First Strike























REACH CHAPTER ONE

0622 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\ UNSC
Vessel Pillar of Autumn, Epsilon Eridani system near
Reach Station Gamma.
SPARTAN-104, Frederic, twirled a combat knife, his fingers
nimble despite the bulky MJOLNIR combat armor that encased
his body. The blade traced a complicated series of graceful arcs
in the air. The few remaining Naval personnel on the deck turned
pale and averted their eyes—a Spartan wielding a knife was gen-
erally accompanied by the presence of several dead bodies.
He was nervous, and this was more than the normal pre-mission
jitters. The team's original objective—the capture of a Covenant
ship—had been scrubbed in the face of a new enemy offensive.
The Covenant were en route to Reach, the last of the United Na-
tions Space Command's major military strongholds.
Fred couldn't help but wonder what use ground troops would
be in a ship-to-ship engagement. The knife spun.
Around him, his squadmates loaded weapons, stacked gear,
and prepped for combat, their efforts redoubled since the ship's
Captain had personally come down to the mustering area to brief
the team leader, SPARTAN-117—but Fred was already squared
away. Only Kelly had finished stowing gear before him.
He balanced the point of the knife on his armored finger. It
hung there for several seconds, perfectly still.
A subtle shift in the Pillar of Autumn's gravity caused the
knife to tip. Fred plucked it from the air and sheathed it in a single
deft move. A cold feeling filled his stomach as he realized what
the gravity fluctuation meant: The ship had just changed
course—another complication. ERIC NYLUND  3
Master Chief SPARTAN-117—John—marched to the nearest
COM panel as Captain Keyes's face filled the screen.
Fred sensed a slight movement to his right—a subtle hand sig-
nal from Kelly. He opened a private COM freq to his teammate.
"Looks like we're in for more surprises," she said.
"Roger that," he replied, "though I think I've had enough sur-
prises for one op."
Kelly chuckled.
Fred focused his attention on John's exchange with Keyes.
Each Spartan—selected from an early age and trained to the pin-
nacle of military science—had undergone multiple augmenta-
tion procedures: biochemical, genetic, and cybernetic. As a
result, a Spartan could hear a pin drop in a sandstorm, and every
Spartan in the room was interested in what the Captain had to
say. If you 're going to drop into hell, CPO Mendez, the Spartans'
first teacher, had once said, you may as well drop with good intel.
Captain Keyes frowned on the ship's viewscreen, a
nonregula-tion pipe in his hand. Though his voice was calm, the
Captain's grip on the pipe was white-knuckle tight as he outlined
the situation. A single space vessel docked in Reach's orbital
facilities had failed to delete its navigational database. If the
NAV data fell into Covenant hands, the enemy would have a map
to Earth.
"Master Chief," the Captain said, "I believe the Covenant will
use a pinpoint Slipspace jump to a position just off the space
dock. They may try to get their troops on the station before the
Super MAC guns can take out their ships. This will be a difficult
mission, Chief. I'm... open to suggestions."
"We can take care of it," the Master Chief replied.
Captain Keyes's eyes widened and he leaned forward in his
command chair. "How exactly, Master Chief?"
"With all due respect, sir, Spartans are trained to handle diffi-
cult missions. I'll split my squad. Three will board the space dock
and make sure that NAV data does not fall into the Covenant's
hands. The remainder of the Spartans will go groundside and re-
pel the invasion forces."
Fred gritted his teeth. Given his choice, he'd rather fight the
Covenant on the ground. Like his fellow Spartans, he loathed
off-planet duty. The op to board the space dock would be fraught 4  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
with danger at every turn—unknown enemy deployment, no
gravity, useless intel, no dirt beneath his feet.
There was no question, though: The space op was the toughest
duty, so Fred intended to volunteer for it.
Captain Keyes considered John's suggestion. "No, Master
Chief. It's too risky—we've got to make sure the Covenant don't
get that NAV data. We'll use a nuclear mine, set it close to the
docking ring, and detonate it."
"Sir, the EMP will burn out the superconductive coils of the
orbital guns. And if you use the Pillar of Autumn's conventional
weapons, the NAV database may still survive. If the Covenant
search the wreckage—they may obtain the data."
"True," Keyes said and tapped his pipe thoughtfully to his
chin. "Very well, Master Chief. We'll go with your suggestion.
I'll plot a course over the docking station. Ready your Spartans
and prep two dropships. We'll launch you—" He consulted with
Cortana."—in five minutes."
"Aye, Captain. We'll be ready."
"Good luck," Captain Keyes said, and the viewscreen went
black.
Fred snapped to attention as the Master Chief turned to face
the Spartans. Fred began to step forward—
—but Kelly beat him to it. "Master Chief," she said, "permis-
sion to lead the space op."
She had always been faster, damn her.
"Denied," the Master Chief said. "I'll be leading that one.
"Linda and James," he continued. "You're with me. Fred,
you're Red Team leader. You'll have tactical command of the
ground operation."
"Sir!" Fred shouted and started to voice a protest—then
squelched it. Now wasn't the time to question orders... as much
as he wanted to. "Yes, sir!"
"Now make ready," the Master Chief said. "We don't have
much time left."
The Spartans stood a moment. Kelly called out, "Attention!"
The soldiers snapped to and gave the Master Chief a crisp salute,
which was promptly returned.
