Divine wind, p.32
Divine Wind, page 32
Veta knew the capsule with the Recon stencil was empty—a mere symbol acknowledging the loss of Commander Barre’s relief pilot, John Cassidy. She also knew that the capsule with the black ONI symbol contained Mark’s body. And as soon as she saw it, she grew light-headed and paused to catch her balance.
Olivia’s hand was instantly under her elbow. “Hey, Mom, if you’re not up to this—”
“I’m fine,” Veta said. “I have to be here.”
“Are you sure?” Olivia asked. “We can record—”
“I said I’m fine.” Veta covered Olivia’s hand. “Let’s go.”
They had barely started forward before a lanky man with blue eyes and close-trimmed white hair approached. He was wearing a UNSC captain’s uniform with the name J. CUTTER on a nameplate of polished brass.
“Lieutenant Lopis,” he said. “I’m glad you’re well enough to attend.”
Rather than waiting for Veta to come to attention, he extended a hand for her to shake. It was an informal gesture that indicated he was well-acquainted with ONI’s casual attitude toward the usual military rituals, but one that did little to put her at ease. From what she had gathered from the infirmary staff, Captain Cutter was a veteran officer who had seen a fair amount of action in the Isbanola sector during the Insurrection. He might even have been involved in the blockade of Gao, a yearlong ordeal that had formed so many of her childhood attitudes toward the UNSC.
But they were on the same side now, Veta reminded herself, and she had Cutter to thank for saving Ash and Olivia. She took his hand and shook it warmly.
“Captain Cutter,” she said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you sending Red Team to extract us. That was a risk you didn’t have to take.”
“After what your team did, it certainly was,” Cutter said. Being careful not to take Ash’s place at her side, he turned and led the group forward. “And I’m very sorry about Spartan-G313. It’s never easy to lose a good man.”
A good man? Mark was certainly that. But it seemed almost dismissive to refer to him that way, as a mere soldier… a tool of war. Mark had been so much more to Veta, her family—as Ash and Olivia still were.
She couldn’t bear to think of him as just another lost soldier. Ever.
When she didn’t reply, Cutter stopped and turned to face her directly. “I truly am sorry.” He actually sounded contrite. “You never forget them. But with time, the memories do grow a little easier to live with. Until then—I want you to find me if you need to talk.”
Veta was surprised… and touched. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll do that.”
“Good. We’ve lost a lot of fine soldiers since the Spirit of Fire left UNSC space. Some of them shined brighter than the rest of us, and it hurts worse when they’re the ones who are gone.” Cutter’s gaze grew distant for a moment, then he seemed to come back and asked, “Was Spartan-G313—sorry, Mark—the first man you’ve lost?”
“The first member of my Ferret team,” Veta said. “I lost my entire investigations unit the first time we ran into Castor.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Cutter’s expression became unreadable. “On Gao.”
He checked his chronometer, then turned and started forward again, leaving an awkward silence between them. Clearly, Cutter had been briefed on Veta’s ties to an insurrectionist planet, and he was no doubt reflecting on the disparities in their past—and wondering how they might impact discipline aboard the Spirit of Fire.
But that wasn’t a conversation for today.
Finally, Cutter said, “You’ve been hunting Castor a long time, haven’t you?”
“Both Castor and Intrepid Eye,” Veta said. “You have been briefed on Intrepid Eye, right?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve been briefed on everything involving your mission—at least everything you and your team have reported to our intelligence unit.”
“That is everything,” Veta assured him. “We’re not playing any ONI games. Not out here.”
“Glad to hear it,” Cutter said. When they drew even with the first Pelicans, Red Team and Barre’s Pelican crew came to full attention. He stopped and spoke without turning toward Veta. “We don’t know what happened to Castor and the Sangheili, Inslaan ‘Gadogai. But we know you destroyed Intrepid Eye.”
“You’re sure?” It was Olivia who asked this, almost blurting the question. “Uh, sir?”
Cutter cracked a half smile. “We’re sure, Spartan. You got her. There were no transmissions out of the structure before, during, or after the MAC bombardment. And whatever she was hiding in is slag now. We did a thorough search before leaving the area.”
He looked toward Veta. “You and your team did a remarkable job, Lieutenant. Our analysts are just beginning to appreciate how remarkable. After you’re recovered, I hope we can count on you to help defeat the Banished here on the Ark.”
