The Fall of Reach

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

0000 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Remote Scanning Outpost Archimedes, on the edge of the Sigma Octanus Star System

Ensign William Lovell scratched his head, yawned, and sat down at his duty station. The wraparound view screen warmed to his presence.

“Good morning, Ensign Lovell,” the computer said.

“Morning, sexy,” he said. It had been months since the Ensign had seen a real woman—the cold female voice of the computer was the closest thing he was getting to a date.

“Voiceprint match,” the computer confirmed. “Please enter password.”

He typed: ThereOncewasAgirl

The Ensign had never taken his duty too seriously. Maybe that’s why he only made it through his second year at the Academy. And maybe that’s why he had been on Archimedes station for the last year, stuck with third shift.

But that suited him fine.

“Please reenter password.”

He typed more carefully this time: ThereOnceWasAGirl.

After first contact with the Covenant, he had almost been conscripted straight out of school; instead, he had actually volunteered.

Admiral Cole had defeated the Covenant at Harvest in 2531. His victory was publicized on every vid and holo throughout the Inner and Outer Colonies and all the way to Earth.

That’s why Lovell didn’t try to dodge the enlistment officers. He had thought he’d watch a few battles from the bridge of a destroyer, fire a few missiles, rack up the victories, and be promoted to Captain within a year.

His excellent grades gave him instant admission to OCS on Luna.

There was one small detail, however, the UNSC propaganda machine had left out of their broadcasts: Cole had won only because he outnumbered the Covenant three to one... and even then, he had lost two-thirds of his fleet.

Ensign Lovell had served on the UNSC frigate Gorgon for four years. He had been promoted to First Lieutenant then busted down to Second Lieutenant and finally to Ensign for insubordination and gross incompetence. The only reason they hadn’t drummed him out of the service was that the USNC needed every man and woman they could get their hands on.

While on the Gorgon, he and the rest of Admiral Cole’s fleet had sped among the Outer Colonies chasing, and being chased by, the Covenant. After four years’ space duty, Lovell had seen a dozen worlds glassed... and billions murdered.

He had simply broken under the strain. He closed his eyes and remembered. No he hadn’t broken; he was just scared of dying like everyone else.

“Please keep your eyes open,” the computer told him. “Processing retinal scan.”

He had drifted from office work to low-priority assignments and finally landed here a year ago. By that time there were no more Outer Colonies. The Covenant had destroyed them all and were pressing inexorably inward, slowly taking the Inner Colonies. There had been a few isolated victories... but he knew it was only a matter of time before the aliens wiped the human race out of existence.

“Login complete,” the computer announced.

Ensign Lovell’s identity record was displayed on the monitor. In his Academy picture, he looked ten years younger: neatly trimmed jet-black hair, toothy grin, and sparkling green eyes. Today his hair was unkempt and the spark was long gone from his eyes.

“Please read General Order 098831A-1 before proceeding.”

The Ensign had memorized this stupid thing. But the computer would track his eye motions—make sure he read it anyway. He opened the file and it popped on-screen:

Ensign Lovell pressed ENTER.

The UNSC wasn’t taking any chances. And after everything he had seen, he didn’t blame them.

His scanning windows appeared on the view screen, full of spectroscopic tracers and radar—and lots of noise.

Archimedes station cycled three probes into and out of Slipstream space. Each probe sent out radar pings and analyzed the spectrum from radio to X rays, then reentered normal space and broadcast the data back to the station.

The problem with Slipstream space was that the laws of physics never worked the way they were supposed to. Exact positions, times, velocities, even masses were impossible to measure with any real accuracy. Ships never knew exactly where they were, or exactly where there were going.

Every time the probes returned from their two-second journey, they could appear exactly where they had left... or three million kilometers distant. Sometimes they never returned at all. Drones had to be sent after the probes before the process could be repeated.

Because of this slipperiness in the interdimensional space, UNSC ships traveling between star systems might arrive half a billion kilometers off course.

The curious properties of Slipspace also made this assignment a joke.

Ensign Lovell was supposed to watch for pirates or black-market runners trying to sneak by... and most importantly, for the Covenant. This station had never logged so much as a Covenant probe silhouette—and that was the reason he had specifically requested this dead-end assignment. It was safe.

What he did see with regularity were trash dumps from UNSC vessels, clouds of primordial atomic hydrogen, even the occasional comet that had somehow plowed into the Slipstream.

Lovell yawned, kicked his feet up onto the control console, and closed his eyes. He nearly fell out of his chair when the COM board contact alert pinged.

“Oh no,” he whispered, fear and shame at his own cowardice forming a cold lump in his belly. Don’t let it be the Covenant. Don’t let it... not here.

He quickly activated the controls and traced the contact signal back to the source—Alpha probe.

The probe had detected an incoming mass, a slight arc to its trajectory pulled by the gravity of Sigma Octanus. It was large. A cloud of dust, perhaps? If it was, it would soon distort and scatter.

Ensign Lovell sat up straighter in his chair.

Beta probe cycled back. The mass was still there and as solid as before. It was the largest reading Ensign Lovell had ever seen: twenty thousand tons. That couldn’t be a Covenant ship—they didn’t get that big. And the silhouette was a bumpy spherical shape; it didn’t match any of the Covenant ships in the database. It had to be a rogue asteroid.

He tapped his stylus on the desk. What if it wasn’t an asteroid? He’d have to purge the database and enable the self-destruct mechanism for the outpost. But what could the Covenant want way out here?

Gamma probe reappeared. The mass readings were unchanged. Spectroscopic analysis was inconclusive, which was normal for probe reading at this distance. The mass was two hours out at its present velocity. Its projected trajectory was hyperbolic—a quick swing near the star, and then it would pass invisibly out of the system and be forever gone.

He noted that its trajectory bought it close to Sigma Octanus IV... which, if the rock were in real space, would be cause for alarm. In Slipspace, however, it could pass “through” the planet, and no one would notice.

Ensign Lovell relaxed and sent the retrieval drones after the three probes. By the time they got the probes back, though, the mass would be long gone.

He stared at the last image on screen. Was it worth sending an immediate report to Sigma Octanus COM? They’d make him send his probes out without a proper recovery, and the probes would likely get lost after that. A supply ship would have to be sent out here to replace them. The station would have to be inspected and recertified—and he’d receive a thorough lecture on what did and did not constitute a valid emergency.

No... there was no need to bother anyone over this. The only ones who would be really interested were the high-forehead types at UNSC Astrophysics, and they could review the data at their leisure.

He logged the anomaly and attached it to his hourly update.

Ensign Lovell kicked up his boots and reclined, once again feeling perfectly safe in his little corner of the universe.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

0300 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC destroyer Iroquois on routine patrol in the Sigma Octanus Star System

Commander Jacob Keyes stood on the bridge of the Iroquois. He leaned against the brass railing and surveyed the stars in the distance. He wished the circumstances of his first command were more auspicious, but experienced officers were in short supply these days. And he had his orders.

He walked around the circular bridge examining the monitors and displays of engine status. He paused at the screens showing the stars fore and aft; he couldn’t quite get used to the view of deep space again. The stars were so vivid... and here, so different from the stars near Earth.

The Iroquois had rolled out of space dock at Reach—one of the UNSC’s primary naval yards—just three months ago. They hadn’t even installed her AI yet; like good officers, the elaborate artificially intelligent computer systems were also in dangerously short supply. Still, Iroquois was fast, well armored, and armed to the teeth. He couldn’t ask for a finer vessel.

Unlike the frigates that Commander Keyes had toured on before, the Meriwether Lewis and Midsummer Night, this ship was a destroyer. She was almost as heavy as both those vessels combined, but she was only seven meters longer. Some in the fleet thought the massive ships were unwieldy in combat—too slow and cumbersome. What those critics forgot was that a UNSC destroyer sported two MAC guns, twenty-six oversized Archer missile pods, and three nuclear warheads. Unlike other fleet ships, she carried no single-ship fighters—instead her extra mass came from the nearly two meters of titanium-A battleplate armor that covered her from stem to stern. The Iroquois could dish out and take a tremendous amount of punishment.

Someone at the shipyard had appreciated the Iroquois for what she was, too—two long streaks of crimson war paint had been applied to her port and starboard flanks. Strictly nonregulation and it would have to go... but secretly, Commander Keyes liked the ornamentation.

He sat in the Commander’s chair and watched his junior officers at their stations.

“Incoming transmissions,” Lieutenant Dominique reported. “Status reports from Sigma Octanus Four and also the Archimedes Sensor Outpost.”

“Pipe them through to my monitor,” Commander Keyes said.

Dominique had been one of his students at the Academy—he had transferred to Luna from the Université del’ Astrophysique in Paris after his sister was killed in action. He was short, nimbly athletic, and he rarely cracked a smile—he was always business. Keyes appreciated that.

Commander Keyes was less impressed, however, with the rest of his bridge officers.

Lieutenant Hikowa manned the weapons console. Her long fingers and slender arms slowly checked the status of the ordnance with all the deliberation of a sleepwalker. Her dark hair was always falling into her eyes, too. Oddly, her record showed that she had survived several battles with the Covenant... so perhaps her lack of enthusiasm was merely battle fatigue.

Lieutenant Hall stood post at ops. She seemed competent enough. Her uniform was always freshly pressed, her blond hair trimmed exactly at the regulation sixteen centimeters. She had authored seven physics papers on Slipspace communications. The only problem was that she was always smiling, and trying to impress him... occasionally by showing up her fellow officers. Keyes disapproved of such displays of ambition.

Manning navigation, however, was his most problematic officer: Lieutenant Jaggers. It might have been that navigation was the Commander’s strong suit, so anyone else in that position never seemed to be up to par. On the other hand, Lieutenant Jaggers was moody, and when Keyes had come aboard, the man’s small hazel eyes seemed glazed. He could have sworn he had caught the man on duty with liquor on his breath, too. He had ordered a blood test—the results were negative.

“Orders, sir?” Jagger asked.

“Continue on this heading, Lieutenant. We’ll finish our patrol around Sigma Octanus and then accelerate and enter Slipspace.”

“Aye, sir.”

Commander Keyes eased into his seat and detached the tiny monitor from the armrest. He read the hourly report from the Archimedes Sensor Outpost. The log of the large mass was curious. It was too big to be even the largest Covenant carrier... yet something was oddly familiar about its shape.

He retrieved his pipe from his jacket, lit it, inhaled a puff, and exhaled the fragrant smoke through his nose. Keyes would never even have thought about smoking on the other vessels he had served on, but here... well, command had its privileges.

He pulled up his files transferred from the Academy—several theoretical papers that had recently caught his interest. One, he thought, might apply to the outpost’s unusual reading.

That paper had initially sparked his interest because of its author. He had never forgotten his first assignment with Dr. Catherine Halsey... nor the names of any of the children they had observed.

He opened the file and read:

Commander Keyes switched back to the silhouette from the Archimedes report. The leading edge almost looked like the bulbous head of a whale. That realization chilled him to the core.

He quickly opened the UNSC database of all known Covenant ships. He scanned them until he found the three-dimensional representation of one of their medium-sized warships. He rotated it into three-quarters profile. He overlaid the image on the silhouette, scaled it back a little.

It was a perfect match.

“Lieutenant Dominique, get FLEETCOM ASAP. Priority Alpha.”

The Lieutenant snapped straight in his chair. “Yes, sir!”

The bridge officers looked at the Commander then exchanged glances with one another.

Commander Keyes brought up a map of the system on his data pad. The silhouette monitored by the outpost was on a direct course for Sigma Octanus IV. That confirmed his theory.

“Bring us about to course zero four seven, Lieutenant Jaggers. Lieutenant Hall, push the reactors to one hundred ten percent.”

“Aye, Commander,” Lieutenant Jaggers replied.

“Reactor running hot, sir,” Hall reported. “Now exceeding recommended operational parameters.”

“ETA?”

Jaggers calculated, then looked up. “Forty-three minutes,” he replied.

“Too slow,” Commander Keyes muttered. “Reactor to one hundred thirty percent, Lieutenant Hall.”

She hesitated. “Sir?”

“Do it!”

“Yes, sir!” She moved as if someone had electrically shocked her.

“FLEETCOM online, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said.

The weathered face of Admiral Michael Stanforth appeared on the main view screen.

Commander Keyes breathed a sigh of relief. Admiral Stanforth had a reputation for being reasonable and intelligent. He’d understand the logic of the situation.

“Commander Keyes,” the Admiral said. “The old ‘Schoolmaster’ himself, huh? This is the priority channel, son. This better be an emergency.”

Commander Keyes ignored the obvious condescension. He knew many at FLEETCOM thought he deserved to command nothing but a classroom—and some probably thought he didn’t deserve that.

“The Sigma Octanus System is about to come under attack, sir.”

Admiral Stanforth cocked an eyebrow and leaned closer to the screen.

“I’m requesting that all ships in-system rendezvous with the Iroquois at Sigma Octanus Four. And any ships in neighboring systems make best speed here.”

“Show me what you’ve got, Keyes,” the Admiral said.

Commander Keyes displayed the silhouette from the sensor outpost first. “Covenant ships, sir. Their silhouettes are overlapped. Our probes resolve them as one mass because Slipspace is bent by gravity more easily than normal space.”

The Admiral listened to his analysis, frowning.

“You’ve fought the Covenant, sir. You known how precisely they can maneuver their ships through the Slipstream. I’ve seen a dozen alien craft appear in normal space, in perfect formation, not a kilometer apart.”

“Yeah,” the Admiral muttered. “I’ve seen that, too. All right, Keyes, good work. You’ll get everything we can send.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You just hang in there, son. Good luck. FLEETCOM out.”

The view screen snapped off.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Hall turned around. “How many Covenant ships?”

“I’d estimate four medium-tonnage vessels,” he said. “The equivalent of our frigates.”

“Four Covenant ships?” Lieutenant Jaggers muttered. “What can we do?”

“Do?” Commander Keyes said. “Our duty.”

“Begging the Commander’s pardon, but there are four Cov—” Jaggers began to protest.

Keyes cut him off with a glare. “Stow that, mister.” He paused, weighing his words. “Sigma Octanus Four has seventeen million citizens, Lieutenant. Are you suggesting that we just stand by and watch the Covenant glass the planet?”

“No, sir.” His gaze dropped to the deck.

“We will do the best we can,” Commander Keyes said. “In the meantime, remove all weapons system locks, order missile crews to readiness, warm up the MAC guns, and remove the safeties from one of our nukes.”

“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Hikowa said.

An alarm sounded at ops. “Reactor hysteresis approaching failure levels,” Lieutenant Hall reported. “Superconducting magnets overloading. Coolant breakdown imminent.”

“Vent primary coolant and pump in the reserve tanks,” Commander Keyes ordered. “That will buy us another five minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Commander Keyes fumbled with his pipe. He didn’t bother to light the thing, just chewed on the end. Then he put it away. The nervous habit wasn’t setting the right example for his bridge officers. He didn’t have the luxury of showing his apprehension.

The truth was, he was terrified. Four Covenant ships would be an even match for seven destroyers. The best he could hope for was to get their attention and outrun them—hopefully distract them until the fleet got here.

Of course... those Covenant ships could outrun the Iroquois as well.

“Lieutenant Jaggers,” he said, “initiate the Cole Protocol. Purge our navigation databases, and then generate an appropriate randomized exit vector from the Sigma Octanus System.”

“Yes, sir.” He fumbled with his controls. He hung his head, steadied his hands, and slowly typed in the commands.

“Lieutenant Hall: make preparations to override reactor safeties.”

His junior officers all paused for a second. “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Hall whispered.

“We’re receiving a transmission from the system’s edge,” Lieutenant Dominique announced. “Frigates Alliance and Gettysburg are on an inbound vector at maximum speed. ETA... one hour.”

“Good,” Commander Keyes said.

That hour might as well be a month. This battle would be over in minutes.

He could not fight the enemy—he was severely outgunned. He couldn’t outrun them, either. There had to be another option.

Hadn’t he always told his students that when you were out of options, then you were using the wrong tactics? You had to bend the rules. Shift perspective—anything to find a way out of a hopeless situation.

The black space near Sigma Octanus IV boiled and frothed with motes of green light.

“Ships entering normal space,” Lieutenant Jaggers announced, panic tingeing his voice.

Commander Keyes got to his feet.

He had been wrong. There weren’t four Covenant frigates. A pair of enemy frigates emerged from Slipspace... escorting a destroyer and a carrier.

His blood ran cold. He had seen battles in which a Covenant destroyer had made Swiss cheese of UNSC ships. Its plasma torpedoes could boil through the Iroquois’ two meters of titanium-A battleplate in seconds. Their weapons were light-years ahead of the UNSC’s.

“Their weapons,” Commander Keyes muttered under his breath. Yes... he did have a third option.

“Continue at emergency speed,” he ordered, “and come about to heading zero three two.”

Lieutenant Jaggers swiveled in his seat. “That will put us on collision course with their destroyer, sir.”

“I know,” Commander Keyes replied. “In fact, I’m counting on doing just that.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

0320 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Iroquois en route to Sigma Octanus IV

Commander Keyes stood with his hands behind his back and tried to look calm. Not an easy thing to do when his ship was on a collision course with a Covenant battlegroup. Inside, adrenaline raced through his blood and his pulse pounded.

He had to at least appear in control for his crew. He was asking a lot from them... probably everything, in fact.

His junior officers watched their status monitors; they occasionally glanced nervously at him, but their gazes always drifted back to the center view screen.

