by Troy Denning
“The Havoks. Infinity’s jamming blanket can’t hide a detonation that big,” Palmer said. “After the Banished beat us to the drop, Halsey convinced him the pioneers would use a nuke if we didn’t come running.”
“Dr. Halsey was right,” John said, “so you have our gratitude. And Reach’s.”
“I’m sure that we do,” she said, scanning the billowing smoke in the direction of the Banished lines. “I’ve been ordered to give you whatever you need to continue your mission.” She paused, then laid her hand over the back rail of the gun well. “And don’t tell me you’re here to liberate Reach, because mopping up these Banished pirates is my mission now. How exactly can we get your team back on task?”
“We need something that can fly and carry cargo,” John said.
“Will a Pelican do?”
“You read my mind.”
“I doubt that. I have Pelicans coming with the third wave. You can take your pick. Will you need a crew?”
“We have our own,” John said. “But thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” She spun half away from John, giving him a clear view of the Spartans behind her. “There’s something we need first.”
John studied the Spartans a little more closely now, taking in the names fed to his heads-up display: GRIFFIN, VETTEL, DIMKA, OSHIRO… all on Fireteam Taurus. The others were from a similar outfit, Fireteam Intrepid. Two of the best crews Infinity had when it came to Spartan-IVs, trained explicitly for high-risk operations well behind enemy lines. John had seen them in action on several occasions. If Lasky had sent these two fireteams, it was clear that he was just as serious about neutralizing the threat the Havoks posed as he was about Halsey’s mission.
“Understood, Commander.” John switched to TEAMCOM. “Blue Two, escort Major Erdei and his Havok down here. Someone needs to have a word with him.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
0905 hours, October 12, 2559 (military calendar)
Landing Zone Bella, New Mohács
Arany Basin, Continent Eposz, Planet Reach
The rain had stopped hours before all the fires were out, so a steady pall of smoke continued to blow over the small courtyard where Blue Team had established Landing Zone Bella. John and the rest of the Spartans were standing behind the D77H-TCI Pelican that would soon carry them to CASTLE Base. Special Crew had already pulled the rearmost seats out of the troop bay and made some other modifications to accommodate the excavation equipment and other cargo. Now, under Crew Chief Mukai’s watchful eye, they were finally securing the drilling jumbo and LHD in place at the back of the deck. John was eager to get moving, but didn’t dare set foot on the loading ramp until he received Mukai’s permission to board.
A Portable Spartan Support Module had landed with the fourth drop, so he and Kelly had spent some of their downtime having the damage to their armor repaired. They had even had their half-healed wounds cleaned and field-mended. John’s quadriceps hurt worse than ever, but the vat-grown myosin mesh that had been grafted onto the damaged muscle would prevent the injury from degrading his fighting performance any more than it already had.
Kelly meanwhile was no longer at any risk of reopening her axillary vein, and seemed more irritated by the fresh sutures itching under her armor than by the wound itself. Fred would simply have to live with his dented helmet for now. With their integrated communications, HUDs, and neural interfaces, Mjolnir helmets were too complicated to risk repairing in the field, except under the direst of circumstances.
Mukai poked her head out between the LHD and the drilling jumbo. “Ready in ten, Master Chief,” she said. “Palmer find any Keepers yet?”
“Not that I’ve heard about.”
After the Banished had been pushed back out of New Mohács, John had noticed that all the enemy armor was either crimson or black trimmed in silver. He had not seen a single attacker wearing the colors of the Keepers of the One Freedom—blue and gold. And that had given him real pause. The Keepers had started this war by downing Blue Team’s Owl, then tracked them halfway across the Arany Basin—only to disappear when the real fighting started? Something didn’t make sense, so he had asked Palmer to send out an intelligence team to look for the Keeper colors. She’d acted on his request almost two hours ago, and there had not been a single report so far.
“We could be in for another bumpy ride,” John added. “Better double-secure that equipment.”
