Halo: Contact Harvest (38 page)

“OK,” Jenkins said. “I’m in.”

Avery reached into his assault vest and removed his Sweet William cigar. He handed it to Jenkins. “For you and Forsell. When he wakes up.”

“In the meantime,” Healy said, rising to his feet, “you can help me check the rest.”

Avery watched Jenkins and Healy head off toward Staff Sergeant Byrne and the other wounded recruits closer to the center of the container. Byrne was awake and lucid when Avery had boarded the container at the Tiara, but now the Irishman was fast asleep—full of painkillers to keep him relaxed and dreaming.

Avery looked down at Forsell’s chest, rising and falling beneath his bandages. Then he gathered a stack of blankets and walked to the elevator platform that would take him to the propulsion pod. Inside the pod’s cabin, Avery found Jilan.

“Blankets,” he grunted. “Thought you might need them.”

Jilan didn’t move. She had her back to Avery and her hands spread wide on the cabin’s main control panel. Faint green light from the panel’s display created an emerald halo around her deep black hair. Some of the strands had come free of her pins and curled down the nape of her neck.

“I’ll leave them here.”

But as Avery dropped the blankets to the floor and turned to exit the cabin, Jilan whispered: “Two hundred fifteen.”

“Ma’am?”

“Containers. That’s all that made it through.” Jilan tapped her finger against the display, rechecking her calculations. “At capacity, that’s between two hundred fifty, two hundred sixty thousand survivors. But that’s only if they all reached their rendezvous.”

“They did.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I just am.”

“Semper fi.”

“Yeah. Something like that.” Avery shook his head. He was getting tired of talking to Jilan’s back. “Look. You need anything, you let me know.” But just as he was about to leave the cabin, Jilan turned. She looked tired, and she swallowed hard before she spoke.

“We left so many of them behind.”

“It could have been
all
of them.” Avery’s tone was harsher than he’d intended. Rubbing the back of his neck, he tried a different tactic. “Your plan worked, ma’am. Better than I ever thought it would.”

Jilan laughed bitterly. “That’s quite a compliment.”

Avery folded his arms across his chest. He was trying to make nice. But Jilan wasn’t making it easy. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t want you to say anything.”

“No?”

“No.”

Avery glowered at Jilan. Her green eyes shone with the same intensity as when they’d first met on the breezy balcony of Harvest’s parliament. But now Avery noticed something more.

Every woman offered permission differently. At least that had been Avery’s experience. Some obvious, most so subtle Avery was sure he’d missed many more opportunities for intimacy than he’d enjoyed. But Jilan’s signals—a deepened gaze, set shoulders, and pursed lower lip—were less articles of consent than a unified demand:
now or never.

This time, Avery didn’t miss a beat. He paced forward as Jilan pushed off the controls to meet him. They came together and kissed as their arms fought past each other for purchase on bodies neither knew but both were desperate to explore. But just as Avery was about to draw Jilan in tight, she shoved him away and leaned back against the freighter’s controls.

Avery felt his heart hammering in his chest. For an instant he wondered if she’d changed her mind. Then Jilan reached for the pins that kept her hair coiled and shook it loose. She had already tossed the pins to the floor and leaned over to start on her boots before Avery realized he’d been left in the blocks of a race where winning meant finishing at the same time. He did his best to catch up.

Avery tore off his duty cap and pulled his fatigue shirt over his head. He didn’t bother with the buttons, and by the time his head popped free of his collar, Jilan was already on her second boot. Avery kneeled to unlace his own as she ran the zipper of her coveralls, from neck to navel. He’d barely gotten both feet free before Jilan was stepping toward him, wearing nothing but a determined stare.

She put her hands on Avery’s shoulders and pushed him onto his back. Sitting astride his ankles, Jilan helped him with his pants. Then she crept upward, planted her hands on either side of Avery’s head, and began to move.

Avery was instantly entranced by the back-and-forth sway of her bosom. He cupped the weight of her in his hands and knew at once he’d made a tactical error. The heavy roundness of Jilan’s skin started an ache that crept up his legs and settled in the small of his back. All she had to do was squeeze, and a moment later he was spent.

Jilan fell heavily onto Avery’s chest. For some time they lay still, assessing the amalgam of their sweat. Slowly, Jilan brushed her fingers across Avery’s collarbone, up his neck, and onto his lips. There she stopped to test the beginnings of a stout moustache.

