“Saskia!” Evie gasped, clambering to her feet. Owen had already thrown his weapon down. Saskia slammed into him. He put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.
“You didn’t get my message,” she said, each word punctuated by a harsh breath. “The Covenant—they’re on their way.”
It was like a switch in Evie’s head. She suddenly registered what Saskia was saying.
“Then we need to get out of here,” Owen said. “Now.”
“What about Victor?” Evie asked.
“He’s here,” Dorian said. “Let’s go. I can set these things off once we’re clear.”
Dorian gestured—Victor’s silhouette bobbed its way over the rubble of houses, moving agonizingly slow.
Rising up out of the roar of the rain came a low, droning whine. Evie’s entire body turned to ice. She recognized the sound of a Covenant engine instantly.
“It’s them!” Saskia shouted.
“Go,” Owen said. “I’ll get Victor.” He took off, legs arcing in huge, inhuman strides.
“This way,” Saskia said. “They’re coming from the south.” She ran off down the bombed-out street. Dorian and Evie followed. The whine grew louder. Evie didn’t dare look back to see if Owen had gotten to Victor or not. She just ran, head down against the beating rain, her lungs screaming.
A Covenant light swept across the street. Evie strangled a cry.
“This way!” Saskia veered sharply to the left, darting in between two still-standing houses. The gate to one of them hung open, revealing a tidy backyard thick with canna lilies and banana trees.
“Wait!” Dorian shouted. “We need to detonate the explosives.”
“What about Victor and Owen?” Evie screamed, just as Victor came barreling through the gate, Owen sliding in behind him, gun out.
“The Covenant!” Victor choked. “Why did you stop?”
“Because of this,” Dorian said, tapping the screen of his comm pad.
There was a still and silent moment, the rain hanging like jewels in the air.
Then: a blast of orange light, a shudder through the earth that knocked Evie sideways. All sound was sucked out of the world; for a moment, she couldn’t even hear the rain, only a constant, crystalline ringing deep inside her eardrums.
Flames licked up at the black sky, shining warm, yellow, human light over the entire neighborhood.
“Holy crap!” Victor shouted, his voice muffled and far away. Dorian watched the flames without saying anything. So did Saskia. So did Owen, his faceplate dancing with light.
“Good job,” he said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
All five of them sat dripping around the table in Saskia’s kitchen. Evie wasn’t sure how long they had been sitting there in silence, breathing in the warm, dry air of the house. All of their exhilaration had burned away while they fled through the woods, the intermingling scent of rain and fire following behind them.
“No backup,” Owen said suddenly, lifting his gaze. One hand was pressed against the damaged portion of his armor—had he reopened his wound? Evie didn’t want to ask. Not now, not when they’d had something like a victory.
“Well, yeah,” Victor said. “Everyone’s down in the shelter.”
Owen shook his head. “No, I meant the Covenant didn’t have any backup. It’s been, what? Thirty minutes since we set off those explosives. I haven’t heard any ships coming in. Have you?”
They all looked at one another. Evie remembered the Covenant ship sliding into Brume-sur-Mer the first night, the horrible roar of its engines.
“You hear better than any of us,” Saskia said.
Owen dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Fair enough. There wasn’t anything.”
“Is that unusual?” Evie frowned.
“An explosion at an artifact dig site like that?” Owen grinned, his eyes glinting. “Yeah, it’s unusual. They would have sent a team if they could spare one.” He leaned forward. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
No one answered.
“The Covenant’s not getting past the human defenses. They must be trapped here too. It makes our job a hell of a lot easier.” He laughed, slapped one hand against the table. The whole thing shuddered.
“You really think the Meridian Air Force stopped the Covenant up there?”
Owen nodded. “I think they’re doing their best, anyway.”
They all fell silent, and Evie imagined the Meridian Air Force winging through the atmosphere above the storm clouds dumping water on Brume-sur-Mer, beating back the Covenant ships trying to make their way to the surface. Surely UNSC was still out there too, and she thought about her mother. Would UNSC have sent her back to Meridian, to protect her home world? It gave Evie a warmth inside her chest, the thought of her mother blowing away the Covenant’s backup after the drill station exploded from bombs Evie had laid with her own hands.
