by Troy Denning
“You see anyone else in this compartment who looks like he’s been trading fire with aliens on a regular basis?”
Avery glanced around the table for form’s sake, then said, “No, sir.”
“Then now’s the time to speak up, Sergeant,” Stanforth said. “I didn’t forge those transfer orders so you could sit on your hands. Tell us what you think.”
Avery hesitated a moment, trying to decide whether turning to a noncom for advice made the two admirals smart or desperate. In either case, he had to answer—and not only because he was being ordered to. Unless he spoke up, he would never be able to complain about a commander’s stupid battle plan again.
“All right, sir. What strikes me first is that while the enemy’s technology is very superior to ours, their soldiers aren’t.”
“Elaborate on that,” Cole said.
“I assume you’ve all read the incident reports from the initial contact at Harvest?”
Stanforth nodded.
“Then think about what happened there,” Avery said. “Sergeant Byrne and I killed five Jackal raiders, then fought our way aboard their ship. The only reason we didn’t take it is because their captain self-destructed it to avoid capture. Later, we fought off a company of Brutes and Grunts at the Harvest Botanical Gardens with a platoon of half-trained militia. And over the next few weeks, we managed to evacuate the planet right under their noses. So, the Covenant may have better equipment, but from what I’ve seen, they’re inferior soldiers.”
“Interesting,” Stanforth said. “And your impressions of the different species?”
“The Brutes are ferocious,” Avery said, “but not as clever as they think they are.”
“I’m sorry . . . Brutes?” Cole asked.
“The big ape-looking ones,” Avery said. “They seem to like hand-to-hand combat, where their strength is an advantage. The Jackals are cunning, but not very brave. The Buggers—”
“Buggers?” Stanforth asked.
“I believe he means what John is calling the Drones.” Halsey turned to Avery. “Those flying insectoids?”
“Sounds right,” Avery said. “Whatever we call them, they’re unrelenting, but easy to misdirect. And the Grunts . . . well, the Grunts are mostly dangerous because they get in your way.”
“What about the tall saurians?” Cole asked. “Those are the ones that worry me.”
“I don’t believe Sergeant Johnson fought any of them on Harvest,” Stanforth said. He turned to Avery. “They’re some kind of leader class, larger and stronger than the Jackals. They might be comparable to our Orbital Drop Shock Troopers—smart, tough, and disciplined.”
“In other words, the ones we kill first,” Avery said.
Stanforth smiled, then looked to Cole. “I like him.”
“He’s confident,” Cole replied. “That’s good.”
Avery was there for more than a debrief, he realized. He was being tested for an assignment he might not want. “With all due respect,” he said. “If there’s something I should know—”
“And observant too,” Halsey interrupted. “You could do worse.”
“Worse than what?” Avery asked. “What exactly are we talking about here?”
“Relax,” Stanforth said. “We don’t really know yet ourselves.”
“But they want a veteran on the team who’s actually fought the Covenant,” Halsey said. “And there aren’t many of you available. The Covenant is very thorough that way.”
“What team?” Avery demanded.
“At ease, Sergeant.” This time, Stanforth’s words were an order. “So far, it’s just a planning team.”
Avery relaxed . . . a little. “But I don’t know naval tactics, sir,” he said. “I’m an infantry marine.”
“You were also an ORION project volunteer,” Halsey said. “Which makes you an ideal addition for this assignment.”
“ORION project?” Avery repeated. That had been a top-secret Naval Special Warfare program to create biologically augmented super-soldiers to fight the Insurrection. As a participant, Avery had acquired his Orbital Drop rating and developed top-notch sniper and close-combat skills. But the program had been shut down almost twenty years earlier, when its results failed to justify the cost. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
As one, Stanforth rolled his eyes, Cole looked annoyed, and Halsey pursed her lips.
