Kurt had heard enough… more important, he had seen Dr. Halsey's reaction. She knew much more than she was telling them. And it was time he found out what.

"Okay," Kurt said, "everyone grab the pods and move them to the translocation platform."

He stepped closer to Dr. Halsey. "I'd like a word with you, ma'am."

The Spartans maneuvered the pods back into the corridor. Mendez spared a look at Kurt and Dr. Halsey, and then left.

"We don't have much time," Kurt said to her.

She glanced at her watch. "Forty minutes, to be precise, until the core-room entrance shuts."

"You know what's inside."

There was the slightest hesitation, and then she replied, "How could I, Lieutenant Commander?"

"But you haven't told me everything."

Dr. Halsey's eyes hardened and her mouth set in what Mendez would have called a poker face.

"Doctor, I'm not going to risk my Spartans" lives without knowing everything. Even what you might consider an insignificant detail could have grave tactical repercussions."

"Indeed," she whispered, and her expression softened a bit. "If they mean that much to you, then tell me first about their neural augmentations."

Kurt tensed, unsure how to proceed. Dr. Halsey was a civilian outside his chain of command. There were rules and protocols dictating how the military interacted with the civilians under its protection—all too slow, for his purposes. If he were not reliant upon her scientific expertise, Kurt would have considered more direct action; instead he tried again.

"I am not bartering. Doctor. You do not have the proper clearance for that information.

Now please tell me about the core. You could save lives."

"'Save lives' is exactly what I am attempting to do," she replied, and crossed her arms.

The gesture was identical to the one Kelly made when she set her mind to be resolutely stubborn.

Kurt was cornered. If he threatened Dr. Halsey, he could lose her cooperation. If he didn't get the information, he might lose the lives. With time running out, he only had one option, and she knew it.

He took a deep breath and said, "Very well. The neural mutation for the SPARTAN-IIIs alters their frontal lobe to enhance aggression response. In times of extreme stress it makes them nearly immune to shock, able to endure damage not even a SPARTAN-II could."

"Like Dante?" Dr. Halsey said. "Still moving when he should have been in a coma?"

Kurt relived that moment, holding Dante who had just a second earlier saluted him and told him that he thought he had been nicked.

"Side effects?" she asked.

"Yes," Kurt whispered. "Over time, higher brain functions are suppressed and the Spartans lose their strategic judgment. A counteragent blocks this, but it must be regularly administered."

"I'm not sure I agree that trade-off is worth it," she said. "Unless, their needs were, even by Spartan standards… extraordinary." She carefully examined Kurt, and then whispered, "What happened to Alpha Company?"

"They were deployed to shut down a Covenant shipyard on the edge of UNSC space."

Kurt stopped, straining to hold back the blackness that rose within him. Shane, Robert, every one of them dead, and the fault his.

"I never heard of the operation," Dr. Halsey said.

"Because it was a success," Kurt replied, regaining some control. "If it hadn't been, the Covenant would have destroyed every Orion-side colony… But the entire company, three hundred Spartans, was lost."

Dr. Halsey started to reach out toward him, and then stopped, thinking better of it. "Tom and Lucy… ?"

"The only survivors of Beta Company from the Pegasi Delta Op," he replied.

They were silent a moment. Kurt wrestled to rise above his emotions and the memories.

But with so many lost he felt like he was drowning.

"I understand why you would risk such an outlawed protocol," Dr. Halsey said. "You would do anything to help them, your Spartans… as would I for mine."

Over the COM Chief Mendez spoke: "We're at the platform, sir. Awaiting further orders."

"Stand by," Kurt replied. He banished his feelings to a dark vessel in his mind, one brimming to overflow with pain, and then he focused on Dr. Halsey.

"Why are you here?" he asked her. "It is not to recover Forerunner technology. If you had really suspected, you would have told John and he'd have sent more assets than a single Spartan and a fifty-year-old ship converted for civilian use."

