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      "Contact."

      With one hand steering, Hideki took a bead on the head of the first Grunt as his ATV bore down on the area behind the base. He exchanged fire with the aliens, green-white plasma for 12.7mm slugs, shields glowing gold and fluorescent blood splattering.

      Doing her best to keep up, Maine weaved between the fresh corpses, following the Spartan into a maze-like storage area, thick with alien containers. The gravity lift rose ahead of them.

      There was a green flash and a detonation: Hideki's vehicle unexpectedly catapulted and he was thrown free, fortunately before it exploded in a plume of burning fuel. He landed with his limbs tucked in, rolling to his feet and crouching, pistol held ready. The enormous bulk of a Covenant Hunter shuffled between the crates nearby. It levelled its arm-mounted canon and fired another sizzling projectile. Hideki rolled and took cover; the fuel rod impacted a pile of crates, spraying burning fragments and reducing them to charred wreckage.

      Maine arrived on the scene, the inevitable second Hunter, crouching at the first's flank, swivelling as she bore down upon it. She attempted to swerve but the front wheel met the beast's massive shield, sending her ATV up on two wheels. She bailed and landed heavily in front of the first alien, and it turned its featureless head toward her menacingly; orange ichor began spraying from the thick hide of its neck to the accompaniment of semi-auto M6D fire, and it keeled sideways with a groan.

      Its brother abruptly elevated to its full three metre height with an aggrieved bellow, and charged. Maine's eyes went wide in panic and she barely managed to roll out from beneath its heavy feet; it ignored her completely and drew back its shield to deliver a crushing backhand to the Spartan. She watched as, rather than wasting rounds on the Hunter's impenetrable ventral armour, Hideki front-rolled under the attack, spinning as he came up and emptied his pistol's clip into the naked gaps on its back. It pitched forward and skidded into some of the mangled containers, and lay still.

      Hideki briefly checked for further contacts: nothing. He walked over to his team mate, stowing his ejected empty and reloading. "Any injuries?" he inquired.

      "No." Maine got to her feet, instinctively checking her equipment. She reached over her shoulder. "Shit, my rifle's gone."

      "We don't have time to find it. Do your best with your MM55."

      "But, sir, your weapon..."

      Without hesitation the Spartan unslung his sniper rifle. The telescoping barrel assembly was bent and visibly squashed, and the scope had torn off. The Helljumper wondered what sort of reaction might be playing across the man's face behind that golden visor.

      Hideki retrieved the ammunition and dropped the useless gun. "I'll make a new one. Let's get going."

      They cleared the Covenant supply area, Hideki on point. The ultraviolet pillar of the alien lift shone down from almost directly above, to a wide raised platform less than one hundred metres ahead, and bathed the surrounding wreckage in soft purple light. As they approached, the golden armour of the commander Elite appeared as the alien strode around the lift; it spied the humans, pointed and roared.

      "Take the right flank."

      "Acknowledged." Maine ran, side-stepping and bringing her battle rifle to bear on the Elite. It advanced to intercept the Spartan. Suddenly, Grunts began spilling out from around the debris, yapping and snarling; Maine began taking them down with single shots before they could close in on her partner.

      Hideki concentrated on the commander and fired while advancing. The alien ignored the attack, white shields scintillating but holding strong as the Spartan's twelfth round bounced off, and it leaped into the air to land ten metres away. From its fist ignited parallel blades of plasma; it pitched its head forward and roared its challenge.

      Hideki stowed his pistol, bringing his hand out and activating the salvaged alien weapon that Lloyd had passed to him. He raised the twin bladed sword to the Elite's visible surprise, then assumed a defensive stance.

      It crouched and snarled angrily, then charged and swung its sword from the side. Hideki met it with his own, the blades shearing off each other and exchanging arcs of blue plasma. He was forced back by the blow, but kept his defence up for the next. The Elite was very strong.

      He deflected a third strike aimed at his midsection, then saw an opening. The Spartan swept his blade upwards at his opponent's side, but the Elite was fast, too, and blocked with a fluid counterstrike. It pulled back slightly then swiped savagely for Hideki's head, and he threw himself off balance to duck beneath, rolling into a cartwheel and coming back up with an answering slash. The alien span out of reach and snarled, then lunged once more.

