Shadows of Reach: A Master Chief Story

by Troy Denning

  After a moment, Kelly asked, “Have you thought of a solution yet?”

  Disztl finally moved away from the steering wheel. “What do you mean?”

  “To the Grievers,” John said. “Five fighter-bombers, four Anaconda batteries.”

  “Oh. That seems bad.”

  “It could be, if we fail to adjust,” Kelly said.

  The trouble with “failing to adjust” was that Grievers were heavy bombers, capable of spreading enough plasma to melt half of New Mohács back to glass. They were also heavily armored, so it took a lot of punch to knock one down.

  “Those pilots don’t know how many Anaconda batteries we have,” Disztl said. “Maybe the fifth will turn back when the last pilot sees the other four go down.”

  “Possibly,” Kelly said. “Were the pilots likely to be Kig-Yar.”

  Disztl was silent for a moment, then asked, “But they’re not. Right?”

  “I’m afraid the Banished don’t place much value on caution,” Kelly said. “The pilots will be Jiralhanae or Sangheili.”

  “Oh,” Disztl said again.

  “No worries, we’ll adjust.” John activated TEAMCOM. “Blue Two, Blue Four, take control of the forward Lance batteries. You’ll have to hold your missiles until the Anacondas fire, then coordinate your attack.”

  Linda acknowledged with a green status flash.

  Fred asked, “What about Erdei and the Havok?”

  “Erdei can stay where he’s at or follow you to the M79 station,” John said. “But whatever happens, you’re taking the Havok along.”

  There was a short pause; then Fred said, “He wants to stay with me and the Havok.”

  “Fine. Don’t let him slow you down.”

  Fred’s status light flashed green, and then the last Scythe opened fire on the approaching Banshees. The first two craft went down over the barrens, before their squadrons opened fire. But there was only one Scythe firing and eighteen Banshees shooting back. The emplacement took out two more before the enemy’s fuel rod cannons found the apartment building where the Scythe was hidden and began to chew through the walls. The Scythe dropped through the floor, still firing, and the rest of the edifice disintegrated around it.

  The Banshees immediately began to swirl over the village, looking for targets of opportunity, and the Seraph streaked past, pouring fire at anything below it.

  Darda Tabori’s voice came over the militia’s command channel. “Shall I have the reserve LAAGs—”

  “Negative,” John interrupted. He had asked Colonel Boldisar to place Tabori in command of the militia anti-aircraft batteries because she’d been in the 717th at Gao and had at least a little combat experience. “Stand down all air defenses.”

  “Confirm stand down?”

  “Confirm. If we give the trap away before the Grievers go down, we’re dead. Every one of us. Make sure your people understand that.”

  “Acknowledged,” Tabori said. “Stand down.”

  John gave her thirty seconds to pass along the order, grinding his teeth as he watched the Grievers swoop in for their attack run. The things seemed even more enormous than he remembered, with cannon mounts large enough to see from two kilometers away.

  The Banished insertion was coming in thirty kilometers behind the Griever flight, a mass of drop-shaped silhouettes discernible from the rain only because they were growing larger and coming closer rather than falling toward the glass. There were easily a hundred craft, already traveling at subsonic speed and descending on a gentle glide path. Judging by their relative sizes, they were primarily Phantoms, but there were about twenty Lich transports rising from the surface to join them—craft so large they could carry an entire Phantom slung underneath them.

  And above the Phantoms and Liches, the clouds were already flashing with the glow trails of a second wave. Whatever the Banished were looking for on Reach, they were determined to have it.

  Maybe Boldisar had been right all along. Maybe using the Havoks was the only way to stop them from finding it.

  The Griever cannons began to flash, hurling vehicle-sized bolts of plasma over the Banished lines into the village. The corners of buildings melted into glowing loafs of glass, and ponds of molten lechatelierite formed in the streets. John waited until the huge bombers were less than a kilometer from New Mohács, about to overfly the advancing Marauders, then spoke over the militia command channel.

  “Fire Anacondas, Major Tabori. Anacondas now.”

