors were closed, and the Truth and Reconciliation struggled to break the grip that Halo had on her hull.

No, Silva was satisfied merely to get clear of the surface, to feel the deck vibrate as the cruiser’s engines struggled to push countless tons of deadweight up through the ring world’s gravity well, to the point where the ship would break free.

Spurred into action by the vibration, or perhaps just tired of waiting, the Flood chose that moment to attack the Engine Room. A vent popped open, an avalanche of infection forms poured out and came under immediate fire.

Jenkins went berserk, and jerked on his chains, gibbering incoherently as the Marine guards struggled to bring him under control.