Halo: Contact Harvest (13 page)

“I’m going after the other one.” Avery planted his boots firmly against the hull.

“I’ll back you up,” Byrne volunteered.

Avery shot Byrne a serious stare. “If that blade sliced an artery, the foam isn’t gonna hold. Stay put. I’ll be right back.” With that, he pushed off toward the barrier.

“Johnson,” Jilan said. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

Avery completed her sentence:
before I shoot the alien ship with you in it.
He knew
Walk of Shame
was equipped with a single Archer missile—a ship-to-ship weapon capable of crippling all but the largest vessels in the human fleet. The Lt. Commander had told him she would use it to shoot what they had all thought would be an Insurrectionist ship if it tried to escape. Avery knew it would be even more important to stop the alien ship. For if it got away, it would almost certainly return with reinforcements.

“If I’m not back in five,” Avery replied, “I’m not coming back.” Then he passed through the barrier.

Avery wasn’t expecting gravity, but he managed to perform an ugly duck-and-roll and rise up with his rifle at the ready. Aiming straight down the semitransparent tube, he could see the full hooked profile of the alien ship. Avery tried not to think about how many more of the aliens might be on board. There was no cover inside the umbilical, and if the creatures poured into the tube, he would be a goner. Avery fast-walked forward and a few moments later, he was posting beside another fluctuating field.

As far as Avery could tell, the first barrier hadn’t done him any harm, though he couldn’t say the same for his COM. He tried to contact Byrne and al-Cygni, but their secure channel was all static.
All alone against an alien ship,
Avery thought, taking a few calming breaths. He knew if he thought about the situation any longer he would lose his initiative and quite possibly his nerve. Weapon shouldered, he stepped through the second barrier. This time he noticed his skin tingle—felt the field compressing the flexible fabric of his suit.

A short passage beyond led to a wider corridor bathed in purple light. Avery scanned left and counted twenty meters to a bulkhead. He noted recessed doors spaced every five meters along the way—sealed compartments, but for what Avery could only guess. He scanned right and saw what appeared to be a giant worm tied to a bunch of dirty pink balloons turn a corner at the end of the corridor.
A different kind of alien?
Avery wondered.

Suddenly he saw movement to his left. As he leapt across the corridor into one of the recessed doorways, plasma scorched the air behind him. Turning around, he watched a salvo of searing green bolts rake across the corridor. The metal boiled and buckled like the shells of beetles trapped on a burning log.

Avery wasn’t about to stick his head out. Instead he angled his battle rifle around the corner of the alcove and fired until the sixty-round magazine was dry. The hostile fire had stopped. Avery hoped he’d hit his target, not just driven it into cover.

Of course, there was only one way to find out. He pulled his rifle back and swapped magazines. Then he counted to three and pivoted into the corridor.

The first place Chur’R-Yar went was the bridge. From there she could disconnect the umbilical and power up her ship’s engine—escape before any of her attackers came on board. But as she pulled off her helmet and removed her awkward gloves, she realized all her plans were scuttled.

The air inside the bridge was ripe with the Huragok’s gaseous emissions, and the circuits connecting the Luminary to
Minor Transgression
’s signal circuits had been repaired. As she stalked toward the pyramidal device, she saw it was transferring a full report of all the alien world’s relics back to the Ministry of Tranquility.

“Deacon,” she hissed. “Traitor.”

But oddly enough, at this moment of betrayal, the first thing Chur’R-Yar felt was sadness. She had come so close to her prize that she could almost feel the soft walls of her nest—the warm clutch of eggs beneath her legs and the little Kig-Yar growing inside that would have carried on her bloodline. She enjoyed these imagined sensations until she was overwhelmed with a desire for revenge.

When the methane suite proved empty, Chur’R-Yar knew there was only one other place the Unggoy could be:
Minor Transgression
’s escape-pod. But as she exited the suite and saw the black-suited alien emerge from the passage leading to the umbilical, the Shipmistress realized, to her extreme disappointment, that even vengeance might be beyond her grasp.

