The Flood (7 page)

There were differences, however, like the way the ring tapered up from the horizon, the manner in which its shadow fell upon the land, and the crisp, clean air that came in through his filters. It was beautiful, breathtakingly so, but potentially dangerous as well.

“Alert – Covenant dropship inbound.” Cortana’s voice was calm but insistent.

The prophecy soon proved correct as a large shadow floated over the far end of the bridge and the ship’s engines screamed a warning. There was very little doubt that the Spartan had been spotted, so he made plans to deal with it.

He reached the end of the bridge, saw a likely-looking boulder off to his left, and hurried to take advantage of it. He skirted the cliff edge, ignoring the long drop. Careful to watch his footing, the Master Chief circled the rock and found a crevice where the boulder touched the cliff. Now, with his back to the wall, he had a chance to defend himself.

He checked his motion tracker, and realized that a pair of Covenant Banshees were practically on top of him. The alien aircraft boasted plasma cannon and fuel rod guns. Though not especially fast, they were still dangerous, especially against ground troops.

Combined with air support, the Grunts and Elites that dropped from the fork-shaped alien troop carrier were a serious threat.

He steadied his aim and sighted on the nearest Banshee. Careful not to fire early, the Spartan waited for the Banshee to come within range, then squeezed the trigger. The first assault ship came straight at him, which made it relatively easy to stay on target. Bullet impacts sparked on the Banshee’s hull as his ammo counter dwindled.

The ship shuddered as at least some of the armor-piercing rounds penetrated the fuselage, pulled up out of its dive, and started to trail smoke.

The Master Chief was in no position to appreciate the results of his efforts, however, as the second Banshee swooped out of the sun, pounded the area around him with plasma fire. His shield display dropped, then pulsed red. An alarm whined in his helmet speakers.

The Master Chief returned fire. Without pause, he thumbed the magazine release and slammed a fresh clip into the receiver.

He crouched, searched the sky for targets, and spotted Banshee number one in the nick of time. He braced himself for another assault. The Spartan allowed the enemy aircraft to approach, took a slight lead, and squeezed the trigger again. The Covenant ship ran into the stream of bullets, exploded into flames, and slammed into the cliff wall.

The second ship was still up there, flying in lazy circles, but the Spartan knew better than to stand around and watch it. A half dozen red dots had appeared on his motion sensors. Each blip represented a potential assailant and most were located to his rear.

The Master Chief waited for his shields to return to their full charge, then turned, jumped up onto the boulder, and took a quick look around. The Covenant dropship had deposited a clutch of Grunts on the far side of the canyon where they were busy examining the wreckage of his lifeboat.

But that wasn’t all. To his left, on his side of the bridge,
another
group of Grunts was working its way through the trees, moving in his direction. They were still a ways off, however – which gave him a few seconds to prepare.

Though not armed with the standard S2 AM Sniper’s Rifle, his weapon of choice for this sort of situation, the Spartan was packing the M6D pistol that Keyes had given him. It was equipped with a 2X scope and, in the hands of an expert, it could reach out and touch someone.

The Master Chief drew the sidearm, turned to the group gathered around the wreckage, and placed the targeting circle over the nearest Grunt. In spite of the fact that they were of no immediate threat, the aliens on the other side of the canyon were in an ideal position to flank him, which meant he would deal with them first. Twelve shots rang out, and seven Grunts fell.

Satisfied that his right flank was reasonably secure, he slammed a fresh clip into the pistol and shifted his attention to the enemy troops that were emerging from the trees. This group of Grunts was closer now,
much
closer, and they opened fire. The Master Chief chose to target the most distant alien first, thereby ensuring that he would still get a crack at the others, even if they turned and tried to escape.

The pistol shots came in quick succession. The Grunts barked, hooted, and gurgled as the well-aimed bullets hurled their lifeless carcasses down the reverse slope.

When there were no more targets to fire at, the Master Chief took a moment to reload the handgun, clicked on the safety, and returned the weapon to its holster. He jumped off the boulder and crouched under an outcropping of rock.

