Last Light Page 14

  “Ah, common sense.”

  Zoyas nodded sagely and slowly turned in a circle, surveying the pocked terrain around them. An endless series of steep-walled basins separated by winding ridges and jagged limestone cones, it lay beneath a jungle of club mosses, tree ferns, and cycads so thick it was impossible to see the ground next to one’s boots. Castor knew from experience that it was all too easy to step through a tangle of green and find one’s foot hovering above a thirty-meter drop.

  Zoyas used her long jungle knife—she called it a panga—to push aside a wall of fronds, and Castor found himself looking across a lush valley of moonlit tree ferns. Atop the opposite ridge stood a row of pale buildings, their steeply pitched roofs silhouetted against the darkness. The village was much closer than Castor had expected, somewhere between one and one-and-a-half kilometers distant.

  “There is Wendosa,” Zoyas said, addressing Linberk more than Castor. “The village is held by Charlie Company: a hundred and fifty heavy infantry marines with all of their toys: HMGs, missile pods, nonlinear lasers, rocket and grenade launchers. The sole road into the village is blocked by a pair of Warthogs with M41 antiaircraft guns, and they allow only UNSC personnel to pass. Every ground approach has been trapped and fortified, and the other entrances to this part of the cavern all lie on footpaths strung with UNSC motion sensors. So, what does your common sense suggest? A frontal assault?”

  Castor pushed Zoyas’s arm down, allowing the fronds to swing back into place and keep them hidden from any sentries from the village who happened to be looking in their direction.

  “What Reza thinks is unimportant. She is not the leader of the battle pack.” Castor glanced over at Linberk, then added, “When we attack, it will be from inside the cave. The terrain gives us no other choice.”

  “A lack of choice is no guarantee of success,” Linberk countered. “If you let the strike force get cornered down there—”

  “I have led battle packs before,” Castor said, cutting off the debate. “I will not get us cornered.”

  He looked over Linberk’s head to his second-in-command, a grizzled old Jiralhanae wearing the blue-and-gold armor of the Keepers of the One Freedom. Standing half a head taller than Castor himself, Orsun was as thick across the chest as any of the pack’s captains. Only a handful of warriors were larger, so it seemed safe to assume that if Orsun could squeeze through a choke point, then most of the battle pack could follow.

  “Orsun, take the vanguard. Secure our battle routes.” Castor’s translation disk automatically repeated the phrase for the two humans, but he did not bother to deactivate it. He wanted the women to understand his orders. “But our first purpose is to save the Oracle. So, you must find and hold the route the Spartans have taken.”

  “As it is spoken, it shall be done,” Orsun replied, speaking in their native language. He glowered in Zoyas’s direction. “And the guide?”

  “She is yours to protect.” As Castor spoke, he took Zoyas by the arm, then swung her past Linberk and placed her in front of Orsun. “She will advise you, but your decisions are your own.”

  Orsun touched his fist to his chest. “I am graced by your trust, Dokab.” He waited until Castor had returned the salute, then activated his own translation disk and turned to Zoyas. “You may lead the way.”

  “In a moment,” Zoyas said, turning back to Castor. “The vanguard will need to secure the escape route, too.”

  “Escape route?” Castor asked. “We will leave through Wendosa. That is what we said.”

  “If we take Wendosa,” Zoyas said. “But if things go against us, we’ll need a backup plan.”

  “What things?” This was the first Castor had heard of any doubts Zoyas might have. “There is something you failed to tell me?”

  “Only the future,” Zoyas replied quickly. “And that, no one can predict. That’s why we need to secure our escape route.”

  Castor remained suspicious. “We are not here to escape.”

  Zoyas scowled and started to argue, but Linberk touched her arm. “Jiralhanae don’t plan for defeat,” Linberk said. “They win or die.”

  Castor nodded. “It is so.”

  “Well, I’m no Jiralhanae,” Zoyas said. “I’m a saboteur and a rebel, and the only reason I’m still breathing is because I always plan for the unexpected. The escape route will be secured.”

