Halo: Glasslands (35 page)

“What’s wrong?” ‘Telcam asked.

Jul got on with the job, wondering what had happened to his strategic judgment. “Merely speculating what might happen if the San’Shyuum recovered and came back.”

“That would take many years,” ‘Telcam said, as if it had already occurred to him and had been dismissed. “And by then, we’ll be more than ready for them.”

‘Telcam made no complaint about having to do the heavy lifting himself in the absence of any Jiralhanae. Jul found himself thinking of him less as a fanatical monk and more as a decent warrior who happened to have some extreme views on the subject of religion. As long as they had the same objective, Jul wasn’t too worried about the separate paths that brought them there.

“Where are you getting your supplies?” Jul asked, heaving a crate up the ramp into the frigate’s hold. “Who funds this?”

“Donations,” ‘Telcam said. “From many sources.”

“Are all of them aware they’re
donating
?”

“No.”

“And how much do we really need?”

“You mean when should we act, because you grow impatient.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“I’m waiting upon the whims of an old nobleman.” ‘Telcam dusted off his hands and stood back to look at the growing arms cache. “And Buran needs to know that he has a fully competent crew when we make our move. Some of his old crew have gone back to their keeps to try to feed their families.”

Jul tried to imagine which kaidon could be so important to the plot that ‘Telcam would feel he needed his approval. Perhaps this was just a regular power struggle after all, a coup on behalf of another kaidon who’d chosen not to show his face, rather than an outpouring of religious zeal.

“Which nobleman?”

“Admiral Hood,” ‘Telcam said. “The human Shipmaster of Shipmasters. He’s made it clear to the Arbiter that he wants to formalize this cease-fire. There’s much talk of it in Vadam.”

“What cease-fire?” Jul demanded. “There
is
no cease-fire. Just an absence of fighting.”

“We don’t know that, and neither does the Arbiter—or Hood. Communications are what the humans call
patchy.
” ‘Telcam, who was unusually fluent in the primary human language, pronounced the word with care. It was hard to form a human
P
when trying to compress four lips. “The humans have lost many of their communications relays, too, so both sides flounder in the dark and eavesdrop where they can. There are worlds out there where the battles may still be raging. We may not know for years.”

It took them an hour to move all the containers, but there was still no sign of the Jiralhanae. Jul found himself sitting in the shuttle cockpit with ‘Telcam in awkward silence, waiting. Every half hour, ‘Telcam opened a channel and listened to crackling static.

“Their radio’s working,” he said. “You can hear it. I don’t understand this.”

“Perhaps it’s malfunctioning. Whether they have a Huragok on board or not.”

It was another hour before the shuttle’s comms indicator lit up to indicate an inbound message. ‘Telcam pounced on the console, teeth bared.

“Manus? Where in the name of the gods have you been?”

“This is not Manus, brother. This is the temple. We hear
Piety
is returning, but isn’t responding to her radio. A sympathetic shipmaster picked her up on his radar.”

‘Telcam’s lips settled back over his fangs and he leaned back in his seat. His relief was obvious. “We’ll wait for the ship. We have little else to do.”

“I told you as much,” Jul said. “Everything breaks down these days.”

“You’d think they’d let the Huragok repair it.”

“They’re Jiralhanae. Their logic eludes me.”

Jul got out of the cockpit to listen for the sound of
Piety
’s drive. Nearly an hour later, he heard the rumble of a small auxiliary and the ship appeared above the quarry, looking predictably scraped and battered, then hovered over her landing coordinates for a few moments before descending in a storm of dust. Jul could have sworn that her nose hatch was dented.

‘Telcam climbed down from the cockpit, looking murderous. “I shall have an explanation,” he murmured.

Piety
’s side hatches had taken some damage and there were dents around the lock plates. She was an old tug used in the docks to berth warships, so it might have been wear and tear, but Jul was getting concerned. He strained to see what was going on in the cockpit. But it was dark inside, and he was sure he’d been mistaken about the nose hatch. ‘Telcam stood about ten meters from the ship and kept glancing irritably at the hatches. Manus seemed to be taking his time about things.

So they waited. After five silent minutes, ‘Telcam ran out of patience.

“This is the last time I allow those idiots to go on missions without supervision, I swear.” He strode up to the main side hatch and hammered on the hull. Nothing happened. “Manus? Open this damned hatch. Where have you been?”

Jul looked over the smaller side hatches. He could now see slight ripples, as if the metal had been distorted by force, and he was sure he could see a gap. If he was right, then something terrible had happened to
Piety.

Her hull’s breached. Her atmosphere’s leaked away.

“Brother, she’s damaged,” Jul said. “Look at the metal. Something’s very wrong.”

‘Telcam just grunted. Jul drew his energy sword and approached
Piety
cautiously. He couldn’t imagine what form the danger inside a ship opened to vacuum might take, but he wasn’t prepared to take a chance so close to his home and his family. If anything was going to leap out of there, he would be ready for it.

‘Telcam turned to him, nodded, and drew his own weapon.

There was a manual override for the main cargo hatch. ‘Telcam closed his fingers slowly around the handle and twisted it to the left, slowly and carefully, then stood to one side as the door slid back on its runners. Jul aimed squarely into the open compartment. But the only thing that emerged was a stench.

‘Telcam jumped in, teeth bared. “Manus?
Manus!
”

Jul still expected to hear weapons discharging, but when he climbed into the ship behind ‘Telcam, it was clear that
Piety
still had her cargo. There was no sign of the Jiralhanae.

They’re dead. They ran out of air.

