by Troy Denning
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For Ross and Ashley
The future is yours
HISTORIAN’S NOTE
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On March 1, 2526, approximately one year after the loss of Harvest during humanity’s first contact with the Covenant, Vice Admiral Preston Cole arrived to counterattack with the largest fleet in human history. In his bid to reclaim the colony, the forty warships of Battle Group X-Ray squared off against a single Covenant super-destroyer—and lost thirteen vessels before finally overcoming the staggering power of the enemy ship. Now, with a handful of colonies already fallen to the Covenant invasion fleet and many more worlds in its path, the United Nations Space Command is pivoting to a new strategy—and scrambling to stop the greatest existential threat humanity has ever faced.
CHAPTER 1
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0342 hours, March 5, 2526 (military calendar)
UNSC Razor-class Prowler Starry Night
High Equatorial Orbit, Planet Netherop, Ephyra System
The distant slivers of five alien spacecraft burst from Netherop’s pall of brown clouds and climbed into orbit on tails of white-hot propellant. The attack plan was to match velocities with the vessels, then have a squad of Spartans go EVA and follow them into their mothership’s hangar. But the aliens were traveling about twenty times faster now than when the Starry Night had spotted them just fifteen seconds earlier, and John-117 didn’t know if a Razor-class prowler could match that kind of acceleration.
There were a lot of things John didn’t know about this operation, like whether the alien craft were reconnaissance boats or superiority fighters, or whether their mothership was a survey frigate or an assault corvette. He didn’t know the size of the vessel’s complement, or how many of them would be trained for close-quarters combat, or why the Covenant might be interested in a greenhouse planet that had probably cooked its native population a hundred centuries before.
What John did know was that the aliens were the enemy, and today they were going to die.
He continued to watch the five spacecraft via a tactical monitor mounted high on the drop-bay bulkhead, and a crisp female voice sounded over the Starry Night’s internal comm net.
“Brace for acceleration. The inertial compensator won’t handle what we’re throwing at it.”
“Acknowledged.”
John and his eleven Spartan companions lowered their center of gravity against the prowler’s acceleration. A moment later, they began to hear muffled clangs and thumps as poorly secured equipment slammed into nearby bulkheads. “How long until we catch the targets?” he asked.
“It depends.”
When she failed to elaborate, John said, “That’s not an answer, ma’am.”
He tried to keep the impatience in his voice to a minimum. Halima Ascot might have an informal manner, but she was still a captain in the United Nations Space Command, and he was just a fifteen-year-old petty officer first class. Not that his age mattered. The date-of-birth had been falsified in the service records of all Spartans, and no one in the Starry Night’s crew had reason to believe any of them were younger than nineteen.
Besides, John and his fellow Spartans were no ordinary fifteen-year-olds. At age six, they had been conscripted into a top-secret program to develop bioengineered super-soldiers. The intention had been to use them against a massive colonial Insurrection that threatened to shatter humanity’s young interstellar civilization, but priorities had changed when the Covenant appeared.
That was the life of a Spartan. He went where he was needed, he didn’t complain, and he killed whatever he had to. It was that simple.
Deep down, John knew he had been wronged when he was taken from his family at such an early age—that he should have hated his abductors for robbing him of a normal childhood. But he didn’t. They had molded a schoolyard bully into a soldier, then forged him into the leader of the finest fighting unit in the UNSC. He was grateful for that.
And he was damn proud they had chosen him.
When Captain Ascot did not acknowledge his point, John added, “We need a little warning before deploying, ma’am. Once we activate our rebreathers, we’ll only have ninety minutes of air.”
“I’m aware of that, Petty Officer,” Ascot said. “Which is why this drop may be no-go. The mothership is on the far side of its orbit right now.”
This meant it would be hidden from the Starry Night’s surveillance systems until both vessels were on the same side of the planet again, but that was hardly a cause for concern. The Starry Night had been observing the Covenant vessels for more than a day, and the mothership had never been visible for longer than twenty minutes out of every hour.
“So, situation normal,” John said. “I don’t see the problem.”
“Orbital mechanics,” Ascot said. “You can’t just go faster and make the rendezvous—try that, and your whole squad will end up flying out of orbit.”
“Right.” John had studied classical mechanics in the physics courses during his third year of Spartan training. But that had been five years ago, when he was only nine, and he had been more interested in tactical theory than Newton’s laws of motion. “We have to drop into a lower orbit and catch up, then sync orbits and begin proximity operations.”
“While staying hidden behind the alien spacecraft,” Ascot said. “In their current orbit, it’s going to take seventy minutes just to sync. After that, you still have to last through proximity operations, then sneak aboard and capture a five-hundred-meter ship full of LGMs.”
