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| - Venter greeted the Reaper with a warm smile as the armored man marched into the control center. "Congratulations. You fucked up." "Really?" The Reaper seemed unperturbed. "How so?" "Try the bit where that city isn't a smoking crater right now," Peter piped in from across the room. Several of the soldiers nodded in cold agreement. Venter stalked towards his ally, throwing up an even bigger smile to hide the fury coursing through his chest. "You told me you could get the job done," he said. "You said you didn't trust anyone else to handle it. I wanted to do it myself, or send Peter, show the kid how it's done. But no. You had to do it yourself." The Reaper leaned against a console and shrugged. "I noticed it myself when we didn't see the blast after the timer ran out. That firefight didn't push the squid-heads further away than it was supposed to, I guess." It was all Venter could do not to shoot the man right there. "In case you hadn't noticed, nukes aren't exactly a dime a dozen," he growled. "I had to pull a lot of strings to get the ones we brought with us, and now you've gone and wasted the first one we arm." The helmeted killer scratched at his neck-seal. "So we didn't get to nuke an evacuated city. So what?" It was infuriating. Venter clenched his fists, doing his best to keep them as far from the pistol on his hip as possible. "You take failure pretty well, don't you?" "I've failed before, plenty of times," the Reaper replied, sounding bored. "Believe me, I lost worse than just a nuke." Venter smiled again, though it felt more like baring his teeth. "You owe me a nuke, pal." "And you owe me three weeks' worth of pay. We can settle our accounts after this operation is over." The Reaper stood straight again. "Are you done throwing a fit, or should I wait around a little longer." "Ah, get out of here, you smug asshole," Venter muttered, turning back to his communications officers. "For someone who wants these slit-heads as dead as you do, you don't seem to mind letting a few thousand of them live." "They'll die one way or another," the Reaper promised. "I'll make sure of that. I've waited ten years to start this. I'm a patient man." "Well, unlike you I'm on a time limit. We've got a week left, tops, and then we're closing shop." Venter opened a small computer tablet and punched in his password. "My client doesn't want to give these guys time to get wise to our jamming signals and neither do I." They wouldn't be using any more nukes, at least not until right before they picked up sticks and got the hell off this creepy planet. He didn't want to risk hitting any more cities, but he was wondering if Sanghelios had ever dealt with the effects of radiation poisoning before. He'd have to choose a proper spot where he could spread a little radioactivity through the atmosphere. Now that would be a hell of a way to end an operation like this. "Another thing," the Reaper told him. "I picked up another human back in the city. He wasn't one of ours." Venter glanced up from the latest logistics reports. "Huh? You think he's UNSC?" "No, I know this one, or at least I've heard of him. It's Mordred." It took a moment of picking through his metal list of underworld names for Venter to pin that one down. "Oh, the bulletproof mercenary? What's he doing here?" "He says he got stranded on a job. He's escorting some kid back to Earth." "Back to Earth, huh? He's a bit off course then, isn't he. What's he doing here?" The Reaper shrugged. "I told him we'd take him with us when we left if he'd lend us his gun." "So at least some good came of your little shitstorm. Where is he now?" "Back near the elevator." The Reaper threw a thumb over his shoulder at the tunnel leading to the lift car back up to the surface. One of the beauties of abandoned mine shafts was that no one ever suspected someone might roll in and set up shop right under an alien military's nose. "He wants to see you. I think he's a little freaked out about by all this, but they say he's a tough guy. He'll get used to it." "He better. And you keep an eye on him, too. If he screws up, you deal with it." "Yes, yes, don't worry." The Reaper turned to one of the comm specialists. "Anyway, I didn't come up here just to listen to your bitching. What's the status on subject Alpha?" The tech passed him a small data disk. "A patrol picked her up inside the city. The files here have everything we picked up from their conversation. It looks like the serum worked. She parroted everything we told her." "Good." The Reaper slipped the disk into his helmet and sat down next to a vacant console. "I'll monitor her progress from here. The signal's still up and running, right?" "Yeah, we're still reading it." "Very good," the Reaper said with satisfaction. "My finger's on the button."
