Halo: The Cole Protocol (30 page)

CHAPTER

SIXTY-FIVE

METISETTE ORBIT, 23 LIBRAE

Thel looked at the glowing, cratered remains of the Redoubt from orbit. “Nothing remains of Reth’s fleet. There is no sign of Reth himself, either.”

A stillness descended on the bridge of the
Infinite Spoils
as both Zhar and Thel contemplated the destruction the humans had wrought on Metisette.

“And now what, Shipmaster?” Zhar asked. “We have destroyed prime targets in the Rubble; the rest has dashed itself against Metisette.”

Thel looked at the Unggoy working for them, and thought about Saal, brooding somewhere deep inside the ship.

“Some might say we have done our mission well, Zhar. Do you think the Prophets will believe it when they arrive?”

Zhar looked at him, his mandibles flexing slightly as if tasting the air for clues as to what Thel might want as an answer. His once proud mind had become erratic in the face of the idea that the Hierarchs may have had differing goals, and that they’d gotten caught in the middle of some machination between the Prophets of Regret and Truth.

Thel knew that Sangheili honor demanded they rise above it. He cleared his throat. “Reth’s invasion fleet is in disarray. The Hierarchs will not be happy if we stand here and let the last of the humans escape with the location to Earth and the only chance all these loyal Unggoy have to live.”

Thel looked at the Unggoy on the bridge as they paid close attention to him, without looking directly at him. So maybe Sangheili
could
play politics, Thel thought to himself, or at least set aside the desire for direct combat for a bit, despite the fact it coursed through their blood.

“What do you mean?” Zhar said.

“The Hierarchs want loyal subjects and true believers,” Thel said. “I cannot imagine what would happen to all these surviving Unggoy if they do not try to take that asteroid in which the humans are trying to evacuate the system.”

Unggoy eyes balefully watched Thel pace the bridge now.

Zhar coughed. “Their lives would all be forfeit.”

Thel nodded. “They would indeed.” He turned to the Unggoy in the room. “Tell your surviving brothers to board the Exodus asteroid. We will provide cover for the action, but then stand clear. That human ship is too much of a match for this ungainly Kig-Yar boat.”

He walked over and shut off the screen showing the ruins of the Redoubt. “The Unggoy will take the asteroid, or die trying.”

If the Hierarchs were to let any of them live, there was no other option.

Zhar got up and walked over to Thel. “If the illustrious Hierarchs cannot agree on these things, what else do they disagree on, and what else might just be Prophet manipulation, Shipmaster?”

Thel grabbed Zhar’s arm, and Zhar growled. But Thel looked his fellow Sangheili in the eye and whispered, “Such thinking lines the path to heresy. Do not indulge in it.”

Zhar pulled free and left the bridge.

CHAPTER

SIXTY-SIX

HABITAT EXODUS, THE RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

From the moment the evacuation protocols had blared into life, Karl Simon’s day had been a blur of tubes and long lines, waiting to board a habitat he’d never heard of until today. And it was a habitat that was going to jet them toward a new system. Away from home.

A home that was under attack.

It reminded him of the day the Covenant attacked Madrigal: the same nervous lines of people, hushed rumors, and fear that hung in the air.

At the very end, Karl had been shuttled to the Exodus in a cramped supplies freighter. He’d looked out the pilot’s windows and seen the craters and pitted surface of what looked like a tiny moon.

The Exodus was six miles of potato-like asteroid, with a diameter of two miles. The freighter was a fleck of dust next to it, and the Exodus filled the windows as far as they could see as they approached it.

We did this, Karl had thought with a momentary flash of pride.

He’d been hustled to what felt like a stadium near the core of the ship, moving through miles and miles of corridors, following instructions on a card that had been handed to him in the shuttle.

A hundred thousand other refugees, their murmuring echoing around the walls and ceilings, all had assigned chairs that matched numbers on their cards.

But now, the moment Karl sat, an usher appeared. “Karl Simon?”

“Yes?”

“Volunteer for the Rubble Defense Force?”

“Yes.” Karl had signed up during the early days of the Rubble, when they’d been looking over their shoulders every day, expecting the Covenant to return.

“Come with me.”

The usher led Karl out of the rows of chairs with restraints where everyone else was being ordered to buckle in. Outside, the usher pointed down a corridor. “Follow this all the way to the end. They need you there.”

It was a mile, which Karl walked as fast as he could, slightly out of breath when he reached an open bay near the front of the asteroid where thirty men with rifles and handguns stood, guarding the entrance. A grizzled old miner looked him up and down. “Volunteer Defense?”

“Yeah.”

“You have certification in hand-to-hand combat and firearms training?”

Karl nodded. The minder handed Karl a datapad and a handgun. “We have an estimated three thousand Unggoy who’ve managed to get inside, more expected. You’re drafted. The doors behind us lead to the control center, the bridge, of the Exodus. The aliens do not get past here. Understand?”

“Yes,
sir,”
Karl said, and took up position just as the floor started to shake.

“What the hell is that?” one of the other men shouted, holding a machine gun up as a seven-foot-tall man in gray armor turned the corner.

They all stared as the half-ton, armor-clad human walked up to them.

“I have something the bridge crew needs,” he said, and held up a small black chip casing in his gauntleted hand. “Mind letting me through?”

The Rubble Defense Force stepped aside, one of the large miners politely holding the door open for the giant, armor-clad soldier to step inside.

CHAPTER

SIXTY-SEVEN

MIDSUMMER NIGHT,
NEAR HABITAT EXODUS, 23 LIBRAE

The bridge crew of the Exodus habitat hailed the
Midsummer Night.
Keyes looked over at Lt. Burt on the comms. “Patch them through.”

