“Evade her.”
“I cannot. I—we’ve been hit, we’ve been hit—”
The deck suddenly rippled under Raia like a wave, metal made fluid as water.
She grabbed blindly as she slid down what was now a steep slope, then a vertical wal . Forze’s hand clamped on her wrist. An alarm screamed, so loud that the noise fil ed her nose and mouth until she felt that she couldn’t breathe. She bounced against something hard and she felt something break, but couldn’t tel if it was her bones or the object she’d hit. Then she stopped fal ing. Others didn’t. She was a rock in a river, hunkered down against a fierce torrent of bodies. The air was thick with acrid smoke and hissing vapor. Bright red light was coming from somewhere. Then she realized it was fire.
“Raia, hang on,” Forze roared. “Raia, we’ve survived one crash. We’l survive this, I swear.”
More bodies hit her, warriors who could grab nothing to stop their fal as the frigate—the entire world—turned inside out and upside down in a groaning, screaming chorus of metal as it twisted and tore apart.
“Forze! Forze! ”
But Forze tumbled past her and was gone. She didn’t know what was stil holding her in place. She was on a ledge, the end of a console of some kind. Its lights were on, violet and amber. But the red light was getting brighter: fire was sweeping the deck. She could feel the heat on her face.
The communications system was stil working. Lahz, the Kig-Yar, was stil cursing Galur for delaying. “Idiot, ” she shrieked. “Why didn’t you listen?
I tried, you fool, I tried.”
Raia found her heartbeats were now slowing into days, giving her pause to think, freezing time so that she could ponder on how wrong Jul had been about Kig-Yar. And Forze had lied for al the right reasons, because there was no surviving this.
She was fal ing. The ship was fal ing.
Her last thoughts shouldn’t have been regrets, but they were. She regretted this venture, and she regretted that neither she nor Jul would ever know what happened to the other.
No, this was not the last thought that would ever be on her mind. It would not.
Raia thought of her sons, and was glad of the moment left to do it. She wondered if they would think of her, and forgive her for never coming home.
UNSC PORT STANLEY, EN ROUTE FOR NEW LLANELLI, BRUNEL SYSTEM: KNOWN AS LAQIL TO THE SANGHEILI Adj and Leaks had worked high-speed miracles on the slipspace comms. BB tested the relays and felt a little put out that he didn’t quite grasp al the subtleties of the modifications. But gift horses like Huragok were to be petted and fed, not subjected to intrusive dental examination. He’d get them to explain it to him later.
“So, shal we make the most of the luxury of being able to talk to Tart-Cart and col ect her, Captain?” BB asked. “She’s got quite a slog ahead to catch up with us, and the sooner we disembark ‘Telcam, the happier everyone wil be. Especial y Mal. And ‘Telcam.”
Osman stood on the bridge with her arms folded, distracted. She stared out the viewscreen at absolute slipspace nothingness and tossed a chunk of crystal ized ginger in her palm like a coin she was preparing to flip.
“Yes, BB. Let’s get her docked.”
“And then there’s the new nav system. That’l be nice. No more slipspace guesswork.”
“Yes. Great. We’l need to lock up the Huragok or keep ‘Telcam in the dropship. Actual y, I’m not sure I want him seeing anything of Stanley, either, even if it has deterrent value.”
“You’re babbling. Is there something wrong?”
Osman turned around. She didn’t have to. But she addressed his avatar just like the rest of the crew did, so he was starting to think of himself in terms of being located in the hologram, too. It wasn’t who he was. He was in danger of acquiring a body.
“Shame about the frigate,” she said. “Never thought I’d hear myself say that.”
“But three made it out, and that’s a good result.”
Osman looked around at the cam feed from Infinity’s bridge. BB had wondered whether to just mute it and give her a digest later, but he’d left it running. There was a lot of consternation about the destruction of the three cruisers. Maybe he should have done a lot more spoofing and embroidered the bogus vessel into blowing up and no longer being a worry, but the less he interfered with Aine’s data, the less there was to go wrong and unravel. On the other hand, he’d started hares running about Kig-Yar having nukes, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
It was nowhere near as worrying as their acquiring a Covenant ship with a ventral energy beam. There was a good reason why the Covenant didn’t trust Kig-Yar with fast translight drives, big weapons, or the family silver. But Hood was stil having a quiet, dignified fit about the nukes, leaning on the chart table on both hands while Del Rio and Lasky stood back and watched. Parangosky lounged in a nearby chair, cane resting across her lap.