Veta could not help glancing toward both of her remaining Gammas. What she really wanted was to take them back to the Mill and persuade Admiral Serin Osman to give them all permanent training assignments. But Osman had disappeared along with the rest of ONI at the start of the Cortana event, and in all likelihood the Mill probably didn’t exist anymore.
And even if it did, there was no way to get there. Veta had made plenty of inquiries from the infirmary about returning her team to the Milky Way. It seemed clear that—as she had suspected from the start of the mission—her Ferret team’s trip to the Ark was almost certainly one-way. Unless the Spirit of Fire managed to capture the slipspace crystals the Banished had used to open their portal, there was simply no way back. Of course, there was a remote possibility that the note she had slipped to Fred would convince what remained of the UNSC that a rescue mission was in the works… but not a realistic one, given what was going on in the galaxy right now. She was just glad there had been a chance to add that personal message to him, to help him sort out her disappearance, and why she hadn’t been able to warn him beforehand.
But most importantly, the last thing Ash and Olivia would want after Mark’s death was to withdraw from action. They were already standing a little taller after Cutter’s invitation, and Veta knew they would be miserable if she turned it down. Fighting was what they had been created to do—and there was no way she was letting them do it without her. As long as she remained team leader, she could steer the Ferrets toward the assignments they were best suited to—and try to keep them away from any more suicide missions.
That’s what mothers did—protect their brood.
When Veta’s response was not quick to come, Cutter said, “I apologize. Maybe now isn’t the time—”
“No, it’s fine, sir.” Veta gave Ash and Olivia quick eye-checks to confirm what she suspected. When she received a pair of quick nods, she continued, “We’d be happy to help the Spirit of Fire take down the Banished. “Nothing would make us prouder.”
Cutter nodded. “I thought so.” He checked his chronometer again, then said, “We’d better start. We need to launch soon, or the capsules will fall back to the Ark.”
Veta tightened her grasp on the arms of Ash and Olivia. “I’m ready.”
Cutter turned to starboard, then said, “Commander Barre, you may begin.”
“Yes, sir.” Barre turned toward the control station at the back of the hangar, where a young ensign stood inside the hangar control booth. “Raise the pressure barrier, Ensign.”
“Aye, ma’am,” came the reply.
A partition of transparent aluminum rose out of the deck, isolating the interment capsules from the rest of the hangar. Barre raised her hand to her brow, beginning the salute. She waited a second for everyone else to follow her lead, then spoke the committal.
“From stardust we come, and to stardust we return. John Cassidy was a gifted pilot, a loyal comrade, and a true friend. We commit his memory to the stars, to accompany us wherever we fly.”
She completed the salute, then turned to Veta.
“Lieutenant Lopis,” she said.
Veta raised her hand again, this time for Mark, and began the committal she had prepared.
“Spartan Mark-G313 died of injuries sustained while protecting his team.” She spoke slowly, struggling to maintain her composure. “I doubt he would have wanted to go any other way. He was a Spartan-III, trained and developed to take risks no others would dare. To do what no one else could. But he was more than that… so much more. He was… he was a son to me, and a brother to Olivia and Ash… and we’re going to miss him as long as we live.”
Ash and Olivia remained at strict attention, their salutes cocked and their gazes locked on Mark’s interment capsule. Olivia’s eyes were wet, and Ash’s lips were white from being pressed together so hard. Veta didn’t know what the coming weeks and months were going to bring for her Ferrets, but she did know it would be a difficult time for them all… and that they would get through it the same way they always did.
Together.
Veta completed the salute and did not even try to hide the tears running down her cheeks. Once the rest of the detail had followed suit, Barre turned toward the hangar control booth again.
“Ensign, open the outer hatch.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
The hatch retracted into the overhead, revealing the majesty of Installation 00 extending outward from beneath the hangar doorway. Even from fifty thousand kilometers above, its size was breathtaking, so immense that the artificial sun hanging above its core seemed but a child’s toy. The tips of six spires—all that were visible from inside the ship—seemed to stretch forever, finally vanishing from sight against the foggy radiance of the distant Milky Way.
