First Strike

by Eric Nylund

  They silently marched across the hangar. It had been cleared of debris and bodies, and Warrant Officer Polaski had, for the last six hours, been practicing inside the space with the intact Covenant dropship. She spun the odd U-shaped craft around on its center axis, shimmied to port, rose, and then floated down for a landing.

  Johnson squinted his dark eyes at her performance and nodded approvingly. “She says that she’s figured out the weapon controls, too. No way to test them in here, of course.”

  “Understood,” the Master Chief replied. “And the rest of the team’s progress?”

  “I’ve got the doors from here to the bridge and to the engine room welded shut,” Sergeant Johnson told him. “If those transient sensor contacts that Cortana keeps picking up are anything, they’ll have to cut through to get to us.

  “Locklear’s grabbing some sack time. He needed it.” The Sergeant shrugged. “He’ll be fine, though; ODSTs are tough as nails. Lieutenant Haverson slept some then got up, had a long conversation with Cortana, and started reading through some of the Covenant database. Everyone seems to be fine, considering what we’ve been through.”

  “Understood,” the Chief said. “Cortana? Ship status?”

  “ETA to Reach in twenty minutes,” she said.

  The Chief checked his mission clock. “You said thirteen hours’ total travel time. By my count, we have approximately two hours to go.”

  “I had determined it would be thirteen hours based on the specifications of the Covenant Slipspace drive, but there’s…” Her voice trailed off and faded.

  “Cortana?”

  “Sorry. There’s a curious time-dilation effect at these Slipspace velocities. Although, technically, velocity, acceleration, and for that matter even time have no meaning in the folds of Slipspace. I thought I told you all this,” she said. Irritation crept into her voice.

  The Chief looked to the Sergeant, who shook his head and shrugged.

  Cortana sounded more than distracted—and she didn’t just “forget” things. It was a bad sign. They depended on her to fly this ship, and if she started falling apart they were in real trouble.

  The Master Chief opened a COM channel. “Change of plans, team. Reach ETA is nineteen minutes. I’ll explain later—just grab your gear and meet on the bridge ASAP.”

  There was a pause, then Lieutenant Haverson replied, “Roger, Master Chief. Locklear and I are already up here.”

  The hatch of the Covenant dropship opened, and Polaski jogged out. The three of them proceeded at a brisk pace to the bridge.

  The Master Chief opened a private COM channel to Cortana. “Anything else I should know?”

  The channel was silent for a full ten seconds. “I have the Covenant magnetic plasma-shaping system figured out,” she replied. “We’ll have a limited offensive capacity when we get to Reach, if we need it. I think.”

  “And the rest of this ship is still functional?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’m sorry, Chief…these calculations are…tricky.”

  The COM went dead.

  Cortana’s behavior worried the Chief, but he resigned himself to trust her. What other option was there?

  He, the Sergeant, and Polaski halted outside the bridge; the thick blast doors were sealed.

  “Lieutenant?” he said. “We’re outside.”

  The doors pulled apart. Locklear and the Lieutenant stood with their assault rifles aimed down the hall. They relaxed their stance when they identified them as friendlies.

  Lieutenant Haverson slung his rifle and said, “Sorry for the warm welcome. Cortana’s been picking up transient contacts all over the ship. We’re going to have to deal with them sooner or later—preferably before they deal with us.”

  “Agreed,” the Chief said.

  Polaski approached the Lieutenant, saluted, and gave her report on her efforts to master the Covenant dropship’s controls.

  Locklear edged closer to the Chief and the Sergeant. “What do you think, Sarge?” he whispered and cast a furtive glance at Polaski. “I mean, about her? Sure, there’s that Marine–Navy thing to get over, but I can get past that. You think there’s a chance that she and I? I mean—”

  “I’d give you the same odds as spacing yourself and walking the rest of the way to Reach,” the Sergeant declared. “In your skivvies.”