If the alien was aboard her ship, her crewmen were dead. With their help, she might have been able to fight past the alien to the pod in her ship’s stern. Now her success depended on her own speed and cunning. But these were much reduced.

The calluses across her shoulders were now so stiff that she had a difficult time bringing her plasma-pistol to bear. By the time she had it up and firing the alien had dived for cover. As she considered how best to drive the alien back into the open, she saw fiery flashes. Projectiles tore through her abdomen and clipped her spine. Another shot shattered her left knee, but by then she no longer had any feeling below the waist. Blood leaking from holes her overtaxed suit could only partially fill, she slumped sideways against the corridor wall.

The Shipmistress’ hands felt impossibly heavy, but she managed to raise her pistol into her lap and check its charge. Less than a third of its energy remained—not enough to stop the alien when it came out of hiding, but enough to do what needed to be done.

She reached up and palmed the switch to the methane suite’s airlock. As its outer door slid open, she used what was left of her strength to aim her pistol and depress its trigger. As the weapon built up a powerful overcharged bolt sufficient to burn through the airlock’s inner door, more projectiles tore through her chest, knocking her back onto the floor.

The light above the Shipmistress dimmed as the alien approached. But despite the spasms wracking her arm, she waited to release the trigger until the thing looked into her eyes. She watched it glance from her weapon to the airlock. She waited until it flinched—an indication it understood the fate she had chosen for it.

“This is
my
ship.” Chur’R-Yar hissed. “And I shall do with it what I wish.” Her claw slid off the trigger, and a bright green ball of plasma hit the inner door with a sizzling crack.

As the bolt penetrated the suite, it ignited the ambient methane, starting a chain reaction that quickly claimed the tank recharge-station imbedded in the suite’s wall. The alien scrambled back toward the umbilical, but the station’s compressor exploded into the corridor, knocking its helmeted head against the opposite side of the passage. The alien fell to the floor unconscious.

Chur’R-Yar’s tongue flicked weakly against her teeth.
A
measure
of vengeance, at least.
As the last of her blood pumped out of her body, the methane suite’s ruined airlock burst open and a roiling fireball consumed her.

Dadab felt the blast before he heard it—a sudden tremor inside the escape pod followed by a muffled boom. He whined with terror as a series of small explosions rocked the pod in its cradle.
What was keeping the Huragok?
The Deacon had been very clear that they had barely any time to execute their plan.

When all the Kig-Yar were in the umbilical, Dadab had trotted out of the methane-suite with a spare tank, while
Lighter Than Some
headed to the bridge with his true accounting of the Luminations and his explanation of Chur’R-Yar’s heresy. But before Dadab could return for another tank, he heard the Shipmistress’ warning to her crew over his signal unit, and had remained holed up in the pod.

Now he heard a whistle of air in the circular shaft connecting the pod to
Minor Transgression
’s main corridor and knew the ship was venting atmosphere. He didn’t want to leave the Huragok behind, but he would have to close the pod’s hatch or risk explosive decompression.

The whistling came
to
an abrupt stop as
Lighter Than Some
dropped down the shaft and squeezed into the pod. <
Is something wrong? >
the Huragok asked, catching sight of the Deacon’s panicked gaze.

<
You, late!
> Dadab signed, slamming his fist on the pod’s command-console to close the hatch.

<
Well, we couldn’t have gone anywhere without these. >
Dadab groaned as
Lighter Than Some
revealed the cause of its delay—the luggage it had stopped to retrieve from the methane suite. In its tentacles it held all three of the intelligent boxes, two from the freighter’s command cabins and one from the giant machine in the second freighter’s hold.

<
Why, so, important?
> Dadab signed with leaden hands. Closing the hatch had automatically triggered the pod’s stasis-field—a thickening of the air that would keep its occupants safely immobilized as the pod blew away from the Kig-Yar ship at high speed.

