“Reactor red-lining,” the ops officer reported. “Meltdown in twenty-five seconds.”

Over the speakers, there was a crackle, a hiss of static, then: “Longsword interceptors engaging the enemy, sir.”

On the remaining aft camera, there were flickers of light—the cold blue strobes of Covenant energy weapons, and the red-orange fireballs of the Longswords’ missiles.

“Launch the missile,” the Captain said.

“Meltdown in ten seconds.”

“Missile away.”

A plume of exhaust divided the darkness of space.

“Five seconds to meltdown,” the ops officer said. “Four, three, two—”

“Shunt drive plasma to space,” the Captain ordered. “Cut power to all systems.”

The Covenant ship was silhouetted for a split second by pure white—then the view screen snapped off. The bridge lights went dead.

John could see everything, though. The bridge officers, Dr. Halsey as she clutched onto the railing, and Captain Wallace as he stood and saluted the pilots he had just sent to die.

The hull of the Commonwealth rumbled and pinged as the shock wave enveloped them. It grew louder, a subsonic roar that shook John to his bones.

The noise seemed to go on forever in the darkness. It faded... then it was completely silent.

“Power us back up,” the Captain said. “Slowly. Give me ten percent from the reactors if we can manage.”

The bridge lights came on, dimly, but they worked.

“Report,” the Captain ordered.

“All sensors offline,” the op officer said. “Resetting backup computer. Hang on. Scanning now. Lots of debris. It’s hot back there. All Longsword interceptors vaporized.” He looked up, the color drained from his face. “Covenant ship... intact, sir.”

“No,” the Captain said, and made a fist.

“It’s moving off, though,” the op officer said with a visible sigh of relief. “Very slowly.”

“What does it take to destroy one of those things?” the Captain whispered.

“We don’t know if our weapons can destroy them,” Dr. Halsey said. “But at least we know we can slow them down.”

The Captain stood straighter. “Best speed to the Damascus testing facility. We will execute a flyby orbit, and then proceed to a point twenty million kilometers distant to make repairs.”

“Captain?” Dr. Halsey said. “A flyby?”

“I have orders to get you to the facility and retrieve whatever Section Three has stowed there, ma’am. As we fly by, a dropship will take you and your—” He glanced at John. “—crew planet side. If the Covenant ship returns, we will be the bait to lure them away.”

“I understand, Captain.”

“We’ll rendezvous in orbit no later than 1900 hours.”

Dr. Halsey turned to John. “We need to hurry. We don’t have much time—and there is a great deal I need to show the Spartans.”

“Yes, ma’am,” John said. He took a long look at the bridge, and hoped he never had to return.

1845 Hours, November 27, 2525 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Damascus Materials Testing Facility, planet Chi Ceti 4

How far down was the testing facility? John and the other Spartans had been confined to a freight elevator for fifteen minutes, and the entire time it had been rapidly descending into the depths of Chi Ceti 4.

The last place John wanted to be was in another confined space.

The doors finally slid open, and they emerged in what appeared to be a well-lit hangar. The far end had an obstacle course set up with walls, trenches, dummy targets, and barbed wire.

Three technicians and at least a dozen AI figures were busy in the center of the room. John had seen AIs before—one at a time. Déjà had once told the Spartans that there were technical reasons why AIs couldn’t be in the same place at the same time, but here were many ghostly figures: a mermaid, a samurai warrior, and one made entirely of bright light with comets trailing in her wake.

Dr. Halsey cleared her throat. The technicians turned—the AIs vanished.

John had been so focused on the holograms that he hadn’t noticed the forty Plexiglas mannequins set up in rows. On each was a suit of armor.

The armor reminded John of the exoskeletons he had seen during training, but much less bulky, more compact. He stepped closer to one and saw that the suit actually had many layers; the outer layer reflected the overhead lights with a faint green-gold iridescence. It covered the groin, outer thighs, knees, shins, chest, shoulders, and forearms. There was a helmet and an integrated power pack—much smaller than standard Marine “battery sacks.” Underneath were intermeshed layers of matte-black metal.

“Project MJOLNIR,” Dr. Halsey said. She snapped her fingers and an exploded holographic schematic of the armor appeared next to her.

“The armor’s shell is a multilayer alloy of remarkable strength. We recently added a refractive coating to disperse incoming energy weapon attacks—to counter our new enemies.” She pointed inside the schematic. “Each battlesuit also has a gel-filled layer to regulate temperature; this layer can reactively change in density. Against the skin of the operator, there is a moisture-absorbing cloth suit, and biomonitors that constantly adjust the suit’s temperature and fit. There’s also an onboard computer that interfaces with your standard-issue neural implant.”

She gestured and the schematic collapsed so that it only displayed the outer layers. As the image changed, John glimpsed veinlike microcapillaries, a dense sandwich of optical crystal, a circulating pump, even what looked like a miniature fusion cell in the backpack.

“Most importantly,” Dr. Halsey said, “the armor’s inner structure is composed of a new reactive metal liquid crystal. It is amorphous, yet fractally scales and amplifies force. In simplified terms, the armor doubles the wearer’s strength, and enhances the reaction speed of a normal human by a factor of five.”

She waved her hand through the hologram. “There is one problem, however. This system is so reactive that our previous tests with unaugmented volunteers ended in—” She searched for right word. “—failure.” She nodded to one of the technicians.

A flat video appeared in the air. It showed a Marine officer, a Lieutenant, being fitted with the MJOLNIR armor. “Power is on,” someone said from offscreen. “Move your right arm, please.”

The soldier’s arm blurred forward with incredible speed. The Marine’s stoic expression collapsed into shock, surprise, and pain as his arm shattered. He convulsed—shuddered and screamed. As he jerked in pain John could hear the sounds of bones breaking.

The man’s own agony-induced spasms were killing him.

Halsey waved the video away. “Normal humans don’t have the reaction time or strength required to drive this system,” she explained. “You do. Your enhanced musculature and the metal and ceramic layers that have been bonded to your skeleton should be enough to allow you to harness the armor’s power. There has been... insufficient computer modeling, however. There will be some risk. You’ll have to move very slowly and deliberately until you get a feel for the armor and how it works. It cannot be powered down, nor can the response be scaled back. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” the Spartans answered.

“Questions?”

John raised his hand. “When do we get to try them, Doctor?”

“Right now,” she said. “Volunteers?”

Every Spartan raised a hand.

Dr. Halsey allowed herself a tiny smile. She surveyed them, and finally, she turned to John.

“You’ve always been lucky, John,” she said. “Let’s go.”

He stepped forward. The technicians fitted him as the others watched and the pieces of the MJOLNIR system were assembled around his body. It was like a giant three-dimensional puzzle.