warheads, and if presented with the opportunity, they were to target any rebel leaders.
John signaled his team to move out, disperse around the bunker, and take up positions
to snipe the guards.
Green acknowledgment lights winked on. Kurt's was last, with a palpable hesitation.
John gave Kurt a short hand wave, and then pointed at the Warthog, indicating that he
get the vehicle ready to move.
Kurt nodded.
Kurt's "feeling" that something was wrong was contagious. John didn't like it. He pushed
his uncertainties aside. Blue Team was in position. John unslung his sniper rifle and sighted. He gave the "go" signal and watched as one
guard and then another silently fell over. Linda had been quick and efficient as usual.
John gave the go-ahead to move in.
Blue Team eased inside, sweeping the dark corners of the building.
The place was empty, save steel racks cradling three conical warhead casings. John's
radiation counter jumped, indicating that they did not hold conventional explosives.
He pointed at Kelly and Fred, to the rack, then to the Warthog outside. They nodded.
Kurt's acknowledgment light winked red.
No Spartan flashed a red light on a mission unless they had a good reason.
"Abort," John said. "Back out. Now."
Dizziness washed over him.
John saw Linda, Fred, and Kelly sink to their knees.
Then blackness swallowed him.
John awoke with a start. Every muscle burned and it felt like someone had hammered
his head. This was a good sign: it meant he wasn't dead.
He tensed his muscles against an unyielding pressure.
He blinked to clear his hazy vision and saw he sat propped against a wall, still in the
high-security bunker.
The warheads were also still there.
Then John saw a dozen commandos in the warehouse, watching him. They hefted the .30-caliber machine gun, favored by rebel forces. Nicknamed "confetti makers," they were grossly inaccurate, but at point-blank range, it would hardly be a concern.
The rest of Blue Team lay face-first on the concrete floor. Technicians in lab coats crouched over them capturing high-resolution digital video.
John jerked against his inert armor. He had to get to his team. Were they dead?
"No need to struggle," a voice said.
A man with long gray hair stepped in front of John's faceplate. "Or struggle if you want. We've installed neural-inhibitor collars on you and your comrades. UNSC standard issue for dangerous felons." He smiled. "I'd wager without one you could, and would, rip me in half in that miraculous power armor."
John kept his mouth shut.
"Relax," the man said. "I am General Graves."
John recognized the name. Howard Graves was one of the three men believed to be in charge of the united rebel front. It was no coincidence he was here.
"You're suffering from rapid decompression—the bends," he told John. "We used an antigrav plate, old technology that never panned out, but for our purposes, it worked just fine. A focused beam fooled your armor's sensors into thinking you were in a ten-gee environment. It increased internal pressure to save your lives, momentarily rendering you unconscious."
"You engineered this all for us," John said, his voice hoarse.
"You 'Spartans' have put quite a dent in our efforts to liberate the frontier worlds," General Graves said. "Station Jefferson in the Eridanus asteroid belt last year; our destroyer
Origami; six months ago, our high-explosive manufacturing facility; followed by the incident in Micronesia, and our saboteur cell on Reach. I didn't believe it until I saw the video. All by the same four-man team. Some said 'Blue Team' was a myth." He rapped his knuckle on John's faceplate. "You seem real enough to me."
John struggled, but he might as well have been encased in a mountain of steel. The neural collar neutralized every signal traveling down his spine save the autonomics to his heart and diaphragm.
He had to focus. Did everyone on his team have a collar? Yes. Each Spartan had a thick clamp on the back of their neck, directly over the AI interface port. Graves had excellent intelligence on their equipment.
Wait. John scrutinized his paralyzed team: Kelly, Linda, and Fred. No Kurt.
Graves had said "four-man team." He didn't know about Kurt.
"As you surmised," Graves continued, "this was all for your benefit. We scraped our fissile material together and made sure it was done so sloppily that even your Office of Naval Intelligence saw it happen. We anticipated the miraculous Blue Team would be sent. I am not disappointed that your leaders' minds are still so easily read."