Fred switched to Red Team's all-hands freq and barked, "Let's
move, Spartans! I want gear stowed in ninety seconds, and final ERIC NYLUND  5
prep in five minutes. Joshua: Liaise with Cortana and get me
current intel on the drop area—I don't care if it's just weather
satellite imagery, but I want pictures, and I want them ninety
seconds ago."
Red Team jumped into action.
The pre-mission jitters were gone, replaced with a cold calm.
There was a job to do, and Fred was eager to get to work.
Flight Officer Mitchell flinched as a stray energy burst streaked
into the landing bay and vaporized a meter-wide section of bulk-
head. Red-hot, molten metal splattered the Pelican dropship's
viewport.
Screw this, he thought, and hit the Pelican's thrusters. The
gunmetal-green transport balanced for a moment on a column of
blue-white fire, then hurtled out of the Pillar of Autumn's launch
bay and into space. Five seconds later all hell broke loose.
Incoming energy bursts from the lead Covenant vessels cut
across their vector and slammed into a COMSat. The communi-
cations satellite broke apart, disintegrating into glittering shards.
"Better hang on," Mitchell announced to his passengers in the
dropship's troop bay. "Company's coming."
A swarm of Seraphs—the Covenant's scarablike attack
fighters—fell into tight formation and arced through space on an
intercept course for the dropship.
The Pelican's engines flared and the bulky ship plummeted
toward the surface of Reach. The alien fighters accelerated and
plasma bursts flickered from their gunports.
An energy bolt slashed past on the port side, narrowly missing
the Pelican's cockpit.
Mitchell's voice crackled across the COM system:
"Bravo-One to Knife Two-Six: I could use a little help here."
He rolled the Pelican to port to avoid a massive, twisted hunk
of wreckage from a patrol cutter that had strayed too close to the
oncoming assault wave. Beneath the blackened plasma scorches,
he could just make out the UNSC insigne. Mitchell scowled.
This was getting worse by the second. "Bravo-One to Knife
Two-Six, where the hell are you?" he yelled.
A quartet of wedge-shaped, angular fighters slotted into cover-
ing position on Mitchell's scopes—Longswords, heavy fighters. 6  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
"Knife Two-Six to Bravo-One," a terse, female voice crackled
across the COM channel. "Keep your pants on. Business is good
today."
Too good. No sooner had the fighters taken escort position
over his dropship than the approaching Covenant fighters opened
up with a barrage of plasma fire.
Three of the Pelican's four Longsword escorts peeled off and
powered toward the Covenant ships. Against the black of space,
cannons flashed and missiles etched ghostly trails; Covenant
energy weapons cut through the night and explosions dotted
the sky.
The Pelican and its sole escort, however, accelerated straight
toward the planet. It shot past whirling wreckage; it rolled and
maneuvered as missiles and plasma bolts crisscrossed their path.
Mitchell flinched as Reach's orbital defense guns fired in a
hot, actinic flash. A white ball of molten metal screamed directly
over the Pelican and its escort as they rocketed beneath the de-
fense platform's ring-shaped superstructure.
Mitchell sent the Pelican into the planet's atmosphere. Va-
porous flames flickered across the ship's stunted nose, and the
Pelican jounced from side to side.
"Bravo-One, adjust attack angle," the Longsword pilot ad-
vised. "You're coming in too hot."
"Negative," Mitchell said. "We're getting to the surface fast—
or we're not getting there at all. Enemy contacts on my scopes at
four by three o'clock."
A dozen more Covenant Seraphs fired their engines and an-
gled toward the two descending ships.
"Affirmative: four by three. I've got 'em, Bravo-One," the
Longsword pilot announced. "Give 'em hell down there."
The Longsword flipped into a tight roll and rocketed for the
Covenant formation. There was no chance that the pilot could
take out a dozen Seraphs—and Knife Two-Six had to know that.
Mitchell only hoped that the precious seconds Two-Six bought
them would be enough.
The Pelican opened its intake vents and ignited afterburners,
plummeting toward the ground at thirteen hundred meters per
second. The faint aura of flames around the craft roared from red
to blinding orange. ERIC NYLUND
The Pelican's aft section had been stripped of the padded
crash seats that usually lined the section's port and starboard
sides. The life-support generators on the firewall between pas-
senger and pilot's compartment had also been discarded to make
room. Under other circumstances, such modifications would
have left the Pelican's troop bay unusually cavernous. Every
square centimeter of space, however, was occupied.
Twenty-seven Spartans braced themselves and clung to the
frame of the ship; they crouched in their MJOLNIR armor to ab-
sorb the shock of their rapid descent. Their armor was half a ton
of black alloy, faintly luminous green ceramic plates, and wink-
ing energy shield emitters. Polarized visors and full helmets made
them look part Greek hero and part tank—more machine than
human. At their feet equipment bags and ammunition boxes
were lashed in place. Everything rattled as the ship jostled
through the increasingly dense air.
Fred hit the COM and barked: "Brace yourselves!" The ship
lurched, and he struggled to keep his footing.
SPARTAN-087, Kelly, moved nearer and opened a frequency.
"Chief, we'll get that COM malfunction squared away after we
hit planetside," she said.
Fred winced when he realized that he'd just broadcast on
FLEETCOM 7: He'd spammed every ship in range. Damn it.
He opened a private channel to Kelly. "Thanks," he said. Her
reply was a subtle nod.
He knew better than to make such a simple mistake—and as
his second in command, Kelly was rattled by his mistake with
the COM, too. He needed her rock-solid. He needed all of Red
Team frosty and wired tight.
