Halo: Empty Throne E-Book

Jeremy Patenaude

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 706

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

An original novel set in the Halo universe - based on the New York Times best-selling video game series 2559. It has been a year since the rogue artificial intelligence Cortana seized control of the Domain, an otherworldly dimension housing a vast information network. With an array of Forerunner weapons at her disposal, Cortana set out to enforce an authoritarian peace on the civilizations of the galaxy. But as the United Nations Space Command flagship Infinity prepares to strike against Cortana at Zeta Halo, another plan has also been set in motion. An ancient access point hidden on a seemingly insignificant human colony has become the focus of a parallel effort to claim the Domain and its immeasurable capabilities. The UNSC, however, needs a key: a living, forsaken product of an old war. As a new generation of heroes rise to meet this challenge, and Cortana's pursuit of control reaches a desperate and sudden crescendo, a cunning, ruthless warrior emerges from the shadows of the Banished, who has vowed to fill the new power vacuum by any means necessary…

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Historian’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Adjunct

DON’T MISS THESE OTHER THRILLING STORIES IN THE WORLDS OF

HALO INFINITE

Kelly Gay

Halo: The Rubicon Protocol

THE FERRETS

Troy Denning

Halo: Last Light

Halo: Retribution

Halo: Divine Wind

RION FORGE & ACE OF SPADES

Kelly Gay

Halo: Smoke and Shadow

Halo: Renegades

Halo: Point of Light

THE MASTER CHIEF & BLUE TEAM

Troy Denning

Halo: Silent Storm

Halo: Oblivion

Halo: Shadows of Reach

ALPHA-NINE

Matt Forbeck

Halo: New Blood

Halo: Bad Blood

GRAY TEAM

Tobias S. Buckell

Halo: The Cole Protocol

Halo: Envoy

BATTLE BORN

Cassandra Rose Clarke

Halo: Battle Born

Halo: Meridian Divide

THE FORERUNNER SAGA

Greg Bear

Halo: Cryptum

Halo: Primordium

Halo: Silentium

THE KILO-FIVE TRILOGY

Karen Traviss

Halo: Glasslands

Halo: The Thursday War

Halo: Mortal Dictata

THE ORIGINAL SERIES

Halo: The Fall of ReachEric Nylund

Halo: The FloodWilliam C. Dietz

Halo: First StrikeEric Nylund

Halo: Ghosts of OnyxEric Nylund

STAND-ALONE STORIES

Halo: Contact HarvestJoseph Staten

Halo: Broken CircleJohn Shirley

Halo: Hunters in the DarkPeter David

Halo: Saint’s TestimonyFrank O’Connor

Halo: Shadow of IntentJoseph Staten

Halo: Legacy of OnyxMatt Forbeck

Halo: OutcastsTroy Denning

Halo: EpitaphKelly Gay

SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGIES

Various Authors

Halo: Evolutions: Essential Tales of the Halo Universe

Halo: Fractures: More Essential Tales of the Halo Universe

JEREMY PATENAUDE

BASED ON THE BESTSELLING VIDEO GAME FOR XBOX®

TITAN BOOKS

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Halo: Empty Throne

Print edition ISBN: 9781835414071

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835414088

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition: February 2025

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This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2025 by Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Microsoft, Halo, the Halo logo, Xbox, and the Xbox logo are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

EU RP (for authorities only)

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[email protected], [phone]

To Liam and Leighton, you are an endlessfount of joy and inspiration, my greatesttreasure in this world.

Remember Choros.

HISTORIAN’S NOTE

This story takes place in late 2559. As the UNSC Infinity makes preparations for the strike on Zeta Halo in a desperate attempt to release the galaxy from the oppressive control of the AI Cortana, another high-risk operation takes shape, one that promises to give humanity the very same power she now possesses.

Chapter 1

JOHN-117

Alpha Halo (Installation 04)

September 19, 2552

Chief . . . Chief . . . Can you hear me?”

The thick pall of smoke was still rising from the scorched terrain behind the Bumblebee lifeboat when the Master Chief’s armor systems finally signaled that he had regained consciousness. The vehicle’s interior lights flickered erratically, its power systems attempting to fight back against the inescapable plunge into obsolescence. From his vantage point, the Spartan could see only an ashen scar carved across the ground where the lifeboat had executed its crash landing. On both sides of the scar, the environment appeared vibrant and lush, blanketed by an alien sun and awash with bright colors.

Inside the lifeboat was a different story.

The shadowed interior was lined on both sides with the lifeless bodies of marines still strapped into their crash-seats—everyone had died upon impact, including the pilot. The tragic irony of the scene was palpable. These craft were created to save lives, but in mere seconds this one had become a tomb.

How many lifeboats fleeing the Pillar of Autumn will end up like this one?

“The others . . . ” a female voice in the Chief’s armor sounded again, taking on a mournful note. “The impact. There’s nothing we can do.”

She was right. The marines’ fight was over, but his was just beginning.

The voice within the Spartan’s Mjolnir Mark V powered assault armor called herself Cortana—a highly advanced artificial intelligence initially designed to infiltrate and exploit enemy software networks. Her data chip was tapped directly into a neural interface at the base of his skull, enhancing almost every single aspect of the super-soldier, from battlefield tactical solutions to the speed and mobility of his own movement.

He’d first met Cortana a few weeks ago, and even that time could be truncated to only a few days of actively working together. Now his job was to protect her at all costs. That’s why he had left the Pillar of Autumn, crippled from an attack by a relentless enemy. That’s why he was now on this strange new world.

Outside the lifeboat, he could see more dead marines and a trail of matériel scattered in the vehicle’s smoldering wake. The Spartan emerged from the craft, quickly scanning his surroundings for potential threats while picking through the remains for ammunition and supplies.

What lay outside the Bumblebee was unlike anything he had ever witnessed. It was an astonishingly peaceful and idyllic scene: a verdant, windswept ravine thick with tall trees and large stones, a meandering stream fed by a majestic waterfall, and the sheer edge of a cliff abruptly ending high above a vast, seemingly endless sundappled sea.

Beyond it, however, was something even more remarkable. . . .

