Halo: Contact Harvest (25 page)

After that, things happened very quickly.

The taller escort ripped its pistol from its belt before Avery could draw or Byrne could slip his battle rifle off his shoulder. The bladed weapon boomed, and a bright spike of metal like lit magnesium sizzled into Pedersen’s chest. The Attorney General dropped the melon and his COM-tablet and fell to his knees, jaw opening and closing like a suffocating fish. He had been closest to the gold-armored leader—the unlucky victim of proximity.

The Staff Sergeants fired back at the escorts closest to their positions—Byrne at the taller, Avery at the shorter. But their bullets had no effect on the aliens’ armor. In fact, they never even touched it. Each round was deflected by invisible energy shields that followed the contours of the armor and shimmered with every impact.

“Get down!” Avery yelled to Thune, as the shorter escort tossed the leader its hammer. Then he tackled Jilan, driving her roughly to the ground.

In an instant, the silver-haired giant had the cudgel above its head, ready for a cross-body strike. Thune would have gotten his head knocked clean off his shoulders if Captain Ponder hadn’t pushed him out of the way and taken the blow himself. The hammer hit the Captain in his prosthetic left arm and sent him twisting through the air. He landed north of Byrne and slid a good twenty meters on the dew-slick grass.

Now the shorter escort had its bladed pistol out. As the creature took aim at Avery, he hugged Jilan tight—shielded her smaller body with his own. He had a moment to second-guess Ponder’s pronouncement that they had trained the recruits well—that they were ready for the split-second, life-or-death decisions combat demanded—when he heard the high-pitched triple-crack of Jenkins’ BR55. The shorter escort howled in surprise as a burst pinged off its helmet, snapping its large head back. Then all Avery could hear was the snap of bullets overhead as the twenty-four bravo recruits opened fire, full automatic.

Peppered with multiple shots, the shorter escort took a shaky step backward. It jerked left and right as if fighting off an invisible swarm of bees. Then its energy shields collapsed with a flash and a loud pop, and its armor began venting cyan smoke and sparks as dozens more MA5 rounds slammed into its unprotected plates.

Now it was the aliens’ turn to protect their own. The leader lunged toward its shorter escort, turning its back toward the greenhouse. Its golden armor must have had stronger shields, because even the bravo squads’ concentrated fire failed to take them down. The taller escort loosed a thunderous roar and raked the recruits from north to south, covering the leader as it helped its wounded comrade limp down the stairs to the second tier. Avery wasn’t sure how many of the recruits along the greenhouse had been hit—whether their screams were from fresh wounds or an excess of adrenaline.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Byrne shouted. The recruits had been firing directly over his and the others’ heads. Some of their shots had come a little too close.

“You alright?” Avery asked, pushing up from Jilan on his fists.

“Go,” she said. “I’m fine.” But she looked a little frightened. Like the day in the hospital, it was another temporary break in her unflappable facade. This time all Avery did was nod.

“One alpha: fall back!” Avery shouted, rising to his feet. “Get away from that dropship!” Avery could hear the pulse of an energy weapon and knew the first dropship’s turret had activated even before he turned south and saw bright blue streaks of plasma rake the lowest tier’s lawn—-covering fire for the armored aliens’ retreat.

“Where the hell are you going?” Byrne shouted as Avery sprinted past.

“River!”

“I’m coming with you!”

“Negative! Draw that turret’s fire while I flank!”

“Bravo! Move up!” Byrne shouted. “Healy! Get your ass out here!”

Avery saw the Corpsman rush from the greenhouse behind the charging recruits and hustle toward Ponder, med kits in hand. The Captain waved Healy off—directed him to Pedersen’s motionless form. Then Avery charged into the tree line.

“Stisen! Report!” he shouted into his mic.

“Taking fire, Staff Sergeant!” Static distorted the 2/A squad leader’s voice. “There! Over there!” he yelled to one of his men.

“Hang tight!” Avery leapt down a rocky embankment to the gardens’ middle tier. “I’m on my way!”

