Halo: Ghosts of Onyx

by Eric S. Nylund

"—Now," Tom finished. He exhaled a long sigh and then reported to the Lieutenant Commander, "Mission accomplished, sir."

  In the distance small explosions popped, sounding like a string of firecrackers. The flying Sentinel formations scattered— some crashing into one another, others accelerating straight into the walls.

  Dr. Halsey consulted her watch. "We have fifty-three minutes before the core-room entrance closes, Kurt."

  The Lieutenant Commander nodded. "Everyone on the platform," he ordered. "Doctor, move us to Team Katana's location."

  Unease already settling into his stomach, Ash crowded onto the four-meter pad with his teammates.

  Funny, but he hadn't thought of the older Spartans as part of the team until now. Or was he part of their team? He then noticed the blood oozing from his armor joints, mirrored red by the camouflaging panels. Baptized in battle. They'd lost Dante, too. High prices to pay.

  Chief Mendez watched the self-destructing factory. "That's a lot of Sentinels," he murmured. "Wonder why they only deployed a fraction of them?"

  "Setting time delay for three seconds," Dr. Halsey said, shut her laptop, and then joined them.

  Mendez's remark bothered Ash more than he could explain, and the unease in his gut intensified. There were hundreds oi' thousands of Sentinels here. Why just have them sit around? They had to serve some purpose…

  Rings of light enveloped the squad.

  Ash hoped he never found out why. He just wanted to rescue Katana, get the technology Dr. Halsey had promised, and get out of here before the Covenant caught up with them.

  He had a feeling, though, it wasn't going to be that easy.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FIVE

  2105 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM, ORBIT NEAR THE MOON OF ONYX ABOARD UNSC PROWLER DUSK

  Commander Richard Lash supervised the release of the mines.

  He and Lieutenant Commander Cho monitored the launch bay of the Dusk. The closet-sized chamber behind the tiny observation window had been chilled near absolute zero. The nukes inside had been cycled through three thermal cooldowns and were now the same temperature as interstellar space.

  The tiny HORNET warheads had been transferred aboard from the Brasidas, a destroyer with extensive damage. Thankfully Cho had detected the minuscule leak from their reactor and moved off before it irradiated the Dusk's hull. That would have lit them up against the background intrasolar radiation and fatally compromised their stealth ability.

  "Let her fly," Lash ordered.

  "Releasing," Cho whispered. He grasped the manual override claw, and with supreme concentration, he dropped the warhead.

  The bay door irised open and the black egg-shaped HORNET mine dropped from its carrier and, centimeter by centimeter, drifted into space.

  "That was the last, sir." Cho wiped the beads of sweat that had collected on his wrinkled forehead.

  Cho was technically past the mandatory retirement age in the UNSC prowler corps. This was a fact that had been carefully ignored by Captain Iglesias. The UNSC was running out of qualified recruits, and Cho would have been impossible to replace.

  Lash gave him an approving nod, which was as much praise as the old engineer was ever comfortable with.

  "Thank you, sir."

  Lash entered the tube to the bridge and pushed off, propelling himself in the null gee, somersaulting and then using his legs to brake. He took a moment to compose himself before he opened the hatch. In the last fifteen minutes the Dusk had seeded the space on the dark side of the moon of Onyx with fourteen nuclear mines—thirty-megaton yield with vacuum-enhanced loads.

  Delicate work to stay stealthed and get them all deployed on Admiral Patterson's timetable, but they'd done it.

  All it had cost was the fraying of Lash's already shot nerves. He smoothed his uniform, brushed his thinning hair, took a deep breath, and then spun open the hatch.

  "Report," he said to Lieutenant Commander Waters.

  Waters looked up with bloodshot eyes from his display. "The Admiral has been informed mission accomplished, sir. He's moving the fleet to new coordinates, a high orbit on the bright side of the moon."

  Lash examined the system NAV map. Patterson was going to use the entire planetoid as cover. He'd need it. The enemy forces still outnumbered them sixteen ships to their four. By any sane measure it would be suicide to attack that Covenant battle group.

  The line, however, between sane and not was becoming increasingly blurred in this system.

