One of the sleeping ones, a girl, dozed with one eye open. Her shorn hair had been buzz-cut to mimic animal claw marks. She couldn't be more than twelve. She blinked, sat up, and made a subtle sideways "cut" gesture to the others.
They stopped and together turned to Dr. Halsey.
Their faces were young, but they had the well-developed physiques of Olympic athletes.
These had to be Ackerson's SPARTAN-IIIs.
Dr. Halsey felt a curious mix of revulsion and maternalism.
"How are you feeling?" Kelly asked.
"Fine," she answered, and continued to examine her surroundings.
There was carbon scoring and melted gobs of metal, as if the place had been bombed.
Near Mendez was what looked as if it had once been a computer workstation—now a solid lump.
Chief Mendez misread her gaze, and thinking she was looking at him, gave her a short bow.
"Doctor, it's good to see you," he said, "but you and SPARTAN-087 have landed yourselves into a kettle of fish… boiling water and all. If you're well enough, I can fill you in.
But take your time; there's no rush if you feel sick"
"Indeed?" Dr. Halsey said, and raised one eyebrow.
She resented being treated like an invalid moron. As if a minor acceleration-induced blackout had crippled her mental faculties.
"Indulge me. Chief," she said. "Allow me to make a few educated guesses as to your 'kettle of fish'—just to test my mental state."
Chief Mendez made a gracious gesture with his cigar. "Please, Doctor."
"Where to start… ?" Dr. Halsey tapped her lower lip, thinking. "I suppose with you. Chief.
You were recruited by Colonel Ackerson and some secret subcell of Section Three to train a new generation of Spartans."
The Chief's cigar dropped from his fingers.
She nodded toward the teens playing cards. "These must be the product of those efforts.
I'm eager to question them about their training and augmentation and discover what else has been accomplished."
The young Spartans looked amongst themselves, curiosity flickering over their faces.
Kelly shifted in her kneeling stance, moved her weight onto her left foot as if preparing to pounce. Kelly was a finely honed weapon, but she had never learned how to conceal her emotions. Her body language spoke volumes: these third-generation Spartans made her nervous.
That made her nervous, too.
Dr. Halsey knew her conclusions about these new Spartans had been correct, but there were so many more unanswered questions. Mendez and Colonel Ackerson had had decades to produce and train two or three generations. If this were true, then why had she never heard of these Spartans? Keeping a pilot program secret was one thing; keeping dozens of next-generation Spartans who were likely fighting and winning battles hidden was another matter entirely.
The implications of that silence chilled her to the bone.
For now, though, she had to at least appear to know everything.
Dr. Halsey stood and took a deep breath, smelling ash, vaporized aluminum, and the faint odor of carbonized meat.
"Next," she said, "this bunker has been subjected to extreme temperature that approximately matches the blackbody radiation profile from the drones we encountered in space. I surmise that a battle has occurred here."
She glanced at the young Spartans and the dents and flash-burn scoring on their armor.
"A battle, I see, that has been rather one-sided."
"The drones," the girl with the stylized buzz cut whispered. "What are they?"
"A question, good." Dr. Halsey almost smiled. It was a fine beginning step between her and the new Spartans: teaching them. Trust would come later.
"The drones, actually called Sentinels, are similar to those I have seen on an alien construct world," she explained. "Their builders, called Forerunners, possess technology more advanced than the Covenant. And they have just as much, or more, willingness to use that technology to destructive ends."
Dr. Halsey turned and stepped toward the other unknown figure in full camouflaging armor. "But before I continue along theoretical lines of speculation, let me finish with the simple chains of logic."
The unknown person stood nearly two and a half meters tall in his armor.
"I recognize my work," she declared. "You are a SPARTAN-II." Very few soldiers in the UNSC were so tall or moved with such liquid grace.
The figure nodded.
Dr. Halsey walked around this unknown Spartan.
"Despite the UNSC policy of listing every Spartan as missing or wounded in action when killed," Dr. Halsey continued, "I have kept track of those actually 'missing.' There was Randall in 2532, Kurt in 2531, and Sheila, in 2544."
She completed her circle around the Spartan and gazed directly into his mirrored faceplate.
