Halo: Contact Harvest (24 page)

As the gold-armored alien stepped toward the edge of the compartment its nostrils flared. It jerked its chin toward the trees—directly at 2/A’s hiding spot—and its blue-armored escorts bared their oversized canine teeth, acknowledging the humans’ scent with wary growls.

“Should have gone with barbecue…” Avery muttered.

“Say again?”

“They aren’t vegetarians, sir. Might want to reset the table.”

There was a pause as Ponder relayed the information to Lt. Commander al-Cygni and Governor Thune. “No time for that, Johnson. Bring them up.”

Avery wasn’t privy to all of al-Cygni and Thune’s protocol discussions—everything they’d decided to do to put their alien visitors at ease. But Jilan had told him that the first freighter the aliens had attacked was carrying fruit, and that she and Thune had agreed that more produce would make a good welcome gift. Symbolically, an offering of fruits and vegetables highlighted Harvest’s peaceful, agrarian purpose. And this offer, to share the planet’s bounty, had served as the basis for Mack’s etchings.

But now—looking at the aliens’ carnivore physiques and vicious weapons—it was clear to Avery that they hadn’t dropped to the surface hoping to find a nice fruit salad. They wanted something else. And they looked ready to take it should anyone refuse.

Avery stepped toward the dropship and stopped a few meters in front of the gold-armored alien. The towering beast narrowed its yellow eyes.

“Dass. Come to me,” Avery said. “Nice and slow.”

The 1/A squad leader stepped out of formation and paced to Avery’s side. Moving slowly and deliberately, Avery un-shouldered his BR55, released the magazine, pulled its action to eject a lone bullet from the chamber, and presented both the weapon and its ammunition to Dass. The alien’s eyes flashed as it watched each step of the unloading process. Avery extended his empty hands, punctuating his performance:
OK,
he thought.
Now you.

With a gruff exhale the gold-armored alien grasped its hammer below the head. It slid the weapon up and over his shoulder and then held it out to the shorter of its blue-armored escorts. The other alien seemed reluctant to take the weapon, and only did so after the leader loosed an emphatic bark. Then, mimicking Avery, it uncurled its hairy paws, revealing black and pointed nails.

Avery nodded. “Dass. Step back.”

As the squad leader returned to formation, Avery placed a hand on his chest, then pointed at the greenhouse. Al-Cygni had encouraged him to keep hand gestures (and their unintended insults) to a minimum. But Avery had needed no convincing. He was pretty sure the aliens were already offended by what he and Byrne had done to their first ship and its crew, and he knew waving his arms and mistakenly signing the equivalent of “go screw yourself” wouldn’t exactly lessen their resentment.

So he kept gently placing and pointing his hand until the gold-armored alien leapt down from the compartment, shuddering the grass and sinking a good six inches into the turf. The militiamen standing on the other side of the ship, who had yet to see the aliens, took a nervous step back. A few looked set to bolt for the trees.

“Steady,” Avery growled into his throat mic as the blue-armored escorts thundered to the ground.

Now that all three were out in the light, Avery noticed they each had different-colored fur tufting through breaks in their armor. The leader’s coat was light gray, almost silver. One of the escorts had dark brown fur and the other, tan. This second escort was actually a bit taller than the leader and more muscular, though Avery knew this was a bit like comparing two models of main battle tanks: one might weigh more than the other, but both would have no trouble flattening the 1/A recruits.

But for now, the creatures seemed eager to please. The leader placed a shaggy palm across its chest plate and pointed at Avery then the greenhouse. Avery nodded and soon the unlikely foursome was trooping across the lawn to a granite staircase that led up to the gardens’ middle tier—Avery in the lead, then the gold-armored alien, then its two escorts.

“We’re on the move,” Avery whispered into his mic. “So far so good.”

At the top of the stairs, a flagstone path cut east through a grove of flowering cherry and pear trees. The trees had been in bloom for weeks, and their blossoms had begun to fall onto the path’s rough-cut stones. As the aliens lumbered along the pink-and-yellow petals clung to their broad bare feet, creating wider holes in an already patchy carpet. Unfortunately, the petals’ scent of sweet decay did little to mask the aliens’ musky smell. The powerful odor set Avery’s nerves on edge, and he wondered what the ARGUS units would make of it.