Major Van Houte peered over the top of the drilling jumbo. “This is why it’s taking so long to prep,” he said. “Chief Mukai is making us triple-secure everything already. To do better, we’d have to weld it to the deck.”
“Don’t give her any ideas,” Lieutenant Chapov called out. He was somewhere behind the LHD, clattering away ferociously as he tensioned a tie-down chain. He had been working a little too hard since learning of Bella Disztl’s death, and it was he who had suggested naming the landing zone in her honor. “Chief Mukai thinks it’s her fault D rings can’t take ten-g decelerations.”
“I should have upgraded to titanium,” Mukai said. “You can have them custom—”
A raid alert sounded over their helmet comms, echoed by a whooping siren that rang out over the entire village.
Nobody scrambled for cover. The Banished had been probing New Mohács’s air defenses regularly for the last two hours, trying to draw out the small deterrent force of Broadswords that had been left to protect the village while the rest of the wing returned to the Infinity to re-arm and refill propellant tanks. But so far, no attack had come. The probes were pure harassment, designed to lull the defenders into a false sense of security and make the UNSC waste propellant and ordnance.
The enemy tactic was doomed to fail. Palmer was too disciplined a commander to allow her Spartan-IVs—or the ODSTs—to let down their guard, and the main body of the Broadsword wing would soon be escorting eight big D96-TCE Albatrosses filled with deuterium propellant and plenty of ordnance into New Mohács.
But this time, it wasn’t a squadron of Banshees or Seraphs that had triggered the alarm. A Banished intrusion corvette was dropping into view, its jagged bow still glowing with entry heat and trailing plumes of steam, its down-hooked stern slicing through the dark clouds, almost seeming to drag the sky behind it.
The corvette was probably three hundred kilometers to the south of the bombed-out village, and it was traveling east to west, parallel to New Mohács rather than toward it. But John knew better than to take comfort in that—the old Jiralhanae intrusion corvettes were nimble vessels that could pivot their heading on a pinpoint.
“Major Van Houte, you and Lieutenant Chapov should prep for takeoff—now,” John said. “Blue Team can help Chief Mukai finish securing the load.”
“No, you can’t.” Mukai’s head popped out from under the LHD. “You won’t fit under the equipment.”
“We’ll find a way.”
“That sounds urgent.” Van Houte slipped between the drilling jumbo and the bulkhead, then started aft toward the open hatchway. “Are they coming for real this time?”
“They’re doing something.” John continued to watch the intrusion corvette, still waiting for it to turn toward New Mohács. “I just don’t know what.”
Three squadrons of Broadswords, the entire deterrent force left to defend New Mohács, rose into the sky over the old armor yard. After the battle earlier that morning, the strike fighters were hardly prepared for a skirmish with a ship of the line—even a small one. They were short on missiles and cannon ammunition, and they lacked enough deuterium propellant to reach orbit unassisted. But two of the squadrons shot off to meet the corvette as far south of the village as possible, while one remained on-station to defend against a second attack coming from another direction.
The corvette continued westward, descending on a gentle glide path. Van Houte stopped at the bottom of the boarding ramp and followed John’s gaze, looking out over the jagged ruins toward the gray southern horizon.
“We’ll never beat them, you kn
ow.” Van Houte’s eyes were fixed on the enemy craft. “They’re still at Mach six or better. By the time we launch, they’ll be there.”
“Be where?”
John didn’t wait for an answer, because no sooner had he asked the question than he understood what Van Houte had seen—what any pilot would see. The corvette was traveling too fast to change course.
It wasn’t on approach to attack New Mohács.
It was descending into the Highland Mountains.
Sarah Palmer’s voice came over the insertion comms channel. “Blue Leader, Liberation Command. I’ve been asked to relay an urgent message from Orbit Actual.”
That would be Captain Lasky, and the message was being relayed because Reach was still wrapped inside the Infinity’s jamming blanket.
“I bet I can guess,” John said. “They think a Banished stealth corvette slipped through the orbital picket.”
