Halo®: Mortal Dictata

  “Okay now?” Staffan asked. The Huragok moved away, lights reduced to a gentle glow. “I understand. It’s not nice to see historic buildings destroyed.”

  It didn’t take a genius to work out that the creature was desperate to avoid damage to the artifacts. The Forerunners had made the Huragok: it made sense that they’d still be programmed to protect company property. There was no harm in humoring the thing, especially as he would be essential to keep this ship running.

  “Okay.” Staffan reached out and held his hand above the button. It felt unreal. “Firing now.”

  He’d tested some interesting weapons in his time, everything from carbines to grenade launchers and railguns, and they’d all given him a sense of destructive power either from noise or recoil or both. But this was so silent, so distant, so purely and utterly white, that he almost understood why the Covenant called it cleansing, even if their meaning was a perversion of the reality.

  He leaned on the button rather than pressed it. A tingling hollowness filled his ears. For a few seconds, every shadow vanished from the world.

  Let there be light.

  Yeah, I bet you felt like gods, you assholes.

  He closed his eyes and tried to imagine which bastard he wanted to see at the focus of that energy beam, but there was no face, and that was the most frustrating thing of all. He had no idea who was responsible for taking Naomi.

  The light died down. “Better make that the last test in case we’re blipping long-range sensors somewhere,” Edvin said.

  Staffan shook off the emotional chaos that was threatening to surface and reminded himself that he was here to buy a warship. He needed to stay sharp. He tried to ignore Sinks and focus on Fel.

  “Okay, I’ll take the risk,” he said. “Twenty fighters, twelve Phantoms, and one shipping container of small arms.”

  “But this is a battlecruiser.”

  “Yeah, I admit I’m getting cold feet. I’m not sure we can afford to operate her.”

  Fel lowered his chin, either puzzled or gearing up for a fight. “I thought you were in the market for a capital ship. That was why Inquisitor suggested herself to me as a solution for your needs.”

  “She might end up being of no use to us if we can’t arm and crew her.”

  “She was, as you call it, a special order…”

  “Think what you can do with all those fighters and dropships.”

  “What about the Huragok?”

  “I’ll give you a Darter for him.”

  “Two.”

  “One. If he’s so useful, keep him. Everybody wants a Huragok, surely.”

  Fel cocked his head. He obviously wanted this ship off his hands as soon as possible so he could disappear and stay out of ‘Telcam’s way. He needed those small vessels, too.

  The Huragok … well, maybe he couldn’t sell him after all. They weren’t on anyone’s side. The creature would probably download every bit of data he’d absorbed while he was in the ship and hand it over to the first person who asked him for it. Sinks must have known every location and datalink that Fel and his crew had used, and Fel was obviously more afraid of Sangheili wrath than he was of Venezia’s.

  Staffan waited. He really wasn’t sure if Inquisitor was a psyops asset, a saber to be rattled, or something Venezia might use in earnest.

  Once we use it—we’d have to finish the job. Or the UNSC would be back to finish us.

  Still, better to have an asset than not. Same for the Huragok.

  Edvin said nothing. He walked across the bridge to lean on the console. On the projections, the surface of Shaps 3 was still a blast furnace.

  “Well?” Staffan said, trying not to look.

  Fel didn’t move a muscle. “I accept.”

  “Good. We’ll do the handover a little closer to Venezia. Establish an RV point, and we’ll have everything ready by the end of this week.” Staffan watched Sinks. The unlucky Huragok seemed pacified. His lights had dimmed and he was floating just above the deck. Ah. That’s where he got his name, then. He sinks. Sometimes. “Leave me the manual for that guy, too. Has he got some translation device? How safe are they to handle?”

  “He can make a device,” Fel said. “Just remember that they tinker with everything they see, that’s all.”

  “Sounds familiar.” Edvin gave his father a knowing smile. “Better keep him out of your workshop.”

