by Troy Denning
Hersh swallowed, then said, “We’d only need to radiate for a millisecond, sir. But with so many enemy craft between us and the target, someone’s going to hear a ping.”
Ewen nodded, then surprised Fred by asking, “But will the enemy be able to find us?”
Before Hersh could answer, the executive officer’s voice rang out from firing control. “Shivas targeted. Ready to launch in twenty seconds.”
“Thank you,” Ewen replied. “Five-second interval between first two. Minimum two-minute delay with random interval for last four.”
The executive officer confirmed the order by repeating it, and Ewen turned back to Hersh.
“Lieutenant, will the Keepers find us?”
“They could,” Hersh said. “Every vessel detecting the transmission will have a vector on us. Once they coordinate and triangulate, they’ll have a point of origin.”
“How long will that take?”
“It would take a UNSC task force about five seconds,” Hersh said. “But UNSC systems are set up to share SIGINT automatically. With the Keepers . . . it’s anybody’s guess.”
The executive officer reported, “Shivas ready to launch on your command, Captain.”
“Thank you, XO. Hold status for now.” Ewen then addressed Fred: “You understand we’re not in the rescue business? Even if the Ferrets respond, Blue Team won’t deploy unless it furthers the mission.”
“Understood,” Fred said. “That’s all I’m thinking of.”
Ewen studied him for a moment, then said, “Do I need to remind you that lying to a superior officer is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice?”
“Sorry, sir. I won’t let it happen again.”
“You’d better not. I’m putting my ship at risk on your suggestion.” Ewen looked to Hersh and nodded. “Ping the Ferret TEAMCOM, Lieutenant. Make sure they know it’s us.”
Hersh’s finger was already on her tacpad. “Executing now, sir.”
Five seconds of silence passed before the voice of Olivia-G291 began to issue from the ceiling speakers.
“Situation dark and uncertain,” she said. “Team has penetrated Keeper installation Salvation Base, located in Forerunner ruin on moon Taram. Hostile forces have taken Stolen Faith and captured Havok decoys. Ash-G099 assigned to draw off Keeper pursuit, now absent more than five hours. Lopis and Mark-G313 searching for mission objectives, also absent more than five hours.”
Fred glanced over to find Ewen’s jaw clenched and his gaze fixed on his boots. It seemed likely the captain was thinking the same thing Fred was—that the mission had indeed gone bad, and Olivia was about to be on the receiving end of half a dozen Shivas.
After a momentary pause, Olivia continued, “Transmitting from captured Turaco, no identification or transponder code, equipped with uncooperative, smart AI Argie and oper—”
There was no pop, scratch, or squeal. Olivia’s voice simply ended, leaving an ominous silence.
Hersh jabbed at her tacpad for a second, then said, “The transmission was cut off.”
“By what?” Ewen demanded.
Hersh continued to study her tacpad. “My guess is the Turaco’s AI,” she said. “There was no background roar or signal pulse, so I don’t think it was an explosion or a comm malfunction.”
“Which is why Olivia made a point of saying the AI was uncooperative,” Kelly said. “She knew it was going to cut her off.”
“And I think that is not all she was telling us,” Linda said. “Why would she remind us that Taram is a moon?”
Ewen furrowed his brow. “What’s your point, Spartan?”
“That a good soldier does not waste words during a sitrep.”
“And why did she say the situation was dark and uncertain?” Kelly asked. “What’s a dark situation, anyway?”
“Dark Moon,” Damon said. “Spartan-G291 is using a redundancy code. There is an eighty-three-point-three percent chance that she is trying to tell us that Dark Moon Enterprises is involved.”
Fred considered the AI’s suggestion. All he really knew about Dark Moon was that they weren’t afraid to tangle with ONI—a trait that made them either foolish or fearless, and probably both. But it didn’t make them terrorists. They wouldn’t assassinate a UNSC admiral and abduct her family just to infuriate ONI. And they wouldn’t align themselves with the Keepers of the One Freedom unless there was something in it for them.