LGM stood for little green men, a slang term that could be traced back at least as far as the unidentified flying object reports of 1950s Earth. Because one of the Covenant species averaged only a meter and a half tall, some analysts in the Office of Naval Intelligence believed the enemy might actually have visited Earth in the past. But John knew better. If the Covenant had ever been to Earth, it would be a glassed-over wasteland by now.
“We can handle it.”
John hoped he sounded more certain than he felt. On the one hand, he and his fellow Spartans were the deadliest soldiers mankind had ever created. On the other, humanity had not even been certain that aliens really existed until the violent first contact with the Covenant. So there was no getting around it—at best, John and his assault squad were only somewhat prepared for what they were about to attempt.
But he didn’t dare admit that. If he wanted his team to fight with confidence, he had to project confidence at all times.
When Ascot did not respond to his reassurance, John decided to double down. “Really, ma’am, we’ll be fine. Spartans work fast.”
“Nobody works that fast,” Ascot said. “Look . . . you’ll have no more than a fifteen-minute margin. If anyone runs out of air during the boarding action, there’s nothing the Starry Night can do to help.”
“I appreciate the concern.” John did not let her caution shake him. The SPARTAN-II program was so highly classified that even prowler captains did not know the full capabilities of the super-soldiers they ferried into battle. “But once we’re aboard, rebreather time won’t be a factor. The mothership’s atmosphere should support human life.”
“There’s
a big difference between should and will.”
“The odds are with us. You’ve seen the intelligence summaries. Only one Covenant species doesn’t breathe oxygen.”
“Only one species that ONI is aware of,” Ascot replied. “We both know there could be a dozen more that breathe anything from hydrogen to cobalt. The UNSC has a lot to learn about the Covenant.”
“Yes, ma’am. That is the reason for the operation.”
“Careful, Spartan,” Ascot said. “A pissed-off prowler captain has about two hundred ways to make your life miserable.”
“I apologize, ma’am.” John didn’t like begging for permission to carry out a mission assigned to him by the chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence’s Section Three, but as the commander of the Starry Night, Ascot was in charge of the mission until the Spartans left her vessel. “I still think we need to take the risk.”
“I know you do.”
Ascot’s tone was sympathetic. The UNSC knew almost nothing about the enemy. If the Spartans could capture a Covenant vessel, the scientists of ONI’s Section Three Materials Group should be able to reverse-engineer the technology and learn the secret of the enemy’s superior slipspace drives and nearly impenetrable energy shields. They would also attempt to discover the true capabilities of the aliens’ advanced weaponry, and perhaps even uncover a few hidden vulnerabilities. With a little luck, they might even figure out where the aliens lived out there—and why they wanted to eradicate humanity.
“But it’s my call,” Ascot continued. “And I need to be sure you understand the risks. We’re working at the edge of your armor’s capability, with more unknown variables than we can count. If something goes wrong, there won’t be much chance to recover.”
“If you’re saying we’d be on our own, Spartans are trained—”
“I’m saying the Starry Night will do everything possible,” Ascot said. “But we’re limited by orbital mechanics. It might be smart to wait for an opportunity that’s not quite so marginal.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, I disagree.” As much as John wanted to accept her recommendation, he didn’t even consider it. The longer they waited, the more likely they were to run into a mission-killing complication—and the more his private doubts would eat away at him. “We’ve been here a day already, and our luck won’t hold forever. Sooner or later, an enemy patrol will spot the Starry Night, or a second Covenant vessel will arrive, or the enemy commander will decide it’s time to move on. I can think of a dozen things that might go wrong if we don’t go now.”
Ascot fell silent for a moment, then finally sighed. “So can I.” There was a low murmur while she consulted with someone on the bridge; then she said, “Very well, Spartan. You’re cleared to move forward. Slingshot maneuver in five minutes.”
“Affirmative,” John said. “And thanks.”
“Don’t thank me, son. This isn’t a favor.”
She closed the comm channel, leaving John to hope he was making a sound decision. His best friend, Samuel-034, had died a few months earlier during the boarding action that had inspired this one, and John was still trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
The UNSC’s entire complement of Spartans had been aboard a modified Pelican dropship, ascending toward an orbital rendezvous above Chi Ceti IV, when they spotted a Covenant warship moving to attack their transport frigate. The vessels had savaged each other earlier, and it was clear the UNSC frigate would not survive another engagement. John ordered the company to go EVA and board the enemy ship.
He’d told himself he had no choice, that the desperate assault was the only way to prevent all thirty-three Spartans from being trapped on a soon-to-be-occupied world. And that had probably been true.
But the whole reason for going to Chi Ceti IV had been to outfit the Spartans in their new, state-of-the-art Mjolnir power armor. The automatic neural interface, performance-amplifying circuitry, and titanium-alloy shell had made them feel almost invincible, and John had been as keen as anyone to test the new armor in action. So when the Covenant ship reappeared, he hadn’t hesitated to commit his entire force to an impromptu boarding action.
