by Troy Denning
A chorus of speaker-modulated chuckles rustled through the battalion, but all John heard over the Spartan TEAMCOM were gasps of disbelief. Not only was Crowther breaking up the Spartan units, he was assigning them to a transport role—using them to support the attack when they should be leading it.
“This will allow us to hit twelve separate targets,” Crowther continued. “Assuming we can achieve even a fifty percent success rate, the invasion fleet will be hit hard. Any questions?”
The hands of a dozen Black Dagger lieutenants shot up, and Crowther began to answer queries about weapon load-outs, insertion methods, and command authority.
What John wanted to ask was whether Crowther had lost his damn mind.
If the Spartans were attacking separate targets, they wouldn’t be able to support each other—and the efficiency of a Spartan team decreased exponentially each time a member was removed. Dr. Halsey estimated that a Spartan operating alone was only one-sixteenth as effective as a four-member team . . . and sixteen times as likely to get killed.
Had Crowther bothered to consult John before developing his strategy, he would have known that.
The questions continued to come, and John continued to fume. He had no intention of challenging Crowther in front of the battalion, but the colonel had completely ignored Admiral Cole’s suggestion to include John in his planning sessions. Perhaps Crowther had felt slighted when Dr. Halsey pressed for John to be given command of the operation, or perhaps he was simply emphasizing that he was the one in charge. Either way, John no longer felt good about speaking against Dr. Halsey’s suggestion. Clearly she had read something in the colonel’s character that he had not.
As John considered how he should respond, Avery Johnson started to whisper from the corner of his mouth.
“You can’t be happy with this plan, Petty Officer.”
“Negative.” John’s whisper was a bit louder than Johnson’s, as it was being transmitted through his helmet’s external speaker. “But the colonel didn’t ask my opinion.”
“Didn’t want to give you a chance to object.” Johnson sounded pissed. “So you’ve got to do it now.”
“In front of everyone?” John shook his helmet. “I’ll do it in private.”
“It’ll never happen, son—not until after he’s gotten Ascot to sign off on this plan.” Johnson was still whispering. “It’s called planning momentum, and it’s lost more battles than bad supply and poor terrain combined.”
“When we’re dismissed, then.”
Crowther’s voice rang across the deck. “Repeat that, Spartan.”
John’s gaze snapped back to center, and he found Crowther and the aide both looking at him. “Sir?”
“Repeat your question.” Crowther’s voice carried a note of warning. It was a breach of protocol to converse while at attention, so there was only one valid reason for John to be talking. “You were trying to ask something, weren’t you?”
“Of course, sir.” John found himself wondering if Johnson had been trying to get him to draw Crowther’s attention. “Respectfully . . . Spartans are trained to work in teams, so I’m concerned about splitting us up. If we’re all attacking different vessels, I don’t see how we’ll be able to support each other.”
Crowther lowered his brow. “You won’t, obviously,” he said. “The Black Daggers may not have a Spartan’s speed and fancy armor, but they are well-trained. After a few days of drilling, you’ll find that a platoon of space assault troopers provides all the support you need.”
“Real smooth, John,” Kelly-087 said inside John’s helmet. TEAMCOM was an encrypted Spartan-only channel, so there was no risk of being overheard. “Now the Black Daggers think we don’t like them.”
John ignored her sarcasm and tried for a graceful recovery. “The Black Daggers are very impressive, sir. I certainly didn’t mean to imply they weren’t.”
“Still, they’re not Spartans,” Johnson said. He shot a smile at the Black Daggers. “No offense, people, but you know it’s true.”
John wasn’t sure whether he was more surprised by the amused murmur from the battalion, by Crowther’s nod of agreement, or by a staff sergeant who felt free to challenge a superior’s plan in front of the troops. The command structure of special forces units was typically informal, but still. Avery Johnson was either an insubordinate madman—or a lot more important than he looked.
And Crowther was not making it easy to tell which. His eyes flashed anger, but when he spoke, his tone was conciliatory. “I don’t think anyone would argue the point, Sergeant Johnson. Does something about my plan concern you?”
