Oblivion, page 19
John looked down, then switched back to his voicemitter. “Stop.”
“Are you serious about helping us get off Netherop or not?”
“Getting unserious fast.” He continued to speak over his voicemitter. “Kelly, you’re skywatch—”
“And babysitter,” she said, also over her voicemitter. “Why me? I hate kids.”
“That’s why.” John wasn’t being entirely honest. As the fastest runner on the team, Kelly was simply the best choice to secure Lena and her two companions. Once she found a safe place to stash them, she would have the best chance of being able to catch up to the rest of the team. “You’ll shoot if they don’t obey orders.”
Lena’s eyes went wide. “She wouldn’t.”
“There’s a shrapnel wound in your head that suggests otherwise.” Kelly looked down at Lena. “But try me if you like.”
Lena shook her head. “That’s okay.”
“I’m glad we finally understand each other,” John said. “Now, keep quiet for ten seconds.” He switched back to TEAMCOM. “Your first priority is to watch for fighter craft. I don’t want any dropping in behind us.”
“I know what skywatch is,” Kelly said, also over TEAMCOM.
“I said first priority. You’ll also have to find a safe place to stow our allies.”
“Allies is a bit much, don’t you think?”
Kelly tipped her helmet toward Lena, who was looking back and forth between the two Spartans as though she was actually trying to read lips through their reflective faceplates.
“Maybe,” John said. “But they’re not our prisoners either.”
“I suppose not. If they were prisoners, I could just shoot them.”
“Something like that,” John said. “So just hide them and make sure they know how to avoid air attacks . . . and you’d better destroy the mountain runner too.”
“The air attack, I understand. But why destroy the runner? It’s already disabled.”
“As far as we know. But Lena is holding out on us. If that thing can be repaired, I don’t want her sneaking back after you stash them.”
“Understood.” Kelly turned to Lena, then switched to her voicemitter and pointed at the collection of water bladders and foodstuffs piled on the deck. “Unload enough food and water to keep you for a week.”
“What’s a week?”
Kelly let her chin drop. “Never mind.” She knelt on the deck and began to move supplies off the battery access panels. “Unload as much food and water as you can.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s an order,” John said. He retrieved his BR55 and his M7 submachine gun from the deck where he had been sitting earlier. “And you know what happens if you don’t obey orders.”
Lena grew pale, then began to pile the water bladders on the side deck. Fred jumped out of the front of the runner and set off across the plateau, with his BR55 battle rifle in hand and his rocket launcher and two extra sets of tubes on his magmounts. John secured the M7 and two extra tube sets for the M41 to his own mounts, then checked to see if Linda was ready.
She carried an MA5C assault rifle with an underslung M301 grenade launcher in hand, with plenty of ammunition and her SRS99 sniper rifle clamped to her magmounts. Linda was always ready.
For anything.
John nodded, and she jumped out of the runner and followed a hundred meters behind Fred. The spacing was greater than normal, but they would be moving at near-vehicle speeds without concern for stealth or their own safety. The extra distance would give them more reaction time if Fred stumbled into an ambush, and it would prevent a single air strike from taking out the entire patrol.
As John gathered himself to leap out of the runner, Lena said, “They won’t trust you, but that doesn’t mean you have to kill them.”
John paused with his foot on the bow of the runner. “Kill who?”
“Samson and Roselle,” she said. “The captains. They just want to get the camp off Netherop.”
“Then we all want the same thing,” John said.
“You’re a terrible liar, John. You want something else.”
“I want a lot of things,” John said. “Getting your camp off Netherop is one of them . . . and it might help if you can tell me how to make Samson and Roselle trust us.”
“Why would I do that?” Lena asked. “I don’t even trust you.”
John turned up the palm of his free hand. “Your choice, then.”