*
* "Um, Mordred?" Simon glanced over at Zoey, who sat against the grimy wall of the rebels' makeshift hangar. She had her legs pulled up against her chest and was shooting nervous glances at the soldiers who were restocking the small fleet of Phantoms and Pelicans stowed down below the false cave entrance they'd flown through. "Yeah?" He paced back and forth, his fingers clenching and unclenching against the barrel of his assault rifle. "Back in that square, that Sangheili who talked to you." "What about him?" The question was whether or not to plug in Diana again. He'd have to spend a few hours listening to her bitch at him., but he'd need her if he was going to get out after he killed Venter. "He talked as if he knew you." "I know lots of people." "Do they all want to kill you?" He shrugged. "I've got more than my share of enemies right now," he admitted absently. They'd need to shoot their way back here, then hijack one of these dropships and haul ass back to Meru. They'd hand the Sangheili the keys, then slip into Fira's honor-bound protective custody. It wasn't the best solution, but it was the only one open right now. He smiled at the prospect of all that money. After two years of being a slave to the whims of his latest master, credits, he'd finally escape the cycle of brutal mercenary work. Maybe he actually could settle down. He was already trembling at the prospect of having Venter dead. So many shadows would fade away after that. "He called you Simon." "What?" Simon glanced back over at Zoey, surprised by her talkativeness. "He called you Mordred and Simon. Is that your real name?" "I've had lots of names," Simon admitted. "Mordred's just the latest one." "Oh." She pulled her legs tighter and closed her eyes. "Will we really be safe here?" "Yeah," he lied. "Just keep your head down and they'll have us out of here in no time." "Does it ever end?" she asked plaintively. Her gaze had drifted over to where a handful of soldiers were readying weapons for another sortie. "This craziness?" "For you, it will." This time he was telling the truth, or at least he hoped he was. "That's what you hired me for." Not for me though. For me it never ends. "Yeah," she muttered, but didn't look back at him. "I hired you."
*
* "Our patrol found her just inside the city," the major domo explained to Autel's assembled council. He and the minors under his command surrounded a small, trembling young female. A tattered, dirty robe covered her slender frame and her mandibles kept twitching and opening as if she were speaking silently to someone only she could see. "You say she claims to have been a prisoner?" Autel asked, glancing down at the lance's report in his hand. "Yes, commander. She says that she escaped from their hideout and made her way back to the city. Autel pursed his mandibles. Was this the breakthrough they needed? Beside him, Fira shifted uncomfortably, a sentiment Autel understood completely. Very few present had been informed of the humans' attempt to destroy Meru with one of their insidious bombs, nor did they know of Fira's deal with the fugitive Mordred. If this girl's information made Mordred useless to them, they would be in the uncomfortable position of being in his debt for alerting them to the bomb without a convincing reason to bring him into the protective custody he had demanded. But right now, this could save many lives. If we end this now, I can help Fira with the Mordred situation without these attacks hanging over us. Autel was quite sure that the humans had brought more than one bomb with them. Who could tell where they would target next? "Let her speak for herself," he ordered. The patrol stood aside, the major domo ushering the unsteady female forward. Autel scrutinized her. The humans had not been gentle, that much was certain. Bruises and cuts ran up and down her arms and neck. She hugged the robe tightly around her body, her eyes darting around the room like a frightened animal. "You're safe here," Autel assured her. "Now, can you tell us anything about where they held you?" The female's eyes flickered towards him. They looked hazy and clouded over, as if she were sleepwalking. "Yes, lord," she murmured softly. "They captured me... but I escaped." "We know that much," Autel said patiently. "How did you manage it?" "I escaped," she repeated, as if that explained it all. Another line of questions, then. This one was clearly traumatized. "Do you remember where you escaped from?" he asked. "I escaped." At Autel's elbow, Deno coughed politely. The old spymaster had proved invaluable in keeping the makeshift council in line, and Autel had decided to keep him close at hand. It helped to have someone as influential as him when the bureaucrats got out of line. "I doubt this one has anything to offer us here. At least, not in her condition." "The spy is right. This is a waste of time," Fira muttered. Autel nodded. "Escort her to your unit commander and have her examined," he ordered the patrol. "And try not to bother anyone else important while you're at it," one of his officers sneered. Perhaps the major domo thought his find had actually lied to him, or maybe he was just offended by the officer's parting barb. Autel never knew why he yanked the female roughly back within his lance's assembled