by Troy Denning
“How about Jiralhanae tracks?” Kelly asked over TEAMCOM. “Is that solid enough?”
“I hope that’s not a serious question.” Veta turned in a circle and finally located the Spartan about a hundred meters away, at ten o’clock. Kelly was a ghostly figure half obscured by a column of smoke, standing next to a collapsed gate. “What do you have?”
“A lot of signs pointing to a quick, well-organized strike,” Kelly said. “The attackers used a breaching charge to blow the gate, then entered the compound on foot and started taking down anything that moved. There were at least five Jiralhanae.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” Mark said. “Dark Moon used Jiralhanae to hit the Donoma and kill Admiral Tuwa.”
“Because they wanted us to think it was a Keeper operation,” Veta said. “But why would Dark Moon use that same deception here? We already know the Keepers were framed for the Donoma incident—and that Dark Moon was the muscle for the kidnapping and the murders.”
“I think it was the Keepers who made this attack,” Linda said. “There are Kig-Yar tracks at another fence breach in the back of the compound. Probably a team of ten.”
“And we have boot tracks here,” Olivia added. She was kneeling a few steps ahead of Veta, her helmet close to the ground and turned toward the crater. “Looks like it was two men . . . running from a fence breach toward the lab building.”
There was no sidewalk, or even a footpath, crossing the feather-moss in the area, so the men had been approaching a window rather than a door. Which meant they had probably been part of the assault team, rather than employees running for shelter.
“This is looking more like a raid than a cover-up,” Veta said. “It doesn’t make sense that it was Dark Moon. If they held the Tuwas here for two weeks, they would have a relationship with the staff. They wouldn’t need to breach the fence in three places and force entry.”
“So . . . Keepers?” Fred sounded reluctant. “That’s hard to believe after their losses at Salvation Base.”
“Not really,” Veta said. “We know they have other bases, and several vessels escaped Taram before the nukes detonated. Maybe Castor was on one.”
“Yeah . . . Castor,” Fred said.
He and Veta had both done battle with Castor here on Gao and knew what a ferocious warrior he was. And during the second debriefing, Veta had described how she had locked eyes with Castor just before he took the wounded Dark Moon operatives and fled.
After a moment, Fred exhaled sharply. “Son of a . . . You’re thinking he did this?”
“It would account for a lot,” Veta said. “Especially if Castor kept those Dark Moon operatives alive long enough to interrogate them. We know from the tread castings I found on Taram that they were here. They were probably telling Castor all about New Leaf while we were still waiting for Ewen to debrief us.”
“That would explain how the Keepers beat us here,” Kelly agreed. “And Jiralhanae aren’t the kind to hole up after taking a hit. Castor would want to strike back.”
“Probably,” Veta said. She turned and studied the crater. The building had been more than simply destroyed—it had been demolished so thoroughly it was hard to tell it had once been a laboratory. “But there’s more to this raid than just that.”
“Like?” Fred asked.
“I’m not sure yet. . . .” Veta started toward the nearest fence breach. “I’ll let you know after I talk to some witnesses.”
“Affirmative.” Fred sounded more resigned to her plan than approving of it. “Just don’t get shot.”
“She won’t,” Mark said. “At least not first.”
“Nobody’s getting shot,” Veta said. “Is that clear?”
“If you say so, ma’am,” Mark replied. “We can always go hand-to-hand.”
Veta exhaled in frustration.
Olivia fell in beside her. “He’s just worried about you Mom.”
Veta frowned into Olivia’s bubble-shaped faceplate. “Aren’t you supposed to be looking for tread patterns?”
Olivia shrugged. “I’m worried about you too,” she said. “This is Gao, and you’re wearing a UNSC uniform. You should have worn your armor.”
“They’ve got knives and a SAD-8,” Veta said. The 8mm Sevine Arms Defender was a short-nosed weapon designed for easy concealment and close-quarters self-defense. Its recoil was so heavy that even experienced shooters had trouble hitting a target at ten meters, so Veta wasn’t that concerned. “I’ll be fine.”
