“Staffan Sentzke.” He held out his hand for shaking and looked them over, not particularly monstrous at all. “I do odd jobs here when they need things fixed. But I’m mainly an armaments man. I hear you’ve got some experience of Covenant systems.”
Vaz tried to separate his assessment of the man from what he knew about the injustice done to him. It was impossible. “Yeah. We have.”
“Ground forces, or ships as well?”
Mal nodded. “Mainly ground, but you can’t separate Covenant ground assaults from their fleet.”
“So you’ve been on the receiving end of ship bombardments.”
“Yeah. Too many.”
“And you know how to counter Covenant warships. Or at least the procedures.”
Mal nodded. “You think we won the war?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
“No. The Covenant lost it. It ripped itself apart with some help from us. The UNSC did some bloody amazing things to save Earth, but we didn’t beat the Covenant to a standstill.”
Staffan studied Mal for a moment. Vaz had no idea where this was going, but it had to be about Inquisitor.
“I’ve got a project,” Staffan said. “Covenant hardware. Not something I want to bring to the attention of our non-human residents.”
“Very wise.” Mal nodded. “It’s still a very uncertain galaxy.”
Staffan nodded and swung his arms. “Okay, want to come and look at it?”
“What is it?” Mal was doing a pretty good job of playing dumb. “Is it in the hangar?”
“Not exactly. It’s a ship.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Vaz felt a moment of relief. It was all going to work out after all. They could call Osman back at the house, get BB to piggyback a fragment of himself on the channel, and they’d be set up to visit Inquisitor and get him into the system to take control of the ship. They wouldn’t even need to kill any Kig-Yar to do it now. It’d be quiet and bloodless, and when the dust had settled, Staffan could be told what had happened to his daughter. It was nowhere close to happy ever after, but it made Vaz feel better than the idea of assassinating Staffan for being a victim who wasn’t conveniently dead.
“Well, come on, then.” Staffan indicated the door. “It’s okay. I’ve cleared it with Nairn.”
“Now?” Vaz asked. No. I need to get BB’s fragment downloaded first. We need to get him on board. “Right away?”
“Yes, it’ll only take a few hours.” Staffan beckoned to them. “Come on. Let me show you the good ship Naomi.”
If Vaz had any questions left at all about where Staffan Sentzke was heading with all this, they’d just been answered. Naomi. It didn’t have the same martial ring as Invincible, but it might as well have been Vengeance.
NEW TYNE AIRFIELD
“Bloody hell.” Mal didn’t have to feign surprise. The Calypso-class recovery dropship sitting in the dappled shadow of a camouflage net looked like it was one of the first airframes off the production line. “I thought these had been scrapped when Nelson was a boy.”
“Still does the job,” Staffan said. “What are they, thirty years old? No age at all for a ship. Perfect for quick transfers.”
Mal didn’t ask how he’d acquired it. He was trying to work out how he’d keep tabs on their movement, because Calypsos had slipspace drives—not big ones like warships, but useful enough to get you out of a tight spot, or make it hard for you to guess where you were if the pilot wasn’t saying. His neural implant, his personal transponder to avoid friendly fire or just help someone to locate his corpse, was already well outside of Stanley’s range.
Well, we might not have BB’s fragment, but we do have a transponder.…
He glanced at Vaz. He’d served with the bloke for six or seven years now, as good as a lifetime in a war, and he knew every thought in his head. It worked both ways. Vaz caught his eye as they climbed into the Calypso.
Next time. We’ll have BB on board then. Meanwhile, improvise.
Vaz just nodded at him. Mal hoped he’d said yes to the right unspoken question.
“Aren’t we going to suit up?” Mal asked.
“Six emergency suits rated for one hour. In the aft locker.” Staffan didn’t seem to be bothered about putting one on. “But we’re not going far.”
Far wasn’t so much the point as airworthy and hull integrity. An hour was forty-five minutes better than they had with regular ODST armor, anyway. Mal tried to look on the bright side and wondered if he could still get an emergency suit on and sealed in twenty-five seconds like he used to. As they slid into the crew bay behind Staffan, he saw another man sitting on one of the bench seats along the bulkhead, thirty or so, with medium-brown hair and pale eyes he’d definitely seen before. He had to be Staffan’s son.
