Saskia shifted in her seat. The data pad lay angled between them, and she wondered what information he’d been reading on it. She knew better, after her training, than to ask, and that was frustrating. Another way things had been easier when it was just the five of them.
“Why do they want it so badly?” she asked. “I mean, I know it’s part of their religion, but just—” She shrugged. “We’ve destroyed their excavation equipment twice, and they keep going after it.”
Owen frowned. “That information is classified,” he said.
Of course it is, Saskia thought.
“Even I barely know the details,” he continued. “It’s ONI’s purview.”
ONI. Saskia thought of Captain Dellatorre, laying out promise after promise to entice them into returning back to Meridian.
“ONI really doesn’t want them to have it either,” she said. “And it’s not just because ONI doesn’t want to see Meridian glassed, like us.”
Owen stared at her, blank-faced. “Of course ONI doesn’t want to see Meridian glassed.”
“That’s not why they sent us back here, though.” She looked down at her lap, her thoughts still on her parents. She wondered if she could say something to him, if he would understand. The others didn’t, not really.
“It’s fine, you can say it,” she continued. “I understand people have … multiple reasons for doing things. My parents—” She stopped. Would Owen run to ONI with the intel that her parents were traitors? She decided to risk it. “They weren’t good people. But they weren’t bad people either. You know?”
“I can’t afford to think that way,” Owen said after a time. “Not during a war like this.”
“I’m not saying ONI is bad,” Saskia said quickly, although part of her did wonder how they could send all four of them back to the place they had barely escaped from. “I’m just saying people are complicated.”
Owen sighed and leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. For half a second, Saskia saw in him a regular person, a man not much older than her. He had told her once that he had been a war orphan, that ONI had found him on Jericho VII after the glassing. Which meant that all the million rumors about the Spartans—they were genetically engineered, they were grown in vats, they were elaborate AI, not even human at all—weren’t exactly true.
Which meant that at one point, Owen had been like her.
“Your training,” she said, before she could stop herself. “What was it like?”
Owen jerked his gaze back to her, and Saskia shrunk down in her chair, cheeks burning. “I was just wondering,” she mumbled. “The training they put us through, it wasn’t exactly what I expected.”
Owen’s stare was piercing. “I don’t imagine it was anything like the training I went through.”
“Of course not,” she said quietly. “I just—did ONI ever send you back?”
Owen frowned. “Send me back where?”
Saskia regretted ever asking the question, but she still wanted the answer. She wasn’t exactly an orphan, but it felt that way sometimes. And ONI had sent her back to the place where it had happened.
“To Jericho VII,” she said.
Owen took a deep breath. “I see.”
Saskia shook her head. “Look, if you don’t want to answer—”
“I can answer. Yes, once. There was some rumored Covenant activity.” He said it so flatly, as if the world were any other.
“Was it hard?”
Owen studied her. “No,” he finally said. “Anything that would have made that hard was—trained out of me.”
The way he said trained made Saskia shiver.
“I told you,” he said. “I lost my family, and ONI gave me a new one. They did that through the training, but also through—” He stopped.
“Let me guess,” Saskia said, smiling a little. “Classified.”
“Let’s just say that I’m not the same Owen I would be if I had grown up on Jericho VII with my parents.”
“You mean the augmentations?” Saskia asked. “That’s what people say about the Spartans. Or one of the things. One of the less … fantastical things.”
“Yes, they enhanced me to be what I am today.” He shrugged. “And then they made me part of a new family,” Owen said. “But that’s—”
“Above my clearance, right? You must have been young, though.” The reality of it gnawed at Saskia’s insides. A child plucked out of one hell and then dropped into another. Procedures and injections and enhancements.
Not good people. But not bad people either. ONI did what they had to, and now Spartan Owen existed. Someone to fight the Covenant. Someone who couldn’t stop what happened on Jericho VII but could stop the same thing from happening on Meridian.
“Thanks,” Saskia said, standing up. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was thanking him for, but it seemed the right thing to say.
“You’re welcome,” Owen said, as if he understood better than she did.
Saskia smiled. Then she slipped back out into the muggy air. She needed to make herself useful.
That night, Saskia dreamed about her parents. They wore ONI uniforms as they showed their weapons to shadow-faced men in dark suits. “For our latest prototype,” her father said, smiling too big, “we’re going to make our daughter part of the family.” And then they were in an operating room, bright lights and steel walls, her father leaning over her with a massive, dripping needle. Saskia’s mother was screaming, her voice modulated and strange, like an electronic alarm.
Saskia gasped awake with her mother’s strange scream echoing in her ears. No, not a scream at all. An actual alarm. The perimeter warning.
“They found us!” Victor hissed, right next to her ear. “Saskia! Get your rifle!”
The dream dissipated, replaced by a sudden and very real terror. She flung herself out of bed, scrabbling through her trunk for her clothes, her hands shaking as she reached for the strap of her gun. The others were doing the same, a strain of panic shooting through the tent.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Evie said. “Just that the alarm went off.”
“What else could it mean?” Victor shot back.