“Of course you will,” Olivia said. “I’ll have you covered.”
They reached the fence breach. Veta removed her utility belt with its holstered sidearm, then wrapped the belt around the weapon and passed the bundle to Olivia. “Hold this.”
Olivia reluctantly shifted her battle rifle to one hand and took the belt. “It’s hard to react with my hands full.”
“You’ll do okay,” Veta said. “And you’ll look less intimidating.”
Veta stepped through the breach and, holding her hands away from her sides, started across the clearing toward the wall of undergrowth.
When she was five meters away, a husky female voice called out, “That’s close enough.”
“No problem. I just have a few questions,” Veta said.
“And you expect us to answer?”
Us, not me, Veta noticed. The woman behind the voice wasn’t accustomed to being in charge. “I’d appreciate it.”
“Guess Spartans aren’t that bright.”
“Do I look like a Spartan?” Veta asked.
The voice fell silent for a moment, then said, “Your friends do. You look like a traitor.”
Veta’s chest tightened. She had joined the “enemy” not because she was a traitor, but because the planet’s new president, Arlo Casille, could not be trusted with the powerful Forerunner ancilla that she and Blue Team had recovered in the Montero Cave System.
But the woman in the jungle could not possibly know that. Casille had classified all information related to Forerunner discoveries on Gao, then publicly declared that Veta, “a brave investigator,” had died during the fight to drive off the UNSC. But he hadn’t plastered her picture across the media. So, unless the woman happened to recognize Veta from a six-month-old newsfeed, she was probably basing her “traitor” remark on Veta’s Gao accent alone.
“Do we know each other?” Veta asked.
“I know your kind,” the woman said. “The Watchdog warned us. You ought to be ashamed, helping the UNSC kill your own people.”
The Watchdog. That had to be Arlo Casille’s new nickname—probably one he had created himself to secure his hold on power.
Veta stepped closer to the jungle line. “If I wanted you dead, those Spartans on your flanks would have done the job by now.”
A rustle sounded as Mark and Ash made their presence known, and a chorus of gasps sounded from the undergrowth.
“Come out here where we can talk,” Veta ordered. “Tell me what happened.”
A stocky woman of about forty emerged from the fronds. She had a round face and short auburn hair, and she was holding a meat cleaver in one hand. Her embroidered blouse was so smeared with moss and mud that it looked like camouflage. A name tag stitched into the left chest panel read NITA.
Nita gave Olivia a disdainful once-over, then stopped in front of Veta and put her free hand on her hip. “You know what happened. The UNSC sends the Keepers in to do its dirty work, and now you’re here to clean up.”
The woman sounded like a true Casille loyalist—a sucker for propaganda and conspiracy theories. Veta paused for a moment, adjusting her approach, then spoke in a calm, factual voice.
“The UNSC had nothing to do with this.” She made a point of looking into the undergrowth behind the woman, then said, “We haven’t found any of your wounded.”
“So?”
“So, there must have been some,” Veta said. “Is there anything we can do for them?”
“Not likely.” Nita’s expression remained hard
, but her tone was softening. “They’re at the evacuation pad by now.”
There was an emergency evacuation pad ten kilometers away, which served several laboratories similar to New Leaf. McAvoy had originally planned to land the Turaco there, but had diverted to investigate when he saw smoke rising from the coordinates of their final destination.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Veta asked. “That evacuation pad is the only place the Keepers could have landed a spacecraft.”
“Don’t worry,” Nita said. “It’s safe.”
She looked unconcerned, which suggested enough time had passed for her to be certain the Keepers were completely gone. Call it twenty minutes for someone to drive out on the dirt road and report back . . . then another thirty or forty minutes to get organized and transport the casualties to the evacuation pad. . . .
But it really didn’t matter how long the Keepers had been gone. Their vessel could easily have been spotted by Traffic Control as it left, or even on approach.
Really, a GMoP patrol could show up at New Leaf any time.
Veta smiled at the woman, then said, “Glad to hear it. I just have a few questions, and we’ll be on our way.”
