“Maybe,” Keyes agreed as he dabbed ointment onto a burst blister, “and maybe not. I’ve been in contact with both Cortana and Wellsley. They’re both busy at the moment, but they’ll send help as soon as they can. In the meantime, we tie up as many of their resources as possible, avoid capture, and kill some of the bastards if we can.”
“For what?” Dowski demanded. “So you can make Admiral? I submit that we’ve done all we could reasonably be expected to do, that the longer we delay the harsher the Covenant will be. It makes sense to surrender now.”
“And you are an idiot,” Lieutenant Hikowa put in, her eyes blazing with uncharacteristic anger. “First of all, the Captain rates the honorific ‘sir.’ You will render that honorific or I will plant my foot in your ass.
“Secondly, use your brain, assuming that you have one. The Covenant doesn’t take prisoners, everyone knows that, so surrender equals death.”
“Oh, yeah?” Dowski said defiantly. “Well, why haven’t they already killed us then? They could strafe us with cannons, fire rockets into the rocks, or drop bombs on our position, but they haven’t. Explain that.”
“Explain this,” Singh said, inserting the barrel of his M6D into the Ensign’s left ear. “I’m starting to think that you look a lot like a Grunt. Lovell... check her face. I’ll bet it peels right off.”
Keyes closed the fastener on the light-duty deck shoes, wished he had a pair of combat boots like the Marines wore, and knew Dowski was partially correct, insubordination aside. It did seem as though the aliens were intent on capturing his party rather than killing them, but why? It didn’t square with their behavior in the past.
Of course, the Covenant had changed tactics on him before – when he’d beaten the tar out of them at Sigma Octanus, and again when they’d returned the favor at Reach.
The officer watched the tableau as it unfolded in front of him. Hikowa stood with her fists on her hips, face contorted with anger, while Singh screwed his weapon into Dowski’s ear. The rest of the bridge crew were frozen, uncertain. The Marines weren’t present, thank God, but it would be naïve to think they weren’t aware of the Ensign’s opinions, or of the discord among their superiors. The enlisted ranks always knew, one way or another. So, what to do? Dowski wasn’t about to change her mind, that was obvious, and she was becoming a liability.
The Banshee whined loudly as it passed over the grotto for the second time. They needed to move and do it soon.
“Okay,” Keyes said, “you win. I should charge you with cowardice, insubordination, and dereliction of duty, but I’m a little pressed for time. So I hereby give you permission to surrender. Hikowa, relieve her of her weapon, ammo, and pack. Singh, truss her up. Nothing too tight... just enough so she can’t follow us.”
A look of horror came over Dowski’s face. “You’re going to leave me? All by myself? With no supplies?”
“No,” Keyes answered calmly, “you wanted to surrender, remember? The Covenant will keep you company, and as for supplies, well, I have no idea what sort of rations they eat, but it should be interesting if they allow you a last meal. Bon appétit.”
Dowski started to babble incoherently but Singh grew tired of it, shoved a battle dressing into the Ensign’s mouth, and used some all-purpose repair tape to hold it in place. He used some of the same tape to hog-tie the officer. “That should keep her out of trouble for a while.”
Rocks clattered as Corporal Wilkins and two of his fellow Marines made their way down the streambed. The noncom saw Dowski, nodded as if everything were perfectly normal, and looked to Keyes. “A Covenant dropship landed a squad of Elites about one klick to the south, sir. It’s time to move.”
The Naval officer nodded. “Thank you, Corporal. The command team is ready. Please lead the way.”
Meanwhile, a few hundred meters above, and half a klick to the north, the Elite named Ado ’Mortumee put his Banshee into a wide turn, and watched the dropship touch down. There weren’t many places to land, which meant that once on the ground his fellow Elites would still have a ways to go.
Rather than drop hundreds of troops onto the rocky hillsides, and leave them to scramble over the exhausting up-and-down terrain, the Covenant command structure decided to use its air superiority to locate the humans and capture them.
And there, ’Mortumee mused, is the problem. Locating the aliens is one thing – capturing them is another. During the time since they had landed, the humans had proven themselves to be quite resourceful. Not only had they evaded capture, they had killed six of their pursuers, who, acting under strict orders to take the aliens alive, were at a considerable disadvantage. It made more sense simply to kill the humans. Of course, he was a mere pilot and soldier, not privy to the machinations of the Prophets or the Ship Masters.
After the human lifeboat had been located, it wasn’t long before Covenant scouts found Isna ’Nosolee’s body, and ran a check on his identity. Intelligence was notified, official wheels began to turn, and the Covenant commanders were confronted with a problem: Why would an Ossoona risk his life to board a human lifeboat and ride it to the surface? The answer seemed obvious: Because someone important was on that boat.
All of which served to explain why none of the humans had been killed. There was no way to know which alien ’Nosolee had been after – so all of them had to be preserved. ’Mortumee glanced down at the instruments arrayed in front of him. A change! A string of seven heat blobs was winding its way to arbitrary “north,” while one remained behind. What did that signify?
It wasn’t long before ’Mortumee’s Banshee circled above the grotto. Dowski wrestled to free herself from the tape, and the Covenant closed in around her.
Smoke swirled around the top of the butte as a Pelican pilot made use of his 70mm chin gun to silence a Covenant gun emplacement. Satisfied that the Covenant plasma turret – a powerful weapon that could be easily deployed and recovered – was silent, he dropped down to within four feet of the top of the butte.
Fifteen ODST Helljumpers – three more than the Pelican’s operational maximum – leaped from the Pelican’s troop bay and fanned out.
Cramming extra troops into a Pelican was a risky move, but Silva wanted to put as many soldiers as possible on the mesa, and Lieutenant “Cookie” Peterson knew his ship. The Pelican was still in reasonably good shape, he had the best maintenance crew in the Navy – what more could a pilot ask for?
Peterson felt the dropship drift upward as the Marines bailed out, and he fought to keep the ship steady and level. He spotted movement in the landing zone. The chin gun – linked to his helmet sensors – followed the movement of Peterson’s head. He spotted a column of Covenant troopers and fired. The heavy rotary cannon uttered a throaty roar and pounded the enemy formation into a puddle of blue-green paste.
As the last of the Helljumpers jumped off, the Crew Chief yelled “Clear!” over the intercom. Peterson fired the ship’s belly jets, demanded additional power from the twin turbine engines, and left the butte behind.
“This is Echo 136,” the pilot said into his mike. “We are green, clean, and extremely mean. Over.”
“Roger that,” Wellsley replied emotionlessly. “Please return to way point two-five for another load of troopers. And, if you’re going to insist on poetry, try some Kipling. You might find some of it rather instructive. Over and out.”
Peterson grinned, directed a one-fingered salute in the general direction of battalion HQ, and banked the dropship into a wide turn.