Owen stood up, chair scraping. “We do need to figure out what went wrong, though,” he said.
“Went wrong?” Victor cried. “It worked! We blew up the drill!”
“Yeah,” said Saskia, “only because I ran there to warn you the Covenant were coming. The message I sent didn’t go through at all.”
Evie’s cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I thought it would work—I mean, we tested it—”
“And it worked fine here,” Owen said. “There could be any number of explanations. That’s what I want to look into. I doubt the Covenant would have scrambled an ad hoc channel like that, but if the fighting in the atmosphere is bad enough …” He sighed. “We need to know for certain before going into another situation.” He looked at Evie, then at Victor. “You two contact Salome. Find out what you can.”
“We’ll have to go out to the town computer again,” Dorian said. “And no offense, but I need the rest. We all do.”
“You can use my comm station,” Saskia said. “It worked the other night, when we were testing Evie’s channel. We might have had better luck because we were farther from town.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Evie said, when Dorian scowled at Saskia’s answer. She stood up, tilted her head toward the safe room entrance. “C’mon. Let’s try it. After our daring escape tonight, what else can we lose?”
“I’m not going back out there,” Dorian grumbled. “Not tonight.”
“If it doesn’t work, you can go in the morning,” Owen said, and Evie knew he really meant the next day’s sunset. They’d been sleeping during the day since he arrived.
Dorian pushed away from the table with an exasperated sigh, but he did follow Evie down the narrow safe room stairs. The two of them had been down here last night, tapping into the local comm channel Evie had set up. She still couldn’t believe it hadn’t worked in town.
But Saskia had beat the Covenant to the dig site. The second time in three days she had saved Evie’s life.
The comm station glowed forlornly in the corner. Evie sank down in the chair in front of it. Dorian slouched against the wall. She didn’t need his help with this, but Owen always insisted they travel in pairs. Even in the safety of Saskia’s house.
Evie’s comm channel was working fine, crackling with distant, distorted voices. “Salome,” Evie said. “Can you hear me?”
A burst of static.
“Evelyn Rousseau,” came Salome’s cheery voice. “I see you still haven’t left town.”
Evie sighed, slouching back in her chair. “I see you still haven’t done much to stop the Covenant. They’ve got us blocked in with an energy shield now.”
“Oh, come on,” Dorian said. “Leave her alone.”
“What can I do to stop the Covenant?” Salome said, her voice rippling with the distortions on the channel. “I’m afraid that falls outside of my purview of experience. But you know what doesn’t?”
“Keeping the comm channels open?” Evie asked. “We tried using this one in town, and it didn’t work. Saskia’s message didn’t go through.”
“The C
ovenant are blocking all comm channels in the vicinity of Old Brume; their scrambling system is proximity based.”
Evie groaned and looked over at Dorian, who shrugged. “Guess that explains it.”
“But that wasn’t what I was going to say.” Salome’s voice reverberated out of the speaker. “I have been trying to contact you,” she went on.
Evie’s heart fluttered. “What? Why?”
“It’s been difficult, with the fighting. But there is an impending emergency situation.”
Dorian laughed. “The last three days have been an impending emergency situation.”
“Well, yes, Dorian Nguyen.” Salome’s voice rippled like an ocean wave. Evie’s hand shot out to adjust the channel.
“What’s the emergency situation?” she asked, fumbling with the controls. Static swelled. Salome’s voice emerged like a cloud.
“—the storms,” she was saying. “The shelter wasn’t designed to function under this kind of weather emergency.”
“What?” Dorian darted forward, kneeling beside Evie’s chair. “Weather emergency?”
“The shelter is in danger of flooding.”
Salome said it so matter-of-factly that Evie’s first thought was that there wasn’t time to deal with the situation right now. But then Dorian shouted, “How soon? Has it started flooding already?”
