CHAPTER TEN

1210 Hours, September 14, 2525 (Military Calendar) / Epsilon Eridani System, Eridanus 2 space dock, civilian Cargo Ship, Laden (registry number F-0980W)

“Spartan 117: in position. Next check-in at 0400.” John clicked off the microphone, encrypted the message, and fed it into his COM relay. He triggered a secure burst transmission to the Athens , the ONI prowler ship on station a few AUs distant.

He and his teammates climbed onto the upper girders. In silence, the team rigged a web of support nets so they could rest in relative comfort. Below them lay a hundred thousand liters of black water, and surrounding them, two centimeters of stainless steel. Sam rigged the fill sensor so the reservoir’s computer wouldn’t let any more water flow into the storage tank. The lights in their helmets cast a pattern of crossing and crisscrossing reflection lines.

A perfect hiding spot—all according to plan, John thought, and allowed himself a small grin of triumph.

The tech specs that ONI had procured on the Laden showed a number of hydroponic pods mounted around the ship’s carousel system—the massive water tanks used gravity feed to irrigate the ship’s space-grown crops.

Perfect.

They had easily slipped past the lone guard in the Laden ’s main cargo bay and into the nearly deserted center section. The water tank would mask their thermal signatures, and block any motion sensors.

The only risky element entered the picture if the center section stopped spinning . . . things could get very messy inside the tank, very fast. But John doubted that would happen.

Kelly set up a tiny microwave relay outside the top hatch. She propped her data pad on her stomach and linked to the ship’s network. “I’m in,” she reported. “There’s no AI or serious encryption . . . accessing their system now.” She tapped the pad a few more times and activated the intrusion software—the best that ONI could provide. A moment later the pad pulsed to indicate success.

“They’ve got a nav trajectory to the asteroid belt. ETA is ten hours.”

“Good work,” John said. “Team: we’ll sleep in shifts.” Sam, Fred, and Linda snapped off their flashlights.

The tank reverberated as the Laden ’s engines flared to life. The water tilted as they accelerated away from the orbital docking station.

John remembered Eridanus 2—vaguely recalled that it once was home. He wondered if his old school, his family, were still there—

He squelched his curiosity. Speculation made for a fine mental exercise, but the mission came first. He had to stay alert—or failing that, grab some sleep so he would be alert when he needed to be. Chief Mendez must have told them a thousand times: “Rest can be as deadly a weapon as a pistol or grenade.”

“I’ve got something,” Kelly whispered, and handed him her data pad.

It displayed the cargo manifest for the Laden . John scrolled down the list: water, flour, milk, frozen orange juice, welding rods, superconducting magnets for a fusion reactor . . . no mention of weapons.

“I give up,” he said. “What am I looking for?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Kelly replied. “The Chief smokes them.”

John flicked back through the list. There: Sweet William cigars. Next to them on the manifest was a crate of champagne, a Beta Centauri vintage. There were fast-chilled New York steaks, and Swiss chocolates. These items were stored in a secure locker. They had the same routing codes.

“Luxury items,” Kelly murmured. “I bet they’re headed straight for a special delivery to Colonel Watts or his officers.”

“Good work,” John replied. “We’ll tag this stuff and follow it.”

“Won’t be that easy,” Fred said from the darkness. He flicked on his flashlight and peered back at John.

“There are a million ways this can go wrong. We’re going in without recon. I don’t like it.”

“We only have one advantage on this mission,” John said. “The rebels have never been infiltrated—

they’ll feel relatively safe and won’t be expecting us. But every extra second we stay . . . that’s another chance for us to be spotted. We’ll follow Kelly’s hunch.”

“You questioning orders?” Sam asked Fred. “Scared?” There was a slight hint of challenge in his voice.

Fred thought for a moment. “No,” he whispered. “But this is no training mission. Our targets won’t be firing stun rounds.” He sighed. “I just don’t want to fail.”

“We’re not going to fail,” John told him. “We’ve accomplished every mission we’ve been on before.”

That wasn’t entirely true: the augmentation mission had wiped out half of the Spartans. They weren’t invincible.

