Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (10 page)

Lucy glared at him, but then said, "What do you have in mind?"

"What is the point of this 'exercise,' Lieutenant?" Deep Winter asked.

The AI holographic projection of an old man took a step toward the bank of monitors and touched the screen showing a boy and a girl pinned by machine-gun fire. A crackle of ice spread over the plastic.

Chief Mendez stood, and swatted at a mosquito, frowning as he glanced back and forth among the two dozen displays in Camp Currahee's control center. The air conditioner had broken, and both Mendez's and Kurt's uniforms were soaked with sweat.

Kurt said, "Our candidates are doing well in their studies?"

Deep Winter turned his glacier-blue gaze to the Lieutenant. "You've have seen my reports. You know they are. Since you announced their grades were a factor in the selection process, they practically kill themselves every night to learn everything before they pass out. Frankly, I don't see—"

"1 suggest," Kurt said, "you not worry about seeing the point of my battlefield drills, and focus on keeping the candidates on track with their studies."

What could an AI possibly know what it was like on a real mission? Bullets zinging so close over your head that you didn't so much as hear them
hut felt
them pass. Or what it was like to get hit, but still have to keep going, bleeding, because if you didn't everyone on your team would die?

Alpha Company had lost their team cohesion on Operation PROMETHEUS. Kurt vowed that would not happen with Beta Company.

Deep Winter ruffled his cape, and a flurry of illusionary snow swirled about the control room. The AI was likely programmed with human safety protocols, so it was natural for it to be concerned.

"We don't know what they're capable of," Kurt finally told Deep Winter. "Stick with the bythe-book drills and we'll never

find out, either. But put them in an impossible situation, and maybe they'll surprise us."

"Short definition of a Spartan," Mendez remarked.

That's what people had said about the SPARTAN-IIs who were the genetic cream of the crop and wore MJOLNIR armor. They
could
do the impossible, and do it alone. The SPARTAN-IIIs, though, would have to work together to survive. Be more family than fire team.

"Still," Deep Winter whispered. "This is cruel. They will break."

"I'd rather break them," Kurt said, "than let them go out into the field without ever experiencing an intractable tactical situation."

"Personally I don't think these kids can be broken," Mendez said more to himself than to Kurt or Deep Winter. His gaze now firmly fixed on Tom and Lucy. "Ten years old and these

two have so much grit they scare the bejesus out of even me."

"Look," Deep Winter said. "What are those two doing now?"

Kurt smiled. "I think… the impossible."

"Let's go over the plan one more time," Tom said.

Lucy huddled next to him in the mud hole. "Why? You think I'm stupid?"

Tom didn't say anything for a moment, then: "Those turrets are probably using radar to

target. So we fool them."

"And if they're using thermals?" Lucy asked.

Tom shrugged. "Then I hope they nail you first."

Lucy grimly nodded and hefted a muddy rock. "So we throw these."

"Into their cone of fire," Tom said. "The small angle will make them hard to track. Maybe

tie up their brains for a fraction of a second more."

"Then we run."

"Evasive maneuvers. Try not to step on Adam and Min."

"Got it," Lucy said.

Tom grasped his rock tighter and pumped it once, working up his courage. He and Lucy

knocked their fists together.

They stood at the same time—hucked both rocks
. Tom heard gunfire, but didn't pause to look; he ran right, then left, he rolled and tumbled

and then sprinted like crazy for the tree line.

He felt the dirt near him exploding with tiny puffs.

Fire cut into his thigh and his leg lost all feeling. He pushed off with his good foot, and

landed hard on his stomach in the tall grass by the acacia trees.

Staccato bullets dotted in the ground centimeters from his prone body… but missed him. He laughed. He was just inside their minimum angle of fire. Stupid machines.

He rolled over and spotted Lucy, panting and crouched in the grass. Tom waved to her, and then pointed up into the treetops. Lucy gave a thumbs-up signal.

Tom hopped on one leg. Some of the feeling was coming back… mostly the feeling of pain. He stomped it out. He couldn't let it slow him down. The drill instructors might show up at any second.

