Halo: Last Light E-Book

Troy Denning

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 539

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

It is 2553, and the three-decade long Covenant War that defined a generation has suddenly drawn to a close. Yet, in the remotest parts of human space, tensions remain that threaten to overflow into another full-scale conflict. When the planet Gao is revealed to harbor ancient Forerunner technology that could solidify the UNSC's military supremacy for centuries to come, Insurrection loyalists will do anything to ensure that never happens…

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Troy Denning

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

DON’T MISS THESE OTHER THRILLING STORIES IN THE WORLDS OF

Saint’s TestimonyFrank O’Connor

Hunters in the DarkPeter David

New BloodMatt Forbeck

Broken CircleJohn Shirley

THE KILO-FIVE TRILOGYKaren Traviss

GlasslandsThe Thursday WarMortal Dictata

THE FORERUNNER SAGAGreg Bear

CryptumPrimordiumSilentium

Evolutions: Essential Tales of the Halo Universe(anthology)

The Cole ProtocolTobias S. Buckell

Contact HarvestJoseph Staten

Ghosts of OnyxEric Nylund

First StrikeEric Nylund

The FloodWilliam C. Dietz

The Fall of ReachEric Nylund

Halo: Last LightPrint edition ISBN: 9781785650215E-book edition ISBN: 9781785650574

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: September 201510 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Microsoft, 343 Industries, the 343 Industries logo, Halo, and the Halo logo are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Interior design by Leydiana RodríguezCover design by Alan DingmanCover art by Kory Hubbell

For Elena HaydayBold, brave, and brainy—may yourown adventures never require a BR55

CHAPTER 1

0832 hours, July 2, 2553 (military calendar)Crime Scene Charlie, 104 meters belowground,Montero Cave System,Campos Wilderness District, Planet Gao, Cordoba System

Special Inspector Veta Lopis had been raised to hate and fear everything about the United Nations Space Command, from its sheer might and criminal war practices to the murderous thugs it called Spartans. So it was only natural to assume that the serial killer stalking the Montero Cave System might be one of the power-armored hulks riding through the darkness with her now. Certainly, the MO fit: the victims had all sustained injuries consistent with a large, mechanically enhanced attacker—injuries such as crushed bones and disjoined limbs, ruptured organs and collapsed skulls.

But good investigators did not let their personal bias influence their thinking. They gathered evidence and weighed facts, and they let the theory of the crime build itself.

So Veta would do what she always did. She would study the victims and establish a timeline for all eight murders, then check it against the known locations of everyone in her suspect pool. She would catalog the weaknesses and habits of the remaining subjects and use that knowledge to put pressure on the perpetrator. Most of all, she would be patient and persistent, and she would keep pushing until the killer revealed himself.

And if that killer turned out to be a towering Spartan in four hundred kilos of Mjolnir armor, Veta would do what she always did.

She would take him down.

The cavern floor began to descend more steeply, then the whine of the electric engines deepened as the rubber-tired Tunnel Weasel changed gears to keep from picking up speed. A moment later, the little tram entered a broad gallery illuminated by the platinum glow of work lamps. Like the rest of Montero Cave System, the gallery was hot, humid, and filled with mineral vapors, but its beautiful flowstone walls were bathed in a cold blue light that made them resemble frozen waterfalls.

As the Tunnel Weasel came to a stop, a trio of UNSC marines in black BDUs emerged from the shadows and approached. They exchanged salutes with a UNSC major seated next to Veta, then an older marine with bushy gray brows stepped forward to report.

“Area secure, Major.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” The slender officer at Veta’s side was Ira Halal, a black-haired, blue-eyed major sent by the UNSC Judge Advocate General’s Corps to help investigate the murders. So far, he struck Veta as dedicated, intelligent, and reluctant to cooperate. “Any unexpected visitors?”

“Sir, none that we detected.” The sergeant glanced around the perimeter of the gallery, then added, “But the conditions down here wreak havoc with our motion sensors, and twenty-two passages open into this gallery. We couldn’t watch them all every minute.”

Halal nodded. “Of course not,” he said. “It was a long shot, anyway. I don’t think this UNSUB is likely to return to the scene.”

The sergeant frowned. “UNSUB, sir?”

“Unknown Subject of Investigation,” Veta clarified. She stepped out of the passenger compartment. “And I want to check those passages, Major.”

Halal turned to her. “To what purpose?”

“To look for evidence, of course.” Veta paused, reminding herself to play nice, then added, “I like to be thorough.”

Halal did not quite roll his eyes. “Our resources are limited, Inspector Lopis—and so is our time. I suggest we focus on the crime scene and not waste our assets chasing phantoms.”

