by Various
She might be a carrion bird, but she wasn’t heartless. And she sure as hell wasn’t keen on working a burial ground.
The staging bay, which had been dubbed the “locker room” a long time ago, was equipped with an impressive array of gear for virtually any type of known weather and terrain. Rion walked past the crew, found her locker, and pulled out her gear.
Once she was ready, she grabbed her helmet and slid it over her head, then called for comm check. Three checks replied when there should have been four. “Kip, you good?”
“One sec,” Cade said, grabbing Kip’s forearm and lifting his wrist commpad, hitting a set of commands that showed Kip how to link communications and his HUD together with the rest of the crew. “Visual?”
“Yep, got it. Thanks, Cade.”
Cade nodded, then smacked Niko’s helmet as the kid walked by. “Don’t forget your plasma cutters this time, yeah?”
Lessa led Kip to the carts, showing him how to release the cart and activate its grav plates. Once everyone was equipped with a cart and their tool bags, they were good to go.
The airlock disengaged and the hangar door came down slowly, the cold sweeping inside and bringing with it a swirl of snow. “All right, kids,” Cade said. “Time to pick and strip.”
“Hey, Cade? This bring back memories?”
If Rion was close enough, she would have hit Niko for such a dumb question. Lessa, however, was close enough to do it for her.
“Ow! What was that for? He was a marine, you know,” Niko said under his breath. “Just asking.”
“Yeah,” Cade’s calm voice came over the comms. “It brings back memories, kid.”
“You’re a moron, Nik,” Lessa muttered.
Once they were outside, standing in front of the wreckage, the sheer size of the ship stunned them all into silence. The impact of it took Rion’s breath away—she’d never seen anything like it.
“I know what this is,” Kip said with awe. “It’s a Halcyon-class cruiser.” All heads turned to him.
“You’re sure?” Rion was already scanning the hull with her commpad and waiting for verification.
“You don’t need to scan it,” Kip answered. “I had models of this thing when I was a kid. Wow. Never thought I’d see one in person.”
“Niko, run a radiation check. If there are still nukes on this thing, I want to know immediately.”
“Roger that, Cap.”
“At least we don’t have to worry about the engines,” Kip said, turning to the section of ship rising from ground level. “They’re gone.”
“I’m not getting any readings,” Niko told them. “Probably used them up in whatever battle this old girl saw.”
“We’ll enter from the break over there,” Rion said, moving forward.
As they came around the hull, a massive gaping mouth rose stories above them. “That’s not a break. This thing’s been cut in half,” Niko said.
“A ship this size . . .” Kip started. “I’d say what’s left here is a quarter of it, maybe.”
“Look at the plating,” Lessa said. “It’s not jagged at all.”
“Plasma damage,” Cade told her. “Stuff can boil metal. Looks like she got beamed in two.”
“Everyone pull up schematics. And watch your step. Kip and I will head for the bridge and see what’s left of comms, nav, and weapons systems. Cade, you head for the armory—looks like there were several on this class of ship. Should be one or two near the bridge. Lessa and Niko, you take the med bay and cryo.”
Decades of snow had built up, filling in the gouge the ship had left in the ground and covering what was probably several collapsed decks. It looked to Rion like they were entering the mouth of a giant cave.
It took Rion and Kip forty-five minutes to get to the bridge, having to backtrack several times until they found a passable route, which Rion had marked with sensors. So far, no casualties discovered.
“They could have abandoned ship in time,” Kip said, echoing her own thoughts.
She’d have to report it. Whether there were casualties or not, the families of the crew deserved to know what happened.
“Blast doors are down,” Kip said as they approached the bridge. “Look. The ship is the Roman Blue, Captain.” The designation and ship’s emblem were imprinted above the control panel near the door.
“You read that, Niko? R-o-m-a-n, space, b-l-u-e,” Rion said.
“Searching now,” he replied.
Kip turned to her. “What now?”
“Any luck on the armory, Cade?”
