by Peter David
And now they’re your allies, and you’re working together to save all your skins, so straighten up and be a damn professional.
Richards shook the inner conversation out of her head. She needed to focus.
Passing through the gates, despite her best efforts to maintain her composure, she shook inwardly when she saw the Sangheili dropship, a vividly alien shape in a sea of familiar greens and browns. Her immediate impulse was to pull out the weapon slung on her hip and open fire, even though such a small firearm wouldn’t do a damn thing against the alien craft’s surface. But she restrained herself, reminded of the demands of her responsibilities. She straightened her back and strode toward the dropship.
She heard the quick pace of footsteps behind her, and she didn’t even have to turn around. “Spartan,” she said by way of greeting.
“Captain,” came back the brisk reply.
Obviously Lieutenant Radeen had done his job with customary swiftness.
Spartan Frank Kodiak increased his foot speed ever so slightly and drew up next to the captain, matching her pace. He could easily have exceeded it. He was just over two meters tall, which was about average for a Spartan thanks to the extensive augmentation that was performed on them. He was of the Spartan-IV variety, the most recent class of super-soldiers created by the UNSC to defend humankind. His shoulders were extremely wide, but he walked perfectly erect without swaying them in the least. His head was practically in the shape of a rectangle; Richards sometimes felt as if she could slice food on his chin. Like Radeen’s, his hair was also in a crew cut, but it bristled red (although curiously there was a streak of gray across his right eyebrow).
He was not in full Mjolnir armor at the moment, but Richards suspected that if he’d had the time to put it on, he would have done so. As Radeen just got through reminding her, the Spartan had no more love for the Sangheili than she did.
Her gaze flitted for just a moment to his right arm. He was wearing his long-sleeved undersuit over it and so it seemed exactly the same as his left arm. Quickly she looked away. It wouldn’t be good form for her to be caught staring at it.
“You can’t tell, can you, Captain.” It wasn’t a question, and he wasn’t looking at her. Damn. His peripheral vision is amazing.
Nevertheless, she felt the need to lie. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He knew she was being evasive, of course, but chose not to pursue it. “Sorry, Captain. My mistake.”
She didn’t respond, instead opting to let the moment between them pass.
They strode to the main hatch of the Sangheili dropship, one of their Phantoms. It was burnished copper, remarkably round in comparison to the straight lines of the Pelican. Its body was curved into a series of humps, ridges, and fins; it sort of looked like an oversize snail. As they approached, they found the door sliding open. She was surprised by the extreme quiet of the mechanism, in contrast to such doors in human vessels, which tended to make a hell of a lot of noise. Inwardly, part of her was forced to admire the clearly superior technology of the Sangheili.
She then heard the clanking of boots, metal on metal. For some reason, she was expecting the Arbiter to be the first, cradling a weapon when he appeared. She was wrong. Two Elites descended from the vessel, and neither of them appeared armed.
But you are. You have your weapon on your hip. So does Kodiak. What does that say about us—that we’re armed and they aren’t?
She decided it said not a thing.
“You are . . . Captain Richards, I take it,” said the Elite in the lead. Translation software in Richards’s ear enabled her to understand what he was saying in real time. She was told that the Elites would be utilizing similar technology.
Richards tried to determine if this was the Arbiter or not. She realized that all of the Sangheili looked alike to her—she simply couldn’t distinguish one from the other, though this one was not wearing the armor she expected. “And you are the Arbiter?” she said cautiously.
“I am not,” he said. “I am N’tho ‘Sraom. I am an adjunct to the Arbiter. And this is my aide, Usze ‘Taham.” The two Sangheili were clad in similar but not identical combat armor, a burnished yet battle-scarred pairing of crimson and ivory. Evidently, this indicated some kind of alignment with the Arbiter after the fall of the Covenant, although it was clear that both of these Elites had seen their share of battle well after the war.
“I thought the Arbiter himself might be coming.”
