"Get me a fleetwide COM channel," he told Y'gar. "Use the Prophets' own frequencies."

"Signal acquired," Y'gar said. "Ready for fleetwide broadcast."

Voro spoke: "This is Ship Master Voro 'Mantakree of the Incorruptible to all loyal vessels in the Second Fleet of Homogeneous Clarity.

"Brothers, we must cast out our confusion, and cease falling upon one another. The holy relic is tainted. We must burn the corruption before it takes us all.

"Zasses," he ordered, "send coordinating target solutions to the fleet." He motioned over the main holographic viewer, selecting portions of the Halo ring where dozens of Spirits were slipping away. "We must stop them before they make contact with one of those destroyers."

"Aye, sir. Targeting solutions sent."

The majority of the fleet, sluggish and disoriented, slowly aligned into a coherent fighting force: plasma arced from a hundred ships, and laser fire weaved lacy patterns on the dark of space.

Under such a destructive salvo of combined fire, the smaller ships burned—leaving only debris and skeletal frames.

"Do not close with the targets," Voro said over FLEETCOM. "Or the disease will spread."

His hands grasped the command console.

To the Lekgolo pair Voro whispered, "Sweep the ship, continuous patrol, until I order otherwise. Report any hull breach no matter how slight. Any deaths. Anything that might be Flood infection."

The Xida Lekgolos nodded and they lumbered off the bridge, hands flexing in anticipation.

"Uruo," Voro said, "ready the self-destruct sequence. We must be prepared."

Uruo nodded, his maw working nervously, but he set plasma coils to detonation mode.

"All ready," he replied.

"One of the destroyers near the ring is hailing the fleet," Y'a-gar said. "Rapturous Arc. "

Static crackled and over that a whisper; "This is Ship Master of the Rapturous Arc. We are overwhelmed. Do not allow them to make us their instruments. I will not—"

The signal terminated.

The Rapturous Arc moved, wheeled toward the stars, and then continued to turn toward the other three destroyers abeam of Halo. It touched one of its brother ships, energy shields shimmered, frequencies matched, and the Flood-infected ship released a swarm of bulbous carrier forms.

Over FLEETCOM Voro said, "Retarget. Burn those ships."

Voro then ordered Uruo, "Heat lines and target projector."

"Targeting solutions ready," Uruo announced.

Voro could take no chance. "Fire," he said.

Plasma and energy projectors fired from a dozen nearby ships and painted the two vessels. The destroyers' shields collapsed—decks mushroomed outward from the aft engine compartments—a wave of illumination that flared white, and then cooled to smoky afterimages.

"New targets," he told Uruo, indicating the other two destroyers near the ring.

"Coordinate targeting solutions throughout the fleet.

Uruo hesitated only a moment, and then nodded. "Locked and ready. Targeting solutions sent, sir."

Those last two ships had been too close to their infected counterparts. There was no margin for error here. Not even a single Flood-infected cell could escape.

"Sir," Y'gar said, and stood straighter, "targeted destroyers have dissipated their shields."

Voro nodded, nearly overcome with the nobility of his brother Ship Masters.

"Send the order fleetwide," he whispered. "Fire all lines and lasers. Discharge projectors."

Plasma lines heated, detached, and swarmed off the hull of the Incorruptible and the Second Fleet. Energy projectors fired and peeled off the ships' armor in a flash. Lasers peppered their boiling hulls, and air vented, sending it into a tumble. Plasma bolts impacted, squirting through the holes, and igniting the vessels.

"Another round," Voro commanded. "Burn them to ashes."

More plasma impacted and the doomed vessels spun toward the Halo structure, captured by its gravity. It would be their pyre.

"Back the Incorruptible off," Voro ordered. "Thirty thousand kilometers."

Over INTERSHIPCOM Voro linked to the Xida Lekgolo pair. "Report."

Paruto spoke: "No breaches detected. All ship personal accounted for. No taint exists."

Voro exhaled. There might yet be hope they could survive.

"Detecting the Twilight Compunction, sir," Y'gar said, "and two other Jiralhanae frigates on an intercept course. Their lateral lines are hot."

The crisis was not yet over but already they returned to the old hatreds. Voro scrutinized the fleet and saw others turning and firing on ships they had only moments ago fought side by side with.

