Mal looked content and relaxed, but then he always did even if al hel was breaking loose. “Phil ips is having a nice chat with ‘Telcam, ma’am.”
“Is he in the right frame of mind to cal his frigates and get them to cooperate with us to escape?”
“You want to talk to him?”
“Yes. Put him on.”
“Good luck.”
No, ‘Telcam wasn’t going to be placated that easily. He popped up in front of the camera with al his fangs showing. Tiny drops of spit flecked the lens. “Why do you insult me this way?” he demanded. “How dare you abduct me. How dare your worthless admirals make war on me like this. How dare—”
“And how dare you open fire on my troops. Look, you’re no use to anyone dead, Field Master. And you can’t beat Infinity with a pistol.” It did no harm for him to be reminded of the ship’s capability. “Now you understand my problem. Your frigates are going to be blown apart by the Arbiter if we don’t cooperate on the next phase. I can track his vessels and warn your shipmasters, but you’re going to have to tel them to stand by for a message from a Kig-Yar vessel. Because I don’t think they’l be amused by a cal from a human right now.”
“You do so love understatement.”
“And you need your frigates. Please send the message. Staff Sergeant Geffen wil give you comms access.” She paused. She wondered whether to threaten to synth his voice and get BB to do it, but he didn’t need to know she could do that, not unless or until she needed to sow more doubt and confusion. “We don’t have long. Pul your ships out now and regroup.”
‘Telcam snapped his jaws a couple of times. Phil ips would know if he was sending the wrong kind of message and BB would just pul the plug.
“Very wel ,” ‘Telcam said. “But this is the last time you force a course of action on me.”
He disappeared from view and Osman assumed he’d gone back to his seat. She made sure she was back on earpiece only. “BB, park yourself in Tart-Cart for a while. If ‘Telcam deviates from that message, cut him off.”
“Fragment already in place, ma’am.”
Port Stanley held position over the pole, ready to move. Now al Osman could do was wait. She sat watching the chart even though BB would have alerted her when the ships started to move. Seeing the translucent hemisphere for herself gave her a better physical sense of what she needed to do—but again, BB could have done it al . That wasn’t the point. She had to do it herself, the old-fashioned way, so that she grasped the scale of what she was taking on.
“Here we go, Captain,” BB said. “They’re moving.”
“Okay, send the message. Tel them we’re going to track the Arbiter’s fleet.”
“Done.”
“That was quick.”
“Oh, I recorded it earlier.…”
He was a gem. “Okay, take us in, BB.”
And there they were, moving away from Ontom: four red dots, flying out across the ocean and gaining altitude. Infinity appeared as a single blue spot, but Osman had the ship’s bridge feed on a display to her right and could see that Del Rio wasn’t lifting a finger. She could hear Hood talking to Lasky, discussing rules of engagement regarding vessels leaving exclusion zones, and then the green dots started to move, too. The Arbiter stil had access to comms intercepts or radar, then.
Even if ‘Telcam’s fleet made it to their jump point without a scratch, she stil had to destroy three of the Arbiter’s cruisers. Port Stanley, completely undetectable, had missiles waiting to fire. It didn’t real y matter which ship survived and which didn’t, and that was the only thing about the attack that bothered her: the randomness of choice, which felt almost careless. That was the best way to tackle it, a simple numerical exercise devoid of anger or retribution, but it stil didn’t feel right.
“I have firing solutions on Far Vision, Axiom, and Devotion, ” BB said. “Shame, because they’re much nicer names.”
The Arbiter’s ships were converging on the frigates now, closing the gap faster than she expected.
“Frigates preparing to jump,” BB said. “They real y need to get a move on.”
On the chart, it looked marginal to Osman. She had to intervene now.
“Tel them we’re coming in,” she said. “And you better make sure that Infinity doesn’t try to target ghosts.”
FORMER COVENANT FRIGATE CLEANSING TRUTH, PREPARING TO LEAVE SANGHELIOS Raia had never imagined things would go this badly wrong so fast.
She tried to find a quiet corner on the deck to make sense of what had happened and work out how she would contact Umira and Naxan to let them know where she was. As she picked her way through the warriors on the deck, she almost tripped over a very young male who was half- slumped in an alcove with his legs sticking out. He was trying to get up. She was a mother: in this confused, frightened moment, her unthinking reaction was to reach out to help him.
And then she saw the blood, glossy and dark on the deck, and congealing between the gaps in his armor. She should have known better.
“Leave me,” he said. “Leave me, my lady.”
He waved her away. Perhaps someone else would help him, or perhaps not, but he was ashamed of being wounded and would refuse help. That was the way her sons were being trained, too, but she decided that would al change when she got home. It was a senseless ritual that achieved little when it came to winning battles. Naxan would be outraged. And she would stand her ground.
We need every warrior we can get. This is why we’re fleeing, isn’t it? That’s why we’ve gathered as many men and as much equipment as we can recover, and why we’re escaping beyond the Arbiter’s reach. So that we return to achieve something—not so that we have some noble act of sacrifice to carve into the saga wall.
Raia kept going and tried not to look at anyone in case she felt compel ed to help again and simply railed at some unlucky male instead. She was heading for the bridge to find Forze. Every deck was crammed with troops, not al of them alive. Many bodies had been recovered, to be taken home for dignified funerals.
Killed by humans. By the Arbiter’s human allies. He can’t even fight his own battles.
The bridge seemed a little more familiar now. She knew what some of the sensor screens were showing even if she couldn’t interpret them. Then a hand gripped her shoulder and she turned around to find Forze looking relieved, eyes half-closed for a moment.
“Please don’t wander off again,” he said. “I thought I’d lost you. That would be a terrible thing to have to tel Jul when he returns, wouldn’t it?”
“Where are we going now?”
“Laqil. ‘Telcam’s made contact—he’s heading there with some other al ies. I have no idea who they are. That’s al he’d say. He’s very secretive, but then the humans and the Arbiter seem to hear too much. Perhaps discretion is wiser.”
“He’s running away.”
“No more than we are, my lady.”