Voro, however, had not survived treachery and war and the sundering of an Age to be silenced now. He willed himself to step forward. The urge to supplicate before Xytan was overwhelming, but he resisted.

It took all of Voro's strength to cross that distance with all watching.

He stepped upon the center stage and his image appeared holographically magnified, a titan towering over the crowd.

"I agree with what you say," Voro declared. "We must destroy the Jiralhanae, unquestioningly, and all who ally with them. But victory may mean nothing if the disease upon the holy ring escapes. It must be cleansed from the galaxy if we are to survive."

A murmur of assent passed through his fellows.

Xytan nodded as well, and then made a slight gesture with his hand, indicating Voro step down.

He gave a short bow to the Imperial Admiral and withdrew. Voro made it to his seat without betraying how he shook inside, without revealing to the others how stunned he was that he had survived.

Xytan reappeared upon the stage.

"Your words are Wisdom, Ship Master Voro. Which is why I have summoned Jiralhanae Alpha leadership under a banner of truce to this world."

An outcry rose from the gathered Ship Masters.

"I have no illusions that they come with false offers of peace," Xytan said. "So we shall stage our own ambush—here, where we are strong. After we have dealt a decapitating blow to the Jiralhanae Alpha Tribes, we will be free to eradicate the infection that threatens to spread from the most holy ring.

"As for how to accomplish this," Xytan said, "I call upon Oracle Master Parala Ahrmonro to report on a new opportunity."

Xytan's image flickered off and an elderly Sangheili appeared in the center of the stadium. Parala had long ago been counsel to the Prophet of Regret. Bent with age, a fierce intellect nonetheless shone in his milky eyes.

"We have most disturbing intelligence," Parala said with distaste. "The humans have wreaked havoc with their demons, destroying the first-discovered sacred ring construct. They were at the second ring as well, and have apparently discovered yet another world of Forerunner design. They must not be underestimated."

While this galled Voro, he had seen for himself the human-captured Bloodied Spirit, and reluctantly attempted to accept the Oracle Master's words as truth.

"Here," Parala said, "is an intercepted and translated human Slipspace transmission."

Human voices screeched through the stadium air. A translation overlaid the offensive human words and Voro listened as the incidents upon the second Halo relic were reported.

"Parasitic infestation known as the Flood has contaminated this construct… attempting to escape… unknown coordinating intelligence… Suggest FLEETCOM Nova-bomb the Delta Halo …"

Then alien icons appeared in the air, resolving into proper words: "SEND ELITE STRIKE TEAM TO RECOVER TECHNOLOGICAL ASSETS FROM ONYX. SEND SPARTANS."

An embedded string of celestial coordinates streamed alongside these words.

A collective mummer of outrage came from the Ship Masters.

Voro strained to isolate the human word for demons from their objectionable speech… Spartans. It heated his blood to a boil.

Xytan's image returned to the stage. "This heresy cannot be ignored for reasons dogmatic and strategic. We will go to this world. Onyx, to protect and secure the holy artifacts. They will be of incalculable value in our impending struggles."

Xytan extended his titanic holographic hand to Voro. "You, Ship Master Voro 'Mantakree, are now Fleet Master Voro Nar 'Mantakree. Lead your newly assembled battle group to this world. Destroy the demons and deny them their prize at all costs."

Voro fell to one knee.

"It shall be as you say," he said. "My task is holy My blood pure. I shall not fail."

Secretly Voro wondered if these honors had been bestowed upon him to removed him and his "wise words" from Xytan's chorus of unanimous ascent. So be it. He would accomplish his task. He would return glorious.

Kwassass punched the button in the black box and listened to the human voice. He was close to understanding what it meant. A threat. To him. All Covenant. A promise of retribution.

The sound distorted, slowed, and stopped. The box was out of power.

One of the Huragok watching gave an ultrasonic cry that shot through Kwassass's skull.

The creature charged him, tentacles flailing, and grasped at his box. It wrenched it from Kwassass's grasp.

Other Huragok charged and tried to take the box from their fellow.

Did they understand what the human said? Did they understand the danger?