“Maybe just a little,” Johnson said. “Maximizing the target list, I understand. But anyone can carry a nuke. Why assign that job to the big guns? The Spartans should be up front, leading the assault.”
Crowther gave a thoughtful nod. “That makes sense, as far as it goes,” he said. “But on unprecedented operations like these, the Black Daggers have been more successful—and suffered fewer casualties—when we lead with experience.”
“I can see that, but the Spartans—”
“Are just kids,” Crowther said. “I have troopers who’ve been Black Daggers longer than the Spartans have been out of diapers.”
An electronic snort sounded from the first row of Spartans, and John turned to see a relatively small Spartan standing at a slight angle to the rest of the line. Her shoulders were squared toward Crowther, and her helmet was cocked at a disdainful angle. It was, of course, Daisy-023.
It was always Daisy.
John ticked his TEAMCOM toggle. “Daisy, stand down.”
But Crowther was already striding across the deck, his gaze fixed on Daisy’s helmet and his thin-lipped mouth twisted into a sneer.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Spartan . . .” He paused to read the number on Daisy’s torso armor. “Zero-two-three. How old are you?”
Daisy leaned in. Though she was a little shy of two meters tall in armor, she still loomed a full head over Crowther.
“Our age doesn’t matter, sir,” she said. “Our training does.”
“Not as much as your experience.” Crowther craned his chin up to glower into her faceplate. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Because she’s not allowed to, sir.” John stepped forward. “It’s classified.”
“I knew that when I found the falsified DOBs in your personnel jackets.” Crowther turned to John. “If someone is going to alter your birth dates, they need to adjust the Paymaster General’s records as well.”
“I fail to see the relevance, sir.”
“You and your Spartans started banking recruit pay eight years ago,” Crowther said. “That means either you’re all a hell of a lot older than nineteen—or you entered training when you were eleven.”
John was happy to have his face hidden behind a faceplate, where his expression would not be visible. The truth, of course, was even worse than Crowther had surmised—but John was not about to tell him that. Under the UNSC’s own Uniform Code of Military Justice, recruits had to be a minimum of eighteen years old, and Crowther clearly realized that the SPARTAN-II program had ignored those restrictions. Now the colonel was using that to pressure John into going along with his plan. It seemed odd behavior for a high-profile special forces commander, but what did John know? Spartans were not trained in political infighting.
“Someone changed the Spartan DOBs, John.” Crowther’s voice grew sly. “I think we both know why.”
John allowed a moment of silence to hang in the air, then finally said, “I find it hard to understand why ONI does anything. It’s probably best not to speculate.”
“Is that supposed to be a warning, Spartan?”
“It’s more of a suggestion, sir,” John said. “ONI can get pretty protective of its secrets . . . as I’m sure you already know.”
Crowther’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared, a combination that made him appear fearful and angry at the same time—and suggested that
he knew John wasn’t bluffing.
It was Avery Johnson who finally broke the silence. “I’d like to offer a suggestion, Colonel.”
Crowther’s expression turned dark, but he nodded and spoke through a clenched jaw. “I’m always happy to listen, Sergeant.”
“Glad to hear it, sir,” Johnson said. “Let’s attach a Spartan to each platoon, as you suggest, and spend the day in exercises. Then you and I and Spartan-117 can evaluate the results and decide whether that’s the most effective order-of-battle.”
The resentment drained from the colonel’s face, and John’s respect for the staff sergeant went up another notch. Johnson was giving Crowther an out that didn’t look like backing down—and when the three of them came up with a better plan, the colonel would be able to claim it as his own.
But Crowther didn’t seem satisfied with a graceful withdrawal. He still needed a way to claim victory.
“One day of exercises isn’t enough.” He turned to John, then said, “I think we’d better make it three. How does that sound, Petty Officer?”
John gave a crisp helmet nod. “Whatever you think, Colonel,” he said. “It’s your battalion.”
