Halo: Glasslands

by Traviss, Karen

  And that was when Lucy snapped.

  She grabbed Halsey by the shoulder again, spun her around and threw a punch that sent a shock wave right up her arm. Halsey hit the ground with a loud crack. Someone grabbed Lucy from behind, but the switch had been thrown and she didn’t know how to turn it off. The fury shut out all sound: her lungs froze and her skull was bursting. She fought to break free and get at Halsey, this focus of all that was threatening and bullying in her world, but she couldn’t.

  If she didn’t let it all out right now, she’d collapse.

  “No!” she screamed. “No! No! No!”

  The sound of her own voice after all those years was shockingly alien, so weird that she almost didn’t recognize it. It took every scrap of breath and energy she had left. She couldn’t say another word.

  “Well, goddamn…” Mendez said. “Goddamn.”

  UNSC PORT STANLEY, SOMEWHERE OFF SANGHELIOS: FEBRUARY 2553.

  As too many UNSC personnel had found out the hard way, it was pretty hard to kill a Sangheili.

  The shipmaster they’d brought on board still looked battered and some of his teeth were broken, but he was alert and alive. Osman leaned on the door frame of the brig and waited for him to start pounding at the door again. He hadn’t touched the food placed in the security hatch. That didn’t surprise her.

  So who are you, then?

  According to the nav computer in his shuttle, he’d come from Mdama, and his last few trips had been to Ontom. Working out his name was going to take a little longer. Phillips watched him, eyes bright with fascination.

  “Here’s the hard bit,” Osman said. “Do I tell ‘Telcam that we’ve nabbed him, or not?”

  Very few Sangheili had been taken alive, and those had been too close to death to be much use to ONI, but this one would be very useful indeed.

  “Nabbed,” Phillips said. “What a sweet old-fashioned word. There was a time when people called this rendition. I suppose you want me to have another chat with him when he’s calmed down a bit. If he calms down.”

  “Well, you’re the only one on board who can look him in the eye and not want to spit in it. And you’re supposed to be the greatest living expert on hinge-heads.”

  “Sooner or later, someone’s going to notice he’s missing and start talking about it.”

  Osman just looked at him and raised an eyebrow eloquently. It was very easy to put Phillips in his place. She didn’t really mean to, because he’d far exceeded her expectations, from his willingness to muck in with the rest of the crew to his complete indifference to how much danger he was in. But he had to remember that he wasn’t here to explore the rich variety of Sangheili culture. He was here to help ONI kill the bastards.

  “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I keep forgetting that you were raised in the intelligence community. Silly me.”

  It was a very charming way of describing a Spartan’s unnatural, frequently painful life. She wondered whether Naomi had confided in any of the others about the news Osman had broken to her. Osman was keeping an eye on Vaz as a barometer of Naomi’s reaction, because he was slightly easier to read and he seemed pretty protective toward her. So far, he was still giving her occasional baffled looks that suggested she hadn’t said anything yet.

  Maybe she was having difficulty finding the words to explain that Halsey had kidnapped her, replaced her with a short-lived clone, and left her parents to grieve over a dead child that wasn’t her, while she was being subjected to what any civilized society would have described as immoral experiments. She knew she’d been taken away from her family. She just hadn’t known what had happened to them after that. And I still haven’t told her the full story, have I? She needs to read her file, to see it for herself. It would be a lot to come to terms with at her time of life.

  The fact that the Spartan-IIs had fulfilled their promise and turned the course of the war didn’t make it all better, not at all.

  “That’s okay, Evan,” Osman said. “I wasn’t a natural-born spy. Had you had my training, I shudder to think how dangerous you would have become.”

  Phillips looked as if he wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or an insult, but she meant it as professional admiration. He just had that mind-set. He seemed to really enjoy the role, whereas she’d just grown used to it and did it to the best of her ability.

  Vaz and Mal joined the staring committee. The Sangheili couldn’t see them through the monitor plate.

  “I could have sold tickets,” Mal said. “I tell you, it was like watching a train crash into the buffers. Permission to break out the beer, ma’am, and stand Naomi a drink?”

