CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
2120 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)
UNSC Iroquois , military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV
“Ship’s status?” Captain Keyes said as he strode onto the bridge, buttoning his collar. He noticed that the repair station Cradle still obscured their port camera. “And why aren’t we clear of that station yet?”
“Sir, all hands are at battle stations,” Lieutenant Dominique replied. “General quarters sounded. Tac data uploaded to your station.”
A tactical overview of the Iroquois , neighboring vessels, and Cradle popped onto Keyes’ personal display screen. “As you can see,” Lieutenant Dominique continued, “we did clear the station, but they are moving on the same outbound vector we are. Admiral Stanforth wants them with the fleet.”
Captain Keyes took his place in his command chair—“the hot seat,” as it was more colloquially known—
and reviewed the data. He nodded with satisfaction. “Looks like the Admiral has something up his sleeve.” He turned to Lieutenant Hall. “Engine status, Lieutenant?”
“Engines hot at fifty percent,” she reported. She straightened to her full height, nearly six feet, and looked Captain Keyes in the eye with something edging near defensiveness. “Sir, the engines took a real beating in our last engagement. The repairs we’ve made are . . . well, the best we could do without a complete refit.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Keyes replied calmly. In truth, Keyes was concerned about the engines, too—
but it would do no good to make Hall more uneasy than necessary. The last thing he needed now was to undermine her confidence.
“Gunnery officer?” Captain Keyes turned to Lieutenant Hikowa. The petite woman bore more resemblance to a porcelain doll than to a combat officer, but Keyes knew her delicate appearance was only skin deep. She had ice water for blood and nerves of steel.
“MAC guns charging,” Lieutenant Hikowa reported. “Sixty-five percent and climbing at two percent per minute.”
Everything on the Iroquois had slowed down to a crawl. Engine, weapons—even the unwieldy Cradle kept pace with them.
Captain Keyes sat up straighter. There was no time to spend on self-recriminations. He would have to do the best he could with what he had. There simply was no other alternative.
The lift doors popped open and a young man stepped on deck. He was tall and thin. His dark hair—
longer than regulations permitted—had been slicked back. He was disarmingly handsome; Keyes noticed the female bridge crew pause to look the newcomer over before returning to their tasks. “Ensign Lovell reporting for duty, Captain.” He snapped a sharp salute.
“Welcome aboard, Ensign Lovell.” Captain Keyes returned his salute, surprised that the unkempt officer could demonstrate such crisp adherence to military protocol. “Man the navigation console, please.”
The bridge officers scrutinized the Ensign. It was highly unusual for such a low-ranking officer to pilot a capital ship. “Sir?” Lovell wrinkled his forehead, confused. “Has there been some mistake, sir?”
“You are Ensign Michael Lovell? Recently posted on the Archimedes Remote Sensor Outpost?”
“Yes, sir. They pulled me off that duty so quick that I—”
“Then man your station, Ensign.”
“Yes, sir!”
Ensign Lovell sat at the navigation console, took a few seconds to acquaint himself with the controls—
then reconfigured them more to his liking.
A slight smile tugged at the corner of Keyes’ mouth. He knew that Lovell had more combat experience than any Lieutenant on the bridge, and was pleased that the Ensign adapted so quickly to unfamiliar surroundings.
“Show me the fleet’s position and the relative location of the enemy, Ensign,” Keyes ordered.
“Aye, sir,” Lovell replied. His hands danced across the controls. A moment later, a system map snapped into place on the main screen. Dozens of small triangular tactical markers showed Admiral Stanforth’s fleet massing between Sigma Octanus IV and its moon. It was a sound opening position. Fighting in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV would have trapped them in the gravity well—like fighting with your back to a wall.
Keyes studied the display—and frowned. The Admiral had moved the fleet into a tightly packed grid formation. When the Covenant fired their plasma weapons at them, there would be no maneuvering room.
The Covenant was moving in-system quickly. Captain Keyes counted twenty radar signatures. He didn’t like the odds.
“Receiving orders,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Admiral Stanforth wants the Iroquois at this location ASAP.”
On the map, a blue triangle pulsed on the corner of the grid formation.
“Ensign Lovell, get us there at best speed.”
“Aye, sir,” he replied.
Captain Keyes fought down a wave of embarrassment; the Cradle stardock started to pull ahead of the Iroquois . It took up a position directly over the Admiral’s phalanx formation. The refit station rotated, presenting its edge to the incoming Covenant fleet to show them the smallest target area.
