Halo. Flood Page 6

  He counted to three, then dashed from boulder to boulder. He leapfrogged uphill, still very much aware of the Banshee at his back, but reasonably certain he’d given the aircraft the slip.

  There were no blips on his threat detector, until he topped the rise and paused to examine the terrain ahead. A telltale red dot popped onto his HUD. The Master Chief eased his way forward, waiting for the moment of contact.

  Then he saw movement as hunched bodies dashed from one scrap of cover to the next. There were four of them, including a blue-armored Elite. The Elite charged recklessly forward, firing as he came.

  He’d engaged such Elites before—there was some significance to the aliens’ armor colors—and they always fought with reckless abandon. A thin smile touched the Master Chief’s lips. He manuevered around the Elite’s shots, spun, and then returned fire. The Elite’s advance stalled, and the Grunts began to fall back toward a stand of trees. His threat indicator sounded a warning and a red arrow pointed to the right. The Master Chief drew and primed an M9 HE-DP grenade.

  He turned just in time to see another Elite—this one in the more senior, scarlet-colored armor—charge him. The grenade was already in hand, and the distance to the target was sufficient, so the soldier let the M9 fly. The grenade detonated with a loud whump! and tossed the enemy soldier into the air, while stripping a nearby tree of half its branches.

  The Elite was close now, and roared a battle cry. The alien hosed the Master Chief with plasma fire. His shields dropped precipitously.

  The Spartan backed away, fired his assault rifle in short controlled bursts, and finally managed to knock the remaining Elite off his feet.

  With their leader down, the Grunts broke ranks and began to scamper away. The Master Chief cut their retreat short in a hail of bullets.

  He eased up on the trigger, felt the silence settle in around him, and knew he had made a mistake. The veteran had damned near blindsided him. How?

  He realized with a start that he was still fighting like part of a unit. Though he was trained to act independently, he had spent most of his military career as part of a team. The Elite had managed to flank him because he was simply accustomed to one of his fellow Spartans watching out for him.

  He was cut off from the chain of command, alone, and most likely surrounded by the enemy. He nodded, his face grim behind the mirrored visor. This mission would require a major revision in his tactics.

  He pushed his way up through a meadow thick with knee-high, spiky grass. He could hear the distant chatter of automatic weapons fire and knew some Marines were somewhere up ahead.

  He sprinted toward the sound of battle. Perhaps he wouldn’t be on his own for long.

  DEPLOYMENT +00 HOURS:05 MINUTES:08 SECONDS (CAPTAIN KEYES’ MISSION CLOCK) / LIFEBOAT KILO TANGO VICTOR 17, IN EMERGENCY DESCENT TO SURFACE OF HALO.

  Maybe it was because the Autumn’s navigator, Ensign Lovell, was at the controls, or maybe it was simply a matter of good luck, but whatever the reason, the rest of the trip down through Halo’s atmosphere was completely uneventful. So peaceful that it made Keyes nervous.

  “Where would you like me to put her down, sir?” Lovell inquired, as the lifeboat skimmed a grassy plain.

  “Anywhere,” Keyes answered, “so long as there aren’t any Covenant forces around. Some cover would be nice—since this boat will act like a magnet if we leave it out in the open.”

  Like most of its kind, the lifeboat had never been intended for extended atmospheric use; it flew like a rock, in fact. But the suggestion made sense, so the pilot turned toward what he had arbitrarily designated as the “west,” and the point where the grasslands met a tumble of low rolling hills.

  The lifeboat was low, so low that the Covenant patrol barely had time to see what it was before the tiny vessel flashed over their heads and disappeared.

  The veteran Elites, both of whom were mounted on small single-seat hoversleds, Ghosts, stood to watch the lifeboat skim the plain.

  The senior of the pair called the sighting in. They turned toward the hills and opened their throttles. What had promised to be a long, boring day suddenly seemed a great deal more interesting. The Elites glanced at each other, bent over their controls, and raced to see which of them could reach the lifeboat first—and which of them would score the first kill of the afternoon.