“I don’t chase phantoms, Major Halal.” Veta stepped close. “I catch killers. Quite a lot of them, actually.”

Halal held her gaze a moment, then smirked. “As you wish, Inspector. We’ll do this your way.”

He ordered the marines back to their posts, then turned toward the Tunnel Weasel, where Veta’s four-member field team was unloading equipment from the third car. On the side of the car, the image of a stylized tree fern sprouted from the letters MVC—the logo of the Montero Vitality Center, from which the UNSC had commandeered the tram.

Watching over Veta’s team were three Spartans in their famous Mjolnir armor. With their blocky helmets and titanium-alloy outer shells, the trio looked more like war robots than human beings—and from what Veta had read about their exploits in the public record, that might be close to the truth. There hadn’t been enough detail for her profiler to suggest how their personalities might have been impacted by such a steady diet of fierce combat, but Veta suspected it wouldn’t be good.

Halal fixed his gaze on the Spartan leader. “Lieutenant, have one of your Spartans secure the adjoining passages and report any evidence of observation—”

“Actually, my team will be inspecting the passages,” Veta interrupted. Whether Halal was trying to hide something or simply did not realize how often serial killers returned to the scene, she could not say. But either way, she was not about to trust any part of the investigation to him or the UNSC. “You’re welcome to send an observer, if you like.”

“Inspector Lopis, these caverns are under military control,” Halal said. “And Spartans are well-trained observers.”

“But they’re not homicide investigators,” Veta said. “And military control didn’t stop our killer from murdering at least eight people down here. Since those people happen to be Gao citizens and these caves happen to be located on Gao, their murders fall under the jurisdiction of the Gao Ministry of Protection—which makes this my investigation.”

Veta paused for emphasis, then continued, “As I said, Major, you’re welcome to send an observer.”

Halal sighed. “We’ll send a guard.” He did not even bother to look at Veta as he spoke. “The last thing I need is to lose someone from your team, too.”

“Too?” Veta asked. “Has the UNSC been losing people?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Halal said quickly. “It’s just procedure, in case the UNSUB is trying to keep an eye on the investigation.”

“You just told the sergeant that you didn’t think our UNSUB was likely to return to the scene.”

Halal shrugged. “I could be wrong.” He turned away, as though intent on watching Veta’s team unload their gear. “As I said, it’s just procedure.”

Halal was lying, of course, and it seemed to Veta that he was worried about something even more dangerous than their UNSUB. But she could not imagine what that might be. The Montero Cave System was the most-visited natural wonder on Gao, a vast labyrinth of interconnected caverns spread beneath a thousand square kilometers of jungle. It had an untold number of access points, including thirty-eight major entrances operated by villages and private spas, and until the killings began, thousands of tourists had entered the caverns each month without encountering anything more hostile than a flight of irritated saurios.

It would have been easy to blame the UNSC and look no further, but the truth was that strange things had been happening in the Montero region for a while. Two and a half months ago, a rare temblor had shaken the entire region, leveling two villages and damaging several spas. Shortly afterward, tourists began to emerge from the caverns miraculously cured of lifelong ailments and terminal illnesses. The newsmongers quickly substantiated the claims, and sick people began to flood into the caves hoping for their own miracles.

Then, a month after the quake, a UNSC task force entered the Cordoba Star System and “requested” permission to conduct research in the caverns. The common assumption was that ONI—the UNSC’s notorious Office of Naval Intelligence—wanted to investigate the miracle cures. Gao’s anti-centralization government denied the request. The task force insisted, and after a tense negotiation, President Aponte reluctantly granted permission to land a small research team.

The “small” team turned into an entire battalion, which promptly occupied the region’s most elegant spa and declared the entire cave system off-limits to everyone else. Predictably, the order inflamed Gao’s fiercely independent citizens, and local guides began to sneak people into the caverns via hundreds of unmapped entrances. For a couple of weeks, the two sides pretended to ignore each other.

Then tourists began to go missing or turn up dead. Suspicion quickly fell on the UNSC, and sales-hungry newsmongers began to press for a harsh response. President Aponte had no choice. He instructed the Ministry of Protection to investigate, then publicly ordered the UNSC to cooperate. To everyone’s surprise, the UNSC commander responded by proposing a joint inquiry.

That had been two days ago. Now, here Veta was, inspecting the first of a long chain of compromised crime scenes with a counterpart who seemed to take her for some ditz who could be intimidated by an air of assumed authority.

Veta stepped into Halal’s line of sight. “Don’t hold back on me, Major,” she said. “It’s a mistake. A serious one.”

Halal finally turned back to her. “Mistake, Inspector?” he asked. “As I recall, I’ve granted every request you’ve made.”