“Rotating and reversing burn,” Ensign Lovell said. The Iroquois spun about and slowed. “Thrusters to station keeping. We’re locked in position, sir.”
“Very good, Ensign. Lieutenant Hikowa, divert as much power as you need to get those MAC guns charged.”
“Aye, sir,” Hikowa replied. “Capacitors charging at maximum rate.”
“Captain,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “We’re receiving an encrypted firing solution and countdown timers from the Leviathan ’s AI.”
“Transfer that vector to Lieutenant Hikowa and show me on screen.”
A line appeared on the tactical map, connecting the Iroquois to one of the incoming Covenant frigates.
The firing timer appeared in the corner: twenty-three seconds.
“Now show me the entire fleet’s firing solutions, Lieutenant Dominique.”
A web of trajectories crossed the map with tiny countdown times next to each. Admiral Stanforth had the fleet exchanging fire with the Covenant like a line of Redcoats and colonial militia in the Revolutionary War—tactics that could best be described as bloody . . . or suicidal.
What the hell was the Admiral thinking? Keyes studied the displays, trying to divine a method to his commanding officer’s madness . . . then he understood. Risky, but—if it worked—brilliant.
The fleet’s firing countdowns were roughly timed so that the shots would be staggered into two, maybe three, massive salvos. The first salvo would—hopefully—knock out the Covenant ships’ shields. The final salvo was to be the knockout punch.
But it could only work once. After that, the UNSC fleet would be destroyed when the remaining Covenant ships returned fire. The Iroquois and the other ships were stationary targets. He appreciated that the Admiral couldn’t get too far from Sigma Octanus IV, but with zero momentum—and no room to maneuver—there’d be no way to avoid those plasma bolts.
“Sound decompression alarms in all nonessential sections, Lieutenant Hall, and then empty them.”
“Aye, sir,” she said, and bit her lower lip.
“Guns: status on the MACs?” Keyes’ eyes were glued to the firing countdown. Twenty seconds . . .
fifteen . . . ten . . .
“Sir, MAC weapon systems are hot!” Hikowa announced. “Removing safeties now.”
The Covenant ships started to rotate slowly in space—although their momentum continued to carry them on their inbound trajectory toward the UNSC phalanx. Motes of red light collected along the alien ships’
lateral lines.
Five seconds.
“Transferring firing control to the computer,” Lieutenant Hikowa said. She punched a series of firing codes into the computer, then locked down the controls. The Iroquois recoiled and spat twin bolts of thunder toward the enemy.
The starboard view screen showed UNSC destroyers and frigates launching their opening salvo.
The Covenant fleet fired as well; angry red lances of energy raced though space towards them.
“Time until that plasma impacts?” Captain Keyes asked Ensign Lovell.
“Twenty-two seconds, sir.”
The vacuum between the two opposing forces filled with a hundred lines of fire and smoldering metal that seemed to tear through the fabric of space.
Their trajectories closed on one another, then crossed, and the bolts of fire grew larger on the main screen.
Lieutenant Dominique said, “Receiving a second set of firing solutions and times. Admiral Stanforth on the priority channel, sir.”
“Put him on, holotank two,” Keyes ordered.
Near the main view screen, a small holographic tank—normally reserved for the ship’s AI—winked into operation. Admiral Stanforth’s ghostly image appeared. “All ships: hold your positions. Divert all engine power to recharge your guns. We’ve got something special cooked up.” His eyes narrowed. “Do not—I repeat, do not—under any circumstance break position or fire before you are ordered to do so.
Stanforth out.”
The holographic projection of the Admiral snapped out of existence.
“Orders, sir?” Ensign Lovell turned in his seat.
“You heard the Admiral, Ensign. Thrusters to station keeping. Lieutenant Hikowa: get those guns recharged on the double.”
“Aye, sir.”
Keyes nodded as Hikowa turned back to her task. “Three seconds until first salvo impact,” she announced.
Keyes turned back to the tac display, concentrating on the MAC rounds that crawled across the screen.
The fleet’s MAC rounds hammered into the Covenant lines. Shields flickered silver-blue and overloaded as the super-dense projectiles rammed into the formation; several ships were spun out of position by the impact.
“Guns?” he called out. “Enemy status?”
“Multiple hits on Covenant fleet, sir,” Hikowa replied. “Salvo two impact . . . now.”
A handful of the shots were clean misses. Keyes winced; each one of the off-trajectory MAC rounds meant one more enemy ship would survive to return fire.
The vast majority, however, slammed into the unshielded alien vessels. The lead Covenant destroyer took a direct hit from a heavy round, which sent the alien ship into a lurching port spin.
