Silent Storm: A Master Chief Story Read online

  “Oh no, you don’t!” It was the heavyset man with the oblong device who said this. “You talk to me. I’m the one with the nuke.”

  ‘Szatulai glanced toward him only briefly, then turned back to Garvin.

  “Sorry about that.” Garvin gestured toward the device in the man’s hands. “It’s a Havok Mark 2521 Medium Fusion Destructive Device thermonuclear warhead, liberated from Task Force Yama. We thought you might like to know how the Spartans intend to destroy your fleet, so we brought it along. Unfortunately, the moment you boarded, Commandant Booth here snatched it up. He claims it’s armed.”

  “I was a munitions maintenance chief aboard the Roman Blue, so you had better believe it’s armed.” Booth directed his next words toward ‘Szatulai. “Either you call off the attack on Biko, or I let it detonate.”

  ‘Szatulai turned his helmet toward this “Commandant Booth” again and said nothing. Could the man actually believe that a minor Sangheili flotilla commander had the authority to call off a planetary assault? Surely the humans would never entrust their weapons of mass destruction to such a fool. Booth’s threat had to be a ruse—some negotiating trick through which the humans hoped to manipulate him.

  When ‘Szatulai did not reply, Booth grew impatient. “We had a deal. You were going to spare Biko—”

  “Shut up, Erland,” said a small woman with olive skin. She was holding a sidearm with a barrel as long as her forearm, the muzzle pointed at Booth’s foot. Her knuckles were white from squeezing the grip, and her finger was on the trigger. “There was never a deal—only our offer.”

  Booth scowled in her direction. “Well, there’s a deal now, Petora.” He looked back to ‘Szatulai. “Call off the attack, or we all die together.”

  ‘Szatulai realized that Booth was actually a deranged fool. That much was clear from how the woman looked warily at him, and from his apparent belief that a Sangheili warrior could be intimidated by the mere threat of death. In ‘Szatulai’s experience, most beings believed of others what they knew to be true of themselves—so would a man who feared death be willing to forfeit his own life?

  Perhaps, if he valued his world more than his own safety and was insane enough to believe he could save it with one bomb. But would he do so instantly? ‘Szatulai thought not. He would create a delay, give himself an escape in case something unexpected happened—or in case he changed his mind.

  ‘Szatulai started toward Booth.

  “Stay back,” Booth said. “I’m not giving this up until the attack stops.”

  ‘Szatulai extended a hand, palm up, and continued forward.

  Booth’s gaze dropped to the extended hand. “What? What’s this about?”

  ‘Szatulai lashed out with his other arm, sweeping the Havok from Booth’s grasp into his own upturned palm. When a countdown appeared on the green panel and his existence did not end in a single instant of searing brightness, he knew he had been right about Booth’s character. He brought the warhead up and then used it to crater the man’s skull, leaving the body to crumple to the deck. ‘Szatulai turned toward the door . . . and found the olive-skinned woman—Petora—standing in front of him.

  “Allow me.” Petora holstered her sidearm and took the warhead from his hands, then examined the green panel. “Fifty seconds. Anyone know how to disarm this thing?”

  General Garvin immediately came to her side and began to study the panel. ‘Szatulai’s grasp of human chirography was not strong enough to identify the numbers as they flickered past, but he counted twenty breaths before Garvin began to peck at the touchpad. General Garvin was obviously a disciplined and well-trained warrior—perhaps even one who had taken the Death Vow and considered his life already sacrificed to the cause he served—and ‘Szatulai would have to treat him with more caution than the rest of these traitors.

  If they all survived the next few seconds, of course.

  Garvin finally stopped pecking, and the countdown ceased before the green panel went dark. The general cleared his throat—was that a sign of human anxiety?—then took the warhead from Petora and held it out to ‘Szatulai.

  “Please accept this as a token of our goodwill.”

  ‘Szatulai studied the weapon for a moment, pondering the possibility that the gift was simply a trap designed to sneak powerful munitions—or possibly a spy device—aboard a Covenant ship. But aside from Garvin himself, the personnel aboard the human ship did not seem disciplined enough to execute such a deception—and even if he was mistaken, it seemed an overly elaborate ruse to destroy a single Covenant vessel.

