It was a "humbler" stun device. Avery had seen ONI interrogators lay into Innie prisoners with the things. He knew how debilitating they were, and though Avery doubted the bouncer had as much skill with the humbler as an ONI spook, he had no intention of ending up jerking around in a puddle of his own piss on this class establishment's floor.
Avery reached for his drink, resting at the center of his table. "I'm good right here."
"Listen, you jarhead son of a—"
But Avery's reach was just a feint. As the bouncer leaned forward to follow, Avery grabbed the man's wrist and pulled it over his shoulder. Then he yanked down, breaking it at the elbow.
The girl on the stage screamed as ragged bone tore through the bouncer's shirt, spattering blood on her face and hair.
As the bouncer howled and dropped to his knees, two of his partners—similarly dressed and built—rushed forward, flinging chairs out of their way. Avery stood and turned to meet them. But he was drunker than he'd thought and missed an opening blow to the bridge of his nose that snapped his head back and sent his own blood arcing toward the stage.
Avery reeled back into the bouncers' crushing arms. But as they rushed him out the club's back door, one of them slipped on the metal staircase leading to the alley. In that moment, Avery was able to twist free, give much better than he got, and stagger away from the noise of approaching sirens before a pair of blue and white sedans deposited four of the Zone's finest on the club's doorstep.
Stumbling along Halsted's crowded sidewalks, his dress uniform now as filthy as a set of battlefield fatigues, Avery fled from the paranoia of accusing glances to a dirty crawlspace beneath a riveted riser for the local maglev line—a repurposed brace from Chicago's old elevated railway, still recognizable despite centuries of shoring. Avery stuffed a green plastic trash bag between himself and the riser and settled into a fitful stupor.
Make me proud, do what's right. This had been his Aunt's instruction on the day of his enlistment, her small but strong fingers reaching up to cup his nineteen-year-old chin. Become the man I know you can be.
And Avery had tried. He'd left Earth ready to fight for her and those like her—innocents whose lives the UNSC had convinced him were threatened by men inimical but otherwise identical to him. Killers. Innies. The enemy. But where was the pride? And what had he become?
Avery dreamed of a boy choking in the arms of a woman with a detonator—imagined the perfect shot that would have saved all in the restaurant and his fellow marines. But deep down he knew there was no perfect shot. No magic bullet that could stop the Insurrection.
Avery felt a chill that jerked him awake. But the near-silent rumble of a maglev passenger train overhead had only shifted the bag of trash, setting Avery's back against the perspiring metal of the old brace. He leaned forward and put his head between his knees. "I'm sorry,"
Avery croaked, wishing his aunt were alive to hear it.
Then his mind collapsed under the multiplicative weight of loss and guilt and rage.
Lieutenant Downs slammed the door of his dark blue sedan with enough force to rock the low-swept vehicle on its four thick tires. He'd had the kid hooked, ready to enlist. But then the parents got wind of his efforts, and the whole thing fell apart. If it weren't for Downs' uniform, the father might have taken a swing at him. Though he was no longer field-fit, in his dress blues, the UNSC Marine Corps recruiter was still an imposing presence.
As the Lieutenant reordered his mental list of prospects—the small group of primarily young men who'd shown any interest in his cold calls and street-corner pitches—he reminded himself it wasn't easy recruiting soldiers during wartime. With a war as brutal and unpopular as the Insurrection, his job was damn near impossible. Not that his CO cared. Downs' quota was five new marines per month. With less than a week to go he hadn't landed even one.
"You gotta be kidding me …" The Lieutenant grimaced as he rounded the back of his sedan. Someone had used a can of red spray-paint to scrawl INNIES OUT on the vehicle's thick bumper.
Downs smoothed his close-cropped hair. It was an increasingly popular slogan—a rallying cry for the more liberal core-world citizens who believed the best way to end the killing in Epsilon Eridanus was simply to let the system go—have the military pull out and give the Insurrectionists the autonomy they desired.
The Lieutenant wasn't a politician. And while he doubted the UN leadership would ever appease the Innies, he knew a few things for sure: The war was still on, the Marine Corps was an all-volunteer force, and he only had a few days to fill his quota before someone with a lot more brass than him took another bite out of his already well-chewed ass.
The Lieutenant popped the sedan's trunk, and removed his dress cap and briefcase. As the trunk closed automatically behind him, he strode toward the recruitment center, a converted storefront in a strip mall on Chicago's old, near-north side. As Downs neared the door, he noticed a man slumped against it.
