CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

2010 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

Sigma Octanus IV, Côte d’Azur

It was time to arm the nuke.

The small device held the power to destroy Côte d’Azur—wipe the Covenant infection clean off the planet.

John carefully removed the bonding strips on the HAVOK tactical nuclear device and attached it to the wall of the sewer. The adhesive on the black half sphere stuck and hardened to the concrete. He slipped the detonator key into a thin slot on the unit’s face. There were no external indicators on the device; instead, a tiny screen winked on his heads-up display indicating the nuke was armed.

HAVOK ARMED, flashed across his HUD. AWAITING DETONATION SIGNAL.

The device—a clean thirty-megaton explosive—could only be detonated by a remote signal . . . a problem here in the sewers. Even the powerful communications package on a starship would be unable to penetrate the steel and concrete overhead.

John quickly rigged a ground-return transceiver, placing it on the pipes overhead. He’d have to set up another unit outside to relay the signal underground . . . a hot line that would trigger a nuclear firestorm.

Technically, his mission parameters had been fulfilled. Green and Red Teams would have the civilians evacuated soon. They had scouted the region and discovered a new Covenant species—the strange floating creature that disassembled and reassembled human machinery, like a scientist or engineer stripping down a device to learn its secrets.

He could leave and destroy the Covenant occupation force. He should leave—there was an army of Jackals and Grunts—including at least a platoon of the black-armored veterans—on the streets above.

There were three medium Covenant dropships hovering in the air as well. The advance Marine strike forces had been slaughtered, leaving the Spartans no backup. His responsibility now was to make sure his team got out intact.

But John’s orders had an unusual amount of flexibility . . . and that made him uncomfortable. He had been told to reconnoiter the region and gather intelligence on the Covenant. He was positive there was more to be learned here.

Certainly they were up to something in Côte d’Azur’s museum. The Covenant had never before been interested in human history—or indeed, in humans or their artifacts of any kind. He had seen a disarmed Jackal fight hand to hand rather than pick up a nearby human assault rifle. And the only thing the Covenant had ever used human buildings for was target practice.

So finding out the reason they seized and were protecting the museum definitely qualified as intelligence gathering in his book.

Was it worth exposing his team to find out? And if they died, would he be wasting their lives . . . or spending them for something worthwhile?

“Master Chief?” Kelly whispered. “Our orders, sir?”

He opened Blue Team’s COM channel. “We’re going in. Use your silencers. Don’t engage the enemy unless absolutely necessary. This place is too hot. We’ll just poke our noses in—see what they’re up to and bug out.”

Three acknowledgment lights winked on.

The Master Chief knew they implicitly trusted his judgment. He just hoped he was worthy of that trust.

The Spartans checked their gear and threaded silencers onto their assault rifles. They slipped silently down a wide side passage of the sewer.

A rusty ladder ran up to the ceiling, and a steel plate had been welded in place.

“Thermite paste already set up,” Fred reported.

“Burn it.” The Master Chief stepped to the side and looked away.

The thermite sputtered as bright as an electric arc welder, casting harsh shadows into the chamber. When it finished there was a jagged, glowing red circle in the steel.

The Master Chief climbed up the ladder and put his back against the plate—pushed. It popped free with a metallic snap .

He eased the plate down and set it aside. He attached the fiber-optic probe, fed it up through the hole.

All clear.

He flexed his leg muscles and sent the MJOLNIR armor up through the hole, pulling himself into the next chamber with his left hand. His right hand held the silenced assault rifle as if it were no heavier than a pistol. He braced for incoming enemy fire—

—Nothing happened.

He moved forward and surveyed the small room. The stone-walled chamber was dark, and was lined with shelving units. Each unit held jars filled with clear liquid and insect specimens. Boxes and crates were stacked neatly on the floor.

Kelly entered next, then Fred and James.

“Picking up motion sensor signals,” Kelly said over the COM channel.

“Jam them.”

“Done,” she replied. “They may have gotten a piece of us, though.”

“Spread out,” the Master Chief ordered. “Get ready to jump back into the hole if this gets too hot.

Otherwise, initiate the standard distract-and-destroy.”

The clatter of alien hooves on marble echoed behind a door to their right.

The Spartans melted into the shadows. The Master Chief crouched behind a crate and unsheathed his combat knife.

