Shadows of Reach: A Master Chief Story Read online

“Well, still at your head,” Kelly said. “But his finger is no longer on the trigger.”

  “Let me know if that changes.”

  Kelly and Fred flashed green status LEDs, and in John’s motion tracker, he saw the crowd behind him parting to let someone come forward.

  “Stand down.” The voice came from within the tunnel behind John. It was brassy and female, and the militia members in front of him immediately stood a little taller when it spoke. “What’s happening here, Major? I’m hearing reports of Banshees coming down in the canal.”

  John heard the hammer on the Desert Eagle click as it was returned to the uncocked position.

  “That’s right,” the man—apparently the major—said. “And it’s these cyborgs’ doing.”

  “What are you talking about?” The woman stepped past the major, then placed herself between the three Spartans and carefully looked them all over. Long-faced and dark-haired, she appeared to be in her fifties, with baggy eyes and a face lined by worry. She wore a gray battle uniform with the name BOLDISAR above her breast pocket and Reavian eagles on her collar tabs. The rank of colonel. “Istvan, there’s no such thing.”

  “Sure there is,” Istvan said. “You’re looking at three of them right now, ma’am.”

  The woman shook her head. “These aren’t cyborgs. They’re Spartans.”

  “Spartans?! Really?” Still holding the massive pistol in one hand, a burly, balding man with three days of gray beard stubble and the surname ERDEI above his breast pocket stepped around in front of John, then leaned in close to inspect John’s faceplate. “Damn. You’d think they would be better at this.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  1532 hours, October 7, 2559 (military calendar)

  Kisköre Irrigation Tunnel, Juh Mező Township

  Arany Basin, Continent Eposz, Planet Reach

  John wasn’t limping—much—as he made his way down the old irrigation tunnel, but it was largely willpower and reactive circuits that kept him going. The biofoam wasn’t performing as promised in terms of killing pain—in fact, some of it had coagulated into little lumps that were rolling around in the wound—and when he tried to lift his knee too high, his quadriceps just balled up in a quivering knot.

  Nevertheless, he was moving—not quite running—on a leg that was still attached to his hip, and that was a pretty decent outcome after being blasted by a Banshee’s plasma cannon. But he needed to get somewhere and apply a catalytic debrider soon. And Kelly too. Plasma bolts produced a lot of charred tissue in and around the wound, and if that matter wasn’t dissolved and removed, it would become the ideal growth medium for antibiotic-immune bacteria and flesh-eating fungi from a hundred different worlds.

  At least Fred didn’t have to worry about infection. His helmet hadn’t actually been breached by plasma bolts, and its titanium-alloy shell was more than enough to protect him from the flash heat of any strike short of a capital ship’s plasma lance. Still, there was a big crease in the armor over his parietal skull area. So far he wasn’t complaining of nausea or headaches or dizziness, and didn’t appear to be staggering or drowsy—but there was no denying that Fred was making mistakes and seemed a bit reckless. John needed to keep an eye on him.

  The three Spartans had positioned themselves at the back of the tunneling company in order to protect the column from any pursuit by the Banished. But the rehab pioneers understood how difficult it would be to survive an underglass firefight in such cramped confines, so they were jogging along through the pearly light at a swift clip—fast enough that John was in agony keeping up.

  And they were doing it while a demolitions crew rigged traps every fifty to sixty meters, pushing cubes of C10 malleable blasting agent into pipe seams and glass crevices, then rigging the charges with various kinds of automatically triggered detonators—motion, heat, and photo-optic. On any other world, John would have wondered how a bunch of civilians had come into possession of so much military explosive. But this was Reach. Before it was glassed, there had been military facilities all over the continent, and in almost every one of those facilities there had been an underground bunker full of ordnance.

  After four kilometers, the irrigation tunnel ended in a weir gate, half-melted and caked in glass that had flowed down from above. John expected the pioneers to produce a hidden ladder and climb out through a secret hatch in the lechatelierite ceiling. Instead, they pulled a section of curved pipe away from the wall, revealing a man-sized tunnel that descended into the damp bedrock at a ten-degree slope. The column bunched into a cluster as the pioneers began to enter the side tunnel. The passage was small enough that they had to travel in single file, and the sandstone floor was too uneven and slick to continue jogging.