A young commando approached, saluted, and nervously whispered, "Sir, external sensors are off-line."
Graves frowned. "Drag the prisoners out of here. Sound the general alarm. Police those warheads, and tell the liftships to—"
A buzzing sound filled the air. John spied a blur of spinning metal through the doorway. He had a fraction of a second to see it was an eight-armed Asteroidea antipersonnel mine, its pressure trigger jammed with a chunk of gravel—just before it detonated into a ball of thunder.
Metal pinged off John's armor.
Everyone standing in the room doubled over from the con-cussive force and hail of shrapnel.
Six commandos with multiple cuts and bleeding ears rose, weapons ready, shaking their heads to clear the disorientation.
The modified Warthog that had been parked next to the bunker crashed into the open double doorway.
The entire warehouse shook.
The commandos opened fire, and rushed the doorway.
The Warthog pulled away, then with a squeal, it reversed, and then rammed the doorway again. The corrugated steel walls screeched, buckled, and with a shower of sparks the vehicle wedged its midsection in the building like a pregnant queen termite.
The commandos unloaded their confetti makers, puckering the 'Hog's armor.
The top of the midsection slid open and three more Aster-oidea antipersonnel mines arced, whirling like a child's toy— each landing in a corner of the bunker—and exploded.
White-hot metal fragments cut through the commandos like a scythe.
Kurt leapt out and shot the three men still moving. He quickly went to each Spartan and pulled off the collars.
Kelly rolled to her feet. Fred and Linda got up.
Kurt yanked the collar off John's neck. His entire body tingled, but his muscles once again responded to his commands. He flexed his limbs. There was no permanent nerve damage.
"We can forget about stealth now," John said. "Kurt, drive the Warthog. Kelly, Linda, Fred, get those warheads loaded ASAP."
They nodded.
John went to General Graves. A sliver of corrugated steel had lodged in the man's skull.
Unfortunate. Graves had held secrets of the rebels' command and intelligence structure-secrets John had had the barest glimpse of. Their capacities had been greatly underestimated. With the larger Covenant threat looming, John wondered what
the rebels would ultimately do. Attack a weakened UNSC as it battled aliens, or fight against humanity's common enemy?
He ignored the larger strategic picture and focused on the tactical, helping Kelly maneuver the last warhead into the Warthog's armored midsection.
Loaded with the bombs and five armored Spartans, the vehicle bottomed its shocks. John climbed into the rear and Kurt drove, and they sluggishly accelerated away from the secure warehouse.
"Best speed to the PZ," John ordered.
Kurt turned on the Warthog's radio. It buzzed with confused chatter.
"Unit One nonresponsive. Gunfire reported. Man down! Tracking APC. Open fire? Confirm—confirm! All units converge. Do it now!"
"Everyone," John shouted, "into the center."
Holes peppered the Warthog, armor-piecing rounds penetrating the
side like paper and denting the casings of the warheads.
"Behind the warheads!" Fred told them.
John, Kelly, Fred, and Linda huddled behind the missiles. Nuclear warheads ironically would provide their best defense. Their casings were superhardened, both to contain radiation and hold the fury of a small sun for a split second longer and to boost the thermonuclear yield.
John looked up at the driver's seat. Kurt squeezed himself lower into the seat, presenting the smallest possible target, risking his life to get them all to safety.
The Warthog billowed smoke, but its speed slowly increased to forty kilometers an hour. A sharp rattle came from the engine. A tire shredded and the vehicle swerved right and then left.
Kurt regained control and kept going.
The AP fire slowed and then stopped.
"Brace!" Kurt said and downshifted.
The Warthog barreled through the chain-link and concertina-wire barrier, over gravel
fields, and into the forest.
"Road 32-B to the PZ," Kurt said.
"Road" was a creative overstatement. They bounced along, mowing down trees,
fishtailing, and spraying mud.
"Drones!" Kurt told them.
"Get the hatch open," John ordered. Kelly and Fred pulled the midsection roof panels apart.