  “Give me a drop pod and I’d take those odds, Sarge.” A smile split Locklear’s tanned face, and he turned to the Master Chief. “Sure, I get it. Wouldn’t be so defensive if I hadn’t been close to the mark. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right?”

  The Master Chief stared at Locklear and slowly shook his head.

  Locklear’s smile faded, but not entirely. “You guys are just jealous,” he muttered and absentmindedly ran his finger over the scar that lined his jaw. “That’s cool. I get that all the time.”

  Locklear’s spirits had improved. Despite the ODST’s rough edges, the Chief had seen him in combat. He didn’t panic, and he had the skill and luck to survive Halo—qualities the Master Chief knew they’d need if they were ever going to get back.

  “Exiting Slipspace,” Cortana announced, “in three…two…one.”

  According to the Master Chief’s mission clock, it had only been eight minutes since Cortana had told him their ETA was nineteen minutes. Was there more to the time-dilation effect than she realized?

  The bridge lights dimmed, and blackness filled the arc of displays along the wall. Stars winked into existence, and at three o’clock blazed the warm orange orb of Epsilon Eridani.

  “We are seven hundred thousand kilometers from the system center,” Cortana told them. “I wanted to jump in close enough to see what’s going on—but far enough away so we would have time to recharge and reenter Slipspace if there’s any trouble. Picking up signals now. Covenant signals. Lots of them. Translating…stand by.”

  Haverson tapped one of the screens and magnified the image.

  “My God,” he whispered.

  A planet appeared on the screen. He sucked in his breath as he saw a world smoldering from pole to equator. Fires raged over its surface, and a hurricane of black spiraled through the atmosphere.

  The Master Chief felt as if the ship had suddenly decelerated. His hands clenched.

  He’d sent the majority of his team down there—and had considered it the “easier” mission. He’d gotten his Spartans killed, he was sure of it.

  Had they at least died fighting? Or were they burned from an orbiting Covenant ship, helpless?

  “Are we in the right place?” Locklear murmured. “That’s Reach?” He removed his cap, crushed it in his hand, and whispered, “Poor bastards.”

  The other displays showed Covenant warships orbiting the planet, as well as dozens of smaller craft and one large structure that seemed to be a central docking station.

  “What is this?” the Master Chief asked, stepping closer. He tapped the center display, pushing the limits of its resolution and magnifying a portion of the surface near the midlatitudes.

  The image resolved into patches of green, brown, and white—different from the angry black and livid orange that dominated the view of the rest of the planet.

  “Looks like they missed a spot,” the Sergeant said.

  “The Covenant don’t ‘miss’ anything when they glass a planet,” the Master Chief replied. “We’ve seen them do it enough to know what happens. This is no accident.” He turned to Lieutenant Haverson. “We should get closer and see what this is, sir.”

  “Master Chief,” Haverson said softly and held up his hands. “I sympathize with your need to know with absolute certainty what happened to your fellow Spartans, but this is…” He gestured to the planet and then frowned as he scrutinized the undamaged part of Reach. “Indeed,” he murmured. “This does warrant a closer look…provided we can get away with it.”

  The Lieutenant pulled the magnification back and refocused the display on the upper atmosphere. A hundred Covenant ships popped into view. “There a
re several smaller vessels circling over that spot. Forget what I just said,” Haverson whispered. “If the Covenant are so interested in this region, then we should be as well—as long as our cover holds. Cortana, take us in closer.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Cortana replied.

  The Covenant flagship smoothly accelerated in-system.

  “They’re hailing us,” Cortana said. “Preparing the proper counter-response.”

  John counted the ships on the display. There were hundreds—most no larger than a Covenant dropship, but there were at least a dozen cruisers and two of the titanic carriers that each carried three squadrons of Seraph fighter craft. There was more than enough firepower to turn their captured flagship into molten slag.

  Many of the smaller ships herded debris from the battle into one spot over Reach—a floating junkyard of UNSC and Covenant ships.

  “You see this?” The Master Chief pointed to the field of floating debris.

  The Lieutenant stared at it. “It’s almost as if they planned to stay here for a while—they’re cleaning house.”