“They’re not requests,” Veta said. “And if you expect me to believe this is some kind of research battalion, you’re a fool. The UNSC is fighting something down here. And you’re so afraid of it that you brought a squad of Spartans to protect us.”

The Spartan leader stepped over to join them. “Ma’am, the 717th Xeno-Materials Exploitation Battalion is a research battalion.” His voice was crisp and deep, even over his helmet speaker. “But even scientific units can find themselves in combat. There are always enemies.”

Veta turned and craned her neck to look up at the Spartan. Standing well over two meters tall in his Mjolnir armor, he was distinguishable from his two female subordinates by the color of his pale blue armor and slightly bulkier shape. It would be difficult to read his reactions beneath all that equipment, but if he was trying to cover for the UNSC—or even just Halal—Veta wanted to know why.

“Let me see if I have this straight,” she said. “The 717th is just an innocent research battalion that’s under attack … by what? Cave monsters?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that, Spartan … which one are you again?”

“Fred-104, ma’am. And I don’t particularly care what you believe.” He pointed toward her investigative team. “But it’s my job to protect your people, and I don’t want anyone killed on my watch. If you’ll point out who will be inspecting the passages, I’ll send an escort along to provide security.”

Veta stared up at him for a moment, trying to see through the glare on his faceplate so she could get a read on his expression, but it was no use. The reflective coating seemed designed to prevent anyone from seeing the human face inside a Spartan’s helmet.

After a moment, Veta waved her second-in-command over. “Senola, take a look into the passages around here. See if anyone has been keeping an eye on the crime scene.”

Senola glanced around the cavern perimeter. “Sure, boss.” A green-eyed matron with long blond hair tucked into the hood of her white coveralls, Senola Lurone was a Ministry of Protection veteran fifteen years Veta’s senior. “It might take a while.”

Veta shrugged. “It has to be done.” She let her gaze slide toward Fred. “And you’ll have an escort. Fred-104 here seems to think we could be attacked any moment.”

Senola held Veta’s eyes just long enough to confirm she had taken the hint, then asked, “Really?” She turned to the Spartan. “Who are you worried about, Fred? Maybe you think the Insurrection is starting up again?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Halal interjected. “Gao may have sided with the insurrectionists in the past, but the civil war is over—and no one is going to send a Spartan fireteam to stand garrison against a bunch of disobedient tourists.”

Veta had to give Halal credit. He had recognized Senola’s play and cut her off before she had a chance to put Fred off balance, and now Veta was left wondering whether the major had been trying to protect Fred or some other secret. Either way, it suggested Halal was here as much to manage the situation as he was to catch a killer, and that told her something about the UNSC’s worst fears.

It told her a lot.

Veta looked back to Senola. “Tell Cirilo to use spiders on this one, then go have a look at those passages. I’ll have the major show me around the crime scene.”

Senola confirmed the order with a nod, then Fred took her over to introduce her to the Spartan who would be escorting her.

“Your techs use spiders?” Halal asked, watching the pair depart.

“Trace evidence bots,” Veta explained. “They look like little spiders and crawl all over everything. By the time they’re finished, we’ll have a three-dimensional map of every fiber, skin cell, print, track, and speck of DNA in this place.”

“I see,” Halal said. “Very efficient.”

“Not really.”

Veta wasn’t about to detail the technology’s weakness for anyone from the UNSC, but the spiders were expensive and slow. Each single-use pod cost more than her salary for a year, and a scene the size of this one could take a full week to process.

Fred returned and assumed a position behind Veta and Halal, and Halal led the way toward a pair of high-backed benches about twenty paces ahead.

“Any chance we have a vid or photos of the bodies in situ?” Veta asked.

Halal shook his head. “Sorry. I only arrived a few days ago myself. Prior to that, I’m afraid Battalion was treating civilian deaths as collateral damage.”

“Collateral to what? Nobody’s at war here.” Veta made a point of looking over her shoulder at Fred. “Are they, Fred?”

“If we were fighting a war here,” Fred said, “you’d know it.”

“But you’re here for a reason,” Veta pressed. “As Major Halal said, they don’t send Spartans to stand garrison against tourists.”

“I can’t comment on our mission.” Fred’s faceplate shifted toward Halal. “That would violate security directive Foxtrot Tango Angel 7012.”

“That’s understood,” Halal said. “But your mission does not involve hostilities against Gao civilians. You can confirm that much, Spartan.”

Fred remained silent for a moment, then finally dipped his helmet in acknowledgment. “Yes, sir, I can confirm that.”

“Thank you,” Halal said. They reached the benches and stopped, and he pointed. “The initial attack occurred here.”