Keyes saw the destroyer’s engines flare as her pilot struggled to regain control—just as a second MAC
round struck on the ship’s opposite side. For an instant, the Covenant vessel shuddered, held position, then flexed as the hull stresses became too great. The destroyer disintegrated and scattered debris in a wide arc.
A second Covenant ship—a frigate—shuddered under the impact of multiple MAC rounds. It listed to starboard and rammed the next frigate in the enemy formation. Sparks and small explosions flared from the ships as a gray-white plume of vented atmosphere exploded into space. The ships’ running lights flickered, then dimmed as the pair of dead spacecraft—locked in a deadly embrace—tumbled into the heart of the Covenant line.
A moment later, the wrecked ships hit a third Covenant frigate, and they exploded, sending tendrils of plasma through space. A dozen of their ships vented atmosphere and fires flickered within their hulls.
The fore view screen, however, was now filled with incoming weapons fire.
“Fleet commander on priority channel,” Dominique announced. “Audio only.”
“Patch it through, Lieutenant,” Keyes ordered.
A hiss of static crackled through the communications-system speakers. A moment later, Admiral Stanforth’s voice calmly broke through the noise. “Lead to all ships: hold your positions,” the Admiral said. “Make ready to fire. Transfer timers to your computers . . . and hang on to your hats.”
A shadow crossed the overhead camera. On the view screen, Captain Keyes watched as the Cradle repair station, the plate nearly a kilometer on edge, rotated and started to slide in front of their phalanx formation.
“Christ,” Ensign Lovell whispered, “they’re going to take the hits for us.”
“Dominique, hit the scopes. Are there any lifepods outbound from Cradle ?” Keyes asked. He already knew the answer.
“Sir,” Dominique answered, his deep voice thick with worry. “No escape craft have left the Cradle .”
All eyes on the Iroquois ’ bridge were riveted to the screen. Keyes’ hands clenched with anger and helplessness. There was nothing to do but watch.
The front view screen went black as the station passed in front of them. Pinpoints of red and orange appeared along the back surface, metal vapor venting in plumes. Cradle lurched closer to the fleet, the impact of the plasma torpedoes pushing it back. The station continued to move downward, spreading out the damage. Holes appeared in the surface; the internal lattice of steel girders was exposed and, seconds later, glowed white-hot—then the view screen was clear again.
“Ventral cameras,” Captain Keyes said. “Now!”
The view changed as Dominique switched to the Iroquois ’ belly cameras. Cradle station reappeared. She spun and her entire forward surface was aglow . . . heat spread to the edges, the center liquefied and pulled away.
“MAC guns ready to fire in three seconds,” Lieutenant Hikowa announced, her voice cold and angry.
“Targeting lock acquired.”
Keyes gripped the arms of the command chair. “Cradle’s crew bought this shot for us, Lieutenant,”
Captain Keyes growled. “Make it count.”
The Iroquois shuddered as the MAC gun fired. On the status display, Keyes watched as the rest of the UNSC fleet fired simultaneously. A twenty-one-gun salute three times over for those on board the station who had given their lives.
“All ships: break and attack!” Admiral Stanforth bellowed. “Pick your targets and fire at will. Take as many of these bastards out as you can! Stanforth out.”
They had to move before the Covenant plasma weapons recharged.
“Give me fifty percent on our engines,” Captain Keyes ordered, “and come about to course two eight zero.”
“Aye,” Ensign Lovell and Lieutenant Hall replied in unison.
“Lieutenant Hikowa, release safeties on the Archer missile system.”
“Safeties disengaged, sir.”
The Iroquois moved away at a near-right angle from the phalanx formation. The other UNSC ships scattered at all vectors. One UNSC destroyer, the Lancelot , accelerated straight toward the Covenant line.
As the UNSC ships scattered, the MAC salvo reached the Covenant ships. The Admiral’s firing solutions had targeted the remainder of the Covenant battlegroup’s smaller ships. Their shields sparkled, rippled, and then flickered out of existence. Their frigates shattered under the impact of the firepower.
Holes ripped through their hulls. Wrecked spacecraft drifted lazily through the battle area.
The surprise second salvo had cost the Covenant dearly—a dozen enemy ships were out of the fight.
That left eight Covenant vessels—destroyers and cruisers.
Pulse lasers and Archer missiles fired, and every ship onscreen accelerated towards one another. Both Covenant and UNSC ships released their single-ship fighters.
