Yet, even if he had rehearsed it, Smith had touched a nerve. Lopez couldn‘t hold his gaze. She‘d had relatives on Reach. Close ones. No longer. Had seen in Smith, for a moment, all the anger, grief, and bitterness that had driven her to take her command, every combat mission, and to give up her life to UNSC. The same she‘d seen in each of her soldiers. It was always us against them. Always.
Balanced against that: taking prisoners. That left a sour taste in her mouth. Leave none alive.
Did he really think she was going to let down her guard? She hadn‘t let down her guard in
twenty-seven years. ―Tell me about the Covenant prisoners, Smith."
Smith, exasperated: ―For intelligence. Research and development. Know your enemy. It‘s a war.
You know that—you‘re a soldier, right? I don’t know , I‘m just the medical officer."
Her fingers flexed. The memory of John Doe‘s hand. ―Research and development, huh?"
He held his hands out as if he had a peace offering for her, but there was only air. ―I‘m just the medical officer." An echo. A shield.
―What‘s the Mona Lisa doing here?"
Frustration on Smith‘s face. ―Where‘s here? I‘ve been in this room since the outbreak. It‘s a black box, nothing in or out. I have no idea where we are. Where are we?"
―Why don‘t you tell me the last place you were, then, and I‘ll tell you if you‘re still there?"
That got Mahmoud‘s and MacCraw‘s attention. That gave Smith pause.
―In chess, they call that ‗check,‘ " Mahmoud muttered.
Gears and wheels were turning in Smith‘s head. Lopez could see them.
―Didn‘t you come here to rescue us?" Smith said. ―Am I under arrest or something?" Face gone completely blank.
So you’re going to play it that way. Well, she had time to play, too. All the way up until they got to the bridge.
Countered with: ―You would have access codes to the bridge, right?"
Smith nodded reluctantly.
And, finally, she did relent. She might not like him, but that didn‘t make him the enemy. ―We‘re off of a planet called Threshold and we‘ve got Covenant loose on a ship capable of making a slipspace jump. We‘re following the Cole Protocol. We need to get to the bridge and take out the nav system. I hope the bridge isn‘t locked down, but if it is . . ."
Smith had blanched as soon as she said Cole Protocol. ―No. No, no, we need to get off the ship.
You came here somehow, a Pelican? We need to get off the ship."
Knew instinctively Burgundy would hate this guy as much as she did. ―Sorry, but that‘s not an option. You‘re coming with us."
―No, no—"
― Please," she added, with another dazzling smile.
>Burgundy 1445 hours
At least Marines got to go out and do something, even if ―something" meant getting into trouble.
Not long after the last communication with the Red Horse , Lopez and her crew had dropped off the radio, their cliched bravado and lame jokes slowly swallowed by static and interference. She thought she‘d heard a crackle of contact from Benti, but that‘d been snuffed out immediately.
Burgundy worked her way through a pack of gum. Her jaw ached something fierce. A book lay
unattended on her lap. She‘d tried reading, but couldn‘t stop checking the cameras, and had given up after she‘d read the same paragraph for twenty minutes.
There wasn‘t anything to see. Just the barricades in the shadows. Once, she thought she‘d glimpsed a silhouette with two heads, one head pale and veiny, which was a pretty ridiculous thing to think you‘d seen. Nothing came out of the darkness to confirm that glimpse, so she‘d put it down to nerves.
Her aft running lights were still on, so with the cameras she could still see about ten meters past the Pelican‘s rear. She‘d thought about turning the lights off, but nixed that idea. If something was out there, she‘d be as good as putting out a flashing holographic sign that read ―Burgundy‘s
Home—Just Come Right In."
So she waited.
And she waited.
And she waited.
She took the latest wad of gum from her mouth, thumbed it on the dash, and froze when two figures lurched into the light on the feed. Her thumb sticking to the gum, she yanked free and gripped her pistol. Don’t you lay a hand on my bird, Covie scum. I’ll hole you, I’ll hole you a hundred times over.
Then she looked closer. It was Cranker and Maller. They were stumbling, injured. Head wounds, it looked like, dark patches running down their faces, torn clothing, and they were leaning into each other, but they were walking . Alive!
The relief that washed over Burgundy was so intense she almost cried.
―Oh thank Christ."
