He had to ask. “Naomi, are you okay?”

BB twirled out of the mesh of images and placed his avatar on the seat next to Phil ips, kil ing a delicate moment stone dead. “New toys notwithstanding, boys and girls, I’ve had an absolute pig of a job concealing al that voice traffic between ‘Telcam and Osman from Infinity. I’l have to have a word with our Huragok col eagues about the comms refinements they keep instal ing.”

“Okay, so we’re heading back under friendly fire to save some bastard hinge-head,” Mal said. “Let’s go. Have you got coordinates for him, and does the ungrateful tosser know we’re coming?”

“Yes, I do,” said a gravel y Sangheili voice on the helmet comm circuit. “And I have learned a new word, Staff Sergeant Geffen. But I do not require you to save me. ”

BB kil ed the link. “Shit,” Mal said. “That’s my diplomatic career over.”

“Huragok, ” BB said peevishly. “This tinkering has got to stop.”

“So we’re extracting an Elite who doesn’t want to leave.” Vaz wondered why they couldn’t just wait and see who survived the battle and then contact him to do a new deal. “That’s going to be fun.”

Naomi snapped her fingers and kil ed the 3-D display.

“That’s where I come in,” she said. “Jul ‘Mdama didn’t want to leave either.”

VADAM, SANGHELIOS Tart-Cart carved through the atmosphere without so much as a shiver and dropped to skim over the sea, so low that she churned up a skirt of spray.

And there was Vadam. The new chart gizmo laid it al out neatly in colored light, complete with the new section of coastline that hadn’t been there when the day started. On the 3-D, the edge of the MAC crater looked like a smal harbor. Mal shut his eyes and cringed involuntarily every time he thought about ‘Telcam overhearing him. It didn’t make sense. He’d kil ed plenty of hinge-heads and wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep about kil ing more when he had to, but some stupid, embarrassing comment had upended him.

“Here’s the captain for you,” BB said. “Remember, every mike’s a live mike.”

“Ha bloody ha.” Mal felt his face burn. He steeled himself to apologize. “Ma’am? Sorry about oversharing.”

“Don’t worry, Staff,” Osman said. “I had a rougher conversation with him than that.”

“So is he going to refuse extraction, or just sulk?”

“You better prep for resistance. You’re going to run into more problems, too. The Arbiter’s buddies have started to come out of the woodwork.”

“Terrific. Nothing like hedging your bets.”

“‘Telcam’s down to four frigates. I’m going to do what I can to get those past the Arbiter and laid up on New Llanel i. You might run into pissed-off rebels, but I can’t guarantee the Arbiter’s al ies won’t take pot shots at you either.”

Vaz grumbled to himself in the background. “Wel , that makes things simpler. Just like the good old days.”

“Yeah, we’l assume they’re al hostile, ma’am. So where exactly is he? Other than these coordinates?”

“Holed up in an armored vehicle trading shots with the Arbiter’s forces.”

“And I’ve isolated his comms,” BB said. “Not easy, because the Huragok keep adjusting the network. I’m blocking it via Aine now. She’s not happy, but she can’t tel what I’ve done. Only that she can’t access some of her memory and thinks it’s a glitch in the ship.”

“So, in AI terms, you hit her over the head and stole her purse, right?” Mal asked.

“It’s for her own good.”

“Okay, if you can’t extract ‘Telcam, terminate him,” Osman said. “In case the Arbiter captures him and he’s not as tough as he talks. And that’s for our own good.”

“Understood, ma’am. See you on New Llanel i. Kilo-Five out.”

It was so easy to say yes. Mal didn’t need to check out Vaz’s reaction, but he did glance at Phil ips.

“Can you cope with that helmet?” Mal asked.

Phil ips stil looked a bit swamped by the armor. It was Vaz’s old suit, the one they’d given Adj to play with to keep him occupied. “Not real y.

There’s too much info in the HUD and I can’t get the hang of the eye control.”

“BB, can you strip down the data and manage it for him?”

“Of course.” BB’s avatar was stil sitting on the seat, parcel-style. He made it glitter for a moment. “Piece of cake.”

“Is what we’re doing legal, Mal?” Phil ips asked.

“Do you mean legal or moral?”

