CHAPTER FOURTEEN
2037 Hours, November 27, 2525 (Military Calendar)
In orbit over Chi Ceti 4
John piloted the Pelican through the exit burn of their orbital path, then sent the ship toward the last known position of the Commonwealth . The frigate had moved ten million kilometers in-system from their rendezvous point.
Dr. Halsey sat in the copilot’s seat, fidgeting with her space suit. In the aft compartment were the Spartans, the three technicians from the Damascus facility, and a dozen spare MJOLNIR suits.
Missing, however, were the AIs John had seen when they had first arrived. All Dr. Halsey had time to do was remove their memory processor cubes. It was a tremendous waste to leave such expensive equipment behind.
Dr. Halsey examined the ship’s short-range detection gear, then said, “Captain Wallace may be trying to use Chi Ceti’s magnetic field to deflect the Covenant’s plasma weapon. Try and catch up, Petty Officer.”
“Yes, ma’am.” John pushed the engines to 100 percent.
“Covenant ship to port,” she said, “three million kilometers and closing on the Commonwealth .”
John bumped up the magnification onscreen and spotted the ship. The alien vessel’s hull was bent at a thirty-degree angle from the impact of the MAC heavy round, but it still moved at almost twice the speed of the Commonwealth .
“Doctor,” John asked, “does the MJOLNIR armor operate in vacuum?”
“Of course,” she replied. “It was one of our first design considerations. The suit can recycle air for ninety minutes. It’s shielded against radiation and EMP as well.”
He then spoke to Sam over his COM link. “What kind of missiles is this bird carrying?”
“Wait one, sir,” Sam replied. His voice returned a moment later. “We have two rocket pods with sixteen HE Anvil-IIs each.”
“I want you to assemble a team and go EVA. Remove those warheads from the wing pods.”
“I’m on it,” Sam said.
Halsey tried to push her glasses up higher on her nose—instead she bumped up against the faceplate of her suit’s helmet. “May I ask what you have in mind, Squad Leader?”
John left his COM channel open so the Spartans would hear his reply.
“Requesting permission to attack the Covenant ship, ma’am.”
Her blue eyes widened. “Most certainly not,” she said. “If a warship like the Commonwealth couldn’t destroy it, a Pelican is certainly no match for them.”
“Not the Pelican, no,” John agreed. “But I believe we Spartans are. If we get inside the enemy ship, we can destroy her.”
Doctor Halsey considered, tapping her lower lip. “How will you get onboard?”
“We go EVA and use thruster packs to intercept the Covenant ship as it passes en route to the Commonwealth .”
She shook her head. “One slight error in your trajectory, and you could miss by kilometers,” Dr. Halsey remarked.
A pause.
“I don’t miss, ma’am,” John said.
“They have reflective shields.”
“True,” John replied. “But the ship is damaged. They may have had to lower or reduce shielding in order to conserve power—and if we have to, we can use one of our own warheads to punch a small hole in the barrier.” He paused, then added, “There’s also a large hole in their hull. Their shield may not cover that space entirely.”
Dr. Halsey whispered, “It’s a tremendous risk.”
“With respect, ma’am, it’s a bigger risk to sit here and do nothing. After they finish with the Commonwealth . . . they’ll come for us and we’ll have to fight them anyway. Better to strike first.”
She stared off into space, lost in thought.
Finally she sighed in resignation. “Very well. Go.” She transferred the pilot controls to her station. “And blow the hell out of them.”
John climbed into the aft compartment.
His Spartans stood at attention. He felt a rush of pride; they were ready to follow him as he leaped literally into the jaws of death.
“I’ve got the warheads,” Sam said. It was hard to mistake Sam even with his reflective blast shield covering his face. He was the largest Spartan—even more imposing encased in the armor.
“Everyone’s got one.” Sam continued as he handed John a metal shell. “Timers and detonators are already rigged. Stuck on a patch of adhesive polymer; they’ll cling to your suit.”
“Spartans,” John said, “grab thruster packs and make ready to go EVA. Everyone else—” He motioned to the three technicians. “—get into the forward cabin. If we fail, they’ll be coming after the Pelican.
Protect Dr. Halsey.”
He moved aft. Kelly handed him a thruster pack and he slipped it on.
“Covenant ship approaching,” Halsey called out. “I’m pumping out your atmosphere to avoid explosive decompression when I drop the back hatch.”
“We’ll only get one shot at this,” John said to the other Spartans. “Plot an intercept trajectory and fire your thrusters at max burn. If the target changes course, you’ll have to make a best guess correction on the fly. If you make it, we’ll regroup outside the hole in their hull. If you miss—we’ll pick you up after we’re done.”
He hesitated, then added, “And if we don’t succeed, then power down your systems and wait for UNSC
reinforcements to retrieve you. Live to fight another day. Don’t waste your lives.”
