0216 Hours, September 14 2525 / Cargo Freighter Halcyon Skipper, High Orbit Eridanus II — Operation BIRD CAPTURE
Leonidas‑151 POV
Gravity here is a suggestion.
We lie in hammocks slung like spider‑silk between bulkhead ribs, the web suspended above twenty‑five kiloliters of potable water sloshing in the drum below us. Each swing is rigged to vibration dampers; the freighter's engines growl through the hull, but the sound barely reaches skin.
John dozes. Fred stares at the underside of the access hatch, pupils tracking equations only he sees. Sam's heartbeat is the slowest—thirty‑two BPM, enviable economy. Linda cleans the SRS‑99's cycling cam with motions so small they barely count as movement.
Kelly runs point.
She projects the manifest onto the curved wall with a wrist‑pad scatter: hundreds of cargo line‑items cascading down like shattered glass. Her voice is low, flat, devoid of anything but data—emotion suppression capsules smoothing every inflection.
"Discrepancies confirmed," she says. "Fifty‑four crates declared as 'tractor servos.' Average weight: ninety‑four kilos. Control weight logged at point‑of‑origin: one‑hundred‑fifteen. Mis‑declared mass totals one‑point‑one metric tons."
I nod once. Sam raises two fingers—continue.
Kelly swipes to highlight a single manifest block pulsing amber. "Crate J‑Seven‑Nine‑Charlie. Contents listed as 'medical preservatives.' Thermal scan shows no refrigeration. Chemical spectrograph from drones: tobacco traces, ethanol vapors, vacuum‑sealed meat proteins."
Luxury goods. Contraband. Watts' fingerprints.
"Bingo," she says.
No excitement. Just confirmation.
Plan threads itself together in my head: ride the shipment to Crios system, let Watts' dock teams move it inside the belt hideout, tag the crate with a micro‑tracker, watch it walk to the Colonel's dinner table. Then cut the lights and extract the host.
Kelly folds the projection. Eyes—sharp, sky‑blue—meet each of ours in sequence.
"Touchdown plus forty‑eight. Insert via cargo tether at zero‑three‑zero degrees relative spin to avoid thermal cams. John, Leonidas, Fred breach outer hatch; Sam secures flight deck. Linda overwatch. I plant tracker."
All of us reply in the same monotone affirmative.
Hammocks sway.
Water pulses beneath our feet like a slow heartbeat—for now.
When the freighter jumps, the hunt begins.
Slipspace transition hums through the hull—bass note thrumming in bone, white noise perfect for thin conversation.
Fred breaks it first. "You two ever get déjà vu being back in this system?"
John's eyes stay half‑lidded. "Why?"
"You're both Eridanus‑born." Fred's voice is flat, but curiosity edges through the suppressor haze. "Just wondering if it means anything—coming home."
Sam tilts his hammock, elbows tucked. "Never seen Eridanus II myself. Only in the briefing vids."
They look to John, then me.
I answer because John won't—unless ordered. "Orphanage in Elysium City," I say. "ONI picked me up before I knew what the playgrounds looked like. No anchor to miss."
The words sit there, factual. No weight.
John inhales—long, measured. "Family's on the planet somewhere." He pauses, as though scrolling a blank file. "Names, faces… gone. Reach is home now."
Silence fills the water drum's hollow echo. No melancholy, just acknowledgment. Mendez's drills, Halsey's white corridors—those are our coordinates now.
Sam blinks slow. "Fair."
Fred offers nothing else. Acceptance is all that's needed.
Kelly locks her wrist‑pad, clipping it to the hammock line. "Rest cycle: ninety minutes."
One by one, hammocks shift to stillness. Heartbeats sync with the freighter's pulse; slipspace whine becomes lullaby. Eyes close. Muscles idle but alert—dreamless readiness authored by pharmacology and purpose.
When the real stars appear again, we hunt.
1951 Hours, September 15 2525 / Cargo Bay → Surface Hab #03, Epsilon System Asteroid B‑980
Leonidas‑151 POV
The subtle decel spike nudged me awake—grav‑plating easing from 1.02 g to a flat Earth‑standard. We'd burned the last four hours on inertial drift; that only happens when a freighter's flight computer is courting a docking beacon.
