by Troy Denning
“Was that needed?” she asked in English.
“You tried to gas us, so yeah.” Olivia pointed her weapon at Sarch’s long head. “And I’m loaded with shredder rounds, so don’t think I won’t open fire because I’m worried about a hull breach.”
“Gas? You are paranoid.” Sarch fixed an eye on Veta. “Perhaps I should tell you we need to make stop before Shamsa, but that is no reason to—”
“You really don’t want to insult my intelligence right now,” Veta said. “Who do you think switched out the ostanalus canisters?”
Sarch’s shoulders slumped. “The ostanalus was mistake, yes,” she said. “But what did you expect? Shamsa is crawling with Banished. It is madness to go there.”
“Maybe,” Veta said. “But if I’d told you we actually wanted to go to Salvation Base, would you have taken the job?”
Sarch’s mouth parted. “Salvation Base?” she repeated. “You con us?”
“Afraid so.” Veta motioned again. “Now, step up here so we can talk about a new deal.”
Sarch hesitated, then rocked her head from side to side. “Too early for new deals.” She reached for the headset atop the control console. “Virst, I need to check my crew.”
“You don’t have a crew anymore,” Olivia said. “And if you touch that headset, you’re joining them.”
“They are dead?” Sarch asked. “All?”
“There may be a couple of survivors,” Veta said. “If so, they get the same deal you do—a ride home, providing they cooperate during interrogation.”
Sarch bared her sharp teeth. “You are ONI? I am sorry ostanalus did not work.” She glanced toward her dead copilot; then her tone grew pragmatic. “And what if I not accept this new deal?”
“Then you won’t need a ride home,” Veta said. “Now, come along—step up here and face the wall.”
“Am not liking your deal,” Sarch said. “Perhaps I extend a better one.”
“And perhaps I’ll get tired of repeating myself.” Veta motioned with the barrel of her M7. “Now, or I shoot.”
“No need for threats.” Sarch stepped between the seats, but paused to glance over at the copilot’s holographic status display. “What you want? Access to Salvation Base?”
“I want you to stop stalling,” Veta said. “And whatever you’re thinking, forget—”
Sarch turned and dived for the copilot’s controls.
Veta and Olivia opened fire, catching the Kig-Yar in the back with six rounds. The impact hurled her into the control yoke, and the Stolen Faith dropped its nose and shot forward. Even with the inertial cushion inherent in the vessel’s artificial gravity, the unexpected acceleration threw both women against the rear bulkhead.
Ash’s voice sounded in Veta’s ear dot. “Uh, what’s the situation up there?”
Olivia was already springing back toward the cockpit. “Under control!” She engaged her SMG’s safety and dropped the weapon on the deck. “Just worry about your end, okay?”
“Affirmative,” Ash said. “We’re secure. Two more dead, no prisoners.”
“That’s all of them,” Olivia said. She pulled Sarch’s body aside, then reached over the dead copilot and eased the yoke back, and the Stolen Faith began to decelerate. “We got the other three.”
Veta engaged the safety of her own weapon and tossed it onto the pilot’s seat, then grabbed Sarch’s corpse beneath the arms and dragged it to the rear of the flight deck. She had just started forward again when a tinny human voice began to squawk from the headset Sarch had tossed atop the control console.
Veta rushed to grab the headset, then wrapped her hand around the microphone and said, “That can’t be good.”
“It isn’t,” Olivia said. Holding the control yoke with one hand, she used the other to unbuckle the dead copilot. She tossed the Kig-Yar onto the flight deck almost effortlessly, then slipped into the vacant seat and studied the sensor displays. “We’ve got a Seraph and a Tronto headed this way fast—at least I think it’s a Tronto. I’m only about ninety percent on the Sangheili alphabet.”
“Ninety percent works.” Veta slipped past Olivia, then moved her SMG aside and took the pilot’s seat. “What’s a Tronto?”
“Jiralhanae boarding craft,” Mark said, speaking over TEAMCOM. “Heavily armored, no shields. Twin pulse lasers and quad plasma cannons.”