He eyed the Banshee above. It was still there, circling well out of range, waiting to pounce should he emerge from cover. That meant he could sit there and wait for more ground forces to arrive, or he could abandon his hiding place and attempt to slip away.

The Spartan had never been one for standing around, so he readied his assault rifle and slid forward over the rock. Once on open ground it was a short dash past the scattering of dead Grunts. He crouched beneath the cover offered by a copse of trees.

He counted to three, then dashed from boulder to boulder. He leapfrogged uphill, still very much aware of the Banshee at his back, but reasonably certain he’d given the aircraft the slip.

There were no blips on his threat detector, until he topped the rise and paused to examine the terrain ahead. A telltale red dot popped onto his HUD. The Master Chief eased his way forward, waiting for the moment of contact.

Then he saw movement as hunched bodies dashed from one scrap of cover to the next. There were four of them, including a blue-armored Elite. The Elite charged recklessly forward, firing as he came.

He’d engaged such Elites before – there was some significance to the aliens’ armor colors – and they always fought like aggressive rookies. A thin smile touched the Master Chief’s lips. He ignored the alien’s badly-placed shots, stood, and returned fire. The Elite’s advance stalled, and the Grunts began to fall back toward a stand of trees. His threat indicator sounded a warning and a red arrow pointed to the right. The Master Chief drew and primed an M9 HE-DP grenade.

He turned just in time to see another Elite – this one in the scarlet armor of a veteran – charge him. The grenade was already in hand, and the distance to the target was sufficient, so the soldier let the M9 fly. The grenade detonated with a loud
whump!
and tossed the enemy soldier into the air, while stripping a nearby tree of half its branches.

The rookie was close now, and roared a battle cry. The alien hosed the Master Chief with plasma fire. His shields dropped precipitously.

The Spartan backed away, fired his assault rifle in short controlled bursts, and finally managed to knock the remaining Elite off his feet.

With their leader down, the Grunts broke ranks and began to scamper away. The Master Chief cut their retreat short in a hail of bullets.

He eased up on the trigger, felt the silence settle in around him, and knew he had made a mistake. The veteran had damned near blindsided him. How?

He realized with a start that he was still fighting like part of a unit. Though he was trained to act independently, he had spent most of his military career as part of a team. The Elite had managed to flank him because his was simply accustomed to one of his fellow Spartans watching out for him.

He was cut off from the chain of command, alone, and most likely surrounded by the enemy. He nodded, his face grim behind the mirrored visor. This mission would require a major revision in his tactics.

He pushed his way up through a meadow thick with knee-high, spiky grass. He could hear the distant chatter of automatic weapons fire and knew some Marines were somewhere up ahead.

He sprinted toward the sound of battle. Perhaps he wouldn’t be on his own for long.

Maybe it was because the Autumn’s navigator, Ensign Lovell, was at the controls, or maybe it was simply a matter of good luck, but whatever the reason, the rest of the trip down through Halo’s atmosphere was completely uneventful. So peaceful that it made Keyes nervous.

“Where would you like me to put her down, sir?” Lovell inquired, as the lifeboat skimmed a grassy plain.

“Anywhere,” Keyes answered, “so long as there aren’t any Covenant forces around. Some cover would be nice – since this boat will act like a magnet if we leave it out in the open.”

Like most of its kind, the lifeboat had never been intended for extended atmospheric use; it flew like a rock, in fact. But the suggestion made sense, so the pilot turned toward what he had arbitrarily designated as the “west,” and the point where the grasslands met a tumble of low rolling hills.

The lifeboat was low, so low that the Covenant patrol barely had time to see what it was before the tiny vessel flashed over their heads and disappeared.

The veteran Elites, both of whom were mounted on small single-seat hoversleds, Ghosts, stood to watch the lifeboat skim the plain.

The senior of the pair called the sighting in. They turned toward the hills and opened their throttles. What had promised to be a long, boring day suddenly seemed a great deal more interesting. The Elites glanced at each other, bent over their controls, and raced to see which of them could reach the lifeboat first – and which of them would score the first kill of the afternoon.

