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  Clearly, Castor was being punished.

  He had been arrogant, and now the Oracle was testing him, giving him one last chance to prove his commitment to the Great Journey.

  This time, Castor would not fail. This time, the Dokab would be guided not by pride, but by faith.

  No sooner had Castor renewed his resolve than he was rewarded by a glimpse of the Spartan who had humiliated him. The demon was on the opposite side of the street, fighting with his faceplate raised, racing past a window just three buildings up from the structure where he and his infidel companions had taken refuge after fleeing the cave mouth.

  Castor stretched a hand toward Orsun. “Beam rifle.”

  By the time Orsun slapped the weapon into Castor’s palm, the Spartan had vanished from sight. Knowing he would have just one chance to take his vengeance, Castor led his target by aiming the nozzle of the beam rifle at the next window. He set the aiming reticle at head level, where he would be able to take the target between the eyes—then saw a long, flat, tentacle-frilled body float into view and block his shot.

  So surprised that he almost opened fire anyway, Castor quickly loosened his grasp on the weapon’s handle. Before he could take his next breath, the tentacle-frilled thing was joined by another floating figure—a green, undersize Huragok.

  “Orsun, come now,” Castor said. “Look at this.”

  Sliding along the wall behind Castor, Orsun stepped into the corner and peered over Castor’s shoulder. By then, the flat-bodied thing had passed out of view, and the Huragok was following.

  Worried it would be gone before Orsun found the right window, Castor said, “Third building from the end, lower window. Tell me what you see.”

  “It is a Huragok, Dokab,” he said. “A strange color and it appears small, but still a Huragok. Where did it come from?”

  “The demons,” Castor said. “Now it is certain. They have defiled sacred ground with their presence.”

  Still waiting for the Spartan to appear in the second window, Castor kept his eye pressed to the scope of the beam rifle and activated the integrated battlenet link inside his helmet. Once again, the repetitive screech filled his ears, pulsing and urgent.

  “And now we know who is jamming the battlenet,” Castor said. “It is the Oracle itself—calling for our help.”

  CHAPTER 19

  * * *

  * * *

  0840 hours, July 5, 2553 (military calendar)

  Avelos Avenue, Wendosa Village, Montero Cavern Surface

  Campos Wilderness District, Planet Gao, Cordoba System

  Knowing better than to present a predictable target in a sniper-heavy environment, Fred dropped to the floor and crawled past the second window on his belly. There were glass cases everywhere—some of them even in one piece—so he figured he was in some kind of museum. The Huragok and its worm-thing friend were already five meters ahead, floating across the debris-strewn room toward a narrow wooden staircase leading up to the second floor.

  Fred had no idea why the two runaways had chosen to make their break in the middle of a battle, but it seemed obvious that their escape had something to do with the sudden comm blackout. That wasn’t something he had expected from the pair, but it probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise—not when they were something created by the Forerunners.

  He reached the far side of the window and rose to a knee. Pressing himself close to the wall, he shouldered his battle rifle and put a burst into the stairs directly above the pair. The Huragok reversed direction and withdrew into a corner, but the worm-thing called his bluff and ascended even more rapidly. Fred fired another burst, this time being careful to hit the step riser just beneath the thing. It pivoted on its axis, turning its tail lens in his direction.

  Ash stepped into view at the top of the staircase, holding an armed scramble grenade. He gave it an underhanded toss. The scrambler landed dead center atop its target and stuck there, and the worm-thing’s tentacles fanned out stiff. Its body rippled and curled as though the thing were suffering a seizure, then it finally went limp and dropped.

  Ash bounded down the stairs to scoop the thing up. An instant later, Olivia hobbled in from a secondary exhibit room, her M7 submachine gun in one hand and an armed scramble grenade in the other.

  She glanced toward the Huragok, then asked, “That one, too?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Veta Lopis said, speaking from the other side of the window behind Fred. “You wouldn’t even be walking if it hadn’t patched you up.”

  “So?” Olivia asked.

  “So you’re still limping,” Lopis said. “And it looks smart enough to hold a grudge.”