Dr. Halsey dropped her gaze to the intricately tiled floor. "There is no need for this pretense with you," she whispered. "Only, one becomes so accustomed to keeping secrets; one forgets how to tell anyone… anything." Her forehead crinkled almost as if it hurt to speak. "You are correct. I did not come to Onyx looking for Forerunner technology. I came for the Spartans. We want the same thing: their survival."

She set one hand over her throat—some reflexive defensive gesture to protect herself.

"This is not a war the UNSC can win, Kurt. Surely this has occurred to you?"

He nodded, although in fact it had not.

She seemed to accept this, however, and continued. "We have been slowly losing this war. 'Slowly,' I think, because we had not been the main focus of the Covenant hegemony until recently. Now they have found and targeted Earth. Add to this grim scenario the Flood… an emergent biology that even the Forerunners could not control."

"But we have to fight," Kurt said. "The Covenant don't take prisoners. And from what you've told us of the Flood… there's no other option."

Dr. Halsey smiled. "So like a Spartan… and, at the same time you are so unlike any of them. You crossed a line none of your kind has ever dared before: breaking regulations and engineering a massive cover-up. All to protect your charges. AVhat I had planned, though, went much farther…"

Over the COM Fred broke in. "Sir, the Forerunner controls on the platform are moving.

Going crazy I'm not sure what it means."

"Stand by" Kurt replied.

"You see," Dr. Halsey said, "my SPARTAN-lls would never leave a fight. They are too indoctrinated to know any other way. But when I learned of the possibility of a new generation of Spartans, I realized there was a chance to lure them away. Perhaps place them in cryo and fly as fast and as far away as I could from this sector of the galaxy.

"To live and fight another day," Kurt murmured.

"Stumbling upon this Forerunner installation," Dr. Flalsey continued, "was pure chance… Or as much 'chance' as it was building Camp Currahee next to Zone 67. In any event, there may or may not be weapon technologies we can repurpose here.

Your guess is as good as mine. There is, however, something far more valuable to us: a way to save their lives, what I think may have been part of the Forerunners' original plan.

There is a haven for these 'Reclaimers' that—"

Gunfire echoed down the hallway.

Kurt turned and raised his rifle.

Fred announced over the COM: "Covenant scout party appeared on the translocation platform. Three Elites dispatched. No injuries here. Control panel is still active. Advise."

"Listen carefully if you want them to live," Dr. Halsey told Kurt. She wore her poker face again and there was steel in her voice. "Order Fred to move the pods onto that platform— now."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

2130 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM \ UNDETERMINED LOCATION IN THE FORERUNNER CONSTRUCT KNOWN AS ONYX

The Spartans stood in a half-circle "kill" formation around the platform. The sarcophagi-like pods had been pushed into the center.

The bodies of three Elite scouts in their blue armor had been dragged to one side and stripped of their weapons. Fluorescing blood pooled there and reeked like fresh tar.

Dr. Halsey strode directly to the control console. As she tapped and arranged holographic symbols, she told Kurt, "The Slipspace fields that render the pods impervious to attack effectively block any incoming matter translocations. They are perfectly safe."

Fred reported to Kurt, "For what it's worth, sir, the Elites looked surprised. I don't think they knew we were here."

"Well, they probably do now," Kurt replied. "Doctor?"

"I'm unsure how the Covenant learned so quickly," Dr. Halsey said, glistening symbols reflecting in her glasses, "but I'm logging repeated attempts to gain access to this platform.

Nearby systems have activated. They are trying to find alternate routes to our location."

"Then we move," Kurt said.

"If the pods block the translocation." Ash said, "will they go though the system?"

Dr. Halsey considered this. "I believe so. They are designed to be transported. Once their Slipspace fields are caught in the wake of a locally generated spatial distortion they should be carried along."

"Set mission timers in countdown mode." Kurt told them, and he looked to Dr. Halsey.

She consulted her watch. "Thirty-two minutes until the doorway to the core room closes,"

she said.

"On my mark." Kurt said. "Mark."

"52:00" appeared in the lower right corner of his heads-up display "Defense formation beta," he ordered, and motioned everyone onto the platforms. "Use the pods for cover."