He jumped off the runner and started across the plateau, sprinting the first twenty seconds until he had closed to a hundred meters behind Linda. Even had he not been able to see her armor shimmering in the heat ahead, he could have followed the trail of broken stems she was cutting through the crystal bushes. Realizing that he was in a straight line behind her, he moved fifty meters to the right of her path.
He spoke over TEAMCOM. “Blue Two and Four, let’s stagger our line. After all the emergency comms, the enemy fighters have to know where we are.”
“You’re clear so far,” Kelly said. “And if they were coming, they would come quickly—before we have time to vanish again.”
“That’s how we would do it.” John wasn’t worried about giving away their position as they talked. They were still within a kilometer of the disabled runner, so the enemy would already have a pretty good idea of their location from the conversation over the emergency channel. “But the Covenant might have more confidence in its remote tracking technology.”
“You think they hope to jump us later with surprise?” Linda asked.
“I don’t know,” John said. “They could be studying us, or just playing with us. The only thing we know about how aliens think is that it’s not the same way we do.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Fred said. “And it doesn’t matter whether you think like an alien or a human. Why are they attacking the Wheatley at all?”
“It couldn’t be because their own vessel is disabled and they want to leave,” Kelly said.
“Can’t be,” Fred said. “If that was all, they’d just wait. The Covenant has a big fleet coming in, and Pantea can’t hold it off for long.”
“I did say ‘couldn’t be.’ ”
“Perhaps they don’t know about the Covenant fleet,” Linda said. “If their vessel is disabled, perhaps their communications are out too.”
“That could explain the drop pods,” John said. “Someone bringing a message.”
“And what did the message say?” Fred asked. “ ‘Help is coming, so go hijack that human salvage ship?’ ”
“No,” Linda said. “That makes no sense.”
“Kinda my point.”
“But it could be they worry about us,” Linda said. “They know we want their frigate, and they think we will try for it when we see their fleet arriving. So they attack our salvage ship to stop us?”
“A preemptive strike,” John said. That didn’t make a lot of tactical sense, as it was always much easier to defend a target than assault one. But there he was, trying to force human logic onto alien minds again. “That’s as good as an explanation as any, I guess.”
“Maybe not any,” Fred said. “Don’t forget about the Castoffs.”
“What about them?” John asked.
“They’re at least ten minutes ahead of us,” Fred said. “Maybe even twenty, since their runners weren’t damaged. The Covenant sentries have probably spotted them by now.”
“So?” Linda asked. “Why would a bunch of children make the aliens attack?”
“Think about how the Castoffs are mounted,” Fred said. “Maybe the aliens are afraid of spiders.”
Kelly groaned. “Seriously? Better check your suit temperature, mate. I think your brain is boiling.”
“You have a better explanation?”
“Nobody does. Because they’re aliens.” John hated to admit it, but Fred’s explanation was as likely to be right as Linda’s. “And there’s no use locating ourselves for them while we argue. Let’s go to Silent Mode Charlie.”
Silent Mode Charlie was a communications protocol that disallowed casual transmissions, even over TEAMCOM. It was probably overkill, since TEAMCOM’s low signal-strength and random frequency-hopping made it almost impossible to triangulate. But given how little the UNSC knew about alien capabilities, there was no sense taking chances. Besides, given a half hour of quiet time, someone might think of an explanation that actually made some sense.
At least, John hoped someone would, because the closer they came to the Lucky Break, the more he realized that they had no idea what the Covenant was really doing here on Netherop.
CHAPTER 13
* * *
* * *
1159 hours, June 7, 2526 (military calendar)
Crystal Bush Plateau
Mountains of Despair, Planet Netherop, Ephyra System
The makeshift drag sleds had cut two long paths leading straight to the shadowed gully where Kelly intended to stash the three Castoffs, but there was nothing to be done about it. Even Spartans could not haul three wounded children and a hundred kilos of food and water across three kilometers of crystal bushes without leaving a trail. She didn’t think it would be a liability though. The children were far from helpless, and the closest thing to a predator she had seen on Netherop was those little grubs on the paddle plants. And she was not at all certain the grubs were actually animals.
