Evie looked down at her hands. Images from the last week flashed in her head: taking a test in history class, working on computer science homework at the café in the center of town, dressing up to go to the concert. All that time and the Meridian Air Force had been battling the Covenant up in the black. She thought of the flickers of electricity, the disruptions in the comm system. Suddenly, they were no longer random annoyances.
“Why weren’t we told?” Dorian said. He was the only one who hadn’t sat down, and he paced back and forth across the safe room. “Why keep it a secret like that?”
“To avoid panic,” Victor said. “People would have rioted, or worse, tried to get off-world and jumped right into the middle of a battle—”
“People could have prepared,” Dorian shot back. “You think I would have been out in the middle of the ocean if we thought the Covenant were on the verge of breaking atmosphere?”
“It’s standard procedure,” Owen said quietly.
“It’s bullsh—.”
“Stop,” Evie said, even though she agreed with Dorian. “There’s no point in fighting about it now. The Covenant did break through.” She thought she could feel Dorian’s eyes burrowing into the back of her head. “We can still find your bandmates,” she whispered.
“They’re dead.”
Evie felt a flood of hopelessness. You don’t know that, she thought, but it wasn’t as if she knew they were alive—if they could even get to them, with that shield in place. Not like her father, who’d made it to the town shelter.
The room filled with a thick silence. It was Saskia who finally broke it, saying, “So are the Covenant all over the moon?”
Owen shifted in his seat and the couch groaned beneath his weight. “I would imagine so. They brought a fleet to Meridian, so they aren’t focusing their efforts on one town.”
“A full fleet,” Evie whispered.
But Owen shook his head. “Not full, no. It actually had fewer ships than usual, which made it easier for us to hold back the Covenant.”
“‘Us,’” said Victor. “You mean UNSC?”
“UNSC and the Meridian military.”
“So where are they now?” Dorian snapped. “There’s a freaking energy shield around the entire town, and we didn’t see a single military unit out there!” He narrowed his eyes. “Not to mention your backup. I’m sure the mighty Spartans could get through that perimeter.” He spat out their title like a slur.
“We have a comm system.” Saskia gestures at the station. “If you need to call someone.”
Owen frowned. “It wouldn’t matter. The Covenant is scrambling all the military comm channels. As for your question …” He nodded at Dorian. “Both militaries are prioritizing the population centers. I imagine that’s why they aren’t trying to breach the perimeter.”
“And your team?” Dorian demanded.
There was that flicker in Owen’s eyes again. “Yes,” he said. “We were separated when the dropship made impact. I have no idea if they’re alive or dead, but protocol’s pretty clear: I operate as if I’m the only one left.”
The silence crept in again. Evie looked over at Dorian. He’d stopped pacing, and his eyes were dark and glassy. But then he nodded, once.
Owen nodded back.
“I did what I could,” Owen continued, his voice straightforward, matter-of-fact. A soldier’s voice, no hurt or emotion. “Particularly when I realized the Covenant were setting up in your town. They don’t seem interested in the survivors—”
An exhale of breath filled the room, a rush of relief. Owen hardly seemed aware of it.
“—which means there’s probably something about this place itself they want.”
“Like what?” Victor asked.
Owen hesitated. “I’m not sure. But they haven’t made any attempts to glass the colony, and their fleet is gridlocked outside the atmosphere. It’s a good sign for the survivors.”
He said it so casually—glass the colony. As if it were nothing for the Covenant to melt their home world into smooth, dark stone. As if it wouldn’t mean that the molecules of millions of people would all meld together, frozen together in a tomb of destruction.
“So what do they want?” Dorian asked, peeling himself away from the wall. “What could be in Brume-sur-Mer?”
“Resources, maybe. I told you, I’m not sure.”
“Well, we have to stop them,” Evie said. “Whatever it is. If they get what they want, then they will—” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. “You know. And everyone will be trapped underground. They’ll die in the shelter.”