The Covenant ships looked like toys in the distance. It was dangerous to think of them as harmless, however. One slip, one underestimation of their tremendous firepower, and the Iroquois would be destroyed.

The alien carrier had three bulbous sections; its swollen center had thirteen launch bays. Commander Keyes had seen hundreds of fighters stream out of them before—fast, accurate, and deadly craft. Normally his ship’s AI would handle point defense... only this time, there was no AI installed on the Iroquois.

The alien destroyer was a third again as massive as the Iroquois. She bristled with pulse laser turrets, insectlike antennae, and chitinous pods. The carrier and destroyer moved together... but not toward Iroquois. They slowly drifted in-system toward Sigma Octanus IV.

Were they going to ignore him? Glass the planet without even bothering to swat him out of the way first?

The Covenant frigates, however, lagged behind. They turned in unison and their sides faced the Iroquois—preparing for a broadside. Motes of red light appeared and swarmed toward the frigate’s lateral lines, building into a solid stripe of hellish illumination.

“Detecting high levels of beta particle radiation,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “They’re getting ready to fire their plasma weapons, Commander.”

“Course correction, sir?” Lieutenant Jaggers asked. His fingers tapped in a new heading bound out-system.

“Stay on course.” It took all Commander Keyes’ concentration to say that matter-of-factly.

Lieutenant Jaggers turned and started to speak—but Commander Keyes didn’t have time to address his concerns.

“Lieutenant Hikowa,” Commander Keyes said. “Arm a Shiva missile. Remove all nuclear launch safety locks.”

“Shiva armed. Aye, Commander.” Lieutenant Hikowa’s face was a mask of grim determination.

“Set the fuse on radio transmission code sequence detonation only. Disable proximity fuse. Stand by for a launch pilot program.”

“Sir?” Lieutenant Hikowa looked confused by his order, but then said, “Sir! Yes, sir. Making it happen.”

The alien frigates in the center of the view screen no longer looked remotely like toys to Commander Keyes. They looked real and larger every second. The red glow along their sides had become solid bands... almost too bright to look directly at.

Commander Keyes picked up his data pad and quickly tapped in calculations: velocity, mass, and heading. He wished they had an AI online to double-check his figures. This amounted to no more than an educated guess. How long would it take the Iroquois to orbit Sigma Octanus IV? He got a number and cut it by 60 percent, knowing they’d either pick up speed... or be dead by the time it mattered.

“Lieutenant Hikowa, set the Shiva’s course for mark one eight zero. Full burn for twelve seconds.”

“Aye, sir,” she said, tapped in the parameters, and locked them into the system. “Missile ready, sir.”

“Sir!” Lieutenant Jaggers swiveled around and stood. His lips were drawn into a tight thin line. “That course fires the missile directly away from our enemies.”

“I am aware of that, Lieutenant Jaggers. Sit down and await further orders.”

Lieutenant Jaggers sat. He rubbed his temple with a trembling hand. His other hand balled into a fist.

Commander Keyes linked to the NAV system and set a countdown timer on his data pad. Twenty-nine seconds. “On my mark, Lieutenant Hikowa, launch that nuke... and not a moment before.”

“Aye, sir.” Her slender hand hovered over the control panel. “MAC guns are still hot, Commander,” she reminded him.

“Divert the energy keeping the capacitors at full charge and route them to the engines,” Commander Keyes ordered.

Lieutenant Hall said, “Diverting now, sir.” She exchanged a glance with Lieutenant Hikowa. “Engines now operating at one hundred fifty percent of rated output. Red line in two minutes.”

“Contact! Contact!” Lieutenant Dominique shouted. “Enemy plasma torpedoes away, sir!”

Scarlet lightning erupted from the alien frigates—twin bolts of fire streaked through the darkness. They looked as if they could burn space itself. The torpedoes were on a direct course for the Iroquois.

“Course correction, sir?” Lieutenant Jaggers’ voice broke with strain. His uniform was soaked with perspiration.

“Negative,” Commander Keyes replied. “Continue on this heading. Arm all aft Archer missile pods. Rotate launch arcs one eight zero degrees.”

“Aye, sir.” Lieutenant Hikowa wrinkled her brow, and then she slowly nodded and silently mouthed, “... yes.”

Boiling red plasma filled half the forward view screen. It was beautiful to watch in an odd way—like a front-row seat at a forest fire.

Keyes found himself strangely calm. This would either work or it would not. The odds were long, but he was confident that his actions were the only option to survive this encounter.

Lieutenant Dominique turned. “Collision with plasma in nineteen seconds, sir.”

Jaggers turned from his station. “Sir! This is suicide! Our armor can’t withstand—”

Keyes cut him off. “Mister, man your station or I will have you removed from the bridge.”

Jaggers looked pleadingly at Hikowa. “We’re going to die, Aki—”

She refused to meet his gaze and turned back to her controls. “You heard the Commander,” she said quietly. “Man your post.”

Jaggers sank into his seat.

“Collision with plasma in seven seconds,” Lieutenant Hall said. She bit her lower lip.

“Lieutenant Jaggers, transfer emergency thruster controls to my station.”

“Yes... yes, sir.”

The emergency thrusters were tanks of trihydride tetrazine and hydrogen peroxide. When they mixed, they did so with explosive force—literally blasting the Iroquois onto a new course. The ship had six such tanks strategically placed on hardened points on the hull.

Commander Keyes consulted the countdown timer on his data pad. “Lieutenant Hikowa: fire the nuke.”

“Shiva away, sir! On course—one eight zero, maximum burn.”

Plasma filled the forescreen; the center of the red mass turned blue. Greens and yellows radiated outward, the light frequencies blue-shifting in spectra.

“Distance three hundred thousand kilometers,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Collision in two seconds.”

Commander Keyes waited a heartbeat then hit the emergency thrusters to port. A bang resonated through the ship’s hull—Commander Keyes flew sideways and impacted with the bulkhead.

The view screen was full of fire and the bridge was suddenly hot.

Commander Keyes stood. He counted the beats of his pounding heart. One, two, three—

If they had been hit by the plasma, there wouldn’t be anything to count. They would be dead already.

Only one view screen was working now, however. “Aft camera,” he said.

The twin blots of fire streaked along their trajectories for a moment, then lazily arced, continuing their pursuit of the Iroquois. One pulled slightly ahead of its counterpart, so they appeared now like two blazing eyes.

Commander Keyes marveled at the aliens’ ability to direct that plasma from such a great distance. “Good,” he murmured to himself. “Chase us all the way to hell, you bastards.

“Track them,” he ordered Lieutenant Hall.

“Aye, sir,” she said. Her perfectly groomed hair was tousled. “Plasma increasing velocity. Matching our speed... overtaking our velocity now. They will intercept in forty-three seconds.”

“Forward camera,” Commander Keyes ordered.

The view screen flashed: the image changed to show the two alien frigates turning to face the incoming Iroquois head-on. Blue lights flickered along their hulls—pulse lasers charging.

Commander Keyes pulled back the camera angle and saw the alien carrier and the destroyer were still inbound toward Sigma Octanus IV. He read their position off his data pad and quickly performed the necessary calculations.

“Course correction,” he told Lieutenant Jaggers. “Come about to heading zero zero four point two five. Declination zero zero zero point one eight.”

“Aye, sir,” Jaggers said. “Zero zero four point two five. Declination zero zero zero point one eight.”

The view screen turned and centered on the enormous Covenant destroyer.

“Collision course!” Lieutenant Hall announced. “Impact with Covenant destroyer in eight seconds.”

“Stand by for new course correction: declination minus zero zero zero point one zero.”

“Aye, sir.” As Jaggers typed he wiped the sweat from his eyes and double-checked his numbers. “Course online. Awaiting your order, sir.”

“Collision with Covenant destroyer in five seconds,” Hall said. She clutched the edge of her seat.

The destroyer grew in the view screen: laser turrets and launch bays, bulbous alien protrusions and flickering blue lights.

“Hold this course,” Commander Keyes said. “Sound collision alarm. Switch to undercarriage camera now.”

Klaxons blared.

The view screen snapped off and on and showed black space—then a flash of the faint purple-blue hull of a Covenant ship.

The Iroquois screeched and shuddered as she grazed the prow of the Covenant destroyer. Silver shields flickered onscreen—then the screen filled with static.

“Course correction now!” Commander Keyes shouted.

“Aye, sir.”

There was a brief burn from the thrusters and the Iroquois nudged down slightly.

“Hull breach!” Lieutenant Hall said. “Sealing pressure doors.”

“Aft camera,” Commander Keyes said. “Guns: Fire aft Archer missile pods!”

“Missiles away,” Lieutenant Hikowa replied.

Keyes watched as the first of the plasma torpedoes that had been trailing the Iroquois impacted on the prow of the alien destroyer. The ship’s shields flared, flickered... and vanished. The second bolt hit a moment later. The hull of the alien ship blazed and then turned red-hot, melted, and boiled. Secondary explosions burst through the hull.

The Archer missiles streaked toward the wounded Covenant ship, tiny trails of exhaust stretching from the Iroquois to the target. They slammed into the gaping wounds in the hull and detonated. Fire and debris burst from the destroyer.

A smile spread across Keyes’ face as he watched the alien ship burn, list, and slowly plunge into Sigma Octanus IV’s gravity well. Without power, the Covenant vessel would burn up in the planet’s atmosphere.

Commander Keyes flicked on the intercom. “Brace for emergency thruster maneuver.”

He punched the thruster controls—explosive force detonated on the starboard side of the ship. The Iroquois nosed toward Sigma Octanus IV.

“Course correction, Lieutenant Jaggers,” he said. “Bring us into a tight orbit.”

“Aye, sir.” He furiously tapped in commands, diverting engine output through attitude thrusters.

The hull of the Iroquois glowed red as it entered the atmosphere. A cloud of yellow ionization built up around the view screen.

Commander Keyes gripped the railing tighter.

The view screen cleared and he could see the stars. The Iroquois entered the dark side of the planet.

Commander Keyes slumped forward and started breathing again.

“Engine coolant failure, sir,” Lieutenant Hall said.

“Shut the engines down,” he ordered. “Emergency vent.”

“Aye, sir. Venting fusion reactor plasma.”

The Iroquois was abruptly quiet. No rumble of her engines. And no one said anything until Lieutenant Hikowa stood and said, “Sir, that was the most brilliant maneuver I have ever seen.”

Commander Keyes gave a short laugh. “You think so, Lieutenant?”

If one of his students had proposed such a maneuver in his tactics class, he would have given them a C+. He would have told them their maneuver was full of bravado and daring... but extremely risky, placing the crew in the ship in unnecessary danger.

“This isn’t over yet. Stay sharp,” he told them. “Lieutenant Hikowa what is the charge status of the MAC guns?”

“Capacitors at ninety-five percent, sir, and draining at a rate of three percent per minute.”

“Ready MAC guns, one heavy round apiece. Arm all forward Archer missile pods.”

“Aye, sir.”

The Iroquois broke free of the dark side of Sigma Octanus IV.

“Fire chemical thrusters to break orbit, Lieutenant Hall.”

“Firing, aye.”

There was a brief rumble. The screen centered on the backsides of the two Covenant frigates they had passed on the way in.

The alien ships started to come about; blue flashes flickered along their hulls as their laser turrets charged. Motes of red collected along their lateral lines. They were readying another salvo of plasma torpedoes.

There was something there, however, that was too small to see on the view screen: the nuke. Keyes had launched that missile in the opposite direction—but its reverse thrust had not completely overcome their tremendous forward velocity.

As the Iroquois had screamed over the prow of the destroyer, and as they orbited Sigma Octanus IV, the nuke had drifted closer to the frigates... who had fixed their attention solidly on the Iroquois.

Commander Keyes tapped his data pad and sent the signal to detonate the bomb.

There was a flash of white, a crackle of lightning, and the alien ships vanished as a cloud of destruction enveloped them. Waves of the EMP interacted with the magnetic field of Sigma Octanus IV—rippled with rainbow borealis. The cloud of vapor expanded and cooled, and faded to yellow, orange, red, then black dust that scattered into space.

Both Covenant frigates, however, were still intact. Their shields, however, flickered once... then went dead.

“Get me firing solutions for the MAC guns, Lieutenant Hikowa. On the double.”

“Aye, sir. MAC gun capacitors at ninety-three percent. Firing solution online.”

“Fire, Lieutenant Hikowa.”

Two thumps resonated through the hull of the Iroquois.

“Lock remaining Archer missile pods on targets and fire.”

“Missiles away, Commander.”

Twin thunderbolts and hundreds of missiles streaked toward the two helpless frigates.

The MAC rounds tore though them—one ship was holed from nose to tail; the other ship was hit on her midline, right near the engines. Internal explosions chained up the length of the ship, bulging the second ship’s hull along her length.

Archer missiles impacted seconds later, exploding through chunks of hull and armor, tearing the alien ships apart. The frigate that had taken the MAC round in her engines mushroomed, a fireworks bouquet of shrapnel and sparks. The other ship burned, her internal skeletal structure showing now; she turned toward the Iroquois but didn’t fire a weapon... just drifted out of control. Dead in space.

“Position of the Covenant carrier, Lieutenant Hall?”

Lieutenant Hall paused, then reported, “In polar orbit around Sigma Octanus Four. But she’s moving off at considerable speed. Headed out-system, course zero four five.”

“Alert the Allegiance and Gettysburg of her position.”

Commander Keyes sighed and slumped back into his chair. They had stopped the Covenant ships from glassing the planet—saved millions of lives. They had done the impossible: taken on four Covenant ships and won.

Commander Keyes paused in his self-congratulation. Something was wrong. He had never seen the Covenant run. In every battle he had seen or read about, they stayed to slaughter every last survivor... or if they were defeated, they always fought to the last ship.

“Check the planet,” he told Lieutenant Hall. “Look for anything—dropped weapons, strange transmissions. There’s got to be something there.”

“Aye, sir.”

Keyes prayed she wouldn’t find anything. At this point he was out of tricks. He couldn’t turn the Iroquois around and return to Sigma Octanus IV even if he had wanted to. The Iroquois’ engines were down for a long time. They were speeding on an out-system vector at a considerable velocity. And even if they could stop—there was no way to recharge the MAC guns, and no remaining Archer missiles. They were practically dead in space.

He pulled out his pipe and steadied his shaking hand.

“Sir!” Lieutenant Hall cried. “Dropships, sir. The alien carrier deployed thirty—correction: thirty-four—dropships. I have silhouettes descending to the surface. They’re on course for Côte d’Azur. A major population center.”

“An invasion,” Commander Keyes said. “Get FLEETCOM ASAP. Time to send in the Marines.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

0600 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Iroquois, military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV

Commander Keyes had a sinking feeling that although he had won the battle, it would be the first of many to come in the Sigma Octanus System.

He watched the four dozen other UNSC ships orbit the planet: frigates and destroyers, two carriers, and a massive repair and refitting station—more vessels than Admiral Cole had at his disposal during his four-year-long campaign to save Harvest. Admiral Stanforth had pulled out all the stops.

Although Commander Keyes was grateful for the quick and overwhelming response, he wondered why the Admiral had dedicated so many ships to the area. Sigma Octanus wasn’t strategically positioned. It had no special resources. True, the UNSC had standing orders to protect civilian lives, but the fleet was spread dangerously thin. Commander Keyes knew there were more valuable systems that needed protection.

He pushed these thoughts aside. He was sure Admiral Stanforth had his reasons. Meanwhile the repair and resupply of the Iroquois was his top priority—he didn’t want to get caught half ready if the Covenant returned.

Or rather, when they returned.

It was a curious thing: the aliens dropping their ground forces and then retreating. That was not their usual mode of operation. Commander Keyes suspected this was just an opening move in a game he didn’t yet understand.

A shadow crossed the fore camera of the Iroquois as the repair station Cradle maneuvered closer. Cradle was essentially a large square plate with engines. Large was an understatement; she was over a square kilometer. Three destroyers could be eclipsed by her shadow. The station running at full steam could refit six destroyers, three from her lower surface and three on her upper surface, within a matter of hours.

Scaffolds deployed from her surfaces to facilitate repairs. Resupply tubes, hoses, and cargo trams fed into the Iroquois. It would take the full attention of Cradle thirty hours to repair the Iroquois, however.

The aliens had not landed a single serious shot. Nonetheless, the Iroquois had almost been destroyed during the execution of what some in the fleet were already calling the “Keyes Loop.”

Commander Keyes glanced at his data pad and the extensive list of repairs. Fifteen percent of the electronic systems had to be replaced—burned out from the EMP when the Shiva missile detonated. The Iroquois’ engines required a full overhaul. Both coolant systems had valves that had been fused from the tremendous heat. Five of the superconducting magnets had to be replaced as well.

But most troublesome was the damage to the underside of the Iroquois. When they had told Commander Keyes what had happened, he went outside in a Longsword interceptor to personally inspect what he had done to his ship.

The underside of the Iroquois had been scraped when they passed over the prow of the alien destroyer. He knew there was some damage... but was not prepared for what he saw.

UNSC destroyers had nearly two meters of titaniuma battleplate on their surfaces. Commander Keyes had abraded through all of it. He had breached every bottom deck of the Iroquois. The jagged serrated edges of the plate curled away from the wound. Men in EVA thruster packs were busy cutting off the damaged sections so new plates could be welded into place.

The underside was mirror smooth and perfectly flat. But Keyes knew that the appearance of benign flatness was deceptive. Had the angle of the Iroquois been tilted a single degree down, the force of the two ships impacting would have shorn his ship in half.

