by Matt Forbeck
Not only had they failed to procure a second Huragok, but they had alerted the humans and their faithless allies to the Servants’ presence on Onyx. Even graver than all that was the traitor he had seen. That revelation alone was enough to force Dural to reconsider everything.
To think that he had found him here, after years of searching for him across Bekan, and the backcountry of Mdama . . . and, indeed, all of Sanghelios.
And to see him working with humans? Dural wondered how such a thing could be true.
Dural wanted nothing more than to track him down and tear him into tiny, painful pieces. He roared in agonized, frustrated dismay.
Asum, my brother! What have you done?
CHAPTER 18
* * *
* * *
After Mike Spenser brought the rafakrit down, Kasha hobbled over to join Molly, Kareem, Gudam, and Bakar. Once they caught their breath, the headmaster insisted they get back into the transport right away. She thanked them for their help, but apparently they weren’t out of the clear yet. Some shots had been fired within the Repository, even after the creature had left it.
The danger might not be over after all.
None of them argued. They’d had their fill of adventure for the day.
A Pelican full of marines soared in from Trevelyan, coming to a quick stop above the Repository as the four youths trotted toward the transport. The dropship lowered to the ground, pivoting around to dispatch troops from its rear bay. Then it swung around to the far side of the hangar and began unloading its weapons at whatever was in the rear of the Repository.
Mike snapped the four a quick salute and then ran over to meet the marines and direct their efforts as they edged toward the Repository’s main entrance.
The four entered the transport and took the same seats they’d had before. The other students in the transport didn’t say much to them. They just gaped.
Molly was content with that response. She was in too much shock to talk at the moment, still trying to process what had just happened.
The release of the adrenaline that had been coursing through her body left her trembling, and Kareem was clearly feeling the same effects because his hands were shaking intensely. Bakar seemed steady as a rock, however, maybe even more pensive than before. Perhaps most shocking of all, Gudam had fallen completely silent.
Not a single student spoke for the entire trip home.
When they finally reached the Pax Institute, their whole class gathered in the dining hall, most of them speaking only in hushed tones. Kasha conferred with Director Mendez, who’d met Molly and the others at the door, having his personnel check off all of their names on a slate as they entered the building.
The entire class was to be sent home. While Kasha helped dismiss the other students, Director Mendez came over Molly, Kareem, Gudam, and Bakar and stood at the end of their table, resting his stern eyes on them.
“You’re brave, lucky fools.” He crossed his arms. “I know Headmaster ‘Hilot has already expressed her gratitude to you for saving her life, and allow me to echo that.”
“For someone thanking us, you don’t seem all that pleased,” Kareem said.
“I’m not.” Director Mendez gave them each a hard look. “You should have followed the headmaster’s orders and gotten into the transport with the other kids. You made a stupid mistake.”
“But wouldn’t that have gotten her killed?” said Gudam. “From where we were standing, it looked like the creature was going to run her down and chomp her to bits. If we hadn’t been able to distract the monster, she would have died, right?”
“Sometimes soldiers die in war,” Director Mendez said. “If they’re fortunate, they get to do that so the rest of us get to live.”
“But she’s not a soldier,” Molly pointed out. “She’s our headmaster.”
“And we are not at war,” said Bakar.
Director Mendez gave them a wry, faint smile. “Fair enough. Old habits die hard. Still, when your headmaster gives you an order, you follow it. Understood?”
The four all solemnly nodded at him.
“Fine.”
Tom and Lucy walked into the room wearing their black-mesh tech suits with rifles slung on their backs, and Director Mendez motioned for them to join the group. They saluted him as they approached.
“Belay that,” he said. “I’m retired.”
“You’re still our boss, Chief,” said Tom.
Director Mendez gave him a sour look and then gestured toward the kids. “I have a group of heroes here who helped save Headmaster ‘Hilot and Mr. Spenser. Please get them back to their homes so they don’t get killed doing any other foolish stunts on the way.”
Then he looked at Bakar. “All except for you.”
Bakar cocked his head at Director Mendez, curious. “Why is that?”
“For one, there’s no one waiting for you at home. Headmaster ‘Hilot will be busy here for the rest of the day.”
“There are other adults at the Pax keep.”
“You have a keep here?” Molly asked.
Bakar shrugged at her. “That is how Sangheili live. In keeps.”
Director Mendez cut off their conversation. “None of them are liable to be as understanding of your situation as Headmaster ‘Hilot.”
“What situation?”
Director Mendez shot Tom a look. The Spartan stepped forward and spoke to Bakar. “We have some information that we need to discuss with you before you leave the school.”
“We can do that here, now. Then can I leave?”
Molly wasn’t good at reading Sangheili, but Bakar seemed even more frustrated than normal. After the day they’d had, Molly wasn’t surprised.
Tom raised a questioning eyebrow at Director Mendez, who gave him a go-ahead nod. The Spartan first looked around to make sure no one was listening, then intently focused on the four of them. “This can go no further. Understood?”
They all nodded in agreement.
Tom turned to Bakar again. “Did you hear about the battle in the hangar at the Repository?”
