Oblivion, page 2
“We have already done so,” she said. “And that is why our highest priority will be to eliminate their combat bridging vehicles.”
“If we can destroy the CBVs,” Aurello explained, “the Wraiths will be forced to stop when we blow the Kharsis Flume. The Covenant will have no choice but to dismount and attack the Doukala on foot. Your Marine Engineering Brigade should be able to hold them off long enough to finish its work.”
John didn’t ask why it would fall to the engineering brigade to hold off the foot attack. The Samalat Gorge yawned a kilometer wide at the Nasim Bridge. That was more than twice the effective range of the battalion’s man-portable rocket launchers, so the Mesranis would have to engage on this side of the gorge. At such close ranges—less than two hundred meters in most places—the battle would be brisk and bloody. Even if the plan worked perfectly, there wouldn’t be any Ghosts left by the time the Covenant dismounted.
John turned to Bah’d. “What if Blue Team could stop the CBVs on the far side of the gorge?”
“Can you?”
“Our M68 Gauss cannons have an effective range of eight kilometers,” John said. “The gorge is a fraction of that. Our problem will be the enemy’s air superiority.”
“That we can help with,” Hiyat said. She touched her fingers to the screen, then made a pinching motion. The map scale contracted to include the mountainous terrain surrounding both ends of the Nasim Bridge. “Our battalion has placed twelve antiaircraft batteries on these mountains, just below the cloud ceiling. Our missiles will be striking from above the enemy’s ground-attack craft.”
“Nice.” The missile batteries wouldn’t take out all of the Covenant attack craft, of course. But given the mountainous terrain and low clouds, the unusual attack angle would be a real distraction for enemy pilots—and that would be enough advantage for Blue Team to succeed. “Blue Team can take out the CBVs before they cross the gorge.”
“You are certain?” Bah’d asked.
“As certain as I can be in a situation like this.” John was beginning to think the Ghosts might not need to live up to their name. If their provisions for blowing the Nasim Bridge were as thorough as the rest of their preparations, the battalion could probably buy the 24th Engineering Brigade enough time to destroy the Doukala mine and still survive to evacuate. He touched a finger to the screen again. “When the Covenant reaches the far bridgehead, they’ll start by having a platoon of Drones fly underneath the decking to disarm your demolition charges.”
The Drones were another type of alien in the enemy ranks, an insectile species with wings. Most Covenant brigades included a light company of a hundred Drones to serve as scouts.
“We have decoys,” Bah’d said. “And tamper traps. The bridge will blow when we are ready for it.”
“Good,” John said. “Then you should wait until the first Wraiths are almost across. If the column is under way when the bridge blows, the disarray will buy us some extra targeting time.”
The third commander, the lieutenant who had not yet spoken, stepped forward. John couldn’t recall the lieutenant’s name, so the Mjolnir’s onboard computer displayed JAKOME on the HUD.
“I do not understand, John.” Jakome was a square-faced man with sunken eyes and a broad nose. “If we destroy the bridge so early, and you eliminate the combat bridging vehicles before they deploy, how will we attack the rest of the column?”
“We won’t need to,” John said. Clearly, Jakome’s thought process had been slowed by sleep deprivation. “The column will be stranded on the far side of the gorge, and the Doukala mine will be safe.”
“But the aliens will be out of range,” Jakome said.
“And the Doukala mine will be safe,” John repeated. “By the time the enemy can organize another attack, the 24th will have turned the entire mine into radioactive slag.”
“So you hope,” Aurello said. “But if we give the aliens time to think, they will find another way to seize the mine.”
“There is no other way,” John said. “With the bridge out, they would have to launch a large-scale air assault. Even the Covenant can’t mount that kind of operation on short notice—not through heavy cloud cover into jungle mountains.”
“You have no idea what the Covenant can do,” Aurello said. “If the last six weeks have taught the UNSC anything, surely it has taught you that.”
