Envoy

by Tobias S. Buckell

  “Thars. Why are you coming to the surface?” Hekabe asked, attempting to mask his unease. There was, after all, nothing in their compact that allowed Hekabe access to this world, and he had assumed the Sangheili would have battled it out above the planet for some time—giving him the window he needed to accomplish his purposes.

  “I go where I please.” Thars looked haughtily at Hekabe. “And that is none of your concern.”

  “What are you doing? Why has the battle ceased?” Hekabe seethed at the dismissive tone in Thars’s voice but had to relent, as he too was in the wrong. Enjoy your time, Sangheili, Hekabe thought. We will see if you speak to me in such a manner as I tear you apart.

  “I do not answer to you.”

  Hekabe growled. “I pledged ships to help your cause—”

  “And yet you are invading the human city.” Thars seemed to lean in closer, the hologram wavering. “This was not part of our agreement. I should ask what are you doing there, Hekabe? We agreed to give you weapons and ships, not a piece of our world. Shall we discuss this right now?”

  Did Thars suspect? Did he know? “I—”

  “I have business on this planet, Chieftain. I have holdings on this planet. That is why I agreed to our partnership. So now I am coming down, as is my right. I will not explain anything more to you. And I will deal with you in good time.” Thars waved a hand and cut off the transmission.

  Hekabe slammed a heavy fist down into the holotank, cracking its casing. “Tell the cruisers in orbit to begin the attack on the Sangheili! They either suspect something or are on their way to interfere.”

  “We were hoping for more damage between the Sangheili before we did this,” Terrillus said.

  “We knew the risk when we planned this operation,” Hekabe said. “It is time. The Sangheili must not get anywhere near this city before we are ready. Destroy them. I do not care what it costs.”

  “I will give the order myself, Chieftain,” said Terrillus.

  “And call upon Foebane to begin the dig immediately,” Hekabe added.

  “There are hundreds of Unggoy still clearing rubble inside—” Terrillus started.

  “They are Unggoy, what does it matter? Need I remind you of the urgency of our charge, Terrillus? We barely have enough to feed ourselves. Our clans are starving back on Warial,” Hekabe snapped. “I do not care about the cost of life. We’ve waited too long already. Begin!”

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  * * *

  The Bumblebee tumbled end over end. Jai grabbed a harness and held tight as his whole world spun. He looked up past where Adriana had wedged herself and forward to the cockpit. “Mike!”

  Jai felt like he was hanging in the air, the airlock turned into “down” and the cockpit “up,” Carrow’s surface flashing by the cockpit windows every few seconds. Then every second. Then everything blurred. Thrusters fired, thumping and tossing Jai around.

  “Like flying a boot with a brick glued onto the side,” Mike grunted.

  A bulkhead screeched and cracked. Jai knew that the Bumblebee was breaking apart high above the planet’s atmosphere, pieces shorn from its hull centimeter by centimeter. He glanced back at the injured civilian inside the harness, her legs jerking around in the chaos. With their armor lock, the Spartans might survive impact with the planet, but she’d be a bloody smear across whatever they hit.

  Miraculously, the Bumblebee finally slowed its endless spinning as Mike managed to wrestle control of the vehicle. Then, with a last wobble and thump of the thrusters, it flattened out.

  “Apologies, everybody. That was a little rough,” said Mike. “How’s the civvie?”

  Jai made his way over to her, grabbing harnesses as he went. There was blood pushing its way around the biofoam. “She’s bleeding again.”

  A loud crunch and Jai lurched forward. “Sorry, airbrakes,” Mike said. “Been trying to delay them as long as I could.”

  The clouds that had been far below seconds earlier now rose quickly toward them.

  “The structural integrity of the lifeboat is failing. I can’t make it to the city. I’m just looking for a place to land at this point.”

  “Understood.”

  “We’re lucky we even got this far,” Mike said, tapping touch panels near his knee.

  “Not the first time we’ve jumped off a dying ship though,” Jai said, squatting down on the floor.