  Two seconds later, stripes of white fire began to flash from the missile bunkers at the edge of the village. The Grievers did not have time to evade or deploy countermeasures. Their energy shields simply began to flicker under the impact of two Anacondas per second, and by the third volley, the missiles were punching through their fuselages and engine nacelles.

  The first Griever simply disintegrated, pouring shrapnel and hot plasma down on a pair of Marauders. The next three broke apart more gradually, shedding nacelles and going into flat spins, one simply flipping over and landing on the glass like a dropped plate. Another five Marauders and a couple of hundred Banished infantry troops perished in the sudden debris and flame.

  But the advance continued. The last Griever crossed over the armor line, dropping flares and chaff, its dispersal nozzles already swinging down to begin spreading plasma.

  The trouble with countermeasures was that the only thing they prevented was target-lock, and most missiles—even relatively small ordnance like the M95 Lances that Fred and Linda would be using—required a kilometer or so to achieve it. So when the two Spartans fired their batteries, they were simply aiming the missiles along an interception vector calculated by their onboard computers.

  John doubted that the last Griever pilot ever knew what hit him. One instant, he was likely ordering his bombardier to flood the dispersal nozzles. The next, he was on the inside of a plasma ball, gone so fast his nervous system wouldn’t have even registered his fiery death.

  “Well done, Major,” John said.

  He checked the dropships and saw they had closed to ten kilometers. They were decelerating hard, but still on approach for a hot landing. Of course they were. The Banished were fierce warriors who understood the ebb and flow of battle as well as John did. They were not going to abandon their attack. He doubted they would need to.

  “Release Vulcans to fire at will,” he continued. “Hold M79s and man-portable systems in their bunkers.”

  Tabori confirmed the order, and a moment later, Warthog LRVs began to burst from their hiding places all over New Mohács, and the M41 LAAGs in their gun wells began to spray rounds into the air. Seven Banshees went down before the enemy had even begun to evade, and the survivors dropped to roof level, trading a bird’s-eye view for the shelter of adjacent buildings.

  John didn’t need to look to know that the last of the Banshees were sweeping in from their holding area. The Banished would be throwing everything they had into the battle, trying to overwhelm the New Mohács defenders as the drop hit—and they were going to succeed, especially with a second wave coming.

  But the Viery Militia wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

  John waited until the enemy drop was five kilometers out—less than a minute—then spoke over the militia command channel again.

  “Move the M79s and man-portable systems into attack position. M95 Lance batteries to target largest craft only.”

  Tabori confirmed the order, and Warthog M12s equipped with the M79 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems emerged from garages and warehouses all over the village and sped into preassigned positions that offered clear fields of aerial fire. Thirty of those vehicles, half of the total, stationed themselves in the alley mouths surrounding the armor yard.

  At the same time, fifty soldiers carrying M41 rocket launchers climbed onto rooftops ringing the armor yard. Unlike Kelly, who had an ample supply of reload tubes strapped into the passenger’s seat beneath her, most of the militia members had only one standard M19 reload tube. Only about half of th
em would survive long enough to take a second shot—and none would last for a third—so asking them to carry additional ammunition would only unnecessarily encumber them.

  By the time Tabori reported that everyone was in position, the first Banished craft were coming in over the barrens, a kilometer away and no more than seven hundred meters off the ground. The big Liches were in the center of the formation, screened by a shell of Phantoms, and they had timed their arrival perfectly. On the ground, the Marauders had just reached the ring of empty fortifications. They were laying fire into New Mohács itself, suppressing—and in some cases eliminating—the anti-aircraft weapons defending the village.

  An unintelligible message chortled over the UNSC combat information band—the first communication John had had from the Infinity all day—probably someone trying to explain what had happened to the support John had requested. He didn’t waste time asking for a repeat. Every second would mean another lost battery.

  “Release all weapon systems.” John was still on the militia command channel. “Fire at will, Major Tabori.”

