It did a good impression of looking normal and harmless. She hadn’t ruled out visiting it again. While she watched, the reflection of a holographic blue box drifted by and hovered beside her.
“Are you sure Infinity can’t track us, BB?”
“You really don’t trust Huragok now, do you?”
“I think the analogy of a hyper-intelligent toddler who’s into everything fits them pretty well. Just tell me.”
“No, Captain, they haven’t touched the stealth system. They understand why we have to be able to go dark.”
Because we do all the mucky, dishonorable stuff that the Navy prefers to believe never happens.
It was basic security. Stealth vessels had to be able to hide even from their own fleet so that they couldn’t be tracked down if another ship fell into enemy hands. But she knew it was also handy for Fleet to be able to deny all knowledge of ONI activity.
“‘Telcam’s on his way to New Llanelli now, and Phillips is trying to be sociable with him,” BB said. Osman had learned to deal with the concept of AI omnipresence by thinking of them as gossiping on a mass of ever-open comm channels. “It’s bit of a stretch for Tart-Cart. But she’ll make it. She’s got a slipspace drive now.”
“Is Devereaux actually rated to fly that?”
“She’s got me, Captain.”
“I know, I know.”
“And who’s going to argue about it? We’re ONI.”
“But dropships with slip drives…”
“Yes, it’s the work of Beelzebub. Isn’t it fabulous? Let’s order another one.”
BB was right. There was nothing to worry about. What was the point of having Huragok if you couldn’t let them do wildly indulgent but very useful things like beef up an already heavily modified Pelican? There were no rules now.
And if there are … I’ll be the one writing them.
Osman thought that not with satisfaction but with growing unease. She stood utterly alone in the corvette. Even BB, friend and bodyguard and lieutenant that he was, didn’t quite count right then. Sometimes life could be heavy-handed with its metaphors, as if she hadn’t been listening when it kept warning her that the higher she climbed, the more isolated she’d become, until she’d find herself with no hands left above her to reach out to.
This is what being CINCONI is going to feel like. No safety net. No supervision. Nobody to tell me how to do it.
It wasn’t like command of a ship at all. There were no charts and no regulations. This mission was her test, her coming of age, and Parangosky knew it. The admiral could never have engineered this situation, but she’d certainly given Osman the leeway within it to sink or swim.
But that’s what it’s about. Earth has to be able to count on me long after Parangosky’s gone.
As soon as the thought formed, Osman didn’t like the sound of it.
“Ships, BB,” she said. “Show me. Where are they?”
“Voilà.” BB flashed the chart of Sanghelios’s northern hemisphere on the viewscreen in front of her. Adj and Leaks had made a few more refinements. “We have four frigates … Promised Redemption, Cleansing Truth, Certain Prophecy, and Transforming Splendor. I do wish they’d learn to use proper ships’ names like Victory and Bellepheron, don’t you? Theirs sound like color swatches from an ecclesiastical paint catalog. Anyway, they’re getting ready to withdraw.”
“And what’s Infinity up to now? She must be able to track those frigates too.”
Another image appeared on the viewscreen—a wide shot of the ship’s bridge. It didn’t add any information that BB couldn’t have given her but it was interesting, and she had a better idea of the prevailing mood over there.
“Unfortunately, yes. So Hood’s sharing that data with the Arbiter.”
“But he’s not planning to pursue them himself.”
“No, he’s just sharing intelligence. Want to hear the Arbiter’s side of it?”
“Just give me the digest.”
“The Arbiter’s waiting to send three of his cruisers after them. He’s planning to intercept when they’re clear of the planet and before they jump, to minimize damage on the ground.”
“He’s going soft.”
“He’s political. He doesn’t want to alienate any states that haven’t taken sides yet.”
“There you go. Ruining my illusions.” Osman watched the activity on Infinity’s bridge for a few more moments, checking that Parangosky was okay—drinking coffee, so yes—and wondering if she could ever look Hood in the eye again. He’d been so generous to her: he was a decent man, a naval officer of the old school. Perhaps he knew what she’d become anyway. “Okay, stand by. The Arbiter’s going to lose three cruisers today.”
