There were only thirty-two soldiers left in his squad. Thirty candidates had “washed out” of the Spartanprogram; they died during the augmentation process. The other dozen, suffering from side effects of theprocess, 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 allover again.
John wished Chief Mendez had warned him. He could have prepared. Maybe that was the trick to thelast 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 thehigh-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 ceilingby a thick elastic band. There were only certain allowed frequencies at which the bag could be hit, or itgyrated chaotically.
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His fist jabbed forward, cobra-quick, and struck. The speed bag moved, but slowly, like it wasunderwater . . . far too slowly considering how hard he had hit it. The tension on the line must be turnedway down.
He twanged the line and it hummed. It was tight.
Was everything broken in this room?
He pulled a pin from the locking collar on the bench press. John walked to the center section—supposedly one gee. He held the pin a meter off the deck and dropped it. It clattered on the deck.
It looked as if it had fallen normally . . . but somehow it also looked slow to John.
He set the timer on his watch and dropped the pin again. Forty-five-hundredths of a second.
One meter in about a half second. He forgot the formula for distance and acceleration, so he ran throughthe calculus and rederived the equation. He even did the square root.
He frowned. He had always struggled with math before.
The answer was a gravitational acceleration of nine point eight meters per second squared. One standardgee.
So the roomwas rotating correctly.He was out of calibration.
His experiment was cut short. Four men entered the gym. They were out of uniform, wearing only shortsand boots. Their heads were cleanly shaven. They were all heavily muscled, lean, and fit. The largest ofthe four was taller than John. Scars covered one side of his face.
John could tell they were Special Forces—Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. The ODSTs had the traditionaltattoos burned onto their arms: DROP JET JUMPERS and FEET FIRST INTO HELL.
“Helljumpers”—the infamous 105th. John had overheard mess hall chatter about them. They had areputation for success . . . and for brutality, even against fellow soldiers.
John gave them a polite nod.
They just brushed past him and started on the high-gravity free weights. The largest ODST lifted the barof the bench press. He struggled and the bar wavered unsteadily. The iron plates on the right end slid offand fell to the deck. The opposite end of the bar tilted, and he dropped the weight, almost crushing hisspotter’s foot.
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Startled by the noise, John jumped up.
“What the—” The big ODST stood and glared at the locking collar that had slipped off. “Someone tookthe pin.” He growled and turned to John.
John picked up the pin. “The error was mine,” he said and stepped forward. “My apologies.”
The four ODSTs moved as one toward John. The big guy with the scars stood a hand’s breadth awayfrom John’s nose. “Why don’t you take that pin and shove it, meat?” he said, grinning. “Or better yet,maybe I should make you eat it.” He nodded to his friends.
John only knew three ways to react to people. If they were his superior officers, he obeyed them. If theywere part of his squad, he helped them. If they were a threat, he neutralized them.
So when the men surrounding him moved . . . he hesitated.
Not because he was afraid, but because these men could have fallen into any of John’s three categories.He didn’t know their rank. They were fellow servicemen in the UNSC. But, at the moment, they didn’tseem friendly.
The two men flanking him grabbed John’s biceps. The one behind him tried to slip an arm around hisneck.
John hunched his shoulders and tucked his chin to his chest so he couldn’t be choked. He whipped hisright elbow over the hand holding him, pinned it to his side, and then straight punched the man andbroke his nose.
The other three reacted, tightening their grips and stepping closer—but like the dropped pin, they movedslowly.
John ducked and slipped out of the unsuccessful headlock. He spun free, breaking the grasp of the manon his left at the same time.
“Stand down!” A booming voice echoed across the gym.
A sergeant stepped into the gym and strode toward them. Unlike Mendez, who was fit and trim and wasalways serious, this man’s stomach bulged over his belt, and he looked bemused.
John snapped to attention. The others stood there and continued to glare at John.
“Sarge,” the man with the bleeding nose said. “We were just—”
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“Did I ask you a question?” the Sergeant barked.
“No, Sergeant!” the man replied.
The Sergeant eyed John, then the ODSTs. “You’re all so eager to fight, get in the ring and go to it.”
