New Blood

by Matt Forbeck

  We found a squad of Brutes and Grunts waiting there in the foyer for us, their weapons all at the ready and trained on the elevator doors straight across from us. If we’d have done things the easy way, they’d have loaded the elevator car with plasma bursts and grenades before we’d even been able to step out of it. As it was, we caught them flat-footed.

  Gogo, Daughter, and I unloaded a full clip each into the bastards, and the Covenant soldiers either dove for what little cover they could find—like behind one another—or died. The three of us swung back into the stairwell to reload, and Sam pitched a grenade straight past me to land right in the middle of the room. It went off just as the survivors started to poke their heads up to see where we’d gone.

  It was like poetry.

  We strolled past the dead aliens and shoved our way through the lab’s shattered doors. “Did my little popper do all that?” Samrat asked as he gaped at the destruction.

  I shook my head and frowned. “These guys were hard at work trashing this place before we showed up.”

  “Did they perhaps already get the thing for which we came here?” said Svensdottir.

  “Let’s hope not.” I glanced around and made a few quick decisions. “We don’t need all of us to ransack this place, but we are going to need another ride out of here once we find it. Gogo? Go see what kind of wheels you can find us.”

  “On it, Gunny,” he said with a sharp nod.

  “Sam, keep a watch on the foyer here while Daughter and I work the janitorial duty and toss the room for our data chip. I don’t want anyone sneaking up on us while our attention’s away.”

  “On it.”

  “I could help Gogo find us transportation,” Svensdottir said.

  “He’s as sneaky as they come.” I turned on my comm to make sure he’d hear my next words. “He won’t take any stupid chances out there on his own.”

  “Never have, Gunny,” he said. “Never will.”

  I glanced at Svensdottir, then jerked my head in the direction Gomez had gone. She took off after him like I’d dropped a hot bullet casing down her back.

  I rummaged around the trashed labs and didn’t see anything obvious, like a glowing pedestal upon which a diamond-crusted chip sat sparkling in a spotlight. I did locate a central computer interface, but it looked like the Grunts had given it a rubdown with their pistols. The slot where the data chip would have gone stood empty.

  I switched my comm off, cursing. I cocked my head at the slot and gave it a closer look. It didn’t seem like the Grunts had bashed in that particular part of the console, and I didn’t see half of a broken chip still stuck in the slot. That meant it had to be around there somewhere.

  I scoured the place, fast. If one of the lab techs had hidden it, I could have spent hours there trying to find it. A chip like that’s not any bigger than a poker card. You could slip it anywhere.

  Most of the lab sat in one large room filled with stations, tables, and cubicles. A single door, though, led into a glassed-off area that featured a desk and a great view of the complex’s inner courtyard. The interior glass and the exterior windows had all been shattered, and I could hear bursts of plasma fire off in the distance, just a bit every half minute or so. No screams sounded out in response.

  The desk had been shot all to hell. It had lost so much of its structure that it actually sagged in the middle. I walked around behind it and found a middle-aged woman in a bloodstained lab coat hiding behind it. All the life had leaked out of her, turning her white coat red.

  I knelt down next to her and closed her eyes. Then I muttered an apology as I patted down her pockets. I didn’t like having to do it, but if she’d died trying to protect that data chip, then I’d have dishonored her efforts if I decided that rummaging through her clothing would be disrespectful.

  I found the chip in the pocket of her lab coat.

  “Got it,” I said over the comm as I slipped the chip into my armor’s hardcase. “Find us a taxi yet, Gogo?”

  “On my way back, Gunny! Meet you at the front door!”

  Before I left, I grabbed a grenade and tossed it far across the inner courtyard. It bounced off a window on the other side and exploded in midair, shattering every bit of glass around it.

  “Do we have company?” Svensdottir asked over the comm.

  “Just a little manufactured distraction,” I told her. “But I do hope that’s what any Covie in the area thinks.”

  Sam and I double-timed it down the stairs and toward the way we’d come in. Svensdottir stopped us halfway through the foyer. I had just enough time to ask “What’s up?” before the back of a flatbed trailer came smashing through what was left of the building’s front doors.

