by Eric Nylund
“Sir, Iroquois is in geosynchronous orbit over Côte d’Azur. We’ve destroyed a Covenant stealth ship and are in the process of intercepting a secure transmission from the planet.”
The Admiral stared at him a moment unbelievingly, then nodded as if this made sense to him. “Proceed.”
“We have a Covenant destroyer leaving the battle... bearing down on us. I think the reason for the Covenant’s invasion may be in this coded transmission. And they don’t want us to know, sir.”
“Understood, son. Hang on. The Cavalry’s on its way.”
On the aft screen, the remaining eight UNSC ships broke their attacks and turned toward the incoming destroyer. Three MAC guns fired and impacted on the Covenant vessel. Its shields only lapsed for a split second; it took a round through her nose... but it continued toward the Iroquois at flank speed.
“Transmission ended, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique announced. “Cut off in midpacket. The signal was terminated at the source.”
“Damn.” Captain Keyes considered staying and trying to reacquire that signal—but only for a moment. He decide to take what they had and run with it. “Ensign Lovell, get us the hell out of here.”
“Sir!” Lieutenant Hall said. “Look.”
The Covenant destroyer was changing course... along with the rest of the surviving Covenant vessels. They were scattering, and accelerating out of the system.
“They’re running,” Lieutenant Hikowa said, her normal iron calm replaced by astonishment.
Within minutes, the Covenant ships accelerated and vanished into Slipstream space.
Captain Keyes looked aft and counted only seven UNSC ships intact, with the balance of the fleet destroyed or disabled.
He sat in his command chair. “Ensign Lovell, take us back the way we came. Make ready to take on wounded. Repressurize all uncompromised decks.”
“Jesus,” Lieutenant Hall said. “I think we actually... won that one.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. We won,” Keyes replied.
But Captain Keyes wondered exactly what they had won. The Covenant had come to this system for a reason—and he had a sinking feeling that they may have gotten what they had come for.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
2010 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Sigma Octanus IV, Côte d’Azur
It was time to arm the nuke.
The small device held the power to destroy Côte d’Azur—wipe the Covenant infection clean off the planet.
John carefully removed the bonding strips on the HAVOK tactical nuclear device and attached it to the wall of the sewer. The adhesive on the black half sphere stuck and hardened to the concrete. He slipped the detonator key into a thin slot on the unit’s face. There were no external indicators on the device; instead, a tiny screen winked on his heads-up display indicating the nuke was armed.
HAVOK ARMED, flashed across his HUD. AWAITING DETONATION SIGNAL.
The device—a clean thirty-megaton explosive—could only be detonated by a remote signal... a problem here in the sewers. Even the powerful communications package on a starship would be unable to penetrate the steel and concrete overhead.
John quickly rigged a ground-return transceiver, placing it on the pipes overhead. He’d have to set up another unit outside to relay the signal underground... a hot line that would trigger a nuclear firestorm.
Technically, his mission parameters had been fulfilled. Green and Red Teams would have the civilians evacuated soon. They had scouted the region and discovered a new Covenant species—the strange floating creature that disassembled and reassembled human machinery, like a scientist or engineer stripping down a device to learn its secrets.
He could leave and destroy the Covenant occupation force. He should leave—there was an army of Jackals and Grunts—including at least a platoon of the black-armored veterans—on the streets above. There were three medium Covenant dropships hovering in the air as well. The advance Marine strike forces had been slaughtered, leaving the Spartans no backup. His responsibility now was to make sure his team got out intact.
But John’s orders had an unusual amount of flexibility... and that made him uncomfortable. He had been told to reconnoiter the region and gather intelligence on the Covenant. He was positive there was more to be learned here.
Certainly they were up to something in Côte d’Azur’s museum. The Covenant had never before been interested in human history—or indeed, in humans or their artifacts of any kind. He had seen a disarmed Jackal fight hand to hand rather than pick up a nearby human assault rifle. And the only thing the Covenant had ever used human buildings for was target practice.
So finding out the reason they seized and were protecting the museum definitely qualified as intelligence gathering in his book.
Was it worth exposing his team to find out? And if they died, would he be wasting their lives... or spending them for something worthwhile?
“Master Chief?” Kelly whispered. “Our orders, sir?”
He opened Blue Team’s COM channel. “We’re going in. Use your silencers. Don’t engage the enemy unless absolutely necessary. This place is too hot. We’ll just poke our noses in—see what they’re up to and bug out.”
Three acknowledgment lights winked on.
The Master Chief knew they implicitly trusted his judgment. He just hoped he was worthy of that trust.
The Spartans checked their gear and threaded silencers onto their assault rifles. They slipped silently down a wide side passage of the sewer.
A rusty ladder ran up to the ceiling, and a steel plate had been welded in place.
“Thermite paste already set up,” Fred reported.
“Burn it.” The Master Chief stepped to the side and looked away.
The thermite sputtered as bright as an electric arc welder, casting harsh shadows into the chamber. When it finished there was a jagged, glowing red circle in the steel.