      Hideki saw the sword points directly level with his eyes, but approaching slowly, in what one of his squadmates had once called Spartan Time. His peripheral vision stretched, his body moving independent of thought; twisting at the waist and dropping in his stance, he thrust his sword arm forward to full extension. The Elite ran onto the weapon, its own glancing off the Spartan's shield as he barely evaded it. Hideki's blade sank frictionlessly into his enemy before he swiftly pulled away and out of arm's reach.

      The gold-clad Elite stumbled, clutching at its cauterised wound and doubling over. Hideki kept the energy sword pointed at it and circled. The alien gasped and wheezed through clenched mandibles, and suddenly looked up, fixing its beady, slitted eyes on the Spartan. It coughed, bright blue fluid spilling from its mouth; in rasping bass tones it said, "I... welcome my death. The fate of... your race will be supremely worse." It collapsed to its knees and choked out, "...Yours will be a cursed race."

      The Spartan extinguised his weapon as the alien died. The intermittent "paum!" of battle rifle fire also ceased, the Grunts fleeing at the sight of their fallen commander, stumbling around and over the bodies of their kind; many ran in panic back to the base's buildings, but the cleverer ones climbed the ramps to the gravity lift and began ascending into the Covenant frigate. Hideki sprinted toward the light beam, firing into the head of each Grunt he passed, but as he reached the platform it abruptly shut off. Dozens of unlucky, squealing aliens fell back to the dark ground with a series of crunching thuds. Hideki regarded the looming shadow of the ship, extrapolating the immediate threats from the present situation in his head. He turned to his team mate who was approaching, rifle ready, scanning for hiding enemies.

      Maine reached the lift platform and looked back up at the giant soldier, suddenly finding time to consider what she had just witnessed. Hideki 002 and the Elite base commander had engaged in nothing less than a sword duel, and the Spartan had triumphed without sustaining the slightest injury. The ODST knew a lot more about the Spartans IIs than most from her time under Lloyd's command: they were superhuman and a match for entire squads of enemies, but also possessed a speed and power of intellect belied by their formidable appearance. Yet, seeing the decisive victory just gained by this black-suited petty officer, she finally felt utterly certain of one thing that hung heavy in her heart since childhood: humans, not the Covenant, would win the war.

      Hideki drew his sidearm, ejecting the magazine and briefly regarding its emptiness before stowing both. "Master Sergeant," he radioed.

      "Go ahead, black team."

      "Mission failed, sir. Imminent breech of site containment. Recommend immediate withdrawal to safe distance."

      "Stand by. Green team is salvaging computer intelligence per standing secondary objectives."

      "Negative, sir. We must assume the retreating Covenant force is aware of such activity and will ensure that no intelligence leaves this facility."

      A pause, then Lloyd replied, "Yes, I agree. We need to get into their communications."

      "Black team will move immediately to back you up."

      "Acknowledged."

      "Okay, Turing," said Sophia, closing her link to the Master Sergeant. "Can you intercept any intraship transmissions from here?"

      The AI was already commandeering the whole base's communications, bending them to the infiltration of the Covenant frigate's network. Disregarding the subtleties of espionage he figuratively smashed the ship's encryption defences, sponging up seconds of criss-crossed information and rapidly collating it before the alien operators even realised their security was breached. He summarised: "The frigate is currently ascending to safe firing altitude. From there it will obliterate this installation before engaging Ionclad. A request is being prepared for total orbital bombardment, contingent to the presence of human forces apart from ourselves, as soon as a sufficient segment of the Covenant armada can be spared."

      Doubet grimaced. "Don't they ever take their hoof off the gas?"

      "Archive what you have, Turing," the Spartan instructed. "We're leaving now."

      After a second's pause, he replied, "I'm out."

      Hutt met Sophia at the entrance and took point, while the Spartan helped Doubet get up to speed. They powered up the ramps, weapons held ready.

      "--No, flank them! Green team, we are engaging residual opposition! Mutiple groups!"

      "Hang tight," Sophia responded to her brother. She yelled over her shoulder, "Double-time, marines! Gold team needs backup!"

      They reached their point of entry, now a tall window through which the strobing exchange of fire flared in from the outside.

      "We're up," she radioed. "Covering fire!"