There were more Huragok around him than he had realized. The shadows rippled with their buoyant bodies, each with six glassy black eyes firmly fixed upon the human voice box.

The Huragok rushed the box back to the Great Cylinder, to the panel where the box had been removed. There were multicolored wires inside that matched those in the box.

Huragok twisted these wires together. Tiny sparks danced. Red symbols flickered upon a display in the box, and the device spoke once more.

True to their nature, Huragok were just as likely to fix something broken as they were likely to take apart something that worked perfectly.

A dozen Huragok pressed closer around the device, all squirming tentacles and glistening eager eyes.

The voice from the box started again—now loud and clear: "This is the prototype Nova bomb, nine fusion warheads encased in lithium triteride armor. When detonated it compresses its fusionable material to neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold. I am Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, temporarily in command of the UNSC military base Reach. To the Covenant uglies that might be listening, you have a few seconds to pray to your dammed heathen gods. You all have a nice day in hell."

Kwassass pushed his way through the throng of Huragok. He had to get to the thing. Pull those wires.

There was a flash of the most beautiful light, and more glorious heat than he'd ever— A battle group of eighteen destroyers, two cruisers, and one carrier collected in high orbit over Joyous Exultation, and drew in a spherical formation about their flagship, the Incorruptible.

They shimmered blue-white and vanished into Slipspace.

A heartbeat later Vice Admiral Whitcomb's ploy of slipping the UNSC prototype Nova bomb into Covenant supplies had finally paid off: a star ignited between Joyous Exultation and its moon.

Every ship not protected on the dark side of the planet boiled and vaporized in an instant.

The atmosphere of the planet wavered as helical spirals of luminescent particles lit both north and south poles, making curtains of blue and green ripple over the globe. As the thermonuclear pressure wave spread and butted against the thermosphere, it heated the air orange, compressed it, until it touched the ground and scorched a quarter of the world.

The tiny nearby moon Malhiem cracked and shattered into a billion rocky fragments and clouds of dust.

The overpressure force subsided, and three-hundred-kilometer-per-hour winds swept over Joyous Exultation, obliterating cities and whipping tidal waves over its coastlines.

The Covenant Schism—the shattering of its client races for a thousand years, and the genesis of their end—had truly begun.

SECTION VI

THE GHOSTS OF ONYX

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

1700 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM, PLANET ONYX \ NEAR RESTRICTED REGION ZONE 67

Kurt crouched, motionless in the undergrowth, and waited for the Sentinels to move into position.

There'd been no happy reunion with Blue Team, no time for explanations, not even a handshake; all there'd been time for was running. The Sentinel patrol had been on them the instant they'd recovered the Spartans—an hour of nonstop cat and mouse through the jungle.

The drones were getting very good at hunting them.

A pair of Sentinels paused, hovering four meters above the ground. After bombarding the jungle from a hundred meters with energy blasts… and missing, they had finally descended to their level.

Their lateral spars flexed as if they could smell the trap. The spars about each sphere then drifted farther part and both spheres moved within centimeters of each other.

It reminded Kurt of cell division, only in reverse. They were combining.

What the purpose of this "mating" was, Kurt wasn't sure. He was, however, sure he didn't like it.

The now-double Sentinel crept closer.

Team Saber on the left flank detonated fougasse positioned under the drones. Flames shot up and lit the canopy, smoldering shrapnel obliterating the foliage.

A split second later Blue Team on the right flank let loose an SPNKr missile and a hail of MA5B fire. They were in perfect defilade.

The air filed with white-hot tracers and black roiling clouds. Two nearby trees crackled and fell.

Kurt flashed his red status light, and the fire ceased.

Saber had jumped the gun. A half second maybe, but they had definitely shot before the Sentinels were in position.

What had he expected? For all the simulated combats the Gamma Company Spartans had been through, nothing could have prepared them for continuous guerilla action with the Forerunner killing machines.

Kurt squinted. Even with image enhancement and thermals he couldn't make out anything in the air where the Sentinels had been. But he could see the ground… and among the splintered tree trunks, burning leaves, and popping metal, there was neither drone.

He blinked his amber light twice, ordering the teams to fall back. He didn't like this one bit.

