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“But unconscious.” There was resignation in One’s voice.

Two didn’t think. “I’m going after him.”

“Belay that, Spartan,” One said sharply. “I’m not losing half my Fireteam.”

But Two was already plunging back into the warren. “I’ll be back with him before you’re done firing up the train for evac.”

The pointer to her Beacon pylon remained active, so despite her grenade’s cave-in she was able to circle back through the now largely empty tunnels to her original position. She leapt out onto the surface of Verge and headed to the opposite corner of the Beacon, which still listed in midair, firing its energy beam to the heavens, albeit in a pitiful stream since the Drones had stopped feeding it precious helium-3.

The Drones swirled all around the Beacon—really, as far as Black-Two could see—in a pinwheeling, asymmetrical blur of gray-blue wings. Frequently a pair would collide then claw at each other with high-pitched clacking and squeaking. Other Yanme’e would hover in midair and stupidly watch them battle until the victor had torn the vanquished limb from limb—literally.

That must have been what the Kig-Yar character “Unmutual” meant: the Yanme’e equivalent of a personality disorder, an inability to relate to others. While in humans such psy-chopathology could create cunning, hyperaggressive killers, in Drones, with their even more rigid socialization, Unmutuals were incapable of working in concert with the rest of the swarm as a single, coherent unit. The efficient Covenant wasn’t about to let those minor details waste a vast source of manpower, however: Unmutual Drones were yoked to Beacons and worked to death by Kig-Yar.

A host of Unmutuals clung to the underside of the Beacon. As she ran underneath it, a few dropped down and attempted to hoist her into the air. She knocked them off her back with the butt of the AR. A solitary Drone plopped down directly in front of her, blocking her path, and she took it out with a short, controlled burst.

Yet they kept dropping down, forcing her to zigzag around them. By the time she emerged on the other side of the Beacon there were dozens of them standing as still as statues facing her, simply watching her with cocked heads, mandibles twitching.

A yellow dot appeared on the edge of her motion sensor.

“Black-Three, come in!” she yelled louder than she needed to. “This is Black-Two. I am closing in on your position. Give me your status.”

There was silence for a moment then Three groaned across her speakers:

“Buggers picked me straight up in the air, and they would have torn me apart like a wishbone if I hadn’t let loose with my AR.”

She sprinted a beeline for the dot, closing to twenty, then fifteen meters. She was on the edge of the city, and a few skyscrapers loomed before her. The ground was uneven enough that she couldn’t see any sign of a Spartan lying before her.

“Can you move?” she asked.

“I don’t know . . .” She heard his MJOLNIR shift and creak, and then he cried out. “Goddamn it! They dropped me way high up, and I landed right on my ankle . . . must’ve broke, even inside my armor . . . And the biofoam pinned it in the broken shape! Goddamn stupid skunkworks piece of shit . . .”

“Just sit tight,” she told him.

She was within ten meters of Three. A Drone landed in front of her, arms spread, but she didn’t slow down. Instead she barreled right into him, smashing her assault rifle into his face and knocking him over. She put a foot through the front of his thorax with a crunch and squish as she ran over him.

A menacing buzz made her look behind. The Unmutuals were falling into a single curtain behind her. Her dispatch of the last Drone must have overcome their innate selfishness. They were very slowly, but very deliberately, roiling toward her, a solid wall of flickering death.

Her motion sensor showed she was practically on top of the yellow dot, so she stopped.

Looked down.

Black-Three was nowhere to be seen.

“Where the hell are you?” she asked.

“How the hell am I supposed to know, man? They dropped my ass on some roof somewhere.”

“You’ve gotta be