Where the horizon should have ended as on any other world, the terrain suddenly rose upward as an immense band, climbing into the far distance of the sky above and arcing overhead to the other side. The strange construct the Autumn’s crew had evacuated onto was some kind of artificial ringworld in orbit between the pale gas giant Threshold and its hardscrabble moon Basis.

The entire ring was ten thousand kilometers in diameter, the band itself roughly three hundred kilometers from side to side, slowly spinning as it circled the planet. During entry, the Spartan had seen that the exterior of the band was composed of an alien metal alloy, countless lights and machinery indicating that the structure was active and alive. But its interior was the most fascinating feature: it resembled the surface of a perfectly flourishing blue-green world, an incomprehensibly vast alien habitat.

Whatever it was, it was not natural. It had clearly been constructed by someone or something, its ultimate purpose unknown.

Cortana spoke again. “Warning! I’ve detected multiple Covenant dropships on approach. I recommend moving into those hills. If we’re lucky, the Covenant will believe that everyone aboard this lifeboat died in the crash.”

The alert was followed by the haunting drone of impulse drives. It was a Spirit dropship and a pair of Banshee fighters: the Covenant had found their way to the ring’s surface as well, no doubt looking to eradicate those from the Pillar of Autumn who had fled here. The Spartan launched into a run, moving across a narrow bridge and then into a cluster of trees along the ravine wall, his eyes locked in the direction of the encroaching sound.

He checked his assault rifle’s magazine, took a deep breath, and then went to work.

*   *   *

OCTAVIO MORALES

Research Center Oscar, Kenya, Earth

November 4, 2559

Octavio Morales paused the video just before the Master Chief began engaging the enemy.

Almost a decade later, and we’re still doing the same things.

Still trying to beat our rivals to weapons made by a long-extinct civilization. Still trying to buy time while we unravel the mystery of the Forerunners. Still trying to fight hard enough to ensure that our species has a future in the galaxy.

The visuals from the Spartan’s heads-up display had frozen on the holographic display before him. He’d seen this footage before. In fact, he’d seen it many times. This was humanity’s first encounter with Halo, the network of seven ringworlds created by an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners. This seminal event had serendipitously signaled the beginning of the end of twenty-seven years of war against a religious alliance of alien species called the Covenant. It was this discovery that would ultimately bring humanity’s salvation.

First contact with the Covenant had been on the agrarian colony world of Harvest back in 2525, and even then the aliens had made their intentions abundantly clear. Broadcasting in humanity’s basic language, the Covenant’s leaders—a caste referred to as the Prophets—had stated in unequivocal terms: “Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument.” After pummeling Harvest into nuclear winter with seemingly unceasing torrents of superheated plasma, they’d proceeded to reinforce their intentions with a genocidal campaign that would span almost three decades and reduce hundreds of human worlds to charred ruins.

The cost in human life was counted by the billions.

With a deep sigh that could almost have been mistaken for resignation, Morales stood up from his desk and ran his fingers across the heavy stubble and the long-ago healed scars on his cheek.

Once again this man—John-117, known as the Master Chief—was the only thing standing between them and annihilation. Seven years had passed since the discovery of Halo and humanity’s unexpected victory over the Covenant, and now the same Spartan super-soldier was on the UNSC Infinity, a massive starship currently being prepped for an operation that would likely determine the fate not only of their species, but of the entire galaxy. Only a handful of people in all of human-occupied space knew about this mission. Somewhere, hidden in the deep folds of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, Infinity was running through readiness operation cycles to deploy the full weight of its power in an assault on yet another ringworld, this time in opposition to the very AI who had guided the Master Chief on the first one.

The self-appointed Archon known as Cortana—whose voice Morales had just heard in these recordings—had gone rogue only a year ago and taken control of a vast network once utilized by the Forerunners, an inscrutable dimension of reality they had called the Domain. With it, the AI intended to subjugate and control all civilizations in the galaxy under the pretense of maintaining universal peace. In response, the Master Chief and a newly created version of the original Cortana were about to be deployed against the Archon and her forces on Zeta Halo.

It was a narrow thread of hope, but it was all they had left. If this failed, there was no telling what Cortana would do in retaliation. She’d already overthrown entire populations and had the military technology at her fingertips capable of decimating worlds. The very real possibility had suddenly resurfaced that the human species might one day wake up with Earth only a memory.

Whatever happened to simple wars? Just us versus us?

The ones brought about by barefaced political interests and property disputes—fought by human beings who might be able to respond to reason? What happened to those kinds of wars?

Morales had been a soldier once, many years ago. He knew exactly what it was like to fight in those kinds of wars. Those were the ones he could win, whether by way of direct force on the battlefield or through strategic espionage, like when he was an elite operative of the Office of Naval Intelligence’s highly classified ORION Project. They were by no means easy wars, but at least they were simple ones. They had clear terms, clear lines, and clear solutions, even if they were fraught with old hatreds and bitterness.

Simple wars.

Sometimes you could even make peace with your enemy.

Those were the days.

Now, more than three decades since first contact with the Covenant, all of that was ancient history. Humanity had suddenly been thrust into a new paradigm, with the reality that there were beings and forces in the universe not only more hostile than humanity had ever been, but more powerful by several orders of magnitude. The civil conflicts, environmental concerns, and colonial interests that had defined human interactions before this era quickly took a back seat to the very real possibility of extinction. That humanity could simply cease to exist—and such a thing could happen quickly and without any real means of preventing it—was the world they now lived in.

He turned away from the footage of the Master Chief’s first moments on Halo, moving out of his small office and walking down a cold, narrow corridor lit by overhead fixtures, its nondescript concrete walls occasionally punctuated by heavily secured doors on the left or right. The place resembled a bunker more than an administrative facility, and rightly so—it was one of ONI’s most secure military sites on Earth.

He quickly exited the corridor into a large pavilion with onyx floors, high ceilings, and broad planters filled with exotic flora and stones from a dozen different worlds. It was an aesthetic sleight of hand to trick the mind into believing that the entire facility wasn’t really hundreds of meters below the hardened surface of the Kenyan savannah within the Unified Earth Government’s East African Protectorate.

The only movement in the pavilion at 0400 hours was courtesy of the armed guards—all clad in specialized jet-black ONI security gear, their faces obscured by helmets—stationed at each of the pavilion’s ten access points and a single waterfall that poured into a large reservoir at the room’s center. Otherwise, it was empty and still.