“Sir!” John said. He went to the boxing ring, slipped through the ropes, and stood there waiting.
This was starting to make sense. It was a mission. John had received orders from a superior officer, andthe four men were now targets.
The big ODST pushed through the ropes and the others gathered to watch. “I’m going to rip you topieces, meat,” he grunted through clenched teeth.
John sprang off his back foot and launched his entire weight behind his first strike. His fist smashed intothe man’s wide chin. John’s left hand followed and impacted on the soldier’s jaw.
The man’s hands came up; John stepped in, pinned one of the man’s arms to his chest, and followedthrough with a hook to his floating ribs. Bones broke.
The man staggered back. John took a short step, brought his heel down on the man’s knee. Three morepunches and the man was against the ropes . . . then he stopped moving, his arm and leg and neck tiltedat unnatural angles.
The three other men moved. The one with the bloody nose grabbed an iron bar.
John didn’t need orders this time. Three attackers at once—he had to take them out before theysurrounded him. He might be faster, but he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.
The man with the iron bar swung a vicious blow at John’s ribs; John sidestepped, grabbed the man’shand, and clamped it to the bar. He twisted the bar and crushed the bones of his attacker’s wrist.
John snapped a side kick toward the second man, caught him in the groin, crushing the soft organs andbreaking his target’s pelvis.
John pulled the bar free—whipped around and caught the third man in the neck, hitting him so hard theODST was propelled over the ropes.
“At ease, Number 117,” Chief Petty Officer Mendez barked.
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John obeyed and dropped the bar. Like the pin, it seemed to take too long for the impromptu weapon tohit the deck.
The ODSTs lay crumpled on the ground, either unconscious or dead.
Mendez, at the far end of the gym, strode toward the boxing ring.
The Sergeant stood with his mouth open. “Chief Mendez, sir!” He snapped a crisp salute. “What are you—” He turned to John, his eyes widened, and he murmured, “He’s one ofthem , isn’t he?”
“Medics are on their way,” Mendez said calmly. He stepped closer to the Sergeant. “There are two intelofficers waiting for you in Ops. They’ll debrief you . . .” He stepped back. “I suggest you report to themimmediately.”
“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant said. He almost ran out of the gym. He looked once over his shoulder at John;then he moved even faster.
“Your workout is over for today,” Mendez told John.
John saluted and left the ring.
A team of medics entered with stretchers and rushed toward the boxing ring.
“Permission to speak, sir?” John said.
Mendez nodded.
“Were those men part of a mission? Were they targets or teammates?”
John knew that thishad to be some sort of mission. The Chief had been too close for it to be acoincidence.
“You engaged and neutralized a threat,” Mendez replied. “That action seems to have answered yourquestion, Squad Leader.”
John wrinkled his forehead as he thought it through. “I followed the chain of command,” he said. “TheSergeant told me to fight. I was threatened and in imminent danger. But they were still UNSC SpecialForces. Fellow soldiers.”
Mendez lowered his voice. “Not every mission has simple objectives or comes to a logical conclusion.Your priorities are to follow the orders in your chain of command, and then to preserve your life and the
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lives of your team. Is that clear?”
“Sir,” John said. “Yes, sir.” He glanced back at the ring. Blood was seeping into the canvas mat. Johnhad an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He hit the showers and let the blood rinse off him. He felt strangely sorry for the men he had killed.
But he knew his duty—the Chief had even been unusually verbose in order to clarify the matter. Followorders and keep himself and his team safe. That’s all he had to focus on. John didn’t give the incident inthe gym another thought.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
0930 Hours, September 11, 2525 (Military Calendar) / Epsilon Eridani System, Reach UNSCMilitary Complex, planet Reach
Dr. Halsey reclined in Mendez’s padded chair. She considered pilfering one of the Sweet William cigarsfrom the box on his desk—see why he considered them such a treat. The stench wafting from the box,however, was too overwhelming. How did he stand them?
The door opened and CPO Mendez halted in the doorway. “Ma’am,” he said, and stood straighter. “Iwasn’t informed that you would be visiting today. In fact, I had understood that you were out of thesystem for another week. I would have made arrangements.”
