Delgado stood still for a second. “Safe. As we agreed on.”
Diego pursed his lips. “Bonifacio presented evidence to the council that there are Earth-first elements within our population that have attacked any navigation data that might lead ships of any sort back to Earth or the Inner Colonies. The data you have needs to be transported to its final destination, where it will be better safeguarded.”
“Final destination?” Delgado looked around at them. “What final destination? The Kig-Yar? Come on, you know where that will lead.”
“We’re moving it to the Exodus Project,” said one of the councilmen, an older man with scars across his face. “It’s final. We’ve all voted. So please, Mr. Delgado, give up the data. You’ve served the Rubble well. It’s time to hand it over now.”
“What the hell is this Exodus Project?” Delgado snapped.
“It’s just a big emergency plan,” Diego said. “We can’t talk about the particulars.”
“And it needs nav data?” Delgado looked at Diego.
“Yes.” Diego nodded, and spread his arms. “It really does, Ignatio. Please, trust me on this. Trust the Council as the Rubble’s elected leaders.”
Delgado looked at the other members. They didn’t look like they meant him any ill.
But was it the right choice, whatever they had in mind? Delgado took a deep breath. It wasn’t his decision to make, was it? The Rubble had elected the entire Council for a reason. The Council had hired Delgado.
He was no longer keeper of the data.
“Okay,” Delgado said. “It’s aboard Distancia. I have to key everything open.”
Diego laughed. “In plain sight, huh?”
“The best place.” For a quick moment, everything felt okay. Maybe even normal. Delgado relaxed slightly.
The sensation was shattered as Peter Bonifacio stepped forward. “I’ll take him over to Distancia, then meet the rest of you at Exodus. The Distancia only has a light guard on it. It’s an easy target. My guards aren’t just Rubble Defense volunteers, they have actual fighting experience.” There was accusation in his glare, and Delgado saw a few nod in agreement. It looked like Bonifacio had been knocking Delgado’s ability to keep the data safe.
Diego came forward. “I go with you.” He and Delgado shared a glance.
Bonifacio shrugged. “I’d be delighted to have you aboard, Councilman, as well as anyone else who wants to come. Keep in mind, my ship’s quarters are cramped. This way.” He held out his hand, indicating that they should go first.
His guards had already cycled through the airlock into the ship Bonifacio had waiting for them.
It was a cramped ship, a converted tug of some sort. It had probably once grappled dirty asteroids and pushed them into new orbits to be harvested by the miners and their processing plants. Now it was Bonifacio’s personal transport. Quick enough, Delgado thought, looking around the extended cockpit once they’d come in through the airlock. But still a bit over the top. Who had a personal ship just for transport in the Rubble? It was part of Bonifacio’s desire to preen and make a point of showing how special he was.
Bonifacio got inside, gave the order to leave, and turned to Delgado. In the darkly lit cockpit he looked birdlike, his eyes pools of beady darkness. “Someone fried my ship, everything electrical was shorted, and several good men guarding it are dead. That costs. A lot.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Delgado said, eyeing the three large guards now surrounding him in the tiny cockpit.
Diego chuckled, and Bonifacio turned to him. “This amuses you? The future of the Rubble is laughable? I’m working hard to make sure we have a future, despite your meddling.”
“A future?” Diego shook his head. “You’re full of shit, Bonifacio. You care about future profits, not the future.”
“Yeah?” Bonifacio reached into his pocket, hands trembling slightly, face red. “Were you all so high-and-mighty when the Covenant first came? Tell Delgado the real story, and how you all, in your democratic glory, turned to one person when it all came to a head.”
Diego didn’t say anything.
Bonifacio shook his head and pulled out a Sweet William. He pointed the cigar at Diego. “They tell you how the Kig-Yar contact really happened? I’ll bet not. Because it doesn’t make those men look good.”
He lit the cigar and drew in a long pull, then laughed, cigar smoke puffing out of his mouth. “They crapped their pants when that first Kig-Yar ship swung by the Rubble, scanning us, checking everything out. Wanted to know what to do. Attack it, or try to pack up and run to some other part of the system? And if attack, how? But they were taking so long to deliberate, I did something else.