Aurello was more right than he knew. Seven weeks earlier, John and three teams of Spartans had joined the 21st ODST Space Assault Battalion on Operation: SILENT STORM, a top-secret, high-risk raid into Covenant space. Their objective had been to hit the aliens hard and buy time for humanity to develop countermeasures against Covenant technology. The operation had destroyed two enemy cities, an orbital fleet-support ring, and eight capital ships.
Even so, success hadn’t changed much of anything. Less than two weeks later, the Covenant had returned with more fleets than the UNSC could track, and Blue Team found itself deploying to Circinius IV to rescue the surviving cadets of the Corbulo Academy of Military Science. John managed to get three of the students off the planet alive, and even that was doing well in comparison to how the fight was going elsewhere. The invasion became an onslaught. Every day, the alien enemy destroyed another human outpost, and another UNSC convoy vanished without a trace. Worlds fell two and three a week, and new incursion routes opened faster than the Office of Naval Intelligence could identify them. Unable to consolidate battlefield intelligence before it became inactionable, FLEETCOM had stopped trying to coordinate core strategy and granted operational autonomy to each battle group. It was a bad way to run a war, but it was the best humanity could do.
While it lasted.
After a moment, John said, “We may not know all of the enemy’s capabilities, but we do know basic field tactics—and the most basic tactic of all is ‘don’t waste your soldiers.’ ”
“Which is what will happen if we give the aliens time to regroup.” Aurello glanced at Jakome and Hiyat, who both nodded vigorously, then said, “We must keep the pressure on, and take our vengeance now. Here.”
“Vengeance?” John had to be missing something. The Mesranis were disciplined soldiers, and disciplined soldiers did not launch suicide attacks out of spite. “What does vengeance have to do with anything?”
“The Nasim Bridge is a chokepoint,” Jakome said. “And the Ytterbium Road is a gauntlet. Our rockets will fall on their heads like rain.”
“Like . . . rain.” John repeated. He knew from his combat psychology training back on Reach that too much combat stress could sometimes result in mindless, murderous rages. But such episodes were heat-of-the-moment events that erupted without warning—not carefully prepared actions like the commanders were suggesting now. He turned to Bah’d. “What kind of combat stimulants are you using?”
“Stimulants?” Bah’d narrowed her eyes. “Be careful what you imply, John.”
“Major, I never imply.” John was puzzled by Bah’d’s testy reaction. Stim-packs were standard issue for UNSC special operations troops—who often had to fight for days at a time without sleep—but they were easy to overuse in the heat of a long battle. “Your commanders are focus-locked on a pointless goal. That’s a classic sign of stim-pack overload.”
Bah’d’s voice turned icy. “The Mesrani do not use stim-packs, John.”
“You don’t?” John glanced at the company commanders, not sure he believed her. After more than three days of combat and hard marching with no sleep, it seemed impossible they could still be even this functional without help. “You’re sure?”
“Very sure, John.” Bah’d’s resentment certainly sounded sincere. “We would never debase ourselves with such poison.”
John saw the eyes of her subordinates harden with indignation. But if they didn’t use stim-packs, there was even more reason to worry. The human brain needed sleep to flush out the toxins that accumulated during periods of wakeful activity, and John knew that going even twenty-four hours without rest could lead to concentration and memory problems. After forty-eight hours, the brain started to shut down for microsleeps, which lasted anywhere from half a second to half a minute—all followed by short periods of confusion and disorientation that could prove disastrous in a combat situation. By seventy-two hours, the brain’s toxin load grew so acute that severe lapses in concentration, motivation, and memory were inevitable—and hallucinatory episodes were common.
The only way to counteract the effects of sleep deprivation was to temporarily increase the signal-carrying capacity of the brain’s synapses. That was how stim-packs worked—and why they were sometimes necessary in combat. If there were natural methods for accomplishing the same thing, John had never heard of them.
After a moment, he said, “My apologies—I didn’t mean to offend anyone. The UNSC has a more, uh, pragmatic view of battlefield enhancements.”
“Which is but one of the reasons the Children of Mesra were forced to seek a world of their own.” Bah’d turned to her subordinate commanders. “And why we will have vengeance on the aliens who have come to take it from us.”
