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WILLIAM C. DIETZ
BALLANTINE BOOKS ? NEW YORK
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For Marjorie, with love and gratitude.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks go to Steve Saffel for charting the course, to Doug Zartman for coordinating the pieces, to Eric S. Trautmann for polishing ’til it sparkled, to Eric Nylund who led the way inThe Fall of Reach , to Nancy Figatner and the Franchise Development Group for their support, and to Jason Jones, who, along with the rest of the outstanding Bungie team, created one helluva pulse-pounding game.
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PROLOGUE
0103 Hours, September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC CruiserPillar of Autumn, location unknown.
Tech Officer (3rd Class) Sam Marcus swore as the intercom roused him from fitful sleep. He rubbed his blurry eyes and glanced at the Mission Clock bolted to the wall above his bunk. He’d been asleep for three hours—his first sleep cycle in thirty-six hours, damn it. Worse, this was the first time since the ship had jumped that he’d been able to fall asleepat all .
“Jesus,” he muttered, “this better be good.”
The Old Man had put the tech crews on triple shifts after thePillar of Autumn jumped away from Reach. The ship was a mess after the battle, and what was left of the engineering crews worked around the clock to keep the aging cruiser in one piece. Nearly one third of the tech staff had died during the flight from Reach, and every department was running a skeleton crew.
Everyone else went into the freezer, of course—nonessential personnel always got an ice-nap during a Slipspace jump. In over two hundred combat cruises, Marcus had clocked fewer than seventy-two hours in cryostorage. Right now, though, he was so tired that even the discomfort of cryorevival sounded appealing if it meant that he could manage some uninterrupted sleep.
Of course, it was difficult to complain; Captain Keyes was a brilliant tactician—and everyone aboard theAutumn knew just how close they’d come to destruction when Reach fell to the enemy. A major naval base destroyed, millions dead or dying as the Covenant burned the planet to a cinder—and one of Earth’s few remaining defenses transformed into corpses and molten slag.
All in all, they’d been damned lucky to get away—but Sam couldn’t help but feel that everyone on theAutumn was living on borrowed time.
The intercom buzzed again, and Sam swung himself out of the bunk. He jabbed at the comm control. “Marcus here,” he growled.
“I’m sorry to wake you, Sam, but I need you down in Cryo Two.” Tech Chief Shephard sounded exhausted. “It’s important.”
“Cryo Two?” Sam repeated, puzzled. “What’s the emergency, Thom? I’m not a cryo specialist.”
“I can’t give you specifics, Sam. The Captain wants it kept off the comm,” Shephard replied, his voice almost a whisper. “Just in case we have eavesdroppers.”