Halo®: Mortal Dictata

  “She’d get a job anywhere with private security,” Spenser said. “Even without all the hardware she’d have to leave behind. What wouldn’t you pay to get a Spartan?”

  “But what would she spend it on?” Phillips asked.

  Devereaux reached across and took one of Mal’s sausages. “You think a nightmarish childhood, a few decades of back-to-back missions, and having all her normal drives channeled into becoming the ultimate killing machine is going to make a good civilian of her, Mal?”

  “I know plenty of blokes—and blokesses—who won’t know what to do with their hands now the war’s over, either.” He batted her hand away as she reached for a piece of bacon. “But yeah, she’s institutionalized.”

  It wasn’t the kind of word he usually used because it smacked of dishonesty, the kind of shit that Halsey would come out with to avoid saying more accurate things like utterly buggered up beyond all recognition. People recovered from all kinds of things, but most of Naomi’s youth was gone. Mal decided that would have made him pretty angry if he’d been her, not that she didn’t realize she’d been robbed. It was just that having it rammed down her throat by a heartbroken father meant she couldn’t ignore it.

  Mal was finishing the sausages when Staffan’s radio made a squelching sound. He thought he’d sat on it and accidentally powered it up, but it was making noises of its own accord. He fished it out and put it on the table.

  “Incoming signal,” Spenser said. “I thought Edvin would have been pinging it like crazy. He must have worked out Staffan’s not just lying low by now.”

  “You sure that it isn’t transmitting a location?”

  “Definitely not. The jelly boys checked it. So did BB.”

  Mal put his finger to his lips. “Let’s see.”

  He pressed the receive key. He expected to hear Edvin’s voice, worried about his missing father or threatening Earth with Armageddon if they didn’t let him go, but instead it was a weird little nerdy voice that he recognized. There was no preamble.

 

  It was Sinks, the loony Huragok. Mal sucked in a breath. Did he risk talking to him? Had Staffan told him that Mal was persona non grata now?

  “Hello,” Mal said. “Remember me, Sinks? I’m Mal. I came to see the ship with Staffan.”

 

  That was what the Forerunners called humans. The Huragok in Onyx had confirmed that. It was time for Mal to make the most of it.

  “I’m a Reclaimer too,” he said.

 

  Mal had never heard a Huragok get lippy before. “Where are you?”

 

  “Yes, but where’s the ship?”

 

  “I’ve sent someone to get him. He’ll be a couple of minutes. Who are the intruders?”

 

  “Chol Von?”

  Sinks was being cagey. Huragok were never good at volunteering information, though.

  BB loomed in front of him, projecting a yellow holographic note with big letters on it.

  I CAN GET THE ORIGINATING POSITION.

  Mal grabbed a pen from Phillips’s shirt pocket and scribbled on the table. NO PIGGYBACKING THE SIGNAL. YOU’LL PANIC HIM AGAIN.

  BB changed the note. PROMISE. JUST LOOKING.

  “Okay, Sinks, we’re getting the Reclaimer. We’re fetching Staffan.” He gestured at BB to get him. “Give us a few minutes.”

  BB’s avatar stayed put, but dimmed and did a flip on its vertical axis every few seconds. He seemed to find the gesture hilarious for some reason. Then the cube reverted to full luminosity again.

  “On his way,” BB said, then flashed a note. GOT IT. GOT THE LOCATION.

  It was a big relief. They didn’t have to bargain with Staffan now, provided Sinks didn’t get spooked and move the ship again. But that made Staffan suddenly surplus to requirements, and Mal knew what ONI did with liabilities it didn’t need.

  Sinks wasn’t daft, though. Anything that could keep BB out when he wanted to get in was a force to be reckoned with. Mal heard a little bleating noise. In a human, he’d have taken it as contempt.

  Sinks said.

  “Yes, we do.” How long did it take to get him out of the wardroom, for Chrissakes? Was he resisting? “Hang on, Sinks.”

 

  The line went dead. BB sighed. “Oh dear. He must watch a lot of cop movies. Just as well I had the foresight to nip in and grab the signal data, isn’t it? No need to thank me.”

