by Peter David
“That is occurring whether we want to or not, Commander,” came the reply.
The Mayhem hurtled downward toward the surface of the Ark, for the most part out of control. The helmsman was battling with the reverse thrusters, trying desperately to slow the ship’s violent approach toward the installation. N’tho attempted to calculate just how fast they would be moving when they struck the Ark and, by extension, their slim chances of survival. His estimates were disconcerting.
Captain Richards staggered up to him and looked him in the face. “Nice work,” she said quietly. He stared at her, trying to discern if the human was engaging in sarcasm, and decided that she was indeed sincere. He tilted his head in acknowledgment.
He braced himself, waiting for the impact.
And then he heard something new—the thrusters roaring against their rapid descent, then choking, and then starting again. For a few moments, the ship was fighting the Ark’s artificial gravity. The corvette’s speed was dampened significantly, but not enough for a proper landing.
The Mayhem struck the installation hard, bouncing several times across the surface on impact while carving a swath deep into a vast forest. The large alien timbers helped deaden the ship’s landing.” N’tho heard the thrusters shut down again, this time unable to restart. He grabbed onto his command chair, barely managing to avoid being tossed about the bridge. The helmsman, to his credit, was still struggling with the controls, doing his best to control the damage the ship was sustaining.
The Sangheili vessel was now skidding across the ground, the sound of exploding trees and screeching metal filling the air. N’tho was holding his breath, wondering if the Mayhem would literally be torn apart around him. At least his death would be an honorable one.
Debris was falling everywhere within the bridge, and the smoke was so thick that it was impossible to see anything.
And then slowly, very slowly, the ship came to a halt.
Long seconds passed before there was any movement or sound . . . then all present were gasping for breath and surely wondering how they had managed to stay alive.
We live to fight another day, N’tho thought. He called out, “All hands, report.”
“We have landed somewhat successfully,” the helmsman said dryly.
“I am certainly aware of that—many thanks,” said N’tho. “Where are we?”
“About thirty kilometers from the core,” the helmsman told him. “The current outside temperature is twenty units above freezing. The atmosphere and gravity appear to be regulated and viable for both us and the humans, but we’re conducting scans with our passive sensors.”
“How badly damaged are we?”
“The exterior held together, but barely. Inside, much of the materiel we had brought, including our recon vehicles and short-range fighters, sustained severe damage in the crash. We are running on emergency power while we labor to get the engines back online, although I am not sure that is even going to be possible.”
“We have a Huragok on board. Therefore, anything is possible.” Off to the side of the bridge, Luther Mann was emerging from a pile of debris, shaken but still in one piece. N’tho glanced down at Drifts Randomly, who had put down a recently awakened Spartan Holt, just now getting his bearings. The Huragok was still cradling the unconscious Olympia Vale in its tentacles. “Take her to the medlab. Fix her if you can.”
<> With that pronouncement, the Huragok and Vale headed out. Captain Richards and Spartans Kodiak and Holt watched them go with concern, recovering from their own evidently minor injuries sustained in the crash. It even looked like Holt’s armor harness was damaged at some point.
And then N’tho clearly heard Kodiak say to Holt in a low voice, “Keep an eye on her, and get that fixed before we head out.”
“Yes, sir,” said Holt, and he exited the bridge.
“So, now what?” Richards asked N’tho.
“Now,” N’tho said, his attention diverted, “we wait until the scans come back to validate our ability to leave this vessel, and then we head out onto the Ark, move out to the communications node, and attempt to do whatever we can to stop the countdown. If that plan meets with your approval.”
“It does,” said Richards, “although I suspect that if it didn’t, you’d do it anyway.”
“That is correct.”
CHAPTER 8
* * *
Slowly, Olympia Vale opened her eyes, not expecting to see the Huragok hovering above her, but there it was.
She sat up, her head throbbing as she did so. As a lance of pain shot across her temple, she put a hand to her forehead and moaned softly. Then she glanced around and was surprised to realize that she was no longer on the bridge. She looked up at the Huragok. “Where am I?” she asked.
<
Vale’s head snapped up and she gasped. “I understood you.”
<
“How is that possible?”
<
“Well . . . okay, then. Thank you for making it easier to understand you. Uhm . . . why am I in sick bay? Am I sick?”
<
She realized that she was lying on some manner of bed positioned at a forty-five-degree angle. “What do you mean, you fixed me? You can do that, like you can fix machines?”
<>
“Yes, but I’m not a thing. I’m a human.”
<>
Vale was astounded. She put a hand to her head where the debris had struck her. But there was no injury, no blood, nothing. “That’s amazing. How the hell did you do that?”
<
That was when she remembered that the Mayhem had been under attack. “What happened? The Retrievers . . . ?”
<
“Just that easily.”
