Halo_ First Strike - Eric S. Nylund [0]
ERIC NYLUND
BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK
Other books based on Xbox games:
HALO: THE FLOOD by William C. Dietz HALO: THE FALL OF REACH by Eric Nylund BRUTE FORCE: BETRAYALS by Dean Wesley Smith CRIMSON SKIES by Eric Nylund, Michael B. Lee, Nancy Berman, and Eric S. Trautmann
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Halo: First Strike is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Del Rey® Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2003 by Microsoft Corporation
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Bungie, Halo, Xbox, the Xbox logo and the Microsoft Game Studio logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Used under license. © 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
www.delreydigital.com
ISBN 0-345-46781-7
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition: December 2003
OPM 10 9 87 6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank the personnel at Central Command: Syne Mitchell and the newest officer on our team, Kai Nylund.
The Intel Officers at Microsoft's Franchise Development Group: Doug Zartman, Nancy Figatner, and Edward Ventura, and most notably Eric S. Trautmann (Special Ops field agent).
The people in Section Two, a.k.a. Microsoft's User Experience Group: Jo Tyo, Matt Whiting, Dana Fos, and Jason Groce.
Logistics officers at Ballantine/Del Rey: Keith Clayton, Nancy Delia, Betsy Mitchell, and Steve Saffel.
And the Bungie troopers who are slugging it out on virtual battlefields across the universe to bring you the best game ever: Jason Jones, Peter Parsons, and, of course, Joe Staten, Jaime Griesemer, and Lorraine McLees.
SECTION
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 generally 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 Nations 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