“You’re a natural-born navigator.”
Six minutes was a lot longer than it sounded. Mal sealed his helmet and checked the video feeds. One was the exterior cam mounted under Tart-Cart’s nose, showing a lot of greenery that threw long shadows in the late afternoon and a little stone-built town beyond. It looked like half a dozen small, walled keeps and a few big barns. But as the town rushed up on them, Mal saw some serious damage—big holes in some of the walls, missing sections of roof, and the charred remains of a fighter or something gouged into the ground. It wasn’t exactly pitchfork fighting, then.
“Well, it’s all damage, BB,” Mal said. “Next idea?”
Tart-Cart slowed and looped around the settlement at three hundred meters. There were some Sangheili trying to salvage their property, and a couple of them looked up as the dropship passed overhead, but they went back to clearing the rubble. They’d heard it but they couldn’t quite see it. They probably thought the noise was coming from another direction.
“‘ Telcam’s got to have coordinates to find the place,” BB said. “If I could get hold of him. Acroli is largely Arbiter supporters.”
“Location. Any clue at all would do.”
“Wait one.”
“See, BB, when we were baby ODSTs in training, the sarge impressed on us the importance of observation and planning when retrieving hostages.”
BB went a little acid. “You can go back and ask Sarge, then, Staff.”
A rough stone building that looked like a kid’s idea of a fort stood a couple of klicks away from the settlement.
“Okay, what’s that over there?”
“Another keep.”
“And what’s that muzzle flash?” Mal knew perfectly well what it was. He’d seen enough plasma fire to last him a lifetime. “I bet that’s Nes’alun.”
As Tart-Cart slowed to sweep wide around the fields, Mal could see that it wasn’t so much a firefight as a sporadic exchange of shots. About twenty hinge-heads crouched in the cover of low walls and shabby outbuildings, focused on the main structure, but they seemed to be playing a waiting game rather than launching an assault. A couple of shots spat out from a narrow window. The hinge-heads laying siege ducked, then fired back. Then it went quiet again.
This had to be the farmhouse. The dropship changed course again and now Mal could see the state of the main doors. The opening was blocked with all kinds of wood, and black smoke streaks radiated from the stone door frame like sooty petals. It looked like they’d tried to storm the place and failed.
“So the women are defending the keep because the blokes are away fighting, I suppose,” Mal said. “Which means they could be back anytime, so the ones down there can’t wait forever.”
“What do you want to do?” Devereaux asked. “Set down and observe for a while?”
“No, let’s clear the area. Come around and approach from the east. Lay down a bit of fire and push them back.”
Whoever the Elites outside were, they’d almost certainly open fire on any humans they weren’t expecting. The Arbiter hadn’t exactly broadcast a plea to treat all human tourists as welcome guests. Sanghelios didn’t even seem to have a public network, so how they circulated general information these days was anyone’s guess. For all Mal knew, most hinge-heads would still see humans as the vanguard of an invasion.
Come to that, whoever was inside the keep would probably see things that way, too.
“Okay, do it,” Mal said. “Buckets on. Get ready to drop.”
Devereaux banked the ship. “I haven’t actually done this before, but I’m told it’s the most fun you can have without getting arrested.”
Mal scanned the nose cam view. The hinge-heads were still facing the keep. Tart-Cart was coming up to the rear and flank, unseen, dropping to seventy meters. “What d’you mean?”
“Like this … surprise!”
The deflective camo warning light went off. Twenty hinge-heads looked up at once. Devereaux hit the chin gun and Mal’s view of the ground was lost in cannon flash, flying debris, and smoke. One second the Elites had been scratching their backsides and waiting for hinge-head Christmas, and the next the sky was full of angry dropship. Devereaux kept up the fire while she dropped low enough for Mal, Vaz, and Naomi to jump out of the side hatch and run for the keep. Mal found himself up to his ankles in churned mud. A couple of plasma bolts shot past him, too wide to worry about.
“We’re in position, Dev,” Vaz said. “You can pull back now.”