“Could be a drill. We’re deep enough in the woods for it,” Dorian said. “We need to stay calm. Let’s not assume the entire Covenant army is out there waiting for us.” Somehow he’d managed to get dressed the fastest; he was already shoving ammunition into his rifle.
“He’s right,” Evie said. “There’s no reason to panic.”
“There’s also no reason to not be prepared,” Saskia added.
“Thank you!” Victor said, hefting his pack. “At least one of you is reasonable.”
Saskia checked her ammunition and slung her rifle over her shoulder; she followed Dorian and Evie out of the tent. They weren’t the only ones either. The rest of the militia was already swarming into the pathways, dozens of soldiers adjusting their weapons and hollering questions at one another:
“What the hell is going on?”
“We under attack?”
“Where’s the Spartan?”
And all the while, the siren wailed, shattering the muffled silence of the surrounding forest.
“You four!” It was Commander Marechal. “Get back to your tent. We don’t want you in harm’s way.”
“Are you kidding me?” Victor yelled back. “We’re the ones that blew the Scarab sky-high—”
A Banshee came streaking over the forest canopy, its weapon pods blazing, incinerating a row of tents. Saskia zigzagged sideways, plunging out of the clearing and into the cover of the woods. Evie was right beside her, eyes wide. “Now what?” she cried.
Another blast from the Banshee’s plasma cannon. There was an immolation of white-hot light and then a wall of blue-tinted flame. Saskia and Evie crouched down beside each other among the ferns. More of the militia had followed them into the forest, and Saskia scanned each face, looking for Dorian and Victor.
Another explosion, another wave of heat. Evi
e pulled on Saskia’s arm. “They’re not pursuing us; they’re only focusing on the campsite right now,” she said. “We’ve got to get deeper into the woods before they come after the survivors.”
Saskia nodded, although she peered through the smoke. “Where are the others?” she asked.
“They were right behind us,” Evie said. “I know they got out. We’ve got to go now!”
Saskia shouldered her gun and followed Evie into the thick tangle of trees. The rest of the militia was doing the same. Saskia wondered how they were going to regroup after this. All their communication equipment was burning up into the thick black smoke choking out the air.
“Saskia!”
She whirled around; it was Dorian, plunging through the overgrowth, mud smudged across his forehead. “And Evie,” he added. “Thank god.”
“Keep moving, kids!” Dubois pushed past them. It was strange seeing him without Caird at his side, although him calling them kids rankled—he was only two years older, and from Port Moyne. Not that much different from the four of them. “We don’t know what they’re going to do once they’re done with the camp.”
“Where are we even going?” Dorian asked.
“The emergency coordinates,” Dubois said. “Get going!”
Saskia’s mind went blank.
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember them,” Dubois said, shaking his head.
“Of course we do,” Dorian snapped, and immediately they came back, a string of numbers that were utterly useless to her in that moment. She’d left her data pad behind.
Fortunately, Dubois had a map up on his data pad, and he led Evie, Saskia, and Dorian through the thick forest. Eventually Saskia couldn’t even smell the smoke of the burning camp anymore, and the greenery of the forest seemed denser, more overgrown. They must have been deep into the protected part of the forest, much farther than she or the others had ever gone during the initial invasion.
“Where do you think we’re going?” Evie asked, shoving aside a fan of palm leaves with the stock of her rifle.
“The backup coordinates,” Dorian said. Dubois let out a strangled laugh.
Evie rolled her eyes. “Yes, but where?” She frowned. “I hope Victor knows where to go.”
“I’m sure he does,” Dubois said, his eyes on the data pad. “Kid’s the real deal.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about him,” Dorian said. “But where are we going exactly?” He craned his neck to peer at Dubois’s map, and Dubois tilted it toward him.
“Probably the middle of nowhere,” Saskia said.
“Probably where we should have been in the first place.” Dorian swatted at a dangling tree branch, sending it flying.
“We were in the middle of nowhere,” Evie mumbled. “They still found us.”
The four of them went silent at that. Saskia trudged through the greenery, wiping away the raindrops that splattered across her face. She should have expected this when they blew up the Scarab, and probably Owen had. It had been easier for them to hide before, when it was just the five of them, tucked away in a house that looked abandoned. But an entire military camp? No matter how well they tucked themselves away in the woods, no matter how high-tech their syncamo tents were, they were never going to stay hidden for long.
The hum of voices cut through Saskia’s thoughts. She stumbled to a stop and glanced over at the others. “You hear that?”
“Sounds human to me,” Dorian said.
Dubois nodded. “I bet it’s the new camp.”
They pushed forward toward the voices. It was definitely the militia; Saskia could hear people speaking frantically in lowered voices, demanding reports, looking for missing comrades.
She hoped Victor was one of those voices.
She was the first to push through the vines and step into a small cleared space that had been carved out beneath the tree canopy. Most of the militia was there, regrouping with their weapons. Commander Marechal stood in the center, staring intently at his data pad, nodding along to whoever was speaking to him. Saskia walked around the perimeter of the clearing, staring out at the crowd of stern, worried faces. There was Caird, already running over to greet Dubois. Owen was standing over a pile of rescued artillery.
