by Eric Nylund
Palmer let her rifle drift slowly, covering a wide arc. “The one em eight three won that isn’t burning or otherwise busted all to hell is right near the main entrance of the structure, and the el ay ay vee is a good fifteen meters east-northeast of that, over by the fountain. Chief, if you’re planning on going for that em twelve gee, you won’t just be running into their field of fire—you’ll be running across it like a duck in a shooting gallery. Over.”
The Spartan looked over the low wall at the M12G; it was a mess. What was left of the windshield was lying across the hood in tiny cubes, the seats were burnt down to their frames, the winch was a fused wad of metal, and most of the bodywork was distorted, pitted, and scorched. But it wasn’t burning, smoking, or leaking fluid and it had all four wheels. “You, Sullivan, and I will secure the em twelve gee; once we get it moving we’ll suppress what’s left of the local Covenant group until the em eight three won is secured. Over.”
Palmer’s heart seemed to skip a beat and she reflexively licked her lips. “Chief, I believe I can honestly say that even though you are an honest-to-Buddha one-man death squad, and that if you were to ask nicely I’d give up my lucrative career in the Corps and start pumping out your babies as fast as you could put them in me, there is no way that I am gonna run across fifty goddamn meters of open terrain covered by three Jackal snipers that I can see just to jump into an open vehicle. Throwing myself on a goddamn grenade makes more sense than that. Out.”
The Spartan was at Corporal Palmer’s elbow so quickly and so quietly that only those Marines who had been looking directly at him noticed that he had even moved. He closed the private channel and addressed the group as a whole. “Palmer, Sullivan; you’re on me. Concentrate on running until we get to the el ay ay vee—then mount up as fast as you can. Corporal, I want you on that sixty-eight. The rest of you will cover us until the el ay ay vee starts moving—we will then lay down suppression fire until you secure the em eight three won by that structure’s main entrance—I’m setting a waypoint now. This is sure to get more complicated once we are under way, so stay on your toes.”
The assembled Marines looked at one another nervously and then out at the open field that lay between themselves and the Warthogs—numbers above the tiny blue deltas indicating the objectives in their HUDs reinforced their remoteness. The Marines began systematically checking their gear in grim silence. The furtive glances that passed between them, however, spoke volumes. To wit, they were about to pit themselves against a group whose exact composition they were unsure of, that was established in a defensive position with superior elevation, and that was clearly capable of annihilating a unit more than twice their number even if it had been equipped with vehicles and support weapons. They did have one advantage, though: they had a Spartan with them. But how much could one more man, no matter how well trained or equipped, possibly affect the outcome of the coming battle?
John placed fresh magazines into both of his weapons, replaced the missing rounds in his spare magazines, and then nodded toward their destination. Without looking back he motioned for the group to move up.
“Pine Tar,” Palmer whispered sharply through the comm, “get your narrow ass up here—we’re leaving. Over.”
“Wilco, out.” Lance Corporal Pineada called from deep within the drainage tunnel. He gave a quick glance at the group in the culvert before putting the final touches on the lethal contraption he had been hiding beneath a sodden shipping pallet. He circled his handiwork gingerly, then nodded to himself, satisfied that the two scavenged jerry cans, fragmentation grenade, and mess kit that he had fashioned into a deterrent for their pursuers was nearly impossible to detect. He leaned the last jerry can against the tunnel wall by his improvised trap and joined the rest of the group.
“Couldn’t we just try sneaking around them?” Private Emerson asked feebly.
John ignored Emerson and continued. “Forget the Grunts—concentrate on the rooftops and any Jackals you see—the DESW at the eastern corner is a priority-one target.” He slung his battle rifle across his back.
Corporal Palmer had not moved from her position observing the parking area. “Chief, that Jackal isn’t just poking at our boy—it looks like it’s biting him.”
The Spartan held up a gauntleted hand. “We go in five, four. . . .” He tucked his fingers in as he counted.
“I think it’s eating him, man,” Palmer choked.
“One—then it dies first—now stow your weapon and move out.” John pointed at their intended destination and then he was gone.