Avery ran as fast as he could, hurdling rocks and slaloming between cherry and pear trees. Breathing hard, he broke through the last of the blossom-heavy branches, and pulled up short, thrusting his hips backward and windmilling his arms. If he’d been going any faster he would have fallen into the river. Here at the edge of the gardens, the Mimir had carved deep into the Bifrost, creating a series of descending pools. These wide limestone cauldrons were filled with white water that grew more turbulent the closer it came to the top of the falls.

As Avery regained his balance, the second dropship swooped overhead and came to rest on the other side of the nearest pool. Tracking the ship’s downward progress, Avery spotted another of the large aliens—this one in red armor and with black fur—as it emerged from the magnolia trees on the gardens’ lowest tier. It too carried a bladed pistol and was using the weapon to guard the retreat of a pack of shorter, gray-skinned creatures with conical orange backpacks. Avery saw MA5 muzzle flashes in the trees. But the red-armored alien quickly loosed a salvo of burning spikes to quiet whatever recruits had been brave enough to fight back.

Avery raised his pistol and emptied his clip. He knew his rounds wouldn’t punch through the alien’s shields, but all he wanted was to draw the thing’s attention and keep it from hitting any of the recruits.

As Avery’s shots flashed harmlessly against its back, the alien turned. But by then Avery was already running south for the safety of a boulder. He reloaded and slid around the stone, hoping to pick off one of the smaller aliens. But most of them were already aboard the dropship. A lone straggler was just now stumbling from the trees. One of its arms was slacked by its side, and it seemed injured. Avery was about to finish it off when the armored alien grabbed its wounded comrade by the nape of its neck, ripped off its mask, and flung it into the whirlpool. The creature sunk beneath the surface then bobbed up, clutching at a pair of hissing tubes connected to its tank, before it pitched into the next pool and tumbled toward the falls.

While this unexpected fratricide ran its course, the second dropship’s ball turret finally swung into action, and Avery soon found himself diving back behind the boulder to avoid searing bolts of plasma. The splash of ionized gasses against the rock set Avery’s teeth on edge. But after a few seconds, the turret ceased fire. Avery heard the groan of anti-grav generators as the drop-ship twisted up into the sky. When he came out from behind the boulder, all the aliens were gone.

“Hold your fire!” Avery barked as he approached the magnolias on the far side of the pool. “I’m coming in!” Behind him, he could hear the reports of the bravo squads’ rifles, firing on the first dropship as it rose from the gardens. “What happened?” Avery growled at Stisen as he neared a huddle of 2/A recruits. The men were packed close together in a jumble of mossy granite. The rocks were dotted with holes that contained glowing remnants of the red-armored alien’s igneous spikes. Little smoky fires burned in the surrounding ferns where some of the rounds had ricocheted.

“What happened?” Avery asked again.

But neither Stisen nor any of his squad said a word. Most of them didn’t even bother to meet Avery’s gaze.

Combat had filled Avery with adrenaline, and he was about to lose his temper when he realized what the recruits
were
looking at. It took him a moment more to recognize that the thing splayed against granite was the savaged body of a human being. And it wasn’t until Avery knelt down beside the corpse that he recognized Osmo’s plump, boyish face streaked with his own blood. The recruit was split open across his belly.

“I told him: Stay away from the lawn.” Stisen swallowed hard. “I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

Avery clenched his jaw. But he knew there was no way the squad leader could have anticipated that the second dropship would swing in behind them, low above the river, and secretly release a backup team. “Did you see him get hit?” Avery asked.

Stisen shook his head. “No.”

“It was one of the little ones,” Burdick whispered. His eyes remained locked on the spill of organs from Osmo’s gut. “It knocked him to the ground. Tore him apart.”

“I heard his weapon fire,” Stisen said. “But it was too late.”

Avery rose to his feet. “Any other casualties?”

Again Stisen shook his head.

“Byrne. Talk to me,” Avery barked.

“Captain’s hurt pretty bad. Bravo squads have three wounded, one serious. Dass says his boys are fine.”

“Thune?”

“Not happy. Pedersen’s dead.”

“Looked like it.”

“We better clear out, Johnson. Bastards might circle back.”

“Agreed.” Avery lowered his voice. “I’m gonna need a bag.”