He pulled himself up into the lower branches of one of the acacias that shook with gunfire. He used great care to avoid the spines in the tree's trunk. He climbed up ten meters.

On a platform sat an old M202 XP machine gun hooked up to an automated fire control. It twitched back and forth, waiting for a target to present itself.

Tom reached up and disconnected the wires from the radar array, and then the power supply. The gun froze.

He climbed onto the platform and unscrewed the securing bolts. He pushed the gun off the platform. It made a satisfying thud as it impacted the muddy ground.

Tom climbed down. He grabbed the machine gun, cleared the barrel, and stripped off the

remaining autofire control. He

test-fired a burst of three rounds into the tree trunk. "Awesome," he said.

Lucy was down from his tree as weli, machine gun balanced on her shoulder. She

moved onto the field to help Adam and Min get up. "Come on," she said. "We still got a bell to ring."

Adam boosted Tom and then Lucy to make a human ladder, and then Min clambered up and clanged the bell.

Nothing had ever sounded so good.

They all climbed down. "Now for some payback…" Tom said. "Adam, Min, take up spotting positions"—he pointed—"in those trees there and there."

They nodded and ran off to the trees.

"You and me and these," Tom told Lucy, patting his machine gun, "will set up there." He pointed to a large boulder. "I'll be there." He nodded to the tall grass on the edge of the field.

"And do what?" she asked.

"Well, we've cleared the field and rung the bell. I figure with the other teams getting here and ringing the bell in record times…"

Lucy smiled. "The DIs will come running and gunning."

The DIs at Camp Currahee were a mix of handpicked NCOs, medics, and the washouts from the first Spartan class. The washouts always went out of their way to make the lives of the Beta Spartan trainees hell. Two years ago Team X-ray vanished on a routine exercise up north. A lot of the kids said there were ghosts up there—floating eyes in the jungle—but everyone really knew the DIs had done something and covered it up. ONI even came in and fenced the place off. Called it "Zone 67" and declared it was "absolutely off-limits."

It was time to teach those DIs they couldn't get away with bullying Beta Company.

Min whistled from the treetops.

Teams Romeo and Echo slinked into view. Tom signaled them and explained the plan.

Teams Zulu and Lima joined them, and

soon two dozen trainees were scattered in the trees and grass, watching and waiting.

It only took fifteen minutes before a whistle sounded at three o'clock. There was a subtle

motion in the grass on the edges of the field.

Tom signaled his scouts to fall back while Lucy maneuvered to get a better line. Tom ran in a crouch to intercept.

He spotted three targets, their SPI armor mimicking the grass well, but not well enough

to cover the parted grass at their feet. They turned to face Lucy.

Tom fired, spraying at knee level where the armor was weakest.

Three human-shaped outlines crushed the grass, screaming and convulsing as the

rubber bullets pelted them.

Lucy joined him and opened fire.

When the screaming stopped, Tom moved in and peeled off their armor, revealing three

very dazed DIs. They had not identified themselves, so by the rules of engagement they were fair targets.

Adam ran up and helped him and Lucy strip the bodies.

"Pistols and MA5Ks, both with stun ammunition," Adam said.

Lucy held up a double handful of grenades, and smiled. "Flash-bangs."

"Now," Tom said, grinning, "this really gets interesting."

The moon had come out and set. The grass was wet with dew and Tom's stomach

growled so loud he thought it might give away his position in the dark.

Five waves of DIs had come, and been neutralized by a now armed, armored, and fully equipped Spartan Trainee Defense Team. The instructors were tied up in the middle of the field by the bell. Hostages.

Tom and the other Spartans were working together like they never had before. And they were winning. He was hungry, wet, and cold, but Tom

wouldn't have traded places with anyone in the entire galaxy. He heard a rustle in the tall grass, turned, machine gun aimed waist high. There was nothing there, and nothing on the thermals, either. He must be getting jumpy. A hand clamped on his shoulder, while another hand wrenched the machine gun from his

grasp. Chief Mendez stood over him. At his side was Lieutenant Ambrose. Tom half expected Mendez to shoot him right there. "I think that's quite enough," Mendez growled. The Lieutenant knelt beside Tom and whispered, "Good work, son."

