"William C. Dietz - Halo 1 - The Flood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dietz William)

THE
FLOOD

WILLIAM C. DIETZ

BALLANTINE BOOKS тАв NEW YORK

For Marjorie, with love and gratitude.



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks go to Steve Saffel for charting the course, to Doug Zartman for coordinating the pieces, to Eric
S. Trautmann for polishing тАЩtil 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.



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. HeтАЩd been asleep for
three hoursтАФhis first sleep cycle in thirty-six hours, damn it. Worse, this was the first time since the ship
had jumped that heтАЩd been able to fall asleepat all .

тАЬJesus,тАЭ he muttered, тАЬthis better be good.тАЭ

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 courseтАФnonessential 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 tacticianтАФand everyone aboard the
Autumn knew just how close theyтАЩd 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 cinderтАФand one of
EarthтАЩs few remaining defenses transformed into corpses and molten slag.

All in all, theyтАЩd been damned lucky to get awayтАФbut Sam couldnтАЩt help but feel that everyone on the
Autumn was living on borrowed time.