  Lash settled in the captain's chair. "Lieutenant Yang? Status?"

  "As dark as midnight under a rock, sir."

  Lash nodded, pleased at Yang's hyperbole. A little humor was a good sign. "Lieutenant Durruno, move us to lunar Lagrange-Four, one-quarter full. Tell Lieutenant Commander Cho to trickle-charge our Slipspace capacitors."

  "Aye, sir." She tapped in the commands, cursed, and then backspaced and retyped them correctly.

  Durruno needed sleep. They all did. But he'd keep her in play a little longer. There was no one to replace her, and this would be over, one way or the other, very soon.

  "Covenant fleet on-screen," Lash ordered Waters. "Rescan and give me a full spectral analysis."

  "All sensors on target," Waters replied.

  Rainbows played over the central viewscreen, building composite images from radiation far-infrared to soft gamma, and fourteen Covenant ships resolved, clustered together in a spherical formation three hundred thousand kilometers distant.

  To Lash they looked like hungry sharks, ready to pounce on a few sardines.

  Their spectral analysis, however, painted a different picture. Thermal blooms and radiation leaks spewed in helical showers from the vessels. They'd been damaged by Admiral Patterson's alpha strike and the captured plasma redirected by the alien drones.

  The enemy was sitting there, making repairs, in all likelihood frothing from their split

  mouths to get back in the fight and go another round with the UNSC battle group.

  Patterson, however, had another plan: hit them first. Hard.

  "Activity from Onyx on the E-Band?" Lash asked Yang.

  "No, sir. Not a flicker since that ONI AI took care of the alien drones."

  Lash wondered how the AI and Spartans on the planet had

  neutralized the alien fleet. Had they recovered some new super-weapon? However they

  did it, he promised he'd personally shake every one of their hands. "Continue to monitor all UNSC bands," he told Yang. "Those Spartans might need a lift."

  "Action on-screen," Waters announced. The camera snapped aft and centered on the silver moon.

  In the twilight regions on either side of the moon, magnetic accelerator cannons flared, briefly illuminating the now-split UNSC battle group in high orbit. Slugs of steel and tungsten rocketed into space, curving slightly from the gravitational distortion—streaking toward the Covenant ships.

  The Covenant ships broke formation.

  One MAC slug cleanly missed.

  Three hit.

  The targeted ships lit as their shields absorbed the massive kinetic energy. They

  careened backward… slowed, and stopped, undamaged from the single MAC strikes.

  Covenant ships turned and accelerated toward the moon.

  The MAC salvo had done precisely what Admiral Patterson had hoped: tweaked their

  collective noses, and gotten them good and mad.

  The UNSC battle group maneuvered behind the moon, denying the enemy a clean line of fire.

  "Set EMP dampers," Lash said, trying to control his rising adrenaline. "Shut down primary and secondary computers."

  "Aye, sir," Durruno and Yang said together. They scrambled to isolate the Dusk's delicate electronics from the impending nuclear blasts.

  The Covenant battle group divided—each half moving to opposite sides of the moon, taking flanking positions where they could blast the hiding human ships into oblivion with

  their plasma.

/>   What they couldn't see on their approach vector, however,

  was Admiral Patterson's fleet backing directly away from the moon.

  "Enemy vessels approaching distal radius of alpha and beta minefields," Durruno

  reported.

  "Arm alpha and beta fields," Lash whispered.

  Yang fidgeted and said, "Command sent, sir… and confirmation received across the

  board."

  That Covenant fleet was about to find out why UNSC battle groups always had a prowler assigned to their ranks. They were the sneak thieves and spies of the UNSC fleet, capable of behind-enemy-lines recon, rescue missions… and under the right conditions, the pinpoint placement of a nuclear minefield.

  "Proximal enemy group now in the center of alpha field," Durruno announced. Her hands shook. "Distal group crossing the terminal line of beta field."

  "Remove safety interlocks," Lash said.

  Yang nodded and typed in the code words that made the sixteen nukes hot.

  The red "inferno" button on Lash's command console lit. He set his thumb next to it, and it beeped, verifying his biometric signature. He then flipped up the clear protective cover, inserted the master key in the adjacent slot, and turned it.