The tac computer was having trouble tracking everything—Keyes cursed to himself over the lack of a ship AI—as the missile fire and plasma discharges strobed in the blackness. Single ships—the humans’
Longsword fighters and the flat, vaguely piscine Covenant fighters—dove, and fired, and impacted into warships. Archer missiles left trails of exhaust. Blue pulse lasers scattered inside the clouds of vented propellant and atmosphere, and cast a ghostly blue glow over the scene.
“Orders, sir?” Lovell asked nervously.
Captain Keyes paused—something felt . . . wrong. The battle was utter chaos, and it was nearly impossible to tell exactly what was happening. Sensor data was thrown off by the constant detonations and the fire of the aliens’ energy weapons.
“Scan near the planet, Lieutenant Hall,” Keyes said. “Ensign Lovell, move us closer to Sigma Octanus Four.”
“Sir?” Lieutenant Dominique said. “We’re not engaging the Covenant fleet?”
“Negative, Lieutenant.”
The bridge crew paused for a fraction of a second—all except Ensign Lovell, who tapped on the controls and plotted a new course. The bridge crew had all had a taste of being heroes in their last battle, and they wanted more. Captain Keyes knew what that was like . . . and he knew how dangerous it was.
He was not about to charge into battle, however, with the Iroquois at half power, her structural integrity already compromised, and with no AI to mount a point defense against Covenant single ships. One plasma torpedo to their lower decks would gut them.
If he remained where he was and attempted to shoot into the fray, he was just as likely to accidentally hit a friendly ship as a Covenant vessel.
No. There were several damaged Covenant ships in the area. He would finish them off—make sure they could not launch any attack on their fleet. There was no glory in the action—but considering their present condition, glory was of little concern. Survival was.
Captain Keyes watched the battle rage in the starboard camera. The Leviathan took a plasma bolt, and her foredecks burned. One Covenant ship collided with the UNSC frigate Fair Weather ; the superstructures of the two craft locked together—and both ships opened fire at point-blank range.
The Fair Weather detonated into a ball of nuclear fire that engulfed the Covenant destroyer. Both ships faded from the tactical display.
“Covenant ship detected in orbit around Sigma Octanus Four,” Lieutenant Hall reported.
“Let me see it,” Keyes said.
A small vessel appeared on-screen. It was smaller than the Covenant equivalent of a frigate . . . but definitely larger than one of the aliens’ dropships. It was sleek and seemed to waver in and out of the blankness of space. The engine pods were baffled and devoid of the characteristic purple-white glow of Covenant propulsion systems.
“They’re in a geosynchronous orbit over Côte d’Azur,” Lieutenant Hall reported. “Their thrusters are firing microbursts. Precision station keeping, sir, if I were to guess.”
Lieutenant Dominique interrupted. “Detected scattering from a narrow-beam transmission on the planet surface, sir. A far-infrared laser.”
Captain Keyes turned toward the main battle on-screen. Was this slaughter just a diversion?
The original attack on Sigma Octanus IV had been for the sole purpose of landing ships and invading Côte d’Azur. Once accomplished, their battle group had left.
And now—whatever the Covenant’s purpose was groundside, they were sending information to this stealth ship . . . while the rest of their fleet kept the UNSC forces from interfering.
“Like hell,” he muttered.
“Ensign Lovell, plot a collision course for that ship.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Lieutenant Hall, push the engines as far as you can. I need every bit of speed you can get me.”
“Yes, sir. If we vent primary coolant and use our reserve, I can boost the engine output to sixty-six percent . . . for five minutes.”
“Do it.”
The Iroquois moved sluggishly toward the Covenant ship.
“Intercept in twenty seconds,” Lovell said.
“Lieutenant Hikowa, arm Archer missile pods A through D. Blow that Covenant son of a bitch out of the sky.”
“Archer missile pods armed, sir,” she replied smoothly. Her hands moved gracefully over the controls.
“Firing.”
Archer missiles streaked toward the Covenant stealth ship—but as they closed with the target, they started to swerve from side to side, then spun out of control. The spent missiles fell toward the planet.
Lieutenant Hikowa cursed quietly in Japanese. “Missile guidance locks jammed,” she said. “Their ECM
spoofed the guidance packages, sir.”
No other choice, then, Keyes thought. They can jam our missiles—let’s see them jam this.
“Run them over, Ensign Lovell,” Keyes ordered.
He licked his lips. “Aye, sir.”
“Sound collision alarm,” Captian Keyes said. “All hands, brace for impact.”
“She’s moving,” Lovell said.