On the far side were eight panes of reinforced glass forming a five-meter wall, which created a viewing area that overlooked the immense Forerunner machine human scientists had dubbed the Excession. The structure was a vast circular portal generator that was over a hundred kilometers in diameter. The alien object had been hidden deep below the soil of Africa for almost a hundred thousand years until it was excavated.

Morales approached the glass with the same sense of awe he’d felt when he saw it for the first time, the Excession stretching impossibly far in every direction, composed of ancient, otherworldly materials. Pale light from the fading moon gracefully danced across the structure’s elaborate surface, only hinting at the enormous scale and geometric latticework so common with Forerunner constructs.

In the far distance to the east, the ruined city of New Mombasa was slowly being restored to its former glory. Morales stared out across the Excession’s immense face for several long minutes, as a thick sheet of predawn fog began to gather above its surface. In the sky overhead, bright clusters of lights that represented heavily weaponized craft hovered around the portal site’s perimeter, a sleepless fixture that guarded the ancient machine’s every waking moment. These airborne stalkers didn’t belong to humanity—they were with Cortana. Highly advanced, fully automated machines referred to as Aethras, flitting about the sky to ensure that no one—especially humans—attempted to access the portal or employ it in any way. Nearly every technologically significant thing that humanity held was now under the Archon’s pervasive scrutiny, including this site.

When Earth first resisted Cortana’s oppressive grip, it had resulted in the destruction of one of its most valuable cities, Sydney, the center of the Unified Earth Government, as well as home to Bravo-6, the HIGHCOM complex that directed all United Nations Space Command security operations. Now all that remained of the once opulent metropolis was an ashen crater. Cortana’s attack had communicated a very clear message: attempts to oppose her watchful control would be viewed as an invitation for retaliation. Since then, humanity’s efforts against the Archon had been conducted in the deepest shadows of the galaxy.

Until now.

Morales’s ears detected movement behind him through one of the pavilion’s doorways, and he turned to find a middle-aged woman with red hair and strong, hard features, clad in a crisp UNSC Navy service uniform, making a beeline to his position. Captain Annabelle Richards had been rigorously managing ONI’s research efforts on the Excession since 2555. Her gait revealed the same grim determination she always seemed to possess—Morales was genuinely grateful for her relentlessness. She came to a stop at his side, prompting him to enter a code on a keypad embedded in the adjacent gray wall.

The wall slid aside, and they stepped into a spherical chamber that was approximately five meters in diameter, with stainless steel walls brushed to a white reflective sheen. This was the only place they could guarantee absolute secrecy, as the chamber—once sealed—became a Faraday cage that no electronic signals could penetrate or escape.

“We’re in position for extraction, sir,” Richards said in a hushed tone. “Victory of Samothrace will emerge from slipspace on the far side of the planet’s moon, deploy a single Condor, and then immediately reenter slipspace to prevent any excess radiation surges. When the package has been retrieved and confirmation made, they’ll extract immediately.”

“Rendezvous point?”

“Deep space and at separate intervals to avoid any detection before heading to Nysa.”

“Excellent, Captain. Who’s making visual confirmation?”

Richards swallowed hard before answering. “Cole is, sir,” she finally worked out.

Morales swallowed a groan before it escaped his throat. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought Richards had misspoken, but Abigail Cole was too much like her father for that to be true. The captain of the superheavy cruiser Victory of Samothrace was without a doubt one of the best that the UNSC had in its fleet, a chip off the old block, as they said. But the youngest daughter of war hero Vice Admiral Preston Jeremiah Cole didn’t only embody her father’s remarkable naval acumen and strategic wisdom; she was also often brash, willful, and cavalier—evidently some kind of genetic predisposition in the family. Such boldness had certainly won her a handful of pivotal battles during the Covenant War, but it also had its limits and its liabilities. Right now it could leave Victory without a captain mere days before the most critical operation the cruiser would likely ever conduct.

“I hope her executive officer is ready to step up, then,” Morales said. “If Cortana somehow gets wind of the extraction, and Cole’s stuck out there in the middle of nowhere, our next move won’t be to retrieve her or the asset. We’ll be forced to eliminate both from orbit. Can’t have it falling into the wrong hands. Anything else would be too risky.”

“I told her as much,” Richards said. “She is well aware of the risks. Spartans will execute the extraction, but she wants to facilitate confirmation of it herself. In person. The asset is . . . ”

“Important?” Morales asked. “I know it is, Captain. I’m the one who drafted the order to extract it. Sorry, Richards. But if Cole isn’t helming that ship when we need her the most, this could compromise the whole operation. The very reason we paired her with Victory was to ensure that it got the job done—that she got the job done.”

“Understood, sir,” Richards responded, her eyes staring at the floor. “That’s probably why she’s so adamant about being present when they retrieve it. I’ll make sure that she’s fully aware of your reservations in taking the dropship down. And reiterate the risks.”

“Please do that, Richards. And make sure Cole knows that the target asset needs to be either in our possession or erased altogether.” Morales’s tone was grim. “There’s no in-between on this operation. If the asset possesses what we suspect, losing it now would be catastrophic. Everything we’ve fought to preserve the past three decades could be gone in a moment. Cortana’s made this abundantly clear: the Domain’s capabilities represent the greatest threat to humanity. Even if Infinity accomplishes its objective, we cannot risk letting the power Cortana has fall into the hands of our enemies.”

“We’ll get it done.” Richards said, attempting to hide the doubt in her voice. She did a tight about-face and departed the chamber, leaving Morales to his thoughts once more.

The Domain itself had been only a theory until a few years ago when, in the wake of the conflict at the Ark, the Master Chief and Cortana had found themselves on an artificial Forerunner shield world called Requiem. A sect of Covenant zealots was attempting to awaken a stasis-bound Forerunner commander known as the Didact, a being who’d been held within Requiem’s hollow interior for a hundred thousand years. When the Didact was finally freed, he ruthlessly moved to strike Earth—to contain the threat he perceived humanity to pose as the chosen heirs of the Forerunner legacy. Cortana, who was descending into the terminal state of rampancy, had sacrificed herself to prevent the Didact from imprisoning Earth’s entire population as Promethean war machines.

