The battlefield was.
The Chief rode the elevator to the bridge to make his report, taking advantage of the momentary respiteto read Red Team’s after-action report in his display. As predicted, the Spartans of Red, Blue, and GreenTeams—augmenting three divisions of battle-hardened UNSC Marines—had stalled a Covenant groundadvance. Casualty figures were still coming in, but—on the ground, at least—the alien forces had beencompletely stonewalled.
A moment later the lift doors parted, and he stepped on the rubberized deck. He snapped a crisp salute toCaptain de Blanc. “Sir. Reporting as ordered.”
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The junior bridge officers took a step back from the Chief. They weren’t used to seeing a Spartan in fullMJOLNIR armor up close—most line troops had never even seen a Spartan. The ghostly iridescentgreen of the armor plates and the matte black layers underneath made him look part gladiator, partmachine. Or perhaps to the bridge crew, he looked as alien as the Covenant.
The view screens showed stars and Jerico VII’s four silver moons. At extreme range, a smallconstellation of stars drifted closer.
The Captain waved the Chief closer as he stared at that cluster of stars—the rest of the battlegroup. “It’shappening again.”
“Request permission to remain on the bridge, sir,” the Chief said. “I . . . want to see it this time, sir.”
The Captain hung his head, looking weary. He glanced at the Master Chief with haunted eyes. “Verywell, Chief. After all you’ve been through to save Jericho Seven, we owe you that. We’re only thirtymillion kilometers out-system, though, not half as far as I’d like to be.” He turned to the NAV Officer.“Bearing one two zero. Prepare our exit vector.”
He turned to face the Chief. “We’ll stay to watch . . . but if those bastards so much as twitch in ourdirection, we’re jumping the hell out of here.”
“Understood, sir. Thank you.”
Resolute’s engines rumbled and the ship moved off.
Three dozen Covenant ships—big ones, destroyers and cruisers—winked into view in the system. Theywere sleek, looking more like sharks than starcraft. Their lateral lines brightened with plasma—thendischarged and rained fire down upon Jericho VII.
The Chief watched for an hour and didn’t move a muscle.
The planet’s lakes, rivers, and oceans vaporized. By tomorrow, the atmosphere would boil away, too.Fields and forests were glassy smooth and glowing red-hot in patches.
Where there had once been a paradise, only hell remained.
“Make ready to jump clear of the system,” the Captain ordered.
The Chief continued to watch, his face grim.
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There had been ten years of this—the vast network of human colonies whittled down to a handful ofstrongholds by a merciless, implacable enemy. The Chief had killed the enemy on the ground—shotthem, stabbed them, and broken them with his own two hands. On the ground, the Spartansalways won.
The problem was, the Spartans couldn’t take their fight into space. Every minor victory on the groundturned into a major defeat in orbit.
Soon there would be no more colonies, no human settlements—and nowhere left to run.
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SECTION I
REVEILLE
CHAPTER ONE
0430 Hours, August 17, 2517 (Military Calendar) / Slipstream space - unknown coordinates nearEridanus Star System
Lieutenant Junior Grade Jacob Keyes awoke. Dull red light filled his blurry vision and he choked on theslime in his lungs and throat.
“Sit up, Lieutenant Keyes,” a disembodied male voice said. “Sit. Take a deep breath and cough, sir. Youneed to clear the bronchial surfactant.”
Lieutenant Keyes pushed himself up, peeling his back off the formfitting gel bed. Wisps of fogoverflowed from the cryogenic tube as he clumsily climbed out. He sat on a nearby bench, tried toinhale, and doubled over, coughing until a long string of clear fluid flowed from his open mouth.
He sat up and drew his first full breath in two weeks. He tasted his lips and almost gagged. The cryoinhalant was specially designed to be regurgitated and swallowed, replacing nutrients lost in the deepsleep. No matter how they changed the formula, though, it always tasted like lime-flavored mucus.
“Status, Toran? Are we under attack?”
“Negative, sir,” the ship’s AI replied. “Status normal. We will enter normal space near the EridanusSystem in forty-five minutes.”
Lieutenant Keyes coughed again. “Good. Thank you, Toran.”
“You’re welcome, Lieutenant.”
Eridanus was on the border of the Outer Colonies. It was just far enough off the beaten path for piratesto be lurking . . . waiting to capture a diplomatic shuttle like theHan . This ship wouldn’t last long in aspace action. Theyshould have an escort. He didn’t understand why they had been sent alone—butJunior Lieutenants didn’t question orders. Especially when those orders came from FLEETCOM HQ on
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planet Reach.
