by Troy Denning
“It was quick thinking, sir. But don’t blame Lieutenant Hamm for jumping the gun. That’s all on me.”
“Jumping the gun, Sergeant?”
“Failing to confirm the deployment order. Once things started moving, I just got excited and—”
Cuvier waved him off. “There wasn’t time.” He turned back to Hamm. “By the time he explained the plan, it would have been too late to make it work. I know that.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Hamm’s tone was strained. “I appreciate your understanding.”
“But let’s keep this between us.” Cuvier’s faceplate pivoted toward Johnson, then to Fred, Kelly, and Linda, and finally came to a rest on John. “The colonel isn’t a big fan of spontaneity in combat operations, and I don’t want him blaming Lieutenant Hamm for doing her job. Clear?”
After everyone had acknowledged the order, Cuvier craned his neck to look up the mountainside toward the convoy of Civets.
“I was monitoring your conversation with Captain Ascot,” he said. “So, tell me, what do you need from me to stop that repair company without prowler support?”
Hamm looked toward John and his team. “Just your blessing, sir.”
“You have it,” Cuvier said, also turning toward the Spartans. “Tell me what you have in mind.”
“We need to beat those Civets to the comm center,” Hamm said, “and right now, the Spartans are the fastest thing we have. I suggest we send them up the mass driver.”
Cuvier continued to study the mountainside, no doubt inspecting—as John was—the ice-crusted tube running up the slope. A full three meters in diameter, it was easily large enough to hold the Spartans and any munitions they would need to demolish the comm center and attack the convoy. But over the course of a century without maintenance, several support towers had collapsed, and the curtains of ice hanging beneath some of the induction coils suggested that a half dozen seam welds had opened.
Most worrisome was a miniature glacier flowing out of the loading breech. Easily twenty meters wide and ten meters thick, it spilled from beneath the buckled hatch and spread out in a mound the size of a small house. Judging by how far it had pushed the hatch up, the bottom half of the tube was packed with ice that had accumulated over a hundred years of sublimation cycles.
Cuvier nodded in approval. “Excellent plan, Lieutenant. The enemy will never see them coming.”
“Because they’ll never get there!” Johnson objected. “You can see from here the tube is full of ice.”
“Half full,” John said.
After Blue Team’s success in taking out the bunkers, he was feeling good about his chances of proving just how crucial his Spartans were to the success of Operation: SILENT STORM. If they could reach the top of the mountain in time to demolish the comm center and take out the convoy, even Colonel Crowther would be forced to admit that the Spartans should be leading the way into battle—instead of bringing up the rear.
John turned to Cuvier. “Blue Team is in,” he said. “We’ll need some flamethrowers and thermite paste to handle blockages.”
“And C-7,” Fred added. The foaming explosive was especially suitable for use in a vacuum. “Lots and lots of C-7.”
CHAPTER 9
* * *
* * *
Ninth Age of Reclamation
34th Cycle, 16 Units (Covenant Battle Calendar)
Fleet of Inexorable Obedience, Assault Carrier Pious Rampage
Low Polar Orbit, Planet E’gini, Illa System
It seemed a cruel way to set the unworthy on the Path of Oblivion, this rain of fire that devoured all it touched, that burned bone and boiled stone and turned dirt to glass. Yet so glorious was the bombardment, so magnificent the white lances blossoming upon the nomadic villages below, and so sublime the scarlet rings dilating across the smudges of green pasture, that Nizat ‘Kvarosee could not turn from the sight. He was Master of the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience, and this terrible beauty was his doing.
The annihilation of the contemptibles was his gift to the gods of the Covenant, the tithe he offered to be deemed worthy of one day joining the ancient Forerunners in divine transcendence. To turn his back on the splendor of his weapons was to abandon the Great Journey itself, to declare himself a traitor to his people and his faith.
And that he would never do, no matter the growing darkness within. To a Sangheili warrior, one’s word was all, and when Nizat had become Master of the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience, he had sworn to execute the will of the Prophets as if it were his own.