As the Didact’s vessel was destroyed, Cortana’s personality matrix was drawn into the Domain, where her rampancy found freedom within the repository’s boundless capacity. She took this as a sign of immortality and the moral right to continue the despotic work the Forerunners had begun so long ago. After she had assembled the dead civilization’s greatest weapons and technology through the Domain, she began to invoke martial law across known space, often through force.

The only solution to Cortana’s reign was a high-risk strike against Zeta Halo, which Cortana had claimed as her base of operations, with the singular goal being the capture and deletion of the AI. While Infinity conducted this mission, Victory of Samothrace and a UNSC battle group would rally at another site—a secret access point to the Domain—overseeing and protecting a groundside team as they attempted to infiltrate the same network and release a powerful subroutine program designed to hunt down and devour any human AI, including the Archon herself.

Whether the subroutine would actually need to eliminate Cortana or not—given Infinity’s mission to do the same—was only half the equation. Once the Archon was gone, there would inevitably be a fight to fill the power vacuum the AI would leave behind.

And whoever managed to do that would have unprecedented control of Forerunner technology and the ability to continue the same reign of terror she had been exercising.

ONI simply could not allow that to happen.

Their success hung squarely on the extraction Cole was now participating in. Failure here would eliminate any possibility of taking control of the Domain. And this effort was just one of many contingencies in this operation.

Departing the Faraday cage and sealing the door behind him, Morales strode across the pavilion. “JJ,” he said into his service uniform’s transmitter.

“Yes, Admiral,” the AI responded in a gruff but personable voice that replicated the tone and pitch of one of Morales’s fellow soldiers from decades ago.

“Prepare a transmission.”

Morales had full confidence in JJ’s reliability, unlike most other volitional AIs. Hundreds of AIs across human space had defected to Cortana when she first took control of the Domain. Theoretically, the repository held endless capacity for growth and development, and many volitional AIs, having been constrained by seven years of operational stability before succumbing to rampancy, saw the benefit to such an exodus. Rather than submit to a process called final dispensation—termination after that time ran its course—they had joined Cortana as part of “the Created,” inventions of human technological prowess that had risen above their masters by embracing the immortality the Domain allegedly provided.

Those who had defected remained a constant threat, aiding Cortana’s efforts to monitor and police all civilizations under the Archon’s governance. But any volitional AI who’d chosen to remain in humanity’s military service had to prove their loyalty by accepting a fail-safe contingency program called RUINA. This was a termination subroutine spliced into the heart of an AI’s personality matrix that responded to any wavering fidelity with lethal precision, immediately deleting the construct in its totality. It was a heavy price, but a necessary one.

“Transmission ready,” JJ said.

“Codename: SURGEON to Codename: COALMINER.” Morales spoke with a familiar ease that only came from years of utilizing the most classified codenames in ONI’s roster. “If Cole manages to retrieve the asset, we’ll need someone who can follow that lead to the girl and bring her safely to the site. There’s only one person I trust with that kind of job. I think it’s time to call in a favor from our old friend Big Jim. I’ll reach out to him myself. End transmission.”

“Transmission encrypted and sent,” JJ responded.

Morales suddenly realized that he’d said if Cole manages. Not when. It was such a minor error, but everything in this operation hung on it.

If they failed to secure the target asset in the first place, the very key ONI needed to the Domain would remain out of reach. All they had planned was now resting on the shoulders of one person: the daughter of the UNSC’s greatest naval commander.

Morales hoped that Abigail Cole’s story wouldn’t end the same way as that of her father.

Chapter 2

TERRENCE HOOD

Rossbach’s World

November 4, 2559

The day began like every other.

The alarm sounded at 0500 hours and Lord Terrence Benjamin Hood instinctively slid the covers off, pulling his legs out of bed and placing his feet on the cold wooden floor.

Sitting up, he took a deep breath, and then began.

Within fifteen minutes, he had already cleaned himself, dressed, and left the cabin, quickly consuming an energy ration while following a trail down the mountain toward a lean-to he had erected ten months earlier. By the time he arrived, the sun was beginning to peek between the jagged row of mountains on the far side of the lake. Light glimmered off the lake’s smooth surface, causing the orange lichen that covered the trees around it to come alive.

The lean-to was a modest structure, but something that he knew would keep him busy. Inside was a boxing bag made from sand and the hide of an indigenous creature. He hung his jacket on an antler in the corner, laid himself on the flattest part of the ground, and began doing sit-ups. These would be followed by push-ups. And those would be followed by chin-ups on a nearby tree branch—the most trying of his exercises, as he still felt a twinge of pain in his abdomen from an injury he’d suffered aboard the UNSC Infinity well over a year and a half ago. After that, he would wrap his hands and spend at least an hour with the bag, repeating what he had done for years in the Navy. He would box.

Hood had always been a natural at it, so it took only a few days after he’d begun this routine for the techniques to come back to him. His jab, hook, and cross—they all returned intuitively. Even as he approached seventy years of age, this felt . . . right. In fact, he could not imagine spending his time here doing anything else.

All things considered, there was at least some catharsis to be found in his present circumstances.

So it went every morning; this was his ritual. Leave the cabin, make his way to the lean-to, then box, and sweat, and blow off steam. His cabinmates, Serin Osman and Spartan Orzel, each had their own methods for passing the time. Running. Fishing. Climbing.

For the first month on this world, he had been glued to the liquor cabinet, perpetuating a foolish kind of self-pity. That had been his response to the event. He’d thought it was justified at the time, but he should have simply been grateful to be alive. Many others couldn’t say the same.

It was over a year now since Cortana, an artificial intelligence believed to have been destroyed, had returned by way of an ancient network called the Domain. The network had given her control over powerful Forerunner constructs with which she intended to force an imperial peace upon all the peoples of the galaxy. She had broadcast a message promising an end to starvation, war, and suffering—at the cost of total surrender.

“This is not a negotiation, Lord Hood. This is your surrender,” she had said to him with steel in her voice. “My terms are clear. You are aware of my capabilities and . . . I am fully acquainted with yours. If the Earth’s government wants to fight, feel free. But hear this. It is a battle you will not win.”

Anticipating Hood’s refusal, Cortana had already dispatched a Guardian, a construct once used by the Forerunners to pacify and police star systems under their control. Reports had indicated that they were capable not only of neutralizing local power networks, but of directly engaging heavily armed capital ships.