Target acquired.
John whistled one low note—saddle up—and we moved.
Our gear was stowed in contractor duffels marked SERVICE SPARES, DO NOT RIFLE. Inside: freshly issued Pilot‑ODST armor, matte charcoal polymer over carbon‑kev plates, shoulder hard‑points shaved for jump‑kit clearance. The helmets were new, too—visors forming a down‑angled X that gave nothing back to an optic scan.
Under the plates: MJOLNIR‑weave body‑suits slick with myomer fiber and biomedical mesh. All of it screamed black‑budget, so we slipped ragged coveralls over the top—decoy grease stains, stitched‑on Eridanus Port Authority patches, name tags nobody bothered to read.
Weapons went next. M7 ODST caseless SMGs, integrally suppressed, digital micro‑optic pinned along the frame. Sub‑sonic at twenty meters, clean holes at thirty.
And tucked inside thigh holsters: the first operational batch of Smart Pistols—my Titanfall lift. The AI enhanced the gyro‑tracked barrel and predictive reticle logic made them unfair.
Kelly zipped her duffel. "Crate J‑Seven‑Nine‑C located on deck four. John, Fred, I'll handle the plant."
I nodded, handing over the tracker—fingernail sized, polymer matte. "Eight‑hour beacon, tight‑beam pulse every twenty seconds."
They vanished down the catwalk; Sam, Linda, and I filtered toward the freight elevator, merging with dockhands pushing grav‑carts of spare coil‑tubing. Tall silhouettes draw eyes, so we scattered—never closer than ten meters, never too far to cover.
Crate went off‑load without a hiccup. Tag attached.
We needed eyes, so we followed the flow—down the pressure tunnel, past the customs choke, until the air smelled less like coolant and more like stale smoke and recycled liquor.
Hab #03 Bar & Grill: flickering neon, chipped composite tables, workforce hashed together from defectors and smugglers. Perfect camouflage.
We took separate stools, backs to walls, helmets stowed in duffels at our feet, SMGs magnet‑latched beneath bar edges. Conversations washed over us—shipment schedules, UNSC patrol dodges, the usual insurrectionist bravado.
Somewhere in the warren beyond this dive Colonel Robert Watts was about to light a cigar, courtesy of J‑Seven‑Nine‑C.
So we waited—still, silent, emotion lines held flat by pharmacology—eyes on exits, ears on comm whisper.
Predators in borrowed skins.
Kelly caught my eye across the haze‑lit room and drew two gloved fingers across the lower half of her face—visor‑smile.
Target located.
I finished the last mouthful of recycled water, set the cup down, and drifted toward the exit like another bored cargo tech. Sam and Linda peeled off in staggered intervals; John and Fred funneled from the opposite side of the bar. No words, only cadence.
We regrouped in a service alley between prefab modules, slotting into shadow while traffic hummed overhead. The corridor smelled of burned propylene and stale yeast.
Kelly spoke first, voice low over encrypted short‑range. "Cigar crate's headed to that." She angled her chin toward the skyline.
Central shaft—two‑hundred‑meter tower bolted into asteroid bedrock, LED strips pulsing anemically up its spine. Watts' nerve‑center.
Sam flicked a recovered dataslate. "Inventory lists match some of Leonidas' jump‑kit revision notes—non‑public schematics."
A mole, then—somewhere high enough to pull R&D files but low‑grade smart enough to leak them to rebels. I filed the thought for after‑action interrogation.
The habitat itself was cheap modular architecture—standardized hex plates, magnetic corner locks, mass‑produced in low‑grav yards. Same models I'd catalogued in Starfield colonial studies: durable enough to shrug micro‑meteors, light enough to weld in atmosphere.
"We cut below the lane," John decided.
We slipped through a supply grate, dropped into maintenance tunnels barely taller than Linda's visor. Conduit lines and coolant loops thrummed against bulkheads; gravity here was a hair low—0.87 g on the suit sensors—perfect sprint conditions.
Twenty minutes of silent advance brought us under the tower's foundation slab. We halted in a ferro‑crete alcove just wide enough for six Spartans.