Halfway to another staircase leading up to the greenhouse, the path widened to accommodate a ground-level, rectangular fountain. Its jets were on an automatic timer and had yet to activate. For now, the shallow water was still, and as Avery steered the party along the fountain’s southern edge, he saw the second alien dropship—still swinging a wide loop above the trees—reflected in the clear, cold water. The dropship was moving more slowly now, and Avery had a hard time differentiating its motive whine from the river’s churn.

Mounting the second staircase, Avery saw both platoons’ bravo squads arranged in staggered lines before the greenhouse. Between them and the staircase—in the middle of the upper tier’s lawn—was a wide oak table covered by a crisp white cloth and topped with a generous basket of fruit. Avery took a few steps toward the table then turned toward the aliens, palms raised in a halting pose. But the armored brutes had already come to a stop. All three were staring at the greenhouse’s gabled entrance, where humanity’s delegation had just emerged: Thune, Pedersen, Ponder, and al-Cygni with Staff Sergeant Byrne taking up the rear.

Pedersen wore his usual gray linen suit, while the Governor sported a yellow-on-white variation of the seersucker he’d worn for the solstice celebration. As usual, the Governor’s bulk strained at his suit’s seams, making him look more like the gentrified farmer he was than the powerful politician he hoped the aliens would perceive. But despite the fabric’s pinch, Thune strode forward—chest puffed and shoulders back—at a pace that implied he was no more intimidated by the armored trio than a group of Harvest’s parliamentarians.

The Captain and the Lt. Commander both wore dress uniforms and caps, he Marine Corps navy blue and she full-dress white. In an effort to help the aliens differentiate gender, al-Cygni had opted for a knee-length skirt. Like Avery, Byrne wore battle-dress fatigues and the same grim stare of altered expectations:
These aren’t the enemies we expected.
The tall Irishman’s blue eyes flicked back and forth beneath his duty cap’s brim as he hastened to assess the aliens’ arms and armor.

“Thank you, Staff Sergeant,” Thune said. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Yes, sir.” Avery turned on his heels and stepped to the front of the table, where he met Jilan. Byrne took the northwest corner, flanking Ponder. Pedersen stepped in between Thune and the table, a large COM tablet tucked under his arm.

“Welcome to Harvest!” Thune beamed. “I am its leader.” He tapped his chest. “Thune.”

The gold-armored alien huffed. But it made no indication if that was its species, rank, or name—or perhaps it simply wanted the Governor to get on with his unintelligible introduction.

Despite the language barrier, al-Cygni had thought it wise to at least attempt verbal communication, if only to get some of the aliens’ speech on record for later analysis. Thune had insisted he do all the talking, and while the Lt. Commander hadn’t disagreed, she had taken pains to clarify that brevity was key—that the worst thing Thune could do was frustrate the aliens by talking too much.

The Governor waited, giving the leader a chance to make some opening remarks of its own. But it said nothing. Thune was about to launch into an extended introduction when al-Cygni coughed. Avery knew it had become as clear to Jilan as it was to him that the aliens weren’t long on patience. While the gold-armored one had had the discipline to stay focused on Thune as he spoke, its fur had begun to bristle. And Avery couldn’t be sure, but the shorter of the escorts seemed to have gotten a lot more pungent.

Thune shot al-Cygni an annoyed glance, but he motioned Pedersen forward. The Attorney General pulled the COM tablet from under his arm and held it out to the aliens. A moment later, an orchestral version of Harvest’s anthem warbled from the tablet’s speakers and a video presentation filled its screen. Avery had seen the presentation the night before; a variation on the official planetary introduction he’d viewed during his initial descent from the Tiara. Though this one lacked Mack’s narration, it contained similarly bucolic footage: JOTUNs at work in the fields, gondolas loading produce into freight containers, families enjoying their meals—a montage of clips that gave a good overview of life on Harvest while avoiding any implication that there might be other worlds like it.