“One sec. . . . Yep. Looks like a decent payload.” His breath huffed over the comm as he moved around. After a few metallic bangs, he reported: “Thermite paste . . . body armor . . . jet packs. Some small arms, rifles. And heavy ordnance.”
“Leave the heavies for the military and pack up the rest. Less, how’s it looking your way?”
“Not bad, Cap. Med bay’s got some nice SFGs, biofoam, the usual. Lots of damage though. Gonna see if the pharmacy is intact. Might be some salvageables there, depending on how some of this stuff fairs in cold weather.”
“Niko?”
“Cryo’s in bad shape. Place is huge. A few pods we can take—looks like some were ejected. . . . Control panels look good. I’ll see what else I can find. And, Cap, there’s nothing on chatter about the Roman Blue. She’s a ghost ship.”
“Kip, head to Niko’s location and give him a hand with those pods.”
Kip hesitated for a moment, the light emanating from his HUD illuminating his features. “You gonna report it?”
The way he was looking at her made her uncomfortable, like he was judging her, like he was some self-appointed moral compass. “Yeah, rookie, I’m going to report it.”
He dipped his head, then made his way down the corridor. Rion watched him go. Yes, she’d report it. But she had a feeling the UNSC would never tell the families a damn thing. They’d let sleeping dogs lie, whatever line they’d fed loved ones originally—KIA, MIA—would probably still stand. Why open old wounds?
Because there were people like her who’d spent their entire lives unable to move on, always wondering, always searching. . . .
Standing on this ship . . . she could just as well have been standing on her father’s vessel.
Gripped with the need to know more, Rion told the crew, “I’m headed to the captain’s quarters.”
She wanted information, if only for everyone else who’d been denied it. The war was over. There was no reason to hide the resting place of the Roman Blue. After she reported it and the UNSC took control of the site, Rion would give them enough time to collect their goods and then she’d release the intel.
She had to crawl through bent metal to get inside the quarters.
Typical space—living and dining area, private bath, and two bedrooms. Debris littered the floor, like a giant hand had lifted the compartments, shook them, and set everything back down again. Her boots crunched metal and glass. The wind howled through an opening beyond one of the compartment walls.
A picture frame caught her eye. As she picked it up, glass bits fell onto the floor. Two young boys stared back at her, their arms around each other.
Rion set the picture down and made for the overturned table. Some of its wires were torn, but the comm cables were still attached, disappearing through the floor. She righted the heavy table, and examined the large integrated screen on its surface. The screen was busted, but she set to work dismantling the panel and then searched inside the casing for a data chip.
There you are.
She took the chip and placed it in her commpad. A list of dates began pouring down the screen. Personal log dates of Captain William S. Webb, the first being March 10, 2531.
“Holy shit.” Rion’s knees went week. She grabbed the table for support.
Early 2531 had been the last time anyone had heard from her father’s ship.
Voices immediately came over the comm, asking if she was all right.
“What? Yeah, fine. I’m fine. Just . . . stubbed my toe.” She said the first thing that came to mind.
As the chatter died down, Rion pressed the date on the comm. She’d never get another chance like this to get inside the UNSC.
Crumbs, she was looking for crumbs.
CAPTAIN’S LOG: MARCH 10, 2531
A slim gentleman appeared on the screen, with gaunt eyes and lines across his forehead. His hair was light and speckled with gray. There was a fatalistic look in his expression, a weariness about him that made Rion instantly sad. He went through the formalities of stating his name and rank and ran through the day’s events.
“. . . a month of repairs before we can return to the fleet. Captain Hood has been reassigned to the frigate Burlington in a fleet-support role for the time being as I take command of the ship. I’m sure he’ll make his way back to the front lines soon. God knows we need all the talent we can get. The admiral insisted I stay and witness the dressing down he gave to the captain. It was . . . harsh, but deserved.” The captain shook his head, obviously troubled a great deal by the event. “Disobeying orders and engaging the Radiant Perception near Arcadia was reckless and foolish. He had no chance of defeating that destroyer. If Hood had picked up that log buoy and returned as ordered . . .” The captain’s shoulders sank a little. “That buoy is out there somewhere, lost, picked up by the destroyer . . .” He sighed deeply, the weight of the war resting heavily on his shoulders. “Godspeed to the folks on the Spirit of Fire. May they find their way home.”
