Halo: The Cole Protocol (23 page)

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

OUTER RUBBLE, LIBRAE 23

The
Petya
had been hunting down
Distancia,
without the other ship even aware that there was a cat-and-mouse game going on.

Both were plain freighters, long ships with spars and cargo containers bolted to the main frames. But
Petya
had the advantage of being extraordinarily well armed.

Inside the
Petya,
Adriana watched Mike lean over the controls with the air of a predator waiting in the bushes, patiently biding time before striking. “He’s edging out of the Rubble,” Mike whispered.

That was all Adriana needed. Enough toying about. Jai was getting ready to invade a Covenant ship, while they were out here. They needed to move quickly to wrap this up and get back to support him. “Alright, let’s hit him.”

“We’re done playing hide-and-go-ship?” Mike smiled.

“Definitely.”

“You hail them, I shoot them.”

Adriana looked at the screen showing their trajectories. “Shoot this jerk first. Hit the engines. We’re not playing games. We can’t give him a chance to turn back and do the right thing. He already chose his fate back at that airlock.”

“Yessir,” Mike said, with a sudden grin. Two distant thumps under her feet indicated missiles away.

Twin rocket trails flared in front of the cockpit windows as they sped ahead, and then slowly curved down.

“He sees them,” Mike reported, as
Distancia
increased power to her engines to make a run for it. But the missiles closed the dark gap between the two ships and slammed into
Distancia
’s rear.

“Nice!” Adriana said, looking at the debris trailing off the stern of the
Distancia.

“Crippled in one shot.” Mike leaned back. “They’re not going anywhere.”

Adriana hailed the stricken freighter.
“Distancia,
this is
Petya.
We took out your engines, don’t make us hole the rest of the ship. I’m coming aboard. You cause any trouble, it gets ugly. You cooperate, you live.”

For a long moment there was no reply, leading Adriana to wonder if they weren’t monitoring any of the standard channels.

Then finally, over a burst of static, a reply:
“Petya,
this is Peter Bonifacio, aboard the
Distancia.
I have to protest this extraordinary hostility. I am a member of the Rubble Security Council, on a top-priority mission. You are way out of line, whoever the hell you are.”

“Shut up and get ready to open your airlock, Bonifacio,” Adriana snapped.

“But what is this about?” Bonifacio whined over the radio.

Adriana didn’t reply. Mike pulled them in over the
Distancia’s
spine, getting ready to dock.

“I will report this,” Bonifacio radioed. “You can trust that…” Adriana muted the volume.

The
Petya
shuddered as the two ships docked, Mike grappling them into place. “Pressurizing the lock. You’re go in twenty,” Mike said.

Adriana pulled her helmet on and snapped it into place. “Once I’m in, you undock. Just in case. Hit them from a distance if it goes bad.”

“You sure about that?” Mike asked.

“Damn straight. I’ll find a way off.”

“Ten seconds to full pressure.”

Adriana turned and left the cockpit for the airlock. She flipped her battle rifle forward and stood in front of the door as the light on the airlock door flashed green. It slid open and Adriana walked through, wincing slightly as it then slid closed after her. There was always a sense of finality in leaving the safety of a base ship like this, a sense of stepping off the edge of a metaphorical cliff of some sort.

And now she was free-falling her way into a new situation, a new set of variables: whatever was on the other side of the large metal door in front of her.

But then, she liked the screaming flow of adrenaline coursing through her.

She liked the adrenaline rush even back when she’d first showed up at the Spartan training grounds, staring with all the other kids at the instructors. She hadn’t broken out with Jai because she wanted to escape. She’d done it for the fun, that feeling of stepping off the edge.

The more dangerous, the more it felt like she was really someone. It beat the gray numbness of stillness, and sameness.

The world seemed to vibrate as Adriana watched the outer door open, her rifle up, her vision expanding into a sort of hunting state.

She burst through into the
Distancia’s
airlock where nothing waited for her but benches and metal grating.

The door closed behind her, and the
Petya
disengaged with a loud thump as Mike cleared away.

Adriana waited until Mike had time to get well clear, then banged on the inner airlock door.

It opened, and two gunshots cracked into the armor over her ribs. Adriana grunted and rolled through the crack in the door, firing back at the two men shooting at her. Always take the offensive, she thought. Don’t get backed into a corner.