“He cannot. He has other pressing business to attend to.”
Richards was aware that Kodiak had stiffened next to her. She ascribed it to his own hostility against the aliens, but sought to overlook it. “This is Spartan Kodiak.”
N’tho nodded in acknowledgment. Then he turned and gazed into the dropship. “You may come out,” he called. “There is no need to remain in there.”
Richards’s eyes widened as something else emerged from the vessel. She had no idea what she was looking at. She was certainly familiar with both the Sangheili and other members of the Covenant, but for the most part, her experience was only with those engaged in active combat. This thing was large enough, but it wasn’t walking; it was floating. It seemed to be composed almost entirely of tentacles that were in constant motion, as if it were sampling all of its surroundings through the sense of touch. It took Richards a few moments to realize that it was only four tentacles fixed to a purple, jellyfish-like, floating sack, but they seemed to be everywhere at once. The creature also had a small serpentine head with six eyes, none of which appeared to be focused on her.
N’tho seemed to be aware of her lack of familiarity. “This is a Huragok,” he said. “Its colloquial name is ‘Drifts Randomly.’ ” He then addressed the Huragok. “Drifts Randomly, these are . . .” He paused and then seemed to shrug. “Humans.”
So that was a Huragok. Richards knew of their existence, of course. ONI had acquired their own Huragok after the war, but she had simply never encountered one before. “My understanding is that this one can be of particular use to us,” she said.
“Correct,” said N’tho, “When the Arbiter heard of the plight we all now face, this particular Huragok was the only one that seemed remotely acceptable to him. It once served aboard the very Forerunner vessel that activated this portal during the war, and of all remaining Huragok, it would be the most familiar with the technology found here. In fact, it is really the only hope our peoples have of reactivating this portal, if such a thing is even possible. To a large degree, we are here to serve as its protectors. There are many unknowns upon the Ark, and it is uncertain what threats may persist there.”
“Understood. Um . . . hello,” Richards said to it hesitantly.
The Huragok did not respond. It simply floated—she couldn’t even tell if it knew that she was there.
“It cannot speak to you in your language,” N’tho informed her. “Nor will it, if it could. It will do what it is told, and that is more or less all it is capable of. Now, with your permission, we need to be guided to the technological center of this portal, wherever your people have accessed its critical systems. The Huragok will then take over from there.”
“We do have personnel working on it already,” said Richards.
“Good. They can support the Huragok in its work, though I doubt they will be needed.”
“I assure you, we have top people currently employed to—”
N’tho obviously did not feel any need to hear her out. “I am quite certain that you have very talented individuals at work. And if we had more time to devote to this task, I would be perfectly inclined to leave them to their efforts. But you must understand that the Huragok were created by the Forerunners for this very reason. So unless your people can declare the same, I suggest they step aside and let the Huragok serve the single purpose that its creation has permitted it to perform. Does that present a problem?”
“No,” said Richards. “No problem at all. Spartan Kodiak, please bring our new arrivals to t
he Research Center Alpha. And uh . . . turn them loose.”
“Yes, Captain.” Kodiak was carrying some manner of tension, but Richards wasn’t interested—as long as it didn’t interfere with the job at hand, she wasn’t going to dwell on it.
Without another word, Kodiak turned and strode away. The Sangheili promptly followed him, with the Huragok trailing behind them all.
They walked for some time in relative silence, a dry and weather-beaten savannah to their left, and the inordinately immense portal artifact to their right, stretching out in the far distance to nearly touch this world’s eastern horizon. It was an impressive sight to behold, but N’tho ‘Sraom found himself glancing at the Spartan with curiosity. Something about the human seemed vaguely familiar, but he could not immediately place it. Ultimately, he decided it was simply that most humans tended to look alike, so there really wasn’t much point in dwelling on it.