      Full-auto MM55 and M10R fire resounded as Sophia's team charged out. The ground was thick with Grunts: fresh corpses as well as the barking, frenzied reinforcements that were streaming towards the human position, shooting wildly and being rapidly knocked off their hooves in mists of bone and gore. The soldiers skidded into the cover of the crude barricade that the besieged marines had managed to erect, and promptly began shooting while the defenders reloaded.

      Through her scope Sophia saw the charging aliens dropping under her thumping rounds, then suddenly glimpsed a line of Grunts hanging back and preparing to fire their novel, shoulder-mounted weapons. A dozen sizzling green projectiles exploded forth and arced towards her.

      "Incoming!"

      The fuel rods blasted against the humans' cover and splashed hotly over the sealed ground. Teeth gritted, Lloyd breathed deeply and growled, "Oh, I'm angry now!" He broke cover and sprinted toward the remaining Grunts, letting off 9.6mm bursts at each alien. A couple of them responded: the first shot was dead on and Lloyd's Spartan reflexes were all that saved him from collecting it in the face: it burnt past his head as he juked sideways. A second missed him by millimetres as he pitched forward, thumbing a grenade and rolling it up to the creatures' feet. The Grunts were thrown upwards and outwards, squealing; the detonation cracked random fuel rod casings and blossomed into a misty green chain reaction.

      Privates Sterling and Hutt, and Sophia followed in the charge, taking down the final stragglers. The last Grunt collapsed and a moment of eerie calm loomed over the soldiers, who regrouped. With scorched and tarnished armour, the men and women stood at attention, weapons already reloaded and ready, each reflected within the others' visors.

      "Turing. Status," Lloyd barked.

      "Urge immediate dust-off, sergeant. The Covenant vessel is rising between us and Ionclad and Ensign Gillian's manual maneouvring capabilities are severely limited. We need to secure the highest point of this installation to have any chance of making rendevous, but..."

      Lloyd glanced at Sophia: an AI trailing off in mid-sentence could never be a good sign. "What's the problem?"

      "The frigate will attain firing altitude in fifty-five seconds, but cannot activate its shields until that time either. It is possible to negotiate a remote neural link on the fly that will allow Spartan 111 adequate piloting control to not only descend Ionclad directly to our position, but also successfully engage the vessel."

      "Since when?.." Sophia asked in a tone of incredulity, then checked herself: any immediate course of action was preferable to waiting to be glassed. "Do it, Turing."

      The A.I. began cautiously making the connections, saying, "You will almost certainly experience brief but severe vertigo. I cannot predict how your body's motor functions will be affected."

      "Just hurry," replied the Spartan.

      The other soldiers apprehensively watched her helmet twitch twice before Sophia collapsed backward, her suit denting the alien paving.

      "Spartan. Report," Lloyd demanded, knealing beside her form.

      Turing's voice spoke, "Negotiation of communication protocols are a low priority, sergeant. Interface is online. Ionclad is beginning descent. Please hurry to the extraction point."

      Without hesitation, Lloyd slung his rifle, rested his shoulder over Sophia's abdomen and levered her up into a fireman's hold. "Hutt, take point," he grunted, and set off with his marines who surrounded him, scanning the gloom for loose surviving enemies.

      Sophia grunted with effort through clenched teeth, her face contorted, in concert with the rappelling of her young yet muscular arms. The rough, taught rope ended immediately ahead, where she could see the metal pole rising from the bare platform, the training course's bell dangling, waiting at the top. The girl was accutely aware of the rest of the children close behind; through a combination of luck and hard, committed training she had streaked ahead early, and this morning would probably win.

      Her body was jarred, sudden pain in her upper back; hands clutched at air; the mud rushed up to meet her and was interupted by the wooden edge of the pit -

      Sophia would not remember later exactly how long consciousness spent in returning. It began with the dim awareness of waking life; eventually she realised a figure was standing over her: she was on her back, on the ground. Cold, drying mud clung to her stiff and sore body.

      "You came last, recruit," Chief Mendez stated.

      "Yes... sir," she croaked.

      "See the medic, then turn in. No rations tonight. What did you do wrong?"

      The Chief was turning her failure into a lesson. She was not surprised. The Spartan picked herself up to stand straight, facing him; already, she was barely half of a head shorter than her teacher.

      "Didn't check my six."

      "Good. You won't forget again."

      It felt like that time, only now a part of her mind, the part honed and sharpened by decades of experience, was acutely aware of the exact time that had passed since her neural implant had connected with Ionclad's helm systems. Seven-point-two seconds. The rest of her consciousness clawed back up to its normal high level.