"Make ready to transition to Slipspace," Voro ordered.

"With respect, sir," Y'gar whispered. "We are leaving the battle?"

"To stay here and fight until we are all dead is madness. Everything had changed. We will heed the summons of Imperial Admiral Xytan 'jar Wattinree. We must warn them what has happened… the jiralhanae, the Flood."

"Slipspace matrix energized," Zasses said. He shook his head, confused. "Anomalies detected in dimension YED-4, sir… cause undetermined."

"Can we safely transition?" Voro asked.

"Unknown, sir."

Slipstream space dimensions didn't exhibit "anomalies." Was this something caused by the holy ring? There was no time to investigate. They'd have to risk it.

"Set course and execute transition," Voro told him. "Salia system, outpost world Joyous Exultation."

The UNSC prowler Dusk hovered in the shadow zone of the fourth planet's moon.

It was so quiet on the bridge Commander Lash heard his own breathing and heartbeat.

Every screen showed the battle raging among the Covenant forces.

Music from the last act of Der Ring des Nihelungen played in his mind— Gotterdammerung, Ragnarok, Armageddon… the end of the entire goddammed universe.

"Confirm all recorders on high-def capture mode," Lash said.

Durruno double-checked her station. "Confirmed, sir," she whispered.

"Sir," Lieutenant Yang said, "as ordered, capacitors charged, and all secure to enter Slipspace on vector tango."

Lash and Lieutenant Commander Waters stared at the viewscreens, watching the Covenant fleet destroy itself.

"Whatever the hell is happening out there," Waters remarked, "at least they haven't spotted us."

"Sir," Yang asked, "what do you think is happening?"

"There's only one thing it could be," Lash answered. "A Covenant civil war."

SECTION V

BLUE TEAM

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

1550 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR] \ SOL SYSTEM, PLANET EARTH \ CARIBBEAN OCEAN, NEAR CUBAN COAST

Blue Team—SPARTANS-104, -058, and -043—sat on the blood tray of the Pelican as it roared over the ocean, skimming a few meters over the water. The aft hatch was lowered, jammed open because a plasma shot had melted the hydraulics. Fred watched the jets chum the water behind them, happy to be above the water instead of under it.

In the last two weeks Blue Team had been deployed on numerous zero-gee ops to repel the Covenant ships in orbit over the Earth. They had then been dispatched to Mount Erebus in the Antartic where they neutralized a Covenant excavation with a HAVOK tactical nuke.

They had then redeployed off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula for a swim. Covenant forces had been searching the seafloor for something. What precisely—a holy relic, a geological sample—no one knew, and it didn't matter. What mat-lered was when they got what they wanted, the Covenant then his-lorically glassed the planet to remove any human "infestation."

Blue Team had stopped both operations.

Fred looked over the ocean and wondered how long they could keep the Covenant at bay in space. His gaze dropped to the corrugated floor of the Pelican. It had lived up to its nickname "blood tray"… stained with splashes of congealed dark red. Good soldiers had died today.

On his heads-up display the TACMAP showed the edge of Cuba ahead. Fred exhaled and cleared his mind. They were close to their third target: the Centennial Orbital Elevator.

There had been scattered reports that the Covenant had invaded the facility… before all contact with COE Control had been lost.

Fred stood and stretched. Linda and Will rose as well, sensing their brief downtime was over.

Linda opened one of the crates they had obtained from Base Segundo Terra near Mexico City. Within was a new SRS99C sniper rifle. She dissembled it, cleaned each part, applied graphite lubricant, and reassembled the gun with mechanical precision. She then examined the Oracle N-variant scope that had accompanied the rifle, and made microadjustments with a fine set of screwdrivers.

William tore into the box of ammunition and loaded magazines, sorting them by frag and AP types.

Fred opened an "egg carrier" box and divided up fragmentation and concussion grenades into three satchels.

He found an ONI datapad and turned it on. It had new Covenant-English translation matrices and the latest ONI intrusion and counterintrusion software. Updates courtesy of Cor-tana. He tossed it into his bag.

In the cockpit. Sergeant Laura "Smokes" Tanner flew, while her Crew Chief, Corporal Jim Higgins, fiddled with the COM, trying to filter though the reports of the action in space and on the ground. Tanner popped a black bubble and continued to chew the contraband tobacco gum so popular with NCO fliers.