She checked the time on her HUD again. Twenty-one minutes had passed since she had parted ways with John and the rest of Blue Team. They should be reaching the Wheatley soon—if they were not there already. Within the next ten minutes, the Covenant force from the Lucky Break would also arrive, and the opening salvos of the battle would be fired.
So the Castoffs would have to take their chances. Kelly had gotten them into the shade, with plenty of nourishment, and that would have to do. Her mates on Blue Team needed her now.
She turned back toward the center of the gully. Arne and Oskar were sitting in the shade, next to a lean-to fashioned from the battery panels she had used to transport the children and their supplies into the gully. Lena was crawling in and out of the shelter, moving the water bladders and food baskets under cover. Kelly crossed the bottom of the rocky gully, then knelt in front of the lean-to entrance and began to pass the stores to Lena.
“Don’t leave the area for at least three—” Kelly stopped, realizing that the length of her day was probably very different from Lena’s. “How do you measure time here?”
“What difference does it make?” Lena took a basket of tubers from Kelly and pushed it into the back of the shelter. “You’re not coming back anyway.”
“We will if we can,” Kelly said. “And even if we lose the battle and can’t because of that, there is a platoon of marines following along behind us.”
Lena looked confused, but did not ask what a marine or a platoon was.
“Marine battle dress isn’t equipped with a temperature-regulating skinsuit like our Mjolnir . . .”
Lena looked even more confused.
Kelly kept going. “. . . so it could take them three or four—” She almost said days, then caught herself and said, “A fair while to arrive. But I’ll transmit these coordinates to their lieutenant, and they’ll rendezvous with you here.”
Lena’s expression was blank.
“How much of what I just explained did you actually understand?” Kelly asked.
“You’re going to leave us here,” Lena said. “Even if you don’t make it back, there are more of you coming. Wearing dresses or something.”
“Battle dress. It’s a uniform combined with armor, just not like our armor. The important thing is, they’ll need to know where to find you. If you don’t stay here, they won’t be able to.”
“Why would we want them to?”
“Because they’ll get you off the planet. And you want that, right?” Kelly had to fight to keep from shaking her helmet; these silly, endless questions were the kind of thing that could turn her I don’t like children act into more than an act.
“It doesn’t mean we want your marines to do it,” Lena said.
“It won’t happen any other way,” Kelly said. “If you don’t extract with us, it has to be with the marines.”
Lena’s gaze shifted away; then she grabbed a pair of water bladders and quickly turned toward the interior of the shelter. “Maybe.”
It wasn’t a resigned reply, as in: Maybe that would be okay. It was more confident, as in: Maybe it doesn’t have to be your marines.
Kelly was silent for a moment, wondering if Lena thought the Castoffs might be able to strike a bargain with the Covenant. Certainly she wouldn’t be the first human foolish enough to believe such a thing.
And then Kelly remembered who the Castoffs’ ancestors had been.
“You must be mad,” she said. “You’ve never even been aboard a spaceship. How do you expect to steal one?”
Lena whirled around with fire in her eyes. “We know what to do.”
“No, you really don’t. And even if you did, you’d never be able to fly it. Why won’t you accept our help?”
“Because that’s the oldest con in the bag,” Lena said. “ ‘We’re the UNSC, and we’re here to help.’ ”
Kelly rolled her eyes back and looked into the top of her helmet. “Oh, now I get it. Your ancestors weren’t just pirates, were they? They were Separatists.”
“So what if they were?” Lena said. “You still want to help?”
“Actually, yes,” Kelly said. “No matter what their crimes—”
“Wanting to live free is no crime.”
“Certainly not,” Kelly said. “I was referring to the piracy part—”
“Hey, Bowl-face Lady?” Arne’s voice was behind her, still mumbly and slow. Kelly had administered some stimulants to counteract the sedative effects of polypseudomorphine, but they were still kicking in. “What’s that thing?”
