Envoy

by Tobias S. Buckell

  “I’ll talk about who is and who isn’t here after you explain some things to me.”

  Melody gave him an exhausted look. “I was the one who got you out of the cryo-chambers, and to be honest, we really don’t have the time for all this. What happened to the Sangheili ship? How long have I been out?”

  She may have sent her staff down to Carrow to hide and survive, but Melody now was on a completely different task thanks to ONI. Something that was more important than maintaining the Sangheili alliance, more important than extracting her staff, more important than even protecting the one million humans left on Carrow. She needed to get off-planet immediately and send a warning back to Earth. Passing out had really screwed things up. She was going to have to scramble to piece together a new plan.

  “How’d you do it?” Jai asked bluntly, interrupting Melody’s new train of thought.

  “How did I do what?”

  “How did you get onto a Covenant vessel and free us? We found you armed only with a plasma pistol.”

  Covenant vessel, Melody thought. They don’t know how much everything has changed around them.

  “Well, first of all,” she told Jai, “it’s been about six years since your team went under. A lot has changed. That wasn’t a Covenant cruiser. It’s Sangheili now. The fleetmaster, Rojka ‘Kasaan, is the kaidon for the Sangheili city-state of Rak here on this planet. The Covenant, as you knew it, no longer exists. We won the war in a battle on Earth in late ’fifty-two. We allied with a sect of Sangheili rebels who turned against the Covenant. Allies like Rojka ‘Kasaan.”

  “Late ’fifty-two?” The Spartan didn’t move or say anything for a moment. The date seemed to hold a lot of importance. After processing that, his helmet tilted. “It doesn’t look like all the fighting is done. We woke up in the middle of a battle.”

  “Yeah, well, that part’s complicated. More important: where exactly are we right now?”

  “We had a brief window of communications with a human city here on the planet right after we made landfall, but there was no response. We got as close as we could in the last three hours, but we only ended up here, in the mountains. By foot, we’re still pretty far from the city.”

  “Okay. That human city is Suraka,” Melody explained. “They began resettlement here on Carrow shortly after the war.”

  Melody relaxed slightly, now that she knew they weren’t near Suraka.

  Jai crouched down and looked up into the sky. “Wait a second. So there are Sangheili and human populations here on this planet, side by side?”

  Melody nodded, then winced at the movement. “Carrow lies deep inside something the UNSC refers to as the Joint Occupation Zone. There are a number of JOZ worlds in this region that used to be part of the Outer Colonies. The UNSC, and our Sangheili allies . . . we’re all trying to create some order out of the chaos. We had some setbacks of late—it’s been challenging on a lot of fronts. Here on Carrow, human refugees came back to resettle Suraka. When they arrived they found Sangheili keeps already being built around a river on the other side of the Uldt desert. They’d been here for some time.”

  “The Sangheili are leaving their own worlds and just settling human colonies in the . . . JOZ?”

  “No, not quite. The current Sangheili leadership wouldn’t allow subordinates to just go off and do something like that, especially in a politically sensitive territory. But these Sangheili are special. They’re the survivors of Glyke, one of their worlds that was devastated during the war,” Melody explained. She noticed a slight shift in the Spartan’s stance. “They actually needed somewhere to go, and they started their settlement shortly after the war’s end.”

  Jai continued to look at her with that inscrutable helmet. She continued: “They had several months of a head start on the human refugees. They’d fallen through the cracks, so to speak. When the humans returned here and found the keeps, it was far too late. In some ways, I think the leadership in both the UEG and Sangheili circles were wondering if a jointly occupied world would actually work—if it was even possible. A true sign of interspecies cooperation. Maybe it was a social experiment, on their part. Whatever you want to call it. But human settlers out in the desert—people who separated themselves from Suraka—have apparently been clashing with Sangheili over various oases. Some fighting occurred, some people died. To the UNSC leadership monitoring this situation, it looked like full-on armed conflict here on Carrow was about to break out.”