The red war stripes that had been painted on the Iroquois’ side looked like bloody slashes. The dockmaster had privately told Commander Keyes that his crew could buff the paint off—or even repaint the war stripes, if he wanted.

Commander Keyes had politely refused the offer. He wanted them left exactly the way they were. He wanted to be reminded that while everyone had admired what he had done—it had been an act of desperation, not heroism.

He wanted to be reminded of how close a brush he had had with death.

Commander Keyes returned to the Iroquois and marched directly to his quarters.

He sat at his antique oak desk and tapped the intercom. “Lieutenant Dominique, you have the bridge for the next cycle. I am not to be disturbed.”

“Aye, Commander. Understood.”

Commander Keyes loosened his collar and unbuttoned his uniform. He retrieved the seventy-year-old bottle of Scotch that his father had given him from the bottom drawer, and then poured four centimeters into a plastic cup.

He had to attend to an even more unpleasant task: what to do about Lieutenant Jaggers.

Jaggers had exhibited borderline cowardice, insubordination and come within a hairbreadth of attempted mutiny during the engagement. Keyes could have had him court-martialed. Every reg in the books screamed at him to... but he didn’t have it in him to send the young man before a board of inquiry. He would instead merely transfer the Lieutenant to a place where he would still do the UNSC some good—perhaps a distant outpost.

Was all the blame his? As Commander, it was his responsibility to maintain control, to prevent a crewman from even thinking that mutiny was a possibility.

He sighed. Maybe he should have told his crew what he was attempting... but there had simply been no time. And certainly, no time for discussion as Jaggers would have wanted. No. The other bridge officers had concerns, but they had followed his orders, as their duty required.

As much as Commander Keyes believed in giving people a second chance, this was where he drew the line.

To make matters worse, transferring Jaggers would leave a hole in the bridge crew.

Commander Keyes accessed the service records of Iroquois’ junior officers. There were several who might qualify for navigation officer. He flipped through their files on his data pad, and then paused.

The theoretical paper on mass-space compression was still open, as well as his hastily calculated course corrections.

He smiled and archived those notes. He might one day give a lecture on this battle at the Academy. It would be useful to have the original source material.

There was also the data from the Archimedes Sensor Outpost. That report had been thoroughly made: clean data graphs and a navigational course plotted for the object through Slipstream space—not an easy task even with an AI. The report even had tags to route it to the astrophysics section of the UNSC. Thoughtful.

He looked up the service record of the officer who had filed the report: Ensign William Lovell.

Keyes leaned closer. The boy’s Career Service Vitae was almost twice as long as his own. He had volunteered and been accepted at Luna Academy. He transferred in his second year, having already received a commission to Ensign for heroism in a training flight that had saved the entire crew. He took duty on the first outbound corvette headed into battle. Three Bronze Stars, a Silver Cluster, and two Purple Hearts, and he had catapulted to a full Lieutenant within three years.

Then something went terribly wrong. Lovell’s decline in the UNSC had been as rapid as his ascent. Four reports of insubordination and he was busted to Second Lieutenant and transferred twice. An incident with a civilian woman—no details in the files, although Commander Keyes wondered if the girl listed in the report, Anna Gerov, was Vice Admiral Gerov’s daughter.

He had been reassigned to the Archimedes Sensor Outpost, and had been there for the last year, an unheard of length of time in such a remote facility.

Commander Keyes reviewed the logs when Lovell had been on duty. They were careful and intelligent. So the boy was still sharp... was he hiding?

There was a gentle knock on his door.

“Lieutenant Dominique, I said I was not to be disturbed.”

“Sorry to intrude, son,” said a muffled voice. The pressure door’s wheel turned and Admiral Stanforth stepped inside. “But I thought I’d just stop by since I was in the neighborhood.”

Admiral Stanforth was much smaller in person than he appeared on-screen. His back was stooped over with age, and his white hair was thinning at the crown. Still, he exuded a reassuring air of authority that Keyes instantly recognized.

“Sir!” Commander Keyes stood at attention, knocking over his chair.

“At ease, son.” The Admiral looked around his quarters, and his gaze lingered a moment on the framed copy of Lagrange’s original manuscript in which he derived his equations of motion. “You can pour me a few fingers of the whiskey, if you can spare it.”

“Yes, sir.” Keyes fumbled with another plastic cup and poured the Admiral a drink.

Stanforth took a sip, then sighed appreciatively. “Very nice.”

Keyes righted his chair and offered it to the Admiral.

He sat down and leaned forward. “I wanted to congratulate you personally on the miracle you performed here, Keyes.”

“Sir, I don’t—”

Stanforth held up a finger. “Don’t interrupt me, son. That was a helluva piece of astrogation you pulled off. People noticed. Not to mention the morale boost it’s given to the entire fleet.” He took another sip of the liquor and exhaled. “Now, that’s the reason we’re all here. We need a victory. It’s been too damn long—us getting whittled to pieces by those alien bastards. So this has got to be a win. No matter what it takes.”

“I understand, sir,” Commander Keyes said. He knew morale had been sagging for years throughout the UNSC. No military, no matter how well trained, could stomach defeat after defeat without it affecting their determination in battles.

“How is it going planetside?”

“Right now don’t you worry about that.” Admiral Stanforth eased back in his chair, balancing on two legs. “General Kits has his troops down there. They’ve got the surrounding cities evacuated, and they’ll be assaulting Côte d’Azur within the hour. They’ll paste those aliens faster than you can spit. You just watch.”

“Of course, sir.” Commander Keyes looked away.

“You got something else to say, boy? Spit it out.”

“Well, sir... this isn’t the way the Covenant normally operates. Dropping an invasion force and leaving the system? They either slaughter everything or die trying. This is something altogether different.”

Admiral Stanforth waved a dismissive hand. “You leave trying to figure out what those aliens are thinking to the spooks in ONI, son. Just get the Iroquois patched up and fit for duty again. And you let me know if you need anything.”

Stanforth knocked back the last of his whiskey and stood. “Got to marshal the fleet. Oh—” He paused. “One more thing.” He dug into his jacket pocket and retrieved a tiny cardboard box. He set it on the Commander’s desk. “Consider it official. The paperwork will catch up with us soon enough.”

Commander Keyes opened the box. Inside were a pair of brass collar insignia: four bars and a single star.

“Congratulations, Captain Keyes.” The Admiral snapped a quick salute, then held out his hand.

Keyes managed to grasp and shake the Admiral’s hand. The insignia was real. He was stunned. He couldn’t say anything.

“You’ve earned it.” The Admiral started to turn. “Give me a shout if you need anything.”

“Yes, sir.” Keyes stared at the brass star and stripes a moment longer then finally tore his gaze away. “Admiral... there is one thing. I need a replacement navigation officer.”

Admiral Stanforth’s relaxed posture stiffened. “I heard about that. Ugly business when a bridge officer loses their stomach. Well, you just say the candidate’s name and I’ll make sure you get him... as long as you’re not pulling him off my ship.” He smiled. “Keep up the good work, Captain.”

“Sir!” Captain Keyes saluted.

The Admiral stepped out and closed the door.

Keyes practically fell into his chair.

He had never dreamed they’d make him a Captain. He turned the brass insignia over in his palm and replayed his conversation with Admiral Stanforth in his mind. He had said, “Captain Keyes.” Yes. This was real.

The Admiral had also brushed aside his concerns about the Covenant too quickly. Something didn’t quite add up.

Keyes clicked on the intercom. “Lieutenant Dominique: track the Admiral’s shuttle when he leaves. Let me know which ship he’s on.”

“Sir? We had an Admiral aboard? I wasn’t informed.”

“No, Lieutenant, I suspect you weren’t. Just track the next outbound shuttle.”

“Aye, sir.”

Keyes looked back on his data pad and reread Ensign Lovell’s CSV. He couldn’t take back what had happened with Jaggers—there could be no second chance for him. But maybe he could somehow balance the books by giving Lovell another chance.

He filled out the necessary paperwork for the transfer request. The forms were long and unnecessarily complex. He transmitted the files to UNSC PERSCOM and sent a copy directly to Admiral Stanforth’s staff.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Dominique’s voice broke over the intercom. “That shuttle docked with the Leviathan.”

“Put it on-screen.”

The screen over his desk snapped on to camera five, the aft-starboard view. Among the dozens of ships in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV, he easily spotted the Leviathan. She was one of the twenty UNSC cruisers left in the fleet.

A cruiser was the most powerful warship ever built by human hands. And Keyes knew they were being slowly pulled out of forward areas and parked in reserve to guard the Inner Colonies.

A piece of shadow moved under the great warship, black moving on black. It revealed itself for only an instant in the sunlight, then slithered back into the darkness. It was a prowler.

Those stealth ships were used exclusively by Naval Intelligence.

A cruiser and an ONI presence here? Now Keyes knew there was more going on here than a simple morale boost. He tried not to think about it. It was best not to go too far when questioning the intentions of one’s superior officer—especially when that officer was an Admiral. And especially not when Naval Intelligence was literally lurking in the shadows.

Keyes poured himself another three fingers of Scotch, set his head on his desk—just to rest his eyes for a moment. The last few hours had drained him.

“Sir.” Dominique’s voice over the intercom woke Captain Keyes. “Incoming fleet-wide transmission on Alpha priority channel.”

Keyes sat up and ran his hand over his face. He glanced at the brass clock affixed over his bunk—he had slept for almost six hours.

Admiral Stanforth appeared on-screen. “Listen up, ladies and gentlemen: we’ve just detected a large number of Covenant ships massing on the edge of the system. We estimate ten ships.”

On-screen the silhouettes of the all-too-familiar Covenant frigates and a destroyer appeared as ghostly radar smears.

“We’ll remain where we are,” the Admiral continued. “There’s no need to charge in and have those ugly bastards take a shortcut through Slipspace and undercut us. Make your ships ready for battle. We’ve got probes gathering more data. I’ll update you when we know more. Stanforth out.”

The screen went black.

Keyes snapped on the intercom. “Lieutenant Hall, what is our repair and refit status?”

“Sir,” she replied. “Engines are operational, but only with the backup coolant system. We can heat them to fifty percent. Archer and nuclear ordnance resupply is complete. MAC guns are also operational. Repairs to lower decks have just started.”

“Inform the dockmaster to pull his crew out,” Captain Keyes said. “We’re leaving the Cradle. When we are clear, fire the reactors to fifty percent. Go to battle stations.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

0600 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Sigma Octanus IV, grid thirteen by twenty-four

“Faster!” Corporal Harland shouted. “You want to die in the mud, Marine?”

“Hell no, sir!” Private Fincher stomped on the accelerator and the Warthog’s tires spun in the streambed. They caught, and the vehicle fishtailed through the gravel, across the bank, and onto the sandy shore.

Harland strapped himself into the rear of the Warthog, one hand clamped onto the vehicle’s massive 50mm chain-gun.

Something moved in the brush behind them—Harland fired a sustained burst. The deafening sound from “Old Faithful” shook the teeth in his head. Ferns, trees, and vines exploded and splintered as the gunfire scythed through the foliage... then nothing was moving anymore.

Fincher sent the Warthog bouncing along the shore, his head bobbing from side to side as he strained to see through the downpour. “We’re sitting ducks in here, Corporal,” Fincher yelled. “We have to get out of this hole and back onto the ridge, sir.”

Corporal Harland looked for a way out of this river gorge. “Walker!” He shook Private Walker in the passenger seat, but Walker didn’t respond. He clutched their last Jackhammer rocket launcher with a death grip, his eyes staring blankly ahead. Walker hadn’t said a word since this mission went south. Harland hoped he would snap out of it. He already had one man down. The last thing he needed was for his heavy-weapons specialist to be a brain case.

Private Cochran lay at the Corporal’s feet, cradling his gut with blood-smeared hands. He’d caught fire during the ambush. The aliens used some kind of projectile weapon that fired long, thin needles—which exploded seconds after impact.

Cochran’s insides were meat. Walker and Fincher had filled him up with biofoam and taped him up—they even managed to stop the bleeding—but if the man didn’t get to a medic soon, he was a goner.

They had all almost been goners.

The squad had left Firebase Bravo two hours ago. Satellite images showed the way was all clear to their target area. Lieutenant McCasky had even said it was a “milk run”. They were supposed to set up motion sensors on grid thirteen by twenty-four—just see what was there and get back. “A simple snoop job,” the ell-tee had called it.

What no one told McCasky was that the satellites weren’t penetrating the rain and jungle canopy of this swampball too well. If the Lieutenant had thought about it—like Corporal Harland was thinking about it now—he would have figured something was wrong with sending three squads on a “milk run.”

The squad wasn’t green. Corporal Harland and the others had fought the Covenant before. They knew how to kill Grunts—when they massed by the hundreds, they knew to call in air support. They’d even taken down a few of the Covenant Jackals, the ones with energy shields. You had to flank those guys—take them out with snipers.

But none of that had prepared them for this mission.

They had done all the right things, damn it. The Lieutenant had even gotten their Warthogs five klicks down the streambed before the terrain became too steep and slippery for the all-terrain armored vehicles. He had the men hump the rest of the way in on foot. They moved soft and silent, almost crawling all they way through the slime to the depression they were supposed to check out.

When they had gotten to the place, it wasn’t just another mud-filled sinkhole. A waterfall splashed into a grotto pool. Arches had been carved into the wall, their edges extremely weathered. There were a few scattered paving stones around the pool... and covering those stones were tiny geometric carvings.

That’s all Corporal Harland got a look at before the Lieutenant ordered him and his team to fall back. He wanted them to set up the motion sensors where they had a clear line of sight to the sky.

That’s probably why they were still alive.

The blast had knocked Harland and his team into the mud. They ran to where they had left the Lieutenant—found fused glassy mud, a crater, and a few burning corpses and bits of carbonized skeleton.

They saw one other thing—an outline in the mist. It was biped, but much larger than any human Harland had ever seen. And oddly, it looked like it was wearing armor reminiscent of medieval plate mail; it even carried a large, strangely shaped metal shield.

Harland saw the glow of a regenerating plasma weapon... and that’s all he needed to see to order a full speed retreat.

Harland, Walker, Cochran, and Fincher fell back, running—blindly firing their assault rifles.

Covenant Grunts had followed them, peppering the air with those needle guns, mowing down the jungle as the tiny razor shards exploded.

Harland and the others stopped and hit the deck, splashing into the thick, red mud, as a Covenant Banshee passed them overhead.

When they got back on their feet, Cochran took the round in the stomach. The Grunts had caught up to them. Cochran flinched, his side exploded, and then he crumpled to the ground. He fell into shock so fast he didn’t even have time to scream.

Harland, Fincher, and Walker hunkered down and returned fire. They killed a dozen of the little bastards, but more kept coming, their barks and growls echoing through the jungle.

“Cease fire,” the Corporal had ordered. He waited a second, then tossed a grenade when the Grunts got closer.

Their ears still ringing, they ran, dragging Cochran with them, and not looking back.

Somehow they had returned to the Warthog, and gotten the hell out of there... or, at least, that’s what they were trying to do.

“Over there,” Fincher said, and pointed to a clearing in the trees. “That’s got to lead up to the ridge.”

“Go,” Harland said.

The Warthog slid sideways then raced up the embankment, caught air, and landed on soft jungle loam. Fincher dodged a few trees and ran the Warthog up the slope. They emerged on the ridgeline.

“Jesus, that was close,” Harland said. He ran a muddy hand through his hair, slicking it back.

He tapped Fincher on the shoulder. Fincher jumped. “Private, pull over. Try to raise Firebase Bravo on the narrow band.”

“Yes, sir,” Fincher answered in a wavering voice. He glanced at the near-catatonic Private Walker and shook his head.

Harland checked on Cochran. Private Cochran’s eyes fluttered open, cracking the mud caked onto his face. “We back yet, Corporal?”

“Almost,” Harland replied. Cochran’s pulse was steady, although his face had, in the last several minutes, drained of color. The wounded man looked like a corpse. Damn it, Harland thought, he’s going to bleed out.

Harland placed a reassuring hand on Cochran’s shoulder. “Hang in there. We’ll patch you up as soon as we get to camp.”

They had dropships at Bravo. Cochran had a chance, albeit a slim one, if they got him back to the combat surgeons at headquarters—or better yet, to the Navy docs on the orbiting ships. For a moment Harland was dazzled with visions of clean sheets, hot meals—and a meter of armor between him and the Covenant.

“Nothing but static on the link, sir,” Fincher said, breaking through Harland’s reverie.

“Maybe the radio got hit,” Harland muttered. “You know those explosive needles throw a bunch of microshrapnel. We probably got slivers of that stuff inside us, too.”

Fincher examined his muscular forearms. “Great.”

“Move out,” Harland said.

The tires of the Warthog spun, gripped, and the vehicle moved rapidly along the ridge.

The terrain looked familiar. Harland even spotted three sets of Warthog tracks—yes, this was the way the Lieutenant had brought them. Ten minutes and they’d be back on base. No more worries. He relaxed, took out a pack of cigarettes, and shook one out. He pulled off the safety strip and tapped the end to ignite it.

Fincher revved the engine and shot up to the top of the ridge—crossed over, and skidded to halt.

If not for the haze, they would have seen everything from this side of the valley—the lush carpet of jungle in the valley, the river meandering through it, and on the far set of hills, a clearing dotted with fixed gun emplacements, razor wire, and pre-fab structures: Firebase Bravo.

