0616 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /UNSC Pelican dropship, Epsilon Eridani System near Reach Station Gamma“Brace for maneuvering!” the Master Chief barked.
The Spartans dove for safety harnesses and strapped in. “All secure!” Kelly shouted.
The Master Chief killed the Pelican’s forward thrusters and triggered a short, sudden reverse burn. TheSpartans were brutally slammed forward into their harnesses as the Pelican’s acceleration bled away.
The Master Chief quickly shut down the engines.
The tiny Pelican faced the Covenant frigate. At a kilometer’s distance, the alien ship’s launch bay andpulse laser turrets looked close enough to touch on the view screen; enough firepower to vaporize theSpartans in the blink of an eye.
The Master Chief’s first instinct was to fire their HE Anvil-II missiles and autocannons—but he checkedhis hand as he reached for the triggers.
That would only attract their attention . . . which was the last thing he wanted. For the moment, the alienvessel ignored them—probably because the Master Chief had shut down the Pelican’s engines. But theship also seemed dead in space: no lights, no single ships launched, and no plasma weapons charging.
The dropship continued toward the docking station, their momentum putting distance between them andthe frigate.
Space around the Covenant ship boiled and pulled apart—and two more alien ships appeared.
They, too, ignored the dropship. Was it too small to bother with? The Master Chief didn’t care. His luck,it seemed, was holding.
He checked the radar—thirty kilometers to the docking ring. He ignited the engines to slow them down.
He had to or they would crash into the station.
Twenty kilometers.
Rumbling shook the dropship. They slowed—but it wasn’t going to be enough.
Ten kilometers.
“Hang on,” he told Linda and James.
The sudden impact whiplashed the Master Chief back and forth in his seat. The straps holding himsnapped.
He blinked . . . saw only blackness. His vision cleared and he noted that his shield bar was dead. Itslowly began to fill again. Every display and monitor in the cockpit had shattered.
The Master Chief shook off the disorientation and pulled himself aft.
The interior of the dropship was a mess. Everything tied down had come loose. Ammunition boxes hadbroken open in the crash landing and loose carriages filled the air. Coolant leaked, spraying blobs ofblack fluid. In zero gravity, everything looked like the inside of a shaken snowglobe.
James and Linda floated off the deck of the Pelican. They slowly moved.
“Any injuries?” the Master Chief asked.
“No,” Linda replied.
“I think so,” James said. “I mean, no. I’m good, sir. Was that a landing or did those Covenant ships takea shot at us?”
“If they had, we wouldn’t be here to talk about it. Get whatever gear you can and get out, double time,”
the Master Chief said.
The Master Chief grabbed an assault rifle and a Jackhammer launcher. He found a satchel. Inside was akilogram of C-12, detonators, and a Lotus antitank mine. Those would come in handy. He salvaged fiveintact clips of ammunition but couldn’t locate his thruster pack. He’d have to do without one.
“No more time,” he said. “We’re sitting ducks here. Out the side hatch now.”
Linda went first. She paused, and—once she was satisfied the Covenant weren’t lying in ambush—motioned them forward.
The Master Chief and James exited, clung to the side of the Pelican in zero gravity, and took flankingpositions at the fore and aft ends of the dropship.
Space dock Gamma was a three-kilometer-diameter ring. Dull gray metal arced in either direction. Onthe surface were communications dishes and a few conduits—no real cover. The docking bay doorswere sealed tight. The station wasn’t spinning. The dockmaster AI must have shut the place up tightwhen it detected the unsecured NAV database.
The Master Chief frowned when he spotted the tail end of their Pelican—crumpled and embedded intothe station’s hull. Its engines were ruined. The dropship jutted out at an angle; its prow and the chargesof C-12 that were supposed to have blasted them into a Covenant ship—now pointed into the air.
The Master Chief started to drift off the station. He clipped himself to the hull of the dropship.
“Blue-Two,” he said, “police those explosives.” He gestured to the prow. The motion sent him gyrating.
“Yes, sir.” James puffed his thruster pack once and drifted up to the nose of the Pelican.
The Spartans had trained to fight in zero gravity. It wasn’t easy. The slightest motion sent you spinningout of control.
