Chapter 5

The Rookie – Occupied city center, eight hours after drop.

The crack of thunder echoed through the empty streets as the Rookie pressed on, dodging beneath the cover of a bus stop for a moment as a Phantom passed by overhead, its searchlight scanning the ground below for signs of life. There were more and more of the ships clogging the skies, perhaps more of the Covenant fleet had jumped into orbit to reinforce their armies. He needed to get out of here, and fast. He hadn’t encountered any more patrols yet, but it was only a matter of time.

As he entered the foyer of a public building, his sidearm drawn, he finally found what he was looking for. There was a public data terminal mounted on the wall, shaped vaguely like a payphone. It would allow the user to access information such as bus schedules, emergency services, and maps of the city. He activated it, relieved to see that it was still functional, and apparently still connected to the municipal intranet.

The city was managed by a dumb-AI known as the Superintendent. It was responsible for keeping the trains running on time, making sure that there were no traffic jams, plotting garbage collection routes, that kind of thing. After the slip-space rupture, he wasn’t even sure if it was still online, but he needed access to it if he was going to lower the blast doors that were blocking his path. He had come across a few of them while exploring, massive, reinforced doors that blocked off entire streets. The AI must have activated them to box in the Covenant, or perhaps to cover the evacuation. Unfortunately, the Rookie was on the wrong side of them.

An icon flashed on the screen, and suddenly, he had a wireless connection. His onboard systems interfaced with the terminal, and data began to stream. Access codes, evacuation routes, a map of New Mombasa. Everything that he needed was here. In moments, he had a complete database, and he pulled up a three-dimensional map of the city on his visor. It was like a maze, winding streets and plazas creating a complex, interlocking web. That was to say nothing of the underground metro lines, and the above-ground walkways that weren’t shown here.

He needed to either join up with his squad, if they were even alive, or he needed to exfiltrate. He wouldn’t last long if he remained in the city center while the build-up of Covenant troops continued. There was no GPS connection, the satellites might have been victims of the invasion fleet, but he plotted a course through the city all the same. He had to hope that there weren’t too many obstructions that didn’t appear on the map.

The Rookie returned to the street, hearing the rain pattering on his helmet. It had been hours, and the storm still hadn’t let up. Fortunately, his BDU was rated for vacuum, and so there was no chance of him getting wet.

He darted back inside the cover of the building as a Phantom made a low pass overhead, blocking the rain for a moment as it hovered directly above him, the bright circle that its searchlight cast on the wet street very nearly catching him. Perhaps it would be wiser to avoid open ground, for the time being. He should try to make his way along the route that he had plotted through the buildings where possible. He turned, and headed inside, pausing to check his map for a moment. He could make his way through this structure, cross a walkway on the third floor, and then proceed towards the nearest blast door that he needed to open.

The Rookie explored the hallways of the abandoned building as he made his way towards his destination, using the flashlight that was mounted on his SMG in addition to his VISR. It was extremely dark inside, very few lights were turned on. He saw a few flickering monitors through open doorways that led into apartments and offices, but that was about it.

There had been little evidence of fighting between the Covenant and the UNSC in the street, but the more he explored, the more evidence of something far stranger began to emerge. There was what could only be described as Covenant graffiti drawn on the walls in many places, glowing eerily when viewed through his VISR, like fluorescent paint beneath a blacklight. There were messages left by the evacuees too, taunts for the invaders, or instructions that had been scrawled in marker in the faint hope that it might help reconnect lost family members.