“No,” Salome said. “But water levels are rising dangerously high. If the rain continues—and it likely will, given the atmospheric disturbances from the fighting—”
The Covenant’s not getting past human defenses.
Evie gasped. Her entire body went cold.
“We’ve got to get them out of there,” she whispered.
“Well, yes,” Salome said. “But the Covenant are still present. They are a greater threat than the flooding.”
“Are you insane?” Tears stung at the corners of Evie’s eyes, and she wiped at them furiously, not wanting Dorian to see her cry. “If you let them out, they’ll at least have a chance—”
“The chance of flooding is currently at ninety-eight percent,” Salome said.
Evie shrieked wordlessly. In her anger she had forgotten how to speak.
“While the Covenant threat is currently at one hundred percent. That’s a two percent difference! Enormous!”
The tears escaped, streaking down Evie’s face in long hot rivers. Her father had survived the Covenant attack only to drown in an ancient, faulty shelter.
“Salome.” Dorian’s calmness was shocking. “How is the Covenant risk at a hundred percent? They don’t even seem to care about the shelter. It’s not like people would be walking into an ambush.”
Silence crackled. Evie swiped at her eyes. She doubted it would be that easy. You didn’t reason with an AI through rhetoric.
“The Covenant risk is currently set at one hundred percent,” Salome said. “I cannot open the doors.”
Dorian slammed his fist onto the table. Evie jumped, wondering what happened to his earlier calm.
“Damn it, Salome,” he shouted.
“Sorry!” she chirped.
Dorian shut off the channel, plunging them into the true silence of the safe room. He stalked away, footsteps echoing off the walls. Evie just stared at the comm station. You couldn’t reason with an AI, unless you spoke the AI’s language.
It hadn’t worked before, trying to change her programming. But maybe they didn’t need to change Salome’s programming. Evie just had to make her believe the Covenant weren’t a real threat. Then she’d open the doors.
“What the hell are we going to do?” Dorian shouted. “I’m not letting Remy die down there.”
It took Evie a moment to recognize the name: his nephew. He’d told her about him. Only eight years old, trapped underground in a shelter a hundred years out of date. She twisted her damp clothes around her fingers, still staring at the comm station.
“We might—I have an idea,” she whispered.
Dorian’s footsteps fell silent.
“You want to try to reprogram her again?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I would be able to. But we don’t need to reprogram her.”
Dorian was suddenly at her side, kneeling beside her chair, one hand on her arm. “If you’ve got a plan,” he said, low and dangerous, “spit it out.”
“A virus.” Evie’s heart pumped, but her voice didn’t waver. “A virus to make her think the Covenant have gone.”
I can’t believe it,” Dorian said.
Owen glanced at him, his face as unreadable as always. A starship had been stashed in the middle of the forest his entire life, and he’d had no idea. Hearing about it from Victor and Saskia had been one thing, but seeing it in person—he could hardly believe it.
All those times flying Mr. Garzon’s rickety old scud-rider and he could have been learning on this?
“We don’t even know if it works,” Saskia said.
“Dorian says he can find out for us,” Owen said.
Dorian ignored both of them. He jogged up to the side of the ship and thumped his fist against the cool metal. The clang it made echoed through the hangar, and Dorian thought of all the times Mr. Garzon had given him his flying lessons. Every time he climbed aboard his rider, he thumped the side. Some old Brume-sur-Mer superstition.
“It looks to be in good shape,” Dorian said. “Not rusted or damaged or anything.” He climbed up a ladder to the pilot’s door and pulled on it. He half expected it to be locked, but it swung open with ease, revealing an old-fashioned interior, the control panel smooth and sleek save for a scatter of artfully placed warning lights and a holographic ignition.
He climbed in, sinking into the seat. The ship smelled like must and rocket fuel, a softness and a harshness that wound its way around Dorian’s throat. He pressed the ignition.
At first, nothing happened. The dash stayed smooth and dark and empty. Dorian cursed under his breath.