  As they left the bridge, Staffan had to pass Sinks. The Huragok reached out a tentacle and laid it on his wrist. Staffan’s instinct was to jerk it back, but the touch was cool and velvety, and it was clear that the creature wasn’t trying to stop him from leaving. It was a friendly gesture. It felt like a thank-you.

  Was he attributing emotions to the Huragok that it didn’t have? No, Sinks had feelings, all right. Anyone with an engineering background could understand that, because emotions were simply chemical controls to make animals do what was best for their survival. Life was a mechanism. Sinks had those controls too. He certainly got upset and anxious, and now he seemed to be grateful.

  “You’re welcome,” Staffan said. “You’re chief engineer now. It’s going to be interesting working with you.”

  Edvin nudged him in the back. “You’ve got a new friend there.”

  “Won’t he get lonely and bored on his own?” Staffan tried to understand Sinks’s motivation in the same way he did the Kig-Yar. Huragok liked being busy, people said, and little else. “I better find him something to do.”

  The last thing Staffan saw as the bridge deck elevator doors closed was Sinks drifting in the doorway, lights firing much more slowly this time. He didn’t quite wave good-bye, but it was tempting to think he had.

  When they arrived back on Venezia, Laura seemed surprised to see them. She stood at the front door while they unloaded the pickup.

  “Something wrong?” she asked. “I thought you’d be gone a day or two.”

  “Easy negotiation,” Staffan said.

  Edvin slung his rucksack over one shoulder and waited for Laura to be out of earshot. “And you’re going to talk to the Militia Council about this, aren’t you? Promise me. This is too big for a private war.”

  “I promise,” Staffan said. “Hey, how about giving Sinks an old Calypso to play with? He can service the slipspace drive. Or fit it into another vessel.”

  “He’s not a pet, Dad.” Edvin paused. “Or a kid.”

  “No, but he’s intelligent and stuck on his own. No buddies to work with. And I need him happy.”

  “Okay. We’ll find some stuff to amuse him when we take possession of the ship.”

  Staffan would have to pick his words carefully when he told Laura what they’d just acquired. She never wanted to know more than she had to, which was a wonderful quality, but he needed her to know about this. It was about Naomi so she had to be told sooner or later.

  It was hard for a family to live with ghosts. But it was even harder for him to live with the thought that Naomi was still among the living, and that he might die before he knew for sure. Pious Inquisitor would get some questions answered. Edvin was right, though: it was a shitty name, replete with everything he hated. What did guys do when they bought a sailing yacht? They gave it a relevant name. He’d known a man who called his fishing boat Susannah, after his wife.

  It was obvious, really. There was only one name he could choose for a warship like that.

  He’d call her Naomi.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  WE CAN, SO WE WILL.

  UNOFFICIAL MOTTO OF THE DEPARTMENT FOR COLONIAL SECURITY, REGARDING THEIR USE OF POWERS IN THE COLONIES

  NEAR AP’OT FLOATING DOCK, Y’DEIO SYSTEM

  “So you were a shipmistress before the Prophets fled. I thought your particular kind preferred to be infantry.”

  Chol made sure she took the call from Avu Med ‘Telcam in her Phantom, drifting in the asteroid belt. If he could trace her—and she was pretty sure he couldn’t—then she didn’t want to give away the position of her clan’s r
oosts. He’d be in a vengeful mood if she pulled this off successfully.

  “Skirmishers have many skills, Field Master,” she said. “I happen to excel in naval engagements. Are you providing a ship with this contract?”

  “No. We’re only having this conversation because the last Kig-Yar I entrusted with a ship stole it. I believe the humans have a saying—throwing good money after bad.”

  “But Fel made off with your vessel some time ago, didn’t he? The trail’s very cold. No doubt you’ve already searched for yourself.”

  “I can’t put an entire rebellion on hold while I search for one ship. Which is why I thought a Kig-Yar could handle the task.”