  Olivia shrugged and looked to Fred. “We’re almost home,” she said. To a Spartan, home was any base they happened to be operating from at the moment. “I can last that long.”

  “That’s not the point,” Lopis said. “The Huragok saved your life down there.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Olivia asked. “I do, and I’m grateful. But it’s still a threat to the mission.”

  “How?” Lopis asked. “All it did was try to escape with its buddy. Tell me how that’s a—”

  “Put the scrambler away, ’Livi,” Fred said.

  Lopis was probing again, still trying to figure out how Blue Team’s mission was linked to the killings she was investigating. Fred wanted to order Lopis to give it a rest until they were out of combat, but that would have been like telling the Huragok to leave Olivia’s legs alone. It was just in Lopis’s nature, and trying to fight it would cause more trouble than it fixed. At least she kept her head straight once the shooting started; the inspector was definitely more cop than soldier, but she had given him no reason to regret handing her a battle rifle.

  When Olivia remained slow to secure the scramble grenade, Fred said, “That’s an order, Spartan.” He glanced over at the Huragok, then added, “The Huragok isn’t going to be a problem, as long as we keep it away from the other thing. Besides, it’s not exactly an AI. There’s no telling what a scrambler would do to it.”

  Olivia frowned in Lopis’s direction, but finally nodded and reset the scramble grenade’s safety. “Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”

  Fred checked his comm unit and was disappointed to find it still jammed. Either the worm-thing was not the source, or it had actually corrupted the entire network.

  Ash tipped a hand vertically, signaling for Fred’s attention, then raised two fingers and pointed toward a half-splintered door at the back of the main exhibit room. With his HUD on the blink, Fred had no way to tell whether the contacts were friendly or hostile, but until he knew which, that door was remaining closed. Fred motioned for Olivia to take the worm-thing and signaled Ash to secure the door, then glanced back at Lopis.

  “Try to keep the Huragok under control,” he said, speaking just loudly enough to make himself heard over the battle outside. “And don’t let it—”

  “Near the worm-thing again,” Lopis finished. She dropped to her belly and began to crawl past the window, cradling an MA37 assault rifle she had picked up in the last building. “Believe it or not, I worked that out all by myself.”

  Fred smirked at her sarcasm, then scrambled after Ash. A few meters into the shadows, he slipped behind a display case and returned to his feet, dodging as he rose.

  The case disintegrated behind him, spraying helictites and cave pearls everywhere, and Fred realized an enemy sniper had been waiting for him to show himself.

  Uttering a silent thanks to Frank Mendez for drilling evasion movement into him until it was second nature, Fred hurled himself over another case in a twisting dive. He glimpsed the purple flash of a particle beam burning through the wall behind him, then landed on his seat, facing back toward the window.

  Lopis was already leaning around the corner of the window, pouring controlled bursts up Avelos Avenue toward a target Fred could not see. An instant later, the muffled shriek-thump of a UNSC rocket suggested that she was not the only one covering his back.
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  Knowing that the sniper would either be dead or looking for another position after the rocket strike, Fred spun around and scrambled to the back of the exhibit room.

  By then, Ash was kneeling to one side of the door, looking through the charred hole of a plasma strike into the next room. He kept his faceplate pressed to the wall. But, as Fred approached, he raised a hand level with his helmet and gave a short lateral cut.

  Stay cool.

  Ash quickly returned his hand to his weapon and pivoted away from his spyhole, then looked past the door to make certain Fred was ready.

  Fred scowled, but pressed his own back to the wall and nodded.

  Ash turned to the wall and, through his helmet’s external speakers, called, “Mark, what the hell are you doing?”

  “Ash?” came the muffled reply. “That you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Okay. For one thing, you’re off your Smoothers.”

  “Not good enough. Anyone could see that.”

  “Mark, think about it,” Ash said. “There are only a handful of people in the entire galaxy who even know about the Smoothers.”

  “So?”

  “So, most of them are Spartans,” Ash said. “And all of them are friends or dead. Now, maybe you’d better tell us why you’re holding a knife to that sergeant’s throat. You know he’s one of ours, right?”