“Who?”

“Osmo.”

“Shite,” Byrne spat. “Alright. I’ll tell Healy.”

Avery removed his duty cap and wiped his hand across his brow. Staring down at Osmo, he noticed the recruit still held his MA5 tight in his right hand. The Staff Sergeant was glad Osmo had seen his attacker and had a chance to go down shooting. Osmo’s rifle fire had alerted his comrades to danger, saving their lives even as he lost his own. Avery tried not to blame himself for what had happened. Like Stisen, he had done what he thought was best. Osmo was just the first recruit to fall. As much as Avery hoped he would also be the last, he steeled himself against the knowledge that the aliens had just begun a war—and that there would be a lot more casualties to come.

Maccabeus released his hammer and let it clang onto the troop-bay floor. This was the
Fist of Rukt,
an ancient weapon passed down from one Chieftain to the next for generations of Maccabeus’ clan. It deserved greater care. But Maccabeus was too worried about Licinus to stand on ceremony. His ancestors would have to understand.

“Vorenus! Hurry!” he bellowed, muscling Licinus upright. The Spirit shook violently as it hurtled back into the hazy sky, and even the mighty Chieftain had a difficult time propping his wounded pack member’s unconscious bulk against the bay’s inner wall.

Vorenus stumbled down the bay, hefting a portable aid station. He set the octagonal box by Licinus’ feet then held him steady while Maccabeus fastened restraining bands around his legs and arms. Sangheili Spirits had sophisticated stasis fields to keep their warriors upright. But Maccabeus had been denied this technology as well, and he’d had to make do with a more basic solution.

“Give me a compress!” Maccabeus peeled off Licinus’ breastplate. The armor had a crack down the middle that oozed dark red blood. Once the plate was free, Maccabeus smoothed his wounded pack member’s brown fur, probing for two whistling holes in his chest. The aliens’ weapons had penetrated one of Licinus’ lungs, forcing its collapse.

Vorenus handed Maccabeus a thin sheet of bronze-colored mesh. Properly affixed, the material would form a partial seal over the wounds, allowing air to escape as Licinus exhaled but keeping it out as he inhaled; as long as the lung wasn’t too badly damaged, it would reinflate. The mesh also contained a coagulant that would help keep the young Jiralhanae’s remaining blood inside his body. When they made it back to
Rapid Conversion,
Maccabeus would let the ship’s automated surgery suite do the rest.

If
we make it back,
the Chieftain growled to himself as the Spirit jerked to starboard, executing another evasive maneuver. So far the aliens hadn’t activated any anti-air defenses, but Maccabeus felt certain they would. The aliens’ infantry weapons were fairly crude—not much more sophisticated than the Jiralhanae’s at the time of the San’Shyuum’s missionary contact. But they had to have missiles or some other kinetic weapons system, or their planet would be defenseless. And Maccabeus doubted the aliens were as dumb as that.

“Uncle? Are you harmed?” Tartarus’ voice boomed from Maccabeus’ signal unit.

“I am not.” The Chieftain gripped the back of Vorenus’ neck. “Watch after him,” he said, glancing toward Licinus. Vorenus nodded his assent. “Did you claim a relic?” Maccabeus asked Tartarus as he knelt and retrieved the
Fist of Rukt.

“No, Chieftain.”

Maccabeus couldn’t help an angry huff. “But the Luminary showed
dozens
of holy objects—all very close at hand!”

“I found nothing but their warriors.”

Maccabeus stalked toward the Spirit’s cabin, his free hand pressed against the wall of the bay to keep himself steady as the dropship continued its wrenching climb. “Did you conduct a thorough search?”

“The Unggoy were overeager and broke ranks,” Tartarus rumbled. “We lost the element of surprise.”

“Deacon,” Maccabeus barked as he ducked into the cabin. “Tell me you have better news.”

Another Jiralhanae named Ritul, who was too young to have earned his masculine “us” suffix, manned the flight controls. Maccabeus would have preferred a more experienced pilot, but with a total of five Jiralhanae on the two Spirits, he had to keep some of his older, more experienced pack members on board
Rapid Conversion
in case of an emergency.