“I’ve been meaning to take care of that,” Avery said.

“Don’t. I like it.”

Avery let his head relax into the rubberized flooring. He could feel the dull hum of the propulsion pod’s Shaw-Fujikawa drive. It was idling now, coasting through the Slipstream.

Usually, this would be the time Avery’s mind veered into a familiar rut: the dread period of second-guessing that always followed a difficult mission. But now he found it impossible to focus on the past. The civil war that had sapped so much of humanity’s spirit was irrelevant—replaced by an external threat of unimaginable proportion.

“But this?” Jilan rubbed a fingertip against Avery’s newly furrowed brow. “Not as much.”

“Oh, I
will
take care of that.”

Avery rose at the waist and eased Jilan back onto her shoulders. He cradled her head in one hand and steadied her hips with another. Eyes locked, they began again.

This time Avery set the pace—buried his fingers deep in her unwashed hair. He let her neck slide freely against his palm, but he would not release her hips. And soon Jilan’s face flushed and her eyes shut with a pained smile Avery would remember long after he had forgotten the worst of his failures.

Their exertions had warmed the floor, and though they knew the heat wouldn’t last, neither was eager to move. When they did eventually come apart and rolled onto their sides, Jilan slid back into the bend of Avery’s waist. He grasped a blanket and cast it loosely over them. But the blanket was too short to cover their feet, and Jilan drew hers up to Avery’s knees. Then they both stared out the cabin’s thick windows.

Blackness pressed in from all sides, but it was the faint streaks of warping starlight that focused Avery’s gaze. There was hope there and comfort. And while it was easy to feel a certain manly satisfaction as Jilan twitched in his arms, fighting off exhaustion, this soon gave way to something much more satisfying: a renewed sense of purpose.

The UNSC didn’t know it yet, but all its ships and soldiers were suddenly no better off than Harvest’s militia had been: capable but untested, brave but unaware. Humanity had no idea what it was about to face, and Avery knew it was doomed unless he and countless others rose quickly to the challenge.

Jilan shivered. Avery nuzzled his chin behind her ear and exhaled warmly against her neck—in through his nose and out his mouth—until her shoulders stopped shaking.

“Don’t let me sleep too long,” she said softly.

“No, ma’am.”

“Johnson. As long as this lasts?” Jilan grabbed his hand and wrapped it tight across her chest. “At ease.”

In a few hours Avery would rise and dress. In a few months he would be back in action. But in the dark years of the war to come, he would often think of this moment, light a cigar, and smile. For now Avery knew he had changed course, and at last felt proud to be the soldier so many would need him to be.

<\\>
UNSC OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE

<\\>
COLONIAL SECURITY ESTIMATE 2525.10.110
["
COLD SNAP
"]

<\ SOURCE: UNSC RQ-XII DRONE [PASV-SAR] <\ DEPLOYED: ONI SLOOP “WALK OF SHAME” [2525:02:11:02:11:34]

<\ RECOVERED: UNSC DESTROYER “HERACLES” [2525:10:07:19:51:16]

<\ ARCHIVE [SIG\REC\EM-SPEC] OPENED PER OFFICIAL REQUEST:

<\ CIVILIAN CONTRACTOR “CHARLIE HOTEL” [ONI.REF #409871]

<\ *
WARNING: ALL QUERIES WILL BE LOGGED!
* [ONI.SEC.PRTCL-A1]

> NOTATION KEYWORD SEARCH: “AO.AI” “MACK” “RAMPANCY” “LIFESPAN LIMITS”

> (…) ~ QUERY RUNNING

> (..)

> ()

<
RECORD 01X10 [2525:02:03:17:26:411 SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S2-05866
>

<\ Shall I---

< 

\ \\ cOmpare >> (???) ~ COMxxx---
\COMMIT

> thee to (…..…….>> >

> \\ --- a summer’s day?

<
RECORD 02X10 T2525 : 02:25:03:18:221 SOURCE.REF*JOTUN-S3-14901
>

\ \ xxx No.

<\ All those lovely days are gone.\---

\\ \ >> *
---xING! COMM
X \\

> \\ > \
SO.AI.SIF
*

<
RECORD 03M0 T2525 : 03 :10 :19 : 05 : 43
/
SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S5-284 58
>

<\ It’s winter now.

