Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (6 page)

Lightning stuck. He was ground zero, and thunder kicked Kurt forward like a rag doll.

He'd absorbed a near-direct grenade explosion once, and it had felt something like this. Only this particular explosion hadn't been
near
him; it had been
on
his armor.

His first thought was sniper fire—an ambush. But then his vision cleared and he saw stars, the dull red binary suns, and Station Delphi whirling around.

His T-PACK had busted a line. He could feel the propellant gushing out… even though the tanks had been designed with redundant shutoff valves, and emergency self-sealing foam to prevent such a decompression.

He heard CPO Mendez's voice in his head, again:
"Start tumbling in this gear, start praying."

"Mayday," he called out. "Suit malfunction! Mayday!"

Kurt had no idea where he was, where his team was now positioned, or how fast he was rocketing away from them.

Of course, they didn't open radio channels on this mission. Point-to-point single-beam lasers carried their COM signal. Gyrating out of control, any signal that hit a tiny Spartan-sized target in the vast volume of open space would be nothing short of a miracle.

He finally got enough bearings to tap the system override. No response. He hit the harness emergency release. It was jammed.

"I'm okay," he said over the COM. "Life support's minimal, but still functional. Going to deep breathing mode to conserve air and power. I'll ride it out. You should be able to pick up my IFF transponder once I'm clear. Activating rescue beacon now. I'll be okay. I'll be o—"

CHAPTER

FOUR

ADDENDUM \ AFTER-ACTION REPORT \ UNSC-NAVSPECWEP OPS, FILE EHY-97 SUBJECT: SPARTAN-051

D
URING AFOREMENTIONED OPERATION (SEE ATTACHED MISSION PROFILE) TO INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE REBEL ACTIVITY ON THE DECOMMISSIONED CONSTRUCTION PLATFORM 966A, UNOFFICIALLY NAMED STATION DELPHI, A CATASTROPHIC MALFUNCTION OF A THRUSTER PACK (MODEL 050978, UNIT SERIAL #82.10923.192) OCCURRED.

AT 1000 HOURS, A THRUSTER MALFUNCTION PROPELLED SPARTAN-051 OFF MISSION AND INTO INTERPLANETARY SPACE.

IMMEDIATE RESCUE ATTEMPTS COMMENCED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE UNSC PROWLER
CIRCUMFERENCE,
JOINED ON 1/13/2535, 1105 HOURS, BY THE UNSC FRIGATE
TANNENBERG
.

THREE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO MINUTES AFTER PROJECTED OXYGEN IN SPARTAN-051'S VARIANT-V MJOLNIR SUIT EXPIRED, OPERATION TERMINATED AS NEARBY COVENANT ACTION (SEE ATTACHED REFERENCES) PROMPTED AN IMMEDIATE CALL TO ACTION OF ALL NEARBY UNSC FORCES.

CAUSE OF THRUSTER MALFUNCTION REMAINS UNKNOWN, PENDING FURTHER INVESTIGATION, BUT IT IS HYPOTHESIZED THAT A PARTIALLY DECOMMISSIONED SHAW-FUJIKAWA TRANSLIGHT ENGINE CORE ON THE PLATFORM AND IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO SPARTAN-051 AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT MAY HAVE CAUSED A SERIES OF CATASTROPHIC ELECTRICAL MALFUNCTIONS. ANOMALOUS ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY ALSO OBSCURED FURTHER, LATER RESCUE EFFORTS IN THE REGION.

PLATFORM 966A HAS BEEN TAGGED WITH A HAZNAV SATELLITE, PENDING HMAT TEAM DISPATCH (FLEETCOM ORDER D-88934).

SPARTAN-051 S
TATUS: MISSING IN ACTION.

CHAPTER

FIV
E

1950 HOURS, DECEMBER 14, 2531 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ABOARD UNSC
POINT OF NO RETURN,
LOCATION CLASSIFIED

Kurt woke up in bed, an osmotic IV in his arm, and nearby monitors displaying his vital signs, blood composition, and brain-oxygen saturation levels.

He surmised he was in a hospital, although there was no call

button, and no obvious door. There was also a camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. Kurt felt the familiar subsonic thrum around him, and he relaxed. He was on a spaceship. Although he preferred boot-on-dirt, anywhere was better than hard vacuum.