The presentation went on for some time. But Avery knew this wasn’t really for the aliens’ benefit. At some point, Mack—who was monitoring all the surveillance gear via a powerful relay hidden in the greenhouse—began manipulating the presentation to test the aliens’ reactions. Did the sight of the JOTUNs intimidate them? And if so, how did that manifest in body language? Avery had worked with enough ONI officers to know how focused they were on gathering good intelligence, and he was sure Jilan had given the AI a long list of questions.

But as Avery watched the second dropship make another pass around the gardens, disappearing briefly behind the northern trees before it surged back into view, he wondered how long al-Cygni was going to let the experiment run. After the aliens had shifted inside their armor for the better part of five minutes, she nonchalantly primped the tight bun that secured her black hair high on her neck: a subtle signal to Mack, watching through his cameras, to kill the feed. A moment later, Harvest’s looping anthem faded, bringing the presentation to a close. Pedersen tucked the COM tablet back under his arm.

The gold-armored alien growled at its shorter escort, who pulled a small, square sheet of metal from its belt. The leader took the sheet and handed it to Thune. Smiling politely, the Governor studied the offering. A moment later, he beamed at his Attorney General.

“Look at this, Rol. See the picture? Just like we did to the freighter!”

“I think it’s a piece
of
the freighter.”

“But see what they’ve etched?”

Pedersen craned his neck toward the sheet. “They want to trade.”

“Exactly!”

“Governor,” Jilan said. “If I may.”

Thune stepped back to the table and handed the sheet to Jilan. Avery glanced over her shoulder to take a look as well.

It was indeed a piece of the freighter’s titanium hull—a perfect square, neatly cut. The picture was dominated by two figures, both carved more realistically than Mack’s had been. One was clearly the gold-armored alien; it carried a hammer across its back and wore a helmet with the same V-shaped crest. The human looked male, but it could have been anyone. To Avery’s surprise, the man was offering up what looked to be a large melon with a variegated rind. Thune must have made the same connection because he rummaged deep inside the basket and extracted a large and fragrant cantaloupe. Smiling even wider than before, he walked the fruit to the gold-armored alien and presented it with a bow.

“Please, take it,” the Governor said. “We can give you plenty more.”

The alien palmed the cantaloupe and gave it a cautious sniff.

As Thune began expounding upon the virtues of interspecies commerce, Jilan flipped the sheet over. Avery saw her bare neck stiffen. “Governor, they don’t want food.”

“Don’t be so sure, Commander. I think this one’s about to take a bite.”

“No.” Jilan kept an even tone. “Look.”

And Avery did. On the other side of the sheet was a magnified view of the melon, which he now realized was a map of Harvest, centered on Utgard. What Avery had thought were textures in the rind were actually surface details: maglev lines, roads, and outlines of major settlements. The aliens had made a complete survey and added some sort of notation as well.

Ornate symbols were scattered all over the planet. Each symbol was identical, and each consisted of two concentric circles filigreed with interlocking curves. Avery had no idea what the symbols stood for, but that was beside the point. Jilan gave voice to his own realization: “They’re looking for something specific. Something they think belongs to them.” Thune stared at the sheet, doing his best to maintain a diplomatic smile as Jilan flipped it back and forth. “Governor,” she said in a whisper. “They want us to give them the entire planet.”

At that moment, the gold-armored alien barked and extended the melon to Pedersen.

“No, no.” The Attorney General raised a hand and took a step back. “Keep it.”

The alien cocked its head and barked again. Now Avery was certain that the musky scent wafting from the shorter escort had become more powerful. Avery wrinkled his nose as it filled with the smell of vinegar and tar. He fought back the urge to draw the M6 pistol holstered at his hip. At that moment, a short burst from an MA5 echoed up from the garden’s lowest tier. Whether this was a nervous misfire or the beginning of a firefight, Avery didn’t know. But in the brief silence that followed, he heard a throaty alien howl echo from the trees along the river.