The strike ended, leaving nothing in its wake but a white glowing circle the size of his palm. He nodded approvingly and turned to the frail figure floating in the antigravity chair next to him. With his serpentine neck and the fur-covered wattle dangling beneath his chin, the San’Shyuum would appear repulsively weak to most Sangheili; yet Nizat was careful to address him in a tone just shy of veneration.
“That was the last village on this meridian, Your Grace. I will give the order to move on to the next.”
The San’Shyuum—the Minor Minister of Artifact Survey—waved a tri-fingered hand.
“Yes, yes, Fleetmaster. As you wish.” The Minor Minister—whom Nizat often simply called “Survey” in his own mind—tipped his chair forward to peer out of the blister. “How much longer, do you think?”
“Not overlong,” Nizat said. “E’gini is thinly populated. There are barely more than a hundred thousand settlements on the entire world.”
“A hundred thousand?” Survey exhaled heavily. “And how many do you think we have destroyed?”
Nizat checked the datatab integrated into the forearm of his shipboard armor. “That makes forty-seven thousand, nine-hundred and twelve.”
The San’Shyuum’s head sank forward. “So few? At this rate, we’ll be here another full cycle.”
Nizat tried to hide his revulsion. Like most San’Shyuum who traveled with Covenant battle fleets, the Minor Minister was a ceremonial magistrate rather than a military commander—and Survey, in particular, seemed ill-suited to the rigors of attending a planet-cleansing operation.
“If the Minor Minister is growing weary, he should feel free to return to his compartments. There is no need to remain here.”
Survey’s head whipped up. “No need, Fleetmaster? Perhaps you believe that all the Hierarchs require of us is to kill humans?”
“Not at all, Your Grace,” Nizat said. “The eradication must be consecrated, I know. But I was not aware you had to observe the entire operation personally.”
“You are being ridiculous,” Survey retorted. “That would be impossible, even for a San’Shyuum.”
“Then I am—” Nizat stopped himself. He’d almost said he was afraid he didn’t understand, but that would have been wrong. He was not afraid, and one did not lie to a San’Shyuum . . . not even to one as unimpressive as Survey. “Forgive me. I do not understand.”
“It is a matter of bearing witness.” Survey’s gaze grew distant, and he held his long neck a little more erect. “The Hierarchs must know that the humans are paying for their transgressions, and I must be able to report how they are suffering.”
“Ah . . . now I understand.”
And indeed, that was the truth. Nizat’s orders had said nothing about making humans suffer, only to kill them as quickly as possible, and to survey their worlds and capture those that contained Forerunner relics, and to render uninhabitable those that did not.
But the San’Shyuum were a political species who fought for status the way Sangheili did for honor, and it was clear that Survey intended to win favor among the Hierarchs by describing in detail how the humans were dying in anguish beneath the plasma beams of the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience. It was nothing to Nizat, and in fact the reports were only likely to enhance his reputation with the Prophets who were his superiors and Survey’s, so there was no reason to make the Minor Minister’s life any harder than it had to be.
“But if I may, Your Grace, the destruction of on
e village is usually the same as another. Nothing of interest is likely to occur while you are attending to other matters—and if it does, I will, of course, send for you at once.”
Survey considered the proposal for only a moment before inclining his elongated head. “As you wish, Fleetmaster. But two cycles is a long time to waste on a mudhole such as this. Is there nothing you can do to complete your work more quickly?”
Nizat hesitated, for he had pondered the subject earlier and concluded that it was feasible. Unfortunately, the method was not as certain as plasma bombardment to sterilize the world—and if it succeeded, it would prove immeasurably crueler. It was not something he was eager to try, but he had been directly asked by a Minor Minister, and it would be blasphemy to lie.
“Did you not hear my question, Fleetmaster?”
“I did,” Nizat replied. “I hesitate because the technique has never been tried before. But this world is so primitive that it could work here.”
“I hope you do not expect me to guess.”