The Sangheili shook his head, uncertain. “Kasha mentioned something about shots fired . . .”
Tom nodded. “The animal that Spenser brought down today shouldn’t have been able to get past the Outer Barrier, much less all the way into the Repository’s district. Not without setting off the alarm relays. Someone used a portal to bring the animal there—a portal that’s been inactive for years.”
“Why would anyone in Onyx do that?” Kareem asked.
“It wasn’t any of our folks.” Tom squared up to the group. “The team that works in the Repository followed protocol to the tee when the animal was first spotted. Priority one was to ensure the Huragok on the premises was secured. That’s their primary directive. We can’t have such a valuable asset falling into the wrong hands.
“However, a group of armed Sangheili warriors attempted to extract the Huragok from the control room inside the Repository. They managed to break through the first door and take down someone from the research team, but when our reinforcements arrived via Pelican, they fled. They escaped back through the portal and shut it down from the other side.”
Bakar opened all his jaws in surprise. “The researcher? Will he survive?”
Lucy gave him a grim nod. “He’s not in good shape, but he should be all right.”
Tom continued. “We checked the security cameras we’ve got networked across the Repository. We captured good images of each of the attackers. From the markings on their armor alone, it’s obvious who they were. It’s a faction called the Servants of the Abiding Truth, an organization dedicated to—”
“I know who they are,” Bakar responded flatly.
“Of course you do.”
“Are they here for me?”
“We have no reason to suspect they were originally after you. Their target seems to have been the Huragok working at the Repository. Fortunately, our reinforcements drove them off before they could acquire him.”
“Wait,” Molly said, confused and more than a little suspicious. “Why would they be after Bakar?”
Tom kept his eyes fixed on the Sangheili. “We can do this somewhere more private.”
Bakar looked at the others and considered his options. “No. They can hear.”
Mendez glanced around once again, to make sure they were alone. The rest of the dining hall had long since emptied out. “This is top secret.” He leveled his fierce gaze at each of them. “We only know about it ourselves because young Bakar here came clean with us about his past during the vetting process. It cannot go any further than this. Understood?”
The three of them nodded in agreement.
“I need to hear you say it.”
“Yes,” Molly, Kareem, and Gudam all said. “We understand.”
Mendez gestured at Bakar.
The Sangheili wrenched up his jaws for a moment, as if he’d swallowed something bitter. Then he spat it out.
“I was not born Bakar. My real name is Asum ‘Mdama.”
Molly cocked her head at him. She knew he was trying to be honest, but the Sangheili name he gave meant nothing to her—at least not initially. Then, searching her memory, she realized something and said, “I’ve heard that last name before.” The pieces clicked into place: “Jul ‘Mdama?”
“Who?” asked Gudam.
“He’s the leader of the largest remaining vestige of the Covenant still left fighting,” Kareem said.
“So?” Gudam said, unsure where this was headed.
“I grew up in Bekan keep of the city-state Mdama, where Jul was our kaidon,” Bakar said. “Jul ‘Mdama is my uncle, my family, and my blood.”
Molly gasped at this.
Bakar bowed his head.
One half of Molly wanted to hit him. The other wanted to scream at him.
Then she just wanted to throw up. Bakar’s uncle was a mass murderer.
Gudam put a hand on Bakar’s leg. “It’s okay. Lots of people’s family members did terrible things during the war. In fact, my great-grandfather personally destroyed a human ship on Harvest. Of course, he blew himself up along with it, but that’s how it goes. No one holds me responsible for that, right?”
No one responded for a moment. She gazed up at the rest of them with suddenly worried eyes. “Right?”
“Of course not,” Kareem said. “That was before any of us were born.”
“The war may be over, but we’re still dealing with the aftermath,” Director Mendez said. “One of the reasons we established the Pax Institute was so we could start to heal the wounds the war caused. Some people seemed determined to challenge our efforts, but we’re not going to let them prevail.” He looked straight at Molly. “Are we?”
She shook her head. Molly still couldn’t get herself to open her mouth and tell Bakar everything was going to be okay. Maybe because she wasn’t sure it was.
One thing still had Molly confused. “If Bakar’s uncle is the leader of what’s left of the Covenant, what does that have to do with the Servants of the Abiding Truth?”
Lucy put a hand on Bakar’s shoulder. He didn’t pull away. She said, “On the feed from the hangar, we spotted one Sangheili watching you distract the animal.”
Director Mendez handed her his slate, and she thumbed it on and held it up before them. “From his armor and his complexion, we believe he’s the new leader of the Servants of the Abiding Truth, better known as the Pale Blade.”
The image on the slate showed a Sangheili warrior dressed in a suit of blue-white armor. He carried an energy blade with him, holstered at his side. He cocked his head at something off to one side of the camera and began to visibly seethe with rage.
“He seems to know you.” Lucy froze the image and zoomed in on the warrior’s face. “We were wondering if you might recognize him too.”
Bakar cringed as if he’d been stabbed.
“You think you know who that was?” asked Director Mendez.
Bakar straightened up and nodded. “That is my brother, Dural ‘Mdama. I have not seen him since our mother died. She had gone looking for Jul more than five years ago and was on one of the Servants’ ships during a battle with the Arbiter when it was shot down.”