A full bank of green status lights winked at him.

Kurt saw motion in the mist: shadows that resolved into six rods arranged in a long hexagonal geometry—two spheres within—pulsing as the energy field enveloping the combined Sentinels shimmered.

They were completely untouched.

Kurt flashed his red three times: the retreat signal.

One sphere glowed and moved back and forth searching. It stopped and fixed upon Kurt.

He jumped.

A flash of light struck. The jungle floor detonated and a three-meter crater fizzled and cracked into glass.

Kurt rolled into a crouch and instinctively returned fire with his MA5K.

This was part of the plan, too: the part where everything went wrong and he had insisted on drawing the enemy's fire while the others slipped away. He knew the terrain: Twin Forks River was three hundred meters to the east. It should be a stroll through the park.

The other sphere shone like burnished gold and his rounds bounced off its energy shield… even as the first sphere reheated, building charge for another shot.

Kurt ran, zigzagging into the foliage.

In this doubled configuration the Sentinels could simultaneously fire and defend with an energy shield. That was big trouble.

It seemed all their engagements with the Sentinels were doing was teaching them how to be more effective in combat.

Explosions followed Kurt almost as if his footsteps were setting them off.

The trees parted ahead and the Twin Forks River snaked through the jungle. The water was muddy and churning.

Kurt leapt and splashed into the swift current.

He sank to the bottom. Internal oxygen cut on inside his SPI suit, and Kurt grasped rocks along the river bottom, crawling upstream. Through the murky water he spotted a rock ledge and tucked underneath.

Between him and Sentinels were three meters of moving ice-cold water, a meter of rock, and a layer of photo-reactive circuits in his armor. He should be undetectable to any sensor.

At least undetectable enough, he hoped, to fool these things.

He waited.

No explosions. No flashes. No heat.

The combined Sentinel wasn't his biggest worry, though. It was the one on overwatch.

The Sentinels patrolled in threes now: two at mid to ground level, and another two to three thousand meters in the air—watching everything, reporting their tactics, and learning.

As long as that third one tracked them, the Spartans would be on the defensive, reacting, instead of initiating action.

Kurt wondered why the Sentinels hadn't called in reinforcements, combined, and let loose with enough firepower to burn the entire jungle.

… Unless they were deliberately playing cat and mouse with them? To learn more about how they fought?

He had to be smarter than them. Take out all three. Take the initiative. Maybe with Blue Team, he could do it.

Kurt waited two more minutes, then pulled himself out of the river. He sprinted for the cover of the jungle.

There were no signs of pursuit.

He remained COM silent and crept back to the prearranged fallback position.

As he approached the region of broken ground bordering Zone 67, he slowed. There was less cover, so he scanned the skies for Sentinel overwatch. All clear.

Ahead the land turned to savanna grass, acacia trees, and large striated boulders. One rock in particular had a hollow underneath where they had arranged to meet. It provided cover without restricting the view of the local airspace. If attacked, they had a clean line back to the jungle.

There would be at least two guards on lookout, and at least one Spartan at the jungle line to watch their line of retreat. Normally he would click his COM twice to alert the sentry, but he didn't even want to take that small risk in the open.

So Kurt waited, guessing the sentry would be either Linda or Olivia. If it was Linda—he scanned the nearby trees—she'd be up there, in a good sniping position.

If it was Olivia, she could be anywhere. She was eerily proficient at camouflage and stealth.

There was the clatter: a single stone three meters to his left.

He turned and, as predicted, Olivia crouched a meter behind him in the shadow of a low tree, perfectly blending into the grass and dappled light in her SPI armor, waving at him to make sure he saw the slight blur of motion. Kurt had no doubt that she could have been in fluorescent orange fatigues and still managed to look like part of the terrain.

Kurt waved to her and then aimed his single-beam COM at the rendezvous rock. The COM established handshake and then crackled to life.

"One coming in," he said.

"Come ahead," Kelly's voice came back. "Good to hear your voice."

"Yours too. Out."

Kurt remembered the last time he had Kelly on the single beam—when his thruster pack had exploded and he rocketed out of control into deep space.