“Okay . . . maybe I’ve heard of it,” Avery said. Even that was more than he was supposed to admit under the ORION project’s ultra-classified protocols. But he was beginning to think that of all the people sitting at the table, he was the one who knew the least about the ORION project. “What’s the assignment?”
“You keep asking that,” Stanforth said. “And I’m telling you, we still don’t know. Really.”
“Sorry, sir,” Avery said. “I’m a little confused.”
“I’ll try to clear that up,” Cole said. “The Covenant ships are protected by energy shielding that nothing short of a nuke or a Mass Accelerator Cannon can penetrate in one shot. Since their vessels are faster and more maneuverable than ours, that’s a problem.”
“Because you never get more than one shot,” Avery surmised.
“Sometimes not even one,” Cole said. “To make matters worse, their plasma beams cut through our Titanium-A armor like it’s paper.”
“And their pulse lasers are damn near as bad,” Stanforth said. “So we’re trying to find a way to fight that doesn’t involve fleet-to-fleet engagements.”
“Given your special operations background, Sergeant,” Halsey said, “and your creativity in improvising during the Harvest evacuation, I thought you might be an asset.”
Avery nodded. “I can definitely bring some asymmetric whoop-ass to your game,” he said. “Mines, decoys, logistics sabotage, provision poisoning, false signals . . . just give me a couple of prowlers and fifty good ODSTs.”
“All good ideas,” Cole said. “And we’re already implementing most of them.”
“We want to add you to something that’s a bit more hard-hitting,” Stanforth said. “Something with the potential to rock the enemy back on their heels.”
Avery didn’t like it when officers said potential. That meant they were gambling big. And when officers gambled big, jarheads died.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“As you’ve noted yourself, the aliens themselves aren’t as good as their technology,” Stanforth said. “We have a special unit that’s taken advantage of that to board a couple of enemy vessels.”
“The capture attempt you were discussing when I arrived,” Avery said. “The failed capture attempt.”
“The vessel was still destroyed,” Stanforth said. “As was a frigate-size ship the first time the team tried this.”
“It’s our single most effective tactic, from all that we’ve seen,” Cole added. “We’d like to try it on something bigger.”
“How big?”
“As big as we can find,” Stanforth said.
“Don’t worry.” Cole flashed a grin. “You’ll have nukes.”
Avery was not amused. So far, Cole struck him as an admiral who had probably been a pretty good commander in his day, but hardly someone special enough to drag out of retirement.
“Nukes are fun,” Avery finally said. “But I haven’t volunteered for anything yet.”
“You will,” Stanforth said. “You always do.”
“After twenty years,” Avery said, “maybe it’s time I learned my lesson. Sir.”
“Not yet.” Stanforth leaned in and locked gazes with Avery. “You don’t want to miss this one, Johnson. You’ll be part of a team that’s going to save the human race . . . and I’m not exaggerating.”
Avery grunted and wished he had a cigar right now. He always thought better when he was chewing on a Sweet William.
After a moment, Avery said, “Something as big as you’re thinking will be protected by a fleet. We can’t just rush in and drop a boarding party.”
“And your creativity,” Halsey added. “I imagine you’ll need to develop new infiltration tactics for each mission.”
“Each mission?” Avery echoed. “You intend to do this more than once?”
“Certainly,” Halsey said. “You don’t expect to stop the Covenant by destroying one ship, do you?”
“I suppose not.” Without being aware of it, Avery pulled a Sweet William from his breast pocket and jammed it, unlit, between his teeth. “What’s our force?”
“The primary force will be an ODST space assault battalion,” Cole said. “The 21st.”
Avery smiled. “Colonel Crowther’s Black Daggers,” he said. “That’s a good unit.”
“The best,” Stanforth said. “But you’ll be attached to a special squad of twelve Spartans.”
“Spartans?” Avery chomped his cigar. He had heard Stanforth use the term earlier, but he’d assumed that a Spartan was a designation for a new kind of special operations soldier. Now it was beginning to sound more like a unit. Or maybe some sort of advanced infiltration craft. “What, exactly, is a Spartan?”