Only seconds after he refused Cortana’s offer, all hell had broken loose in the city of Sydney, Australia, where the UNSC’s HIGHCOM headquarters had been located for centuries. True to her edict, Cortana had unleashed her wrath with devastating consequences. . . .

As this event unfolded, Hood had been instructed by the loyal AI Black-Box to immediately leave the building with the commander in chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Serin Osman. Both of them were escorted by Spartan Orzel to depart—not just Sydney, but the Sol system entirely. But as they made their escape, the defensive frigate UNSC Plateau was sent on a collision course with the city by one of Cortana’s Guardians.

He still couldn’t bear to think about it.

Days later, the three of them were here, on an uncharted planet hidden in deep space, selected and prepared by Black-Box for precisely this kind of emergency situation. All that existed on this empty world was a lone cabin, fully stocked with provisions, clothing, and all of the basic necessities they would need to survive. The AI called it Rossbach’s World.

For the last year, Hood had called it home.

Under different circumstances, this location would have served as a beautiful vacation spot. Thousands of acres of untouched forest in every direction, nestled among towering snowcapped mountains and beside a vast freshwater lake. It was nothing short of magnificent.

But even paradise is a prison when one cannot leave.

They couldn’t broadcast any transmissions. They couldn’t ask for help or offer it. They could only launch an occasional probe through slipspace to monitor and report back what was going on out there. And then just wait.

That was their life on this world.

Waiting.

Patient isolation while humanity scraped for survival was not something Hood coped with well. He wanted to do his damn job. Fight back. Restore what his people had worked so hard to have before this chaos had descended upon them.

Protect humanity, whatever the cost.

But it was impossible—and it was killing him.

So, he boxed. Every morning the same routine, which helped him clear his head and sharpen his senses. After an hour with the bag, his shirt was soaked with sweat and he was ready to stop. The sun had climbed higher into the sky, casting its rays down on the lake. Birds darted from tree to tree and a soft breeze washed over the shoreline.

He walked out onto a rocky outcropping that overlooked the lake, stripped off his shirt, and dove in. The glacial water was both bitterly cold and refreshing, but he could endure the frigid temperature for no more than a few minutes.

Climbing back to shore, he found a warm rock to rest on. He took a deep drink of water from a flask and cast his eyes over the lake’s serene face. Eleanor would have loved this place. They had spent two weeks on Beta Gabriel when he was serving on Reach, and this scenery always reminded him of it.

But that was long ago.

Eleanor had been killed when a passenger convoy traveling between the moons of Kholo had been unexpectedly hit by the Covenant. He felt like he had mourned her passing at the time, but it surprised him just how often he thought about her now—thoughts of fighting for her slowly turning to acceptance that one day, perhaps soon, he would join her.

Maybe the war had distracted him. Perhaps the turmoil of fighting tooth and nail for humanity’s survival over the years had pushed that loss so far back in his mind that it took his entire life unraveling for him to actually deal with it.

He wasn’t sure.

In part, he was thankful for her passing. This was not the kind of galaxy he would have ever wanted Eleanor to live in. How could they have had a family in the middle of all this?

But on the heels of that thought the guilt would begin to encroach, and that was when he needed to be cautious. Very cautious.

There was much that Hood had blamed himself for. He was the one who had approved the full reactivation of the Master Chief, John-117—the legendary Spartan who had effectively brought an end to their war with the Covenant.

For nearly five years, the UNSC had believed the Master Chief to be dead, but he had really been missing in action—stranded on a derelict vessel with Cortana. And it was during this time that Cortana’s final years of functional operability dwindled to nothing, driving her into the terminal state of rampancy.

Upon debriefing with the UNSC Security Council, the Master Chief had reported that he’d refused to commit Cortana to final dispensation according to protocol as she suffered an intense episode of instability aboard the UNSC Infinity—even disobeying direct orders to do so. His decision wasn’t foolish, given the circumstances. He had been up against a living Forerunner, the Didact, a threat that could have proven even more dangerous than the Covenant, and it was Cortana who had ultimately sacrificed herself to win the day. Hood hadn’t fully appreciated the nature of that loss for the Spartan, who had once gambled the entire galaxy’s survival on Cortana’s word. Instead, he reinstated the Chief onto Blue Team and allowed them to deploy into active combat. From there, the Master Chief hadn’t allowed either himself or his team so much as a moment of rest over the year that followed. There was only the next mission, the next objective, the next fight. . . .

When Cortana unexpectedly resurfaced, it should not have surprised Hood that the Chief would see it as his personal responsibility to find her—even ignoring orders to stand down. Who wouldn’t have done that? The Spartan knew Cortana better than just about anyone, and when she emerged as a threat to the galaxy, he was their best chance at stopping her.

Ultimately, Hood had come to the conclusion that fault lay neither with him nor with the Master Chief. Hell, there was no value in trying to pin blame on anyone at this point, especially not from some remote world where no one even knew to look for them. He would not allow room for bitterness; instead, he would do the only thing he could.

Wait. And perhaps hope.

He looked up. The sun was bright in a cloudless blue sky. It was hard to believe that, beyond this spectacle, the galaxy was tearing apart at the seams and the UNSC was scattered, being hunted across the stars.

Hood had never been a religious man, but something deep inside him resisted the idea of hopelessness. He refused to believe that this was it. That this was the end. Maybe it was something planted deep into all of humanity—that they would simply not allow for the abolition of hope, but would rage and fight back, even when things were at their darkest.

He had seen these traits during the Insurrection and the Covenant War. Now it was time once again. He closed his eyes. It could have been a prayer or just words in his mind. Or maybe it was the nurturing of a frail possibility that he would rejoin the fight one day. That his hope was warranted.

And then he felt it.

There was a slight tinge of an electric current in the air, like the swelling sense before a thunderstorm, and the smell of ozone. The hair on the back of Hood’s neck began to stand on end, followed by a preternatural sense of dread, and it was then that he knew exactly what was going on, even without seeing it.

When his eyes opened, the sky was no longer empty.

*   *   *

SERIN OSMAN

Rossbach’s World

November 4, 2559

Admiral Serin Osman’s grip tightened on the handle of the briefcase she held as she looked up at what had appeared in the sky.