Which meant that he needed to make sure he held it together.
No more mistakes.
He checked the squad's biomonitors. They showed all green
on his heads-up display, with pulse rates only marginally accel-
erated. The dropship's pilot was a different story. Mitchell's
heart fired like an assault rifle.
Any problems with Red Team weren't physical; the biomoni-
tors confirmed that much. Spartans were used to tough missions;
UNSC High Command never sent them on any "easy" jobs. 8  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Their job this time was to get groundside and protect the gen-
erators that powered the orbiting Magnetic Accelerator Cannon
platforms. The fleet was getting ripped to shreds in space. The
massive MAC guns were the only thing keeping the Covenant
from overrunning their lines and taking Reach.
Fred knew that if anything had Kelly and the other Spartans
rattled, it was leaving behind the Master Chief and his
hand-picked Blue Team.
Fred would have infinitely preferred to be with Blue Team. He
knew every Spartan here felt like they were taking the easy way
out. If the ship-jockeys managed to hold off the Covenant as-
sault wave, Red Team's mission was a milk run, albeit a neces-
sary one.
Kelly's hand bumped into Fred's shoulder, and he recognized
it as a consoling gesture. Kelly's razor-edged agility was multi-
plied fivefold by the reactive circuits in her MJOLNIR armor.
She wouldn't have "accidentally" touched him unless she meant it,
and the gesture spoke volumes.
Before he could say anything to her, the Pelican angled and
gravity settled the Spartans' stomachs.
"Rough ride ahead," the pilot warned.
The Spartans bent their knees as the Pelican rolled into a tight
turn. A crate broke its retaining straps, bounced, and stuck to
the wall.
The COM channel blasted static and resolved into the voice
of the Longsword's pilot: "Bravo Two-Six, engaging enemy
fighters. Am taking heavy incoming fire—" The channel was
abruptly swallowed in static.
An explosion buffeted the Pelican, and bits of metal pinged
off its thick hull.
Patches of armor heated and bubbled away. Energy blasts
flashed through the boiling metal, filling the interior with fumes
for a split second before the ship's pressurized atmosphere blew
the haze out the gash in its side.
Sunlight streamed though the lacerated Titanium-A armor.
The dropship lurched to port, and Fred glimpsed five Covenant
Seraph fighters driving after them and wobbling in the turbulent
air.
"Gotta shake 'em," the pilot screamed. "Hang on!" ERIC NYLUND  9
The Pelican pitched forward, and her engines blasted in full
overload. The dropship's stabilizers tore away, and the craft
rolled out of control.
The Spartans grabbed on to cross beams as their gear was
flung about inside the ship.
"It's going to be a helluva hot drop, Spartans," their pilot
hissed over the COM. "Autopilot's programmed to angle. Re-
verse thrusters. Gees are takin' me out. I'll—"
A flash of light outlined the cockpit hatch, and the tiny
shock-proof glass window shattered into the passenger
compartment.
The pilot's biomonitor flatlined.
The rate of their dizzying roll increased, and bits of metal and
instruments tore free and danced around the compartment.
SPARTAN-029, Joshua, was closest to the cockpit hatch. He
pulled himself up and looked in. "Plasma blast," he said. He
paused for a heartbeat, then added: "I'll reroute control to the ter-
minal here." With his right hand, he furiously tapped commands
onto the keyboard mounted on the wall. The fingers of his left
hand dug into the metal bulkhead.
Kelly crawled along the starboard frame, held there by the
spinning motion of the out-of-control Pelican. She headed aft of
the passenger compartment and punched a keypad, priming the
explosive bolts on the drop hatch.
"Fire in the hole!" she yelled.
The Spartans braced.
The hatch exploded and whipped away from the plummeting
craft. Fire streamed along the outer hull. Within seconds the
compartment became a blast furnace. With the grace of a
high-wire performer, Kelly leaned out of the rolling ship, her
armor's energy shields flaring in the heat.
The Covenant Seraph fighters fired their lasers, but the energy
weapons scattered in the superheated wake of the dropping Peli-
can. One alien ship tumbled out of control, too deep in the atmo-
sphere to easily maneuver. The others veered and arced up back
into space.
"Too hot for them," Kelly said. "We're on our own."
"Joshua," Fred called out. "Report."
"The autopilot's gone, and cockpit controls are offline," Joshua
answered. "I can counter our spin with thrusters." He tapped in 10  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
a command; the port engine shuddered, and the ship's rolling
slowed and ceased.
"Can we land?" Fred asked.
Joshua didn't hesitate to give the bad news. "Negative. The
computer has no solution for our inbound vector." He tapped
rapidly on the keyboard. "I'll buy as much time as I can."
Fred ran over their limited options. They had no parasails,
no rocket-propelled drop capsules. That left them one simple
choice: They could ride this Pelican straight into hell... or they
could get off.
"Get ready for a fast drop," Fred shouted. "Grab your gear.
Pump your suits' hydrostatic gel to maximum pressure. Suck it
up, Spartans—we're landing hard."
"Hard landing" was an understatement. The Spartans—and
their MJOLNIR armor—were tough. The armor's energy shields,
hydrostatic gel, and reactive circuits, along with the Spartans'
augmented skeletal structure, might be enough to withstand a
high-speed crash landing... but not a supersonic impact.
It was a dangerous gamble. If Joshua couldn't slow the Peli-
can's descent—they'd be paste.