  “Not what I mean.” Mike glanced back from the cockpit. “Lucky to have woken up. We were on a Covenant ship. What does that mean? We should be dead, you know. I don’t understand why they didn’t just kill us in the pod when they came across us.”

  Jai took a deep breath. Given what they’d been ordered to do, he was just as shocked to wake up on a Sangheili ship alive. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it. I’m just trying to take this one moment at a time.”

  “We’re going to need to talk about Glyke—” Mike started.

  “Not now.” Jai looked forward at Adriana, who clambered past him to sit in the very back of the lifeboat with the extra plasma rifles she’d liberated. She stared out the airlock window, somehow creating a separate world away from them both. She might as well have been in another star system.

  “Adriana?”

  “No,” she said.

  Jai winced. She’d been there in the fight. That was all that mattered. They’d deal with all this later. After they got help for the wounded woman.

  Then they’d talk about Glyke.

  But right now it was a distraction. And distractions got you killed.

  The lifeboat popped loudly again and started to spin in a slow corkscrew.

  “Damn it, we’re coming apart,” Mike said. “Hold on, I’m taking us down!”

  Vice-Governor Lamar ran across the rooftop toward Ellis and the waiting Pelican. In the distance, past the skyline of downtown Suraka, the Jiralhanae cruiser hovered, blasting the ground beneath it with the tremendous energy of the ship’s glassing beam. The air rippled all around what had once been the residential area of Suraka. It was turning slowly into a melted plain.

  They’d debated about whether the cruiser would then come for the rest of the city. But whenever it approached the pile of rubble the Jiralhanae had turned into their fortified wall, it veered back toward the Uldt desert, evidently uninterested in the urban section of town.

  Why? Why the edge of the desert? What are they after? Are they simply biding time before they strike the rest of Suraka? Are they looking for something else? The fact that she hadn’t the slightest clue gnawed at the back of her mind like a thorn she couldn’t pluck free. That was an unknown, though. She could only work with the known quantities she had in her possession and try to protect those who had survived. She’d just have to leave the Jiralhanae’s motivations on the back burner.

  “Governor! Governor!” Lamar shouted.

  She stopped by the Pelican’s ramp. “Lamar, what are you doing up here?”

  “This is a bad idea,” he said, taking her by the arm and moving in closer.

  “No, Lamar, they need to see me,” she said, gently pushing him off her. “The militia. People in the bunkers. I’m going to put my own eyes on the situation. Holed up in a control room, buried deep underground . . . I’m not going to be able to understand what’s going on from there.”

  “The structure of command needs to be maintained during conflict,” Lamar replied. “Head of state needs to be protected.”

  “You’ll be head of state if I get killed,” Ellis said.

  Lamar bit his lip and shook his head. “The people elected you to lead. Not me. I apologize, Governor, for saying this, but . . . with all due respect, you can’t run away from this and jeopardize Suraka’s stability for the sake of your curiosity. The people need their governor safe if we’re going to survive this mess. This is your duty.”

  He looked genuinely upset to have said it. And it felt like a slap to the face. Ellis started to turn away, but Lamar leaned in even closer, so Elli
s had to face him head on.

  “I spent some time working a hydropower installation at Lake Komeno on Mars,” she said. “The lead engineer favored using readouts and drones to monitor everything. A pipe burst leading to the turbine. It didn’t just cost him his job—it cost people, people I knew, their lives. So understand this: I always walk the project. Okay?”

  Whether Ellis had been inspecting new buildings in recently terraformed landscapes or getting down into the dark of the sewers to watch progress firsthand and talk to contractors to get their opinions, it was part of her DNA. Often enough, suited up in the same protective gear as everyone else, she went unrecognized. People gave her honest intel as a result, factors she could use from the top to improve things. The same would apply here.

  “I don’t like this,” Lamar said.

  “You don’t have to. I can assure you, I’m not running away from anything. Go back down to the bunker.” Ellis walked toward the Pelican. “When I get back, I want to see those plans you’re working closely with the generals on.”