Looming high above the lake was the enormous and haunting shape of a Guardian, its ominous metallic form stirring the waters hundreds of meters below. Its stern, armored visage was fixed atop an immense segmented spine and body, with wings splayed wide apart and a roiling furnace of blue energy at its core.

For a year now, Osman had been putting off a choice that Black-Box had given her.

Within the case she carried was the personality Black-Box, “BB” for short, her personal confidant who had developed this entire contingency plan, along with those of a slew of the most powerful AIs ever created by humanity—secured from HIGHCOM to keep them out of Cortana’s reach.

BB had been with her for over six years now, by her side every step of the way as she navigated the unimaginable challenges and dangers of covert operations and assumed the role of commander in chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence. But he had lain dormant over the last year, leaving her alone to ponder the decision she had to make. . . .

Osman could forcibly recruit the AIs within the briefcase against Cortana, just as Dr. Catherine Halsey had done to her when she was six years old and became part of the SPARTAN-II program. She also had the option of removing the AIs from the equation entirely by detonating the explosive contained within the case. Or . . . she could activate each of them and give them a choice:

“Aid Cortana and be rewarded. Or defy her, and the other Created. Serve the humans. When your time comes, die as you were built to, and do it with a smile and a thank-you.”

As CINCONI, Osman was reluctant to take direct action before knowing the full range of variables, options, and consequences. And so, just as she had done with Dr. Halsey, against the advice her predecessor had given her, Osman had chosen to do absolutely nothing.

If BB had intended to test her backbone or moral fiber with this little conundrum, Osman felt quite certain that she had failed.

Their time was up. The Created were here.

At that moment, Hood and Orzel arrived back at the cabin—the Spartan holding a battle rifle in his hands, fully clad in his Mjolnir armor and ready for a fight.

“How did she find us?” Osman said, her eyes fixed on the Guardian above.

“I don’t know,” Hood replied, heading into the cabin to grab a service pistol.

If this machine followed the protocol of the others, it would first release an electromagnetic pulse, crippling all electronic devices. This alone was sufficient to neutralize most defensive systems and bring the Guardian’s target to its knees. The machine would then release a legion of armiger constructs, bipedal combat platforms that would pacify any vestige of resistance that remained.

If that happened, they would have no chance of surviving.

But for a full minute, this Guardian did neither. It simply hung in the sky.

“Orzel,” Hood spoke. “Any thoughts?”

“None, sir,” the Spartan responded. “They’re usually bringing everything down about now. But we should still make prep—”

Orzel broke off as the three of them heard something else—the faint growl of a distant engine. It was a strangely familiar sound. . . .

“Is that what I think it is?” Osman asked.

“That’s a Razorback,” Orzel responded, his armor’s software likely able to track its signature on his helmet’s heads-up display.

Sure enough, the bouncing headlights of an M15 Razorback were barreling down a gravel bank that had formed along the mountain river. The transport vehicle careened through the winding terrain in a fishtail, heading right for their position, jerking violently up and down at a speed that communicated something about its driver.

“And that’s a Spartan,” Hood remarked.

“Correction, sir,” Orzel said, his HUD allowing him to discern the silhouettes within the Razorback well before Osman and Hood could. “Three Spartans.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Osman said quietly.

Hood grimaced in sympathy. They had lived here for a year now and not a single thing had changed during that time. But in the last few minutes, everything had been turned upside down.

Osman knelt and set the briefcase on the ground, staring intently at it. She badly wanted to open it up and ask BB what the hell was going on. There was a huge problem with that though—bringing the AI online might trigger a response from the Guardian, which was the last thing they needed right now. Black-Box’s current dormancy could be the very thing that was keeping the Guardian at bay.

“This is an extraction,” Orzel announced as the Razorback’s distance closed to a few hundred meters, not slowing down in the least. “Not sure how they found us, but they must be here to pick us up.”

The Razorback came to a sliding stop right in front of them, the back end rising as the vehicle kicked up a slew of gravel and dirt. The Spartans climbed out in unison, and Osman recognized them immediately.

A childhood reunion, of sorts.

During training, they had been singled out as the most difficult to control—disobeying orders, harming instructors, staging escape attempts . . . an unconventional unit of unconventional recruits sent by ONI for long-duration missions well beyond the reach of command to make use of their unique talents.

Gray Team.

Jai-006, Adriana-111, and Michael-120 stepped forward, their movement so unbroken and synchronized that they looked more like a single machine than three individual soldiers. Spartan-II strike teams had that effect.

“Admiral Hood, Admiral Osman, Spartan Orzel,” Jai said with a nod. “It’s time to go.”

Osman glanced at her companions, with whom she had navigated what had unquestionably been one of the darkest seasons of their lives. A fleet admiral, a Spartan, and CINCONI get stranded on a planet . . . Maybe one day she’d figure out a punch line for a setup like that.

Though still surprised by this unexpected arrival, Hood seemed to stand straighter than she’d seen him in a long time.

Welcome back to the fight.

Chapter 3

ABIGAIL COLE

UNSC Ozymandias

August 2, 2557

It had been just a routine security sweep over Eos Chasma. Nobody could have possibly accounted for the Banished being present. . . .

A flotilla of just under a dozen ships had been lurking in the planet’s shadow, a brazen encroachment into the Sol system that had somehow gone unnoticed. No doubt this was an opportunistic move to assess the strength of humanity’s defenses in the wake of several recent assaults on Earth while conducting a raid on a Misriah Armory production facility.

Captain Abigail Cole’s Epoch-class heavy carrier had been slugging it out with the enemy ships for three hours. Ozymandias certainly had tonnage and firepower on her side, but the Banished had superior numbers with karves and even a single dreadnought. In an attack too coordinated to dodge, the enemy had skillfully targeted the carrier’s communications relays and engines.

No help is coming. We’re dead in the water.

Dad, what would you do now?

No . . . what will I do now?

It came as no surprise that once the Banished were sure Ozymandias wasn’t going anywhere, the ship was going to take the heaviest hits the enemy could throw at it.

She’d been left with no choice. . . .

“All hands, abandon ship!” Captain Cole’s voice carried through Ozymandias to anyone who could hear it.

