by Eric Nylund
John clasped Sam’s hand and squeezed it.
Kelly hesitated, then saluted.
John turned and grabbed her arm. “Come on, Spartan. Don’t look back.”
The truth was, it was John who didn’t dare look back. If he had, he would have stayed with Sam. Better to die with a friend than leave him behind. But as much as he wanted to fight and die alongside his friend, he had to set an example for the rest of the Spartans—and live to fight another day.
John and Kelly pushed the pressure doors shut behind them. “Good-bye,” he whispered. The countdown timer ticked the seconds off inexorably.
2:35 . . .
They ran down the corridor, popped the seal on the outer door—the atmosphere vented.
1:05 . . .
They climbed up through the twisted metal canyon that the MAC round had torn through the hull.
0:33 . . .
“There,” John said, and pointed to the base of a charged pulse laser. They crawled toward it, waited as the glow built to a lethal charge.
0:12 . . .
They crouched and held onto one another. The laser fired. The heat blistered John’s back. They pushed off with all their strength, multiplied through the
MJOLNIR armor.
0:00.
The shield parted and they cleared the ship, hurtling into the blackness.
The Covenant ship shuddered. Flashes of red appeared inside the hole—then a gout of fire rose and ballooned, but curled downward as it hit and rebounded off their own shield. The plasma spread along the length of their vessel. The shield shimmered and rippled silver—holding the destructive force inside.
Metal glowed and melted. The pulse laser turrets absorbed into the hull. The hull blistered, bubbled, and boiled. The shield finally gave—the ship exploded.
Kelly clung to John. A thousand molten fragments hurled past them, cooling from white to orange to red and then disappearing into the dark of the night.
Sam’s death had shown them that the Covenant were not invincible. They could be beaten. At a high cost, however. John finally understood what the Chief had meant—the difference between a life wasted and a life spent. John also knew that humanity had a fighting chance . . . and he was ready to go to war.
SECTION III SIGMA OCTANUS
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
0000 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNSC Remote Scanning OutpostArchimedes , on the edge of the Sigma Octanus Star System
Ensign William Lovell scratched his head, yawned, and sat down at his duty station. The wraparound view screen warmed to his presence.
“Good morning, Ensign Lovell,” the computer said. “Morning, sexy,” he said. It had been months since the Ensign had seen a real woman—the cold female voice of the computer was the closest thing he was getting to a date.
“Voiceprint match,” the computer confirmed. “Please enter password.” He typed: ThereOncewasAgirl The Ensign had never taken his duty too seriously. Maybe that’s why he only made it through his second
year at the Academy. And maybe that’s why he had been onArchimedes station for the last year, stuck with third shift. But that suited him fine. “Please reenter password.”
He typed more carefully this time:ThereOnceWasAGirl . After first contact with the Covenant, he had almost been conscripted straight out of school; instead, he had actually volunteered.
Admiral Cole had defeated the Covenant at Harvest in 2531. His victory was publicized on every vid and holo throughout the Inner and Outer Colonies and all the way to Earth.
That’s why Lovell didn’t try to dodge the enlistment officers. He had thought he’d watch a few battles from the bridge of a destroyer, fire a few missiles, rack up the victories, and be promoted to Captain within a year.
His excellent grades gave him instant admission to OCS on Luna.
There was one small detail, however, the UNSC propaganda machine had left out of their broadcasts: Cole had won only because he outnumbered the Covenant three to one . . . and even then, he had lost two-thirds of his fleet.
Ensign Lovell had served on the UNSC frigateGorgon for four years. He had been promoted to First Lieutenant then busted down to Second Lieutenant and finally to Ensign for insubordination and gross incompetence. The only reason they hadn’t drummed him out of the service was that the USNC needed every man and woman they could get their hands on.
While on theGorgon , he and the rest of Admiral Cole’s fleet had sped among the Outer Colonies chasing, and being chased by, the Covenant. After four years’ space duty, Lovell had seen a dozen worlds glassed . . . and billions murdered.
