"Standby," Cortana said. "Working." A minute ticked off John's mission timer. Then the data chip ejected from the terminal.
"Done," Cortana said over the interteam COM. "I'm in. There's an exit to this bay thirty meters to your left. I will black out the security cameras there and open the door in twenty seconds. Hurry."
John retrieved the chip and reinserted it into his skull. There was a flash of cold mercury in his mind.
"Move out," John told Blue Team. "Stay low."
Fred's and Linda's acknowledgment lights flickered, indicating the way was clear.
Blue Team ran, crouching, for thirty meters. A small access panel slid open, they piled through—then the door snapped shut behind them.
They proceeded, hunched over; they crawled on their hands and knees, on their stomachs, and through ducting so tight they had to shut down their shields and scrape by on bare armor over metal. For kilometers they followed Cortana's directions, halting as she ran motion sensors through diagnostics until they passed ... twisting and turning and shimmying down long lengths of pipe, dodging the giant blades of circulation fans, and edging by transformer coils so close that sparks arced across their shields.
According to John's mission timer they had followed this route for eleven hours—when it dead-ended. "New welds," Fred said, running his gauntlet over the seams in the alloy plate blocking their path. Cortana broke in over the COM, "It must be a repair not logged into the station manifest."
John said. "Options?"
Cortana replied, "I have only limited mission-planning routines. There are three obvious options. You can blow the obstructing plate with a Lotus antitank mine. You can return to the repair bay where we might find a less obvious way in. Or there is a faster, alternative route, but it has drawbacks."
"Time is running out," John said. "The Covenant aren't going to stick around much longer before they strike Earth. Give me the faster route."
"Backtrack four hundred meters, turn bearing zero-nine-zero, proceed another twenty meters, and exit through a waste access cover. From there you will move in the open for seven hundred meters, pass through a structure, and then down a guarded corridor to the reactor chambers."
Grace interrupted, "What do you mean 'in the open'? This is a space station; there should be no open spaces."
"See for yourself," Cortana said.
A schematic of the "open space" appeared on their heads-up displays. John wasn't able to make much sense of the diagram, but he could tell there were several catwalks, buildings, and even waterways—as Cortana indicated, lots of open areas for them to be seen in.
"Let's take a look," John said.
He led his team back the way they had come and pushed open the waste access duct. Blue light flooded the tunnel. John blinked and let his eyes adjust, then pushed the fiber-optic probe through the opening.
John didn't understand what he saw—the optical probe must have malfunctioned. The image looked impossibly distorted. But there was no motion nearby . . . so he risked poking his head out.
He was in the end of an alley with walls towering ten meters to either side, casting dark shadows over the waste access hole. A group of Jackals passed the mouth of the alley only five meters from his position. He ducked ... and none of the vulturelike creatures saw him in the dark.
When they passed he looked up and saw that the fiber-optic probe had not been broken after all.
The space station was hollow inside, and a light beam shot lengthwise through its center: a blue light that provided full daylight illumination. Along the curved inner surface were needle-thin spires, squat stair-step pyramids, and columned temples. Catwalks with moving surfaces crisscrossed the space, as did tubes with capsules that whisked passengers. Water flowed along the walls in inward-spiral patterns and then waterfalled "up" into great hollow towers that sprouted from the opposite wall.
Banshees flew in formation through the center space of the great room, as did flocks of headless birds and great clouds of butterflies. It could have been an Escher etching come to life.
John felt extreme vertigo for a moment. Then he understood that with advanced Covenant gravity technology, there didn't have to be an up or down here.
Odd that a military station would have so much unnecessary ornamentation. Yet Fleet HQ had a large atrium in their lobby. Maybe this was the Covenant equivalent—multiplied a hundredfold.
John spied a band of translucent material set into a far wall, glistening. "Is that the window to the repair bays, Cortana?"
"Correct," she replied.
"Then at least we know the way out. And the structure we need to enter?" "One o'clock," she said. "The one with the carved columns. It is the most direct route to the reactor chambers."
John moved out of the hole and hugged the nearby wall. The shadows in the bright daylight would do a decent job of camouflaging them.
"Okay, Blue Team. Get oriented. . . as much as you can. Our target is the columned building at one o'clock. I make it to be a three-hundred-meter sprint across open ground. We'll make a break for it. Unless anyone has a better plan?"
Linda emerged, looked around, and said, "Permission to post on the rooftop and provide cover."
"Do it," John said. "Let me know when you're in position and ready."
Linda retrieved a padded grappling hook and rope from her pack, twirled it, and tossed it up and over the adjacent roof. She tugged it once, it caught, and then she quickly ascended.
The remaining Spartans joined John in the shadows. He shouldered his battle rifle and thumbed the safety off.
Linda's acknowledgment light winked once.
John tensed and ran. It took him three strides to build to his top-speed sprint. His adrenaline spiked and it made his blood burn. He felt time slow, his perception running at an overclocked pace. He focused on speed—putting one foot in front of the other. His boots dug into cobblestones, crushed rock, and sent a fine spray of gravel behind him. He saw three obstacles in his path: a group of startled Grunts. He slammed the butt of his rifle into the nearest one, and crushed its skull. The dead Grunt spun end over end and landed in a heap. He heard squawks and shouts around him but didn't stop to look.
