Mendez solemnly closed his eyes for a moment, the ceremony completed. He pressed a control and theash canisters moved slowly into the ejection tubes . . . and the void beyond.
John stood rigidly1 at attention. The carrier’s missile launch bays—normally cramped2, overcrowded, andbustling with activity—were unusually quiet. TheAtlas ’s firing deck had been cleared of munitions3 andcrew. Long, unadorned black banners now hung from the bay’s overhead gantries.
“Honors . . .ten hut !” Mendez barked.
John and the other surviving Spartans4 saluted6 in unison7.
“Duty,” Mendez said. “Honor and self sacrifice. Death does not diminish these qualities in a soldier. Weshall remember.”
A series of thumps8 resounded9 through theAtlas ’s hull10 as the canisters were hurled11 into space.
The view screen flickered12 and displayed a field of stars. The canisters appeared one by one, quicklyfalling behind the carrier as it continued on its course.
John watched. With each of the stainless-steel cylinders13 that drifted by, he felt that he was losing a partof himself. It felt like leaving his people behind.
Mendez’s face might as well been chiseled14 from stone, for all the emotion it showed. He finished hisprotracted salute5 and then said, “Crewmen, dismissed.”
Not everything had been lost. John glanced around the launch chamber15; Sam, Kelly, and thirty othersstill stood at attention in their black dress uniforms. They had made it unharmed through the last—mission wasn’t quite the right word. More or less.
There were a dozen others, though, who had lived . . . but were no longer soldiers. It hurt John to look atthem. Fhajad sat in a wheelchair, shaking uncontrollably. Kirk and René were in neutral-buoyancy geltanks, breathing through respirators; their bones had been so twisted they no longer looked human.
There were others, still alive, but with injuries so critical they could not be moved.
Orderlies pushed Fhajad and the other injured toward the elevator.
John strode toward them and stopped, blocking their path. “Stand fast, Crewman,” he demanded.
“Where are you taking my men?”
The orderly halted and his eyes widened. He swallowed and then said, “I, sir . . . I have my orders, sir.”
“Squad16 Leader,” Mendez called out. “A moment.”
“Stay,” John told the orderly, and marched to face Chief Mendez. “Yes, sir.”
“Let them go,” Mendez said quietly. “They can’t fight anymore. They don’t belong here.”
John inadvertently glanced at the view screen and the long line of canisters as they shrank in thedistance. “What will happen to my men?”
“The Navy takes care of its own,” Mendez replied, and lifted his chin a little higher. “They may nolonger be the fastest or the strongest soldiers—but they still have sharp minds. They can still planmissions, analyze17 data, troubleshoot ops . . .”
John exhaled18 a sigh of relief. “That’s all any of us ask for, sir: a chance to serve.” He turned to faceFhajad and the others. He snapped to attention and saluted. Fhajad managed to raise one shaking armand return the salute.
The orderlies wheeled them away.
John looked at what remained of his squad. None of them had moved since the memorial ceremony.
They were waiting for their next mission.
“Our orders, sir?” John asked.
“Two days full bed rest, Squad Leader. Then microgravity physical therapy aboard theAtlas until yourecover from the side effects of your augmentation.”
Side effects.John flexed19 his hand. He was clumsy now. Sometimes he could barely walk without falling.
Dr. Halsey had assured him that these “side effects” were a good sign. “Your brain must relearn how tomove your body with faster reflexes and stronger muscles,” she told him. But his eyes hurt, and theybled a little in the morning, too. He had constant headaches. Every bone in his body ached.
John didn’t understand any of this. He only knew that he had a duty to perform—and now he feared hewouldn’t be able to. “Is that all, sir?” he asked Mendez.
“No,” the Chief replied. “Déjà will be running your squad through the dropship pilot simulator as soonas they are up to it. And,” he added, “if they are up for the challenge, she wanted to cover some moreorganic chemistry and complex algebra20.”
“Yes, sir,” John replied, “we’re up to the challenge.”
“Good.”
John continued to stand fast.
“Was there something else, Squad Leader?”
