“Understood, ma’am.” She looked at Mal and Vaz. “Usual dril ?”

“Let’s get it over with,” Mal said. “Helmets on, boys and girls.”

BB ushered Adj up to the cel door and projected a set of tentacles to sign at him. Adj didn’t appear worried about the prospect of wrestling with a pissed-off shipmaster and floated patiently as Mal and Vaz prepared to go in first with Naomi right behind them.

Did Sangheili warriors feel it was beneath their masculine dignity to hit a female? It certainly didn’t stop the Covenant kil ing women and children along with the men. Osman held her breath.

“Okay, in three— three, ” Mal said. The door slid back, the Sangheili stood up, and the two marines stormed in with Naomi on their heels. Mal went right and Vaz went left to grab one arm each. The Sangheili fought to shake them off and very nearly succeeded. He batted Mal across the compartment, smashing him against the bulkhead with a loud crash.

“Bastard,” Mal grunted, scrambling to his feet. Vaz hung on to the left arm but the Sangheili brought his fist up under Vaz’s chin just as Mal lunged back and pinned the right arm again. Naomi moved straight in between them. It took two seconds from opening the door to the moment when Naomi shoved the cattle prod up into the gap between the Sangheili’s lower jaws.

It was hard to unbalance a Sangheili, but the speed of the multipronged attack did the job. As Mal and Vaz struggled to hold on to the Sangheili’s arms, Naomi gave him a quick zap. The prod crackled like a plug discharging and the angry bel owing turned into a single high-pitched squeal. The Sangheili fel back to land on his backside on the bench.

Adj drifted in, fiddled about with the chest plate, then drifted out again like a nurse taking a blood sample from a difficult toddler. Naomi moved out and shut the door behind her, then helped Vaz off with his helmet.

“You okay?” she asked. She tipped his head back and checked him over. Mal peered at him too. “He real y snapped your head back.”

“I’m a shock trooper,” Vaz said. “I’m used to hard landings.”

ODST or not, Osman wasn’t taking any chances with closed brain injury. “Corporal, you take a shot of chorotazine, and that’s an order. I don’t need paralyzed marines, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The hinge-head got to his feet and tottered a little before regaining his balance and roaring abuse again. Phil ips looked distinctly uncomfortable, arms folded as he watched.

“Is this where you tel me you could have gone in and reasoned with him?” Osman asked. “Because that’s great in the movies, but it only needs one blow from him to take your damn face off.”

Vaz grunted. “Believe it.”

Phil ips scratched his nose, somewhere between embarrassment and looking like he wanted to argue. The reality of this kind of war was equal y unlike the movies. It was brutal and dirty and nobody was going to win on points. It was an idea Phil ips needed to get used to. The Sangheili was now back at ful volume, roaring and hissing.

“It sounds like he’s saying blarg, ” Mal said. “Is that good?”

“I’l summarize the rant.” Phil ips looked away. “He’s tel ing us we’re al intestinal worms and vermin, and describing what he’s going to do with our entrails in due course.”

“I didn’t think he was asking for his lawyer,” Osman said. “Okay, Evan, start eavesdropping.”

“I took the liberty of recording al voice traffic from the moment I knew you had a prisoner, and I’ve sifted through it, but there’s nothing to interest you so far,” BB said, al tact and diplomacy. “I’m thoughtful like that, I am.”

Phil ips grunted something that sounded like thanks and headed for his cubbyhole in the hangar. Vaz looked at Osman and raised his eyebrows.

He seemed a bit unsteady.

“He’l come around to the idea, ma’am,” Vaz said. “He always disappears to think things over when he finds out something nasty about his government. But he always gets on with the job in the end.”

Naomi was stil waiting to be dismissed, holding the cattle prod tucked under her arm like a swagger stick.

“You al right, Spartan?” Osman asked.

“Fine, thanks, ma’am.”

“Okay, I’m going to talk to the Admiral about getting this guy offloaded, and then we’l see what Hood’s up to.”

“Are we stil on for that, ma’am?” Mal asked.

