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He watched the retreating Covenant. Once again—it was too easy. No . . . it had been anything but“easy” for the UNSC forces, but the Covenant were certainly giving up far earlier than in any previousbattle. The aliens had never stopped once they engaged an enemy.
Except at Sigma Octanus, he thought.
“Cortana,” Captain Keyes said. “Scan the poles of planet Reach and filter out the magnetic interference.”
The view screen snapped to the Reach’s northern pole. Hundreds of Covenant dropships streamedtoward the planet’s surface.
“Get FLEETCOM HQ online,” he ordered Lieutenant Dominique. “Copy this message to the FleetCommander, as well.”
“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Channel connected.”
“Tell them they’re being invaded. Dropships inbound at both poles.”
Dominique sent the message, listened a moment, then reported, “Message received and acknowledged,sir.”
The Super MAC guns pivoted and fired—shattering dozens of the Covenant dropships in the shells’supersonic wake.
The remains of the UNSC fleet split into two groups, moving toward either pole. Missiles and MACguns fired and blasted the dropships to bits. The poles were punctuated with thousands of meteoroids asthe bits of hull burned up in the atmosphere.
Hundreds must have gotten through, Keyes thought. Reach had been invaded.
“Incoming distress signal from FLEETCOM HQ planetside, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said, his voicebreaking.
“On speakers,” Captain Keyes said.
“There are thousands of them. Grunts, Jackals, and their warrior Elites.”The transmission broke intostatic. “They have tanks and fliers. Christ, they’ve breached the perimeter. Fall back! Fall back! If
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anyone can hear this: the Covenant is groundside. Massing near the armory . . . they’re—” White noisefilled the speakers. Captain Keyes winced as he heard screams, bones snapping, an explosion. Thetransmission went dead.
“Sir!” Lieutenant Hall said. “The Covenant fleet has altered their outbound trajectory. . . . they’returning.” She rotated to face the Captain. “They’re coming in for another attack.”
Captain Keyes stood straighter and smoothed his uniform. “Good.” He addressed the crew in the calmestvoice he could muster. “Looks like we’re not too late after all.”
Ensign Lovell nodded. “Sir, ETA to rally point Zulu in five minutes.”
“Remove all missile safety locks,” Captain Keyes ordered. “Get our remote-piloted Longsword into thelaunch tube. And make sure our MAC gun capacitors and boosters are hot.”
Captain Keyes pulled out his pipe. He lit it and puffed.
The Covenant were, of course, after the orbital guns. Their suicidal frontal charge—while almosteffective enough—had been just another diversion. The real danger was on the ground; if their troopstook out the fusion generators, the Super MAC guns would be so much floating junk in orbit.
“This is bad,” he muttered to himself.
Cortana appeared on the AI pedestal near the NAV station. “Captain Keyes, I’m picking up anotherdistress signal. It’s from the Reach space dock AI. And if you think this—” she gestured at the incomingCovenant fleet on screen “—is bad, wait until you hear this. It gets worse.”