John knew that this had to be some sort of mission. The Chief had been too close for it to be a coincidence.

“You engaged and neutralized a threat,” Mendez replied. “That action seems to have answered your question, Squad Leader.”

John wrinkled his forehead as he thought it through. “I followed the chain of command,” he said. “The Sergeant told me to fight. I was threatened and in imminent danger. But they were still UNSC Special Forces. Fellow soldiers.”

Mendez lowered his voice. “Not every mission has simple objectives or comes to a logical conclusion. Your priorities are to follow the orders in your chain of command, and then to preserve your life and the lives of your team. Is that clear?”

“Sir,” John said. “Yes, sir.” He glanced back at the ring. Blood was seeping into the canvas mat. John had an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He hit the showers and let the blood rinse off him. He felt strangely sorry for the men he had killed.

But he knew his duty—the Chief had even been unusually verbose in order to clarify the matter. Follow orders and keep himself and his team safe. That’s all he had to focus on. John didn’t give the incident in the gym another thought.

0930 Hours, September 11, 2525 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach UNSC Military Complex, planet Reach

Dr. Halsey reclined in Mendez’s padded chair. She considered pilfering one of the Sweet William cigars from the box on his desk—see why he considered them such a treat. The stench wafting from the box, however, was too overwhelming. How did he stand them?

The door opened and CPO Mendez halted in the doorway. “Ma’am,” he said, and stood straighter. “I wasn’t informed that you would be visiting today. In fact, I had understood that you were out of the system for another week. I would have made arrangements.”

“I’m sure you would have.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Our situation has changed. Where are my Spartans? They are not in their barracks, nor on any of the ranges.”

Mendez hesitated. “They can no longer train here, ma’am. We had to find them... other facilities.”

Dr. Halsey stood and smoothed the pleats in her gray skirt. “Maybe you should explain that statement, Chief.”

“I could,” he replied, “but it will be easier to show you.”

“Very well,” Dr. Halsey said, her curiosity piqued. Mendez escorted her to his personal Warthog parked outside his office. The all-terrain combat vehicle had been refitted; the heavy chain-gun on the back had been removed and replaced with a rack of Argent V missiles.

Mendez drove them off the base and onto winding mountain roads. “Reach was first colonized for its rich titanium deposits,” Mendez told her. “There are mines in these mountains thousands of meters deep. The UNSC uses them for storage.”

“I presume you do not have my Spartans taking inventory today, Chief?”

“No, ma’am. We just need the privacy.”

Mendez drove the Warthog past a manned guardhouse and into a large tunnel that sloped steeply underground.

The road wound down in a spiral, deeper into sold granite. Mendez said, “Do you remember the Navy’s first experiments with powered exoskeletons?”

“I’m not sure I see the connection between this place, my Spartans, and the exoskeleton projects,” Dr. Halsey replied, frowning, “but I’ll play along a bit further. Yes, I know all about the Mark I prototypes. We had to scrap the concept and redesign battle armor from the ground up for the MJOLNIR project. The Mark Is consumed enormous energy. Either they had to be plugged into a generator or use inefficient broadcast power—neither option is practical on a battlefield.”

Mendez decelerated slightly as he approached a speed bump. The Warthog’s massive tires thudded over the obstacle.

“They used the units that weren’t scrapped,” Dr. Halsey continued, “as dock loaders to move heavy equipment.” She cocked one eyebrow. “Or might they have been dumped in a place like this?”

“There are dozens of the suits here.”

“You haven’t put my Spartans in some of those antiques?”

“No. Their trainers are using them for their own safety,” Mendez replied. “When the Spartans recovered from microgravity therapy, they were eager to get back to their routine. However, we experienced some—” He paused, searching for the right word. “... difficulties.”

He glanced at his passenger. His face was grim. “Their first day back, three trainers were accidentally killed during hand-to-hand combat exercises.”

Dr. Halsey cocked an eyebrow. “Then they are faster and stronger than we anticipated?”

“That,” Mendez replied, “would be understating the situation.”

The tunnel opened into a large cavern. There were lights scattered on the walls, overhead a hundred meters up on the ceiling, and along the floor, but they did little to dissipate the overwhelming darkness.

Mendez parked the Warthog next to a small, prefabricated building. He jumped out and helped Dr. Halsey step from the vehicle. “This way, please.” Mendez gestured to the room. “We’ll have a better view from inside.”

The building had three glass walls and several monitors marked MOTION, INFRARED, DOPPLER, and PASSIVE. Mendez pushed a button and the room climbed a track along the wall until they were twenty meters off the floor.

Mendez keyed a microphone and spoke: “Lights.”

Floodlights snapped on and illuminated a section of the cavern the size of a football field. In the center stood a concrete bunker. Three men in the primitive Mark I power armor stood on top. Six more stood evenly spaced around the perimeter. A red banner had been planted in the center of the bunker.

“Capture the flag?” Dr. Halsey asked. “Past all that heavy armor?”

“Yes. The trainers in those exoskeletons can run at thirty-two KPH, lift two tons, and have a thirty-millimeter minigun mounted on self-targeting armatures—stun rounds, of course. They’re also equipped with the latest motion sensors and IR scopes. And needless to say, their armor is impervious to standard light weapons. It would take two or three platoons of conventional Marines to take that bunker.”

Mendez spoke again in the microphone, and his voice echoed off the cavern walls: “Start the drill.”

Sixty seconds ticked by. Nothing happened. One hundred twenty seconds. “Where are the Spartans?” Dr. Halsey asked.

“They’re here,” Mendez replied. Dr. Halsey caught a glimpse of motion in the dark: a shadow against shadows, a familiar silhouette.

“Kelly?” she whispered.

The trainers turned and fired at the shadow, but it moved with almost supernatural quickness. Even the self-targeting systems couldn’t track it.

From above, a man free-rappelled down from the girders and gantries overhead. The newcomer landed behind one of the perimeter guards, quiet as a cat. He punched the guard’s armor twice, denting the heavy plates, then dropped low and swept the target’s legs out from under him. The guard sprawled on the ground.

The Spartan attached his rappelling line to the trainer. A moment later the writhing guard shot upward, into the darkness.

Two other guards turned to attack.

The Spartan dodged, rolled, and melted into the shadows.

Dr. Halsey realized the trainer’s exoskeleton wasn’t being pulled up—it was being used as a counterweight.

Two more Spartans, dangling from the other end of that rope, dropped unnoticed into the center of the bunker. Dr. Halsey immediately recognized one of them, although he was dressed entirely in black, save his open eye slits—Number 117. John.

John landed, braced, and kicked one guard. The man landed in a heap... eight meters away.