  ‘Szatulai motioned Orsun to come forward and accept the warhead. To be on the safe side, he would suggest having the device studied in isolation on a smaller ship. But the potential intelligence value was too great to forgo. If the Engineers could learn how to prevent the devices from detonating, then the threat to the Covenant fleets would be greatly reduced.

  Once Orsun had taken the warhead, Garvin said, “What happened on Seoba wasn’t our doing. The Spartan task force showed up the day before our meeting with you and took us by surprise.” He looked at the floor, then added, “We think it was just an unfortunate coincidence. They were intending to stage their operation out of the same ice quarry that we chose for the rendezvous.”

  Knowing that his black, elongated faceplate would make him appear all the more enigmatic and menacing, ‘Szatulai kept his helmet tipped toward Garvin and remained silent. The only thing about the coincidence at Seoba that did not seem plausible was that Garvin had not foreseen it. There were three moons orbiting the planet the humans called Biko, but two were being actively mined for heavy metals. Only Seoba was deserted, and its abandoned ice quarry was an ideal staging area for an attack on the world itself.

  And that thought made ‘Szatulai remember Garvin’s first message: We have a little project we’d like your help with.

  Now ‘Szatulai understood why there had been so many traitors on the moon. Garvin hoped to overthrow this planet’s rulers and take their place—and he wanted the Covenant’s help.

  After a few more awkward moments, Garvin said, “We have another gift.”

  He slowly began to reach toward his shirt pocket. ‘Szatulai knew the general feared the movement would be interpreted as a hostile act, but there was no need. Now that he understood what the traitors wanted, he no longer was concerned about their intentions. When Garvin removed his fingers from the pocket, they were holding a small flat object about the size of his palm, what the humans called a “data card.”

  “We’ve been trying to procure a suit of the Mjolnir power armor that the Spartans wear. Unfortunately, we haven’t been successful—not yet.” He held the card out to ‘Szatulai. “But this data crystal contains schematics for their armor. If you haven’t captured a datapad, we can supply one.”

  ‘Szatulai had captured many datapads during his infiltration assignments and knew how to use them all. He motioned Castor to come forward and accept the data crystal, then tipped his helmet forward and continued to study Garvin.

  By now, Garvin had realized that ‘Szatulai was not going to speak to him.

  “We have nothing more to offer at this time,” Garvin said. “But our spies are well-placed in Task Force Yama, and they’ve been able to plant a number of listening devices in key locations. If you can help us take control of Biko, we can help you anticipate the Spartans’ next moves.”

  ‘Szatulai would be happy to accept the offer. On his terms, at least. He had listened in dismay as his Bloodstars fell to the Spartans in the battle of the ice quarry, and his efforts to capture one of their “prowlers” had brought only disaster and the mockery of the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience’s San’Shyuum magistrate, the Minor Minister of Artifact Survey. ‘Szatulai cared little enough about the opinion of the Minor Minister, but he despised any shame the order of the Silent Shadow might incur due to those failures. If ‘Szatulai could leverage General Garvin to actually capture these Spartan abominations, he would more than make amends f
or the loss of so many warriors and vessels on Seoba.

  Of course, any perceived alliance on Garvin’s part would be utterly false. The planet would be cleansed soon enough, as the others before it. These Spartans, however, could not be allowed to continue, even if it required stringing along a disorganized clan of human rebels for a time. In ‘Szatulai’s estimation, the Spartans were the only real threat humanity had displayed so far, and he would use every tool at his disposal to eradicate them before they became a danger to the Hierarchs’ plans.

  ‘Szatulai extended a hand and turned it palm up. Garvin stared at the hand in perplexity for a moment, then finally seemed to take it as a gesture of acceptance.

  “If that’s a yes, I’m going to need a way to contact you.”