“It’d be handy to get clearance to tag along, if only to get Phil ips on nodding terms with the Arbiter. Who else is Hood going to want with him? I expect the Admiral’s suggesting it right now.”

There was just a flicker of doubt on Mal’s face. She could understand that. Everyone liked Hood, and it wasn’t easy to stomach the idea of ONI unleashing dirty tricks on the man who’d brought Earth through the war in some kind of shape to rebuild, but then that depended on which of them thought their efforts had made the most difference. The Spartans were ONI’s project and the Spartans had been the tipping point, one way or another. Parangosky felt she had prior claim. Osman wasn’t sure. But she knew who her boss was.

She took another look through the plate of the brig door. The Sangheili was on his feet now, pacing around and occasional y landing a punch on the bulkheads.

“See, he’s al better now.” Mal peered over her shoulder. “Do their teeth grow back again, like sharks’ do?”

“Stick your arm in and find out,” Vaz suggested.

Osman decided she could leave the Sangheili in there until she’d arranged a handover. If the brig needed hosing down afterward, that was a price worth paying. She went back to her day cabin and sat down at the desk with her chin resting on her hands.

“BB, can you find out what Hood’s planning?” she asked. She meant accessing his secure files and comms, not asking his secretary. She real y hadn’t wanted to do that to the man, not after how kind he’d been to her over the years. “I know Parangosky’s going to tel me, but it would be nice to plan ahead.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” BB said, appearing in the in-tray. “Let me see what my naughty fragment’s been up to while my back’s been turned.

Oh, and Hogarth. I hope you didn’t mind my smacking his bottom. He keeps sending Harriet to snoop in your files so I stuck something in his and alerted Internal Audit.”

“I believe the phrase is you fitted him up. …”

“Nothing major. Just triggered the attack accountants from hel to check a truly massive overspend. They’l find it’s a misplaced decimal point in due course.”

“Remind me never to cross you.”

“And Phil ips wil be here to see you in … ten seconds.”

“You’re fabulous, d’you know that?”

“Yes. I do.”

BB disappeared just as Phil ips stuck his head inside the door.

“Good lead with Mdama, Captain,” he said. “I have a name.”

Osman leaned back in her chair. “That was quick.”

“Jul ‘Mdama.” Phil ips could even do the little cross between a glottal stop and a click before the clan name. “Shipmaster. Some traffic between ‘Telcam, another shipmaster cal ed Buran, and some guy cal ed Forze who appears to be his best buddy. Jul took off from Bekan in a shuttle, and hasn’t cal ed in for ages.”

“So he’s known to ‘Telcam.”

Phil ips nodded. “Apparently.”

“That could get interesting. Naomi says he definitely wasn’t on overwatch. He was doing some sneaky observation.”

“Maybe he’s an agent for the Arbiter. A plant. A sleeper. Or whatever the Spookish is for undercover these days.”

Now there’s a thought.

“Cover blown, then,” Osman said. “Now let’s work out the most divisive and strife-inducing way I can use that information.”

MAINTENANCE AREA, FORERUNNER DYSON SPHERE, ONYX: LOCAL DATE NOVEMBER 2552.

“Easy, Lucy. Back off. ”

Mendez had Lucy in a headlock and she was final y running out of adrenaline. She knew she’d kicked him, but she real y didn’t mean to, not the Chief, not the man who’d raised her and turned her into a soldier. “I said stand down, Spartan. Did you hear me? Stand down! ”

She took a deep wheezing gasp, deafened by her own pulse. Her legs almost buckled and her face and neck felt like they were on fire. She realized that Mendez was now holding her up rather than holding her back.

And she was crying—sobbing like she hadn’t sobbed for years. Mendez turned her around to face him and crushed her to him so tightly that she thought he’d break a rib.

“Good girl. Let it out. It’s okay.” She’d just punched out the ONI’s chief scientist but Mendez didn’t sound angry at al . “Let it al out.

Damn. That was a long time coming.”

Lucy had a smal crowd around her now and suddenly felt completely humiliated. Tom ruffled her hair ferociously. “You’re back, Lucy. You’re back. Come on. Keep talking.”