Veta’s stomach sank. The tactical plan provided two options for penetrating the base—either as “guests” aboard a Keeper vessel, or by capturing it and posing as the crew. If neither option appeared feasible, the backup plan was to stay hidden and reconnoiter until Blue Team arrived, then suit up and infiltrate by force. So far, all three versions of the plan seemed to be working just well enough to get them killed.
“Okay, waiting for the Silent Joe is no longer an option.” Veta hoped she sounded steadier than she felt. “We’re on our own until Blue Team catches up.”
“No problem,” Mark said. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be leaving a trail of dead Keepers for them to follow.”
This drew a round of grim chuckles, then Ash asked, “You want us in the plasma turret?”
“No,” Veta said. “We’re not going to fight our way out of this.”
“Why not?” Mark asked. “We can take out the Seraph when the boarding party starts to transfer, then use a satchel charge to blow the Tronto from inside. If we time it right, we stand a decent chance of making the base in one piece.”
Olivia shook her head, then mouthed, Boys!
Veta was too worried to laugh—and a bit too chagrined. Mark’s suggestion was a desperate long shot at best, but at least he was focused on the objective. She, on the other hand, had started to drift into survival mode just because the plan was going awry. Clearly, her operational discipline was still not up to Spartan standards.
“I’ll keep your suggestion in mind, Mark,” Veta said. “But we’re supposed to be covert operatives. Maybe we should try something more subtle than ship-to-ship combat.”
“As long as we try it fast,” Olivia said. “That Tronto is matching velocities, and the Seraph’s weapons are powering up.”
The voice coming from the headset began to grow more demanding.
“We’re going to let them board,” Veta said. “Mark, secure the Havoks. Ash, is there any ostanalus left?”
“It’s all left,” Ash said. “I had to store it somewhere. It’s in a couple of acetylene bottles.”
“Good,” Veta said. “Rig a remote release.”
“A detonator?”
“Anything that will get it into the ventilation system,” Veta said. “Olivia, see if you can pinpoint our destination and feed it to the surveillance net. If we, uh, get delayed—”
“You mean killed,” Mark said. “It’s okay, Mom. You can say it.”
“I’m a positive thinker,” Veta said. She hated that nickname, especially since her Ferrets tended to use it when they thought she was being overprotective. “If we get delayed, I want to be sure our friends on the Silent Joe know which moon that base is on.”
“And that would be Taram,” Olivia said, twisting around so she spoke toward Sarch’s body. Her voice would be picked up by the spy gnat Ash had landed on the Chur’R earlier, then automatically relayed via microburst as soon as the Silent Joe exited slipspace. “The Keeper name for it is the ‘Redoubt of the Faithful.’ ”
“I thought it was Salvation Base,” Mark said.
“That’s just the name of the base,” Olivia explained. “Salvation Base is on the Redoubt of the Faithful.”
“Great,” Ash said. “Let’s hope ‘Redoubt’ is just a name.”
“Doesn’t matter. We have a plan.” Mark turned to Veta. “Right, ma’am?”
“I will soon.” Veta slipped the headset on and uncovered the microphone. “Approach Control, this is the new captain of the Stolen Faith. We’ll stand by for boarding.”
CHAPTER 7
* * *
* * *
0824 hours, December 13, 2553
(military calendar)
Mudoat Starsloop Stolen Faith
Orbital Approach, Planet Pydoryn, Shaps System
The muted hum of a compressor pump arose from the Stolen Faith’s airlock, and Veta began to think her bluff might actually work. Had the Keepers of the One Freedom intended to kill them without an interrogation, the boarding party would be using a breaching charge rather than standard transfer protocol.
“Stay sharp, everyone,” Mark said. He dumped the Kig-Yar body he was carrying onto a stack near one edge of the reception vestibule. “Remember, this could be a diversion.”
“Who could forget?” Olivia asked. She was coming from the direction of the flight deck, carrying Sarch’s corpse in both arms. Like Mark and Ash, she wore a yellow, poor-fitting pressure suit taken from the Stolen Faith’s emergency lockers. “You’ve warned us like five times already.”
“Just four,” Veta said. “But he’s right. It’s time to take our positions.”