<
Didn’t I tell you? >
the Huragok exclaimed, releasing the trio of boxes into the field. They remained frozen together in midair. <
I’ve taught them to talk! To each other!
>

For the first time, Dadab noticed the sides of the boxes’ casings had been removed to expose their circuits. Some of these were joined together in a web of communicative pathways.

Prophets be merciful!
he wailed to himself. Then he fingered a flashing holo-switch in the center of the console, and the pod shot free of its cradle.

Viewed from a distance, the compact cylinder was barely visible as it rocketed away from
Minor Transgression.
The pod was one of many pieces of debris cast off by the dying ship, and an observer would scarcely have registered it against the surrounding darkness until it activated its jump drive and vanished in a rippling flash of light.

Jenkins sighted downrange, sweat beading on his brow. Lying prone, left arm tight against his MA5's sling, the three-hundred-meter target was easy pickings. Five rounds, five hits. Jenkins grinned. Yesterday he’d never held a weapon. Today he couldn’t put it down.

When he and the other recruits had woken this morning, neither Staff Sergeant had returned from Utgard. Captain Ponder offered no explanation—simply busied the two platoons with policing trash around the garrison and other make-work tasks. In Byrne’s absence he sent Jenkins, Forsell, Wick, and Andersen to the range to start their training, trusting their safety to the range computer.

The computer was wirelessly linked to the recruits’ weapons and could lock their triggers anytime. But mostly the machine gruffly called out hits and misses in a comical approximation of a drill instructor’s voice. Wick and Andersen had racked up perfunctory scores and then returned to barracks. Neither had joined the militia to learn how to shoot.

Wick’s father owned Harvest’s biggest import-export concern; Andersen’s was the commissioner of the colony’s commodities exchange. Both lived in Utgard, and were equally disdainful of the farms that enabled their families’ prosperity. They wanted to leave Harvest for a core-world career in the CA or DCS—had thought militia service would be nice padding for their resumes.

Jenkins also saw the militia as his ticket off of Harvest—a way to escape the thousands of acres of grain that he (as the eldest of three children) was destined to inherit. Farming wasn’t a bad future, but it wasn’t a very exciting one either. And that’s why, even though the Staff Sergeants scared the hell out of him, Jenkins very much wanted to
be
them—a real soldier. Not because of any deep-seeded patriotism, but because of the imagined adventure of life as a UNSC Marine.

His parents would never forgive him if he skipped college to enlist. But with a record of militia service, he’d be a shoe-in for Officer Candidate School after graduation. His record wouldn’t look very good at all if he didn’t know how to shoot. So after Wick and Andersen’s departure, he had remained at the range with Forsell.

Jenkins’ first impression of the tall, quiet recruit—that Forsell had significantly more brawn than brains—quickly changed. When Jenkins had trouble zeroing his rifle (ensuring its accuracy by adjusting its sights for elevation and windage), Forsell had offered help. When Jenkins’ shots went astray, Forsell gave him good advice on how to bring them back in line. And when Jenkins asked Forsell how he knew so much about shooting, the thick-necked, blond-haired recruit looked out at the rustling wheat beyond the farthest targets and said: “I just watch the wind.”

So Jenkins started to watch as well, and soon the two recruits were matching bull’s-eye for bull’s-eye. They spent the rest of the day ribbing each other for misses, congratulating hits—impersonating the gruff range computer that was too simple minded to object.

The fun continued until Captain Ponder appeared late afternoon, packing an M6 pistol and multiple boxes of cartridges.

Jenkins tried not to stare as the Captain began his target practice. But he couldn’t help but notice that the Captain seemed rusty—that his prosthetic arm had a hard time keeping his weapon steady. At one point, Ponder dropped a magazine and fumbled to catch it before it clattered onto the range’s slat-wood floor.