  “So what happened then?”

  “The UEG thought it best to formally broker a meeting between the kaidon of the Sangheili city-state and Suraka’s governor, so here I am—the envoy entrusted with helping negotiate peace and harmony. Obviously it all kinda fell apart, didn’t it?”

  As she shifted her position, Melody spotted that the other two Spartans, despite their incredibly heavy armor, had deftly snuck up on either side of her.

  “But we saw Sangheili fighting each other, not humans,” one of them said. The slight Slavic accent and voice, along with female Mjolnir body armor, confirmed for Melody that it was Adriana-111.

  “At the time,” Melody said. “But the opening attack was actually a Sangheili faction moving against Suraka. They disabled everything with slipspace drives and completely cut off any off-world communication so that Suraka couldn’t call for help.”

  The other Spartan, who had to be Michael-120, stepped forward. “I’m confused. Who are the good guys now, ma’am?”

  “Like I said, that part’s a little more complicated,” Melody said, concerned that this entire explanation was taking too long. Getting the Spartans up to speed was important, but time wasn’t something she had a lot of. “I was embedded with Fleetmaster Rojka ‘Kasaan, the kaidon of the city of Rak. My staff and I were to give him advice on how to communicate with the colonists, as they had ties to the Insurrection before the Covenant War. There were things the UNSC wanted out of the peace talks that made our presence something of a third party.”

  “You mean to tell me we’re all back to fighting among ourselves again?” Jai said.

  “There are splinter groups operating in the JOZ. Suraka is one of many. They are not considered hostile, though the UEG would like to figure out how to bring them back into the fold. Suraka wants to be independent but doesn’t seem to have any intention of initiating any formal resistance.”

  “So they probably won’t welcome us with open arms,” Jai said. “We represent the UNSC.”

  “I’d say a Spartan presence would be met with a lukewarm reception at best, particularly since peace talks failed and the Sangheili destroyed all FTL-capable ships.” Besides, Melody reminded herself, Suraka was not the direction they needed to be going. Heading into the city right now would be a big mistake.

  “Who did the destroying though?” Mike asked. “We saw the Sangheili fighting each other. Guessing that someone in the kaidon’s ranks didn’t like the idea of making peace?”

  “Yes, that’s pretty much it. There was a big falling out between Rojka ‘Kasaan and another called Thars ‘Sarov. Thars really doesn’t like humans. He initiated the attack, citing weakness on the part of the kaidon for aligning with the humans—though it was so well planned, I’m certain that there’s a wider scheme at play for him.”

  “So we contact your friend Rojka and ask for a ride out of here,” Jai said.

  “Can’t do that.” Melody looked around at the three Spartans. They were so damn tall.

  “Why?”

  Melody let out a sigh. “Well . . . here’s yet another part that’s complicated. Apparently, Rojka wants you three dead, just as much as Thars does. There’s something that happened, during your last mission? I couldn’t get clearance to find out what. Rojka would always change the subject whenever asked. I know only that he found your lifeboat several weeks before I came on board. That’s one of the reasons I was there. ONI sent me to get you all out. I was to try and secure your release on one hand while publicly negotiating peace for Carrow with the other.”
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br />   Melody saw the Spartans look at each other, a slight tilt of the helmets. Then Jai said, “You need medical attention. We all need food and supplies. After that, we can figure out the next step to get back where we need to be. Any thoughts, Melody?”

  Okay, so that’s how it’s going to be. “Still getting my bearings, but there’s a research facility in the northern part of the Karfu range,” Melody told him. “That must be this series of mountains.”

  “Haven’t heard any beacons,” Mike told Jai. “No one’s responded to me.”

  Melody took a deep breath. “Yeah. They won’t. It’s an ONI facility. Gila Station. They’re not going to break silence. But that’s where we should go for help. My staff should be there. Resources too.”