He lowered the bed's railing, and swung his legs over the edge. Pain lanced up his side. Cracked ribs—he'd had them many times. Bruises covered his pale skin; they were especially livid on his shoulders, stomach, and waist. He checked in the mirror for injuries, and then ran his hand over the long black stubble on his head and face. He was intact… but how long had he been unconscious?

The wall slid apart and a balding man entered. Curiously he wore an Army uniform, pinned with the eagle insigne of a colonel. His dark eyes fixed upon Kurt.

"Sir!" Kurt started to stand and salute.

"At ease, soldier," the Colonel said.

Kurt checked his motion. He opened his mouth to correct the Colonel's error, but fell silent. Naval NCOs were never called "soldiers," but in Kurt's experience, officers. Army or otherwise, never appreciated correction unless lives were at stake.

The Colonel's continued stare made Kurt uneasy. In fact, several things contributed to his unease. He was on a UNSC ship, receiving medical care, but how had he gotten here, and why was an Army colonel interested in him?

"I am James Ackerson," the Colonel said. He then did a curious thing: he held out his hand to shake.

This was a rare occurrence. Usually no one wanted to touch a Spartan, let alone shake their hand.

Kurt took Ackerson's hand and gingerly squeezed it.

Ackerson. Kurt knew that name. There had been conversations between Dr. Halsey and Chief Mendez. Ackerson had come up a dozen times, and from their inflection and body language Kurt had surmised he was
not
their friend.

Kurt was aware that everyone in the UNSC had the same basic goal: protecting humanity from all threats. Not everyone, however, agreed on how that mandate should be executed… which led to
internal
conflict. Kurt understood this the way he understood basic precepts of a Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine. He grasped the underlying theoretical principles, but the nuances and the actual application of that knowledge remained a mystery to him.

Most likely this colonel was on permanent loan to ONI as a liaison officer. They often recruited civilians, officers from other branches of the military, or anyone they needed to get their job done.

An Army colonel was approximately the same rank as a Navy captain, so while Kurt was wary, he had to be polite, and even take orders from Ackerson as long as they did not conflict with previous orders.

"If you are well enough, get dressed." Colonel Ackerson nodded to the night table on which was a neatly folded uniform.

Kurt stood, removed the osmotic IV patch, and dressed.

"SPARTAN-051, what is your name?" Ackerson asked.

"Kurt, sir."

"Yes, but Kurt what? What is your family name?"

Kurt knew he had had another name, before his training. That, however, was part of a life that seemed more dream than real now. And that other name was just a shadow in his mind, as was the family that had gone along with it. Still, he struggled to remember.

"It doesn't matter," Ackerson said. "For the time being if asked, use the last name…" He considered for a moment. "Ambrose."

"Yes, sir."

Kurt buttoned his shirt. The uniform was missing the Spartan patch of an eagle holding a lighting bolt and arrows. It instead had the clasping-hand patch of the UNSC Logistical core. It

bore the single pip of a private first class and two combat ribbons for Harvest and Operation TREBUCHET.

"Follow me." Ackerson moved out the open doors into a narrow corridor. He led Kurt through three intersections.

Many Naval officers passed them, but none saluted. They kept to themselves for the most part, eyes down. And while a few nodded to Kurt, no one so much as even glanced at Ackerson.

Kurt's unease at this odd situation grew palpable.

They halted at a pressure door guarded by two marines who saluted. Kurt crisply returned their salute. Ackerson gave them a causal half-salute gesture.

The Colonel set his hand on a biometric reader and face, retina, and palm were

simultaneously scanned.

With a hiss, the door opened.

Kurt and Ackerson stepped into a dimly lit twenty-meter-wide room filled wall to wall with monitors. Spectroscopic signatures, star charts, and Slipstream space pulses strobed across the screens. There were several officers and two holographic Als consulting with them in whispered tones.

One AI was a gray-robbed figure without a body. A wraith.

The other was a collection of disembodied eyes, mouths, and gesturing hands—what Kurt vaguely recalled from one of Deja's art lessons as an example of cubist art.

Ackerson whisked him across the room and to another door. A second biometric scan and they entered an elevator.

There was downward motion, then a moment of zero-gee free fall, and the sensation of gravity then returned. The doors opened to a catwalk that extended over inky darkness to a blank wall.

The Colonel approached the blank wall, a seam appeared, and then the two sections pulled apart.