  Deep in the hills ahead, Lovell fired the lifeboat’s bow thrusters, dropped what flaps the stubby little wings had, and jazzed the boat’s belly jets. Keyes watched in admiration as the young pilot dropped the boat into a gully where it would be almost impossible to spot, except from directly overhead. Lovell had been a troubled officer, well on his way to a dishonorable discharge, when Keyes had recruited him. He’d come a long way since then.

  “Nice job,” the Captain said as the lifeboat settled onto its skids. “Okay, boys and girls, let’s strip this ship of everything that might be useful, and put as much distance between it and ourselves as we can. Corporal, post your Marines as sentries. Wang, Dowski, Abiad, open those storage compartments. Let’s see what brand of champagne the UNSC keeps in its lifeboats. Hikowa, give me a hand with this body.”

  There was a certain amount of commotion as ‘Nosolee’s corpse was carried outside and unceremoniously dumped into a crevice, the boat was stripped, and the controls were disabled. With emergency packs on their backs, the bridge crew started up into the hills. They hadn’t gone far when a sonic boom rolled over the land, the Pillar of Autumn roared across the sky, and dropped over the horizon to the arbitrary “south.”

  Keyes held his breath as he waited to see what would happen. He, like all COs, had neural implants that linked him to the ship, the ship’s AI, and key personnel. There was a pause, followed by what felt like a mild earth tremor. A moment later, a terse message from Cortana’s subroutine scrolled across his synchronized comm band, courtesy of his neural lace:

  >CSR-1 :: BURST BROADCAST ::

  >PILLAR OF AUTUMN IS DOWN. THOSE SYSTEMS WHICH REMAIN FUNCTIONAL ARE ON STANDBY. OPERATIONAL READINESS STANDS AT 8.7%.

  >CSR-1 OUT.

  It wasn’t the sort of message that any commanding officer would want to receive. In spite of the fact that the Autumn would never swim through space again, Keyes took some small comfort from the fact that his ship still had the equivalent of a pulse, and might still come in handy.

  He forced a smile. “Okay, people, what are we waiting for? Our cave awaits. The last one to the top digs the latrine.”

  The bridge personnel continued their climb.

  In spite of efforts to keep the HEVs together, the Helljumpers came down in a landing zone that stretched approximately three kilometers in diameter. Some of the landings were classic two-point affairs in which the more fortunate Marines were able to jettison their crash cages about fifty meters off the ground, and land like sim soldiers in a training vid.

  Others were a good deal less graceful, as the skeletal remains of their drop pods smashed against cliffs, dropped into lakes, and in one unfortunate case rolled into a deep ravine. As the surviving Helljumpers extricated themselves from their HEVs, a homing beacon snapped to life, and they were able to orient themselves to the red square which appeared on their transparent eye-screens. That was where Major Silva had landed, a temporary HQ had been established, and the battalion would regroup.

  Each pod was stripped of extra weapons, ammo, and other supplies, which meant that the force which converged on the hot dry plateau was well equipped. Helljumpers were supposed to be able to operate without external resupply for two-week periods, and Silva was pleased that his troops had retained most of their gear, despite the difficult drop conditions.

  In fact, Silva thought as he watched his troops stream in from every direction, the only thing we lack is a fleet of Warthogs and a squad of Scorpions. But those assets would come, oh, yes they would, shortly after the butte was wrenched from enemy hands. In the meantime, the Helljumpers would use what ground-pounders always use: their feet.

  Firs
t Lieutenant Melissa McKay had landed safely, as had most of her 130-person company. Three of her people had been killed in action on the Autumn, and two were missing and presumed dead. Not too bad, all things considered.

  As luck would have it, McKay hit the dirt only half a klick away from the homing beacon, which meant that by the time a perimeter had been established she had already humped her gear across the hardpan, located Major Silva, and reported in. McKay was one of his favorites. The ODST officer nodded by way of a greeting. “Nice of you to drop in, Lieutenant . . . I was beginning to wonder if you’d taken the afternoon off.”

  “No, sir,” McKay responded. “I dozed off on the way down and slept through my wake-up alarm. It won’t happen again.”

  Silva managed to keep a straight face. “Glad to hear it.”