The door opened and four Jackals stood in the door frame; they held active energy shields in front of them—warping their already ugly vulture faces. The blue-white glow of the energy shield pulsed through the dark chamber. Good, the Master Chief thought. That should play hell with their night vision.

The Jackals held plasma pistols at the ready in their free hands; the barrels of the guns moved erratically as the aliens whispered to one another . . . then steadied as, in careful, slow movements, they moved in.

The aliens fanned out into a rough “delta” formation—the lead Jackal a meter ahead of his compatriots.

The group approached the Master Chief’s hiding spot.

There was a slight noise: the clink of glass bottles on the other side of the room.

The Jackals turned . . . and presented their unshielded backs to the Master Chief.

He exploded from his hiding place and jammed his blade into the base of the closest Jackal’s back. He snapped his right foot out, caught the back of the next Jackal’s head, crushing its skull.

The remaining aliens spun, glistening energy shields interposed between them and him.

There were three coughs from silenced MA5Bs. Alien blood—black in the harsh blue-white light—

spattered across the inner surfaces of the energy shields as the silenced rounds found their marks. The Jackals toppled to the ground.

The Master Chief policed their plasma pistols and retrieved the shield generators clamped on their forearms. He had standing orders to collect intact specimens of Covenant technology. The Office of Naval Intelligence had not been able to replicate the Covenant’s shield technology. But they were getting close.

In the meantime, the Spartans would use these.

The Master Chief strapped the curved piece of metal to his forearm. He touched one of the two large buttons on the unit and a scintillating film appeared before him.

He handed the other shield devices to his teammates.

He pressed the second button and the shield collapsed.

“Don’t use these unless you have to,” he said. “The humming and their reflective surfaces might give us away . . . and we don’t know how long they last.”

He got three acknowledgment lights.

Kelly and Fred took up positions on either side of the open door. She gave him a thumbs-up.

Kelly took point and the Spartans moved, single file, up a circular stairwell.

She paused a full ten seconds at the doorway to the main floor. She waved them ahead and they emerged on the main level of the museum.

The skeleton of a blue whale was suspended over the main foyer. The dead hulk reminded the Master Chief of a Covenant starship. He turned away from the distraction and slowly moved over the black marble tiles.

Oddly, there were no more Jackal patrols. There were a hundred Jackals outside guarding the place . . .

but none inside.

The Master Chief didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right . . . and Chief Mendez had told him a thousand times to trust his instincts. Was it a trap?

The Spartans staggered their line and moved cautiously into the east wing. There were displays of the local flora and fauna: gigantic flowers and fist-sized beetles. But their motion sensors were cold.

Fred halted . . . and then, with a quick hand signal, waved John to move up to his position.

He stood by a case of pinned butterflies. On the floor, facedown in front of that case, was a Jackal. It was dead, crushed flat. There was an imprint of a large boot where the creature’s back had been.

Whatever had done this had easily weighed a ton.

The Master Chief spotted a few blood-smeared prints leading away from the Jackal . . . and into the west wing.

He flipped on his infrared sensors and took a long look around—no heat sources here or in the nearby rooms.

The Master Chief followed the footprints and signaled the team to follow.

The west wing held scientific displays. There were static electric generators and quantum field holograms on the walls, a tapestry of darting arrows and wriggling lines. A cloud chamber sat in the corner with subatomic tracers zipping through its misty confines—the Master Chief noted it was unusually active. This place reminded him of Déjà’s classroom on Reach.

A branch opened to another wing. The word GEOLOGY was carved on the entry arch.

Through that arch there was a strong infrared source, a razor-thin line that shot straight up and out of the building. The Master Chief only caught a glimpse of the thing—a wink and a blink then it was gone again . . . it was so bright his IR sensors overloaded and automatically shut down.

He waved James to take the left side of the arch. He had Kelly and Fred drop back to cover their flanks, and the Master Chief edged to the right of the arch.

He sent a fiber-optic probe ahead, bent it slightly, and poked it around the corner.

The room contained display cases of mineral specimens. There were sulfur crystals, raw emeralds, and rubies. There was a monolith of unpolished pink quartz in the center of the room, three meters wide and six tall.