  Chol let the insult roll off her. There was no face to be lost when dealing with the Sangheili. They set great store by their imagined honor, but that was part of their problem and what had now brought them down, she decided. It was all about appearance and ritual, thinking that it translated directly into reality beneath the surface. If they’d had the sense to put results first and swallow a little pride to get the job done, then they wouldn’t have been tearing each other apart now. All Kig-Yar had to do was go through the motions of compliance in public and then do as they pleased when the idiots’ backs were turned.

  They really are all about rules. Cogs within cogs. Things happening in their allotted way because something else has been done according to rules farther up the line. Everything in its place, and no room for deviation. Dogma getting in the way of winning battles.

  “If I take this contract, you’ll need to share much more information with me about Fel, then,” Chol said. “Because I’ll be risking my own ship for a paltry fee. Which is why you didn’t have a crowd of my cousins clamoring for his job.”

  “Why are you so anxious to do it, then?”

  “It’s a personal matter regarding Fel.” Chol had no idea who Sav Fel was and certainly had no grievance with his clan, but Sangheili happily swallowed any nonsense about Kig-Yar tribal feuds, and Fel was in no position to tell ‘Telcam otherwise. “Do you know who else was in his crew? And how many?”

  ‘Telcam seemed to be considering the question. “I believe he had thirty or forty. I recall him mentioning only two names—Dhak and Eith. I will enquire. Does this matter? Do you have issues with them too?”

  “I doubt it. I’m simply working out the mindset of the crew to narrow down where they took your ship. If I know who he’s with, I may well have a better idea of the why and the where.”

  The principle was simple. Chol wasn’t going to explain it to ‘Telcam if he couldn’t work it out for himself. If you stole something, even on a moment’s whim, then you had a plan, however vague it might be. You would need somewhere to hide what you’d stolen, and probably yourself as well if your identity was known.

  And Sav Fel’s is. He must have known he’d be hunted the second he decided to make a run for it. So he must have had a customer waiting.

  There was always the chance that he’d had the same idea as her and was setting up his own united Kig-Yar navy, but she doubted it. Most Kig-Yar who stole a ship planned to sell it or use it. Collecting gems and trinkets was a habit, a nest egg for the future, or a display of desirability to impress a mate, and they cost nothing to keep except the price of a strong lock. A battlecruiser, though—that was another matter entirely. They needed to be berthed somewhere and they needed maintenance. Whatever other species might do, a Kig-Yar wouldn’t keep it as a ludicrous trophy.

  Who’d buy the ship from him?

  That was all she really needed to know.

  “Has he sold the ship to the Arbiter?” Chol scratched the back of her neck thoughtfully. “Maybe you wouldn’t know until one of your keeps was reduced to a pool of lava.”

  ‘Telcam clamped all four jaws together. Even on this screen, grainy and in need of servicing, she spotted the flecks of spittle. She’d never seen a Sangheili completely close his mouth before. It made his face look as if it had collapsed in the center. Human faces were flat and disturbing, as if something vital had been lopped off, but this was even stranger. Then ‘Telcam relaxed his mouth and his face became the familiar jagged maw fringed with fangs again.

  “If he’d been foolish enough to do that,” he said, “he’d be dead by now. Where do you plan to begin your search?”

  Chol wondered who else would be in the market for a battlecruiser, but decided to keep the speculation to herself. She wasn’t being paid to do an analysis for the Sangheili. If ‘Telcam hadn’t volunteered the information, then he didn’t know, and if he wanted to know, then he could pay for her expertise like anyone else. It was irrelevant anyway. She wanted the ship. All her decisions and actions would flow from that.

  “I’ll find out where his allies are,” she said.

  “I could do that myself.”

  “You’d be hard-pressed to find any Kig-Yar willing to tell you what they’d tell me.”

  But he must have realized that to invite pitches for the contract. He had little interest in finding out what Kig-Yar thought, just like the rest of his kind, or else he might have heard about her views on acquiring navies and worked out that she might not have been the most trustworthy contractor for this job. But Sangheili had never understood Kig-Yar or even tried to. Their cultural arrogance blinded them. Feuding apart, Kig-Yar rarely betrayed their own to aliens; they simply liked to look as if they might, because it was good for business, and Sangheili were comfortable seeing them as a race of thieves. That made deceiving them much easier.