She settled in her chair and dug her fingers into the armrests. It was a habit now. She realized how physically literal she’d become: she stood alone, and she got a grip. There were probably a dozen little mechanical actions in her day that told the truth in a way she felt she couldn’t.
“You’re not comfortable about this, are you?” BB said.
“I wouldn’t say I wasn’t comfortable.” Osman had four Shivas and two bays of enhanced yield Rudra nukes, enough to do the job. “I’ve just never fired on a ship that wasn’t planning to attack me. And I suppose this puts the seal on it. Undermining Fleet feels like internal politics until you shoot down an ally they’ve worked hard to get a treaty with. It’s all little too real.”
BB drifted in close and settled on the console in front of her. He had human body language down to a T, a remarkable thing considering that the most un-boxlike form he’d taken had just been to add a shiny red bow to mark Parangosky’s birthday. She did what she always did: she looked him in the eye, the front face of the cube.
“Captain, you don’t have to succeed the Admiral, but if you do, then this is the way it’s always going to be.” He’d lost that casual, arch superiority that was so endearing. Now he was serious: paternal, even, a side she hadn’t seen before. “Vaporizing three Elite warships is nothing compared to the things you’re going to have to sanction in the future. Consider this your actual initiation. Not contrived to happen, but an inevitable transition, and I think you’d never ask any crew to do what you wouldn’t do yourself.”
She wasn’t following orders. She was giving them. I’m a captain. How did I make captain and not think this through? There was no rule book she could reach for, no higher authority, because UNSC was that authority, not the civilian government, so the only answers would come from her own conscience.
“In twenty years, I might be standing on a glassed planet again, saying that I wished I’d done something when I had the chance.”
“I could make the decision for you.”
“No.”
“Thought as much.”
This was what friends did. They let you talk your way through a dilemma. “Okay, BB, take us into position. I want all of the Arbiter’s cruisers on this plot so that when ‘Telcam’s flotilla makes its move, I can start taking them out.”
“What if he deploys all five?”
“I have to leave him at least two hulls to keep things balanced. If he manages to block any of ‘Telcam’s frigates, I’m going to need a nondestructive solution.”
“Winging the bad guy in the shoulder only works in the movies.”
“Okay, then we risk warning the frigates so they can take evasive action.”
“I do an awfully good Kig-Yar accent. Seeing as I’m going to spoof Aine’s sensors into believing a big Kig-Yar did it and ran away, I might as well stay in character.” BB seemed to feel his pep talk had hit the spot. He’d put up that barrier of slick cynicism again. “Covering up distinctive energy signatures from the detonations is going to be tricky, but perhaps I should just brazen it out and let everyone think the Jackal lads have acquired some UNSC hardware. They probably have, and it’d give the Sangheili one more faction to get mistrustful and paranoid about, too.”
“How are you going to explain why Infinity can’
t hit us if she tries? Hood knows she can’t miss. If he targets our spoof signal and there’s no explosion, he’ll know something’s wrong.”
“I have a secret weapon. The Mark One Parangosky. She’ll intervene.”
“I think you should be CINCONI.”
BB suddenly turned navy blue and sported a rear admiral’s gold braid like a belt. He twirled. “No … horizontal stripes make me look fat,” he said. “Besides, I’d have to behave.”
He’d made his joke and now he expected her to crack on with what had to be done. She obliged. ‘Telcam’s frigates showed up as small red dots assembled north of Ontom. The Arbiter’s cruisers, now shown as green dots, were scattered over a wider arc, and that would make it harder to cover them: but it would also make it easier for her to avoid being identified. She’d need to talk to ‘Telcam and get him to corral his shipmasters.
“Can you get me Tart-Cart?”
“Anytime, anywhere,” BB said. “She’s got the full Infinity comms package now. Wait one.”
