0909 hours, March 19, 2526 (military calendar)

Quarry Floor, Seoba Ice Quarry

Moon Seoba, Biko Planetary System, Kolaqoa System

Status reports began to scroll down John’s HUD as the Mjolnir’s onboard computer, sensing his desperation to know how badly the avalanche had decimated the squad, began to query its counterparts in the other Mjolnir units. Naomi-010 and Solomon-069 were listed as incapacitated. Four more Spartans, including John himself, were listed as immobile—probably because they were trapped beneath tons of snow and ice. But no one was KIA yet, and that left half the squad available for immediate action.

“Son of a . . .” Fred said. The avalanche was not deep enough to block comm waves, so Fred’s voice was as clear as if John had been standing next to him—rather than buried somewhere beneath him. “It worked.”

By worked, John assumed that Fred meant the avalanche had carried the Starry Night to the quarry floor. “Then don’t stand there talking about it,” he said. “You’re in command now. Board it and blow it.”

“What about survivors?” Fred asked.

“Rescue if possible.” John switched to the command channel so he could report to Crowther and Nyeto. “Squad elements boarding the target now. Where’s our support?”

“On the way,” Nyeto said. “No worries. They don’t even know we’re here.”

No worries, still? John had to fight to keep from yelling. “Sir—I want them to know you’re there. You need to get them off—”

“We’ll be there soon.” Crowther didn’t sound quite as confident as John would have liked. “Just hang on.”

“I have a plan,” Nyeto added. “The best way to be sure the Covenant doesn’t come back on you is to eliminate them on the first pass.”

John bit his tongue, battling the temptation to ask how long that would take. His Spartans were being used as bait—again—and the only thing he could do about it was soldier up, get unburied, and try to keep them alive.

“Affirmative.”

John activated his headlamp and saw nothing but blue ahead of him. He was hanging in tightly compressed ice and snow like a beetle in amber, with the limbs on one side of his body pulled back behind him and those on the other curled beneath. His helmet was cocked at an angle that made his neck feel like the neural splice at the base of his skull was a putty blade pressed against his spine, and he didn’t have the vaguest idea which way was up.

The onboard computer displayed an arrow on his HUD, pointing toward his left shoulder. When John did not react, the words WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, SOLDIER? appeared beneath the arrow. Either the onboard computer was developing a sense of humor, or it had used John’s neural interface to access his memories of Chief Mendez—the SPARTAN-II program’s primary training instructor on Reach.

John began to twist his left hand back and forth, trying to create a little space. Most victims buried beneath the incredible weight of an avalanche couldn’t even do that much . . . but most victims weren’t wearing fission-powered Mjolnir armor. John quickly created a space around his hand, then around his forearm, and he began to dig, scraping the ice down toward his elbow and pushing it down under his arm. Before long, he had his entire arm free. He cleared the space around his helmet and worked his other arm loose, always pushing the ice downward, and soon his entire upper body was mobile.

After a minute of that, it was another minute of just crawling, continually pulling himself up, then pushing packed ice and snow downward. His assault rifle had gotten lost at some point during the spin-cycle, but he didn’t bother digging around for it. It was probably packed so full of ice that it would be good for nothing but a club. Besides, he still had his M6D sidearm, and with its 12.7mm semi-armor-piercing high-explosive ammunition, it would be easier to clear and almost as effective as the assault rifle. In fact, in the hands of someone who knew how to operate it, the M6D had remarkable stopping power, and it was one of the most effective conventional infantry weapons the UNSC had at its disposal.

But the sidearm didn’t have an underslung M301. The grenade launcher he was going to miss—especially since, as he climbed, Green and Gold Teams began to chatter over SQUADCOM, coordinating attacks on what was beginning to sound like an endless stream of vehicles.

When John finally broke through to the surface, he found the downed prowler almost on top of him. The surface of the run-out drift was above the fog blanket covering the quarry floor, so he could see that the Starry Night lay a dozen meters away. She was resting upside-down with her stern buried and her forward fuselage rising from the run-out drift at a thirty-degree angle. All that remained of the bow were the soot stains it had left on the fuselage’s crumpled neck when it exploded.