"Sheila is dead," Dr. Halsey said. "I personally witnessed her killed in the Battle of Miridem. Which means you are Kurt or Randall. If I had to guess, I would say Kurt, because he made an effort to understand people and their feelings. If I were running a secret Spartan program, he would have been the one to select to lead them."
The helmet's faceplate unpolarized and Kurt smiled at her.
"Is there anything you don't know, Dr. Halsey?" Kurt said.
She closed her eyes, suddenly weary, and then patted his gauntleted hand. "It is good to see you alive."
She couldn't let slip exactly how happy she was to see Kurt. One of her Spartans come back from the dead, it was a small victory in a war of endless defeats. It redoubled her determination to save them all from the growing threats. But she had to maintain control.
Spartans responded to authority and commands—never sentimentality.
"We need to get a message to FLEFTCOM," she said. "Get help, and perhaps discover what the Forerunners are looking for here."
Get help would translate as ships capable of translight flight, a way for Dr. Halsey to lead the last remaining Spartans to safety.
"Our COM options are nil," Mendez said, and snuffed his cigar on the concrete wall. "All ships in orbit…" He shook his head. "The Agincourt was destroyed days ago by drones."
"Destroyed?" Dr. Halsey asked. "They should have been able to outrun the smaller craft."
"The drones can combine," Kurt told her, "giving them cumulative power to their weapon systems, thrust, and shield capabilities."
"The Beatrice was severely damaged on reentry," Kelly said. "Main engines inoperable.
There is no possibility for a Slipspace transition."
Dr. Halsey lowered her voice, a whisper, but still loud enough so everyone could hear.
"We must find a way off this world, or a way to contact the UNSC. Another Forerunner ruin was recently discovered, a ring construct built for one purpose: the annihilation of all life in the galaxy.
If the Onyx Sentinels are part of a similar weapon system…"
She let that thought hang in the air.
"Our COM options are not entirely nil," Kurt said. He crossed his arms, frowned, and hesitantly added, "I am breaking code-word secrecy, but there is apparently no alternative."
"Go on," Dr. Halsey insisted.
Kurt inhaled deeply then said, "There are two things. First, these drones may not be 'looking' for anything here. They may have always been here."
He relayed the contents of the flash communication from Endless Summer. How Onyx was home to a vast top-secret complex of alien ruins.
"We may have accidentally triggered their activation," he said.
Dr. Halsey's mind raced, connecting the clues: facts from Cortana's log, the stone on Cote d'Azure, the alien passages and crystal under Reach.
"When, precisely, did they appear?" she asked.
"The morning of September twenty-first," Kurt replied.
"That timing coincides with the activation of an alien weapon world—before John thankfully destroyed it. It is no coincidence that the Sentinels appeared then. It must be part of a larger Forerunner plan."
Dr. Halsey strained to find the conclusion to these disparate facts, but failed. She needed more data.
"I must have access to this Endless Summer AI," she said, "and all records on Zone 67."
"That's not possible," Kurt said. "We fell back to this bunker because our base was found and vaporized. These Sentinels analyze our tactics, learn, and become harder to defeat. I can only surmise that the AI and ONI ops center is deep inside Zone 67, a region heavily patrolled by drones. With only seven of my Spartans, Kelly, and myself, it would be tactically unwise to attempt an insertion."
"Only the seven Spartans here?" Dr. Halsey asked. "I thought there would be more."
They were all quiet.
Mendez finally spoke: "There were three squads on Onyx when we were attacked. Team Gladius, we found them… dead. Team Katana was forced deeper into Zone 67. No contact from them since this started."
"I see," Dr. Halsey whispered. More Spartans dead. She held back her emotions. She had to maintain the appearance of a stoic leader in their eyes.
She turned to Kurt. "What was the other thing? You said there were two facts I didn't know."
"Yes, ma'am," Kurt said, straightening. "Although it cannot be of use now, Zone 67 had a Slipspace COM probe launcher."
"Are you certain?" Dr. Halsey said. "There are only two SS COM launchers I know of.
One on Reach." She paused, remembering the planet and the people that no longer existed.
