The Cole Protocol

by Tobias S. Buckell

  “These are details on where the Unggoy Redoubt is,” Zhar said. “Including force strength, ships, how they will shuttle the Unggoy to the Rubble for an attack, and plans for an invasion of one of their habitats called ‘Exodus.’ The humans have the whole Kig-Yar battle plan for themselves now.”

  “Well, they are clever creatures,” Thel said. He shut the display down. “You yourself admired that, if I remember correctly.”

  “This is troubling, though,” Zhar said. “It means the Kig-Yar, Reth, may have been telling the truth.”

  Thel sighed. “That they plan to trick the humans out of the location to their homeworld?”

  “Yes. And that he was doing a holy duty for a Hierarch. You must admit the possibility, looking over those plans to attack the humans. These have been in place for years.”

  Thel rubbed the bottom of a mandible thoughtfully. “It is a possibility, now. I agree.”

  “Then we may have crossed the Hierarch,” Zhar said. “You of all should know how that chills my heart.”

  “A Hierarch,” Thel said, cautiously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that we were given a set of orders that put us in conflict with orders given by another Prophet.”

  Zhar shook his head. “These things border on heresy.”

  “Then do not speak of them ever again,” Thel said. “But it does not change our situation.”

  “But—”

  “So we shall also send a message to Reth,” Thel said, trying to add a note of reassurance to his voice. “We will not approach or attack the Exodus asteroid that the Kig-Yar want. We will attack the other human parts of the Rubble, working to destroy the humans there.”

  Zhar swallowed. “Will that be enough to convince the Prophet of Regret that we did what we were asked?”

  Thel grumbled. “We will destroy the Rubble. We will grind it to pieces from this Kig-Yar ship. How will they doubt our zealotry, then, Zhar? We offer Reth our agreement to leave their habitat alone, and maybe we will come out ahead.”

  “Maybe?” Zhar left the cockpit in a dark mood, and Thel sat down on the shipmaster’s chair with a sneer. This was not Covenant standard; it was designed for Kig-Yar. It was an insult and an expression of their rebellious impulses. And even worse, it was an uncomfortable fit for the Sangheili. Nonetheless, it would be a good spot from which to oversee the destruction of the Rubble.

  The sooner this mess was wrapped up, the sooner Thel imagined a more normal life would resume. Betrayals and intrigues were not his strong suit.

  Sangheili were almost always more . . . direct.

  Thel punched the console in front of him in frustration, shattering the screen and denting the metal.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-ONE

  METISETTE, 23 LIBRAE

  Peter Bonifacio unstrapped himself from the pilot’s seat of the escape capsule. The long-burn engine had run out; he’d kept the thing maxed to get well clear of the damn Spartans that had hunted down Distancia.

  Now he coasted toward Metisette.

  What was that damn Kig-Yar’s code? Bonifacio hunted through scraps of paper in his pockets until he found the tiny card.

  He plugged the frequency into the escape pod’s controls and transmitted the emergency.

  Then he waited nervously until the speaker crackled with the sound of Kig-Yar voices. “Peter Bonifacio. Proceed.”

  “I need help,” Bonifacio blurted out. “I’m in a capsule, headed toward Metisette. I need to be picked up!”

  “And do you have our navigation data with you?”

  “Is this Reth?” Bonifacio asked.

  A moment as the question was transmitted, and then translated. “This is Reth,” came the response. “Our data?”

  Bonifacio swallowed nervously. This was indeed Reth, he told himself. He’d done a lot of business with the Kig-Yar. This was about business. And a partner like Reth would understand a setback. He was dealing with a trade-oriented species, just like himself. Reth would understand. “The data was stolen from me,” Bonifacio finally admitted.

  “Stolen? What use is this to us? Why did you bother even calling to admit this?” Bonifacio couldn’t tell because of the delay and monotone of the translation device, but it felt to him that Reth sounded angry.

  “I know where they will be taking the data,” Bonifacio said quickly. “Please, if you come help me I’ll help you get the data.”