  ‘Szatulai pointed to the small woman called Petora and motioned for her to follow him. She seemed someone intelligent enough to understand the principles of operating a supraluminal communicator . . . and the consequences of allowing it to fall into Spartan hands.

  CHAPTER 19

  * * *

  * * *

  0546 hours, March 26, 2526 (military calendar)

  UNSC Point Blank–class Stealth Cruiser Vanishing Point

  Assault Approach, Planet Etalan, Igdras System

  An invasion fleet needed five things to press its advance: munitions, medicine, food, fuel, and spare parts. Fuel was rarely a problem because most vessels carried enough aboard to power their fusion reactors for years at a time. But eliminate any of the other four necessities and, sooner or later, a fleet was just so much scrap metal.

  During the slipspace journey from Biko to Etalan, John-117 and Avery Johnson had decided to attack the Covenant munitions supply first and its food supply second, since those were the two quickest ways to bring the alien offensive to a standstill. The trouble was, after observing the enemy logistics fleet for several days, it was still hard to tell the munitions carriers from the hospital ships or equipment freighters. The Vanishing Point’s intelligence analysts were fairly certain that the vessels with transparent domes were agricultural ships, but there were three low-orbiting behemoths that remained a complete mystery to everyone. The trio kept skimming the atmosphere and sinking into orbital decay, then having to activate their engines and boost themselves out of trouble.

  And time seemed to have run out. The alien logistics fleet was syncing orbits and bringing their fusion reactors to full power, probably because the Covenant assault fleet had secured the battlefield and was ready for replenishment. There was no way to confirm that supposition—the Vanishing Point and its two-prowler escort had been out of touch since slipping away from Task Force Yama six days earlier. But only a fool would think that Colonel Crowther and his Black Daggers could have tipped the battle in favor of the Biko Guards’ tiny armada and stopped the aliens from glassing the planet.

  “This can still work,” Johnson said. He was standing with Blue Team in the Vanishing Point’s aft fighter hangar, watching a trio of green “friend” dots lead a swarm of red “foe” triangles across the display screen hanging high on the bulkhead. “Let’s take out the agricultural ships.”

  “What we think are the agricultural ships,” Fred said. Like John and the rest of Blue Team, he was standing in full Mjolnir, holding an armed Mark 2521 Havok in the crook of one arm. “They could be petting zoos, for all we know.”

  “Yeah, but at least we’d be eliminating all their petting zoos,” Johnson said. He wore black space assault armor and had his own Havok at his feet, next to an M99 Stanchion Gauss rifle. On his armor’s magmounts, he carried an M41 SPNKR rocket launcher. Technically, the SPNKR was a surface-to-surface weapon, but it could be devastating in space assaults, where its range and accuracy were not degraded by gravity and atmospheric drag. “So whatever they need petting zoos for, they’d be stuck until they could bring more forward.”

  “I think we can do better than that, Sergeant Johnson.” Dr. Halsey’s voice came from the hangar hatch behind them. She crossed in front of Task Force Yama’s five captured Banshee fighters, then stopped in front of the team and continued in a low voice, “In fact, I’m quite sure we can eliminate the munitions carriers as planned.”

  “You’ve identified them?” John asked.

  “Do you really think I’d be allowing you to sacrifice my Banshees if I hadn’t? The value of those craft to my research is inestimable, and we have no idea when we’ll capture more.” Halsey turned to the bulkhead display screen and spread her fingers, expanding the tactical map until it showed fifteen red designators, all spread along a line on the near side of Etalan—the alien logistics fleet syncing orbits in preparation for departure. She pointed to a trio of crimson diamonds still preparing to transfer out of a low orbit. “Those big air-skimmers are the munitions carriers.”

  “No offense,” Avery Johnson said, “but how can you be sure?”

  His faceplate was turning between Halsey and the tactical map, where twenty green dots were diving into Etalan’s gravity well, blowing through the mass of red triangles and squares that had come up to meet them. Each green dot represented an S-14 Baselard Space Striker assault fighter with a two-person crew, while the red symbols represented two different kinds of alien fighters—triangles for exo-atmosphere Banshee fighters, and squares for a much larger and deadlier craft nicknamed the Seraph.