Tom gave Bakar an approving nod. “That’s him then, the Pale Blade. That matches up with our intel. ONI believes he’s been working with the Servants for the past few years, probably since your mother died, and that he’s been preparing for something big. It looks like they’ve finally made their move—to Onyx unfortunately.”
Bakar looked as if he wanted to pass out.
Molly’s frustration with him suddenly shifted. She now felt sorry for him.
She’d imagined what it might be like for her if Grace had suddenly turned up—how much joy that would have brought her. It should have been that way for Bakar, but it wasn’t. His brother was the head of a violent terrorist sect and had somehow broken into the most secure location in the galaxy. Molly couldn’t imagine anything much more traumatic than that.
“We should tell him the truth,” Lucy said. The two men looked reluctant, but she pressed hard. “All of it.”
Tom stepped back for her. “Be my guest.”
Lucy stood squarely before Bakar and took a breath before she began. “We have it on good authority that Jul ‘Mdama isn’t simply your uncle. He is, in fact, your biological father.”
Molly had thought she couldn’t feel any worse for Bakar, but that soul-crushing bit of news was too much, even for her. It seemed as though fate had stuck a knife in Bakar’s chest and started twisting.
The young Sangheili sat back, astonished in part, but also evidently willing to accept whatever the truth might be. “How do you know this?”
“ONI operatives were in contact with Avu Med ‘Telcam—once the former leader of the Servants of the Abiding Truth—for years. It seems Jul knew the identities of his children and at one time mentioned it to ‘Telcam. After Jul went off the grid, ‘Telcam took the boy in, which is presumably how Dural eventually managed to find himself in charge of the Servants.”
“I . . . had wondered about that. It would explain much. Like why my mother pursued Jul, even into the battles which took her life.”
“That’s not your fault, though,” Gudam said. “You can’t control who your parents are.”
Bakar shook off the attempt to make him feel better. “It does not matter if he is my uncle or my father. I am done with him either way. I have not seen him since my mother died. When I heard of his attempt to revive the Covenant, I knew what he had sacrificed, and I could never stomach that. He has been dead to me for years.”
“But why are the Servants here?” Molly asked. “Why now?”
“The why is easy,” Director Mendez said. “Every enemy faction in the galaxy would love to get their hooks into Onyx. Some of the tech here could be used as a doomsday weapon capable of obliterating entire worlds. The significance of what’s hidden on this world has implications for the safety of the entire galaxy. This sphere is exactly that important.”
Kareem paled at that. “Really?”
“The Forerunners,” Mendez said, unflinching. “They built the Halo Array to wipe the galaxy completely clean of all intelligent life. Planet-crushing weapons were probably what they made in their spare time. Every bit of their technology here is a double-edged sword. Not only can humanity and its allies benefit from it, but if others gain access to it first, the chances of survival—of all of our kinds—plummets significantly.”
“In any case,” Lucy said, “the real question isn’t why they’re here but how?”
Kareem swallowed. “This is supposedly the most secure facility in the galaxy, right?”
“It’s also one of the largest,” Molly said. “There might be more than one entrance into the place. They could slip in and out of here before anyone even noticed, using a back door everyone thought was closed or didn’t even realize existed.”
“We have it completely locked down against tha
t,” Lucy said. “As well as can be done. That includes round-the-clock satellite surveillance to alert us of any ships entering the system, much less getting near Onyx itself.”
“The bottom line is that we don’t know how they got in or how they’re moving around so easily from portal to portal,” said Director Mendez. “We’ve got some leads and we’re going to send teams out to investigate, but until we get hard evidence, it’s all speculation at this point. Speculation you children don’t need to be bothered by.”
“Then do we at least know why they’ve come here now?” Molly asked. “This place has been occupied by humans for a while. Seems like a strange coincidence for this to be happening now, when there’s a larger presence of UNSC forces than ever before.”
“It may have had something to do with ‘Telcam’s death,” Lucy said. “He was taken out a few months back on a Spartan op. Whoever took over the Servants—it looks like Dural—may have decided now was the time to act.”
“But how would the Servants even know about Onyx?” Molly asked. “Isn’t even the existence of this place top secret?”
“Jul ‘Mdama and Avu Med ‘Telcam worked together at one point, and regrettably . . . ‘Mdama knows about Onyx and a number of its specifics,” Director Mendez said. “He has for years. As to how he knows that . . . I’m afraid that’s classified as well.”
“So we don’t get to know?” Molly gestured to herself and the three others. “We’re here, living inside something that’s been classified. Who would we tell?”
Director Mendez favored her with the oddest little smile. “You work your way up to taking over as the commander-in-chief of ONI, and you can read all the classified files you want, Ms. Patel. Meanwhile, you’re going to head home and let your parents take care of you for a while. Risking your lives means that you’ve earned a day off.”
“We’ve called in everyone from the field as a security precaution. Given the breach, we’re going to put the entire city on mandatory lockdown for the time being,” Lucy said. “We’ll be personally escorting you, to make sure you get home safely.”