And if he knew there was no threat outside the Dyson sphere, then he had access to real-time information about the outside world. Lucy’s pulse raced.
Information could pass both ways. That meant the squad could call for extraction. The war might already be over.
Lucy grabbed Prone to Drift and hugged him, then tapped out four painful words.
SORRY ABOUT YOUR FRIEND.
She hoped he understood that she’d regret pulling the trigger for the rest of her life.
AANRAR SHIPYARD, RANARUM ORBITAL PLATFORM, SANGHELIOS SYSTEM: FEBRUARY 2553 IN THE HUMAN CALENDAR.
“There’s a human proverb,” ‘Telcam said, beginning the long walk to the security barrier at the brow. “The devil makes work for idle hands.”
Jul, Buran, and Forze ambled along beside him, trying to look casual while six of Buran’s loyal crew—two of them Jiralhanae—trailed behind. They’d had to beg passage on a repair detail’s shuttle to make the flight to the orbital yard. It was crewed by Jiralhanae and the only maintenance workers around seemed to be Unggoy, hardly a substitute for Huragok. The wretched ships up here would be patched with glue and spit if they were repaired at all.
But ‘Telcam seemed to know a great deal about humans. Jul was intrigued. “What’s the devil?”
“One of their evil lesser gods.”
“I thought they only had one.”
“Some of them do. But some of them have many. The devil is the opposing force of the single omnipotent god.”
Jul grappled with the idea. “But doesn’t omnipotence mean there is no opposing force? And if there’s only one god, then how…” He realized he’d invited a theological discussion, and changed tack rapidly. “Explain the proverb.”
“It means,” ‘Telcam said, “that those left idle will usually find something dishonest or criminal to occupy themselves.”
Forze grunted. “I usually found that my troops would keep themselves busy with self-improvement and healthy exercise.”
“Only humans veer from the path of virtue when not gainfully employed.” Buran glanced at Forze as if they’d reached a tacit agreement to tease ‘Telcam and hope that he didn’t notice. “But I agree that you can’t take a war away from warriors and expect them to settle back into quiet domesticity. And that’s a concern we should be aware of.”
Buran sounded like Raia. It was the same question: how would the Sangheili find a purpose again? Jul kept his sights lower and concentrated on the immediate task, which was to stage a coup. No—it wasn’t even that. He had no plans to take the Arbiter’s place. He simply wanted to stop the appeasement of humankind. It was the Arbiter’s policy, and once he was gone it would wither and die if a strong enough voice provided an alternative.
After that … Jul would leave the future to those who knew how to govern. He didn’t.
Buran moved to the front of the pack as they reached the sentry at the brow airlock. Unflinching Resolve sat tethered to one of the booms of the orbital yard, looking remarkably undamaged for a ship that had seen so much service since her last refit. Jul could see other warships that hadn’t escaped so lightly berthed in the rows behind her, some bearing much bigger scars from the fighting in the Great Schism, breaches in hulls temporarily sealed with sheets of alloy and drive housings crumpled from impact. One ship wasn’t a ship at all. It was just the aft section with its drive, a wreck recovered for parts. But there were no Huragok left to carry out the engineering work.
There seemed to be a lot more empty berths than Jul remembered.
The guard, an old warrior, was a monument to lonely patience. He didn’t look as if he’d dared move a muscle throughout his watch. Buran walked up to him with arms spread in greeting.
“How goes it, Pidar?” he asked. “I didn’t realize you were still serving.”
“This level of activity best suits my age, Shipmaster.” Pidar looked on nodding terms with death already, but retirement was out of the question for a warrior. “Have you come to inspect Resolve? I’m sorry, but no maintenance has been carried out yet. At least she’s still here, though. Some Jiralhanae crews have sided with their brother traitors and stolen ships.”
“Did nobody try to stop them?”
“Hard to do, Shipmaster. They never returned to port. And all the Huragok have fled, although I wonder who gave them passage.”