John stuck his head out, and spotted three MAKO-class attack drones jetting toward them, each heavy with a fat missile. One direct hit would take out the Warthog. Even a near miss could destroy an axle.
Linda popped up, her sniper rifle already in hand and eyes on the scope.
John and Linda opened fire.
The lead drone smoked and dropped into the trees. The next drone angled up, bobbing.
It released its missile, and banked away. A line of smoke appeared, a tail of fire, and a missile accelerated toward them at a frightening rate.
Linda fired, squeezing off the rounds as fast as the chamber could cycle. The missile started to spin… but it was still dead on course.
"PZ three hundred meters," Kelly said, consulting her tablet. "Welcome committee has us in their sights."
"Tell them we have the package," John said, "and we need a hand."
"Roger that," she said.
The missile was two kilometers from them—closing fast.
Ahead, the forest turned into swamp. With a hurricane roar, a UNSC Pelican dropship rose over the treetops and its twin chain guns spat a cloud of depleted uranium slugs at the incoming missile—making it bloom into a flower of fire and smoke.
"Stand by for pickup, Blue Team," the dropship's pilot said over their COM. "We got incoming single-craft hostiles. So hang tight, and go vacuum protocols."
"Check suit integrity," John ordered. He remembered Sam
and how his friend had sacrificed himself, remaining on a Covenant ship under siege because of a breach in his suit. If a single AP round had breached their MJOLNIR, they'd be in a similar jam.
The Warthog, billowing thick black clouds, rattled to a stop.
The Pelican settled over it and clamped tight.
Blue Team came back all green status lights, and John relaxed; he had been holding his
breath.
The Pelican lifted the Warthog, laden with Spartans and warheads, into the air.
"Make secure," the pilot said. "Bogies inbound on vector zero seven two."
Acceleration tugged at John, but he stood fast, one hand bracing the nukes, the other
against the punctured side of the Warthog. The clear blue light outside darkened to black and filled with the twinkle of stars.
"Rendezvous with the Bunker Hill in fifteen seconds," the Pelican pilot announced. "Prepare for immediate out-system Slipspace jump."
Kurt carefully eased out of the driver's seat and into the midsection to join them.
"Nice work," Fred told him. "How did you know it was a trap?"
"It was the guards loading ammunition off the Warthog," Kurt explained. "I saw it at the time, but it didn't register until it was almost too late. Those ammo canisters were marked as armor-piercing rounds. All of them. You wouldn't need that much AP unless you were taking on a few light tanks…"
"Or a squad of Spartans," Linda said, catching on.
"Us," Fred remarked.
Kurt doggedly shook his head. "I should have figured it out sooner. I almost got everyone
killed."
"You mean you saved everyone," Kelly said and she butted her shoulder into his.
"If you ever have another funny 'feeling,'" John told him, "tell me, and make me
understand."
Kurt nodded.
John wondered about this man's "feelings," his instinctive subconscious awareness of the danger. CPO Mendez had made then all train so hard, lessons in fire-team integration, target prioritization, hand-to-hand combat, and battlefield tactics were part of their hardwired instincts now. But that didn't mean the underlying biological impulses were worthless. Quite the opposite.
John set a hand on Kurt's shoulder, searching for the right words.
Kelly, as usual, articulated the sentiments that John never could. She said, "Welcome to Blue, Spartan. We're going to make a great team."
← ^ →
CHAPTER
TWO
0500 HOURS, OCTOBER 24, 2531 (MILITARY CALENDAR) ABOARD UNSC POINT OF NO RETURN, INTERSTELLAR SPACE, SECTOR B-042
Colonel Ackerson ran both hands through his thinning hair, and poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on the table. His hand shook. Ironic that his career in the military had come to this: a secret meeting on a ship that technically didn't exist, about to discuss a project that, if successful, would never surface from the shadows.
Eyes-only classification. Code words. Double deals and back-stabbing.
He longed for earlier days when he held a rifle in his hands, the enemy was easily recognized and dispatched, and Earth was the most powerful, secure center of the universe.