      This time, she could no longer feel her own body at all, but only the sensory and navigational systems of the ship, hundreds of kilometres above where her body rested inert, safely within her Mjolnir armour.

      She could feel the familiar, steel-cold presence of Turing close by. I've established stable protocols for ninety-six percent control via microwave up-link, he informed the pilot.

      Without vocal chords to speak with, she took a firm hold on the systems now connected to her mind by way of reply, and guided Ionclad out of her geosynchronous orbit into a steep descent window.

      Black team ran down the path between the looming buildings towards the new landing zone nav marker. From ahead, Hideki heard panicked gunfire, then the sharp detonation of Covenant artillery. "Sergeant! Status," he requested with urgency.

      "Hunters!" was the alarmingly desparate response.

      He broke into a sprint. "Keep up, corporal - give me covering fire."

      Maine watched him disappear around the corner, backlit by muzzle flash glare. As she followed, she shouldered her rifle.

      The other teams were under fire at the foot of a switchback ramp that led up the side of the central structure. It was the perfect ambush point: three marines were busy with one Hunter, while the other had Lloyd, Sophia and Doubet pinned behind an inadequate and rapidly decaying cargo module. The first decided on a target and charged Private Heitz, who backpedalled, emptying his rifle's clip. This gave Sterling and Hutt the chance to close in, practically thrusting their muzzles into the alien's dorsal weak spot.

      Meanwhile, Hideki ran flat out at the second behemoth; it raised its huge shield ponderously but misjudged the Spartan's speed, and he closed the distance with a sideways leap to slam the back of his gauntleted fist into the Hunter's sternum. The alien teetered and staggered back. Maine sighted and put five 9.6mm slugs into its exposed chest, and it went down.

      Lloyd swiftly raised himself and Sophia, announcing, "Up the ramp, people! We don't get off this rock now, we are never getting off! Take point, Sterling!"

      Maine passed her rifle to Hideki, helped Doubet up and the humans regrouped, filing up the side of the building.

      As the massive, bulbous Covenant frigate rose into the thin night sky, a speck of white fire descended to meet it. Ionclad's shields burnt against the atmosphere, retrothrusters controlling her sharp approach. Enemy pulse lasers began searing the air between the ships, further straining Ionclad's defenses, but she held her course and responded with a twin volley of superheavy hypervelocity projectiles that violently tore the frigate's entire starboard midsection apart in a blinding plume of loose plasma and burning metal.

      Ionclad accelerated through the debris and hot vapour. Although the Covenant vessel would no longer attain firing altitude, it was already beginning to loose control and drop, and the area below still faced imminent destruction. Ionclad had bought some time, but still needed to make pickup.

      Lloyd knelt and lowered a half-ton of Spartan from his shoulders. Standing, he commanded, "Secure the perimeter! Motion detectors at maximum range! Pickup will be here any minute!" He activated his suit's static beacon to guide his sister to the site, saying to her softly, "Hear me, Soph? Don't cut it too close."

      "Contact, sir," Maine called presently, peering into the murky sky. Actinic light strobed high above, followed by a lingering flash.

      "Ionclad is inbound, Master Sergeant," Turing reported. "ETA fifty seconds. Assemble at the southern edge and be ready for a hot extraction."

      "Fall back to the el-zee!" The soldiers backed up to the edge of the platform, weapons trained on the tops of the ramps. Ionclad, lit by dazzling running lights, dropped out of the thickening cloud layer. Her antigravity engines' piercing whine and thrum grew louder till she was overhead, then hovering just past the platform, the rear bay opening and the ramp clanging down. They double-timed it up by twos, clambering in, and the platform dropped away while the bay doors began sealing.

      Lloyd paused and asked, "Turing, does Sophia need to be in the cockpit?"

      Whump! - the doors closed.

      "Make her body comfortable till we reach safe distance, sergeant."

      Ionclad's main engines ignited and she picked up speed, arcing up to a vertical escape trajectory. Behind her, the entire alien installation was bathed in a steadily brightening purple-blue glow, before the clouds were sundered by the plummetting, smoking Covenant ship. In another few seconds it impacted, landing cross-wise upon the second, inert frigate. The following brief series of explosions engulfed the base, flattened the entire plain and combined into a languidly rising, shadowy mushroom cloud.