There was a small building up ahead. It had obviously been constructed rather quickly, although at least it seemed capable of standing up to the elements. It was trapezoidal in shape, with sturdy, filthy metal sides. The base was approximately ten meters on each side, and there was a keypad on the outside that the human tapped what appeared to be a few of their strange-looking numbers into. A grinding noise and the doors slowly slid open, rattling as they did so. Inside the small structure was nothing save a large room.
“Elevator,” said Kodiak.
“Yes, I know what it is,” said Usze ‘Taham. “We may not have been to this particular section of the artifact before, but we are aware of how portals are constructed. It makes sense that we would have to descend to the power systems below the artifact itself, and I assume that this conveyance will take us there. Yes?”
“Yes,” Kodiak confirmed. “Go on in.”
N’tho strode inside, followed by Usze and the Huragok, which simply drifted in behind them. The Spartan touched a button and the doors closed in fits and shakes.
The elevator then abruptly dropped.
“Where exactly are we going?” asked Usze.
“The center of the operation,” the human said. He still refused to make eye contact with N’tho. “It’s down at the base of one of the pylons.”
N’tho knew exactly what he was referring to. The artifact that generated the portal was essentially a massive, disklike structure more than one hundred kilometers in diameter, stretching from the eastern perimeter of what little was left of the town of Voi to the charred rubble of New Mombasa at the far coast of the continent. Enormous, fin-like pylons lay atop the disc, hinged on the perimeter of it so they could open and close, lowering the center of the disc and generating the portal once activated. When it was activated more than two years ago, the gateway looked almost like a strange kind of flower, albeit composed of alien metals and tones. When closed and dormant, as it was now, the pylons had all receded and remained atop the disc, pointing toward the center. Clearly the humans had found a way to access the artifact’s many information systems, engines, and control stations, and apparently what was referred to as this Research Center Alpha was located far underground, near the hinge of one of the pylons.
The elevator descended for a while, and then it began to slow and eventually stopped.
The doors clattered open and N’tho and the others stepped through.
They were now situated on what appeared to be some manner of observation platform. It was rather large, with a long series of transparent panels running across the front of it, joined together to form one huge viewing window. N’tho walked forward and saw what it looked out upon: the vast undercarriage of the artifact itself, with one of its massive pylons stretching out for many kilometers, so high and far that its most distant sections were well out of sight, buried in darkness.
At the base of the pylon, well below their current position in the observation deck, was a series of instrument panels, which N’tho recognized immediately from their Forerunner origins. They were covered in all manner of indecipherable runes, and the only reason that he could discern any of them was because the humans had mounted floodlights overhead, beaming light down into the entire area. There were light indicators on the Forerunner consoles, but none of them were illuminated. There appeared to be no power flowing anywhere into it.
The humans were meticulously scrutinizing the panels, seemingly in small increments at a time. They were clustered atop a network of scaffolding and gantries that extended out and down from the observation deck and branched out in a variety directions, examining other parts of the artifact’s immense size that were far out of sight. There was an array of indicator panels and pads used to study it, and from here, N’tho could see words and data scrolling across the pads. There appeared to be about several dozen of them at work. Everything was happening in silence, with any conversation in hushed whispers at most.
“How many of your people are working here?”
“Hundreds,” said the Spartan. He continued not to look at N’tho, which N’tho now found mildly puzzling.
“Is anyone actually interfacing with the equipment?”
“You’ll have to ask them yourself. There’s a stairway that goes down to the platform they’re working on,” said the Spartan, pointing to the far end of the room.
“Very well, then,” said N’tho. “Let us begin.”
The Huragok floated ahead of them and, arriving at the stairway, started to drift down it. N’tho glanced back at the Spartan and said, “Are you coming with us?”
“Absolutely. I have no intention of letting you two out of my sight,” he replied, and this time, he actually made eye contact.
There was a certain level of defiance in his expression.
What an odd human, thought N’tho, and he vowed to be careful in his presence.