“Yes, Margaret, yes, I accept that the Kig-Yar pick up assets that they shouldn’t,” Hood said. “But I want to know where they acquired something that pumps out an energy signature very like a Rudra, and why the Arbiter’s cruisers couldn’t acquire a target. They could detect it. They just couldn’t hit anything. How? Why?”
“I’d love to know, too,” Parangosky said. “I thought I made it clear that’s why I want that ship in one piece. Leave it to Osman. She’s gone hunting.”
“I’ve gone along with this. I let that vessel escape. But damn it, Margaret, this had better be worth it, because the Arbiter knows we’re not incapable. He’l think we’re unwilling. And I gave him my word.”
BB saw Osman put her hand to her eyes as if she was watching a distressing movie, which she was, in a way. She was feeling guilty for upsetting Hood, but she was going to have to get used to it. ONI did that on a daily basis. Parangosky was so used to this game that she didn’t even look as if she was keeping it under control. She was so far beyond that stage that she radiated a complete lack of concern. It was as routine as brushing her teeth. She could fend off Hood without even consciously noticing.
“Trust me when I say we’re looking into Kig-Yar activity, Terrence.” She had her gravel voice on, heavy on the vocal fry, the tigress rumbling a warning at the back of her throat to stop her boisterous cubs from biting her. “We need to track them, but there’s something we need to worry about a great deal more. Pious Inquisitor. She’s packing far worse hardware than nukes.”
“So we’ve risked a rift with the Arbiter so that you can bust a stolen warship racket, as the less articulate might say.”
“Indeed. You can tel him that. He stands to benefit as much as we do. Get him to crunch a few numbers. Get him to account for where every ship, fighter, and piece of ordnance went when the Covenant flushed itself down the pan. Tel him humans have had a lot of experience worrying about which bazaar the war machine ends up in when a major power col apses. Do you want me to draw a picture for him? What does he think attacked his keep, termites?”
Hood rubbed his forehead and said nothing. Parangosky made herself more comfortable in her chair and smiled at a young ensign who handed her a steaming cup.
“Okay.” Osman sighed and turned her back on the viewscreen. “Let’s pick up Tart-Cart.”
“Don’t get al angsty over this. That’s a quiet day for ONI.”
“I know. But what if Hood starts committing ships to a wild goose chase, and people die when they didn’t need to?”
Did anyone need to die? Oh dear. He had to take her mind off this. “Stil angsting.”
“BB…”
“I real y was rather good, wasn’t I?”
“Bril iant, actual y.”
“I’m constructed from the very fabric of awesomium. Now let’s gather our flock.”
There was the sticky problem of what to do with ‘Telcam when the dropship docked, but BB would play it by ear. Now that he could eavesdrop in slipspace, it was fascinating to watch Phil ips work on the Sangheili. He had a wonderful y devious streak that Parangosky had spotted a mile off, but the honest courage and enthusiasm that he wrapped it in was genuine, not a thin veneer. Gosh, the old girl could really pick a team. That was her strength: people. Yes, Parangosky was a people person, despite her reputation. Usual y she was a people person in the same way that a cattle farmer was an animal person, but sometimes she discovered people she liked enough to spare, and then she could polish them like a mirror. Kilo- Five gleamed. BB basked in the reflection.
“‘Telcam, did you ever explore the temple?” Phil ips was asking. “I mean real y explore it? It’s astonishing. I translated some of the inscriptions.
And stepping through a portal … wow.”
‘Telcam looked determined not to be impressed. “You were told not to enter dangerous areas.”
“But they’re not dangerous. They’re amazing. What’s this prohibition about a teacher? Why would the Forerunners have needed permission from a higher authority to teach or talk to a teacher?”