“Appalling,” Buran said, very convincing in his disgust. “May we pass? I’ve brought some brothers to see what we can achieve with our own hands.”
“Shocking, my lord, that shipmasters should have to repair their own ships.”
“Nevertheless, it must be done.” Buran tilted his head toward the airlock. The ship was connected to the dockside by an assortment of umbilical cables and conduits, one of them a pressure-sealed brow for the crew to board. “We do what we can. We plan to run up her drives and test her helm, Pidar, so if you’ve been relieved by the time I return, give my regards to your kaidon. It’s been good to see you again.”
Pidar didn’t appear to notice the finality and regret in that. He just stood back and opened the inner airlock door for everyone to file across the brow. So this was how rebels seized a ship; they just spoke politely to a guard who assumed—as he ought—that a shipmaster was beyond reproach, and walked up the brow without a single shot being fired. It wasn’t satisfying or something to boast about to the youngsters of the keep in his old age, but Jul had to admit that it worked.
Buran opened one of the supply hatches and stuck his head in to take a deep breath.
“It stinks,” he said flatly. “Filthy Kig-Yar cowards. So that’s one problem I no longer have to deal with. They’ve all deserted.” He squeezed through the hatch and dropped down into the deck. “Very well, let’s see how much ordnance they forgot to loot.”
“We can worry about that later,” ‘Telcam said. “I have my sources for resupply. What we need most is transport. A mobile command center, as a precaution.”
Buran turned to the Jiralhanae. “Search the ship. If you find any Kig-Yar still around, you have my permission to eat them. In fact, I insist.”
The two Jiralhanae lumbered away down the passage. Jul wondered how the Covenant had held together for as long as it had, given how fast the old species’ hatreds resurfaced once the restraints of San’Shyuum domination were stripped away. It was a very thin veneer of unity. And now it was gone.
And how long can we trust the Jiralhanae who are still with us?
Jul looked at Forze and knew he was thinking the same thing. There was probably no such thing as a loyal Jiralhanae, only one that was more scared of his Sangheili superiors than he was of his packmates’ wrath or his reputation. The two species loathed one another. It was just a matter of keeping a close eye on those that remained.
And then we’ll dispense with their assistance completely. Never again. No more reliance on aliens to keep our society functioning. We’ll learn to do things for ourselves.
Jul felt that he spent most of his days now walking up and down long passages, as if fate was giving him extra time to ask himself if he really wanted to go ahead with this.
What if nobody arises to take the Arbiter’s place, and Sanghelios slides into chaos?
It was a risk that had to be taken. Jul was damned sure that the humans weren’t sitting in quiet reconsideration of their colonial policies. His boots echoed on the deck as he walked the last few meters to the bridge. ‘Telcam hadn’t said a word since they reached the sentry.
And this is where I move from brave talk to open revolt. This is where it becomes real. From this point on I have no retreat.
Buran surveyed his bridge, swinging his head sadly from side to side. The gloom was punctured by status lights from the few systems needed to keep Unflinching Resolve vacuum-tight and to suppress any fires or fluid leaks. From the forward viewscreen, Sanghelios looked to Jul as it always did on his return from a mission, a red beacon of warmth and welcome in the cold black void.
“For Sanghelios,” Bu
ran murmured, and pressed the control to boot up the frigate’s AI.
The ship came to life section by section. Lighting, environmental controls, and diagnostics panels activated and went about their business without need of any attention from a crew. It took only six Sangheili to move a frigate and Unflinching Resolve didn’t have far to travel. Forze checked the navigation computer and entered a spurious flight plan. That would change as soon as they were free of the dock.
“I had the chance,” Jul said, more to himself than anyone else.
“To do what?” ‘Telcam asked.
“To kill the Arbiter. He came to speak at our assembly. I could have shot him where he stood, mere meters away.”