“Not at all,” Nizat said. “But there are risks.”
“Are we not at war? There are always risks—even when fighting the humans.”
“Then your guidance will be most appreciated,” Nizat said. “E’gini is unique in two ways that serve our purpose. First, there is a shield volcano on the equator so enormous that we can see it venting ash and steam even from orbit.”
“And a plasma bombardment might trigger an eruption,” Survey said. “But would that be enough?”
“On any other world, no,” Nizat said. “But there is only one spaceport on the entire planet, and it has already been glassed.”
“So there can be no evacuation if the volcano erupts.”
“It would require a rescue fleet of at least a thousand large transports,” Nizat said. “And what is the likelihood of that while the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience is nearby?”
“No more than zero,” Survey replied. “But even an erupting shield volcano would blanket only a small part of the planet. It wouldn’t kill everything.”
“Not quickly. But if there is enough ash in the sky?” Nizat waited until he saw Survey’s eyes widen, then added, “It would be a slow and anguishing death, Your Grace.”
The Minor Minister’s head bobbed. “Perfect.”
“But uncertain,” Nizat said. He did not enjoy the prospect of inflicting said slow and anguishing death on so many—even if Survey did. “There may not be enough ash to cool the planet, and humans are nothing if not resourceful.”
“It matters not.” Survey gave his fingers a dismissive flutter. “Even if they survive, where can they go? When we return—”
The San’Shyuum was interrupted by the warning rattle of mandibles in the Fleetmaster’s Planning Compartment, and Nizat turned to find his steward leading a warrior in indigo assault armor toward the observation blister. His blood ran cold, for the armor was the uniform of the Silent Shadow, a premier hunter-killer force that the Hierarchs often dispatched when they wished to remove a high-ranking commander from his post. Unlike most warriors who came before the fleetmaster, the Shadow had not removed his helmet, for his sect forbade him to show his face to a superior he might one day be ordered to kill.
Happily, this Shadow had left the hilt of his plasma sword in its holster, and he was using both hands to carry a plate-size disk about the thickness of his arm. For an instant, Nizat thought it might be some kind of strange Forerunner artifact—the recovery of such relics was one of the Covenant’s objectives in attacking the humans, after all. But as the warrior drew closer, Nizat saw the obvious control buttons and a lens of primitive silicate, and he realized the thing had to be a human device.
Nizat looked to his steward, then pointed to the device and demanded, “Why do you allow that abomination into my presence?”
The steward, a young major named Tam ‘Lakosee, stopped three paces away. Like all Sangheili warriors, he was an imposing figure with an arrow-shaped head, beady eyes, and a mouth with four mandibles lined by short, curved fangs. Dressed in a sleeveless tabard rather than armor, he had a heavily muscled frame, long sinewy arms that ended in four-fingered hands, and huge legs supported by long, powerful tarses that resulted in a springy digitigrade gait.
He touched his fingers to his brow. “Fleetmaster, all will grow clear in a moment. Until then, I beg your indulgence.”
“You have it—for now.”
“I will be quick.” ‘Lakosee gestured at the Silent Shadow beside him. “First Blade Tel ‘Szatulai recovered the abomination on the world that humans call Amasa, in their Grenadi sector.”
Amasa, known to the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience as Alay’oso, was the tenth target in line to be attacked under Nizat’s current invasion plan, so he knew that ‘Szatulai’s unit would have been there to take the measure of its defenses. Even more importantly, the patrol would have been scouting for any hint that the world had once been occupied by the holy Forerunners, who had held dominion over the galaxy before their ascent to divinity.
Nizat clacked his mandibles horizontally to indicate that he knew of the world, and ‘Lakosee continued his explanation.
“The device was left in front of ‘Szatulai’s reconnaissance squad—deliberately.”
“Deliberately?” Survey echoed. He floated his chair close to ‘Szatulai and leaned forward so that his wattled face was within a finger’s length of the warrior’s red visor. “A first blade of the Silent Shadow allowed himself to be seen? On a world not yet under attack?”
