EPILOGUE

SHIELD WORLD

CHAPTER FORTY

2205 HOURS, NOVEMBER 4, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM \ THE MOON OF ONYX \ ABOARD THE UNSC PROWLER DUSK

"Sir, something!" Lieutenant Joe Yang hunched over his sensor station, energy spikes dancing on-screen. "Double BMP signature. Subsurface." He shook his head and tugged at one eyebrow nervously. "Multiple energy signatures now. Hundreds. All underground."

Commander Lash and Lieutenant Commander Waters stood over Yang's shoulder and tried to make sense of it.

"Definitely nukes," Waters breathed. "Radiological ratios indicate it's one of ours."

The electromagnetic pulses faded into a roiling sea of larger waveforms.

"That's a lot more energy than two FENRIS warheads," Lash said. "Something bigger is going on down there." He exhaled, and his breath came out in tremulous shudders. No one noticed.

He opened a SHIPCOM Channel to Cho. "Status of the Slipspace capacitors?"

"Seven-three percent," Cho answered, "losing point oh three percent per minute, sir.

"Stand by to jump-heat the reactor," Lash told him, "and shunt all power to the Slipspace system."

There was a long pause over the COM, then, "Aye, sir. Cho out."

Jump-heating the rectors would send up a signal flare to the Covenant armada. Lash hoped, though, whatever this planet-side activity was would distract them and give the Dusk a chance to finally escape.

Lieutenant Bethany Durruno rocked back and forth in her seat, her eyes glued to the three satellite uplinks streaming through her NAV station. She tapped on a trio of microthruster controls, keeping the BLACK WIDOW satellites just hovering at extreme contact range.

She was right on the edge. For that matter, so were Yang and Waters. Even Cho belowdecks was showing classic withdrawal signs that accompanied combat fatigue.

The Dusk had survived the destruction of Admiral Patterson's fleet, and then stayed quiet and camouflaged in the dark while the Covenant armada ran right over them.

That had been the hardest on his crew—moving meter by meter toward the moon, drifting through a debris field full of shattered UNSC ship hulls, destroyed escape pods… and thousands of bodies of the bravest men and women in the Navy They'd made it undetected to the opposite side of the silver moon of Onyx, and gently came to rest in the shadow of a crater. While the Dusk settled to the surface. Lieutenant Commander Cho had released three baseball-sized BLACK WIDOW stealth satellites, so they could monitor the Covenant forces.

"Energy waves spreading across the planet, sir," Yang said, utterly confounded by his readings.

"Put it on-screen," Lash ordered.

The three main viewscreens flickered to life as the feed from their satellites streamed images of Onyx: oceans of lapis and pearl-colored clouds, emerald continents with zigzagging mountain ranges.

In high orbit glided Covenant vessels. They moved in packs, simmering blue against the black of space.

A dot appeared on the planet's surface—a red flare that arced upward, showering molten rock and ash. Three more winked on… then a dozen more flashed… then hundreds.

Jagged cracks tore between the eruptions and a spiderweb pattern of glowing lava fissures spread over the world. They reached the polar regions and the ice caps detonated into geysers of steam.

"Plasma bombardment," Waters whispered. "The Covenant are glassing the place."

"No plasma detected, sir," Yang said. "All energy originating from inside the planet."

A single beam of light pierced the thickening clouds—a blinding gold hue that sliced the upper atmosphere and shot into space.

Wavering spectra flashed on Yang's screen.

"We've seen that before," Lash said. "Combined drone fire."

A second beam joined this first one; then thousands flashed on and radiated from the surface of Onyx—scintillating lances filled space and transformed the world into a sea urchin of pure energy.

Covenant ships caught by the beams vanished, instantly ionized.

Onyx shattered and the surface exploded into space.

Obscured by layers of dust and fire, a blazing pattern emerged beneath: crosses and lines and dots.

"Magnification factor one thousand," Lash ordered.

Yang was frozen.

Waters bent over and tapped in the command.