Deep in the hills ahead, Lovell fired the lifeboat’s bow thrusters, dropped what flaps the stubby little wings had, and jazzed the boat’s belly jets. Keyes watched in admiration as the young pilot dropped the boat into a gully where it would be almost impossible to spot, except from directly overhead. Lovell had been a troubled officer, well on his way to a dishonorable discharge, when Keyes had recruited him. He’d come a long way since then.

“Nice job,” the Captain said as the lifeboat settled onto its skids. “Okay, boys and girls, let’s strip this ship of everything that might be useful, and put as much distance between it and ourselves as we can. Corporal, post your Marines as sentries. Wang, Dowski, Abiad, open those storage compartments. Let’s see what brand of champagne the UNSC keeps in its lifeboats. Hikowa, give me a hand with this body.”

There was a certain amount of commotion as ’Nosolee’s corpse was carried outside and unceremoniously dumped into a crevice, the boat was stripped, and the controls were disabled. With emergency packs on their backs, the bridge crew started up into the hills. They hadn’t gone far when a sonic boom rolled over the land, the Pillar of Autumn roared across the sky, and dropped over the horizon to the arbitrary “south.”

Keyes held his breath as he waited to see what would happen. He, like all COs, had neural implants that linked him to the ship, the ship’s AI, and key personnel. There was a pause, followed by what felt like a mild earth tremor. A moment later, a terse message from Cortana’s subroutine scrolled across his vision, courtesy of his neural lace:

>CSR-1 :: BURST BROADCAST ::

>PILLAR OF AUTUMNIS DOWN. THOSE SYSTEMS WHICH REMAIN FUNCTIONAL ARE ON STANDBY. OPERATIONAL READINESS STANDS AT 8.7%.

>CSR-1 OUT.

It wasn’t the sort of message that any commanding officer would want to receive. In spite of the fact that the Autumn would never swim through space again, Keyes took some small comfort from the fact that his ship still had the equivalent of a pulse, and might still come in handy.

He forced a smile. “Okay, people, what are we waiting for? Our cave awaits. The last one to the top digs the latrine.”

The bridge personnel continued their climb.

In spite of efforts to keep the HEVs together, the Helljumpers came down in a landing zone that stretched approximately three kilometers in diameter. Some of the landings were classic two-point affairs in which the more fortunate Marines were able to jettison their crash cages about fifty meters off the ground, and land like sim soldiers in a training vid.

Others were a good deal less graceful, as the skeletal remains of their drop pods smashed against cliffs, dropped into lakes, and in one unfortunate case rolled into a deep ravine. As the surviving Helljumpers extricated themselves from their HEVs, a homing beacon snapped to life, and they were able to orient themselves to the red square which appeared on their transparent eye-screens. That was where Major Silva had landed, a temporary HQ had been established, and the battalion would regroup.

Each pod was stripped of extra weapons, ammo, and other supplies, which meant that the force which converged on the hot dry plateau was well equipped. Helljumpers were supposed to be able to operate without external resupply for two-week periods, and Silva was pleased that his troops had retained most of their gear, despite the difficult drop conditions.

In fact, Silva thought as he watched his troops stream in from every direction, the only thing we lack is a fleet of Warthogs and a squad of Scorpions. But those assets would come, oh, yes they would, shortly after the butte was wrenched from enemy hands. In the meantime, the Helljumpers would use what ground-pounders always use: their feet.

First Lieutenant Melissa McKay had landed safely, as had most of her 130-person company. Three of her people had been killed in action on the Autumn, and two were missing and presumed dead. Not too bad, all things considered.

As luck would have it, McKay hit the dirt only half a klick away from the homing beacon, which meant that by the time a perimeter had been established she had already humped her gear across the hardpan, located Major Silva, and reported in. McKay was one of his favorites. The ODST officer nodded by way of a greeting. “Nice of you to drop in, Lieutenant... I was beginning to wonder if you’d taken the afternoon off.”