"48789-20114-AJ," Avery mumbled.
"Say again?" Downs asked. He knew a UNSC serial number when he heard it. But the Lieutenant still hadn't quite accepted the drunk outside his office was the Marine Corps Staff Sergeant indicated by the four gold chevrons on his filthy dress-coat's sleeve.
"It's valid," Avery said, raising his head from his chest. "Check it."
The Lieutenant straightened his soldiers. He wasn't used to taking orders from a noncommissioned officer.
Avery belched. "I'm AWOL. Seventy-two hours."
That got Downs' attention. He cracked his briefcase in the crook of his elbow and withdrew his COM pad. "Give me that one more time," he asked, inputting Avery's slowly repeated serial number with swift stabs of his index finger.
A few seconds later Avery's service record appeared on the pad. The Lieutenant's eyes widened as a long string of meritorious citations and battlefield commendations cascaded down the monochromatic screen. ORION, KALEIDOSCOPE, TANGLE-WOOD, TREBUCHET.
Dozens of programs and operations, most of which Downs had never even heard of. Attached to Avery's file was a priority message from FLEETCOM, the Navy and Marine Corps headquarters on Reach.
"If you're AWOL, no one seems to mind." Downs placed his COM pad back into his briefcase. "In fact, I'm pleased to inform you that your request for transfer has been approved."
For a moment, Avery's tired eyes flashed with suspicion. He hadn't requested a transfer. But in his current groggy state, anything sounded better than being shipped back to Epsilon Eridanus. His eyes darkened once more. "Where?"
"Didn't say."
"Long as it's quiet," Avery muttered. He let his head fall back against the recruitment center door—right between the legs of a marine in full battle dress on a poster taped to the inside of the door that read: STAND. FIGHT. SERVE. Avery's closed his eyes.
"Hey!" Downs said gruffly. "You can't sleep here, Marine." But Avery was already snoring.
The Lieutenant grimaced, hefted one of Avery's arms over his shoulder, and carried him to the backseat of his sedan.
As Downs pulled out of the mall's parking lot into thick, noontime traffic, he wondered if catching a single AWOL war hero was as good as booking five raw recruits—if it would be enough to keep his CO happy. "Great Lakes Spaceport," he barked at his sedan. "Quickest route." As a holographic map materialized on the inner surface of the sedan's curved windshield, Downs shook his head. If only I could be so lucky.
CHAPTER THREE
COVENANT MISSIONARY ALLOTMENT, NEAR EPSILON
INDI SYSTEM, 23RD AGE OF DOUBT
Staring at the alien vessel's stacked containers of ripe fruit, Dadab began to salivate. He rarely saw such delicacies, let alone got a chance to eat them. In the Covenant, the union of species to which Dadab belonged, his kind, the Unggoy, ranked low in the pecking order. They were used to scrambling for scraps. But they were not alone.
Near the base of one of the stacks, three Kig-Yar were squabbling over a jumble of particularly juicy melons. Dadab tried to trundle past the screeching reptilian creatures unnoticed. Even though he held the rank of Deacon on the Kig-Yar's ship, Minor Transgression, he was an unwelcome addition to its crew. Under the best of circumstances the two species were uneasy allies. But after a long voyage with dwindling supplies—had they not happened upon the alien vessel when they did—Dadab only half-humorously feared the Kig-Yar might have made a meal of him instead.
A melon wedge tumbled through the air and hit the side of Dadab's blue-grey head with a syrupy thwack, spraying juice on his orange tunic. Like the rest of his body, the Unggoy's head was covered with a stiff exoskeleton, and the blow didn't hurt him in the least. But the three Kig-Yar erupted in shrill laughter all the same.
"An offering for his holiness!" one of them sneered through dagger-sharp teeth. This was Zhar, the leader of the crewmen's little clique—easily differentiated from the other two by the length and deep pink color of the long flexible spines that crested the back of his narrow skull.
Without breaking stride Dadab loosed a powerful snort, dislodging bits of rind that had lodged in one of the circular vents of a mask that covered his pug nose and wide mouth. Unlike the Kig-Yar, who were quite comfortable in the oxygen-rich environment of the alien vessel, Unggoy breathed methane. The gas filled a pyramidal tank on Dadab's back, and flowed to his mask via hoses integrated into the tank's shoulder harness.