John furrowed21 his brow, hesitated, and then finally said, “I was Squad Leader. The last mission wastherefore my responsibility . . . and members of my squaddied . What did I do wrong?”
Mendez stared at John with his impenetrable black eyes. He glanced at the squad, then back to John.
“Walk with me.” He led John to the view screen. He stood and watched as the last of the canistersvanished into the darkness.
“A leader must be ready to send the soldiers under his command to their deaths,” Mendez said withoutturning to face John. “You do this because your duty to the UNSC supersedes22 your duty to yourself oreven your crew.”
John looked away from the view screen. He couldn’t look at the emptiness anymore. He didn’t want tothink of his teammates—friends who were like brothers and sisters to him—forever lost.
“It is acceptable,” Mendez said, “to spend their lives if necessary.” He finally turned and meet John’sgaze. “It is not acceptable, however, to waste those lives. Do you understand the difference?”
“I . . . believe I understand, sir,” John said. “But which was it on this last mission? Lives spent? Or liveswasted?”
Mendez turned back toward the blackness of space and didn’t answer.
0430 Hours, April 22, 2525 (Military Calendar) /UNSC CarrierAtlas on patrol in the LambdaSerpentis SystemJohn oriented himself as he entered the gym.
From the stationary23 corridor, it was easy to see that this section of theAtlas rotated. The constantacceleration gave the circular walls a semblance25 of gravity.
Unlike the other portions of the carrier, however, this section wasn’t cylindrical26, but rather a segmentedcone. The outer portion was wider and rotated more slowly than the narrower inner portion—simulatinggravitational forces from one quarter to two gravities along the length of the gym.
There were free weights, punching and speed bags, a boxing ring, and machines to stretch and toneevery muscle group. No one else was up this early. He had the place to himself.
John started with arm curls. He went to the center section, calibrated27 at one gee28, and picked up a twentykilogramdumbbell. It felt wrong—too light. The spin must be off. He set the weights down and pickedup a forty-kilogram set. That felt right.
For the last three weeks the Spartans had gone through a daily routine of stretching, isometric exercises,light sparring drills, and lots of eating. They were under orders to consume five high-protein meals aday. After every meal they had to report to the ship’s medical bay for a series of mineral and vitamininjections. John was looking forward to getting back to Reach and his normal routine.
There were only thirty-two soldiers left in his squad. Thirty candidates had “washed out” of the Spartanprogram; they died during the augmentation process. The other dozen, suffering from side effects of theprocess, had been permanently29 reassigned within the Office of Naval30 Intelligence.
He missed them all, but he and the others had to go on—they had to recover and prove themselves allover again.
John wished Chief Mendez had warned him. He could have prepared. Maybe that was the trick to thelast mission—to learn to be prepared for anything. He wouldn’t let his guard down again.
He took a seat at the leg machine, set it to the maximum weight—but it felt too light. He moved to thehigh-gee end of the gym. Things felt normal again.
John worked every machine, then moved to a speed bag, a leather ball attached to the floor and ceilingby a thick elastic31 band. There were only certain allowed frequencies at which the bag could be hit, or itgyrated chaotically32.
His fist jabbed forward, cobra-quick, and struck. The speed bag moved, but slowly, like it wasunderwater . . . far too slowly considering how hard he had hit it. The tension on the line must be turnedway down.
He twanged the line and it hummed. It was tight.
Was everything broken in this room?
He pulled a pin from the locking collar on the bench press. John walked to the center section—supposedly one gee. He held the pin a meter off the deck and dropped it. It clattered33 on the deck.
It looked as if it had fallen normally . . . but somehow it also looked slow to John.
He set the timer on his watch and dropped the pin again. Forty-five-hundredths of a second.
One meter in about a half second. He forgot the formula for distance and acceleration24, so he ran throughthe calculus34 and rederived the equation. He even did the square root.
He frowned. He had always struggled with math before.
The answer was a gravitational acceleration of nine point eight meters per second squared. One standardgee.
So the roomwas rotating correctly.He was out of calibration.