  Instead of answering, Mark asked, “Who’s us?”

  “I’m here,” Fred said, listening for the first hint of a scuffle or clattering equipment. Clearly, Mark had entered the paranoid stage of his mental deterioration, and it was hard to know what might make him feel threatened or angry. “I’m going to open the door very slowly and have a look, and you will remain as you are. Is that clear?”

  “Affirmative,” Mark replied. “As long as you really are the lieutenant.”

  “The Mjolnir only fits one guy,” Fred said.

  Mark hesitated a moment, then said, “Copy that.”

  Fred reached over and pushed the door open. When nothing happened, he stepped into the doorway of a small, cramped office and found Mark standing behind a lanky marine sergeant with ice-blue eyes and vaguely East Asian features. Mark had the blade of a combat knife pressed to his captive’s throat, and he was being careful to keep the man rocked back on his heels and too off balance to fight.

  The sergeant’s gaze went straight to Fred. “You Fred-104, mate?”

  “That’s right,” Fred said, taken a bit off guard by the Australian accent—and by the sergeant’s apparent lack of concern with the knife at his throat. “Hold on, and I’ll get you—”

  “Captain Breit needs you at the command post five minutes ago,” the sergeant interrupted. “You’re to report at once with those bloody artifacts you brought out of the cave.”

  Mark gave his helmet a slight shake, signaling trouble. “It’s a trap, Lieutenant. This guy is an infiltrator.”

  “An infiltrator with an Australian accent?”

  “He was trying to penetrate our position,” Mark said. His expression was hidden behind his faceplate, but his feet were askew, his bearing agitated and twitchy. “And he didn’t know the day code.”

  “You’re the yobber who didn’t know the day code,” the sergeant replied. “Your challenge phrase was three days old.”

  “That’s not Mark’s fault, Sergeant,” Fred said, putting a little edge in his voice. He knew from experience it was more effective to win the trust of a paranoid Gamma than to try reasoning with him, so his best hope of bringing Mark under control was to react as though what he had done was perfectly normal. “We’ve been out of contact for three days, down in the cave. Isn’t that right, Mark?”

  Mark’s helmet cocked to one side, but he did not reply.

  Deciding to take the lack of response as a sign of progress, Fred looked back to the sergeant. “Anything else you need to tell me, Sergeant?”

  “That’s it,” the sergeant said. “Those bludgers in the science company must think you found something important. They want you evacuated back to headquarters.”

  “Evacuated?” Fred didn’t like the sound of that—not while Charlie Company was stuck here fighting—but it was hard to argue with the logic of the order. The 717th was here to recover Forerunner technology, and even if Fred’s squad didn’t have the ancilla, they had a new kind of Huragok and some sort of worm machine. “Very well, Sergeant. Carry on.”

  “Carry on?” Now that he had completed his assignment, the sergeant finally looked a little frightened. His eyes flickered toward the knife blade still held at his throat, and he said, “Right—as soon as he lets me go, I’ll show you the way.”

  “Thanks. That would be a big help.” Keeping his tone as casual as he could, Fred shifted his gaze to Mark and said, “Okay, you can let him go now, Spartan.”

  Forcing himself to act as though he were confident of Mark’s obedience, Fred ducked through the door and signaled Ash to gather the others. Then he took a deep breath and, half-expecting to find Mark gone and the sergeant bleeding out, he turned back to the cramped office.

  Mark and the sergeant were now standing side by side. Mark’s combat knife was back in its sheath, and the sergeant was holding his MA37 assault rifle, leaning away from Mark and keeping a finger on the trigger. Fred breathed a silent sigh of relief, then made a mental note to demand a longer-lasting Smoother the next time—the subcutaneous kind that couldn’t be lost or destroyed during a firefight. They were hugely expensive and could only be changed out in a medical facility, but that was better than having an entire squad of Gammas spike-out in the middle of a surprise battle.

  Fred stepped forward and, reading the name on the sergeant’s chest tab, said, “Sergeant Nguyen, you know the fastest way, so you take point. Mark will cover you.”

