Prologue
THE RUBBLE, COVENANT OCCUPIED SYSTEM, 23 LIBRAE
Ignatio Delgado ducked behind a bulkhead next to a set of cargo containers, the red paint peeling off their ribbed metal surfaces, just as a burst of plasma hit.
The dull metal he hid behind glowed -- hot tiny molten gobs dripping then spitting as they hit the cold deck near his feet.
"Melko?" he called out over the acrid sizzling.
The answer came after a worrying pause: "Still here."
His copilot made it behind the container. But that didn't change the problem coming right down their throats.
The hold stretched up all around them -- the core of a mile-long asteroid, slowly spun up to provide gravity, and recently hollowed out. Delgado and Melko stood on the inside wall of the rocky cylinder. The cargo area's metal walls sunk into the rock and it was crammed with spare supplies from other asteroids.
Delgado pulled out his pistol and pressed the heavily engraved and personalized grip up to his cheek. His uncle had replaced the weapon's stock with some very rare oak back on Madrigal, and created a piece of art out of this standard-issue M6.
That was before the Covenant forces had glassed Madrigal. Before humans had fled to the safety of the asteroids trailing the gas giant Hesiod that the Insurrectionists who had been hiding there called "the Rubble."
Delgado kissed the scrollwork.
Firing around the corner of the bulkhead, he leapt for the safety of the next stack of cargo containers.
He caught a brief glimpse of his attackers -- awkwardly tall, birdlike aliens with plasma pistols gripped strong in their talonlike hands. Their beady eyes stared right at him.
The spiny quilled mohawks on their skulls twitched. The sound of plasma shots hit the other side of the container and reverberated through the hold.
"Jackals," Delgado said with a wince. That was what most humans called these aliens, though they called themselves the Kig-Yar.
They were just one of the alien races of the so-called Covenant. The ones who'd discovered humans hiding out near Hesiod in the Rubble after the destruction of Madrigal and, for some reason, chose not to wipe them out.
They were as greedy for spoils as their human nickname suggested. Ruthless piracy raids from rogue Kig-Yar weren't uncommon in the Rubble.
Melko Hollister leaned against the old container, his gray reservist's uniform specked with blood. "How many?"
"Three." Delgado looked at his old friend, worried. They'd flown their way around the Rubble's nooks and crannies together and helped each other stagger back from late night binges for years. They were close enough people often mistook them for brothers. "What happened to you? Looks like something ran you over."
"Think I'm in bad shape?" Melko coughed. "Should see the other guy."
Delgado kept his back to the container, gun aimed at the edge. "You killed one of them?"
"We turned the corner at the same time." Melko stepped back, chancing a glance around the other side of the container. He held his handgun in his right hand while his left clenched his stomach. "I fired first. I fired second. I fired the third time, too."
"Where'd the blood come from?"
"One of the other Jackals fired fourth."
Delgado shook his head. This had gotten out of control. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the instigator of all their troubles: a tiny chip, lying in the heart of a toughened case just smaller than his thumb.
The information inside never used to be all that special, back when the planet Madrigal was a thriving Outer Colony world. Back before the Covenant destroyed it, and the survivors fled to the drifting rocks of the Rubble. Back before the United Nations Space Command abandoned them all. And back before Delgado ended up here.
The location of Earth had been commonplace, buried in the heart of every ship making the long jumps back to the Inner Colonies and on to the home world.
"Here." Delgado handed the chip to Melko.
Now, as far as anyone here knew, this chip contained the only known navigation maps that could get someone back. All the others had been destroyed, rooted out by viruses, or the ships they were on mysteriously disabled and all info wiped clean. All this had happened in the last week or so.
It had radically changed things in the Rubble.
Melko slipped the black oval into a thigh pocket. "Jackals are getting pushy, trying to sneak in here for it."
They were. And Delgado didn't like it. Although the Kig-Yar here in the Rubble had been relatively peaceful, and even worked to help build the
asteroid Habitats, deep down Delgado could never trust anything Covenant. Not after seeing the glowing remains of Madrigal from orbit as a child.
This just confirmed a deeper suspicion. The Covenant were never up to any good, and Delgado's people were probably at risk.
So, for Delgado, it was important the navigation data be kept from them at any cost.
Delgado gauged the distance to the airlock from their cluster of containers. "Make the run, Melko, I'll hold them off. When you get on board Distancia, blow the locks and make a hard run for it, in case there's a Jackal ship waiting. Start calling for help the moment you punch out." He held up the scrimshawed gun. "Me and
Sen ora Sies here will hold them back."
"You can't..." Melko started.
"If I try running to the ship after you it'll slow everything down -- they'll be able to come running in too. At the very least, this splits them, and confuses them. They'll be expecting us both to make a run for it."
He hoped.
Melko grabbed Delgado's arm. "Okay. But the moment you hear me cut free and the emergency overrides shut the doors, you bug out of here and keep clear of the Jackals."
The asteroids of the Rubble were all connected to each other by flexible docking tubes. Once
Distancia was away, Delgado planned to use those to get out of this storage facility and into the larger asteroid complex.
There were bloody smudge marks on Delgado's forearm. "No problem there."
The sound of something crawling on top of one of the containers made Delgado look up.
"I guess it's time," Melko said. He handed over his plain handgun. "You'll need the extra firepower."
"Thanks. Hey, mijo,"
Delgado said. "See you on the other side. In three," and held out three fingers. Three ... two ...
On one Melko leapt forward and threaded his way through the maze of containers that stood between him and the airlock. Delgado quickly followed.