Halo_ First Strike Part 13

Fred caught motion in the corner of his eye-a shadow buzzed over his tank, and a blast rocked it from side to side.

That had to be Banshees. It made sense that they'd already have Elites in the air, on patrol. He cursed himself for not spotting them before. It was only a matter of time now. Without infantry support, sooner or later the Covenant ground and air forces would regroup and destroy them. "Move!" he shouted over the COM. "Break off contact and get to the caves!"

Kelly gunned her tank and pushed through the wreckage.

Fred let her get ahead and paused to target the excavation equipment. He fired once.

Three rapid impacts thudded on top of his tank-exploded and shook his teeth. He fired three more times at the excavation equipment and gunned the Wraith tank. It shuddered and lurched forward.

He gritted his teeth and smiled. On the display, the smoke cleared enough for him to see that the laser drill, conveyor belts, and the insectlike diggers had been reduced to piles of half-melted junk.

The displays lost focus. No-Fred saw it wasn't the picture; smoke poured into the c.o.c.kpit. "Banshees circling over you," Kelly yelled over the COM. "Get out!"

Fred popped the hatch and crawled out.

Overhead, a dozen Banshee fliers turned to strafe his crippled tank.

Fred jumped, rolled to his feet, and ran. A NAV marker appeared on his heads-up display, over a gash in the side of the mountain where the cavern entrance used to be.

A red-hot sledgehammer hit him squarely in the back: a plasma pistol on overload. He reeled forward but didn't lose his balance-and kept running. There was no time to stop. He glanced at his s.h.i.+eld bar; it was completely drained, but it slowly began to recharge. He dodged and weaved back and forth. He couldn't take many more hits like that.

"Hurry," Kelly said.

He crossed the remaining hundred meters in seconds and jumped into a crater where there had once been a gatehouse and the secure entrance to ONI's underground base.

Kelly stood, braced just over the lip of the crater, holding a Warthog's chaingun. She aimed over Fred's head and sprayed the enemy with thunderous suppression fire. SPARTAN-043, Will, ERIC NYLUND 117.

stood next to her. Fred was thrilled to see them alive-and even more thrilled to see Will holding a Jackhammer rocket launcher.

"Get below," Kelly said, and motioned with her head to the center of the crater. "We'll cover you." She continued to fire until she had depleted the chaingun's belt of ammunition.

Will took aim and squeezed the trigger. A rocket knifed through the air, and a contrail of white smoke connected with the c.o.c.kpit of an oncoming Banshee. The alien flier disintegrated in a ball of fire.

Fred turned and saw a shaft that plunged deep into the ground. A steel cable had been rigged to one side, and it angled into the depths.

He grabbed the line, jumped, and zipped into the darkness. He felt a sharp vibration through the line-once, then twice-as the other Spartans followed him.

After three hundred meters of free fall, he glimpsed a faint illumination at the bottom of the shaft, the feeble sickly yellow glow from chemical light sticks. Fred tightened his grip on the cable, and his descent slowed. A meter from the bottom of the shaft, he let go and landed in a crouch. He moved out of the way. The other Spartans landed next to him.

"This way," Will said and moved ahead, through a set of elevator doors that had been forced open.

Fred noticed that Will moved with a severe limp, and remembered the Spartans he had sent here were injured. It was ironic that he had sent them out of the thick of battle, to end up in the middle of another dire situation.

Then again, they weren't dead .. . which was more than he could hope for Beta Team.

They stepped into a corridor with brushed stainless-steel walls that mirrored and smeared the faint light from the chem lights.

Overhead there was a tremendous explosion. Rocks and dirt showered into the shaft, and dust blossomed through the corridor. "Lotus ant.i.tank mines," Will said. "A little something to slow our uninvited guests down."

Two other Spartans, Isaac and Vinh, sat along either side of the hallway, behind rock barricades. They gave slight nods to Fred and kept their eyes and weapons on the end of the corridor.

"Where's the rest of the team? And the Marines from Charlie Company?" Fred asked.

"They didn't make it," Will replied, his voice flat. "We were separated on the way here." He shook his head. "No contact since then."

Fred was quiet a moment. He listed those three as MIA on his team roster as well as the other Spartans on Will's team. The list of Spartans he could account for had grown extremely short. Fred felt his stomach twist. "Any word from Beta Team?"

"Negative. No contact, sir."

Fred clenched his teeth and marked Beta Team as MIA as well.

"Gamma Team?" Will asked.

"They're out there," Fred replied. "I heard them on the COM, but I couldn't make out much. I warned them away from this position."

"Good," Will whispered.

The hallway dead-ended in a vault door.

"The retinal and palm scanners are broken," Will explained. "There's voice access, which we've tried, but there's no response. This door must be a meter thick, so without cutting tools or a hundred kilos of explosive we're stuck on this side."

"You spoke to the people on the other side?" Kelly asked. "The channel is open," Will said. "But there's been no reply. Everyone on the other side probably bugged out." "Or maybe you're just not saying anything they want to hear," Kelly said. She whistled a six-note singsong tune.

Will nodded. "I didn't think of that."

The tune had been the Spartan's secret code from when they were young and training on Reach. It was their all-clearit's-safe-to-come-out all-clearit's-safe-to-come-out signal. No one but the Spartans and a few very select outsiders knew of it. . . a few outsiders who might be still here. signal. No one but the Spartans and a few very select outsiders knew of it. . . a few outsiders who might be still here.