But she wasn’t sure what to say next. It should have been an apology, but she wasn’t sorry, not one damn bit, not for defending Prone. She couldn’t see Halsey behind a cluster of Spartan-IIs, but she knew that she must have hit her a hel of a lot harder than she thought. Her hand was throbbing.

“She’l be okay,” Kel y said, straightening up. It was hard to tel if she was looking at Lucy but her voice was flat calm. “Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

Mendez let Lucy go but stil kept a tight grip on her shoulder. He’d never been a kindly-looking man but the granite expression softened just for a moment. “I ought to put you on a charge, Petty Officer. But I’m just too damn glad to hear you talking again.” He looked over her head in Halsey’s direction. “You’re lucky she’s a smal one, Doctor. Are you okay?”

Halsey was on her feet now, supported by Kel y and Linda. Fred took his helmet off and looked at Lucy as if he was working out who the hel she was.

“I’l live,” Halsey said. She dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand, trying to mop up a thin trickle of bright red blood. “You and I had better have a talk, Chief.”

Halsey went outside with her Spartan escort like she was some kind of general. Lucy bristled. It must have shown because Mendez gave her his don’t-even-think-about-it look.

“Now I’m going to get my ass kicked,” he said. “Tom, look after her, wil you? I’d better make sure Halsey gives the Engineers some space or we’l be here until hel cal s time.”

The adrenaline had ebbed away and Lucy was now at the embarrassed and shaky stage. She’d never lost control like that before. The doctors had warned her that anger was part of traumatic stress, but she was a Spartan, for goodness’ sake. She should have had enough discipline to resist throwing a punch.

There was just something about Halsey haranguing the Engineers that snapped something inside her, and for a few seconds she didn’t care whether she lived or died as long as she lashed out and stopped it.

Tom and Olivia kept ruffling her hair. “That’l make her think twice about treating us as cheap knockoffs,” Olivia said, putting her arm around Lucy’s shoulders. “How’re you doing, Luce? Take it a step at a time, though. I bet that this time next week we won’t be able to shut you up.”

The Engineers were huddled in a corner, probably wondering what the hel they’d let into their sphere. They’d seen Lucy shoot one of their buddies, and now she was swinging punches at civilians. Prone floated away from the group and headed her way, clutching a page-sized piece of the same milky white glass used on the wal s. He fluttered his cilia over it and held it in front of her.

YOU ARE PARTLY REPAIRED. WHO WILL FINISH REPAIRING YOU NOW?

Lucy put her hand out to the screen, looking for the makeshift keyboard. Olivia caught her wrist.

“No, speak to the guy, Lucy.”

She’d managed one word, but that didn’t mean it had opened the floodgates. A connection in her brain was stil fragile and rusted, the one that most people took for granted from the time they were smal children—thinking what they were going to say before their vocal cords took over a fraction of a second later. It was an easy habit to lose. Just as she’d found herself struggling to frame written words, she was now back to square one trying to do the same with speech. She took her hand off the screen and touched Prone’s tentacle.

“Prone,” she said hoarsely.

I CANNOT RESTORE YOU. WHO WILL DO IT?

Lucy gestured to the squad around her. “Them.”

“Good going, Luce,” Mark said, almost shaking her by the shoulders. “Keep it up.”

Prone peered into her face for a few moments and then wrote on his pad again. YOU WANT TO GO HOME.

Lucy knew that if she asked in the right way, he’d send a message for her. He trusted her despite what she’d done, and he obviously didn’t trust Halsey.

But was it the right thing to do? Engineers weren’t stupid, and if Prone was worried about what was lurking outside the sphere, then he had good reason. On the other hand, maybe he’d just show them what he could see. It was only a smal step. It didn’t mean breaking radio silence and making themselves into potential targets.

But how do you breach a Dyson sphere in another dimension anyway? Can anyone get at us?

Lucy nodded at Prone. She didn’t have a home to go back to, and even her base on Onyx was gone, but that was too complicated for her to explain to him right now. The important thing was that she focused again and continued with the mission, or everyone she’d lost would have died for nothing.

It was a massive effort. She looked into Prone’s face and squeezed the unfamiliar words out of weak vocal cords.