by Troy Denning
Veta didn’t even realize she had spoken aloud until Intrepid Eye repeated her own question, and by then, Veta knew the answer. There was something the ancilla didn’t want Veta to see, some possibility of escape Veta had not yet perceived.
A manual override, perhaps?
Struggling to continue standing, Veta carefully rolled herself across the hatch, bracing her torso against its surface so she didn’t fall. She reached over to the wall, searching in the darkness for a crank handle or lever that could be used to pull the hatch back manually—and then, in the dim light beyond the viewport, she saw what the ancilla was worried about.
Fred and the two Gammas—Ash and Olivia—were outside the module, approaching at a jog. They were wearing fatigues—no armor—but they carried weapons and satchels, and they were clearly here to suit up.
If anyone could get the hatch open in time to save Veta, it would be them.
Knowing that every second counted, Veta pulled her SAS-10 and clicked off the safety. Her vision narrowed, and she felt herself begin to slide down the hatch toward the floor. Hoping she still had the strength to raise her arm high enough that the muzzle flash would be visible through the viewport—and that the ricochet wouldn’t kill her—she put her finger on the trigger, pulled, and sank into darkness.
CHAPTER 26
* * *
* * *
1348 hours, July 6, 2553 (military calendar)
Portable Spartan Support Module,
MVC Parking Facility, Montero Jungle
Campos Wilderness District, Planet Gao, Cordoba System
By the time Fred entered the underground parking facility, the analgesic fog had lifted. He hurt everywhere and then some, but he was steady on his feet and his mind was clear—or so he thought, until he followed Ash past a long row of parked Warthogs and saw the Portable Spartan Support Module painted in blood.
A red geyser had erupted in the module entrance, coating the hatch and nearby hull in an oblong spatter blossom at the height of a man’s torso. On the floor, a comma-shaped pool of blood curved away from the hatch, leading toward the badly crushed body of a dead officer. A pair of guards in light BDU were still outside the hatch, one punching codes into the control panel, the other trying to jam the jack handle from a Warthog toolkit into the receiving slot.
And the Gao Wyverns hadn’t even arrived yet.
Thinking the two guards might be part of an enemy infiltration team, Fred signaled Ash and Olivia to spread out. The Huragok, enough of a combat veteran to know when things were getting dangerous, stayed a few meters behind Olivia. But its head-stalk was extended, and three of its eyes were studying the dead officer.
A single muzzle flash illuminated the interior of the airlock.
Fred shouldered his battle rifle and raced forward. He was five meters from the support module when he recognized the dead officer as Commander Murtag Nelson. His body had been so badly crushed that it had actually burst open. Noting that the only weapon in either of the guards’ hands was a jack handle, Fred stopped and cleared his throat.
The two marines spun around in surprise, their eyes going wide at the sight of the BR55 pointed in their direction. Fred recognized the pair as Sierra Company infantrymen who were frequently assigned to guard the PSSM. He lowered the rifle muzzle, but kept his finger on the trigger. Treason was rare in the UNSC, but it did happen on occasion.
“What’s going on here, Ryan?”
“No idea, sir,” said the older of the two, a red-haired lance corporal with a square face and crooked nose. “We heard someone scream inside the DropBox. Then Commander Nelson came running through the airlock.”
When Ryan turned to gesture at Nelson’s remains, his eyes widened at the sight of the Huragok, which had abandoned Olivia to hover over the commander’s body.
“Nothing to worry about, Ryan,” Fred said. “It’s with us. You were telling us what happened to the CO?”
“Right.” Ryan shot another wary look at the Huragok, then turned back to Fred. “Commander Nelson was attempting to exit the airlock when the hatch slammed shut on him.”
“We dragged him free, but he was already dead,” added Ryan’s female duty partner, a green-looking private first class whose name tab read A. GALLO. “That Gao homicide detective was right behind. She’s still trapped in the airlock. We’ve been trying to get it open, but she just passed out.”