“I meant legal, but maybe moral, too. I mean, isn’t this how Halsey started on her slippery slope?”

“I believe in playing by the same rules as the bloke I’m fighting. You can’t do that with little kids.”

“What about kids who can shoot you?”

“You shoot back,” Vaz muttered. “But that’s not the same as putting the gun in their hands and making them use it.”

It occurred to Mal that al of them had an opinion on the Spartan program except the one person it had most affected. Naomi never joined in the debates about its ethics, and she wasn’t joining in now. Osman was fairly vocal; that was her right. Mal stil didn’t know what to do for the best.

“Did you see the Spartan-Fours?” Devereaux was on diplomacy duty, steering them onto a safer course. “I was checking them out. One of them was a real y friendly guy. And hot.”

“Christ, have you been out trapping already?” Mal seized the chance to change the topic. “You old tart. You’ve dipped out there, Prof.”

“Don’t listen to him, Evan. I’ve always got a gap in my busy diary for you.”

“I’l get back to you when I’ve built some biceps.”

“Vaz can lend you one of his,” Mal said. “He only uses the right one these days.”

Naomi interrupted. She obviously knew damn wel what al this was for. “You can cut the chaff and talk about it,” she said wearily. “I won’t go ape shit. I’l deal with it.”

But nobody got the chance to. BB cut in. “Talking of chaff,” he said, “we’re going to need some any moment now. Coming up on the Vadam coast in thirty seconds.”

The 3-D chart turned into an image pretty wel as good as the cockpit view. Mal was impressed. Whatever Vadam had been like an hour ago, the area south of the keep looked like a glassed planet minus the vitrification. The haze that hung in the air was probably as much dust as smoke, given how much debris the MAC must have kicked up into the atmosphere when it struck. Flashes of plasma fire flared in the distance. There was stil fighting going on, but there wasn’t much ground left to fight on.

“Where’d they al go, BB?” Mal asked.

“Like you said, liver paté. Wel , perhaps half. Some have taken their transport and they’re pul ing back. Some haven’t.”

An artil ery piece fired into the keep. A few seconds later it was hit by a vertical shot from the sky that shattered it into flaming pieces. Infinity was obviously busy testing just how smal a target she could take out from orbit. Everyone murmured appreciatively.

“I do believe we’re destroying hardware that we paid for,” BB said. “We could just have had a war with ourselves and saved the fuel.”

Mal adjusted his belt, psyching himself up for the insertion. I didn’t survive the war just to get killed saving hinge-heads. “Slow down, Dev. Are we camouflaged?”

“Yes, but remember that doesn’t mean magical y invisible.”

“Just find the crate that ‘Telcam’s pinned down in.”

“Here,” BB said helpful y. “It’s this Spirit.”

A point on the image in front of Mal lit up red. Tart-Cart was circling over an area a kilometer or two south of Vadam keep, half of which seemed to be built right into the mountain itself. No wonder the Arbiter had been hard to shift. But it was stil a mess down there: the only way Mal could work out which damage was ‘Telcam’s handiwork and which was Infinity’s was the depth of the craters. The Phantoms, Ghosts, and Wraiths that lay mangled and burning could have been destroyed by Infinity rather than local forces.

“Got it,” Devereaux said. “Just as wel he wasn’t planning on leaving.”

Now Mal could see the Spirit, perched at an angle with part of its undercarriage in a crater. One of its twin troop bays was completely missing, and the plasma cannon was buried deep in the dirt, maybe from a crash landing. Devereaux held the dropship at a hover at about 150 meters while Mal watched for activity. The back and forth of plasma fire looked like a dozen Elites outside trying to dislodge one inside.

“He’s not going to be grateful,” Mal said. “But drop those buggers anyway. Clear them out, Dev.”

“On it.”

Devereaux brought Tart-Cart down in a slow loop and then opened up with the chin gun. That was the point when camo and stealth went down the pan. She got a direct hit on three hinge-heads on the ground but the others scattered in two groups, one taking cover behind the Spirit and the other heading back to the keep.

“Okay, in we go,” Mal said. “Dev, give us some cover and then go finish off the ones heading for the keep. Have they cal ed it in, BB?”

