Melody said carefully, “Maybe I can get Rojka to try to open communications with Thars, if he is still alive. Or Thars’s people if he isn’t. It’s possible his people know about the Sharquoi at this point. Maybe they’d even be willing to work with us. I want to find solutions, Governor.”
Ellis grimaced. Enough with the UNSC’s “solutions.” Hadn’t they already cost enough lives? She looked over at the new team working their way into the bunker, specialists that she’d called for to help her work on new ideas for saving the city with one last effort. “Rhodes, over here,” she called.
Ellis’s lead nuclear engineer, Brandon Rhodes, saw her and acknowledged with a wave. “Governor. I have the whole team assembled and ready.”
“Excellent, let’s get started, shall we?” she said to Rhodes.
“Governor, we need to discuss—”
Ellis turned away from Melody. “No, Envoy, we do not. I have pulled together a group of our city’s best scientists and engineers. I’m going to see if I can stop the slaughter of my people. You can do whatever you want. But just do not interrupt me or ask for me again.”
Jai looked over the shoulder of the Pelican’s pilot as the vessel swept quickly around the crater’s rim. Piles of rubble had slid down, filling in some of the center after the scores of thermobaric explosives that the Surakans had rigged all around the excavation pit had gone off at once. The blast was incredibly powerful, stemming the constant tide of Sharquoi for a moment.
“Damn,” the pilot said, briefly awed.
Forms struggled slowly out of the debris. Many of the Sharquoi had been stunned for the moment by the explosion but were getting back on their feet. Many didn’t move, however, and remained scattered around the edges of the crater and tossed in between buildings.
The ones that lived all began to walk unsteadily back toward the crater’s center and the entryway down into the Forerunner structure, the very place to where Hekabe had fled.
More and more of them trickled out from streets or crawled out from under rubble. Some of them began dragging machinery with them for purposes unknown.
They turned their backs to the Surakan militia, which had previously been their sole focus, to begin digging through a fresh pile of rubble at the center of the pit.
“Did that blast destroy the Forerunner facility below ground?” Rojka asked from the back of the Pelican.
Jai could see the glint of the spire still intact. Forerunner. That probably meant that it was buried but no doubt just fine. Forerunner materials had absurd resiliency. “No, it’d take a nuke to cause damage to that thing. Those bombs did help. They bought us time,” he responded, as the translation software converted his words into Sangheili.
“Then let us use that time well,” Rojka replied.
CHAPTER 21
* * *
* * *
The envoy was waiting for Rojka when the lift came to a stop with a heavy jerk as they returned to the underground control center deep under Suraka. Rojka walked between the Spartans and toward her. How strange that he could move so easily in the Demon Three’s midst without wanting to kill them right then and there.
“Kaidon,” Melody said, rushing toward him, while the Spartans peeled off for the armory.
Rojka felt a wave of weariness sweep over him at the reference. He was kaidon of a people that were still very much alive back in Rak. He had been counting on his death for the past few days, but it hadn’t come—not yet. He still had to be kaidon, and think like a kaidon. Everything was at risk. Everything he had tried to create here. He wondered about his bloodline—clan and kin. Would they survive? He even wondered if his carefuly tended gardens around the cool waters of the Astlehich River would burn. Whether the columns of the keep would be pushed over and buried.
She called him kaidon, as if he truly ruled anything.
What should she call him, though? There was no fleet left for him to master either. Who was he?
Rojka.
That was all.
Alone. And yet surrounded by these hated aliens.
“Envoy,” Rojka said evenly, “we find ourselves with the same problems yet again.”
“We need to mitigate the consequences of our failure to contain the Jiralhanae,” Melody said. “If Hekabe sends the Sharquoi to other worlds, this all spreads. Then he gets access to more powerful weapons and ships, and it gets worse. I’ve been using the Surakans’ orbital relay to track the stolen Surakan ships from here. At most they’re only a few hours away from reaching Thars’s ships, and I need your help to stop them.”
“My help?” Rojka was astounded. “What help could I possibly give now?”
“Thars is still alive.”
Rojka grunted, recalling the report he received earlier. “He is worse than an insect you cannot squash. But what does this have to do with me? Thars is no doubt waiting for me to leave this city in order to ambush me and then strip me of what little honor I have left.”
“I reached out to Thars,” she told him. “The Surakan drones show he has ships laying low, far beyond the mountains. Activity around them suggests some of them are either fully repaired or in the final stages. They’ll likely be ready within the next hour. You are our best link to Thars and his ships. You and I both know he has to get them off-planet or destroy them. If the Sharquoi get there first, they’ll have the means to leave this world.”
Rojka hadn’t seriously thought about Thars since he entered the city. The conflict with his cousin felt like a previous life, after all that had happened since his escape from the human facility in the desert.
Melody continued. “Using the long-range comms channel, I was able to find his frequency and broadcast a request to talk. He was unwilling at first, but I managed to convince him to listen to me.”
Rojka looked down at the envoy. If anyone else had told him this, he would have refused to believe them. Yet he somehow had no doubt that she had forced Thars into a conversation.
