by Troy Denning
“Ma’am, that assault armor only has ninety minutes of air,” the navigator said. “Even if the aliens don’t—”
“You heard the Master Chief,” Guayte said. “Do your damn job and fix the location.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
An uneasy silence fell over the flight deck. John might have just condemned Avery Johnson and dozens of Black Daggers to death, but the sergeant would also have been the first to tell him to do it. If Sierra Force failed to destroy the fleet-support facilities at Naraka, the Covenant would be able to resupply and resume their invasion of the Outer Colonies unimpeded—and allowing that could mean the end of humanity.
Only a few seconds passed before the sensor operator said, “Ma’am, I’ve lost the beacon, and I think the aliens have too—if they ever had it. They’re accelerating on a vector that bypasses Sergeant Johnson’s location.”
“Will they also bypass Sierra Force?” Guayte asked.
“Could be close,” the sensor operator replied. “I’ll pass my data to navigation for vector analysis.”
“Very well,” Guayte said. “Comms, prepare for a Sierra Force burst transmission with a new course and instructions.”
John’s gut clenched. Even if the Covenant failed to detect the burst transmission itself, a change-of-course order would cause a cascade of messages and thruster burns as four prowlers coordinated to minimize the chances of collision. A top-notch prowler wing like Sierra Force’s might be able to pull that off without alerting the aliens to their presence, but it would be a long shot.
“I have that vector analysis,” the navigator reported. “It looks like a hundred-kilometer miss, but they could be trying to position themselves to swing around for a tail attack.”
“Comms, stand by.”
Guayte’s gaze grew distant. A hundred kilometers in open space was practically a sideswipe, and John knew she had to be debating the best course of action.
“Ma’am, I think we take the chance,” John said. “Between the emergency beacon and the comm chatter, there’s something going on with Ghost Flight. The Covenant is probably reacting to that, not us.”
Guayte shifted her attention to John. “Even if you’re right, at a hundred kilometers, sheer proximity raises our chances of being detected to thirty percent—and that’s with human sensors.”
“Still has to beat our chances of changing course undetected.”
“Assuming you’re right about what the aliens are doing.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know whether the Master Chief is right,” the navigator said. “But the alien vector is odd—it intersects our original approach.”
“The one we abandoned after Dagger Force entered slipspace?” Guayte asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” the navigator said. “It’s like they were expecting us to be there.”
“Not us,” John said. He was beginning to think he knew why Johnson had activated his emergency beacon. “Could they be chasing a Ghost Flight prowler?”
“It’s possible,” the sensor operator said. “But why would a prowler leave—”
“Just keep watching that vector,” Guayte ordered.
She had obviously reached the same conclusion John had. Avery Johnson had activated his emergency beacon not to call for help, but to draw the Covenant’s attention—and prevent Hector Nyeto from sabotaging Sierra Force’s arrival.
But even with an enemy squadron on his prowler’s tail, Nyeto had not given up. Now he was trying to lead the aliens into Sierra Force headlong. And he might have succeeded, had John not changed their approach vector just before Sierra Force entered slipspace.
After a moment, Guayte added, “And look for a tau burst. If the Master Chief is right about who the Covenant is chasing, that prowler won’t be coming back to help us out.”
The sensor operator was quiet for a moment, then said, “Understood. I’ll keep you informed.”
The flight deck quieted again. A tau burst, John knew, occurred anytime a slipspace vortex opened. Tau particles were extremely short-lived—less than a billionth of a second—so they were impossible to detect unless a sensor dish happened to be pointed directly at the vortex. Even then, it wasn’t the tau particle that was actually observed, but the burst of energy that occurred when it encountered its antimatter complement and self-destructed.
John checked his HUD. The first nukes were due to detonate in the libration-point outposts in just over five minutes. Given the apparent trouble that had befallen First Platoon Alpha, he did not expect to see any bright flashes at Libration Point Three. But the Black Widow was far enough away from Naraka that any detonations at Libration Points Four and Five should be visible to either side of the planet, in about the same plane as its equator.