  Lamar folded his arms. “You told them you wanted to push the Jiralhanae back off the planet.”

  Ellis nodded. “Yes. I do.”

  “We have to look at things we can achieve, Governor. We won’t survive a full press like that.”

  “Maybe not. But I want to see all the options. We can’t cut anything out before we’ve even begun.” She’d just accepted the fact that she wouldn’t be able to make the perfect choice. But she was certainly going to try to make the ones that didn’t leave her successors with more impossible decisions.

  She had to win this war so they wouldn’t have to fight one in the future. Whatever victory looked like now, it would have to lead to better paths down the road. Even if it meant great sacrifices up front.

  “Everything has to be on the table, Lamar.”

  Ellis turned around and walked up the ramp and into the Pelican. The pilot looked back and gave her a thumbs-up. Ellis returned the gesture. Let’s get into the air, she thought.

  Another aide, Travis Pope, waved her over to one of the harnessed seats as the Pelican gunned into the sky. They swung around, the heartbreaking sight of the massive Jiralhanae cruiser annihilating the previously occupied section of the city tilting away from her sight. “You wouldn’t believe the favors I had to pull to get you this!” he shouted to her over the noise of the craft.

  “Thank you, Travis.” Ellis took a datapad from him and looked over the schedule. “Did you get any of the refugee figures updated?”

  “Yes, we’re looking at twenty thousand who’ve moved to the farthest edge of the city—Sector 31—away from the Jiralhanae’s concentration. Militia’s helping them dig up areas to create temporary housing. They’re using instacrete and sandbags and prefab materials from the early colonial days, trying to create some semblance of safety. The big problem out there is water. They’ve used some emergency hydrocables to draw from community wells out to the site, but they’re basically out in the desert.”

  “What about food?” Ellis rubbed her eyes. She was fading.

  “The vertical farms in Sector 24 weren’t attacked, so we’ve got convoys to take anything we can harvest and get them to secure locations. Some of the grains we’re diverting directly to the camps. We have a few days before we really have to nail the logistics on that, as people are bringing some basics with them. Finlay Ice Creams even took several vats of flavors out for the kids. Everyone else is demanding government credit. Redeemable after whatever this all is comes to an end.”

  After. That was optimistic. Ellis fumbled in her pockets and pulled out a stim patch. She peeled it open and rubbed it onto her forearm.

  The governor’s logistics staff had been scattered among a series of tunnels, fortified basements, and one offsite bunker on the outskirts of the city. They’d done a good job coordinating this response. Ellis felt a flash of pride that rode the slow build of the stimulants, returning her energy.

  “Governor! Director Pope!” the pilot yelled back at them. “You’ll want to see this.”

  They yanked their harnesses off and moved up the center of the Pelican. The pilot pointed up through the windows. “It just started—check it out. The Jiralhanae in orbit are now attacking the Sangheili.”

  Plasma fire lit up the sheetlike cirrostratus clouds far overhead in the upper atmosphere. It looked like an impossibly high thunderstorm that flashed lightning from cloud to cloud. They couldn’t make out the vessels as anything more than specks, but the energy bursting out from them was clear enough. They were watching a vicious suborbital battle, Ellis realized.

  “Another skirmish in this civil war we’ve been tracking?” Travis asked.

  “There’s nothing civil about the Jiralhanae,” the pilot said. “They were aiding the Sangheili when this whole thing started.”

  Ellis nodded. “The alliance between those two groups in orbit may have only lasted as long as it could.” She watched the dance of plasma fire and then tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Take us back.”

  “Governor?” Travis looked down at his copy of the itinerary.

  “They’ve turned on each other. They’re going to be more focused on whatever they’re fighting about than us. And two Brute cruisers versus the rest of the Sangheili fleet up there? That’s going to be a mess. It brings odds down into our favor. We need to make sure we can take advantage of this.”

  This was a stroke of luck. Ellis wasn’t going to waste it.