His experiment was cut short. Four men entered the gym. They were out of uniform, wearing only shortsand boots. Their heads were cleanly shaven. They were all heavily muscled, lean, and fit. The largest ofthe four was taller than John. Scars covered one side of his face.
John could tell they were Special Forces—Orbital drop Shock Troopers. The ODSTs had the traditionaltattoos burned onto their arms: drop JET JUMPERS and FEET FIRST INTO HELL.
“Helljumpers”—the infamous35 105th. John had overheard mess hall chatter36 about them. They had areputation for success . . . and for brutality37, even against fellow soldiers.
John gave them a polite nod.
They just brushed past him and started on the high-gravity free weights. The largest ODST lifted the barof the bench press. He struggled and the bar wavered unsteadily. The iron plates on the right end slid offand fell to the deck. The opposite end of the bar tilted38, and he dropped the weight, almost crushing hisspotter’s foot.
Startled by the noise, John jumped up.
“What the—” The big ODST stood and glared at the locking collar that had slipped off. “Someone tookthe pin.” He growled39 and turned to John.
John picked up the pin. “The error was mine,” he said and stepped forward. “My apologies.”
The four ODSTs moved as one toward John. The big guy with the scars stood a hand’s breadth awayfrom John’s nose. “Why don’t you take that pin and shove it, meat?” he said, grinning. “Or better yet,maybe I should make you eat it.” He nodded to his friends.
John only knew three ways to react to people. If they were his superior officers, he obeyed them. If theywere part of his squad, he helped them. If they were a threat, he neutralized40 them.
So when the men surrounding him moved . . . he hesitated.
Not because he was afraid, but because these men could have fallen into any of John’s three categories.
He didn’t know their rank. They were fellow servicemen in the UNSC. But, at the moment, they didn’tseem friendly.
The two men flanking him grabbed John’s biceps. The one behind him tried to slip an arm around hisneck.
John hunched41 his shoulders and tucked his chin to his chest so he couldn’t be choked. He whipped hisright elbow over the hand holding him, pinned it to his side, and then straight punched the man andbroke his nose.
The other three reacted, tightening42 their grips and stepping closer—but like the dropped pin, they movedslowly.
John ducked and slipped out of the unsuccessful headlock. He spun43 free, breaking the grasp of the manon his left at the same time.
“Stand down!” A booming voice echoed across the gym.
A sergeant44 stepped into the gym and strode toward them. Unlike Mendez, who was fit and trim and wasalways serious, this man’s stomach bulged45 over his belt, and he looked bemused.
John snapped to attention. The others stood there and continued to glare at John.
“Sarge,” the man with the bleeding nose said. “We were just—”
“Did I ask you a question?” the Sergeant barked.
“No, Sergeant!” the man replied.
The Sergeant eyed John, then the ODSTs. “You’re all so eager to fight, get in the ring and go to it.”
“Sir!” John said. He went to the boxing ring, slipped through the ropes, and stood there waiting.
This was starting to make sense. It was a mission. John had received orders from a superior officer, andthe four men were now targets.
The big ODST pushed through the ropes and the others gathered to watch. “I’m going to rip you topieces, meat,” he grunted46 through clenched47 teeth.
John sprang off his back foot and launched his entire weight behind his first strike. His fist smashed intothe man’s wide chin. John’s left hand followed and impacted on the soldier’s jaw48.
The man’s hands came up; John stepped in, pinned one of the man’s arms to his chest, and followedthrough with a hook to his floating ribs49. Bones broke.
The man staggered back. John took a short step, brought his heel down on the man’s knee. Three morepunches and the man was against the ropes . . . then he stopped moving, his arm and leg and neck tiltedat unnatural50 angles.
The three other men moved. The one with the bloody51 nose grabbed an iron bar.
John didn’t need orders this time. Three attackers at once—he had to take them out before theysurrounded him. He might be faster, but he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.
The man with the iron bar swung a vicious blow at John’s ribs; John sidestepped, grabbed the man’shand, and clamped it to the bar. He twisted the bar and crushed the bones of his attacker’s wrist.
John snapped a side kick toward the second man, caught him in the groin, crushing the soft organs andbreaking his target’s pelvis.