The concrete beneath the Spartan had turned to dust and gravel as he launched forward. Barely half a second had passed and he was already ten meters away. Palmer slung her weapon and tore off after him; Sullivan fell in directly behind her, running for all he was worth.
Palmer was pumping her arms and trying to control her breath as she trailed behind the Spartan. She looked up from her boots and saw that his hands were no longer empty—his right hand now held a massive hard-chromed M6D, and a spare magazine was in his left. Eight thunderclaps rang out so fast that they bled together into a single long roar. At that same moment a terrible cacophony erupted behind them as her squadmates opened fire on the building—its facade disappearing behind a cloud of pulverized concrete and shattered glass. Two of the Jackals that had been covering their approach had already fallen—bright purple blood fountaining out of huge ragged holes that she could pick out even at this distance.
With one hand at thirty meters and a dead run, two shots apiece, each a hit to the head or neck, what the holy hell are my guys even aiming at back there—shit. The Corporal’s mind raced, but her legs had begun to slack off. She saw another Jackal appear at the roof’s edge and there was a flash of purple light.
And then her view was blocked by a wall of green armor; there was a loud crack and a flash of golden light. The Spartan had spun to face her; she saw her own reflection in his visor for a fraction of a second, then he dipped slightly before popping into the air, sailing backward three and a half meters above the ground—smoke trailing from the inside of his right arm. Four more rapid-fire thunderclaps roared in her ears; the magazine dropped out of the Spartan’s M6D, his left hand slamming the fresh magazine up into the well and flicking to catch the empty one as it fell, the huge pistol now latched onto his right thigh, the empty magazine stowed, and his knees tucked up to his chest as he continued through the air over the Warthog. Three fingers hooked the crossbar and the vehicle rocked as the Spartan swung down into the charred remains of the driver’s seat; the M12G roared to life as Palmer scrambled up into the rear of the vehicle and behind the controls of the gauss cannon in a near daze; Sullivan practically leapt into the sooty pan of the passenger seat and disengaged the safety on his MA5, bellowing, “C’mon! Floor it!”
All four wheels spun, abrading the surface of the parking area and throwing up four giant rooster tails of water and grit. Palmer keyed in the startup sequence on the M68 ALIM—your basic mini MAC. She started scanning for targets—and did a double take when prioritized targeting tabs began appearing on the monitor.
“If anything else shows up, I’ll add it to the list, Corporal,” the Spartan spoke over a private channel. “No vehicles yet—just infantry. Don’t take any shots you don’t have to—just concentrate on staying alive for the moment.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Palmer growled through her headset. Just then the Spartan threw the ’hog into a four-wheel drift, creating a momentary wall of spray and mist that screened the rest of the squad, who were now dashing across the open ground between the culvert and the vehicles. Sullivan was hooting and hollering above the sound of the engine as he fired his assault rifle at anything that poked its head out.
John gave Sullivan a sideways glance and said, “Remember to save some ammo for when you’re actually trying to hit something—and forget the Grunts!”
Corporal Palmer glimpsed just a hint of movement behind the T-42 DESW—the closest th
ing to a heavy machine gun in the Covenant arsenal. It could have just been the corpse of the weapon’s operator shifting, but she wasn’t taking any chances. There was a flash of light, a teeth-rattling snap, and then the heavy plasma weapon on the roof exploded—transformed into a rapidly expanding cloud of whirling ceramic razorblades and plasma-temperature flames. If anything had been crawling up to the weapon, it was now either part of that cloud or had been consumed by it.
“’Hog secured—we’re in, Chief,” Private Emerson howled over the Warthog’s radio. “Let’s boogie!”
“Follow me.” The Spartan swung the M12G around the eastern corner of the Cultural Center, just barely dodging the bulbous purple cowling of a Covenant Ghost half-hidden in a stand of elephant grass. One of the Ghost’s stabilizing wings and a fair amount of its carapace were missing—obvious signs it had been raked with heavy machine-gun fire. The ’hogs roared past it, and the park’s enormous outdoor amphitheater loomed ahead.