Osman hoped ‘Telcam had calmed down by now. It couldn’t have been easy to have lurched between defeat and victory and then suffer the indignity of being rescued.
She only had to wait a few seconds before Mal responded. The image from Tart-Cart made it look as if things were under control, although she couldn’t see the aft section from the camera position. “How are we doing, Staff?”
Mal looked content and relaxed, but then he always did even if all hell was breaking loose. “Phillips is having a nice chat with ‘Telcam, ma’am.”
“Is he in the right frame of mind to call his frigates and get them to cooperate with us to escape?”
“You want to talk to him?”
“Yes. Put him on.”
“Good luck.”
No, ‘Telcam wasn’t going to be placated that easily. He popped up in front of the camera with all his fangs showing. Tiny drops of spit flecked the lens. “Why do you insult me this way?” he demanded. “How dare you abduct me. How dare your worthless admirals make war on me like this. How dare—”
“And how dare you open fire on my troops. Look, you’re no use to anyone dead, Field Master. And you can’t beat Infinity with a pistol.” It did no harm for him to be reminded of the ship’s capability. “Now you understand my problem. Your frigates are going to be blown apart by the Arbiter if we don’t cooperate on the next phase. I can track his vessels and warn your shipmasters, but you’re going to have to tell them to stand by for a message from a Kig-Yar vessel. Because I don’t think they’ll be amused by a call from a human right now.”
“You do so love understatement.”
“And you need your frigates. Please send the message. Staff Sergeant Geffen will give you comms access.” She paused. She wondered whether to threaten to synth his voice and get BB to do it, but he didn’t need to know she could do that, not unless or until she needed to sow more doubt and confusion. “We don’t have long. Pull your ships out now and regroup.”
‘Telcam snapped his jaws a couple of times. Phillips would know if he was sending the wrong kind of message and BB would just pull the plug. “Very well,” ‘Telcam said. “But this is the last time you force a course of action on me.”
He disappeared from view and Osman assumed he’d gone back to his seat. She made sure she was back on earpiece only. “BB, park yourself in Tart-Cart for a while. If ‘Telcam deviates from that message, cut him off.”
“Fragment already in place, ma’am.”
Port Stanley held position over the pole, ready to move. Now all Osman could do was wait. She sat watching the chart even though BB would have alerted her when the ships started to move. Seeing the translucent hemisphere for herself gave her a better physical sense of what she needed to do—but again, BB could have done it all. That wasn’t the point. She had to do it herself, the old-fashioned way, so that she grasped the scale of what she was taking on.
“Here we go, Captain,” BB said. “They’re moving.”
“Okay, send the message. Tell them we’re going to track the Arbiter’s fleet.”
“Done.”
“That was quick.”
“Oh, I recorded it earlier.…”
He was a gem. “Okay, take us in, BB.”
And there they were, moving away from Ontom: four red dots, flying out across the ocean and gaining altitude. Infinity appeared as a single blue spot, but Osman had the ship’s bridge feed on a display to her right and could see that Del Rio wasn’t lifting a finger. She could hear Hood talking to Lasky, discussing rules of engagement regarding vessels leaving exclusion zones, and then the green dots started to move, too. The Arbiter still had access to comms intercepts or radar, then.
Even if ‘Telcam’s fleet made it to their jump point without a scratch, she still had to destroy three of the Arbiter’s cruisers. Port Stanley, completely undetectable, had missiles waiting to fire. It didn’t really matter which ship survived and which didn’t, and that was the only thing about the attack that bothered her: the randomness of choice, which felt almost careless. That was the best way to tackle it, a simple numerical exercise devoid of anger or retribution, but it still didn’t feel right.
“I have firing solutions on Far Vision, Axiom, and Devotion,” BB said. “Shame, because they’re much nicer names.”
The Arbiter’s ships were converging on the frigates now, closing the gap faster than she expected.
“Frigates preparing to jump,” BB said. “They really need to get a move on.”