"Twelve thousand meters to go," Kelly shouted, still leaning
over the edge of the aft door.
Fred told the Spartans: "Ready and aft. Jump on my mark."
The Spartans grabbed their gear and moved toward the open
hatch.
The Pelican's engines screamed and pulsed as Joshua angled
the thruster cams to reverse positions. The deceleration pulled at
the Spartan team, and everyone grabbed, or made, a handhold.
Joshua brought what was left of the craft's control flaps to
bear, and the Pelican's nose snapped up. A sonic boom rippled
through the ship as its velocity dropped below Mach 1. The
frame shuddered and rivets popped.
"Eight kilometers and this brick is still dropping fast," Kelly
called out.
"Joshua, get aft," Fred ordered.
"Affirmative," Joshua said.
The Pelican groaned and the frame pinged from the stress—
and then creaked as the craft shuddered and flexed. Fred set his ERIC NYLUND  11
armored glove on the wall and tried to will the craft to hold to-
gether a little longer.
It didn't work. The port engine exploded, and the Pelican tum-
bled out of control.
Kelly and the Spartans near the aft drop hatch dropped out.
No more time.
"Jump," Fred shouted. "Spartans: Go, go, go!"
The rest of the Spartans crawled aft, fighting the gee forces of
the tumbling Pelican. Fred grabbed Joshua—and they jumped. CHAPTER TWO
0631 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon
Eridani system, unknown aerial position, planet Reach.
Fred saw the sky and earth flashing in rapid succession before
his faceplate. Decades of training took over. This was just like a
parasail drop ... except this time there was no chute. He forced
his arms and legs open; the spread-eagle position controlled his
tumble and slowed his velocity.
Time seemed to simultaneously crawl and race—something
Kelly had once dubbed "SPARTAN Time." Enhanced senses and
augmented physiology meant that in periods of stress Spartans
thought and reacted faster than a normal human. Fred's mind
raced as he absorbed the tactical situation.
He activated his motion sensors, boosting the range to maxi-
mum. His team appeared as blips on his heads-up display. With a
sigh of relief he saw that all twenty-six of them were present and
pulling into a wedge formation.
"Covenant ground forces could be tracking the Pelican," Fred
told them over the COM. "Expect AA fire."
The Spartans immediately broke formation and scattered
across the sky.
Fred risked a sidelong glance and spotted the Pelican. It tum-
bled, sending shards of armor plating in glittering, ugly arcs, be-
fore it impacted into the side of a jagged snowcapped mountain.
The surface of Reach stretched out before them, two thousand
meters below. Fred saw a carpet of green forest, ghostly mountains
in the distance, and pillars of smoke rising from the west. He spied a
sinuous ribbon of water that he recognized: Big Horn River.
The Spartans had trained on Reach for most of their early ERIC NYLUND  13
lives. This was the same forest where CPO Mendez had left them
when they were children. With only pieces of a map and no food,
water, or weapons, they had captured a guarded Pelican and re-
turned to HQ. That was the mission where John, now the Master
Chief, had earned command of the group, the mission that had
forged them into a team.
Fred pushed the memory aside. This was no homecoming.
UNSC Military Reservation 01478-B training facility would
be due west. And the generators? He called up the terrain map
and overlaid it on his display. Joshua had done his work well:
Cortana had delivered decent satellite imagery as well as a topo-
graphic survey map. It wasn't as good as a spy-sat flyby, but it
was better than Fred had expected on such short notice.
He dropped a NAV marker on the position of the generator
complex and uploaded the data on the TACCOM to his team.
He took a deep breath and said: "That's our target. Move
toward it but keep your incoming angle flat. Aim for the treetops.
Let them slow you down. If you can't, aim for water... and tuck in
your arms and legs before impact."
Twenty-six blue acknowledgment lights winked, confirming
his order.
"Overpressurize your hydrostatics just before you hit."
That would risk nitrogen embolisms for his Spartans, but they
were coming in at terminal velocity, which for a fully loaded
Spartan was—he quickly calculated—130 meters per second.
They had to overpressurize the cushioning gel or their organs
would be crushed against the impervious MJOLNIR armor
when they hit.
The acknowledgment lights winked again ... although Fred
sensed a slight hesitation.
Five hundred meters to go.
He took one last look at his Spartans. They were scattered
across the horizon like bits of confetti.
He brought up his knees and changed his center of mass, try-
ing to flatten his angle as he approached the treetops. It worked,
but not as well or as quickly as he had hoped.
One hundred meters to go. His shield flickered as he brushed
the tops of the tallest of the trees.
He took a deep breath, exhaled as deeply as he could, grabbed 14  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
his knees, and tucked into a ball. He overrode the hydrostatic sys-
tem and overpressurized the gel surrounding his body. A thou-
sand tiny knives stabbed him—pain unlike any he'd experienced
since the SPARTAN-II program had surgically altered him.
The MJOLNIR armor's shields flared as he broke through
branches—then drained in one sudden burst as he impacted
dead-center on a thick tree trunk. He smashed through it like an
armored missile.
He tumbled, and his body absorbed a series of rapid-fire im-
pacts. It felt like taking a full clip of assault rifle fire at point-blank
range. Seconds later Fred slammed to a bone-crunching halt.
His suit malfunctioned. He could no longer see or hear any-
thing. He stayed in that limbo state and struggled to stay con-
scious and alert. Moments later, his display was filled with stars.
He realized then that the suit wasn't malfunctioning... he was.
