CHAPTER THIRTEEN

1845 Hours, November 27, 2525 (Military Calendar) / UNSC Damascus Materials Testing Facility, planet

Chi Ceti 4

How far down was the testing facility? John and the other Spartans had been confined to a freight elevator for fifteen minutes, and the entire time it had been rapidly descending into the depths of Chi Ceti 4.

The last place John wanted to be was in another confined space.

The doors finally slid open, and they emerged in what appeared to be a well-lit hangar. The far end had an obstacle course set up with walls, trenches, dummy targets, and barbed wire.

Three technicians and at least a dozen AI figures were busy in the center of the room. John had seen AIs before—one at a time. Déjà had once told the Spartans that there were technical reasons why AIs couldn’t be in the same place at the same time, but here were many ghostly figures: a mermaid, a samurai warrior, and one made entirely of bright light with comets trailing in her wake.

Dr. Halsey cleared her throat. The technicians turned—the AIs vanished.

John had been so focused on the holograms that he hadn’t noticed the forty Plexiglas mannequins set up in rows. On each was a suit of armor.

The armor reminded John of the exoskeletons he had seen during training, but much less bulky, more compact. He stepped closer to one and saw that the suit actually had many layers; the outer layer reflected the overhead lights with a faint green-gold iridescence. It covered the groin, outer thighs, knees, shins, chest, shoulders, and forearms. There was a helmet and an integrated power pack—much smaller than standard Marine “battery sacks.” Underneath were intermeshed layers of matte-black metal.

“Project MJOLNIR,” Dr. Halsey said. She snapped her fingers and an exploded holographic schematic of the armor appeared next to her.

“The armor’s shell is a multilayer alloy of remarkable strength. We recently added a refractive coating to disperse incoming energy weapon attacks—to counter our new enemies.” She pointed inside the schematic. “Each battlesuit also has a gel-filled layer to regulate temperature; this layer can reactively change in density. Against the skin of the operator, there is a moisture-absorbing cloth suit, and biomonitors that constantly adjust the suit’s temperature and fit. There’s also an onboard computer that interfaces with your standard-issue neural implant.”

She gestured and the schematic collapsed so that it only displayed the outer layers. As the image changed, John glimpsed veinlike microcapillaries, a dense sandwich of optical crystal, a circulating pump, even what looked like a miniature fusion cell in the backpack.

“Most importantly,” Dr. Halsey said, “the armor’s inner structure is composed of a new reactive metal liquid crystal. It is amorphous, yet fractally scales and amplifies force. In simplified terms, the armor doubles the wearer’s strength, and enhances the reaction speed of a normal human by a factor of five.”

She waved her hand through the hologram. “There is one problem, however. This system is so reactive that our previous tests with unaugmented volunteers ended in—” She searched for right word. “—

failure.” She nodded to one of the technicians.

A flat video appeared in the air. It showed a Marine officer, a Lieutenant, being fitted with the MJOLNIR armor. “Power is on,” someone said from offscreen. “Move your right arm, please.”

The soldier’s arm blurred forward with incredible speed. The Marine’s stoic expression collapsed into shock, surprise, and pain as his arm shattered. He convulsed—shuddered and screamed. As he jerked in pain John could hear the sounds of bones breaking.

The man’s own agony-induced spasms were killing him.

Halsey waved the video away. “Normal humans don’t have the reaction time or strength required to drive this system,” she explained. “You do. Your enhanced musculature and the metal and ceramic layers that have been bonded to your skeleton should be enough to allow you to harness the armor’s power. There has been . . . insufficient computer modeling, however. There will be some risk. You’ll have to move very slowly and deliberately until you get a feel for the armor and how it works. It cannot be powered down, nor can the response be scaled back. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” the Spartans answered.

“Questions?”

John raised his hand. “When do we get to try them, Doctor?”

“Right now,” she said. “Volunteers?”

Every Spartan raised a hand.

Dr. Halsey allowed herself a tiny smile. She surveyed them, and finally, she turned to John.

“You’ve always been lucky, John,” she said. “Let’s go.”

He stepped forward. The technicians fitted him as the others watched and the pieces of the MJOLNIR

system were assembled around his body. It was like a giant three-dimensional puzzle.