He was on the stairs of the building, worn-smooth stone steps that he bounded up five at a time. John saw three friendly contacts behind him on his motion tracker ... and at the periphery of its range a solid mass of enemy contacts.
"You're good so far," Linda reported. "There are Elites, but they're unarmed. No, wait. A Hunter pair is advancing on your position. Stand by."
A quartet of shots split the air like thunderclaps.
"Threat neutralized," Linda said. "The rest of them are scattering. Banshees approaching. I'm moving."
John cleared the stairs and skidded to a halt on the threshold of the temple. The interior was cold; external temperature readings were near freezing. Light filtered in through stained-glass windows in the ceiling—tinged lavender, cobalt, and turquoise. Three rows of giant columns made of blue-black basalt ran the length of the thirty-meter-long rectangular structure, casting long shadows. It was a good place for an ambush. He set his back against one of the pillars and swept the entrance, covering his team as they entered.
"Cortana, update on station security?" John said.
"There are dozens of reports on the security channels. I've got them covered."
Another Cortana voice broke in over the first: "Also be advised, Chief, that there are ceremonial guards in this temple—a race we have not encountered before. Roughly translated from Covenant dialects, they are called 'Brutes.' They shouldn't be a significant threat or they would have been used in previous military situations."
John wasn't so sure of that. The name Brute didn't sound promising. He also wondered why there now seemed to be more than one Cortana in the station's system—but that could wait. They had to keep moving now that they had revealed their position. He waved Blue Team forward.
John took point. He moved up to the next column
in the middle of the building. Fred and Will stepped over to the columns on either side behind John. Grace had their backs.
There was a flicker on his motion sensor—just ahead. It vanished.
John held up his hand. Blue Team froze.
His motion detector was clear ... but there had been something there. He pulled out a frag grenade. The transient contact was back—a shadow moved around the
same pillar John used for cover. It moved faster than an Elite— as fast as John. He fired his rifle point blank into the shadowy silhouette. It didn't slow—it only howled with rage. Will and Fred fired three-round bursts from their rifles into the creature. It flinched with each bullet impact. Three explosions detonated behind them. Grace's biosign alarm shrilled and flashed on John's heads-up display.
"Ambush!" Will cried out.
The creature Cortana had called a "Brute" stepped from the shadows and faced John. It was taller than an Elite—wider and more muscular. Its mouth was lined with razor-sharp teeth, and its red eyes burned with hate. Its blue-gray skin was riddled with bullet holes.
The Brute tackled John, knocking his weapon from his grasp.
Even with his MJOLNIR armor, John was not as strong as the alien.
It pounded on him with bare fists—broke through his shielding, grabbed his neck, and squeezed.
Red flashes played across John's vision. He began to black out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
1751 hours, September 13,2552 (revised date,Military Calendar)Aboard Covenant battle station
Unyielding Hierophant.
John struggled and tried to pry the hands from his throat. The tendons in the Brute's forearms were solid bands of steel—and the creature was so determined to rip John's head off that a full clip from a rifle into its chest hadn't even slowed it down.
Behind him, John felt another explosion thunder though the stone floor, followed by the staccato rattle of rifle fire.
Blue Team was busy with another threat. He was on his own.
John blinked. The darkness dimming the edge of his vision wouldn't clear.
John watched his shield bar flicker and sluggishly recharge. If it built up enough repulsive force, he might have a chance to wriggle out of the Brute's grasp. If he tried too quickly, though, the Brute wouldn't lose its grip and could pound his shield flat again.
The Brute bellowed, and globules of spittle spattered onto the Chief's visor. It leaned closer, screwing its massive hands tighter around his throat.
John's vision narrowed. His windpipe swelled, and he gagged.
Shields were at one quarter charge. It'd have to be enough.
John had been in similar death-grip holds before—endless hours of training on the wrestling mats with his teammates and martial arts specialists provided by Chief Mendez. There were ways to escape a larger, stronger opponent. And there were always countermoves to those escapes. And countermoves to those counters. It was like a game of chess, except the pieces were arms and legs, torque and your center of mass ... and most importantly your mind.
He pulled his knees to his chest, and tucked his torso toward his pelvis at the same time. He twisted ninety degrees and shot out both legs and arms, and uncoiled his body. The maneuver was called "shrimping."
John's head slipped from the Brute's grasp.
He used the monster's split second of disorientation to scramble onto its back. John brought his elbow down on the base of the Brute's neck. He swept out its elbow, wrenched the joint around, and pushed it as far as it would go—far past the point any human's or Elite's would have snapped. John scissored his legs wide and pushed against the floor, leveraging his body to keep the Brute pinned.
It growled and pushed itself and John up with its one free arm.
"No. You. Don't."
John still clutched a frag grenade in his left hand. He flicked the arming pin—reached around and under, and thrust it into the Brute's belt—then withdrew, sweeping out its one arm holding them up.
The Brute dropped onto the floor and screamed with rage.