  Mal wasn’t sure if that was a win or not. It definitely wasn’t one where Staffan was concerned. He got up to go and find Osman, but Staffan and Naomi arrived and stood blocking the doorway.

  “Sinks rang off,” Mal said. Staffan looked tired and a bit red-eyed. Reminiscing about old times must have been pretty painful. “He wants to see you in person before he does anything. He’s got the Kig-Yar penned in the ship and they sound like they’re doing a bit of damage trying to take it back.”

  “He makes a pretty good bagman, that Sinks.” Staffan nodded approvingly. He still didn’t seem to be in any hurry, though. “But if he wants to see me, you have to find out where the ship is, and we had a deal.”

  Mal looked at Naomi. She didn’t blink. “Still working that out?” Mal asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well … we know where the ship is now. So I’m not sure where that leaves your deal.”

  Staffan just looked a little more weary. “I was going through with this in good faith just in case you bastards had changed in the last thirty-five years. But you’re still all lying shits, aren’t you?”

  “I think the Admiral meant it,” Mal said. “But what do you expect her to do now she’s got the coordinates?”

  “Shove me out the airlock, probably. Thereby making sure another generation carries on the war. But Sinks won’t let you have the ship without seeing me, so maybe you’d better think about how you’re going to do that.” He put his hand on Naomi’s shoulder. “Take me back to the wardroom, sweetheart. Or the cell. Just spend a little more time with me.”

  He turned around and walked off. Naomi gave Mal a wait gesture and shot off after her father.

  “Better get to the bridge for a briefing,” BB said. “I woke the Admiral. By the time she’s finished brushing her teeth, I bet she’ll have a plan.”

  Mal didn’t feel like finishing his breakfast anyway. He caught up with Vaz in his cabin. He was having a shave, looking slightly more pissed off than normal. His face seemed a lot better and the swelling had receded to slightly puffy and yellowing bruises, but he was feeling his way around his jaw as if it still hurt.

  “So we don’t need to keep our word,” he said, not looking away from the mirror. “We have what we want. We cut our way in if need be. And then what?”

  “That’s down to ONI, mate.”

  Vaz gave him a long, baleful look. “It’s not some committee we’ve never met. Osman and Parangosky are ONI. They make the policy. This will be unpleasant.”

  He pulled on his shirt and headed down the corridor with Mal behind him. If Staffan had just been a routine criminal, then it would have been tough but just, but he wasn’t. He was a victim. Mal couldn’t square it with himself at all. Osman was waiting on the bridge when they assembled, gulping down a coffee while she stood at the chart table examining a 3-D schematic of a CCS-class battlecruiser.

  There was no sign of Staffan. Naomi slipped onto the bridge a little later than everyone else, and the reality hit Mal. She’d had to go and lock her own father in a cell. Even if there w
as no intense emotional relationship on her side, then it must still have been pretty painful to have to do that. It couldn’t have been a bundle of laughs for her dad, either.

  Yeah. I know. I’m feeling sorry for a terrorist. But as far as I know, he hasn’t bombed anyone yet. And if he does, maybe it’s our bloody fault for making him that way.

  “Well, people, let’s assume Inquisitor still looks like this,” Osman said. She was back to her detached calm, even if it was making her squirm. She probably had a much better idea of what Naomi was thinking, too. “Provided the Huragok hasn’t moved the ship again, we’ll jump in fifteen minutes and stand off to observe what’s happening, in case the Kig-Yar are there in numbers and decide to act. I’m not worried about them making any dents in us, but I don’t want them doing anything that panics the Huragok. Judging by what we’ve seen, he’s not the usual happy little chap who lives to serve. He’s cranky and he only takes orders from Staffan.”

  “He’s just taken his original programming to the nth degree,” Phillips said. “He was supposed to take care of Forerunner equipment. He’s gone a bit bonkers for some reason and interpreted that as having to defend the ship as well, and he likes Staffan. He’s Horatius holding the bridge.”

  “The Kig-Yar glassed a Forerunner site, remember,” Vaz said. “It freaked Sinks out, so Staffan humored him and tested the next firing on open ground. It really seemed to make an impression on the little guy. He’s like a one-man dog.”