“I’m sure you would have.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Our situation has changed. Where are mySpartans? They are not in their barracks, nor on any of the ranges.”
Mendez hesitated. “They can no longer train here, ma’am. We had to find them . . . other facilities.”
Dr. Halsey stood and smoothed the pleats in her gray skirt. “Maybe you should explain that statement,Chief.”
“I could,” he replied, “but it will be easier to show you.”
“Very well,” Dr. Halsey said, her curiosity piqued. Mendez escorted her to his personal Warthog parkedoutside his office. The all-terrain combat vehicle had been refitted; the heavy chain-gun on the back hadbeen removed and replaced with a rack of Argent V missiles.
Mendez drove them off the base and onto winding mountain roads. “Reach was first colonized for itsrich titanium deposits,” Mendez told her. “There are mines in these mountains thousands of meters deep.The UNSC uses them for storage.”
“I presume you do not have my Spartans taking inventory today, Chief?”
“No, ma’am. We just need the privacy.”
Mendez drove the Warthog past a manned guardhouse and into a large tunnel that sloped steeplyunderground.
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The road wound down in a spiral, deeper into sold granite. Mendez said, “Do you remember the Navy’sfirst experiments with powered exoskeletons?”
“I’m not sure I see the connection between this place, my Spartans, and the exoskeleton projects,” Dr.Halsey replied, frowning, “but I’ll play along a bit further. Yes, I know all about the Mark I prototypes.We had to scrap the concept and redesign battle armor from the ground up for the MJOLNIR project.The Mark Is consumed enormous energy. Either they had to be plugged into a generator or useinefficient broadcast power—neither option is practical on a battlefield.”
Mendez decelerated slightly as he approached a speed bump. The Warthog’s massive tires thudded overthe obstacle.
“They used the units that weren’t scrapped,” Dr. Halsey continued, “as dock loaders to move heavyequipment.” She cocked one eyebrow. “Or might they have been dumped in a place like this?”
“There are dozens of the suits here.”
“You haven’t putmy Spartans in some of those antiques?”
“No. Their trainers are using them for their own safety,” Mendez replied. “When the Spartans recoveredfrom microgravity therapy, they were eager to get back to their routine. However, we experienced some—” He paused, searching for the right word. “ . . . difficulties.”
He glanced at his passenger. His face was grim. “Their first day back, three trainers were accidentallykilled during hand-to-hand combat exercises.”
Dr. Halsey cocked an eyebrow. “Then they are faster and stronger than we anticipated?”
“That,” Mendez replied, “would be understating the situation.”
The tunnel opened into a large cavern. There were lights scattered on the walls, overhead a hundredmeters up on the ceiling, and along the floor, but they did little to dissipate the overwhelming darkness.
Mendez parked the Warthog next to a small, prefabricated building. He jumped out and helped Dr.Halsey step from the vehicle. “This way, please.” Mendez gestured to the room. “We’ll have a betterview from inside.”
The building had three glass walls and several monitors marked MOTION, INFRARED, DOPPLER,and PASSIVE. Mendez pushed a button and the room climbed a track along the wall until they weretwenty meters off the floor.
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Mendez keyed a microphone and spoke: “Lights.”
Floodlights snapped on and illuminated a section of the cavern the size of a football field. In the centerstood a concrete bunker. Three men in the primitive Mark I power armor stood on top. Six more stoodevenly spaced around the perimeter. A red banner had been planted in the center of the bunker.
“Capture the flag?” Dr. Halsey asked. “Past all that heavy armor?”
“Yes. The trainers in those exoskeletons can run at thirty-two KPH, lift two tons, and have a thirty-millimeter minigun mounted on self-targeting armatures—stun rounds, of course. They’re also equippedwith the latest motion sensors and IR scopes. And needless to say, their armor is impervious to standardlight weapons. It would take two or three platoons of conventional Marines to take that bunker.”
Mendez spoke again in the microphone, and his voice echoed off the cavern walls: “Start the drill.”
Sixty seconds ticked by. Nothing happened. One hundred twenty seconds. “Where are the Spartans?”Dr. Halsey asked.