Disguises off—coveralls dumped, bio‑mesh exhale finally free. Armor hissed as seal‑rings locked. Helmets on: X‑visors flickered from standby to full tactical overlay, HUDs blooming with waypoint glyphs.
I racked the M7, checked sub‑sonic counter: 30. Smart Pistol auto‑pinged green on hip. Jump‑kit gyro spun up, no limiter warnings—Leonidas rev 3 firmware holding steady.
John's voice crackled in the squad net: "Flagtime."
We stacked on the utility hatch, one breath synchrony, ready to send Colonel Watts' world into silent free‑fall.
Steel buckled under the breaching charge—concave door folding inward like cheap foil—then we were in, sprinting through an unfinished service hall that funneled straight into the main lift shaft.
John punched the call panel; nothing. No surprise. High‑security core. I dropped to a knee, slid the cover, and fed a bypass probe into the reader socket. Spoofed handshake—green. The lift doors parted.
Cab was polished titanium, mirrored ceiling that caught six armored phantoms slipping inside. I swiped command for the penthouse; the car refused. Secondary lock. Quick override—two‑second brute script—and the elevator jerked upward.
Halfway, John tapped my forearm: "Prep climb."
I thumbed the control board, killed power; inertia died in a soft lurch. Fred braced the doors while Kelly boosted Linda to the access hatch. Panel popped, and we ascended inside the chimney—mag boots kissing support rails, jump‑kits whispering micro‑bursts to keep cadence silent.
One floor below target, we halted. John and Sam placed fingers to the inner doors, spreading them five centimeters—enough for Linda's optic wand. One lone guard, back to us, his helmet audio flooding a talk‑radio drone that masked ambient noise.
John nodded; Sam widened the gap.
Fred dropped first—ghost‑smooth. His left arm looped across the guard's visor, silencing any chance of breath. Right hand slid the combat knife under the armpit, angled up. A muted pulse, then stillness. Body lowered soundlessly to the carpet.
We deployed in sequence, fanning around the lift vestibule—doorways to a private suite ahead, biosteel panels and expensive walnut veneer. One entry. One target past it.
John stacked left, Kelly right, Linda next, Sam covering rear. I pressed against the jamb behind Fred—pulse flat, reticle live in my visor.
Colonel Robert Watts was one room away, and the clock just hit zero.
The optic snake slipped beneath the jamb; Kelly's whisper crackled in the team net.
"Nine hostiles. Pattern close‑protection diamond."
John answered with a single click. Fred set the shaped charge at hinge‑level, shaped to blow inward and right; Linda and I thumbed flash‑bang plungers, countdown set to one‑point‑two seconds. Sam covered rear.
Breacher light flashed green.
Boom. Door imploded in a cone of debris and extinguisher mist. Twin flashes followed—white arcs that turned the suite into negative film. We entered before the concussion finished echoing, SMG's at shoulder, selectors still on semi.
Nine targets. Nine taps.
Heads snapped, visors starred, bodies dropped in synchronized silence.
Clear.
The interior antechamber's lone door slammed open—an Insurrectionist heavy gunner half‑dragging a belt‑fed confetti‑maker rig. He squeezed blind. Sam was in the line when the muzzle spat; John pivoted, slammed Sam aside, and the 12.7 mm round hammered into John's abdomen plate. ML‑flex gel absorbed the penetration, but impact hurled him two meters.
The gunner's eyes met Fred's sight picture; fear existed for exactly a millisecond. Fred's round removed it.
John waved off concern, pushing to a knee, left gauntlet dented. "Objective."
Sam racked a fresh mag; Kelly kicked the secondary door. John led the breach, shoulder driving the panel wide.
Colonel Robert Watts stood inside—hand cannon under his jaw, pupils dilated. John closed the distance in a blur, seized the pistol's barrel, twisting up and out. The trigger squeezed anyway; the round punched through John's left gauntlet at the palm base, mushrooming against hyper‑dense metacarpals.
Watts froze, gun yanked away, breath trapped.
Mission clock stopped.