The Master Chief climbed up the ladder and put his back against the plate—pushed. It popped free with a metallic snap.
He eased the plate down and set it aside. He attached the fiber-optic probe, fed it up through the hole.
All clear.
He flexed his leg muscles and sent the MJOLNIR armor up through the hole, pulling himself into the next chamber with his left hand. His right hand held the silenced assault rifle as if it were no heavier than a pistol. He braced for incoming enemy fire—
—Nothing happened.
He moved forward and surveyed the small room. The stone-walled chamber was dark, and was lined with shelving units. Each unit held jars filled with clear liquid and insect specimens. Boxes and crates were stacked neatly on the floor.
Kelly entered next, then Fred and James.
“Picking up motion sensor signals,” Kelly said over the COM channel.
“Jam them.”
“Done,” she replied. “They may have gotten a piece of us, though.”
“Spread out,” the Master Chief ordered. “Get ready to jump back into the hole if this gets too hot. Otherwise, initiate the standard distract-and-destroy.”
The clatter of alien hooves on marble echoed behind a door to their right.
The Spartans melted into the shadows. The Master Chief crouched behind a crate and unsheathed his combat knife.
The door opened and four Jackals stood in the door frame; they held active energy shields in front of them—warping their already ugly vulture faces. The blue-white glow of the energy shield pulsed through the dark chamber. Good, the Master Chief thought. That should play hell with their night vision.
The Jackals held plasma pistols at the ready in their free hands; the barrels of the guns moved erratically as the aliens whispered to one another... then steadied as, in careful, slow movements, they moved in.
The aliens fanned out into a rough “delta” formation—the lead Jackal a meter ahead of his compatriots. The group approached the Master Chief’s hiding spot.
There was a slight noise: the clink of glass
bottles on the other side of the room.
The Jackals turned... and presented their unshielded backs to the Master Chief.
He exploded from his hiding place and jammed his blade into the base of the closest Jackal’s back. He snapped his right foot out, caught the back of the next Jackal’s head, crushing its skull.
The remaining aliens spun, glistening energy shields interposed between them and him.
There were three coughs from silenced MA5Bs. Alien blood—black in the harsh blue-white light—spattered across the inner surfaces of the energy shields as the silenced rounds found their marks. The Jackals toppled to the ground.
The Master Chief policed their plasma pistols and retrieved the shield generators clamped on their forearms. He had standing orders to collect intact specimens of Covenant technology. The Office of Naval Intelligence had not been able to replicate the Covenant’s shield technology. But they were getting close.
In the meantime, the Spartans would use these.
The Master Chief strapped the curved piece of metal to his forearm. He touched one of the two large buttons on the unit and a scintillating film appeared before him.
He handed the other shield devices to his teammates.
He pressed the second button and the shield collapsed.
“Don’t use these unless you have to,” he said. “The humming and their reflective surfaces might give us away... and we don’t know how long they last.”
He got three acknowledgment lights.
Kelly and Fred took up positions on either side of the open door. She gave him a thumbs-up.
Kelly took point and the Spartans moved, single file, up a circular stairwell.
She paused a full ten seconds at the doorway to the main floor. She waved them ahead and they emerged on the main level of the museum.
The skeleton of a blue whale was suspended over the main foyer. The dead hulk reminded the Master Chief of a Covenant starship. He turned away from the distraction and slowly moved over the black marble tiles.
Oddly, there were no more Jackal patrols. There were a hundred Jackals outside guarding the place... but none inside.
The Master Chief didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right... and Chief Mendez had told him a thousand times to trust his instincts. Was it a trap?
The Spartans staggered their line and moved cautiously into the east wing. There were displays of the local flora and fauna: gigantic flowers and fist-sized beetles. But their motion sensors were cold.
Fred halted... and then, with a quick hand signal, waved John to move up to his position.
He stood by a case of pinned butterflies. On the floor, facedown in front of that case, was a Jackal. It was dead, crushed flat. There was an imprint of a large boot where the creature’s back had been. Whatever had done this had easily weighed a ton.
The Master Chief spotted a few blood-smeared prints leading away from the Jackal... and into the west wing.
He flipped on his infrared sensors and took a long look around—no heat sources here or in the nearby rooms.
The Master Chief followed the footprints and signaled the team to follow.
The west wing held scientific displays. There were static electric generators and quantum field holograms on the walls, a tapestry of darting arrows and wriggling lines. A cloud chamber sat in the corner with subatomic tracers zipping through its misty confines—the Master Chief noted it was unusually active. This place reminded him of Déjà’s classroom on Reach.
A branch opened to another wing. The word GEOLOGY was carved on the entry arch.
Through that arch there was a strong infrared source, a razor-thin line that shot straight up and out of the building. The Master Chief only caught a glimpse of the thing—a wink and a blink then it was gone again... it was so bright his IR sensors overloaded and automatically shut down.
He waved James to take the left side of the arch. He had Kelly and Fred drop back to cover their flanks, and the Master Chief edged to the right of the arch.