“I’m not sure we can stop them,” Owen said. “Sabotaging an entire Covenant operation without the rest of my team—”
“We can help,” Evie blurted.
Everyone in the room stared. Her cheeks flushed with heat. Why had she said that? Victor and Saskia had almost been killed going into town, and all four of them had retreated from a firefight instead of helping.
And yet she didn’t regret saying it.
“Are you crazy?” Victor asked. “Do you not remember what literally just happened to us?”
“No. I—what else are we going to do? Sit in Saskia’s house and wait to die? You’re the one who didn’t want to evacuate in the first place.”
Victor frowned.
“Well, now we’re stuck here,” Evie said. “So we might as well do some good.”
Victor nodded. “Fair enough,” he said, although he sounded scared.
“If you could help us learn how to fight,” Evie said carefully, turning back to Owen, “we would be able to help you.”
She took a deep breath. Her outburst made her realize how exhausted she was.
“This is crazy,” Saskia said. “You can’t expect him to train us into soldiers overnight.”
“But we can’t do nothing!” Evie cried. “We don’t have to go into town again, but there’s got to be something we can do.” She looked at Owen again. “I’m not asking you to turn us into Spartans. But we’ve got to fight back.”
“I can’t believe this,” Saskia sighed.
“You’re not going to get very far if you can’t work as a team,” Owen said. He nodded at Dorian, who’d slouched up against the wall. “And what about you? What are your thoughts on this?”
Everyone turned to Dorian, who pushed a hand through his damp hair. Evie pressed her nails into her thigh, waiting for his answer, certain he was going to side with Saskia.
“I’m not letting anything happen to my nephew,” Dorian said in a flat voice. “Or my uncle. I’m not deserting the people I care about again.” His gaze flicked over to Evie, then back to Owen. “I say we fight.”
Saskia slid back against the wall, pressed her hands over her face. “This is so stupid,” she murmured. “We’re all going to die.”
“So don’t fight,” Victor snapped. “Let us use your house as a base of operations. That can be your contribution.”
Saskia glared at him. “If you didn’t have my house, you would all be dead.”
“Stop,” Owen said.
They fell silent. Owen stood, although his legs trembled, and he kept a hand pressed to his side, to a spot free of armor. He’s injured, Evie realized with a start. Had it happened during the failed evacuation? Or earlier?
But even injured, she bet he could help them. Spartans were the stuff of legend. Some stories claimed they could even heal faster than the average human. And even if it wasn’t true, an injured Spartan was better than just about anything else.
“The three of you,” he said, pointing at Evie and Victor and Dorian each in turn, “you have people in the shelter you’re worried about?”
Evie nodded.
“And, Saskia, you don’t have anyone.”
Saskia frowned. “My family isn’t down there,” she said. “But people I knew from school—some of my teachers.” She faltered, curling in on herself. Evie leaned forward, her heart fluttering. She hadn’t expected this.
“I don�
��t want to hide,” Saskia murmured. “I don’t. But you saw what happened to us in town. If you hadn’t shown up—”
“Don’t think like that,” Owen said. “You two were up against a Hunter. A full squad of marines would have had their hands full.”
The name chimed in Evie’s memory—at school when they studied the Covenant species, the teachers never used the human shorthand names, but Victor’s sisters would throw them around when they were home on leave.
“Which one’s a Hunter?” she asked.
“A Mgalekgolo,” Victor said quietly. “Right? That’s what we were fighting.”
Owen nodded.
“Oh.” Evie leaned back, old lessons flooding into her head. The Mgalekgolo were colonies of some wormlike creature, formed into heavy armor in order to fight in combat. “That’s bad, isn’t it? They’re one of the strongest species?” She frowned. “Aren’t there usually two of them?”
Owen nodded. “I had already killed its partner before Victor and Saskia arrived.” He glanced at them. “If the two of you had come up against a Grunt, you would have been fine. You knew how to use your weapons, and you did actually work together, even if you’d rather yell at each other right now. My mistake tonight was not arming you during the evacuation.”
