Broken Circle (21 page)

The deck rocked, the ship shuddered, a roar reverberated along its hallways, a shock wave reaching the bridge—and Mken, flailing, fell heavily onto his side.

“We're hit!” Trok shouted, trying to regain control of the vessel. “An indirect hit! Straight from Janjur Qom! If we hadn't already started on our way, we'd be done for . . .”

“How much damage?” Mken asked, trying to stand.

“Some—in hold twelve!”

The realization struck Mken like another projectile.
They'd been hit close to hold eleven—close to the deployment hold where the dropship was stored
.

And the sacred Luminary was in the dropship.

Mken managed to stand, grimacing with pain, and staggered back into the corridor. “Get us out of here!” he shouted, as he stumbled his way toward the rear of the
Vengeful Vitality.
The corvette was still shaking—some part of it was depressurizing, its artificial atmosphere sucking into space. Mken knew that section
would be automatically closed off by the ship's life-support response mechanism—but the precious air jetting from the breach destabilized the ship. It fishtailed in space, twisting this way and that, its artificial gravity rippling with inertia, so Mken was sent bouncing and bruising from one bulkhead to another as he worked his way to the aft.

Somewhere, an alarm went off, an automatic announcement made in a carefree tone,
“Holds ten and eleven are experiencing rapid decompression. Evacuate to pressure-sealed areas. A danger of sudden death due to an absence of atmospheric pressure applies to personnel who fail to evacuate holds ten and eleven. Holds ten and eleven are experiencing rapid decompression. Evacuate to . . .”

“Your Eminence!” Vil ‘Kthamee cried as Mken came through the hatchway. “Are you all right?”

Mleer was gaping at him; Mken realized he was bleeding. “Never mind! The females! Get them out—crowd them up into the crew's quarters!”

“Yes, Your Eminence!” Mleer said.

Vil ‘Kthamee opened the metal door and they stepped through to find the females up and clutching at the straps that held them in place, several of them cursing Lilumna and Burenn for talking them into making this hellish journey.

The corvette lurched again, metal squealing. Vil and Mleer unhooked the females, and sent them toward the front of the ship, one by one.

“What happened?” Lilumna demanded as Mken pushed past. Her voice was barely audible over the alarm and announcement.
“Holds ten and eleven are experiencing rapid decompression . . .”

“A missile, from the surface!” Mken shouted as he got his footing and hurried toward the hatch to the deployment hold.

She looked around wildly, calling after him, “Is this only the beginning?”

“I think we're out of range now . . .” That of course was just a guess. They knew so little about the Stoics' military capability. “Follow Vil ‘Kthamee!”

Burenn was at the back of this compartment, where Mleer was just helping her stand, when Mken reached the door to the deployment hold. She'd struck her head when the ship was shaken about, and blood streamed into her eyes.

But at least the vessel was pitching less. It was easier for Mken to move. He was only badly bruised from the initial impact—and he was charged with purpose, able to ignore the pain.

“This way!” Mleer shouted at the females, hurriedly leading the way toward the ship's bridge.

Mken checked the pressure indicator on the door to hold eleven and found the pressure normal. But beyond that . . .

His pulse raced madly as he thought about the implications of the Luminary, the sacred artifact that held the Covenant's key to the Great Journey, now threatened by the void of space.

Mken palmed the door open. It slid aside and he went through. He sealed it behind him, then turned to the racks and lockers along the walls; they contained everything he needed: pressure suits, atmospheric chargers, tools.

“Holds ten and eleven are experiencing rapid decompression. Evacuate to pressure-sealed areas. A danger of sudden death—”

“Trok!” Mken shouted, hurrying to the lockers. “Are you hearing me?”

“Yes, Your Eminence!” came the voice from Mken's collar communicator.

“Then find a way to shut off those alarms and that cursed announcement! I have to concentrate!”

“Immediately, Your Eminence!”

It wasn't quite immediately, but when Mken had the boots off, the clangor and looping announcement fell silent. He could hear thumping, creaking from the deployment hold.

Hurry!