The park’s main entrance was at the southern end of the amphitheater, right where Cortana indicated it would be. But as the gate came into view so did a group of Elites, two in blue armor that were sitting astride a pair of Ghosts, and a third in red armor. The one in red looked up at the approaching Warthogs and raised its weapon. The ’hogs bore right down on the trio.
Sullivan fired several bursts across the hood at the Elites until he noticed the barrel of the ALIM swivel into place directly above his head, then he quickly dropped down into the scorched seat and braced himself. Palmer lined up the lead Ghost and fired. The slug from the M68 left the muzzle at just under mach forty and penetrated the lead Ghost’s plasma containment vessel—after it had passed through the red Elite’s lower abdomen. The vehicle detonated and spiraled into the air, five-thousand-degree plasma erupting through its shattered armor. The Elite rider was almost entirely incinerated; what remained of its right arm, however, spiraled through the air alongside the wreckage of the vehicle. The other rider boosted out through the bluish flames and roared in pain as the flexible material of its armored suit bubbled and cracked. A second shot from the M68 was high and late, punching a basketball-sized hole through the park’s entrance archway. Palmer swung the turret farther to take a third shot.
“It’s B Team’s problem now,” John said to her over the private channel. “We need your eyes forward to keep the path clear.”
“But I can—” Palmer spat.
“Now, Corporal,” the Spartan admonished. “At least trust your squadmates enough to handle one Ghost with a wounded rider.”
As the turret swung back around John heard Corporal Palmer grunt. He could picture the look on her face. It would be the same look of anger and frustration he had seen on innumerable humans when they were reminded of what they were and weren’t capable of—or where their real responsibilities lay.
Humans—what had prompted that? He never thought of himself as anything other than human. But that wasn’t exactly true. He may have thought of himself as having been human, perhaps even that he was still human, but no one ever let him forget that he was a Spartan. That was definitely true.
“Chief, I believe that I’ve located our errant Scarab—there are two of them in the city proper, another three in Old Mombasa across Kilindini Harbor to the south—but only one of them is in the immediate vicinity. That one has to be ours. My best guess is that it’s looking for a clear shot at the tether,” Cortana rattled off into John’s ear.
“When you say ours,” John whispered, “am I to understand that you want me to capture it?”
“Don’t be silly, Chief. I said ours because it figures into our plan to get us onto that ship—so we can get our hands onto the Hierarch. And before you ask any other silly questions—our plans are more complicated than that.”
The Warthog slid sideways through the smoking remains of the Kilindini Park gate and into the Mwatate Street Transit Center. It was abandoned: no taxis or buses and no private vehicles of any kind. They had all fled or were pressed into service to aid the evacuation efforts hours ago, but they had not escaped. The bridge connecting the island to the mainland had been littered with the burning, gutted carcasses of all those vehicles.
Chunks of concrete and sputtering blobs of aluminum came raining down from above as two Ghosts sailed off of the elevated roadway above the transit center—their riders bracing in anticipation of the impact on the ground far below. Palmer fired up at the nearer of the two rapidly descending craft and its starboard wing tore away in a shower of sparks. The Ghost tumbled violently and the rider was thrown as the two vehicles collided in the air. The Spartan spun the steering wheel all the way to lock, attempting to keep clear of the Ghosts’ most likely point of impact. The intact Ghost landed upside down, its carapace splintering on contact—the Elite rider still astride the vehicle. The Ghost that Palmer had hit came right down on top of the wreckage of the other Ghost and its rider—both vehicles erupting into a whirlwind of bluish flames.
“For the love o’ Mike,” wailed Sullivan as the Elite from the second Ghost slammed down onto the hood of the Warthog. Just as it began to slide off, it managed to catch hold of a pillar and swing itself in a tight arc, smashing into the side of the vehicle.
“Shit shit shit,” Sullivan began screaming, firing his MA5 even before it was pointed at the huge alien, which was scrambling to get its feet inside the door frame. Charred plastic and splinters of sheet metal exploded from the dashboard as Sullivan desperately tried to maneuver his weapon within the cabin of the vehicle.