The grenade detonated. It lifted them both a meter, and they landed again ... this time accompanied by a wet, pulpy smack as the Brute's dead hulk slammed into the ground.
The Master Chief rolled off and sprang to his feet and looked for Blue Team.
The large pillars blocked his view, but he saw on his motion tracker that Fred was behind a pillar down and to John's left, and Will behind the pillar to the right. There was no tag indicating Grace's location. There were, however, blurry motion contacts beyond the wide arched entrance to the temple.
And there was one other thing—neither Will nor Fred checked John's status over the COM. That silence meant trouble. John fumbled for his fiber-optic probe, but it had been lost in the scuffle with the Brute. He eased around the basalt pillar.
Grace lay face-first on the floor, five meters from the temple entrance. A puddle of hydrostatic gel and blood spread across the floor.
John clicked the COM once, a status query.
The instant he did this, two Brutes wheeled from their cover on either side of the entrance archway. They held rifles with large-caliber muzzles and padded stocks, fixed with razor-edged blades. One of the Brutes saw John, aimed, and fired.
John darted back behind the basalt pillar; he saw the flash and thunder of a grenade launched from the weapon—heard two more rounds fired immediately after that.
The first grenade impacted on the opposite side of the pillar and exploded. The overpressure rattled his teeth. The Chief turned and dived, hoping to get behind the next stone column before—
—the second and third grenades impacted and detonated on the pillar he had stood behind a split second before. The solid stone crumbled into fist-sized chunks.
He skidded and scrambled for cover as the upper part of that column collapsed, raining stones that shattered the floor... and would have crushed him.
So much for engaging these Brutes in a direct assault. John wasn't up for another round of wrestling, either. Not with the clock ticking. Not with every Covenant on this station about to tear them to pieces. Complicating all this was the enemy's apparent ability to locate them when they used the COM.
That only left one tactical option: run. He wasn't going to leave Grace behind, though. Not until he knew for certain she was dead.
He removed his backpack and took out one of his two Lotus antitank mines. The disk was a quarter meter across with spikes set along the rim to stabilize it when buried. He set the detonation selector to countdown mode, seven seconds. He then slid around the edge of the column.
He threw the mine with a flick of his wrist. It spun in a wide arc across the temple hall and embedded into the wall just over the entrance archway.
Two seconds until it blew.
John clicked on his COM and said: "Fire in the hole!"
The Brutes again wheeled around from their cover and leveled their deadly grenade launchers. The Lotus mine detonated—it was a flash and an instant of
fire. The temple opening and Brutes vanished, replaced by a cloud of dust and a cascade of stones that fell from the ceiling.
One gray arm remained exposed under the rubble, still flexing.
John moved up. The entrance was sealed. They were safe for a few seconds.
He knelt next to Grace. Her biosigns had flatlined. He tried to roll her upright—but there was no need. The detonations he had heard while wrestling the first Brute had been three of their high-velocity grenades... which had blown Grace's midsection apart.
Fred and Will emerged from their cover. John looked at them and shook his head.
John opened the tiny access panel on Grace's armor power pack and entered the fail-safe code. They still had a mission to finish, which meant they couldn't carry her out; it would slow them down too much. They wouldn't be leaving her for the Covenant either, though. Her armor's tiny fusion reactor would overload and burn everything within a ten-meter radius— Grace's funeral pyre.
"Le
t's move," John said. "Cortana, which way?"
"Proceed into the temple thirty meters. Turn right. There will be a sealed doorway, an access hatch for Engineers. I will open it and lock it behind you. Hurry. I'm encountering increased resistance from the station's AIs. While I have their security COM channels blocked, word of intruders is speeding via private COMs."
There was a curious echo to her voice. Maybe it was feedback from the Covenant triangulating on their signals. Or maybe there was some other effect at work. What had she warned him about? Unforeseen complications using a copy of a copy of Cortana?
"Roger that," he said and waved Fred and Will forward. He took one last look at Grace, then marched quickly and silently ahead.
There were no more motion contacts in the temple. The Chief, however, saw Grunts and Jackals, Elites and Hunters in murals painted on the walls. In the shadows and stained-glass filtered light, those pictures seemed to move. They genuflected to something farther ahead. The Chief wished he had more time to take a full video record.
Blue Team moved thirty meters and turned to face a section of the wall. It parted. The passage could have fit two Engineers side by side, but John had to crouch and turn sideways to pass. Will and Fred followed; Cortana sealed the door behind them.
They continued until the narrow passage turned ninety degrees and dropped straight down. Will attached a rope and they rappelled down a hundred meters, landing on a platform.
John overlooked a cavern hewn from rough stone that arched up ninety meters and vanished into the shadows in the distance. Five hundred twelve fusion reactors that looked like flatted spiral seashells filled the space, stacked in rows and columns eight deep. Each was the size of a Pelican dropship and thrummed with power, casting off waves of wavering heat.
The open areas between the reactors were a tangle of plasma conduits and alive with swarms of thousands of buoyant Engineers as they tended the machinery. Faint wispy borealis comprised of escaped plasma swirled, whipped into a luminous froth by the intense magnetic vortices within the chamber.