Halo_ First Strike - Eric S. Nylund [11]
"Team Gamma." Fred selected Red-Twenty-one, Red-Twentytwo, and Red-Twenty-three from the roster. "You'll extract the Admiral and his staff and bring them back to the generators. We'll need the extra crew."
"Affirmative," Red-Twenty-one replied.
Technically Fred was following Whitcomb's order to extract him from his current position. What the Admiral didn't realize, though, was that he would have probably been safer staying put.
"Team Beta—" Fred selected Red-Twenty through Red-Four. "—you're on generator defense."
"Understood, Chief."
"Team Alpha—" He selected Kelly, Joshua, and himself.
"Awaiting orders, sir," Joshua said.
"We're going to that valley to kill anything there that isn't human."
Fred and Kelly faced the three Banshee fliers that had been dragged into the makeshift compound. Fred peered inside the cockpit of the nearest craft and tabbed the activation knob. The Banshee rose a meter off the ground, its antigrav pod glowed a faint electric blue, and it started to drift forward. He snapped it off, and the Banshee settled to the ground. He quickly tested the other two, and they also rose off the ground.
"Good. All working."
Kelly crossed her arms. "We're going for a ride?"
A Warthog pulled up and skidded to a halt in front of them, Joshua at the wheel. The rear held half a dozen Jackhammer missiles and a trio of launchers. A crate sat in the passenger's seat, one loaded with the dark, emerald-green duct tape that every soldier in the UNSC ubiquitously referred to as "EB Green."
"Mission accomplished, sir," Joshua said as he climbed from the Warthog.
Fred grabbed a launcher, a pair of rockets, and a roll of tape from the 'Hog. "We'll be needing these when we hit the Covenant on the other side of the ridge," he explained. "Each of you secure a launcher and some ammo in a Banshee."
Joshua and Kelly stopped what they were doing and turned to face him.
"Permission to speak, sir," Kelly asked.
"Granted."
"I'm all for a good fight, Fred, but those odds are a little lopsided even for us. . . like ten thousand to one."
"We can handle a hundred to one," Joshua chimed in, "maybe even five hundred to one with a little planning and support, but against these odds, a frontal assault seems—"
"It's not going to be a frontal assault," Fred said. He wedged the launcher into the cramped Banshee cockpit. "Tape."
Kelly ripped off a length of tape and handed it over.
Fred smoothed the adhesive strip and secured the launcher in place. "We'll play this one as quiet as we can," he said.
She considered Fred's plan for a moment and then asked, "So, assuming we fool them into letting us into their lines ... then what?"
"As much as I'd like to, we can't use the tac-nukes," Joshua mused, "not in the far valley. The intervening ridge isn't high enough to block the EMP. It'll burn out the orbital defense generator."
"There's another way to use them," Fred told them. "We're going to board the cruiser—right up its gravity lift—and detonate the nuke inside. The ship's shields will dampen the electromagnetic pulse."
"It'll also turn that ship into the biggest fragmentation grenade in history," Kelly remarked.
"And if anything goes wrong," Joshua said, "we end up in the middle often thousand pissed-off bad guys."
"We're Spartans," Fred said. "What could possibly go wrong?"
CHAPTER FOUR
0711 hours, August 30,2552 (Military Calendar)\Epsilon
Eridani system, Longhorn Valley, planet Reach.
The alarm hooted, and Zawaz sprang to his feet with a startled yelp. The squat alien, a Grunt clad in burnished orange armor, fumbled and dropped his motion scanner. He keened in fear and retrieved the device with a trembling claw. If the scanner had been damaged, the Elites would use his body as reactor shielding.