Halo_ Ghosts of Onyx - Eric S. Nylund [70]
"Can we safely transition?" Voro asked.
"Unknown, sir."
Slipstream space dimensions didn't exhibit "anomalies." Was this something caused by the holy ring? There was no time to investigate. They'd have to risk it.
"Set course and execute transition," Voro told him. "Salia system, outpost world Joyous Exultation."
The UNSC prowler Dusk hovered in the shadow zone of the fourth planet's moon.
It was so quiet on the bridge Commander Lash heard his own breathing and heartbeat. Every screen showed the battle raging among the Covenant forces. Music from the last act of Der Ring des Nihelungen played in his mind— Gotterdammerung, Ragnarok, Armageddon… the end of the entire goddammed universe. "Confirm all recorders on high-def capture mode," Lash said. Durruno double-checked her station. "Confirmed, sir," she whispered. "Sir," Lieutenant Yang said, "as ordered, capacitors charged, and all secure to enter Slipspace on vector tango." Lash and Lieutenant Commander Waters stared at the viewscreens, watching the Covenant fleet destroy itself. "Whatever the hell is happening out there," Waters remarked, "at least they haven't spotted us." "Sir," Yang asked, "what do you think is happening?" "There's only one thing it could be," Lash answered. "A Covenant civil war."
SECTION V
BLUE TEAM
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE 1550 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR] \ SOL SYSTEM, PLANET EARTH \ CARIBBEAN OCEAN, NEAR CUBAN COAST
Blue Team—SPARTANS-104, -058, and -043—sat on the blood tray of the Pelican as it roared over the ocean, skimming a few meters over the water. The aft hatch was lowered, jammed open because a plasma shot had melted the hydraulics. Fred watched the jets chum the water behind them, happy to be above the water instead of under it.
In the last two weeks Blue Team had been deployed on numerous zero-gee ops to repel the Covenant ships in orbit over the Earth. They had then been dispatched to Mount Erebus in the Antartic where they neutralized a Covenant excavation with a HAVOK tactical nuke. They had then redeployed off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula for a swim. Covenant forces had been searching the seafloor for something. What precisely—a holy relic, a geological sample—no one knew, and it didn't matter. What mat-lered was when they got what they wanted, the Covenant then his-lorically glassed the planet to remove any human "infestation."
Blue Team had stopped both operations.
Fred looked over the ocean and wondered how long they could keep the Covenant at bay in space. His gaze dropped to the corrugated floor of the Pelican. It had lived up to its nickname "blood tray"… stained with splashes of congealed dark red. Good soldiers had died today.
On his heads-up display the TACMAP showed the edge of
Cuba ahead. Fred exhaled and cleared his mind. They were close to their third target: the Centennial Orbital Elevator.
There had been scattered reports that the Covenant had invaded the facility… before all contact with COE Control had been lost.
Fred stood and stretched. Linda and Will rose as well, sensing their brief downtime was over.
Linda opened one of the crates they had obtained from Base Segundo Terra near Mexico City. Within was a new SRS99C sniper rifle. She dissembled it, cleaned each part, applied graphite lubricant, and reassembled the gun with mechanical precision. She then examined the Oracle N-variant scope that had accompanied the rifle, and made microadjustments with a fine set of screwdrivers.
William tore into the box of ammunition and loaded magazines, sorting them by frag and AP types.
Fred opened an "egg carrier" box and divided up fragmentation and concussion grenades into three satchels.
He found an ONI datapad and turned it on. It had new Covenant-English translation matrices and the latest ONI intrusion and counterintrusion software. Updates courtesy of Cor-tana. He tossed it into his bag.
In the cockpit. Sergeant Laura "Smokes" Tanner flew, while her Crew Chief, Corporal Jim Higgins, fiddled with the COM, trying