As the guards reported, Ash and Olivia were moving up on both flanks, positioning themselves at dissimilar angles to the support module. That way, if it became necessary to open fire, their ricochets wouldn’t hit each other.
Knowing the Gammas would keep him covered, Fred stepped between the two guards and peered into the airlock. It was too dark inside to see much of anything—just a square of light on the opposite wall—but he did notice three tiny pinholes melted through the viewport’s ALON glass. Clearly, Lopis had been trying to get air, which meant she had probably collapsed against the hatch.
Fred stepped back, then shouldered his battle rifle and took aim.
“Stand clear.”
His BR55 was loaded with armor-piercing ammo. If he hit the pinhole dead-on, it would serve as a pilot hole for the round and breach the viewport.
Either that, or the round would come straight back at him.
He fired and saw a spark as the round ricocheted off the far wall of the airlock. The pinhole had expanded to the size of his thumb. He took aim at a second pinhole and fired again. This time, the round created a hole the size of a fist. Fred reversed the battle rifle and lunged forward, hammering the weapon’s steel butt into the space between the two bullet holes.
The viewport crumbled into a thousand pebblelike pieces. Fred used the battle rifle to clear the remaining glass out of the edges of the viewport frame, then tossed the weapon aside. He hopped into the hole, resting his abdomen across the bottom sill so he could reach down and grab Lopis.
His fingers landed on her neck, and he was relieved to feel a weak pulse. Fred slipped his hand down to her arm, then the inner hatch started to hiss open.
He looked up to find the flatworm-shaped silhouette of the Forerunner inspection drone emerging from the workshop glow, diving straight at Lopis. There was no time to contemplate how the thing had survived the crash, or whether it was being controlled by the ancilla or acting on its own initiative.
Fred simply grabbed a handful of biceps and pulled Lopis up toward the viewport opening, at the same time pushing his free arm out to block the attack.
The drone folded over his forearm like a towel, driving a pair of tentacles deep into his flesh and delivering an electric jolt that made the whole limb convulse. At the same time, it extended the ends of its body toward Lopis, its tentacles already crackling with tiny forks of blue energy. Fred twisted around, pulling the drone through the empty viewport and whipping his arm straight outward in an effort to fling the thing off.
Its tentacles dug deeper, and his arm went limp.
“A little help!” Fred called.
Ryan brought the jack handle down on the drone’s back, hard. Its tentacles came free of Fred’s arm, then it floated free and spun around to slash a pair of appendages across its attacker’s throat. Ryan dropped the jack handle and stumbled back, both hands rising to cover the spurting wound.
Ash tossed his battle rifle to Gallo and sprang in to grab the thing from behind. It dropped its head, tipping itself vertical so that its underbelly antigravity unit was pointed in his direction, and Ash shot away backward. He narrowly missed the corner of the support module, then hit the floor and continued to slide across the concrete.
The roaring clatter of a full-auto burst echoed through the parking facility, and the drone crumpled to the ground.
“Cease fire!” Fred bellowed.
He glanced toward the source and found Gallo aiming Ash’s battle rifle at the heap of still-twitching tentacles. Her face was contorted with anger and revulsion, and she looked as though she would empty the rest of the clip int
o the drone at the slightest ripple.
Fred finished pulling Lopis out of the airlock and passed her to Olivia with instructions to bring her around, then turned to Gallo.
“Lower the weapon, Private,” he ordered. “You may have just shot the ancilla.”
Gallo frowned in confusion, then finally seemed to comprehend the order and obeyed. “Crap. I heard it was destroyed in the Falcon crash.”
“Maybe not.”
Fred continued to eye the twitching heap. The burst had nearly split it down the center, and there were several gaping holes that seemed to be through-and-through. Had the drone been designed for combat, it would have been better armored—and it would have been able to assault Lopis from a distance, instead of being forced to rush in to attack with its tentacles. So it seemed pretty clear the ancilla had been controlling the drone, using it as a makeshift weapon. Whether that meant the ancilla was actually located inside the drone was difficult to know, but it had certainly been what Commander Nelson believed when he ordered Fred to leave Wendosa to return the thing to HQ.