  There she’d be able to use the ONI prowler that came in periodically to resupply the site and get the Spartans back to the proper authorities. And more importantly, she could call for help and get off-planet. It was imperative that she warn ONI about the potential compromise of their target on Carrow.

  “Okay, Gray Team,” said Jai. “I say we head to Gila Station and try to avoid everything out here that Melody says wants to kill us.”

  Mike had already ripped branches off a tree and lashed a makeshift sling between them with webbing. They placed Melody into it as she checked over a crude paper map she had kept on her person, not being able to carry anything too sophisticated aboard the Sangheili ship. It was covered in blood now, but she could make out enough to guide them.

  Once he had rough coordinates from Melody, Jai grabbed one end of the branches and Mike the other. They casually lifted Melody in the air and started walking. Adriana followed behind them with a larger branch, twitching it behind her to erase their footprints.

  “What’s all that smoke from the other side of those mountains to our backs?” Melody asked.

  “Sangheili ships, as far as we could tell,” Mike said.

  “Thars contracted Jiralhanae mercenaries for his coup against Rojka,” Melody noted. “Some of those ships could belong to the Brutes.”

  “Then there were probably some Jiralhanae as well. Everything upstairs was beating the hell out of each other as we came on down. And Suraka has some cruiser hovering above it right now. When we patched in to the city’s comms, I heard some chatter about Jiralhanae being on the ground there. Must be your mercenaries.”

  Jiralhanae on the ground in Suraka. That was even worse than Thars and his Sangheili. Melody wondered if she shouldn’t have kept her other secrets from the Spartans.

  The Spartans had chosen not to disclose why the Sangheili wanted them dead so badly. And Melody was keeping confidential information of her own. Strict orders. But under the circumstances, she wasn’t sure how long she was going to be able to stay quiet.

  CHAPTER 10

  * * *

  * * *

  Jai ran across the desert, falling into a rhythm with Mike as Melody slept in the crude stretcher they carried between them. Adriana was still bringing up the rear, wiping their tracks and keeping an eye out for any surprises that might sneak up on them.

  “Everyone is pissed off at us,” Jai said via helmet-to-helmet communication. “We have a long run ahead with no water, no food, no supplies. Reminds me of training.”

  Mike waited several moments before responding. “I’m not sure if the biofoam will hold her together.”

  Okay, Jai thought. They were only going to talk about the task at hand. No pleasantries. “She held off Elites with only a pistol. She’s a tough one.”

  “Or suicidal. You know she’s lying to us, right?”

  Yes, Jai had noticed that. “She has ONI ties. They keep things close.”

  ONI. Just saying that cast a dark cloud over both of them. They kept running along for another long spell of silence. Jai felt the team slipping away again. They would come together to fight. To stay alive. But everything else he tried to say was met with cold indifference from the other two.

  Jai had never had that much authority over Gray Team. The three of them, each orbiting around each other so tightly, had always moved together as one. They’d found each other in the hell of SPARTAN-II training. Since then they’d been inseparable. Gray Team against the galaxy.

  But this last mission had become a real thing between them all right now, leaving Jai feeling like something had been ripped out from inside him, leaving a hole he couldn’t fill.

  “ONI has lied to us often enough,” Mike said. “I’m not sure that what we’re doing is wise.”

  “Saving a life?” Jai responded.

  “Is that what we do?” Mike asked. “Save lives? I haven’t done that in a while, Jai. I take lives. That and orders. And now we come back and find out that the war is over.”

  “But there’s still some kind of war going on,” Jai said.

  “There always is, isn’t there?” Mike pulled a little harder on the stretcher. Jai had to wobble to compensate and not spill Melody out into the sand. She groaned and stirred. “First it’s the Insurrection, trying to keep humanity from falling apart. Then it was the Covenant, thirty years of hell. Now it’s something else. There’s always something else.”

  Melody flopped an arm out of the sling stretcher, waking up and trying to sit up to look around.