“Covenant squadron reaching closest approach in thirty seconds,” the navigator said.
“And they’ve opened fire with their plasma cannons,” the sensor operator added.
“On us?” Guayte exclaimed.
“Sorry, ma’am, no. On whoever they’re chasing.”
“Very well. Carry on.” Guayte’s voice had dropped back into its normal calm tone. “Comms, prepare burst message reading ‘Break Break Engage All Weapons.’ Hold transmission for my order.”
“Acknowledged.”
John fixed his gaze on the port side of the viewport and quickly spied a handful of blue slivers approaching from the direction of Libration Point Three. Though the distance was minuscule by the standards of space, he never saw a glint or silhouette that suggested the vessel itself. Even the plasma bolts the aliens were firing at the fleeing prowler were barely more than flecks of light. Then, almost before he knew it, the slivers had passed out of sight.
The tension on the flight deck bled away, and a dozen breaths later, the sensor operator reported, “Covenant squadron continuing on vector. No indication they’ve detected us.”
Guayte exhaled hard, then said, “Comms, kill that burst transmission.” She turned to John. “Nice call, Master Chief.”
John thought of Avery Johnson. “I hope so.”
He checked his HUD. In two minutes, the nukes should start detonating and taking out picket squadrons and libration-point outposts. If all went to plan, Sierra Force would drop ten minutes later and start attacking the ring of orbital fleet-support facilities that encircled Naraka. The facilities were connected by a transit tube enclosed within a skeletal frame of support trusses—Dr. Halsey had called it a ‘trussing armature’ when she saw the reconnaissance vids—and the objective of the attack was to destroy enough of the armature to take down the entire ring. If Sierra Force could destroy at least ten facilities—along with the connecting armature—there was a ninety-two percent chance that the orbit of the entire ring would grow unstable and fall into a rapid, irreversible decay.
At least that was what Dr. Halsey said, and she did not make a habit of being wrong.
“We have tau bursts,” the sensor operator reported. “Several. I make it three separate vessels, all entering slipspace in close formation.”
John was stunned. During their planning sessions for this mission, Crowther and Johnson had speculated about how deep the conspiracy might go, but nobody had even suggested that it might include all three prowlers in Ghost Flight.
Guayte looked over. “Surprised?”
“Yes, ma’am, you could say that,” John said. “The Prowler Corps is an ONI division. How could Nyeto crew three entire craft with traitors?”
“Easier than you think,” Guayte said. “Commanders approve all crew replacements. Once Nyeto had his flight, he could start slipping in his people every time there was a transfer.”
“For the entire crew of three prowlers?” John still couldn’t believe it was possible. “That would take years.”
“Maybe decades.” Guayte turned forward again. “Put yourself in Nyeto’s place, John. To the insurrectionists, we’re the alien invaders, the horde that can’t be stopped. They’ve already been fighting us for thirty years any way they can—just
like we’re fighting the Covenant now. If that meant spending twenty years in the UNSC just to steal a few prowlers—then that’s what he’d do.”
A brilliant flash caught the corner of John’s left eye. He turned to see white spheres blossoming into existence at the libration points to either side of Naraka’s equator, then shrinking back into nothingness, one after another in a beautiful, blinding storm of annihilation.
A few more flashes lit up the port edge of the Black Widow’s viewport as a handful of thermonuclear devices detonated at the Libration Point Three outpost, but it was nothing like the eruption of light coming from the other two outposts. And no wonder. With the alien picket squadron out chasing Ghost Flight, the only targets left at Point Three would be a few support stations.
“Sensors, what’s the status of the Covenant squadron behind us?”
“Intact,” the sensor operator said. “And coming around. Looks like they’re responding to the attack.”
“Keep an eye on them,” Guayte said. She looked over at John. “It’ll be a hot insertion.”
John shrugged. “Is there any other kind?”