"Chief!" Kelly's voice echoed in his head as if from the end of
a long tunnel. "Fred, get up," she whispered. "We've got to move."
His vision cleared, and he slowly rolled onto his hands and
knees. Something hurt inside, like his stomach had been torn
out, diced into little pieces, and then stitched back together all
wrong. He took a ragged breath. That hurt, too.
The pain was good—it helped keep him alert.
"Status," he coughed. His mouth tasted like copper.
Kelly knelt next to him and on a private COM channel said, "Al-
most everyone has minor damage: a few blown shield generators,
sensor systems, a dozen broken bones and contusions. Nothing
we can't compensate for. Six Spartans have more serious injuries.
They can fight from a fixed position, but they have limited mobil-
ity." She took a deep breath and then added, "Four KIA."
Fred struggled to his feet. He was dizzy but remained upright.
He had to stay on his feet no matter what. He had to for the team,
to show them they still had a functioning leader.
It could have been much worse—but four dead was bad enough.
No Spartan operation had ever seen so many killed in one mis-
sion, and this op had barely begun. Fred wasn't superstitious, but
he couldn't help but feel that the Spartans' luck was running out.
"You did what you had to," Kelly said as if she were reading
his mind. "Most of us wouldn't have made it if you hadn't been
thinking on your feet." ERIC NYLUND  15
Fred snorted in disgust. Kelly thought he'd been thinking on
his feet—but all he'd done was land on his ass. He didn't want to
talk about it—not now. "Any other good news?" he said.
"Plenty," she replied. "Our gear—munitions boxes, bags of
extra weapons—they're scattered across what's passing for our
LZ. Only a few of us have assault rifles, maybe five in total."
Fred instinctively reached for his MA5B and discovered that the
anchoring clips on his armor had been sheared away in the impact.
No grenades on his belt, either. His drop bag was gone, too.
He shrugged. "We'll improvise," he said.
Kelly picked up a rock and hefted it.
Fred resisted the urge to lower his head and catch his breath.
There was nothing he wanted to do more right now than sit down
and just rest and think. There had to be a way to get his Spartans
out of here in one piece. It was like a training exercise—all he
needed to do was figure out how best to accomplish their mis-
sion with no more foul-ups.
There was no time, though. They'd been sent to protect those
generators, and the Covenant sure as hell weren't sitting around
waiting for them to make the first move. The columns of smoke
that marked where Reach HighCom once stood testified to that.
"Assemble the team," Fred told her. "Formation Beta. We're
heading toward the generators on foot. Pack out our wounded
and dead. Send those with weapons ahead as scouts. Maybe our
luck will change."
Kelly barked over the SQUADCOM: "Move, Spartans. For-
mation Beta to the NAV point."
Fred initiated a diagnostic on his armor. The hydrostatic sub-
system had blown a seal, and pressure was at minimal functional
levels. He could move, but he'd have to replace that seal before
he'd be able to sprint or dodge plasma fire.
He fell in behind Kelly and saw his Spartans on the periphery
of his tactical friend-or-foe monitor. He couldn't actually see
any of them because they were spread out and darted from tree to
tree to avoid any Covenant surprises. They all moved silently
through the forest: light and shadow and an occasional muted
flash of luminous green armor, then gone again.
"Red-One this is Red-Twelve. Single enemy contact ...
neutralized." 16  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
"One here, too," Red-Fifteen reported. "Neutralized."
There had to be more. Fred knew the Covenant never traveled
in small numbers.
Worse, if the Covenant were deploying troops in any signifi-
cant numbers, that meant the holding action in orbit had turned
ugly ... so it was only a matter of time before this mission went
from bad to worse.
He was so intent on listening to his team's field checks, he al-
most ran into a pair of Jackals. He instinctively melted into the
shadow of a tree and froze.
The Jackals hadn't seen him. The birdlike aliens sniffed at the
air, however, and then moved forward more cautiously, closing
on Fred's concealed position. They waved plasma pistols before
them and clicked on their energy shields. The small, oblong pro-
tective fields rippled and solidified with a muted hum.
Fred keyed his COM channel to Red-Two, twice. Her blue ac-
knowledgment light immediately winked in response to his call
for backup.
The Jackals suddenly turned to their right and sniffed rapidly.
A fist-sized rock whizzed in from the aliens' left. It slammed
into the lead Jackal's occipital crest with a wet crack. The creature
squawked and dropped to the ground in a pool of purple-black
blood.
Fred darted ahead and in three quick steps closed with the re-
maining Jackal. He sidestepped around the plane of the energy
shield and grabbed the creature's wrist. The Jackal squawked in
fear and surprise.
He yanked the Jackal's gun arm, hard, and then twisted. The
Jackal struggled as its own weapon was forced into the mottled,
rough skin of its neck.
Fred squeezed, and he could feel the alien's bones shatter. The
plasma pistol discharged in a bright, emerald flash. The Jackal
flopped over on its back, minus its head.
Fred picked up the fallen weapons as Kelly emerged from the
trees. He tossed her one of the plasma pistols, and she plucked it
out of the air.
"Thanks. I'd still prefer my rifle to this alien piece of junk,"
she groused. ERIC NYLUND  17
Fred nodded, and clipped the other captured weapon to his
harness. "Beats the hell out of throwing rocks," he replied.
"Affirmative, Chief," she said with a nod. "But just barely."
"Red-One," Joshua's voice called over the SQUADCOM.
"I'm a half-klick ahead of you. You need to see this."