“Edvin, this is Vaz and Mal,” Staffan said. “Guys, this is my son.”
Mal took comfort from guessing that right. His detachment kicked in as he focused on 1700 meters of metal and composite that he needed to retrieve or destroy. But now he was looking at Naomi’s half brother. The root of all this trouble was a simple but bloody horrific explanation that he could have given them right then, on the spot.
And what would Staffan say? Oh, thanks, Mal, glad we cleared that up. So my girl was kidnapped and subjected to hideous medical procedures to turn her into a child soldier, you say? So I wasn’t imagining it all? Well, no hard feelings. Have a cup of tea.
Mal clenched one hand and dug his fingernails into his palm to force himself to change tack. Edvin moved along the bench to make room.
“You okay?” he asked. “You don’t throw up, do you?”
“Fine,” Mal said. “Really.”
Vaz settled down slipped his hand in his pocket, but Mal didn’t even catch him placing the palm-sized transponder. He just saw him fumble at the side of his seat to secure the safety restraints, spending a second longer doing it than he needed to. Then he looked up at Mal with a faint smile. Maybe it would have enough range, and maybe it wouldn’t, but they could try.
Vaz craned his neck to look forward to the cockpit, all innocence. “No pilot yet?”
Edvin leaned across to a repeated panel and pressed it. “We normally use the AI.”
“I could fly this,” Mal lied. He could probably guess his way through it, though, and all he really needed was sight of the nav screen so he could see the position. Calypsos were less complex than a Pelican and designed to be more forgiving of a pilot under fire. He tried his best cheeky grin. “No union restrictions, are there?”
“No need,” Staffan said, sitting down opposite Mal and buckling in. “Let’s talk.”
The hatch closed and the drive started up, a familiar low grumble that rose into a whine and peaked off the scale of human hearing, leaving an itch in the back of Mal’s throat. The ship lifted off.
But it’s got a maximum range. Calypsos don’t have the power for big jumps. Wherever Inquisitor is, she’s within a tight radius. That’s something.
Staffan leaned forward. “Why didn’t you desert during the war? Seems to be the smartest time to do it, rather than wait until it’s over. The UNSC has time to hunt you down now.”
“We don’t abandon our mates in the middle of a fight,” Mal said. He found himself on that borderline between knowing he was acting but feeling genuinely offended by the idea that he’d run out on fellow marines. “We’re just a bit naughty. Not cowardly arseholes.”
That seemed to go down well with Staffan. He smiled. Mal almost wished he hadn’t. He found himself wanting to like the guy, still unsure if that was based on sound instinct or colored by his friendship with Naomi.
“So what’s special about this ship?” Mal asked. “I hear a large chunk of the Covenant secondhand fleet ends up being part-exchanged through New Tyne anyway.”
Staffan nodded. “Have you heard of Pious Inquisitor?”
“Shit, yes.” No need to lie there. Authentic distress. See? “She glassed Earth. Well, a bit of it. But she was only tryi
ng to be helpful, at least the second time around.”
“Well, I’ve acquired her. To level the playing field.”
“You think you’re going to need to?”
“Trebuchet was only suspended. Not terminated, as far as I know.”
“But that was thirty years ago.”
“Indeed.” Staffan looked distracted for a moment. “But in case we need to defend ourselves, it’s wise to be ready.”
“Mind me asking if the hinge-heads are going to be looking for her?”
“I bought her from a Kig-Yar and didn’t ask too many questions about provenance, if that’s what you mean.”
“You better give her a really convincing re-spray and change the plates, then.”
It was almost too good to be true. No, it was too good to be true. They’d come here to spend months working their way into the organization with the objective of finding Inquisitor, and here they were being taken straight to the ship. Vaz glanced at Mal. Maybe their cover was blown already and there was a nasty surprise waiting at the other end. Mal sized up the crew bay to work out who he’d take out first if things went pear-shaped. Vaz just half-closed his eyes for a second: I know, I’m working that out too. Their relative positions made Staffan the natural target for Mal.