“And you’d have made a martyr of him. There’s a fine line between reckless and bold. Acting alone may be noble, but acting together with an agreed plan is effective.” ‘Telcam was surprisingly pragmatic for a spiritual man. If he believed in the power of prayer, he hadn’t entirely given up on the need for a little extra support from laser cannon and sound tactics. “Heroes never die, and neither do their flawed ideals. So you must both kill and discredit them.”
Buran opened a channel to the dockmaster’s control room. “Unflinching Resolve requests release from dock for maintenance assessment.”
“You have clearance, Unflinching Resolve.”
Buran glanced at ‘Telcam. “Secure for launch. Proceed to two hundred kilometers.”
Stealing a warship would have horrified the humans, Jul knew. They had rules and regulations and courts-martial. But they seemed to worry about the petty administrative things that no Sangheili would concern himself with. Shipmasters and other ranks were taking all manner of vessels and vehicles now. There was no central command to ask permission from or to track them, and the only thing a patriot would do with a commandeered vessel was use it to defend Sanghelios. There were no Prophets around to commandeer a vessel from. The fleet belonged to the people. And the people were taking it back.
There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
Even so, there was no conversation on the bridge until they exited the safety zone. The Jiralhanae trotted in and stood by the doors, looking aimless and confused.
“Ship, proceed to these coordinates on my mark,” Buran said to the AI. It was a computer designed solely to pilot and control the ship, no more and no less, not the extravagantly sentient pet the humans seemed to prefer. “Suspend all automated status reports to the dockmaster.”
Buran would normally have had a junior officer doing all this for him, but Forze stepped into the role without a word. He seemed to be feeling sorry for the shipmaster already. There really was a sense of a final stand about him. Unflinching Resolve began picking up speed, preparing to pass behind Sanghelios to evade detection by the dock sensors before disappearing to lay up at Mdama.
Chaos had its virtues. A ship could go missing so easily these days.
The frigate passed the planet’s terminator and skimmed two hundred kilometers above continents shrouded in night. The Aanrar dockmaster would expect them to be out of contact anyway. Now was the moment that Unflinching Resolve had to vanish completely.
“Ship, maintain comms blackout and shut down transponders,” Buran said. “Begin landing sequence.”
Jul had thought that he’d reached his own point of no return. But he hadn’t, not yet. There would be an irrevocable moment to come, but right now all he was doing was slipping one step at a time toward it, and it could be reversed with no questions asked.
Raia … she knew not to ask them. She was also smart enough to work things out for herself. Unflinching Resolve descended through the atmosphere a thousand kilometers from Bekan keep and made the rest of the flight at eight thousand meters through night skies.
“There’s something to be said for being backward country yokels,” Forze said. “Try doing this in Vadam without anyone noticing.”
But many in Mdama would have noticed, of course. They just wouldn’t ask questions or interfere. With all those treacherous Jiralhanae and Kig-Yar around, many officers were busy making sure that assets didn’t end up in the hands of their assortment of new enemies. The excuse made itself. This wasn’t theft. It was patriotism.
Unflinching Resolve hovered above a quarry five kilometers from the keep and then descended into the artificial canyon to settle on her dampers.
Nobody spoke for a while. It was done. They’d seized a warship, and the coup had begun.
Buran reached out to shut down the active systems and the bridge faded into darkness again, lit only by the faint glow of status lights.
“I’ll return in six days,” Buran said. “Now we lie low and plan a little more. Time to disembark, brothers.”
They sealed the hatches behind them and Buran looked back at the frigate. There was no way of camouflaging her. As Forze had said, it sometimes helped to live in the back of beyond.
“We must take good care of her,” Buran said sadly. “There are no Huragok left to fix her or replace her.”
“Yet,” Jul said. “No new ships yet. The day will come.”
The rebels dispersed to their respective transports. Jul walked back through the fields to his keep, to explain to Raia and his brothers where they should not venture.
He would also have to make plans for their safety if the overthrow failed. It was hard to think of anywhere on Sanghelios where his clan could hide if he did.
Jul, of course, would take whatever might come to him. It was the least anyone would expect of a shipmaster.
