Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [76]
minefield, a teammate wounded, or aerial bombardments—those were all things they had trained for. Snags were things they didn’t know how to handle. Complications that no one had planned for. “Go ahead,” the Master Chief whispered.
“We have survivors. Twenty civilians hid in a cargo ship here. There are several wounded.”
The Master Chief mulled this over. It wasn’t his choice to weigh the relative worth of a handful of civilian lives versus the possibility of taking out ten thousand Covenant troops with their nuke. His orders were specific on this point. They could not set up the nuke if there was civilian population at risk.
“New mission objective, Red Team Leader,” the Master Chief said. “Get those civilians to the recovery point and evac them back to fleet.” He switched COM channels again, broadcasting to all the teams. “Green Team Leader, you still online?”
A pause, then Linda spoke:“Roger.”
“Move to the docks and coordinate with Red Team—they have survivors we need to evac. Green Team leader has strategic control of this mission.” “Understood,”she said.“We’re on our way.” “Affirmative, sir,”Joshua said.“We’ll get it done.” “Blue Team out.” The Master Chief disconnected. It was going to be rough for Green and Red Teams. Those civilians would slow them down—and if they
had to protect them from Covenant patrols, they’d all get noticed.
Blue-Two returned. She opened the COM link and reported in. “There’s access to the building—a ladder and a steel plate welded shut. We can burn through it.” The Master Chief opened up the team COM channel. “We’re going to assume that Red and Green
Teams will remove the civilians from Côte d’Azur. We will proceed as planned.”
He paused, then turned to Blue-Two. “Break out the nuke and arm it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
2120 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNSCIroquois , military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV
“Ship’s status?” Captain Keyes said as he strode onto the bridge, buttoning his collar. He noticed that the repair stationCradle still obscured their port camera. “And why aren’t we clear of that station yet?”
“Sir, all hands are at battle stations,” Lieutenant Dominique replied. “General quarters sounded. Tac data uploaded to your station.”
A tactical overview of theIroquois , neighboring vessels, andCradle popped onto Keyes’ personal display screen. “As you can see,” Lieutenant Dominique continued, “wedid clear the station, but they are moving on the same outbound vector we are. Admiral Stanforth wants them with the fleet.”
Captain Keyes took his place in his command chair—“the hot seat,” as it was more colloquially known— and reviewed the data. He nodded with satisfaction. “Looks like the Admiral has something up his sleeve.” He turned to Lieutenant Hall. “Engine status, Lieutenant?”
“Engines hot at fifty percent,” she reported. She straightened to her full height, nearly six feet, and looked Captain Keyes in the eye with something edging near defensiveness. “Sir, the engines took a real beating in our last engagement. The repairs we’ve made are . . . well, the best we could do without a complete refit.”
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Keyes replied calmly. In truth, Keyes was concerned about the engines, too— but it would do no good to make Hall more uneasy than necessary. The last thing he needed now was to undermine her confidence.
“Gunnery officer?” Captain Keyes turned to Lieutenant Hikowa. The petite woman bore more resemblance to a porcelain doll than to a combat officer, but Keyes knew her delicate appearance was only skin deep. She had ice water for blood and nerves of steel.
“MAC guns charging,” Lieutenant Hikowa reported. “Sixty-five percent and climbing at two percent per minute.”
Everything on theIroquois had slowed down to a crawl. Engine, weapons—even the unwieldyCradle kept pace with them.
Captain Keyes sat up straighter. There was no time to spend on self-recriminations. He would have to do the best he could with what he had. There simply was no other alternative.
The