Halo®: Mortal Dictata

  “Got it, Staff.”

  “Promise?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  Vaz drove them around town in the old Warthog, pointing out the sights while BB took in the view from his vantage point in Mal’s top pocket. BB recorded everything—all intel came in useful sooner or later—and agreed with their assessment: New Tyne was shockingly normal. The bar, Stavros’s, was a little more wild and entertaining, though, full of squabbling Kig-Yar who were speaking a fascinating patois that would keep Phillips enthralled for days. BB could filter out each separate conversation and analyze it. He couldn’t translate it all because he didn’t have access to all his databases back on the ship in this fragment form, but on the next radio check, he’d sync up with himself and transfer all the data. There were lots of names being bandied around, places and events, all of which would be useful to store and slot into intelligence gaps at a later date.

  And damn it, he heard ‘Telcam. He was sure of it. But the dialect defeated him. They were speculating about a shipmistress called Von. It all seemed to be part of the same discussion.

  “BB,” Mal whispered, “what language are they speaking? I keep hearing English bits.”

  “Pidgin? Ha. See what I did there? Oh, never mind. We’ll unpick it later. It’s mostly their own dialect. But I think I heard a familiar name.”

  “Keep listening.”

  After a couple of hours, Mal got a call from Spenser. BB found it an odd sensation to be lodged in a radio that was picked up and answered. The whole room skewed in his field of view and brought back memories of his fragment, damaged and confused, exploring the Forerunner tunnels under the temple at Ontom with Phillips.

  “Got it,” Spenser said. “I need to pay a visit somewhere and plug in something, but we should be able to detect comms traffic and work out a timetable for you.”

  “I think I understand all that.”

  “See you back at the house in an hour.”

  BB rather admired Spenser’s technical expertise. He was a comms man who’d spent most of his career listening to enemy voice traffic in some lonely and dangerous places, starting with colonial insurgents and coming full circle via some remote listening stations in the heart of Covenant space. When they got back to the house, he was in the basement, tinkering with some equipment that looked as if it dated back to the early Insurrection.

  “Ah, just in time for me to dazzle you,” Spenser said. “It doesn’t have to be cutting edge to do the job.”

  “Bean cans and string.” Mal bent over the device. It looked like an ancient radio with jack plugs hanging out everywhere like a Gorgon’s head. “Not exactly Forerunner tech, is it?”

  “You haven’t spent enough time in the colonies, son. It’s not all rich and snazzy like Reach. The backwaters had to keep obsolete tech going for a long, long time.”

  BB was fascinated. “Can someone patch me through to Stanley? I need to sync myself and access the database. Come on, Mal. Chop chop. Make yourself useful.”

  Mal took out his radio and tapped at the fascia to connect with Port Stanley’s systems. For a moment, BB had a view of his chin pressed into his chest as he looked down, frowning while he entered the code, and then BB was looking at the basement room again, sitting at table height as Mal set the radio down on its base.

  “There you go,” Mal said.

  BB merged his fragment with his matrix and became one entity again. It was an interesting sensation that he tried to analyze in human terms, because Phillips would ask him to describe it. What did it feel like to reintegrate his fragments? When it went smoothly, BB thought, it must have been a lot like a human waking up—that second or two of blank disorientation while they remembered where they were, what had happened the night before, and what they had to do today. Time and life made sense again. That was pretty much what reintegration felt like as long as the fragment hadn’t been damaged. When he split off the fragment again to store part of himself in Mal’s radio, he had the shared knowledge of what both fragment and matrix had been up to while he was separated.

  “So,” Spenser said. “I’ve got all Staffan’s numbers and origin codes. There’s what they call a cabinet on the south side of town—a comms junction box that routes outgoing signals to the orbital node. It’s actually got some Covenant tech inside, so it’s capable of slipspace comms. You plug this box of tricks into the cabinet and it tells you which calls are coming from where, and when they happen. We leave this in place for a day and see what falls out.”

  “That simple?” Vaz asked.