Located directly opposite each other, the two benches faced a hissing steam vent—one of the thousands that permeated the Montero caverns. A pair of freestanding lamps lay shattered on the cavern floor. A third bench lay about three meters away, toppled onto its back and bent at the middle.

Veta ignored the scene and turned to Fred. “I’m sure you realize how convenient your security directive sounds.”

“Convenient, ma’am?” Fred cocked his helmet to the side. “In what way?”

“If you can’t tell me who you’re fighting, it’s hard to rule them out as the killer,” Veta said. “So I must assume that you’re keeping me in doubt to protect yourself. I have no choice.”

“Conclude what you want, ma’am,” Fred said. “But you’re misrepresenting what I said.”

“I don’t believe I am.”

“I didn’t say we were fighting anyone,” Fred said. “I said I couldn’t comment on our mission. There’s a difference.”

“The fact that civilian deaths were classified as collateral damage implies armed conflict,” Veta said. “The fact that you sent a Spartan along to guard Senola implies a threat. Stop playing semantics and give me a straight answer.”

Fred’s faceplate turned away from her. “I’m not at liberty to do that, Inspector.”

“Fred is very careful about security,” Halal said, stepping between Veta and the Spartan. “But I assure you, he’s not trying to protect himself or anyone else on Blue Team. Spartans don’t kill for fun, Inspector Lopis.”

Veta studied Halal for a moment, wondering if he realized his attempts to shield Fred only made the Spartan look more suspect, then said, “I’m sure you understand why I can’t simply take your word for that, Major.” She turned back to the benches and activated her handlamp, then began to inspect the area for signs of struggle. “I don’t see any blood here. Where exactly was the body found?”

Halal spoke to a tacpad strapped to his forearm. “Wendell?”

“Ready to proceed, Major,” the tacpad replied.

The tinny voice belonged to the battalion’s artificial intelligence—or rather, the small aspect of Wendell’s consciousness installed in Halal’s tacpad. Veta did not have a full understanding of the capabilities and limits of UNSC AIs, but from what she had observed earlier, Wendell had a similar presence in nearly every piece of battalion equipment capable of hosting a software subroutine.

“Crime Scene Charlie is more expansive and complicated than the others we’ll be visiting,” Wendell began. “As you can see, the initial confrontation occurred here at the vent area itself, but the actual attack …”

Knowing she would have a chance to study Wendell’s report at length later, Veta shut the AI’s voice out of her thoughts and began to examine the scene on her own. The floor in this area of the cavern was primarily a concrete tram-path flanked by packed mud, but the benches had been bolted into a small paving-stone circle, which surrounded the natural steam vent. The legs of the missing bench had been snapped off at the bolts, suggesting it had been removed by a single quick, powerful jerk.

Veta crouched down and began to examine the stone pad. She still saw no sign of blood, but there were a couple of faint smears that suggested shoes spinning around. She turned away from the missing bench, then used her handlamp to follow a faint trail of footprints off the pad. The trail was easier to follow over the packed mud floor, and Veta could see that it had been made by two different pairs of shoes. The trail split twenty paces later, with the larger set of tracks turning down the length of the gallery and the smaller set continuing toward the wall.

Veta followed the second trail by the wall. In this area, the stalactites hung so low that many joined with stalagmites to create a cage of thin-waisted columns. In front of this cage lay a large circle of disturbed mud. There were no obvious bloodstains in the mud or on the formation itself. But several columns had been snapped off to punch a hole into the cage.

Veta shined her lamp through the gap and found a stony gray floor marked by eight pale scratch marks. She knew better than to jump to conclusions, but the suggestion was obvious: someone had been clawing at the ground as they were dragged back into the gallery. Scattered across the stone were a few dark dots that resembled blood spatter.

A crisp, speaker-modulated voice sounded behind Veta. “Something wrong, Inspector?”

“Yes,” Veta said. Though she hadn’t heard the Spartan coming up behind her, she managed to avoid drawing the sidearm that her hand was now grasping. “You might want to announce yourself before sneaking up on me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Fred-104 replied. If the Spartan noticed the hand on her pistol grip, it was impossible to tell—as usual, his expression remained hidden behind the faceplate of his helmet. He simply waved back toward the toppled bench, where Halal stood looking in their direction. “Wendell and the major are waiting to continue the briefing.”

“Of course they are.” Veta activated her headset, then pointed her handlamp upward and spoke into her throat mic. “Cirilo, do you see where I am?”

“Yeah, Veta, I see you.”

“I’m dropping a card. Take a casting of the print next to it.” Veta shined her lamp on the Spartan’s boots. “We’ll need it to identify which tracks belong to Fred-104.”

There was a short pause as Cirilo considered the instruction, then he said, “Got it.”

