CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

0600 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Iroquois , military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV

Commander Keyes had a sinking feeling that although he had won the battle, it would be the first of many to come in the Sigma Octanus System.

He watched the four dozen other UNSC ships orbit the planet: frigates and destroyers, two carriers, and a massive repair and refitting station—more vessels than Admiral Cole had at his disposal during his four-year-long campaign to save Harvest. Admiral Stanforth had pulled out all the stops.

Although Commander Keyes was grateful for the quick and overwhelming response, he wondered why the Admiral had dedicated so many ships to the area. Sigma Octanus wasn’t strategically positioned. It had no special resources. True, the UNSC had standing orders to protect civilian lives, but the fleet was spread dangerously thin. Commander Keyes knew there were more valuable systems that needed protection.

He pushed these thoughts aside. He was sure Admiral Stanforth had his reasons. Meanwhile the repair and resupply of the Iroquois was his top priority—he didn’t want to get caught half ready if the Covenant returned.

Or rather, when they returned.

It was a curious thing: the aliens dropping their ground forces and then retreating. That was not their usual mode of operation. Commander Keyes suspected this was just an opening move in a game he didn’t yet understand.

A shadow crossed the fore camera of the Iroquois as the repair station Cradle maneuvered closer. Cradle was essentially a large square plate with engines. Large was an understatement; she was over a square kilometer. Three destroyers could be eclipsed by her shadow. The station running at full steam could refit six destroyers, three from her lower surface and three on her upper surface, within a matter of hours.

Scaffolds deployed from her surfaces to facilitate repairs. Resupply tubes, hoses, and cargo trams fed into the Iroquois . It would take the full attention of Cradle thirty hours to repair the Iroquois , however.

The aliens had not landed a single serious shot. Nonetheless, the Iroquois had almost been destroyed during the execution of what some in the fleet were already calling the “Keyes Loop.”

Commander Keyes glanced at his data pad and the extensive list of repairs. Fifteen percent of the electronic systems had to be replaced—burned out from the EMP when the Shiva missile detonated.

The Iroquois ’ engines required a full overhaul. Both coolant systems had valves that had been fused from the tremendous heat. Five of the superconducting magnets had to be replaced as well.

But most troublesome was the damage to the underside of the Iroquois . When they had told Commander Keyes what had happened, he went outside in a Longsword interceptor to personally inspect what he had done to his ship.

The underside of the Iroquois had been scraped when they passed over the prow of the alien destroyer.

He knew there was some damage . . . but was not prepared for what he saw.

UNSC destroyers had nearly two meters of titanium-a battleplate on their surfaces. Commander Keyes had abraded through all of it. He had breached every bottom deck of the Iroquois . The jagged serrated edges of the plate curled away from the wound. Men in EVA thruster packs were busy cutting off the damaged sections so new plates could be welded into place.

The underside was mirror smooth and perfectly flat. But Keyes knew that the appearance of benign flatness was deceptive. Had the angle of the Iroquois been tilted a single degree down, the force of the two ships impacting would have shorn his ship in half.

The red war stripes that had been painted on the Iroquois ’ side looked like bloody slashes. The dockmaster had privately told Commander Keyes that his crew could buff the paint off—or even repaint the war stripes, if he wanted.

Commander Keyes had politely refused the offer. He wanted them left exactly the way they were. He wanted to be reminded that while everyone had admired what he had done—it had been an act of desperation, not heroism.

He wanted to be reminded of how close a brush he had had with death.

Commander Keyes returned to the Iroquois and marched directly to his quarters.

He sat at his antique oak desk and tapped the intercom. “Lieutenant Dominique, you have the bridge for the next cycle. I am not to be disturbed.”

“Aye, Commander. Understood.”

Commander Keyes loosened his collar and unbuttoned his uniform. He retrieved the seventy-year-old bottle of Scotch that his father had given him from the bottom drawer, and then poured four centimeters into a plastic cup.

He had to attend to an even more unpleasant task: what to do about Lieutenant Jaggers.

Jaggers had exhibited borderline cowardice, insubordination and come within a hairbreadth of attempted mutiny during the engagement. Keyes could have had him court-martialed. Every reg in the books screamed at him to . . . but he didn’t have it in him to send the young man before a board of inquiry. He would instead merely transfer the Lieutenant to a place where he would still do the UNSC some good—

perhaps a distant outpost.

Was all the blame his? As Commander, it was his responsibility to maintain control, to prevent a crewman from even thinking that mutiny was a possibility.