"Roger," Fred told him. "Red Team, hold here and wait for my
signal."
Acknowledgment lights winked on.
In a half crouch, Fred made his way toward Joshua. There was
light ahead: The shade thinned and vanished because the forest
was gone. The trees had been leveled, every one blasted to splin-
ters or burned to charred nubs.
There were bodies, too; thousands of Covenant Grunts, hun-
dreds of Jackals and Elites littered the open field. There were
also humans—all dead. Fred could see several fallen Marines
still smoldering from plasma fire. There were overturned Scor-
pion tanks, Warthogs with burning tires, and a Banshee flier. The
flier had snagged one canard on a loop of barbed wire, and it pro-
pelled itself, riderless, in an endless orbit.
The generator complex on the far side of this battlefield was
intact, however. Reinforced concrete bunkers bristling with ma-
chine guns surrounded a low building. The generators were deep
beneath there. So far it looked as if the Covenant had not man-
aged to take them, though not for lack of trying.
"Contacts ahead," Joshua whispered.
Four blips appeared on his motion sensor. Friend-or-foe tags
identified them as UNSC Marines, Company Charlie. Serial
numbers flashed next to the men as his HUD picked them out on a
topo map of the area.
Joshua handed Fred his sniper rifle, and he sighted the con-
tacts through the scope. They were Marines, sure enough. They
picked through the bodies that littered the area, looking for sur-
vivors and policing weapons and ammo.
Fred frowned; something about the way the Marine squad
moved didn't feel right. They lacked unit cohesion, with their
line ragged and exposed. They weren't using any of the available
cover. To Fred's experienced eye, the Marines didn't even seem
to be heading in a specific direction. One of them just ambled in
circles. 18  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Fred sent a narrow-beam transmission on UNSC global fre-
quency. "Marine patrol, this is Spartan Red Team. We are ap-
proaching your position from your six o'clock. Acknowledge."
The Marines turned about and squinted in Fred's direction,
and brought their assault rifles to bear. There was static on the
channel, and then a hoarse, listless voice replied: "Spartans? If
you are what you say you are ... we could sure use a hand."
"Sorry we missed the battle, Marine."
" 'Missed'?" The Marine gave a short, bitter laugh. "Hell,
Chief, this was just round one."
Fred returned the sniper rifle to Joshua, pointed toward his
eyes and then to the Marines in the field. Joshua nodded, shoul-
dered the rifle, and sighted them. His finger hovered near the
weapon's trigger—not quite on it. It never hurt to be careful.
Fred got up and walked to the cluster of Marines. He picked
his way past a tangle of Grunt bodies and the twisted metal and
charred tires that had once been a Warthog.
The men looked as if they had been to hell and back. They all
sported burns, abrasions, and the kilometer-long stare indicative
of near shock. They gaped at Fred, mouths open; it was a reac-
tion that he had often seen when soldiers first glimpsed a Spar-
tan: two meters tall, half a ton of armor, splashed with alien
blood. It was a mix of awe and suspicion and fear.
He hated it. He just wanted to fight and win this war, like the
rest of the soldiers in the UNSC. The Corporal seemed to snap
out of his near fugue. He removed his helmet, scratched at his
cropped red hair, and looked behind him. "Chief, you'd better
head back to base with us before they hit us again."
Fred nodded. "How many in your company, Corporal?"
The man glanced at his three companions and shook his head.
"Say again, Chief?"
These men were likely on the verge of battle shock, so Fred
controlled his impatience and replied in as gentle a voice as he
could muster: "Your FOF tags say you're with Charlie Company,
Corporal. How many are you? How many wounded?"
"There's no wounded, Chief," the Corporal replied. "There's
no 'company' either. We're all that's left." CHAPTER THREE
0649 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)
\ Epsilon Eridani system, Orbital Defense Generator
Facility A-331, planet Reach.
Fred looked over the battlefield from the top of the southern
bunker, his temporary command post. The structure had been
hastily erected, and some of the fast-drying instacrete hadn't
fully hardened.
The bunker was not the best defensive position, but it gave
him a clear view of the area as his team worked to strengthen
the perimeter of the generator complex. Spartans strung razor
wire, buried Antilon mine packs, and swept the area on patrols.
A six-man fireteam searched the battleground for weapons and
ammunition.
Satisfied that the situation was as stable as possible, he sat and
began to remove portions of his armor. Under normal circum-
stances a team of techs would assist in such work, but over time
the Spartans had all learned how to make rudimentary field re-
pairs. He located a broken pressure seal and quickly replaced it
with an undamaged one he'd recovered from SPARTAN-059's
armor.
Fred scowled. He hated the necessity of stripping gear from
Malcolm's suit. But it would dishonor his fallen comrade not to
use his gift of the spare part.
He banished thoughts of the drop and finished installing the
seal. Self-recrimination was a luxury he could ill afford, and
the Red Team Spartans didn't have a monopoly on hard times.
Charlie Company's surviving Marines had held off the Cove-
nant assault with batteries of chainguns, Warthogs, and a pair of 20  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
Scorpion tanks for almost an hour. Grunts had charged across
the minefield and cleared a path for the Jackals and Elites.
Lieutenant Buckman, the Marines' CO, had been ordered to
send the bulk of his men into the forest in an attempt to flank the
enemy. He had called in air support, too.
He got it.
Reach HighCom must have realized the generators were in
danger of being overrun, so someone panicked and sent in
bombers to hit the forest in a half-klick radius. That wiped out
the Covenant assault wave. It also killed the Lieutenant and
his men.