They clearly needed help. She‘d not thought much of them—loud and rowdy and pushy in the mess line—but here, now, it didn‘t matter, they were the most excellent human beings in the universe.
She wouldn‘t be alone now.
She slapped the controls for the gangplank and vaulted out of the cockpit, snatching up an assault rifle from the locker as she passed. The ramp opened too damn slow. She ran to the lip as it lowered, checking the nearby barricades and containers for any other movement.
―Guys!" she hissed. ―Get on in here! Now!"
Up close they were worse than they looked on the cameras, Cranker listing badly now, Maller pivoting toward the sound of her voice, the ramp dropping, dropping.
―You‘re—"
Much worse. Much, much worse.
Skin mottled and bruised and sunken, veined through with dark tendrils. Eyes white and unseeing.
Some growth fastened to Cranker‘s neck, an enormous pustule that shivered and twitched. Maller, what had been Maller, opened his mouth, and howled, a sound no human could make.
Burgundy scrambled back, opened fire.
But it was too late.
>Benti 1450 hours
When they found that the hatch to the lower deck was also locked, Benti let loose with a stunning stream of curses that left them all looking at her like they didn‘t know her anymore. Except for Orlav.
―We got a Plan B?" is all Orlav asked.
This being-in-charge thing was wearing thin. Benti wished, not for the first time, that she was back on the Red Horse taking a nice bath.
―This was Plan B," Benti said. And Plan C, if you wanted to be precise. They‘d lost contact with Lopez, and Benti wasn‘t sure they‘d get it back any time soon. Hailing the Pelican had become a kind of personal joke that gave her the giggles. Didn‘t know if she really found it funny or was just becoming hysterical. Hellooo Pelican, come in, come in? No? Okay. You just be that way, you petulant bird.
Clarence shrugged and started back down the corridor.
―Hang on, just wait, I‘ll find another way." Orlav‘s frown deepened, clearly sick of peering at the tiny screen.
Benti shouldered her rifle and knelt by the hatch. The access panel wasn‘t secured. She flipped the panel open, gave it a once-over, and pulled a knife from her boot. Being a medic wasn‘t all she was good at.
―Shine your light down here. Thanks." It wasn‘t so complicated. A little tricky, but nothing she hadn‘t done before. Just expose this wire, strip back this one and put a bridge here, and—
The hatchway unlocked with a sharp clack and she hauled it open. Triumphant.
But only for a second.
―Pheeeoooow!" They cringed away from the stench that came billowing out, the air thicker and moist in the worst possible way. ―Bilges. They‘re the same in every ship."
―Foucault would be pissed to hear you say that about the Red Horse ."
―Yeah, well, he ain‘t here," Gersten said, and swung himself onto the ladder, Orlav and Clarence leaning into the hatchway to provide cover.
―See anything?"
―Yep. Looks like bilges, smells like bilges . . . I think it‘s bilges!"
Benti hadn‘t expected Gersten to turn into a comedian. She rolled her eyes and dropped down after Gersten. ―No shit."
―Oh, we got shit a-plenty here. Special price for you."
Wow. It wasn‘t going to stop.
The space was tight and cramped, full of tanks holding clean water, gray water, and sewage, and yet more tanks for the processing as it was all recycled and made ready to go back into the mix again. Moisture beaded across the ceiling and dripped onto them irregularly, leaving oily marks on the walls and residue across every surface.
―It‘s in this direction." Orlav gestured at a passage leading through the tanks.
―Lots of spaces to hide in there," Benti said.
Clarence gave her a look like Who would want to?
―Lots." Orlav agreed. ―So we‘ll do it real careful-like."
Moving in stages, creeping, darting into new territory, their backs only to each other, they moved deeper into the bowels of the ship.
Benti wished she could get used to the smell, but it was impossible. Even keeping her hand over her nose didn‘t help. The smell had a taste, a texture, that got around any defense. Benti wanted that bath more than ever—and ice cream, damn the sarge for putting the idea in her head. But more than anything, she wanted someplace with a blue sky and no ceiling. She wondered, not for the first time, if Lopez was already waiting for them on the bridge.
―I‘ve been in the shit before," Gersten said, ―but this is ridiculous."
―Shut it," Benti said. Mouthy Gersten was ruining silent Gersten‘s rep. But also her ears had pricked up at the hint of an echo.