But John wasn’t scared. A little nervous, maybe—but he was ready.

“Rotate sleep cycles,” John said. “Wake me up in four hours.”

He turned over and quickly nodded off to the sound of the sloshing water. He dreamed of gravball and a coin spinning in the air. John caught it and yelled, “Eagle!” as he won again.

He always won.

Kelly nudged John’s shoulder and he was instantly awake, hand on his assault rifle.

“We’re decelerating,” she whispered, and pointed her light into the water below. The liquid tilted at a twenty-degree inclination.

“Lights off,” John ordered.

They were plunged into total darkness.

He popped the hatch and snaked the fiber-optic probe—attached to his helmet—through the crack. All clear.

They climbed out, then rappelled down the back of the ten-meter-tall tank. They donned their grease-stained coveralls and removed their helmets. The black suits looked a little bulky beneath the work clothes, but the disguise would hold up to a cursory inspection. With their weapons and gear in duffel bags, they’d pass as crew . . . from a distance.

They crept through a deserted corridor and into the cargo bay. They heard a million tiny metallic pings as gravity settled the ship. The Laden must be docking to a spinning station or a rotating asteroid.

The cargo bay was a huge room, stacked to its ceiling with barrels and crates. There were massive tanks of oil. Automated robot forklifts scurried between rows, checking for items that might have come loose in transit.

There was a terrific clang as a docking clamp grabbed the ship.

“Cigars are this way,” Kelly whispered. She consulted her data pad, then tucked it back into her pocket.

They moved out, clinging to the shadows. They stopped every few meters, listened, and made sure their fields of fire were clear.

Kelly held up her hand and made a fist. She pointed to the secure hatch on the starboard side of the hold.

John signaled Fred and Kelly and motioned them to go forward. Fred used the lockbreaker on the door and it popped open. They entered and closed it behind them.

John, Sam, and Linda waited. There was a sudden motion and the Spartans snapped their weapons to firing positions—

A robot forklift passed down an adjacent aisle.

The massive aft doors of the cargo hold parted with a hiss. Light spilled into the hold. A dozen dockworkers dressed in coveralls entered.

John gripped his MA2B tighter. One man looked down the aisle where they crouched in the shadows.

He stooped, paused—

John raised his weapon slowly, his hands steady, and sighted on the man’s chest. “Always shoot for center of mass,” Mendez had barked during weapons training. The man stood, stretched his back, and moved on, whistling quietly to himself.

Fred and Kelly returned, and Kelly opened and closed her hand, palm out—she had placed the marker.

John grabbed his helmet from his duffel bag and slipped it on. He pinged the navigation marker and saw the blue triangle flash once on his heads-up display. He returned Kelly’s thumbs-up and removed the helmet.

John stowed his helmet and MA2B and motioned for the rest of the team to do the same. They casually walked out of the Laden ’s aft cargo hold and onto the rebel base.

The docking bay was hewn from solid rock. The ceiling stretched a kilometer high. Bright lights overhead effectively illuminated the place, looking like tiny suns in the sky. There were hundreds of ships docked within the cavern—tiny single craft, Mako-class corvettes, cargo freighters, and even a captured UNSC Pelican dropship. Each craft was held by massive cranes that traveled on railroad tracks.

The tracks led toward a series of large airlock doors. That’s how the Laden must have gotten inside.

There were people everywhere: workers and men in crisp white uniforms. John’s first instinct was to seek cover. Every one of them was a potential threat. He wished he had his gun in hand.

He remained calm and strode among these strangers. He had to set the right example for his team. If his recent encounter with the ODSTs in the gym of the Atlas had been any indication, he knew his team wouldn’t interact well with the natives.

John made his way past dockworkers and robotic trams full of cargo and vendors selling roasted meat on sticks. He walked toward a set of double doors set in the far rock wall, marked: PUBLIC SHOWERS.

He pushed through and didn’t look back.

The place was almost empty. One man was singing in the shower, and there were two rebel officers undressing near the towel dispensers.

John led his team to the most distant corner of the locker room and hunkered down on one of the benches. Linda sat with her back to them, on lookout duty.

