“BB,” she said, “I need to ask a favor of you. A little extra assistance for Osman.”
“Certainly, Admiral. I think I know what’s coming.”
“Could you leave a little of your inimitable self in this ship to counter Aine’s sensors? You’re awful y good at planting false information.”
“I’m a prince amongst framers, ma’am. I could incriminate the Archangel Gabriel for armed robbery if you needed me to.”
“I know. If Stanley shoots down anything, I’d like the sensors to record that the fire came from a Sangheili vessel. Perhaps even Kig-Yar. They’re already in ‘Telcam’s bad books, aren’t they?”
“Already taken care of, Admiral. Aine’s a very good mechanic, but she lacks a certain imagination.”
“Bless you, BB.” Now it was time to be the matriarch, wise and comforting. “Look, you’re going to be al right with this damaged fragment. Don’t fret about it.”
“I won’t. I just feel a little too squeamish at the moment to take a look at it.”
“I can understand that. But you’l cope with it. Parangosky out.”
She checked her watch, then got up to get a bag of crystal ized ginger from her grip. Osman wouldn’t need it when every ship in the fleet had the new drives, but for the time being Parangosky would make sure that she knew somebody cared that slipspace jumps made her nauseous. Morale was built on those things. So was trust and friendship.
She tucked a bottle of cologne in the bag as wel , then pressed the comms key.
“Engineering,” she said. “This is Admiral Parangosky. Ask Adj and Leaks Repaired to report to the shuttle, please. And don’t mention it to Dr.
Halsey.”
There was one more job to do before she could join them. She needed to talk to Mike Spenser, the man who would know only too wel what the Kig-Yar might do with a former Covenant battlecruiser.
THIRTY KILOMETERS NORTH OF ACROLI, SANGHELIOS “Right, BB,” said Mal, stabbing a finger in the direction of the Phantom waiting on the other side of the field. “I want the chin-gun kept trained on that bloody thing, and I’m going to sit on the door gun until Dev’s done her repairs. Got it?”
“Let me talk to them,” Phil ips said. “I can smooth this over.”
He tried to stand up but Vaz pushed him back down in the seat as kindly as he could. The Elite dropship had landed about a hundred meters away but nobody had climbed out of it yet. Vaz watched it, waiting for the trouble to start.
“Evan, if you get taken again, they could sel you on to any bunch of thugs or nutters.” Vaz didn’t seem to be able to get it across to him that he’d been lucky to survive this far. “You’ve got a value now. You know things. Do I have to spel it out? ONI’s gone in and killed agents to protect information before.”
Phil ips didn’t bat an eyelid. “I know the Sangheili better than you do.”
“No, you don’t.” Vaz pul ed his helmet off and jutted out his jaw to remind Phil ips of his scar. “That’s who they are. You saw New Llanel i, al the glassing— that’s who they are. You can play with that damn arum and quote their poetry al you like, but they exterminate humans. It’s what they do.”
Phil ips went to get up again. This time it was Naomi who smacked him down in his seat.
“You need to concentrate on what you came here for,” she said. “Get your data uploaded. What about BB’s fragment?”
“Oh, better leave that,” BB said, unconvincingly casual. “If there’s a problem reintegrating it, I could end up compromised. I need to be back on board Stanley to run diagnostics.”
“Is that my other persona?” a voice asked. “Am I going to be al right now?”
“Sorry. I’d told him to shut up.” Phil ips looked down at his jacket as if he’d spil ed food on it. “The radio cam was damaged and I tried to fix it, but I think it triggered the security purge. This BB doesn’t remember anything except the nonclassified stuff. I’ve tried to explain who he is so that he’s not too traumatized when he … wel , whatever you do when you reintegrate, BB.”
Vaz squatted in the doorway, peering out under the port wing. It was weird to hear two different BBs talking. The one in Phil ips’s radio sounded like a stranger. Vaz almost didn’t want to listen because it felt intrusive, like hearing his grandmother going senile. BB could delete it, though, couldn’t he? He could just take out the data segments and ditch the rest. If only organic brains could do that. Mal shoved into the space next to him, switched the door gun to manual, and swung it into position.
“Okay, Dev, you’re covered,” he cal ed. “Out you go.”
Devereaux jumped down from the starboard door with a canister of metal foam and ducked under the wing. Naomi fol owed her. There was stil no movement in the Phantom. Vaz wondered if the hinge-head was flying it on his own and didn’t like the odds.
“How’s it looking, Dev?” Mal asked.
Devereaux sounded as if she was scrambling up the hul . “I can fil in the skin, but it’s going to take some time to repair the conduits. I might have to just seal off the lines and risk overheating. Anything beats letting the Sangheili get their hands on her.”
“Or us.” Mal switched over to Stanley’s channel, triggering the feed in Vaz’s HUD. “Ma’am, are you getting this? Dev’s trying to fix the coolant.”
“I can see it, Staff,” Osman said. “BB’s monitoring the comms. Forze’s trying to contact ‘Telcam.”
“What’s he asking?”
“Whether he should let you go or stop you leaving.”
“We could just fire an Anvil up his turbine now, ma’am. That might attract more of them, though, and we can’t make a fast getaway.”
“Just let me talk to them,” Phil ips murmured.
Osman carried on like she hadn’t heard him. “We can probably give you some assistance if you need it. The cavalry’s arrived, al six kilometers of it. Wel , five and a bit. We’ve got some pruning to do to make sure the Arbiter–‘Telcam game is a draw, so I’m anxious to get you off Sanghelios pronto.”
“Oh. That cavalry. Is her paint dry yet?”
“Maybe not. No carpets, but she’s fast and nasty.”
“We’l let you know if we can’t fix it. The fewer people we have to extract, the better. Keep it simple.”
“Don’t take any more risks. I’ve told BB to spy on you and alert me if you do.”
“Understood, ma’am. Kilo-Five out.”
Vaz watched Mal’s expression brighten. He could put on a brave face at the end of the world, but there was resilient, and then there was pleased.
He was verging on pleased.
“They haven’t sent Infinity al this way for us,” Vaz said. “Seriously?”
“Nah, they’re rattling the galaxy’s biggest saber.”
“Saber wasn’t the word I had in mind.”