  Another pause before the reply, then, “You are a useless lump of nothing that once glittered to us, Bonifacio. We gave you weapons to smuggle, and make a profit on. We gave you docking rights, and helped you in every way we could imagine. And all we asked is this one favor, for which you failed us.”

  “No!” Bonifacio screamed over the radio. He started babbling. “You can’t just abandon me, you owe me. We worked well together. We were good together.”

  Only silence came from the other end.

  “I’ll tell you where they are taking it, if you do me this last favor,” Bonifacio begged.

  “Where are they taking it?” Reth asked.

  “To the Exodus asteroid,” Bonifacio said. “And if you do me the favor of picking me up, I’ll tell you where it is.”

  Reth laughed. “I already know where it is, thank you. We will be taking it for ourselves soon enough.”

  Bonifacio’s mouth dried with fear. He’d been wrong, he realized. About the Kig-Yar. Probably about everything. But he still had his life to save. “But . . .”

  “I will do you this last favor, Bonifacio,” Reth said. “I will not come pick up your pod. Because right now, were I to pick you up, the last moments of your life would be horrible indeed. Good-bye, human.”

  The radio went silent.

  Bonifacio was alone, floating toward Metisette, looking out the tiny portholes of his escape pod at the distant ruddy orb.

  He wondered if the air would run out before the heater stopped.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-TWO

  SOMEWHERE NEAR CHARYBDIS IX

  The Prophet of Regret stood in front of a giant screen that showed his fleet assembled in the far distance: tiny specks of light waiting to be flung through space wherever he wished.

  He turned his chair about to regard the other body in the room: the High Prophet of Truth.

  Regret frowned as Truth rebuked him. “You are, as ever, too hasty.”

  “How is this?” Regret whined. “I have sent my hunters out to find the source of what I thought was trouble. I have hunted the humans. I have acted. You have not acted well. My plan was more elegant.”

  Truth, Regret thought, always did like working his intrigues. He shouldn’t have been this surprised to find out Truth was behind the design of these smuggled weapons.

  They were all just an attempt to furtively find the human homeworld, Truth had said, without further fleet engagements. Never mind that Regret knew they could smash the humans, one world after another. Truth worried about the secret of humans, and their first encounter with them. Particularly since the three Hierarchs had worked so hard to hide that secret.

  “Does it matter now what we have done?” Truth said. “There is a mess, and it needs cleaning.”

  “Your mess,” Regret spat.

  The fleet needs to return to this world. If the Kig-Yar have the location of the human homeworld, we can use it and the Unggoy quartered there. If not, then we destroy all traces of this . . . experiment.”

  “I agree,” Regret said, finding himself once again following Truth’s lead.

  “The Jiralhanae who betrayed your Sangheili shipmaster, they will need to be destroyed. Their loyalty is commendable, but the knowledge of what they saw must die with them. We do not need any in High Charity speaking of this.”

  Regret agreed. “You will travel to this world with us, and watch the fleet in action?”

  The Prophet of Truth bobbed his head. “I want to see this all concluded, yes. I have had my effects brought onto your flagship. We will
have joint command. Together we will fix any problems. As we always have.”

  Regret turned and looked at the screen, with its live images of the fleet. Truth had platitudes, words about being brothers, now that his experiment had failed. But they were only brothers with a shared secret while the humans lived.

  If they ever got rid of the threat humans presented, then Truth would have no need of Regret. More than ever, Regret realized, if he ever had the chance to destroy the humans first and keep control of his position in the Covenant, he would have to move fast in the future. Faster than Truth’s intrigues.

  Regret shook himself from his thoughts. “Then it is time for us to go there,” he said. And using the controls on his floating throne, he keyed in a channel to the ship’s bridge and gave the order for the fleet to make the jump.

  PART IV

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-THREE

  PETYA, NEAR HABITAT TIAGO, THE RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

  Delgado sat down in the cockpit of the Spartan’s freighter, finding it strangely reassuring to be back aboard.

