"PZ three hundred meters," Kelly said, consulting her tablet. "Welcome committee has us in their sights."

"Tell them we have the package," John said, "and we need a hand."

"Roger that," she said.

The missile was two kilometers from them—closing fast.

Ahead, the forest turned into swamp. With a hurricane roar, a UNSC Pelican dropship rose over the treetops and its twin chain guns spat a cloud of depleted uranium slugs at the incoming missile—making it bloom into a flower of fire and smoke.

"Stand by for pickup, Blue Team," the dropship's pilot said over their COM. "We got incoming single-craft hostiles. So hang tight, and go vacuum protocols."

"Check suit integrity," John ordered. He remembered Sam and how his friend had sacrificed himself, remaining on a Covenant ship under siege because of a breach in his suit. If a single AP round had breached their MJOLNIR, they'd be in a similar jam.

The Warthog, billowing thick black clouds, rattled to a stop.

The Pelican settled over it and clamped tight.

Blue Team came back all green status lights, and John relaxed; he had been holding his breath.

The Pelican lifted the Warthog, laden with Spartans and warheads, into the air.

"Make secure," the pilot said. "Bogies inbound on vector zero seven two."

Acceleration tugged at John, but he stood fast, one hand bracing the nukes, the other against the punctured side of the Warthog.

The clear blue light outside darkened to black and filled with the twinkle of stars.

"Rendezvous with the Bunker Hill in fifteen seconds," the Pelican pilot announced.

"Prepare for immediate out-system Slipspace jump."

Kurt carefully eased out of the driver's seat and into the midsection to join them.

"Nice work," Fred told him. "How did you know it was a trap?"

"It was the guards loading ammunition off the Warthog," Kurt explained. "I saw it at the time, but it didn't register until it was almost too late. Those ammo canisters were marked as armor-piercing rounds. All of them. You wouldn't need that much AP unless you were taking on a few light tanks…"

"Or a squad of Spartans," Linda said, catching on.

"Us," Fred remarked.

Kurt doggedly shook his head. "I should have figured it out sooner. I almost got everyone killed."

"You mean you saved everyone," Kelly said and she butted her shoulder into his.

"If you ever have another funny 'feeling,'" John told him, "tell me, and make me understand."

Kurt nodded.

John wondered about this man's "feelings," his instinctive subconscious awareness of the danger. CPO Mendez had made then all train so hard, lessons in fire-team integration, target prioritization, hand-to-hand combat, and battlefield tactics were part of their hardwired instincts now. But that didn't mean the underlying biological impulses were worthless. Quite the opposite.

John set a hand on Kurt's shoulder, searching for the right words.

Kelly, as usual, articulated the sentiments that John never could. She said, "Welcome to Blue, Spartan. We're going to make a great team."

CHAPTER TWO

0500 HOURS, OCTOBER 24, 2531 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ABOARD UNSC POINT OF NO RETURN, INTERSTELLAR SPACE, SECTOR B-042

Colonel Ackerson ran both hands through his thinning hair, and poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on the table. His hand shook. Ironic that his career in the military had come to this: a secret meeting on a ship that technically didn't exist, about to discuss a project that, if successful, would never surface from the shadows.

Eyes-only classification. Code words. Double deals and back-stabbing.

He longed for earlier days when he held a rifle in his hands, the enemy was easily recognized and dispatched, and Earth was the most powerful, secure center of the universe.

Those times only existed in memory now, and Ackerson had to live in the dark to save what little light remained.

He pushed back from the ebony conference table, and his gaze swept over the room, a five-meter-diameter bubble, bisected by a metal grate floor, with stainless-steel walls brushed to a white reflective sheen. Once sealed, it became a Faraday cage, and no electronic signals could escape.

He hated this place. The white walls and the black table made him feel, like he sat inside a giant eye, always under observation.

The "cage," as it was referred to, was contained within a cocoon of ablative insulating layers, and counterelectronics to provide further security, and this ensconced on the most secret ship in the UNSC fleet, Point of No Return.