“Good.” Veta pulled a numbered evidence card from her cargo pants and placed it next to the Spartan’s boot. “Make sure the spiders give this area a careful sweep, the works.”

“You know it, mama.”

Veta deactivated her mic and started back toward Halal.

“Mama?” Fred asked, catching up to her. “You don’t look old enough to be his mother.”

Veta smiled. “As in ‘hot mama,’ ” she explained. “Cirilo can be a flirt.”

“I see.” Fred was silent for a moment, then asked, “And it doesn’t bother you?”

Veta shrugged. “He knows who the boss is.” It occurred to her that there was only one way Fred could have heard Cirilo’s side of the conversation. She glanced up at the Spartan, then tapped her ear. “You’re monitoring our network?”

“Wendell is patching in your signal,” Fred confirmed. “It’s for your own security, of course.”

“Your AI is very thoughtful,” Veta said. “I feel safer already.”

Fred dipped his helmet. “Glad to hear it, ma’am.”

They reached the toppled bench and joined Halal, who was looking back toward the evidence card Veta had left standing on the cavern floor. “Find something over there?”

“Maybe,” Veta said. “We’ll know more after Cirilo and his people work their magic. If there’s anything to find, they will.”

“Inspector Lopis, may I suggest you reconsider the allocation of resources?” Wendell asked, speaking from the tacpad strapped to Halal’s arm. “The patrol found Charlie Victim on the opposite side of the gallery, exactly sixteen meters from the toppled bench. The evidence supports Sergeant Boyle’s notation quite clearly.”

“I’m sure it does,” Veta said. “But I’m looking for more than evidence of the murder. I’m looking for clues—and mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” Halal asked. “I thought I made it clear that these sites haven’t been processed as crime scenes. Until my arrival, Battalion wasn’t even classifying—”

“You misunderstand me, Major,” Veta said. “It’s not your mistakes I’m looking for. It’s the killer’s—and this is where we’ll find them.”

Halal looked skeptical. “You sound very certain of that.”

“I am. From what I’m seeing, this is where the first murder occurred. And that means the killer slipped up here.” Veta glanced in Fred’s direction, then added, “They always do, the first time.”

“There’s no support for that hypothesis,” Wendell objected. “You haven’t even begun to collect—”

“Stand by, Wendell.” Halal muted the tacpad speaker, then turned back to Veta. “This was the third death we discovered. What makes you think this was the first killing?”

“Because the killer made rookie mistakes.” Veta pointed to the bench lying at their feet. “First, he didn’t plan his approach. That bench was an obstacle to pursuit. Second, he wasn’t careful to control the situation. He attacked two victims at once.”

“Two victims?” Halal shook his head. “I’m sorry, Inspector, but the patrol only recovered one body. As for the bench, he could have grabbed the victim with one hand and pulled the bench over with the other.”

“Sir, that’s not what the tracks indicate,” Fred said. “The inspector is right. It appears that two people were facing this bench as someone approached. They turned and fled the attacker together, then split up about twenty meters from the vent. One person—probably female, judging by the size of her footwear—took cover near the gallery wall and saw the first victim die. Then the attacker returned and pulled her from hiding.”

Veta turned to the Spartan. Whether he was reading the tracks better than she had or just remembering how it had happened, she could not say. But there was no arguing with his analysis.

“Not a bad read,” she said. “It’s almost like you were there.”

Fred tapped the side of his faceplate. “Enhanced optics, ma’am. And tracking is a basic component of any Spartan MOS.”

“MOS?”

“Military Occupational Specialty,” Halal said. “But it’s not forensic science, Inspector. There might be another interpretation of those tracks.”

“Such as?”

“Maybe they don’t belong to a second victim,” Halal said. “Maybe they belong to the murderer.”

“Interesting idea,” Veta said. That was not the way she read the scene, but Halal was right—she was making assumptions. “Let’s see how it plays. Show me around.”

Halal tapped his tacpad, and they crossed the gallery with Wendell droning on.

“The death site lies sixteen-point-two meters from the overturned bench. While the scene is more expansive and complicated than the others we have identified so far, there is no evidence to support the hypothesis of a second victim.”

They came to a circle of damp, dark mud, and Wendell announced, “Charlie Victim suffered the primary attack here.”

The smell of decay left no doubt that Wendell was correct. Veta ran the beam of her handlamp over the surrounding ground, eliminating the shadows cast by the powerful work lamps, and located a spray trail leading toward the cavern wall.

“Describe the body position,” Veta said. “And the orientation.”

“Charlie Victim was found on his back with his legs resting against the cavern wall, seven meters from here at bearing South 103 degrees East,” Wendell reported. “His head was pointing in bearing North 42 degrees West.”

