Mal looked content and relaxed, but then he always did even if al hel was breaking loose. “Phil ips is having a nice chat with ‘Telcam, ma’am.”
“Is he in the right frame of mind to cal his frigates and get them to cooperate with us to escape?”
“You want to talk to him?”
“Yes. Put him on.”
“Good luck.”
No, ‘Telcam wasn’t going to be placated that easily. He popped up in front of the camera with al his fangs showing. Tiny drops of spit flecked the lens. “Why do you insult me this way?” he demanded. “How dare you abduct me. How dare your worthless admirals make war on me like this. How dare—”
“And how dare you open fire on my troops. Look, you’re no use to anyone dead, Field Master. And you can’t beat Infinity with a pistol.” It did no harm for him to be reminded of the ship’s capability. “Now you understand my problem. Your frigates are going to be blown apart by the Arbiter if we don’t cooperate on the next phase. I can track his vessels and warn your shipmasters, but you’re going to have to tel them to stand by for a message from a Kig-Yar vessel. Because I don’t think they’l be amused by a cal from a human right now.”
“You do so love understatement.”
“And you need your frigates. Please send the message. Staff Sergeant Geffen wil give you comms access.” She paused. She wondered whether to threaten to synth his voice and get BB to do it, but he didn’t need to know she could do that, not unless or until she needed to sow more doubt and confusion. “We don’t have long. Pul your ships out now and regroup.”
‘Telcam snapped his jaws a couple of times. Phil ips would know if he was sending the wrong kind of message and BB would just pul the plug.
“Very wel ,” ‘Telcam said. “But this is the last time you force a course of action on me.”
He disappeared from view and Osman assumed he’d gone back to his seat. She made sure she was back on earpiece only. “BB, park yourself in Tart-Cart for a while. If ‘Telcam deviates from that message, cut him off.”
“Fragment already in place, ma’am.”
Port Stanley held position over the pole, ready to move. Now al Osman could do was wait. She sat watching the chart even though BB would have alerted her when the ships started to move. Seeing the translucent hemisphere for herself gave her a better physical sense of what she needed to do—but again, BB could have done it al . That wasn’t the point. She had to do it herself, the old-fashioned way, so that she grasped the scale of what she was taking on.
“Here we go, Captain,” BB said. “They’re moving.”
“Okay, send the message. Tel them we’re going to track the Arbiter’s fleet.”
“Done.”
“That was quick.”
“Oh, I recorded it earlier.…”
He was a gem. “Okay, take us in, BB.”
And there they were, moving away from Ontom: four red dots, flying out across the ocean and gaining altitude. Infinity appeared as a single blue spot, but Osman had the ship’s bridge feed on a display to her right and could see that Del Rio wasn’t lifting a finger. She could hear Hood talking to Lasky, discussing rules of engagement regarding vessels leaving exclusion zones, and then the green dots started to move, too. The Arbiter stil had access to comms intercepts or radar, then.
Even if ‘Telcam’s fleet made it to their jump point without a scratch, she stil had to destroy three of the Arbiter’s cruisers. Port Stanley, completely undetectable, had missiles waiting to fire. It didn’t real y matter which ship survived and which didn’t, and that was the only thing about the attack that bothered her: the randomness of choice, which felt almost careless. That was the best way to tackle it, a simple numerical exercise devoid of anger or retribution, but it stil didn’t feel right.
“I have firing solutions on Far Vision, Axiom, and Devotion, ” BB said. “Shame, because they’re much nicer names.”
The Arbiter’s ships were converging on the frigates now, closing the gap faster than she expected.
“Frigates preparing to jump,” BB said. “They real y need to get a move on.”
On the chart, it looked marginal to Osman. She had to intervene now.
“Tel them we’re coming in,” she said. “And you better make sure that Infinity doesn’t try to target ghosts.”
FORMER COVENANT FRIGATE CLEANSING TRUTH, PREPARING TO LEAVE SANGHELIOS Raia had never imagined things would go this badly wrong so fast.