He had simply broken under the strain. He closed his eyes and remembered. No he hadn’t broken; he was just scared of dying like everyone else.
“Please keep your eyes open,” the computer told him. “Processing retinal scan.”
He had drifted from office work to low-priority assignments and finally landed here a year ago. By that time there were no more Outer Colonies. The Covenant had destroyed them all and were pressing inexorably inward, slowly taking the Inner Colonies. There had been a few isolated victories . . . but he knew it was only a matter of time before the aliens wiped the human race out of existence.
“Login complete,” the computer announced.
Ensign Lovell’s identity record was displayed on the monitor. In his Academy picture, he looked ten years younger: neatly trimmed jet-black hair, toothy grin, and sparkling green eyes. Today his hair was unkempt and the spark was long gone from his eyes.
“Please read General Order 098831A-1 before proceeding.”
The Ensign had memorized this stupid thing. But the computer would track his eye motions—make sure he read it anyway. He opened the file and it popped on-screen:
United Nations Space Command Emergency Priority Order 098831A-1
Encryption Code:Red Public Key:file /first light/ From:UNSC/NAVCOM Fleet H. T. Ward To:ALL UNSC PERSONNEL Subject:General Order 098831A-1 (“The Cole Protocol”) Classification:RESTRICTED (BGX Directive)
The Cole Protocol
To safeguard the Inner Colonies and Earth, all UNSC vessels or stations must not be captured with intact navigation databases that may lead Covenant forces to human civilian population centers.
Ifany Covenant forces are detected:
Activate selective purge of databases on all ship-based and planetary data networks.
Initiate triple-screen check to ensure all data has been erased and all backups neutralized.
Execute viral data scavengers. (Download from UNSCTTP://EPWW:COLEPROTOCOL/Virtualscav/ fbr.091)
If retreating from Covenant forces, all ships must enter Slipstream space with randomized vectors NOT directed toward Earth, the Inner Colonies, or any other human population center.
In case of imminent capture by Covenant forces, all UNSC ships MUST self-destruct.
Violation of this directive will be considered an act of TREASON, and pursuant to USNC Military Law Articles JAG 845-P and JAG 7556-L, such violations are punishable by life imprisonment or execution. /end file/ PressENTER if you understand these orders. Ensign Lovell pressed ENTER.
The UNSC wasn’t taking any chances. And after everything he had seen, he didn’t blame them.
His scanning windows appeared on the view screen, full of spectroscopic tracers and radar—and lots of noise.
Archimedesstation cycled three probes into and out of Slipstream space. Each probe sent out radar pings and analyzed the spectrum from radio to X rays, then reentered normal space and broadcast the data back to the station.
The problem with Slipstream space was that the laws of physics never worked the way they were supposed to. Exact positions, times, velocities, even masses were impossible to measure with any real accuracy. Ships never knew exactly where they were, or exactly where there were going.
Every time the probes returned from their two-second journey, they could appear exactly where they had left . . . or three million kilometers distant. Sometimes they n
ever returned at all. Drones had to be sent after the probes before the process could be repeated.
Because of this slipperiness in the interdimensional space, UNSC ships traveling between star systems might arrive half a billion kilometers off course.
The curious properties of Slipspace also made this assignment a joke.
Ensign Lovell was supposed to watch for pirates or black-market runners trying to sneak by . . . and most importantly, for the Covenant. This station had never logged so much as a Covenant probe silhouette—and that was the reason he had specifically requested this dead-end assignment. It was safe.
What he did see with regularity were trash dumps from UNSC vessels, clouds of primordial atomic hydrogen, even the occasional comet that had somehow plowed into the Slipstream.
Lovell yawned, kicked his feet up onto the control console, and closed his eyes. He nearly fell out of his chair when the COM board contact alert pinged.
“Oh no,” he whispered, fear and shame at his own cowardice forming a cold lump in his belly.Don’t let it be the Covenant. Don’t let it . . . not here.
He quickly activated the controls and traced the contact signal back to the source—Alpha probe.