Will carried Dante's wrapped body and set him gently onto the platform. Kurt quickly looked away; every time he saw the corpse, it reminded him that Dante's death was his responsibility, and that he had failed the young Spartan.

The SPARTAN-IIs made a ring inside the pods protecting Mendez. The SPARTAN-IIIs lay flat and aimed under the floating pods, giving them a 360-degree field of fire.

Dr. Halsey joined them on the platform, crowding next to Chief Mendez. She opened her laptop and linked to the Forerunner controls. "Are you certain?" she asked Kurt. "The Covenant may be able to track us to the core room. We might lead them directly to it." The look on her face was unreadable.

Kurt recognized the question as strategic: continue to the core room or escape while there were UNSC forces in the space over Onyx?

Dr. Halsey had also hinted there was a way to save the Spartans' lives—something linked to the Forerunners' original plan for these "Reclaimers." But he didn't have the luxury of making plans based on Dr. Halsey's half-explained theories. He'd stick with his plan: get to the core room, grab whatever technology or weapons were there, and get off this world. He had a mission to accomplish, and failing that—his gaze moved to Ash and his pack with two FENRIS warheads—he could still deny the enemy their prize.

"Core room," Kurt said.

Dr. Halsey sighed and nodded. Was it resignation he detected on her face? Or relief?

She was the most difficult person to read he had ever encountered.

Rings of golden light enveloped them, the walls of the corridor melted, and Kurt felt his insides pulled out and around and then stuffed back into his armor.

The light, however, didn't fade as it had before. It intensified to a brighter magnesium- burning white.

Mendez dug into his vest pocket and donned an antique pair of mirrored wraparounds.

Dr. Halsey's glasses automatically darkened.

Kurt's visor wasn't polarizing to compensate, so he manually stepped up the tint by 60 percent.

At first he mistook their location for an open plain of snow, somewhere on the northern polar region, but then he saw walls in the foggy distance. He estimated five kilometers.

He pushed the polarization to 80 percent.

The floor became visible, tiled with Forerunner symbols of silver, ruby, emerald, and amber. Each line and curve interlinked in a precise Penrose geometry, although if there was a discern-able repeating pattern Kurt didn't see it.

The symbols seemed to sing in his mind, and he was frustrat-ingly close to understanding what they said… some larger galactic transcendent meaning.

Kurt shook his head to clear the delusion.

He fell back to his training. He scanned for motion. No enemies sighted. There were no visible defendable positions, either. He checked his rifle: ammo clip full. All SPI armor systems checked.

As his vision continued to adjust, a hill resolved in the center of this "room." There was a uniform slope to the floor that gently rose and then arced up hyperbolically a dozen meters. It reminded Kurt of an anthill. Around the apex of this hill sat a crown of fins raised to the sky; buttressed at their bases and pronged at their tips, they towered another ten meters above the structure.

"If this is the core of the planet," Kelly whispered, "there should be little, if any, gravity. It feels normal."

Dr. Halsey rechecked her laptop. "Translocation confirmed," she said. "We are at the center of Onyx. The gravity is artificial."

"Teams of two deploy, spread out, recon," Kurt said. "Doctor, Chief, Ash, we're going to that structure."

Green acknowledgment lights winked on.

"Sir," Holly said, "what about Team Katana? The pods?"

"Leave them on the platform. They'll block incoming Covenant translocations." It felt wrong to leave them here alone, so he ordered Holly "Guard them."

They moved off, and as Kurt marched over the floor, the symbols under his boots smoothed into a golden path. Static clawed along the inside of his SPI armor and the exterior was a riot of colors as the photo-reactive circuits attempted to blend into the local Harlequin terrain.

Mendez halted and held up a hand toward Dr. Halsey. "Watch your step, ma'am." He pointed to the floor.

A ridge rose a quarter meter, difficult to see because Forerunner icons glowed along its smooth side as well as the top.

Dr. Halsey knelt and tapped the frames of her glasses, glancing right and left. "A ring… circumscribing the entirety of the central structure." She then gazed at the hill. "In fact, the entire deformation is a series of similar concentric circles."