Sorry, Naomi. After all that shit, I shot your old man.
No, it’s not going to end like that. Not if I can help it.
It was just Edvin and Staffan. Mal was damn sure he and Vaz could take them, but that would leave Spenser in a difficult spot if he wasn’t compromised already.
“How long have you lived in New Tyne?” Mal asked, trying to work out what was normal conversation for deserters.
“Over twenty years. Have you got family?”
“Not anymore.”
“Me neither,” said Vaz.
“Well, you should make it a priority to get one.” Staffan nodded to himself. “And keep it.”
Mal was wondering just what meaning he’d have taken from Staffan’s conversations if he hadn’t already known too much about him when the Calypso’s deck shuddered. The dropship was spooling up for slipspace. Mal had hardly noticed jumping to slip in a bigger vessel, but Calypsos were fifty meters and designed to get forces out of a tight spot fast, not in comfort. For a second or two, his chest felt like it had been emptied of all his organs before someone dumped them back inside. He wasn’t even sure which way up he was until he focused on the opposite bulkhead again. If that was what Osman felt every time Stanley jumped, he felt sorry for her. She was a notoriously wobbly sailor. But as Devereaux said, if seasickness didn’t crimp Nelson, then the twenty-sixth-century equivalent wouldn’t crimp Osman.
Osman. Does she ever have time for a bloke? Where does she live? Does she get someone to water her houseplants while she’s off destabilizing the galaxy?
She had the same emotional baggage as Naomi, except she seemed a lot more normal. The thought that ONI was a more nurturing environment for a teen than Halsey’s Spartan training was disturbing on too many levels for Mal to think about. He checked his watch and timed the transit, collecting whatever data he could for BB to crunch later.
“You don’t ask many questions,” Edvin said.
Vaz looked up. “We’re marines,” he said. “We don’t expect to get any answers.”
“Yeah, the lack of planning and communication is what makes the Corps so much fun,” Mal added. “Like a mystery tour.”
Nine minutes later, his viscera deserted him again and the deck rolled. They were back in normal space. It was hardly worth warming up the drives to do a small jump like that. Maybe it was the ship’s limitations, but it was probably just some sensible opsec to prevent anyone tailing them.
“Here we are,” Staffan released his belt and squeezed through the cockpit hatch. “The battlecruiser Naomi.”
Mal got up and took a look through the forward viewscreen. It was hard to pick out a ship in space until something illuminated it, but he could see the black void where stars should have been, and then the regularity of a line of tiny white lights gave it away. It didn’t have the heart-stopping scale of running into Infinity, but it was still the stuff of which loss of bowel control was made.
Maybe it was the shape. It was curved and organic, the kind of outline that made him think of earwigs and parasites, not slab-sided and industrial in the manly, honest way that UNSC ships delivered their kick up the arse to the enemy.
Yeah, that’s emotional and makes no sense. I’m fine with that.
And Mal had to ask an increasingly obvious question if Vaz didn’t. It was just too weird for an innocent person not to ask, seeing as Staffan had now said it twice.
“Why did you call her Naomi? Apart from Pious Inquisitor being a bit dickish for humans.”
“My daughter,” Staffan said. “From my first marriage. She was abducted.”
“Oh. Sorry, mate.”
Mal caught Edvin’s expression. Pained. That was what he’d have called it. Mal wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment because Edvin didn’t believe his father’s story—if Staffan had even told him the details—or if it was just unhappiness about one of those family wounds that had never healed.
And we could set it straight in a second. Not put it right—way too late for that. But every time I don’t say something, it gets worse. If and when we tell him … he’s going to wonder what kind of bastards we are to sit here and say nothing.
And Staffan was now a bastard who could glass Earth. When you were a hammer, as Mal accepted he was, then everything looked like a nail. It did no harm to start testing the waters to see if there was a different solution.
“Can I call you Staffan, or do you prefer Mr. Sentzke?” Mal asked.
