And the obituary, if I’m not careful.

He could hear a vessel approaching from behind and looked over his shoulder to see a purple streak that could have been a Banshee zip overhead at high speed in the direction of the smoke. Now it was starting to worry him.

I really should have thought a bit harder about that smoke.

“They got trouble,” Dengo said. “Hah.”

Another Banshee shot overhead, then another, and another. Five seconds later, instant bolts of green light punched down from the sky and sent bal s of flame and black smoke roiling into the air. It wasn’t the town. They definitely hadn’t hit the keep. They couldn’t bomb the keep, he needed it in one piece, he had to make that cal to the Arbiter’s office, or else— “Get down, Professor,” BB said. “I know you told me to be silent, but take cover.”

The Grunts swung around to see where that foreign voice was coming from. Phil ips watched four smal specks in the sky getting bigger by the second, probably the Banshees on the way back from their sortie. But there was one too many, and then one of the roofs on the keep exploded, sending masonry and glass high in the air. This time he ducked. He hit the ground facedown in the grass. There was a deafening zzipppp that sounded as if someone had ripped a giant piece of fabric right next to him, the smel of burned air, and an explosion like a grenade. Dirt and water rained on him.

The Grunts went crazy, or at least two of them did. It wasn’t water. It was blood. Phil ips lifted his head a fraction and he could see it. He couldn’t work out what was going on now because the Grunts were screaming, but he knew they’d lost one of their buddies. Curled and misshapen pieces of metal lay in the grass a few meters from him, stil hissing. So that was what happened when you hit a methane tank.

Phil ips waited, stil clinging to the ground, but he couldn’t hear the Banshees now. He risked pushing himself up on his hands and looked around again. The Grunts were hunkered down, now chattering furiously.

“Hey,” Phil ips barked. “Hey—guys, get a grip. We can’t just sit here al day. Come on. Let’s get to the keep.”

“They kil ed Sensen,” Dengo said. “Bastards kil ed him.”

“You don’t know which bastards.” Phil ips knelt up. What would Mal do? What would Osman do? “They’re fighting each other. But you work for the keep, yes? Then we go there. Even if it’s just to arm ourselves. Okay, you’re Dengo—what’s your name?”

“Gikak.”

“Move it, Gikak.”

Phil ips got to his feet and started walking. If he was honest with himself, he was close to loss of bowel control again, but he’d lived through this once and that meant he could live through it again. Even ‘Telcam thought the gods were looking out for him. Sometimes tel ing yourself a real y big lie was as good as the real thing. When he looked behind him, Dengo and Gikak were fol owing obediently.

“You better knock on the door,” Phil ips said. “I might be too much of a surprise.”

He could see what the smoke was now. It was a downed vessel, something smal , fighter-size; he could pick out the shape of the hul between the trees. With any luck, whoever had done the strafing run wouldn’t be back. He couldn’t see anyone as he approached the keep—smal , tatty, nothing like the Arbiter’s imposing headquarters—and the Grunts did as they were told and went ahead.

“Just observe, BB,” Phil ips whispered. “Let me do the talking.”

The huge double door didn’t open for a few moments and the Grunts just stood there looking lost and confused. Then one side eased half-open, fol owed by the muzzle of plasma pistol.

“My lady Elar,” Gikak said. “Sensen’s been kil ed. We found this human. He’s lost.”

The door opened ful y. Phil ips had never been up close to a Sangheili female before. They were almost as big as the males and this one seemed to know how to handle a weapon.

This was hands-on anthropology, live and raw.

Charm. Courtesy. Oh God. Do it.

“Hel o, my lady,” Phil ips said, terrified. “May I come in?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

YOU NEED TO DO MORE THAN OVERTHROW THE ARBITER. YOU NEED TO WIPE BOTH HIM AND VADAM FROM THE FACE OF SANGHELIOS, BECAUSE AS LONG AS THAT STATE EXISTS, IT WILL REMAIN LOYAL TO HIM, AND IT WILL EXERT ITS POWER AND INFLUENCE.

(SHIPMASTER BURAN ‘UTARAL TO AVU MED ‘TELCAM)

UNSC PORT STANLEY, IN SANGHELIOS ORBIT

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Mal said. “It was a bit of a bal s-up. But we had to open fire.”