ranks, but it was the last thing the warrior ever did and it saved the lives of half the room's occupants. But only half. Suddenly Autel was on his back, his ears ringing from the explosion that had erupted on the far side of the room. Screams from the wounded, officers and civilians alike, filled the air as he struggled to his feet. Bodies were strewn across the room, the dead and wounded mingling together in a macabre display of carnage. The source of the blast was clear: it had come from within the ranks of the patrol who, aside from a few scraps of armor and flesh, were nowhere to be seen. To his horror, Autel saw a familiar figure lying a few feet away. "Fira," he gasped, staggering over the remains of his command center towards his friend. But to his surprise, the burly Ultra sat up with a furious snarl. "I'm fine," he coughed. "My shields were up, and they took the worst of it." Numbed by shock and relief, Autel shook his head. "We finally found a blast that couldn't keep you down." Fira pushed himself upright. "I do not know what you mean," he said. "But who attacked us? Where did the blast come from." "The female." Both warriors turned to see Deno struggling out from under an officer's corpse. The aged Sangheili didn't seem to notice that his robes were torn and covered in blood--someone else's blood. He scrambled to his feet and hobbled towards them. "It was the female," he repeated. "I saw it happen. The blast came from her. Or inside her as case may be." "What?" Fira demanded. "Inside her? Speak sense, spy!" "The sense is plain," Deno retorted. "She didn't escape, she was released. They probably drugged her so she'd claim to have escaped. One of the humans must have know she'd be brought before a high-ranking target." "Drugged," Autel murmured. "That explains her behavior." "But the explosion," Fira protested. "How?" "I've seen this tactic before," Deno explained as warriors began to pour into the room, helping the wounded up and checking for survivors. "Jiralhanae assassins once had grenades inserted into their stomaches to get close to a chieftain they were targeting. The humans must have done something similar with that poor girl." "This is unthinkable," Fira whispered, for once shocked into silence. "These humans have indiscriminately slaughtered thousands of our people," Autel said, fury building up inside him like the bombs the humans had placed inside the female. "This is just a new way of doing it." He strode through the shattered command center, Fira and Deno trailing in his wake. "Mordred's signal," he demanded. "Is it still transmitting?" "Yes, but it's very faint. I took the liberty of dispatching Phantoms to survey the area it's coming from." "Send more," Autel ordered. "We put an end to this now, before they can come up with more clever ways to kill us." "Gladly." Fira input a set of commands into his gauntlet. "I will lead the assault personally." "You do that," Autel agreed, stepping over a pile of bloodied robes. "But I will accompany you."
*
* "And that," the Reaper announced, shoving away from the console. "Is how it's done, ladies and gentlemen." Several of the techs surrounding his station whooped. A few even applauded, and one exuberant soldier even clapped the Reaper on his armored shoulder. From across the room, Venter scowled at the celebrators. "So he nailed a few more squid heads," he told them sourly. "Should we break out the champagne after every sortie now?" Faced with their commander's ire, most of the techs backed off. The Reaper glanced over at his employment and shrugged. "I killed a few high ranking squid heads," he pointed out. "For all I know, we might have just hit the whole high command." "Yeah, yeah." Venter turned back to the latest action report. "Just don't come asking for extra pay. I'm already forking over my hostages for your nutty experiments." "Please." The Reaper turned to leave. "I've taken five, and that female was the only one who survived the procedure." He paused halfway through the refurbished Sangheili door. "I'll bet they caved that easily since it was a girl. Stupid honor-hounds. Nice choice, Peter." "What? Oh, yeah, great." The young rebel glanced up from the security footage he was scrutinizing. "Hey, boss, I think I recognize her." Venter tossed the report aside with an exasperated sigh and rubbed his temples. "This had better be important, kid. Who the hell are we talking about?" "That girl hanging around the new guy. Mordred, or whatever he calls himself. I think I know who she is." Venter crossed over to Peter's console, shoving the kid aside and glancing over the frozen image on the screen. "And I care about this why?" "Boss," Peter protested. "It's that girl from Famul. Remember, when we were there right after the takeover?" Venter was suddenly much more interested in the picture. His eyes flashed as he shook his head in disbelief. "And so it is," he murmured. "Nice call, kid." Peter grinned at his commander in expectation. "Remember what you said you'd do to her if we found her again?" "Oh yeah," Venter said slowly. "I don't forget things like that." He waved a soldier over. "Get Mordred and the punk he has with him over to the holding pens, Asap. "This oughta be interesting."
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