      High above, the echoes of the shockwaves barely jolted Ionclad as she escaped the outermost fringes of Alpha Lyncis III's atmosphere and powered into space.

0504 Hours, August 7, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
Project IONCLAD prototype, in Slipstream transit


      As an officer, Paech rated his own cabin, if he so insisted, which he did, despite the already crowded conditions, now exacerbated by a further five extractees. The all-pervading hum of the ship, uninterupted by voices in the crew quarters area, was nevertheless broken as the door to his room slid open, and he cautiously made his way out.

      It appeared that his movements would, as planned, go unnoticed until he turned from his door and saw Lance Corporal Maine turn into the corridor and approach. He strode out without hesitation, merely glancing at the marine in acknowledgement as he rapidly passed her. He kept his mind blank; she would be curious, but find nothing suspicious in his posture.

      Paech made his way up through the ship to the dorsal level, the workshop which contained a small room to one side. Within, he found what he needed: a neural lace diagnotic rig. Making himself comfortable in the contour seat, he powered up the equipment and connected the I/O lines to his lace's dermal interface. A cold tingle of current raced around his skull.

      He tapped the control panel and accessed the implant's root directory, then began checklisting seemingly randomly indexed files - stored information that his own brain could not recognise. He started purging them but almost immediately encountered system errors with the rig's equipment. The connection froze, and he yanked the plugs from the back of his head.

      The rig went into self-diagnostic standby; Paech flung the leads across the dark panel and clenched his teeth in irritation. He would have to wait for the system reset and try again.

      Arcadia Maine lowered her saluting hand and peered breifly at her retreating superior. What could he be doing so late off-shift? she asked herself, before resuming her path and coming to stop before the door of Spartan 002's cabin.

      She knocked. The supersoldiers had their own cabin, but with the shift rotation only one was ever there. This was a good thing, as only one would fit. There was a pause: "Who is there?" was the reply.

      "Maine."

      "It's open."

      Maine slid the door aside and stepped half-way in. Hideki sat upon his bunk, clad only in loose fatigues, with seemingly a hundred thin metal pins all over his left arm from his shoulder down. He was in the process of removing them, rapidly and effortlessly, and putting them into a dish of disinfectant.

      "What are those?" She lowered her eyes, suddenly conscious of her staring.

      "Acupuncture needles," he replied in his level tone.

      "How do they work?"

      "Once inserted in certain nerve junctions a battery in each delivers a sympathetic current through the skin which stimulates regenerative energy flow."

      "And that's helping to fix your arm?"

      He considered his answer. "Yes, however, officially Spartans are invincible, so my arm needs no medical treatment that you know about."

      She could not help but smile, wondering if this was an actual attempt at humour, and she sat down next to the acupuncture equipment. "I've never seen shooting like that. What you pulled off back there."

      As any response would be ineffectual, Hideki silently continued to remove the needles.

      "The way you fight... I mean, Sarge is incredible but he still needs his men, but you can do it all alone!"

      "I was not alone," he replied quietly. With quick but fluid movements he plucked the last few needles out and set them in the dish.

      Maine took the dish, reached over to the rinse basin and dropped it carefully in. She turned back to the Spartan, finally allowing her gaze to travel up the length of his exposed frame. He was slimmer than his armour suggested - slimmer than Lloyd, anyway. His muscles were chiselled and hairless, and his skin was an almost startling pale. She pushed herself closer and reached a hand to his arm; she touched the skin above his elbow where no sign of penetration or bruising was now visible. Her fingers travelled slowly up to his shoulder, where a few pin-pricks of blood beaded almost invisibly. She gripped his solid deltoid and lifted her face, pressing her lips to his. They were cool and hesitant, but offered no resistance.

2103 Hours, February 20, 2518 (Military Calendar)/
Epsilon Eridani System, Reach Military Complex, planet Reach


      "Hey." A whisper in the dark.

      Waking from a hunger-pained doze. "...What?"

      "I'm sorry for knocking you off the rope. I sneaked you some dinner."

      Even cold, the meat and bread made her mouth water. She grabbed at the offered plate eagerly, eating it as fast as she could.

      "Whoa, ease off, turbo!" admonished the boy kneeling beside her bed.

      "...Thanks, Lloyd."


To Be Continued

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