  Travis didn’t look as sure. He followed her back to his seat, grabbing hold of each passing harness as the Pelican looped around the financial district. “The Jiralhanae still have that cruiser and a lot of fighters on the ground down here. They didn’t seem to need those two other cruisers to raise all the hell we’re currently dealing with, ma’am.”

  “During the war, I heard of humans literally ripped apart by a Jiralhanae for looking it in the eye. After surrendering. Do you think these creatures are operating based on some rigid, logical strategy? They’re loose cannons, animals. They’re not like the Sangheili. They’re probably making decisions based on emotion and instinct, which is why they’re clawing at their benefactors’ throats right now. This could be on the verge of falling apart.”

  “There’s a lot of firepower still out there, Governor. I saw the preliminary reports on their strength. I’m not in the militia, but I can tell we’re outmatched,” Travis said.

  “We’ll need a definitive strike to turn things around.” Suraka has advantages, Ellis thought. Surakans knew the layout of their own city better than the enemy. Their engineers and planners knew where the sewers and tunnels were. This was our city.

  “Against the Jiralhanae’s current air and ground occupation?” Travis looked dubious.

  “Like I said, we’re not fighting anything normal—these things commit atrocities without a second thought,” Ellis said. “So we’re not going to fight back right away. We’re going to start rigging explosives. I want everything that can detonate packed around the occupied areas. We’re going to move the militia there—all of it. You’ll need to start making plans to get the refugees to take over everything the militia is helping them do out there in the camps, Travis. Got it?”

  Quickly taking notes, he nodded.

  Ellis leaned in closer. “We might not be able to win in a straight battle. But we do need to convince the Jiralhanae that staying in our city won’t be worth all the trouble we’re going to cause them.”

  Rojka ‘Kasaan looked at the constantly updated damage reports. Unwavering Discipline had lost large sections of its hull. Pillars and bulkheads had collapsed as the strain of reentry twisted the vessel; plasma fire had ripped through so many sections that Rojka wasn’t even sure it could be called a ship as such anymore.

  He was flying spare parts through the upper reaches of Rakoi’s sky.

  “Our shields are back!” Daga cried out.

  The horrible shaking eased, and Rojka relaxed slightly. Good. He checked the locatio
n of the demons’ lifeboat—dead ahead—and gave orders to continue the descent to intercept.

  Two of Thars’s frigates had now caught up to harass Unwavering Discipline Pure Resolve and Reprisal’s Fire rained plasma down on the raised shields, but they couldn’t do much to the heavy cruiser’s strength while simultaneously attempting to keep their own shielding up to prevent the heat of reentry from puncturing their much-thinner hulls.

  It was just a temporary respite in the battle, Rojka knew, but it was welcome. The constant ship-to-ship warfare while falling out of space had been fierce. Now the remaining vessels had something else to focus on.

  “Fleetmaster, the Jiralhanae cruisers,” Daga announced.

  “What?” Rojka glanced across all the naval stategy holoprojections and focused on scans of the fleet chasing him down out of orbit.

  Two Jiralhanae cruisers were now recklessly slamming their way into the middle of Thars’s ships, shields down, all weapons blazing.

  “It would appear your cousin’s much-vaunted allies have turned on him!” Daga crowed, moving forward to a top-down map of Rakoi’s vast desert to better examine the ship movements.

  “They are not even attempting to survive the journey down,” Rojka said in near disbelief. Pure Resolve’s shields flickered, then suddenly died. Bit by bit, debris flaked off until something deep inside exploded and the ship simply blew apart.

  Several of the bridge crew craned their heads from below the raised section of the command bridge, trying to see the bizarre turn of events for themselves.

  “Did I not warn him?” Rojka said. “The Jiralhanae were never to be trusted. Now we all burn together over the skies of Rakoi.”

  He would have laughed, but Unwavering Discipline’s shields fluttered and failed a final time. The atmosphere clawed at their naked hull once more. Perhaps we are next?