Halo®: Mortal Dictata

by Karen Traviss

  “Oh, we don’t do that.” She clutched him so tightly to her chest that he thought she’d break all the bones that Gareth hadn’t. A vibration rose through his body, and it wasn’t romance. It was her armor’s power unit ramping up. “We do this.”

  Jumping from orbit was routine for Mal. Taking off like a bloody rocket while clinging to a Spartan was a rare novelty, though. A chunk of broken joist ripped his arm as he scraped through the gap, but he didn’t care.

  Spartans flew. Naomi had had an S-9 SOLA propulsion system. He’d watched it once, but now he knew how it felt.

  “I’m not going to drop you,” she said. Mal tried to look down and caught a glimpse of trees below. “But I don’t normally land with passengers, so prep for a few bruises.” She paused. “And I’m glad you can’t hear BB right now. Pervert.”

  Trees rushed past him without warning just as he started working out what landing underneath four hundred kilos of armored Spartan would do to him. Thud. They hit the ground, just like a parachute landing, and the sudden jolt made all his injuries throb. Naomi was sprinting, running, slowing down, and then she staggered to a halt.

  “Sorry,” she said, peeling him off her. He almost lost his balance. “The extra weight affects the handling. I normally stop dead.”

  A Pelican-shaped shimmer stood in the clearing. Mal thought it was Tart-Cart with her camo engaged, but as soon as he scrambled up the ramp, he realized it was the new ship. Naomi leaned over him for a moment and he gave her a big noisy kiss right on her polished visor. It left a blood-streaked smear on the gold mirrored finish.

  “You’re bloody amazing.” He grinned as she recoiled. “Thanks, mate.”

  “Ick,” she said. “Now I’ve got to clean this damn thing.”

  “I knew you’d come.”

  She missed a beat. It was noticeable. “I’ll never leave anyone behind.”

  Ooh. He’d hit a nerve there, whatever it was. She disappeared into the cockpit and the Pelican shuddered as she started the thrusters. Now they had to grab Vaz. It was only when the dropship lifted off that Mal thought about the extraction, and realized that it could just as easily have been Staffan Sentzke in that room as Tactical Vest.

  Would Naomi have shot him?

  Mal was pretty sure that she would.

  GREXCO TANTALUM EXTRACTION PLANT, EIGHT KILOMETERS OUTSIDE NEW TYNE

  Staffan tossed a set of Grexco coveralls onto the employee locker room bench and hesitated before he cut the tie that held Vaz’s wrists.

  “Make it quick,” he said. He shoved Vaz into the bathroom. “Clean yourself up. Those clothes should fit you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And don’t give me a reason to shoot you.”

  “Okay.”

  The shower door wasn’t full length. Staffan could keep an eye on the marine and put a round through his leg if things got out of hand. He had things under control, and he’d worry about explaining this to his family later.

  He had no plans to kill Vaz, though. He couldn’t. This was the best lead on Naomi that he’d had in more than twenty years, and even though he knew it might all be bullshit, or just a few scraps of data that might not take him much farther, he couldn’t ignore it. He had to pursue this. He stood guarding the door, more to stop anyone getting in and taking matters into their own hands than to stop Vaz escaping. It was a risk. He’d seen what the other marine had done to Gareth, unarmed and cuffed. He wasn’t going to drop his guard with this one.

  “My son thinks you’re taking advantage of a desperate old man,” he called over the noise of the water. “He says we should dispose of you and dump that chip of yours in space before someone tracks you here.”

  Vaz didn’t answer. He finished showering, a little unsteady on his feet, and almost fell over when he put the pants on. Christ, if Nairn had done him some serious damage and he died before he told Staffan anything useful—well, they still had Mal. Staffan had been guessing the hidden intentions of humans and aliens for decades, and his judgment had never let him down. Just a couple of times, he’d seen that glimmer of truth in Vaz, however tough the guy was. He knew something. There were better ways to get answers from some men than beating it out of them.