  “You’re okay,” Jai told her. “You’re okay.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it,” she said. Her dark brown face had paled even more since the beginning of the run. She was probably bleeding internally. “I’m tired.”

  “How did you get assigned to the Sangheili fleet here?” Jai asked.

  Melody smiled up at him. “I speak the language. I’ve studied the culture. I did some work in Sangheili refugee camps out here in the JOZ.”

  Jai couldn’t believe he was hearing the words. “Are you serious? A refugee camp?”

  “You’re going to hear a lot about what’s called the Great Schism—that’s what they call the big breakaway where the Sangheili rebelled against the Covenant when their Prophets decided to give the Jiralhanae military superiority. Their entire alliance disintegrated. The Sangheili paid a heavy price in the last days of the war and ultimately helped us win. So the UNSC sent volunteers to help Sangheili stranded across human-occupied space get relocated into JOZ locations.”

  “You mentioned the Covenant made it all the way to Earth,” Mike said.

  “Yes,” Melody said. “Not long after they glassed Reach.”

  “And now we have Sangheili allies.” Jai couldn’t help the slightly confused tone in his voice, bitter and angry. It sounded crooked and disgraceful to him that after so much fighting, so many killed by Sangheili soldiers, they were now allies.

  “The Sangheili who rebelled against the Prophets? They came to our aid. They fought against the Covenant with us . . . I mean, it was either that or extinction. Like I keep saying, it’s complicated. Everything isn’t perfect, but it’s an important relationship now.”

  “But for some reason, the Sangheili here still want us dead,” Jai said.

  “They probably have very good reasons,” Mike said softly.

  Now it was Jai’s turn to fall silent. He glanced behind them. Adriana had thrown away the branch and ceased hiding their footprints. But she still hung back, refusing to speak now that they were just eating up the kilometers.

  Was she going to stay quiet all the way to Gila Station?

  Jai couldn’t force her to talk. Then again, maybe it was better they just never brought up what happened. It was almost six years ago, even though in some ways it felt like just yesterday.

  The longer Jai thought about it, the more he wanted to bury it all in the past and pretend they had never experienced it in the first place.

  But if they did that, could they ever fall back into being a cohesive team? Or would there always be this distance between them from now on? Was this the best it would ever be again—with this ever-widening rift of mistrust and doubt?

  Maybe. And if the rift remained, it could well be the end of Gray Team.<
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  But maybe we deserve it, Jai thought grimly.

  Melody carefully watched the body language of the three Spartans while feigning disinterest. It could be hard to glean information about the super-soldiers, but by listening closely to their voices and looking at their interactions, even if masked by half a ton of powered assault armor, a trained envoy like Melody could see some hidden, underlying signs.

  Something had clearly broken this team.

  For one, Adriana refused to speak unless it was absolutely necessary. The rest of the time, she remained withdrawn from not just the team but really anything else at all. She was remote and detached. When she did interact with the other two, Melody could sense something angry and feral curled up inside her.

  Mike, up in front, expressed his anger by questioning little things that Jai did. Bits of verbal sniping, followed by purposeful long silences and then changes of topic.

  Jai was reined in behind an unspoken sorrowfulness, a black cloud eating up every last piece of invisible rage thrown his way as if he deserved it.

  They’d been floating in deep space for years, undiscovered. Dead quiet.

  Why were they there in the first place? Melody had some theories she’d worked on while aboard Unwavering Discipline. She was willing to bet that Gray Team had been behind enemy lines and engaging in some kind of unconventional warfare. The sort of desperate, last-minute things ONI cooked up when all of their other plans failed miserably. When their backs were against the wall in a war they were quickly losing.

  The personnel she had interacted with from ONI wouldn’t tell her anything about Gray Team’s mission. All they had conveyed was that after six years MIA, they’d been found by Rojka ‘Kasaan somewhere in Sangheili space just weeks before she was assigned to be envoy. ONI wanted them back, and unofficially Melody had been told to oblige any offer Rojka made to return them. ONI seemed desperate.