Los Teros

halo
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Section I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Section II
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Section III
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
ChapterTwenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Section IV
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine
Section V
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Section VIEpilogue
Praise forHALO: The Fall of Reach
Copyright

HALO
THE FALL OF REACH
Eric Nylund

A Del Rey®Book
THE BALLANTINE PUBLISHING GROUP • NEW YORK

For Syne Mitchell. She watched my six, patched me up, and provided transportation to my DZ everyday
—no soldier could ever ask for better support in the field . . . or a better wife.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Singled out for conspicuous meritand bravery under fire are the following personnel:

Eric S. Trautmann went far above and beyond the call of duty providing background material, editing,
reality checks, and a constant supply of caffeine and encouragement.

Bungie for making a superb game, and in particular: Jason Jones, Alex Seropian, John Howard, and
Lorraine McLees.

The brilliant tactical unit at Microsoft’s FranchiseDevelopment Group: Nancy Figatner, Brannon Boren,
and Doug Zartman.

Microsoft’s User Experience fireteam: Keith Cirillo, Jo Tyo, and Matt Whiting.

The troopers at Ballantine/Del Rey: Caron Harris, David Stevenson, Steve Palmer, Crystal Velasquez—
and special thanks to Steve Saffel.

PROLOGUE
0500 Hours, February 12, 2535 (Military Calendar) / Lambda Serpentis System, Jericho VIITheater
of Operations
“Contact. All teams stand by: enemy contact, my position.”
The Chief knew there were probably more than a hundred of them—motion sensors were off the scale.
He wanted to see them for himself, though; his training made that lesson clear: “Machines break. Eyes
don’t.”
The four Spartans that composed Blue Team covered his back, standing absolutely silent and immobile
in theirMJOLNIR combat armor. Someone had once commented that they looked like Greek war gods
in the armor . . . but his Spartans were far more effective and ruthless than Homer’s gods had ever been.
He snaked the fiber-optic probe up and over the three-meter-high stone ridge. When it was in place, the
Chief linked it to his helmet’s heads-up display.
On the other side he saw a valley with eroded rockwalls and a river meandering through it . . . and
camped along the banks as far as he could see were Grunts.
The Covenant used these stocky aliens as cannon fodder. They stood a meter tall and wore armored
environment suits that replicated the atmosphere of their frozen homeworld. They reminded the Chief of
biped dogs, not only in appearance, but because their speech—even with the newtranslation software—
was an odd combination of high-pitched squeaks, guttural barks, and growls.
They were about as smart as dogs, too. But what they lacked in brainpower, they made up for in sheer
tenacity. He had seen them hurl themselves at their enemies until the ground was piled high with their
corpses . . . and their opponents had depleted their ammunition.
These Grunts were unusually wellarmed: needlers, plasma pistols, and there were four stationary
plasma cannons. Those could be a problem.
One other problem: there were easily a thousand of them.
This operation had to go off without a hitch. Blue Team’s mission was to draw out the Covenant rear
guard and let Red Team slip through in the confusion. Red Team would then plant a HAVOK tactical

nuke. When the next Covenant ship...