He sent a fiber-optic probe ahead, bent it slightly, and poked it around the corner.
The room contained display cases of mineral specimens. There were sulfur crystals, raw emeralds, and rubies. There was a monolith of unpolished pink quartz in the center of the room, three meters wide and six tall.
Off to one side, however, were two creatures. The Master Chief hadn’t seen them at first—because they were so motionless... and so massive. He had no doubt that one of them had crushed the Jackal that had gotten in its way.
The Master Chief got scared all the time. He never showed it, though. He usually mentally acknowledged the apprehension, put it aside, and continued... just as he’d been trained to do. This time, however, he couldn’t easily dismiss the feeling.
The two creatures were vaguely man-shaped. They stood two and a half meters tall. It was difficult to make out their features; they were covered from head to toe with a dull blue-gray armor, similar to the hull of a Covenant ship. Blue, orange, and yellow highlights were visible on the few patches of exposed skin the creatures sported. They had slits where their eyes should be. The articulation points looked impregnable.
On their left arms they hefted large shields, thick as starship battleplate. Mounted on their right arms were massive, wide-barreled weapons, so large that the arm beneath seemed to blend into the weapon.
They moved with slow deliberation. One took a rock from the display case and set it inside a red metal case. It bent over the case while the other turned and touched the control panel of a device that looked like a small pulse laser turret. The laser pointed straight up—and out through the shattered glass dome overhead.
That had been the source of the infrared radiation. The laser must have intermittently scattered off the dust in the air—flashed enough energy into his sensors to burn them out. Something that powerful could beam a message straight out into space.
The Master Chief made a slow fist—the signal for his team to freeze. Then, with slow, deliberate movements, he signaled the Spartans to stay alert and get ready.
He waved Fred and Kelly forward.
Fred crept closer to him. Kelly slid up next to James.
The Master Chief then held up two fingers and made a sideways cut, motioning them into the room.
Acknowledgment lights winked on.
He went in first, sidestepped to the right, with Fred at his side.
James and Kelly took the left flank.
They opened fire.
Armor-piercing rounds pinged off the aliens’ body armor. One of them turned and brought its shield in front of it—covering its partner, the red case, and the laser beacon.
The Spartan bullets didn’t even leave a scratch on the armor.
The alien raised its arm slightly and pointed at Kelly and James.
A flash of light blinded the Master Chief. There was a deafening explosion and a wave of heat. He blinked for a full three seconds before he recovered his vision.
Where Kelly and James had been there was a burning crater that fanned backward... nothing but charcoal and ash remained of the Science Chamber behind them.
Kelly had moved in time; she crouched five meters deeper into the room, still firing. James was nowhere to be seen.
The other massive creature turned to face the Master Chief.
He hit the button on the shield generator on his arm and brought it up just in time—the nearest alien’s weapon flashed again.
The air in front of the Master Chief shimmered and exploded—he flew backward, crashing through the wall, and skidded for ten meters before slamming into the wall of the next room.
The Jackal shield generator was white-hot. The Master Chief ripped the melted alien device off and threw it away.
Those plasma bolts were like nothing he had seen before. They seemed almost as powerful as the stationary plasma cannons the Jackals used.
The Master Chief sprang to his feet and charged back into the chamber.
If the aliens’ weapons were s
imilar to Covenant plasma guns, they would need to be recharged. He hoped the Spartans had enough time to take those things out.
The Master Chief still felt the fear—it was stronger than it had been before... but his team was still in there. He had to take care of them first before he could indulge in the luxury of feelings.
Kelly and Fred circled the creatures, their silenced weapons firing quick bursts. They ran out of ammunition and switched clips.
This wasn’t working. They couldn’t take them out. Maybe a Jackhammer missile at point-blank range would penetrate their armor.
The Master Chief’s gaze was drawn to the center of the room. He stared for a moment at the monolith of pink quartz.
Over the COM channel he ordered, “Switch to shredder rounds.” He changed ammunition and then opened fire—at the floor underneath the enormous creatures’ feet.
Kelly and Fred changed rounds and fired, too.
Marble tiles shattered and the wood underneath splintered into toothpicks.
One of the creatures raised its arm again, preparing to fire.
“Keep shooting,” John yelled.
The floor creaked, buckled, and then fell away; the two massive aliens plunged into the basement below.
“Quick,” the Master Chief said. He slung his rifle and moved to the back of the quartz monolith. “Push!”
Kelly and Fred leaned their weight against the stone and grunted with effort. The slab moved a tiny bit.
James sprinted forward, slammed into the stone, put his shoulder alongside theirs... and pushed. His left arm had been burned away from the elbow down, but he didn’t even whimper.
The monolith moved; it inched toward the hole... then tilted and went over. It landed with a dull thud and a crunching noise.
The Master Chief peered over the edge. He saw an armored left leg, and on the other side of the stone slab, an arm struggling underneath. The things were still alive. Their motions slowed, but they didn’t cease.
The red case was balanced precariously on the edge the hole. It teetered—no way to reach it in time.