―Let Gersten wallow in it, for once," Orlav said straightfaced. Even Tsardikos, who had been almost as silent as Clarence, couldn‘t suppress a chuckle at that.
But Benti shushed them again. ―I‘m serious. Clarence, you hear that?"
Clarence nodded. It was impossible to miss. A voice that rose stark above the muted hubbub of the recycling system. A voice that spoke no words, that didn‘t try to, that didn‘t know how.
They knew the wide array of Covenant sounds, and this was not one of them.
―Keep moving," Benti said through gritted teeth. Boy, she wished now they hadn‘t split up. The sarge would‘ve had a much better plan. But right now the sarge might as well be on a beach in Cozumel.
―Where‘d it come from?" Orlav asked. ―I can‘t tell."
Another sound, containing a depth and jaggedness that tripped Benti‘s pulse.
―What the hell was that?" Gersten asked, spinning about. ―Covenant bastards, what the hell is it?"
―Shut up and keep moving," Benti insisted. She couldn‘t shed the image of the Covenant Elite Clarence had killed for her, listening for something that frightened it more than a bunch of Marines.
Shedding caution, they sped up into a jog, a glance at each corner, knocking into the holding tanks because they looked behind them so much. Tsardikos was lagging. Benti hissed at him to go faster, but he couldn‘t keep up.
Another roar, a bellow not even really animal in nature—too ragged and discordant. It echoed off the tanks and pipes, hiding its source. Moaning, eerie changes in the timbre, like someone tuning in a messed-up radio channel. More and more voices—no, they couldn‘t be voices—joined in, as if alerted to a hunt. Just discernable above the coalescing howl, something that chittered and scuttled.
―They‘re behind us, I think," Gersten said, not trying to be funny any more, as he swiveled to jog backward, flashlight spasming across the pipes behind them. Benti turned, couldn‘t see anything.
Not even Tsardikos.
―And they‘re gaining," Orlav added. Unnecessarily.
They broke, running so fast now that anything could ambush them, but needing to take that risk.
Running felt good to Benti‘s tense muscles.
―Where are we going, Orlav?" Benti shouted. ―Come on, where are we going?"
―Maintenance storage room, with access back upstairs beyond!"
―How far?"
―Fifty meters!"
―They‘re gaining," Gersten said, rising strain in his voice. There was more than one voice in the growing growl behind them, multiple footfalls, heavy, far too heavy. They turned a corner, kept going.
―Grenade?"
Orlav: ―Too close to the hull!"
―Here!" Benti splashed to a halt by a narrow passage that led through the last of the tanks. A quick scan indicated that the space beyond was clear, nothing lurking in the corners. She dropped to a knee, checking the ammo remaining in her rifle as Clarence took up a position behind and over her.
―How many you make out, Gersten?"
―Lots," he said, wide-eyed.
Great help that was . . .
The noises reaching to them through the darkness swelled, sometimes familiar, yet also utterly warped, alien, broken. Benti couldn‘t slow her breathing, her hands cold on her rifle.
Tsardikos came running toward them in a final burst of speed, terrified and swearing. He jumped over her, spun into position behind and fumbled with his weapon.
―Took your damn time," growled Orlav. Tsardikos ignored her.
―I don‘t think they‘re Covenant," Benti said. Behind her, Clarence shifted, his calf against her hip.
He had her back. Again.
Orlav smacked a flare and tossed it out into the passageway. They waited, stinking of shit, like a group of cowering sanitation workers. With guns.
The first of their pursuers staggered into the spluttering light.
They weren‘t Covenant.
>Lopez 1501 hours
At last they‘d found a body. Never thought she‘d sound a silent huzzah for that. Never thought evidence of death could be such a relief.
Security stations and checkpoints were choked with furniture, the doors themselves jammed.
Sometimes on purpose. Most of the blockades had been torn apart, great gouges left in the steel walls and floor. In the process of finding a path through the debris, they‘d been funneled into one of the crew‘s rec rooms. Archaic ceiling fans. Pool tables. Bar stools and a TV. One wall with a blown-up photograph of the beach on some tropical island. An honest-to-god facsimile of a tiki bar in another corner. Something about it made Lopez think of the words in denial . Even down to the plastic tiki glasses still sitting on the counter.