"So then," Tanner said to Higgins, "In Amber Clad goes after the damned Covenant battleship as it did an in-atmosphere Slipspace jump! Flattened New Mombassa. I don't know what those split-chinned freaks were after, but they sure didn't stick around after they found it—that's all I heard. CENTCOM channels are dropping off line. That can't be good."

Fred looked to Linda and Will.

Linda made a short lateral cut with her hand, the "stay cool" gesture.

They couldn't worry about the larger strategic picture. They had to stay focused on their part. Secure the orbital elevator, and win this war one battle at a time.

Fred spied the Cuban coast ahead: surf and white sands.

The Pelican screamed over jungle tangle. Fifty kilometers in the distance a line stretched from ground to clouds: the UNSC Centennial Orbital Elevator, or as the locals called it: Tallo Negro del Maiz, the "stalk of black corn."

It was two hundred years old, antiquated but one of the few surviving OEs capable of heavy lifting on Earth. In the last two weeks, nuclear devices slated for conversion to peaceful purposes had been transported to Cuba. Recent actions had depleted the UNSC nuclear stockpile, and these older, low-yield bombs were all they had left.

Sergeant Tanner continued, "So then the Covenant fleet really starts to tear into the orbital defenses. It's getting ugly up there. Major skirmishes with the Second, Seventh, and Sixteenth Fleets."

"… Just as long as the plasma doesn't start dropping," Hig-gins replied.

Tanner stopped chewing her gum. "Multiple silhouettes ahead. Banshee fliers. Whoa—"

She craned her head, looking up.

Fred moved to the cockpit and followed her gaze. Up the orbital elevator, past a whisper haze of clouds, a pair of dots— each a kilometer-and-a-half-long Covenant ship—orbited.

"What the hell are they doing up there?" Tanner whispered.

Covenant orbital support complicated this mission. Ground forces might have aerial support, heavy armor, or artillery But Covenant didn't need the stalk to transport an invasion force. They'd just land their ships or use grav beams. Why were they here? Blue Team would have to move in closer before he could discern their motives.

Fred studied the radar images. "There's a hole in the Banshee patrol pattern." He tapped the far edge of the screen. "Put us down here. We'll go in by foot."

"Your call," Tanner said dubiously. She pushed the throttle and the Pelican accelerated, dropping so it now decapitated palm trees.

"Make ready for hot drop, Spartans." She spun the Pelican around and sank into the jungle. "Call if you need a lift. Blue Team. Good hunting."

Fred, Linda, and Will grabbed their gear and jumped out the back, six meters to the sandy ground.

The Pelican roared away.

Fred pointed northeast and they moved silently though the tropical brush, and entered the shadow of Tallo Negro del Maiz.

A half kilometer from the elevator complex, the jungle had been cleared and replaced by concrete, asphalt, and warehouses. Towering freight container cranes stood instead of coconut trees.

Fred heard the dull pounding steps of a Covenant Scarab attack platform. He spotted the lumbering behemoth as it crashed through a warehouse, tearing steel walls like tissue paper.

"Trouble," he muttered over TEAMCOM.

"Opportunity," Will countered.

Linda kept her comments to herself and methodically wrapped the barrel of her new sniper rifle with brown and green rags. She lay in the scrub, powered on her Oracle scope, and sighted down its length.

"UNSC personnel down," she reported. "Thermals cold. All dead. Making out six—no, a dozen Covenant moving in groups of four… carrying cargo pods. Not Elites. Brutes."

Fred paused, remembering the gorillalike creatures from their op on Unyielding Hierophant. A single Brute had wrestled John in his MJOLNIR armor… and almost won. Not as bad as facing Covenant Hunters, but Hunters only came two at a time.

"Where are they going?" Fred asked.

She shifted her sight. "Elevator. They've got an ascent car half full."

"Switch to neutron detector," Fred suggested.

Linda twisted a dial on the Oracle scope. "Cargo pods are hot," she confirmed.

"Nukes?" Will said. "Covenant don't use nukes. They have an edict about using 'heretic' weapons."

He was right. Fred had seen Elites, their weapons depleted of charge, die rather than touch fully loaded UNSC assault rifles at their feet.