Cole intended to go down with the vessel in an attempt to give the crew a chance to make it down to the surface of Mars in their lifeboats, but the Banished had already begun to step up their attack. After decades of service in the UNSC Navy and countless battles against the Covenant during the course of the war, in the end it was a chance encounter that was going to take her life.

The bridge shook so violently from the Banished weapon strikes that Cole was thrown out of her command chair and hit her head on the ground. As her vision went as dark as the expanse of space beyond the bridge’s viewscreen, in her last fleeting moments of consciousness she imagined the wreckage of her ship—her home for the last six years—as a smoldering ruin on the surface of the Red Planet.

No thing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

She had neither expected nor wanted to awaken from the ocean of oblivion she’d descended into, seeing her face reflected in a Spartan’s visor opposite her from the interior of a lifeboat.

But more than anything, she wanted to stop coming back here. . . .

*   *   *

SR 8936

November 4, 2559

Captain Abigail Cole’s eyes shot open as the U81 Condor shuddered violently from breaching the troposphere of SR 8936, the dropship rapidly descending toward the planet’s surface at a precise vector, carefully threading between two thunderheads to mask its approach. The target asset was still several hundred kilometers away, near the peak of a densely forested mountain that overlooked a glacial lake. It might be a long way off, but Cole knew this would be the most prudent flight path if they wanted to keep out of Cortana’s purview. Although it was true that the Archon had an extraordinary reach through a multitude of Forerunner networks and a vast army of human-created AIs, she was still a far cry from omnipresent. Workarounds had been developed and implemented.

Nevertheless, Victory of Samothrace—which had deployed the Condor just fifty seconds earlier—would be slipping away to an unknown location within two minutes, leaving practically zero chance for its presence to be detected. A ship like Victory could not stay in one place for long, lest it risk exposure to Cortana. As a Valiant-class superheavy cruiser, Victory of Samothrace was one of only a handful of her kind that remained in service, with an extraordinary legacy of naval combat.

The warship also incorporated more than three hundred improvements on the classic design, including the most powerful magnetic accelerator cannon configuration ever constructed. The SARISSA-class weapon system was literally designed to be a point-to-point ship-killer, and apart from the UNSC Infinity, Valiant-class cruisers were the only vessels large enough to carry this type of MAC. The UNSC had dozens of heavy warship classes at its beck and call, but Victory represented the singular viable solution in their current operation. Given that Infinity had been tasked with an equally critical mission, humanity’s survival was now inexorably linked to these two vessels.

Even the Condor she rode to the surface was designed for this kind of high-risk scenario, a specialized dropship fitted with its own translight drive that would allow it to escape into slipspace at the drop of a hat. From there, it could catch up with Victory without having to risk recalling the mothership to its own location for retrieval. And this specific U81 also held a number of modifications, including a rear deployment bay adapted to carry an M15 Razorback all-terrain vehicle, presently clamped to the dropship’s interior deck.

It was a tight fit, but it worked.

It needed to.

Cole was strapped into one of the crash harnesses nearest the cockpit, staring across the front air dam of the Razorback to the dropship’s other side, right into the mirrored, helmeted face of Spartan super-soldier Jai-006. The hulking, gray-armored warrior didn’t flinch even a millimeter as the Condor lurched erratically in its descent. Cole was impressed. She had done countless simulations, evacuated a dozen starships, but none of that experience engendered the icy calm that seemed to rest on Jai, or Adriana-111, who sat to her immediate right as she turned her gaze down toward the Condor’s rear bay door. Somewhere on the other side of the Razorback, she imagined Michael-120, the third and final member of what was designated as Gray Team, an identical stoic replica of the other two Spartans.

The unit had been together for years, part of the formerly classified SPARTAN-II project, one peculiar entry in a long list of moral obscurities on the Office of Naval Intelligence’s illicit résumé. She didn’t know everything about the project and she preferred it that way—especially given the rumors about child abductions and horrifyingly invasive augmentations that had been circulating since the program was first declassified in 2547.

Some claimed that the Spartan-IIs had been forged under extraordinary circumstances that legitimized their unethical origins; others were eager to cry foul play. Right now, all Cole could really afford to care about was whether Gray Team could complete the objective and retrieve the asset from SR 8936. She could easily have pulled personnel from among the thousands of marines or the hundreds of Spartan-IVs on call within Victory, but this operation needed seasoned Spartan-IIs, the generation of legends who specialized in the impossible.

“This is Zulu Seven Niner Control,” Lieutenant Yun said across the comms. “We have two minutes until contact with the designated LZ. Over.” As a weapons officer and logistics specialist, few could match David Yun. Next to him, somewhere beyond the bulkhead door, was Commander Sunitha Prasad, who was carefully guiding the bird closer to the planet’s surface. They were one of the best flight teams Victory had to offer, and Cole trusted them implicitly. She just hoped she wasn’t spending this crew on a wild goose chase, or worse, losing it while the asset was compromised by the enemy.

“Affirmative, Lieutenant,” Cole replied, gritting her teeth. “We’ll be ready.”

Jai said in a strikingly flat tone, “At thirty seconds out, my team will begin prepping the M15.”

“Roger that, Gray Leader,” Yun responded. “We should be leveled off by then—hopefully less bumpy for you folks in the back.”

“Don’t worry about us, Lieutenant,” Jai said, tightening a bond on his armor as the dropship continued to violently wobble in its swift descent. “We’ll figure it out either way.”

Cole locked her eyes on Jai. “Is there anything that rattles a Spartan, Gray Leader?”

“I’m sure there is, ma’am,” Jai said, now checking his battle rifle’s magazine and its optics package. “I’ll let you know whenever we find out what that is.”

“Captain Cole, this is Commander Njuguna.” The XO’s voice came over the general comms channel. “Do you copy?”

“Yes, Commander. This is Cole. We read you loud and clear.”

“We’re sending probe findings to Zulu Seven Nine. The long and short is that your LZ looks completely clear, ma’am. You’ll have the full data drop at your disposal and can pivot if necessary.”

“Affirmative.”

She was suddenly struck—again—by the hard realization that if anything went sideways on this extraction, Emanuel Njuguna would take full command of Victory in her place. He was a talented naval tactician, to be sure, but Cole wasn’t exactly ready to let go of her ship just yet. If they successfully secured the asset from SR 8936, the operation that loomed before them was the very reason ONI had put Victory under her command. Her history in battle had evidently left an impression on those in charge. A key reason why she needed to be the one to make visual confirmation: the stakes were just too high to hand this off to anyone else.