“Close,” Palmer said. “They know a stealth corvette launched from a Banished supercarrier. They didn’t challenge it because they were afraid of drawing Cortana’s attention.”
Kelly huffed into her comm set, and John answered by making a twirling gesture with his index finger. Load up.
“Acknowledged,” John said. “I’m going to need two Broadsword squadrons.”
“What?”
“Sorry,” John said. “I’d like to request two Broadsword squadrons immediately. Don’t even let them land.”
“Don’t bother with the sweet talk, John,” Palmer said. “You’re no good at it.”
“Thanks for the advice, Commander. Does that mean I have my Broadsword squadrons?”
“It might, if I had some idea what you intend to do with them.”
“Complete my mission. That intrusion corvette is landing in the Highland Mountains.”
“So?”
“My bet is it’s on the way to meet the Keepers of the One Freedom. And they’ve been waiting for us.”
0920 hours, October 12, 2559 (military calendar)
Figyelő Point, Bíbor Cliffs
Highland Mountains, Continent Eposz, Planet Reach
How Castor could have been so wrong, he did not understand. For three of Reach’s day-night cycles, he had paced the crimson cliffs of the human-designated Figyelő Point, waiting for the demon Spartans to lead him to the Portal under the Mountain. It seemed inconceivable that they had inserted on Reach to deliver digging equipment to a group of farmers fighting to retake their meager holds. Yet for three days the sensor dishes arrayed along the cliff rims had failed to detect any sign of the Spartans, and for three days his air patrols had returned with not a single sighting.
Instead, the night before, Castor had watched the pinpoint flashes of battle somewhere far out in the Arany Basin. Then, earlier this morning, the rain clouds had been striped by the flame trails of one insertion drop after another. He had finally broken his self-imposed comm silence and contacted Ballas, chieftain of the Ravaged Tusks, and learned of the human surprise attack on New Mohács. Worse, Ballas had told him of the orbital jamming glove the UNSC had wrapped around Reach—and delivered a message from Escharum requiring a report on the search for the portal.
And now an intrusion corvette was dropping out of the clouds, its bow-shields still glowing red with entry heat. Castor did not even entertain the possibility that the vessel would divert and swing around to attack the humans at New Mohács. It was coming straight at Figyelő Point.
Castor stopped pacing and spun toward the broken line of sandstone blocks they were using to camouflage the command post, then stepped over to the block he had come to think of as ‘Gadogai’s Throne. As he had been for much of the last three days, the blademaster was kneeling atop the stone, his hands resting in his lap, his eyes closed, and his mandibles splaying ever so slightly each time he exhaled.
Castor grabbed the block by the sides and spun it toward the cliff. ‘Gadogai rode atop it, eyes still closed. Then, an instant before Castor launched the stone off the precipice, the blademaster simply stepped off and stood next to him, peering over the edge as the block plunged two hundred meters and began to cut a swath through the carpet of saplings that covered the slope below. The tumbling block continued down the steep slope, encountering nothing sturdy enough to stop it and flattening the saplings until it finally bounced into a ravine and vanished.
‘Gadogai said, “A splendid toss. I doubt Escharum could do better.”
Castor spun to face the Sangheili. Despite the chill wind and recent rain, the blademaster wore only his usual tabard and energy sword.
“You told Escharum where to find us.”
“We weren’t hiding from him.”
“And now we are not hiding from anyone,” Castor said. “Every human in the basin will see where he lands.”
‘Gadogai spread his palms. “He is starting to doubt that the Spartans are looking for the portal at all. When they retook their city of New Mohács, there were reports of excavation equipment on the battlefield.”
“How would you know that?” Castor demanded. “I banned communications.”
“And Escharum commanded me to keep him informed. A pity your plan to follow the Spartans to the portal failed. He thought it cunning.”
“Then he should have given it more time to work.”
“He gave it more than three day-night cycles,” ‘Gadogai replied. “And now the Banished are on the verge of losing Reach.”
