Broken Circle (37 page)

D'ero's voice crackled from a comm grid on the wall. “Zo Resken! There is something up here you will want to see. Come to the bridge.”

Suddenly the excess weight lifted away from Zo and he sprang to his feet, moved quickly past Tul and G'torik, and almost collided with the Huragok, which just managed to jet out of his way.

Soon he was entering the bridge of the
Journey's Sustenance
. “D'ero, you called and I have come . . .”

Tul, G'torik, and the Huragok had followed, arriving a few moments later, as Zo sat down in the copilot's seat beside D'ero.

“There!” grumbled the captain.

He pointed at the holoscope, which showed a three-dimensional view of a crowded section of the asteroid belt. Great whirling stones, some rimed with ice, tumbled past one another; the light was stark, coming from the sun on one side; the dark sides of each asteroid were inky black.

“What am I to see here?” Zo asked, puzzled.

D'ero tapped at the scope's controls, and the image magnified, zooming in. Still Zo saw nothing—until two gigantic ragged-edged chunks of rock rolled out of the way, revealing a sharp-edged silvery object. Clearly it was artificial, its shape odd and yet organized; it was forged material, at a glance, like the fragments piled on the
table. But it was much larger than any artificial object they had encountered in the asteroid belt, and even the
Journey's Sustenance.

The object remained relatively stable, not spinning like those around it. And along its surface was a shimmering coat of force.

“Incredible,” Zo said breathlessly. “We were here all this time, and it still managed to avoid detection.”

“It is
operational
, judging from the force field,” Tul said, looking over his shoulder. “And someone has kept it that way. Zo—we may have just stumbled upon the Ussan colony.”

“Are we truly going there?” D'ero asked. “Because chances are, they will not be friendly to intruders. If we reveal ourselves, we may not receive a warm reception. We may have to fight for our lives.”

The Refuge, the Ussan Colony

Primary Refuge

2553 CE

The Age of Reclamation

B
al'Tol was pacing back and forth in front of the monitors. “Are they through the hull yet?” he asked, again, as Xelq ‘Tylk, the scout-eye operator, moved the surveillance bot in for a closer view.

“They are now removing the plate, Kaidon.” Xelq was squat, stocky, powerful of arm. He had mandibles with a number of small metallic studs punctured into them—studs made from metal he'd found in the debris field. He had once been an up-and-coming floatfighter, but had given it up to work in Colony External Maintenance. His preference was being out in space, going on several expeditions to tug dangerously close asteroids to higher orbits, and was one of the few Bal'Tol trusted in the small maintenance vehicles.

Bal'Tol looked at the monitor, could see the eight-legged maintenance vehicle, like an arachnoid of metal, clinging to the hull of Section Two. On either side of it were metal-and-crystal cylinders, field interruption stations, each producing a transmission
wavelength that had allowed them to be magnetically fixed to Section Two's outer hull. Expanded to interlace, the fields had provided entry for the external maintenance vehicle by breaking up the repellent field in that discrete area. It also extended a containment field over the gap opened in the hull, to keep the air pressure in. There was an internal air lock, as well, a pressurization fail-safe.

Bal'Tol could just make out the rough square where C'tenz and the others had cut through the hull, using Forerunner technology no one quite understood, beams of light that seemed to move narrow lines of materials apart, as if the hull material was simply persuaded on a molecular level to move out of the way. But if a Sangheili chanced to put his bare hand in the beam of light, perchance, no harm was done.

Bal'Tol could see half of each of the three Sangheili on the mission—C'tenz, Torren, and V'ornik—on the mission, each one limned on the left side by the sun, the other half invisible in pitch-black shadow.

“Cannot you move the scout-eye in a little closer?” he asked.

“If I do, at that range, there is risk. It is one more anomaly to be spotted by ‘Kinsa's followers,” Xelq said.

“Very well . . .” Bal'Tol muttered. He had a dark foreboding about this mission. “I wish I had gone along.”

“You, Kaidon? It is I who should have gone. But C'tenz said I would be needed here. Torren and V'ornik have almost no experience in pressure suits.”