<
Vale was both relieved that they were still alive and somewhat regretful that she had missed what must have been a hell of a struggle. She climbed out of the bed and got to her feet.
“So now what?” she asked.
A powerful hand clamped down on her shoulder. Vale spun in surprise and aggressively shoved the newcomer.
An unarmored Spartan Holt stumbled and almost fell before he recovered himself. “What the hell—?” he managed to say.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” said Vale, even as she belatedly realized that she was likewise standing in a combat position. She was still a bit disoriented and recovering from the concussion, but now took a deep breath and then exhaled as she forced her body to relax. “I-I don’t know why I did that.”
“I don’t know how you did that,” said Holt. “That was surprisingly strong. There was nothing in your records about combat training.”
“I studied martial arts for several years,” she said. “It was required by ONI for anyone engaging in frontline diplomacy with the Sangheili. Attended the Green Cloud . . . wait. You went over my records? Why did you do that?”
Holt actually seemed slightly embarrassed by the revelation but did his best to act as casual as possible. “Standard UNSC operational procedure that Spartans study the records of anyone we’re intended to have lengthy interaction with.”
“Well, I work for ONI, so don’t be too surprised that some things are missing.”
“Point taken.”
She wasn’t entirel
y convinced of Holt’s admitted motives, but decided not to press the matter. “It’s been a few years since I’ve actively practiced combat, and I was never that good. . . .”
“Are you sure?” Her ability to defend herself had clearly taken Holt off guard.
“Yes, of course I’m sure.” Vale cleared her throat in what she hoped sounded like a definitive manner in order to change the subject. “So what’s happening now? Where are we?”
“We’ve landed on the surface of the Ark . . . well, crashed may be more accurate.”
“Great. And are we going out onto it?”
“In . . .” He glanced at his chronometer. “An hour. The ship is conducting a passive scan of the immediate area to make sure it can facilitate both our species. The Sangheili seem pretty knowledgeable of the terrain, and determined on how to handle it, so for the moment, we’re following their lead.”
“Okay, then.”
“Will you be joining us?” said Holt. “Captain Richards wasn’t sure that you’d be up to it.”
“Try and stop me,” said Vale. She wondered if Richards was hoping for her to stay behind, given the tension just prior to them heading through the portal. The captain couldn’t exactly be thrilled with what diplomacy and openhandedness with the Sangheili had gotten them so far.
“Considering you almost threw a Spartan across the room, I think I’ll pass on the offer, if it’s all the same to you.”
Captain Annabelle Richards stared out at the surface of the Ark as she stood in front of the great viewport on the bridge. The Mayhem had set down on a large ravine, and its position allowed those in the front to look out across the vast central hub up toward the nearest spires. To the left was the circular expanse that lay at the center of the installation, with an oddly shaped moon-like structure looming in the middle. The core itself was only about thirty kilometers away, and somewhere down there was the communications array where they needed to travel. Their crash location had been extraordinarily fortunate.
This had been a rough last few hours, though. First, Richards needed to explain to her soldiers that the Sangheili effectively kidnapped them for the sake of the greater good. If they weren’t so well trained, the entire business might have tipped over into full-blown insurrection. These were soldiers who had battled the Covenant in all-out war for years and who were not especially trustful of the Elites now, even under the best of conditions. She had managed to keep her people under control, but for a brief time there, it had seemed like a near disaster.
She had also privately conferred with N’tho over the best way to approach the current situation. On their surprisingly brief trip, she had finally given up on convincing or strong-arming the Sangheili, and acquiesced to N’tho’s decision, act of war or not. Apart from not really having a choice, she also recognized that there was some validity to his stance. As a solider herself, administrative deliberations about action were a bane to her day-to-day work, and so while she defended ONI’s right to assess the risk to Earth at the Excession, she had secretly nursed her own frustrations with the orders she’d been given.
Nevertheless, such a change of heart hadn’t improved their luck. They had a single Condor, which had been severely damaged in the hangar along with many of the Sangheili’s own vehicles and equipment. Weapons and gear, however, had been more resilient. As far as her component of this team was concerned, they’d be ready for boots-on-the-ground combat when the time came.
She was worried that the longer they sat here and did nothing, the more it would encourage additional attacks from the Retrievers, and N’tho shared the same concern. But none seemed to be forthcoming after the initial skirmish, and N’tho was convinced that the Huragok might be able to either repair Mayhem, at least enough to make it operable. Given what it had done at the Excession site, she was inclined to take the Sangheili commander at his word. She also suspected that, on the other side of the portal, ONI was now scrambling to dispatch additional teams. With the portal open, it was a game changer, and it no longer meant voyages to the Ark would take several months to accomplish, but only a few weeks . . . and perhaps, even shorter than that, given the trip they just experienced. She’d made a note to ask the specialists on board why it had taken only hours, when it should have taken much longer.