Victor looked down at his lap, his cheeks turning pink. Saskia just looked at the windows.
“The five of us are not going to be able to drive the Covenant out of town,” Owen said. “But we can make things very hard for them. We can draw out their efforts until the UNSC can get through.” He paused. “Like we saw tonight, we’ll need weapons. Ammunition. And that means scavenging. So if this is going to work, then you will need to listen to me. You will need to do what I say. And you will need to work together.”
Anxiety fluttered around in Evie’s stomach, but so did hope. “You’ll really help us?”
“I don’t think we have much choice if we want to survive.” His voice was strained; Evie didn’t know if it was because he was in pain from his injuries, or because deep down he thought this plan was stupid, or both. “But we’re going to need to act fast.”
Their first lesson was that same night, after a dinner of reconstituted packets of stew from the stash in Saskia’s pantry. They all filed outside and set up in the big expanse of Saskia’s backyard, encompassed by the towering iron wall. She brightened the safety lights so they could see, although it was a harsh, unnatural light, making their skin look sallow and ill-looking.
“Tomorrow we do a reconnaissance mission,” Owen announced, strolling past the four of them, all lined up as if they were in the military. Dorian scowled. The last thing he wanted was to end up like his parents.
Still, he had to do something. For Remy.
“Really?” Saskia asked. “A reconnaissance mission is exactly what we screwed up when you found us.”
“No, you screwed up a rescue mission,” Owen said. “But before we can rescue anybody, we need information. The more we can find out about why the Covenant are here, the easier our work becomes—not that it’s ever going to be truly easy. Or safe.”
Dorian shivered.
“The goal,” Owen said, “will be to get you into town without being noticed. You’ll go in teams of two. We’ll practice tonight; send you off tomorrow morning.”
Evie raised her hand as if she were in school. Owen stared at her blankly for a moment, then said, “You have a question?”
“Who are the teams going to be?” she asked.
“Same as before. Makes it easier.”
“Before?” Evie blinked. “Oh. You mean your rescue mission.”
Owen nodded.
“Guess it’s you and me again,” Dorian said, peering at her around Saskia. Evie smiled back at him, and for a moment, he almost felt better about this whole stupid situation.
“Okay, here’s how this is going to work.” Owen clapped his hands. “We’re all going into the woods just outside the wall. Your job is to find me without me seeing you.”
Victor snorted. “That’s impossible—haven’t you been genetically engineered? How are we supposed to see in the dark?”
Owen looked at him. “You went up against a Hunter this afternoon,” he said. “And you didn’t get yourself killed. Do you know why?”
“Because you showed up,” Saskia said.
“Exactly. You got lucky. The Covenant are a coalition of species, all of them following an evolutionary track different from ours. The Elites have tremendous speed and strength. The Hunter, the one you fought? Their colony formation allows them to sense an enemy even if they aren’t looking directly at them. You aren’t going up against humans. So if it’s impossible for you to reconnoiter me, then it’s impossible to reconnoiter the Covenant, and if that’s the case, what the hell are we even doing out here?”
The only thing to answer his question was the forest, the chorus of whining insects and chirping frogs, the rustle of tree leaves.
“If you don’t have any more questions,” Owen said, “let’s get started.”
They practiced through the humid, sultry night, creeping through the woods by the light of Hestia V, which barely seeped through the tree cover. The rain had let up, which made their training exercise all the more difficult. Dorian and Evie circled through the trees in narrower and narrower arcs, the way Owen had shown them, but every time Dorian thought he’d managed to finally slide in without notice, Owen would whirl around and flash a light in his eyes. “You’re dead,” he said flatly. “Try again.”
“I never wanted to join the UNSC,” Dorian said to Evie as they struggled through a tangle of fragrant moonflower vines, the big white blossoms drifting like ghosts in the shadows.