More melon sailed Dadab's way. But he was past the Kig-Yar now, and he ignored the sticky projectiles that slapped against his tank. Annoyed by his disinterest, the throwers returned to their petty squabble.
Minor Transgression was part of the Covenant Ministry of Tranquility's vast fleet of missionary vessels—ships responsible for exploring the boundaries of Covenant-controlled space. Deacon was the lowest Ministry rank, but it was also the only position open to Dadab's species—one of the few jobs Unggoy could get that didn't involve hard manual labor or risking their lives in battle.
Not any Unggoy could qualify for a Deaconship, and Dadab had made the cut because he was smarter than most, better able to understand the Covenant's Holy Writs and help explain these laws to others.
The Covenant wasn't just a political and military alliance. It was a religious union in which all its members pledged loyalty to its supreme theocratic leaders, the Prophets, and their belief in the transcendent potential of ancient technology—relics left behind by a vanished race of aliens known as the Forerunners. Finding these scattered bits of technology was the reason Minor Transgression was out in the deep black, hundreds of cycles from the nearest Covenant habitat.
As Deacon, it was Dadab's responsibility to make sure the Kig-Yar followed all applicable Writs as they went about their search. Unfortunately, ever since they'd boarded the alien vessel, the crewmen had been anything but obedient.
Muttering inside his mask, Dadab trundled down a row of containers. Some of them were clawed open, and he had to leap over slopes of half-chewed fruit the Kig-Yar had left in their rush to sample all the vessel's delicacies. Dadab doubted any of the containers held items of interest to the Prophets. But as Deacon, he was still supposed to supervise the search—at least offer a blessing—especially when it involved items belonging to aliens as of yet unknown to the Covenant.
As focused as the Prophets were on finding relics, they were always eager to add new adherents to their faith. And although that task was technically the Ministry of Conversion's responsibility, Dadab was the only religious official present, and he wanted to make sure he followed all the relevant procedures.
For the Deacon knew a good performance now might guarantee a promotion later. And he desperately wanted off Minor Transgression and on to a posting where he wasn't just responsible for keeping tabs on irreverent bipedal reptiles. More than anything else, the Deacon wanted to preach—to someday become a spiritual leader for Unggoy less fortunate than himself. It was a lofty goal, but like most true believers, Dadab's faith was buoyed by ample amounts of hope.
At the end of the row of containers was a mechanical lift that rose up the side of the hull.
Dadab stepped onto the lift and considered its controls. Raising one of his two spiny forearms, he thumbed a button that seemed to indicate up, then grumbled happily as the lift rattled up the wall.
A narrow passage led from the top of the lift to the vessel's ruined propulsion unit. Dadab caught a whiff of something foul, and stepping squeamishly through a bulkhead door he disabled his mask's olfactory membranes. The pile of fibrous mucus in the center of the cabin beyond was instantly recognizable—this was where the Kig-Yar had chosen to defecate.
Gingerly, Dadab slid one of his flat, four-toed feet through the sticky results of the Kig- Yar's fruit-fueled gorging until he struck something metallic: the small box that had attempted to converse with Minor Transgression's communications circuits.
Finding the alien vessel had been pure luck. The Kig-Yar ship had just happened to be between jumps, conducting one of its scheduled scans for relics, when it detected a burst of radiation less than a cycle from its position. At first the Kig-Yar's leader, a female Shipmistress named Chur'R-Yar, had thought they might be under attack. But when they drew close to the vessel, even Dadab could see it had simply suffered some sort of drive failure.
Still, Chur'R-Yar had wanted to make certain they were in no danger. Unleashing a full barrage with Minor Transgression's point-lasers, she had fried the vessel's drive then sent Zhar aboard to silence the box—make sure it could no longer cry for help. Dadab feared Zhar would be too aggressive and ruin the one item of salvage that might help his promotion off the Kig- Yar ship, but he could never admit this to Chur'R-Yar. He had known of many other Unggoy Deacons who had met with "unfortunate accidents" for similar disloyal acts.
Eventually, the Shipmistress had given him permission to collect the box—Dadab assumed because she, too, had realized the importance of the item to the Ministry of Conversion's work.
She could have gone herself, of course. But as Dadab watched the excrement slide off the box and onto his hands, he realized Chur'R-Yar had probably sent him because she knew exactly what the box's collection would require. Holding his stinking prize at arm's length, the Deacon retreated back down the passage.