  Osman rotated the schematic and enlarged it with a gesture. “So we still need Staffan’s cooperation to deal with him.”

  Mal took heart at that. There was still a deal to be done, then. “We don’t know how far Sinks will go. Or what his orders are—from anyone. He might self-destruct the ship. It makes sense to play nice and negotiate.”

  “Once we winkle the Kig-Yar out of there,” Osman said. “Do we know how many there are?”

  “No, that’s another thing we’ll have to ask Sinks nicely.”

  “Okay. Feel free to stop me at any time if anyone has a better idea. We need to get BB into the systems to take control of the ship. We know he won’t get in on a comms signal, because Sinks is wise to that. So we have to get access and breach the hull to physically place a fragment into a terminal or whatever else we can find.”

  “Might I suggest,” BB said, “that I download all the ship’s data the moment I get in? Just in case it all goes wrong. At least we’ll get whatever intel’s still in the ship’s computer.”

  “Good idea.” Osman nodded. “Let’s make data acquisition and asset denial the minimum objective, and if we get to seize the ship and take her home, all the better. So … once BB has control, we can either isolate the Kig-Yar still on board and clear each compartment the hard way, or just keep them locked down and vent each section. Kig-Yar prisoners are no use to us. Besides, I don’t want any survivors going home to Eayn and making this an official feud with humans. Or ‘Telcam getting to hear about it.”

  “Mev-ut,” Phillips said. “They’ll put a bounty on us individually. Mal and Vaz will have two, then. But it could have wider implications for rubbing along with Kig-Yar generally.”

  “Still, no prisoners.” Osman dipped her finger into the aft shuttle bays on each side, port then starboard. “If we cut our way in, we might get overtaken by any automated hull sealing systems. The Huragok’s probably going to detect it, too, so there’s no telling how he’ll react. We’ll need to blow a hatch or two.”

  Naomi was still studying the schematic. Maybe she was letting work take her mind off the personal stuff, because she seemed her usual self, all business. “I’d still prefer we hit two points simultaneously. Even if the Kig-Yar are locked in compartments. If Sinks is going to react, he’s going to have to pick one point of entry to respond to or the other. He can’t cover both.”

  “If I vent the ship, ma’am, that’ll probably kill the Huragok too,” BB said. “And he’s probably chock-full of lovely data as well.”

  Osman shrugged. Mal thought he knew when she was putting on her bastard face and when she really was in full unfeeling ONI mode, but right then he couldn’t tell.

  “Normally, I’d grab any Huragok we could get our hands on,” she said. “But we have no idea what’s wrong with him. If Adj and Leaks try to fix him, we don’t know what problems he might infect them with. I can’t risk compromising those two. We have to terminate Sinks. Sorry.” Osman expanded the schematic and zoomed in again. “BB, can he block you? How evenly matched are you?”

  “I can’t alter hardware.”

  “Meaning?”

  BB shrunk himself to a tiny cube and wove through the glowing lines of the ship’s blueprint image. “Once I’m in, I doubt he’s anywhere near fast enough to stop me. I can lock him out of the computer network. But if he works out what we’re planning, then he might alter the hardware to stop me getting in.”

  “We’ll have to be quick, then, won’t we?”

  Spenser watched the show with his arms folded. “Is there any role I can play in this?” Mal still didn’t know what the agent was privy to, but he hadn’t heard any detail that related to ‘Telcam. “Because I’m not sure what use I am.”

  “Sit this one out, Mike,” Osman said. “It’s an old-style boarding. Man the comms with Phillips. When we’re done, we’ll drop you off at Ivanoff or Anchor Ten.”

  Mal still didn’t know where Inquisitor was hiding. “Where exactly are we heading?”

  BB switched the display to a chart, and it started to make sense. Mal had started to get very familiar with that particular star chart.

  “Right back to Venezia,” BB said. “Or at least pretty close. But you only need a few hundred thousand kilometers to hide a ship if you don’t know where to direct your scans or there’s no detectable EM to look for.”