  John and the other Spartans were waiting at the back of the bottleneck, keeping watch up the irrigation tunnel, when they saw the blue-orange flash of detonating C10. The rumble of the explosion arrived six counts later, indicating the blast had been about two kilometers distant.

  The pioneers began to pack into the side tunnel, creating a snarl that only grew worse when someone near the front tried to run and slipped on the wet stone.

  “Nothing to worry about!” called Erdei. “Everyone slow down. We have plenty of time.”

  A second explosion rolled down the main tunnel, just three seconds after the last one.

  Fifty meters in three seconds was far too fast for any of the Banished species to be moving on foot.

  John looked back over his shoulder. “They’re on Choppers.”

  “How do you know?” It was Erdei’s superior who asked this, the dark-haired Colonel Boldisar. “And are you sure?”

  “I’m sure, Colonel.”

  “It’s Sasa,” she corrected. “And how do you know this?”

  A third rumble came down the tunnel. “They’re coming too fast to be on foot,” John said. “And Choppers are the only vehicles narrow enough to fit down here.”

  “Choppers are no problem.” Erdei’s voice remained calm. He pulled a datapad from his cargo pocket and began to enter commands. “Slow and steady, people. I have something special planned for our friends.”

  A fourth C10 blast sounded, but the rehab pioneers had stopped pushing and were giving those at the front of the column time to regain their feet. Despite his brusque manner, Erdei obviously had the confidence of his company.

  By the time the fifth blast came, half the column had entered the side tunnel. John did a quick calculation via his onboard computer and confirmed that Erdei was right. The last pioneers would be a few hundred meters down the passage before the first Choppers reached the entrance. And after dozens of blasts, the Banished riding them would not be eager to dismount and squeeze into a two-meter-by-two-meter corridor to continue their dangerous pursuit.

  For the next minute, John watched the explosions grow a little brighter and larger as the enemy drew nearer. By the time he could actually discern the tiny bell of the first approaching Chopper, the last six militia members were lined up in front of the side tunnel.

  And that’s when Fred’s faceplate fixed on Erdei.

  “Wait, are you…” He stepped to the major’s side and peered down at the datapad’s screen. “Are you linking the rest of the charges?”

  “You bet,” Erdei said. “And setting them to remote-trigger. I want those damn bastards to think we botched the rest of our sets—then, bam! Take ’em all out at once.”

  “You can’t do that,” Fred said.

  “Well, it seems to me I am doing it.” Erdei tapped the power icon on his datapad. “It’s worked before.”

  “Thirty C10 charges will have the brisance of a quarter tub of octa.”

  “The what of what?”

  “Shattering power and octanitrocubane?” Fred sounded incredulous. Maybe his concussion was making it difficult to remember that not everyone learned to calculate destructive capacity when they were twelve years old. “Didn’t they teach you anything at demolitions school?”

  “Nope.” Erdei slipped
his datapad back into its cargo pocket, then followed the last member of his company into the side tunnel. “The only demolitions training I’ve had was right here on Reach. And Rendor didn’t waste time on that fancy stuff.”

  “The blast is too big!” Fred called after him.

  “Good!” someone else—not Erdei—shouted back. “We need to get something out of this mess!”

  Fred continued to yell down the tunnel. “But we’re in a confined space! The overpressure will be…” He paused, no doubt while his onboard computer did some calculations, then finished, “… almost twenty pascals!”

  Boldisar looked to John. “Is that bad?”

  “It will be if that tunnel is very long,” John said. “Twenty pascals is enough to knock down a house.”

  “Then we’d better move it,” Boldisar said. “I hope you Spartans can squeeze through. Istvan didn’t drive this tunnel with someone your size in mind.”

  “We can duck our heads, ma’am,” John said. “Or even crawl, if it gets that tight. We’re pretty fast.”