Hands shaking, Mken dragged on the pressure suit—it was designed to be donned quickly, edging itself onto his limbs and torso with self-guiding intelligent materials sensors. As he dressed, he called Trok on the communicator. “Trok! What's the ship's status?”

“Engines are online, but working at one-quarter power.
Vitality
is preparing to form a slipspace aperture, but it's taking time. There have been no follow-up attacks from the surface of the planet.”

“They must have seen us when we took off at dawn—enough sunlight can compromise the stealth field. We're fortunate to have gotten away at all.”

“The Huragok is working to repair the power lines. We hope to be at full power shortly, Your Eminence.”

“What's the status of the deployment hold?”

“Stand by, please, while I check the . . .” He sputtered something unintelligible in some dialect of Sangheili. A curse of some sort. And then: “We had a temporary seal on the breach . . . but the seal has just broken down! The hold is once more decompressing!”

Mken heard a high-pitched grating sound from the deployment hold and his mouth went bone dry. Holding the helmet in his hands, he rushed to the door and into the next chamber, and looked through the window. To his right, he could see the gash the missile had made in the metal skin of the ship, sharp curled pieces of hull bent inward. He glimpsed stars flashing beyond
the rent in the bulkhead; within the hold—which was actually a small hangar for the dropship—unidentifiable debris, scraps of metal and detritus, had once more begun whirling toward the breach in the hull. The last of it was drawing the overturned dropship with it, making it move gratingly, a little at a time, toward the gash in the bulkhead. The dropship was breaking up as he watched—pieces of it were tearing off, flying out into the ravenous void of space.

He put the helmet on, then turned at the chime from the door behind him. Hadn't he sealed that door?

It was opening, and Burenn was stepping through, the San'Shyuum female dazedly looking around. “Mken . . . if you please . . . I am . . .”

“Get out of here! I'm about to decompress this room! Get out!”

“I can't!” She blinked, seeming about to keel over, and leaned against the doorframe. “Mleer left me . . . the door sealed—it's locked! I can't get out!”

“Then wait for me there! Get back in that room and close that door!”

“I didn't open it.”

“What?”

“It opened and I came through . . .”

“Trok!” Mken shouted, turning to look through the small window in the hatchway door again. In the hangar, the dropship was now banging against the breach in the hull—which looked as if it was about to deliver it into space, like a female delivering an offspring from her womb.

“Yes, Your Eminence?” came Trok's voice.

“Why are there doors unsealing on their own down here?”

“It's the life-support system—the damage to the ship has caused a power pulse that has reset it. Some of the doors are not
sealing, and are opening of their own accord—the ship's computer seems to be prioritizing to close those doors necessary to save the rest of the vessel! The Huragok is trying to control it but . . .”

“Please . . .” Burenn sobbed. Mken turned and saw her collapsing limply to the floor. And she was blocking the opposite door. It wouldn't close with her there. If she was left lying in that spot when he opened the door to the deployment hold, she would be taken violently along with the decompressing air into the vacuum. And there was no time to get her into a life-support suit.

Mken turned to the window in the door to the deployment hold—and saw the dropship, now in pieces, blocking the gash . . . but he could see the hull buckling. And something else. Half seen in the partly shattered dropship was the glimmering blue of the sacred Luminary. It was in danger of being lost forever.

If he didn't get Burenn into the other room when he opened this door, she would die. If he did take time to help her, he would very likely lose the Luminary.

The Luminary was more important. But . . . Burenn had saved his life back on Janjur Qom. Had saved the entire expedition. And was the biological artifact of her healthy genetic material less important than the Luminary?

Yes. Leave her! Get to the Luminary.

But . . .

Inwardly calling on the spirits of the Forerunners for help, Mken turned furiously to Burenn, went to her as quickly as he could in the lumbering pressure suit. He could see that she was breathing—she was still alive. He dragged her through the door, away from the aft of the ship and into the room where the other females had been seated. The San'Shyuum females had all gone to safer berths forward, and so had that panicky oaf Mleer.

“Trok! Can the door to twelve be resealed?”