  “You know Gogo,” Svensdottir said. “Loves to make an entrance.”

  “Por supuesto!” Gomez leaned out the driver’s side window of the truck he’d commandeered and waved us on. “Climb aboard!”

  Sam eyeballed the truck. “Where are we supposed to sit?”

  “Daughter, you take shotgun,” I said.

  “And us?” said Sam.

  I pointed to a tarp covering a load of bricks on the flatbed. “We’re going incognito.”

  Sam grumbled as we slipped under the tarp and shoved aside enough bricks to make room for our armored butts. “I don’t think this meets UNSC safety regs,” he said. “Where are the seat belts?”

  “You can file a complaint when you get home. Which you should manage nicely if I don’t knock you off onto the highway.” I tore a hole through the tarp, wide enough to see through. “Meanwhile, try to enjoy the view.”

  Gomez barreled the truck onto the nearest open road, moving fast enough for me to question my judgment as much as Sam had. He headed straight for our extraction point, where Veronica had promised she’d have a transport waiting to fly us and her grocery order home.

  I couldn’t get Gamma-Six out of my head, though, so I decided to listen in on their comm chatter. While Alpha-Nine had gone in using an encoded channel, per our operation’s orders, Gamma-Six’s frequency lay open to other ODST personnel, and I took full advantage of that.

  My ears rang immediately with bangs and screams, and it took me a moment to make out a woman shouting orders over it all. “Keep going!” she barked at her people. “Head for the gate!”

  Then she bellowed at Command. “Where the hell’s our ride out of here, dammit?”

  “Hold on,” Command replied. “We’re getting some interference on your vitals signals. What’s Sergeant Pham’s condition?”

  “On her way to meet her ancestors,” the woman said. “I’m next in line, so talk to me! Now!”

  “It’s too hot over your position, Lance Corporal Palmer,” Command responded in a voice so calm you knew the speaker had his ass surgically planted in a comfy chair. “You need to extricate yourself to a safe location before we can send the transport in.”

  I brought up Gamma-Six’s position on my HUD. They were hunkered down about three klicks from us, surrounded by Covenant soldiers and running out of options fast. A scream of agony pierced my eardrum over the comm. On my HUD, one of the blue lights indicating a friendly fighter snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.

  “We’re dying out here!” Palmer shouted. “They have a flock of Banshees pinning us down!”

  “I repeat—”

  I shouldn’t have cut Command off, but I had a healthy lack of respect for such manners. “Gamma-Six, this is Alpha-Nine. We are in your vicinity and are heading in your direction.”

  I fed the new destination to Gomez’s HUD and smiled as I felt the speeding truck lurch in that direction.

  “Alpha-Nine . . . ?” Command sounded like I’d pissed in his beer. “This channel’s been reserved for Gamma-Six. You’re not a part of this operation!”

  “Well, we are now. ODSTs don’t leave each other behind.”

 
Command grunted, and then a familiar and far more passionate voice growled at me over the comm. “Alpha-Nine? Your orders are clear. You are to return to the LZ and rendezvous with your transport without delay.”

  Veronica Dare could make a prison guard wet his trunks, but I ignored her. “Our current path will take us right to Gamma-Six’s position. We picked up your MacGuffin, and if you want it home safe, I recommend you send our ride in that direction.”

  “I’m giving you a direct order.”

  I grimaced and gave my next words more thought than I usually bother with. “Command, I could pretend that you’re breaking up, but I’d rather not insult you.”

  “Thank you.” Her tone grew more even, but sharper, like a saw transforming into a razor.

  “We’re going to see if we can do Gamma-Six some good, and if you have a problem with that, you can take it up with UNSC High Command. I’m pretty sure my real bosses will have my back.”

  “Honestly?” The suspicious curl of her voice made me doubt my name, rank, and serial number. “How’s that?”

  “Because we’re covering Gamma-Six’s back. That’s what marines do.”