What a waste.
Fred replaced the last of his armor components and powered
up. His status lights pulsed a cool blue. Satisfied, he stood and
activated the COM.
"Red-Twelve, give me a sit-rep."
Will's voice crackled over the channel. "Perimeter estab-
lished, Chief. No enemy contacts."
"Good," Fred replied. "Mission status?"
"Ten chainguns recovered and now provide blanketing fields
of fire around the generator complex," Will said. "We've got
three Banshee fliers working. We've also recovered thirty of
those arm-mounted Jackal shield generators, plus a few hundred
assault rifles, plasma pistols, and grenades."
"Ammo? We need it."
"Affirmative, sir," Will said. "Enough to last for an hour of
continuous fire." There was a short pause, then he added: "HQ
must have sent reinforcements at some point, because we've re-
covered a crate marked HIGHCOM ARMORY OMEGA."
"What's in it?"
"Six Anaconda surface-to-air missiles." Will's voice barely
concealed his glee. "And a pair of Fury tac-nukes."
Fred gave a low whistle. The Fury tac-nuke was the closest
thing the UNSC had in its arsenal to a nuclear grenade. It was the
size and shape of an overinflated football. It delivered slightly
less than a megaton yield, and was extremely clean. Unfortu-
nately, it was also completely useless to them in this situation.
"Secure that ordnance ASAP. We can't use them. The EMP
would fry the generators." ERIC NYLUND  21
"Roger that," Will said with a disappointed sigh.
"Red-Three?" Fred asked. "Report."
There was a moment's hesitation. Joshua whispered: "Not good
here, Red-One. I'm posted on the ridge between our valley and the
next. The Covenant has a massive LZ set up. There's an enemy
ship on station and I estimate battalion-strength enemy troops on
the ground. Grunts, Jackals, equipment, and support armor are
deploying. Looks like they're getting ready for round two, sir."
Fred felt the pit of his stomach grow cold. "Give me an uplink."
"Roger."
A tiny picture appeared in Fred's heads-up display, and he saw
what Joshua had sighted through his sniperscope: A Covenant
cruiser hovered thirty meters off the ground. The ship bristled
with energy weapons and plasma artillery. His Spartans couldn't
get within weapons range of that thing without being roasted.
A gravity lift connected the ship to the surface of Reach, and
troops poured out—thousands of them: legions of Grunts, three
full squadrons of Elites piloting Banshees, plus at least a dozen
Wraith tanks.
It didn't make much sense, though. Why didn't the cruiser get
closer and open fire? Or did the Covenant think there might be
another air strike? The Covenant never hesitated during an as-
sault ... but the fact that he was still alive meant that the enemy's
rules of engagement had somehow changed.
Fred wasn't sure why the Covenant were being so cautious,
but he'd take the break. It would give him time to figure out how to
stop them. If the Spartans were mobile, they might be able to
engage a force that size with hit-and-run tactics. Holding a fixed
position was another story altogether.
"Updates every ten minutes," he told Joshua. His voice was
suddenly tight and dry.
"Roger that."
"Red-Two? Any progress on that SATCOM uplink?"
"Negative, sir," Kelly muttered, tension thickening her voice.
She had been tasked with patching Charlie Company's
bullet-ridden communications pack. "There are battle reports
jamming the entire spectrum, but from what I can make out the
fight upstairs isn't going well. They need this generator up—no
matter what it's going to cost us." 22  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
"Understood," Fred said. "Keep me—"
"Wait. Incoming transmission to Charlie Company from
Reach HighCom."
HighCom? Fred thought headquarters on Reach had been
overrun. "Verification codes?"
"They check out," Kelly replied.
"Patch it through."
"Charlie Company? Jake? What the hell is the holdup there?
Why haven 'tyou gotten my men out yet?"
"This is Senior Petty Officer SPARTAN-104, Red Team leader,"
Fred replied, "now in charge of Charlie Company. Identify
yourself."
"Put Lieutenant Chapman on, Spartan," an irritated voice
snapped.
"That's not possible, sir," Fred told him, instinctively realizing
that he spoke to an officer and adding the honorific. "Except for
four wounded Marines, Charlie Company is gone."
There was a long static-filled pause. "Spartan, listen to me
very carefully. This is Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Deputy
Chief of Naval Operations. Do you know who lam, son?"
"Yes, sir," Fred said, wincing as the Admiral identified him-
self. If the Covenant were eavesdropping on this transmission,
the senior officer had just made himself a giant target.
"My staff and I are pinned down in a gully southeast of where
HighCom used to be," Whitcomb continued. "Get your team
over here and extract us, on the double."
"Negative, sir, I cannot do that. I have direct orders to protect
the generator complex powering the orbital guns."
"I'm countermanding those orders,"  the Admiral barked. "As
of two hours ago, I have tactical command of the defense of
Reach. Now, I don't care if you 're a Spartan or Jesus Christ
walking down the damned Big Horn River—/ am giving you a
direct order. Acknowledge, Spartan."
If Admiral Whitcomb was now in charge of the defense, then
a lot of the senior brass had been put out of commission when
HQ got hit.
Fred saw a tiny amber light flashing on his heads-up display.
His biomonitor indicated an elevation in his blood pressure and
heart rate. He noticed his hands shook, almost imperceptibly. ERIC NYLUND  23
He controlled the shaking and keyed the COM. "Acknowl-
edged, sir. Is air support available?"