Actually, he had led hostile insertions only a handful of times—most recently when the Spartans attacked the logistics fleet at Etalan—but he was pretty sure that no insertion was ever easy. There would always be someone willing to do whatever it took to keep the UNSC from setting foot on their ground.
“Just get us within EV range of the orbital ring,” John added. “We’ll handle the rest.”
“Deal.”
Guayte’s gaze was locked forward, where Naraka’s mottled green disk was expanding rapidly across the viewport. Already its ring of fleet-support facilities could be seen orbiting above the equator, a ragged band of curled shapes connected to one another by the yellow-green filament of a transit tube.
The shapes ranged in size from almost indiscernible to as large as John’s fist, and they were flecked with the twinkling lights and glowing bubbles of active industrial facilities. Beneath a handful of these facilities, spokes of blue light descended into Naraka’s yellow cloud cover and vanished from sight.
In front of the orbital ring hung twenty Covenant vessels, each so large that John mistook them for facilities in the ring itself—until he noticed the bright specks swarming around them and realized he was looking at a fighter shell. Even then, it took him a moment to recognize the problem. The ships had no thrust tails. Instead of climbing into higher orbits to expand their defensive cocoon and compensate for the loss of their picket squadrons, they were hanging back in orbit, maintaining a tight anti-infiltration web that would prevent the prowlers from slipping through to attack the orbital facilities.
“Good discipline,” Guayte said. “They’re not falling for it.”
“Imagine that,” John said. “Someone leaked our plan.”
“Maybe,” Guayte said. “But the aliens aren’t idiots. After Etalan, they could have guessed what we’d do.”
“But not where we’d do it.” John pointed at the line of slowly growing vessels ahead. “Does that look like a typical garrison force? Or a typical deployment?”
“I’m no expert on Covenant garrison force deployments,” Guayte said. “But no. To deploy that tight around the entire ring, they’d have to keep a hundred carrier-size vessels on station. Nobody does that unless they’re expecting trouble.”
“So we do this the hard way,” John said. “Plan D.”
“I didn’t know there was a Plan D.”
“There is now.” John explained what he had in mind, then asked, “What do you think? They’re expecting us to attack the fleet-support ring from a higher orbit, so we hit it from below.”
“If we can get below.”
John pointed at the faint beam connecting the ring to Naraka. “Those spokes look a lot like the gravity-elevators their ships use. Drop our Sierra units on the surface near the bottom of them, and we’ll use the Covenant’s own lift-tech to infiltrate the ring. It has to be easier than getting through that defensive line.”
Guayte sighed. “Probably so. Even the Covenant can’t put a net that tight over an entire planet.” She studied her command screen for a moment, then asked, “Detection, what are we seeing over the poles?”
“Standard patrols. Nothing we can’t dodge.”
“Very well.” Guayte turned to John. “Are you sure you want to split up? Massed firepower is—”
“Easier to eliminate with superior massed firepower,” John said. “We’re never going to punch through that line. We don’t have the strength to do that. We have to slip through, and splitting up makes that easier. It also gives Sierra Force four chances instead of just one to reach the ring.”
“Reaching the ring is only half the battle, Chief,” Guayte said. “To bring it down, you still have to destroy ten facilities—and that won’t happen if you’re short of firepower.”
“We won’t be,” John said. “With all due respect, ma’am, you don’t understand Spartan capabilities.”
Guayte thought for a moment, then said, “Okay, we’ll split up. But even if we can get you in, retrieval is out of the question. If those spokes aren’t what you think they are—”
“Just get us in, ma’am,” John said. “We’ll find our own ride home.”
John left the other half of that statement unspoken: if we’re around to need it. His plan was necessarily short on detail, since he had no intelligence about what they would find on the planet’s surface. But it was fair to say that if those spokes weren’t some sort of space elevator, getting home would be the least of Sierra Force’s problems.