CHAPTER 6
* * *
* * *
0638 hours, March 12, 2526 (military calendar)
Charon-class Frigate Bellicose
Deep Space, Little Nelek Nebula, Grenadi Sector
The envoys sat hip-to-hip at the steel mess table, only a bit blurry-eyed from the welcome party a few hours before, the men freshly shaven and the women in light makeup or none at all. Most were dressed in what twenty-year-old Petora Zoyas privately called “Insurrection chic”—worn fatigues with cutoff sleeves or no collar or both, often with too many buttons undone and a flask cap peeking out of a breast pocket. The style was more statement than uniform, an assertion that they were warriors without being soldiers and didn’t take orders from anyone—least of all the grim-faced former general standing at the far end of the Bellicose’s cramped wardroom.
Tall and lean with salt-and-pepper hair, Harper Garvin wore pressed gray slacks and a cream bush shirt with matching tie. There were no stars on his collar tips, but otherwise his attire could have been a United Rebel Front version of the Service B uniform he had worn as a major general in the UNSC Marine Corps. If he realized how his soldierly dress undermined his prestige in the eyes of the envoys he hoped to unite into a coalition, he showed no sign of it.
“Thanks to all for rolling out for an early meeting. I know it wasn’t easy after last night’s fun.” Garvin paused for a round of chuckles that failed to come, then turned to the woman seated directly to his left. “And thank you, Captain Castilla, for hosting us.”
Castilla dipped her head in acknowledgment. “I’m happy to do this, General.” An almond-eyed woman in her late forties, Lyrenne Castilla was the commander and owner of the privateer frigate Bellicose. She had silky black hair, a high-cheeked face with a thin nose, and a sure voice that instantly commanded the respect Garvin was still struggling to win. “Our brothers and sisters in the Insurrection need to understand what is happening here in the Outer Colonies.”
A general murmur of agreement rose. Everyone in the compartment had heard reports of the unsettling events: massive fleet movements . . . planets going silent with no explanation . . . unprovoked attacks by odd-looking ships . . . automated cargo pods full of half-dead refugees. But confirmed facts were in short supply, so the slipspace lanes were filled with wild rumors: the UNSC was annihilating insurrectionist-friendly worlds . . . an incurable plague was being spread by a fleet of research vessels . . . a host of rampant AIs had declared war on humanity. Most far-fetched of all was a claim that the UNSC had discovered a civilization of defenseless aliens and was trying to eradicate them.
But instead of turning their attention back to Garvin, who still seemed half-UNSC in his manner and dress, the envoys continued to look toward Castilla. She was a rebel legend, a female captain with a mysterious past who supplied a good part of the Insurrection by snatching cargo pods from transport routes. There were whispers that she’d once seduced and married a UNSC captain in order to spy on him, and she’d been pregnant with his child when forced to fake the destruction of her vessel after ONI had discovered her true identity. Petora didn’t know how much of the story was true—few people did—but the Bellicose always operated under a false name to hide its identity, and there was a hardness in Castilla’s patrician features that suggested she was capable of anything.
When Castilla realized the envoys were still looking at her instead of Garvin, she turned and fixed her own gaze on the general—a deft maneuver that left no room to doubt her support for his leadership. Presumably he had a few qualities not readily apparent to Petora.
“The floor is yours, General,” Castilla said. “What are you hearing from your spy in FLEETCOM?”
Garvin’s eyes widened, but if Castilla had revealed too much about his source, her mistake worked in his favor. The envoys finally began warming to him, regarding him with something approaching respect, and even Petora began to see him in a new light. Given the current uncertainty about what was happening in the Outer Colonies, good intelligence bought a lot of goodwill. In fact, Petora was counting on it.
“In brief,” Garvin began, “humanity is under attack by an alien empire, an alliance of different species who call themselves the Covenant. At the moment, the invasion is limited to the Polona, Grenadi, and Vevina sectors. But their military technology is vastly superior to ours, and FLEETCOM has no expectation of being able to contain them.”