Fred and the other Spartans were nowhere to be seen, but ten aliens were clambering up one of the Starry Night’s wings onto her belly. Judging by their sizes and helmet shapes, there were a couple of Elites leading four Jackals and a like number of Brutes. All were wearing armor so deeply red that it was almost black, and all appeared to be armed with stubby weapons suitable for close assault.

John stayed in his hole and checked the motion tracker on his HUD. It showed three nearby Spartans where he saw nothing but run-out drift—they were probably still attempting to dig their way to the surface.

John couldn’t see what was happening on the quarry floor behind him, but from the SQUADCOM chatter, it sounded like the hover-bikes were being supported by at least three more Covenant ships. He didn’t bother opening the command channel to ask for support again. Nyeto was clearly using the Spartans to bait his trap—and complaining about it would only give Crowther another excuse to throw their immaturity in their faces, to treat the Spartans like they had no business on a battlefield in the first place.

The aliens were all standing on the Starry Night’s upturned belly now, checking their weapons and generally looking like they were preparing to board. The Covenant vessel that had dropped them off was leaving its position near the original crash site and starting to float toward the prowler’s new resting place.

“Fred, you aboard the Starry Night?”

“Affirmative,” came the reply. “And you’ll never guess who—”

“Hold on,” John said. A pair of Jackals started up the Night’s fuselage toward the crumpled neck, no doubt intending to enter the vessel through the opening at the end. “What’s the self-destruct status?”

“Arming manually now,” Linda-058 said. “It’s a Fury, so the codes are taking a while.”

“Take your time,” John said. “Fred, what’s your strength?”

“Three Spartans, four ODST survivors, and Sergeant Johnson,” Fred reported. “Uh, make that half a Johnson. He’s had his bell rung pretty hard.”

“My bell iss just fine, if shomeone would stop ringing it.” Slurred speech and hearing impairment—Johnson definitely had a concussion. “And I can shtill ring yours any—”

“Better take his grenades away,” John said. “But let him keep the firearms. You’ve got ten hostiles boarding now from the forward breach, with more on the way.”

“Boarding now?” Linda echoed. “And you tell me to take my time?”

“Didn’t want to pressure you,” John said. “Let me know when it’s armed.”

“Soon,” Linda said. “What timer delay do you want?”

“Two seconds longer than you need to get clear,” John said. “This is going to be close.”

“Give us thirty seconds,” Fred said. “We’ll leave via escape pod.”

John approved. Because Seoba had only a trace atmosphere, the shockwave of a Fury one-megaton thermonuclear device would barely be noticeable from a half kilometer away, and both Spartan Mjolnir and ODST space-assault armor was already shielded from EMP. So they would need to worry only about the heat blast, which could be avoided by simply hiding behind something . . . the farther away, the better, of course.

“Okay,” John said. “Let the first two aliens board uncontested—they’re scouts.”

“Understood,” Fred replied.

“We’ll catch the others in a crossfire as soon as the last one goes in.”

“Affirmative,” Fred said.

“What about me?” Johnson asked. “What’s my ashignment?”

“Guard the escape pod,” Fred said. “We can’t have the aliens stealing it.”

“Nothing gets past me,” Johnson said. “Hey, where’s the pod?”

“On the ceiling,” said Malcolm-059. He was supposed to be on the quarry floor fighting the vehicles with the rest of Green Team, but John wasn’t going to worry about it. The squad was well into the Plan J—just do something—part of the battle. “We’re upside-down, remember?”

“Oh, right,” Johnson said. “Cool.”

Which was a very un-Johnson thing to say. Clearly, the sergeant’s bell was still ringing.

The two Jackal scouts disappeared into the Starry Night. When nothing blew up, the two Elites started up the fuselage with the four Brutes in their wake. The last two Jackals stayed behind, crouching on the prowler’s upturned belly to act as a rear guard.

John was about to advise Fred of the situation when a series of flashes strobed down from above, illuminating the avalanche path and run-out drift and everything else in flickering orange light. He glanced back up to see a pair of giant fireballs blossoming above the quarry, and another Covenant vessel turning to flee with three prowlers on its tail, still firing missiles into its energy shields.

Nyeto had sprung his trap, and now his jubilant voice filled the command channel. “Two down! The others are turning tail. No worries now, John!”

