Halo_ Ghosts of Onyx - Eric S. Nylund [7]
In the years to come, Tom would reflect on Lucy's last question every day. "How are you sure we're alive?" Something had died for every Spartan that day.
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SECTION I LIEUTENANT AMBROSE
CHAPTER
ONE 1647 HOURS, MAY 1, 2531 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ 111 TAURI SYSTEM, CAMP NEW HOPE, PLANET VICTORIA
John, SPARTAN-117, despite being encased in a half ton of angular MJOLNIR armor, moved like a shadow through the twilight forest underbrush.
The guard on the perimeter of Base New Hope drew on a cigarette, took a final puff, and tossed the butt.
John lunged, a whisper rustle, and he wrapped his arm around the man's neck, wrenching it up with a pop.
The guard's cigarette hit the ground.
Nearby crickets resumed their night song.
John pinged his status to the rest of Blue Team. Four green LED lights winked on his display, indicating the rest of the extended perimeter guards had been neutralized.
The next objective was a delivery gate, the weakest part of the rebel base's defense system. The guardhouse had two men outside, two on the rooftop, and several inside. Past this, however, the base had impressive security even by Spartan standards: motion and seismic sensors, a triple layering of guards, trained dogs, and overhead MAKO-class drones.
John blinked his status light green: the signal to proceed with the next phase.
The setting sun just touched the edge of the horizon when the guards on the roof of the bunker twitched and crumpled. It happened so fast, John wasn't sure which Linda had targeted first. A heartbeat later the two on the ground were dead as well.
John and Kurt ran for the gatehouse.
Kelly sprinted ahead, covering the three hundred meters from the forest in half the time, and leapt to the roof in a single bound. She opened the roof's vent and dropped flash-bang grenades.
Kurt posted outside the door, and swept the aft side for any targets. John waited on the other side of the steel and bulletproof-glass security door, one hand on its handle, one foot
braced against the wall.
Inside three muffled thumps sounded.
John pulled, wrenching the door and frame from the steel reinforcing in the wall.
Kurt entered, his M7 submachine gun burping three-round bursts.
John was in a moment later, and assessed the threats in the blink of an eye. There were
three guards already down. Behind them, banks of security monitors showed a hundred views of the base.
Seven other men sat at a card table, shaking off the effects of the flash-bangs. They stood with their sidearms halfway out of their holsters.
John calmly shot each man, once in the head.
Nothing moved.
Kelly dropped outside the door, rolled inside, her weapon leveled.
"Security system," John whispered to her and Kurt.
Fred and Linda appeared a moment later, and together they pulled and wedged the heavy door back into its twisted frame.
"All good outside," Fred told them.
Kelly sat before the bank of monitors and pulled out a touch pad, booting the ONI computer infiltration software package.
Kurt tapped on the keyboard, nodding to the sticky note under one monitor. "Password's posted," he said, shaking his head.
"Okay," Kelly muttered. "We can do it the easy way, too.
Running monitor-looping protocol, now. I'll get a clean path to the target."
Kurt meanwhile flipped through various camera angles and subsystems on the displays. "No alarms raised," he reported. He paused and watched a group of guards unloading ammunition canisters off a Warthog. One man fumbled and dropped a can; along its side was stenciled: MUTA-AP-09334.
John hadn't ordered a subsystems sweep, though he hadn't specifically forbidden it, either. Kurt's actions could trigger a red flag at the base's command and control.
John had mixed feelings about using SPARTAN-051, Kurt, as Sam's replacement on Blue Team. On the one hand, he was an extremely capable Spartan. Chief Mendez had routinely given him command of Green Team during