“So far so good,” John whispered. “This will be our fallback position if everything falls apart and we get separated.”

Sam nodded. “Okay—we have a lead on how to find the Colonel. Anyone have any ideas how to get off this rock once we grab him? Back into the Laden ’s water tank?”

“Too slow,” Kelly said. “We’ve got to assume that when Colonel Watt goes missing, his people are going to look for him.”

“There was a Pelican on the dock,” John said. “We’ll take it. Now let’s figure out how to operate the cranes and airlocks.”

Sam hefted his pack of explosives. “I know just the way to politely knock on those airlock doors. Don’t worry.”

Sam tapped his left foot. He only did that when he was eager to move. Fred’s hands were clenched into fists; he might be nervous, but he had it under control. Kelly yawned. And Linda sat absolutely still.

They were ready.

John got his helmet, donned it, and checked the nav marker.

“Bearing 320,” he said. “It’s on the move.” He picked up his gear. “And so are we.”

They left the showers and strode through the dock, past massive drop doors and into a city. This part of the asteroid looked like a canyon carved into the rock; John could barely make out the ceiling far overhead. There were skyscrapers and apartment buildings, factories, and even a small hospital.

John ducked into an alley, slipped on his helmet, and pinpointed the blue nav marker. It overlay a cargo tram that silently rolled down the street. There were three armed guards riding in the back.

The Spartans followed at a discreet distance.

John checked his exit routes. Too many people, and too many unknowns. Were the people here armed?

Would they all engage if fighting started? A few of the people gave him strange looks.

“Spread out,” he whispered to his team. “We look like we’re on a parade ground.”

Kelly stepped up her pace and pulled ahead. Sam fell behind. Fred and Linda drifted to the right and left.

The cargo tram turned and made its way slowly through a crowded street. It stopped at a building. The structure was twelve stories tall, with balconies on every floor.

John guessed these were barracks.

There were two armed guards in white uniforms at the front entrance. The three men in the tram got out and carried the crate inside.

Kelly glanced at John. He nodded, giving her the go-ahead.

She approached the two guards, smiling. John knew her smile wasn’t friendly. She was smiling because she was finally getting a chance to put her training to the test.

Kelly waved to the guard and pulled open the door. He asked her to stop and show her identification.

She stepped inside, grabbed his rifle, twisted, and dragged him inside with her.

The other guard stepped back and leveled his rifle. John sprang at him from behind, grabbed his neck and snapped it, then dragged his limp body inside.

The entry room had cinderblock walls and a steel door with a swipe-card lock. A security camera dangled limply over Kelly’s head. The guard she had dragged in lay at her feet. She was already running a cracking program on the lock, using her data pad.

John retrieved his MA2B and covered her. Fred and Linda entered and slipped out of their coveralls, then donned their helmets.

“Nav marker is moving,” Linda reported. “Mark 270, elevation ten meters, twenty . . . thirty-five and holding. I’d say that’s the top floor.”

Sam entered, pulled the door shut behind him, and then jammed the lock. “All clear out there.”

The inner door clicked. “Door’s open,” Kelly said.

John, Kelly, and Sam slipped out of their coveralls as Fred and Linda covered them. John activated the motion and thermal displays in his helmet. The target sight glowed as he raised his MA2B.

“Go,” John said.

Kelly pushed open the door. Linda stepped in and to the right. John entered and took the left.

Two guards were seated behind the lobby’s reception desk. Another man, without a uniform, stood in front of the desk, waiting to be helped; two more uniformed men stood by the elevator.

Linda shot the three near the desk. John eliminated the targets by the elevator.

Five rounds—five bodies hit the floor.

Fred entered and policed the bodies, dragging them behind the counter.

Kelly moved to the stairwell, opened the door, and gave the all-clear signal.

The elevator pinged and its doors opened. They all wheeled, rifles leveled . . . but the car was empty.

John exhaled, then motioned them to take the stairs; Kelly took point. Sam brought up the rear. They silently went up nine double flights of stairs.