The view on-screen blinked and stepped closer—past boiling air, clouds, tumbling mountains—zooming to ground level, revealing a lattice of three-meter-long rods and half- meter blazing red spheres that hovered between them, forming a crystalline structure.

"Back it off," Lash said The view pulled back and showed that this drone-constructed scaffolding stretched over kilometers… they had been under every landmass, every ocean… under the entire surface— orderly linked rows like the carbon bonds of an infinite polymer chain, or an immense colony of living interlinked army ants.

The drones were the planet Onyx.

"There are trillions of them," Lieutenant Durruno whispered.

Clusters of drones heated; culminated beams shot forth again, targeting more distant Covenant vessels and vaporizing them.

"They're protecting this place," Waters said. "Why?"

"Shockwave from surface detonation impacting far side of the moon in seven seconds,"

Durruno said. The blood drained from her face.

The viewscreens filled with static.

"Lost the satellites," Yang cried.

"Cho," Lash said. "Jump-heat the reactor and dump everything into those capacitors.

Now! Get us out of here!"

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

nOO HOURS, NOVEMBER 4, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ UNDETERMINED LOCATION WITHIN FORERUNNER CONSTRUCT KNOWN AS SHIELD WORLD

The Spartans and Dr. Halsey gathered about the graves of William and Dante.

It was a fine spot: sunlight dappled the river that flowed past this grove of oak trees. A path of banded onyx curved through the area. They had pried up some of the slabs, scratched in William's and Dante's names, and erected two more to serve as markers for Holly and the Lieutenant Commander.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez read from a small black leather book: "We have come to a place far from home / Time long passed since we have seen the sun rise / A place where peace can fimally come / A place where we can rest and laugh and sing and love once more."

He hung his head and closed the volume, A Soldier's Tale: Rainforest Wars, the military classic written in 2164.

There was a moment of silence.

"Burial detail dismissed," Fred told them.

Ash set a spent brass casing on each marker, a token of respect for his fellow Spartans.

He didn't know what else to do.

It had been a full day and a half since the Lieutenant Commander had ordered them into the rift, and a day and a half since it had sealed, stranding them all here.

The shock of losing him and the others hadn't worn off. They all felt numb and hollow.

Spartans usually did not have the luxury of grief; contemplation of the dead was almost always truncated by another mission, a battle, and their focus redirected to the larger strategic picture of saving humanity.

… Not this time.

The Slipspace rift had been stable when Dr. Halsey and Chief Mendez had first passed through, dropping them three meters onto a grassy hill. The cryo pods and Team Saber had followed shortly thereafter. They watched as the opening then started to collapse.

When Fred, Linda, and Kelly emerged, they immediately tried to return. Tom and Lucy had tumbled through the opening, and by then the rift was too small. They could only watch as it compressed back to a single wavering dot and vanished.

Most of them had thought the Slipspace passage would move them to an interior room within the artificial construct known as Onyx.

No one, not even Dr. Halsey, had been prepared for this.

Overhead blazed a golden sun. The sky, if it could be called that, was robin's-egg blue at the horizon but quickly deepened to indigo and black the higher one looked, then warmed again as it neared the sun.

There were no stars.

The surface stretched out in all directions—meadows, rivers, lakes, forests, winding paths all perfectly flat. All flat, that is, until Linda sighted through her Oracle scope. She then discovered every horizon sloped upward until these curving surfaces vanished in the extreme distance.

Linda said it felt like being at the bottom of a large bowl.

Dr. Halsey had assured them they most definitely were not in a "bowl."

"A sphere," she said, repeating this for the third time to Chief Mendez, "is where we are."

The Chief sat in the grass. "One more time," he said, "explain it to me, please, Doctor.

Slowly."

Dr. Halsey sighed, straightened her skirt, and then sat next to him. "Very well, Chief" She unfolded her laptop, and numbers, charts, and spectroscopic analysis flashed on-screen.

The Spartans gathered as well to listen. In truth, while they understood the scientific principles that led Dr. Halsey to her conclusions, they still didn't quite believe them.

