The Flood (6 page)

The camouflage, combined with his own talent for stealth, had proven to be extremely effective. Since he had come aboard, ’Nosolee had toured both the ship’s engine room and fire control center prior to arriving on the bridge. Now, standing in front of a vent, the Elite contemplated what to do next.

The ship’s AI had either been removed or destroyed, he was sure of that. At least some senior personnel remained, however – which meant there was still a chance.

In fact, based on the manner in which the other humans interacted with him, ’Nosolee felt certain that the man named “Keezz” held the position of Ship Master. A very valuable prize indeed.

But how to capture the human? He wouldn’t come willingly, that was obvious, and his companions were armed. The moment ’Nosolee deactivated his camouflage they would shoot him. Individually, the humans were weaklings, but they were dangerous in packs. And animals grew all the more dangerous the nearer they came to extinction.

No, patience was the key, which meant that the Elite would have to wait. Vapor continued to roll out of the cold air vent, and the air seemed to shimmer, but no one noticed.

“All right,” Keyes said, “let’s put her down... Stand by to fire the bow thrusters... Fire!”

The bow thrusters ignited and slowed the ship’s rate of descent. The Pillar of Autumn wobbled for a moment as it battled the ring’s gravity field, then corrected its angle of entry.

Cortana took over after that, or rather, the part of herself that she had left behind did. The Autumn’s thrusters fired in increments so small that they were like single notes in an ongoing melody. The highly adaptive subroutine tracked variables, monitored feedback, and made thousands of decisions per second.

The much-abused hull shuddered as it entered the atmosphere, started to shake, and sent a host of loose items tumbling to the deck. “That’s as far as we can take her,” Keyes announced. “Delegate all command and control functions to Cortana’s cousin, and let’s haul ass off this boat.”

There was a ragged chorus of “Aye, ayes,” as the bridge crew disengaged from the ship they had worked so hard to save, took one last look around, and drew their sidearms. The fighting had died down, but that didn’t mean
all
of the Covenant forces had left.

’Nosolee watched anxiously as the humans started to leave the bridge. He waited for the last person to exit, and fell into step behind. The beginnings of a plan had started to form in his mind. It was audacious – no, make that outrageous – but the Elite figured that made the scheme all the more likely to succeed.

The lifeboat reserved for the bridge crew was close by. Six Marines had been detailed to guard it and three of them were dead. Their bodies had been dragged off to one side and laid in a row. A corporal shouted, “Attention on deck!”

Keyes said, “As you were,” and gestured toward the hatch. “Thanks for waiting, son. I’m sorry about your buddies.”

The corporal nodded stiffly. He must have been off duty when the attack began – one half of his face needed a shave. “Thank you, sir. They took a dozen of the bastards with them.”

Keyes nodded. Three lives for twelve. It sounded like a good trade-off but how good was it really? How many Covenant troops were there, anyway? And how many would each human have to kill? He shook the thought off and jerked his thumb toward the opening. “Everybody into the boat, on the double!”

The survivors streamed onto the boat, and ’Nosolee followed, though it was difficult to avoid touching the human vermin in such tight quarters. There was a little bit of space toward the front and a handhold which would be useful once the gravity generated by the larger ship disappeared. Later, after the lifeboat landed, the Elite would find an opportunity to separate Keezz from the rest of the humans and seize him. In the meantime all he had to do was hang on, avoid detection, and make it to the surface.

The human passengers strapped in. The lifeboat exploded out of the bay, and it fell toward the ring world below. Jets fired, the small craft stabilized, and followed a precalculated glide path toward the surface.

Keyes was seated three slots aft of the pilot. He frowned, as if looking for something, then waited for the boat to clear. He leaned toward the Marine in front of him. “Excuse me, Corporal.”

“Sir?” The Marine looked exhausted, but somehow managed to snap to a form of attention, despite being belted into an acceleration chair.

“Hand me your sidearm, son.”