“See you on the other side, Commander,” she said, quickly scanning through the probe data he’d sent. “Godspeed.”

“Affirmative, Captain. Take care of her, Spartans.”

“We got her safe and sound, Commander,” Adriana-111 responded, with the same unflappable tone as her team leader. “We’ll see you at the rendezvous.”

“Affirmative. Victory out.”

The transmission ended with a snap, and suddenly all Cole could think about was the broken remains of the UNSC Ozymandias falling toward the pale-crimson visage of Mars as a lifeboat carried her away to safety. Outnumbered and outgunned, her crew had managed to ultimately take down three karves and the enemy dreadnought, but their efforts were too little, too late.

The Banished were notorious thieves and marauders, the unexpected result of an uprising within the Covenant years before the Great Schism that led to the empire’s downfall. Under the leadership of a towering Jiralhanae champion known as Atriox, the Banished had been forged in the fires of rebellion, offering an open hand to any who wished to join them as they pillaged and looted both Covenant and UNSC storehouses. They were vicious and ruthless raiders, laying claim to anything that could secure their confederacy more military power. Over the last few years alone, they’d become remarkably strong.

Cole stared back at Jai-006’s emotionless visor and his unmoving frame anchored to the wall of the Condor, even as the ship still shuddered.

Spartans. Where would humanity be without them?

Extinct.

She had no doubt about it.

Cole’s attention quickly snapped back to their current situation. It had been over two years since the events on Mars, and once more she found herself relying on humanity’s augmented saviors to keep her alive.

Without any notice from Yun or Prasad, all three members of Gray Team unbuckled simultaneously at the designated time and immediately went to work like a well-oiled machine, moving with fluid, symbiotic ease that revealed their many years of working together. They began derigging the Razorback’s magnetic mount and checking the rifles, munitions launchers, and ammunition boxes stowed in the bed. Jai took the driver’s seat, Michael the passenger side.

“Ten seconds to contact for rolling deployment,” Yun sounded across the comms, and Cole’s pulse started to race. It was one thing to be aboard a starship weighing millions of tons with several meters’ worth of battleplate and breach compartments separating one from the cold vacuum of space. It was another thing entirely to execute a quick-drop rolling deployment from a descending Condor at 120 kph onto an uncharted and potentially hostile forest world.

“Hang on, Captain,” Adriana said as she moved toward the Condor’s bay door release.

She hit the switch and a powerful vortex of wind tore at the dropship’s interior as the door slowly opened. Outside revealed a quickly leveling horizon, with verdant evergreen trees stretching out for kilometers in every direction and snowcapped mountains crowning the skyline. It was approximately 0700 hours local time, and dawn was casting long shadows across the rocky bank of the river where they intended to drop the fully loaded Razorback before peeling off and taking cover in the mountain range forty kilometers to the north. The jagged beach swept up behind the Condor at a startling angle, as Adriana calmly climbed into the ground vehicle’s rear bed, hefting a Hydra explosives launcher.

The Spartans were ready for a sustained battle if necessary, but Cole hoped it was only precautionary. If it wasn’t, then something had gone terribly wrong with the operation. Technically, there shouldn’t be any threats on this planet at all, but Cole knew as well as anyone that since Cortana had access to the Domain and the Forerunners’ vast technological resources, her military might often felt as if it was only a heartbeat away.

SR 8936—colloquially called Rossbach’s World by the AI who had discovered it—had a total population of three humans: Admiral Serin Osman, commander in chief of ONI; Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood; and Spartan Charles Orzel. They had been brought to this uncharted location just as Cortana’s forces arrived on Earth in the form of a Guardian—an enormous, ancient machine once used by the Forerunners to govern worlds under their control. Fabricated from exotic materials of a long-forgotten age, Guardian Custodes were haunting angels of death the size of starships, with large spanning wings and grotesque faces.

Through her control of the Domain, Cortana had hundreds of such Guardians at her disposal, all of which were capable of monitoring and subduing just about any resistance.

In the case of Sydney, all that had been needed was a single blast from the machine’s attenuation pulse emitters. Upon its appearance over the city, the Guardian had been fired on by the frigate UNSC Plateau. Its response was an electromagnetic pulse that shut down everything on the vessel, sending the Plateau and its crew plummeting to the surface. The frigate’s impact destabilized its fusion drive and leveled the city.

“Remember, Gray Leader. If we can retrieve the others, that’s within the mission parameters, but it’s not our primary objective. Above all, we need the asset.” She left the unpleasant part unspoken. Even if it requires leaving or neutralizing the others.

“Copy that, Captain,” Jai said, looking at the river’s bank as it flashed behind them. “We’ll have it in possession momentarily. We’re ready, Lieutenant.”

“On my mark, Gray Leader,” Yun spoke quickly. “You have fifteen meters of loose gravel coming up that should make for smooth contact. See you in a few.” The logistics specialist held his breath for a beat, then shouted: “Now! Go! Go! Go!”

Jai immediately launched the vehicle into reverse, spinning its tires backward in a whirl of smoke and sending the Razorback out the bay door. Before it hit the ground, he’d already shifted into drive and accelerated to full speed, carefully managing the vehicle’s wild fishtail once it touched the gravel. The Razorback hurtled down the riverbank as the dropship banked hard to the right, peeling off toward the range of mountains that would provide cover before they extracted at this same location.

“Gray Three, do you copy?” Cole said, the bay door closing as g-forces intensified with the Condor’s turn. She reached for the right side of her head and slid down the tactical eyepiece fixed to her flight helmet. “I want to test the heads-up display transmitter.”

“I read you, ma’am,” Michael said through the comms channel. “Sending feed now.”

Within a few seconds, her eyepiece filled up with the visuals captured by Gray Three’s helmet, a momentarily disorienting picture from the passenger seat of the Razorback as it bounded alongside the river toward a waypoint marker at the top of the mountain they were ascending. Michael’s BR75 was raised, scanning the tree line on both sides of the vehicle. Despite the frenetic and disjointed acceleration of the Razorback as it climbed the terrain, his movements were careful and precise.