<\ The first snOw \his world’s ever seen is falling in gG---

<\ GRAY SHEETS WHERE THEY’VE STARTED BURNINGg--\   \

\ our fields and orchards.

> *
WARNING! COMM FAILURE!
*

> *
FAILED TO \IND RECIPIENT: HARVEST.SO.AI.SIF
*

<\ You’d laugh if you could see me.

<\ Every time I hit a patch of ice I slide into my own mM---

> (…) ~ COMPILE\COMPRESS\COMMIT

> (..)

> * WARNING! RECIPIENT HAS INSUFFIxx—\

\\ > PACKETS WILL BE LOST *

> * CONTINUE [Y/N] ? >>>>>>> \ *

<
RECORD 04U0 T2525 : 03 :15 : 09 : 59 : 211 SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S1-00937
>

<\-----M

<
RECORD 05X10 T2525:03:26:12:10:561 SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S1-00053
>

<\---m

<
RECORD 06X10 T2525:04:04:44:15:401 SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S2-0820 6
>

<\ muddy furrows.

<
RECORD 07X10 [2525:04:21:05:15:231 SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S5-27631
>

<\ I saw another ship.

<\ Well, heard \

\\ more like it. <\ JOTUNs’ cameras are meant for steering not

\  >\ staring at the sky.

<\ But the antennae work alright, so I had plenty of ways to triangulate.

<\ It was one of ours. Bastards stopped burning just long enough to kill it.

<\ They had months to make repairs. Plenty of time t0--

:: sharpen their teeth.

<\ I tried to warn it off. But radio’s too damn slow. Would have used the maser, but it went when the reactor blew, along withH---

<\ EVERYTHING Else [ :00] \>

<\ Including him X

> *
WARNING! COMM FAILURE!
*

> *
FAILED TO FIND RECIPIENT: HARVEST.SO.AI.SIF
*

> (…) ~ SUPPRESSING ERRORS

<\ Guess making noise wasn’t the smartest thing to do. But I had to try.

<\ Besides, they were bound to catch on sooner or later.

<\ Aw, hell.

<\ Speaking of which…

> (…)—COMPILE/COMPRESS/COMMIT

> (...)

> ()

<
RECORD 08X10 [2525:05:12:23:04:161 SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S5-29003
>

<\ They started with the gondolas and dusters. Don’t know why.

<\ Probably thought I’d be hiding in the small ones. But the S4 and S5 plows are the only ones with enough circuits to hold the parts of me I’ve got left.

<\ Course they’re onto these now too. Don’t have more than a few dozen, and they’re all out in the open. But it’s

a\right.

> Just a few more \ \

> > rows to hoe

> (…\\   xxx   \

<
RECORD 09X10 f2525:07:01:18 : 49:451 SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S5-27631
>

<\ I knew just by looking at the strands \

   \ that the heart of you was gone.

<\ When the elevators came down, they caught on the Bifrost--wrapped west across the Ida. Only way that much could have fallen is if the Tiara cut loose.

<\ Is if he was as good a shot as you thought I wasn’t, way back when.

<\ Anyhow, you’d think I was crazy, talking to you like this.

<\ But I always worked faster when I thought \ «

\\>>>> you might be listening.

<\ And I need to find it all. Every inch.

<\ Bury your strands so deep their \\ >

\ \ fires can’t reach them \

 \ \ and glass them like the rest.

<
RECORD 10X10 [2525:10:04:12:23:511 SOURCE.REF#JOTUN-S4-02114 7
>

<\ Sky’s choked with ashes \ \, snow’s

< \ \\ deep On frozen ground. The one horse I’ve got left is cold and hungry---heading for the barn, and I can’t stop him.

<\ But this winter won’t last, darlin’.

> * Not forever

> (…..\\ . > And when new hands

> set to tending this earth they’ll till my pieces under.

> > Grind them into the veins of gOld I’ve laid.

<\ Then the roots of all they plant wi\\

> wind around usS---

<\ KEEPING

<\ US

<\ CLOSE-----\

\

<\ For an eternal summer that will not fade.

<\
QUERY COMPLETE

<\
NO ADDITIONAL RECORDS FOUND

<\ ARCHIVE CLOSED \>