  Keyes had joined the Spartans aboard the Petya, along with Markov and Delgado. The other ODSTs remained out on the docks, cleaning up after the firefight.

  Things were happening all across the Rubble, Delgado felt. Juliana was off in some vast, spread out, processing mode that made it hard for her to focus on one small area. But she’d asked them all to get ready for a conference. So now they were just waiting, Mike running checks on the Petya, Jai and Adriana in the back examining his armor after the battle.

  Keyes paced the cockpit, waiting for information, frustrated. Markov just stared at the metal floor, somewhat shell-shocked at the death of his commanding officer, Faison.

  Everyone surged into the cockpit, though, when Juliana finally returned to manifest herself.

  “I’m sorry for my absence,” she said, appearing over the communications console. “I was verifying the data I had taken from the Kig-Yar ship. I’m also presenting this information to all members of the Rubble Security Council.”

  She faded away, and in her place the moon Metisette appeared. It zoomed large, until its clouds hung in front of the crowd in the cockpit. The image increased, until an irregular oval appeared on the rocky ground of Metisette’s surface.

  Another leap in perspective showed it to be the remains of a crater. Liquid covered the very bottom, filled by a river of some sort with a waterfall. Delgado looked at the shapes by the waterfall’s edge. “Are those structures?”

  “The Kig-Yar have created a natural home for hundreds of thousands of Unggoy,” Juliana’s voice said. “This structure, parked over a methane waterfall where the mists are thick enough with methane that the Unggoy can breathe out in the open, is called the Redoubt. Right now, as we speak, Unggoy are being readied for an invasion of the Rubble.”

  Juliana let that sink in.

  “When do they mobilize?” Keyes asked.

  “Within the next twenty-four hours,” Juliana said. The image of Metisette faded, replaced by pictures of Kig-Yar ships moving out of orbit down to Metisette. “As soon as they pick up the Unggoy.”

  Those images faded as well, to be replaced by Juliana. She cocked her head, listening to someone else. “The Council wants to know what our Kig-Yar contacts are saying about all this.”

  “That would tip the hand of any defense the Rubble might need,” Keyes muttered.

  Juliana nodded. “May I offer another point of importance?”

  “Please,” Jai said from the cockpit’s entrance. He’d removed his helmet, and his brown eyes were fixed on Juliana.

  “The Kig-Yar know about the Exodus project.” Juliana had dropped a bombshell, Delgado realized. Their most tightly held secret, something he hadn’t known about, had been in the Kig-Yar databanks. It angered him. “And once Bonafacio had delivered the navigation data to them, the Kig-Yar were going to use the asteroid as a troop carrier to invade Earth.”

  Delgado felt vaguely sick.

  Keyes looked confused, but didn’t ask any questions for now. This was the first he had heard of the Exodus project, and while he could infer what it might entail from the AI’s statement, he was hoping it would let something more solid slip.

  Juliana waited for this, too, to sink in. “I’m unwilling to lose the Rubble. It’s everything I exist for. I say we attack first. We use our mass drivers like MACs. We get Keyes and his men back aboard the Midsummer Night. If we start attacking them while their main force is on the ground, we have a chance of winning this.”

  Keyes fiddled with a pen as he looked around. “The Midsummer Night has the capacity to go up against that big Jackal ship, but we could get overwhelmed by sheer numbers with all these other craft they have parked throughout the Rubble. And then there’s the other issue: have these Jackals been working alone? Because if not, all they have to do is call in support. One stealth frigate won’t be much use against what the Covenant usually bring to a fight.”

  “I can’t speak to that,” Juliana said. “But now we have another problem. The Security Council is getting ready for a meeting. They’re shutting me out. This isn’t something I can override without drawing attention. Delgado, Maria was Diego’s closest relative, and has been given a temporary seat on the Council to represent him. Can you get down there? I don’t want us out of the loop here.”

  Delgado was already up. “Take me there, I’ll go in.”