Veta looked to Halal. “Translation?”

Halal smiled. “His body came to rest over there.” He pointed at another stain, this one on the cavern wall. “And his head was pointing back toward us.”

“Injuries?”

“Worse than anything else we’ve found,” Halal reported. “It took the corpsman a while to decide he was male.”

“So the first kill was the most brutal,” Veta said. “And the first victim was male.”

“You find that significant?” Halal asked.

“Of course.” Veta started toward the cavern wall. “It’s unusual for this kind of serial killer to mix victims of different genders, so knowing that he started with—”

“Excuse me, Inspector,” Fred said. “But Linda says Deputy Inspector Lurone found something you need to see.”

“Linda?” Veta asked.

“Linda-058,” Fred answered. “The escort I sent along to protect your deputy inspector.”

The Spartan turned about three-quarters around and looked into the darkness between two work lamps. A pale crescent of light appeared on the wall of one of the small passages that adjoined the cavern, and a moment later, a scratchy voice came over Veta’s headset.

“… hear me yet, boss?” Senola asked. “We’ve got another dead body … it’s weird.”

“On my way.” Veta touched Halal’s arm, then deactivated her throat mic and pointed toward the growing crescent of light. “Senola found another body.”

“Your second victim?” Halal asked.

“Maybe. We’ll see.” Knowing the rest of her team would be monitoring the conversation on their own headsets, Veta activated her throat mic again. “Cirilo, keep working the primary scene for now. Be sure the spiders make it to all the blood sites. Use an extra pod if you need to.”

“On it,” Cirilo said. “Stay in touch.”

With Fred leading the way, Veta and Halal crossed the area illuminated by the work lamps and started up a gentle slope. About fifty meters ahead, Linda-058 stood silhouetted by a circle of light, probably Senola’s handlamp shining from the mouth of an intersecting passage. Standing well over two meters tall, Linda wore a full suit of Mjolnir, the same as Fred and the third Spartan escorting Veta’s team. But the outer shell had more of a feminine, hourglass shape, and its color was pale copper rather than bluish. And Linda’s helmet was kind of awkward-looking, with a goggle-like visor and an external apparatus box mounted on each side over the temple.

As Veta and her companions climbed, they began to smell the odor of a decomposing body, and Halal said, “I’ll admit it, Inspector. I’m impressed. It hadn’t even occurred to me to look for a second victim.”

Normally, Veta would have been tempted to offer a lecture on the importance of letting the scene tell its own story, but that would have been a waste of breath. From what she had seen so far, Halal had been sent here to manage the problem first and solve a crime second, so the best way to win his cooperation would be to let him know she had no interest in making his job difficult.

“The Ministry sent its best, Major,” Veta said. “President Aponte just wants the killer stopped. He has no interest in blaming the UNSC. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’s under tremendous pressure to end your occupation of the Montero Vitality Center, and naming a UNSC suspect would force his hand.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s better for everyone to catch this person as soon as possible,” Veta replied. “The longer this goes on, the worse it is for everyone.”

Halal was silent for a moment, then nodded. “I can see that,” he said. “But if the killer turns out to be UNSC, it would still be a political nightmare for us. The trial would make headlines all the way to Earth.”

“Trial?” Veta asked. “You need to do your research, Major Halal. I’m not a big fan of trials.”

“I’m not sure I understand, Inspector.”

Veta flashed a knowing smile. “Sure you do,” she said. “Just think about it.”

Halal’s brow shot up, but he said nothing and looked away. As they drew close to the passage where the body had been found, he put a hand over his nose and stopped a few steps short. Clearly, he was not accustomed to murder scenes.

The Spartan, Linda-058, was standing next to the mouth of the passage, her waist about level with the top. Senola stood on the opposite side of the opening, her knees, gloves, and hair smeared with dirt.

“The DB is fifty meters back,” Senola said, still breathing hard from the crawl. She raised a round, hand-size device that appeared to be mostly lens surrounded by a ring of lamps—an Alternate Light Source Imager that recorded crime scenes across a wide spectrum of visible and nonvisible light. “I have some good shots, so you don’t need to go in there if you don’t want to. It gets pretty tight.”

“Female?” Veta asked. “You’re sure?”

“No doubt,” Senola said. “She’s in third-stage decomp, but she’s still recognizable.”

“Good,” Veta said. “Any insect colonization? It would be nice to get a date of death on this one.”

Senola nodded. “There are a bunch of different bugs,” she said. “But I don’t know if we’ll have files on the larva. They’re all troglobites—white and blind, antennae as long as my finger … stuff like that.”

“We’ll figure out something,” Veta said. “There has to be a quainto somewhere who’s made a career out of studying cave insects.”