Wind screamed through the blown window, shredding velvet drapes into streamers as Linda jammed a hypo into Watts' carotid. The sedative acted instantly—eyes rolled, jaw slack. He was deadweight now, perfect cargo.
We up‑ended the luxury crate—cigars, steaks, liquor bottles clattering across marble—then folded Watts into the foam lining, sealed the lid, mag‑clamped it.
Explosion tremors shook dust from the ceiling—our low‑charge entry mines answering distant Insurrectionist alarms. We didn't have minutes; we had breaths.
I hammered a piton into the window frame, clipped the tow‑cable, and kicked the crate outward. It swung, line paying out fast, then jerked as the brake engaged—dangling half‑way to street level.
Kelly's countdown echoed in squad‑net: "Three, two—"
We jumped.
Freefall slammed my gut for half a second before the jump‑kit roared, thrusters vectoring against the tower skin. Sparks erupted where armored boots scraped ferro‑crete; bursts bled speed, turning a lethal dive into a controlled slide.
John's voice cut in, calm despite the hurt in his abdomen and the bullet lodged in his hand. "Exfil plan. Captured UNSC Pelican parked near dock hangar. Sam, Fred, Kelly—blow the bay doors. Leonidas, Linda, with me on package."
Three affirmatives. No questions.
The crate neared ground level; auto‑brake hissed, line tightening. John, Linda, and I disengaged thrusters the last six meters, dropped beside it with a crunch of alloy boots on decking.
Above us Sam, Fred, and Kelly didn't slow. They rocketed off the wall, hit the promenade at sprint, jump‑kits hissing as they bled speed just enough to stay upright—momentum never breaking, three human arrows slicing for the hangar entrance.
We heaved the crate to a cargo lift, magnets locking. John flexed his punctured hand once, blood dark on composite. Pain registers, but mission goes on.
Behind us alarms wailed, and above, red muzzle‑flashes stitched the broken window frame—Insurrectionists too late to matter. We were already ghosts.
Pelican extraction or bust.
Rounds pinged off bulkhead struts as the grav‑sled hummed under the crate—Watts snoring oblivious inside. John shouldered his SMG, his injured hand clamped over the grip hard enough to make alloy creak. I walked point, Smart Pistol whisper‑bursting through every half‑seen silhouette that popped from side corridors. Semi's enough when you never miss.
Linda paced behind, SRS‑99 tucked tight, dropping anything our bursts didn't finish. One insurgent leaned from a catwalk with a shoulder‑mounted flechette; Linda's round wiped the thought before he could think trigger.
The dock bay yawned ahead—captured UNSC Pelican, tail ramp down, Insurrectionist red stripes haphazard across the fuselage. Perfect.
Grav‑sled floated up the ramp; I slammed the crate into the lockdown latch. Watts' makeshift coffin clunked home.
Sam's voice in comms: "Charges set. Thirty‑second timer."
John blink‑pinged a rendezvous marker on every HUD—far end of the docks, open gantry over vacuum. Kelly, Sam, Fred acknowledged—green ticks.
"Engines," John ordered.
I dove into the cockpit, fired the APU, spooled main thrusters. Drives whined to life—stolen bird remembering UNSC roots.
A trio of insurgents rushed the ramp; Linda dropped two, John stitched the third. Ramp actuators groaned closed.
External cams flashed: three Spartans sprinting full‑tilt across the gantry. Explosions blossomed behind them—hangar doors vaporized outward, shockwave shoving air and debris into widening vacuum.
Kelly leapt first—jump‑kit blooming, vectoring toward the opening hatch. Sam and Fred followed seconds apart. I feathered thrusters, matching velocity; Linda popped the ramp again, covering with suppressed bursts. Three armored forms slammed onto the deck, helmets nodding status green.
"Everyone aboard," John called, voice ice‑steady.
I punched forward thrust—Pelican dropping from the dock lip, cavern wall rushing past. Behind us, secondary charges ripped the hangar to shards—no pursuit craft left flyable.
Linda retracted the ramp, locked seal, and took rear gunner chair, turret tracking empty black.
Course plotted: slip vector, Eridanus drop point.
Package secured. Colonel breathing.
Mission done.