  And he needed to stow him somewhere where Edvin wouldn’t find him. Ed meant well, but sometimes he was suffocatingly protective. He didn’t know what it meant to cling to a gut feeling when everyone told you that you were deluded, but you knew, absolutely knew, that you were right.

  Staffan kept his pistol trained on Vaz, path to the truth or not.

  “Hands together, out in front.” He took a fresh tie out of his pocket one-handed. “This should be a little more comfortable.”

  “What about Mal?” Vaz stared into his face. “If anything happens to him, you can kiss good-bye any more answers from me.”

  “You’d do anything for your buddy, wouldn’t you?” That was Vaz’s Achilles’ heel. “Would he do anything for you?”

  Vaz didn’t even blink. In fact, he took a step forward so that he was right in Staffan’s face. For a man whose life was in someone else’s hands, he was remarkably aggressive, as if he hadn’t realized he wasn’t the one holding the gun.

  “We’re ODST,” he said flatly. He seemed to think that was full explanation and answer. “You need to remember that.”

  Staffan had already worked out that trying to out-tough Vaz would only make him more stubborn. This was a guy who was more afraid of giving in or of betraying his buddies than of pain or death. Usually, Staffan would have admired and respected that, but now it was an inconvenience.

  “I’ve got one of my more level-headed guys to keep an eye on Mal,” Staffan said. “He’ll be okay as long as you behave.”

  “What now?”

  “I’m going to put you somewhere safe.”

  He caught Vaz’s elbow and steered him outside into the pre-dawn darkness. On the far side of the mining camp, there was a secure compound the size of five football pitches where the various license holders stored their machinery and parts. Each plot had its own locked compound with a small storehouse. Staffan hadn’t used his license for years, but he still kept the storehouse, and he could hold Vaz for a while. Edvin would never think of looking there.

  “This isn’t a five-star hotel, but you won’t be able to get out, and, more importantly, nobody will be able to get in.” Staffan made his way through lines of identical single-story buildings that still reminded him too much of a refugee camp. “Okay, turn left.”

  “Lovely.” Vaz stared into the gloom as Staffan unlocked the door and shone a flashlight inside. “How hot does it get in here?”

  Staffan shut the door before switching on the lights, just in case he’d been followed. “You’ve got aircon. There’s some sensitive equipment in here. Water and a chemical toilet. And some food. Don’t worry. I do think things through.”

  Vaz ambled around, probably looking for ways out. He was wasting his time. The building was a complete cube designed to stop Kig-Yar cutting through, tunneling in, or otherwise breaching the place to steal the contents. The buzzards usually stuck to the rules of decent society here, but you always got the rogue element that hadn’t yet learned what happened to ungrateful thieves on a generous and no-questions-asked world like Venezia.

  “Sit down.” Staffan dragged a chair across the composite floor, making a railway track noise as the castors skipped over the ridges. “This is a bit more comfortable.”

  Vaz eased himself into the chair and sat back while Staffan put an empty crate next to the armrest. A jug of water and pile of candy bars on hand might get the guy in a more helpful mood. He seemed a decent enough kid. It wasn’t his fault that his government were shit-houses. He’d probably been drafted anyway.

  “Sorry, no ice,” Staffan said, placing a cup within reach. “The confectionery isn’t drugged, by the way. I just don’t want you starving to death before we get somewhere.”

  Vaz just nodded. “Thank you.”

  “So. My gi
rl’s alive, is she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Define okay.”

  “Healthy. Happy. Leading a full life.”

  Vaz reached awkwardly for a candy bar, tore the wrapper open with his teeth, and went through a laborious sequence of putting the bar down and taking the torn fragment from between his teeth before picking the bar up again. He might have been making a point about having his hands tied. On the other hand, he might just have been a guy who didn’t like to spit and preferred to keep everything tidy.

  “She’s very healthy,” Vaz said. “Happy? I can’t tell. Full life? Well, she’s done things that few other people ever have.”

  Is he saying he knows her? That he’s seen her? Or that he just knows about her?