“Reach only matters if we find the portal,” Castor said. The corvette had slowed to landing velocity and was beginning to descend toward Figyelő Point, so he turned to the small shelter that the sensor operators had erected to protect their monitoring equipment. “Send the humans to the caves. At once.”
A moment later, four of the Keepers’ human acolytes emerged and looked in his direction. There were two males and two females, all of them with their heads shaved on the sides and narrow falls of hair hanging between their shoulder blades. All wore Keeper colors, with blue torso armor over gold shirts and trousers, and all carried human sidearms on their hips. Castor was no judge of their species’ appearance, but the smallest and oldest of the group, a female with black hair and brown eyes, seemed to be their leader. The others protected her as though she were a dokab and sometimes called her “Mom,” a human bloodline colloquialism, even if they did not look young enough to be her offspring.
But what did Castor know? When it came to humans, it was all he could do to tell the males from the females.
When they stood staring at Escharum’s incoming corvette a little too long, he waved them away. “Go! I have enough to explain without reminding Escharum that I abide humans in my clan.”
They placed their palms together and bowed, then fled toward the hangar caves in the valley behind the cliffs.
“Why do you abide them?” ‘Gadogai asked. “Humans are such faithless creatures.”
“Not those four,” Castor replied. “They are a gift of the Oracle.”
“The Oracle you have not heard from for a year?” ‘Gadogai’s voice was mocking. “That Oracle?”
“The Oracle that was sent to show me the True Path.” Castor knew it was impossible to unnerve the blademaster, but he allowed a little menace to seep into his voice. Most Banished believed the Oracle to be a Forerunner ancilla who had been captured by the infidel UNSC and turned to their purposes. But Castor knew better. She was more powerful than either the Banished or the UNSC realized, for the Oracle had spoken to him many times since her supposed “capture.” “Beware how you speak of her. I can stomach only so much blasphemy—even from you.”
‘Gadogai clacked his mandibles, as he sometimes did when he was amused. “Then we must do what we can to settle your stomach. Escharum would be disappointed to find you already gone when he arrives.”
Escharum’s corvette was just gliding past a few hundred meters south of Figyelő Point, so Castor chose to pretend he had not heard the blademaster’s threat. He watched as the vessel swung toward a relatively flat area b
etween the rim of the cliff and the valley behind it. Once he was sure that was where the pilots intended to land, he summoned his warriors and went to receive the Banished’s second-in-command.
Castor had only two hundred warriors atop the cliff to line up behind him, but it would be enough. Unlike Sangheili, who positioned their warriors to honor arriving dignitaries, Jiralhanae reception formations were meant to intimidate—or at least to show that one was unintimidated by the person arriving. Castor arranged his host in a battle wedge, with himself at the tip and Feodruz and Krelis behind him, to his right and left. As a presumed neutral, ‘Gadogai stood a few paces off to his side, still within sword’s reach, but too far away for Castor to reach with a gauntlet smash.
The corvette settled onto its struts just fifty meters from Castor, so close that a wave of nausea and pain ran through him as his body reacted to gravity tides generated by its repulsor drives. The energy field in its hangar mouth sizzled out; then a column of Jiralhanae in dark-gray power armor poured out in triple file and formed a three-rank crescent so wide its horns extended past the base of Castor’s own wedge formation. There were three hundred of them, all easily as large as Orsun had been. They held shock rifles at port-arms and wore short-handled gravity maces on their belts.
Castor gnashed his tusks and made a show of signaling Feodruz to stand fast. ‘Gadogai shuffled his feet and looked at the sky, but Castor ignored him. It wasn’t the Sangheili he was trying to beard.
The two hosts of warriors stood staring at each other for a full five minutes. Finally the two center rows of the crescent formation neatly pivoted to face each other, creating a three-meter-wide aisle. A grizzled Jiralhanae in rugged gray armor with scarlet trim appeared at the far end and started forward, holding a huge gravity axe in one hand. Though not quite as tall as the giant warriors flanking him, he was broader in the shoulders than any—so large that, as he passed, his shoulders seemed to brush the torso armor of the escorts to both sides.