But then the warning lights twinkled one after another like stars, rippling in the discordant pattern of all start-up systems. Holo-light flickered.
“So far so good!” Dorian bellowed out the door.
Owen jogged over to him, his steps heavy against the hangar floor. “The engine’s not on.”
“No duh.” The holo-light had settled into the familiar pattern of a keypad. “You think the Sundered Legion’s just going to leave their starship where anyone can hop aboard?” Dorian leaned out of the cockpit. “It wants a password.”
Owen frowned. “Of course.”
“Hey, you’re the one who was designed to fight these guys.”
“The Insurrection?”
Dorian stared at him.
“That wasn’t me,” Owen said. “I’m third-generation. I’ve been fighting the Covenant since day one—they’re the only threat that really matters now.” He paused, eyes glinting. “It was the second-generation Spartans who fought the insurrectionists.”
Dorian scowled and pulled back into the cockpit. Looked at the keypad. It was numeric 0–9 glowing lazily in the dusty light. Too bad Evie wasn’t here. He figured she could hack into a century-old Sundered Legion lock without a problem. But she was back at the house with Victor, the two of them working on a virus to trick Salome into opening the shelter doors. Owen had brought Dorian and Saskia out into the field, first to check on the vessel, then to scope out the shelter, to decide the best course of action to get the villagers out of the shelter and into the woods.
Dorian reached out and pressed the 7. Lucky number. Not that he’d been particularly lucky this last week.
He expected a warning blast, maybe a polite but insistent voice informing him that the password was incorrect. Instead the keypad dissolved away.
“What the—” he said.
“What happened?” Owen pulled himself up the ladder. “Where’d the holo—”
“DNA match confirmed,” said a man’s voice. “Welcome, Quinn Butain.”
“Whoa!” Dorian shouted.
Holo-light
rippled across the cockpit, materializing into dials and controls far more elaborate than anything Dorian had worked with on Mr. Garzon’s scud-rider. Owen poked his head into the cockpit and gave Dorian a stiff smile. “Good job, soldier.”
“I didn’t do anything!” It was Dorian’s first instinct. Deny everything. “I didn’t—”
Owen leaned farther in.
Immediately, a monstrous howl poured out of the ship, louder than any show Dorian had ever played in his life. The holo vanished.
“Enemy detected,” the man’s voice said. “Self-destruct sequence begins in ten … nine …”
“Stop!” shrieked Dorian, swiping his hand through the air above the cockpit. “What the hell happened?”
“Run!” Owen bellowed over his shoulder.
“Six … five …”
He grabbed Dorian by the arm and jerked him sideways. Dorian’s hand slammed against the cockpit.
The warning siren stopped. Silence rang against Dorian’s ears. Then:
“DNA match confirmed. End sequence, Mr. Butain?”
“Yes!” Dorian screamed.
A pause. Then the keypad appeared again. Dorian glanced over at Owen.
“Hey, Spartan,” he said. “Maybe stay out of the rebel starship next time.”
Owen didn’t say anything, only dropped down off the ladder. Saskia crept closer, her eyes wide beneath her dark, wet hair.
“I guess it works?” she said.
Dorian reached over and tapped the 7 again. Again, the ship accepted his DNA, called him Quinn Butain.
“Who is that?” Saskia asked. “Quinn Butain?”
“Hell if I know.” Dorian watched the controls reappear in blue lights. He slumped back in his seat, suddenly exhausted. Quinn Butain. It sounded familiar.
“You probably had a relative who fought in the Sundered Legion,” Owen said. “Your DNA was enough of a match to fool the system.”
“Dumb thing,” Dorian whispered, although he couldn’t complain. Not if it got them their ship.
Quinn Butain. Hadn’t his grandmother been a Butain? She would have been too young to have fought with the Insurrection, but maybe her father had.
Not that it mattered now. The insurrectionists couldn’t have conceived of a threat like the Covenant. Humans had all been too worried about fighting each other back in those days.
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