“You don’t join,” he finally told the Corporal. “You are selected.”

“I see,” Corporal Harland said, and wrinkled his brow. “Well, sir, if anyone ever asks, tell them to sign me up.”

The Military Police attendant appeared. “Corporal Harland? They’re ready for you now.” A set of double doors opened on the far wall. Harland gave John another salute, and nodded.

As the Corporal got up and strode toward the doors, he passed an older man on his way out. He wore the uniform of a UNSC Naval officer, a Captain. John sized the man up quickly—polished shoulder insignia, new material. The man was a newly ordained Captain.

John stood at attention and snapped a precision salute. “Officer on the deck,” John barked.

The Captain paused, and looked John up and down. There was a glint of amusement in his eyes as he returned the salute. “As you were, Master Chief.”

John stood at ease. The Captain’s name—Keyes, J.—was embroidered on the dress-gray tunic. John recognized the name immediately: Captain Keyes, the hero of Sigma Octanus. At least, he thought, one of the surviving heroes.

Keyes glanced at the Master Chief’s uniform. His eyes lingered on the Spartan insignia, and then on the Master Chief’s serial-number tag just under the stripes of his rank emblem. A faint smile appeared on the Captain’s face. “It’s good to see you again, Chief.”

“Sir?” The Master Chief had never met Captain Keyes. He had heard of his tactical brilliance at Sigma Octanus, but he had never met the man face-to-face.

“We met a very long time ago. Dr. Halsey and I—” He stopped. “Hell. I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

“Of course, sir. I understand.”

The Military Police attendant appeared in the hallway. “Captain Keyes, you’re wanted topside by Admiral Stanforth.”

The Captain nodded to the attendant. “In a moment,” he said. He stepped closer to the Master Chief and whispered, “Be careful in there. The ONI brass are—” He searched for the right word. “—irritated by the end results of our encounter with the Covenant at Sigma Octanus. I’d keep my head down in there.” He glanced back toward the debriefing-chamber doors.

“Irritated, sir?” John asked, genuinely puzzled. He would have thought the UNSC top brass would be elated by the victory, despite its cost. “But we won.”

Captain Keyes took a step back and cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “Didn’t Dr. Halsey ever teach you that winning isn’t everything, Master Chief?” He saluted. “You’ll excuse me.”

John saluted. He was so confused by Captain Keyes’ statement that he kept saluting as the Captain walked out of the room.

Winning was everything. How could someone with Captain Keyes’ reputation think otherwise?

The Master Chief tried to recall if he had ever read anything like that in any military history or philosophy texts. What else was there other than winning? The only other obvious choice was losing... and he had long been taught that defeat was an unacceptable alternative. Certainly, Captain Keyes didn’t mean that they should have lost at Sigma Octanus?

Unthinkable.

He stood silently for ten minutes mulling this over. Finally the Military Police attendant entered the waiting room. “They’re ready for you now, sir.”

The double doors opened and Corporal Harland came out. The young man’s eyes were glazed and he trembled slightly. He looked worse than he had looked when the Master Chief had found him on Sigma Octanus IV.

The Master Chief gave a curt nod to the Corporal and then entered the debriefing chamber. The doors closed behind him.

His eyes instantly adjusted to the dark room. A large, curved desk dominated the far end of the rectangular room. A domed ceiling curved over his head, cameras, microphone, and speakers positioned like constellations.

A spotlight snapped on and tracked the Master Chief as he approached the desk.

A dozen men and women in Navy uniforms sat in the shadows. Even with his enhanced eyesight, the Master Chief could barely make out their scowling features and the glistening brass oak leaves and stars through the glare of the overhead light.

He stood at attention and saluted.

The debriefing panel ignored the Master Chief and spoke among themselves.

“The transmission that Keyes intercepted only makes sense translated this way,” a man in the shadows said. A holotank hummed into operation. Tiny geometric symbols danced in the air above it: squares, triangles, bars, and dots.

To the Master Chief, they looked like either Morse code or ancient Aztec hieroglyphics.

“I will concede that point,” a woman’s voice in the darkness replied. “But translation software comes up empty. It’s not a new Covenant dialect that we’ve discovered.”

“Or a Covenant dialect at all,” someone else said.

Finally one of the officers deigned to notice the Master Chief. “At ease, soldier,” he said.

The Master Chief let his arm fall. “Spartan 117, reporting as ordered, sirs.”

There was a pause, then the woman’s voice spoke up, “We would like to congratulate you on your successful mission, Master Chief. You’ve certainly given us plenty to consider. We would like to pin down a few details of your mission.”

There was something in her voice that made John nervous. Not scared. But it was the same feeling he had going into combat. The same feeling he got when bullets started flying.

“You do know, Master Chief,” the first male voice said, “that not answering truthfully—or omitting any relevant details will lead to a court-martial?”

John bristled. As if he could ever forget his duty. “I will answer to the best of my abilities, sir,” he replied stiffly.

The holotank hummed again and images from a Spartan helmet recorder sprang into view. John noted the camera ID—it was his own. The images blurred forward, then stopped. A three-dimensional image of the floating creatures he had seen in Côte d’Azur hung in the air, motionless.

“Playback, loop bookmarks one through nine, please,” the woman’s voice called out.

Instantly, the holographic image animated—the alien quickly took apart and then reassembled a car’s electric motor.

“This creature,” she continued. “During the mission, did you see any other Covenant species—Grunts or Jackals—interact with them?”

“No, ma’am. As far as I could see, they were left alone.”

“And this one,” she said. The image changed to his firefight with the gigantic armored aliens. “At any time did you see these things interact with the other Covenant species?”

“No, ma’am—” The Master Chief reconsidered. “Well, in a manner of speaking, yes. If you could review the recording at time minus two minutes from this frame, please.”

The holo paused and then blurred backward.

“There,” he said. The video played forward as the Master Chief and Fred examined the crushed Jackal in the museum.

“That impression in this Jackal’s back,” he said. “I believe it is the armored alien’s bootprint.”

“What do you mean, son?” a new man asked. His voice was older and rough.

“I can only offer my opinion, sir. I am not a scientist.”

“Offer it, Master Chief,” the same scratchy voice said. “I, for one, would be very interested to hear what someone with firsthand experience has to say... for a change.”

There was a rustle of papers in the shadows, then silence.

“Well, sir—it looks to me like this Jackal simply got in the larger creature’s way. There’s no attempt to move it, and no deviation in the path of the following footfalls. It simply walked over the smaller alien.”

“Evidence of a hierarchical caste structure perhaps?” the old man murmured.

“Let’s move on,” the woman again spoke, her voice now laced with irritation.

The holo image changed yet again. A stone object appeared—the rock the Master Chief recovered from the museum.

“This stone,” she said, “is a typical igneous granite specimen but with an unusual concentration of aluminum oxide inclusions—specifically rubies. It is a match for the mineral specimens recovered from grid thirteen by twenty-four.