  Fortunately, there were a lot of Banshee triangles and only a few Seraph squares in the swarm, and John was hopeful that the Baselard squadron would be able to penetrate the enemy fighter screen. The four Baselards in the center of the formation were crewed by Havok-carrying Spartans. If they could get near enough to the four logistics vessels identified on the tactical map by the red octagons, all eight of those Spartans would go EV and use the empty fighters as decoys while they sneaked their Havoks aboard the target vessels by infiltrating through a hangar, an airlock, or even a plasma-cannon port.

  It was a risky mission, but to John that seemed par for course lately. The Spartans had been created to serve primarily as a high-impact force against enemy surface formations, so any space operation that involved them going EV was fraught with perils they were not equipped to handle. During an EVA mission, a Spartan could easily be lost to a stray plasma strike or a chance collision, and just like that, a soldier with eight years of expensive elite training, protected by a suit of armor that cost as much as a UNSC starship, would be gone.

  But if one thing had become clear after fighting the Covenant for just a few short months, it was that humanity needed to fight the aliens however it could, even if that meant assuming exceptional risk for an operation with this kind of potential to rock the Covenant back on its heels. The intelligence analysts felt about seventy-percent confident that the vessels represented by red octagons were equipment freighters carrying the spare parts and raw materials needed to keep the enemy battle fleet operational.

  If those ships could be destroyed, the Covenant fleet would be forced to avoid fighting until replacements were brought forward—a process that would delay their invasion timetable by at least a month. And in this war, a month’s respite might well mean the difference between humanity’s survival and its destruction.

  But Spartans were too valuable and rare to risk lightly. Kurt-051 and Joshua-029, who were leading Green and Gold Teams in the attack, had firm instructions to abort their mission if it appeared the Spartans’ Baselards would not reach their targets. And, of course, there was a flexible but robust retrieval plan with five different contingencies for recovering each Spartan whether or not the attacks succeeded—or were even attempted. Despite this, John knew his fellow Spartans well enough to know that the last thing on their mind were mission aborting contingencies. They would do whatever it took to complete the objective.

  After a moment, Halsey seemed to decide it would be easier to answer Johnson than argue with him. “I’m sure because I understand how the Covenant’s plasma weapons function,” she said. “Do I really need to explain the engineering to you, Sergean
t?”

  “How about the short version?” There was a suspicious undertone in Johnson’s voice, as though Nyeto’s was not the only command he viewed as being infiltrated by insurrectionist spies. “It’s not like I’m trying to build one myself.”

  “Good, because humans don’t have the magnetic stabilization technology,” Halsey said. “But the theory is simple enough. A quantity of liquefied carrier gas is passed through an electric arc, where it’s stripped of electrons and transformed into a thermal plasma. Then it’s confined inside a magnetic capsule and launched at a target.”

  “So the air-skimmers collect the gas?” Kelly asked.

  “And cool and compress it into a liquefied form, yes,” Halsey said. “That’s why they’ve been dipping into Etalan’s atmosphere.”

  John frowned inside his helmet. There was no way Dr. Halsey was a spy, but her story didn’t add up. “And it took you four days to figure that out?”

  Halsey flashed him a tight smile. “Hardly,” she said. “I figured it out about five minutes after we arrived.”

  “And you waited until now to tell us?” Johnson said, raising his voice. “Are you crazy? We could have planned—”

  “No plan is adequate if the enemy knows your intentions,” Halsey interrupted. “And it’s impossible to be certain what kind of comm technology the insurrectionist spies we’re currently hosting have at their fingertips.”

  “Are you telling us that there are still spies aboard the Vanishing Point?” Linda asked. Like Avery Johnson, she had a SPNKR on her magmount and an M99 Stanchion Gauss rifle resting on the deck at her feet. “Then why are they still alive?”

  “I don’t know who they are,” Halsey said. “Or even if they’re aboard. All I know for certain is that this ship has more bugs than the kitchen in my first apartment.”