Veta stooped down and shined her handlamp into the crawlway, then forced herself to look. It was not easy. As a teenager, she had spent three weeks in hell, held captive in a stone cellar the size of a coat closet. She had finally managed to escape by scratching the mortar from around a rock and smashing her abductor’s skull into porridge, but killing him had not freed her entirely—not in the ways that really counted. She still feared tight spaces and breath that smelled of tobacco gum and a man’s fingers running through her hair. She still feared a lot of things.

Veta chased away the memory and forced herself to concentrate. In the center of the crawlway, she could see Senola’s hand- and knee-prints straddling a shallow furrow on the floor. The furrow was perhaps thirty centimeters wide and so faint it was almost unrecognizable.

“Drag mark?” she asked.

“That’s right, all the way back to the DB,” Senola confirmed. “But no sign of who did the dragging.”

Veta continued to study the passage. Only a meter in diameter, it was too small for a Spartan in full armor. Of course, armor could be removed.

About three meters in, Veta spotted the gray, thumb-size lozenge of a motion sensor stuck to the passage wall. A single set of hand- and knee-prints overlaid the drag marks, running back to the motion sensor and no farther. It was hard to imagine someone missing the smell of the dead woman, so either someone had planted the sensor before the smell grew too bad, or they were outfitted with breathing filters.

“No knee or hand tracks past the body?” Veta asked, just confirming what Senola had already told her. “No prints or scuffs on the walls?”

“Nothing, boss,” Senola said. “I can’t explain it, but I checked with an alternate light source, mag lens, UV, infra—everything I had with me.”

“Then I’d better let Cirilo have the scene first.”

Hoping her relief would not be too obvious, Veta backed away from the passage and stood. Everyone on her own team knew of her abduction and her problem with confined spaces, but that was hardly something she wanted to share with her UNSC counterparts—particularly not when one of them might be the serial killer she was hunting. She turned to Senola.

“Why don’t you show us the shots?”

“Sure.” Senola began to tap the ALSI controls, then raised the viewfinder so Veta and Halal could see. “This one is probably the most interesting.”

The display showed the decomposing figure of a female corpse dressed in torn black slacks and a bloodstained blouse embroidered with flowers. While the cause of death was not immediately apparent, her bloody clothes and smashed nose indicated a violent death. But her body had been laid out on its back as though she were resting, with her hands clasped across her chest and her eyelids held shut by a pair of small pebbles.

“Now, that is interesting,” Veta said.

“Yeah?” Linda-058 asked over her shoulder. “You don’t see a lot of people beaten to death on Gao?”

“I’m afraid we do,” Veta said. “But this time, it looks like the killer felt remorse.”

CHAPTER 2

0908 hours, July 2, 2553 (military calendar)Crime Scene Charlie, 104 meters belowground,Montero Cave System,Campos Wilderness District, Planet Gao, Cordoba System

The green digits of the heads-up display inside Fred’s helmet showed an elapsed time of ten minutes and thirty-two seconds. That was how long it had been since Inspector Lopis had last climbed the slope to peer into the cramped passage—technically a crawlway—where the decomposed body had been found. And now Lopis was back again for the seventh time in eighty-seven minutes, crouching beside him to check on the progress of subordinates who clearly did not need supervision. Under different circumstances, he might have thought she was fond of his company.

But Fred had watched enough soldiers fight their demons to recognize what he was seeing. Inspector Lopis had a fear of confined spaces, and it was a weakness she hated in herself. He could tell that by the general tension of her body and the way she always forced herself to stare into the crawlway for a full sixty seconds before backing away. Most telling, though, was her loss of focus. She had stopped trying to provoke him—and Fred didn’t think it was because she had ruled him out as a suspect.

Inside the crawlway, the deputy inspector and trace evidence specialist were preparing to remove the body. Having already inspected, photographed, and collected samples and evidence from every meter of passage between the entrance and the victim, they were now spreading the body bag over the corpse, open side down, with the deputy inspector at the feet and the trace evidence specialist at the head. The pair appeared to have a surprising amount of experience in tight spaces, for they were working in near silence and seemed untroubled by the smell.

Linda’s voice sounded inside Fred’s helmet. “Lieutenant, I have a Third Squad runner here,” she said. “Private Hayes. He says they’ve found another body.”

“Another one?” Fred did not bother to speak quietly or hide his irritation. They were on TEAMCOM, an encrypted tight-beam channel currently open only to Spartans … and to Wendell, of course. As Battalion AI, Wendell kept a small presence everywhere, residing in anything that had a gigabyte of memory to spare. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Afraid not,” Linda said. “Hayes says this one looks pretty fresh. And it’s at Bivouac Site Tango.”