He sighed. Maybe he should have told his crew what he was attempting . . . but there had simply been no time. And certainly, no time for discussion as Jaggers would have wanted. No. The other bridge officers had concerns, but they had followed his orders, as their duty required.

As much as Commander Keyes believed in giving people a second chance, this was where he drew the line.

To make matters worse, transferring Jaggers would leave a hole in the bridge crew.

Commander Keyes accessed the service records of Iroquois ’ junior officers. There were several who might qualify for navigation officer. He flipped through their files on his data pad, and then paused.

The theoretical paper on mass-space compression was still open, as well as his hastily calculated course corrections.

He smiled and archived those notes. He might one day give a lecture on this battle at the Academy. It would be useful to have the original source material.

There was also the data from the Archimedes Sensor Outpost. That report had been thoroughly made: clean data graphs and a navigational course plotted for the object through Slipstream space—not an easy task even with an AI. The report even had tags to route it to the astrophysics section of the UNSC.

Thoughtful.

He looked up the service record of the officer who had filed the report: Ensign William Lovell.

Keyes leaned closer. The boy’s Career Service Vitae was almost twice as long as his own. He had volunteered and been accepted at Luna Academy. He transferred in his second year, having already received a commission to Ensign for heroism in a training flight that had saved the entire crew. He took duty on the first outbound corvette headed into battle. Three Bronze Stars, a Silver Cluster, and two Purple Hearts, and he had catapulted to a full Lieutenant within three years.

Then something went terribly wrong. Lovell’s decline in the UNSC had been as rapid as his ascent. Four reports of insubordination and he was busted to Second Lieutenant and transferred twice. An incident with a civilian woman—no details in the files, although Commander Keyes wondered if the girl listed in the report, Anna Gerov, was Vice Admiral Gerov’s daughter.

He had been reassigned to the Archimedes Sensor Outpost, and had been there for the last year, an unheard of length of time in such a remote facility.

Commander Keyes reviewed the logs when Lovell had been on duty. They were careful and intelligent.

So the boy was still sharp . . . was he hiding?

There was a gentle knock on his door.

“Lieutenant Dominique, I said I was not to be disturbed.”

“Sorry to intrude, son,” said a muffled voice. The pressure door’s wheel turned and Admiral Stanforth stepped inside. “But I thought I’d just stop by since I was in the neighborhood.”

Admiral Stanforth was much smaller in person than he appeared on-screen. His back was stooped over with age, and his white hair was thinning at the crown. Still, he exuded a reassuring air of authority that Keyes instantly recognized.

“Sir!” Commander Keyes stood at attention, knocking over his chair.

“At ease, son.” The Admiral looked around his quarters, and his gaze lingered a moment on the framed copy of Lagrange’s original manuscript in which he derived his equations of motion. “You can pour me a few fingers of the whiskey, if you can spare it.”

“Yes, sir.” Keyes fumbled with another plastic cup and poured the Admiral a drink.

Stanforth took a sip, then sighed appreciatively. “Very nice.”

Keyes righted his chair and offered it to the Admiral.

He sat down and leaned forward. “I wanted to congratulate you personally on the miracle you performed here, Keyes.”

“Sir, I don’t—”

Stanforth held up a finger. “Don’t interrupt me, son. That was a helluva piece of astrogation you pulled off. People noticed. Not to mention the morale boost it’s given to the entire fleet.” He took another sip of the liquor and exhaled. “Now, that’s the reason we’re all here. We need a victory. It’s been too damn long—us getting whittled to pieces by those alien bastards. So this has got to be a win. No matter what it takes.”

“I understand, sir,” Commander Keyes said. He knew morale had been sagging for years throughout the UNSC. No military, no matter how well trained, could stomach defeat after defeat without it affecting their determination in battles.

“How is it going planetside?”

“Right now don’t you worry about that.” Admiral Stanforth eased back in his chair, balancing on two legs. “General Kits has his troops down there. They’ve got the surrounding cities evacuated, and they’ll be assaulting Côte d’Azur within the hour. They’ll paste those aliens faster than you can spit. You just watch.”

“Of course, sir.” Commander Keyes looked away.

“You got something else to say, boy? Spit it out.”

“Well, sir . . . this isn’t the way the Covenant normally operates. Dropping an invasion force and leaving the system? They either slaughter everything or die trying. This is something altogether different.”

Admiral Stanforth waved a dismissive hand. “You leave trying to figure out what those aliens are thinking to the spooks in ONI, son. Just get the Iroquois patched up and fit for duty again. And you let me know if you need anything.”

Stanforth knocked back the last of his whiskey and stood. “Got to marshal the fleet. Oh—” He paused.