  Veronica then taught me a few new ways to question someone’s bloodline. I just tuned her out until she gave up in disgust.

  By the time we got near Gamma-Six, all but one of the team’s blue lights had gone out. To their credit, not one of my teammates questioned my judgment the entire way, even as we watched those lights fade one by one. Gomez gunned the engine harder instead.

  “I’m solo here,” Palmer said through the comm. “Just ran out of ammo, too.”

  For someone in such trouble, she exuded serenity. However her day might end, she stood ready to see it through. I wasn’t about to leave her to die.

  “Gogo!” I barked. “Dump us off a few meters from what’s left of Gamma-Six! Daughter! Give me and Sam some cover! We’re going in!”

  As we reached the plaza in which Gamma-Six had been pinned down, Gomez spotted the Covenant forces massed across the street before us. “Hold on!” he said. “They got their backs to us, and I’m gonna make them hurt for it!”

  A trio of Brutes stood there in the center of the street, directing a dozen Grunts and a half-dozen Jackals in their squad, who had fanned out in a semicircle around Palmer’s position. A pair of Banshees spiraled overhead, hunting for any stray members of Gamma-Six who might try to make a break for it. Soon enough, the Grunts would gather their courage—or the Brutes would beat it into them—and they’d charge straight at Palmer. I had no doubt she’d fight them to her dying breath, but those weren’t good odds for anyone.

  Until we showed up to even them.

  Gomez gunned that big rig right toward the Brutes and then yanked the wheel to the left at the last second. The truck spun sideways, sweeping into the Brutes and their Jackal scouts like a gigantic broom.

  As the truck screeched to a blood-splattered halt, I tore off the tarp, and Samrat and I leaped off the flatbed. We dashed in the direction where Palmer’s light still shone blue on my HUD while Svensdottir rained down suppressive fire with her assault rifle.

  I peppered the two standing Jackals with my battle rifle, and they fell over like I’d snipped their strings. Sam cut wide to the right and kept the remaining Grunts busy while I made a beeline for Palmer.

  By the time I reached Palmer—who’d taken cover in a shattered storefront—she’d already thrown one of her teammates over her shoulders and was starting toward me. She was covered with blood, and for her sake I could only hope it belonged to him.

  “Grab the other two?” she said to me.

  I wanted to charge straight past her without a nod, but the Banshees had spotted us. One of them opened fire on the cab of the truck while the other spun toward Samrat.

  Sam never shied away from a fair fight, but he knew the Banshee had him outgunned. He hunkered down behind a blown-out car and called for help.

  “We’re kind of busy here!” Gomez shouted. The truck had stalled out after smashing into the Brutes, and it refused to start right back up again. He kept coaxing at it just the same while Svensdottir maintained a barrage of fire aimed at making them a harder target for the Banshee locked on them.

  “Put him down.” I tossed Palmer an ammo clip, and she caught it with her free hand. “We gotta live through this before we can think about our dead.”

  I didn’t wait to see what she did. Instead, I spun around, dropped to one knee, and drew a bead on the Banshee circling around Sam’s position.

  “Why the hell are you hiding behind such a beat-up car?” I asked as the Banshee strafed Sam. The Elite piloting it bellowed down at him in triumph.

  “I figured they couldn’t blow up the gas in it twice!” he howled in some crazed mixture of fear, agony, and frustration. “You going to help me live to regret that decision, or what?”

  I squeezed off a burst of bullets that lit up the energy field around the Elite pilot’s armor. That got his attention, but he seemed baffled for a moment as to where the bullets could be coming from. The Sangheili had expected them from the marine he’d been attacking, and in a strategic error, he put his back to me.

  The Banshee curled around to its pilot’s right, giving me a clear shot at him from behind. Rather than unload everything I had, I lined up the crosshairs in my scope on his vitals and put a few solid bursts into them. I don’t know if that killed him or not, but it knocked his shields out and dropped him from the cockpit. The fall finished him off either way, and the Banshee sailed off without him, straight into a building’s facade.