Kelly halted on an upper landing. She pointed to the interior of the building, then pointed up.

John detected faint blurs of heat on the twelfth floor. They’d have to pick a better route, a way in that no one would expect.

John opened the door. There was an empty hallway. No targets.

He went to the elevator doors and pried them open. Then he turned on his black suit’s cooling elements to mask his thermal signature. The others did the same . . . and faded from his thermal imaging display.

John and Sam climbed up the elevator cable. John glanced down: a thirty-meter plunge into darkness.

He might survive that fall. His bones wouldn’t break, but there would be internal damage. And it would certainly compromise their mission. He tightened his grip on the cable and didn’t look down again.

When they had climbed up the last three floors, they braced themselves in the corners by the closed elevator door. Kelly and Fred snaked up the cable after them. They braced in the far corners to overlap their fields of fire. Linda came up last. She climbed as far as she could, hooked her foot on a cross brace, and hung upside down.

John held up three fingers, two, then one, and then he and Sam silently pulled open the elevator doors.

There were five guards standing in the room. They wore light body armor and helmets and carried older-model HMG-38 rifles. Two of them turned.

Kelly, Fred, and Linda opened fire. The walnut paneling behind the guards became pockmarked with bullet holes and was spattered with blood.

The team slid inside the room, moving quickly and quietly. Sam policed the guards’ weapons.

There were two doors. One led to a balcony; the other featured a peephole. Kelly checked the balcony, then whispered over the channel in their helmets: “This overlooks the alley between buildings. No activity.”

John checked the nav marker. The blue triangles flashed a position directly behind the other door.

Sam and Fred flanked the door. John couldn’t get any reading on motion or thermal. The walls were shielded. There were too many unknowns and not enough time.

The situation wasn’t ideal. They knew there were at least three men inside—the ones who had carried the crate upstairs. And there might be more guards . . . and to complicate the situation, their target had to be taken alive.

John kicked the door in.

He took in the entire situation at a glance. He was standing on the threshold of a sumptuous apartment.

There was a wet bar boasting shelves of amber-filled bottles. A large, round bed dominated the corner, decorated with shimmering silk sheets. Windows on all sides had sheer white curtains—John’s helmet automatically compensated for the glare. Red carpet covered the floor. The crate with the cigars and champagne sat in the center of the room. It was black and armored, sealed tight against the vacuum of space.

There were three men standing behind the armored crate, and one man crouched behind them. Colonel Robert Watts—their “package.”

John didn’t have a clear shot. If he missed, he could hit the Colonel.

The three men, however, didn’t have that problem. They fired.

John dove to his left. He caught three rounds in his side—knocking the breath from his body. One bullet penetrated his black suit. He felt it ping off his ribs and pain slashed through him like a red-hot razor.

He ignored the wound and rolled to his feet. He had a clear line of fire. He squeezed the trigger once—a three-round burst caught the center guard in the forehead.

Sam and Fred wheeled around the door frame, Sam high, Fred low. Their silenced weapons coughed and the remaining pair of guards went down.

Watts remained behind the crate. He brandished his pistol. “Stop!” he screamed. “My men are coming.

You think I’m alone? You’re all dead. Drop your weapons.”

John crawled to the wet bar and crouched there. He willed the pain inside his stomach to go away. He signaled Sam and Fred and held up two fingers, then pointed the fingers over his head.

Sam and Fred fired a burst of rounds over Watts. He ducked.

John vaulted over the bar and leaped onto his quarry. He grabbed the pistol and wrenched it out of his hand, breaking the man’s index finger and thumb. John snaked his arm around Watts’s neck and choked the struggling man into near-unconsciousness.

Kelly and Linda entered. Kelly took out a syringe and injected Watts—enough polypseudomorphine to keep him sedated for the better part of a day.

Fred fell back to cover the elevator. Sam entered and crouched by the windows, watching the street below for any signs of trouble.

Kelly went to John and peeled back his black suit. Her gloves were slick with his blood. “The bullet is still inside,” she said, and bit her lower lip. “There’s a lot of internal bleeding. Hang on.” She dug a tiny bottle from her belt and inserted the nozzle into the bullet hole. “This might sting a little.”