John pulled the bar free—whipped around and caught the third man in the neck, hitting him so hard theODST was propelled over the ropes.
“At ease, Number 117,” Chief Petty Officer Mendez barked.
John obeyed and dropped the bar. Like the pin, it seemed to take too long for the impromptu52 weapon tohit the deck.
The ODSTs lay crumpled53 on the ground, either unconscious or dead.
Mendez, at the far end of the gym, strode toward the boxing ring.
The Sergeant stood with his mouth open. “Chief Mendez, sir!” He snapped a crisp salute. “What are you—” He turned to John, his eyes widened, and he murmured, “He’s one ofthem , isn’t he?”
“Medics are on their way,” Mendez said calmly. He stepped closer to the Sergeant. “There are two intelofficers waiting for you in Ops. They’ll debrief54 you . . .” He stepped back. “I suggest you report to themimmediately.”
“Yes, sir,” the Sergeant said. He almost ran out of the gym. He looked once over his shoulder at John;then he moved even faster.
“Your workout is over for today,” Mendez told John.
John saluted and left the ring.
A team of medics entered with stretchers and rushed toward the boxing ring.
“Permission to speak, sir?” John said.
Mendez nodded.
“Were those men part of a mission? Were they targets or teammates?”
John knew that thishad to be some sort of mission. The Chief had been too close for it to be acoincidence.
“You engaged and neutralized a threat,” Mendez replied. “That action seems to have answered yourquestion, Squad Leader.”
John wrinkled his forehead as he thought it through. “I followed the chain of command,” he said. “TheSergeant told me to fight. I was threatened and in imminent55 danger. But they were still UNSC SpecialForces. Fellow soldiers.”
Mendez lowered his voice. “Not every mission has simple objectives or comes to a logical conclusion.
Your priorities are to follow the orders in your chain of command, and then to preserve your life and thelives of your team. Is that clear?”
“Sir,” John said. “Yes, sir.” He glanced back at the ring. Blood was seeping56 into the canvas mat. Johnhad an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He hit the showers and let the blood rinse57 off him. He felt strangely sorry for the men he had killed.
But he knew his duty—the Chief had even been unusually verbose58 in order to clarify the matter. Followorders and keep himself and his team safe. That’s all he had to focus on. John didn’t give the incident inthe gym another thought.
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1
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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munitions
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| n.军火，弹药；v.供应…军需品 | |
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4
spartans
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| n.斯巴达（spartan的复数形式） | |
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5
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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7
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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8
thumps
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| n.猪肺病；砰的重击声( thump的名词复数 )v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的第三人称单数 ) | |
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9
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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11
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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12
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
cylinders
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| n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物 | |
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chiseled
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| adj.凿刻的，轮廓分明的v.凿，雕，镌( chisel的过去式 ) | |
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15
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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squad
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| n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组 | |
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17
analyze
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| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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exhaled
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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19
flexed
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| adj.[医]曲折的，屈曲v.屈曲( flex的过去式和过去分词 )；弯曲；（为准备大干而）显示实力；摩拳擦掌 | |
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algebra
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| n.代数学 | |
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furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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supersedes
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| 取代，接替( supersede的第三人称单数 ) | |
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stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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acceleration
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| n.加速，加速度 | |
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semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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cylindrical
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| adj.圆筒形的 | |
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calibrated
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| v.校准( calibrate的过去式和过去分词 )；使标准化；使合标准；测量（枪的）口径 | |
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gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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chaotically
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clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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calculus
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| n.微积分；结石 | |
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infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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neutralized
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| v.使失效( neutralize的过去式和过去分词 )；抵消；中和；使（一个国家）中立化 | |
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hunched
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| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
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tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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bulged
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| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
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46
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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49
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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50
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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51
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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53
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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54
debrief
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| v.向…询问情况，听取汇报 | |
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55
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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56
seeping
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| v.（液体）渗( seep的现在分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
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rinse
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| v.用清水漂洗，用清水冲洗 | |
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verbose
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| adj.用字多的；冗长的；累赘的 | |
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