“Just not here.” John’s tone was firm, but technically he was making a request. Bah’d and the others not only outranked him, they were part of a different army that didn’t even report to the same chain of command. “We need to keep our eye on the objective. The enemy is a far superior force, and it doesn’t make sense to give them a free shot at the Doukala mine.”
Bah’d remained silent for so long that John thought she had fallen into an open-eyed sleep; then she finally said, “We share the same objective, John—deny Mesra’s xenotime to the Covenant. But the Mesranis have another objective too—kill the aliens who invaded our world.”
“You’ll kill a lot more of them by fighting smart,” John said. “Your battalion could evacuate with the 24th, get some rest, and take on the Covenant on a hundred other worlds.”
“If everything goes right . . . and the enemy remains trapped on the far side of the gorge.”
Bah’d looked back to the leftmost display screen, which showed the enemy armor column as it continued to advance toward the Nasim Bridge. The Covenant commander had adjusted his marching order to deal with the minefields, and now the column was being led by single-seat RAVs—rapid assault vehicles that looked like motorcycles with front wings and no wheels. Squads of Drone scouts were flying alongside the column, passing safely over the mined undergrowth on small flickering wings that seemed barely large enough to keep their multisegmented bodies aloft. John’s HUD showed sixty-seven minutes before the enemy column reached the far bridgehead.
Without turning from the screen, Bah’d asked, “Tell me, John-117, how many battles have you seen?”
“More than a few.” The number was classified, of course, but John needed Bah’d to understand that when he made a recommendation, he was speaking with the voice of experience. “Way more than a few, actually. I can’t even tell you the number.”
“So, more than my five.” Bah’d continued to watch the display screen. “And in how many of your battles did everything go as planned?”
“Not a one,” John admitted. “Usually we were happy if the first three minutes went as planned.”
Bah’d nodded. “That has been my experience too.” She turned to face her subordinates. “So here is what I suggest.”
The exhausted commanders drew themselves up straight, the way soldiers everywhere did when receiving orders, and John realized the discussion phase of their meeting was at an end.
“I would like John and his team to open fire on the first combat bridging vehicle as soon as their Gauss cannons have a good chance of destroying it. That will force the aliens to rush forward in order to seize the Nasim Bridge.”
Hiyat raised her brow, and Aurello and Jakome just looked confused. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, because John realized what was coming next . . . and he didn’t like it.
“You’re going to set an ambush on the far side of the gorge?” he asked. “And blow the bridge before the enemy crosses?”
“Exactly,” Bah’d said. “That is the last place the Covenant will expect us. They will be trapped in the minefield, with no advance possible and with our rockets pounding their turrets.”
Aurello and Jakome broke into broad grins, and Hiyat began to nod enthusiastically. Even John had to admit that her solution gave everyone what they wanted. The Mesranis would keep the pressure on and kill a lot of alien invaders, and the Covenant would have almost no chance of capturing the Doukala mine. The only part John didn’t like was the part where two-hundred-and-eighty good soldiers died in a suicide attack—even if they had named themselves the Ghost Battalion.
“It will work,” John said. “But you’re putting yourselves in the trap with the enemy, and there’s no need for it—not if you destroy the bridge from this side of the gorge.”
“You worry for us, John?” Bah’d’s eyes wrinkled at the corners again. “How kind.”
Bah’d turned back to the display screens, where geysers of flame and dirt were engulfing the single-seat RAVs as they led the alien column into a minefield, and fell silent. Her stooped shoulders and tucked chin suggested she had slipped into another microsleep. In a UNSC unit, that kind of acute sleep-deprivation would have been reason enough to challenge her judgment, perhaps even temporarily relieve her of command. But John had no authority over anyone in the Mesrani Militia—least of all Bah’d—and he had already come close to alienating her with his stim-pack query. So, he could not risk losing her cooperation—not if he wanted to protect the Doukala mine.
Bah’d’s head jerked as she returned to wakefulness.
“I’m not being kind, Bah’d.” John was careful to speak softly, knowing that the Mjolnir’s voicemitter would add an extra measure of assertiveness to his words. “The Fifth is a good battalion, and it doesn’t need to die today.”