Those times only existed in memory now, and Ackerson had to live in the dark to save what little light remained.
He pushed back from the ebony conference table, and his gaze swept over the room, a five-meter-diameter bubble, bisected by a metal grate floor, with stainless-steel walls brushed to a white reflective sheen. Once sealed, it became a Faraday cage, and no electronic signals could escape.
He hated this place. The white walls and the black table made him feel, like he sat inside a giant eye, always under observation.
The "cage," as it was referred to, was contained within a cocoon of ablative insulating layers, and counterelectronics to provide further security, and this ensconced on the most secret ship in the UNSC fleet, Point of No Return.
Constructed in parts and then assembled in deep space, Point of No Return was the largest prowler-class vessel ever built. The size of a destroyer, she was completely radar-invisible, and when her baffled engines ran below 30 percent she was as dark as interstellar space. Point of No Return was the wartime field command and control platform for the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence, NavSpecWep Section Three.
Very few had actually seen this ship, only a handful had ever been aboard, and fewer than twenty officers in the galaxy had access to the cage.
The white wall sheathed apart and three people walked in, boots clipping across the metal grate.
Rear Admiral Rich entered first. He was only forty, but already gray. He commanded covert operations in Section Three, in charge of every field operation save Dr. Halsey's SPARTAN-II program. He sat on Ackerson's right, glanced
at the water, and scowled. He withdrew a gold flask and un-stoppered it. The odor of cheap whiskey immediately assailed Acker son.
Next was Captain Gibson. The man moved like a panther with the low lopping strides indicative of time recently spent in mi-crogravity. He was the field officer in charge of Section Three Black Ops, the hands-on wet-work counterpart to Rear Admiral Rich.
And last, Vice Admiral Parangosky entered.
&nbs
p; The doors immediately sheathed close behind her. There were three distinct clicks as locks meshed into place, and then the room fell into an unnatural silence.
Parangosky remained standing and assessed the others; her iron gaze finally pinned Ackerson. "You better have one hell of a reason for dragging us all here through back channels, Colonel."
Parangosky looked fragile and closer to 170 years old than her actual seventy years, but she was in Ackerson's opinion the most dangerous person in the UNSC. She was the real power in ONI. To his knowledge, only one person had ever successfully crossed her and lived.
Colonel Ackerson set four reader tablets on the table. Bio-metric scanners flashed on the sidebars.
"Please, Admiral," he said, "if you would."
"Very well," she growled and sat. "I'll bite."
"Nothing new with that, Margaret," Admiral Rich muttered.
She shot him a piercing glare, but said nothing.
The three officers scanned the document.
Captain Gibson sighed explosively and pushed the tablet away. "Spartans," he said. "Yes, we're all familiar with their operational record. Very impressive." From the scowl on his face, it was clear "impressed" was not what he was feeling.
"And," Rich commented, "we already know your feelings
about this program, Colonel. I hope you did not bring us here to try and once again shut the Spartans down."
"No," Ackerson replied. "Please scroll to page twenty-three, and my purpose will become clear."
They reluctantly examined his report.
Captain Rich's brows shot up. "I've never seen these figures before… MJOLNIR suit construction, maintenance staff, and recent upgrades to their microfusion plants. Christ! You could build a new battle group for what Halsey is spending."
Vice Admiral Parangosky did not glace at the figures. "I've seen this before, Colonel. The Spartans are the single most expensive project in our section. They are, however, also the most effective. Come to the point."
"The point is this," Ackerson said. Sweat trickled down his back, but he kept his voice even. If he didn't sell this, Parangosky might roll over him, and he'd find himself busted to sergeant and patrolling some dusty frontier world. Or worse.
"I'm not suggesting that we shut the Spartans down," he continued and gestured broadly with both hands. "On the contrary, we're fighting a war on two fronts: rebels eroding our economic base in the outer colonies; and the Covenant, who, as far as we know, are committed to the total annihilation of humanity." Ackerson straightened and met Gibson's, Rich's, and then Parangosky's gazes. "I'm suggesting we need more Spartans."