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Obscured by layers of dust and fire, a blazing pattern emerged beneath: crosses and lines and dots.
"Magnification factor one thousand," Lash ordered.
Yang was frozen.
Waters bent over and tapped in the command.
The view on-screen blinked and stepped closer—past boiling air, clouds, tumbling mountains—zooming to ground level, revealing a lattice of three-meter-long rods and half-meter blazing red spheres that hovered between them, forming a crystalline structure.
"Back it off," Lash said
The view pulled back and showed that this drone-constructed scaffolding stretched over kilometers… they had been under
every landmass, every ocean… under the entire surface— orderly linked rows like the carbon bonds of an infinite polymer chain, or an immense colony of living interlinked army ants.
The drones were the planet Onyx.
"There are trillions of them," Lieutenant Durruno whispered.
Clusters of drones heated; culminated beams shot forth again, targeting more distant Covenant vessels and vaporizing them.
"They're protecting this place," Waters said. "Why?"
"Shockwave from surface detonation impacting far side of the moon in seven seconds," Durruno said. The blood drained from her face.
The viewscreens filled with static.
"Lost the satellites," Yang cried.
"Cho," Lash said. "Jump-heat the reactor and dump everything into those capacitors. Now! Get us out of here!"
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← ^ CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
nOO HOURS, NOVEMBER 4, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ UNDETERMINED LOCATION WITHIN FORERUNNER CONSTRUCT KNOWN AS SHIELD WORLD
The Spartans and Dr. Halsey gathered about the graves of William and Dante.
It was a fine spot: sunlight dappled the river that flowed past this grove of oak trees. A path of banded onyx curved through the area. They had pried up some of the slabs, scratched in William's and Dante's names, and erected two more to serve as markers for Holly and the Lieutenant Commander.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez read from a small black
leather book: "We have come to a place far from home / Time long passed since we have seen the sun rise / A place where peace can fimally come / A place where we can rest and laugh and sing and love once more."
He hung his head and closed the volume, A Soldier's Tale: Rainforest Wars, the military classic written in 2164.
There was a moment of silence.
"Burial detail dismissed," Fred told them.
Ash set a spent brass casing on each marker, a token of respect for his fellow Spartans. He didn't know what else to do.
It had been a full day and a half since the Lieutenant Commander had ordered them into the rift, and a day and a half since it had sealed, stranding them all here.
The shock of losing him and the others hadn't worn off. They all felt numb and hollow. Spartans usually did not have the luxury of grief; contemplation of the dead was almost always truncated by another mission, a battle, and their focus redirected to the larger strategic picture of saving humanity.