  John waved her into the tunnel ahead of his team, but she motioned Fred and Kelly to enter.

  “Guests first,” she said.

  Rather than waste time arguing, John flashed a green status LED to both Spartans. But when Boldisar gestured for John to go in ahead of her too, he stopped.

  “I’ll bring up the rear,” he said. “This armor will stand up to the shockwave a lot better than you will.”

  Boldisar nodded and started down the tunnel at a fast walk. She managed to stay close behind Fred and Kelly even when the passage grew dark and she had to shine a handlamp on the floor to see her footing. John could tell by the amount of light spilling past Kelly that Fred was not far ahead, but was completely hidden by her hunched form. John stooped far enough to avoid scraping his helmet on the rocky ceiling and allowed Boldisar to walk a few meters ahead of him, in case the C10 charges detonated and he was pancaked by the shockwave.

  They had traveled about fifty meters when a muffled rumble came down the passage behind them, drawing a collective gasp from the company.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Erdei called. “They tried to disarm a charge and set off the tamper switch.”

  John tried to judge how close the detonation had been by the sound volume, but between being in a side tunnel and the curvature of the tunnel itself, all his onboard computer could come up with was a range of somewhere between fifteen hundred meters and just three hundred. Not much help.

  Another explosion, this time drawing only a few nervous chuckles. Whatever John thought of Erdei—and it wasn’t much, after the way he’d dismissed Fred’s concern over linking the C10 charges—the man clearly knew how to keep his people focused. After a third explosion that startled no one, the Banished pursuers evidently stopped trying to disarm the “botched” traps, and the pioneers continued their descent with calm efficiency.

  Boldisar slowed her pace, allowing Fred and Kelly to move ahead while she fell back to an easy conversation distance with John.

  “I’d keep some space between us, ma’am.” John banged his helmet on the passage ceiling, then said, “When the overpressure hits, I might not be able to keep my feet.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Master Chief.” She looked back over her shoulder, squinting against the glare of John’s helmet lamps. “You are the Master Chief, right? Just wanted to confirm.”

  “Affirmative,” John said. His GEN3 Mjolnir had a trimmer appearance than the GEN1 armor he had used during the war, but it still had his service number stamped on the breastplate. “117.”

  Boldisar gave a small smile and looked forward again. “I’m glad they sent the best.”

  “There’s a difference between being the best and the best-known,” John said. “All of us are pretty capable.”

  “From what I hear, that’s the understatement of the decade.” Boldisar paused, then said, “I want to apologize for your reception.”

  “Our reception was fine, ma’am. No one was hurt.”

  “I’m talking about your continuing reception—Istvan ignoring the warning about the overpressure, and his company’s frustration with your unexpected arrival. We’ve been prepping this operation for a month—and tonight was the night we were going to execute.”

  “I’m sorry about our timing, ma’am.” There were only twenty people in Erdei’s tunneling company, so it was hard to imagine what they were planning that could justify a month’s worth of work. “But whatever you’re trying to capture, there must be an easier way.”

  “Capture?” Boldisar gave a dispirited chuckle. “We weren’t trying to capture anything, Master Chief. It was more of a subterfuge.”

  “You spent a month driving a tunnel to set up a trick?”

  “It’s a hell of a trick.” As Boldisar spoke, a pearly radiance began to fill the passage ahead, silhouetting Kelly’s form. “You didn’t see what we had to leave stowed at the far end of the irrigation tunnel.”

  Suddenly Kelly no longer seemed to fill the cramped space ahead, and John saw that she had stepped out onto an expanse of sandy ground. Her helmet vanished behind the tunnel ceiling as she straightened to her full height; then she moved out of view, revealing the narrow shore of a small underglass river. Over Boldisar’s shoulder, John could see about half of Erdei’s company standing directly in front of the tunnel. They were at the river’s edge, checking weapons and shouldering rucksacks, their faces glowing in the soft light pouring through the lechatelierite overhead.