After a moment, he spoke aloud. “Damon thinks she’s trying to tell us Dark Moon is behind this.”
“I didn’t say behind,” Damon said. “I said involved.”
Fred ignored the AI and asked Ewen, “You know what Dark Moon is, right?”
“ ‘No contact, no access,’ ” Ewen said, quoting the UNSC blacklist order. “I read the FLEETCOM bulletins, Lieutenant.”
“So I imagine you see it,” Fred said. “The Ferrets tangled with Dark Moon during their training, and now ’Livi is using a redundancy code to tell us Dark Moon is mixed up in this mess.”
“Mixed up how?”
Fred hesitated, reminding himself that no matter how much he liked Lopis, it was his duty to be honest. Finally, he said, “That’s hard to say for sure. But if she knew for certain that Dark Moon was directly responsible for what happened to the Tuwas, she would have found a way to let us know.”
“She would not have said ‘uncooperative AI,’ ” Linda said. “She would have said ‘hostile AI.’ ”
Ewen looked away for a moment, then said: “Very well. You know your fellow Spartans better than I do, so that will be our working assumption.”
As the captain spoke, the tactical holograph began to bleed designator symbols in the Silent Joe’s direction, and Hersh said, “Captain, the Keeper fleet has triangulated our position. We need to relocate.”
“Which will require loading new navigation data into the Shiva guidance systems,” the executive officer said. “If we’re going to attack, recommend launching the first pair now.”
“Negative,” Ewen said. “Stand down all Shivas. We’re continuing the original mission as planned.”
“We are?” Hersh was clearly astonished. “But, sir . . . they know we’re here.”
“And the Silent Joe is a stealth craft, with a mission to complete.” Ewen turned back to Fred. “Return Blue Team to the Owl and stand by for orders.”
Fred was happy to obey, but a bit surprised. The conservative response would be to order Olivia to evacuate and launch the Shivas.
“We’re going to insert?”
“Affirmative. If Dark Moon is involved in this, we need to know why and how,” he said. “I’m adding a third objective to Blue Team’s mission: recover the Turaco.”
“Very good, sir,” Fred said. “What about Lopis and the missing Ferrets?”
Ewen smiled. “Well, you’re going to be down there anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to figure out what happened to them.”
CHAPTER 11
* * *
* * *
1509 hours, December 13, 2553 (military calendar)
Salvation Base
Moon Taram, Pydoryn Planetary System, Shaps System
Across what Ash-G099 had come to think of as the pop-up lake, the Keeper assault fleet was vanishing one vessel at a time. One second, a war-surplus Seraph or a captured Longsword would be standing in the blue-green water, the gentle waves lapping at its struts . . . and the next second, it would be gone.
Whether the vessels were launching or sinking was impossible to say. They always vanished while Ash was looking in another direction, and when he looked back, there would be nothing to indicate what had become of them—no residual glow, no whirlpools or pressure circles on the surface of the lake. It was as though the craft had never existed in the first place.
Had Ash been anywhere but a Forerunner ruin, he would have assumed that his smoothers had worn off and that he was beginning to hallucinate. As it was, he merely told himself to observe and adjust. The quantum technology of Forerunner devices was
about a hundred grades above his training tier, and any attempt to impose his own concept of time and space on what he was seeing would only add to his confusion and frustration.
A soft rustle began to fill the corridor behind him—the sound of his pursuers closing in from both directions. Ash remained where he was, kneeling just inside the mouth of a cliffside grotto, and continued to look out over the lake. There were no other living beings in sight, not even Olivia or the Keeper ground crews, but the rolling water filled him with a deep sense of calm . . . and belonging. He felt the cosmos pulsing in his heart and saw his thoughts flashing from star to star, and when he inhaled, it was the breath of the universe that filled his lungs. He wanted to stay in the Forerunner caves forever, at one with all things everywhere, bathed in their eternal, infinite harmony.
But his team was counting on him to maintain the diversion.