  He paused, then pointed. “You see that butte? The one with the structures on top? I want it.”

  McKay looked, brought her binoculars up, and looked again. The butte’s range appeared along the bottom of the image and was soon chased out of the frame by coordinates that Wellsley inserted to replace the concepts of longitude and latitude which worked on most planetary surfaces, but not here.

  The sun was “setting” but there was still enough light to see by. As she surveyed the target area, a Covenant Banshee took off from the top of the butte, circled out toward the “west,” and came straight at her. The only thing that was surprising about that was the fact that it had taken the enemy so long to respond to their landing.

  “It looks like a tough nut to crack, sir. Especially from the ground.”

  “It is,” Silva agreed, “which is why we’re going to tackle it from both the air and the ground. Lord only knows how they did it, but a group of Pelican pilots were able to launch their transports before the Old Man brought the Autumn down, and they’re hidden about ten klicks north of here. We can use them to support an airborne operation.”

  McKay lowered her binoculars. “And the Autumn?”

  “She’s KIA back thataway,” Silva replied, hooking his thumb back over a shoulder. “I’d like to go pay my final respects, but that will have to wait. What we need is a base, something we can fortify, and use to hold the Covenant at bay. Otherwise they’re going to hunt our people down one, two, or three at a time.”

  “Which is where the butte comes in,” McKay said.

  “Exactly,” Silva answered. “So, start walking. I want your company at the foot of that butte ASAP. If there’s a path to the top I want you to find it and follow it. Once you get their attention, we’ll hit them from above.”

  There was a loud bang as one of the first company’s rocket jockeys fired her M19 SSM man-portable launcher, blew the incoming Banshee out of the sky, and put a period to Silva’s sentence. The battalion cheered as the Banshee bits dribbled smoke and wobbled out of the sky.

  “Sir, yes sir,” McKay answered. “When we get up there, you can buy me a beer.”

  “Fair enough,” Silva agreed, “but we’ll have to brew it first.”

  Even Grunts had to be granted some rest once in a while, which was why long, cylindrical tanks equipped with air locks had been shipped to Halo’s surface, where they were pumped full of methane and used in lieu of barracks.

  Having survived the nearly suicidal attack on the Autumn by rescuing a wounded Elite, and insisting that the warrior be evacuated rather than left to die, Yayap had extended the duration of his own life, not to mention those of the Grunts directly under his command.

  Now, by way of celebrating that victory, the alien soldier was curled in a tiny ball, fast asleep. One leg twitched slightly as the Grunt dreamed of making his way through the swamps of his home world, past naturally occurring pillars of fire, to the marshy estuary where he had grown up.

  Then, before he could cross a row of ancient stepping-stones to the reedy hut on the far side of the family’s ancestral fish pond, Gagaw shook his arm. “Yayap! Get up quick! Remember the Elite we brought down from the ship? He’s outside, and he wants to see you!”

  Yayap sprang to his feet. “Me? Did he say why?”

  “No,” the other Grunt replied, “but it can’t be good.”

  That much was certainly true, Yayap reflected as he waded through the chaos of equipment that hung in untidy clusters along the length of the cylinder. He entered the communal lavatory, and hurried to don his armor, breathing apparatus, and weapons harness.

  Which was more dangerous, he wondered, to show up disheveled, and have the Elite find fault with his appearance, or to show up later because he had taken the time required to ensure that his appearance would be acceptable? Dealing with Elites always seemed to involve such conundrums, which was one of the many reasons that Yayap had a hearty dislike for their kind.

  Finally, having decided to favor speed over appearance, Yayap entered the air lock, waited for it to cycle him through, and emerged into the bright sunlight. The first thing he noticed was that the sentries, who could normally be found leaning against the tank discussing how awful the rations were, stood at rigid attention.

  “Are you the one called Yayap?” The deep voice came from behind him and caused the Grunt to jump. He turned, came to attention, and tried to look soldierly. “Yes, Commander.”