Kelly didn’t turn to look—that ruse truly was the oldest trick in the book.
“Lena, you can’t be held responsible for your ancestors’ crimes,” she said. “You weren’t even born when those offenses were committed.”
“Whoa.” Oskar was sounding as addle-headed as Arne. “How is that fork-thing even flying?”
Fork-thing . . . ?
Kelly felt her stomach sink. She turned to find both Oskar and Arne pointing into the sky, where an elongated vessel with sharp, angular lines was slipping down out of the brown clouds. Still dozens of kilometers out, it was just large enough for her to see three forward-mounted troop bays sticking out like the prongs on a trident. A Covenant dropship, similar to the Spirit the UNSC had encountered many times before, but this one was equipped with a little more vehicle-carrying capacity and an extra troop bay.
A sort of Super Spirit, Kelly decided—though the longer she looked at it, the more the troop bays looked stubbier than on the two-pronged variety. So maybe it was an entirely different kind of craft, or just a variation designed to carry an extra vehicle and not really all that “super” then. She would leave the formal designation to Section Three. Between the three prongs, a blanket of blue force shimmered over two arch-shaped vehicles. Kelly suspected they were Umbras—fast, lightly armed surface transports used to ferry troops into battle.
As the dropship drew nearer, Kelly saw that its approach path would carry it over the disabled mountain runner that she and her young companions had left behind. She didn’t think the Covenant pilot would notice it—or at least, she hoped not. Kelly had seen a few Spirits up close, and she didn’t recall their basic design having any lenses or viewing ports on the underside. She hoped the same would be true of their three-pronged cousin, and the vehicles hanging between the prongs would help block the pilot’s view of the ground. But there could be up to fifteen troops in each transport prong, and it only made sense that they would have some ability to anticipate what awaited below when the hull folded outward to let them disembark.
Kelly grabbed the two battery-cover panels they had used to build the lean-to, then tossed them to the other side of the gully, where they would not be visible from the dropship’s approach angle.
“So . . . that’s not one of yours?” Lena asked.
“Does it look like I’m trying to wave it down?” Kelly grabbed the two boys under their arms and carried them across the gully. “It’s an alien dropship.”
“You mean, like real aliens?” Oskar asked. “Not just you giants in armored space suits?”
“I mean the kind of aliens you don’t want to meet,” Kelly said. “The kind that will fry you without a second thought.”
“Is that why you wear the weird armor?” Arne asked. “So you can pass for an alien?”
“I can’t pass for an alien,” Kelly said. “I don’t look anything like one.”
She deposited the boys at the bottom of the gully wall—“Stay here”—then crept to the top and pushed her helmet far enough above the rim to see. The dropship had grown to the size of her hand and was now crossing the drag-path she had left through the crystal brush. It was hard to tell whether it was passing over the middle of the path or the far end, where the disabled mountain runner lay. But if one of the aliens was able to look downward, they would definitely see evidence of her group’s passage.
Kelly should probably have randomized her trail, so that the path looked like something a wild animal might have left. But that took time, and her number-one priority had been catching up to the rest of Blue Team.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have blasted our runner apart,” Lena said, crawling up beside her. “All that smoke was like a here we are signal.”
“There wasn’t that much smoke,” Kelly said. “And it lasted about thirty seconds.”
“Thirty seconds is plenty of time to pick a route and a destination mark,” Lena said. “I could pick ten in thirty seconds.”
“It wasn’t the smoke,” Kelly said. “How would they have seen it through the clouds?”
Of course, there were a lot of ways another Covenant vessel might have detected the blast—infrared imaging or cloud-penetrating radar, for instance. But the Wheatley’s emergency transmission had come even before the runner was incapacitated, so if anything had drawn the dropship to Kelly’s general location, it would have been the broadband comm messages being passed back and forth among John and everyone else.