Tart-Cart rose to a hover above the keep and broke up like a mirage into a shimmering patch of nothing. Now they had to check that they had the right keep. Mal wasn’t counting on any gratitude from whoever was inside.
“Here’s the fun bit,” he said. “No door to knock. BB, can you do some shouting?” He edged around to the side of the building. “Ask them if they’ve got Phyllis in there—very loudly.”
“I can pick off the Elites, Staff,” Devereaux said over the radio. “I don’t think I actually killed any, but I can remedy that.”
Bloody diplomacy. Mal could imagine the grief he’d get if he ended up killing a bunch of the Arbiter’s allies and they’d hit the wrong keep anyway. “Wait for me to call for support. I’d hate to get a stiff memo from CINCFLEET.” He reached behind him and tapped Naomi’s arm. “Window. Slap a cam on that. See what we’ve got inside.”
Naomi shot off, drawing a hail of plasma that didn’t seem to slow her down. A few moments later, an icon activated in Mal’s HUD and he was looking at a color-enhanced view of a hall full of moving shapes, some big, some small. Hinge-heads: hinge-head kids, too. He’d never really thought of them as having families. When he refocused, Naomi was squatting next to him again.
“That was quick,” he said. The adults all had plasma pistols and a couple had storm rifles, too. “Well, I’d say that’s the girls. Ten, maybe. Six kids.” He listened. The cam also picked up sound waves flexing the windowpane from inside. “Got that, BB?”
“They’re very quiet.”
Vaz checked the feed too. “Can’t see Phillips.”
“What about the kids?”
“They’re armed,” Naomi said. “Legitimate targets.”
What else did Mal expect her to say? She’d been handed a weapon and trained to kill at six years old. She didn’t have that taboo ingrained in her.
“Who’d like to be my mouthpiece?” BB asked. “Your turn, Mal. Shall I do the talking, or just render you comprehensible?”
“Just translate.” This was the weird bit. Mal wasn’t sure that his brain could handle saying one thing and hearing another. Ah well. He gave it his best shot. “This is UNSC forces—we’ve come for Professor Phillips. Have you got him in there?” No, he couldn’t do it. He struggled to find the next word. “BB, kill the external audio. It’s confusing me.”
“Of course it is. Try again.”
“Ladies! We’ve come for Phillips. Have you got him?”
That was better. As far as Mal was concerned, he was outside the door, yelling in English. To the Elites, he was shouting in fluent Sangheili.
“We have,” a female voice shouted back. “We’re handing him over to the holy monks.”
“And the monks are going to hand him to us. So let’s save ourselves some time.”
“Get away from the door or we’ll open fire.”
“We just drove off the Arbiter’s allies. The ones attacking you, remember?”
“They’re still out there. And so are you.”
There was a line of small arrow-slit windows on the upper floors above him. Plasma fire spat out of one, frying the ground a little way from him. Whoever was firing couldn’t lower the angle far enough because Mal was too close to the wall.
“Bring him out,” Mal yelled. “Don’t make us come in.”
“Fool.”
“Would you like to meet a Spartan? A demon?”
Naomi moved around to the doorway and gave him a thumbs-up. She was gagging for a fight. Vaz edged over to the o
ther side of the door, ready to storm it.
“We have children here. You bluff.”
“Bring Phillips out and we can all go home.”
Naomi stood up slowly and pressed against the barricaded door with one hand flat on it as if she was testing it. Her other hand gripped her pistol. Mal wasn’t going to lecture her on rules of engagement.
She nodded. “Ready when you are, Staff.”
“Last chance,” Mal called. “We don’t want to hurt anybody.”
He didn’t have to raise his voice, but it always psyched him up. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be done. You hit a building hard and without warning, shot anything that didn’t obey the warning to get down and stay down when you burst into the room, and then you grabbed your hostage and got out. But that couldn’t happen now. There was no element of surprise, and there were kids. It shouldn’t have mattered, but Mal had to think of the consequences if he killed any. Just walking into a bloody temple had sent hinge-heads rushing to fight the Arbiter.
“Mal? Mal, don’t crash in here. Please.”