  “The hard bit is plugging it in discreetly.”

  “We can do that,” Vaz said.

  “No, I’ll do it. I’m not senile yet.” Spenser beckoned. “Watch and learn.”

  They had to wait until dusk to crack open the cabinet. For BB, that was a lifetime to fill, so he spent some of it wandering around Port Stanley’s systems to see what Phillips was making of the material he’d recorded in New Tyne. Phillips was translating the Kig-Yar conversations, pausing while he tested unknown words against patterns and context to gauge their meaning. One thing was clear, though: they’d been talking about ‘Telcam, and it confirmed that the name of the shipmistress he’d hired to find Inquisitor was Chol Von.

  Well, she was a popular gal right now. That was the same name that BB had heard being discussed in the bar.

  Spenser made his move just before midnight. Mal drove him out to the woods on the south side of town, where the comms cabinet was situated on the hillside to align with the satellite. The area was deserted, about a kilometer from the nearest house, and the hardest part was getting the locked cabinet open. Spenser, always full of surprises, picked the lock as burglars had done for centuries, with a straightened piece of wire and a thin file. The door swung open and revealed the cabinet’s innards.

  It should have been in a museum. BB had never seen so many wired circuits and plugs in his life. Spenser connected the scanner, wedged it into the free space in the cabinet, and checked that it was transmitting.

  “Now all we do is wait a day,” he said, closing the door again.

  Mal and Vaz spent the next twenty hours sitting in the basement, watching movies and playing darts while they kept an eye on the remote readout from the scanner and waited for the critical set of originating numbers that would identify calls being made by Staffan. They were still studying it when Spenser came back from the barracks.

  He checked through the readout. “I think that’s the code,” he said. “He’s calling the ship every eight hours.”

  “What if it’s not the ship?” Vaz asked.

  “Then BB can just look around and come back. Stroll out there just before seven tomorrow morning and plug into the cabinet, and BB can jump aboard and ride the signal.”

  “Arrrrr.” BB projected a pirate hat complete with skull and crossbones. “We be ready for boardin’, matey.”

  “You enjoy your work, don’t you?” Spenser said. “I was like you once.”

  “Pure genius? An endless fount of bons mots and wisdom?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  Mal was up at five, and BB with him. Vaz drove them out to the hillside, parked the Warthog under cover, and the two of them crawled through the undergrowth to access the cabinet. It was about the size of a domestic stove and provided useful cover.

  “Ready, BB?” Vaz asked.

  “I’m cammed up and I have the knife between my teeth,” BB said. He felt himself flow into a river of data as Vaz connected Mal’s radio to Spenser’s device, bridging BB with the comms uplink. “Figuratively speaking.”

  “Okay, you’re waiting for the signal coming from code eight zero zero six three six one.”

  BB cast around, waiting for the sequence of numbers to run past him, ready to insert his code into the signal. The best way he could describe it—and he knew Vaz would ask him later—was that it was a lot like stepping onto a moving walkway while still holding on to the static rail, letting one arm stretch
to infinity behind him. How do I know what that’s like? He just did. He had to move sideways and forward and lean into the direction of movement. He had to feel the carrier wave and ride it to the receiver at the other end, into the ship herself, without letting go of the rail receding into the infinite distance behind him. He had to be a bridge. He had to be an inchworm. He had to be—oh, he’d think of a good analogy for the humans sooner or later.

  There. There it was.

  He just had to jump.

  When he slipped into the wave, the debris of the voice signal swirled around him, a slow, meandering river by an AI’s standards, giving him time to think and refine his plan. Once within the hull, he’d sink into the comms, then cross via the power conduits into the main data system, where he’d overwhelm the computer with a flurry of commands that would send it into a loop while he took over the entire ship.

  There wasn’t even a crew to pacify. There was just an obliging Huragok.

  Bang.

  BB hit the satellite relay that directed the signal through a slipspace link. It was like the impact from a dive into deep water, a moment of weightlessness. Is that a real memory? And then he was off again, riding the carrier, and—

  Bang.