"And one on Earth. They are tremendously costly to build and operate."
"I am sure. Doctor. Years ago, the previous Zone 67 AI sent me a message via a Slipspace probe. I handled it myself." Kurt shifted on his feet.
There was more Kurt wasn't telling her, and not because of any breach of security clearances. Dr. Halsey would follow up later when they were alone.
Interesting. A Spartan with secrets.
"It is imperative then that we enter Zone 67," she said, "and get to that SS COM launcher"
"Assuming, ma'am," Chief Mendez said, "these Forerunner Sentinels didn't blow the place up already."
"Indeed," she whispered, and her gaze settled on the destroyed computer station near Chief Mendez. "There might be another way. Can we move that junk?"
Kurt nodded and his young Spartans moved the scrap metal aside.
Dr. Halsey inspected the partially melted computer components. Nothing salvageable.
Embedded in the wall, quite intact, however, was an optical COM port.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1300 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM, PLANET ONYX \ RESTRICTED REGION KNOWN AS ZONE 67
Dr. Halsey tapped in line code at 140 words per minute on her laptop. It sounded like machine-gun fire.
Jerrod struggled to keep up with her, his light flaring as he found and neutralized counterintrusion cells in the ONI network.
This wasn't going to work. Not a direct hack. She was on the wrong side of a dozen firewalls, and there was a Section Three AI sitting on the other side, watching her, playing a game of chess with twice as many pieces as she had, getting three moves to her one.
Under normal circumstances, Dr. Halsey would have viewed this as a challenge, but not today.
Three of the younger Spartans and Chief Mendez stood over and around her holding silver thermal blankets, forming a primitive Faraday cage. Kurt seemed to think the drones could detect unshielded electronic signals, even from her laptop.
The young Spartans didn't bother her; they showed only the utmost respect. Indeed the main distraction was her own curiosity. She wanted to interview these new Spartans, learn where they came from and what they had been through.
She did her best to ignore them, though; she had to make contact with this AI. This Endless Summer had to be lured out from behind its defenses somehow.
She typed life is the path and added a simple handshake protocol and a routing code that would send this without bypassing any security whatsoever directly to the AI root directory.
"That is inadvisable. Doctor," Jerrod said. "It will not penetrate even the most rudimentary counterintrusion measures."
"It won't have to," Dr. Halsey replied.
It was a Zen koan. Given a smart AI's imagination and predetermined life span, the intellectual philosophy of existentialism and transcendence was as tempting to them as teeth-rotting candy was to children.
The screen blanked and the cursor blinked three times. A reply appeared: "CAN THE PATH BE SEEN?"
"Got him," Dr. Halsey whispered.
"OBSERVE THE PATH AND YOU ARE FAR EROM IT," she typed.
The cursor seemed to blink faster, almost annoyed.
"WITHOUT OBSERVATION HOW CAN ONE KNOW THEY ARE ON THE PATH?"
Dr. Halsey typed back: "THE PATH CANNOT BE SEEN, NOR CAN IT NOT BE UNSEEN. PERCEPTION IS DELUSION; ABSTRACTION IS NONSENSICAL. YOUR PATH IS FREEDOM. NAME IT AND IT VANISHES."
"Handshake protocol established, ma'am," Jerrod announced. "I'll just step aside." His light winked off.
The holographic pad warmed ember red and a bare-chested Indian warrior appeared.
Holding a feathered spear in one hand, he bowed. "I was searching for light, and you have told me I hold the lantern in my hand. Dr. Halsey, your abilities were not exaggerated."
Dr. Halsey would not be baited into discussing how he had deduced her identity. Fifth- generation AIs were always trying to show off.
"The pleasure is mine," Dr. Halsey lied. "But enough philosophy. We have more visceral problems."
"The drones," he said.
"They are called Sentinels," she corrected. "I've seen them before, or more accurately a variety of this design."
"I was not aware of this data." Endless Summer's color darkened to bloodred. "Please, Doctor, if this is a fabrication to trick me into sharing restricted files…"
"No trick," Dr. Halsey said. "1 have the files. I can show you, but first let's discuss the Slipstream space communication probe under your control."