The envoys studied Garvin in wary silence, until a square-jawed woman at Petora’s end of the table asked, “You mean they’re real?”
“The aliens? Of course they’re real.” Garvin furrowed his brow. “Considering what happened on Harvest, Ms. Ander, you should know that better than anyone.”
Ander shook her head. “Our intelligence hacks didn’t think that incident was really aliens attacking.” Nanci Ander was the daughter of Jerald Ander, who had been the secret leader of the Secessionist Union on Harvest until his assassination in 2502. “We thought it was a ruse to empty the planet so the Colonial Military Authority could recolonize it with a rebel-free population.”
“That seems a little paranoid, don’t you think?” asked Reza Linberk. A blond, blue-eyed woman with high cheeks and a delicate jaw, Linberk was just a few years older than Petora—and already the first deputy of the Venezian Militia. “Razing an entire planet to flush out a few insurgents is a bit over the top. Even the UNSC wouldn’t go that far.”
“You haven’t seen what the Freedom League is fighting on Jericho VII right now.” The speaker was Bahito Noti, a slender man with a dark complexion and fierce eyes. “We’re not sure whether they’re people or something else, but they’re killing machines. They’ve just about wiped us out.”
“Huge guys in power armor?” Petora asked. As the envoy for the recently established Gao Liberation Force, she had been instructed to secure a leadership role for her group in the developing coalition—and Noti had just given her the perfect opportunity. “Blocky helmets with mirrored faceplates, just about the fastest thing you’ve ever seen on two legs?”
Noti’s brow rose. “You’re fighting them too?”
“Fortunately, no,” Petora said. “But the Gao Liberation Force has developed some intelligence on them. They’re called Spartans, and they might as well be machines. According to our information, they’re biologically enhanced humans who have been training together for years, and they’ve just been equipped with advanced power armor. Apparently, ONI considers a single soldier the equivalent of twenty-five ODSTs.”
“How do you know all that?” Castilla’s tone was somewhere between doubting and resentful—perhaps because she recognized the advantage that the GLF’s intelligence source would give Petora in establishing the pecking order in a new coalition. “That’s some pretty specific intelligence.”
Petora flashed a s
uperior smirk. “General Garvin isn’t the only one with inside information.” She turned to Garvin himself. “The GLF has an agent in Task Force Yama.”
“Which is?” Garvin asked.
“An all-prowler assault wing operating independently out of Battle Group X-Ray.” As Petora spoke, Garvin looked a bit more fascinated with each word. “Their mission is to cripple the alien invasion fleet by using space assault teams to board key vessels and detonate nukes within the hulls.”
“That’s a very desperate plan.” Castilla thought for a moment, then turned to Garvin and added, “And just the kind of thing Preston would dream up with his back to the wall.”
Garvin nodded. “You would know better than me.”
Petora was flabbergasted at the exchange. Could Preston Cole be the UNSC officer that Castilla had seduced and married? The familiarity in her voice when she said his name certainly supported the possibility.
Castilla noticed Petora gawking at her and returned the smirk. “The rumors are true,” she said. “Yes, I was once married to Vice Admiral Cole—though he was only a captain at the time.”
What Petora wanted to ask was whether Cole’s child, who would be more than twenty by now, was a crewmember aboard the Bellicose. But insurrectionists did not share information about their children with people they’d just met, and Petora would not win anyone’s confidence if it seemed like she was prying. So she swallowed her pride and tried to look impressed.
“How lucky for us.” Petora was careful to put some enthusiasm in her voice. Castilla’s past with Cole would give her a lot of influence over how the GLF’s intelligence was viewed, and that meant Petora needed her as an ally. “It would be great if you could help interpret our agent’s field reports.”
“I’ll be happy to offer my opinion,” Castilla replied, almost warmly. “What else has the spy told you?”
“Communications are limited,” Petora said. “But we do know that Admiral Cole has turned mission planning over to the task force commanders. They hope to engage the Covenant fleet at Biko—”