“Me neither,” Evie said. They’d given up trying to be quiet at that point. Dorian had no idea how late it was—or how early in the morning. He felt like he hadn’t slept for a million years.
“And yet here we are.” Dorian yanked on a particularly tenacious vine and brought down a shower of wet leaves and broken sticks. Evie yelped.
A familiar sphere of light glimmered up ahead.
“Uh-oh,” Dorian said. “He’s up there. Run!”
Dorian leapt out of the vines, sliding in between a copse of narrow rubber trees. Evie was right behind him. She grabbed his hand, and they wove together through the trees, vines slapping Dorian in the face.
“I think we lost him,” Evie gasped, slowing to a stop. She dropped Dorian’s hand. Buddy system, she’d called it, like back in elementary school. Find a buddy and don’t let go. Dorian didn’t mind. He couldn’t stand the thought of getting separated again. Not even during practice. Especially since they were now outside Saskia’s enclosure and nothing stopped the Covenant from getting to them if they wanted to.
He peered through the darkness and didn’t see any spots of light. “Yeah. Looks that way.”
“This is pointless,” Evie said. “It’s just like what happened when we tried to evacuate. How are we supposed to see anything in town if we run at the first sign of the Covenant?”
Dorian sighed. “I have no idea.” He slumped up against a tree. The night was cool and damp, and although he wasn’t hot, his clothes were soaked with sweat. Everything smelled like soil and rotting leaves. He dropped his head back and looked up through the gaps in the canopy. A few stars twinkled, one slid out of sight. A ship, then. He wondered if it was Covenant or UNSC or even the Meridian Air Force.
He wished he could get to Mr. Garzon’s scud-rider. Do an aerial sweep. Get a view of the town from up above.
“Oh,” he said, straightening. “I know what we can do.”
“What?” Evie was a pale smudge in the darkness.
“We go up.” Dorian pointed. “Get close enough that we can see Owen’s light; then we climb up into the trees. The forest is thick enough we might even be able to crawl from branch to branch, but honestly, we could probably just wait.”
Evie moved closer to him, her eyes wide. “That could work. I mean, he’ll still hear
us—”
“If we go up high enough, the canopy should give us enough cover. It’s at least worth trying.” Dorian lifted his hair off the back of his neck, relishing the cool rush of air on his skin. “And maybe he’d finally let us go in and get some sleep.”
“Seriously.”
So they ventured out again, retracing their path, until Evie nudged Dorian in the side. “I see him,” she whispered.
Up ahead, a yellow light blinked and flickered through the trees. Dorian nodded. “Let’s go.”
He hauled himself up a nearby cashew tree, scrabbling to the middle tier of branches. He crouched, listened to the rustle and scrape of Evie as she dragged herself up beside him. She panted a little, wiped at her forehead.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. I haven’t done that since I was a kid.”
Dorian grinned. “You should come work for my uncle. He’s got me climbing trees constantly.”
Evie laughed, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Dorian leaned off the branch. The light still glimmered in the distance. “I don’t think he heard us. Let’s go.”
It was slow work, creeping along the tangle of low branches. Leaves and flakes of bark rained down into Dorian’s hair, and his arm muscles ached from having to pull himself along. Plus, Evie was overly cautious, debating each step before she took it, testing each branch with a few pokes of her foot before placing her entire weight on it. But the light grew steadily bigger as they approached. And it didn’t move. A good sign.
They had scrambled through the trees for fifteen minutes when they came to a gap too large to jump. Dorian sighed with frustration.
“It was a good plan,” Evie whispered, one hand braced against his shoulder. “We got closer to him than we have before.”
That much was true, at least. Owen’s suit cast a sphere of light up ahead, illuminating the sides of the trees. Owen stood in silhouette, clutching that rifle of his, but Dorian couldn’t see much more than that. Some spy he was.
HALO: Battle Born Page 12