“The Huragok is working on it, Your Eminence!”

Mken wanted to scream with frustration. “Get it done quickly! We are about to lose the Luminary!” He put on his pressure suit's helmet and returned to the next room and the door to the deployment hold.

He got there just in time to see the breached hull explode outward, the pieces of the dropship flying out into space. It was unable to resist the powerful suction, and was drawn inexorably out into the vacuum.

“Trok! The Luminary! Can you track it? The pieces of the dropship, the Luminary, they should be in the same gravity well! Can we . . . can we go back? Can we . . .”

There was a long crackling pause. Finally, Trok reported, “I'm sorry, Your Eminence. Our instruments are following everything that was expelled from the hold. It's falling back toward Janjur Qom. The Luminary with it—its energy field is quite distinctive. It is plunging into the atmosphere of the planet . . . we have lost it.”

“No, Trok. No. I cannot bear that. Look again. Please.”

“I'm sorry, Your Eminence. It is too late.”

The Refuge: An Uncharted Shield World

Strategy Hall

850 BCE

The Age of Reconciliation

U
ssa ‘Xellus was just waking up, his first thought that today he must contend with the execution of the traitor ‘Crolon . . . and then attempt to ease any fears among his people, who had come to call themselves “Ussans.” He needed to make sure they remained unified.

Sooln came into the sleeping chamber, her eyes glinting with alarm.

“Ussa, ‘Crolon is gone!”

“What?”

“He's gotten away!”

“When? How did this happen?”

“We are not sure—at some point as most of us slept. I don't know how he did it.”

“Summon Enduring Bias.”

Minutes later, Ussa and Sooln were hurrying up to the storeroom they'd used as a jail cell. Enduring Bias was already hovering
by the open door. “This is all quite interesting. But I should inform you . . .”

Ussa was staring at a small puddle of blood on the metal deck in the otherwise empty storeroom. “We had the door locked—a guard was stationed outside.”

“I merely wanted to say—” Enduring Bias began again.

Sooln turned to the Flying Voice, interrupting. “Can you show us what happened?”

“Yes. I have only just now retrieved the relevant data. This was recorded earlier.” The Flying Voice angled itself so its lens was focused downward and it projected a holographic image showing the exterior of the cell seen from near the ceiling. There was a sentry, a Sangheili Ussa knew as ‘Kwari, leaning on the cell door, half-asleep. When the storage room was selected for a jail, small holes had been drilled in the door to allow sufficient air for prisoners. ‘Kwari had removed his armored helmet and placed it on the floor.

Suddenly a thin metal blade, slimmer than a childling's clawnail, thrust through one of the holes and into ‘Kwari's hearing membrane. ‘Kwari shrieked in pain and fury and they heard ‘Crolon jeering, clacking his mandibles mockingly.

“
Coward!
” shouted ‘Crolon, withdrawing the blade. “
That is what happens to the dishonorable!
”

Furious, ‘Kwari did just what ‘Crolon must have hoped he'd do—he turned and unlocked the door, then started in, drawing his burnblade. “I'll punish you for that! They'll find just enough alive to execute!”

And then ‘Kwari screamed in agony, staggering backward. The slim blade had been driven into ‘Kwari's right eye, all the way to the hilt.

‘Crolon wrested the sword from the dying sentry, severed his head, and sprinted away.

“That fool . . .” Ussa muttered.

“Where has he gone?” Sooln asked, turning to Enduring Bias.

“That is what I have been trying to tell you, Ussa ‘Xellus—he has gone to craft launching. He was there for some minutes before I detected it. I cannot watch everything at once, you know. I must access specific visual data before I can—”

“Craft launching!” Ussa burst out. Unconsciously, he drew his burnblade. “ ‘Crolon is an engineer . . . he could fly one of the smaller vessels! If he chooses the right one, it will almost fly itself.”

Something floated into the corridor near Ussa then, and slowed down. It was one of the flying freight movers, really just a shallow open box large enough for a moderate load of material. “Enter the mover,” Enduring Bias chirped, “and I will transport you there.”