  “Absolutely, Staff. You two didn’t do so badly either.”

  “So what’s Parangosky going to do with him, then?” Vaz asked. “Although I suppose it depends on who he is.”

  “At least we know he’s probably from a Mdama keep.” Phillips looked at his watch. “I’m betting he’ll be late calling in already, so I’ll do a little bit of eavesdropping and see who’s pacing up and down waiting to tell him his dinner’s in the dog.”

  The Sangheili was now sitting on the bench against the bulkhead, head bowed and massive four-fingered hands clasped in his lap as if he was praying. He might have been meditating—or shaping up for another ranting session.

  “Well, either he’s batting for the Arbiter, or else he’s some disenchanted random guy who got involved with ‘Telcam and started to worry where all that shiny kit was coming from,” Mal said. “Maybe Adj and BB can extract some data from his armor.”

  BB materialized next to them, not the usual featureless blue box but sporting a bright red bow tied as if he was a gift. Vaz frowned at him.

  “I didn’t know you could do other colors, BB,” he said. “What’s the bow for? Got a date?”

  “Oh, I can do the full spectrum.” BB cycled the bow through the rainbow before settling back on red again. “It’s the Admiral’s birthday. And this is another thoughtful present for her. So I’m a double act with the Adj now, am I? Well, so be it. He’s got more manual dexterity than me.”

  “Seriously, BB, can we get an identity out of his armor?” Osman asked. “There’s nothing in his helmet systems to identify him. We know where he’s been, but not his name.”

  “It’s going to mean interfacing with him physically.”

  Mal was watching the Sangheili intently. “Otherwise known as a punch in the mouth, ma’am.”

  “I really did mean interface,” BB said. “I doubt there’s anything in the body armor systems, but we could send in Adj to make sure.”

  “As long as Cap’n Hinge-head doesn’t do him any damage.”

  Osman felt she was saddling tigers again. “Phillips asked him nicely, but he wasn’t very forthcoming.”

  She reflected on the sheer incongruity of talking to a floating box tied up with a red shiny bow about the finer detail of processing abductees. I was one once. I haven’t learned any pity, have I? She checked her watch to see how long she had until the next sitrep to Parangosky.

  “Okay,” she said. “Better get Naomi standing by in case he tries to make a run for it. He knows she can drop him.”

  “You can’t intimidate a Sangheili, Captain,” Phillips said. “He’d rather die in battle.”

  “I’m betting he’d rather escape in one piece to complete whatever his mission was, actually.” She turned to Mal. “But get his cooperation any way you can, Staff.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Mal held up a sphere about fifteen centimeters across, grained and polished like some dense wood. “And we found this when we disarmed him. Not sure what it is, but it’s not scanning as ordnance.”

  “I think it’s a puzzle,” Phillips said. He held his hand out for it. “It’s called an arum. I’ve never actually seen one before.”

  Phillips took it in both hands and fiddled with it, making it rattle. It was a large thing for a human’s hand, but it would have been no more than a toy in a Sangheili’s grip. As Phillips twisted it, Osman could
see that it was made up of interconnecting rings and spheres, almost like some wooden puzzles she’d seen in museums on Earth.

  “They give these to children to teach them discipline,” Phillips said. “You have to line up the components so that the stone at the center falls out. Interesting that he still carries one.”

  Vaz shrugged, not taking his eyes off the Sangheili. “Maybe it’s a present for his kids.”

  “I doubt it. They’re never supposed to find out who their fathers are.”

  “Yeah, I come from a neighborhood like that, too,” Mal said. “Never knew who my dad was, either.”

  “I meant he wouldn’t hand out presents because they raise them in a communal kibbutz-type environment so that they start life on an equal social footing.”

  “Maybe Vaz can get somewhere with him, then. Discuss the glorious history of the soviets and beetroot-based economies.”

  Vaz didn’t blink. The two marines tormented each other mercilessly, a sure sign of an old friendship. “Don’t forget you lease your piddling little island from us. As a Russian taxpayer, I own you.”