Ash switched his gaze to the Turaco, searching for some indication that Olivia and the other Ferrets had made it aboard. The lake seemed to prevent the observation of living beings—at least from the grotto where Ash was kneeling—so all he could do was look for indirect evidence of their presence.
He didn’t find any, which he decided was a good sign. The Ferrets were too well trained to unintentionally leave a trail, so anything he could see from his perch would suggest trouble.
The situation at the Stolen Faith was more disturbing. According to the chronometer he had taken off a dead Keeper, the Ferrets had departed the Kig-Yar transport only a quarter hour earlier. But already the starsloop was surrounded by towers of scaffolding that should have taken at least twice that long to erect. And just a moment earlier, a dark rectangle that looked like a breach had appeared in the vessel’s hull, up near the galley. The team hadn’t expected that to happen for a couple of hours.
It certainly didn’t feel like hours had passed. It barely felt like fifteen minutes.
Ash rose and turned toward the arched doorway that led into the corridor, then made a cluck to activate the microphone sewn into his collar. He had done the same thing many times since entering the grotto complex. This time was no different.
No response.
The rustling in the corridor fell silent, and a Jiralhanae voice sounded outside the doorway, from a few meters down the passage. “You are a bold and gifted fighter, infidel.” An electronic undertone suggested he was speaking through a translation disc. “It will be a sadness to kill you.”
“No worries,” Ash said. “You won’t.”
The Jiralhanae chuckled. “Not if you yield now.”
“Surrender?” Ash leveled his weapons—a spike rifle and a plasma pistol—at the doorway. “That’s not going to happen.”
“I give you time to reconsider,” the Jiralhanae said. “There has been too much killing already.”
“I’m sure you think so.”
Ash’s tone was mocking, but in truth, he felt the same way. He had taken out eight pursuers so far—three of them Jiralhanae—and each time he had felt a stabbing pang beneath his heart, as though he were wounding himself by slaying his enemies. It was not a feeling he had ever suffered before, and he suspected it was related to the sense of peace and oneness he had begun to experience after entering this network of Forerunner grottoes.
After a moment, the Jiralhanae said, “The lives you took were fairly earned. I give you my promise—there will be no retaliation.”
“Except imprisonment.”
“Imprisonment is not death,” the Jiralhanae said. “You will have a cell overlooking the Lake of Transcendence and much time to reflect on the Great Journey.”
“Transcendence” was an apt name for the lake, and Ash could think of worse ways to spend his life than watching it.
But he had a job to do. “You mean I’ll be free in my mind.”
“Is that not the greatest freedom of all?” The Jiralhanae paused, then said, “This is the last time I offer this to you, infidel. I hope you will accept.”
“You seem awfully concerned with my welfare.”
“In this place, we are all joined together,” the Jiralhanae replied. “I know you also feel it.”
“I feel something,” Ash allowed. Then, because the Jiralhanae seemed to be in a talkative mood and it was always useful to gather intelligence, he asked, “What was this place? A Forerunner detention center or something?”
The Jiralhanae rumbled with laughter. “Or something. We Keepers believe it was a monastery.”
That made sense. Ash could imagine a Forerunner monk kneeling inside his grotto cell, with nothing to do but stare out over the water and contemplate his place in the universe. Ash had come to a greater sense of inner peace after watching the lake for just a few minutes. He could see why someone might choose to spend decades there.
After a moment, the Jiralhanae said, “So now you can drop your weapons, infidel. You must see how you are trapped.”
Ash glanced back toward the lake. The grotto mouth certainly looked unobstructed, but appearances were often deceiving in Forerunner installations. There could easily be an invisible barrier field or hard-light wall that would activate if he attempted to flee. But that had never been his first choice anyway. Running was a good way to get shot in the back.
“You must surrender your weapons or die,” the Jiralhanae said. “I am coming for you now.”
“It’s your funeral.”
The Jiralhanae responded with a heavy sigh, and a Keeper hand appeared out of the shadows on each side of the doorway. The one on the right belonged to the Jiralhanae, and it was holding a spike grenade—a long, club-like weapon that resembled a grappling hook with quills. The spindly hand on the left belonged to a Kig-Yar, and it was holding the grid-etched orb of a UNSC M9 fragmentation grenade.
