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rifle trained on the cylinder, frozen at a silent hover two meters off the ground.
    “Is that some kind of mini Sentinel?” Mendez asked. “Because if it is, we’ve already seen the big ones. And you know what happens when those bastards link up.”
    For a moment, Halsey was totally distracted by the matte gray device and completely forgot her moment of ignominy in the grass. It wasn’t a defensive machine like the deadly Sentinels they’d encountered on the surface. It gave the impression that it was waiting for something, although it had dived on them like a fighter. Halsey edged closer despite Kelly waving her away, and looked at the underside. A cluster of lights—no, illuminated symbols she couldn’t read—was visible, two blue and one a greenish white. The blue ones were blinking.
    It could have been counting down to detonate, of course. The Forerunners would have gone to a lot of trouble to ensure no unwanted life-forms contaminated this sanctuary. Halsey still had no evidence that the sphere’s apparent tolerance of human intrusion was anything more than luck.
    “No telling what’ll happen if I shoot it,” Kelly said. “And size doesn’t mean something isn’t lethal. Right, O?”
    Olivia suddenly appeared from nowhere. Halsey really never heard her coming. Maybe old age was creeping on.
    “Shall we—well, catch it?” Olivia asked. “We’re supposed to be acquiring technology here.”
    Kelly reached out, slow and cautious for once. She was a finger-length from the cylinder when it shot up in a perfect vertical and vanished before she could target it.
    “Damn, I’ve finally been outrun,” she said. “Oh, the shame of it.”
    Mendez watched from a distance, lips moving. He was talking to Fred’s squad on the radio. Halsey’s stomach growled, reminding her of the top priority.
    “It’ll be back,” she said. “And I’d like to take it alive.” She turned to Tom, who’d taken off his helmet and was scratching his scalp. He was just as luminously young as the other Spartan-IIIs, with dark hair and a bruise on his chin that was already turning yellow at the margins. “Is that from when Kurt knocked you out?”
    “Yes.” Tom stared at a point between his boots and blinked a few times. “I’d never have left him to hold off the Elites on his own.”
    “It’s okay, I know you wouldn’t.” Halsey wasn’t sure if she was trying harder because Mendez had snarled at her or if she really did feel a pang of regret. “Saving someone is a reflex. Nobody who’s wired that way thinks about it. Do they?”
    Tom just shrugged. “No point taking chances, ma’am. You’re the only one here who can read a Forerunner menu, aren’t you?”
    “Thanks, Spartan,” she said. Do I mean that? Yes, I think I do. “I’ll try to find you a steak.”

CHAPTER
    TWO
     
    HUMANITY CAN NOW BREATHE AGAIN.
    THE COVENANT HAS FINALLY BEEN DRIVEN BACK. THE COST IN LIVES—OUR TROOPS AND OUR CITIZENS—HAS BEEN ENORMOUS.
    BUT FREEDOM NEVER COMES CHEAPLY, AND NOW, WE REBUILD.
    I PROMISE THIS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD ON EARTH AND IN ITS COLONIES. WHILE WE WILL CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR A PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE WITH OTHER SPECIES, HUMANITY WILL NEVER AGAIN ALLOW ITSELF TO BE THE VICTIM OF AGGRESSION. THIS IS THE MOMENT WE START TO RECLAIM OUR RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE.
(INAUGURAL SPEECH OF DR. RUTH CHARET, NEW PRESIDENT OF THE UNIFIED EARTH GOVERNMENT: JANUARY 2553)
     
CORE 5, OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE, BRAVO-6 FACILITY: JANUARY 26, 2553.
     
    Don’t mind me. BB settled down to watch and learn. I’m no trouble at all. I’ll stay out of your way. I’m just observing.
    And he was observing a man who seemed to think his time had come, the idiot. Didn’t he realize the war was anything but over? David Agnoli, Minister for the Colonies, sat on the low oak bookcase with his back to Parangosky’s office. He still didn’t seem to have the measure of UNSC yet.
    “Do you think the old bat’s ever going to