“If you say so, Commander.”

John looked back along the run-out drift and was not at all surprised to see that Nyeto’s attack had only made the situation on the surface much worse. The Elites were waving the last of their patrol down the Starry Night’s neck, and the alien vessel was moving into position above the prowler, as though it was preparing to drop some sort of recovery device.

“But stay off the channel for the time being, sir. We’re busy down here.” John switched to SQUADCOM, then said, “Fred, new situation out here. They’re all boarding now. Do whatever you can to repel them.”

“Understood.”

Almost instantly, a pillar of flame erupted from the prowler’s neck, launching one Brute like a cannonball and leaving another hanging halfway out of the opening, smoke and red mist rolling out of his breached armor. The two Elites went prone and reached over the end of the fuselage, trying to grab hold of their companion’s body and pull it free.

John clambered out of his hole and started across the run-out drift, his boots sinking to his ankles with each step. The Covenant ship was hovering in place now, its stern a hundred meters directly above the prowler. The leaves of a huge iris hatch were retracting into the hull, revealing an interior bathed in cool blue light.

John really wished he still had his grenade launcher—but since he didn’t, he raised his M6D sidearm and opened fire on the Elite who seemed to be in charge. The first round deflected, creating a golden shimmer around its personal energy shield. Both Elites rolled off the Starry Night and started in his direction, activating a pair of what appeared to be blades of energy, blood-red and longer than their arms.

John stepped to the right—it was impossible to spring in the soft surface of the run-out drift—and positioned himself so his foes would be stacked one behind the other. He continued to fire at the same Elite. After the next shot, the shield fell and the M6 rounds began to stagger the alien and dimple his armor.

John charged, still firing and hitting more often than he missed. Finally, two rounds penetrated, and the alien almost seemed to deflate, his legs folding beneath him and the blade of his energy sword retracting into nothingness, his purple blood misting out through the holes in his chest armor. John drove forward, using his free hand to grab the dying Elite by the throat and shove him back toward his companion.

But the other Elite was already leaning around to slash head-high with his blazing red blade . . . a feint designed to make his opponent duck, so the death strike could be delivered from above. John stepped inside the attack, spinning the mortally wounded Elite around to push the advancing one off-balance and keep the energy blade at bay. Then he shoved the M6D against his attacker’s faceplate and fired.

But this one had an energy shield as well. The rounds deflected in a gold flash that caused absolutely no damage to the armor, and then John’s pistol was empty.

No matter. With the enemy off-balance and half-blinded by a muzzle flash, John shifted his hand from the throat of the dead Elite to the wrist of the remaining one. He dropped the pistol in his other hand and grabbed his attacker under the armpit, then hoisted him overhead and folded him onto his own energy sword.

The blade pushed through shield and armor as though neither existed. It winked out . . . then John found himself stumbling forward as a round punched into his armor from behind.

He dived into a forward somersault and started to hear a shrill chirp—the Mjolnir’s pressure-loss alarm. It felt like somebody had punched him hard in the shoulder blade, but there was no real pain or numbness, just a dull ache that was already fading. So no wound, just a hole in his armor that would slowly suffocate him as his suit lost pressure. At least the operative word was slowly.

Unless he got hit again.

John somersaulted twice and came down on his back, so that his head was toward the Starry Night, then rolled sideways twice. He stopped on his stomach, digging down into the ice to make himself a smaller target. His HUD showed his suit at 98 percent pressure, so he had time, and his motion tracker showed two Spartans coming up behind him.

“Watch out for the—”

“Got ’em,” Anton-044 said over SQUADCOM. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“For now,” John said. “I’ve got a pressure leak.”

“I’ve got a patching kit,” Joshua-029 said. “Just hang on.”

John lifted his head and, atop the Starry Night, saw two Jackals crouching behind a pair of circular energy shields mounted on their arms. The shields were shimmering gold from top to bottom as rounds deflected in all directions, but neither alien appeared all that eager to return fire. They just remained behind cover and kept glancing up at the open hatch above their heads, as though they expected help to drop down from their vessel at any moment.

Or expected to be drawn up into the safety of its hangar.