She tried to find a quiet corner on the deck to make sense of what had happened and work out how she would contact Umira and Naxan to let them know where she was. As she picked her way through the warriors on the deck, she almost tripped over a very young male who was half- slumped in an alcove with his legs sticking out. He was trying to get up. She was a mother: in this confused, frightened moment, her unthinking reaction was to reach out to help him.
And then she saw the blood, glossy and dark on the deck, and congealing between the gaps in his armor. She should have known better.
“Leave me,” he said. “Leave me, my lady.”
He waved her away. Perhaps someone else would help him, or perhaps not, but he was ashamed of being wounded and would refuse help. That was the way her sons were being trained, too, but she decided that would al change when she got home. It was a senseless ritual that achieved little when it came to winning battles. Naxan would be outraged. And she would stand her ground.
We need every warrior we can get. This is why we’re fleeing, isn’t it? That’s why we’ve gathered as many men and as much equipment as we can recover, and why we’re escaping beyond the Arbiter’s reach. So that we return to achieve something—not so that we have some noble act of sacrifice to carve into the saga wall.
Raia kept going and tried not to look at anyone in case she felt compel ed to help again and simply railed at some unlucky male instead. She was heading for the bridge to find Forze. Every deck was crammed with troops, not al of them alive. Many bodies had been recovered, to be taken home for dignified funerals.
Killed by humans. By the Arbiter’s human allies. He can’t even fight his own battles.
The bridge seemed a little more familiar now. She knew what some of the sensor screens were showing even if she couldn’t interpret them. Then a hand gripped her shoulder and she turned around to find Forze looking relieved, eyes half-closed for a moment.
“Please don’t wander off again,” he said. “I thought I’d lost you. That would be a terrible thing to have to tel Jul when he returns, wouldn’t it?”
“Where are we going now?”
“Laqil. ‘Telcam’s made contact—he’s heading there with some other al ies. I have no idea who they are. That’s al he’d say. He’s very secretive, but then the humans and the Arbiter seem to hear too much. Perhaps discretion is wiser.”
“He’s running away.”
“No more than we are, my lady.”
“But we’l return, won’t we?”
“We withdraw, we make plans, and we return. We’re not beaten. And now we know the humans for what they are.”
“The clan wil think I’m dead,” she said. “Jul and I, both missing.”
“If I returned you to Mdama, they’d track the ship and your keep would pay the price. If you send a message, they might track that, too. We must bide our time.”
“I know. And I have to find Jul.”
“It’s a temporary absence.”
“I know that, too.”
Raia was leaving Sanghelios for the first time in her life for a world she’d never heard of. She regretted the moment she’d packed that smal bag and barred ‘Telcam’s way. She should never have left, but then she knew she wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself if she’d stayed at home and waited in dutiful ignorance.
“Shipmaster, ‘Telcam has sent another message,” someone cal ed. “He says a Kig-Yar vessel wil help us.”
A big, heavily scarred male straightened up and rose a ful head above the rest of the warriors on the bridge. He must have been bent over looking at the control panel. “How much are they charging us for that?”
“This is genuine, Shipmaster Galur. ‘Telcam insists.” The warrior pressed something and suddenly ‘Telcam’s voice fil ed the bridge. It was him, most certainly. “They’l give us the position of the Arbiter’s fleet, and cover our withdrawal if need be.”
“So the Arbiter failed to pay his bil s, then…”
“Galur, this is Avu Med ‘Telcam,” the voice boomed. “I strongly suggest you take the aid the Kig-Yar offer while you stil can.”
Galur hit a control button so hard that it looked as if he’d punched it. “Very wel . Stand by.”
“Why are Kig-Yar helping us?” Raia asked.
“Why did we help humans?” Forze spread his arms. “Politics. The galaxy is less clear-cut and orderly than it used to be.”