  “We’re in,” Cortana announced. “The fleet is curious why a Covenant flagship is here, but not suspicious enough to question our authority. The translation is tricky. But apparently from the string of honorifics attached to their responses there’s supposed to be someone of extreme high rank commanding this ship, someone they referred to, among other things, as the ‘Guardian of the Luminous Key.’”

  “Damn silly name,” muttered Sergeant Johnson.

  “Can you tell what they’re doing down there, Cortana?” the Lieutenant asked.

  “Not yet,” she replied. “Their language doesn’t translate in a literal manner, and each word has multiple meanings. There’s something they consider holy—there are ten times as many religious allusions than in their typical communiqués. Hang on…picking up a new signal. Weaker than the others. Not on a Covenant frequency. It’s the UNSC E-band.”

  Lieutenant Haverson licked his lips. “Play it,” he said.

  A message beeped through the speakers, six tones, then a two-second pause; it repeated.

  The Master Chief stiffened.

  “That’s it,” Cortana said. “Just those six notes over and over. It originates here.” A tiny NAV triangle appeared on the edge of the intact region on the planet’s surface.

  “It’s not Morse code,” Polaski said. “Not any code I’ve heard of. Maybe it’s a test signal? Something automated, like an airtraffic repeater relay, maybe?”

  “It’s not automated,” the Master Chief said. “Everyone gear up and get ready. We’re going down there. There are Spartans down there. And they’re still alive.”

  He whispered so softly that only he and Cortana heard: “Oly Oly Oxen Free.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  1002 Hours, July 14, 2523 (Military Calendar) Epsilon

  Eridani System, Planet Reach, Spartan Training

  Exercise. Twenty-Nine Years Ago.

  John crawled forward and peered over the edge of the rise. A lush, green valley stretched out below him. In the distance, the silvery reflections of the Big Horn River twisted through the thick forest. Aside from a flock of birds that wheeled overhead, there was no activity below. He inched back to a blackened, hollow tree stump and crawled inside.

  Fred and Linda sat inside the hollowed-out cedar stump. It muffled their conversations and insulated them from the soldiers’ thermal goggles. “It’s all clear for now,” he whispered. A moment later Sam, Kelly, and Fhajad appeared, ghostlike, from their camouflaged positions nearby. They crouched outside the cedar stump and watched for patrols.

  From a distance they looked like soldiers on field maneuvers. Each was tall, fit, and agile, and looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. Closer observation told a different story. Each Spartan was no more than twelve years old.

  “Weapons check,” John told Fred and Linda. “We can’t afford any mistakes on this one, especially not with the rifles.”

  Linda and Fred disassembled and inspected their SRS99CS2 sniper rifles—which they’d liberated from a pair of Tango Company shooters who’d been sent to hunt them down two days ago. If the soldiers of Tango Company didn’t capture them and beat them into unconsciousness—this would be fun.

  John checked his pistol. CPO Mendez had issued the weapon. It used compressed air to fire a narq-dart. The effective range was twenty meters, and on impact it could drop a rhino in its tracks.

  Twenty meters wouldn’t cut it for this mission, though, so Fhajad had modified the 114mm APFSDS rounds from the sniper rifles, removed their deadly armor-piercing tips, and replaced them with narq-dart capsules.

  When Linda had test-fired the weapon, she promised John accuracy to one hundred meters. The rounds would penetrate flesh, but they couldn’t kill anyone—not unless she hit the temple or eyes.

  “Okay,” John said, “this is supposed to be a training exercise, but this is the seventh time Chief Mendez has made us play with Tango Company.”

  “They’re getting pretty tired of losing,” Fred remarked with a wry smile.

  “That’s not a good thing,” Linda told him and flipped a stray strand of red hair out of her face. “They’re not going to play fair. You heard the sniper we captured. He said that this time their Captain told them to win no matter what—even if they had to bloody a few of us to do it.”