  "Proximal group approaching terminal plane," Durruno said. "Beta group of ships now centered in distal field."

  "Here goes nothing," Lash whispered. "Here's goes everything."

  He pressed the button, and it made a satisfying dick.

  On either side of the moon, seven tiny suns flashed into existence, ballooned, and enveloped the Covenant battle groups.

  The collective nuclear fireballs cooled to yellow and then dull red. Even with vacuum-enhanced loads, nuclear warheads in space did not persist a fraction as long as aerial or ground bursts.

  The destructive clouds thinned to translucency and a glittering

  haze of cooling metal formed an expanding halo around the planetoid.

  Inside this silver confetti, however, larger shimmering patches resolved: the energy shields of four surviving Covenant destroyers.

  Admiral Patterson moved his fleet toward the moon and opened fire. MAC rounds tore through space and behind them Archer missiles traced lacy paths of exhaust through the vacuum.

  Two Covenant ships sluggishly changed course and intercepted the MAC slugs. Their distressed shields shattered and their hulls cratered inward. Fire fountained as their plasma lines vented. Flocks of Archer missiles dove into the injured ships and explosions punctuated armor and propulsion grids.

  The crippled ships turned toward the moon, and in slow motion tumbled toward their surface.

  The UNSC battle group continued their charge. Four warships against the last two wounded Covenant destroyers… not entirely impossible odds.

  Lash imagined that a hundred years in the future historians might look back at this moment and declare it the turning point of humanity's struggle. That they had fought and defeated the Covenant at Onyx, won the prize of alien technology, and gone on—not only to survive, but to win their long struggle.

  He had secretly believed that they could not win this war for so long. Lash barely recognized the emotion that coursed though him now: hope.

  "Covenant ships on new heading," Lieutenant Durruno said. She chewed on her lower lip and a tiny drop of blood appeared. "Intercept course, sir."

  On-screen the last two enemy destroyers accelerated toward the moon. An extrapolated trajectory appeared: a slingshot orbit that would bring them around and back, and straight toward the Dusk.

  "Get primary computers online," Lash ordered. "Cho, what's our Slipspace status?"

  Over the COM Cho's voice crackled with static. "Capacitors at eighty percent and draining. I'll need full engine power for two more minutes."

  "Understood," Lash replied. Two minutes could be forever. "Continue dark protocols," he ordered Yang. "Lock down all external systems." To Lieutenant Durruno he said, "Use docking jets to present minimal aspect to the incoming vessels while they're on the blind side."

  "Aye, sir." She activated the thrusters and tapped a joystick to manually reposition the

  ship.

  On-screen the moon tilted as they realigned.

  The Covenant destroyer pair emerged from the far side of the moon… and grew larger

  on-screen. Sleek and dangerous as hell, their gray-blue hulls bore down on the Dusk.

  "Replot their course," Lash told Lieutenant Commander Waters.

  Waters stood over his station, checked and rechecked his numbers. "Not an intercept

  course," he whispered, "… but dammed close."

  A coincidence? Or had the enemy seen them and were coming for revenge?

  "Stay dark," Lash ordered.

  There was little else they could do.

  The destroyers' smooth blue curves filled their viewscreens.

  Lash felt the butterflies-in-the-stomach sensation of quantum fluctuations from the

  Covenant repulsor engines.

  The Dusk tumbled and spun.

  The viewscreen cleared, revealing a rotating field of untwin-kling stars.

  "Thirty-one meters off the port bow," Waters breathed.

  "Repulsor wake has set us adrift off the Lagrange point, sir," Lieutenant Durruno said.

  "Let us drift, Lieutenant," Lash said. "Fix cameras on the Stalingrad."

  The spinning stars on the viewscreens slowed and then centered on the four UNSC

  warships as they rounded the moon at flank speed, chasing the two Covenant destroyers.

  "They're lining up for a shot," Waters said. "They've got six MAC slugs left. That should be enough."

  "Energy spike!" Yang shouted, "Not from our ships. Not from the Covenant vessels, either, sir."