And it was certainly a strong possibility now.
Despite the damage it had suffered, the drone’s twitching began to grow stronger and more rhythmic. Seeing that Gallo’s finger had returned to her battle rifle’s trigger, Fred extended a hand and said, “I’ll take the weapon, Private. See to Ryan.”
Gallo’s expression remained blank for an instant, then a look of guilt came into her eyes. She relinquished the weapon and raced to her duty partner’s side. The Huragok was already there working on Ryan, and Fred could tell by the cruel wound and the amount of blood on the floor that there was no saving the man. But Gallo was a young soldier, still reeling from the shock of an unexpected attack. Being with Ryan as he died might help her avoid feeling in the future that she had somehow let him down.
Fred looked over to check on Ash and found him already on his feet and running back.
“How are you feeling?” Fred asked.
“Like I took a gravity hammer to the chest.” Ash paused, then grinned. “So, actually kind of stoked.”
“Can you keep yourself under control for now?”
“No problem, Lieutenant,” Ash said. “I’ve had my Smoother.”
“Glad to hear it.” Fred pointed to the remains of the drone. “There’s a good chance the ancilla is trapped inside that thing. Let’s bag it and suit up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And throw a scrambler in with it,” Fred added. “If it put itself back together once, it could do it again.”
“Copy that.”
Fred turned to Olivia, who was kneeling on the concrete next to Veta Lopis, cradling the inspector’s neck with one hand and tracking her pulse with the other.
“What do you think, ’Livi? Is she going to make it?”
“Affirmative, Lieutenant. She must have caught a dose of poison gas or something, but she’s coming around. She’s tough stuff.”
“Good,” Fred said. “We need to know what happened inside the DropBox.”
“I think it might have had something to do with Wendell,” Olivia said. “The inspector has been mumbling about him.”
“And?”
“It didn’t make sense,” Olivia said. “But Inspector Lopis said, ‘she has Wendell.’ ”
“Say again,” Fred ordered. “Lopis has Wendell?”
Olivia shook her head. “Not Lopis,” she said sharply. “She—as in, someone else.”
“And Lopis didn’t say who this she is?”
Olivia shot him an impatient look. “You think I might have mentioned that up front, Lieutenant?”
Fred cocked his brow. “Did someone forget her Smoother today?”
“You want to hear this or not?” Olivia shot back. “We need to be armored up and gone in twenty minutes, and we have two stops to make.”
“I count one,” Fred said, scowling. “At the armory. For the Havok.”
“You’re counting wrong because you keep interrupting me . . . sir.” Olivia paused as Lopis moaned and made a gasping noise, but quickly resumed. “She—the inspector, I mean—also said something like we can’t trust Wendell.”
Fred swallowed the urge to ask why that involved another stop and twirled his finger for Olivia to continue.
“She said to find Wendell,” Olivia added. “She’s said that twice.”
Fred furrowed his brow and studied the inspector. Her face was flushed and her lips were blue, so Olivia’s theory about the poisonous gas seemed likely. And there could be no doubt that the drone attack had also been directed at her, which made the conclusion pretty obvious. The ancilla wanted Lopis dead—and since Lopis was the only person alive who had been inside the support module when the trouble started, the ancilla’s desire probably had something to do with that.
Clearly, Lopis knew something that the ancilla was desperate to keep secret.
Fred nodded. “Okay, two stops. You prep a Warthog.” He looked back toward Ash, who was busy stuffing the inspection drone into an empty equipment satchel. “Ash, you pick up the Havok, and I’ll secure Wendell’s data crystal.”
The two Gammas responded as one. “Affirmative.”
Olivia tipped her head toward the empty airlock. “Seems like things are pretty crazy in the support module,” she said. “What about our armor?”
“We need it,” Fred said. “So we blow both hatches.”
