CHAPTER SEVEN
0000 Hours March 30, 2525 (Military Calendar)
UNSC Carrier Atlas en route to the Lambda
Serpentis system
“And so we commit the bodies of our fallen brothers to space.”
Mendez solemnly closed his eyes for a moment, the ceremony completed. He pressed a control and the ash canisters moved slowly into the ejection tubes . . . and the void beyond.
John stood rigidly at attention. The carrier’s missile launch bays—normally cramped, overcrowded, and bustling with activity—were unusually quiet. The Atlas ’s firing deck had been cleared of munitions and crew. Long, unadorned black banners now hung from the bay’s overhead gantries.
“Honors . . . ten hut !” Mendez barked.
John and the other surviving Spartans saluted in unison.
“Duty,” Mendez said. “Honor and self sacrifice. Death does not diminish these qualities in a soldier. We shall remember.”
A series of thumps resounded through the Atlas ’s hull as the canisters were hurled into space.
The view screen flickered and displayed a field of stars. The canisters appeared one by one, quickly falling behind the carrier as it continued on its course.
John watched. With each of the stainless-steel cylinders that drifted by, he felt that he was losing a part of himself. It felt like leaving his people behind.
Mendez’s face might as well been chiseled from stone, for all the emotion it showed. He finished his protracted salute and then said, “Crewmen, dismissed.”
Not everything had been lost. John glanced around the launch chamber; Sam, Kelly, and thirty others still stood at attention in their black dress uniforms. They had made it unharmed through the last—
mission wasn’t quite the right word. More or less.
There were a dozen others, though, who had lived . . . but were no longer soldiers. It hurt John to look at them. Fhajad sat in a wheelchair, shaking uncontrollably. Kirk and René were in neutral-buoyancy gel tanks, breathing through respirators; their bones had been so twisted they no longer looked human.
There were others, still alive, but with injuries so critical they could not be moved.
Orderlies pushed Fhajad and the other injured toward the elevator.
John strode toward them and stopped, blocking their path. “Stand fast, Crewman,” he demanded.
“Where are you taking my men?”
The orderly halted and his eyes widened. He swallowed and then said, “I, sir . . . I have my orders, sir.”
“Squad Leader,” Mendez called out. “A moment.”
“Stay,” John told the orderly, and marched to face Chief Mendez. “Yes, sir.”
“Let them go,” Mendez said quietly. “They can’t fight anymore. They don’t belong here.”
John inadvertently glanced at the view screen and the long line of canisters as they shrank in the distance. “What will happen to my men?”
“The Navy takes care of its own,” Mendez replied, and lifted his chin a little higher. “They may no longer be the fastest or the strongest soldiers—but they still have sharp minds. They can still plan missions, analyze data, troubleshoot ops . . .”
John exhaled a sigh of relief. “That’s all any of us ask for, sir: a chance to serve.” He turned to face Fhajad and the others. He snapped to attention and saluted. Fhajad managed to raise one shaking arm and return the salute.
The orderlies wheeled them away.
John looked at what remained of his squad. None of them had moved since the memorial ceremony.
They were waiting for their next mission.
“Our orders, sir?” John asked.
“Two days full bed rest, Squad Leader. Then microgravity physical therapy aboard the Atlas until you recover from the side effects of your augmentation.”
Side effects. John flexed his hand. He was clumsy now. Sometimes he could barely walk without falling.
Dr. Halsey had assured him that these “side effects” were a good sign. “Your brain must relearn how to move your body with faster reflexes and stronger muscles,” she told him. But his eyes hurt, and they bled a little in the morning, too. He had constant headaches. Every bone in his body ached.
John didn’t understand any of this. He only knew that he had a duty to perform—and now he feared he wouldn’t be able to. “Is that all, sir?” he asked Mendez.
“No,” the Chief replied. “Déjà will be running your squad through the dropship pilot simulator as soon as they are up to it. And,” he added, “if they are up for the challenge, she wanted to cover some more organic chemistry and complex algebra.”
“Yes, sir,” John replied, “we’re up to the challenge.”
“Good.”
John continued to stand fast.
“Was there something else, Squad Leader?”
John furrowed his brow, hesitated, and then finally said, “I was Squad Leader. The last mission was therefore my responsibility . . . and members of my squad died . What did I do wrong?”
Mendez stared at John with his impenetrable black eyes. He glanced at the squad, then back to John.
“Walk with me.” He led John to the view screen. He stood and watched as the last of the canisters vanished into the darkness.
“A leader must be ready to send the soldiers under his command to their deaths,” Mendez said without turning to face John. “You do this because your duty to the UNSC supersedes your duty to yourself or even your crew.”
John looked away from the view screen. He couldn’t look at the emptiness anymore. He didn’t want to think of his teammates—friends who were like brothers and sisters to him—forever lost.
“It is acceptable,” Mendez said, “to spend their lives if necessary.” He finally turned and meet John’s gaze. “It is not acceptable, however, to waste those lives. Do you understand the difference?”
“I . . . believe I understand, sir,” John said. “But which was it on this last mission? Lives spent? Or lives wasted?”
Mendez turned back toward the blackness of space and didn’t answer.
0430 Hours, April 22, 2525 (Military Calendar)
UNSC Carrier Atlas on patrol in the Lambda
Serpentis System
John oriented himself as he entered the gym.
From the stationary corridor, it was easy to see that this section of the Atlas rotated. The constant acceleration gave the circular walls a semblance of gravity.
Unlike the other portions of the carrier, however, this section wasn’t cylindrical, but rather a segmented cone. The outer portion was wider and rotated more slowly than the narrower inner portion—simulating gravitational forces from one quarter to two gravities along the length of the gym.
There were free weights, punching and speed bags, a boxing ring, and machines to stretch and tone every muscle group. No one else was up this early. He had the place to himself.
John started with arm curls. He went to the center section, calibrated at one gee, and picked up a twenty-kilogram dumbbell. It felt wrong—too light. The spin must be off. He set the weights down and picked up a forty-kilogram set. That felt right.
For the last three weeks the Spartans had gone through a daily routine of stretching, isometric exercises, light sparring drills, and lots of eating. They were under orders to consume five high-protein meals a day. After every meal they had to report to the ship’s medical bay for a series of mineral and vitamin injections. John was looking forward to getting back to Reach and his normal routine.
There were only thirty-two soldiers left in his squad. Thirty candidates had “washed out” of the Spartan program; they died during the augmentation process. The other dozen, suffering from side effects of the process, had been permanently reassigned within the Office of Naval Intelligence.
He missed them all, but he and the others had to go on—they had to recover and prove themselves all over again.
John wished Chief Mendez had warned him. He could have prepared. Maybe that was the trick to the last mission—to learn to be prepared for anything. He wouldn’t let his guard down again.
He took a seat at the leg machine, set it to the maximum weight—but it felt too light. He moved to the high-gee end of the gym. Things felt normal again.
John worked every machine, then moved to a speed bag, a leather ball attached to the floor and ceiling by a thick elastic band. There were only certain allowed frequencies at which the bag could be hit, or it gyrated chaotically.
His fist jabbed forward, cobra-quick, and struck. The speed bag moved, but slowly, like it was underwater . . . far too slowly considering how hard he had hit it. The tension on the line must be turned way down.