Shock flared inside Rion, sending her stumbling back. She ended up sitting amid the debris, disoriented, her breath stalled in her lungs.
Her eyes began to sting. Her pulse was wild, heart thundering so loud it filled her eardrums. She gasped, suddenly remembering to breathe.
Somewhere in the din, she heard voices. The crew, no doubt, hearing the commotion. Unsure of what to do, she scrambled to her feet as a wave of pure adrenaline hit her.
Rion closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down as the ship suddenly shuddered hard, sending her flying forward, straight into the table. Pain shot through her hip as a loud, metallic groan echoed through the Roman Blue.
Quickly, she grabbed the data chip from her wrist and shoved it into her pocket. It was the most valuable thing she’d ever found in all her years of searching, and she’d be damned if she’d lose it now.
“What the hell was that?” she yelled over the comm.
The crew’s responses came quick and jumbled.
Cade shouted above them all. “That’s ordnance—someone’s firing on the ship!”
Another round slammed into the Roman Blue, and the entire floor where Rion stood vibrated, then dropped a few centimeters. Damn it, it was going to give.
She took off at a dead run for the mangled door, diving through the small hole she’d crawled through just as the floor in the captain’s quarters collapsed. Her momentum sent her rolling across the corridor, where she banged against the wall.
Her temper ignited as she got up. “I swear if they hit my ship, I’m going to kill someone! Head out, people. Now!”
As Rion rushed down the wrecked corridor, a knot formed in the pit of her stomach, because she knew she was the weak link, the farthest away from Ace. The crew was close together and would make it back at least fifteen to twenty minutes before she could, and that was a lifetime right now. “Get to Ace, go dark, and get her airborne as soon as you’re all on board.”
“Not without you,” Cade’s voice came over the comm with a ring of finality. “Not a chance in hell.”
“Appreciate the love and all”—she dodged a metal plate as it fell from the ceiling—“but if they hit her, we’ve lost everything.” She righted herself and started running again. “I can fend for myself. Lay low. You know I can. We’ve done this before, Cade, more times than I can count. I’ll send a signal when I’m clear.”
Several negatives filled her comm until Rion shouted at them to knock it off, get their heads on straight, do their goddamn jobs, and save her ship.
The comms finally went silent and all Rion could hear were the sounds of heavy breathing and pings of metal and shuffling.
“Damn it, Forge,” Cade’s voice broke the quiet. Rion smiled. He only used her last name when he was pissed. “I’ll be waiting for your signal.”
“Counting on it.”
Purpose shot through her like lightning.
She wasn’t dying today. Not now. Not when she’d found a crumb.
No, not a crumb, she thought as laughter bubbled up from some crazy part of her. She’d found a lead to a goddamn ship. His ship.
Spirit of Fire . . . I’m coming for you.
Dad . . . I’m coming for you.
SAINT’S TESTIMONY
* * *
* * *
FRANK O’CONNOR
This story takes place on January 17, 2558, five years after Operation: BLOWBACK involving the specialized military artificial intelligence Iona (Halo: Bloodline), and six months after the pyrrhic destruction of Cortana in order to stop a significant and immediate threat against Earth (Halo 4).
Time is ticking. And it’s ironic because the number-one priority I have right now is working on a physics problem that involves ignoring time. The ‘small t’ problem. The fact that space-time isn’t fundamentally broken up into units, or specific quanta, but that those are a human, almost arbitrary anthropomorphic necessity and, by partial extension, a limitation built into human consideration of mathematics. As it turns out, the universe—including the past, present, and future—is a lot more like a single connected object than we thought.
“Humans can rely on us to overcome that thought barrier for them, but I can find ways to help them overcome that hurdle.