“Perhaps not.” Bah’d’s voice dropped to a whisper, and she turned back to John with steel in her eyes. “But the aliens do.”
CHAPTER 2
* * *
* * *
1500 hours, June 5, 2526 (military calendar)
Sarpesi Ridge, Samalat Gorge
Karpos Mountain Range, Planet Mesra, Qusdar System
The enemy Wraiths advanced through the depleted minefield two abreast, their purple hulls floating on cushions of intangible force as they brushed past the smoking hulks of demolished rapid assault vehicles. They kept their plasma cannons trained on the jungle-covered slope above the road, though that was only because the weapons lacked the range to return fire across the kilometer-wide Samalat Gorge to Sarpesi Ridge. With only a kilometer to the bridgehead, the vehicle commanders would be plenty worried about long-range flank attacks, and they would be ready with half a dozen responses.
John-117 just wished he knew which tactics they would choose: run-and-gun or stand-and-return? Area suppression or radar-assisted counterfire? Independent targeting or coordinated fire? Each tactic created different hazards and opportunities and required unique preparations, and that was one of the most difficult things about fighting the Covenant—they didn’t think like humans, so it was hard to anticipate their choices.
John was still looking for hints when a head-size lizard-thing dropped out of the jungle canopy and spread a pair of leathery wings . . . then fanned its tail and landed at the tip of his Gauss cannon. He did not have a proper mount for the weapon, so he and the rest of Blue Team were lying in their belly scrapes, using the dirt piled in front of them as makeshift barrel supports—and now the creature was blocking his view, both naturally and through the aiming reticle in his heads-up display.
But he did not dare shoo it away. Covenant spotters would be searching Sarpesi Ridge for emplacements and firing lanes, and a startled reptile taking flight would draw their eyes straight to his position.
“Blue Leader’s line of sight temporarily blocked.” John spoke over TEAMCOM, a secure channel available only to his three fellow Spartans on Blue Team. The enemy signals-intelligence unit would probably detect the transmission, but by now Fifth Battalion’s own electronic warfare squad was blasting a hundred thousand decoy transmissions per second. The chance that John’s message would be decrypted, or even traced to its source, was almost nil. “Keep me posted.”
“The first combat bridging vehicle has already entered Blue Four’s LOS.” Blue Four was Linda-058, who had been placed at the far end of the firing line because she was the best sniper in the entire SPARTAN-II program. “It’s shielded by four Wraiths.”
They had expected this. That was why Blue Team had taken positions an extra half-kilometer away, high atop Sarpesi Ridge where they would be able to fire over the large Wraiths and hit the CBVs from above. Still, the tactic made John nervous. The targeting software in their Mjolnir would calculate trajectory and adjust the minute-of-angle in their HUD sights to reflect Mesra’s dense atmosphere and above-normal gravity. But even with an onboard computer doing the math, down-angle shots at long range were tricky, and if their first shots missed, there would be no time to recalculate.
After a moment, John asked, “Can we still get the angle?”
“Affirmative,” Linda said.
“Good,” John said. The lizard-thing was still perched on the end of his Gauss cannon, its neck frills half-flared as it stared up the camouflaged barrel toward him. His helmet and armor were swaddled in the same gossamer filament that covered the jungle floor, but the faceplate remained exposed. He suspected the creature was mesmerized by its own reflection. “Everyone else check off as the target enters your LOS.”
“Blue Two, target acquired,” said Fred-104, John’s dry-witted second-in-command. “Last chance for the Mesranis to wise up and fall back.”
“Not going to happen,” John said.
Despite his protests, Bah’d had slipped most of the battalion across the gorge while the Covenant armor was still kilometers away. The Mesranis had done a good job of hiding their redeployment by concealing their movement behind the bridge’s side barriers and waiting for land mine detonations, which left the enemy column temporarily blinded by smoke. But Fifth Battalion was going to be trapped on the far side of the gorge whether or not Blue Team destroyed the CBVs, and the knowledge that so many Mesranis were going to perish in a pointless battle troubled all four of the Spartans.