“Staffan will do fine.”
“Just so I don’t say the wrong thing at the wrong time, is there anything you want to tell me before we go any further?”
“Should there be?”
“If you’ve called that thing after your daughter, I’m assuming there isn’t already another ship called Naomi. So a battlecruiser isn’t your average tribute to someone you’ve lost.”
Staffan looked into Mal’s face so intently that it felt like having brain surgery. Mal was sure the man could see every thought and memory scrolling on his retinas like some confessional head-up display. The very pale, boiled-looking eyes didn’t help one bit.
“That’s a damn good question,” Staffan said. “I’ll explain when I’ve got my own head straight about it. Let’s talk after we dock.”
He leaned back into the empty cockpit, pressed something on the console, and the ship powered up again to move steadily toward the stern of Pious Inquisitor—no, Naomi. That name was going to cause some confusion for radio procedure, Mal decided, but that was the least of their problems. He’d stick to Inquisitor. Inserting the word Naomi into most of the ship-handling phrases they used was just too freaky for him.
He couldn’t tell that the dropship had maneuvered through the aft port shuttle bay doors until the light levels changed. Some muffled clangs and thuds shuddered through his boots, and then the air pressure changed enough to make him swallow.
Vaz jumped out as soon as the hatch opened, one hand on his magnum. Staffan raised an eyebrow.
“There’s only one member of crew on board,” he said. “I promise.”
“Fine.” Vaz was still checking out the hangar. Mal could tell he wasn’t putting on an act. They were on the actual deck, not in one of the upper berths that held vessels in place with a gravity anchor. “But my paranoia often comes in useful.”
Staffan led the way through the bay into a curved passage, Mal at his heels. The space felt empty in a way that a six-kilometer ship like Infinity didn’t. It was something about the stark design, devoid of notices on the bulkheads, firefighting equipment, chevron hazard markings, and all the other visual clutter that made Mal feel at home in a UNSC vessel. It was also very purple, the kind of purple that would have looked equally at home in a bishop’s office or a
hooker’s boudoir. Mal settled on the religious image. The ship was architectural, like a cathedral. It seemed to want to live up to the holy war that the ship was designed to wage.
Actually, no, not a cathedral: it was more like a nightclub after hours with the cleaning lights on, except there were no mystery stains or gum on the carpet.
“I gather she’s passed through a few hands,” Staffan said. “Trying to invade Earth one minute and trying to save you from the Flood the next.”
Mal kept walking. Vaz’s boots echoed behind him. “You’ve checked her out pretty thoroughly, then.”
“I had to ask ex-Covenant personnel. The UNSC helpline was busy.”
“Well, the Brutes used her to attack the Sangheili during the civil war. The Great Schism. Then she was part of the Arbiter’s Fleet of Retribution. Then the Sangheili rebels got her back. So she’s had a few careless owners. Stop me if I’m getting boring.”
“No, I’m riveted,” Staffan said, raising an eyebrow. “Feel free to give us the guided tour, then.”
Mal decided he’d sold himself and Vaz as useful additions. The air in the ship smelled slightly stale, a blend of chemicals, the estuary mudflat scent of Kig-Yar, and hot metal from the Calypso’s maneuvering thrusters. Once they were in the elevator, the aroma changed again to something more industrial. Edvin said nothing. He just watched like a patient cat. Mal got the impression that he’d take betrayal very badly.
“So how did you guys counter these ships?” Staffan asked as the lift climbed.
“Fire everything you’ve got at them, or board them and destroy the command and control systems,” Vaz said. “They don’t glide well.”
Mal decided that his and Vaz’s real value to Staffan was their knowledge of how the UNSC would deal with Inquisitor if she showed up near Earth. They knew a little more about this particular class than anyone on Venezia—anyone he’d trust, anyway—but you could pay a Kig-Yar to get you the operating manual for anything.
“We’ve boarded them,” Mal said. “They’re not invincible or impregnable. On the other hand, if you’re just looking to defend Venezia from attack by giving visiting ships a big hello, they’ve got lots of lovely laser turrets and plasma torpedos.”