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Dr. Halsey walked over to the picture. “He was awarded this Legion of Honor medallion because hedove into a bunker of Covenant soldiers. He took out twenty by himself and saved a platoon of Marines
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who were pinned down by a stationary energy weapon emplacement. I’ve read the report, but I’m stillnot sure how he managed to do it.”
She turned to Cortana and stared into her odd translucent eyes. “You’ve read his CSV?”
“I’m reading it again right now.”
“Then you know he is neither the smartest nor the fastest nor the strongest of the Spartans. But he is thebravest—and quite possibly the luckiest. And in my opinion, he is the best.”
“Yes,” Cortana whispered. “I concur with your analysis, Doctor.” She drifted closer.
“Could you sacrifice him if you had to? If it meant completing the mission?” Dr. Halsey asked quietly.“Could you watch him die?”
Cortana halted and the processing symbols racing across her skin froze midcalculation.
“My priority Alpha order is to complete this mission,” she replied emotionlessly. “The Spartans’ safetyas well as mine is a Beta-level priority command.”
“Good.” Dr. Halsey returned to her desk and sat down. “Then you can have him.”
Cortana smiled and blazed with brilliant electricity.
“Now,” Dr. Halsey said, and tapped on her desk to regain Cortana’s attention. “Show me your pick ofour ship candidates for the mission.”
Cortana opened her hand. In her palm there was a tiny model of a Halcyon-class UNSC cruiser.
“ThePillar of Autumn,” Cortana said.
Dr. Halsey leaned back and crossed her arms. Modern USNC cruisers were rare in the fleet. Only ahandful of the impressive warships remained . . . and those were being pulled back to bolster the defenseof the Inner Colonies. This junk-heap, however, was not one of these ships.
“ThePillar of Autumn is forty-three years old,” Cortana said. “Halcyon-class ships were the smallestvessel ever to receive the cruiser designation. It is approximately one-third the tonnage of the Marathon-class cruiser currently in service.
“Halcyon-class ships were pulled from long-term storage—they were designated to be scrapped, in fact.TheAutumn was refit in 2550, to serve in the current conflict near Zeta Doradus. Their Mark Two fusion
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engines supply a tenth of the power of modern reactors. Their armor is light by current standards.Weapon refits have upgraded their offensive capabilities with a single Magnetic Acceleration Cannonand six Archer missile pods.
“The only noteworthy design feature of this ship is the frame.” Cortana reached down and pulled off theskin of the holographic model as if it were a glove. “The structural system was designed by a Dr. RobertMcLees—cofounder of the Reyes-McLees Shipyards over Mars—in 2510. It was, at the time, deemedunnecessarily overmassed and costly due to series of cross-bracings and interstitial honeycombs. Thedesign was subsequently dropped from all further production models. Halcyon-class ships, however,have a reputation for being virtually indestructible. Reports indicate these ships being operational evenafter sustaining breaches to all compartments and losing ninety percent of their armor.”