  That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  For a moment he stared into a void. He couldn’t move forward. There was something missing, a gap he couldn’t leap. He couldn’t even control what happened next. The slipspace node pulled him back and then, slap, he was back where he’d started, in Mal’s radio.

  “I can’t get in,” he said, indignant.

  Mal’s voice was a whisper. “What happened?”

  “I’m shut out. It’s that little bastard Sinks.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “That’s never happened before.”

  “Can you try again?”

  BB scanned for the signal, but it was gone. “No, he’s finished the call.”

  Vaz’s voice interrupted. “Never mind. What other options do we have now?”

  “You’ll need to get me on a data chip and physically insert me into the system.”

  “No problem. We can do that. We can talk our way on board again.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t make allowance for the fact that he’d filter incoming signals.”

  Mal disconnected Spenser’s equipment and dragged it back into the trees, shuffling backward on his knees. “He’s a smart little sod, that Engineer,” he said. “I hope he isn’t going to be a pain in the arse.”

  “You think he thought that up on his own, BB?” Vaz asked. “What if Staffan’s already got this worked out?”

  As Mal had said, Naomi got her brains and resourcefulness from somewhere. If her dad was that much like her, then they’d taken on a formidable enemy.

  And he had a Huragok. This wasn’t going to be the usual piece of cake.

  “He’s smart,” BB said. “But I’m the Eighth Wonder of the World. I’ll crack this one way or another.”

  KIG-YAR INDEPENDENT VESSEL PARAGON, APPROACHING COVENANT RESUPPLY FACILITY, STATION OF CONSTANT SUSTENANCE, KORFO SYSTEM

  There was an etiquette even in pillage. Kig-Yar didn’t spoil what they didn’t need.

  Chol was satisfied to see that the courtesy was still being observed without the heavy hand of the Covenant to enforce it. She sat at her command position, watching the display as the navigator and helmsman brought Paragon into alignment to dock at Constant Sustenance. The supply station—a long spindle of a structure, all long curves and spines—hung in the blackness, abandoned by the Covenant but still illuminated and functioning. A pattern of navigation lights still flashed on its docking ring. The berths that would secure ships were still intact. And Chol knew the gravity generator would still be functioning.

  It was the responsible, polite thing to do. If you were salvaging and reclaiming, then you didn’t pluck out the essential structures before others had had a chance to remove smaller prizes. Without the power supplies and other big machinery, it would be much harder or even impossible for other vessels to dock and strip out what they needed. Chol didn’t relish the idea of hanging around to see the free-for-all when all that was left of the station was the bulky, high-value machinery, because that would be fought over, but nothing would be wasted by foolish, hasty greed.

  “Shall we send out a reclamation team to find parts, mistress?” Zim asked. Paragon shook slightly as the docking clamps secured her. “We might as well make the voyage pay for itself. Parts and ration packs.”

  “If you can find any.” Chol stood up and checked her pistol. “But no hanging around. I’ve come to find Eith Mor, and we can’t afford to lose any time. For all we know, Inquisitor could be fully crewed by now.”

  Zim hopped onto the command seat. Chol was leaving him to look after Paragon while she searched the station, in case she’d misjudged any of the hired crew and they decided to make off with her ship.

  “Is that our problem?” he asked. “All we agreed to do was find her. Not retake her.”

  Chol had nearly let her real plan slip out. For all she knew, the crew might have been enthusiastic about her politics, but there was no point risking a walkout mid-mission.

  “The fewer excuses I give ‘Telcam to renege on paying the rest of the fee, the better,” she said. “Now I’ve got to find Eith and see how helpful he’s willing to be.” She gestured to her two biggest, most aggressive crewmen to follow her. “Nulm, Bakz—with me.”

