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He was nervous, and this was more than the normal pre-mission jitters. The team's original objective—the capture of a Covenant ship—had been scrubbed in the face of a new enemy offensive. The Covenant were en route to Reach, the last of the United Na?tions Space Command's major military strongholds.
Fred couldn't help but wonder what use ground troops would be in a ship-to-ship engagement. The knife spun.
Around him, his squadmates loaded weapons, stacked gear, and prepped for combat, their efforts redoubled since the ship's Captain had personally come down to the mustering area to brief the team leader, SPARTAN-117—but Fred was already squared away. Only Kelly had finished stowing gear before him.
He balanced the point of the knife on his armored finger. It hung there for several seconds, perfectly still.
A subtle shift in the Pillar of Autumn's gravity caused the knife to tip. Fred plucked it from the air and sheathed it in a sin?gle deft move. A cold feeling filled his stomach as he realized what the gravity fluctuation meant: The ship had just changed course—another complication.
ERIC NYLUND 3
Master Chief SPARTAN-117—John—marched to the nearest COM panel as Captain Keyes's face filled the screen.
Fred sensed a slight movement to his right—a subtle hand sig?nal from Kelly. He opened a private COM freq to his teammate.
"Looks like we're in for more surprises," she said.
"Roger that," he replied, "though I think I've had enough sur?prises for one op."
Kelly chuckled.
Fred focused his attention on John's exchange with Keyes. Each Spartan—selected from an early age and trained to the pin?nacle of military science—had undergone multiple augmenta?tion procedures: biochemical, genetic, and cybernetic. As a result, a Spartan could hear a pin drop in a sandstorm, and every Spartan in the room was interested in what the Captain had to say. If you 're going to drop into hell, CPO Mendez, the Spartans' first teacher, had once said, you may as well drop with good intel.
Captain Keyes frowned on the ship's viewscreen, a nonregula-tion pipe in his hand. Though his voice was calm, the Captain's grip on the pipe was white-knuckle tight as he outlined the situa?tion. A single space vessel docked in Reach's orbital facilities had failed to delete its navigational database. If the NAV data fell into Covenant hands, the enemy would have a map to Earth.
"Master Chief," the Captain said, "I believe the Covenant will use a pinpoint Slipspace jump to a position just off the space dock. They may try to get their troops on the station before the Super MAC guns can take out their ships. This will be a difficult mission, Chief. I'm... open to suggestions."
"We can take care of it," the Master Chief replied.
Captain Keyes's eyes widened and he leaned forward in his command chair. "How exactly, Master Chief?"
"With all due respect, sir, Spartans are trained to handle diffi?cult missions. I'll split my squad. Three will board the space dock and make sure that NAV data does not fall into the Covenant's hands. The remainder of the Spartans will go groundside and re?pel the invasion forces."