  Nguyen paled at the thought of turning his back on a half-mad Spartan, and he was slow to acknowledge the order. Rather than press for a response, Fred merely held the man’s gaze and waited. Any attempt to relieve Mark of his weapons would only deepen his paranoia—and even barehanded, a Spartan was deadly. So Fred needed to keep Mark at the front of the marching order, where he could keep an eye on him and move quickly to stop any trouble.

  Finally, Nguyen seemed to take the hint and saluted.

  “As you like, sir.” He turned to Mark. “When we’re challenged, I’ll use today’s codes. Okay, mate?”

  Mark tilted his faceplate down and seemed to contemplate the question for a moment, then finally nodded. “Affirmative.”

  Nguyen glanced over at Fred. “Whenever you’re ready, Lieutenant.”

  Fred nodded and said, “You’ll be in good hands, Sergeant. Mark is our best sharpshooter, and the rest of us will be right behind him.”

  “That’s right, Sarge.” Mark’s tone was low and almost menacing. “If we run into trouble, I’ll have your back.”

  Nguyen grew even paler. “There shouldn’t be any trouble—as long as you let me handle the jabber.”

  “Good idea, Sergeant,” Fred said. It didn’t take much imagination to picture Mark making a disastrous response to a challenge. “Mark, you can consider that an order.”

  “Affirmative,” Mark replied.

  Ash returned with Olivia and Lopis and the two Forerunner “artifacts.” The worm was draped over Olivia’s arm, still twitching as the scramble grenade flooded it with EMP. The Huragok was sticking close, trying to sneak a tentacle past Lopis to free its companion. Had Fred not known that they were both just very advanced machines, he would have sworn that the pair really were buddies.

  Fred gave the signal to move, and Nguyen led them all into the alley behind the museum. It wound through a warren of supply warehouses and dreary taverns, all pocked by battle damage and apparently deserted. The squad dashed into a covered fruit bazaar packed with cowering villagers—many injured by stray fire. A chorus of alarmed cries rang out, and civilians began to dive behind cover and run for the exits. Fred and Nguyen shoute
d at the mob to freeze and quiet down, but their orders only seemed to make things worse.

  The crowd didn’t calm until Veta Lopis took over and announced in her Gao-accented voice that the soldiers were just passing through—and even then, it seemed to Fred that the bazaar remained on the verge of a stampede until the squad was gone.

  After departing the fruit bazaar, Nguyen led them into a similar market for meat animals. This time, Fred let Veta Lopis do the talking from the start, and the nervous villagers simply stood aside and let the squad pass.

  That wasn’t to say the transit went smoothly. The bazaar was filled with crates of slithering reptiles and tanks of fish, mollusks, and cephalopods, and the Huragok kept veering aside to peer between slats or drop a tentacle into the water. But for whatever reason, it was the poultry that seemed to fascinate the Huragok most. Several times, it pulled away from Lopis to open the cages and snatch a clump of feathers, and soon there were a dozen squawking idjoms fluttering through rafters and fifty grain-plumped shirms darting underfoot. Tired of having the Huragok’s tentacles slip from her grasp, Lopis finally grabbed it by the neck stalk, and the pair remained in a constant tug-of-war until the squad finally exited the place.

  As they advanced from building to building, the squad took enemy fire only twice. The first time was from a Kig-Yar who made the mistake of thinking he’d take Fred out with a double beam strike. Fred’s energy shields deflected the first shot, he evaded the second, and Mark eliminated the sniper before a third could be attempted.

  The second attack came as they passed a group of bloodied humans carrying a wounded companion up the alley. Neither Fred nor his Spartans recognized the band as infiltrators, and Lopis greeted them with a friendly “heya.” But when they responded with the same word, she allowed them to pass, then spun around with her MA37 at the ready. She took down half of them as they were still trying to collect their weapons off the “wounded” man’s litter, and Fred and his Spartan companions killed the rest. Afterward, she explained that “heya” was not a Gao salutation. Had they been real villagers, they would have answered with “oyu.” Something that Fred immediately committed to memory.