That was Phillips, all right. Mal now couldn’t tell if he was speaking Sangheili or not. “Phillips, are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“We’re coming in.”
“No, don’t. Nobody shoot, do you hear? Just don’t. None of you.”
“It’s not your call, mate.” Mal nodded back to Naomi. “You’re coming out, one way or another. Stand back from the door.”
“No, hold your fire. All of you.” Phillips was still talking. “You too, Elar. Everybody relax. Everybody calm down—”
Naomi drew back her arm and simply punched her fist into the barricade like a power-hammer. Mal jumped up behind her, almost crashing into Vaz as the Spartan drove a huge hole in the wood and metal and sent the debris clattering into the hall. Mal braced for a blinding hail of plasma, but the first thing he saw wasn’t the hinge-heads but Phillips, standing in front of them with a plasma pistol raised two-handed, right in the crossfire zone. Everyone froze.
“Don’t you bloody dare,” Mal said.
“I’m stopping them from shooting you.”
“Great. Thanks. Now get out of the way.”
The Elites had formed a barrier in front of their kids, with one big female slightly out in front with her pistol aimed squarely at Mal. He looked into her face for a moment and saw small, angry, animal eyes and flaring nostrils. They must have thought Phillips was worth a lot if he was all that was stopping them. Naomi didn’t seem to give a damn and held her pistol on the Elites as she stalked along the line. Some of them stared at her as if they didn’t believe humans came in that size and shape.
“Ladies, we’ve got a warship right overhead,” Mal said. “If we’d wanted to kill you, we could have reduced this keep to rubble from a safe distance. Now we’re taking our man and going. Okay?”
“They’re under attack,” Phillips said. “You’ve seen what’s outside.”
Vaz jerked his head toward the door. “That’s not our problem. You ready, Dev?”
“Standing by.”
“We can’t abandon them,” Phillips said.
Mal was running out of patience. At any second, a hinge-head kid could start firing, or one of the jumpier females, and then it would be a bloodbath. “We can, Prof, and they’re big enough to take care of themselves. Move.”
This was the tricky moment. They’d have to turn around. Naomi started backing out. They were seconds away from getting out of this shit hole. Mal grabbed Phillips and pulled him toward the door, keeping his eyes on the big female at the front. They were picking their way over the debris from the barricade when two voices filled Mal’s helmet—Devereaux’s and BB’s.
“Enemy vessel approaching.”
“Abort that, Mal. Take cover.”
“Two enemy vessels approaching.”
“We’ve got ‘Telcam’s team and some other joker.”
Mal stuck his head out of the door just as a volley of bolts skimmed past. “Shit, why isn’t anything simple these days? Everybody down.”
Phillips dropped prone as if he’d been shown how to do it. He aimed out the door. “Told you so,” he said. “The other keep wants their land and buildings. It’s nothing to do with the war.”
Mal stopped short of smacking him around the head. It was a technicality. Wars were always great excuses to settle all kinds of personal scores.
“Well, you tell that to the plasma round that cooks your frigging head.” He signaled to Vaz and Naomi. The hinge-heads were already in position at the windows. “You’ve got to work out which side you’re on, Phillips, and here’s a clue—it’s ours.”
UNSC INFINITY, OORT CLOUD
Parangosky watched the discreet icon on her datapad switch from green to blue. It was a shame to stop young Lieutenant Priselkov when she was in full flood about the slipspace comms tests, but Parangosky trusted BB to know better than any human what was truly urgent and what could wait for a presentation to end.
“My apologies, Lieutenant,” she said, getting to her feet and sliding the pad off the table. “May we resume this a little later? Something’s come up. I’ll be back as soon as I get this resolved.”
It was always educational to watch their faces. She cast a benign glance around the table and noted who looked worried, who looked intrigued, who looked irritated, and who was doing their best not to betray any reaction at all. This project had consumed their lives for the last year or two, cut them off from everything they held dear on Earth, and—since the Huragok had arrived and changed everything in a frantic whirlwind of modification—most of them hadn’t been able to grab more than three hours’ sleep a day. She watched them wondering whether she understood all that.