Captain Annabelle Richards watched Spartan Kodiak and the aliens depart, and then turned and started back toward the facility, lost in thought. As she approached the gate leading in to the courtyard, she saw someone running toward her. Elias Holt.
Holt was also a Spartan, working in close conjunction with Kodiak. Richards remembered being a bit amused when she’d first met him; Holt’s enthusiasm for his position and job was infectious. She couldn’t help but recall the first Spartans she had encountered. To Richards, they had barely qualified as human beings. They ate, they slept, they fought. That was the entirety of their lives. The original Spartans hadn’t even possessed the ability to engage in casual military chitchat, or at least that was the case with the ones she had run into. When Richards had tried to discuss anything other than their immediate objective, they had simply stared at her blankly, as if they didn’t understand the words coming from her mouth.
Elias Holt was of a much more recent vintage; like Kodiak, he was part of the SPARTAN-IV program and now served in the Spartan branch, though ONI had requisitioned their service for this specific operation. He’d been recruited into the program after his achievements as a young soldier, and had been given extensive combat training, along with the augmentations that were required to become a Spartan and wear the highly advanced Mjolnir armor. Despite the fact that Holt was somewhat green by Spartan standards, Richards knew from his record that he was a capable enough soldier, and she hoped that he would achieve great things in his career.
Although Holt was just as powerfully reinvented as Kodiak was, he seemed and acted far more youthful. Holt’s face was long and open and full of freckles, and his black hair was quite wiry. He also had a tendency to say whatever was on his mind, so that at least was a plus in Richards’s eyes.
Holt hurried up to her and belatedly remembered to salute. She returned it and stared at him patiently.
“Captain Richards, have you seen Spartan Kodiak?”
“Yes, I have. He is escorting our newly arrived Sangheili—” she indicated the landed ship in the distance—“toward the work area. They’re here to aid us in getting the portal online. Is there a problem, Spartan?”
“No problem, Captain. I was off ta
king target practice and returned to my quarters to discover that he’d been summoned. So I felt I should check and see if he needs my assistance.”
“Not necessary. I really don’t expect that any serious trouble will occur while he’s bringing the Sangheili to their destination.” She paused, because there was a level of excitement in Holt’s face that didn’t quite seem to correspond. “Is something wrong, Spartan?”
“What? Oh, no,” he said with assurance. “Nothing’s wrong. I just . . . I’ve never seen a Sangheili, and I’m sorry I missed the opportunity just now.”
“Seriously?”
“No, Captain. Not in the flesh, that is. Oh, I engaged in plenty of battles, certainly, but most of them were populated with Grunts and Jackals, and occasionally Brutes. I’ve only seen Elites in the holo-vids and War Games exercises.”
“Well, they’ll be here for a while, so I am certain the opportunity will come up.”
“Is it the Arbiter?”
“No. He sent two of his close associates.” She paused, bringing their names back to her head. “Usze ‘Taham. And N’tho . . . something, dammit. Can’t recall the last name. . . .”
Holt visibly paled. “It wouldn’t be N’tho ‘Sraom, by any chance?”
“Why, yes! Yes, that’s . . .” Her voice trailed off as she saw how Holt’s face had gone almost ashen. “Why, do you know him?”
“Oh yes. I know him, Captain.”
“Where from?” When she saw that he appeared reluctant to answer, she continued with slight annoyance: “Spartan, if there’s something relevant you want to say, I need to hear it.”
“You’re aware that Spartan Kodiak has an artificial right arm, yes?”
Of course. She’d been staring at it earlier. “Yes, I’m aware of that. He lost it in combat, several years before he became a Spartan.”
“That’s right, Captain. By an Elite who had him dead to rights, but at the last moment, a nearby explosion caught him off guard and Kodiak managed to escape.” Holt hesitated, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “After-action reports indicated that the Elite’s name was N’tho ‘Sraom. He’s the one who cut off Kodiak’s arm, and Kodiak has been waiting for a chance to kill him ever since.”