  Tabori did not even acknowledge the order. Sheets of missile fire erupted from New Mohács, burning through the still-falling rain, turning the air into clouds of smoke and mist.

  A few Phantoms leading the drop erupted into flames. Others simply dived or slipped from the sky, smoking and trailing fire, and crashed into the no-man’s-land between the fortification ring and the New Mohács perimeter.

  The Liches and remaining Phantoms returned fire, their plasma cannons sweeping village rooftops and probing alleys, punching through walls and collapsing buildings. Columns of flame started to rise just outside New Mohács as Marauders and Wraiths broke through the breastworks and tried to cross the Lotus-packed tank trenches. Only a handful would make it, John knew, but behind them followed thousands of Banished infantry—Jiralhanae and Sangheili and Kig-Yar who would pick their way through the wreckage and slay every human on sight.

  With the lead Phantoms out of the way, the M95 Lance batteries made their presence felt, flinging shafts of white fire through the battle smoke into the noses of the approaching Liches. Flight deck after flight deck was immediately demolished, and sixteen of the big transport craft fell from the sky, crashing to the ground at the village edge, crushing buildings and weapons emplacements and soldiers beneath their bulk, bodies and equipment and flame spilling from their cracked hulls.

  But four of the Liches reached New Mohács and began to descend into the armor yard, their cannons hurling plasma into the surrounding alleys and buildings. Behind them followed ten Phantoms, all that remained of the original insertion force—and more than enough to take the village.

  Over the militia command network, John said, “Colonel Boldisar, that breakout column better be ready.”

  “Almost!” The voice was not Boldisar’s—and it sounded scared. “We need five minutes.”

  “Ask the Banished,” John said. “I can’t give it to you.”

  Another garbled message sounded over the UNSC combat information band.

  “Repeat.” Without awaiting a response, he slapped the roll bar and ordered, “Go go go!”

  He was yelling into three comm channels at once, but it hardly mattered because the command applied to everyone—even the mysterious transmitter on the combat information band. If any responses came, they weren’t clear enough to discern over the battle roar. It seemed the entire village had detonated into flames and shrapnel, and the conflagration was only growing.

  The lead Lich took a missile volley from each side, then dropped the last fifty meters to the ground, belching still more flames from three hull breaches and its bay mouth. A Phantom in the back of the formation disintegrated in midair, while two more dropped into the tank trench and were torn apart by Lotus detonations.

  The Warthog shot from the alley mouth and dodged past a spray of molten glass, Disztl asking, “Where to?!”

  “Liches first,” John said. Disztl was linked into TEAMCOM through her helmet comms, and he had already explained the principles of infiltration combat. He opened fire and continued in a calm voice, “Remember, keep our passenger side toward the enemy—”

  “So the aliens shoot you instead of me,” Disztl finished. “Like I could forget.”

  She swung in beside the burning Lich, positioning the Warthog so other nearby craft could not fire on it without also hitting the Lich, and John immediately cut down twenty Jiralhanae and Sangheili trying to leap out of the bay. It was probably overkill—they were all engulfed in flames—but better safe than sorry.

  Besides, this was Reach, and they were trying to take it. Again.

  Kelly’s voice came over TEAMCOM. “Firing.”

  Disztl immediately straightened out the Warthog so Kelly could aim without being jostled; Kelly put two M19 rockets into the belly of a Lich seventy meters away. A ball of fire billowed out beside it, leaving no doubt about the fate of the warriors in the troop bay, and it swung its nose around, trying to bring its plasma cannon to bear.

  Disztl put the Warthog into a side skid, then accelerated hard, taking them past the flaming troop bay—and straight toward the emitter nozzle of a third Lich, sitting on its struts less than fifty meters away.

  “Whoa—sorry!”

  She started to turn, but Kelly said, “No, steady on.”

  “Really?”

  Despite the quaver in her voice, Disztl held course toward the now-glowing emitter nozzle. Kelly already had a fresh set of tubes on the SPNKr and put both rounds straight up the cannon mouth.