The risky attack had worked—though just barely. John and two companions, Samuel-034 and Kelly-087, had intercepted the vessel and boarded through a breach in the combat-battered hull. They had managed to plant a trio of Anvil-II warheads near a power core, but not before a lucky plasma bolt found a soft spot in Sam’s armor and ruptured the pressure seal beneath.
The only way to flee the ship had been to jump back into space, where Sam would decompress inside his armor. Rather than condemn his friend to such a slow and agonizing death, John had ordered Sam to stay behind and guard the warheads until they detonated.
The decision continued to haunt John in his dreams, and that troubled him. He had seen many soldiers die, both in training and in combat, and suffered no self-doubt. But Sam had been under his command, and John could not help believing that had he been better prepared—and not quite so reckless—his friend would be fighting at his side today.
John didn’t see what he could have done differently—there had been only moments to plan and no opportunity to marshal ordnance—but he was not about to make the same mistake twice. This time, the Spartans were carrying emergency patching kits and extra thruster packs and locator beacons . . . equipment for just about every foreseeable contingency.
And still he worried, thanks to the UNSC’s lack of knowledge about the enemy. Almost literally, John was leading his Spartans into battle blind, and everything in his training told him that was a recipe for disaster.
But they had to try.
John turned toward the interior of the drop bay. Including him, there were twelve Spartans prepared to launch, all looking vaguely robotic in their angular helmets and bulky Mjolnir power armor. In an effort to optimize each Spartan’s individual field competencies and test skunkwork modifications, their armor’s titanium alloy frame had been temporarily modified, each of them bearing distinctive features. And to avoid enemy sensors, their plating sets had been tinted with the same refractive coating that helped conceal the UNSC’s prowlers.
Whether the precaution would work against the aliens was little more than an educated guess. The only thing the UNSC knew about Covenant sensor technology was that in the active mode, it radiated across a broad array of the electromagnetic spectrum. In theory, the apparatus had to operate on the same general principle as human sensor systems—by emitting a signal and looking for reflections bounced off an unseen object—but that was really just an assumption. For all anyone in the UNSC knew, the alien transmissions could be the by-product of some quantum-scanning technology that humanity had not yet imagined.
Another good reason to capture an enemy ship.
The illumination in the drop bay dimmed from white to pale purple, an indication that the Starry Night was three minutes from start-of-maneuver. The darker light would be less noticeable when the jump hatch opened to discharge the Spartans, and the time buffer gave their eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness.
“Final check, everyone,” John said. The Spartans had already examined their systems twice since entering the drop bay, so this was more of a focusing ritual than an actual equipment inspection. “Make sure you give your partner a careful lookover. No loose straps or partial magclamps.”
Inside his helmet, a chain of LEDs flashed green as the eleven other Spartans acknowledged the order. John ran through his own checklist—weapons loaded and safe, suit integrity good, rebreather operable, thruster canisters charged, directional nozzles responsive, attachments secure, quick release functional—then turned to his inspection partner, a dry-witted Spartan named Fred-104. John began a visual check, confirming that the seams on the outer shell of Fred’s armor remained tight, that the refractive paint was unblemished, the weapons attachments were solid, and the thruster harness sat flush beneath the fission reactor.
John gave Fred’s shoulder an all-good thump, then turned to await hi
s own inspection. By the time he felt the all-good on his own shoulder, five LEDs were glowing green on the squad-status bar inside his helmet. The first three represented the other three members of John’s own Blue Team. The fourth represented the four members of Gold Team, led by Joshua-029, and the final light represented the four members of Green Team, led by Kurt-051. Twelve souls in all, ready to be hurled through space like human slingshot pellets.
“This intercept will be a lot easier than at Chi Ceti IV,” John said. “But if you miss the target, break orbit and power down, then settle in—”
“And conserve your air,” Kelly-087 interrupted. A member of John’s Blue Team, she was the fastest of the Spartans, as quick mentally as she was physically. “You said that already. Twice.”
“Just making sure everyone remembers.”
“Don’t trigger your locator beacon until the battle is over,” Linda-058 added. Normally quiet and reserved, she was the best sniper in the Spartans—and also on John’s Blue Team. “We remember.”
“Yeah, what’s up?” Kurt asked. A natural people-reader who made friends easily, he was plainspoken and direct. “What are you so worried about?”
“I’m not worried,” John said. In most units, such banter would have been borderline insubordinate. But the Spartans weren’t most units. They had been training together since childhood, and they were as much family as comrades-in-arms. John would have been worried if his squad didn’t feel comfortable speaking freely with him. “I’m just confirming procedure.”
“Not much to confirm,” Fred said. In addition to being John’s inspection partner, he was the squad’s backup leader and Blue Team’s fourth member. “Sneak aboard the alien ship and kill everything that’s not a Spartan. If things go bad, stay out of sight until the fight’s over, then call for rescue. It’s a simple plan.”