  And four-jaws always had to have the last word. She let him have it.

  “Forty thousand gekz will be transferred to an account of your choice,” ‘Telcam said. There was no yes, very well, or even okay. Nor did he ask any awkward questions about the ship she’d use to pursue Fel, because a Phantom clearly wasn’t going to be doing any slipspace jumps. “The remaining forty will be payable when you succeed and I regain control of the ship.”

  Chol thought that still seemed a little trusting. She would have done it for less, for the fueling costs alone, but she had to feign indignation to keep her motives hidden. “That hardly covers my up-front costs. How do I know you’ll pay the rest?”

  “How do I know you won’t simply do a deal with Sav Fel when you find him?”

  “Because if we were that friendly, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d be splitting the proceeds of the sale with him.” But at least the four-jaws was talking in terms of when she found Fel, not if. That was almost approval coming from one of the arrogant bastards. She leaned forward and tapped the console. “Send the payment to this account. I’ll make preparations as soon as I receive it. In the meantime, send me any other information that you remember.”

  Chol cut the link and powered up the Phantom’s drive to head for Ap’ot Port. She now needed a crew large enough to take Pious Inquisitor from Fel, and that was more than was necessary simply to move Paragon. But nobody would read anything into it. They’d expect her to do a little collecting and salvaging along the way to make the trip pay for itself.

  She headed for Ap’ot, planning her next move. The port was a spidery collection of long jetties and booms arranged along a central spine, with each spine connected to the central hub. When Chol turned to make the approach to the main bay, she passed a row of ex-Covenant frigates and corvettes, and scanned along them anxiously to make sure that Paragon was still on her moorings. There she was: the missionary ship looked an odd little thing next to the more traditionally designed warships, half the size of a corvette and dwarfed by the hulls either side of her. Most Kig-Yar commanders had taken the opportunity to claim their vessels when the Great Schism started, and why not? The Covenant had had its use of the Kig-Yar, and now the Kig-Yar would balance the books.

  Berths were at a premium in every dock and shipyard in the system, which meant space was tight. The port was, as the flat-faces would have called it, a very crowded parking lot. And it now cost her a hundred credits to berth the Phantom for a day. Outrageous. Crimi
nal. Profiteering. She watched the transaction flash on her screen automatically as soon as the Phantom’s nav system engaged with the port’s computer. That was sheer robbery on top of the fees she paid for Paragon. She was furious. When Paragon was ready to slip, she’d put the dropship in the hangar and pay nothing.

  Chol powered down the Phantom, set the intruder countermeasures, and stalked down the docking tunnel on her way to the hub. She bristled. Her hackles rose. As soon as the inner airlock opened, she ran into a drab brown male who took one look at her glistening black ruff and jumped back. She was a fearsome sight. His instincts told him to back off.

  That made her feel better. She was still a commander, Covenant or no Covenant.

  Zim was already waiting for her, squatting against a bulkhead near the main port administration office and reading a data module. His eyes darted back and forth. He was too absorbed to see her coming.

  “Looking for another job already?” she said.

  He jumped to his feet. “Checking, Mistress. For who might be where, so to speak. Do we have a contract?”

  “We do.” She held out her hand for the module. Zim handed it over obediently. It was a list of ships seeking crews, complete with names of those who’d enlisted. “You’ll go far.”

  Zim looked bashful. His light-brown neck quills flushed blood-red. “To be more exact, it’s about who’s not on the list.”

  “Let me hazard a guess.” She skimmed through the names. This was as near to central organization as Kig-Yar liked to come—a clearing house of employment, one degree more advanced than rounding up a ship’s company by word of mouth and clan connections. “Dhak and Eith, to name two.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “No, but the four-jaw recalled the names.”

  “But not the clan names.”

  “He doesn’t understand all that. He just uses the first syllable.”

  “Well, Dhak is more common a name in the Gei clan, so I think Fel still calls on his old allies with roots on Eayn.”