“How you
do
reassure me,” Bal'Tol said acidly as he resumed pacing. He had never admitted to himself, before now, how very much C'tenz meant to him. Truly, he felt that C'tenz was like a son to him. And yet he had sent him on a suicide mission.

Bal'Tol stopped in front of another monitor that showed an internal view of the new isolation ward in the Primary Section.
He could see Qerspa ‘Tel, the biorep, calmly noting symptoms in a voice recorder as he stood over one of the snarling third-phase patients strapped to a cot. His heart sank at the sight. Was there any hope for his people?

Sometimes Bal'Tol thought he could feel the desperation of all the Ussan Sangheili like a tightening cable—each strand in the cable another Ussan—keening as it readied to snap.

“We are entering the hull,”
said C'tenz softly.

The transmission spurred Bal'Tol to hurry back to the drone monitor. He couldn't see any of them now. They'd slipped through the gap.

“Shall I activate his helmet transmitter?” Xelq asked.

“Not unless they are discovered. The enemy might detect the signal.”

“We have located the air lock to the . . .”
There was a moment of static. Then,
“The air lock is opening from the other side. Torren! Back, get back to the . . . they are here, they—”

“Xelq! Switch on the visual!” Bal'Tol commanded.

A moment, and then the image flickered to life in another monitor, the feed from Torren's helmet. “I am receiving only Torren so far!”

Bal'Tol stared and saw, from the point of view of the visual recorder on Torren's helmet, a glass-helmeted face grimacing in hatred, a face with the red webmarks of the Blood Sickness. One of ‘Kinsa's, wearing a pressure suit. “They must have been aware of the intrusion for a while now,” Bal'Tol said, his pulse thumping. And then there was a blurred motion, and an ax smashed into Torren's faceplate, Sangheili blue blood splashing on it, covering the gleeful face of the attacker, the sound of Torren screaming in pain.

“I have C'tenz,” Xelq muttered.

And the monitor image changed. It was the visual on C'tenz's
helmet as he looked at the Blood Sick adherent who'd murdered Torren, straightening up with the bloody ax, turning, lunging, the weapon raised, howling at C'tenz.

Five flashes as C'tenz quickly fired his plasma rifle . . . there might have been a sixth, but there was a clicking that informed Bal'Tol the rifle had malfunctioned after the final shot. Many of the colony's weapons were breaking down.

He saw the enemy still staggering at C'tenz, then C'tenz's rifle smashing the damaged lunatic's helmet, as he swung like a hammer—his foe collapsed, but then five more rushed at C'tenz, dragging him down, their faces crowding the monitor . . .

Which quickly went black.

“What—where is he?” Bal'Tol asked breathlessly.

“I—they damaged his recorder—”

“Try switching to V'ornik!” Bal'Tol shouted.

“I can't pick up his transmission.”

“Then use the scout-eye, Xelq!”

A flicker and the monitor switched to the view of the scout-eye, maintaining the orb's position near the arachnoid maintenance craft. There, V'ornik in his pressure suit was jumping, in the area of low gravity, out through the gap cut in the hull. A spurt of energy or a projectile—it went by too fast for Bal-Tol to be sure—zipped up past V'ornik as he scrambled to the hatch of the small vessel. He vanished inside, and the hatch closed.

The vehicle quickly lifted off—but one enemy, in a pressure suit, was emerging from the hull gap, and then another, the two of them firing sidearms at the eight-legged maintenance vehicle, scoring its sides with black marks, one shot finding its way into the repulsor tube.

A blue-white flare vented from the repulsor tube, and the vehicle went spinning off into the void, its engine damaged.

Bal'Tol stared, feeling weak from grief in one instant and
energized with fury the next. “I will call every soldier, every able Sangheili we have! If they have murdered C'tenz, I will do whatever I must to extinguish this blight from the colony.”

There was a crackling from a monitor—and then suddenly it showed the face of ‘Kinsa himself, up close. He was using the helmet taken from C'tenz.

“Bal'Tol—are you there?” ‘Kinsa demanded, leering.

“Transmit my voice, Xelq!” Bal'Tol said hoarsely. “ ‘Kinsa—can you hear me?”