On the chart, it looked marginal to Osman. She had to intervene now.
“Tell them we’re coming in,” she said. “And you better make sure that Infinity doesn’t try to target ghosts.”
FORMER COVENANT FRIGATE CLEANSING TRUTH, PREPARING TO LEAVE SANGHELIOS
Raia had never imagined things would go this badly wrong so fast.
She tried to find a quiet corner on the deck to make sense of what had happened and work out how she would contact Umira and Naxan to let them know where she was. As she picked her way through the warriors on the deck, she almost tripped over a very young male who was half-slumped in an alcove with his legs sticking out. He was trying to get up. She was a mother: in this confused, frightened moment, her unthinking reaction was to reach out to help him.
And then she saw the blood, glossy and dark on the deck, and congealing between the gaps in his armor. She should have known better.
“Leave me,” he said. “Leave me, my lady.”
He waved her away. Perhaps someone else would help him, or perhaps not, but he was ashamed of being wounded and would refuse help. That was the way her sons were being trained, too, but she decided that would all change when she got home. It was a senseless ritual that achieved little when it came to winning battles. Naxan would be outraged. And she would stand her ground.
We need every warrior we can get. This is why we’re fleeing, isn’t it? That’s why we’ve gathered as many men and as much equipment as we can recover, and why we’re escaping beyond the Arbiter’s reach. So that we return to achieve something—not so that we have some noble act of sacrifice to carve into the saga wall.
Raia kept going and tried not to look at anyone in case she felt compelled to help again and simply railed at some unlucky male instead. She was heading for the bridge to find Forze. Every deck was crammed with troops, not all of them alive. Many bodies had been recovered, to be taken home for dignified funerals.
Killed by humans. By the Arbiter’s human allies. He can’t even fight his own battles.
The bridge seemed a little more familiar now. She knew what some of the sensor screens were showing even if she couldn’t interpret them. Then a hand gripped her shoulder and she turned around to find Forze looking relieved, eyes half-closed for a moment.
“Please don’t wander off again,” he said. “I thought I’d lost you. That would be a terrible thing to have to tell Jul when he returns, wouldn’t it?”
“Where are we going now?”
&nb
sp; “Laqil. ‘Telcam’s made contact—he’s heading there with some other allies. I have no idea who they are. That’s all he’d say. He’s very secretive, but then the humans and the Arbiter seem to hear too much. Perhaps discretion is wiser.”
“He’s running away.”
“No more than we are, my lady.”
“But we’ll return, won’t we?”
“We withdraw, we make plans, and we return. We’re not beaten. And now we know the humans for what they are.”
“The clan will think I’m dead,” she said. “Jul and I, both missing.”
“If I returned you to Mdama, they’d track the ship and your keep would pay the price. If you send a message, they might track that, too. We must bide our time.”
“I know. And I have to find Jul.”
“It’s a temporary absence.”
“I know that, too.”
Raia was leaving Sanghelios for the first time in her life for a world she’d never heard of. She regretted the moment she’d packed that small bag and barred ‘Telcam’s way. She should never have left, but then she knew she wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself if she’d stayed at home and waited in dutiful ignorance.
“Shipmaster, ‘Telcam has sent another message,” someone called. “He says a Kig-Yar vessel will help us.”
A big, heavily scarred male straightened up and rose a full head above the rest of the warriors on the bridge. He must have been bent over looking at the control panel. “How much are they charging us for that?”
“This is genuine, Shipmaster Galur. ‘Telcam insists.” The warrior pressed something and suddenly ‘Telcam’s voice filled the bridge. It was him, most certainly. “They’ll give us the position of the Arbiter’s fleet, and cover our withdrawal if need be.”
“So the Arbiter failed to pay his bills, then…”
“Galur, this is Avu Med ‘Telcam,” the voice boomed. “I strongly suggest you take the aid the Kig-Yar offer while you still can.”
Galur hit a control button so hard that it looked as if he’d punched it. “Very well. Stand by.”