“Show him, Catherine.” Stanforth glanced toward Avery. “Your security clearance just rose three levels, Sergeant.”
Avery nodded, and Halsey withdrew a portable holopad from the pocket of her lab coat. She placed it on the table in front of Avery, then touched the activation tab.
The meter-tall hologram of a heavily armored form appeared above the pad. With a blocky helmet, mirrored faceplate, and bulky outer shell, the figure looked more like a robot than a man. Had there been integrated cannons to add firepower and a few extra limbs to facilitate movement, Avery would have assumed he was looking at a prototype war android. But the Spartan had only two legs, two arms, and a single helmet with a forward-looking faceplate, so there had to be a human inside.
“Impressive,” Avery said. There were no other figures in the hologram to provide scale, but judging by the size of the MA5K assault carbine affixed to the magnetic mount on the back of the armor, the Spartan had to be well over two meters tall. “But it’s going to take more than twelve soldiers in fancy armor to do the job you’re talking about.”
“The Mjolnir power armor is the least of their assets, Sergeant Johnson.” Halsey’s voice was proud. “The SPARTAN-II program succeeded where the ORION project failed. They are what you were meant to be.”
“This old failure has been getting the job done for two decades.” Avery didn’t appreciate being called a dud, but at least he was beginning to understand why the admirals treated Halsey with such deference. “But go ahead and brief me anyway.”
“No need to take offense, Sergeant Johnson. The ORION project failed you.” Halsey left the hologram of the Spartan standing in the middle of the table. “Each Spartan was selected at a young age for intelligence, physical prowess, aggressiveness, and emotional resilience. They were, almost literally, born to be soldiers. After conscription, they trained for eight years to become the most elite warriors humanity has ever seen.”
“So why am I only hearing about them now?”
“Ideally, they wouldn’t have been fully deployed for another two years,” Halsey said. “But when the Covenant appeared, we had to accelerate the program.”
“So you were going to train them for a decade?” Avery asked. “Talk about overkill.”
“Not for what we intended,” Halsey said. “The extra time would have given me an opportunity to fine-tune their biological augmentations and develop some custom enhancements. But no matter. My Spartans are still stronger, faster, more resilient, and more capable than any soldier you have ever seen.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Avery said, remembering the long course of biochemical enhancement injections he had endured during the ORION project. It had been an agonizing experience filled with confused, hormone-induced rages—and, given the apparent size of the Spartan in the hologram, he could only marvel at the anguish the man must have endured during his own augmentation process. “But if these Spartans of yours are so great, why do you need me?”
“First, you have some understanding of what they’ve been through,” Halsey said. “Second, you have something they don’t—twenty years of combat experience.”
“Exactly,” Stanforth said. “These kids are top-notch soldiers, but they’re still fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” Avery said. “Doesn’t that make them child—”
“They are not children,” Stanforth interrupted. “Get that notion out of your head, Sergeant. Do I make myself clear?”
Avery swallowed. “Yes, sir.” He had done enough work for ONI to understand that the admiral was telling him not to ask questions that the Office of Naval Intelligence didn’t want answered. “I only meant to inquire about their, um, level of training.”
“Second to none,” Halsey said. “They entered boot camp at age six and earned every combat rating by age eight—”
“You might say they attended an elite military academy,” Stanforth said. “Not so different from Corbulo Academy or Luna OCS.”
Halsey grimaced and looked away. “Yes. You might say a lot of things,” she complained. “That doesn’t make the Martian Elementary Education Complex the equal of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.”
“My apologies, Catherine.” Stanforth looked more amused than regretful. He turned back to Avery. “The important thing is that, on paper, the Spartans are every bit the soldier you are. They just need someone who understands the intangibles that can’t be taught on a training mission—someone who has a few tricks up his sleeve.”