  It wasn’t the answer that Staffan was expecting. That just gripped him even more. “Why are you answering my questions?” Staffan asked. “You’re only supposed to give enough detail for POW identification, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve not told you anything classified.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Vaz chewed for a while in silence until he finished the bar. He seemed genuinely hungry, not just stalling. “You know,” he said at last, “we’re trained not to give personal detail. Even harmless things. Because a good interrogator will use that to weaken you, to get inside your head. So I’ve only given you personal detail about your family.”

  “But why? You know what I want to ask you now? Of course you do. I want to ask if it’s true, if I can see her, who took her, why they took her, what she’s been doing all these years … you know that. And you might be lying, so I have to ask myself why you’re doing this. Buying time while you work out how to get yourself out of this hole, or softening me up for something else.”

  “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

  “Try me.” Goddamn it, I’ve fallen into the trap. He’s inside my head. He knows what drives me but I don’t know his motives at all. Staffan’s need to understand his adversary was consuming him. But he still had the power here. He had the gun. “Go on.”

  Vaz looked him straight in the eye, but very good liars could always do that. Maybe he wasn’t a marine at all. Maybe he’d wanted to be taken prisoner for some reason. Staffan was in danger of tying himself in knots.

  “I’m trying to balance three things,” Vaz said quietly. “What’s right, my duty to the Corps I swore allegiance to, and the safety of my comrades. That’s quite a tightrope. You don’t get to pick and choose which orders you happen to agree with. But we’ve also got to operate within the law. We have to refuse an unlawful order. So there’s a duty of morality you can’t ignore simply by saying you followed orders. Are you with me so far?”

  “I think so.”

  “Most of us have only ever fought aliens trying to wipe out humanity. No moral dilemma there. We tend to forget about the complicated stuff the last generation had to handle.”

  Staffan had no idea what Vaz was trying to tell him. He couldn’t even work out if he was explaining all this to him or to himself.

  In the end, Staffan just shrugged. “I can’t guess anymore, Vaz.”

  Vaz reached for the cup of water. “If you knew, if I told you, would it stop you doing what you’re planning?”

  “What am I planning?”

  “Why would you want a battlecruiser?”

  “To defend ourselves.”

  “If you wanted revenge, I couldn’t blame you.”

  Staffan should have known better. He’d immersed himself for years in the stories of other parents who’d lost children, sometimes in news reports, sometimes face-to-face. A few had known who took their child, guys who had been convicted, but some murderers had refused to tell them what had happened or where the body was. It was their sick way of wringing the last drop of power out of their crime. Sometimes the murderer had offered to reveal things and then changed his mind, over and over again. The parents, just as desperate as Staffan was, got sucked into the game every time when they should have walked away.

  “Before I die,” he said, “I just want to know where her body is. But now I think I would rather not know than let you do this to me. Earth’s back, isn’t it? It’s settling its scores.”

  Vaz frowned quickly, just a flash of the brows, the kind that was hard to fake. Then he shook his head and looked away at the wall for a while.

  “I once accused a brave man of being an asshole for standing back and letting the Navy get away with something terrible,” he said. “But every time I have the opportunity to do something about it myself, I chicken out because it breaks the rules. That’s how we let decency go to hell in a handbasket. Okay. I know your daughter. You should be proud of her. But a reunion’s going to be very painful for you. Is that enough? Just knowing she’s okay? You’ll have your answers, but you’ll probably feel just as bad as you do now.”

  That was the real Vaz. Staffan could see it and it scared the shit out of him. If Vaz was making up some crap, then it wouldn’t have spun out of control like this. Staffan was about to press him on it when his radio chirped. He walked over to the door to take the call.

  “Where are you? Your location’s blocked.” It was Nairn. “We’ve got problems.”

  “Never you mind where I am. What’s happened?”

  “The armory’s been hit. Saul’s dead. Someone got Mal out. Straight in through the roof and out again. Like he was plucked by some damn big hand.”

  “Jesus.” Staffan felt his throat tighten. Maybe it was Mike Amberley. He hoped it was local, anyway, and not the start of some operation they just hadn’t seen coming. “When?”