Constructed in parts and then assembled in deep space, Point of No Return was the largest prowler-class vessel ever built. The size of a destroyer, she was completely radar- invisible, and when her baffled engines ran below 30 percent she was as dark as interstellar space. Point of No Return was the wartime field command and control platform for the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence, NavSpecWep Section Three.

Very few had actually seen this ship, only a handful had ever been aboard, and fewer than twenty officers in the galaxy had access to the cage.

The white wall sheathed apart and three people walked in, boots clipping across the metal grate.

Rear Admiral Rich entered first. He was only forty, but already gray. He commanded covert operations in Section Three, in charge of every field operation save Dr. Halsey's SPARTAN-II program. He sat on Ackerson's right, glanced at the water, and scowled. He withdrew a gold flask and un-stoppered it. The odor of cheap whiskey immediately assailed Acker son.

Next was Captain Gibson. The man moved like a panther with the low lopping strides indicative of time recently spent in mi-crogravity. He was the field officer in charge of Section Three Black Ops, the hands-on wet-work counterpart to Rear Admiral Rich.

And last, Vice Admiral Parangosky entered.

The doors immediately sheathed close behind her. There were three distinct clicks as locks meshed into place, and then the room fell into an unnatural silence.

Parangosky remained standing and assessed the others; her iron gaze finally pinned Ackerson. "You better have one hell of a reason for dragging us all here through back channels, Colonel."

Parangosky looked fragile and closer to 170 years old than her actual seventy years, but she was in Ackerson's opinion the most dangerous person in the UNSC. She was the real power in ONI. To his knowledge, only one person had ever successfully crossed her and lived.

Colonel Ackerson set four reader tablets on the table. Bio-metric scanners flashed on the sidebars.

"Please, Admiral," he said, "if you would."

"Very well," she growled and sat. "I'll bite."

"Nothing new with that, Margaret," Admiral Rich muttered.

She shot him a piercing glare, but said nothing.

The three officers scanned the document.

Captain Gibson sighed explosively and pushed the tablet away. "Spartans," he said.

"Yes, we're all familiar with their operational record. Very impressive." From the scowl on his face, it was clear "impressed" was not what he was feeling.

"And," Rich commented, "we already know your feelings about this program, Colonel. I hope you did not bring us here to try and once again shut the Spartans down."

"No," Ackerson replied. "Please scroll to page twenty-three, and my purpose will become clear."

They reluctantly examined his report.

Captain Rich's brows shot up. "I've never seen these figures before… MJOLNIR suit construction, maintenance staff, and recent upgrades to their microfusion plants. Christ! You could build a new battle group for what Halsey is spending."

Vice Admiral Parangosky did not glace at the figures. "I've seen this before, Colonel. The Spartans are the single most expensive project in our section. They are, however, also the most effective. Come to the point."

"The point is this," Ackerson said. Sweat trickled down his back, but he kept his voice even. If he didn't sell this, Parangosky might roll over him, and he'd find himself busted to sergeant and patrolling some dusty frontier world. Or worse.

"I'm not suggesting that we shut the Spartans down," he continued and gestured broadly with both hands. "On the contrary, we're fighting a war on two fronts: rebels eroding our economic base in the outer colonies; and the Covenant, who, as far as we know, are committed to the total annihilation of humanity." Ackerson straightened and met Gibson's, Rich's, and then Parangosky's gazes. "I'm suggesting we need more Spartans."

The smallest flicker of a smile played over Vice Admiral Parangosky's thin lips.

"Crap," Rich muttered. He took a draw from his whiskey flask. "Now I've heard everything."

"What's your angle, Colonel?" Gibson demanded. "You've been on record against Dr.

Halsey's SPARTAN-IIs since she started the program."

"I have," Ackerson said. "And I still am." He nodded to the readers. "Screen forty-two please."

They tabbed ahead.

"Here I detail the flaws of Halsey's undeniably 'successful' program," Ackerson said.

"High cost, an absurdly small gene-candidate pool, inefficient training methodologies, far too few final units produced—not to mention her dubious ethics of using flash cloning procedures."