  “Now you can—”

  Disztl downshifted and cranked the wheel hard to the left. The Warthog went into another skid and spun around in the opposite direction, its rear end bucking hard when Kelly’s rockets disrupted the cannon’s plasma-focusing cycle and blew the Lich apart from the inside.

  Disztl floored the accelerator and allowed the front wheels to pull them back toward their previous target. This Lich was still in the air with the flames boiling from its troop bay, trying to spin around so it could train its nose cannon on them.

  “Duck!” Disztl shouted.

  Kelly flattened herself atop the rollbar. John squatted down so his helmet was even with her and held the Vulcan so its barrels were level as the Warthog shot under the chin of the Lich—then emerged safely on the other side. Disztl began weaving and juking down the opposite side of the craft toward the last intact Lich.

  This one was a hundred meters away, sitting on the ground so its Jiralhanae passengers could ride their Ghosts out of the troop bay. John opened fire, the LAAG cutting down five of them before the line stopped coming. The Lich rose off the ground again, turning around so it could fire on the Warthog.

  “Same trick?” Disztl asked.

  “You’re a mind reader,” Kelly said.

  Kelly waited as the emitter nozzle swung toward them. Another broken transmission sounded over the UNSC combat information band, just as garbled but a little longer this time.

  “Repeat transmission.” John continued to pour Vulcan fire at the Lich’s troop bay. “Cannot copy. Repeat transmission.”

  The combat information band returned to silence. If John couldn’t copy them, the same was likely true on the other end.

  It wasn’t like he had time to talk anyway. Kelly pointed the barrel of the rocket launcher over the Warthog windshield.

  “Steady.”

  The emitter nozzle was already glowing, but Disztl straightened the wheel in the same instant it lined up on them. Kelly fired both tubes.

  The plasma bolt met the rockets ten meters in front of the Lich, then burst into a formless white cloud that left burn spatters in the transport craft’s nose.

  John opened fire with the Vulcan, putting fifty rounds up the emitter nozzle, and something inside made a loud zapping noise complete with a display of sparks.

  Disztl began to weave and juke again, heading for the troop bay on its starboard side.

  “No, break off.” John had alre
ady stopped a squad of mechanized infantry from dismounting—which meant they were still inside, gathering themselves up to leave en masse. “Swing around the other side. We’ll take them from behind. Kelly, is that Lich behind us still—”

  “On it.” She twisted around, placing one foot on the console next to the driver’s seat. “But on second thought, no need.”

  A chain of detonations sounded in back of them. She quickly spun forward again, aiming her rocket launcher at the last Lich, and Fred’s voice came over TEAMCOM. “You’re welcome. But you’d better hurry, if you want one of those Phantoms for us. They’re almost gone.”

  “Affirmative.” John didn’t bother to look at what had become of the burning Lich—Fred would have warned him if it were still a danger. “If you have a shot at—”

  “Affirmative,” Linda said.

  A triple volley of M95 Lance missiles came streaking out of the rubble on the south side of the armor yard. The first two hit the Lich’s hull at an angle and deflected before they exploded. But the last four punched through and filled the troop bay with a boiling cloud of shrapnel and fire.

  “Thanks,” John said. “Collect Special Crew and meet us at the capture.”

  It was Major Van Houte who replied. “We’re with Blue Four now.” Given the devastation the Banished had already laid on the village, John was relieved to hear his voice. “Bear to your left, and you’ll see a Phantom just starting its approach. That one should land close to us and the excavation equipment.”

  “Then that’s the one we’ll capture,” John said. He glanced down at Disztl’s helmet. “You heard the man, Lieutenant.”

  “I did. Hold on.”

  She swung the Warthog past the demolished Lich and started across the armor yard, angling left. Between the rain and the battle smoke, visibility at ground level was barely a hundred meters, and even looking into the sky, it was less than five hundred meters. Still, Disztl drove like she was racing across the Tantalusian wasteland on a clear day, bouncing through craters and brake-bounding over debris heaps, swerving past living pillars of flame and clusters of gray shapes dodging half-seen through the smoke.