Their platoon had partially dug into the hillside to minimize the camp’s footprint and provide a place where they could safely store their munitions and bunk down. A ring of sensors encircled the camp so nothing could sneak up on them. Radar and motion detectors linked to surface-to-air missile batteries. A road ran along the far ridge—three klicks down that was the coastal city, Côte d’Azur.

The sun broke through the haze overhead, and Corporal Harland saw everything had changed.

It wasn’t fog or haze. Smoke rose in columns from the valley... and there was no more jungle. Everything had been burned to the ground. The entire valley was blackened into smoldering charcoal. Glowing red craters honeycombed the hillsides.

He fumbled with his binoculars, brought them to his eyes... and froze. The hill where the camp had been was gone—it had been flattened. Only a mirror surface remained. The sides of the adjacent hills glistened with a cracked glass coating. The air was thick with tiny Covenant fliers in the distance. On the ground, Grunts and Jackals searched for survivors. A few Marines ran for cover... there were hundreds of wounded and dead on the ground, helpless, screaming—some of them trying to crawl away.

“What have you got, sir?” Fincher asked.

The cigarette fell from Harland’s mouth and caught on his shirt—but he didn’t take his eyes off the battlefield to brush it away.

“There’s nothing left,” he whispered.

A shape moved in the valley—much larger than the other Grunts and Jackals. Its outline was blurry. Harland tried to focus the binoculars on it but couldn’t. It was the same thing he had seen at grid thirteen by twenty-four. The Grunts gave it a wide berth. The thing lifted its arm—its whole arm looked like one big gun—and a bolt of plasma struck near the riverbank.

Even from this distance, Harland heard the screams of the men who had been hiding there.

“Jesus.” He dropped the binoculars. “We’re bugging out, right now!” he said. “Turn this beast around, Fincher.”

“But—”

“They’re gone,” Harland whispered. “They’re all dead.”

Walker whimpered and rocked back and forth.

“We’ll be dead, too, unless you move,” Harland said. “We already got lucky once today. Let’s not push it.”

“Yeah.” Fincher reversed the Warthog. “Yeah, some luck.”

He sped back down the hillside and hopped the Warthog off the embankment and back into the streambed.

“Follow the river,” Harland told him. “It’ll take us all the way to HQ.”

A shadow crossed their path. Harland twisted around and saw a pair of stubby-winged Covenant Banshees swooping down after them.

“Move it!” he screamed at Fincher.

Fincher floored the Warthog and plumes of water sprayed in their wake. They bounced over rocks and fishtailed across the stream.

Bolts of plasma hit the water next to them—exploding into steam. Rock shards pinged off the armored side of the vehicle.

“Walker!” Harland shouted. “Use those Jackhammers.”

Walker huddled, doubled over in his seat.

Harland fired the chain-gun. Tracers cut through the air. The fliers nimbly dodged them. The heavy machine gun was only accurate at reasonably short ranges—and not even that with Fincher bouncing the Warthog all over the place.

“Walker!” he cried. “We are gonna die if you don’t get those missiles into the air!”

He would have ordered Fincher to grab the launcher—but he’d have to stop to grab it... that, or try to drive with no hands. If the Warthog stopped, they’d be sitting ducks for those fliers.

Harland glanced at the riverbanks. They were too steep for the Warthog. They were stuck in the river with no cover.

“Walker, do something!”

Corporal Harland fired the chain-gun again until his arms went numb. It was no good; the Banshees were too far away, too quick.

Another plasma bolt hit—directly in front of the Warthog. Heat washed over Harland. Blisters pinpricked his back.

He screamed but kept shooting. If they hadn’t been in water, that plasma would have melted the tires... probably would have flash-fried them all.

A burst of heat and a plume of smoke erupted next to Harland.

For a split second he thought the Covenant gunners had found their mark—that he was dead. He screamed incoherently, his thumbs jamming down the chain-gun’s trigger buttons.

The Banshee he was aiming at flashed, and then became a ball of flame and falling shrapnel.

He turned, his breath hitching in his chest. They hadn’t been hit.

Cochran knelt next to him. One arm clutched his stomach, and the other arm hefted the Jackhammer launcher on his shoulder. He smiled with bloodstained lips and pivoted to track the other flier.

Harland ducked, and another missile whooshed directly over his head.

Cochran laughed, coughing up blood and foam. Tears of mirth or pain—Harland couldn’t tell—streamed from his eyes. He collapsed backward, and let the smoldering launcher slip from his hand.

The second Banshee exploded and spiraled into the jungle.

“Two more klicks,” Fincher shouted. “Hang on.” He cranked the wheel and the Warthog swerved out of the streambed and bounced up the hillside, up and over, and they slid onto a paved road.

Harland leaned over and felt Cochran’s neck for a pulse. It was there, weak; but he was still alive. Harland glanced at Walker. He hadn’t moved, his eyes squeezed shut.

Harland’s first impulse was to shoot him right then and there—the goddamned, goldbricking, cowardly bastard almost cost them all their lives—

No. Harland was half amazed he hadn’t frozen up, too.

HQ was ahead. But Corporal Harland’s stomach sank as he saw smoke and flames blazing on the horizon.

They passed the first armed checkpoint. The guardhouse and bunkers had been blasted away, and in the mud were thousands of Grunt tracks.

Farther back, he saw a circle of sandbags around a house-size chunk of granite. Two Marines waved to them. As they approached in the Warthog, the Marines stood and saluted.

Harland jumped off and returned their salute.

One of the Marines had a patch over his eye and his head was bandaged. Soot streaked his face. “Jesus, sir,” he said. “It’s good to see you guys.” He approached the Warthog. “You’ve got a working radio in that thing?”

“I—I’m not sure,” Corporal Harland said. “Who’s in charge here? What happened?”

“Covenant hit us hard, sir. They had tanks, air support—thousands of those little Grunt guys. They glassed the main barracks. The Command Office. Almost got the munitions bunker.” He looked away for a moment and his one eye glazed over. “We pulled it together and fought ’em off, though. That was an hour ago. I think we killed everything. I’m not sure.”

“Who’s in charge, Private? I have a critically wounded man. He needs evac, and I have to make my report.”

The Private shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. The hospital was the first thing they hit. As far as who’s in command... I think you’re the ranking officer here.”

“Great,” Harland muttered.

“We’ve got five guys back there.” The Private jerked his head toward the columns of smoke and wavering heat in the distance. “They’re in fire-fighting suits to keep from burning up. They’re recovering weapons and ammo.”

“Understood,” Harland said. “Fincher, try the radio again. See if you can link up to SATCOM. Call in for an evac.”

“Roger that,” Fincher said.

The wounded Private asked Harland, “Can we get help from Firebase Bravo, sir?”

“No,” Harland said. “They got hit, too. There’s Covenant all over the place.”

The Private slumped, bracing himself with his rifle.

Fincher handed Harland the radio headset. “Sir, SATCOM is good. I’ve got the Leviathan on the horn.”

“This is Corporal Harland.” He spoke into the microphone. “The Covenant has hit Firebase Bravo and Alpha HQ... and wiped them out. We’ve repelled the enemy from Alpha site, but our casualties have been nearly one hundred percent. We have wounded here. We need immediate evac. Say again: we need evac on the double.”

“Roger, Corporal. Your situation is understood. Evac is not possible at this time. We’ve got problems of our own up here—” There was a burst of static. The voice came back online. “Help is on the way.”

The channel went dead.

Harland looked to Fincher. “Check the transceiver.”

Fincher ran the diagnostic. “It’s working,” he said. “I’m getting a ping from SATCOM.” He licked his lips. “The trouble must be on their end.”

Harland didn’t want to think of what kind of trouble the fleet could be having. He’d seen too many planets glassed from orbit. He didn’t want to die here—not like that.

He turned to the men in the bunker. “They said help is on the way. So relax.” He looked into the sky and whispered, “They better send a whole regiment down here.”

A handful of other Marines returned to the bunker. They had salvaged ammunition, extra rifles, a crate of frag grenades, and a few Jackhammer missiles. Fincher took the Warthog and a few men to see if he could transport the heavier weapons.

They filled Cochran with more biofoam and bandaged him up. He slipped into a coma.

They hunkered down inside the bunker and waited. They heard explosions at an extreme distance.

Walker finally spoke. “So... now what, sir?”

Harland didn’t turn toward the man. He covered Cochran with another blanket. “I don’t know. Can you fight?”

“I think so.”

He passed Walker a rifle. “Good. Get up there and stand watch.” He got out a cigarette, lit it, took a puff, and then handed it to Walker.

Walker took it, shakily stood, and went outside.

“Sir!” he said. “Dropship inbound. One of ours!”

Harland grabbed his signal flares. He ran outside and squinted at the horizon. High on the edge of the darkening sky was a dot, and the unmistakable roar of Pelican engines. He pulled the pin and tossed the smoker onto the ground. A moment later, thick clouds of green smoke roiled into the sky.

The dropship turned rapidly and descended toward their location.

Harland shielded his eyes. He searched for the rest of the dropships. There was only one.

“One dropship?” Walker whispered. “That’s all they sent? Christ, that’s not backup—that’s a burial detail.”

The Pelican eased toward the ground, spattering mud in a ten-meter radius, then touched down. The launch ramp fell open and a dozen figures marched out.

For a moment Harland thought they were the same creatures he had seen earlier—armored and bigger than any human he’d ever laid eyes on. He froze—he couldn’t have raised his gun if he had wanted to.

They were human, though. The one in the lead stood over two meters tall and looked like he weighed two hundred kilograms. His armor was a strange reflective green alloy, and underneath matte black. Their motions were so fluid and graceful—fast and precise, too. More like robots than flesh and blood.

The one that first stepped off the ship strode toward him. Though his armor was devoid of insignia, Harland could see the insignia of a Master Chief Petty Officer in his helmet’s HUD.

“Master Chief, sir!” Harland snapped to attention and saluted.

“Corporal,” it said. “At ease. Get your men together and we’ll get to work.”

“Sir?” Harland asked. “I’ve got a lot of wounded here. What work will we be doing, sir?”

The Master Chief’s helmet cocked quizzically to one side. “We’ve come to take Sigma Octanus Four back from the Covenant, Corporal,” he said calmly. “To do that, we’re going to kill every last one of them.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

1800 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Sigma Octanus IV, grid nineteen by thirty-seven

The Master Chief surveyed what was left of Camp Alpha. There were only fourteen Marine regulars left—balanced against the four hundred men and women who had been slaughtered here.

He said to Kelly, “Post a guard on the dropship, and put three on patrol. Take the rest and secure the LZ.”

“Yes, sir.” She turned to face the other Spartans, pointed, made three quick hand gestures, and they dispersed like ghosts.

The Master Chief turned to the Corporal. “Are you in command here, Corporal?”

The man looked around. “I guess so... yes, sir.”

“As of 0900 Standard Military time, NavSpecWep is assuming control of this operation. All Marine personnel now report through our chain of command. Understand, Corporal?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, Corporal, brief me on what happened here.”

Corporal Harland hunkered down and sketched rough maps of the area as he quickly recounted the brutal series of surprise attacks. “Right here—grid thirteen by twenty-four. That’s where they hit us, sir. Something’s goin’ on there.”

The Master Chief scanned the crude maps, compared them with the area surveys displayed in his HUD, then nodded, satisfied.

“Get your wounded inside the Pelican, Corporal,” he said. “We’ll be dusting off soon. I want you to rotate by thirds on guard duty. The rest of your men should get some sleep. But make no mistake—if the Pelican gets fragged, we’ll be staying on Sigma Octanus Four.”

The Corporal paled, then replied, “Understood, sir.” He stood slowly—the long day of combat and flight had taken its toll. The Marine saluted, then moved to assemble his team.

Inside his sealed helmet, John frowned. These Marines were now under his command... and therefore part of his team. They lacked the Spartans’ firepower and training, so they had to be protected—not relied upon. He had to make sure they got out in one piece. Another snag in an already dicey mission.

The Master Chief opened his COM link: “Team leaders meet me at the LZ in three minutes.”

Lights winked on his heads-up display—his Spartans acknowledging the order.

He looked around at the destruction. Thin sunlight reflected dully from the thousands of spent shell casings strewn across the battlefield. Dozens of shattered Warthog chassis bled trails of smoke into the hazy sky. Scores of burned corpses lay in the mud.

They’d have to get a burial detail down here later... before the Grunts got to the dead.

The Master Chief would never question his orders, but he felt a momentary stab of bitterness. Whoever set these camps up without proper reconnaissance, whoever had blindly trusted the satellite transmissions in an enemy-held region, had been a fool.

Worse, they had wasted the lives of good soldiers.

Green Team’s leader jogged in from the south. The Master Chief couldn’t see her features through her reflective faceplate, but he could tell without checking his HUD that it was Linda by the way she moved... that, and the SRS99C-S2 AM sniper rile with Oracle scope she carried.

She carefully looked around, verified that the area was secure, and slung her rifle. She snapped a crisp salute. “Reporting as ordered, Master Chief.”

Red Team leader—Joshua—ran in from the east. He saluted. “Motion detectors, radar, and automated defenses up and running, sir.”

“Good. Let’s go over this one more time.” The Master Chief overlaid a topographic map on their helmets’ displays. “Mission goal one: we need to gather intelligence on Covenant troop disposition and defenses at Côte d’Azur. Mission goal two: if there are no civilian survivors, we are authorized to remote detonate a HAVOK tactical nuclear mine and remove the enemy forces. In the meantime, we will minimize our contact with the enemy.”

They nodded.

The Master Chief highlighted the four streams that fed into the river delta near Côte d’Azur. “We avoid these routes. Banshees patrol them.” He circled where Firebase Bravo had been. “We’ll avoid this area as well—according to the Marine survivors, that area is hot. Grid thirteen by twenty-four also has activity.

“Red Leader, take your squad in along the coast. Stay in the tree line. Green Leader, follow this ridgeline, but keep under cover, too. I’ll be taking this route.” The Master Chief traced a path through a particularly dense section of jungle.

“It’s 1830 hours now. The city is thirteen kilometers from here—that should take us no more than forty minutes. We’ll probably be forced to slow down to avoid enemy patrols—but we all should be in place no later than 1930 hours.”

He zoomed into a city map of Côte d’Azur. “Entry points to the city sewer system are—” He highlighted the display with NAV points. “—here, here, and here. Red Team will recon the wharf areas. Green takes the residential section. I’ll take Blue Team downtown. Questions?”

“Our communications underground will be limited,” Linda said. “How do we check in while keeping our heads down?”

“According to the Colonial Administration Authority’s file on Côte d’Azur, the sewer systems here have steel pipes running along the top of the plastic conduits. Tap into those and use ground-return transceivers to check in. We’ll have our own private COM line.”

“Roger,” she said.

The Master Chief said, “As soon as we leave, the dropship dusts off and will move here.” He indicated a position far to the south of Alpha camp. “If the Pelican doesn’t make it... our fallback rendezvous point is here.” He indicated a point fifty kilometers south. “ONI’s welcoming committee has stashed our emergency SATCOM link and survival gear there.”

No one mentioned that survival gear would be useless when the Covenant glassed the planet.

“Stay sharp,” John said. “And come back in one piece. Dismissed.”

They saluted briskly, then sprinted to their tasks.

He switched to Blue Team’s frequency. “Time to saddle up, Blue Team,” he called out. “RV back at the bunker for orders.” Three blue lights winked acknowledgement in his display.

A moment later, the other three Spartans in his squad trotted into position. “Reporting as ordered,” Blue-Two announced.

The Master Chief quickly filled them in on the mission. “Blue-Two.” He nodded to Kelly. “You’re carrying the nuke and medical gear.”

“Affirmative. Who’ll have the detonator, sir?”

“I will,” he replied. “Blue-Three.” He turned to Fred. “You have the explosives. James, you’ll take our extra COM equipment.”

They double-checked their gear: modified MA5B assault rifles, adapted to mount silencers; ten extra clips of ammunition; frag grenades; combat knives; M6D pistols—small but powerful handguns that fired .450 Magnum loads, sufficient to crack through Grunt armor.

In addition to the weapons, there was a single smoke canister—blue smoke to signal for pickup. John would carry that. “Let’s go,” he said.

Blue Team moved out. They quickly entered the jungle, in a simple single-file line with Blue-Four in the lead; James had an instinct for walking point. The line was slightly staggered, with John and Kelly slightly to the left of James. Fred brought up the rear.

They moved cautiously. Every hundred yards, James signaled the group to halt while he methodically surveyed the area for any sign of the enemy. The rest of Blue Team crouched, and disappeared into the thick jungle foliage.

John checked his HUD; they were one-quarter of the way to the city. The team made good time despite the cautious pace. The MJOLNIR assault armor allowed them to push their way through the thick jungle like it was a stroll through the woods.

As the team moved on, the thin mist that permeated the jungle gave way to a hard, pelting rain. The damp ground gradually turned to mud, forcing the team to slow.

Blue-Four stopped dead and raised his fist—the signal to halt and freeze. John stopped in his tracks, his rifle raised and sweeping slowly back and forth, searching for any sign of enemy movement.

Normally, the Spartans relied on their armor’s detection gear to locate enemy troops. But their motion sensors were useless—everything moved in the jungle. They had to rely on their eyes and ears and the instincts of their point man.

“Point to Team Leader: enemy contact.” James’ calm voice crackled across the COM channel. “Enemy troops within one hundred meters of my position, ten degrees left.”

With exaggerated slowness, Blue-Four indicated the danger area by pointing.

“Affirmative,” John replied. “Blue Team: hold position.”