  While Sam cheered me on, I pulled back from my sights to see if I could spot the remaining Banshee going after Gomez and Svensdottir. Palmer was already on it. She’d loaded the clip I gave her into a battle rifle of her own, and she’d charged out into the plaza to draw fire from our ride.

  “Sam!” I said. “Mop up the rest of those Grunts out there and haul ass back to the rig!”

  Gomez finally got the truck’s engine purring again, and he slammed it into reverse to drag it off the Brutes he’d crushed under its tires. He pulled back just in time to avoid another strafing run from the second Banshee. As it passed over the spot where the truck had been, Svensdottir lit it up with her assault rifle.

  The Banshee was already smoking, and that last round of bullets set the machine on fire. The Elite piloting it, though, wasn’t ready to give up and go home quite yet. He’d spotted what I’d done to his wingman—creature, whatever—and he veered straight for me. If he was going to die here, he planned to take me out with him at least.

  Palmer stepped out from behind a lamppost she’d been using for cover, and she let loose at the Banshee with every last round in her magazine. About halfway through those slugs, the Banshee went up in a fiery blast, but she kept shooting anyway, just to make sure.

  Given how those aliens had chewed up the rest of her squad, I couldn’t blame her.

  Palmer tossed the weapon aside and came back to pick up the fallen soldier she’d been carrying when I first saw her. “Help me with the others?” she said.

  I clapped her outstretched hand. “This bus isn’t leaving anyone behind.”

  I waved Sam over and stabbed a finger down at the next downed ODST I saw. While he scooted over and scooped that one up, I tracked down the last of the KIAs.

  There wasn’t a lot left of him. He had more spikes from one of those Brute guns sticking out of him than a cactus has needles. Still, I swung him up over my shoulder and then spun back toward the truck.

  By the time I got there, Svensdottir had already tossed Palmer her service pistol, and Palmer kept busy picking off a few still-curious Grunts while Svensdottir reloaded her assault rifle. Sam laid down his burden, and he gave me a hand with mine.

  Seconds later, we were on our way back out of the plaza, Samrat, Palmer, and I keeping watch over our fallen compatriots laid
out on the flatbed while the torn tarp flapped behind us like a tattered blue flag. Sam set to work on the downed troopers, seeing if there was anyone he could save. It was a lost cause—but then what part of our impromptu rescue operation hadn’t been?

  “Thanks,” Palmer said from the spot where she’d collapsed. She wiped the blood off her helmet’s faceplate. “I owe you one.”

  “It’s on the house,” I said. She’d already done Alpha-Nine a huge favor, whether she knew it or not, and her teammates had paid for it with their lives.

  SEVEN

  * * *

  I didn’t see Sarah Palmer for years after that. Hell, I didn’t even think much about her. I was too busy fighting the Covenant War, during which I lost far more friends than I care to think about.

  Sam. Gogo. Daughter. All dead long before we finished kicking the Covenant’s ass. Maybe that’s a story for another day.

  By the time the war ended, I was in charge of a new group of ODSTs, although we still called ourselves Alpha-Nine. Humans are funny that way. Case in point: My uncle Lou had a favorite fishing rod he’d haul out during any dull moment. Had this twenty years, he’d say with pride as he loaded on a new length of line. Replaced the rod three times and the reel twice. I didn’t have the heart to tell him there wasn’t a single goddamn atom in that rod of his that was there when he originally bought it. But to him, it was the same rod either way, just like the new squad I had was still Alpha-Nine.

  Well, at least to High Command.

  Of course, on that day back in 2546, Veronica Dare threatened to bring me up on a charge of insubordination. When Alpha-Nine got back to the base, she hauled us all into a conference room—a place as far from the battlefield as possible—and debriefed the entire team at once in the rawest possible terms. I let her go on until she began to run out of ways to describe how irresponsible I was, and then put up a hand to speak. She snarled at me but gave me a go-ahead nod.

  “While we might have been on an ONI operation, you are not my boss. We were seconded to your command as a courtesy. If you have a problem with my performance, I suggest you take it up with my actual superiors.”