  Osman checked her watch. There was no discussion about Staffan or the deal at all. Maybe Osman had made up her mind, or hadn’t a clue how she’d handle it yet. Mal still couldn’t tell. He was the ranking NCO here, so it was up to him to ask.

  “What about Staffan, ma’am?” he asked. “All bets off? And are we going to hand him over to Ivanoff or something?”

  Osman raised her eyes from the watch very slowly. “He still has some help to give us. So if I can reach a point where we all get what we want out of this while removing an immediate threat to Earth, I’ll do it. But I wouldn’t want him cooped up in the same facility as Catherine Halsey.”

  Mal didn’t know if that meant she would ship him back to Bravo-6 or shoot him. How did you decide if a man with a grudge on that scale would keep his word? And what the hell was Naomi going to do?

  “Okay.” Osman looked like she was still checking if they’d be home in time for tea. “Spool us up, BB. Jump when ready.”

  UNSC PORT STANLEY, PRIOR TO JUMP TO VENEZIA SECTOR

  Staffan knew he’d grasped at a flimsy straw when he tried to do a deal with Osman, but that was all he had left.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised that it had sunk so fast. Would he have believed Osman if she’d promised him that the UNSC would never attack Venezia? He could hardly expect her to take his word for Venezia’s good behavior, either. He could only speak for himself. He could exert a steadying hand on Peter Moritz, but it would be a fragile, uncertain ceasefire in a society that had its own reasons to hate Earth without any urging from him, and if there was anything that the UNSC wanted right now it was certainty.

  He sat in the cell with his feet up on the bunk, back against the bulkhead, and comforted himself with the fact that he’d found his daughter and had some precious time with her, even if he struggled to find any common ground. He’d kept his promise to Remo as well, even if he hadn’t been able to tell Artie that his father had never stopped believing he might still be alive. Staffan’s main regret was leaving his family with exactly the situation he’d found himself in on Sansar thirty-five years ago: an unexplained disappearance with only decades of destructive pain and obsessive search
ing ahead.

  But I found her. I was right. Now at least we both know the truth.

  Staffan shut his eyes. If he’d had Osman as his prisoner, would he have taken her word for it and let her go, or kept her as a source of intel and a bargaining chip?

  What bargain? You can’t bargain with this thing, this ONI. Now I know what it is, I can see there’s no truce possible, ever. The best you’ll ever get is a prisoner exchange.

  Naomi and my family. That’s all that matters.

  There was a rap on the door. It was so timid that he expected it to be the linguist, Phillips. But when the door opened it was Naomi. She closed the door behind her and sat down at the far end of the bunk.

  “I didn’t intend to put this all on you, sweetheart,” he said. “I just wanted you back. For a while if nothing else.”

  “It’s not your fault. You didn’t ask for this.”

  “I’d give anything to find the bastard responsible for this and strangle them slowly.”

  “Ah, there’s quite a waiting list for that.”

  “The bigger the criminal you are, the less chance you’ll get punished when you’re caught.”

  “You sound like Vasya sometimes.”

  “Nice boy. Honest. He seems very fond of you.”

  “Not in that way, Dad.”

  “They took that away from you too? You can’t even fall in love?”

  “Oh, I can love people. It’s just that I don’t have the drive to have kids and make a proper family life for myself. I don’t think a man could cope with that. Think of someone designed to be completely workaholic. Not much different from the Huragok, in fact.”

  “Remember that you don’t owe Earth anything, Naomi. They’ve had their use out of you. They took your entire life. Your childhood, your youth, and your future.” Staffan wondered if that had been one truth too many. He regretted reminding her of what she obviously already knew. “You have some genuine friends, though. That’s a precious thing. They’re worth it.”

  “I don’t think I ever did it for Earth, Dad. I think I did it because Halsey made us all feel that if we didn’t fight, humankind would tear itself apart. Guilt. We were so smart and strong that we owed the species our services. I think I did it for my comrades. And by the time I’d been in the program a year or two, I had no idea that I could ever be anything else. But it was never because I believed in an idea. Not past the age of ten, anyway.”