  The Elite named Zuka ‘Zamamee wore no helmet. He couldn’t, not with the dressing that was wrapped around his head, but the rest of his armor was still in place. It was spotlessly clean, as were the weapons he wore. “Good. The medics told me that you and your file not only pulled me off the ship—but forced the assault boat to bring me down to the surface.”

  Yayap felt a lump form in his throat and struggled to swallow it. The pilot had been somewhat reluctant, citing orders to wait for a full load of troops before breaking contact with the human ship, but Gagaw had been quite insistent—even going so far as to pull his plasma pistol and wave it about.

  “Yes, Commander,” Yayap replied, “but I can explain—”

  “There’s no need,” ‘Zamamee replied. Yayap almost jumped; the Elite’s voice lacked the customary bark of command. It sounded almost . . . reassuring.

  Yayap was anything but reassured.

  “You saw that a superior had been wounded,” the Elite continued, “and did what you could to ensure that he received timely medical treatment. That sort of initiative is rare, especially among the lower classes.”

  Yayap stared at the Elite, unable to reply. He felt disoriented. In his universe, Elites didn’t offer accolades.

  “To show my appreciation I’ve had you transferred.”

  Yayap liked the normally sleepy unit to which he was attached, and had no desire to leave it. “Transferred, Commander? To what unit?”

  “Why, to my unit,” the Elite replied, as if nothing could be more natural. “My assistant was killed as we boarded the human ship. You will take his place.”

  Yayap felt his spirits plummet. The Elites who acted as special operatives of the Prophets were fanatics, chosen for their limitless willingness to risk their lives—and the lives of those under their command. “Th-thank you, Commander,” Yayap stuttered, “but I don’t deserve such an honor.”

  “Nonsense!” the Elite replied. “Your name has already been added to the rolls. Gather your belongings, say good-bye to your cohort, and meet me here fifteen units from now. I’m scheduled to appear in front of the Council of Masters later this evening. You will accompany me.”

  “Yes, Commander,” Yayap said obediently. “May I inquire as to the purpose of the meeting?”

  “You may,” ‘Zamamee replied, allowing a hand to touch the bandage that circled his head. “The human who inflicted this wound was a warrior so capable that he represents a danger to the entire battle group. An individual who, if our records can be believed, is personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of our soldiers.”

  Yayap felt his knees start to give. “By himself, Commander?”

  “Yes. But never fear, those days are over. Once I receive authorization, you and I will
find this human.”

  “Find him?” Yayap exclaimed, protocol forgotten. “Then what?”

  “Then,” ‘Zamamee growled, “we will kill him.”

  The dawn air was cold, and McKay could see her breath as she stared upward and wondered what awaited her. Half the night had been spent marching across the stretch of intervening hardpan to get into position below the butte, and the other half had been spent between trying to find a way up to the top, and grabbing a little bit of sleep.

  The second task had been easy, perhaps a little too easy, because other than a sloppily constructed barricade, the foot of the four-foot-wide ramp was entirely unguarded. Still, the last thing the Covenant expected was for a human ship to appear out of Slipspace, and land infantry on the surface of the construct. Viewed in that light, a certain lack of preparation was understandable.

  In any case, the path started at ground level, spiraled steadily upward, and hadn’t been used in some time judging from what she could see. That’s the way it appeared, anyway, although it was hard to be sure from below, and Silva was understandably reluctant to send in one of the Pelicans lest it give the plan away.

  No, McKay and her troops would have to wind their way up along the narrow path, engage whatever defenses the Covenant might have in place, and hope that the Pelicans arrived quickly enough to take the pressure off.

  The Lieutenant eyed the readout on the transparent boom-mounted eye-screen attached to her helmet, waited for the countdown to complete itself, and started up the steep incline. Company Sergeant Tink Carter turned to face the men and women lined up behind him. “What the hell are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Let’s get it in gear.”

  While B Company marched toward the butte, and C Company marched off to rendezvous with the Pelicans, the rest of the battalion used the remaining hours of darkness to prepare for the following day under Major Silva’s watchful eye. Wireless sensors were placed two hundred meters out and monitored by Wellsley; three-person fireteams took up positions a hundred fifty meters out; and a rapid response team was established to support them.