The probe had detected an incoming mass, a slight arc to its trajectory pulled by the gravity of Sigma Octanus. It was large. A cloud of dust, perhaps? If it was, it would soon distort and scatter.
Ensign Lovell sat up straighter in his chair.
Beta probe cycled back. The mass was still there and as solid as before. It was the largest reading Ensign Lovell had ever seen: twenty thousand tons. That couldn’t be a Covenant ship—they didn’t get that big. And the silhouette was a bumpy spherical shape; it didn’t match any of the Covenant ships in the database. It had to be a rogue asteroid.
He tapped his stylus on the desk. What if it wasn’t an asteroid? He’d have to purge the database and enable the self-destruct mechanism for the outpost. But what could the Covenant want way out here?
Gamma probe reappeared. The mass readings were unchanged. Spectroscopic analysis was inconclusive, which was normal for probe reading at this distance. The mass was two hours out at its present velocity. Its projected trajectory was hyperbolic—a quick swing near the star, and then it would pass invisibly out of the system and be forever gone.
He noted that its trajectory bought it close to Sigma Octanus IV . . . which, if the rock were in real space, would be cause for alarm. In Slipspace, however, it could pass “through” the planet, and no one would notice.
Ensign Lovell relaxed and sent the retrieval drones after the three probes. By the time they got the probes back, though, the mass would be long gone.
He stared at the last image on screen. Was it worth sending an immediate report to Sigma Octanus COM? They’d make him send his probes out without a proper recovery, and the probes would likely get lost after that. A supply ship would have to be sent out here to replace them. The station would have to be inspected and recertified—and he’d receive a thorough lecture on what did and did not constitute a valid emergency.
No . . . there was no need to bother anyone over this. The only ones who would be really interested were the high-forehead types at UNSC Astrophysics, and they could review the data at their leisure.
He logged the anomaly and attached it to his hourly update.
Ensign Lovell kicked up his boots and reclined, once again feeling perfectly safe in his little corner of the universe.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
0300 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNSC destroyerIroquois on routine patrol in the Sigma Octanus Star System
Commander Jacob Keyes stood on the bridge of theIroquois . He leaned against the brass railing and surveyed the stars in the distance. He wished the circumstances of his first command were more auspicious, but experienced officers were in short supply these days. And he had his orders.
He walked around the circular bridge examining the monitors and displays of engine status. He paused at the screens showing the stars fore and aft; he couldn’t quite get used to the view of deep space again. The stars were so vivid . . . and here, so different from the stars near Earth.
TheIroquois had rolled out of space dock at Reach—one of the UNSC’s primary naval yards—just three months ago. They hadn’t even installed her AI yet; like good officers, the elaborate artificially intelligent computer systems were also in dangerously short supply. Still,Iroquois was fast, well armored, and armed to the teeth. He couldn’t ask for a finer vessel.
Unlike the frigates that Commander Keyes had toured on before, theMeriwether Lewis andMidsummer Night , this ship was a destroyer. She was almost as heavy as both those vessels combined, but she was only seven meters longer. Some in the fleet thought the massive ships were unwieldy in combat—too slow and cumbersome. What those critics forgot was that a UNSC destroyer sported two MAC guns, twenty-six oversized Archer missile pods, and three nuclear warheads. Unlike other fleet ships, she carried no single-ship fighters—instead her extra mass came from the nearly two meters of titanium-A battleplate armor that covered her from stem to stern. TheIroquois could dish out and take a tremendous amount of punishment.
Someone at the shipyard had appreciated theIroquois for what she was, too—two long streaks of crimson war paint had been applied to her port and starboard flanks. Strictly nonregulation and it would have to go . . . but secretly, Commander Keyes liked the ornamentation.
He sat in the Commander’s chair and watched his junior officers at their stations.
“Incoming transmissions,” Lieutenant Dominique reported. “Status reports from Sigma Octanus Four and also theArchimedes Sensor Outpost.”
“Pipe them through to my monitor,” Commander Keyes said.