Osman hoped that her dismay didn’t show on her face. She steeled herself to sit wel back in her seat and not lean forward toward the cam mounted on the console. They’d done al they could, and she certainly couldn’t have done any better. She needed to project her confidence in them.

“You’re entitled to defend yourselves,” she said. “We can only take diplomacy so far. Is Vaz okay?”

She could see movement behind Mal in the crew bay. Vaz was sitting up against one of the bulkheads in his tank top with one arm folded across his chest, fending off Naomi’s first aid. The Spartan ran out of patience, grabbed him by one shoulder, and pinned him while she sprayed salve on his burns.

Mal glanced around as if he was checking she hadn’t handcuffed him. “He took a couple of bolts at close range and got burned, but he smacked himself up when we banged out.”

“Ma’am, it’s just bruises,” Vaz cal ed, indignant. “I landed hard and it rammed my chest plate into my ribs. I’l live.”

“So anyway, I think we dropped four of them,” Mal went on. “We didn’t stop to count.”

Osman shrugged. “Probably didn’t make things any worse.”

“No, they went mental when they realized we’d entered the temple. Maybe I should have made the hinge-head go and get Phil ips.”

“And if he’d told you he couldn’t find him, you couldn’t have taken his word for it. Besides, you’ve inadvertently helped boost support for ‘Telcam.”

Mal rubbed his nose thoughtful y. He seemed to be looking for a tactful response. “Wel , I think that’s what used to be known in the Corps as a self-adjusting cock-up.”

“Okay, stay airborne and keep looking. How far could Phil ips get?”

BB interrupted. Osman could see him out of the corner of her eye, hanging motionless above the helm controls. “You’re not going to like the answer,” he said.

“Try me.”

“I believe I’ve cracked some of the inscriptions, which I’d prefer to cal signage, seeing as that’s what most of it is.”

“And?”

“Portals. Lists of portals. Chances are he’s activated one, seeing as he can’t leave things alone. Which means he could be anywhere in the galaxy.”

Osman’s scalp tightened. Poor Evan. Poor bastard. At the same time, the pragmatic ONI part of her patted her on the back and said it didn’t matter where Phil ips was, as long as he wasn’t in enemy hands on Sanghelios having the truth beaten out of him. She didn’t know which was the real Serin Osman and wasn’t sure that she wanted to find out.

“If you know they’re portals,” she said careful y, “then can you work out where they go? We could at least narrow down the locations.”

“Wel , you can forget names, because they won’t correspond at al , so I’m relying on coordinates. But I can’t work those out until I compare a portal with an actual exit location. Because, rather inconveniently, they didn’t use UNSC chart conventions.”

“Yes, okay, BB, point taken. Now tel me something useful.”

“I vote we keep looking, ma’am,” Mal said. “Rule out Sanghelios, if nothing else.”

“It’s a damn big planet.”

“We’l keep going until you cal us off.”

Any deadline she set now would be an artificial one of her own making, but doing nothing and hoping for the best wasn’t an option. There was always the possibility that Phil ips had escaped under his own steam and made a run for it, and he was no fool. Even with his BB fragment dead, he’d find another way to send a signal. Osman couldn’t just shrug and head back to Venezia even if she wanted to. It was lethal for morale, if nothing else.

No man left behind. That’s what the ODSTs expect. Naomi, too.

She checked the real-time chart. Tart-Cart showed as a smal blue icon even in stealth mode, for Stanley’s electronic eyes only. “So you’re twenty klicks outside Ontom.”

“It’l be dark soon. We can use thermal imaging and not invite pot-shots. Shame he hasn’t got a neural implant, though.”

“I’l shove one in him personal y for the next time he goes missing. The hard way.”

“Just a thought,” BB said. “If portals go anywhere at al on Sanghelios, they’l probably route to other Forerunner sites. Can Admiral Hood sweet- talk a chart of relics out of the Arbiter? It would save me a lot of survey time.”

“I’l ask. How are you doing for rations, Staff?”

“A week’s worth if we’re careful,” Mal said. “No problem with water, because there’s any number of rivers down here.”

“Okay. Next sitrep on the hour.”

The video link closed and Osman was left staring at the ONI ident screen. BB drifted closer and sat on the console as if he was going to have a heart-to-heart with her.

“You prefer to hear it direct from them, don’t you?” he said.