The self-sealing biofoam filled John’s abdominal cavity. It also stung like a hundred ants crawling through his innards. She pulled the bottle out and taped up the hole. “You’re good for a few hours,” she said, and then gave him a hand up.

John felt shaky, but he’d make it. The foam would keep him from bleeding to death and stave off the shock . . . for a while, at least.

“Incoming vehicles,” Sam announced. “Six men entering the building. Two taking up position outside . . . but just the front.”

“Get our package inside that crate and seal it up,” John ordered.

He left the room, got his duffel, and went to the balcony. He secured a rope and tossed it down twelve stories into the alley. He rappelled down, took a second to scan the alley for threats, then clicked his throat mike once—the all-clear signal.

Kelly snapped a descent rig on the crate and pushed it off the balcony. It zipped down the line and thudded to a halt at the bottom.

A moment later the rest of the team glided down the rope.

They quickly donned their coveralls. Sam and Fred carried the crate as they entered the adjacent building. They exited on the street a half block down and walked as quickly as they could back to the docks.

Dozens of uniformed men ran from the dock toward the city. No one challenged them.

They reentered the now-deserted public showers.

“Everyone check your seals,” John said. “Sam, you go ring the doorbell. Meet us on the dropship.”

Sam nodded and sprinted out of the building, both packs of C-12 looped around his shoulder.

John took out the panic button. He triggered the green-mode transmission and tossed it into an empty locker. If they didn’t make it out, at least the UNSC fleet would know where to find the rebel base.

“Your suit is breached,” Kelly reminded John. “We better get to the ship now, before Sam sets off his fireworks.”

Linda and Fred checked the seals on the crate then carried it out. Kelly took point and John brought up the rear.

They boarded the Pelican dropship and John sized up her armaments—dented and charred armor, a pair of old, out-of-date 40mm chain guns. The rocket pods had been removed. Not much of a warhorse.

There was a flash of lightning at the far end of the dock. The thunder roiled through the deck, and then through John’s stomach.

While John watched, a gaping hole materialized in the airlock door amid a cloud of smoke and shattered metal. Black space loomed beyond. With an earsplitting roar, the atmosphere held in the docks abruptly transformed into a hurricane. People, crates, and debris were blasted out of the ragged tear.

John pulled himself inside the dropship and prepared to seal the main hatch.

He watched as emergency doors descended over the breached airlock. There was a second explosion, and the drop door paused, then fell and clattered to the deck, crushing a light transport vessel underneath.

Behind them, large bay doors closed, sealing the docks off from the city. Dozens of workers still on the docks ran for their lives, but didn’t make it.

Sam sprinted across the deck, perfectly safe inside his sealed black suit. He cycled through the Pelican’s emergency airlock.

“Back door’s open,” he said with a grin.

Kelly fired up the engines. The Pelican lifted, maneuvered through the dock, and then out through the blasted hole and into open space. She pushed the throttle to maximum burn.

Behind them, the insurgent base looked like any other rock in the asteroid belt . . . but this rock was venting atmosphere and starting to rotate erratically.

After five minutes at full power, Kelly eased the engines back. “We’ll hit the extraction point in two hours,” she said.

“Check on our prisoner,” John said.

Sam popped open the crate. “The seals held. Watts is still alive and has a steady pulse,” he said.

“Good,” John grunted. He winced as the throbbing pain in his side increased.

“Something bothering you?” Kelly asked. “How’s that biofoam holding up?”

“It’s fine,” he said without even looking at the hole in his side. “I’ll make it.”

He knew he should feel elated—but instead he just felt tired. Something didn’t sit right about the operation. He wondered about all the dead dockworkers and civilians back there. None of them were designated targets. And yet, weren’t they all rebels on that asteroid?

On the other hand, it was like the Chief said—he had followed his orders, completed his mission, and gotten his people out alive. What more did he want?

John stuffed his doubts deep in the back of his mind.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, and squeezed Kelly’s shoulder. John smiled. “What could be wrong? We won.”