"This room is called 'Odin's Eye' by the junior staff," Ackerson said. "You have been temporarily granted a code-word top-secret clearance to enter. Whatever is said inside is similarly

classified and you will reveal none of our conversation unless the proper code words are provided. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Kurt replied.

Kurt's instinct, however, was to
not
enter this room. He, in fact, wanted to be anyplace but in that room. But he couldn't refuse.

They entered.

The doors closed behind them; Kurt didn't see the seam.

The room had white concave walls, and Kurt's eyes had a hard time focusing.

"Your classification code word is Talcon Forty,'" Ackerson said. "Now, speak freely in here. I certainly will." He gestured to a black circular table in the center of the room and they both sat.

"Sir, where am I? Why am I here?"

His words seemed to evaporate as he spoke them, deadened by the too-still air in this strange room.

"Of course," Ackerson murmured. "Your recovery is not complete. I had been warned of that." He sighed. "We have gone to considerable trouble to extricate you from normal NavSpecWep operations… from your recon mission to Station Delphi."

Kurt remembered the explosion on his T-PACK; he blinked and saw for a split second

the dizzying blur of stars in his faceplate.

"My team," Kurt said, "are they—"

"Fine," Ackerson replied. "No injuries."

Kurt inhaled, feeling his cracked rib. Not quite no injuries.

Something changed in the Colonel's expression. The dark stare and hardness softened

almost an imperceptible fraction.

In a lowered voice, Ackerson said, "Section Three has issued you new orders." He pushed a reader across the table to Kurt.

Kurt thumbed the biometric and the screen warmed. There were code-word classified warnings and then he saw his transfer orders under Colonel Ackerson. The usual fields for assignment location, routing protocols, and record verification were redacted.

"You are now a part of a subsection of Beta-5 Division," Ackerson said, "a top-secret cell within Section Three. All the events at Station Delphi were staged to bring you here in the utmost secrecy for a new mission."

Staging the events at Delphi? Arranged by a subcell of Section Three? Something seemed wrong in a way Kurt couldn't quite put his finger on.

But part of it made sense now. The partially decommissioned Shaw-Fujikawa drive at Delphi Station was the perfect lure and the ideal excuse for a malfunctioning T-PACK. The sensor echo the
Circumference
had picked up on the in-system jump
was
another prowler, the ship that had picked up Kurt's exhausted body—after he had been propelled on a not-sorandom explosive trajectory. Though he resented the manner in which they obtained him, he had to admire the sheer elegance of the extraction plan.

"You have been classified as missing in action," Ackerson said. "Presumed dead."

Something cold contracted in Kurt's stomach. He checked his emotions, though, sensing that in this instance, they might not have been able to help him.

"What is this new mission, sir?"

Ackerson stared at him a moment, then seemed to look through Kurt, past him. "I want you to train the next generation of Spartans."

Kurt blinked, taking in what Ackerson had just said, not quite understanding. "Sir, I was under the impression that Chief Petty Officer Mendez had been reassigned years ago to carry out that mission."

"The effort to train additional SPARTAN-IIs was postponed indefinitely by Dr. Catherine Halsey," Ackerson said. "There were other candidates within the gene pool, but they were out of synch with her age restriction protocols. And with the continuing war, her program funds were… diverted."

Kurt had always presumed other Spartans were being trained.

that he and his fellows were the first in what would be a long line of Spartans. He'd never considered they might be the first, and the last, of their kind.

Ackerson said, "Mendez will, of course, join you."

"It would be an honor to serve under Chief Mendez," Kurt replied.

One of Ackerson's brows quirked up. "Indeed."

He motioned at Kurt's secure tablet. "Read. New training protocols have been outlined as well as an improved augmentation regime. We've learned much from the unfortunate medical processes Dr Halsey had at her disposal."

Kurt balled his hands into fists, remembering the pain of the bone grafts—like glass breaking inside his marrow, and the fire that had burned along every nerve as they had been reengi-neered for enhanced speed.

As he read he started to grasp the opportunities and challenges of this new program. The new bioaugmentations were a quantum leap ahead of those he had received. There were lower projected wash-out rates. There was, however, only a fraction of the original SPARTAN program training time and budget. MJOLNIR armor was to be replaced with something called Semi-Powered Infiltration (SPI) armor systems.