John held up three fingers, two, then one, and then he and Sam silently pulled open the elevator doors.

There were five guards standing in the room. They wore light body armor and helmets and carried older-model HMG-38 rifles. Two of them turned.

Kelly, Fred, and Linda opened fire. The walnut paneling behind the guards became pockmarked with bullet holes and was spattered with blood.

The team slid inside the room, moving quickly and quietly. Sam policed the guards’ weapons.

There were two doors. One led to a balcony; the other featured a peephole. Kelly checked the balcony, then whispered over the channel in their helmets: “This overlooks the alley between buildings. No activity.”

John checked the nav marker. The blue triangles flashed a position directly behind the other door.

Sam and Fred flanked the door. John couldn’t get any reading on motion or thermal. The walls were shielded. There were too many unknowns and not enough time.

The situation wasn’t ideal. They knew there were at least three men inside—the ones who had carried the crate upstairs. And there might be more guards... and to complicate the situation, their target had to be taken alive.

John kicked the door in.

He took in the entire situation at a glance. He was standing on the threshold of a sumptuous apartment. There was a wet bar boasting shelves of amber-filled bottles. A large, round bed dominated the corner, decorated with shimmering silk sheets. Windows on all sides had sheer white curtains—John’s helmet automatically compensated for the glare. Red carpet covered the floor. The crate with the cigars and champagne sat in the center of the room. It was black and armored, sealed tight against the vacuum of space.

There were three men standing behind the armored crate, and one man crouched behind them. Colonel Robert Watts—their “package.”

John didn’t have a clear shot. If he missed, he could hit the Colonel.

The three men, however, didn’t have that problem. They fired.

John dove to his left. He caught three rounds in his side—knocking the breath from his body. One bullet penetrated his black suit. He felt it ping off his ribs and pain slashed through him like a red-hot razor.

He ignored the wound and rolled to his feet. He had a clear line of fire. He squeezed the trigger once—a three-round burst caught the center guard in the forehead.

Sam and Fred wheeled around the door frame, Sam high, Fred low. Their silenced weapons coughed and the remaining pair of guards went down.

Watts remained behind the crate. He brandished his pistol. “Stop!” he screamed. “My men are coming. You think I’m alone? You’re all dead. Drop your weapons.”

John crawled to the wet bar and crouched there. He willed the pain inside his stomach to go away. He signaled Sam and Fred and held up two fingers, then pointed the fingers over his head.

Sam and Fred fired a burst of rounds over Watts. He ducked.

John vaulted over the bar and leaped onto his quarry. He grabbed the pistol and wrenched it out of his hand, breaking the man’s index finger and thumb. John snaked his arm around Watts’s neck and choked the struggling man into near-unconsciousness.

Kelly and Linda entered. Kelly took out a syringe and injected Watts—enough polypseudomorphine to keep him sedated for the better part of a day.

Fred fell back to cover the elevator. Sam entered and crouched by the windows, watching the street below for any signs of trouble.

Kelly went to John and peeled back his black suit. Her gloves were slick with his blood. “The bullet is still inside,” she said, and bit her lower lip. “There’s a lot of internal bleeding. Hang on.” She dug a tiny bottle from her belt and inserted the nozzle into the bullet hole. “This might sting a little.”

The self-sealing biofoam filled John’s abdominal cavity. It also stung like a hundred ants crawling through his innards. She pulled the bottle out and taped up the hole. “You’re good for a few hours,” she said, and then gave him a hand up.

John felt shaky, but he’d make it. The foam would keep him from bleeding to death and stave off the shock... for a while, at least.

“Incoming vehicles,” Sam announced. “Six men entering the building. Two taking up position outside... but just the front.”

“Get our package inside that crate and seal it up,” John ordered.

He left the room, got his duffel, and went to the balcony. He secured a rope and tossed it down twelve stories into the alley. He rappelled down, took a second to scan the alley for threats, then clicked his throat mike once—the all-clear signal.

Kelly snapped a descent rig on the crate and pushed it off the balcony. It zipped down the line and thudded to a halt at the bottom.

A moment later the rest of the team glided down the rope.

They quickly donned their coveralls. Sam and Fred carried the crate as they entered the adjacent building. They exited on the street a half block down and walked as quickly as they could back to the docks.

Dozens of uniformed men ran from the dock toward the city. No one challenged them.

They reentered the now-deserted public showers.

“Everyone check your seals,” John said. “Sam, you go ring the doorbell. Meet us on the dropship.”

Sam nodded and sprinted out of the building, both packs of C-12 looped around his shoulder.

John took out the panic button. He triggered the green-mode transmission and tossed it into an empty locker. If they didn’t make it out, at least the UNSC fleet would know where to find the rebel base.

“Your suit is breached,” Kelly reminded John. “We better get to the ship now, before Sam sets off his fireworks.”

Linda and Fred checked the seals on the crate then carried it out. Kelly took point and John brought up the rear.

They boarded the Pelican dropship and John sized up her armaments—dented and charred armor, a pair of old, out-of-date 40mm chain guns. The rocket pods had been removed. Not much of a warhorse.

There was a flash of lightning at the far end of the dock. The thunder roiled through the deck, and then through John’s stomach.

While John watched, a gaping hole materialized in the airlock door amid a cloud of smoke and shattered metal. Black space loomed beyond. With an earsplitting roar, the atmosphere held in the docks abruptly transformed into a hurricane. People, crates, and debris were blasted out of the ragged tear.

John pulled himself inside the dropship and prepared to seal the main hatch.

He watched as emergency doors descended over the breached airlock. There was a second explosion, and the drop door paused, then fell and clattered to the deck, crushing a light transport vessel underneath.

Behind them, large bay doors closed, sealing the docks off from the city. Dozens of workers still on the docks ran for their lives, but didn’t make it.

Sam sprinted across the deck, perfectly safe inside his sealed black suit. He cycled through the Pelican’s emergency airlock.

“Back door’s open,” he said with a grin.

Kelly fired up the engines. The Pelican lifted, maneuvered through the dock, and then out through the blasted hole and into open space. She pushed the throttle to maximum burn.

Behind them, the insurgent base looked like any other rock in the asteroid belt... but this rock was venting atmosphere and starting to rotate erratically.

After five minutes at full power, Kelly eased the engines back. “We’ll hit the extraction point in two hours,” she said.

“Check on our prisoner,” John said.

Sam popped open the crate. “The seals held. Watts is still alive and has a steady pulse,” he said.

“Good,” John grunted. He winced as the throbbing pain in his side increased.

“Something bothering you?” Kelly asked. “How’s that biofoam holding up?”

“It’s fine,” he said without even looking at the hole in his side. “I’ll make it.”