  “Well, you got a bargain, then. Okay, now we’ve got this bugger, what are we going to get out of him?”

  Did the Sangheili have a wife and kids, a mother and father, a family now worrying where he was and whether anything terrible had happened to him? Osman had to assume he did. She resisted succumbing to humanization. When she started seeing Sangheili as mommies and daddies and fine upstanding family folk, then it became harder to do what she had to. She couldn’t recall hinge-heads ever debating whether to spare humans on the basis that they had families who would miss them. They just incinerated planets and relished their hand-to-hand slaughter. Another little gem of Parangosky’s wisdom came back to her: learn to think like the enemy, but understand the ways they’re unlike you.

  It was an intellectual exercise, nothing she could really feel in the pit of her stomach, and she wondered if that was how Halsey saw the Spartans—something she understood from the DNA level upward, but didn’t find any compassionate human kinship with until too late in the day.

  Her Spartans. She always referred to us as hers.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have let Naomi read her journal. But would she have believed me otherwise?

  Naomi came down the passage toward them, still in her armor and carrying what Osman liked to call a cattle prod. It didn’t get a lot of use, but she’d been assured that it worked on all large species. “You wanted me, ma’am?”

  “I’m going to put Adj in the cell and see if he can extract any data from the body armor,” Osman said. “It used to be his job, after all. Just stop the hinge-head damaging him while he does it, because if push comes to shove, I’d rather have the Huragok in one piece.”

  “Understood, ma’am.” She looked at Mal and Vaz. “Usual drill?”

  “Let’s get it over with,” Mal said. “Helmets on, boys and girls.”

  BB ushered Adj up to the cell door and projected a set of tentacles to sign at him. Adj didn’t appear worried about the prospect of wrestling with a pissed-off shipmaster and floated patiently as Mal and Vaz prepared to go in first with Naomi right behind them.

  Did Sangheili warriors feel it was beneath their masculine dignity to hit a female? It certainly didn’t stop the Covenant killing women and children along with the men. Osman held her breath.

  “Okay, in three—three,” Mal said. The door slid back, the Sangheili stood up, and the two marines stormed in with Naomi on their heels. Mal went right and Vaz went left to grab one arm each. The Sangheili fought to shake them off and very nearly succeeded. He batted Mal across the compartment, smashing him against the bulkhead with a loud crash.

  “Bastard,” Mal grunted, scrambling to his feet. Vaz hung on to the left arm but the Sangheili brought his fist up under Vaz’s chin just as Mal lunged back and pinned the right arm again. Naomi moved straight in between them. It took two seconds from opening the door to the moment when Naomi shoved the cattle prod up into the gap between the Sangheili’s lower jaws.

  It was hard to unbalance a Sangheili, but the speed of the multipronged attack did the job. As Mal and Vaz struggled to hold on to the Sangheili’s arms, Naomi gave him a quick zap. The prod crackled like a plug discharging and the angry bellowing turned into a single high-pitched squeal. The Sangheili fell back to land on his backside on the bench.

  Adj drifted in, fiddled about with the chest plate, then drifted out again like a nurse taking a blood sample from a difficult toddler. Naomi moved out and shut the door behind her, then helped Vaz off with his helmet.

  “You okay?” she asked. She tipped his head back and checked him over. Mal peered at him too. “He really snapped your head back.”

  “I’m a shock trooper,” Vaz said. “I’m used to hard landings.”

  ODST or not, Osman wasn’t taking any chances with closed brain injury. “Corporal, you take a shot of chorotazine, and that’s an order. I don’t need paralyzed marines, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The hinge-head got to his feet and tottered a little before regaining his balance and roaring abuse again. Phillips looked distinctly uncomfortable, arms folded as he watched.

  “Is this where you tell me you could have gone in and reasoned with him?” Osman asked. “Because that’s great in the movies, but it only needs one blow from him to take your damn face off.”

  Vaz grunted. “Believe it.”