“Ah, there is the kaidon! But
I
am the kaidon now—you are the false kaidon! The Forgotten Gods call to you. Submit yourself to the outer emptiness, Bal'Tol. Do that within, and your precious C'tenz will not die!” ‘Kinsa's face was marked with the red mesh of the Blood Sickness, but there was a trembling insistent control in him. He seemed to be right on the edge of losing control—yet always in cunning command. “He is well known to be your favorite—will you keep him alive, Bal'Tol? Then surrender to me!”

Bal'Tol's eyes had swung to another monitor. Something was there—and an idea formed . . .

“Suppose that we let the Forgotten Gods decide, ‘Kinsa? Any gods you like. Let them decide. Your people against mine in the Combat Section. Floatfight, ‘Kinsa! I will be there—as will you. Ten against ten! That will be the way of it! All surveillance nodes will be trained on the fight; everyone will see. What do you say? If we lose—all of our fates are in your hands.”

“The Combat Section . . . ?” ‘Kinsa drew back. Behind him were several figures, two carrying weapons. C'tenz was there, bound with wires, lying on the floor. The figure moved—C'tenz was still alive. “The floatfight has never before been used in that way. Why should we do it?”

“You can demonstrate for all to see that the gods are truly on
your side. And it will all be over shortly. If you are afraid of me . . . if you have not the honor to meet me in Combat Section . . . everyone will soon know of it.”

A priestly figure armored with a patchy cuirass stepped into view. “We should speak of this. I hear the Forgotten Gods sing of it. Forerunner Sun and Forerunner Moon would make you the conqueror, ‘Kinsa!”

“I will . . . consider the offer,” ‘Kinsa said reluctantly, and switched off the monitor.

Xelq stared at Bal'Tol as if he were the one gone insane with Blood Sickness. “But what if it goes against you, Kaidon?”

“I cannot attack the sections directly without killing everyone in them, including the innocent. All that we need to repair the colony would be lost in the battle. And C'tenz would die. This way . . . we bring ‘Kinsa out in the open. And we'll finally have a chance to finish him.”

“The Blood Sickness might prompt them to accept . . . it makes them yearn for confrontation.”

“Yes—such a challenge is innate to their madness,” Bal'Tol said. “I believe he will accept. It is the only way to save C'tenz and end this conflict once and for all.”

The
Journey's Sustenance,
a Supply Ship for the Fleet of Blessed Veneration

Ussan System

2553 CE

The Age of Reclamation

“You are correct,” D'ero declared. “There
is
a battle raging there—and a damaged craft. Something for exterior hull work.”

D'ero, Tul, G'torik, and Zo Resken were on the bridge of the
Journey's Sustenance
, gazing raptly at their holographic imaging tracker. They could see the slowly spinning eight-legged maintenance vehicle, moving away from the enormous, geometrically odd artifact. Possibly some form of colony.

“This could be an opportunity,” Zo said. “D'ero, will you be guided by me?”

“I do not know what else to do, in the face of all this, other than be guided by you.”

“Then get as close as you safely can to that small vessel. Keep out of probable firing range from the colony there, if that's truly what it is . . .”

“It will be done.”

The small, tumbling vehicle, like an arachnid blown on the wind, spun slowly through the void—closer and closer as D'ero approached.

“Will the tugfield have enough power to stop it?” Zo asked.

“Possibly. You wish to bring it into the freight hold?”

“I do, if there are no signs that it is near destruction.”

“I will scan it, but cannot offer surety that the object is stable.”

They took the risk and tugged it into the freight air lock. A
clunk
was felt all through
Journey's Sustenance
as the artificial gravity and pressurization were returned to the freight hold and the small vehicle banged down onto the deck. They could see it on the ship's internal monitors; it had landed on its leglike struts, but one of them was badly damaged and the vessel was tilted askew, giving off smoke.

Great Ones, if you are the gods I once believed you to be, please don't let my actions kill us all,
Zo thought as he and G'torik and Tul armed themselves with carbines and rushed to the ramp that would take them down to the freight hold hatchway.

Zo took a long breath and then opened the hatch, stepping through. The air was acrid with a metallic burning smell. Smoke was coiled near the ceiling.