Then ‘Telcam stumbled over something, knocking into crates, and cursed loudly. He was looking down at the deck. Jul squeezed through the gap after him and saw the bodies.

A Kig-Yar lay slumped against a bulkhead with a human rifle beside him. Jul stepped over the body and saw there were four dead Jiralhanae in the compartment as well, but his first glance told him they hadn’t asphyxiated. There were projectile wounds to their faces. ‘Telcam pushed through to the cockpit and roared with anger.

“All of them,
dead
,” he snarled. “
All of them.
And where’s the Huragok?”

Jul squeezed into the small cockpit. Two more dead Jiralhanae, one of them Manus, were draped over the seats. Above him, Jul could see the daylight through gaps around the hatch seal.
Piety
’s console was on idle, the flickering lights indicating that her autopilot was still engaged, which explained how she managed to return and why her radio had been working but silent.

“They’ve taken the Huragok.” ‘Telcam was almost sitting with indignation. “They attacked the ship. Damned Kig-Yar vermin. They’ll pay for this.”

He gestured Jul back into the main section of the ship and went back to the dead Kig-Yar. Jul swallowed his revulsion and moved the body with his boot to look at the wounds.

“Projectiles,” he said. “It’s been shot several times.”

“Human weapons.” ‘Telcam squatted and poked around in its clothing, then picked up the human rifle. “They like these things. They’ll trade with anybody.” He examined the interior of the compartment. “Look at the number of rounds expended. There was quite a firefight here. I imagine this idiot got himself caught in the cross fire and his comrades didn’t bother to retrieve him.”

Sangheili always called Kig-Yar cowardly, but it was just an unthinking insult and didn’t reflect how aggressive the creatures could be. They were very effective in large numbers, which often made up for their slight build. Jul suspected that the San’Shyuum preferred them in individual roles, not just because they were excellent snipers and scouts, but because they knew what trouble the scavengers would be if deployed in battalions.

If they could hijack a shuttle and overpower six Jiralhanae, it was a worrying development. They were on the offensive.

“I forget their pirate heritage,” Jul said. “Anarchy. That’s what’ll follow if we don’t impose some order on the situation.”

‘Telcam didn’t comment, shaking his head slowly as he searched the ship. He seemed more shocked now than angry. He looked behind every panel and in every space, however small, but there was no sign of the Huragok.

It was worth a lot of money on the black market, Jul knew. But it was even more valuable as an asset to bring Kig-Yar weapons and ship technology up to the level of the Sangheili.

That worried him much more.

“We are, as the humans might say,
spoilt for choice,
” he said at last. “Who should we deal with first? Should we depose our heretical Arbiter, or teach these vermin some respect?” He picked up the Kig-Yar’s rifle, a MA5B, a weapon Jul had seen scattered among the human corpses in the aftermath of many a battle. They were fiddly, cumbersome things, too crude for a Sangheili. “The Kig-Yar need to learn their place.”

“Well, let’s find out which nest was responsible for this.” Jul went back to the cockpit and had to heave Manus’s body off the navigation console. For a moment he wondered if Manus had a family and what they might be doing now. He’d never considered that they had their own lives before. Buran would have to tell his mate and children. “The flight recorder should answer some questions.”

‘Telcam tapped the console and the recorder flashed a stream of data on the screen, most of it simply coordinates and speeds. The attack wasn’t instantly visible in the output, but the communications log was much easier to read from raw data. Jul read through the station idents:
Piety
had had radio contact with Kig-Yar from within a human-occupied sector, a colony world that had once been called Sqala.

No. That world is
not
theirs. They’re interlopers. I won’t dignify them by calling their infestations colonies.

It was now called Venezia. And it would pay for harboring criminals.

BLUE TEAM CAMP, FORERUNNER DYSON SPHERE: LOCAL DATE NOVEMBER 2552.

They said you could always judge a woman by the contents of her purse, and Halsey was content to be judged by hers.

Datapad … pocket archive … change of clothes … self-amalgamating tape … lip salve … pocket saw … solar power pack … Mom’s antique Patek Philippe … medications … folding knife … coffee. To be opened in case of emergency, as they say.

She sorted through it all again, knowing that the item she valued most was gone. She’d lost her journal during the Covenant assault on Reach. It must have been ash by now.

Damn …
so much of her life was in there, not just the years spent on the Spartan program but the
personal
things too. She’d start another one, but she didn’t have the right technology at the moment, and that meant paper—paper and pencil and ink. She needed to feel the faint drag of the lead or the way a nib glided on a cushion of liquid ink. Talking to a datapad or scribbling and tapping on it was no substitute when it came to outpouring rather than
thinking.

Why was I so careless with it?

Halsey tried to apply the same intellectual rigor to analyzing herself as she did with others.
A Freudian slip, much as I hate to admit it.
Subconsciously, perhaps she wanted to lose it, or—more to the point—she wanted it to be found. That could only mean that she needed to explain herself to posterity, to put her plea in mitigation for all her sins.

If I really believed they were sins, though, would I do that? But if I acknowledge they’re sins, then I’ve demonstrated morality, haven’t I?

Stop it. Stop it, right now.

When she found herself spiraling into those circular arguments, she slammed on the brakes. Like an AI, she knew she would ultimately think herself into oblivion. The more onion layers of ethical debate she indulged in, and the more she peeled them back and looked underneath, the more she realized she would find nothing concrete of herself left at the core. She was just ideas: just
thought.
There was nothing she believed in except her own intellect. She wondered if she was more of an AI than Cortana, so very conscious of her virtual body and emotionally invested in her Spartan. At times Halsey felt the AI was more human than she could ever be.