Off to one side, however, were two creatures. The Master Chief hadn’t seen them at first—because they were so motionless . . . and so massive. He had no doubt that one of them had crushed the Jackal that had gotten in its way.

The Master Chief got scared all the time. He never showed it, though. He usually mentally acknowledged the apprehension, put it aside, and continued . . . just as he’d been trained to do. This time, however, he couldn’t easily dismiss the feeling.

The two creatures were vaguely man-shaped. They stood two and a half meters tall. It was difficult to make out their features; they were covered from head to toe with a dull blue-gray armor, similar to the hull of a Covenant ship. Blue, orange, and yellow highlights were visible on the few patches of exposed skin the creatures sported. They had slits where their eyes should be. The articulation points looked impregnable.

On their left arms they hefted large shields, thick as starship battleplate. Mounted on their right arms were massive, wide-barreled weapons, so large that the arm beneath seemed to blend into the weapon.

They moved with slow deliberation. One took a rock from the display case and set it inside a red metal case. It bent over the case while the other turned and touched the control panel of a device that looked like a small pulse laser turret. The laser pointed straight up—and out through the shattered glass dome overhead.

That had been the source of the infrared radiation. The laser must have intermittently scattered off the dust in the air—flashed enough energy into his sensors to burn them out. Something that powerful could beam a message straight out into space.

The Master Chief made a slow fist—the signal for his team to freeze. Then, with slow, deliberate movements, he signaled the Spartans to stay alert and get ready.

He waved Fred and Kelly forward.

Fred crept closer to him. Kelly slid up next to James.

The Master Chief then held up two fingers and made a sideways cut, motioning them into the room.

Acknowledgment lights winked on.

He went in first, sidestepped to the right, with Fred at his side.

James and Kelly took the left flank.

They opened fire.

Armor-piercing rounds pinged off the aliens’ body armor. One of them turned and brought its shield in front of it—covering its partner, the red case, and the laser beacon.

The Spartan bullets didn’t even leave a scratch on the armor.

The alien raised its arm slightly and pointed at Kelly and James.

A flash of light blinded the Master Chief. There was a deafening explosion and a wave of heat. He blinked for a full three seconds before he recovered his vision.

Where Kelly and James had been there was a burning crater that fanned backward . . . nothing but charcoal and ash remained of the Science Chamber behind them.

Kelly had moved in time; she crouched five meters deeper into the room, still firing. James was nowhere to be seen.

The other massive creature turned to face the Master Chief.

He hit the button on the shield generator on his arm and brought it up just in time—the nearest alien’s weapon flashed again.

The air in front of the Master Chief shimmered and exploded—he flew backward, crashing through the wall, and skidded for ten meters before slamming into the wall of the next room.

The Jackal shield generator was white-hot. The Master Chief ripped the melted alien device off and threw it away.

Those plasma bolts were like nothing he had seen before. They seemed almost as powerful as the stationary plasma cannons the Jackals used.

The Master Chief sprang to his feet and charged back into the chamber.

If the aliens’ weapons were similar to Covenant plasma guns, they would need to be recharged. He hoped the Spartans had enough time to take those things out.

The Master Chief still felt the fear—it was stronger than it had been before . . . but his team was still in there. He had to take care of them first before he could indulge in the luxury of feelings.

Kelly and Fred circled the creatures, their silenced weapons firing quick bursts. They ran out of ammunition and switched clips.

This wasn’t working. They couldn’t take them out. Maybe a Jackhammer missile at point-blank range would penetrate their armor.

The Master Chief’s gaze was drawn to the center of the room. He stared for a moment at the monolith of pink quartz.

Over the COM channel he ordered, “Switch to shredder rounds.” He changed ammunition and then opened fire—at the floor underneath the enormous creatures’ feet.

Kelly and Fred changed rounds and fired, too.

Marble tiles shattered and the wood underneath splintered into toothpicks.

One of the creatures raised its arm again, preparing to fire.

“Keep shooting,” John yelled.

The floor creaked, buckled, and then fell away; the two massive aliens plunged into the basement below.

“Quick,” the Master Chief said. He slung his rifle and moved to the back of the quartz monolith. “Push!”

Kelly and Fred leaned their weight against the stone and grunted with effort. The slab moved a tiny bit.