“I hailed it. And I offered to trade. Sent them a manifest of everything I could imagine we had in our storage areas. I explained we weren’t UNSC, that we hated them. That we were rebels. Because, really, even other species have to know about trade, right, Delgado? Economics, that’s universal. Everyone wants to better themselves.”
“That was the real first encounter?” Delgado asked. “So it’s the second where their ship appeared and offered to trade and set up in the Rubble?”
“A month later. Some sort of Kig-Yar big shot named Reth had a box that could translate their speech into ours. Like they’ve been studying us,” Diego said. “And they wanted to trade.”
Bonifacio nodded. “We took guns off them to sell to our brothers, where we could smuggle them back to the colonies, in exchange for goods. The Kig-Yar, in turn, wanted Slipspace drives.”
“Slipspace drives?” Delgado frowned.
“Turns out the Kig-Yar are pretty low on the Covenant totem pole.” Bonifacio smirked. “They’re not allowed to build drives for their own ships. Its engineering is all done by the ones they call Prophets. Closed boxes for the Kig-Yar. See, they’re not the monolithic juggernaut the UNSC makes them out to be, this Covenant. They have divisions and inequalities. And where those exist, we have what you call a market, Mr. Delgado. Combine the engines with Earth’s location, and the Rubble will do more for the Insurrection than any other place in history.”
“But what happens when the Kig-Yar slip up and we’re all found out?” Delgado asked. “The Covenant will be back to glass us.”
“We leave,” Diego muttered.
“Ahhh, exodus, exodus, exodus,” Bonifacio waved his cigar around. “Diego, we have spent so long building all this. And you want to run away from it?”
“I don’t,” Diego said. “But it’s irresponsible to not have a backup plan.”
“I’ll tell you what’s irresponsible. Irresponsible is promising the Kig-Yar Slipspace engines, taking their payments of nifty little weapons and shipping them back to the colonies, but then pretending to warehouse those engines until you’ve got them all gathered up. When you never intended to hand them over.”
“Damn it, Bonifacio,” Diego shouted, “the council voted to proceed with the Exodus Project. It’s a backup plan. Once we have enough Slipspace engines installed, then we’ll hand the rest of them over.”
“The Kig-Yar know what you’ve been doing anyway,” Bonifacio said dismissively
“What?” Diego stared at Bonifacio.
“You can’t take an asteroid habitat as big as the Exodus Project and hang it way back off the Rubble, and not expect them to miss it. Plus, they really want their engines. They haven’t believed your official excuses for not getting as many delivered to them as promised—not in the slightest. They are our allies, our business partners. We stand a chance to live on. Let the Covenant and UNSC fight, while we make money and trade instead.”
Delgado stared at both men. “The Exodus Project is a giant habitat?”
“He’s pretty much told you what it is,” Diego said, annoyed. “The largest rock in the Rubble was held back from the beginning. The surface was coated to try and stealth it. Back at the start, it was an emergency in-system retreat: get as many civilians in it if the Covenant came back in force and try to sneak out to the Oor
t cloud far on the edges of the system where no one ventures.
“Now the Exodus Project is being outfitted with Slipspace drives. A lot of them. The idea is not to hide in the system, but to head out away from the UNSC, and the Covenant. Just get into the stream and keep going until we’re well away from all of this.”
“That’s audacious,” Delgado said. “How many citizens can it hold?”
“It’s big,” Diego said. “Big enough for a million citizens.”
“And you’ve hidden it away, all this time?” Delgado couldn’t believe it. In the Rubble, where everything was voted on, the Security Council had pulled off something significant: a major secret.
The tug fired a series of thruster bursts and slammed into a docking collar.
Bonifacio grabbed Diego by the shoulders. “Look, Diego. I know you and I don’t exactly agree on everything. But I’m a Council member, just like you. I want to see the Rubble continue and prosper. I’m not your enemy. You know that, right?”