If Raia heard the word politics one more time as an explanation for everything and nothing, she swore she’d sink her fangs into somebody. When she got home, when she final y found Jul and returned to Bekan keep, she wasn’t going to tolerate this nonsense any longer. The galaxy had changed—and the Sangheili had to change, too. She squeezed through the press of bodies, drawing no attention, which was a measure of how urgent the preparations to leave had become. The deck vibrated beneath her feet. They’d make their move soon.
“This is Shipmistress Lahz. I have a warning for al ships.”
The voice was enough to get instant silence on the bridge. It was Kig-Yar, a female. It was also confident and measured: so Kig-Yar females were used to authority, used to serving in ships. Raia had rarely come into contact with the creatures except when the scruffy males came to the keeps trying to sel overpriced goods, and her view of them was largely shaped by Jul and Naxan debating what would happen to the stability of the Covenant if they were ever al owed better weapons and ships. They were not to be trusted.
But now there was no choice.
“Continue, Jackal,” Galur said. “I’m listening.”
“Make your move now. The Arbiter has five cruisers positioned to pursue and destroy you. Get to jump velocity as quickly as you can.”
“I can work that out for myself. I can see them.” Galur pointed to a display, but there was no way that the Kig-Yar could know that. This was for the crew’s benefit. The il uminated grid rotated to show five lights. “But I can’t see your ship. Look, if you run into your kin, that diseased thief Sav, tel him we want Pious Inquisitor back. We have our own special me-vut out on him.”
The Kig-Yar didn’t seem daunted. “I know no Sav, and if I find your ship I’l expect recompense for recovering it, but right now you need to watch your display, and set your sublight drives to ful power.”
“I cooperate purely because ‘Telcam advises it.”
“Good. Keep watching your sensors. And get out now while you stil can.”
There was stil something about this Kig-Yar, this Lahz, that didn’t quite fit with Raia’s view of the species. Everyone who wasn’t busy with other duties did as Lahz suggested, though, and watched the grid. The five lights were now moving, one of them accelerating toward Ontom at a speed that caught everyone by surprise. The Kig-Yar must have known what was coming. Somehow, they could hear.
The Kig-Yar’s voice was suddenly more distant, as if she was talking to someone else. “Missile one—fire.”
The fast-moving cruiser kept accelerating for a few more seconds. Galur’s helmsman reacted: the vibration in the deck suddenly increased and Raia felt the frigate lurch away, making its escape. But as she watched the grid, unable to turn away, the point of light that was the Arbiter’s cruiser vanished. Al around her, other sensor screens changed color or indicated spikes.
“What’s happening?” Galur demanded.
“What does it look like, you fool? I’ve destroyed one of their cruisers.” The Kig-Yar sounded furious. “Move or die. Your choice. Now do what you have to while I target the others.”
“She’s right, my lord,” the helmsman said. Raia couldn’t see outside the hul , but she could feel that Cleansing Truth was now soaring to the edge of the atmosphere. “Devotion has gone. There’s been a massive explosion—possibly a human radiation weapon.”
Galur was losing that swaggering disbelief. He swung around and faced the display. Raia could see it too, but there were now too many lights and she didn’t know which were enemy vessels and which were ‘Telcam’s.
“I stil don’t see your ship,” Galur roared. “Where are you?”
“Don’t waste your time worrying about my position,” Lahz said. “Fear for your own.”
“You have radiation weapons. Human missiles.”
“We’ve acquired many interesting pieces of military surplus.”
Something on the display changed. Everyone drew in a sharp breath. Another point of light had vanished. The deck vibrated beneath Raia’s feet as Cleansing Truth picked up speed.
“That was Far Vision, ” the helmsman said. “Gone. She’s gone.”
“Run, Shipmaster,” Lahz said. “I cannot take them al . Run.”
“And another!” The helmsman’s voice rose in pitch. “The cruiser Axiom has gone!”
“How long before we can jump?”
“We need more time, my lord.” The helmsman held up al four fingers. Cleansing Truth was shuddering now. “A little longer—”
Lahz shrieked. “Shipmaster, watch your stern!”
“Swordsman has a lock on us, my lord.”