“You sure about this?” Ash asked. He took Sarch’s corpse from Olivia and sat it on the floor, facing the airlock and leaning against the stack of bodies. “I don’t like leaving you uncovered.”
“It’s bad tactics,” Mark agreed. “I still think we’d be better off trying a counter-boarding.”
“This is the plan.” Veta extended a hand to Ash. “Give me the detonator and move out.”
Ash dug a remote control out of a utility pocket on his thigh. “If you need to use this, make sure you have a clear path into the airlock. The bottles are behind the fan housings, so it won’t take long for the ostanalus to circulate.”
“If I need to use this, it won’t matter how fast it circulates.” Veta took the remote. “And no heroics on my account. If this goes wrong—”
“Stay focused on the mission,” Mark finished. “This isn’t our first operation, you know.”
“I know,” Veta said. “I’m counting on that.”
Actually, she was beginning to have doubts about whether the Tuwa family could still be saved, so she wanted to tell her team that if something happened to her, they should forget the mission and concentrate on surviving until Blue Team arrived. But quitting was not in the Spartan nature. If Veta let herself get killed, the one thing she knew for certain was that her team would finish the operation or die trying.
So she couldn’t let herself get killed.
The airlock compressor fell silent, and the status light above the hatch changed from yellow to blue. She stepped behind the stack of Kig-Yar corpses and made a shooing motion, then watched as her team retrieved their submachine guns and disappeared down three different corridors. Her plan called for them to make it seem like she had a crew of twenty aboard, and it was the one objective she felt confident of achieving.
The airlock hatch slid open to reveal a single Jiralhanae wearing blue armor with gold trim. So huge he had to stoop down to aim his spike rifle into the reception vestibule, he had tawny fur with a tightly-bound beard hanging to the center of his breastplate. His gaze went straight to the stack of Kig-Yar bodies.
“It’s okay,” Veta said. “I can explain.”
The Jiralhanae’s eyes widened, and he brought his spike rifle up.
“Careful.” Veta waggled the remote detonator in her hand. “You wouldn’t want to set anything off.”
The Jiralhanae studied the detonator, then spoke through a translation disc secured high on his breastplate. “It is linked to the Havoks?”
Veta smiled. “And they say Brutes aren’t smart.” Of course, the detonator was actually linked to the acetylene bottles Ash had filled with ostanalus—but her bluff wouldn’t work if she admitted that. “Make me angry, and we all go out together.”
The Jiralhanae curled a lip. “It matters not, as long as I die on the True Path.” Keeping his weapon trained on Veta, he pushed his head forward and peered around the edges of the hatchway. “Where is your crew?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“I ask only once more,” the Jiralhanae said. “Where is your crew?”
“Not here.” Veta touched her thumb to the activation button. “I’m pretty sure following the True Path involves following orders, and I know your orders don’t involve getting your entire boarding force atomized.”
The Jiralhanae glared for a moment, then squeezed through the hatchway and growled a lengthy command into his helmet comm. His Covenant dialect was not as atrociously accented as that of the Kig-Yar, so she had no trouble recognizing his words: Come quickly and conquer.
A second warrior emerged from the Tronto and passed through the airlock into the reception vestibule, followed by a third and a fourth. There were probably more waiting to board, but it was impossible to see past the first four. Their armored bulk filled the vestibule from wall to wall, and they were so tall that they had to lean down, tilting their heads to keep from hitting the ceiling.
Veta was not surprised when the first warrior began to issue search orders. Jiralhanae were fierce fighters who measured their status by their combat prowess, and it was customary for minor chieftains to lead their bands from the front.
Once the chieftain stopped snarling commands, Veta said, “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I care nothing for what you would do.” He dispatched his underlings with a wave, sending one down each of the three corridors that led out of the vestibule, then looked back to Veta. “If you will not reveal your crew’s location, we will find them—”
The last underling gave a surprised rumble as he entered an aft-running corridor. He started to bring his spike rifle up; then a silenced SMG coughed twice, and the warrior toppled back into the vestibule and crashed down on the deck.