Midsummer Night
had been covering the slow flight out to the edges of the system to prepare for a Slipspace jump for almost a day now. Unggoy and Kig-Yar fighters had dogged and harassed them the whole way, pockmarking the surface of the asteroid and occasionally scoring hits on the frigate, but unable to stop them. The desperate Grunt boarding parties left Keyes nervous. He’d had to make a snap decision to have the Spartans hand over the nav data, but all indications were that the Rubble Defense fighters were keeping the Grunts pinned down. And more importantly, well clear of the cockpit. The Grunts, with their methane tanks and nowhere to go once the Exodus entered Slipspace, would eventually choke to death. Keyes had decided the million lives were worth the small risk. There’d been enough Colonist deaths by the Covenant so far. It was time to rescue some of them. He had no idea of what trouble might lie ahead for him from this decision, but the lives saved would be worth it.

They were far now enough out to enter Slipspace.

An engineer appeared, his overalls dirty, bags under his eyes. “Lieutenant Keyes, I apologize, but the Security Council insisted I contact you.”

The Rubble’s Council. Keyes had almost forgotten about them. “What’s wrong?”

“The Exodus will not be able to make the trip. We don’t have the range and engine power. We expected more time to bring more engines online. With a Covenant fleet supposed to arrive, we have to go with what we have now. And what we have now, well, they’ll burn out, or if we make lots of small jumps, it will literally take centuries to cross the galaxy away from where Covenant or UNSC people would ever dare venture, as we originally planned.”

The man looked defeated.

“The Council knows?” Keyes asked.

“Yes. They’re debating what to do.” The engineer looked down at the floor.

“But the Exodus can make a journey, just not as far as originally intended?” Keyes confirmed.

The Council didn’t want to return to the colonies. Would they be hardheaded enough to risk Exodus and everyone in it to try and leave the Covenant and colonies behind anyway?

“Yes.” The engineer met his eyes. Keyes realized the engineer was worried about the same thing.

“Put me through to the Council,” Keyes ordered. He thought about the last time he’d given a speech.

Forget trying to sound stirring, he thought. Just lay it out. His duty was to convince the Council to head toward the Inner colonies. It was their best bet for survival.

The screen filled with the members of the Security Council. The Rubble wasn’t working as a technocracy right now, not while being herded into their spots all throughout the Exodus asteroid.

This was their leadership. And Keyes had to influence it.

“Hello, I’m Lieutenant Keyes, of the
Midsummer Night
,” he said with a faint grin. He locked his arms behind him. It was a classroom habit, and it would keep him from reaching for the pipe which he’d found sitting in his belongings, thankfully untouched. “I’m a fighting man, but as commander of this ship, I know something about holding people’s lives in my hands. I won’t bullshit around. You have enough engine power to reach an Inner Colony quickly, where there will be some measure of protection, and access to resources. The other option is to risk a slow, long journey out to a destination that has neither, but in which you retain your own power.

“I don’t know what the UNSC will do, and I can’t guarantee that all of you with Insurrectionist ties will be given a pass. But remember, you have a million lives you’re deciding for. A million lives who could make a difference in the future fight against these bastard aliens who destroyed the Rubble. Unless you choose to let the Covenant win.”

Keyes looked at them all, and Maria Esquival stood up. “We took a vote,” she said, “before you called.”

Keyes sucked in his breath.

She quirked a faint smile. “We’re aiming to reach the 18 Scorpii system. If you would escort us, Lieutenant.”

“Of course,” Keyes said. “Make random jumps out, until we clear the asteroid of Grunts. We want to make sure not a single one remains alive before we turn toward the Inner Colonies.” His after-action report was going to be damning enough. Showing up with an asteroid full of evidence… well, Keyes figured he’d be spending time behind bars again soon. But he couldn’t turn his back on a million lives. He couldn’t leave them for the Covenant. Not again.

Maria nodded. “We have teams combing Exodus thoroughly.”

Keyes waited until the screen flickered off, then looked around at his bridge crew. “It’s still tricky,” he said. “Don’t let those breaths out. We have to hope
Petya’s
computers can keep us in sync.”

“Actually,” said a voice from the back of the bridge. “We ditched
Petya
.”

The Spartan at the back pulled his helmet off. It was Mike. He held out a chip.

“This what I think it is?” Keyes asked.

“Navigation charts.” Mike sat down by Keyes’ old console. “I ran simulations on syncing our two ships. The odds weren’t good. Made more sense to dump the freighter. I pressed your crew into service; we off-loaded a lot of the more useful cargo into your bay. We also cut loose a couple of Pelicans to make some room.”

Keyes raised an eyebrow. “And I authorized this when?”

Mike plugged the navigation data in, dumping star chart information into the ship’s computers. “I took some liberties. Time was short when you showed up. Jai and Adriana lent a hand; they’re still stowing things. A good price for the data, losing just a couple Pelicans, Lieutenant Keyes, don’t you think?”

Keyes straightened out his back, holding in his private smile. “Don’t ever try to run my ship for me again.”

The Spartan did not reply, but plugged in a random vector out of the system. “We’re going in the same direction. I carried these personally on a disk from their ship to this one. Can’t be intercepted. Will you give the order?”

Keyes looked out into space through the windows of his bridge. “Send them the signal. Engage Slipspace drives.”

All across Exodus engines flickered to life, and the asteroid struggled its way into Slipspace, ripping and clawing its way into a hole in the universe.

It was ungainly, but the asteroid managed it, and
Midsummer Night
followed, leaving behind the remains of the Rubble.