Dominique had been one of his students at the Academy—he had transferred to Luna from the Université del’ Astrophysique in Paris after his sister was killed in action. He was short, nimbly athletic, and he rarely cracked a smile—he was always business. Keyes appreciated that.
Commander Keyes was less impressed, however, with the rest of his bridge officers.
Lieutenant Hikowa manned the weapons console. Her long fingers and slender arms slowly checked the status of the ordnance with all the deliberation of a sleepwalker. Her dark hair was always falling into her eyes, too. Oddly, her record showed that she had survived several battles with the Covenant . . . so perhaps her lack of enthusiasm was merely battle fatigue.
Lieutenant Hall stood post at ops. She seemed competent enough. Her uniform was always freshly pressed, her blond hair trimmed exactly at the regulation sixteen centimeters. She had authored seven physics papers on Slipspace communications. The only problem was that she was always smiling, and trying to impress him . . . occasionally by showing up her fellow officers. Keyes disapproved of such displays of ambition.
Manning navigation, however, was his most problematic officer: Lieutenant Jaggers. It might have been that navigation was the Commander’s strong suit, so anyone else in that position never seemed to be up to par. On the other hand, Lieutenant Jaggers was moody, and when Keyes had come aboard, the man’s small hazel eyes seemed glazed. He could have sworn he had caught the man on duty with liquor on his breath, too. He had ordered a blood test—the results were negative.
“Orders, sir?” Jagger asked.
“Continue on this heading, Lieutenant. We’ll finish our patrol around Sigma Octanus and then accelerate and enter Slipspace.”
“Aye, sir.”
Commander Keyes eased into his seat and detached the tiny monitor from the armrest. He read the hourly report from theArchimedes Sensor Outpost. The log of the large mass was curious. It was too big to be even the largest Covenant carrier . . . yet something was oddly familiar about its shape.
He retrieved his pipe from his jacket, lit it, inhaled a puff, and exhaled the fragrant smoke through his nose. Keyes would never even have thought about smoking on the other vessels he had served on, but here . . . well, command had its privileges.<
br />
He pulled up his files transferred from the Academy—several theoretical papers that had recently caught his interest. One, he thought, might apply to the outpost’s unusual reading.
That paper had initially sparked his interest because of its author. He had never forgotten his first assignment with Dr. Catherine Halsey . . . nor the names of any of the children they had observed.
He opened the file and read:
United Nations Space Command Astrophysics Journal 034-23-01 Date:May 097, 2540 (Military Calendar) Encryption Code:None Public Key:NA Author(s):Lieutenant Commander Fhajad 034 (service number [CLASSIFIED]), UNSC Office of Naval
Intelligence Subject:Dimensional-Mass Space Compressions in Shaw-Fujikawa (a.k.a. “Slipstream”) Space. Classification:NA
/start file/
Abstract:The space-bending properties of mass in normal space are well described by Einstein’s general relativity. Such distortions however, are complicated by the anomalous quantum gravitational effects in Shaw-Fujikawa (SF) spaces. Using loop-string analysis, it can be shown that a large mass bends space in SF space more than general relativity predicts by an order of magnitude. This bending may explain how several small objects clustered closely together in SF space have been reported erroneously as a single larger mass.
PressENTER to continue.
Commander Keyes switched back to the silhouette from theArchimedes report. The leading edge almost looked like the bulbous head of a whale. That realization chilled him to the core.
He quickly opened the UNSC database of all known Covenant ships. He scanned them until he found the three-dimensional representation of one of their medium-sized warships. He rotated it into three-quarters profile. He overlaid the image on the silhouette, scaled it back a little.
It was a perfect match.
“Lieutenant Dominique, get FLEETCOM ASAP. Priority Alpha.”
The Lieutenant snapped straight in his chair. “Yes, sir!”
The bridge officers looked at the Commander then exchanged glances with one another.
Commander Keyes brought up a map of the system on his data pad. The silhouette monitored by the outpost was on a direct course for Sigma Octanus IV. That confirmed his theory. “Bring us about to course zero four seven, Lieutenant Jaggers. Lieutenant Hall, push the reactors to one