  Boldisar stepped out of the passage, then moved to one side and faced John as he emerged behind her. “I’m not sure what the proper term is, but—”

  John didn’t hear the C10 charges explode. He simply felt the shockwave slap his backplate, and in the next instant he was lying faceplate-down in the sand. He plowed maybe a meter forward before he stopped, his leg wound throbbing. But that was the extent of it. No damage alerts, no new wounds, no ringing ears. His hydrostatic gel layer didn’t even pressurize.

  The tunneling company was not so lucky. When John lifted his head, it was to find nine of them lying flat in the sand or in the water, bleeding from their ears or noses. Most were gasping for breath and clutching their torsos, but some were yelling and rocking back and forth in pain.

  Kelly’s voice came over TEAMCOM. “Blue Leader, status?”

  “No worse than before.”

  John rose and looked back toward the passage. He was relieved to see Boldisar standing with the other half of Erdei’s company, whose location to one side of the tunnel’s mouth had spared them being blasted by the shockwave. Their mouths were gaping and their eyes were round in amazement.

  In their midst stood Kelly and Fred, helmets tipped back as they studied the glass overhead. John followed their gaze: less than a meter overhead, the lechatelierite ceiling was webbed with running cracks, creeping outward in all directions.

  He raised his arm and pointed downriver. “Tunneling company, move out!” Over TEAMCOM, he added, “Blue Team, collect the casualties.”

  A pair of status LEDs flashed green. Kelly sprang past him; Fred followed a breath behind, stooping to scoop up a wide-eyed, bloody-nosed Erdei as his first passenger.

  “Told ya,” Fred remarked.

  “Blue Two—” A chunk of lechatelierite clanged off John’s shoulder and landed in the sand at his feet. “Not now. Focus.”

  Fred continued past. “I’d like to think I can gloat and rescue at the same time, Master Chief.”

  He bent to gather up a dazed woman, then threw her over his shoulder and dodged through a cascade of falling lechatelierite to pick up another man. Kelly already had two casualties, one over her shoulder and another cradled in her good arm. John scooped up the last four, positioning two of them over his shoulders like flour sacks, and limped after his fellow Spartans. It was impossible to protect his passengers from all of the dropping glass chunks, but they were still alive and groaning when he finally cleared the danger zone and joined the rest of
the company.

  Kelly already had her passengers seated in the sand, their backs resting against a section of vertical riverbank. With the help of the uninjured pioneers, Fred unloaded his casualties next to hers, and John did the same next to Fred’s. Most of them appeared stunned rather than seriously injured, though it might be a while before the ones with bloody ears were able to hear again—the overpressure had probably ruptured their eardrums.

  John broke out his medical kit and offered a roll of packing gauze to Erdei, whose nose was still bleeding as if a tap had been opened. But the commander shoved his hand away.

  “Don’t you think I’ve got my own damn kit?” He staggered to his feet and began to zigzag down the shore, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose and the other fishing through his cargo pockets. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you tin-can commandos had the sense to duck out of sight when there are Banshees overhead!”

  The rest of the tunneling company bustled into action, using two-man carries to load the other casualties and start after Erdei. They all avoided looking toward John as they departed, but there were still three injured left behind when only Boldisar and the Spartans remained.

  Boldisar motioned to the casualties. “Would you mind?” She turned to follow the rest of the company. “I’d better fix this situation before it gets out of control.”

  “Affirmative, ma’am.”

  John nodded to Fred and Kelly, and the three of them gathered up the last, somewhat reluctant pioneers, then started down the shore after the rest of Erdei’s company.

  The woman cradled in John’s arms was groaning and coughing up small amounts of blood, the sign of a condition soldiers called blast lung—pulmonary contusion, with burst alveoli and blood vessels. Given that she wasn’t coughing up a lot of blood, he thought she would probably survive, provided the pioneers had some kind of medical facility not too far away.

  Boldisar hurried to the front of the company and slipped Erdei’s arm over her shoulders, then began an animated discussion. John was glad to see that the colonel understood the urgency. Unit morale was one of the most decisive factors in combat survivability, and when the Banished recovered and renewed their pursuit, Erdei’s company was going to need every joule of spirit it could summon.