“This is quite a serious situation,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t interrupt this meeting for anything less.” It did them no harm to think she was a mind-reader as well as omniscient. She nodded at Hood. “Excuse me.”
Hood had a way of watching her without actually moving a muscle, not even his eyes. The doors closed behind her and she slid onto the buggy’s seat to ride to the closest secure space on this deck.
“She’s too big, BB.” Parangosky propped the datapad on the dashboard and whirred down the passage. “Just my personal taste. She’s a flying city, not a ship. I’ll always be a frigate scale of sailor.”
“I didn’t want to upset Aine again by asking her how things were going.”
“She’s rather unsettled by the Huragok, I’m afraid. They don’t document their modifications. She has no idea what they’re doing sometimes.”
“That sounds astutely unionized of them.”
“Yes, let’s not fall into the same seductive trap that the Sangheili did, because once you lose the services of the little darlings, you’re scuppered.”
She could see the compartment door up ahead, marked SECURITY TESTED. She’d take BB’s word for that. The seal sighed as she closed the door behind her, leaving her leaning on her cane in a conspicuously quiet compartment with generic power outlets and data feed sockets on the bulkheads. It didn’t even have any floor covering, just the bare gray composite of deck sections.
“Okay, Admiral, we have a mixed bag of news for you, and I’ll be patching you through to Captain Osman in a moment,” BB said. Parangosky’s datapad flashed up an ONI holding portal. “We’ve found Phillips, but Kilo-Five is still trying to extract him. The fascinating news is that it might be a perfect time to offer the Arbiter some help with his little local difficulty.”
Parangosky didn’t rely on God or luck, but she was prepared to accept that the reward for being permanently on the lookout for opportunity sometimes resembled an answered prayer.
“We’re half-finished,” she said. “But that also means we’re half-ready. The important thing is that all the combat systems are operational, so we can manage without a sauna or two.” She watched the portal screen change to Stanley’s bridge. “How’s it going, Captain? Is Kilo-Five all right?” r />
“They’re with Phillips now, ma’am.” Osman kept looking up past the console camera. Parangosky guessed she’d projected charts onto the viewscreen like a HUD. “Just small-scale resistance. I think it’s a case of wrong time and place. You really need to see the latest from the drone cams, though—things don’t look encouraging for the Arbiter. You might want to show this to Hood. Do the honors, BB.”
It was an aerial view of Vadam, something that Parangosky still regarded as a watershed in her life. Sanghelios had been a closed world until the last couple of months. The first limited scans gleaned from Hood’s diplomatic mission were keeping ONI analysts busy, and now the information was rolling in via Port Stanley and BB. The view of Vadam looked almost mundane. There was Mount Kolaar to the right of the image, with the wartlike gray keep on its lower slopes. To the right of frame, the land merged into grass and woods. The detail was partially obscured by white smears.
“Cloud or smoke?” she asked.
“Smoke. Zoom in. This is only drone imaging, so it’s not perfect, but you can see that Vadam keep is surrounded on three sides.”
Parangosky took her weight off her cane for a moment and tapped the image a couple of times with her right hand. It was hazier now, but the first thought that struck her was cars. It was an instant and unedited reaction: cars parked at a grassy picnic site. The area facing the keep was dotted with blurred patches of color—red, blue, purple, black—but then she adjusted her mind to the actual scale and realized the patches were Covenant military vehicles and other craft. Some were substantial, dropships and larger vessels as well as mobile artillery pieces.
“BB’s streaming the comms chatter back to Bravo-Six for analysis,” Osman said. “But to cut to the chase, the Arbiter’s been caught out by the numbers that have turned on him. A lot of that was outrage at him allowing Phillips and Kilo-Five to enter the temple at Ontom. So … he needs a friend.”
ONI was spinning an increasing number of plates. Parangosky fully expected ‘Telcam to launch a holy war on Earth after he’d dumped the Arbiter. “What’s the situation like off-planet? We’re not picking up any intel on actual warships.”