Recalling that the aliens had descended to the surface inside a blue beam of barely perceptible light, he realized they might be expecting to return the same way—and take the Starry Night with them. The hatch at the bottom of the Covenant vessel was certainly large enough.

“Linda, how’s that Fury—”

“Armed,” she reported. “I’ll initiate the timer as soon as we can drag Sergeant Johnson into the escape pod.”

“Do what you have to,” John said. “Just initiate now. The Covenant’s about to engage some kind of a lift system.”

“A left system?” Johnson said. “What kind of—”

The question ended in a clunk; then Johnson began to protest and curse in the thick voice of a concussion casualty.

John ignored him. “All personnel, take cover!” he said. “Fury-class tactical nuke detonation thirty seconds! Repeat, tactical nuke thirty seconds!”

Joshua and Anton stopped firing. The two Jackals cautiously peered out from behind their shields and raised their weapons—then went tumbling as the Starry Night blew her escape hatch. A half-second later, the escape pod launched and went arcing out over the quarry pit. A second after that, two streams of small point-defense plasma bolts erupted from the alien vessel’s stern—but the gun crews had clearly been caught by surprise, and the likelihood of a target lock seemed remote.

John was already up and bounding down the run-out drift with Joshua and Anton when Crowther’s voice came over the command channel.

“What the hell was that?”

“Fred and Linda with Starry Night survivors,” John reported. “Be advised, self-destruct detonation in twenty-five seconds.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Nyeto’s tone was complaining. “See if you can cut it a little closer next time.”

“Affirmative,” John said. “And we appreciate all the fire support.”

“Hey, I got them out of—”

“Can the chatter,” Crowther said. “John, we’ll be down to recover your squad as soon as the EMP clears. Good work.”

Crowther closed the channel without giving Nyeto a chance to offer further comment. John didn’t know quite what to make of the exchange with the two commanders, but he’d figure that out later—assuming he cleared the half-kilometer safety range before the Fury detonated.

He glanced back up the slope toward the Starry Night. The prowler was sitting in a column of pale blue light, cloaked in a sparkling veil of ice crystals and trembling almost imperceptibly as it was drawn free of the snow and ice.

Then John and his companions reached the bottom of the run-out drift, dropped into the blanket of sublimation fog, and started across the quarry floor at a sprint. He didn’t want to distract the squad by asking for a count-off, but his motion tracker showed five Spartans fleeing in the same direction. Counting the two with him and the two that had ridden the escape pod away with Fred, that was all but one of the squad right there. With luck, he wouldn’t lose any.

The gray silhouette of a wrecked Covenant hoverbike emerged from the fog ahead, and a moment later his onboard computer displayed a yellow five-second countdown on the HUD. Four, three . . . John and his companions leaped over the vehicle and crouched down behind it.

The count on his HUD reached one. His helmet speakers crackled with static, and the quarry grew as bright as a muzzle flash. The vehicle rocked ever so slightly, and the fog cleared, carried away on the shadow of a shockwave that Seoba’s trace atmosphere could support.

John rose, then looked back toward a billowing wall of steam where the run-out drift had been a moment before. He was happy to see the blocky shapes of several Spartans—first three, then four, then all five that he had seen on his HUD earlier—emerging from the cloud, stumbling and weaving, but still on their feet. Their Mjolnir was shielded from the EMP released by nuclear weapons, and the lack of atmosphere had protected them from any shockwave effects. But if they had been close enough to the detonation, their armor could have taken some heat damage—and if the shielding had been breached, the Spartans themselves might even have suffered some radiation poisoning. But there was no use imagining the worst—he wouldn’t know the full effects until they returned to the Vanishing Point’s infirmary and got checked out.

The final Spartan staggered out of the fog and hurried after the others.

Tumbling down the quarry’s terraced walls behind them, leaving equipment and bodies strewn in its wake, was the forward half of the ruined Covenant vessel. The Starry Night had not gone out alone.

The static in John’s helmet speakers gave way to the high-pitched chirping of a pressure alert; then his HUD flickered back to life, displaying the urgent message that his suit pressure had fallen below 80 percent. He turned to Joshua and hooked a thumb toward his shoulder blade.

“Patch me up,” he said over SQUADCOM. “I need to check on my squad.”