Although the motion trackers were of no use here, thermal proved effective. Through the thick sheets of rain, the Master Chief spotted three cold spots: Grunts in their chilled environmental suits.

“Blue Team: enemy contact confirmed.” He added the enemy position to his HUD. “Estimated enemy strength, Point?”

“Lead, I make ten, say again, ten Covenant troops. Grunts, sir. They’re moving slowly. Double-file formation. They haven’t spotted us. Orders?”

John’s orders said to minimize contact with the enemy where possible—the Spartans were spread too thinly across the battle area to risk a prolonged engagement. But the Grunts were heading right for the Marine bunker...

“Let’s take them out, Blue Team,” he said.

The team of Grunts slogged through the mud. The vaguely simian aliens wore shiny red-trimmed armor. Craggy, purple-black hide was visible beneath the environmental suits. Breath masks provided supercooled methane—the aliens’ atmosphere. There were ten of them, moving in two columns and spaced roughly three meters apart.

John noted with satisfaction that they seemed bored—only the point man and the pair on rear guard had their plasma rifles at the ready. The rest chattered at each other in a weird combination of high-pitched squeaks and guttural barks.

Easy, relaxed targets. Perfect.

He gave a series of slow hand signals to the rest of the team; they faded back until they were well away from the Grunts’ field of view.

The Master Chief opened the squadwide COM channel. “They’re seventy meters from this depression—” He keyed a NAV point into the team’s topographic display. “They’re heading for the western hill and will probably follow the terrain to the top. We’ll fall back now, and take concealed positions along the eastern hill.

“Blue-Four, you’re our scout—stay near the bottom and let us know when the rear guard passes you. Take them out first—they seem alert.

“Blue-Two, you have overwatch at the top of the hill.

“Blue-Three, back me up. Silenced weapons only—no explosives, unless things go bad.”

He paused, then gave the order: “Move out.”

The Spartans crept back along their path and spread out along the hill.

John—in the center of the line—readied his assault rifle. The team was virtually invisible in the thick foliage, and covered by the barrelwide tree trunks of the local flora.

One minute ticked by. Then two... three...

Blue-Four’s acknowledgment signal blinked twice in John’s HUD. Enemy detected. He relaxed his grip on the weapon, waiting—

—There. Twenty meters distant, the Grunt point man moved to the edge of the western hill, just downhill from John’s position. The alien paused, his plasma rifle sweeping the area—then moved slowly up the rise.

A moment later, the rest of the formation came into view, ten meters behind the point man.

Blue-Four’s indicator winked again. Now.

The Master Chief opened fire, a short, three-round burst. The weapon’s muffled cough was inaudible over the sound of jungle rainfall. The trio of armor-piercing rounds slashed through the alien’s throat protection, rupturing the environment suit. The Grunt clutched at his neck, emitted a brief, high-pitched gurgle—then fell to the mud, dead.

A moment later, the Grunt lines came to a clumsy halt, confused.

John spotted two strobe flashes, and the pair of Covenant rear guards dropped to the ground.

“Blue-Two to Lead: rear-guard eliminated.”

“Hit them!” John barked.

The four Spartans opened fire in short bursts. In less than a second, four more of the Grunt patrol were down, dead from head shots.

The remaining trio of Grunts unslung their plasma rifles, swinging them wildly back and forth, looking for targets and chattering loudly in their strange, barking language. John sighted on the alien closest to him and squeezed the trigger.

The alien splashed into the mud, methane bubbling from his shattered breath mask.

Another pair of sustained bursts and the last of the Grunts were down.

Kelly policed the Grunts’ weapons and handed a plasma rifle to each of the team; the Spartans had standing orders to seize Covenant weapons and technology whenever possible.

Blue Team fanned out and continued on their way. When they heard Banshees overhead, they hunkered down in the mud, and the fliers passed.

Ten more kilometers of rough terrain and then the jungle stopped and fields of rice paddies stretched out before them all the way to Côte d’Azur.

Crossing these would be more difficult than the jungle. They donned camouflage cloaks that masked their thermal signatures and crawled through the muck on their stomachs.

The Master Chief saw three larger ships hovering over the city. If they were troop transports, they could carry thousands of Covenant soldiers. If they were warships, any direct ground assault against the city would be futile. Either way it was bad news.

He made sure his vid and audio mission recorders got a good clear image of the vessels.

When they emerged from the mud, they were near the beach on the edge of the city. The Master Chief checked his map readings and made his way to the sewage outlet.

The two-meter diameter pipe was sealed with a steel grate. He and Fred easily bent the bars aside and entered.

They sloshed through hip-deep muck. The Master Chief didn’t like the cramped quarters. Their mobility was restricted by the narrow pipes; worse, they were bunched up and therefore easier to kill with grenades or massed fire. Motion sensors picked up hundreds of targets. The constant downpour from storm drains above made the sensors useless.

He followed his electronic map through the maze of pipes. Light filtered in from above—beams of illumination connected to the manhole-cover vent holes. Every so often something moved and blocked that light.

The Spartans moved quickly and quietly through the sludge and halted when they reached their final waypoint—directly under the center of Côte d’Azur’s “downtown.”

With a tiny jerk of his head, the Master Chief informed Blue Team to spread out and keep their eyes peeled. He snaked a fiber-optic probe up through the drain grate at street level and plugged it into his helmet.

The yellow light from the sodium vapor lamps washed everything topside in an eerie glow. There were Grunts positioned on the street corners, and the shadow of a Banshee flier circling overhead.

The electric cars parked on the street had been overturned, and the waste receptacles had been knocked over or set on fire. Every street-level window was broken. The Master Chief saw no human civilians, alive or otherwise.

Blue Team moved up and over a block. The Master Chief checked topside again.

There was more activity here: a pack of black-armored Grunts meandered down the streets. Two vulture-headed Jackals sat on the corner, squabbling over a hunk of meat.

Something else caught his attention, though. There were other aliens on the sidewalk—or rather, above the sidewalk. They were roughly man-size creatures—unlike any he had ever encountered. The creatures were vaguely sluglike, with pale, purple-pink skin. Unlike other Covenant forces, they were not bipeds. Instead they had several tentacular appendages sprouting from their thick trunks.

They floated a half meter above the ground, as if the odd, pink bladders on their backs kept them aloft. One alien used a slender tentacle to open the hood of a car. It began to disassemble the car’s electric engine, moving with startling speed.

Within twenty seconds all the parts had been neatly arranged in rows on the pavement. The creature paused, then reassembled the parts with blinding quickness, disassembled and rebuilt it several times into different arrangements. Finally, the creature simply reassembled the car and floated on its way.

The Master Chief made sure his mission recorder had gotten that. This was a Covenant race never documented before.

He rotated the fiber-optic cable to point down the opposite end of the street. There was more activity another block away.

He retracted the probe and moved Blue Team a block farther south. He signaled the team to hold position, then climbed up a short series of metal handholds until he was just below a manhole cover.

He cautiously sent the probe topside again, up through the manhole-cover vent.

There was a Jackal’s hoof directly adjacent to the probe, blocking half of his field of vision. He turned the probe with excruciating slowness, and saw fifty more Jackals milling back and forth. They were concentrated around the building across the street. The building resembled pictures that Déjà had shown him years ago—it looked like an Athenian temple, with white marble steps and Ionic columns. At the top of the steps were a pair of stationary guns. More bad news.

He pulled the probe back and consulted the map. The building was marked as the Côte d’Azur Museum of Natural History.

The Covenant had serious firepower here—the stationary guns had commanding fields of fire, making a frontal assault suicidal. Why would they protect a human structure? he wondered. Was it their headquarters?

The Master Chief signaled for Blue-Two. He pointed to the accessway that led under the building. He held up two fingers, pointed toward her eyes, and then down the passage, and then slowly balled his hand into a fist.

Kelly proceeded very slowly down that passage to scout it out.

The Master Chief checked the time. Red and Green Teams were due to report. He had James attach the ground-return transceiver to the pipes overhead.

“Green Team, come in.”

“Roger: Green Team Leader here, sir,” Linda whispered over the channel. “We’ve scouted the residential section.” There was a pause. “No survivors... just like Draco Three. We’re too late.”

He understood. They’d seen it before. The Covenant didn’t take prisoners. On Draco III, they had watched via satellite linkup as human survivors were herded together and ripped apart by ravenous Grunts and Jackals. By the time the Spartans had gotten there, there was no one left to rescue.

But the victims had been avenged.

“Green Team: stand by and prepare to fall back to the RV and secure the area,” he said.

“Standing by,” Linda said.

He switched to the Red Team COM channel: “Red Team, report.”

Joshua’s voice crackled over the link: “Red Leader, sir. We’ve got something for ONI. We’ve spotted some new type of Covenant race. Little guys that float. They seem to be some sort of explorer or scientist type. They take things apart, then move on, like they’re looking for something. They do not, repeat not, appear hostile. Advise that you do not engage. They raise a pretty loud alarm, Blue Lead.”

“You in trouble?”

“Dodged trouble, sir,” he said. “But there is one snag.”

“Snag.” The word was charged with meaning for the Spartans. Getting caught in an ambush or a minefield, a teammate wounded, or aerial bombardments—those were all things they had trained for. Snags were things they didn’t know how to handle. Complications that no one had planned for.

“Go ahead,” the Master Chief whispered.

“We have survivors. Twenty civilians hid in a cargo ship here. There are several wounded.”

The Master Chief mulled this over. It wasn’t his choice to weigh the relative worth of a handful of civilian lives versus the possibility of taking out ten thousand Covenant troops with their nuke. His orders were specific on this point. They could not set up the nuke if there was civilian population at risk.

“New mission objective, Red Team Leader,” the Master Chief said. “Get those civilians to the recovery point and evac them back to fleet.” He switched COM channels again, broadcasting to all the teams. “Green Team Leader, you still online?”

A pause, then Linda spoke: “Roger.”

“Move to the docks and coordinate with Red Team—they have survivors we need to evac. Green Team leader has strategic control of this mission.”

“Understood,” she said. “We’re on our way.”

“Affirmative, sir,” Joshua said. “We’ll get it done.”

“Blue Team out.” The Master Chief disconnected.

It was going to be rough for Green and Red Teams. Those civilians would slow them down—and if they had to protect them from Covenant patrols, they’d all get noticed.

Blue-Two returned. She opened the COM link and reported in. “There’s access to the building—a ladder and a steel plate welded shut. We can burn through it.”

The Master Chief opened up the team COM channel. “We’re going to assume that Red and Green Teams will remove the civilians from Côte d’Azur. We will proceed as planned.”

He paused, then turned to Blue-Two. “Break out the nuke and arm it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

2120 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Iroquois, military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV

“Ship’s status?” Captain Keyes said as he strode onto the bridge, buttoning his collar. He noticed that the repair station Cradle still obscured their port camera. “And why aren’t we clear of that station yet?”

“Sir, all hands are at battle stations,” Lieutenant Dominique replied. “General quarters sounded. Tac data uploaded to your station.”

A tactical overview of the Iroquois, neighboring vessels, and Cradle popped onto Keyes’ personal display screen. “As you can see,” Lieutenant Dominique continued, “we did clear the station, but they are moving on the same outbound vector we are. Admiral Stanforth wants them with the fleet.”

Captain Keyes took his place in his command chair—“the hot seat,” as it was more colloquially known—and reviewed the data. He nodded with satisfaction. “Looks like the Admiral has something up his sleeve.” He turned to Lieutenant Hall. “Engine status, Lieutenant?”

“Engines hot at fifty percent,” she reported. She straightened to her full height, nearly six feet, and looked Captain Keyes in the eye with something edging near defensiveness. “Sir, the engines took a real beating in our last engagement. The repairs we’ve made are... well, the best we could do without a complete refit.”

“Understood, Lieutenant,” Keyes replied calmly. In truth, Keyes was concerned about the engines, too—but it would do no good to make Hall more uneasy than necessary. The last thing he needed now was to undermine her confidence.

“Gunnery officer?” Captain Keyes turned to Lieutenant Hikowa. The petite woman bore more resemblance to a porcelain doll than to a combat officer, but Keyes knew her delicate appearance was only skin deep. She had ice water for blood and nerves of steel.

“MAC guns charging,” Lieutenant Hikowa reported. “Sixty-five percent and climbing at two percent per minute.”

Everything on the Iroquois had slowed down to a crawl. Engine, weapons—even the unwieldy Cradle kept pace with them.

Captain Keyes sat up straighter. There was no time to spend on self-recriminations. He would have to do the best he could with what he had. There simply was no other alternative.

The lift doors popped open and a young man stepped on deck. He was tall and thin. His dark hair—longer than regulations permitted—had been slicked back. He was disarmingly handsome; Keyes noticed the female bridge crew pause to look the newcomer over before returning to their tasks. “Ensign Lovell reporting for duty, Captain.” He snapped a sharp salute.

“Welcome aboard, Ensign Lovell.” Captain Keyes returned his salute, surprised that the unkempt officer could demonstrate such crisp adherence to military protocol. “Man the navigation console, please.”

The bridge officers scrutinized the Ensign. It was highly unusual for such a low-ranking officer to pilot a capital ship. “Sir?” Lovell wrinkled his forehead, confused. “Has there been some mistake, sir?”

“You are Ensign Michael Lovell? Recently posted on the Archimedes Remote Sensor Outpost?”

“Yes, sir. They pulled me off that duty so quick that I—”

“Then man your station, Ensign.”

“Yes, sir!”

Ensign Lovell sat at the navigation console, took a few seconds to acquaint himself with the controls—then reconfigured them more to his liking.

A slight smile tugged at the corner of Keyes’ mouth. He knew that Lovell had more combat experience than any Lieutenant on the bridge, and was pleased that the Ensign adapted so quickly to unfamiliar surroundings.

“Show me the fleet’s position and the relative location of the enemy, Ensign,” Keyes ordered.

“Aye, sir,” Lovell replied. His hands danced across the controls. A moment later, a system map snapped into place on the main screen. Dozens of small triangular tactical markers showed Admiral Stanforth’s fleet massing between Sigma Octanus IV and its moon. It was a sound opening position. Fighting in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV would have trapped them in the gravity well—like fighting with your back to a wall.

Keyes studied the display—and frowned. The Admiral had moved the fleet into a tightly packed grid formation. When the Covenant fired their plasma weapons at them, there would be no maneuvering room.

The Covenant was moving in-system quickly. Captain Keyes counted twenty radar signatures. He didn’t like the odds.

“Receiving orders,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Admiral Stanforth wants the Iroquois at this location ASAP.”

On the map, a blue triangle pulsed on the corner of the grid formation.

“Ensign Lovell, get us there at best speed.”

“Aye, sir,” he replied.

Captain Keyes fought down a wave of embarrassment; the Cradle stardock started to pull ahead of the Iroquois. It took up a position directly over the Admiral’s phalanx formation. The refit station rotated, presenting its edge to the incoming Covenant fleet to show them the smallest target area.

“Rotating and reversing burn,” Ensign Lovell said. The Iroquois spun about and slowed. “Thrusters to station keeping. We’re locked in position, sir.”

“Very good, Ensign. Lieutenant Hikowa, divert as much power as you need to get those MAC guns charged.”

“Aye, sir,” Hikowa replied. “Capacitors charging at maximum rate.”

“Captain,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “We’re receiving an encrypted firing solution and countdown timers from the Leviathan’s AI.”

“Transfer that vector to Lieutenant Hikowa and show me on screen.”

A line appeared on the tactical map, connecting the Iroquois to one of the incoming Covenant frigates. The firing timer appeared in the corner: twenty-three seconds.

“Now show me the entire fleet’s firing solutions, Lieutenant Dominique.”

A web of trajectories crossed the map with tiny countdown times next to each. Admiral Stanforth had the fleet exchanging fire with the Covenant like a line of Redcoats and colonial militia in the Revolutionary War—tactics that could best be described as bloody... or suicidal.

What the hell was the Admiral thinking? Keyes studied the displays, trying to divine a method to his commanding officer’s madness... then he understood. Risky, but—if it worked—brilliant.

The fleet’s firing countdowns were roughly timed so that the shots would be staggered into two, maybe three, massive salvos. The first salvo would—hopefully—knock out the Covenant ships’ shields. The final salvo was to be the knockout punch.

But it could only work once. After that, the UNSC fleet would be destroyed when the remaining Covenant ships returned fire. The Iroquois and the other ships were stationary targets. He appreciated that the Admiral couldn’t get too far from Sigma Octanus IV, but with zero momentum—and no room to maneuver—there’d be no way to avoid those plasma bolts.

“Sound decompression alarms in all nonessential sections, Lieutenant Hall, and then empty them.”

“Aye, sir,” she said, and bit her lower lip.

“Guns: status on the MACs?” Keyes’ eyes were glued to the firing countdown. Twenty seconds... fifteen... ten...

“Sir, MAC weapon systems are hot!” Hikowa announced. “Removing safeties now.”

The Covenant ships started to rotate slowly in space—although their momentum continued to carry them on their inbound trajectory toward the UNSC phalanx. Motes of red light collected along the alien ships’ lateral lines.

Five seconds.

“Transferring firing control to the computer,” Lieutenant Hikowa said. She punched a series of firing codes into the computer, then locked down the controls. The Iroquois recoiled and spat twin bolts of thunder toward the enemy.

The starboard view screen showed UNSC destroyers and frigates launching their opening salvo.

The Covenant fleet fired as well; angry red lances of energy raced though space towards them.

“Time until that plasma impacts?” Captain Keyes asked Ensign Lovell.

“Twenty-two seconds, sir.”