  John nodded. “So we’ll return the favor and do whatever it takes to win, too.” He grabbed a twig and scratched a square in the leaf-covered dirt. “I’ll have command of Red Team: That’s me, Sam, Kelly, and Fhajad. Linda, you lead Blue Team.”

  “It’s not ‘Blue Team,’” Fred complained, and his face soured. “It’s just me. How come I have to stay and play sniper?” He flexed his hands, and John could sense his pent-up eagerness to get into close-range combat.

  “Because you’re our second-best shot,” John told him. “And our best spotter. Our plan hinges on the sniper team. Now just do it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fred muttered. He nodded and whispered: “Best spotter? Cool.”

  “Let’s go over this one more time.” John drew a line to the center of the square. “Red Team infiltrates the base and at oh-five-hundred sets off the stun grenades—taking out more of Tango Company and giving the rest of them a distraction.” John looked up to Linda. “Make sure the guys guarding their flag are removed.”

  “Count on it,” Linda replied and locked her dark green eyes with John’s.

  He wondered if that’s what her eyes looked like when she sighted through the sniper scope. She never seemed to blink; she always won in games of stare-down.

  “After we get the flag,” he continued, “Red Team will get out of there. Watch for targets of opportunity and cover us. We rendezvous at the LZ and hopefully no one finds us before then.”

  Fred nodded. Linda hefted her new rifle, which was almost too large for her to look through the scope and rest the butt against the hollow of her shoulder at the same time. “You’ll be in good hands.”

  John closed his eyes and ran over the details of his plan again in his head. Yes—everything gelled; their odds were good. He knew they’d win.

  “Don’t come out from hiding at the LZ until I give the all-clear signal,” he reminded them. “We could be captured…they could make us talk.”

  They all nodded, remembering what Tango Company had done to James. He “fell down a flight of stairs” as they had escorted him from cell to cell in their single-story jail. James hadn’t broken…not mentally, at least. But John wished he had; it had taken James a whole week to recover.

  No—he took back that thought. He was glad James hadn’t broken. John would have tried to do the same.

  John whistled the little six-note singsong tune Déjà had taught them—their all-clear signal. He stood, holstered his dart pistol, and checked the three stun grenades on his belt. “I’ll see you at the LZ.”

  He held out his fist, and Linda and Fred knocked their fists into his.r />
  Linda set her slender hand on his arm. “Be careful,” she whispered.

  John nodded. “I’m always careful.”

  He crawled outside. Sam, Fhajad, and Kelly waited for him. Their faces were smeared with mud; bits of brush and bramble decorated their coveralls.

  “Questions?” he asked them.

  They shook their heads.

  “Okay. Check your mirrors.”

  They all pulled out the shards of mirror they had taken from Tango Company’s latrine last night. They had taped the edges so they could be handled more easily, and taped their backs to reduce the chance they’d shatter. The whole operation depended on a fragile piece of glass, which had John worried.

  “Just hand signals from here on out,” John told them. “Move out, Red Team.”

  They crouched and clawed and slithered through the forest until they reached a gravel track. They pushed two large rocks off the nearby hill, blocking the road, then waited in the brush.

  Headlights appeared as a supply truck rumbled down the road and squealed to a halt. Two soldiers got out and scanned the area.

  “Think it’s an ambush?” one of them muttered and gripped his rifle tighter.

  “From those freak Section Three kids? Jesus, I don’t know,” the driver said. “Screw the rules of this exercise.” He pulled a Kevlar poncho over his head. “I’m not gonna take a dart in my ass if it is. Cover me.”

  The man riding shotgun got out and walked around the truck. “Looks clear,” he whispered. “Hurry.”

  The driver jumped out of the cab, moved to the rocks, and rolled them off the road.

  John ran from the brush and crawled under the vehicle. He pulled himself up and wedged tight against the undercarriage, close enough that he smelled the rubber from the new tires. Kelly and Sam came next; Fhajad was last.

  They hadn’t been spotted. So far, so good.

  The two men got back into the truck and proceeded down the dirt road.