“No. No radio at al at the moment.”

“Okay, Dev, we need to shut them up before they go tel ing tales to the Arbiter.”

“Understood.”

Mal couldn’t remember the last time he’d had the luxury of planning for an assault. He’d grown used to the idea that he’d be thrown into situations where he didn’t know the layout of the objective or the enemy’s strength, and al he could do was think on his feet. One day that wasn’t going to be enough. He’d been lucky so far but he was waiting for that luck to run out.

Tart-Cart rocked on her supports and the hatch flew open. “Go,” Dev said. “Not you, Phil ips.”

Vaz pushed him back in his seat as the ODSTs and Naomi jumped out onto the churned soil beneath. The dropship lifted and screamed away, gun chattering in bursts, but Mal couldn’t look around to check if Devereaux was hitting the targets. He ran for the cover of a trench gouged by an explosion. From ground level, the terrain was so ripped up that it almost felt hil y—steep inclines, poor lines of sight, and deep holes to fal into. He dropped down behind the cover of a ridge formed from tree roots, minus trees. Vaz and Naomi flopped down next to him.

Plasma fire spat over their heads. Mal never wanted to ask Naomi to break cover first, but it made most sense because she had better armor and she could outrun anything. He stil thought he should be the one to do it. He gestured at Vaz to go wide to the left, then took out a grenade.

Neither of them needed tel ing. Mal would throw it, and then they’d go in to finish off anything that was stil moving.

Mal lobbed the grenade over the top of the Spirit. The explosion showered dirt everywhere, cuing Vaz and Naomi to break and run for it. Mal scrambled over the tree roots and found Naomi was already meters ahead of Vaz in seconds, just careering through the debris and somehow managing not to get bogged down by the weight of her Mjolnir. She was like an armored vehicle in her own right. Most of the plasma bolts were streaming at her now but she just kept going, firing one-handed before jumping over a section of the Spirit’s broken port bay to land on something behind it and fire a few rounds into it. Mal went right and emptied his clip into a hinge-head who popped up above the Spirit’s cockpit, sending him tumbling down the side of the ship. By the time Mal reached the airframe, Naomi was standing on the top of the cockpit, firing on the ground behind.

Suddenly there was no plasma fire coming back at them. Naomi turned around and looked down at Mal.

“Five down,” she said. “Just ‘Telcam left.”

Mal got on the radio. “Dev, how you doing?” He couldn’t hear any cannon now, but he could just about see the shimmering patch of sky that gave away Tart-Cart’s position. “Did you get them?”

“Four,” she said. “I’m right behind you—contact, wait one.” The dropship’s cannon rattled for a few seconds. “Sorry, had to deal with a gatecrasher. I’m setting down behind the Spirit.”

Naomi jumped down to the curve of the hul and pointed to the hatch. Vaz signaled that he was ready. Mal decided to bite the bul et and talk to ‘Telcam, man to hinge-head.

“‘Telcam,” Mal said. “Can you hear me? Sorry about the bastard bit.”

‘Telcam took a couple of seconds to answer. Naomi tested the hatch.

“I wil not run from a battle, Sergeant,” ‘Telcam said in immaculate English. “Go home and lick your wounds.”

“Not now we’ve gone to al this trouble.” Mal gestured to Naomi. “You know what they say. He who fights and runs away can come back later and do some really serious damage.”

Naomi took a determined hold on the hatch control cover and gave Mal a thumbs-up. Tart-Cart landed close by, scattering leaves. Vaz pointed to a big hole in the Spirit’s hul . Wel , that was simple enough: Naomi would go in via the hatch and Vaz would get the bugger if he came out of the hole. They couldn’t hang around and argue the toss with him.

“Get him out, Naomi,” Mal said.

Perhaps he wasn’t dumping the tough jobs on her. She’d done it before. For a Spartan, she was having a pretty sedate life with Kilo-Five and she needed to stay busy. She ripped open the controls with a couple of determined tugs, dropped into the hatch, and disappeared. Vaz crouched with his rifle aimed and Mal joined him to wait for ‘Telcam to emerge from the hole. Then al Mal heard was a stream of Sangheili that BB didn’t translate, fol owed by the crack of a plasma weapon.