“I know that,” Diego said. “I’m sorry.”
“I want that data on Exodus protected, but not out here in the Rubble where people are attacking it—whoever the hell it is that’s doing that. Understand?”
Diego nodded.
“Good.” Bonifacio pulled Diego tighter. “Now tell Delgado here to let us onto his ship so we can get it and do our duty.”
Diego looked at Delgado. “Give him what he needs.”
Delgado bit his lip. “You sure about this?”
“Yeah.” Diego sounded subdued. “It’ll be okay. And we’ll need to talk to you about the Exodus Project. You can’t repeat any of that to anyone.”
“I can keep a secret,” Delgado said, as the airlock doors opened.
Diego laughed. “I know. And after this, we’ll make everything right for you. You took shots for us. They can’t forget that.”
They trudged out from Bonifacio’s tug down an access tube to a set of quiet docks that Delgado had chosen. The rock ceilings sloped fifteen feet overhead, and only four or five docking collars led into this small chamber, as it was an old mining depot.
Delgado crossed the silent chamber to the airlock where Distancia was docked. They all crowded into the airlock and cycled through and in.
Delgado took a deep breath, pulling in the smell of metal, oil, and sweat. Distancia had once hauled miners out from Madrigal orbit across the system to the Rubble. Now she ferried cargo in and around the Rubble, from one end to another. Quicker than tube cars, as he didn’t have to route through each habitat, pausing for traffic.
It felt good to be back aboard.
Maybe if Bonifacio was telling the truth, and he was really just a maverick Security Council member, then Delgado could just go back to ferrying things about the Rubble. Like before Diego had called, talking about the disappearing navigation data, asking him if he’d take on hiding it for the council, as he knew the Rubble the best. And he was the only person Diego personally trusted.
Going back to ferrying sounded good, Delgado thought, as he walked the small group over to the safe hidden under the floor grates of the tiny kitchen on the ship, halfway toward the cockpit.
It opened on his fingerprint, and Delgado pulled the oval container of hard plastic that held the chip out. He offered it to Diego.
Bonifacio reached out a hand, and Diego shook his head. “I think I’ll be the one who keeps it on his person until we get it to the Exodus.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Bonifacio said.
Delgado turned around, eye to eye with the barrel of a very large pistol in Bonifacio’s hand. “Hand it over to me, Delgado.”
Diego swore, and was hit in the ribs by one of Bonifacio’s men.
“Thank you,” Bonifacio took the navigation data away from him. “Thank you very much, Delgado. I’d hoped to just take it and promise to meet you two aboard the Exodus and never show, but Diego had second thoughts. You’re rubbing off on him. Either way, Reth is really, really going to appreciate this.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
METISETTE ORBIT, 23 LIBRAE
The Kig-Yar named Reth screamed, a primal roar of pain and horror that echoed throughout the corridors of the ship, all the way up to the cockpit, where Thel sat poring over Kig-Yar estimates of human strength in the Rubble.
Zhar stood up, but Thel held up a hand. “I ordered Saal not to do this. I will go.”
For a moment Zhar remained up, then he folded back down into his chair. “What—”
“That is my concern, Zhar.” Thel walked out of the cockpit, past the Unggoy clustered in the halls. They chattered nervously and cleared a path as Thel strode by.
Thel walked to Reth’s cell. The Kig-Yar had been strapped to the wall, his arms and legs splayed out in a large X by strong straps.
On the other side of the energy bars, Saal stood in front of the Kig-Yar. As he leaned forward, the horrendous screams began again. “Why are you really here in this system?” Saal bellowed. “What is it you seek to gain?”
Reth spit purple blood and screamed.
Thel shut off the containment system, and stepped into the alcove. “Has he said anything new to justify continuing this interrogation? Maybe something different?” Thel asked softly.
Saal spun around, turning off his energy sword. Purple blood stained the hilt in his hand and dripped from his fingers. “No, honor. He has not. He’s still sticking to his story. That a Hierarch commands him to have done all this.”
