Halo: The Flood
Chapter One
C0127 Hours (Ship's Time), September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNSC Cruiser Pillar of Autumn, location unknown.
The Pillar of Autumn shuddered as her Titanium-A armor took a direct hit.
Just another item in the Covenant's bottomless arsenal, Captain Jacob Keyes thought. Not a plasma torpedo, or wed
already be free-floating molecules.
The warship had taken a beating from Covenant forces off Reach and it was a miracle that the hull remained intact and
even more remarkable that they'd been able to make a jump into Slipspace at all.
"Status!" Keyes barked. "What just hit us?"
"Covenant fighter, sir. Seraph-class," the tactical officer, Lieutenant Hikowa, replied. Her porcelain features
darkened. "Tricky bastard must have powered down and slipped past our sentry ships."
A humorless grin tugged at Keyes' mouth. Hikowa was a first-rate tactical officer, utterly ruthless in a fight. She
seemed to take the Covenant fighter pilot's actions as a personal insult. "Teach him a lesson, Lieutenant," he said.
She nodded and tapped a series of orders into her panel-new orders for the Autumns fighter squadron.
... read full excerpt from: Halo: The Flood ebook
