Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [4]
were sleek, looking more like sharks than starcraft. Their lateral lines brightened with plasma—then discharged and rained fire down upon Jericho VII.
The Chief watched for an hour and didn’t move a muscle. The planet’s lakes, rivers, and oceans vaporized. By tomorrow, the atmosphere would boil away, too. Fields and forests were glassy smooth and glowing red-hot in patches.
Where there had once been a paradise, only hell remained. “Make ready to jump clear of the system,” the Captain ordered. The Chief continued to watch, his face grim.
There had been ten years of this—the vast network of human colonies whittled down to a handful of strongholds by a merciless, implacable enemy. The Chief had killed the enemy on the ground—shot them, stabbed them, and broken them with his own two hands. On the ground, the Spartansalways won.
The problem was, the Spartans couldn’t take their fight into space. Every minor victory on the ground turned into a major defeat in orbit.
Soon there would be no more colonies, no human settlements—and nowhere left to run.
SECTION I REVEILLE
CHAPTER ONE
0430 Hours, August 17, 2517 (Military Calendar) / Slipstream space unknown coordinates near Eridanus Star System
Lieutenant Junior Grade Jacob Keyes awoke. Dull red light filled his blurry vision and he choked on the slime in his lungs and throat.
“Sit up, Lieutenant Keyes,” a disembodied male voice said. “Sit. Take a deep breath and cough, sir. You need to clear the bronchial surfactant.”
Lieutenant Keyes pushed himself up, peeling his back off the formfitting gel bed. Wisps of fog overflowed from the cryogenic tube as he clumsily climbed out. He sat on a nearby bench, tried to inhale, and doubled over, coughing until a long string of clear fluid flowed from his open mouth.
He sat up and drew his first full breath in two weeks. He tasted his lips and almost gagged. The cryo inhalant was specially designed to be regurgitated and swallowed, replacing nutrients lost in the deep sleep. No matter how they changed the formula, though, it always tasted like lime-flavored mucus.
“Status, Toran? Are we under attack?”
“Negative, sir,” the ship’s AI replied. “Status normal. We will enter normal space near the Eridanus System in forty-five minutes.”
Lieutenant Keyes coughed again. “Good. Thank you, Toran.”
“You’re welcome, Lieutenant.”
Eridanus was on the border of the Outer Colonies. It was just far enough off the beaten path for pirates to be lurking . . . waiting to capture a diplomatic shuttle like theHan . This ship wouldn’t last long in a space action. Theyshould have an escort. He didn’t understand why they had been sent alone—but Junior Lieutenants didn’t question orders. Especially when those orders came from FLEETCOM HQ on planet Reach.
Wake-up protocols dictated that he inspect the rest of the crew to make sure no one had run into problems reviving. He looked around the sleep chamber: rows of stainless steel lockers and showers, a medical pod for emergency resuscitations, and forty cryogenic tubes—all empty except the one to his left.
The other person on theHan was the civilian specialist, Dr. Halsey. Keyes had been ordered to protect her at all costs, pilot this ship, and generally stay the hell out of her way. They might as well have asked him to hold her hand. This wasn’t a military mission; it was baby-sitting. Someone at Fleet Command must have him on their blacklist.
The cover of Dr. Halsey’s tube hummed open. Mist rippled out as she sat up, coughing. Her pale skin made her look like a ghost in the fog. Matted locks of dark hair clung to her neck. She didn’t look much older than him, and she was lovely—not beautiful, but definitely a striking woman. For a civilian, anyway.
Her blue eyes fixed upon the Lieutenant and she looked him over. “We must be near Eridanus,” she said.
Lieutenant Keyes almost saluted reflectively, but checked