CHAPTER

TEN

0420 HOURS, FEBRUARY 19, 2551 (MILITARY CALENDAR)
\ ABOARD UNSC
HOPEFUL,
INTERSTELLAR SPACE, SECTOR K-009 (FIVE YEARS AFTER SPARTAN-III BETA COMPANY OPERATION TORPEDO AT PEGASI DELTA)

Kurt walked the empty corridors of the UNSC
Hopeful
and entered the atrium. Blazing lights overhead mimicked a realistic sun. Air recirculators made the leaves of the small grove of white oaks rustle. He smelled lavender, a scent he hadn't experienced since he was a child.

The most extravagant feature of the
Hopeful,
however, was

the ten-meter curving window in the atrium—something utterly unheard of on any other ship in the UNSC fleet.

But then the
Hopeful
was unlike any other ship in the fleet.

Naval officers described her as "the ugliest thing to ever float in zero gee." The ship had been built before there had been major rebel activity in the colonies. A private medical corporation had purchased two scrapped repair stations—each a square kilometer plate of scaffolding, cranes, and cargo trams. These two plates had been connected to make an off-centered "sandwich," and within, a state-of-the-art hospital and research facility had been constructed.

In 2495 the UNSC had commandeered the vessel, added engines, minimal defensive systems, six fusion reactors, and a Shaw-Fujikawa translight system, and transformed the
Hopeful
into the largest mobile battlefield hospital in history.

While most Naval officers agreed she was unsightly, every en-listed Marine Kurt had ever spoken with declared her the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.

The
Hopeful
had taken on mythical proportions with the men and women who had to fight and die on the front lines. She had been damaged, but had survived, eighteen major Naval battles with rebel forces and four encounters with the Covenant. The ship's staff and technology had a reputation of saving lives, in many cases literally bringing the dead back to life.

Today the ship had been parked in interstellar space— essentially the middle of nowhere—by order of Vice Admiral Parangosky. And while the thousands of critically ill patients could not be evacuated, the eight decks surrounding docking cluster Bravo had been cleared of all personnel while ONI moved in their equipment and staff. The SPARTANIII program had to remain under a cloak of absolute secrecy.

Kurt wished the
Hopeful
lived up to her reputation because today the lives of his Spartan potentials were at stake.

His candidates had had to endure so much in the last year. To

accelerate the program's timetable, puberty had been artificially induced. Human-growth hormone as well as cartilage, muscle, and bone supplements had been introduced into their diet, and the children had metamorphosed into near-adult stature within nine months.

They had become clumsy in their new, larger bodies, and had struggled to relearn how to run, shoot, jump, and fight.

And today, they'd face their most dangerous test. They would either become irreparably disfigured, die, or be transformed into Spartans.

No, that wasn't right. While these kids didn't have the heightened speed or strength of a Spartan, they already had the commitment, drive, and spirit. They already were Spartans.

Kurt heard boots clicking down the corridor, then muffled steps crossing the atrium lawn.

"Lieutenant, sir?"

A young man and woman approached with the long loping gaits of people who had spent much time in microgravity. They wore standard Naval uniforms bearing the stripes of a petty officer second class. Both had close-cropped black hair and dark eyes.

Kurt had had to pull a few strings to keep the Beta Company survivors of Pegasi Delta with him. Colonel Ackerson had wanted Tom for his own private operations. And ever-silent Lucy had narrowly avoided an unfit-for-duty classification and permanent reassignment to ONI psych branch for "evaluation."

He'd had to appeal to Vice Admiral Parangosky, claiming he needed Spartans to train Spartans.

Over Ackerson's objections, she had agreed.

The result: Tom and Lucy had become Kurt's right and left hands over these last years, and Gamma Company were the finest Spartans ever.

Tom and Lucy spent so much of their time in their SPI armor, it took Kurt a moment to recognizes his attaches. Their armor.

along with the rest of Gamma Company's Semi-Powered Infiltration suits, was being refitted with new photo-reactive coatings to boost their camouflaging properties. There were other experimental refits—gel ballistic layers, upgraded software suites, and other functions—that would hopefully be working within a year's time.