A long, gurgling gasp sounded from where Ryan lay dying, followed almost instantly by a choked-off sob from Gallo. No one looked. They all remembered how it felt to lose a squad mate for the first time.
CHAPTER 27
* * *
* * *
1425 hours, July 6, 2553 (military calendar)
Road of Wonders, Vermilion River vicinity, Montero Jungle
Campos Wilderness District, Planet Gao, Cordoba System
Veta was riding a rockslide again—that’s how it felt.
The Warthog M831 was racing down a muddy jungle road, shuddering over washouts and sliding around bends, trying to outrun a trio of airborne Wyverns. The roar of chugging cannons was falling like thunder from the sky, and jets of flame and fronds kept rising to both sides of the road.
A crater opened ahead as if by magic. The Warthog shot into a spray of flying mud and bounced across the hole and tipped up on two wheels, and the Spartans threw their weight to the high side. The vehicle came down on all fours and continued down the road, racing into a tunnel of emerald foliage constantly being chewed away by the raging ordnance above.
Veta was strapped into the passenger’s seat, not quite sure whether she was a prisoner or squad member. Assigned to look after the Forerunner artifacts, she was trying to keep her feet planted on the satchel containing the crippled inspection drone while constantly twisting around to grab at the Huragok’s tentacles, trying to keep it from undoing the straps that kept it tethered to the roll cage between the front seats and the rear passenger tray. She was scared to death, but the Spartans were her best chance of taking down Intrepid Eye, and she wouldn’t have been anywhere else.
Ash and Olivia were riding in back, Olivia using a pair of shoulder-fired missile launchers to discourage the Wyverns, while Ash reloaded and spotted for her. Everyone was fully armored—even Veta, who now wore a light infantry BDU that Olivia had thrust at her the moment she awoke.
Fred was behind the wheel, back in his semi-repaired Mjolnir, driving too fast and asking too many questions about what had happened in the support module.
“You still haven’t explained why we can’t trust Wendell,” the Spartan said. They were talking over a dedicated channel Fred had opened to keep their conversation from interfering with TEAMCOM. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“I must have been delirious,” Veta said, speaking through her throat mic. “And do we really need to talk about this now? I’m frightened enough when you’re concentrating on your driving.”
That was only part of the reason Veta was hesitant t
o talk. She had no idea how extensively Intrepid Eye had penetrated the 717th’s IT network, but the ancilla was an advanced AI. It seemed reasonable to assume she could eavesdrop on a battalion comm channel—probably all of them at once—and that was why Veta had not yet told the Spartans about Wendell’s demise. By the time she had grown clearheaded enough to warn them about Intrepid Eye, the Spartans had all been in their armor, talking to each other over the very comm systems Veta was afraid to use.
A rocket went off in the jungle ahead and blew a ten-meter tree fern across the road. As their front tires hit the trunk, Fred gunned the engine and bounced the Warthog over the obstacle.
“Sorry—we need to talk now,” Fred said. He worked his hands furiously, struggling to keep the vehicle from going into a spin as they fishtailed around a muddy curve. “The way things are going, this could be our last chance.”
“You’re just saying that to impress me. But what difference does . . .” Veta finally realized why Fred was being so inquisitive and let her question drop. “You’re uplinking us, aren’t you?”
Fred looked over. “I hope you don’t mind.” He had reactivated his imaging systems, so his faceplate was down, making it impossible for Veta to read his expression. “It seemed like a good idea, under the circumstances.”
“You mean the circumstances where you get us killed?” Veta stopped tugging at Huragok tentacles long enough to point ahead. “Will you watch the road?”
Fred continued to look at her. “Will you answer my questions?”
A speckled jungle dragon slipped out of the undergrowth ahead, its two-meter dorsal crest raised in a threat display. Fred steered around it without turning away from Veta, and she realized he was using his imaging systems to keep an eye on the road.
“Cute,” Veta said.
Fred shrugged and turned forward again. “Look, I’m as dedicated to my job as you are to yours,” he said. “I need to know what you found out about the ancilla.”