Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [63]
Or rather,when they returned.
It was a curious thing: the aliens dropping their ground forces and then retreating. That was not their usual mode of operation. Commander Keyes suspected this was just an opening move in a game he didn’t yet understand.
A shadow crossed the fore camera of theIroquois as the repair stationCradle maneuvered closer.Cradle was essentially a large square plate with engines. Large was an understatement; she was over a square kilometer. Three destroyers could be eclipsed by her shadow. The station running at full steam could refit six destroyers, three from her lower surface and three on her upper surface, within a matter of hours.
Scaffolds deployed from her surfaces to facilitate repairs. Resupply tubes, hoses, and cargo trams fed into theIroquois . It would take the full attention ofCradle thirty hours to repair theIroquois , however.
The aliens had not landed a single serious shot. Nonetheless, theIroquois had almost been destroyed during the execution of what some in the fleet were already calling the “Keyes Loop.”
Commander Keyes glanced at his data pad and the extensive list of repairs. Fifteen percent of the electronic systems had to be replaced—burned out from the EMP when the Shiva missile detonated. TheIroquois ’ engines required a full overhaul. Both coolant systems had valves that had been fused from the tremendous heat. Five of the superconducting magnets had to be replaced as well.
But most troublesome was the damage to the underside of theIroquois . When they had told Commander Keyes what had happened, he went outside in a Longsword interceptor to personally inspect what he had done to his ship.
The underside of theIroquois had been scraped when they passed over the prow of the alien destroyer. He knew there was some damage . . . but was not prepared for what he saw.
UNSC destroyers had nearly two meters of titaniuma battleplate on their surfaces. Commander Keyes had abraded throughall of it. He had breached every bottom deck of theIroquois . The jagged serrated edges of the plate curled away from the wound. Men in EVA thruster packs were busy cutting off the damaged sections so new plates could be welded into place.
The underside was mirror smooth and perfectly flat. But Keyes knew that the appearance of benign flatness was deceptive. Had the angle of theIroquois been tilted a single degree down, the force of the two ships impacting would have shorn his ship in half.
The red war stripes that had been painted on theIroquois ’ side looked like bloody slashes. The dockmaster had privately told Commander Keyes that his crew could buff the paint off—or even repaint the war stripes, if he wanted.
Commander Keyes had politely refused the offer. He wanted them left exactly the way they were. He wanted to be reminded that while everyone had admired what he had done—it had been an act of desperation, not heroism.
He wanted to be reminded of how close a brush he had had with death.
Commander Keyes returned to theIroquois and marched directly to his quarters.
He sat at his antique oak desk and tapped the intercom. “Lieutenant Dominique, you have the bridge for the next cycle. I am not to be disturbed.”
“Aye, Commander. Understood.”
Commander Keyes loosened his collar and unbuttoned his uniform. He retrieved the seventy-year-old bottle of Scotch that his father had given him from the bottom drawer, and then poured four centimeters into a plastic cup.
He had to attend to an even more unpleasant task: what to do about Lieutenant Jaggers.
Jaggers had exhibited borderline cowardice, insubordination and come within a hairbreadth of attempted mutiny during the engagement. Keyes could have had him court-martialed. Every reg in the books screamed at him to . . . but he didn’t have it in him to send the young man before a board of inquiry. He would instead merely transfer the Lieutenant to a place where he would still do the UNSC some