“In other words, a sergeant,” Avery said.
“Exactly,” Stanforth said. “Just not a sergeant who gives orders.”
Avery scowled. “Are you looking for a sergeant or a nanny?”
“More of a big brother,” Stanforth said. “They already have a squad leader they trust, and you’d never replace him.”
“He understands their capabilities in a way you never will,” Halsey added. “They’ve been training together so long their communication seems almost telepathic at times.”
Avery gnawed on his cigar and wondered if he dared say no. The last thing he wanted was to play babysitter for a squad of new boots. But he wasn’t aware of any admiral who appreciated being told no—and ONI admirals did not play nice. If he turned down this assignment, he had a feeling his next one would be guarding snowballs on Venus.
Finally, Avery sighed. “If I’m that important to the operation, how can I refuse?”
“Exactly.” Stanforth flashed a tight-lipped smile. “You can’t.”
CHAPTER 5
* * *
* * *
0558 hours, March 8, 2526 (military calendar)
UNSC Point Blank–class Stealth Cruiser Vanishing Point
Deep Space, Polona Sector
Even on a vessel as large as the UNSC stealth cruiser Vanishing Point, John-117 was too tall to stand upright inside the tactical planning center. He must have been an astonishing sight, because as he followed Dr. Catherine Halsey toward the conference table, all eyes swung toward him and remained fixed there. He was wearing his khaki service uniform rather than his Mjolnir armor, but in cramped spaces like the TPC, standard clothing only seemed to emphasize his size.
Dr. Halsey took the first open chair, but John stopped two steps from the table and drew himself into a hunched-over version of attention. There was more brass in the compartment than he usually saw in a month, with Vice Admiral Preston Cole standing at the far end of the table between Halima Ascot and a marine colonel John didn’t recognize.
Seated at the table, three chairs from the end, was a grim-faced staff sergeant with dark skin and a short-trimmed mustache. He was pretty old—about forty, John guessed—with crow’s-feet around his eyes and permanent frown lines flanking his mouth.
The colonel wore the flaming-skull ODST crest on the breast of his combat
utilities, and the Black Dagger emblem of the 21st Space Assault Battalion on his shoulder. The sergeant wore no unit emblem at all—an indication that he either had just transferred into the battalion or was attached to an ONI black ops unit.
Cole returned John’s salute. “Have a seat, Petty Officer.” He pointed to a chair next to the one Dr. Halsey had selected. “No need to kink that thick neck of yours.”
“Thank you, sir.”
John slipped into the indicated chair and found himself directly across from the mustached staff sergeant. Above the breast pocket, the sergeant wore a name label that read A. JOHNSON, but John knew better than to assume it was the man’s real name. It was exactly the kind of generic alias ONI might assign to an operator it didn’t want to acknowledge.
Whatever his real name, the sergeant studied John with an air of unabashed appraisal, as though he couldn’t quite decide whether John was a real soldier or just some oversize pretender. John didn’t take offense. With clear blue eyes and thin brown eyebrows set in an oval face, John still looked like a teenager, and he knew that made him appear less capable than he was.
Cole waited until Ascot and the marine colonel had taken their seats, then nodded toward a control booth in the back of the compartment. “That’s everyone.”
The TPC’s door slid shut, then a hush settled over the compartment and all eyes turned toward the admiral. Well, almost all eyes—Johnson continued to study John.
“Let’s start with the obvious,” Cole said. “We’re holding this briefing aboard the Vanishing Point, rather than my flagship, for operational security. There are a lot of clever people aboard the Everest, and if they saw this group reporting to my conference suite, tongues would start wagging.”
John looked around the table and realized Cole was right. The captain of a prowler squadron . . . the commander of a space assault battalion . . . a veteran black-ops sergeant. Even before he considered himself and Dr. Halsey, it seemed obvious to him that a force was being assembled to board another Covenant vessel. Probably a big one.