The expression on his face made it plain that the last thing the soldier wanted to do was part company with one of his weapons, particularly in close quarters. But the Captain was the Captain, so he had very little choice. The words, “Yes, sir,” were still making their way from the noncom’s brain to his mouth when he felt the M6D pistol being jerked out of his holster.

Would one of the 12.7mm rounds punch its way through the lifeboat’s relatively thin hull? Keyes wondered. Cause a blowout and kill everyone aboard?

He didn’t know, but one thing was certain: The Covenant son of a bitch standing in this lifeboat was about to die. Keyes raised the weapon, aimed at the very center of the strange, ghostly shimmer, and pulled the trigger.

The Elite saw the movement, had nowhere to run, and was busy reaching for his own pistol when the first bullet struck.

The M6D bucked, the barrel started to rise, and the third slug from the top of the clip passed through the slit in ’Nosolee’s helmet, blew his brains out through the back of his skull, and freed him from the tyranny of physical reality.

No sooner had the noise of the last shot died away than the camo generator failed, and an Elite appeared as if from thin air. The alien’s body floated back toward the rear of the cabin. Thousands of globules of alien blood escorted bits of brain tissue on their journey to the lifeboat’s stern.

Lieutenant Hikowa ducked as one of the Elite’s boots threatened to hit her head. She pushed the corpse away, her face impassive. The rest of the passengers were too shocked to do or say anything at all.

The Captain calmly dropped the clip from the gun, ejected the round in the chamber, and handed the weapon back to the stunned corporal.

“Thanks,” Keyes said. “That thing works pretty well. Don’t forget to reload it.”

Consistent with standard UNSC insertion protocols, Major Antonio Silva’s HEV accelerated once it was launched so that it was among the first to enter Halo’s atmosphere. There were a number of reasons for this, including the strongly held belief that officers should lead rather than follow, be willing to do anything their troops were asked to do, and expose themselves to the same level of danger.

There were still other reasons, however, beginning with the need to collect, sort, and organize the troops the moment their boots touched ground. Experience demonstrated that whatever the Helljumpers managed to accomplish during the first so-called golden hour would have a disproportionate effect on the success or failure of the entire mission. Especially now, as the Marines dropped onto a hostile world without any of the Intel briefings, virtual reality sims, or environment-specific equipment mods they would normally receive prior to such an insertion. To offset this, the command pod was equipped with a lot of gear that the regular “eggs” weren’t, including some high-powered imaging gear, and the Class C military AI required to operate it.

This particular intelligence had been programmed with a male persona, the name Wellsley – after the famous Duke of Wellington – and a personality to match. Though he was a good deal less capable than a top-level AI like Cortana,
all
of Wellsley’s capabilities were focused on things military, which made him extremely useful if somewhat narrow-minded.

The HEV shook violently and flipped end for end as the interior temperature rose to 98 degrees. Sweat poured down Silva’s face.

“So,” Wellsley continued, his voice coming in via the officer’s ear plugs, “based on the telemetry available from space, plus my analysis, it appears that the structure tagged as HS2604 will meet your needs.” The AI’s tone changed slightly as a conversational subroutine kicked in. “Perhaps you would like to call it ‘Gawilghur,’ after the fortress I conquered in India?”

“Thanks,” Silva croaked as the pod inverted a second time, “but no thanks. First:
you
didn’t take the fortress, Wellington did. Second: There weren’t any computers in 1803. Third: none of my troops would be able to pronounce ‘Gawilghur.’ The designator ‘Alpha Base’ will do just fine.”

The AI issued a passable rendition of a human sigh. “Very well, then. As I was saying,
‘Alpha Base’
is located at the top ofthis butte.” The curvilinear screen located just six inches from the end of the Marine’s nose seemed to shiver and the video morphed into a picture of a thick, pillarlike formation topped by a mesa with some variegated flat-roofed structures located at one end.