Nothing disturbed; no one had fled here.
It almost looked normal.
Except for the body.
Or two.
Honestly, it was hard to tell.
Right about then, looking at the pieces, Lopez could have done with some answers. Real answers, not the extra mysteries she was being offered by Smith. Remembering Rabbit, the last conversation with Burgundy, Ayad still gone.
Too many more unknowns and her soldiers were going to start to fray. No matter how she tried to stop that from happening. She‘d seen it before. It had damn near happened to Foucault before he‘d turned the situation around. Become a hero.
So there was Mahmoud muttering under his breath while Rakesh and Singh focused on the tiki bar.
Only Percy, at her side, seemed unable to look away.
―I get the feeling this wasn‘t a very happy place," Percy said.
This wasn‘t the battlefield. This wasn‘t what they‘d signed on for.
The storage cupboard at the far end of the room had been wrenched open so hard the hinges had spun off and the door lay crumpled to the side. Inside, pieces. Leftovers. She couldn‘t think of it as anything else. Flesh she knew to be Covenant. Skin she knew to be human. And something half grown across them, inside these pieces, bulging the muscle and mottling the skin. They couldn‘t have been here long enough to look that rotten. Something in the physiology had altered, shifted, from the inside. A massive protrusion from what should have been a shoulder, but it wasn‘t an arm. It looked like a growth of bone, grotesque and huge, with strips of flesh gripping it tenuously.
Savage. Brutal. Made her remember John Doe‘s wounds. Had he ever been in this room? Guard or prisoner?
―Sarge, what the f**k is that?" MacCraw pointed, as if she hadn‘t noticed.
―Well, MacCraw, that there," she said grimly, slipping into a drawl, ―that‘s a hand." Death had not relaxed it. The fingers didn‘t curl, the palm didn‘t fold. Flat, with the fingers straight, rigid and stiff.
―What the hell is that other thing, Sarge?" MacCraw again. Was he never going to stop cataloging?
―Almost looks like they got fused or something hiding in the cupboard," Rakesh said in a distant voice. ―Together," he added, more distant. Clearly not believing it for an instant.
But none of that really got to Lopez. What got to her was the carefully tended bonsai tree sitting right next to the cubby. Had a terrible image of someone tossing the body parts in there and then doing a bit of gardening.
Lopez took a step back, and another, and draped an arm over Smith‘s shoulders. She pulled him companionably close, seemingly oblivious to the way the muzzle of her rifle drifted back and forth across his face.
―John," she said. ―Can I call you John?"
He leaned away. Not from her, no. From the bodies, the bits of bodies she was dragging him near.
He really was a little man. There wasn‘t much muscle on him.
―I think you know what this is."
Smith glanced at each of them again, assessing them again. Seeing no escape.
―And I think you‘re going to damn well tell me what this is ."
>Benti 1502 hours
As Benti grimly fired and fired, rifle hot in her hands, she had one small satisfaction: no room to miss, no distance to interfere with accuracy. The first figure jumped and spun with the concentrated fire from the five of them, falling back into the second and third, who didn‘t pause. They just shoved their comrade aside, climbing over each other to get through the gap. They tripped and stumbled too as they pushed their way into the line of fire, even as the first was, oh god, Benti could make out the first thrashing its way back up. She knew she‘d dropped a good line of hot lead straight in its belly, but it was getting back up .
Clarence threw another flare.
Most were human, some were actually Covenant. All of them so misshapen and shambly you could hardly tell. Branching fungi tumbled and poured from their limbs. Their eyes were glazed and vacant. The stink of them overpowered the shit smell. There was a low mumble coming from them, almost in concert, that unnerved Benti.
―They‘re not staying down!" Gersten yelled. ―Reloading!" Popped a clip and slapped in a new one as Orlav covered his zone. ―What the hell are they?"
She concentrated her fire on the frontmost, and it dropped, and she shifted her aim to the next, and oh god, it was getting to its feet too, and she saw shoes on those feet, slippers, and a distinctive orange color.
They‘d found the prisoners, and apparently they didn‘t like the bilges, either.
Tsardikos wasn‘t even firing. Just watching, mouth open. Benti elbowed him in the thigh. ―Snap out of it, soldier!" she screamed at him. And he did. Miraculously. Started firing again.