“Have you forgotten your orders, then?” Thel stared Saal straight in the eye, neck bared, as if daring Saal to try for it.
Saal backed away from the implicit challenge of confidence, moving closer to a wall. Reth gurgled in the background.
“I wanted to break him of his heresies,” Saal said. “What he’s saying cannot be true.”
“It is a poor soldier who insists on seeing things not as they are, but as he wants them to be. One day reality hits, and his illusions fail him, and he dies stupidly. What honor is there in that?” Thel stepped closer to Saal, cornering him, dominating his space.
Saal straightened. “But if the Kig-Yar is right, then one Prophet ordered him to come here and do this, and another ordered us to come here and—”
“It is not up to us to pick apart what the Prophets may or may not have ordered, Saal. It is also not up to you to decide what orders of mine to follow.”
Thel patted his waist, where his own energy sword was clipped, and kept his eyes locked on Saal, who finally looked toward the ground.
“I have failed you, honor,” Saal said.
“You have.” Thel sighed.
“I have lost nobility. I will do what is right.” Saal’s energy sword flared into being.
“You will not take your life,” Thel said. “You will scar your forearms with the mark of disobedience.”
Saal closed his eyes and shivered. “Please . . .”
“It is an order,” Thel stood up straight and high over Saal. “Now leave.”
Saal walked out of the cell with his head low from shame. Thel walked over to the slab of a bed and sat on it, facing Reth.
“Sangheili are insane,” Reth hissed. “What is the mark of disobedience?”
“He will use his energy sword to burn marks into the skin of his arms. Crossing lines all up and down, where all can see and know him for what he is. It is shameful. Death is preferred. But for now, I need all my fighters. He can kill himself later, and we will destroy the body so that his lineage will not suffer. If he performs well in battle.”
Reth shook his head. “Sangheili . . .”
“We are strong, Kig-Yar. That is why we sit at the right hand of the Prophets.”
Reth laughed. “One day that shall pass.”
“Not as long as we remain strong.” Thel stood. “But Saal’s worries do trouble me. You still claim that it is the Prophet of Truth who sent you here?”
Again Reth laughed. “You should worry. I speak the truth. And it
was Truth who sent me here. He doesn’t believe that the Prophet of Regret has come even close to the human homeworld.”
Thel leaned closer. “But this here is not the human homeworld.”
Reth blinked, focusing his memories. “When that Kig-Yar ship took back recordings of these humans begging to trade for their lives, Truth realized he had found a way to easily find the core of their infestation.”
“These heretical weapons,” Thel said.
“Humans have rebels among them. Something Truth wants to use. The weapons are traceable. We could map the entire human population if we got these rebels to smuggle back enough of them. Sadly, the humans have a new directive that has killed this opportunity.”
“They destroy data on their ships before they are captured, yes,” Thel said.
“But we still have a chance to get the location of their homeworld from them here. There are opportunists who will sell it to us. Once we have it, these habitats are ours to keep, the Prophet promised us. The Kig-Yar will hold a special place then, Truth has promised us.”
Thel shook his head. “The Sangheili will remain by the side of the Prophets.”
“You are too arrogant,” Reth spat. “The Jiralhanae betrayed you. We are given this special mission by the Prophet of Truth. Both seek to minimize your kind. You have dominated things far too long.”
“We are in the midst of a holy war with the humans,” Thel hissed. “That is not the time for such things.”
“But it is,” Reth said. “We will use our Unggoy army from Metisette to destroy the humans here once we have the data that leads us to their homeworld. And we will be favored in the Prophets’ eyes. Not you, Sangheili.”
“You are an obnoxious creature.” Thel broke the straps around the Kig-Yar and freed him.
“When we hand over the humans, we will be honored. The Prophets will look kindly on us in the final journey.” Reth staggered over to the bunk and lay down. “We will be holier and more blessed than you, Sangheili. You will see. You will see.”
Thel walked away, back to the cockpit, where Zhar looked up. He’d overheard their whole exchange.
The Cole Protocol Page 19