Wake-up protocols dictated that he inspect the rest of the crew to make sure no one had run intoproblems reviving. He looked around the sleep chamber: rows of stainless steel lockers and showers, amedical pod for emergency resuscitations, and forty cryogenic tubes—all empty except the one to hisleft.
The other person on theHan was the civilian specialist, Dr. Halsey. Keyes had been ordered to protecther at all costs, pilot this ship, and generally stay the hell out of her way. They might as well have askedhim to hold her hand. This wasn’t a military mission; it was baby-sitting. Someone at Fleet Commandmust have him on their blacklist.
The cover of Dr. Halsey’s tube hummed open. Mist rippled out as she sat up, coughing. Her pale skinmade her look like a ghost in the fog. Matted locks of dark hair clung to her neck. She didn’t look mucholder than him, and she was lovely—not beautiful, but definitely a striking woman. For a civilian,anyway.
Her blue eyes fixed upon the Lieutenant and she looked him over. “We must be near Eridanus,” she said.
Lieutenant Keyes almost saluted reflectively, but checked the motion. “Yes, Doctor.” His face reddenedand he looked away from her slender body.
He had drilled in cryogenic recovery a dozen times at the Academy. He’d seen his fellow officers nakedbefore—men and women. But Dr. Halsey was a civilian. He didn’t know what protocols applied.
Lieutenant Keyes got up and went to her. “Can I help you—”
She swung her legs out of the tube and climbed out. “I’m fine, Lieutenant. Get cleaned up and dressed.”She brushed past him and strode to the showers. “Hurry. We have important work to do.”
Lieutenant Keyes stood straighter. “Aye, aye, Ma’am.”
With that brief encounter, their roles and the rules of conduct crystallized. Civilian or not—like it or not—Lieutenant Keyes understood that Dr. Halsey was in charge.
The bridge of theHan had an abundance of space for a vessel of its size. That is, it had all themaneuvering room of a walk-in closet. A freshly showered, shaved, and uniformed Lieutenant Keyespulled himself into the room and sealed the pressure door behind him. Every surface of the bridge wascovered with monitors and screens. The wall on his left was a single large semicurved view screen, darkfor the moment because there was nothing in the visible spectrum to see in Slipspace.
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Behind him was theHan ’s spinning center section, containing the mess, the rec room, and the sleepchambers. There was no gravity on the bridge, however. The diplomatic shuttle had been designed forthe comfort of its passengers, not the crew.
It didn’t seem to bother Dr. Halsey. Strapped into the navigator’s couch, she wore a white jumpsuit thatmatched her pale skin, and had tied her dark hair into a simple, elegant knot. Her fingers danced acrossfour keypads, tapping in commands.
“Welcome, Lieutenant,” she said without looking up. “Please have a seat at the communication stationand monitor the channels when we enter normal space. If there’s so much as a squeak on nonstandardfrequencies, I want to know instantly.”
He drifted to the communication station and strapped himself down.
“Toran?” she asked.
“Awaiting your orders, Dr. Halsey,” the ship AI replied.
“Give me astrogation maps of the system.”
“Online, Dr. Halsey.”
“Are there any planets currently aligned with our entry trajectory and Eridanus Two? I want to pick up agravitational boost so we can move in-system ASAP.”
“Calculating now, Doctor Hal—”
“And can we have some music? Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto Number Three, I think.”
“Understood Doctor—”
“And start a preburn warm-up cycle for the fusion engines.”
“Yes, Doc—”
“And stop spinning theHan ’s central carousel section. We may need the power.”
“Working . . . ”
She eased back. The music started and she sighed. “Thank you, Toran.”
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“You’re welcome, Dr. Halsey. Entering normal space in five minutes, plus or minus three minutes.”
Lieutenant Keyes shot the doctor an admiring glance. He was impressed—few people could put ashipboard AI through its paces so rigorously as to cause a detectable pause.
She turned to face him. “Yes, Lieutenant? You have a question?”
He composed himself and pulled his uniform jacket taut. “I was curious about our mission, ma’am. Iassume we are to reconnoiter something in this system, but why send a shuttle, rather than a prowler or acorvette? And why just the two of us?”
She blinked and smiled. “A fairly accurate assumption and analysis, Lieutenant. Thisis a reconnaissancemission . . . of sorts. We are here to observe a child. The first of many, I hope.”
“A child?”