Parangosky scrolled ahead. "And you are proposing… ah, a SPARTAN-III program?"

Her cast-iron expression didn't betray a hint of emotion.

"Consider the SPARTAN-IIs a proof-of-concept prototype," Ackerson explained. "Now it is time to shift into production mode. Make the units better with new technology. Make more of them. And make them cheaper."

"Interesting," she whispered.

He sensed he was getting through to her, so he pressed on.

"The SPARTAN-IIs have one additional feature that makes them undesirable for our purposes," Ackerson said. "A public presence. Although classified top secret, stories have leaked throughout the fleet. Just a myth at this point, but Section Two has plans to disseminate more information, and soon go public with the program."

"What!?" Rich pushed back from the table. "They can't release details of a top-secret—"

"To boost morale," Ackerson explained. "They'll build the legend of the Spartan. If the war goes as projected with the Covenant, we will certainly need drastic measures to maintain confidence among the rank and file."

"That means these Spartans will have to be, what, protected?" Rich asked incredulous.

"If they're all dead, that makes a psy-ops campaign kind of moot, don't it?"

"Not necessarily, sir," Gibson remarked. "They can be dead, just not a secret."

"I assume, Colonel," Parangosky said, "that this public presence issue will not be a flaw with your proposed series-three program?"

"Correct, ma'am." Ackerson set his hands on the table and bowed his head. He then looked up. "This was a most difficult conclusion to come to. This new fighting force must be inexpensive, highly efficient, and trained to take on missions that traditionally would never be considered. Not even by Halsey's supermen."

Rich scowled at this and his forehead wrinkled. "Suicide missions."

"High-value targets," Ackerson countered. "Covenant targets. The battles we have won against this enemy have come at unacceptable losses. With their numbers, their superior technology, we have few options against such a force, save extreme tactics."

"He's right," Gibson said. "Spartans have proven their effectiveness on high-risk missions, and although I hate to admit it, they're better than any human team I could assemble. Remove existing UNSC mandates for safety and exfiltration, and we have a shot of slowing the Covenant down. It will give us time to think, plan, and come up with a better way to fight."

Parangosky whispered, "You want to trade lives for time."

Ackerson paused, carefully weighing his response, then said, "Yes, ma'am. Isn't that the job of a solider?"

Parangosky stared at him. Ackerson held her gaze.

Rich and Gibson held their collective breath, speechless.

"Is there another option?" Ackerson asked. "How many worlds are now cinders? How many billions of colonists have died? If we save a single planet, gain a few weeks, isn't that worth a handful of men and women?"

"Of course it is," she whispered. "God help us all. Yes, Colonel, yes, it is worth it."

Rich emptied his flask. "I'll reroute funding for this thing through the usual places, no computer records. Too many dammed AIs these days."

Gibson said, "I'll make sure you get equipment, DIs, and whatever else you need, Colonel."

"And I know of a perfect staging area to get this off the ground," Parangosky said. She nodded to Rich.

"Onyx?" he said, half question, half statement.

"Do you know of a better place?" she asked. "Section One has made that place a virtual black hole."

Rich sighed and said, "Okay I'll send you the file on the place, Colonel. You're going to love it there."

Rich's assurances did not at all comfort, but Ackerson kept his mouth shut. He had everything he wanted… almost.

"Just one more thing," Ackerson said. "I'll need a SPARTAN-II to help me train these new recruits."

Captain Gibson snorted. "And you're going to ask Dr. Halsey to lend you one?"

"I have a different methodology in mind," he replied.

Parangosky said, "You need a Spartan to train Spartans, of course, but"—her voice lowered—"tread damned lightly. This thing goes public, people find out we're making 'disposable heroes,' and morale will plummet across the fleet. Make sure no one in Section Three knows about your SPARTAN-II trainer, or the SPARTAN-IIIs. They're going to have to vanish. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And for God's sake," she said, narrowing her eyes to slits, "Catherine Halsey must never know. Her bleeding-heart sympathies for the Spartans have won her too many admirers at CENTCOM. If that woman wasn't so vital to the war we would have had her retired decades ago."