"We start with this so-called sun." She pointed straight up and then gestured to the data on her screen. "Spectra and energy output are consistent with a G2-type dwarf, one of slightly smaller dimensions than Sol.

"Next, you will note the curvature of this world, concave, as seen through Linda's sniper scope." She tabbed to a new screen and it sketched the star and a curve that arced to complete a full circle.

"Extrapolating, I calculate a diameter of one hundred fifty million kilometers—two astronomical units, or a radius equivalent to the distance of the Earth orbiting its sun.

"Conclusion?" She paused for dramatic effect. "We are inside a Micro Dyson sphere."

Ash pulled off his helmet and vigorously scratched his head with both hands. "That can't be right," he protested. "We stepped through the rift and showed up here instantaneously. Even in Slipstream space it would have taken some time to travel to another star"

"Entirely true," Dr. Halsey said, "but we have not left Onyx."

"This is the part I don't get," Kelly muttered.

"The Forerunners' grasp of Slipspace technology was far more advanced than ours or the Covenant's," Dr. Halsey explained. "I believe this sphere resides in the center of the planet, encapsulated and protected by a Slipspace bubble of compressed dimensionality."

Chief Mendez looked around and shook his head, unable or unwilling to accept her interpretation of the facts.

"If all this is true. Doctor," Fred said, "and the Forerunners built this as a refuge, a bomb shelter to protect them from the Halos or the Flood, then why aren't they here?"

Dr. Halsey shrugged and uttered the words no one thought her capable of: "I do not know." She closed her laptop. "Did something go wrong with their plan? Or did everything go as planned? We may never know. Why the Flood survives today and where the Forerunners went are mysteries we have yet to solve."

They remained there a minute, quiet, pondering the scale of this place, the eon-old Forerunner secrets, and tried to integrate it into the events of the last few weeks.

Fred then grabbed his rifle and said, "Ash, take your team and gather our supplies. We're deploying in five."

"Yes sir" Ash donned his helmet. He and the other SPARTAN-IIIs moved as if jolted by lightning.

"Chief," Fred told Mendez, "I want a count of every round of ammunition we have."

"Sir." Mendez jumped to his feet. "I'm on it."

"With all due respect. Lieutenant," Dr Halsey said, and remained sitting. "Where exactly do you intend to go? We should rest, think, and heal our wounds. We have lost so many…"

"Yes, we have," Fred replied. "Which is why we are moving out. Dante and Holly gave their lives fighting. Kurt stayed behind and made sure the Covenant wouldn't follow us. Now it's our duty to complete the mission: find Forerunner technologies and get them back to Earth." He lowered his voice and added, "Doing anything less would dishonor their sacrifices."

Linda moved next to him and said, "Suggest we start by finding a way to open Team Katana's cryo pods, sir. Get them up and running."

"Yes!" Kelly said, and joined them. "Crack the Slipspace fields on those things, and maybe we'll find some way to bust out of this place, too."

Dr. Halsey stared at them and pushed her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose. "I see. You do understand that while externally, this space may only be a few meters in diameter within the center of Onyx, internally, its compressed dimensionality gives it a surface area"—she cocked her head, calculating— "many times the surface of the Earth."

Fred looked to Kelly and Linda, and he said, "Then we better get started. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

Dr. Halsey stood, sighed deeply, and brushed grass from her lab coat. "Very well, I'll gather my things."

She strode off and the Spartans watched her go.

Kelly whispered, "You think John's still out there? 1 mean alive?"

"Yes," Linda said.

"He has to be," Fred told her. "He's the only one left to stop the Covenant."

"While we're stuck in here." Kelly kicked the grass. "What's your take on the others? Team Saber?"

"They're kids," Fred said. "But so were we once. I think they're Spartans, like us."

Ash trotted up to them, Olivia and Mark trailing behind, hefting packs.

"All ready, sir," Ash said.

"Good." Fred set a hand on Ash's shoulder, and nodded to the others.

"Welcome to Blue, Spartans," Kelly said. "We're going to make a great team."