Nita’s face showed relief. “Then ask away. The sooner you’re gone, the better.”
“You’re sure it was the Keepers of the One Freedom who attacked?”
“I know a Brute when I see one,” Nita said. “And they were wearing Keeper armor. Blue with gold trim?”
Nita was suddenly volunteering information. She was eager to get rid of the UNSC.
Continuing in a casual voice, Veta asked, “What did they want?”
“How should I know?” The woman looked into the undergrowth behind her—a body-language deflection that suggested a lie. “Miguel, can you believe this? She’s asking us.”
“Maybe it’s the same thing they’re looking for,” said a male voice. The undergrowth stirred, and hawk-nosed man in rubber boots and muddy khakis stepped into view. The grip of the SAD-8 protruded from his front pants pocket. “Has to be.”
“Good thinking.” Nita turned back to Veta, then said, “Maybe we should be asking what you want?”
“Answers.” Veta watched Nita and Miguel shoot uncertain glances at each other—then knew what her interrogation strategy would be. She continued to hold Nita’s gaze. “What do you think we’re after?”
Nita gave an exaggerated shrug. “No idea. I’m just a cook. He’s a groundskeeper.”
“Damn.” Veta dropped her chin in feigned disappointment, then turned away and spoke loudly into her headset mic. “Alpha Team, is the perimeter secure?”
“Who the hell is Alpha Team?” Fred’s reply came over TEAMCOM and would not be audible to Nita, Miguel, or any of the Gao survivors. “And why are you being so loud?”
“Good,” Veta said, ignoring Fred. “It looks like we’re going to be here awhile. Set mines and motion detectors, then clear an LZ for the forensics teams—a big one. We’re going to need the M606.”
“The what?” Fred hissed in Veta’s ear. “There’s no such thing—”
“What’s an M606?” Nita asked.
“Armored track-shovel,” Veta said. “The recovery crews are going to need it to dig out the lab.”
“Why would you do that?” Miguel asked.
“Because you’re just a groundskeeper, and she’s just the cook.” Veta nodded toward Nita. “Neither of you seems to know what was really going on at New Leaf, so we’re going to have to find the answers ourselves. That means excavating the lab.”
“The Ministry of War will never allow that!” Nita said.
Veta glanced at Olivia and rolled her eyes.
Olivia snorted through her helmet’s acoustic transducer and asked, “You think they can stop us?”
Nita’s face paled, and Miguel said, “Just . . . tell them, Nita. What difference does it make now?”
“Good idea.” Veta kept her gaze fixed on Nita. “This doesn’t have to be hard. But I’m going to have my answers before we leave. If that means staying here a week—”
“Okay, okay,” Nita said. “But we are just hired help. I don’t know how much we can really tell you.”
“Start with what you think has been going on here,” Veta said. “And don’t waste time lying. Once that M606 is loaded, the task force won’t be turning back.”
“All we know is what we heard,” Miguel said, forcing Nita’s hand. “The whitecoats were working on something to stop the Keepers from harassing Gao shipping.”
“A biological agent?”
“What do you think?” Nita retorted. “This is a lab.”
Veta sharpened her tone. “So you were developing biological weapons at this facility?” Knowing that Miguel was the more nervous or the two—and therefore the more cooperative—she switched her gaze to him. “In violation of the Ganymede Accords?”
There was no such official agreement, but Miguel’s face fell anyway. “Not us,” he said. “And we haven’t even been inside the main building for two weeks.”
“Miguel,” Nita said. “If the Watchdog hears you’ve been talking—”
Veta interrupted. “Trust me, Nita, you don’t want to interfere with this investigation.” She continued to look at Miguel as she spoke. “If we find out you’ve been party to violating the Ganymede Accords, we’ll have no choice but to take you along when we leave.”
“For what?”
“For prosecution . . . crimes against humanity,” Veta said. “Covering for someone else makes you a conspirator, and we have no leeway in the matter. So be careful here. The ride home is going to be crowded enough.”