James sprinted forward, slammed into the stone, put his shoulder alongside theirs . . . and pushed . His left arm had been burned away from the elbow down, but he didn’t even whimper.

The monolith moved; it inched toward the hole . . . then tilted and went over. It landed with a dull thud and a crunching noise.

The Master Chief peered over the edge. He saw an armored left leg, and on the other side of the stone slab, an arm struggling underneath. The things were still alive. Their motions slowed, but they didn’t cease.

The red case was balanced precariously on the edge the hole. It teetered—no way to reach it in time.

He turned to Kelly—the fastest Spartan—and yelled: “Grab it!”

The box fell—

—and Kelly leaped.

In a single bound, she caught the rock as the case dropped, she tucked, rolled, and got to her feet, the rock safely held in one hand. She handed it to the Master Chief.

The rock was a piece of granite and glittered with a few jewel-like inclusions. What was as so special about it? He stuffed it into his ammunition sack and then kicked over the Covenant transmission beacon.

Outside, the Master Chief heard the clattering and squawking of the army of Jackals and Grunts.

“Let’s get out of here, Spartans.”

He threw his arm around James and helped him along. They ran into the basement, making sure to give the pinned giants under the stone a wide berth, then jumped through the storm drain and into the sewers.

They jogged thought the muck and didn’t stop until they had cleared the drain system and emerged in the rice paddies on the edge of Côte d’Azur.

Fred rigged the ground-return relay to the pipes overhead and ran a crude antenna outside.

The Master Chief looked back at the city. Banshee fliers circled through the skyscrapers. Spotlights from the hovering Covenant transport ships bathed the streets in blue illumination. The Grunts were going crazy; their barks and screams rose to an impenetrable din.

The Spartans moved toward the coast and followed the tree line south. James collapsed twice along the way and then finally slipped into unconsciousness. The Master Chief slung him over him shoulder and carried him.

They paused and hid when they heard a patrol of a dozen Grunts. The aliens ran past them—they either didn’t see the Spartans, or they didn’t care. The animals sprinted as fast as they could back to the city.

When they were a click away from the rendezvous point, the Master Chief opened the COM link.

“Green Team Leader, we’re on your perimeter, and coming in. Signaling with blue smoke.”

“Ready and waiting for you, sir,” Linda replied. “Welcome back.”

The Master Chief set off one of his smoke grenades and they marched into the clearing.

The Pelican was intact. Corporal Harland and his Marines stood post, and the rescued civilians were safely inside the ship.

Blue and Red Teams were hidden in the nearby brush and trees.

Linda approached them. She motioned for her team to take James and get him onto the Pelican. “Sir,”

she said. “All civilians on board and ready for liftoff.”

The Master Chief wanted to relax, sit down, and close his eyes. But this was often the most dangerous part of any mission . . . those last few steps when you might let down your guard.

“Good. Take one more look around the perimeter. Let’s make double sure nothing followed us back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Corporal Harland approached and saluted. “Sir? How did you do it? Those civilians said you got them out of the city—past an army of Covenant, sir. How?”

John cocked his head quizzically. “It was our mission, Corporal,” he said.

The Corporal stared at him and then at the other Spartans. “Yes, sir.”

When Green Team Leader reported that the perimeter was clear, the last of the Spartans boarded the Pelican.

James had regained consciousness. Someone had removed his helmet and propped his head on a folded survival blanket. His eyes watered from the pain, but he managed to salute the Master Chief with his left hand. John gestured at Kelly; she administered a dose of painkiller, and James lapsed into unconsciousness.

The Pelican lifted into the air. In the distance, the suns were warming the horizon, and Côte d’Azur was outlined against the dawn.

The dropship suddenly accelerated at full speed straight up, and then angled away to the south.

“Sir,” the pilot said over the COM channel. “We’re getting multiple incoming radar contacts . . . about two hundred Banshees inbound.”

“We’ll take care of it, Lieutenant,” John replied. “Prepare for EMP and shock wave.”

The Master Chief activated his remote radio transceiver.

He quickly keyed in the final fail-safe code, then sent the coded burst transmission on its way.

A third sun appeared on the horizon. It blotted out the light of the system’s stars, then cooled—from amber to red—and darkened the sky with black clouds of dust.

“Mission accomplished,” he said.