“A six-year-old male, to be precise.” She waved her hand. “It may help if you think of this purely as aUNSC-funded physiological study.” Every trace of a smile evaporated from her lips. “Which is preciselywhat you are to tell anyone who asks. Is that understood, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Keyes frowned, retrieved his grandfather’s pipe from his pocket, and turned it end over end. He couldn’tsmoke the thing—igniting a combustible on the flight deck was against every major regulation on aUNSC space vehicle—but sometimes he just fiddled with it or chewed on the tip, which helped himthink. He stuck it back into his pocket, and decided to push the issue and find out more.
“With all due respect, Dr. Halsey, this sector of space is dangerous.”
With a sudden deceleration, they entered normal space. The main view screen flickered and a millionstars snapped into focus. TheHan dove toward a cloud-swirled gas giant dead ahead.
“Stand by for burn,” Dr. Halsey announced. “On my mark, Toran.”
Lieutenant Keyes tightened his harness.
“Three . . . two . . . one.Mark. ”
The ship rumbled and sped faster toward the gas giant. The pull of the harness increased around theLieutenant’s chest, making breathing difficult. They accelerated for sixty-seven seconds . . . the storms
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of the gas giant grew larger on the view screen—then theHan arced up and away from its surface.
Eridanus drifted into the center of the screen and filled the bridge with warm orange light.
“Gravity boost complete,” Toran chimed. “ETA to Eridanus is forty-two minutes, three seconds.”
“Well done,” Dr. Halsey said. She unlocked her harness and floated free, stretching. “I hate cryo sleep,”she said. “It leaves one so cramped.”
“As I was saying before, Doctor, this system is dangerous—”
She gracefully spun to face him, halting her momentum with a hand on the bulkhead. “Oh yes, I knowhow dangerous this system is. It has a colorful history: rebel insurrection in 2494, beaten down by theUNSC two years later at the cost of four destroyers.” She thought a moment, then added, “I don’tbelieve the Office of Naval Intelligence ever found their base in the asteroid field. And since there havebeen organized raids and scattered pirate activity nearby, one might conclude—as ONI clearly has—thatthe remnants of the original rebel faction are still active. Is that that what you were worried about?”
“Yes,” the Lieutenant replied. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, but he refused to be cowed by thedoctor—by acivilian . “I need hardly remind you that it’s my job to worry about our security.”
She knew more than he did, much more, about the Eridanus System—and she obviously had contacts inthe intelligence community. Keyes had never seen an ONI spook—to the best of his knowledge anyway.Mainline Navy personnel had elevated such agents to near-mythological status.
Whatever else he thought of Dr. Halsey, he would assume from now on that she knew what she wasdoing.
Dr. Halsey stretched once more and then strapped herself back onto the navigation couch. “Speaking ofpirates,” she said with her back now to him, “weren’t you supposed to be monitoring communicationchannels for illegal signals? Just in case someone takes undue interest in a lone, unescorted, diplomaticshuttle?”
Lieutenant Keyes cursed himself for his momentary lapse and snapped to. He scanned all frequenciesand had Toran cross-check their authentication codes.
“All signals verified,” he reported. “No pirate transmissions detected.”
“Continue to monitor them, please.”
An awkward thirty minutes passed. Dr. Halsey was content to read reports on the navigational screens,
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and kept her back to him.
Lieutenant Keyes finally cleared his throat. “May I speak candidly, Doctor?”
“You don’t need my permission,” she said. “By all means, speak candidly, Lieutenant. You’ve beendoing a fine job so far.”
Under normal circumstances, among normal officers, that last remark would have been insubordination—or worse, a rebuke. But he let it pass. Normal military protocols seemed to have been jettisoned onthis flight.
“You said we were here to observe a child.” He shook his head dubiously. “If this is a cover for realmilitary intelligence work, then, to tell the truth, there are better-qualified officers for this mission. Igraduated from UNSC OCS only seven weeks ago. My orders had me rotated to theMagellan . Thoseorders were rescinded, ma’am.”
She turned and scrutinized him with icy blue eyes. “Go on, Lieutenant.”
He reached for his pipe, but then checked the motion. She would probably think it a silly habit.
“If this is an intel op,” he said, “then . . . then I don’t understand why I’m here at all.”
She leaned forward. “Then, Lieutenant, I shall be equally candid.”
Something deep inside Lieutenant Keyes told him he would regret hearing whatever Dr. Halsey had tosay. He ignored the feeling. He wanted to know the truth.