Veta leaned over the stack of Kig-Yar corpses and peered down at the motionless warrior. He was clearly dead, with both eyes shot out.
“I tried to warn you,” Veta said. She was keeping a wary eye on the chieftain’s hands, ready to dive for cover at the first twitch of a trigger finger. “But go ahead and search. We can talk when you run out of warriors.”
Another Jiralhanae leaned through the hatchway and aimed his spiker down the corridor, then requested the honor of tracking down and killing the infidel ambusher. The chieftain motioned for him to wait, then spoke into his helmet comm again, demanding a situation report from the other two warriors he had sent off to search. The growing alarm in his eyes suggested he was not receiving a reply.
“Or we could work out things now and avoid any more bloodshed,” Veta said. She gestured at the stack of Kig-Yar corpses. “Chur’R-Sarch caused this mess when she tried to kill us and steal our Havoks.”
“That makes no difference,” the chieftain said. “You will not be permitted to leave this system alive.”
“I don’t even know where this system is,” Veta said. “You take your friends’ bodies, we’ll take the ship, and the Banished won’t show up looking for their cargo. Everybody lives.”
“The Banished?” The chieftain’s gaze shifted away; then he said, “It matters not. The Isbanola sector is vast. They will never find—”
“Yeah, they will,” Veta said. “They’ll follow the slipbeacon.”
“You make empty threats,” the chieftain said. “We detected no slipspace transmissions.”
“Because it was encrypted and tight-beamed,” Veta said. “Our buyers wanted a way to recover the Havoks if our delivery plans took a bad turn. Go figure.”
The chieftain growled into his helmet comm, repeating her claim and asking about its technical feasibility, and Veta began to think her bluff might be working a little too well. If she actually convinced the Jiralhanae to let her leave, she and the Ferrets would need to make a slipspace jump out of the system, then try to return as the Silent Joe arrived—and the timing of that would be tricky, to say the least.
“Look, we don’t have all day to wait for your confirmation,” Veta said. “If I don’t make the rendezvous on time, a Banished fleet shows up here looking for ten Havoks. Nobody wants that.”
The chieftain’s eyes remained distant as he listened to a voice inside his helmet; then he finally looked back to Veta.
“This decision is not for me,” he said. “Someone who knows your science will inspect your devices; then we will take you to the Redoubt of the Faithful and advise our dokab whether to believe your story.”
Veta shook her head, feigning reluctance. “I don’t think so. Once we’re on that moon, we have no control—”
“The choice is not yours.” The chieftain extended his arm, holding his spiker so close to Veta’s face that she could have scratched her chin on its bayonet blades. “You will tell your tale to the dokab.”
Veta stared down the weapon’s red barrels for a moment, trying to appear defiant. Jiralhanae were cunning tacticians. If the Ferrets were going to have any chance of finding the Tuwas, she could not let the chieftain see how eager she was to accept his demand.
After a few seconds, she sighed heavily and nodded. “Okay.” She lowered the remote toward her pocket. “But I’m keeping the det—”
“You cannot land on the Redoubt of the Faithful with ten Havoks under your thumb.” The chieftain pressed the spiker bayonets against her throat. “Hand over the device.”
Veta tipped her head back and, seeing nothing but resolve in the Jiralhanae’s face, decided she appeared reluctant enough.
“Well, since you’re asking nicely . . .” She moved her thumb to the side of the remote and hit the disengage switch, transferring control to a miniaturized remote hidden in Ash’s lowest shirt button. “But no tricks. My crew can still—”
“There will be no tricks,” the chieftain said. “Your fate will be decided on the Redoubt of the Faithful.”
“Fine.” Veta slapped the remote into the chieftain’s hand. “But your dokab had better listen to reason, or we’re all going to wish I’d used that thing.”
Veta retreated to the galley and feigned resignation as the Keepers took control of the vessel.
The boarding party was smaller than she had expected, consisting of only the chieftain and eleven others—including half a dozen humans in dirty body armor that looked like it had already taken a few rounds over specifications, and a pair of Kig-Yar who took great pride in leading the effort to sniff out the rest of her crew.