“One more thing.” He dug into his jacket pocket and retrieved a tiny cardboard box. He set it on the Commander’s desk. “Consider it official. The paperwork will catch up with us soon enough.”

Commander Keyes opened the box. Inside were a pair of brass collar insignia: four bars and a single star.

“Congratulations, Captain Keyes.” The Admiral snapped a quick salute, then held out his hand.

Keyes managed to grasp and shake the Admiral’s hand. The insignia was real. He was stunned. He couldn’t say anything.

“You’ve earned it.” The Admiral started to turn. “Give me a shout if you need anything.”

“Yes, sir.” Keyes stared at the brass star and stripes a moment longer then finally tore his gaze away.

“Admiral . . . there is one thing. I need a replacement navigation officer.”

Admiral Stanforth’s relaxed posture stiffened. “I heard about that. Ugly business when a bridge officer loses their stomach. Well, you just say the candidate’s name and I’ll make sure you get him . . . as long as you’re not pulling him off my ship.” He smiled. “Keep up the good work, Captain.”

“Sir!” Captain Keyes saluted.

The Admiral stepped out and closed the door.

Keyes practically fell into his chair.

He had never dreamed they’d make him a Captain. He turned the brass insignia over in his palm and replayed his conversation with Admiral Stanforth in his mind. He had said, “Captain Keyes.” Yes. This was real.

The Admiral had also brushed aside his concerns about the Covenant too quickly. Something didn’t quite add up.

Keyes clicked on the intercom. “Lieutenant Dominique: track the Admiral’s shuttle when he leaves. Let me know which ship he’s on.”

“Sir? We had an Admiral aboard? I wasn’t informed.”

“No, Lieutenant, I suspect you weren’t. Just track the next outbound shuttle.”

“Aye, sir.”

Keyes looked back on his data pad and reread Ensign Lovell’s CSV. He couldn’t take back what had happened with Jaggers—there could be no second chance for him. But maybe he could somehow balance the books by giving Lovell another chance.

He filled out the necessary paperwork for the transfer request. The forms were long and unnecessarily complex. He transmitted the files to UNSC PERSCOM and sent a copy directly to Admiral Stanforth’s staff.

“Sir?” Lieutenant Dominique’s voice broke over the intercom. “That shuttle docked with the Leviathan .”

“Put it on-screen.”

The screen over his desk snapped on to camera five, the aft-starboard view. Among the dozens of ships in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV, he easily spotted the Leviathan . She was one of the twenty UNSC

cruisers left in the fleet.

A cruiser was the most powerful warship ever built by human hands. And Keyes knew they were being slowly pulled out of forward areas and parked in reserve to guard the Inner Colonies.

A piece of shadow moved under the great warship, black moving on black. It revealed itself for only an instant in the sunlight, then slithered back into the darkness. It was a prowler.

Those stealth ships were used exclusively by Naval Intelligence.

A cruiser and an ONI presence here? Now Keyes knew there was more going on here than a simple morale boost. He tried not to think about it. It was best not to go too far when questioning the intentions of one’s superior officer—especially when that officer was an Admiral. And especially not when Naval Intelligence was literally lurking in the shadows.

Keyes poured himself another three fingers of Scotch, set his head on his desk—just to rest his eyes for a moment. The last few hours had drained him.

“Sir.” Dominique’s voice over the intercom woke Captain Keyes. “Incoming fleet-wide transmission on Alpha priority channel.”

Keyes sat up and ran his hand over his face. He glanced at the brass clock affixed over his bunk—he had slept for almost six hours.

Admiral Stanforth appeared on-screen. “Listen up, ladies and gentlemen: we’ve just detected a large number of Covenant ships massing on the edge of the system. We estimate ten ships.”

On-screen the silhouettes of the all-too-familiar Covenant frigates and a destroyer appeared as ghostly radar smears.

“We’ll remain where we are,” the Admiral continued. “There’s no need to charge in and have those ugly bastards take a shortcut through Slipspace and undercut us. Make your ships ready for battle. We’ve got probes gathering more data. I’ll update you when we know more. Stanforth out.”

The screen went black.

Keyes snapped on the intercom. “Lieutenant Hall, what is our repair and refit status?”

“Sir,” she replied. “Engines are operational, but only with the backup coolant system. We can heat them to fifty percent. Archer and nuclear ordnance resupply is complete. MAC guns are also operational.

Repairs to lower decks have just started.”

“Inform the dockmaster to pull his crew out,” Captain Keyes said. “We’re leaving the Cradle . When we are clear, fire the reactors to fifty percent. Go to battle stations.”