"Negative. Covenant craft took out our fighter and bomber
cover in the first wave."
"Very well, sir. We'll get you out."
"Step on it, Chief." The COM snapped off.
Fred wondered if Admiral Whitcomb was responsible for the
hundreds of dead Marines who'd been trying to guard the gener-
ators. No doubt he was an excellent ship driver. . . but Fleet offi-
cers running ground ops? No wonder the situation was FUBAR.
Had he pressured a young and inexperienced lieutenant to
flank a superior enemy? Had he sent in air support with orders to
saturate-bomb the area?
Fred didn't trust the Admiral's judgment, but he couldn't ig-
nore a direct order from him, either.
He ran his team roster up onto his heads-up display:
twenty-two Spartans, six wounded so badly they could barely
walk, and four battle-fatigued Marines who'd been through hell
once already. They had to repel a massive Covenant force. They
had to extract Admiral Whitcomb, too. And as usual, their
survival was at best a tertiary consideration.
He had weapons to defend the installation: grenades,
chain-guns, and missiles—
Fred paused. Perhaps this was the wrong way to look at the
tactical situation. He was thinking about defending the installa-
tion when he should have been thinking about what Spartans
were best at—offense.
He keyed the SQUADCOM. "Everyone catch that last
transmission?"
Acknowledgment lights winked on.
"Good. Here's the plan: We split into four teams.
"Team Delta—" He highlighted the wounded Spartans and
the four Marines on the roster. "—fall back to this location." He
uploaded a tactical map of the area and set a NAV marker in a
ravine sixteen kilometers north. "Take two Warthogs, but leave
them and stealth it if you encounter any resistance. Your mission
is to secure the area. This will be the squad's fallback position.
Keep the back door open for us."
They immediately acknowledged. The Spartans knew that 24  HALO: FIRST STRIKE
ravine like the backs of their hands. It wasn't marked on any
map, but it was where they'd trained for months with Dr. Halsey.
Beneath the mountain were caverns that the Office of Naval In-
telligence had converted into a top-secret facility. It was fortified
and hardened against radiation, and could probably withstand
anything up to and including a direct nuclear strike. A perfect
hole to hide in if everything went sour.
"Team Gamma." Fred selected Red-Twenty-one,
Red-Twenty-two, and Red-Twenty-three from the roster. "You'll
extract the Admiral and his staff and bring them back to the
generators. We'll need the extra crew."
"Affirmative," Red-Twenty-one replied.
Technically Fred was following Whitcomb's order to extract
him from his current position. What the Admiral didn't realize,
though, was that he would have probably been safer staying put.
"Team Beta—" Fred selected Red-Twenty through Red-Four.
"—you're on generator defense."
"Understood, Chief."
"Team Alpha—" He selected Kelly, Joshua, and himself.
"Awaiting orders, sir," Joshua said.
"We're going to that valley to kill anything there that isn't
human."
Fred and Kelly faced the three Banshee fliers that had been
dragged into the makeshift compound. Fred peered inside the
cockpit of the nearest craft and tabbed the activation knob. The
Banshee rose a meter off the ground, its antigrav pod glowed a
faint electric blue, and it started to drift forward. He snapped it
off, and the Banshee settled to the ground. He quickly tested the
other two, and they also rose off the ground.
"Good. All working."
Kelly crossed her arms. "We're going for a ride?"
A Warthog pulled up and skidded to a halt in front of them,
Joshua at the wheel. The rear held half a dozen Jackhammer mis-
siles and a trio of launchers. A crate sat in the passenger's seat,
one loaded with the dark, emerald-green duct tape that every sol-
dier in the UNSC ubiquitously referred to as "EB Green."
"Mission accomplished, sir," Joshua said as he climbed from
the Warthog. ERIC NYLUND  25
Fred grabbed a launcher, a pair of rockets, and a roll of tape
from the 'Hog. "We'll be needing these when we hit the Cove-
nant on the other side of the ridge," he explained. "Each of you
secure a launcher and some ammo in a Banshee."
Joshua and Kelly stopped what they were doing and turned to
face him.
"Permission to speak, sir," Kelly asked.
"Granted."
"I'm all for a good fight, Fred, but those odds are a little lop-
sided even for us... like ten thousand to one."
"We can handle a hundred to one," Joshua chimed in, "maybe
even five hundred to one with a little planning and support, but
against these odds, a frontal assault seems—"
"It's not going to be a frontal assault," Fred said. He wedged
the launcher into the cramped Banshee cockpit. "Tape."
Kelly ripped off a length of tape and handed it over.
Fred smoothed the adhesive strip and secured the launcher in
place. "We'll play this one as quiet as we can," he said.
She considered Fred's plan for a moment and then asked, "So,
assuming we fool them into letting us into their lines ...  then
what?"
"As much as I'd like to, we can't use the tac-nukes," Joshua
mused, "not in the far valley. The intervening ridge isn't high
enough to block the EMP. It'll burn out the orbital defense
generator."
"There's another way to use them," Fred told them. "We're go-
ing to board the cruiser—right up its gravity lift—and detonate
the nuke inside. The ship's shields will dampen the electromag-
netic pulse."
"It'll also turn that ship into the biggest fragmentation grenade
in history," Kelly remarked.
"And if anything goes wrong," Joshua said, "we end up in the
middle often thousand pissed-off bad guys."
"We're Spartans," Fred said. "What could possibly go wrong?"