She nodded. “No offense. Instant data is wonderful, but I need to look my people in the eye.” She clapped her hands on the armrests of her chair.

“Okay, let’s crack on with this. Tel me what’s happening with the Arbiter.”

“He’s struggling to hold Vadam. Want to listen?”

BB switched the bridge audio to the output from the orbital surveil ance drones. Osman could only guess what the actual transmissions sounded like—a dozen different channels eavesdropping simultaneously—but BB’s breathtaking speed meant that al she heard was one voice at a time, already translated into English. It was stil hard to fol ow. She listened for names. One in particular leapt out at her.

“The ship isn’t responding.… Is Unflinching Resolve down?… No matter, we can do this with or without ‘Telcam, if we have the wil … locate Pious Inquisitor … we have fifteen more vessels joining us … then move the artil ery, you fool, move them up to the keep.…”

Whatever happened to that wel -oiled war machine? No San’Shyuum. Still finding their feet again. She glanced at BB. “So Pious Inquisitor’s back. I wondered what had happened to her. I keep forgetting how wil ing they are to glass one another.”

“They’re running low on big ships. It looks like they’re losing the few they’ve got, but they don’t need much to take out the Arbiter, because he’s as short of resources as they are.”

“Is he losing?”

“Yes. He didn’t see this coming. Lack of organization has its advantages.”

“So other than monitoring, what else can we useful y do at the moment?”

“I’ve brought the Admiral up to speed.”

“And?”

“She’s stil leaning on Hood to give Infinity a run, for reasons so Byzantine that I fel to my virtual knees in worship. She’s asking Hood if it isn’t time to go and help his Sangheili chum. We could wel have a flagship plus both commanders out here soon.”

“What, she’s planning to come out here with Infinity? Hood as wel ? Good God.”

“ONI does house cal s.”

“Are they even al owed to deploy together? Sounds like a recipe for a power vacuum at the top if anything goes wrong with al the untested technology.”

“I doubt either would let the other have the keys and take the ship for a spin alone. Anyway, ONI would be fine. You’re the heir apparent. Fleet would be rather inconvenienced, though.”

They didn’t need a warship like Infinity to back up an extraction like this, not when Sanghelios was stil groping for a new direction and mired in problems of its own. Osman realized that she would have done the same thing in Parangosky’s position, though: an early test of what the ship could now do, a timely warning to the Sangheili that they were no longer top dogs, a more serious shake-down of the crew to find any weak links, and a perfect excuse to take out a few more Sangheili ships that might one day trouble Earth.

Do it, ma’am. Take the risk. But just remember you’re not a kid anymore.

“It’s amazing how tolerant families are of these long mystery deployments,” Osman said.

“Lots of young, single officers.”

“I did wonder. UNSC Lonely Loser. ”

“Oh, there’l be seventeen thousand shipmates before too long, and nothing much else to do…”

Two-edged sword, families. Something to fight for, or something to lose and grieve over. But I’ll never know.

Osman watched the displays, keen to forget the family complications that might end up plaguing Kilo-Five. She switched to the drone view of Vadam, trying to work out which pal of smoke was Unflinching Resolve. That probably explained why she couldn’t raise ‘Telcam. Was he dead?

She’d have to find another way to keep the plates spinning. He couldn’t be the only religious Sangheili ripe for exploiting.

“It must be very hard to have normal relationships in this job,” BB said suddenly, obviously stil pondering on Lonely Loser. “And not just because the clear azure pool of eligible men contains so many rotting leaves of the Captain Hogarth variety.”

Osman almost shot back a heartfelt response but found herself frozen. The most unsettling thing about a conversation with BB was that he almost never had to ask her a question, because he knew her past: he had every conceivable piece of information ever recorded about her, including the stuff she didn’t even know and wasn’t wil ing to look at for herself. He remembered it flawlessly, too, al the dates and names that she forgot, even though she prided herself on a pretty sharp memory by human standards. But so much conversation was about the past, the wealth of detail and incidents unknown to the other person that could be dredged up and discussed, or asked about politely, and BB was incapable of being surprised by any of it. BB’s past hardly existed. And the things that fascinated her most about him as an entity, as a person, were whatever linked him to his donor and how he handled knowing that he’d cease to exist in an unfairly short time.