Cyberpunk: Spartan Walker

At 06:10, the roar of the engine of the Pelican troop carrier was heard in the air, and it gradually landed in the open space. The rear hatch opened with a bang.

Tommy was about to move, but Winnie put her hand on his shoulder.

Too early. She whispered. When has the sergeant major not arrived on time?

Tommy was stunned for a moment, then nodded solemnly.

God, she is so smart!

At this time, John's voice came from the communication channel. I'm going to test them. You guys stay put until the signal is sent.

They gave a thumbs up to the bushes nearby, not sure if John could see it. Kurt whispered in the channel: Don't worry, I won't let them hurt you.

I know. John whispered, and then he climbed out from behind an inconspicuous tree trunk. When he was thirty meters away from the team, he stood up and walked towards the Pelican troop transport - it was almost certainly a trap.

He stopped halfway across the grass and waited.

A man appeared on the Pelican's exit ramp and waved him over: Come here, kid. Come on!

No, sir! John replied loudly.

The man turned around and muttered to the people inside: Oops. He sighed, Okay, let's do it hard. Four people jumped out from the back of the Pelican troop carrier and quickly formed a semicircle toward John. Closing in, their assault rifles pointed straight at him.

John raised his hands.

He surrendered, one soldier said in a suspicious tone. Should we still shoot? another asked.

No, the leader said through gritted teeth, collect the debt first. He stepped forward and punched John in the abdomen.

John doubled up in pain.

The man pulled John up and punched him hard. We've got to find the damn flag or the Colonel's gonna blow our asses off. Where's it, little guy? He shook John hard. Where are all the other bastards?

John laughed.

What's so interesting?! the leading soldier roared.

You fools are surrounded.

A swarm of darts roared in from all directions. The men disembarking from the Pelican twitched. One fired a shot, but the bullet missed the target and went high. They were paralyzed and fell to the ground.

John crouched down and took out the pistol from the man who hit him, then crawled toward the Pelican. He crawled to the open hatch and glanced inside—no one was there.

He got on his hands and knees into the cockpit and turned on the Pelican's radar. He found a signal point fourteen kilometers away on a heading of one hundred and twenty degrees, flying parallel to their direction. John jumped off the Pelican and ran out onto the grass.

Teams Gold, Silver, Blue, and Green were still hiding and they would stay that way forever until he gave the all-clear signal.

No matter what, John would not give away their all-clear signal - not even torture, nor Sergeant Mendez's most severe high-handedness could pry his mouth open. He would rather die than betray his teammates.

John whistled a six-note tune with a single rhythm and shouted, All clear, everyone.

The blue team appears first, sprinting out onto the grass. Kelly stopped on the way, kicked a guy in the head and took his gun away.

Tommy and Winnie ran from a tree stump and dashed across the grass.

Everyone has given the all clear, Linda repeated, grinning broadly. Everyone can come out. We are all free.

****

Date record anomaly＼Estimated to be 0510 hours on September 23, 2552 in the military calendar

The Epsilon Eridanus galaxy, on board the Wushang Justice.

Cortana didn't pay much attention to the argument between them. It was pointless. She was 100% sure that Case would be convinced. In her opinion, the signal was very easy to copy, and it was not encrypted. Anyone could understand this. She really didn't know why the Master Chief and that guy thought it was sent by the Spartan team.

She did not participate in this slow-paced and ineffective conversation. Instead, she analyzed the action patterns of the Covenant forces in the Epsilon system and discovered three important things.

First, the Covenant warships flew around Reach in an extremely regular elliptical orbit. A total of thirteen heavy cruisers and three aircraft carriers were operating in the sky three hundred kilometers away from the ground of Reach. Outside of this patrol pattern, two light cruisers were hovering above Mount Minazit - but now they were trapped at the bottom of Reach's gravity well and posed no direct threat to her ship.

Second, there is a blind spot in their patrol route that can be used as a perfect rendezvous point to rescue the Master Chief and others after they complete their ground mission. She mapped out their routes in and out, then began calculating the precise data needed to make a slipspace jump so close to Reach.

Third, and what Cortana found most interesting, there were 217 small Covenant spacecraft that were transporting the debris to a space area, which was located in a high-altitude geostationary orbit above the North Pole of Reach.

Floating in that area were the husks of ships destroyed in the Battle of Reach, both from the Covenant and the UNSC. Some of the UNSC's most sophisticated ships are clearly visible: the How Are You Today, the Hannibal, and the pride of the fleet, the super aircraft carrier Trafalgar. There were no human signals emanating from those ships, and Cortana could not sense any active electromagnetic fields.

She saw the small Covenant spacecraft cutting open the lifeless hulls, loading them with pieces of A-type titanium alloy armor, and then flew away. They scurried like a swarm of ants through an area at lower latitudes, also above Mount Minazit, where the Covenant forces built a platform out of the metal. The metal platform is now a square with a side of one kilometer. It was clear that the Covenant forces did more than just destroy Reach.

Cortana, Colonel Keyes said, our rendezvous is—

The best coordinates have been calculated, she replied, projecting the Covenant's blind spots onto the bridge monitor. The enemy patrol fleet missed this nine thousand cubic kilometer area. Further optimal planning shows that at 0715 hours all ships are furthest from this point. I suggest that we rendezvous there at that time.

Cortana couldn't help but feel a sense of pride when she saw how surprised they were by her instant analysis. She enjoys showing off her intelligence to the crew. But she couldn't see Tommy's expression behind the helmet panel, which annoyed her.