“You can’t take me anywhere,” Nita said. “I’m a Gao—”
“We know exactly who you are.” Veta glanced toward Olivia, who responded by stepping up close to Nita, then said, “But the UNSC takes the Ganymede Accords very seriously.”
“Look, we didn’t have anything to do with it,” Miguel said. “Two weeks ago, the service crews were banned from going inside the lab.”
“Did that ever happen before?”
“No,” Miguel said. “This is the first time.”
“Where’s the rest of the staff now?” Veta asked. “The researchers and the managers?”
“All dead,” Miguel said. He pointed through the fence breach toward the collapsed lab building. “Most of them, anyway. We tried to dig out everyone who was still alive and sent them to the evacuation pad, but a lot of them aren’t going to make it.”
Veta was sorry to hear of the casualties, but she couldn’t say so without undermining her interrogation persona. “How long ago?”
“How long ago what?” Miguel asked.
“Look,” Nita added, “we’ve told you everything we know. Maybe you should load up and let us get back to collecting the dead. I’m sure you noticed the bodies still stuck in the rubble.”
“I’ll decide when we’re done,” Veta said. “How long ago did you send the wounded to the evacuation pad?”
Miguel looked to Nita, and Nita sighed and checked her chronometer. “Over an hour ago,” she said. “They should be in the air by now.”
“Everybody catch that?” Lopis asked over TEAMCOM. “The wounded are being airlifted out of the evacuation pad. Repeat: medevac. Give them safe passage.”
There was a short pause, then McAvoy spoke over TEAMCOM. “Uh, the Silent Joe reports negative traffic over the Yosavi Jungle. A medevac could have set down at the emergency pad before we inserted and still be on the ground, but there’s nothing in the air right now.”
“Copy.”
Veta looked back to Nita and decided not to press her on the timing of the evacuation flight yet. There could be a lot of things holding up the departure, and Nita wouldn’t know about any of them. Instead, she turned toward the fence breach.
“Tell me about the raid.” She motioned for everyone to walk with her toward the blast site. “What did the Keepers do when they arrived?”
“You have to ask?” Nita
snapped, clearly impatient. “They started killing everyone in sight.”
“And blowing shit up,” Miguel added. “They hit the admin office and the director’s hut right away.”
They reached the fence breach and started toward the demolished lab crater.
“What about the lab?” Veta asked. “Did they hit the admin office and the director’s hut on their way? Or did they search the rest of the compound first?”
“No, a bunch of them went straight to the lab,” Nita said. “They blew the windows and doors and went inside.”
“And then what happened?”
“Don’t know,” Nita replied. “By then we were hiding in the jungle. If we hadn’t been, you wouldn’t be talking to us now.”
“How long did you stay hidden?” Veta asked.
“Not long,” Miguel said. “The Keepers went inside the lab; we heard some gunfire, and maybe ten minutes passed. Then they left in a hurry. They were barely out the gate before the whole building blew.”
“So they knew what they were after and where to find it,” Veta surmised. “Did you see if they took anybody?”
“Just Director Sabara,” Miguel said. “At least, that’s what some of the wounded were saying. They didn’t talk about anyone else being taken.”
“What about sample canisters?” Veta asked. If Director Sabara had been using the Tuwas’ living bodies to culture something from their thalassemia mutation, the Keepers would certainly be as interested in that as in the lab staff’s knowledge. Castor might not be a scientist himself, but he was a cunning warrior who knew the importance of collecting hard intelligence. “Did you see them take anything like cryo-jars?”
“How could we?” Nita asked. “We told you—we didn’t see anything.”
She was trying a little too hard to draw Veta’s attention—which probably meant she knew more than she was telling. Veta kept her gaze fixed on Miguel.
“Nita is walking the conspirator line, Miguel. Care to join her?”
Miguel shook his head. “The cryo-jars were already gone.”
“Miguel!” Nita shot him a warning look. “She was asking if the Keepers took the cryo-jars.”
“So?” Miguel scowled right back at her. “You can cover for him if you want to, but I’m not violating the Ganymede Accords for anybody.”