The vacuum between the two opposing forces filled with a hundred lines of fire and smoldering metal that seemed to tear through the fabric of space.

Their trajectories closed on one another, then crossed, and the bolts of fire grew larger on the main screen.

Lieutenant Dominique said, “Receiving a second set of firing solutions and times. Admiral Stanforth on the priority channel, sir.”

“Put him on, holotank two,” Keyes ordered.

Near the main view screen, a small holographic tank—normally reserved for the ship’s AI—winked into operation. Admiral Stanforth’s ghostly image appeared. “All ships: hold your positions. Divert all engine power to recharge your guns. We’ve got something special cooked up.” His eyes narrowed. “Do not—I repeat, do not—under any circumstance break position or fire before you are ordered to do so. Stanforth out.”

The holographic projection of the Admiral snapped out of existence.

“Orders, sir?” Ensign Lovell turned in his seat.

“You heard the Admiral, Ensign. Thrusters to station keeping. Lieutenant Hikowa: get those guns recharged on the double.”

“Aye, sir.”

Keyes nodded as Hikowa turned back to her task. “Three seconds until first salvo impact,” she announced.

Keyes turned back to the tac display, concentrating on the MAC rounds that crawled across the screen. The fleet’s MAC rounds hammered into the Covenant lines. Shields flickered silver-blue and overloaded as the super-dense projectiles rammed into the formation; several ships were spun out of position by the impact.

“Guns?” he called out. “Enemy status?”

“Multiple hits on Covenant fleet, sir,” Hikowa replied. “Salvo two impact... now.”

A handful of the shots were clean misses. Keyes winced; each one of the off-trajectory MAC rounds meant one more enemy ship would survive to return fire.

The vast majority, however, slammed into the unshielded alien vessels. The lead Covenant destroyer took a direct hit from a heavy round, which sent the alien ship into a lurching port spin.

Keyes saw the destroyer’s engines flare as her pilot struggled to regain control—just as a second MAC round struck on the ship’s opposite side. For an instant, the Covenant vessel shuddered, held position, then flexed as the hull stresses became too great. The destroyer disintegrated and scattered debris in a wide arc.

A second Covenant ship—a frigate—shuddered under the impact of multiple MAC rounds. It listed to starboard and rammed the next frigate in the enemy formation. Sparks and small explosions flared from the ships as a gray-white plume of vented atmosphere exploded into space. The ships’ running lights flickered, then dimmed as the pair of dead spacecraft—locked in a deadly embrace—tumbled into the heart of the Covenant line.

A moment later, the wrecked ships hit a third Covenant frigate, and they exploded, sending tendrils of plasma through space. A dozen of their ships vented atmosphere and fires flickered within their hulls.

The fore view screen, however, was now filled with incoming weapons fire.

“Fleet commander on priority channel,” Dominique announced. “Audio only.”

“Patch it through, Lieutenant,” Keyes ordered.

A hiss of static crackled through the communications-system speakers. A moment later, Admiral Stanforth’s voice calmly broke through the noise. “Lead to all ships: hold your positions,” the Admiral said. “Make ready to fire. Transfer timers to your computers... and hang on to your hats.”

A shadow crossed the overhead camera. On the view screen, Captain Keyes watched as the Cradle repair station, the plate nearly a kilometer on edge, rotated and started to slide in front of their phalanx formation.

“Christ,” Ensign Lovell whispered, “they’re going to take the hits for us.”

“Dominique, hit the scopes. Are there any lifepods outbound from Cradle?” Keyes asked. He already knew the answer.

“Sir,” Dominique answered, his deep voice thick with worry. “No escape craft have left the Cradle.”

All eyes on the Iroquois’ bridge were riveted to the screen. Keyes’ hands clenched with anger and helplessness. There was nothing to do but watch.

The front view screen went black as the station passed in front of them. Pinpoints of red and orange appeared along the back surface, metal vapor venting in plumes. Cradle lurched closer to the fleet, the impact of the plasma torpedoes pushing it back. The station continued to move downward, spreading out the damage. Holes appeared in the surface; the internal lattice of steel girders was exposed and, seconds later, glowed white-hot—then the view screen was clear again.

“Ventral cameras,” Captain Keyes said. “Now!”

The view changed as Dominique switched to the Iroquois’ belly cameras. Cradle station reappeared. She spun and her entire forward surface was aglow... heat spread to the edges, the center liquefied and pulled away.

“MAC guns ready to fire in three seconds,” Lieutenant Hikowa announced, her voice cold and angry. “Targeting lock acquired.”

Keyes gripped the arms of the command chair. “Cradle’s crew bought this shot for us, Lieutenant,” Captain Keyes growled. “Make it count.”

The Iroquois shuddered as the MAC gun fired. On the status display, Keyes watched as the rest of the UNSC fleet fired simultaneously. A twenty-one-gun salute three times over for those on board the station who had given their lives.

“All ships: break and attack!” Admiral Stanforth bellowed. “Pick your targets and fire at will. Take as many of these bastards out as you can! Stanforth out.”

They had to move before the Covenant plasma weapons recharged.

“Give me fifty percent on our engines,” Captain Keyes ordered, “and come about to course two eight zero.”

“Aye,” Ensign Lovell and Lieutenant Hall replied in unison.

“Lieutenant Hikowa, release safeties on the Archer missile system.”

“Safeties disengaged, sir.”

The Iroquois moved away at a near-right angle from the phalanx formation. The other UNSC ships scattered at all vectors. One UNSC destroyer, the Lancelot, accelerated straight toward the Covenant line.

As the UNSC ships scattered, the MAC salvo reached the Covenant ships. The Admiral’s firing solutions had targeted the remainder of the Covenant battlegroup’s smaller ships. Their shields sparkled, rippled, and then flickered out of existence. Their frigates shattered under the impact of the firepower. Holes ripped through their hulls. Wrecked spacecraft drifted lazily through the battle area.

The surprise second salvo had cost the Covenant dearly—a dozen enemy ships were out of the fight.

That left eight Covenant vessels—destroyers and cruisers.

Pulse lasers and Archer missiles fired, and every ship onscreen accelerated towards one another. Both Covenant and UNSC ships released their single-ship fighters.

The tac computer was having trouble tracking everything—Keyes cursed to himself over the lack of a ship AI—as the missile fire and plasma discharges strobed in the blackness. Single ships—the humans’ Longsword fighters and the flat, vaguely piscine Covenant fighters—dove, and fired, and impacted into warships. Archer missiles left trails of exhaust. Blue pulse lasers scattered inside the clouds of vented propellant and atmosphere, and cast a ghostly blue glow over the scene.

“Orders, sir?” Lovell asked nervously.

Captain Keyes paused—something felt... wrong. The battle was utter chaos, and it was nearly impossible to tell exactly what was happening. Sensor data was thrown off by the constant detonations and the fire of the aliens’ energy weapons.

“Scan near the planet, Lieutenant Hall,” Keyes said. “Ensign Lovell, move us closer to Sigma Octanus Four.”

“Sir?” Lieutenant Dominique said. “We’re not engaging the Covenant fleet?”

“Negative, Lieutenant.”

The bridge crew paused for a fraction of a second—all except Ensign Lovell, who tapped on the controls and plotted a new course. The bridge crew had all had a taste of being heroes in their last battle, and they wanted more. Captain Keyes knew what that was like... and he knew how dangerous it was.

He was not about to charge into battle, however, with the Iroquois at half power, her structural integrity already compromised, and with no AI to mount a point defense against Covenant single ships. One plasma torpedo to their lower decks would gut them.

If he remained where he was and attempted to shoot into the fray, he was just as likely to accidentally hit a friendly ship as a Covenant vessel.

No. There were several damaged Covenant ships in the area. He would finish them off—make sure they could not launch any attack on their fleet. There was no glory in the action—but considering their present condition, glory was of little concern. Survival was.

Captain Keyes watched the battle rage in the starboard camera. The Leviathan took a plasma bolt, and her foredecks burned. One Covenant ship collided with the UNSC frigate Fair Weather; the superstructures of the two craft locked together—and both ships opened fire at point-blank range. The Fair Weather detonated into a ball of nuclear fire that engulfed the Covenant destroyer. Both ships faded from the tactical display.

“Covenant ship detected in orbit around Sigma Octanus Four,” Lieutenant Hall reported.

“Let me see it,” Keyes said.

A small vessel appeared on-screen. It was smaller than the Covenant equivalent of a frigate... but definitely larger than one of the aliens’ dropships. It was sleek and seemed to waver in and out of the blankness of space. The engine pods were baffled and devoid of the characteristic purple-white glow of Covenant propulsion systems.

“They’re in a geosynchronous orbit over Côte d’Azur,” Lieutenant Hall reported. “Their thrusters are firing microbursts. Precision station keeping, sir, if I were to guess.”

Lieutenant Dominique interrupted. “Detected scattering from a narrow-beam transmission on the planet surface, sir. A far-infrared laser.”

Captain Keyes turned toward the main battle on-screen. Was this slaughter just a diversion?

The original attack on Sigma Octanus IV had been for the sole purpose of landing ships and invading Côte d’Azur. Once accomplished, their battle group had left.

And now—whatever the Covenant’s purpose was groundside, they were sending information to this stealth ship... while the rest of their fleet kept the UNSC forces from interfering.

“Like hell,” he muttered.

“Ensign Lovell, plot a collision course for that ship.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Lieutenant Hall, push the engines as far as you can. I need every bit of speed you can get me.”

“Yes, sir. If we vent primary coolant and use our reserve, I can boost the engine output to sixty-six percent... for five minutes.”

“Do it.”

The Iroquois moved sluggishly toward the Covenant ship.

“Intercept in twenty seconds,” Lovell said.

“Lieutenant Hikowa, arm Archer missile pods A through D. Blow that Covenant son of a bitch out of the sky.”

“Archer missile pods armed, sir,” she replied smoothly. Her hands moved gracefully over the controls. “Firing.”

Archer missiles streaked toward the Covenant stealth ship—but as they closed with the target, they started to swerve from side to side, then spun out of control. The spent missiles fell toward the planet.

Lieutenant Hikowa cursed quietly in Japanese. “Missile guidance locks jammed,” she said. “Their ECM spoofed the guidance packages, sir.”

No other choice, then, Keyes thought. They can jam our missiles—let’s see them jam this.

“Run them over, Ensign Lovell,” Keyes ordered.

He licked his lips. “Aye, sir.”

“Sound collision alarm,” Captian Keyes said. “All hands, brace for impact.”

“She’s moving,” Lovell said.

“Keep on her.”

“Course correcting now. Hang on,” Lovell said.

The eight-thousand-ton Iroquois slammed into the tiny Covenant ship.

On the bridge, they barely felt the impact. The diminutive alien vessel, however, was crushed from the force. Her crippled hull spun toward Sigma Octanus IV.

“Damage report!” Keyes bellowed.

“Lower decks 3 through 8 show hull breach, sir,” Hall called out. “Internal bulkheads were already closed, and no one was in those areas, per your orders. No systems damage reported.”

“Good. Move to her original position, Ensign Lovell. Lieutenant Dominique, I want that transmission beam intercepted.”

The ventral cameras showed the Covenant ship plunge into the atmosphere. Its shield glowed yellow, then white—then dissipated as the ship’s systems failed. It burst into crimson flame and burned across the horizon, a black plume of smoke trailing in its wake.

“The Iroquois is losing altitude,” Ensign Lovell said. “We’re falling into the planet’s atmosphere... bringing us about.” The Iroquois spun 180 degrees. The Ensign concentrated on his displays, then said, “No good, we need more power. Sir, permission to fire emergency thrusters?”

“Granted.”

Lovell exploded the aft emergency thrusters and the Iroquois jumped. Lovell’s eyes were locked on the repeater displays as he fought for every centimeter of maneuvering he could get. Sweat ran down his forehead and soaked his flight suit.

“Orbit stabilizing—barely.” Lovell exhaled with relief, then turned to face Keyes. “Got it, sir. Thrusters to precision station keeping.”

“Receiving,” Lieutenant Dominique said, and then paused. “Receiving... something, sir. It must be encrypted.”

“Make sure you’re recording, Lieutenant.”

“Affirmative. Recorders active... but the codebreaker software can’t crack it, sir.”

Captain Keyes turned back to the tac displays, half expecting to see a Covenant ship in firing position.

There wasn’t much left of either the Covenant or UNSC fleets. Dozens of ships drifted in space, billowing atmosphere and burning. The rest moved slowly. A few flickered with fire. Scattered explosions dotted the black.

One undamaged Covenant destroyer turned, however, and left the battlefield. It came about and headed straight for the Iroquois.

“Uh-oh,” Lovell muttered.

“Lieutenant Hall, get me the Leviathan—priority Alpha channel,” Keyes ordered.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

Admiral Stanforth’s image appeared in the holotank. His forehead had a gash across it, and blood trickled into his eyes. He wiped it away with a shaking hand, his eyes blazing with anger. “Keyes? Where the hell is Iroquois?”

“Sir, Iroquois is in geosynchronous orbit over Côte d’Azur. We’ve destroyed a Covenant stealth ship and are in the process of intercepting a secure transmission from the planet.”

The Admiral stared at him a moment unbelievingly, then nodded as if this made sense to him. “Proceed.”

“We have a Covenant destroyer leaving the battle... bearing down on us. I think the reason for the Covenant’s invasion may be in this coded transmission. And they don’t want us to know, sir.”

“Understood, son. Hang on. The Cavalry’s on its way.”

On the aft screen, the remaining eight UNSC ships broke their attacks and turned toward the incoming destroyer. Three MAC guns fired and impacted on the Covenant vessel. Its shields only lapsed for a split second; it took a round through her nose... but it continued toward the Iroquois at flank speed.

“Transmission ended, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique announced. “Cut off in midpacket. The signal was terminated at the source.”

“Damn.” Captain Keyes considered staying and trying to reacquire that signal—but only for a moment. He decide to take what they had and run with it. “Ensign Lovell, get us the hell out of here.”

“Sir!” Lieutenant Hall said. “Look.”

The Covenant destroyer was changing course... along with the rest of the surviving Covenant vessels. They were scattering, and accelerating out of the system.

“They’re running,” Lieutenant Hikowa said, her normal iron calm replaced by astonishment.

Within minutes, the Covenant ships accelerated and vanished into Slipstream space.

Captain Keyes looked aft and counted only seven UNSC ships intact, with the balance of the fleet destroyed or disabled.

He sat in his command chair. “Ensign Lovell, take us back the way we came. Make ready to take on wounded. Repressurize all uncompromised decks.”

“Jesus,” Lieutenant Hall said. “I think we actually... won that one.”

“Yes, Lieutenant. We won,” Keyes replied.

But Captain Keyes wondered exactly what they had won. The Covenant had come to this system for a reason—and he had a sinking feeling that they may have gotten what they had come for.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

2010 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Sigma Octanus IV, Côte d’Azur

It was time to arm the nuke.

The small device held the power to destroy Côte d’Azur—wipe the Covenant infection clean off the planet.

John carefully removed the bonding strips on the HAVOK tactical nuclear device and attached it to the wall of the sewer. The adhesive on the black half sphere stuck and hardened to the concrete. He slipped the detonator key into a thin slot on the unit’s face. There were no external indicators on the device; instead, a tiny screen winked on his heads-up display indicating the nuke was armed.

HAVOK ARMED, flashed across his HUD. AWAITING DETONATION SIGNAL.

The device—a clean thirty-megaton explosive—could only be detonated by a remote signal... a problem here in the sewers. Even the powerful communications package on a starship would be unable to penetrate the steel and concrete overhead.

John quickly rigged a ground-return transceiver, placing it on the pipes overhead. He’d have to set up another unit outside to relay the signal underground... a hot line that would trigger a nuclear firestorm.

Technically, his mission parameters had been fulfilled. Green and Red Teams would have the civilians evacuated soon. They had scouted the region and discovered a new Covenant species—the strange floating creature that disassembled and reassembled human machinery, like a scientist or engineer stripping down a device to learn its secrets.

He could leave and destroy the Covenant occupation force. He should leave—there was an army of Jackals and Grunts—including at least a platoon of the black-armored veterans—on the streets above. There were three medium Covenant dropships hovering in the air as well. The advance Marine strike forces had been slaughtered, leaving the Spartans no backup. His responsibility now was to make sure his team got out intact.

But John’s orders had an unusual amount of flexibility... and that made him uncomfortable. He had been told to reconnoiter the region and gather intelligence on the Covenant. He was positive there was more to be learned here.

Certainly they were up to something in Côte d’Azur’s museum. The Covenant had never before been interested in human history—or indeed, in humans or their artifacts of any kind. He had seen a disarmed Jackal fight hand to hand rather than pick up a nearby human assault rifle. And the only thing the Covenant had ever used human buildings for was target practice.

So finding out the reason they seized and were protecting the museum definitely qualified as intelligence gathering in his book.

Was it worth exposing his team to find out? And if they died, would he be wasting their lives... or spending them for something worthwhile?

“Master Chief?” Kelly whispered. “Our orders, sir?”

He opened Blue Team’s COM channel. “We’re going in. Use your silencers. Don’t engage the enemy unless absolutely necessary. This place is too hot. We’ll just poke our noses in—see what they’re up to and bug out.”

Three acknowledgment lights winked on.

The Master Chief knew they implicitly trusted his judgment. He just hoped he was worthy of that trust.

The Spartans checked their gear and threaded silencers onto their assault rifles. They slipped silently down a wide side passage of the sewer.