“Keep on her.”
“Course correcting now. Hang on,” Lovell said.
The eight-thousand-ton Iroquois slammed into the tiny Covenant ship.
On the bridge, they barely felt the impact. The diminutive alien vessel, however, was crushed from the force. Her crippled hull spun toward Sigma Octanus IV.
“Damage report!” Keyes bellowed.
“Lower decks 3 through 8 show hull breach, sir,” Hall called out. “Internal bulkheads were already closed, and no one was in those areas, per your orders. No systems damage reported.”
“Good. Move to her original position, Ensign Lovell. Lieutenant Dominique, I want that transmission beam intercepted.”
The ventral cameras showed the Covenant ship plunge into the atmosphere. Its shield glowed yellow, then white—then dissipated as the ship’s systems failed. It burst into crimson flame and burned across the horizon, a black plume of smoke trailing in its wake.
“The Iroquois is losing altitude,” Ensign Lovell said. “We’re falling into the planet’s atmosphere . . .
bringing us about.” The Iroquois spun 180 degrees. The Ensign concentrated on his displays, then said,
“No good, we need more power. Sir, permission to fire emergency thrusters?”
“Granted.”
Lovell exploded the aft emergency thrusters and the Iroquois jumped. Lovell’s eyes were locked on the repeater displays as he fought for every centimeter of maneuvering he could get. Sweat ran down his forehead and soaked his flight suit.
“Orbit stabilizing—barely.” Lovell exhaled with relief, then turned to face Keyes. “Got it, sir. Thrusters to precision station keeping.”
“Receiving,” Lieutenant Dominique said, and then paused. “Receiving . . . something, sir. It must be encrypted.”
“Make sure you’re recording, Lieutenant.”
“Affirmative. Recorders active . . . but the codebreaker software can’t crack it, sir.”
Captain Keyes turned back to the tac displays, half expecting to see a Covenant ship in firing position.
There wasn’t much left of either the Covenant or UNSC fleets. Dozens of ships drifted in space, billowing atmosphere and burning. The rest moved slowly. A few flickered with fire. Scattered explosions dotted the black.
One undamaged Covenant destroyer turned, however, and left the battlefield. It came about and headed straight for the Iroquois .
“Uh-oh,” Lovell muttered.
“Lieutenant Hall, get me the Leviathan —priority Alpha channel,” Keyes ordered.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Admiral Stanforth’s image appeared in the holotank. His forehead had a gash across it, and blood trickled into his eyes. He wiped it away with a shaking hand, his eyes blazing with anger. “Keyes?
Where the hell is Iroquois ?”
“Sir, Iroquois is in geosynchronous orbit over Côte d’Azur. We’ve destroyed a Covenant stealth ship and are in the process of intercepting a secure transmission from the planet.”
The Admiral stared at him a moment unbelievingly, then nodded as if this made sense to him. “Proceed.”
“We have a Covenant destroyer leaving the battle . . . bearing down on us. I think the reason for the Covenant’s invasion may be in this coded transmission. And they don’t want us to know, sir.”
“Understood, son. Hang on. The Cavalry’s on its way.”
On the aft screen, the remaining eight UNSC ships broke their attacks and turned toward the incoming destroyer. Three MAC guns fired and impacted on the Covenant vessel. Its shields only lapsed for a split second; it took a round through her nose . . . but it continued toward the Iroquois at flank speed.
“Transmission ended, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique announced. “Cut off in midpacket. The signal was terminated at the source.”
“Damn.” Captain Keyes considered staying and trying to reacquire that signal—but only for a moment.
He decide to take what they had and run with it. “Ensign Lovell, get us the hell out of here.”
“Sir!” Lieutenant Hall said. “Look.”
The Covenant destroyer was changing course . . . along with the rest of the surviving Covenant vessels.
They were scattering, and accelerating out of the system.
“They’re running,” Lieutenant Hikowa said, her normal iron calm replaced by astonishment.
Within minutes, the Covenant ships accelerated and vanished into Slipstream space.
Captain Keyes looked aft and counted only seven UNSC ships intact, with the balance of the fleet destroyed or disabled.
He sat in his command chair. “Ensign Lovell, take us back the way we came. Make ready to take on wounded. Repressurize all uncompromised decks.”
“Jesus,” Lieutenant Hall said. “I think we actually . . . won that one.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. We won,” Keyes replied.
But Captain Keyes wondered exactly what they had won. The Covenant had come to this system for a reason—and he had a sinking feeling that they may have gotten what they had come for.