  The moment she stepped out of the hatch and jumped down onto the walkway connecting the berth to the hub of the station, she could see how much material had already been stripped out of the structure. The metal covers to the control panels, worth a fair sum when melted down, had already gone, along with every decorative detail. The controls were reduced to their bare bones, just touch pads and movement sensors, and even the covers of the light fittings had been taken, leaving a harsh blue-white light that cast stark shadows. The station was on the edge of Covenant space, a depot for lone ships traveling without the fleet replenishment support of an agricultural ship. It was a comfort to have it there just in case of emergency, but times were hard and the resources were needed here and now.

  Besides—if they left it, someone else would strip it, probably the Unggoy, and that was unacceptable.

  The doors to the hub floor opened and a tidal wave of noise rolled out. Kig-Yar were moving pallets loaded with sheet metal, crates, and coils of cable. One Unggoy tottered past her carrying a single chair over his head. The place was being dismantled from the inside out.

  But the environment controls were still working, as she expected. She reached out and grabbed a small male Kig-Yar by his shoulder-belt.

  “You,” she said. “Have you seen Eith Mor? Do you know him?”

  “No, mistress.”

  She didn’t even know what he looked like. That wasn’t necessarily a problem, though. There were other ways to identify someone. “Where are the public address controls?”

  “The next deck down. What’s this Eith done, then?”

  “Nothing.” Chol cocked her head at Nulm and Bakz. For all she knew, this was Eith. “Search everyone before they leave this deck. Check that they are who they claim to be. I’m going to flush out Eith.”

  “We will, mistress.”

  “You may well see someone rush for the doors when he hears my announcement.”

  “Don’t worry. He won’t get past us.”

  Nulm and Bakz went back to the exit to guard the doors, hands on their holsters. Chol headed for the next level down, the flight controller’s center, which was much less busy than the hub deck. As she passed the signs directing her to the office, she noticed salvage seals daubed on walls and doors. Everyone seemed to have staked their claim to the contents, with names, dates, and details of what they intended to return for scrawled in indelible paint. When she got to the controller’s office, the only creature in it was a miserable-looking Unggoy sucking on a tube of infusion.

  “I want to use the pub
lic address system,” she said.

  The Unggoy went on sucking his narcotic and just held out his hand for payment. It was strictly tokens only now. The Covenant was gone, and with it all its treasury clerks and their minutely detailed systems. Chol slapped a fifty-gezk chip in his palm, and the Unggoy pointed to the console at the back of the control room.

  She debated whether to flush Eith out by panicking him or luring him. Maybe he’d already fled. If his cousin had managed to warn him that she was looking for him, then he might have been working out his price for the information. But this was her best lead, and she had to follow it.

  She leaned over the controls and pressed the transmit key. “Eith Mor of Eayn,” she said. “Eith Mor of Eayn, a ship from home is ready to offer you passage in exchange for assistance. If you want to make a deal, go to the ship Paragon at the docking level.” She paused. “And if Eith Mor has already departed, I’ll pay a reward for information on his whereabouts.”

  She switched off the microphone. As she went to leave, the Unggoy looked up at her, tube still clamped between his teeth.

  “I could tell you when he arrived,” the Unggoy said. “But that’d be another fifty.”

  Chol wanted to cuff him around the head and beat the information out of him, but it was quicker to play his game. “I’m not interested in when he arrived, but whether he left.”

  The Unggoy held out his hand again. She paid up.

  “The master of Distant Beacon agreed to transport him in exchange for some of his acquisitions. The ship’s still here. Berth five-zero.”

  “Did you see Eith? And I expect that answer to be included in the price.”

  “Yes.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Within the price?”

  “Yes.”

  “He has a bright blue vest and unusually light coloring. And a few missing teeth.”

  “Thank you.”

  That was all she needed to know. She’d work through every Kig-Yar on the station to find him. When she got back to the docking level, Nulm and Bakz were still by the exit, scrutinizing everyone who went in and out.

  “He’s here,” she said. “Look for someone very pale skinned, wearing bright blue. That should narrow it down. He may try to leave with Distant Beacon.”