A rusty ladder ran up to the ceiling, and a steel plate had been welded in place.

“Thermite paste already set up,” Fred reported.

“Burn it.” The Master Chief stepped to the side and looked away.

The thermite sputtered as bright as an electric arc welder, casting harsh shadows into the chamber. When it finished there was a jagged, glowing red circle in the steel.

The Master Chief climbed up the ladder and put his back against the plate—pushed. It popped free with a metallic snap.

He eased the plate down and set it aside. He attached the fiber-optic probe, fed it up through the hole.

All clear.

He flexed his leg muscles and sent the MJOLNIR armor up through the hole, pulling himself into the next chamber with his left hand. His right hand held the silenced assault rifle as if it were no heavier than a pistol. He braced for incoming enemy fire—

—Nothing happened.

He moved forward and surveyed the small room. The stone-walled chamber was dark, and was lined with shelving units. Each unit held jars filled with clear liquid and insect specimens. Boxes and crates were stacked neatly on the floor.

Kelly entered next, then Fred and James.

“Picking up motion sensor signals,” Kelly said over the COM channel.

“Jam them.”

“Done,” she replied. “They may have gotten a piece of us, though.”

“Spread out,” the Master Chief ordered. “Get ready to jump back into the hole if this gets too hot. Otherwise, initiate the standard distract-and-destroy.”

The clatter of alien hooves on marble echoed behind a door to their right.

The Spartans melted into the shadows. The Master Chief crouched behind a crate and unsheathed his combat knife.

The door opened and four Jackals stood in the door frame; they held active energy shields in front of them—warping their already ugly vulture faces. The blue-white glow of the energy shield pulsed through the dark chamber. Good, the Master Chief thought. That should play hell with their night vision.

The Jackals held plasma pistols at the ready in their free hands; the barrels of the guns moved erratically as the aliens whispered to one another... then steadied as, in careful, slow movements, they moved in.

The aliens fanned out into a rough “delta” formation—the lead Jackal a meter ahead of his compatriots. The group approached the Master Chief’s hiding spot.

There was a slight noise: the clink of glass bottles on the other side of the room.

The Jackals turned... and presented their unshielded backs to the Master Chief.

He exploded from his hiding place and jammed his blade into the base of the closest Jackal’s back. He snapped his right foot out, caught the back of the next Jackal’s head, crushing its skull.

The remaining aliens spun, glistening energy shields interposed between them and him.

There were three coughs from silenced MA5Bs. Alien blood—black in the harsh blue-white light—spattered across the inner surfaces of the energy shields as the silenced rounds found their marks. The Jackals toppled to the ground.

The Master Chief policed their plasma pistols and retrieved the shield generators clamped on their forearms. He had standing orders to collect intact specimens of Covenant technology. The Office of Naval Intelligence had not been able to replicate the Covenant’s shield technology. But they were getting close.

In the meantime, the Spartans would use these.

The Master Chief strapped the curved piece of metal to his forearm. He touched one of the two large buttons on the unit and a scintillating film appeared before him.

He handed the other shield devices to his teammates.

He pressed the second button and the shield collapsed.

“Don’t use these unless you have to,” he said. “The humming and their reflective surfaces might give us away... and we don’t know how long they last.”

He got three acknowledgment lights.

Kelly and Fred took up positions on either side of the open door. She gave him a thumbs-up.

Kelly took point and the Spartans moved, single file, up a circular stairwell.

She paused a full ten seconds at the doorway to the main floor. She waved them ahead and they emerged on the main level of the museum.

The skeleton of a blue whale was suspended over the main foyer. The dead hulk reminded the Master Chief of a Covenant starship. He turned away from the distraction and slowly moved over the black marble tiles.

Oddly, there were no more Jackal patrols. There were a hundred Jackals outside guarding the place... but none inside.

The Master Chief didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right... and Chief Mendez had told him a thousand times to trust his instincts. Was it a trap?

The Spartans staggered their line and moved cautiously into the east wing. There were displays of the local flora and fauna: gigantic flowers and fist-sized beetles. But their motion sensors were cold.

Fred halted... and then, with a quick hand signal, waved John to move up to his position.

He stood by a case of pinned butterflies. On the floor, facedown in front of that case, was a Jackal. It was dead, crushed flat. There was an imprint of a large boot where the creature’s back had been. Whatever had done this had easily weighed a ton.

The Master Chief spotted a few blood-smeared prints leading away from the Jackal... and into the west wing.

He flipped on his infrared sensors and took a long look around—no heat sources here or in the nearby rooms.

The Master Chief followed the footprints and signaled the team to follow.

The west wing held scientific displays. There were static electric generators and quantum field holograms on the walls, a tapestry of darting arrows and wriggling lines. A cloud chamber sat in the corner with subatomic tracers zipping through its misty confines—the Master Chief noted it was unusually active. This place reminded him of Déjà’s classroom on Reach.

A branch opened to another wing. The word GEOLOGY was carved on the entry arch.

Through that arch there was a strong infrared source, a razor-thin line that shot straight up and out of the building. The Master Chief only caught a glimpse of the thing—a wink and a blink then it was gone again... it was so bright his IR sensors overloaded and automatically shut down.

He waved James to take the left side of the arch. He had Kelly and Fred drop back to cover their flanks, and the Master Chief edged to the right of the arch.

He sent a fiber-optic probe ahead, bent it slightly, and poked it around the corner.

The room contained display cases of mineral specimens. There were sulfur crystals, raw emeralds, and rubies. There was a monolith of unpolished pink quartz in the center of the room, three meters wide and six tall.

Off to one side, however, were two creatures. The Master Chief hadn’t seen them at first—because they were so motionless... and so massive. He had no doubt that one of them had crushed the Jackal that had gotten in its way.

The Master Chief got scared all the time. He never showed it, though. He usually mentally acknowledged the apprehension, put it aside, and continued... just as he’d been trained to do. This time, however, he couldn’t easily dismiss the feeling.

The two creatures were vaguely man-shaped. They stood two and a half meters tall. It was difficult to make out their features; they were covered from head to toe with a dull blue-gray armor, similar to the hull of a Covenant ship. Blue, orange, and yellow highlights were visible on the few patches of exposed skin the creatures sported. They had slits where their eyes should be. The articulation points looked impregnable.

On their left arms they hefted large shields, thick as starship battleplate. Mounted on their right arms were massive, wide-barreled weapons, so large that the arm beneath seemed to blend into the weapon.

They moved with slow deliberation. One took a rock from the display case and set it inside a red metal case. It bent over the case while the other turned and touched the control panel of a device that looked like a small pulse laser turret. The laser pointed straight up—and out through the shattered glass dome overhead.

That had been the source of the infrared radiation. The laser must have intermittently scattered off the dust in the air—flashed enough energy into his sensors to burn them out. Something that powerful could beam a message straight out into space.

The Master Chief made a slow fist—the signal for his team to freeze. Then, with slow, deliberate movements, he signaled the Spartans to stay alert and get ready.

He waved Fred and Kelly forward.

Fred crept closer to him. Kelly slid up next to James.

The Master Chief then held up two fingers and made a sideways cut, motioning them into the room.

Acknowledgment lights winked on.

He went in first, sidestepped to the right, with Fred at his side.

James and Kelly took the left flank.

They opened fire.

Armor-piercing rounds pinged off the aliens’ body armor. One of them turned and brought its shield in front of it—covering its partner, the red case, and the laser beacon.

The Spartan bullets didn’t even leave a scratch on the armor.

The alien raised its arm slightly and pointed at Kelly and James.

A flash of light blinded the Master Chief. There was a deafening explosion and a wave of heat. He blinked for a full three seconds before he recovered his vision.

Where Kelly and James had been there was a burning crater that fanned backward... nothing but charcoal and ash remained of the Science Chamber behind them.

Kelly had moved in time; she crouched five meters deeper into the room, still firing. James was nowhere to be seen.

The other massive creature turned to face the Master Chief.

He hit the button on the shield generator on his arm and brought it up just in time—the nearest alien’s weapon flashed again.

The air in front of the Master Chief shimmered and exploded—he flew backward, crashing through the wall, and skidded for ten meters before slamming into the wall of the next room.

The Jackal shield generator was white-hot. The Master Chief ripped the melted alien device off and threw it away.

Those plasma bolts were like nothing he had seen before. They seemed almost as powerful as the stationary plasma cannons the Jackals used.

The Master Chief sprang to his feet and charged back into the chamber.

If the aliens’ weapons were similar to Covenant plasma guns, they would need to be recharged. He hoped the Spartans had enough time to take those things out.

The Master Chief still felt the fear—it was stronger than it had been before... but his team was still in there. He had to take care of them first before he could indulge in the luxury of feelings.

Kelly and Fred circled the creatures, their silenced weapons firing quick bursts. They ran out of ammunition and switched clips.

This wasn’t working. They couldn’t take them out. Maybe a Jackhammer missile at point-blank range would penetrate their armor.

The Master Chief’s gaze was drawn to the center of the room. He stared for a moment at the monolith of pink quartz.

Over the COM channel he ordered, “Switch to shredder rounds.” He changed ammunition and then opened fire—at the floor underneath the enormous creatures’ feet.

Kelly and Fred changed rounds and fired, too.

Marble tiles shattered and the wood underneath splintered into toothpicks.

One of the creatures raised its arm again, preparing to fire.

“Keep shooting,” John yelled.

The floor creaked, buckled, and then fell away; the two massive aliens plunged into the basement below.

“Quick,” the Master Chief said. He slung his rifle and moved to the back of the quartz monolith. “Push!”

Kelly and Fred leaned their weight against the stone and grunted with effort. The slab moved a tiny bit.

James sprinted forward, slammed into the stone, put his shoulder alongside theirs... and pushed. His left arm had been burned away from the elbow down, but he didn’t even whimper.

The monolith moved; it inched toward the hole... then tilted and went over. It landed with a dull thud and a crunching noise.

The Master Chief peered over the edge. He saw an armored left leg, and on the other side of the stone slab, an arm struggling underneath. The things were still alive. Their motions slowed, but they didn’t cease.

The red case was balanced precariously on the edge the hole. It teetered—no way to reach it in time.

He turned to Kelly—the fastest Spartan—and yelled: “Grab it!”

The box fell—

—and Kelly leaped.

In a single bound, she caught the rock as the case dropped, she tucked, rolled, and got to her feet, the rock safely held in one hand. She handed it to the Master Chief.

The rock was a piece of granite and glittered with a few jewel-like inclusions. What was as so special about it? He stuffed it into his ammunition sack and then kicked over the Covenant transmission beacon.

Outside, the Master Chief heard the clattering and squawking of the army of Jackals and Grunts.

“Let’s get out of here, Spartans.”

He threw his arm around James and helped him along. They ran into the basement, making sure to give the pinned giants under the stone a wide berth, then jumped through the storm drain and into the sewers.

They jogged thought the muck and didn’t stop until they had cleared the drain system and emerged in the rice paddies on the edge of Côte d’Azur.

Fred rigged the ground-return relay to the pipes overhead and ran a crude antenna outside.

The Master Chief looked back at the city. Banshee fliers circled through the skyscrapers. Spotlights from the hovering Covenant transport ships bathed the streets in blue illumination. The Grunts were going crazy; their barks and screams rose to an impenetrable din.

The Spartans moved toward the coast and followed the tree line south. James collapsed twice along the way and then finally slipped into unconsciousness. The Master Chief slung him over him shoulder and carried him.

They paused and hid when they heard a patrol of a dozen Grunts. The aliens ran past them—they either didn’t see the Spartans, or they didn’t care. The animals sprinted as fast as they could back to the city.

When they were a click away from the rendezvous point, the Master Chief opened the COM link. “Green Team Leader, we’re on your perimeter, and coming in. Signaling with blue smoke.”

“Ready and waiting for you, sir,” Linda replied. “Welcome back.”

The Master Chief set off one of his smoke grenades and they marched into the clearing.

The Pelican was intact. Corporal Harland and his Marines stood post, and the rescued civilians were safely inside the ship.

Blue and Red Teams were hidden in the nearby brush and trees.

Linda approached them. She motioned for her team to take James and get him onto the Pelican. “Sir,” she said. “All civilians on board and ready for liftoff.”

The Master Chief wanted to relax, sit down, and close his eyes. But this was often the most dangerous part of any mission... those last few steps when you might let down your guard.

“Good. Take one more look around the perimeter. Let’s make double sure nothing followed us back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Corporal Harland approached and saluted. “Sir? How did you do it? Those civilians said you got them out of the city—past an army of Covenant, sir. How?”

John cocked his head quizzically. “It was our mission, Corporal,” he said.

The Corporal stared at him and then at the other Spartans. “Yes, sir.”

When Green Team Leader reported that the perimeter was clear, the last of the Spartans boarded the Pelican.

James had regained consciousness. Someone had removed his helmet and propped his head on a folded survival blanket. His eyes watered from the pain, but he managed to salute the Master Chief with his left hand. John gestured at Kelly; she administered a dose of painkiller, and James lapsed into unconsciousness.

The Pelican lifted into the air. In the distance, the suns were warming the horizon, and Côte d’Azur was outlined against the dawn.

The dropship suddenly accelerated at full speed straight up, and then angled away to the south.

“Sir,” the pilot said over the COM channel. “We’re getting multiple incoming radar contacts... about two hundred Banshees inbound.”

“We’ll take care of it, Lieutenant,” John replied. “Prepare for EMP and shock wave.”

The Master Chief activated his remote radio transceiver.

He quickly keyed in the final fail-safe code, then sent the coded burst transmission on its way.

A third sun appeared on the horizon. It blotted out the light of the system’s stars, then cooled—from amber to red—and darkened the sky with black clouds of dust.

“Mission accomplished,” he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

0500 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Iroquois, military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV

Captain Keyes leaned against the brass railing on the bridge of the Iroquois and surveyed the devastation. The space near Sigma Octanus IV was littered with debris: the dead hulks of Covenant and UNSC ships spun lazily in the vacuum, surrounded by clouds of wreckage: jagged pieces of decimated armor plate, shattered single-ship fuselages, and heat-blackened metal fragments created a million radar targets. The debris field would clutter this system and make for a navigational hazard for the next decade.

They had recovered nearly all the bodies from space.

Captain Keyes’ gaze caught the remnants of the Cradle as the blasted space dock spun past. The kilometer-wide plate was now safely locked in a high orbit around the planet. She was slowly being torn apart from her own rotation; girders and metal plates warped and bent as the gravitational stresses on the ship increased.

The Covenant plasma weapons had burned through ten decks of super-hard metal and armor like so many layers of tissue paper. Thirty volunteers on the repair station had died piloting the unwieldy craft.

Admiral Stanforth had gotten his “win”... but at a tremendous cost.

Keyes brought up the casualty figures and damage estimates on his data pad. He scowled as the data scrolled across his screen.

The UNSC had lost more than twenty ships, and those that survived had all suffered heavy damage; most would require months of time-consuming repair at a shipyard. Nearly one thousand people were killed in the battle, and hundreds more were wounded, many critically. Add to that the sixteen hundred Marine casualties on the surface—and the three hundred thousand civilians murdered in Côte d’Azur at the hands of the Covenant.

Some “win,” Keyes thought bitterly.

Côte d’Azur was now a smoldering crater—but Sigma Octanus IV was still a human-held world. They had saved everyone else on the planet, nearly thirteen million souls. So perhaps it had been worth it.

So many lives and deaths had been measured in this battle. Had the balance of the odds tipped slightly against them—everything could have been lost. That was something he had never taught any of his students at the Academy—how much victory depended on luck as well as skill.

Captain Keyes saw the last of the Marine dropships returning from the planet surface. They docked with the Leviathan, and then the huge carrier turned and accelerated out of the system.

“Sensor sweep complete,” Lieutenant Dominique reported. “I think that was the last of the lifeboats we picked up, sir.”

“Let’s make certain, Lieutenant,” Keyes replied. “One more pass through the system please. Ensign Lovell, plot a course and take us around again.”

“Yes, sir,” Lovell wearily replied.

The bridge crew was exhausted, physically and emotionally. They had all pulled extended shifts as they searched for survivors. Captain Keyes would rotate shifts after this next pass.

As he looked at this crew he noticed that something was different. Lieutenant Hikowa’s movements were crisp and determined, as if everything she did now would decide their next battle; it made a startling contrast to her normally lethargic efficiency. Lieutenant Hall’s false exuberance had been replaced by genuine confidence. Dominique almost seemed happy—his hands lightly typing a report to FLEET- COM. Even Ensign Lovell, despite his exhaustion, stepped lively.

Maybe Admiral Stanforth was right. Maybe the fleet needed this win more than he had realized.

They had beaten the Covenant. Although not widely known, there had been only three small engagements in which the UNSC fleet had decisively defeated the Covenant. And not since Admiral Cole had retaken Harvest colony had there been an engagement on this scale. A complete victory—a world saved.

It would show everyone that winning was possible, that there was hope.

But, he mused, was there really? They won because they had gotten lucky—and had twice as many ships as the Covenant. And, he suspected, they had beaten the Covenant because the Covenant’s real objective hadn’t been to win.

Naval Intelligence officers had come aboard the Iroquois immediately after the battle. They congratulated Captain Keyes on his performance... and then copied and purged every single bit of data they had intercepted from the Covenant planetside transmission.

Of course, the ONI spooks left without offering any explanation.

Keyes toyed with his pipe, replaying the battle in his mind. No. The Covenant had lost because they were really after something else on Sigma Octanus IV—and the intercepted message was the key.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Incoming orders from FLEETCOM.”