‘Telcam tilted his head slightly. He didn’t know what Phil ips was going on about, BB was sure of it, but there was more to it than that: he was shocked or jealous, even indignant, because al his muscles stiffened and his jaws clenched. The human tapeworm had done yet another thing that he couldn’t—he could read more of the gods’ notes than a lifelong disciple like ‘Telcam could. It must have been like the Pope being told that an atheist had found God’s unlisted number in some apocrypha and had left a message on the divine voice mail. BB hoped that Naomi was ready to slap down the Sangheili if he decided to throttle Phil ips. She certainly wasn’t dozing under that helmet, however relaxed she looked.
“I know nothing of this inscription,” ‘Telcam said quietly. “How did you reach this conclusion?”
You had a lot of help from me. That’s how. BB thought of his fragment again, broken and bewildered, and tried to partition the thought so that it didn’t keep sidling up to him and trying to get his attention.
“I’m a linguist at heart,” Phil ips said. “Language is the expression of a culture, so that’s why I’m an anthropologist. If I know what your worst insult is, I already know a lot about your fears and taboos.”
“Nishum.”
“Ah, I love that one. Mal’s got some terrific human insults, but we’re not big on parasitic organisms. We’re al sex and excretion, mainly.”
Vaz elbowed Phil ips discreetly. “Message coming in, Phyl is. We’ve got a ride.”
‘Telcam didn’t react. At least he’d calmed down. BB calculated the optimum point to drop out of slip and sent the coordinates to Devereaux. It was fun to see the look on her face.
“Ooh, I’ve got my first slipspace—oh, never mind.” She turned and looked back through the hatch with an oops expression. “Talk amongst yourselves. The captain’s caught up with us.”
BB turned his primary attention back to Osman, but she was suitably distracted by the countdown to reentering realspace, which hadn’t got any easier for her despite Adj’s modifications to the drives. If he dril ed down through the hul stress sensors in his dumb component, he could calculate the pressure she was putting on those armrests. She had a hel of a grip.
“Unnhh…,” she said.
“There. Right on target, right on time.” BB transmitted the homing signal and slowed Stanley to a relative crawl. Yes, he real y could operate this ship entirely on his own indefinitely, but it wasn’t as rewarding as doing it with a real crew, and it would have been a miserably lonely existence. It could drive him to premature rampancy. “I should run the monorail network. We’l have Tart-Cart in the hangar in ten minutes and then we’l be on our way. Drop off the mad monk, tel him we’l cal him when we’ve got another arsenal for him, and we can be back in Infinity and scarfing their coffee by the end of the day. Alpha time, that is.”
“Wash-up and reintegration.”
“You keep reminding me. I don’t forget.”
“BB, I know this is scaring you, so it’s an opportunity for you to talk,” Osman said. “You listen to me when I’m losing it. I’m just saying that I’m here for you when you have a difficult time.”
BB wondered again how Osman might have turned out if she’d been al owed a normal childhood and survived it. “I may wel need that.”
“Lock up Adj and Leaks. They’l be a problem to explain.”
“Done.”
“Thanks, BB.”
“My pleasure, Captain.”
As Tart-Cart slid into the hangar, Osman leaned on the gantry rail and frowned. “She’s not that different. Not external y, anyway. I suppose I was expecting her to look like a Spanish gal eon or something.” She slapped her hands down on the rail. “Okay, better go and show my face.”
“Remember, ‘do not dissemble, because God is your authority,’” BB said. “Besides, you can always take him to Trevelyan and dump him on Mrs.
Frankenstein if he gets mouthy.”
Osman waited for the bay to repressurize and clattered down the steps just as Devereaux opened the hatches. Fragant air wafted out and BB watched Osman frown.
“Jasmine?” she said.
“You can ask a Huragok for anything.” Devereaux winked. “And wait until you see my chart projector. You can have one too, ma’am. Who’s staying to keep an eye on ‘Telcam?”
Naomi jumped out of the main hatch with a thud like a Warthog being dropped from a sling. “Me,” she said. “We understand each other now.”
Mal, Vaz, and Phil ips trooped out and Osman al owed herself a smile. “What’s the dril for New Llanel i?”