  “Now, of course. Well, the alarm triggered twenty minutes ago. I just got here. We can’t find Vaz either.”

  “I know where Vaz is. He’s secure.”

  “But—”

  “Have you mobilized patrols yet?”

  “Yes. I called Peter Moritz too. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing on sensors? Radar?”

  “Nothing. It’s the third guy. Mike. Got to be. Pretty damn effective for an electrician.”

  If someone had sprung Mal, then they’d be coming for Vaz next. They’d find him. Mike Amberley had to be tracking the neural implant, and there was nothing Staffan could do about it.

  I’ve got to hang on to Vaz. I can’t lose this trail again.

  “Keep looking,” Staffan said. “I’ve got Vaz and I’m lying low. That’s all you need to know. We might be bugged even now.”

  He cut the call. He didn’t know for sure that it was the implant acting like a homing beacon. But breaking into the armory and extracting Mal was a tall order. It would have taken very professional skills to get past the alarms in the first place, let alone access a cell through the roof. Staffan took a few deep breaths before turning around. He expected to see Vaz looking smug.

  But he wasn’t. “Mal’s gone, isn’t he?” he said. “Anyone hurt?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think that we probably haven’t got long to finish this conversation.”

  It wasn’t getting killed that bothered Staffan. It was getting killed without finding out the truth about Naomi. It was not seeing Laura and the family again, and explaining. It was not seeing Kerstin’s face when he pulled the cover off the doll’s house to reveal it on her birthday. It was not finding out the truth for Andy Remo. It was a wasted journey, because he believed it all ended here. God wouldn’t tell him a damn thing and make it all better in Heaven because God had never been here when his little girl needed saving from whatever had taken her.

  “Staffan,” Vaz said, “I really need you to trust me and do what I tell you.”

  “Why should I?” Staffan checked the locks on the door. He had a spare ammo clip in his pocket, but he couldn’t hold off an assault if whoever sprung Mal could get in here. But the place was Kig-Yar proof. Maybe he could sit it out. “I don’t even know your real name.”

  And maybe I need to tell Nairn
where I am after all, and just deal with Edvin.

  He walked up to Vaz and put the gun to his head. He didn’t plan to pull the trigger, but if he had minutes left, he had to know the truth. He didn’t know how else to do this.

  “It’s Vaz Beloi,” Vaz said. “And your daughter’s saved my ass a few times. So listen to me. We can get this sorted out.”

  He looked up at the ceiling. Staffan could feel it: a dull throb in his chest that started to press on his ears, then turned into a muffled whine like a jet turbine. Vaz stood up.

  “Don’t open fire. You won’t get out of here alive.”

  “Don’t let me die without telling me. What harm can it do now?”

  “You want to see her again?”

  Staffan forgot everything Andy Remo had ever taught him about not taking any shit and following his gut. He didn’t even have time to call it in or switch his radio back to location ID. Something scraped against the door. The turbine noise was loud, right overhead, and he didn’t know which direction to cover first. Vaz didn’t seem to, either. He looked up, then at the door, then up again. Something thudded on the roof. Vaz looked back at the door, stepped in front of Staffan, and yelled, “Down! Get down!”

  Staffan hesitated. He was sure something was coming through the roof. Vaz was staring at the door, eyes flickering as if he was listening. He spat something in Russian and shoved Staffan hard in the shoulder.

  “Now—down!”

  Bang.

  The door blew in. Staffan ducked as a neat rectangle of metal and composite flew at him. The next thing he knew was that his ears hurt and he was on the floor with Vaz on top of him. He’d either fallen on him or was holding him down.

  Or maybe he was shielding him. Jesus Christ, nothing made sense now.

  “Dev? No, no, leave him. Don’t. Don’t shoot.”

  Vaz rolled off and Staffan found himself looking up the barrel of an assault rifle and into a black, featureless visor. A hand reached up to flip it back. It was a young Asian woman. Her eyes widened as she looked into Staffan’s face.

  “That’s freaky,” she said. “Come on, my meter’s running.”