During her conversation with N’tho, she reviewed the current plan of action, which was largely adapted from the one she had developed with Luther Mann and the others designing this mission. Once they left the ship, a single detachment of them would proceed across the surface of the Ark, approximately thirty klicks, until they reached one of the installation’s supraluminal communications arrays, which were nestled along the circular expanse at the center of the installation.
Based on data salvaged from Forward Unto Dawn, this fated place was a large, towering citadel hanging over the edge of the core, and also the site where the Master Chief and the Arbiter had stopped the Covenant from activating Halo. According to scans, it was still intact and largely unsecured, though they would have to approach from a different vector than their predecessors. And when she and N’tho finished their deliberations, they parted ways.
As Richards passed a small room—undoubtedly some sort of crew quarters—she saw Kodiak pacing back and forth, staring off into space. Apparently he and Holt had taken up residence in this place, which had a utility table off to its side. The Spartans had organized their weapons and field equipment across it, as well as some calibration and repair equipment for their armor. Both Spartans had brought their full GEN2 Mjolnir armor, along with a dozen or so other modular components for their suits. She’d ordered them to be prepared for extended combat before they boarded Mayhem, but, even then, she couldn’t have anticipated that the Elites would pull the stunt they did.
“Spartan?” she said. “Is something wrong?”
“Is something right?” he asked.
“I know you’re upset because of the current situation . . .”
“It’s all my fault,” said Kodiak.
That comment caught Richards off guard. “What are you talking about?”
“This. The fact that the Sangheili brought us here against our will. He was able to do this because of me.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
He finally looked her square in the eyes. “I had him. N’tho. We . . .” He paused and cleared his throat, and she began to recall the brief transaction between N’tho and the Spartan moments before they’d left Earth.
After sparing my life, this is how you wish to end matters between us?
I’m not doing anything. You’re bringing this all on yourself.
In the frenzy of the last few hours, she’d completely forgotten to ask Kodiak about it, but now it came rushing back to the front of her mind.
“We were sparring,” said the Spartan. “Except we weren’t really sparring, and both of us knew it.”
“You were fighting him?” It was all she could do to keep her voice level. “How?”
“I have a sword, just like his.” His eyes jerked over to the table, where she saw the Covenant weapon. Although it was against protocol, she knew that some soldiers kept souvenirs from the enemies they’d killed, so this didn’t surprise her. But what Kodiak had since done with the sword completely caught her off guard. “I was dueling him with that. And then that Forerunner machine, that Retriever, showed up, and things were getting blown up right and left. And the next thing I knew, he was lying there with a tree pinning him down. And I could have killed him right there. I could have avenged myself on him for this”—he raised his mechanical arm—“and prevented any of this from happening. I was standing over him with the sword, and all I had to do was bring it down on him, cut that son of a bitch in half.”
“And yet, you let him live.”
Slowly Kodiak nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I cut him loose. If I hadn’t done so, he could never have taken us off Earth.”
“No, of course not,” said Richards. “Instead we’d be involved in some sort of b
lood feud with the Sangheili, because that’s exactly what we want to have happen right now.”
“Captain, you don’t understand . . .”
“No, Spartan, you don’t understand. Fighting him was not only monumentally foolish and risky, but directly against my orders. You could have jeopardized the entire mission, and the peace treaty, for that matter. But you didn’t, and when you chose to spare his life, that was your common sense dictating to you the proper way to behave.” She raised her voice slightly. “We don’t kill them anymore, Spartan. Do you understand that? We. Don’t. Kill them. They are our allies now, and not for nothing, but at the moment they’re working with us to try and save the life of pretty much everyone you know. So don’t be sitting here blaming yourself for our current situation simply because you did the right thing and didn’t kill the Elite out of revenge. And to be honest, if N’tho hadn’t pressed the issue, we’d still be back at Voi, letting the bureaucrats and desk jockeys sort this out. As much as I hate to admit it . . . he was right.”
“But if—”
“Spartan,” she said sharply, “your commanding officer has not simply offered a suggestion. You have been given an order. Once again, might I add. There is only one acceptable response to that.”
“Yes, Captain,” said Kodiak without blinking an eye.
“Good,” she said. “Now let’s get prepared to go outside. We’ve got a galaxy to save.”
When Luther Mann emerged from the Mayhem, it was his first opportunity to see the damage the Sangheili ship had sustained. He himself had suffered a mild concussion and had some pretty bad bruising along his right side, but his eyes widened when he saw just how bad Mayhem had it.
There were huge burn marks all over the hull from where the once-proud ship had been scored by the blasts from the Retriever or violently battered by the crash landing. Pieces of it had been blown off and were scattered around the entire area, as if a metal rainstorm had pummeled it out of the sky.