“Duck,” Palmer shouted, followed by a quick, “Sorry,” as she swung the M68 directly over Sullivan’s head.
The Elite stripped the rifle from Sullivan’s hands and sent it flying just as the muzzle of the gauss cannon came in line with the top of its helmet. Sullivan glanced up and cried out, “Ah no!”
With a flash and a bone-jarring snap, the Elite’s head, neck, and shoulder area transformed into a broken, spinning torus of meat, bone, and metal raised to near incandescence by terrific acceleration. The remainder of the corpse fell to the roadway below with a scraping clatter, a ruined eight-foot-tall tumbling rag doll.
John modulated the gas pedal and administered microadjustments to the steering wheel before accelerating straight toward Shimanzi Road—the broad divided highway that split the industrial district in two.
“We’re less than a click from your unit now,” the Chief stated. “Barring catastrophe I’ll have you back with them in under five minutes.”
“And then what?” Palmer asked.
He indicated the massive ship still dominating the sky with a flick of his head. “I’m going to board that ship and kill every living thing on it, minus one. As for what you’ll be doing, that’s up to your sea oh.”
“Sure; so who’s the lucky es oh bee?” she chuckled.
“You wouldn’t know him,” John said, with an air of finality.
“Hey, Palmer,” Sullivan shouted as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “I think that last shot popped my eardrums.” The rest of the drive was completed in silence.
Even though the architects and city planners had tried their best to hide it, most people could tell at a glance that New Mombasa was a gigantic jigsaw puzzle of a city—rigorously sectioned off into recognizable, repeating parcels. It was a grim necessity for every tether city. If the unthinkable were to happen—well, another unthinkable, as at least one unthinkable thing was already happening—and catastrophe were to befall the Mombasa Tether, the expectation was that this compartmentalization of the city would keep the death toll and property damage to a minimum. It also made Beria Plaza a natural funnel. A trap. And it seemed that the CO of First Platoon, Kilo Company 1/7/E2-BAG thought so too.
“Chief, I’ve allocated military assets in order to harass our Scarab—maneuvering it to a location more convenient for our purposes—closer to our current destination.” Cortana’s words rang out in the staccato rhythm of someone juggling one too many tasks. “I hope the five ai
r assets I have en route will be enough—I’ve got two orbital assets on standby, but I would rather not use them unless absolutely necessary—and don’t worry, I’ll give you plenty of warning if I do.”
“Any more good news?”
“Well, if my calculations are right, and they always are, our Scarab will arrive eight minutes after the Wraiths from the underpass—that should be plenty of time for you to deal with them, shouldn’t it?”
John maneuvered the ’hog into the cabstand of what less than three hours ago had been the rather elegant Palace Hotel, although now it looked a bit like a gigantic curio cabinet with its doors kicked off. Palmer keyed off the M68 and turned around, taking in the view from the bed of the LAAV.
When the second vehicle from their party arrived, seconds later, Palmer opened a private channel. “Emerson, get that truck out of sight around the back of the hotel.”
Sullivan hopped down onto the sidewalk and shouted over his shoulder, “It’s been a real slice fightin’ with you, Spartan, but I swear my ear’s gone bust—I can’t hear shit. Gonna find a medic!”
John swung out of his seat and onto the pavement, nodded to the Marine, and turned to face the hotel.
“See ya ’round, big guy,” Palmer blurted before biting her lip.
The Spartan nodded once more and continued toward the hotel’s main entrance—reflexively brushing at the side of his helmet as if some invisible insect was buzzing near his ear.
As he made his way through the rubble-strewn lobby of the Palace Hotel, soldiers busied themselves turning furniture into cover and clearing lines of access between firing positions. The Marines John had arrived with spread out to help reinforce and camouflage the fighting positions. A lance corporal jogged up to the Spartan, tapping his throat mic—John locked on to the frequency and gave the Marine a thumbs-up.
“I’m Morton,” the soldier said—signaling to one of his comrades that he was escorting the Spartan upstairs. “Our ell tee’s up on the mezz—I’ll take you to her.”