After dropping them she moved back into the airlock for a moment and checked her armor. Just dinged.

But her ribs ached from taking the impact.

“Hold on,” a voice shouted. Not Bonifacio, another bodyguard of his. A handgun skittered down to stop in front of the airlock door. “I’m not going down like that, no way. I signed up as a bodyguard, that’s it. I’m unarmed, now, please don’t shoot.”

Adriana moved her back against the corner and glanced at the gun. “Who else is there?”

“Just me.”

“Bonifacio?”

“He’s in an escape pod,” the bodyguard said. His voice quavered a bit.

Adriana spun around the corner and marched up on the bodyguard, a slender man with a shaved head. He looked up at her, hands up near his chest to show he was unarmed.

“What’s your name?” Adriana asked.

“Sean. Wha…What the hell are you?” The patch on his jumpsuit said s. Williams.

“You catching this, Mike?” Adriana murmured, amused. “Any pod launch yet?”

“No,” came the answer.

Adriana looked down at Sean. “Why hasn’t he launched?”

“Because you’ll shoot him,” the bodyguard said.

“Tempting, huh?” Mike said.

“So what game is Bonifacio playing, then?”

“He’s hailing us,” Mike said.

“Put him through,” Adriana sighed.

Bonifacio’s voice filled her helmet. “You’re after the navigation chip, right?”

“Hand it over and live, Bonifacio,” Adriana said.

“Maybe. I heard what you did to my crew, soldier.” Bonifacio spat the last word. “I’m not stupid enough to believe you’ll just play nice once I hand the chip over.”

Adriana sighed. Now the man was getting seriously jittery and causing problems. “Bonifacio…”

“Here’s the deal. I am leaving the data onboard, but I’ll tell you where it is once I’ve cleared the ship in my pod.”

“Oh, come on,” Adriana said. “And then we find out that you lied and have the chip on you.”

“We split the difference,” Bonifacio said quickly. “Let me get far enough away in the pod that it would require some serious work, for you to catch up to me. A good-faith gesture that you’re actually going to let me go. I get to that point and I tell you where the data is.”

“Let me think about it,” Adriana replied, and toggled the mic off. “Williams?”

“Yes?”

“Did Bonifacio make a copy? And if you lie, don’t imagine I won’t make you pay for it.”

Williams shook his head. “No, he didn’t think you were on to him until you shot the engines out.”

Adriana moved until her faceplate stopped an inch from Williams’ nose, looking at his reaction. She waited until he finally closed his eyes. Satisfied, she flicked the radio mic back on. “Alright, Bonifacio, you cut loose.”

Mike came on. “Adriana, you sure?”

“Jai is about to storm that ship without us, Mike. We don’t have time—we need to move quickly and get back to him.”

“Okay, he just shot clear.”

Adriana walked over and stood by the pilot’s chair of the crippled ship, and watched the tiny pod dwindle away on one of the monitors.

The pinpoint flare of its exhaust finally winked out.

Bonifacio’s voice crackled. “It’s taped above the edge of the airlock’s lip, right where you entered.” He laughed.

Adriana ran down to the airlock. She felt along the top of the rim of the entrance delicately, and found the chip where he said it was.

She pulled it free and looked at it. It wasn’t much more than a tiny, stubby hardened wafer that sat in the palm of her hand. So much trouble over such a small thing, she thought as she slid it into a hip pocket.

“Got it?” Mike asked.

“Think so. I’m coming back to double-check,” she radioed.

“I’m moving in.”

She stepped into the airlock, and Williams moved forward. “What about me?” he asked.

“You stay aboard the ship.” Adriana put a hand to his chest and pushed him back. “Someone will eventually be out for you.”

“Eventually?”

“It’ll give you time to think about the quality of the people you choose to work for.”

The door slid between them, and Williams looked through a porthole at her.

Adriana turned her back to him and cycled aboard the
Petya.
She walked forward to the cockpit and handed Mike the chip. He plugged it into the ship’s computer.

“It’s good.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

Mike looked at the monitors tracking the escape pod. “You sure you don’t want to go after him?”

Adriana bit her lip. “Let him rot in his pod. It’s going to be a long journey. I don’t imagine whoever he was working for is going to be happy. People like Bonifacio might believe the Jackals are suddenly warm and fuzzy, but he’s insane if he thinks the Covenant is going soft. He’s a dead man, he just doesn’t know it yet. Let’s go.”