  “Where exactly is this escape route?” Linberk demanded. “And why is now the first we’re hearing about it?”

  “It is only a contingency plan,” Zoyas said evenly. “I was going to mention it later, when I could point the way.”

  She held Linberk’s gaze. The pair continued to stare into each other’s eyes so long that Castor half-expected a challenge fight, and the contest did much to explain a planning lapse that could not have been accidental. The Keepers’ allies on Gao and Venezia had gone to great lengths to sneak the battle pack into the caverns and make certain it was well supplied. Zoyas had even promised to support Castor’s attack by having the Committee to Preserve Gao Independence stage a guerrilla strike at the Vitality Center. But no mention had been made of how the survivors would depart Gao with the Oracle.

  Now, as Castor watched the silent struggle over whether to secure Zoyas’s “escape route,” he knew that each woman’s commander had a different plan for claiming the Oracle after he recovered it. Zoyas and Casille would have a force waiting at the “escape route,” while Moritz and Linberk probably had a team already hiding near Wendosa. But they were all dim stars compared to Castor, because the Keepers of the One Freedom were legion. When Arlo Casille sent Gao’s Wyverns to steal the prize, one of those vessels would be crewed by human Keepers.

  And by the time Casille realized he was not as sly as he thought, Castor and the Oracle would be safely off planet.

  Castor turned to Zoyas. “Orsun will send a trio of warriors to secure the escape route.” He turned to Linberk. “That does not mean it will be used.”

  “Of course it won’t.” Linberk’s gaze shifted to Castor. “The Jiralhanae are not cowards.”

  Castor nodded to Orsun, and the battle captain motioned for Zoyas to lead the way. This time, she obeyed, and a few minutes later they were in the bottom of the basin, hooking the descent cable to a pair of metal eyebolts that had been set into the stone adjacent to the cave entrance. The bolts were thick, but they were also old and pitted with corrosion. Castor wondered whether they would be strong enough to support his Jiralhanae.

  The answer came less than a minute later, when Orsun clipped into the cable and squeezed into the crescent-shaped entrance behind Zoyas. He filled the pit even more completely than Castor had expected, with his chest and back armor scraping against opposite walls of the crevice. It seemed to take forever before his helmet vanished belowground, and Castor began to worry that Linberk’s fears about choke points would prove warranted.

  At last, the cable went taut as Orsun cleared the opening and began rappelling down the shaft. A minute later, the cable went slack again, indicating that he had reached the cave floor. The next Jiralhanae clipped into the line and activated his forearm lamp. Smaller than Orsun, he descended through the squeeze almost effortlessly and was soon dropping into darkness.

  Castor spent the next few hours carefully sizing up each Jiralhanae as he ascended the ridge. About one in ten warriors looked too large to fit through the entrance shaft. These he pulled aside and assigned to the rear guard, equipping them with the battle pack’s heavy weapons and instructing them to establish a defensive perimeter around the entrance. Among the weapons were a pair of special gifts from Arlo Casille: a dozen crates of shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles and a battery of field mortars. Because both weapon systems were manufactured by Gao’s Sevine Arms and most effectively used by humans, Castor also attached two bands of human Keepers to serve with the rear guard. If the battle grew fierce, he knew the humans would lose courage and try to flee. But he believed their Jiralhanae companions would intimidate them into staying,
at least until the artillery was no longer useful.

  The jungle was just beginning to glow green with dawn light when the final band of warriors appeared on the ridge, following what by now had become a well-trodden path. Knowing better than to think the infidel patrols would miss the trail—or fail to understand its significance—Castor started up the ridge toward the rear guard’s command post.

  Of course, Linberk followed close on Castor’s heels—alert, no doubt, for anything that might interfere with her plan to take the Oracle from him. He pretended to welcome her company, pulling fronds aside for her and steadying her where the jungle mud grew slick.

  Tucked behind a limestone outcropping, the command post was little more than a flat area with hard cover and a good view. The captain of the rear guard—a bald-shaved Jiralhanae named Saturnus—was sitting behind two boulders, peering through a tripod-mounted observation monocular toward Wendosa.