A flash overhead reflected off the hull. The Master Chief looked up. The Covenant ships were alive now—lances of blue laser fire flashed and motes of red light collected on their lateral lines. Their enginesglowed and they moved close to the station.
A streak crossed the Master Chief’s field of vision in the blink of an eye. The center Covenant frigateshields strobed silver; the ship shattered into a cloud of glistening fragments.
The orbital guns had turned and fired on the new threat.
This was a suicide maneuver. How did the Covenant think they could withstand that kind of firepower?
“Blue-One,” the Master Chief said. “Scan those ships with your scope.”
Linda floated closer to the Master Chief. She pointed her sniper rifle up and sighted the ships. “We’vegot inbound targets,” she said, and fired.
The Master Chief hit his magnification. A dozen pods burst from the two remaining Covenant ships.
Trails of exhaust pointed right at the Spartans’ position. There were tiny specks accompanying the pods;the Master Chief increased his display’s magnification to maximum. They looked like men in thrusterpacks—No, they were definitely not men.
These things had elongated heads—and even at this distance, the Master Chief could see past theirfaceplates and noted their pronounced sharklike teeth and jaws. They wore armor; it shimmered as theycollided with debris—which meant energy shields.
These must be the elite warrior class Dr. Halsey had conjectured. The Covenant’s best? They were aboutto find out.
Linda shot one of the EVA aliens. Shields shimmered around its body and the round bounced off. Shedidn’t stop. She pumped four more rounds into the creature—hitting a pinpoint target in its neck. Itsshields flickered and a round got through. Black blood gushed from the wound and the creature writhedin space.
The other aliens spotted them. They jetted toward their location, firing plasma rifle and needlers.
“Take cover,” the Master Chief said. He unclipped himself and clung to the side of the dropship.
Linda followed—bolts of fire spattering on the hull next to them, spattering molten metal. Crystallineneedles bounced off their shields“Blue-Two,” the Master Chief said. “I said fall back.”
James almost had the explosives rigged to the nose free. A shower of needles hit him. One stuck the tankof his thruster harness—penetrated. It remained embedded for a split second . . . then exploded.
Exhaust billowed from the pack. The uncontrolled jets spun James in the microgravity. He slammed intothe station, bounced—then rocketed away into space, tumbling end over end, unable to control histrajectory.
“Blue-Two! Come in,” the Master Chief barked over the COM channel.
“Can—control—” James’ voice was punctuated with static. “They’ve—everywhere—” There was morestatic and the COM channel went dead.
The Master Chief watched his teammate tumble away into the darkness. All his training, his superhumanstrength, reflexes, and determination . . . completely useless against the laws of physics.
He didn’t even know if James was dead. For the moment, he had to assume that he was—put him out ofhis mind. He had a mission to complete.If he survived, then he’d get every UNSC ship in the area tomount a search and rescue op.
Linda shrugged out of her thruster harness.
The suppressing fire from the aliens halted. Covenant landing pods descended toward the station,touching down at roughly three-hundred-meter intervals.
A pod landed twenty meters away. Its sides uncurled like the petals of a flower. Jackals in black-andbluevacuum suits drifted out. Their boots adhered to the station’s hull.
“Let’s pave a path out of here, Blue-One.”
“Roger that,” she said.
Linda targeted spots their energy shields didn’t cover—boots, the top of one’s head, a fingertip. ThreeJackals went down in quick succession, their spacesuits ruptured by her marksmanship. The restscrambled for cover inside the pod.
The Master Chief braced his back against the dropship and fired his assault rifle in controlled bursts. Themicrogravity played havoc with his aim.
One Jackal leaped from his cover—straight towards them.
The Master Chief switched to full auto and blasted his shield with enough rounds to send the alien flyingbackward off the station. He spent the clip, reloaded, and got out a grenade. He pulled the pin andlobbed it.
He threw it in a flat trajectory. The grenade ricocheted off the far side of the pod and bounced inside.
It detonated—a flash and spray of freeze-dried blue vented upward. The explosion had caught the enemyon their unshielded sides.
“Blue-One, secure that landing pod. I’ll cover you.” He leveled his rifle.
“Yes, sir.” Linda grabbed a pipe that ran along the station and pulled herself hand over hand. When shewas inside the pod, she flashed him a green light on his heads-up display.