“Strap in, then,” Mike said. “We’re bugging out.”

The nearest chair groaned as Adriana sat in it. They’d reinforced the chairs to deal with fully armored Spartans, but the chairs still protested the weight.

Then Mike spun
Petya
around and fired up the main engine, speeding them toward the Jackal ship that Jai was going to be storming.

She hoped they got there in time.

Because she would be a little bit disappointed if they missed all the action, Adriana realized.

CHAPTER

FORTY-THREE

MIGHTY SPARROW
APPROACHING HABITAT TIAGO,
THE RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

The freighter
Mighty Sparrow
drifted ever so slowly behind the protective bulk of a stray asteroid as Juliana reassured some very worried Jackals that the asteroid would miss the
Infinite Spoils.

An industrial accident.

A debris cloud of rock, water vapor, and metal shards all completed the messy illusion.

On deck, a tense Lt. Keyes eyed the screens, watching closely. Everyone in the cockpit was suited up, guns at their hips, ready for anything. He glanced over at Li and Kirtley, who had both managed to integrate themselves into the crowded bridge, helping out where needed.

“You have the mass driver primed to shoot their shields out, just in case this doesn’t work?” he asked Juliana.

“Yes, but at that point we have to assume that even the Jackals won’t believe that the attack on their ship was by escaped UNSC, if that comes into play.”

Keyes doubted they’d believe this was the work of a lone UNSC vessel anyway, but Juliana wanted a door out, in case they found no plans by the Jackals for the Rubble.

Privately, Keyes felt the Rubble should just assume the Jackals had plans for invasion and strike first, intrigue like this be damned.

But it felt good to be back in action against the Covenant one way or another.

“Get ready, then,” Keyes muttered. They were close.

“The Kig-Yar shipmistress is relaxing; her computers are showing the rock won’t hit. She’s yelling at me for being careless,” Juliana reported.

“All teams go, then,” Keyes said. “Now or never.”

Juliana’s body flashed a sudden increase of the equations that decoratively flowed over it. “Airlock assault teams are go in ten, nine…”

Keyes turned to Delgado. “Fire it.”

The pilot triggered the thruster sequence, and the entire asteroid rolled them around to face the Jackal ship. The thickest part of the cloud of debris lay between them and the Jackal ship as the
Mighty Sparrow
leapt across the several hundred feet, thrusters blazing.

“Four, three…” Juliana intoned.

“Brace for impact!” Keyes shouted.

“Two, one.”

They struck, and the
Mighty Sparrow
screeched and shivered as its hull smacked against the
Infinite Spoils.
“ODSTs are go for intrusion,” Keyes ordered.

“Moving out,” Faison reported via radio, the banging of an airlock door coming over the channel.

“I’ll be adding support,” the Spartan, Jai, reported.

“We’re locked in. Very nice maneuvering, Delgado,” Keyes said. “Our hull is holding, minor leaks.” He let out breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Juliana cleared her throat. “The Kig-Yar shipmaster is complaining that we are deceitful, cowardly liars.”

Keyes chuckled. “I take it she’s figured out she’s under attack.”

In the distance, gunfire started up, with the return whine of plasma answering it.

“Yes,” said Juliana. “I would say that she has.”

“We have contact,” Faison reported.

“Pull me,” Juliana said. “We want to be ready to plug in the moment we get the chance.”

“Okay.”

Keyes leaned over and gently slid the chip, in reality a small matchbook-sized card, out of its housing in the station. Juliana’s hologram flickered away, and he tucked it into his chest pocket as he left the cockpit.

A pair of ODSTs flanked the airlock, battle rifles at the ready. “What have we got?” he asked.

“Pretty small contingent of Jackals. We have the corridor in secured. Faison has us pushing them back toward their bridge.”

The sound of grenades boomed out, bouncing around the walls.

“Breached the bridge,” Faison reported. “There’s still fighting outside the ship by the other entry airlock. You have a clear path to me, though. I’m sending Jai back to get you.”

“I’ll be here,” Keyes said, as the echoes of the last blast finally dissipated, and the distinct sound of a wounded Jackal’s screams followed it.