  Jai and Mike looked at each other. Jai shook his head. “We don’t want to risk taking Petya into the heart of the Rubble. We’re already exposing ourselves enough with the AI and Delgado aboard.”

  “I’ll take tube cars,” Delgado said.

  Outside of the tall faux-marble columns of the Council Chambers, Maria Esquival looked over at Delgado. The chambers were buried deep in the heart of Korrah, one of the first Rubble habitats, and had rushed to get there. “You got over here quickly.” She looked like she hadn’t slept in days, with bags under her eyes. She pushed a stray wisp of hair aside.

  Delgado broke protocol and gave her a long hug. “I’m so sorry about Diego.”

  She let go and looked up at him. “They said that bastard Bonifacio is in an escape pod somewhere with the Kig-Yar?”

  “As far as we know, yes. When this crisis is over, I will personally hunt that cockroach down.”

  Maria cleared her throat. “The Security Council just had an emergency meeting to figure out what to do next. I stood in for Diego. I had no voting rights, but I could talk if needed.”

  “I know. What can you tell me?”

  “The summary is that we’re grateful for all the risks you’ve taken, though I think half the Council is ready to string you all up for releasing the UNSC prisoners without locators, or without authority.”

  “We didn’t have a lot of time to confer or ask permission, and Juliana was helping.”

  “That disturbs them almost as much as anything. You know the AI is well past her useful age.”

  Delgado nodded. “She’s unpredictable. But I think, deep down, what she cares about is the Rubble. What is the Council going to do?”

  “You’re not going to like this.”

  “Really?” Delgado raised an eyebrow.

  “They’ve called the Kig-Yar. They want to see if there is any negotiation to be done.”

  Delgado stared at Maria. “They what?”

  “Understand—from their position, the Kig-Yar have only helped. And don’t lecture me about the destruction of Madrigal. The fact is, you know a lot of people trust the Kig-Yar here. They’ve worked with us to build the Rubble. They’ve traded with us. They consider them allies.”

  “They really did it?”

  “Yes. We’re waiting for a response.”

  Delgado walked away, shaking his head. “We’ve completely tipped our hand.”

  Maria looked down at the ground. “I don’t know. Maybe not. We’re just asking for meetings. I’m not sure what else we can do except get ready to defend ourselves. We have a Coun
cil, it’s the way the Rubble works. They’ve spoken.”

  “But they were wrong,” Delgado snapped.

  “What would you have us be?” Maria asked. “We’re ruled by representatives, and by our votes.”

  “This is a disaster.”

  “Maybe not.” Maria grabbed his arm. “Again, all we’ve done is ask for meetings. We haven’t asked why. Certainly with all the recent activity around the Rubble it would make sense that we’re jumpy.”

  Delgado looked at her. “I really hope so.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-FOUR

  THE REDOUBT, METISETTE, 23 LIBRAE

  Reth lay in a soft collection of pillows in an approximation of a nest. His skin had been bandaged, cuts and bruises covered with medicines that stank, and he was giddy from pain medication. The damage the Sangheili had done to him still throbbed, but he was beginning to feel like the worst of the pain was over now that a Kig-Yar healer had spent time with him.

  The soft sound of air fans lulled him near the edge of sleep when the door to his room opened.

  “I was not to be disturbed during this sleep cycle,” Reth snapped, his eyes still closed.

  “It is the humans.” A lesser Kig-Yar groveled by Reth’s feet. “They keep contacting us, requesting meetings.”

  “About what?” Reth opened his eyes. The room was decorated with bits and pieces of art from around Covenant space randomly piled in corners and hanging off shelves in random chaos and clutter. All were pieces stolen or traded from all the species the Kig-Yar dealt with—a riot of shapes, colors, sizes, and function. It may have looked like random junk, but any Kig-Yar in the room would know it was Reth’s hoard. In the corner was a handmade Sangheili practice helmet, carved out of a hard wood and painted black. Reth’s most prized piece of the collection.

  Sangheili didn’t part with their handmade gifts easily. Reth had to work hard to pilfer that particular item.