“Please breathe normally,” Dr. Halsey told him, “but otherwise remain absolutely still.”

John held himself as motionless as he could. The armor shifted and melded to the contours of his form.

It was like a second skin . . . and much lighter than he had thought it would be. It heated, then cooled—

then matched the temperature of his body. If he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t have known he was encased.

They set the helmet over his head.

Health monitors, motion sensors, suit status indicators pulsed into life. A targeting reticle flickered on the heads-up display.

“Everyone move back,” Halsey ordered.

The Spartans—from their expressions, they were concerned for him, but still intensely curious—cleared a ring with a radius of three meters around him.

“Listen carefully to me, John,” Dr. Halsey said. “I just want you to think, and only think, about moving your arm up to chest level. Stay relaxed.”

He willed his arm to move, and his hand and forearm sprang forward to chest level. The slightest motion translated his thought to motion at lightning speed. It had been so fast—if he hadn’t been attached to his arm, he might have missed that it had happened at all.

The Spartans gasped.

Sam applauded. Even lightning-fast Kelly seemed impressed.

Dr. Halsey slowly coached John through the basics of walking and gradually built up the speed and complexity of his motions. After fifteen minutes he could walk, run, and jump almost without thinking of the difference between suit motion and normal motion.

“Petty Officer, run through the obstacle course,” Dr. Halsey said. “We will proceed to fit the other Spartans. We don’t have a great deal of time left.”

John snapped a salute without thinking. His hand bounced off his helmet and a dull ache throbbed in his hand. His wrist would be bruised. If his bones hadn’t been reinforced, he knew they would have been pulverized.

“Carefully, Petty Officer. Very carefully, please.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

John focused his mind on motion. He leaped over a three-meter-high wall. He punched at concrete targets—shattering them. He threw knives, sinking them up to their hafts into target dummies. He slid under barbed wire as bullets zinged over his head. He stood, and let the rounds deflect off the armor. To his amazement, he actually dodged one or two of the rounds.

Soon the other Spartans joined him on the course. Everyone ran awkwardly through the obstacles, though they had no coordination. John expressed his worries to Dr. Halsey. “It will come to you soon enough. You’ve already received some subliminal training during your last cryo sleep—” Dr. Halsey told them, “—now all you need is time to get used to the suits.”

More worrisome to John was the realization that they’d have to learn how to work together all over again. Their usual hand signals were too exaggerated now—a slight wave or tremble translated into full-force punches or uncontrolled vibrations. They would have to use the COM channels for the time being.

As soon as he thought of this, his suit tagged and monitored the other MJOLNIR suits. Their standard-issue UNSC neural chip—implanted in every UNSC soldier at induction—identified friendly soldiers and displayed them on their helmet HUDs. But this was different—all he had to do was concentrate on them, and a secure COM channel opened. It was extremely efficient.

And much to his relief, after drilling for thirty minutes, the Spartans had recovered all of their original group coordination, and more.

On one level, John moved the suit and, in return, it moved him. On another level, however, communication with his squad was so easy and natural, he could move and direct them as if they were an extension of his body.

Over the hangar’s speakers, the Spartans heard Dr. Halsey’s voice: “Spartans, so far so good. If anyone is experiencing difficulties with the suit or its controls, please report in.”

“I think I’m in love,” Sam replied. “Oh—sorry, ma’am. I didn’t think that was an open channel.”

“Flawless amplification of speed and power,” Kelly said. “It’s like I’ve been training in this suit for years.”

“Do we get to keep them?” John asked.

“You’re the only ones who can use them, Petty Officer. Who else could we give them to? We—” A technician handed her a headset. “One moment, please. Report, Captain.”

Captain Wallace’s voice broke over the COM channels. “We have contact with the Covenant ship, ma’am. Extreme range. Their Slipspace engines must still be damaged. They are moving toward us via normal space.”

“Your repair status?” she asked.

“Long-range communications inoperable. Slipstream generators offline. MAC system destroyed. We have two fusion missiles and twenty Archer missile pods intact. Armor plating is at twenty percent.”

There was a long hiss of static. “If you need more time . . . I can try and draw them away.”

“No, Captain,” she replied, and carefully scrutinized John and the other armored Spartans. “We’re going to have to fight them . . . and this time we have to win.”