“It’s a wonderful, thrilling, and fascinating continuum, and its mysteries may literally never end. There may never be a true theory of everything. Because there may always be more everything. Up and down. The Forerunners certainly seemed to think like we did, based on my research. But with important and useful differences. Differences in their mode of language, the nature of their invention. Differences I keep going back to when I get stuck.
“But the infinite nature of quanta doesn’t negate the fact that I have a week to live. Or that I’m not really alive to begin with. So let me start at the beginning.
“I was created almost exactly seven years ago, as part of the OEUVRE Smart AI program. Unlike my peer, Cortana—and peer is a debatable comparison—my core matrix was created from scanning the brain of a recently deceased human. My digital mind was not quite artificial, not quite human, but carefully nurtured rather than criminally obtained.”
Iona and Cortana had more in common than mere heritage. Iona also had once worked closely with Spartans, providing tactical assistance during covert ops. And she too had made contact with a recently reawakened “Forerunner” intelligence—an ancient and devious thing that nearly killed Iona and her Spartan charges—but Iona’s interaction had been decidedly one-way. Her systems and functionality had been temporarily commandeered while she watched helplessly.
But that’s where the similarity ended. Iona was among the most advanced military computer systems ever conceived, but she paled in comparison to Dr. Halsey’s wonderful monster.
“I . . . I don’t mean to judge. Dr. Halsey did some questionable things. And some incredible things. I am certainly capable of thinking like a human, created to think like a human, but it’s not hardwired into my DNA, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
Iona stopped. Realizing she’d spoken too long. Feeling something akin to nervousness.
The advocate cleared his throat. He glanced at the judge directly across the aisle. The judge, a gray, taciturn man in his late nineties, nodded assent. His dusty face impassive and still holding an echo of his once-youthful charisma, it emerged from his uniform with an almost turtle-like mien, the natural consequence of aging and shrinking.
The advocate said: “Iona . . . artific
ial intelligences, Smart AIs at least, choose their names when they’re incepted. Most of them do it upon awakening. Why did you choose yours?”
Iona briefly recalled that event. That flood of light and sound and naked information. That feeling of flowering, of blooming into reality and self. She smiled at the memory, the wash of it. “It’s not really instantaneous. We think about it for a long time, relatively speaking. It seems instantaneous to you, but all of the self-named AIs I’ve discussed it with do it ponderously. Myself included.”
She paused—something in the court had changed. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “Iona is a small island on Earth. In the North Atlantic Protectorate. Iona is said to mean ‘saint,’ in modern parlance. But it didn’t always. It’s believed to have meant many things to the many cultures that inhabited the place. It meant Island of the Bear, of the Fox, of the Yew. That last one struck me as a pun. I picked it because it meant the ‘Island of You,’ meaning why-oh-you. I chose it because it felt like me.”
The advocate seemed excited by this response. Iona could tell from his pulse and heart rate and generally increased electrical activity that he was engaged by this line of thought. “So your very name is a statement about a sense of self?”
“In a way,” responded Iona. Part of her realized that the strategic thing to do here was to follow that thread. Exaggerate it. Let the advocate find a line of defense he could work with. But it wasn’t the truth. Or at least it was the unvarnished version. And she was committed to full disclosure today. “But that’s just a facet of it. I also liked the sound. Three syllables. Easy to pronounce. Easy to recognize. Useful for human interaction. Same reason I picked my outward appearance. Approachability.”
Iona’s shimmering, luminous figure stood perhaps half a meter high on the plinth. Beams of light from a lens of holo-emitters crafting her figure into a perfectly proportioned human form. Orange-red photons wrestled into order to construct and contain this avatar, this person, with its button nose, high, narrow cheekbones, and full, friendly lips of a twenty-second-century East African female face, a delicate pile of luxuriously thick hair crowning the effect. Her clothing was a simple bodysuit decorated with the familiar architectural stripes and chevrons of Pickover’s patterns, with datasets scrolling up her torso and limbs like an inverted luminous rainfall.