FORERUNNER DYSON SPHERE, ONYX: LOCAL DATE NOVEMBER 2552.
Mendez had to give Halsey her due. Instead of making a fuss about the puncture in her leg, she just shut her mouth and gathered up the fragments of the cylinder.
It didn’t mean he was discovering a new respect for her and that the tension between them would eventually turn to a lasting friendship. That kind of bullshit only happened in the movies. Mendez knew the bottom line was that they both had blood on their hands, and a lot of his wasn’t of the decent, rules-of-engagement, soldiering variety.
He had no idea why he didn’t feel inclined to keep his opinions to himself any longer. Maybe he was the one whose goddamn frontal lobes weren’t doing all the impulse suppression that they should. He watched Kelly, Fred, and Linda close ranks around Halsey and do the Spartan equivalent of fussing over her.
“Any ill effects yet, ma’am?” Linda asked.
Halsey twisted from the waist and hitched up her hem discreetly to take another look. “Well, I think I’ll find out pretty soon whether it was injecting me with something or taking a sample. One thing’s certain—it won’t be doing it again.”
Fred picked over the fragments of cylinder in his palm. Mendez felt guilty about walking away from the search for Lucy, but he needed to know what that thing was because all the systems on this artificial planet had to be connected in some way. The Forerunners did seem to have a few godlike qualities, and one was purpose. They didn’t create things at random.
“I don’t recognize any of the components,” Fred said. “But there’s a piece of some spongy material here. It’s saturated with blood. I think your assessment that it’s taking samples is on the nail, Doctor.”
Halsey took a closer look at the pieces. “Now if I run a blood test, I’m looking to check how someone is, who someone is, or what someone is. Perhaps it’s trying to work out if we’re carrying any infection. But if that’s the case, it would try to take samples from everybody. What’s different about me?”
Mendez didn’t say a word. He was trying to recall what the cylinders had been doing from the first time they’d shown up. They seemed to hang around faces. Now this one had taken a blood sample, if Halsey was correct. It had shown most interest in the people who weren’t wearing helmets, and then it seemed to want a second opinion on Halsey in particular.
“I think there’s a really simple answer, Doctor,” Mendez said. “Me and Fred, we had something to eat. You’ve not eat
en anything yet, though, have you?”
Halsey paused for a moment and then shut her eyes. “Glycogen metabolism. Damn it. It’s just a first-aid monitor.” She did that humorless little I-should-know-better smile. “My guess is that it can detect exhaled ketones. So it checked whether I had blood sugar problems. I’m not sure why the Forerunners would care about that, but scans make sense if you’re trying to keep out a pathogen.”
“Well, terrific,” Mendez said, and strode back down the passage. “We can forget all about it until it bills us. How are we doing, people?”
Tom and Olivia were still working their way back and forth across the controls and the entrance lobby. He could hear the murmur of conversation from deep inside the passage as Mark and Ash examined the flagstone floor. Fred walked up behind him.
“Chief, we need to split up and carry on with the recon. Worst-case scenario is that it takes us weeks to work out where we are and find some structures that make more sense. I suggest we leave Dr. Halsey here with Kelly in case Lucy comes back the same way she went in, and the rest of us can move on.”
It was a perfectly sensible command decision. Mendez just nodded. But Fred cocked his head to one side.
“I wouldn’t dream of abandoning her, Chief.”
“Never thought you would, Lieutenant.”
Mendez never needed to see a Spartan’s face to work out what was going on in their heads. It was all about the body language—a split-second delay, the set of the shoulders, or a hundred other minute details that helped him gauge their reactions. Mendez watched Fred talking to the rest of the Spartan-IIIs, but didn’t spot the slightest hesitation as they broke off from what they were doing to resume the patrol.
I trained ’em right. At least I can say that.
Mendez passed Halsey on the way out of the tower and nodded at Kelly. “If Lucy comes back, then you damn well sit on her if you have to, but don’t let her wander off again.”
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