  When he heard Castor and Linberk approaching, Saturnus rose and touched his fist to his chest. Castor returned the salute, then deactivated his translation disk and spoke in a soft whisper. “Report.”

  “No activity, Dokab,” Saturnus replied. “The infidels are still cowering in the village, awaiting an attack.”

  “That will change as the day passes,” Castor said. He knew the Gao loyalists would not be able to divert the attention of Charlie Company much longer. “Send a work band to mask and trap the trail we made through the jungle. Have another remove the eyebolts from the cave entrance and set explosives. If it grows necessary to detonate the charges, it would be a blessing to choke the hole with rubble.”

  “As it is spoken, it shall be done.”

  Saturnus did not touch his fist to his chest, an omission that let Castor know his captain desired clarification.

  “Speak.”

  “Dokab, if we cannot follow you into the cavern—”

  “All survivors will rendezvous there, in Wendosa,” Castor said, pointing toward the village. “You will know when to come.”

  Saturnus placed his fist over his heart. “You grace me with your trust, Dokab.”

  As Castor turned to depart, Linberk asked, “What was that about?”

  Castor reactivated his translation disk. “Anticipating the enemy,” he said. “That is what good commanders do.”

  “So why deactivate your translation disk?” she asked. “This is no time for us to start keeping secrets from each other.”

  As Linberk spoke, a distant whine echoed across the jungle. For an instant, it sounded like the cry of some alien animal greeting the dawn—but when it continued to rise in pitch and was joined by three more whines, Castor knew he was hearing something else.

  It was the activation of an auxiliary power unit, building pressure to cold-start a jet engine.

  “Castor, I asked—”

  “Silence!” Castor spun around and started back toward Saturnus, who was again sitting behind his observation monocular. “Report.”

  “It sounds like they are engaging a Pelican,” Saturnus said, yielding the observation monocular. “But the craft cannot be seen.”

  Castor took the captain’s place and peered into the large, circular face of the monocular’s magnification crystal. With dawn well under way, Wendosa was aglow with a rosy gold light. Saturnus’s command post was slightly higher than the broad ridge where Wendosa was perched, so Castor could see that the village was about three times as long as it was wide. There were too many tall buildings for a clear view of the street layout, but in places he could make out a braided labyrinth of cobblestone lanes running between the red tile roofs and white stucco walls of its buildings. There were no soldiers moving along the near edge of the village, but he could see weapon muzzles protruding from the dark squares of a few windows.

  Castor swung the monocular to the left, focusing on the far end of the village, and saw a large dust cloud rising from behind a line of tall buildings. It was impossible to see over the roofs of the structures from his angle, but a dozen UNSC soldiers wearing ear protection and tool belts stood in the adjacent lanes, looking into what Castor assumed to be the village’s entrance plaza.

  As Castor watched, a line of troops walked into view and continued down the lane toward the plaza. They were covered in mud from head to foot, so dirty it was impossible to tell their unit or designation. But most were equipped with battle rifles and standard UNSC-marine light armor, and they were moving with the weary briskness of exhausted soldiers on their way to an evacuation point.

  Castor hoped for a moment that he was just watching a standard rotation, one spent UNSC search team being returned to base before a fresh one arrived. But he could not find any sign of a replacement team on the ground, or any officer waiting to be briefed on the situation before taking over.

  Then four large figures marched into view. The first and last wore the distinctive Mjolnir armor of the demon Spartans, and they carried their weapons ready to fire—even in the heart of a village under complete UNSC control. The middle pair wore the lighter infiltration armor that many Spartans had sported toward the end of the war. Between them, they carried a long black bag that concealed its contents.

  It was impossible to know what the bag contained. Castor suspected they wanted it to appear they were carrying a body, but it did not require four Spartans to deliver a corpse. And the team was clearly returning from a long trip into the caverns.