That was all Silva got to see before the HEV’s skin started to slough away revealing the alloy crash cage that contained the officer and his equipment. The air turned cold and ripped at his clothes. A moment later, the chute unfurled and assumed the shape of an airfoil. Silva winced as the pod decelerated with a bone-rattling jerk. His harness bit into his shoulders and chest.

Wellsley sent an electronic signal to the rest of the Helljumpers. The remains of their HEVs turned in whatever direction was necessary in order to orient themselves on the command pod and follow it down through the atmosphere.

All except for Private Marie Postly, who heard a
snap
as her main chute tore away. There was a sickening moment of freefall, then a jolt as the back-up chute deployed. A red light flashed on the instrument panel in front of her. She started to scream on freq two, until Silva cut her off. He closed his eyes. It was the death that every Helljumper feared, but none of them talked about. Somewhere, down toward Halo’s surface, Postly was about to dig her own grave.

Silva felt his HEV stabilize and took another look at the butte. It was tall enough to provide anyone who owned it with a good view of the surrounding countryside, plus the sheer cliffs would force attackers to either come by air or fight their way up along narrow paths. As a bonus, the structures located on top would provide his Marines with defensible shelter. “It looks good. I like it.”

“I thought you would,” Wellsley replied smugly. “There is one little problem, however.”

“What’s that?” Silva shouted as the last section of the HEV’s skin peeled away and the slipstream tore at his mask.

“The Covenant owns this particular piece of real estate,” the AI replied, calmly, “and if we want it, we’ll have to take it.”

The Master Chief watched the ring open up in front of him as the pilot guided the lifeboat in past a thick silvery edge, and down “under” the construct’s inner surface, before putting the tiny ship into a shallow dive calculated to place it on the strange landscape below. As he looked forward, he saw mountains, hills, and a plain that curved up and eventually out of focus as the ring swooped upward to complete itself somewhere over his head. The sight was beautiful, strange, and disorienting all at the same time.

Then the sightseeing was over as the ground came up to meet them. The Master Chief couldn’t tell whether the lifeboat took enemy fire, suffered an engine failure, or nicked an obstacle on final approach. It really didn’t matter; the result was the same.

The pilot had time to yell, “We’re coming in too fast!” A moment later, the hull bounced off something solid, and the Spartan was knocked off his feet.

Pain stabbed through his temples as his helmet slammed into the bulkhead on his way to the deckplates – followed by clinging blackness...

“Chief... Chief... Can you hear me?” Cortana’s voice echoed in his head.

The Spartan opened his eyes and found himself facing the overhead light panels. They flickered and sparked. “Yes, I can hear you,” he replied. “There’s no need to shout.”

“Oh,
really
?” the AI replied in an arch tone. “Maybe you’d like to file a complaint with the Covenant. The crash triggered a lot of radio traffic and it’s my guess that the welcome wagon is on the way.”

The Master Chief struggled to his feet and was just about to answer in kind when he saw the bodies. The impact of the crash had ripped the boat open and mangled the unprotected people within. No one else had survived.

There was no time to dwell on that, not if he wanted to stay alive, and keep Cortana from falling into enemy hands.

He hurried to gather as much ammo, grenades, and supplies as he could carry. He had just finished checking the pins on a quartet of frag grenades when Cortana piped up in alarm: “Warning – I’ve detected multiple Covenant dropships on approach. I recommend moving into those hills. If we’re lucky, the Covenant will believe that everyone aboard the lifeboat died in the crash.”

“Acknowledged.”

Cortana’s plan made sense. The Spartan surveyed the area for threats, then hurried toward a canyon and the bridge that crossed it. The span was devoid of safety railings, and was constructed from a strange, burnished metal. Beneath the bridge, a towering waterfall thundered down a massive drop-off.

The rest of the world arched high overhead. Large outcroppings of weather-smoothed gray rock rose ahead, and a scattering of what looked like conifers reminded him of the forests he’d trained in on Reach.