The Master Chief crawled toward the prow of the Pelican. As he crested the ship he saw that the stationwas swarming with Covenant troops: a hundred Jackals and at least six Elites. They pointed toward thePelican and slowly started to advance on their position.
“Come and get it,” the Master Chief muttered.
He pulled two grenades from his satchel and wedged them into the C-12 on the nose of the ship. Hepushed off and propelled himself back to his teammate.
She grabbed him and pulled him into the interior of the open pod. Bits of a dozen dead Jackals pastedthe inside.
“You’ve got a new target,” he told her. “A pair of frag grenades. Sight on them and wait for my order tofire.”
She propped her rifle on the edge of the open pod and aimed.
Jackals crawled over the Pelican—one of the Elite warriors appeared as well, maneuvering in a harness,flying over the ship. The Elite gestured imperiously, directing the Jackals to search the ship.
“Fire,” the Master Chief said.
Linda fired once. The grenades detonated; the chain reaction set off the twenty kilograms of C-12.
A subsonic fist slammed into the Master Chief and threw him to the far side of the landing pod. Eventwenty meters away, the sides of the craft warped and the top edges sheared away.
He looked over the edge.
There was a crater where the Pelican had been. If anything had survived that blast, it was now in orbit.
“We have a way in,” the Master Chief remarked.
Linda nodded.
In the distance, where the station curved out of view, more Covenant pods landed—and the MasterChief saw the silhouettes of hundreds of Jackals and Elite fighters crawling and jetting their way closer.
“Let’s go, Blue-One.”
They pulled themselves toward the hole. The detonation had blown through five decks, leaving a tunnelof ragged-edged metal and sputtering gas hoses.
The Master Chief called up the station’s blueprints on his display. “That one,” he said, and pointed twodecks down. “B level. That’s where bay nine and theCircumference should be, three hundred meters toport.”
They climbed into the interior and into B deck’s corridor. The station’s emergency lights were on, fillingthe passage with dull red illumination.
The Master Chief paused and signaled her to halt. He pulled out the Lotus antitank mine from his satcheland set it on the deck. He set the sensitivity to maximum and triggered its proximity detectors. Anythingthat tried to follow them would get a surprise.
The Master Chief and Linda gripped the handrails along the corridor and pulled themselves up thecurved hall.
Flashes of automatic-weapons fire flashed in the low light, just ahead of their position.
“Blue-One,” the Master Chief said, “Ahead, ten meters—there’s a pressure door open.”
They quickly took positions on either side of the door. He sent his optical probe around the corner.
The docking bay had a dozen ship berths on two levels. The Master Chief spotted a few batteredPelicans; a station service bot; and in berth eleven, a sleek private craft held in place by massive serviceclamps. Where the ship’s name should have been painted on the prow there was only a simple circle.
That had to be the target.
Two berths aft, four Marines in vac suits were pinned down by plasma and needler fire. The MasterChief turned his optical probe and saw what was pinning them down: thirty Jackals were in the forwardportion of the bay, slowly advancing, under cover of their energy shields.
The Marines tossed frag grenades. The Jackals scrambled for cover and turned their shields.
Three silent explosions flashed in the vacuum. Not one of the Jackals fell.
Another explosion rippled through the deck—behind them. It shook the Master Chief’s bones in hisarmor. The Lotus mine had detonated.
They didn’t have much time before the Covenant force outside caught up with them.
The Master Chief readied his assault rifle.
“Take those Jackals out, Blue-One. I’ll make a break for theCircumference .”
Linda gripped the edge of the pressure door with her left hand, propped her rifle across it, and curled herright hand around the trigger.
“There are a lot of them,” she said. “This may take a few seconds.”
A flicker of a contact appeared on the Master Chief’s motion tracker—then vanished. He turned andbrought his assault rifle to bear. Nothing. “Hang on, Blue-One. I’m going to check our six.”
Linda’s acknowledgment light winked on.
The Master Chief eased back down the passage ten meters. No sensor contact. There was just dim redlight and shadows . . . but one of the shadows moved.
It only took an instant for the image to fully resister: a black film peeled away from the darkness. It wasa meter taller than John and wore blue armor similar to that on Covenant warships. Its helmet waselongated and it had rows of sharp teeth; it looked like it was smiling at him.