The decompression wave lifted the interment capsules off their stands and carried them on a silent wind out into the starry void. They hovered above the Ark for a moment, as though pausing to contemplate its vast wonder one last time. Then a pair of rockets fired beneath each capsule, launching Mark’s and John Cassidy’s memories on a journey of ten million years.
A journey home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this book, especially: my first reader, Andria Hayday; my editor, Ed Schlesinger; our copy editor, Valerie Shea; our proofreaders, Regina Castillo and Andy Goldwasser; Jeremy Patenaude, Tiffany O’Brien, Jeff Easterling, Frank O’Connor, and all the great people at 343 Industries; and cover artist Benjamin Carre. It’s been a pleasure working with you—as always!
A SPECIAL NOTE FROM 343 INDUSTRIES
This book is set in a distant future, where human (and alien!) history has already been written. For Halo, that history includes a lot of stuff up to and including the real twentieth and twenty-first centuries—so like any piece of sci-fi literature, it may not dwell on the past, but it does pause it, frozen in amber as one of the forces that created our imagined future.
Halo: Divine Wind was written, edited, and published during the largest pandemic in living memory. We’ve lived through a seismic inversion of our normal daily routines—some impacted more gravely than others. The pandemic cost millions of lives, untold trillions of dollars—and, with very few exceptions, affected every person on Earth, in one way or another.
It wasn’t all darkness. We saw people, cities, states, and nations come together to help each other, even as we squabbled, experimented, and occasionally dropped balls at the local level. As we write this—and send the book to press—it’s still happening. People are sick and dying, folks are working from bedrooms and basements, losing their jobs, and either leaving their homes or being forced to stay there. Everyone is dealing with it the best way they can.
This novel takes place in a future beset with constant trouble and danger (and even a deadly galactic plague), but it’s also a universe of hope and wonder and heroism. It’s not an antidote to the grim reality we’re facing; it’s a reflection of what we see in the real world every day: doctors, patients, first responders, volunteers, and scientists risking their lives and livelihoods to try to save us all from a moment in history. They’re seeking a brighter, better tomorrow, and we want to thank them for their sacrifice, brilliance, invention, and courage, and for making things as safe and orderly as such a strange and dangerous time can be.
We’ll hopefully be back to some semblance of normalcy one day soon, but it’s important to capture, contain, and remember history now in order to mark the moment, and to remind ourselves that we still have a lot of work to do to ensure that we never go through this again. Even as you read this, we may already be basking in the sunshine of brighter days. So thank you for working, struggling, and living through it all, and for recording your own bit of unforgettable history and storytelling.
More from this Series
HALO: Renegades
Book 25
HALO: Oblivion
Book 26
Halo: Shadow of Intent
Halo: Saint's Testimony
HALO: The Fall of Reach
Book 1
HALO: The Flood
Book 2
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Troy Denning is the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels, including Halo: Shadows of Reach, Halo: Oblivion, Halo: Silent Storm, Halo: Retribution, Halo: Last Light, a dozen Star Wars novels, the Dark Sun: Prism Pentad series, and many bestselling Forgotten Realms novels. A former game designer and editor, he lives in western Wisconsin.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Troy-Denning
SimonandSchuster.com
@GalleryBooks
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Halo: Oblivion
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Matt Forbeck
Halo: New Blood
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Tobias S. Buckell
Halo: The Cole Protocol
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THE FORERUNNER SAGA
Greg Bear
Halo: Cryptum
Halo: Primordium
Halo: Silentium
THE KILO-FIVE TRILOGY
Karen Traviss
Halo: Glasslands
Halo: The Thursday War
Halo: Mortal Dictata
THE ORIGINAL SERIES
Halo: The Fall of Reach
Eric Nylund
Halo: The Flood
William C. Dietz
Halo: First Strike
Eric Nylund
Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
Eric Nylund
STANDALONE STORIES
Halo: Contact Harvest
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Halo: Broken Circle
John Shirley
Halo: Hunters in the Dark
Peter David
Halo: Saint’s Testimony
Frank O’Connor
Halo: Shadow of Intent
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Halo: Legacy of Onyx
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SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGIES
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Halo: Evolutions: Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
Halo: Fractures: More Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
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Cover design by Alan Dingman
Cover art by Benjamin Carre
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-9821-7490-3
ISBN 978-1-9821-7491-0 (ebook)