  Castor had thoughts about the bag—and he could not afford to take the chance that he was wrong. If the infidels boarded a Pelican with the Oracle in their possession, they would be out of Gao’s atmosphere before Castor could stop them—and halfway to a rendezvous with the UNSC task force before he could alert Casille.

  Castor turned to Saturnus. “Attack with everything,” he said. “Immediately. Concentrate all fire on the plaza at the village entrance. That Pelican must not depart.”

  Saturnus’s eyes grew wide, but he responded instantly, simultaneously acknowledging the command by touching his fist to his chest and issuing orders over the rear guard’s battlenet.

  “You’re attacking the village?” Linberk’s tone was disbelieving. “Now?”

  The answer to Linberk’s question came in the form of forty particle beams flashing out of the jungle to both sides of the command post. Castor peered into the observation monocular and was happy to see half a dozen UNSC soldiers lying dead in the streets surrounding the plaza—and the rest scrambling for cover. A trio of shoulder-launched missiles streaked into view and detonated against a pair of tall buildings, showering the lanes below with rubble and flame.

  Then the sound of crumping mortars began to rumble up from slope below Castor. A few moments later, he saw the first rounds fall in a broad ring around the plaza, punching through roofs and blowing out walls. Billowing curtains of smoke and dust began to roll through the streets, quickly growing so thick that it was impossible to see anything at all. Castor stepped away from the monocular and watched the sky above the village with his naked eye, searching for any sign of a Pelican rising through the smoke.

  Linberk quickly took his place behind the monocular. “What made you attack now?” She began to swivel the instrument around on its tripod. “I can’t see anything but—”

  Both ends of the monocular erupted in a spray of crystal shards, and Linberk landed a meter away, her arms flung wide in the undergrowth and a red mess where her face had been a moment before. The sound of the fatal sniper shot did not arrive until a heartbeat later, the ringing crack of a supersonic round followed by the distant pop of the propellant charge that had sent it hurling across the distance. Castor dropped behind the outcropping, glancing at the human corpse and wondering how Peter Moritz would take the loss of his most trusted deputy.

  Then the rest of the UNSC snipers opened fire.

  Somewhere in the jungle below, a wounded Jiralhanae roared in anguish. Beam rifles flashed in reply, and the Keeper mortars began a slow, steady thumping that suggested the crews were “walking” their rou
nds forward in a carefully planned grid pattern. And still, Castor saw no sign of a Pelican rising into the sky.

  Daring to hope that the craft had been destroyed in the first wave of strikes, Castor turned once more to Saturnus.

  “Have our loyal humans hold their missiles for flying craft,” he said. “And press the attack if you must. Keep the infidels pinned down in the village. As soon as we are able, the battle pack will spill out of the Wendosa entrance and crush them from behind.”

  “As it is spoken, it shall be done.” Saturnus touched his fist to his chest, then added, “No matter the cost.”

  CHAPTER 12

  * * *

  * * *

  0723 hours, July 4, 2553 (military calendar)

  Executive Office Suite, Montero Vitality Center,

  Montero Cavern Surface

  Campos Wilderness District, Planet Gao, Cordoba System

  Floating above the anteroom’s polished swirlstone floor, the military map of the Montero cave system was a hopeless holographic tangle. Multicolored lines representing passages of various sizes and conditions snaked around each other with no discernible logic, and huge chunks of the array remained completely unmapped and blank. Still, Murtag Nelson could feel a glimmer of insight tickling at the back of his mind, some subtle connection that his unconscious had made and not yet deigned to share. There was something there, a pattern that didn’t look like a pattern, an underlying structure he had yet to identify.

  Murtag retreated to one of the plush brown sofas that sat along the anteroom’s looming glass walls. Like all of the furniture in Montero Vitality Clinic’s executive office suite, the lavish piece reflected the extravagant tastes of a designer unbridled by considerations of cost. Murtag dropped into it lengthwise, resting his head on the sofa’s well-padded arm and his dirty boots on a soft leather cushion.

  For the second time in the last ten minutes, Murtag’s aide-de-camp stepped to his side and tried to interrupt.