The Elite warrior leveled a plasma pistol.
At this range, there was no way the creature would miss—the plasma weapon would cut through John’sslowly recharging shields almost immediately. And if John used his assault rifle, it wouldn’t cut thoughthe alien’s energy shield. In a simple exchange of fire, the alien would win.
Unacceptable. He needed to change the odds.
The Master Chief pushed off the wall and launched himself at the creature. He slammed into the Elitebefore it had a chance to fire.
They tumbled backward and crashed into the bulkhead. The Master Chief saw the alien’s shield flickerand fade——he hammered on the edge of the alien’s gun.
The creature howled soundlessly in the vacuum and dropped the plasma weapon.
The Elite kicked him in the midsection; his shield took the brunt of the attack, but the blow sent himspinning end over end. He slapped his hand against the ceiling and stalled his spin—then dove under theElite’s follow-up attack.
The Master Chief tried to grab the alien—but their weakened shields slid and crackled over one another.
Too slippery.
They bounced down the curved length of the passage. The Master Chief’s boot caught on a railing,twisted—a lance of pain shot up his leg—but he halted their combined momentum.
The Elite pushed away and caught a railing on the opposite side of the passage. Then it turned andsprang back toward the Master Chief.
John ignored the pain in his leg. He pushed himself at the alien.
They collided—the Master Chief struck with both fists, but the force slid off the Elite’s shields.
The Elite grabbed him and threw him. They both spun into the wall.
The Master Chief was pinned—perfect: he had something to brace against in the zero gravity. He swunghis fist, used every muscle in his body, and connected with the alien’s midsection. Its shield shimmeredand crackled but some of the momentum transferred. The alien doubled over and reeled backward——and its hands found the plasma weapon that it had dropped.
The Elite recovered quickly and aimed at the Master Chief.
The Master Chief jumped, grabbed its wrist. He locked his armor’s glove articulation—it became a viseclamp.
They wrestled for control. The gun pointed at the alien—then the Master Chief.
The alien was as strong as the Master Chief.
They spun and bounced off the floor, ceiling, and walls. They were too evenly matched.
The Master Chief managed to force a stalemate: the pistol now pointed straight up between their bodies.
If it went off it would hit them both—one shot at point-blank range might collapse their shields. They’dboth fry.
The Master Chief whipped his forearm and elbow over the creature’s wrist and slammed it in the head.
For a split second it was stunned and its strength ebbed.
John turned the gun into its face—squeezed the firing mechanism. The plasma discharge exploded intothe creature. Fire sprayed across its shields; they shimmered, flickered, and dimmed.
The energy splash washed over the Master Chief; his shields drained to a quarter. The internal suittemperature spiked to critical levels.
But the Elite’s shields were dead.
He didn’t wait for the plasma gun to recharge. The Master Chief grabbed the creature with his left hand—his right fist struck an uppercut to the head, a hook to the throat and chest, three rapid-fire strikes withhis forearm to its helmet—that cracked and hissed atmosphere.
The Master Chief pushed away and fired the pistol again. The bolt of fire caught the Elite in the face.
It writhed and clawed at nothing. The Elite shuddered . . . suspended in midair; it twitched and finallystopped moving.
The Master Chief shot it again to make sure it was dead.
Motion sensors picked up multiple targets approaching down the corridor—forty meters and closing.
The Master Chief turned and double-timed it back to Blue-One.
Linda was where he left her, shooting her targets with absolute concentration and precision.
“There are more on the way,” he told her.
“Reinforcements have already arrived in the bay,” she reported. “Twenty, at least. They’re learning,overlapping their shields—can’t get a good shot in.”
Static crackled over the Master Chief’s COM channel:“Master Chief, this is Captain Keyes. Did you getthe NAV database?” The Captain sounded out of breath.
“Negative, sir. We’re close.”
“We’re bound in-system to retrieve you. ETA is five minutes. Destroy theCircumference’s database andget out ASAP. If you cannot accomplish your mission . . . I’ll have to take out the station with thePillar ofAutumn’s weapons. We are running out of time.”
“Understood, sir.”
The channel snapped off.
Captain Keyes was wrong. They weren’t running out of time . . . time had already run out.