‘Szatulai regarded Survey and did not reply. For five long breaths, Nizat wondered whether the warrior was too much of a coward to speak directly to a San’Shyuum . . . or such a fool that he believed he needed his fleetmaster’s permission to reply to a Minor Minister.
Then ‘Szatulai spoke, and Nizat realized he was neither.
“That is so, Your Grace.” There was just enough loathing in the first blade’s tone to indicate that he did not appreciate having his field performance disparaged by a member of the audience. “I made a mistake.”
Red circles broke out around Survey’s eyes, and the San’Shyuum turned to Nizat, the curl of his prehensile lips making clear that he expected such insubordination to be dealt with harshly. But Nizat had developed a sudden fondness for this Shadow, and anyway, first blades were too valuable to sacrifice to the petulance of a Minor Minister.
Nizat flipped a hand in indifference. “It is nothing to worry about, Your Grace. The infidels are not feebleminded. They already know that we are going to attack Alay’oso.”
“That is not my concern,” Survey hissed.
“I am glad we are in agreement.” Nizat turned to ‘Szatulai. “You have ensured that this device is not a trap?”
The first blade’s helmet swung upward and to the right, a sign of confirmation. “We captured the courier and forced her to demonstrate its use before she died. It brought harm to none of us.”
“Well done,” Nizat said. “Then tell me, why is this device worthy of my attention?”
“Because it contains a message from a faction of humans who wish to help us.”
“A trick,” Survey said. “Why would any human help destroy their own species?”
“I will let the message explain. It is . . . complicated.” ‘Szatulai placed the disk on Nizat’s writing stand, then asked, “Do you understand the human language, Fleetmaster?”
“The one they call English and a few others,” Nizat said. “There are so many.”
“English is a common tongue, much as Sangheili is ours,” ‘Szatulai said. “It is used for the message.”
“What about me?” Survey asked.
“You did not honor my decree that the Vicars of the Fleet learn the language of our enemy?” Nizat did not hide his surprise, for he had always found the Minor Minister more ambitious than determined, and ‘Szatulai’s example had emboldened him to let his disapproval show. “Truly?”
The wattle beneath Survey’s chin reddened. “My
other duties have demanded my attention.”
“Of course. ‘Lakosee will bring a translation disk for you.” Nizat used a hand gesture to signal the steward to take his time returning, for he wanted an opportunity to digest the message on his own before enduring the Minor Minister’s advice. He turned back to ‘Szatulai. “Let us begin.”
“Before I am ready?” Survey was indignant.
“I am certain we will listen to it more than once.”
Nizat had barely spoken the words before ‘Szatulai touched a button. The hologram of a human head appeared above the glass lens. Like nearly all human heads, it was quite unattractive, with a gaunt face, oddly placed skin folds, and a tiny oval mouth set beneath a nose too skinny for its length.
The head probably belonged to a male, but Nizat could not be sure. There was no hair on the chin, lips, or cheeks, which was usually a female trait. Yet the hair atop the head was worn so short that it was almost not there, and Nizat had been told that it was rare for a female to go bald on the crown of her head.
But it hardly mattered. Humans seemed as uncertain of their own sexual stations as the Unggoy. Nizat had even heard that it was common for human males to manage the family keep and for females to fight as foot soldiers. It was little wonder that the Hierarchs had judged the species unworthy of the Great Journey. With such confusion about their places even in their own society, they would have brought only chaos to the Covenant.
After it had coalesced, the face in the hologram spoke.
“Greetings.” Its voice was deep and gravelly, a trait that Nizat associated with size—and therefore maleness. “I am General Harper Garvin of the United Rebel Front, and I have a proposal for the leadership of the Covenant.
“The United Nations Space Command, upon whom you are currently making war, is a vast colonial empire that oppresses hundreds of worlds—”
Nizat signaled ‘Szatulai to stop the message, then asked, “What is this word, colonial?”