“Put it through to my station, Lieutenant,” Captain Keyes said as he sat in his command chair. The computer scanned his retina and fingerprints and then decoded the message. He read on the small monitor:

“Very well,” he muttered to himself. “Lieutenant Dominique: send Admiral Stanforth my compliments. Ensign Lovell, generate a randomized vector as per the Cole Protocol, and make ready to leave system. Take us out for an hour in Slipstream space, then we’ll reorient and proceed to the REACH Military Instillation.”

“Aye, sir. Randomized jump vector ready—our tracks are covered.”

“Lieutenant Hall: start organizing shore leave for the crew. We’re heading back for repairs and some well-deserved R and R.”

“Amen to that,” Ensign Lovell said.

That wasn’t technically in his orders, but Captain Keyes would make sure his crew got the rest they deserved. That was the least he could do for them.

The Iroquois slowly accelerated on an out-system vector.

Captain Keyes took one long last look at Sigma Octanus IV. The battle was over... so why did he feel like he was headed into another fight?

The Iroquois plowed through a haze of titanium dust—condensed from a UNSC battleplate vaporized by Covenant plasma. The fine particles caught the light from Sigma Octanus and sparkled red and orange, making it look like the destroyer sailed through an ocean of blood.

When there was time, a HazMat team would sweep the area and clean up. In the meantime, junk—ranging in size from microscopic up to thirty-meter sections of Cradle—still drifted in the system.

One piece of debris in particular floated near the Iroquois.

It was small, almost indistinguishable from any of a thousand other softball-sized blobs that cluttered radar scopes and polluted thermal sensors.

If anyone had been looking close enough, however, they would have seen that this particular piece of metal drifted in the opposite direction from all the other masses nearby. It trailed behind the accelerating Iroquois... and edged closer, moving with purpose.

When it was close enough, it extended tiny electromagnets that guided it to the baffles at the base of the Iroquois’ number-three engine shield. It blended in perfectly with the other vanadium steel components.

The object opened a single photo eye and gazed at the stars, collecting data to reference its current position. It would continue to do this for several days. During that time it would slowly build up a charge. When it reached critical energy, a tiny sliver of thallium nitride memory crystal would be ejected at nearly the speed of light, and a minute Slipstream field would generate around it. If its trajectory was perfect, it would intercept a Covenant receiver located at precise coordinates in the alternate space.

... and the tiny automated probe would reveal to the Covenant every place the Iroquois had been.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

1100 Hours, August 12, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach UNSC Military Complex, planet Reach, Camp Hathcock

The Master Chief steered the Warthog to the fortified gate and ignored the barrel of the chain-gun that was not quite pointed in his direction. The guard on duty, a Marine Corporal, saluted smartly when John handed over his identification card.

“Sir! Welcome to Camp Hathcock,” the Corporal said. “Follow this road to the inner guardpost and present your credentials there. They’ll direct you to the main compound.”

John nodded. The Warthog’s tires crunched on gravel as the massive metal gate swung open.

Nestled in the Highland Mountains of Reach’s northern continent, Camp Hathcock was a top-level retreat; heads of state, VIPs, and top brass were the facility’s normal occupants—these and a division of veteran, battle-hardened Marines.

“Sir, please follow the Blue Road to this point here,” the Corporal at the inner gate instructed, gesturing at a point on a wall-mounted map, “and park in the Visitors’ Parking area.”

Minutes later, the main facility was in sight. John parked the Warthog and strode across the pleasantly familiar compound. He and the other Spartans had covertly made their way up here during their training. John suppressed a smile as he remembered how many times the young Spartans had commandeered food and supplies from the base. He inhaled deeply, smelling piñon pines and sage. He missed this place. He had been away from REACH for far too long.

Reach was one of the few places that John considered “safe” from the Covenant. There were a hundred ships and twenty Mark V MAC guns on the orbital stations overhead. Those guns were powered by fusion generators, buried deep within REACH. Each Mark V could propel a projectile so massive, and with such velocity, he doubted if even Covenant shields could withstand a single salvo from them.

His home would not fall.

Tall fences and razor wire encircled the inner compound of Camp Hathcock. The Master Chief stopped at the inner gate and saluted the MP there.

The Marine MP looked over the Master Chief in his dress uniform. He snapped to attention—his mouth dropped open and he stared unblinkingly. “They’re waiting for you, Master Chief, sir. Please go right on in.”

The guard’s reaction to the Master Chief—and the medals on his chest—was not uncommon.

First word of the Spartans and their accomplishments had spread despite the cloak of secrecy ONI had tried to surround them with. Three years ago the information had gone public at Admiral Stanforth’s insistence—for morale purposes.

It was hard to mistake the Master Chief for anything other than a Spartan. He stood just over two meters tall and weighed in at 130 kilos of rock-hard muscle and iron-dense bone.

There was a special insignia on his uniformed as well: a golden eagle poised with its talons forward—ready to strike. The bird clutched a lightning bolt in one talon and three arrows in the other.

The Spartan insignia was not the only thing about his dress uniform that called attention to him. Campaign ribbons and medals covered the left side. Chief Mendez would have been proud of him, but John had long ago stopped keeping track of the honors that had been heaped upon him.

He didn’t like the flashy ornamentation. He and the other Spartans preferred to be inside their MJOLNIR armor. Without it, he felt exposed somehow, like he’d left his quarters without his skin. He had grown used to the enhanced speed and strength, to his thought and actions melding instantaneously.

The Master Chief marched into the main building. Outwardly, it had been designed to look like a simple log cabin, albeit a large one. Its inner walls were lined with Titanium-A armor plate, and underground were bunkers and plush conference rooms that extended a hundred meters below the earth and into the mountain of rock.

He rode the elevator to Subbasement III. There, he was instructed by the Military Police attendant to wait in the debriefing lounge for the committee to summon him.

Corporal Harland sat in the lounge, reading a copy of STARS magazine, nervously tapping his foot. He immediately stood and saluted as the Master Chief entered the room.

“At ease, Corporal,” the Master Chief said. He glanced disapprovingly at the thickly padded couches and decided to stand.

The Corporal stared at the Master Chief’s uniform, nervous. Finally he straightened and said, “May I ask you a question, sir?”

The Master Chief nodded.

“How do you get to be a Spartan? I mean—” His gaze fell to the floor. “I mean, if someone wanted to join your outfit. How would they do that?”

Join? The Master Chief pondered the word. How had he joined? Dr. Halsey had picked him and the other Spartans twenty-five years ago. It had been an honor... but he had never actually joined. In fact, he had never seen any other Spartans other than his class. Once, shortly after he’d “graduated” from the training, he had overheard Dr. Halsey mention that Chief Mendez was training another group of Spartans. He had never seen them—or the Chief.

“You don’t join,” he finally told the Corporal. “You are selected.”

“I see,” Corporal Harland said, and wrinkled his brow. “Well, sir, if anyone ever asks, tell them to sign me up.”

The Military Police attendant appeared. “Corporal Harland? They’re ready for you now.” A set of double doors opened on the far wall. Harland gave John another salute, and nodded.

As the Corporal got up and strode toward the doors, he passed an older man on his way out. He wore the uniform of a UNSC Naval officer, a Captain. John sized the man up quickly—polished shoulder insignia, new material. The man was a newly ordained Captain.

John stood at attention and snapped a precision salute. “Officer on the deck,” John barked.

The Captain paused, and looked John up and down. There was a glint of amusement in his eyes as he returned the salute. “As you were, Master Chief.”

John stood at ease. The Captain’s name—Keyes, J.—was embroidered on the dress-gray tunic. John recognized the name immediately: Captain Keyes, the hero of Sigma Octanus. At least, he thought, one of the surviving heroes.

Keyes glanced at the Master Chief’s uniform. His eyes lingered on the Spartan insignia, and then on the Master Chief’s serial-number tag just under the stripes of his rank emblem. A faint smile appeared on the Captain’s face. “It’s good to see you again, Chief.”

“Sir?” The Master Chief had never met Captain Keyes. He had heard of his tactical brilliance at Sigma Octanus, but he had never met the man face-to-face.

“We met a very long time ago. Dr. Halsey and I—” He stopped. “Hell. I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

“Of course, sir. I understand.”

The Military Police attendant appeared in the hallway. “Captain Keyes, you’re wanted topside by Admiral Stanforth.”

The Captain nodded to the attendant. “In a moment,” he said. He stepped closer to the Master Chief and whispered, “Be careful in there. The ONI brass are—” He searched for the right word. “—irritated by the end results of our encounter with the Covenant at Sigma Octanus. I’d keep my head down in there.” He glanced back toward the debriefing-chamber doors.

“Irritated, sir?” John asked, genuinely puzzled. He would have thought the UNSC top brass would be elated by the victory, despite its cost. “But we won.”

Captain Keyes took a step back and cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “Didn’t Dr. Halsey ever teach you that winning isn’t everything, Master Chief?” He saluted. “You’ll excuse me.”

John saluted. He was so confused by Captain Keyes’ statement that he kept saluting as the Captain walked out of the room.

Winning was everything. How could someone with Captain Keyes’ reputation think otherwise?

The Master Chief tried to recall if he had ever read anything like that in any military history or philosophy texts. What else was there other than winning? The only other obvious choice was losing... and he had long been taught that defeat was an unacceptable alternative. Certainly, Captain Keyes didn’t mean that they should have lost at Sigma Octanus?

Unthinkable.

He stood silently for ten minutes mulling this over. Finally the Military Police attendant entered the waiting room. “They’re ready for you now, sir.”

The double doors opened and Corporal Harland came out. The young man’s eyes were glazed and he trembled slightly. He looked worse than he had looked when the Master Chief had found him on Sigma Octanus IV.

The Master Chief gave a curt nod to the Corporal and then entered the debriefing chamber. The doors closed behind him.

His eyes instantly adjusted to the dark room. A large, curved desk dominated the far end of the rectangular room. A domed ceiling curved over his head, cameras, microphone, and speakers positioned like constellations.

A spotlight snapped on and tracked the Master Chief as he approached the desk.

A dozen men and women in Navy uniforms sat in the shadows. Even with his enhanced eyesight, the Master Chief could barely make out their scowling features and the glistening brass oak leaves and stars through the glare of the overhead light.

He stood at attention and saluted.

The debriefing panel ignored the Master Chief and spoke among themselves.

“The transmission that Keyes intercepted only makes sense translated this way,” a man in the shadows said. A holotank hummed into operation. Tiny geometric symbols danced in the air above it: squares, triangles, bars, and dots.

To the Master Chief, they looked like either Morse code or ancient Aztec hieroglyphics.

“I will concede that point,” a woman’s voice in the darkness replied. “But translation software comes up empty. It’s not a new Covenant dialect that we’ve discovered.”

“Or a Covenant dialect at all,” someone else said.

Finally one of the officers deigned to notice the Master Chief. “At ease, soldier,” he said.

The Master Chief let his arm fall. “Spartan 117, reporting as ordered, sirs.”

There was a pause, then the woman’s voice spoke up, “We would like to congratulate you on your successful mission, Master Chief. You’ve certainly given us plenty to consider. We would like to pin down a few details of your mission.”

There was something in her voice that made John nervous. Not scared. But it was the same feeling he had going into combat. The same feeling he got when bullets started flying.

“You do know, Master Chief,” the first male voice said, “that not answering truthfully—or omitting any relevant details will lead to a court-martial?”

John bristled. As if he could ever forget his duty. “I will answer to the best of my abilities, sir,” he replied stiffly.

The holotank hummed again and images from a Spartan helmet recorder sprang into view. John noted the camera ID—it was his own. The images blurred forward, then stopped. A three-dimensional image of the floating creatures he had seen in Côte d’Azur hung in the air, motionless.

“Playback, loop bookmarks one through nine, please,” the woman’s voice called out.

Instantly, the holographic image animated—the alien quickly took apart and then reassembled a car’s electric motor.

“This creature,” she continued. “During the mission, did you see any other Covenant species—Grunts or Jackals—interact with them?”

“No, ma’am. As far as I could see, they were left alone.”

“And this one,” she said. The image changed to his firefight with the gigantic armored aliens. “At any time did you see these things interact with the other Covenant species?”

“No, ma’am—” The Master Chief reconsidered. “Well, in a manner of speaking, yes. If you could review the recording at time minus two minutes from this frame, please.”

The holo paused and then blurred backward.

“There,” he said. The video played forward as the Master Chief and Fred examined the crushed Jackal in the museum.

“That impression in this Jackal’s back,” he said. “I believe it is the armored alien’s bootprint.”

“What do you mean, son?” a new man asked. His voice was older and rough.

“I can only offer my opinion, sir. I am not a scientist.”

“Offer it, Master Chief,” the same scratchy voice said. “I, for one, would be very interested to hear what someone with firsthand experience has to say... for a change.”

There was a rustle of papers in the shadows, then silence.

“Well, sir—it looks to me like this Jackal simply got in the larger creature’s way. There’s no attempt to move it, and no deviation in the path of the following footfalls. It simply walked over the smaller alien.”

“Evidence of a hierarchical caste structure perhaps?” the old man murmured.

“Let’s move on,” the woman again spoke, her voice now laced with irritation.

The holo image changed yet again. A stone object appeared—the rock the Master Chief recovered from the museum.

“This stone,” she said, “is a typical igneous granite specimen but with an unusual concentration of aluminum oxide inclusions—specifically rubies. It is a match for the mineral specimens recovered from grid thirteen by twenty-four.

“Master Chief,” she said, “you recovered this rock—” She paused. “From an optical scanner. Is that correct?”

“Yes, ma’am. The aliens had placed the rock in a red metallic box. Visible spectrum lasers were scanning the specimen.”

“And the infrared pulse laser transmitter was hooked up to this scanner?” she asked. “You are certain?”

“Absolutely, ma’am. My thermal imagers caught a fraction of the transmission scattered by the ambient dust.”

The woman continued. “The rock sample is roughly pyramidal. The inclusions in the igneous matrix are unusual in that all possible crystalline morphologies for corundum are present: bipyramidal, prismatic, tabular, and rhombohedral. Scanning from the tip to the base with neutron imagers, we produce the following pattern.”

Again, a series of squares, triangles, bars and dots appeared on the view screen—symbols that again reminded John of Aztec writing.

Déjà had taught the Spartans about the Aztecs—how Cortés with superior tactics and technology had nearly obliterated an entire race. Was the same thing happening between the Covenant and humans?

“Now, then,” the first male voice interjected, “this business with the detonation of a HAVOK tactical nuclear device... do you realize that any additional evidence of Covenant activity on Côte d’Azur has been effectively erased? Do you know what opportunities have been lost, soldier?”

“I had extremely specific orders, sir,” the Master Chief said without hesitating. “Orders that came directly from NavSpecWep, Section Three.”

“Section Three,” the woman muttered, “which is ONI... it figures.”

The old man in the darkness chuckled. The faint glow of a cigar tip flared near his voice, then faded. “Are you insinuating, Master Chief,” the older man said, “that the destruction of all this ‘evidence,’ as my colleges would call it, happened because they ordered it?”

There was no good answer to that question. Whatever the Master Chief said was sure to irritate someone here.

“No, sir. I am simply stating that the destruction—of anything, including any ‘evidence’—is a direct result of the detonation of a nuclear weapon. In full compliance with my orders. Sir.”

The first man whispered, “Jesus... what do you expect from one of Dr. Halsey’s windup toy soldiers?”

“That’s quite enough, Colonel!” the older man snapped. “This man has earned the right to some courtesy... even from you.”

The older man lowered his voice. “Master Chief, thank you. We’re finished here, I think. We may wish to recall you later... but for now, you are dismissed. You are to treat all information you have heard or seen at this debriefing as classified.”

“Yes, sir!”

The Master Chief saluted, spun on his heel, and marched to the exit.

The double doors opened and then sealed behind him. He exhaled. It felt like he was being evac’d from the battlefield. He reminded himself that these last few steps were often the most dangerous.

“I hope they treated you well... or at least decently.”

Dr. Halsey sat in an overstuffed chair. She wore a long gray skirt that matched her hair. She rose and took his hand and gave it a small squeeze.

The Master Chief snapped to attention. “Ma’am, a pleasure to see you again.”

“How are you, Master Chief?” she asked. She stared pointedly at the hand pressed to his forehead in a tight salute. Slowly, he dropped his hand.

She smiled. Unlike everyone else, who greeted the Master Chief and stared at his uniform, medals, ribbons, or the Spartan insignia, Dr. Halsey stared into his eyes. And she never saluted. John had never gotten used to that.

“I’m fine, ma’am,” he said. “We won at Sigma Octanus. It was good to have a complete victory.”

“Indeed it was.” She paused and glanced about. “How would you like to have another victory?” she whispered. “The biggest we’ve ever had?”

“Of course, ma’am,” he said with no hesitation.

“I was counting on you to say that, Master Chief. We’ll be speaking soon.” She turned to the Military Police attendant waiting at the entrance to the lounge. “Open these damn doors, soldier. Let’s get this over with.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the MP said.

The doors swung inward.

She stopped and said to the Master Chief, “I’ll be speaking to you and the other Spartans, soon.” She then entered the darkened chamber and the doors sealed behind her.

The Master Chief forgot about the debriefing and Captain Keyes’ puzzling question about not winning.

If Dr. Halsey had a mission for him and his team, it would be a good one. She had given him everything: duty, honor, purpose, and a destiny to protect humanity.

John hoped she would give him one more thing: a way to win the war.