And then she spotted him. Victor. He was leaning up against a banyan tree, dried MediGel streaked on his forehead. Someone brought MediGel, she thought, and then: Victor’s hurt.
“Victor!” she cried, pushing forward into the crowd. She saw Evie and Dorian out of the corner of her eye, running to join her. “Victor, are you okay?”
He turned toward her, and his face broke out in the big, goofy grin she remembered from school. “You made it!” he said, lifting his hand up in greeting. The sleeve of his shirt was shredded, and his arm was marked with angry red welts, still visible even beneath the MediGel application.
“What happened to you?” she gasped, stopping a few paces away.
Victor shrugged. “Wanted to get in on the fighting.”
“He held his own against a Drone,” said a rangy, rough-voiced woman standing beside him. Kielawa, the other medic. A health pack was tucked under one arm. “Lucky I was here to patch him up.”
“It barely grazed me,” he said. “That Banshee was the real problem.”
“No crap,” said Dorian. “Considering all our supplies are burning right now.”
“Not all of them,” Kielawa said. “Command’s gonna send a supply drop just as soon as they can get through the fighting outside atmo. That’s why we met here.”
“Then what?” Evie said. “We set up a new camp? There’s hardly enough space.”
Kielawa shrugged. “We scatter out into the woods. We should have been camped out like that from the beginning, but we needed easier access to run surveillance. Still, can’t act like a proper military in a guerrilla war.” She grinned. “Good job, by the way, blowing up that Scarab. All this—it means the Covies are panicked.”
“Yeah,” Dorian muttered. “I noticed.”
Kielawa laughed and turned away, moving toward the steady trickle of soldiers pushing out through the woods.
“What the hell did you do?” Evie directed her question at Victor. “Did you seriously fight a Drone?”
Victor shrugged, the tatters of his shirtsleeve rippling against his arm. “I hit him square between the eyes. I think that counts.”
“Looks like he hit you square on the arm,” Dorian said.
Victor glared at him. “I’m fine.” Still, he reached up, rather self-consciously Saskia thought, and brushed his fingers against the MediGel.
“So now what?” Victor said, dropping his hand. He swung his gaze around, studying the mass of soldiers like he was in command. “You think Command’s really going to get a supply drop to us?”
Saskia frowned. Of course they would try. She had to believe that much.
“Let’s hope so,” Dorian muttered.
“Attention!” Commander Marechal shouted, his voice cutting through all the chatter, all the questions, all the faint panic circulating through the clearing. “Attention! We have to regroup! Join with your teams! Make a note of who’s missing! Move!”
Saskia glanced over at the others. Her team. They’d found one another without even having to be asked.
She smiled a little, in spite of herself.
Meanwhile, the rest of the militia swirled around. Most of them had broken up into their teams as well, but the late arrivals stood on the outskirts, scanning the crowd. Saskia watched them as, one by one, they found their squads, the teams within them. One by one they ceased to be alone.
Squads. Teams. Family. She was starting to see what Owen meant, about how war swaps one for the other.
But interestingly, right now Owen was the only one of the entire militia who stood by himself, towering over them in his armor. This deep into the forest it looked burnished and dark. His expression was unreadable.
As the militia settled into their squadrons, Commander Marechal barked out, “Report!” An
d squad by squad, they reported those who had gone MIA: three from Blue, one from Red, one from Yellow, two from Green. When his gaze swept around to Saskia and the others, Saskia felt a faint guilt when she called out, “Local Team. All present and accounted for, sir.”
Commander Marechal nodded, turned to the next.
In the end, thirteen soldiers were missing. Of those thirteen, only three were confirmed dead.
“Ten of us are still out there,” Commander Marechal said, his voice muffled strangely by the thick leaves. “Our first mission is to recover them, get them fixed up. Because we are going to need all the help we can get.”
The reverent silence erupted into sharp conversations.
Commander Marechal held up his hands. “I spoke with Command. The suborbital fighting is … intense. And it’s only getting more intense—”
Everyone exploded with questions again. Saskia glanced over at Evie.
“Looks like we won’t be getting those supplies,” Evie muttered.
“Enough!” Commander Marechal shouted. “You all are soldiers. Act like it.”
This was enough to snap the militia into a displeased quiet.
Commander Marechal took a deep breath. “Better,” he said. “Command is not going to be able to get us the promised supply drop.” He paused here, as if daring the militia to erupt into protest again. But there was only a stunned stupor that fell over the crowd, and Saskia felt a weight drop in the middle of her stomach.
“However, there was a supply drop made about three klicks from here yesterday afternoon that we hadn’t yet been able to collect. This will be enough to last us until we complete the mission.”
“The mission?” whispered Evie. “We already sabotaged the excavation!”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Dorian murmured.
Saskia didn’t either.
Commander Marechal looked over at Owen, standing a few meters away. “Spartan Owen will tell you more. He’ll be leading the operation.”
Owen shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Saskia might have thought he was nervous right now, that somehow he was revealing a flash of the person he might have been before ONI drilled fear out of him, but Owen didn’t get nervous. She knew that much.
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