Kelly keyed the mic and whistled the tune. She released the key and waited.

Two minutes ticked off Fred's mission clock. Too much time sitting here, doing nothing, while the Covenant over their heads were undoubtedly figuring out a way to dig them out and tear them to pieces.

"It was a good idea," he told Kelly. "We'll recon the shaft. Maybe it's not completely collapsed. Will you-"

A mechanism thunked thunked and then hummed within the t.i.tanic door. There was a hiss as the seams parted, and the meter-thick door swung inward on perfectly balanced, silent hinges. and then hummed within the t.i.tanic door. There was a hiss as the seams parted, and the meter-thick door swung inward on perfectly balanced, silent hinges.

Bright light flooded the pa.s.sage. A silhouetted figure stood on the threshold. As Fred's display compensated and enhanced the image, he saw it was human, slight of figure, female. She wore a gray pleated skirt and a white lab coat with a data pad stuffed into the breast pocket. He caught the glimmer of her eyegla.s.ses, black-rimmed with faint bifocal lines. Her gray hair was coiled into a tight bun.

But it was her face that caught and held his focus-he recognized the tight smooth skin that wrinkled only in the comers of her mouth and her gray-blue eyes. She was the intellect behind the SPARTAN-II program, and the one who'd invented their MJOLNIR armor.

She was Dr. Catherine Halsey.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

0810 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)EpsilonEridani system, ONI underground facility, planet Reach.

Dr. Halsey studied the five Spartans in the hallway and pushed her antique gla.s.ses farther up the ridge of her nose. Despite everything their presence here meant-Reach invaded, their mission to find the Covenant leaders.h.i.+p compromised, everything she had worked for now in jeopardy-she was still pleased to see them. She steeled herself, though; an emotional outburst wouldn't be understood, or appreciated, by her Spartans.

"Come in," she said briskly. "And hurry. From the sounds of things upstairs we haven't much time."

The Spartans stood there a moment-undoubtedly communicating with one another through a mixture of externally silent COM channels and minute body language. She noticed the tick of a finger, the slight nod of a head. They then moved together, picked up their equipment, and walked through the threshold of the vault.

Dr. Halsey greeted them as they pa.s.sed her. "It's good to see you, Fred."

"Ma'am," Fred replied. "Good to see you, too."

She noted that Kelly's movements were off, a little sluggish.

She was hurt, as were the rest of them, now that she saw them up close. "Kelly." "Doctor Halsey." She reached out and gave her hand a slight squeeze of greeting.

"Isaac."

"Doctor."

"Vinh."

ERIC NYLUND.

She nodded.

"William."

Will grunted. He had never liked his formal name.

She knew this annoyed them all-how she was always able to tell who they were despite the MJOLNIR armor. She had grown up with them, knew their every gesture and their individual walks. She could have never called them by their number designations: SPARTAN-104, -087, -039, -029, and -043, respectively.

Dr. Halsey tapped a control pad. The vault door eased silently shut, its seams vanished, and, with a sharp, metallic click, it locked.

"We have access to Aqua, Scarlet, and Lavender Levels," she told them. "Follow me to the medical wing." She proceeded down a concrete hallway with a high arched ceiling, recessed lights, and security cameras. "I know the Covenant entered the Epsilon Eridani system at approximately oh-five-hundred hours. ONI Section Three staff evacuated this facility at oh-fivethirty hours. I a.s.sume you're not here to let me know it's safe to come out?"

"Yes, ma'am," Fred replied. "I mean, no, ma'am. It's not safe. The Fleet engaged the Covenant, but the enemy managed to land ground forces on Reach. We were sent to the surface to protect the orbital-gun generators." He stopped, took a deep breath, and continued. "We were not successful in that mission. Covenant forces overwhelmed our position." He glanced back at Kelly and the other Spartans. "We fell back here. . . we thought it would be secure."

They continued down the sloping pa.s.sage; t.i.tanium doors irised open for them and closed as soon as they pa.s.sed.

"I see," Dr. Halsey replied. "And Captain Keyes? John?"

"Unknown," Fred told her. "The Master Chief and part of our team attempted to retrieve an unsecured NAV database from an orbital station before the Covenant got to it. a.s.suming he was successful, and given Captain Keyes's record of combat against the Covenant..." Fred's voice trailed off.

"I'm sure they accomplished their mission and escaped," Dr. Halsey said, finis.h.i.+ng the thought for him. "John has never lost." "No, ma'am," Fred replied.

122 HALO: FIRST STRIKE.

5 5.

They walked in silence for a moment past a display of cap- Z.

tured insurgent flags that had been mounted under gla.s.s along

the curved concrete wall. Most were emblazoned with an array

of gaudy insignia-family crests, bloodied dragons, and scorched

crossed swords. They continued past these remnants of a rebel- Z.

lion the UNSC no longer had to worry about.

5 5.

"Doctor Halsey?" Fred said. "Permission to speak freely?"

"Granted," she said. "I don't stand on ceremony, particularly S S.

given the circ.u.mstances. Speak your mind."

"Ma'am, something isn't normal about this Covenant inva

sion," Fred told her. "They've won, but they aren't gla.s.sing the

planet. At least not completely-as near as I can determine,

they've only hit the poles and a portion of the lower lat.i.tudes."