“I told him about the Sharquoi,” Melody said. “I told him everything he needed to know. I told him to take any slipspace-capable ships and get them off the planet before it’s too late, or simply destroy any ships he couldn’t fly off with.”
As good a negotiator as she was, Rojka knew how Thars must have taken that suggestion. “And how did he respond?”
“He did not take my suggestions gracefully,” Melody said.
“No,” Rojka agreed. “He would not be willing to do any of that. You waste your time trying. If you want to make sure that Hekabe cannot use Thars’s ships, you need to convince the humans to take whatever ships or aircraft they have left and strike his vessels now, before it’s too late. Where are your Surakan allies?”
“Governor Gass will give us nothing. In fact, it’s a miracle I was allowed to tap into their comms and relay system. She’s locked herself in a room with a team, working on something. The vice-governor, on the other hand, is reserving all resources for evacuation. I have nothing left but you, Rojka. I need your people, your weapons. Your will.”
“I am nothing but what you see before you,” Rojka said. “The warriors and the vehicles that we brought here were consumed in the diversion.”
Melody paused. “Are you certain there’s nothing left?”
“At best, I could warn those in Rak about what has happened. But Thars and I have mobilized everything under each of our own commands. There is nothing left to spare.”
Melody took that in. “There aren’t even any of your Sangheili still out in the desert? Any of those who attempted to throw Thars off our trail? What about from your downed ship?”
Rojka opened his mandibles as if to respond, then stopped. Finally, he said, “Thars has killed them all, except for three of my warriors and a single Banshee, who remained behind to confuse Thars when we secured your rescue. I ordered them to return to Rak some time ago as Thars did not pursue them. I do not know if they are still alive.”
Melody looked disappointed. “Even if they survived, three m
ore Sangheili is not enough to help us. Damn.”
But she had Rojka’s interest. His mind was now churning. “Tell me again—how much time before Hekabe’s stolen ships reach Thars?”
“Two hours, maybe three.” Melody said, chopping the air with a hand. “Two hours for us to change the direction of everything.”
She then led him down the corridor.
“I find it . . . difficult to do what you do,” he said slowly to Melody.
“What would that be?” she asked, puzzled.
“You talk,” Rojka said.
“We all talk.”
“But you talk things into being,” Rojka said. “They do not exist at first. Then, after you speak, they become real. It is almost a magical thing. You talked, and the possibility of peace conferences came into existence. You talked, and Thars saw his chance to best me. You talked, and despite all my convictions otherwise, we joined forces with that which I hate most of all: the Demon Three.”
“I only help us uncover possible solutions,” Melody said. “That’s my job—it’s what I do. I know these things are hard. But all of those things were possibilities before I voiced them.”
“But you were the one who voiced them.” Rojka cocked his head. “I have known you now long enough to know you want something specific from me.”
Melody took a deep breath. The human way of gathering strength. “I need you to speak directly to Thars. I need you to be convincing. I need you to do what I do: talk new possibilities into being.”
Rojka considered this. “You want me to convince Thars to voluntarily destroy all his ships?” Even she had not been able to speak such a thing into being.
“Or come up with a better idea and make it happen. Worlds are at stake, Rojka ‘Kasaan. Like it or not, we need Thars. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll need us right back in a few hours.”
Rojka nodded. Three fighters, out in the desert. And she had forgotten the other weapons she had access to, that the Governor did not—three of them, in heavy armor. “Very well. Let us attempt this negotiation with Thars. But remember, Envoy, I tricked him and then betrayed him openly before humans. I do not believe I will get very far.”
“We have to try,” Melody said. “Or many will die.”
“I think perhaps I can convince him that the Sharquoi threat is real. I doubt he is completely ignorant of all that has happened here. If Thars listens, he and his people will have some measure of warning. Maybe they can hold the Sharquoi back and cut off access to his own ships.”
She looked surprised that he agreed, but she nodded. “I’ll contact him again then.”
A few minutes later, in a small ready room that Rojka had to lower his head to enter, Thars appeared on one of the human viewscreens. He burst into a mocking croak, the closest Sangheili expression to human laughter, at the sight of his cousin, his sworn enemy.
“You have run to hide among the weak ones,” Thars said with scoffing glee. “Is it truly that difficult to face me?”
Rojka pointed wearily at the screen. Thars would not listen to reason. It was almost certain that Thars had lied to Melody that he would even consider negotiation. But Rojka saw a way to either die honorably himself or truly give the humans a chance to destroy Thars’s ships once and for all. It was a slim way, but it was still a way.
“You had the upper hand earlier, cousin,” Rojka said. “So let us meet and face each other on the sand, just the two of us. Then we will see who truly is the strongest warrior.”
Melody whipped around to stare at him, anger on her face. “This isn’t negotiation,” she hissed at him. To her it seemed to be sabotage, no doubt.
But even Thars wouldn’t risk his neck in single combat. No, Rojka had to lure the coward out. There was only one thing that would work.
“I will hand over to you the Demon Three,” Rojka said. “If you will meet me in the desert at a location of your choosing.”