There was a moment of silence.
“If anyone has a better plan, speak up now.”
Sam patted John on the back. “This is a great plan. It’ll be easier than Chief Mendez’s playground. A bunch of little kids could pull it off.”
“Sure,” John said. “Everyone ready?”
“Sir,” they said. “We’re ready, sir!”
John flipped the safety off and then punched in the code to open the Pelican’s tail. The mechanism opened soundlessly in the vacuum. Outside was infinite blackness. He had a feeling of falling through space—but the vertigo quickly passed.
He positioned himself on the edge of the ramp, both hands gripping a safety handle overhead.
The Covenant ship was a tiny dot in the center of his helmet’s view screen. He plotted a course and fired the thruster pack on maximum burn.
Acceleration slammed him into the thruster harness. He knew the others would launch right after him, but he couldn’t turn to see them.
It occurred to him then that the Covenant ship might identify the Spartans as incoming missiles—and their point-defense lasers were too damn accurate.
John clicked on the COM channel. “Doctor, we could use a few decoys if Captain Wallace can spare them.”
“Understood,” she said.
The Covenant vessel grew rapidly in his display. A burst from its engines and it turned slightly.
Traveling at one hundred million kilometers an hour, even a minor course correction meant that he could miss by tens of thousands of kilometers. John carefully corrected his vector.
The pulse laser on the side of the Covenant ship glowed, built up energy, until they were dazzling neon blue, then discharged—but not at him.
John saw explosions in his peripheral vision. The Commonwealth had fired a salvo of her Archer missiles. Around him in the dark were puffballs of red-orange detonations—utterly silent.
John’s velocity now almost matched that of the ship. He eased toward the hull—twenty meters, ten, five . . . and then the Covenant ship started to pull away from him.
It was traveling too fast. He tapped his attitude thrusters and pointed himself perpendicular to the hull.
The Covenant hull accelerated under him . . . but he was dropping closer.
He stretched out his arms. The hull raced past his fingertips a meter away.
John’s fingers brushed against something—it felt semiliquid. He could see his hand skimming a near-invisible, glassy, shimmering surface: the energy shield.
Damn. Their shields were still up. He glanced to either side. The huge hole in their hull was nowhere in sight.
He slid over the hull, unable to grab hold of it.
No. He refused to accept that he had made it this far, only to fail now.
A pulse laser flashed a hundred meters away; his faceplate barely adjusted in time. The flash nearly blinded him. John blinked and then saw a silvery film rush back around the bulbous base of the laser turret.
The shield dropped to let the laser fire?
The laser started to build up charge again.
He would have to act quickly. His timing had to be perfect. If he hit that turret before it fired, he’d bounce off. If he hit the turret as it fired . . . there wouldn’t be much left of him.
The turret glowed, intensely bright. John set his thrust harness on a maximum burn toward the laser, noting the rapidly dwindling fuel charge. He closed his eyes, saw the blinding flash through his lids, felt the heat on his face, then opened his eyes—just in time to crash and bounce into the hull.
The hull plates were smooth, but had grooves and odd, organic crenellations—perfect fingerholds. The difference between his momentum and the ship’s nearly pulled his arms out of their sockets. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip.
He had made it.
John pulled himself along the hull toward the hole the Commonwealth ’s MAC round had punched in the ship.
Only two other Spartans waited for him there.
“What took you so long?” Sam’s voice crackled over the COM channel. The other Spartan lifted her helmet’s reflective blast shield. He saw Kelly’s face.
“I think we’re it,” Kelly said. “I’m not getting any other responses over the COM channels.”
That meant either the Covenant ship shielded their transmissions . . . or there were no Spartans left to communicate with. John pushed that last thought aside.
The hole was ten meters across. Jagged metal teeth pointed inward. John looked over the edge and saw that the MAC heavy round had indeed passed all the way through. He saw tiers of exposed decks, severed conduits, and sheared metal beams—and through the other side, black space and stars.
They climbed down.
John immediately fell down on the first deck.
“Gravity,” he said. “And with nothing spinning on this ship.”
“Artificial gravity?” Kelly asked. “Dr. Halsey would love to see this.”
They continued inward, scaling the metal walls, past alternating layers of gravity and free fall, until they were approximately in the middle of the ship.
John paused and saw the stars wheel outside either end of the hole. The Covenant ship must be turning.
They were engaging the Commonwealth .
“We better hurry.”
He stepped onto an exposed deck, and the gravity settled his stomach—giving him an up-and-down orientation.
“Weapons check,” John told them.
They examined their assault rifles. The guns had made the journey intact. John slipped in a clip of armor-piercing rounds, noting with pleasure that the suit immediately aligned the sight profile of the gun with his targeting system.