  Phillips scratched his nose, somewhere between embarrassment and looking like he wanted to argue. The reality of this kind of war was equally unlike the movies. It was brutal and dirty and nobody was going to win on points. It was an idea Phillips needed to get used to. The Sangheili was now back at full volume, roaring and hissing.

  “It sounds like he’s saying blarg,” Mal said. “Is that good?”

  “I’ll summarize the rant.” Phillips looked away. “He’s telling us we’re all intestinal worms and vermin, and describing what he’s going to do with our entrails in due course.”

  “I didn’t think he was asking for his lawyer,” Osman said. “Okay, Evan, start eavesdropping.”

  “I took the liberty of recording all voice traffic from the moment I knew you had a prisoner, and I’ve sifted through it, but there’s nothing to interest you so far,” BB said, all tact and diplomacy. “I’m thoughtful like that, I am.”

  Phillips grunted something that sounded like thanks and headed for his cubbyhole in the hangar. Vaz looked at Osman and raised his eyebrows. He seemed a bit unsteady.

  “He’ll come around to the idea, ma’am,” Vaz said. “He always disappears to think things over when he finds out something nasty about his government. But he always gets on with the job in the end.”

  Naomi was still waiting to be dismissed, holding the cattle prod tucked under her arm like a swagger stick.

  “You all right, Spartan?” Osman asked.

  “Fine, thanks, ma’am.”

  “Okay, I’m going to talk to the Admiral about getting this guy offloaded, and then we’ll see what Hood’s up to.”

  “Are we still on for that, ma’am?” Mal asked.

  “It’d be handy to get clearance to tag along, if only to get Phillips on nodding terms with the Arbiter. Who else is Hood going to want with him? I expect the Admiral’s suggesting it right now.”

  There was just a flicker of doubt on Mal’s face. She could understand that. Everyone liked Hood, and it wasn’t easy to stomach the idea of ONI unleashing dirty tricks on the man who’d brought Earth through the war in some kind of shape to rebuild, but then that depended on which of them thought their efforts had made the most difference. The Spartans were ONI’s project and the Spartans had been the tipping point, one way or another. Parangosky felt she had prior claim. Osman wasn’t sure. But she knew who her boss was.

  She took another look through the plate of the brig door. The Sangheili was on his feet now, pacing around and occasionally landing a punch on the bulkheads.

&nb
sp; “See, he’s all better now.” Mal peered over her shoulder. “Do their teeth grow back again, like sharks’ do?”

  “Stick your arm in and find out,” Vaz suggested.

  Osman decided she could leave the Sangheili in there until she’d arranged a handover. If the brig needed hosing down afterward, that was a price worth paying. She went back to her day cabin and sat down at the desk with her chin resting on her hands.

  “BB, can you find out what Hood’s planning?” she asked. She meant accessing his secure files and comms, not asking his secretary. She really hadn’t wanted to do that to the man, not after how kind he’d been to her over the years. “I know Parangosky’s going to tell me, but it would be nice to plan ahead.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” BB said, appearing in the in-tray. “Let me see what my naughty fragment’s been up to while my back’s been turned. Oh, and Hogarth. I hope you didn’t mind my smacking his bottom. He keeps sending Harriet to snoop in your files so I stuck something in his and alerted Internal Audit.”

  “I believe the phrase is you fitted him up.…”

  “Nothing major. Just triggered the attack accountants from hell to check a truly massive overspend. They’ll find it’s a misplaced decimal point in due course.”

  “Remind me never to cross you.”

  “And Phillips will be here to see you in … ten seconds.”

  “You’re fabulous, d’you know that?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  BB disappeared just as Phillips stuck his head inside the door.

  “Good lead with Mdama, Captain,” he said. “I have a name.”

  Osman leaned back in her chair. “That was quick.”

  “Jul ‘Mdama.” Phillips could even do the little cross between a glottal stop and a click before the clan name. “Shipmaster. Some traffic between ‘Telcam, another shipmaster called Buran, and some guy called Forze who appears to be his best buddy. Jul took off from Bekan in a shuttle, and hasn’t called in for ages.”

  “So he’s known to ‘Telcam.”