Thirty seconds later he was asleep.
Captain Jacob Keyes stood, hands on knees, panting in front of a vertical cliff face. He and the rest of the command party had been running off and on for three hours. Even the Marines were exhausted, as the shadow cast by the Covenant dropship drifted over them and blocked the sun.
Keyes considered making use of Dowski’s pistol to fire at the aircraft but couldn’t summon the energy. The voice that boomed through the externally mounted speakers was all too familiar. “Captain Keyes? This is Ellen Dowski. This is a box canyon. There’s no place for you to run. You might as well pack it in.”
The darkness cast by the ship shifted as the aircraft lowered itself onto the bottom of the canyon. The engines howled and blew dust in all directions before eventually spooling down. A hatch opened and Dowski jumped to the ground. She appeared to be unharmed and wore what could only be described as a self-satisfied smirk. “You see? It’s just like I told you it would be.”
A half dozen veteran Elites dropped to the ground, followed by a brace of Grunts. All were heavily armed. Gravel crunched as they approached the cliff face. One of the aliens spoke, his booming voice warbling the human speech with detectable discomfort. “You will drop your weapons. Now.”
The command crew looked at Keyes. He shrugged, bent over, and laid the M6D on the ground. The others did likewise.
The Grunts scurried about and collected the weapons. One of them chortled in his own language, as he collected all three of the Marines’ assault weapons, and carried them away.
“Which?” the Elite with the translator demanded, and looked at Dowski.
“That one!” the renegade officer proclaimed, and pointed at Keyes.
Hikowa started forward. “You little bitch! I’ll–”
No one ever learned what Hikowa would do, because the Elite shot her dead. Keyes lunged forward and attempted to tackle the Elite, to no avail. A lightning-fast blow clipped the side of his head, hard enough that his vision grayed out. He fell to the dirt.
The Elite was methodical. Starting with the Marines, he shot each captured human in the head. Wang attempted to run but a plasma bolt hit him between the shoulder blades. Lovell made a grab for the pistol, and took a blast to the face.
Keyes struggled to his feet again, dizzy and disoriented, and attempted to rush the Elite. He was clubbed to the ground a second time. Hikowa’s dead eyes stared vacantly back at him.
Finally, after the last plasma bolt had been fired and while the odor of burned flesh still hung in the air, only two members of the command crew were still alive: Keyes and Dowski. The Ensign was pale. She shook her head and wrung her hands. “I didn’t know, sir, honest I didn’t. They told me–”
The Elite snapped up a fallen M6D pistol and shot Dowski. The bullet hit her in the center of her forehead. The pistol’s report echoed down the canyon. The Ensign’s eyes rolled back in her head, her knees gave way, and she collapsed in a heap.
The Elite turned the M6D over in his hand. The weapon was small compared to his pistol – and his finger didn’t fit easily inside the trigger guard. “Projectiles. Very primitive. Take him away.”
Keyes felt the other Elites grab him by the arms and drag him up a ramp into the dropship’s murky interior. It seemed that the Covenant’s rules had changed again. Now they did take prisoners – just not very many. The ship lifted, and the only human to survive sincerely wished that he hadn’t.
Alpha Base didn’t offer a whole lot of amenities, but the Spartan took full advantage of what few there were. First came a full ten hours of completely uninterrupted sleep, followed by components selected from two MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat, and a two-minute hot shower.
The water was provided by the ring itself, the heat was courtesy of a Covenant power plant, and the showerhead had been fabricated by one of the techs from the Pillar of Autumn. Though brief, the shower felt good, very good, and the Spartan enjoyed every second of it.
The Master Chief had dried off, scrounged a fresh set of utilities, and was just about to run a routine maintenance check on his armor when a private stuck his head into the Spartan’s quarters, a prefab memory-plastic cubicle that had replaced the archaic concept of tents.
“Sorry to bother you, Chief, but Major Silva would like to see you in the Command Post... on the double.”
The Spartan wiped his hands with a rag. “I’ll be right there.”
The Master Chief was just about to take the armor off standby when the Marine reappeared. “One more thing... The Major said to leave your armor here.”
The Spartan frowned. He didn’t like to be separated from his armor, especially in a combat zone. But an order was an order, and until he determined what had happened to Keyes, Silva was in command.
He nodded. “Thank you, Private.” He checked to ensure that his gear was squared away, activated the armor’s security system, and buckled an M6D around his waist.
The Major’s office was located in Alpha Base’s CP, the centermost of the alien structures at the top of the butte. He made his way through the halls, and down a bloodstained corridor. A pair of manacled Grunt POWs were hard at work scrubbing the floor under the watchful gaze of a Navy guard.
Two Helljumpers stood guard outside of Silva’s door. Both looked extremely sharp for troopers who had been in combat the day before. They favored the Spartan with the casually hostile look that members of the ODST reserved for anyone or anything that wasn’t part of their elite organization. The larger of the pair eyed the noncom’s collar insignia. “Yeah, Chief, what can we do for you?”
“Master Chief SPARTAN-117, reporting to Major Silva.”
“SPARTAN-117” was the only official designation he had in the eyes of the military. It occurred to him that, after Reach fell, there was no one left who knew his name was John.
“SPARTAN-117?” the smaller of the two Marines inquired. “What the hell kind of name is that?”
“Look who’s talking,” McKay interrupted, as she approached the Master Chief from behind. “That’s a pretty strange question coming from a guy named Yutrzenika.”
Both of the Helljumpers laughed, and McKay waved the Spartan through the door. “Never mind those two, Chief. They’re jump happy. My name is McKay. Go on in.”
The Spartan said “Thank you, ma’am,” took three steps forward, and found himself standing in front of a makeshift desk. Major Silva looked up from what he was doing and met the Master Chief’s eyes. The Chief snapped to attention. “Sir! Master Chief SPARTAN-117, reporting as ordered, sir!”
The chair had been salvaged from a UNSC lifeboat. It made a gentle hissing noise as Silva leaned backward. He held a stylus which he used to tap his lips. That was the moment when most officers would have said, “At ease,” and the fact that he didn’t was a clear indication that something was wrong. But what?
McKay circled around to Silva’s left, where she leaned on the wall and watched the scene through hooded eyes. She wore her hair Helljumper style, short on the sides so that the tattoos on her scalp could be seen, and flat on top. She had green eyes, a slightly flattened nose, and full lips. It managed to be both a soldier’s face and a woman’s face at the same time.
When Silva spoke, it was as if he could read the Spartan’s mind. “So, you’re wondering who I am, and what this is all about. That’s understandable, especially given your elite status, your close relationship with Captain Keyes, and the fact that we now know he has been captured. Loyalty is a fine thing, one of the many virtues for which the military is known, and a quality I admire.”
Silva stood and started to pace back and forth behind his chair. “However, there is a chain of command, which means that you report to me. Not to Keyes, not to Cortana, and not to yourself.”