After a moment, Guayte nodded. “Very well, Master Chief. You’re in charge.” She turned to her command screen and began to type orders. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I’m sure you’re not the only one, Lieutenant.” John came to attention. “With your permission, I’ll retire to the drop bay and prepare for insertion.”
“I think you’d better.” Guayte spoke without looking away from her command screen. “We’re not going to bother with establishing orbit. This will be a meteor insertion. I’ll burst the other prowlers with your plan, and you’ll be boots down in . . . sixteen minutes.”
She turned to the communications officer and began to issue instructions for the burst transmission. Taking her change of focus as an informal dismissal, John retreated to the drop bay, where he joined the rest of Blue Team and Third Platoon Delta Company.
Talking as he worked, John explained the new plan and began securing weapons and devices to his armor. He put an MA5B with underslung grenade launcher on his dorsal magnetic mount and, because he wanted a weapon with the power to penetrate the enemy’s personal energy shielding, elected to hand-carry an M90 close-assault shotgun. He joined the rest of Blue Team in loading up with explosive devices: a hundred-kiloton octa on each hip and a thirty-megaton Havok on his lower back.
Not being biologically augmented Spartans in Mjolnir power armor, Lieutenant Small Bear carried a one-megaton Fury, and her thirty-one Black Daggers each carried a pair of octas mag-clamped above their thruster packs. John wondered if this was some kind of record for the most nuclear ordnance ever carried by an insertion force comprised entirely of infantry, and he wasn’t even considering the other Spartan and Black Dagger teams aboard the remainder of Sierra Force’s prowlers with similar kits. It’d definitely make for one helluva fireworks show, hopefully one they would all be enjoying from a safe distance.
A few minutes later, the team was ready, and the Black Widow was beginning to shudder as she plunged into Naraka’s atmosphere. The Spartans made their way to the jump hatch at the back of the bay. Anticipating a dismount under fire, John assigned Fred and Kelly to lead the way, followed by twelve ODSTs each.
He and Linda would dismount next. That way the platoon would have Spartan firepower both leading the way and coming up in support, and Colonel Crowther wouldn’t chew his butt about leading from the front. Lieutenant Small Bear
would bring up the rear of the formation with the remaining ODSTs in case the situation really went south and the platoon needed someone to take charge of fixing the mess.
The illumination in the drop bay dimmed briefly, indicating three minutes to hatch open, then came back to full, indicating a perilous daylight dismount. Couldn’t be avoided. With four prowlers hitting targets spread evenly around the planet’s equator, only half of Sierra Force’s teams were going to be dismounting under cover of darkness. John called for final checks and ran through his own systems list, then turned to exchange visual inspections with Linda.
A crackling roar grew inside the bay as atmospheric friction began to heat the Black Widow’s hull. John’s HUD showed the temperature inside the compartment climbing rapidly, and the prowler began to buck so hard that even the Spartans had to take a knee to keep from being knocked off their feet.
Guayte’s voice came over the Third Platoon comm channel. “Sorry for the rough ride. We’re beginning to attract flies, and I want you on the ground before they start biting. Watch the monitors for a view of your landing zone—we should have a visual soon.”
She had barely closed the channel before the bulkhead monitors activated, showing nothing but a gauzy yellow haze. John thought for a moment there was some kind of transmission problem; then the haze grew thin and patchy, offering glimpses of a lush volcanic world of fuming calderas and glowing rifts. A paisley pattern of walled fields and serpentine terraces covered most of the ground that wasn’t actively steaming or bubbling. A silvery web of luminous roadways converged on a distant city of ivory domes and golden spires, which huddled around the foot of a soaring column of blue light.
As the Black Widow continued to bounce and shudder toward the city, crannies and fissures began to define the domes and spires into separate clusters of tall, slender buildings that rose hundreds of meters tall, twisting and arcing in graceful shapes, seemingly centuries old and looking almost like hand-blown glass. The blue light thickened into a pillar the size of a skyscraper, and dark streaks began to appear inside, shooting up the column with a velocity almost faster than the eye could follow.
