“Fire, Lieutenant Hikowa.”

Two thumps resonated through the hull of the Iroquois.

“Lock remaining Archer missile pods on targets and fire.”

“Missiles away, Commander.”

Twin thunderbolts and hundreds of missiles streaked toward the two helpless frigates.

The MAC rounds tore though them—one ship was holed from nose to tail; the other ship was hit on her midline, right near the engines. Internal explosions chained up the length of the ship, bulging the second ship’s hull along her length.

Archer missiles impacted seconds later, exploding through chunks of hull and armor, tearing the alien ships apart. The frigate that had taken the MAC round in her engines mushroomed, a fireworks bouquet of shrapnel and sparks. The other ship burned, her internal skeletal structure showing now; she turned toward the Iroquois but didn’t fire a weapon... just drifted out of control. Dead in space.

“Position of the Covenant carrier, Lieutenant Hall?”

Lieutenant Hall paused, then reported, “In polar orbit around Sigma Octanus Four. But she’s moving off at considerable speed. Headed out-system, course zero four five.”

“Alert the Allegiance and Gettysburg of her position.”

Commander Keyes sighed and slumped back into his chair. They had stopped the Covenant ships from glassing the planet—saved millions of lives. They had done the impossible: taken on four Covenant ships and won.

Commander Keyes paused in his self-congratulation. Something was wrong. He had never seen the Covenant run. In every battle he had seen or read about, they stayed to slaughter every last survivor... or if they were defeated, they always fought to the last ship.

“Check the planet,” he told Lieutenant Hall. “Look for anything—dropped weapons, strange transmissions. There’s got to be something there.”

“Aye, sir.”

Keyes prayed she wouldn’t find anything. At this point he was out of tricks. He couldn’t turn the Iroquois around and return to Sigma Octanus IV even if he had wanted to. The Iroquois’ engines were down for a long time. They were speeding on an out-system vector at a considerable velocity. And even if they could stop—there was no way to recharge the MAC guns, and no remaining Archer missiles. They were practically dead in space.

He pulled out his pipe and steadied his shaking hand.

“Sir!” Lieutenant Hall cried. “Dropships, sir. The alien carrier deployed thirty—correction: thirty-four—dropships. I have silhouettes descending to the surface. They’re on course for Côte d’Azur. A major population center.”

“An invasion,” Commander Keyes said. “Get FLEETCOM ASAP. Time to send in the Marines.”

0600 Hours, July 18, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Iroquois, military staging area in orbit around Sigma Octanus IV

Commander Keyes had a sinking feeling that although he had won the battle, it would be the first of many to come in the Sigma Octanus System.

He watched the four dozen other UNSC ships orbit the planet: frigates and destroyers, two carriers, and a massive repair and refitting station—more vessels than Admiral Cole had at his disposal during his four-year-long campaign to save Harvest. Admiral Stanforth had pulled out all the stops.

Although Commander Keyes was grateful for the quick and overwhelming response, he wondered why the Admiral had dedicated so many ships to the area. Sigma Octanus wasn’t strategically positioned. It had no special resources. True, the UNSC had standing orders to protect civilian lives, but the fleet was spread dangerously thin. Commander Keyes knew there were more valuable systems that needed protection.

He pushed these thoughts aside. He was sure Admiral Stanforth had his reasons. Meanwhile the repair and resupply of the Iroquois was his top priority—he didn’t want to get caught half ready if the Covenant returned.

Or rather, when they returned.

It was a curious thing: the aliens dropping their ground forces and then retreating. That was not their usual mode of operation. Commander Keyes suspected this was just an opening move in a game he didn’t yet understand.

A shadow crossed the fore camera of the Iroquois as the repair station Cradle maneuvered closer. Cradle was essentially a large square plate with engines. Large was an understatement; she was over a square kilometer. Three destroyers could be eclipsed by her shadow. The station running at full steam could refit six destroyers, three from her lower surface and three on her upper surface, within a matter of hours.

Scaffolds deployed from her surfaces to facilitate repairs. Resupply tubes, hoses, and cargo trams fed into the Iroquois. It would take the full attention of Cradle thirty hours to repair the Iroquois, however.

The aliens had not landed a single serious shot. Nonetheless, the Iroquois had almost been destroyed during the execution of what some in the fleet were already calling the “Keyes Loop.”

Commander Keyes glanced at his data pad and the extensive list of repairs. Fifteen percent of the electronic systems had to be replaced—burned out from the EMP when the Shiva missile detonated. The Iroquois’ engines required a full overhaul. Both coolant systems had valves that had been fused from the tremendous heat. Five of the superconducting magnets had to be replaced as well.

But most troublesome was the damage to the underside of the Iroquois. When they had told Commander Keyes what had happened, he went outside in a Longsword interceptor to personally inspect what he had done to his ship.

The underside of the Iroquois had been scraped when they passed over the prow of the alien destroyer. He knew there was some damage... but was not prepared for what he saw.

UNSC destroyers had nearly two meters of titaniuma battleplate on their surfaces. Commander Keyes had abraded through all of it. He had breached every bottom deck of the Iroquois. The jagged serrated edges of the plate curled away from the wound. Men in EVA thruster packs were busy cutting off the damaged sections so new plates could be welded into place.

The underside was mirror smooth and perfectly flat. But Keyes knew that the appearance of benign flatness was deceptive. Had the angle of the Iroquois been tilted a single degree down, the force of the two ships impacting would have shorn his ship in half.

The red war stripes that had been painted on the Iroquois’ side looked like bloody slashes. The dockmaster had privately told Commander Keyes that his crew could buff the paint off—or even repaint the war stripes, if he wanted.

Commander Keyes had politely refused the offer. He wanted them left exactly the way they were. He wanted to be reminded that while everyone had admired what he had done—it had been an act of desperation, not heroism.

He wanted to be reminded of how close a brush he had had with death.

Commander Keyes returned to the Iroquois and marched directly to his quarters.

He sat at his antique oak desk and tapped the intercom. “Lieutenant Dominique, you have the bridge for the next cycle. I am not to be disturbed.”

“Aye, Commander. Understood.”

Commander Keyes loosened his collar and unbuttoned his uniform. He retrieved the seventy-year-old bottle of Scotch that his father had given him from the bottom drawer, and then poured four centimeters into a plastic cup.

He had to attend to an even more unpleasant task: what to do about Lieutenant Jaggers.

Jaggers had exhibited borderline cowardice, insubordination and come within a hairbreadth of attempted mutiny during the engagement. Keyes could have had him court-martialed. Every reg in the books screamed at him to... but he didn’t have it in him to send the young man before a board of inquiry. He would instead merely transfer the Lieutenant to a place where he would still do the UNSC some good—perhaps a distant outpost.