  "Location?" Lash asked, and he pushed himself out of the captain's chair. Yang shook his head, opened his mouth, but no words came out. Waters went to the SENSOR-OPS station and looked. "Power profile indicative of a

  Slipspace field," he said. "A big one. Deconvoluting signature. Location is"—his features went slack— "everywhere."

  The space around the UNSC fleet rippled and blue lines appeared, connected, and intertwined like waves of sapphire water. Slipspace fields ruptured normal dimensions and Cherenkov radiation dazzled the night—as dozens of Covenant destroyers, carriers, and cruisers appeared, swarms of them formed a phalanx between the UNSC battle group and the two surviving enemy vessels.

  "Counting thirty-two Covenant ships," Yang croaked.

  Lieutenant Durruno froze at her station, eyes wide with terror.

  The Covenant armada fired.

  Spotlight energy projectors flashed, and pure white light cleaved the dark. The UNSC

  ships' titanium armor boiled and vaporized, mixed with venting oxygen, and photonic pressure blasted the flames into wavering plumes.

  Archer missiles and magnetic accelerator cannons fired in a desperate counterstrike. The missiles detonated a fraction of

  a second along their flight paths, high explosives heated to the flashpoint. Four MAC slugs rocketed though the energy projector cones, fireballs of liquefied metal. Three missed. One hit, spattering uselessly on Covenant shields.

  Thirty-two lines of plasma heated, detached, and arced toward the human fleet, striking critically damaged vessels, blasting craters, ripping through inner decks, until the superstructures buckled and inner atmospheres decompressed in large bursting bubbles upon the now-molten hulls.

  The Covenant armada ceased fire and slowly advanced.

  Admiral Patterson's ships had been reduced to a field of debris in a matter of seconds.

  Pinpoint lasers fired from the enemy ships as they destroyed escape pods.

  "Incoming debris," Waters warned.

  "We need to do something," Lieutenant Durruno whispered.

  What had been a victorious battle group chasing down a doomed enemy was now

  tumbling, half-melted prows and glowing reactor cores. A floating graveyard. Ghosts.

 
; The hope that Commandeer Richard Lash had felt was forever gone.

  "Do nothing," Lash told them.

  "If anything hits us, sir," Waters said, "assuming we survive the impact, the deflection

  angles will give away our position."

  "This close to so many vessels," Lash replied, "so would maneuvering." He went to Lieutenant Durruno at the NAV station. "Hang tight," he told her. Her eyes shone with tears, but she nodded, and gripped the edges of her seat.

  Lash checked his wristwatch and made sure it was wound tight.

  The Covenant armada moved closer, blotted out the starlight, and covered the Dusk with shadow.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  2115 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDARS ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM UNDETERMINED LOCATION IN THE FORERUNNER CONSTRUCT KNOWN AS ONYX

  Kurt motioned back to Fred and Ash, Linda and Mark to close the gap.

  Two by two they moved up the corridor, gliding from pillar to pillar, the SPARTAN-IIIs on point barely visible in their armor, part shadow, part striped onyx patterns. The SPARTAN-IIs closed behind like liquid mercury rolling over velvet, smooth and silent.

  The differences between their two generations had been left behind. Teams Blue and Saber worked as a single unit, family who had pulled together in a crisis.

  Kurt watched his motion tracker, IFF tags overlaid on the grid. The Spartans had the best positions possible—set along each of the pillars that stretched up to the ten-meter-tall corridor. Kurt, Tom, and Lucy had point.

  Olivia was on recon, her IFF disabled, so Kurt wasn't certain of her precise location in the room ahead.

  This corridor was tiled with interlocking Forerunner symbols of jade, turquoise, and lapis. Dr. Halsey surmised it was an epic poem depicting a struggle in the Forerunners' long-lost past.

  All Kurt knew was it was a kill zone, with scant cover and long sight lines. A good place to get ambushed.

  Olivia flashed her green status light three times: the all-clear signal.

  Kurt motioned for Tom and Lucy to follow him, and they slinked into the room ahead. Shadows shrouded rows of squat machines, and the only light came from eight podlike sarcophagi clustered in the center.

  These pods were semitranslucent, and within each lay a person, their features obscured.