Ash was already halfway to the door and firing both weapons. The Jiralhanae’s thick wrist vanished inside a spray of blood and blazing plasma, and the spike grenade dropped toward the corridor floor.
By then, the Kig-Yar hand had opened, and the frag grenade was flying through the arched doorway. Ash lashed out with his plasma pistol and batted the grenade back into the corridor, then hurled himself into the adjacent corner.
A wave of heat and pressure blew past behind him, and he thought he had escaped the worst of the blast . . . until he was driven into the wall by an unexpected rebound wave. The air left his lungs in a huff and his chest blossomed with pain, but that was minor compared the stabbing pang of loss he felt as his pursuers were minced by their own ordnance.
Ash staggered out of the corner. Dozens of glowing spikes and grenade fragments lay scattered just inside the grotto mouth, where they had fallen after hitting the barrier field or hard-light wall—there was no way to tell which—that had bounced the concussion wave back at him. He hadn’t anticipated that, but he had come through in one piece.
More or less.
There had been no chance to cover his ears, so the only thing he could hear at the moment was a deafening roar. The pain in his chest was probably from having the wind knocked out of him, but it could also be from a broken rib—or possibly even a punctured lung.
It didn’t matter. He had to move fast if he wanted to take advantage of the blast shock, and his Gamma Company survivability enhancements would keep him going no matter how badly he was injured.
Ash stepped into the corridor with one weapon pointed in each direction. The passage was lit by the same ambient light that illuminated the entire grotto system, but the grenade smoke hung thick and gray in the air.
Everyone within five meters of the doorway lay shredded and motionless, but eight meters to the left, a gaunt Kig-Yar silhouette was starting to pick itself off the floor. Ash put a trio of plasma bolts into its head, then turned in the opposite direction.
A pair of large, nebulous shapes now blocked the corridor ahead, swaying and stunned by the grenade blasts, but still alert enough to raise their maulers. Ash was faster, loosing a flurry of spikes that dropped both Brutes before either could fire a sin
gle bolt. The deaths tore at him inside, but he had no time to worry about that now. He took a moment to search his fallen enemies and rearm himself, then raced down the corridor and began to descend the ramp.
By the time Ash reached the first level, he had his breath back and the roaring in his ears had subsided to a steady ringing. But the pain in his chest remained—a bolt of agony that shot through his torso each time he drew a breath.
That was okay. For Gamma Company Spartan-IIIs, pain was jet fuel. It made them run hot and fast.
Ash paused at the exit long enough to study the Turaco and the Stolen Faith. Nothing seemed to have changed at either craft—at least nothing he could see from four hundred meters distant.
Trusting that Mark and Lopis had completed their assignment and joined Olivia by now, Ash stepped out into the lake and began to race toward the Turaco.
The waves vanished within a half dozen steps, and he started to wish he had something with a lot more range than a spiker. The Stolen Faith was surrounded by a swarm of tiny figures—a swarm that appeared to be thickest beneath the dark rectangle of the hull breach. Ash took a knee and clucked to activate his microphone again.
This time, there was a response. “Ash?”
“Who else?” Ash spoke freely. They were on TEAMCOM, so even if the Keepers somehow intercepted the transmission, it would be impossible to decrypt. “Are you aboard the Turaco?”
“Affirmative,” Olivia said. “And you’re not going to believe who it belongs to.”
“I’m looking forward to finding out,” Ash said. “But it’s time to evacuate. You can pick me up on the way.”
“Negative,” Olivia said. “Not yet.”
“What’s the holdup?”
“The Inspector and Mark. They’re not back.”
“Acknowledged.” Ash told himself not to worry. It had only been fifteen minutes since the team divided, and even Mark and Lopis might need longer than that to find the Tuwas. “I’ll join them. You can pick us all up together.”
“Affirmative,” Olivia said. “But don’t push your luck. Help is on the way.”