Thars gave it thought, then said, “Done. You give me the Demon Three. And the envoy too, so that I can negotiate with the humans when they arrive in greater strength. Then we can face each other, cousin, and I will slit your throat.”
“You tell the humans here where we shall meet. I will bring them to you.” Rojka then turned and abruptly left the room.
Melody skidded around the door out after him a moment later, having received the coordinates of Thars’s rendezvous spot. “What the hell was that all about?”
“I have created a way to get Thars closer in short time,” Rojka said. “If I can capture him, perhaps we can force him to destroy the existing slipspace drives. And if he kills me, then I know that I will die with some honor left in a very dishonorable situation.”
All in all, Rojka felt pleased to have found some small good out of the madness they all found themselves in. The envoy did not look convinced.
“Going out there to die—that’s not a good solution,” Melody said. “You know there’s no chance in hell Thars will show up alone.”
Rojka nodded. “I know he will not. But we are out of good solutions, Envoy. This one gets Thars within reach. No great stories will be told about us. What we choose now is how we die. How do you wish to die, Envoy?”
“You were in the middle of choosing exactly how to do so back on the Unwavering Discipline. That changed, didn’t it? We can change this as well.”
“I have lured Thars out. Now we can face him. If you are correct, then perhaps we will be able to change our fate, somehow. If he just listens to reason.”
“How will you convince the Spartans to go with you?”
Rojka looked down at her, incredulous. “I will not. I do not intend to bring them, nor you. I intend to go and fight Thars and die, alone. But before I do that, if he believes me about the Sharquoi, I might give the human city the time it needs to evacuate its people. And by extension, the keeps of Rak might survive as well. Thars is devious, but he also values his life more than anything. If I can show him that Hekabe puts his life at risk, he will run.”
“This is not a good plan,” Melody said.
“I never said it was.”
But it would be a Sangheili fight.
Rojka looked at her. “I require transportation of some kind. I can operate most human vehicles. This is all I ask. Consider it my last request.”
The evacuation numbered in the high hundreds of thousands. Some chose to stay and hide underground, far away from the scouring eyes of the Sharquoi in a single passageway that led to a series of trading outposts in the wasteland beyond. Others stayed to fight.
Vehicles of all kinds were requisitioned to pull sleds, refitted with sand-capable tires. Some surviving Pelicans even shifted from military duty to flying parents and children out to the oases and mountains first, with supplies to last. Caravan lines of tens of thousands of people snaked out of the outer eastern districts of Suraka. People on foot, carrying whatever they could, striking out northeast into the Uldt desert.
Ellis looked up as Lamar took a break from managing food drops and reassigning militia resources, crossing over to the ready room that her team had taken over for its wall-to-wall viewscreens.
“I was just informed the envoy has set a meeting with Thars,” he reported. “We could try to open negotiations about getting some of our citizens off-world with his ships.”
Ellis paused a simulation of scanner data. “Lamar, are you serious right now? Thars started this fight to begin with, he’s killed our people already—and you’re looking to just give him more? What Surakan would even consider going along with this? Please, stop disturbing us.” She walked him to the door and pushed him over the threshold. “Do whatever you need to do, Lamar. I will not stand in your way. Just let me handle the Brutes.”
She shut the door on him.
He stared at her through the glass pane for a moment. And in response, she turned her back on him. For a moment, everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at the two.
“Back to work, people!” she growled. “W
e don’t have time.”
The room quickly returned to a buzz of people poring over information that had been retrieved. This made sense to Ellis—the technicians, the engineers, the analysts. It may be a crisis, but they weren’t jockeying over diplomacy or soothing ruffled feathers. The complete opposite of the last few days. No one needed managing. Yes, engineering and science still had interpersonal rivalries and relationships. But here, in this pure moment, that all fell away as they focused on a common goal.
For almost an hour they’d been using advanced analysis systems and metric quantifiers to rip through every piece of information they had. How was Hekabe controlling the Sharquoi? They knew it was via the implants within the ancient machine sticking out of his head. But how did that Forerunner technology work? No signals had been discovered. Line of sight? The Sharquoi did just fine inside buildings and still followed Hekabe’s control. Maybe it was loosely connected to quantum entanglement, though that was outside of human ability to interfere with: even if it was true, there was little they could do. But that led to a more probable solution: maybe the communication happened in slipspace?
Based on the information, this seemed to be the most promising possibility.
Now they had to find a way to disrupt it.
And the answer would be somewhere in the data here.
Brandon Rhodes, who’d taken the lead on a whole section of electromagnetic spectrum analysis for Suraka, clapped the table loudly enough to startle everyone into looking over at him. He pointed at one of the viewscreens. The feed showed two panes: one was of Hekabe in combat, controlling Sharquoi, and the other was a waveform readout.
“There’s consistent, measurable electromagnetic activity that we can detect from the device on the Jiralhanae’s head,” Rhodes reported, standing up to point at waveforms displayed on another viewscreen.
“Is it for communication?” Ellis asked.
Envoy Page 25