“What?” Bivouac Site Tango was deep in the caverns, a full day’s descent below the paved paths customarily used by tourists. A fresh body down that far would have to be a spelunker or a local guide deliberately challenging the UNSC’s no-access order. “Say again?”

“Bivouac Site Tango.”

Fred allowed himself the luxury of an unvoiced curse. Another body meant another day escorting Lopis and her team. And on a mission like this one, that was a problem. The 717th was here to nab an ancient Forerunner ancilla, one that could turn out to be the most sophisticated and powerful AI ever captured by the UNSC. It was the kind of operation that could make or break careers—especially that of the mission’s brash young commander, Murtag Nelson.

Eighty military-standard days ago—on April 14, 2553, to be exact—Nelson had been a field analyst at an ONI listening post when a pirate in a Covenant battle cruiser glassed some Forerunner ruins on Shaps III. Following the bombardment, a strange pattern of transmissions had begun to emanate from the Montero Cave System on Gao, and Nelson had hypothesized that a Forerunner ancilla was responding to the attack. How he had persuaded his superiors of his theory, Fred could not even guess. But there could be little doubt he had. The chief of ONI herself, Admiral Margaret Parangosky, had given Nelson command of the 717th Xeno-Materials Exploitation Battalion, then attached Blue Team to the unit and tasked them with helping Nelson capture the ancilla.

But the damn thing was slippery. As an AI, the ancilla could reside in any electronic device “smart” enough to host it. And it could “jump” between devices, which made trying to locate the thing akin to hunting a ghost. Worse yet, it was a couple of magnitudes smarter than any human AI—and about a thousand times smarter than Fred—so capturing it was far from certain. In fact, Blue Team and the 717th had been chasing the ancilla for a month now, and they had nothing to show for their efforts except the casualties inflicted by its complement of Sentinel drones.

Fred had explained all that when Halal demanded an escort of Spartan-IIs, and he had taken pains to point out that every hour the squad spent on “security detail” was an hour the ancilla used against them. But Fred’s protests had been ignored. With political agitators already making noise about the “invasion” of Gao, FLEETCOM brass had been worried that some hard-liner would try to spark the second coming of the Insurrection by attacking the Gao investigators and pinning it on the 717th. And Fred couldn’t say he blamed them. That was how a lot of wars started—with some nutjob kicking a hornet’s nest at just the wrong moment.

“Lieutenant?” Linda asked.

“Sorry, just assessing,” Fred said. “What’s the sitrep at the new scene?”

A short silence followed while Linda asked for the situation report. Fred could have switched channels and spoken to Hayes directly, but he preferred to keep his communications to the Spartans’ encrypted channel for now. There was too much coincidence in these murders, too much that served to pull the 717th off mission. Had Fred been in charge of the investigation, he wouldn’t be looking for a renegade Spartan or a full-on psycho. He would be on the hunt for some Gao radical trying to frame the Spartans and make the UNSC look bad … someone who wanted to pressure the local government into declaring a war it could not possibly win.

But what did Fred know? He was just boots on the ground.

After a moment, Linda said, “Hayes reports that Mark and the rest of the Spartan-IIIs are still working with the mapping team.”

“Good,” Fred said. “What about the crime scene? Is that secure?”

“Corporal Phaetus is there with Third Squad,” Linda answered. “It’s only ten klicks from here, but Hayes says a lot of the trip is belly-crawling and ear-scraping.”

“Very well. Tell Private Hayes to await orders,” Fred said. Phaetus and his marines were seasoned recon scouts; they wouldn’t have any trouble securing the area. But it was hard to imagine Lopis squeezing through a series of passages even tighter than the crawlway in front of them. “Is there an easier approach to the kill site? One that can be accessed without crawling?”

Linda consulted the runner, then said, “Only the usual route, through Whiskey Victor Seven-Seven.”

Fred felt his jaw clench. That would be Entrance 77, located in Wendosa Village, about thirty kilometers across jungle roads from their current location beneath the Montero Vitality Clinic.

“Sounds like we’ll be splitting up, then,” Kelly-087 said, joining the encrypted conversation. Fred’s unofficial second-in-command, Kelly was posted at the opposite end of the gallery from Linda, watching their back trail. “If you can get Lopis to limit the advance team to two people, Hayes and I should be able to get them to Tango in one piece.”

“Affirmative, Kelly,” Fred said. “Thanks for—”

“Negative,” Wendell interrupted. “You and the Spartans will carry on here, without informing Inspector Lopis or her team of the new body. Major Halal will accompany Private Hayes to the crime scene alone.”

“Alone?” Fred asked. “Please clarify.”

“You have your orders,” Wendell replied. “Clarification is unnecessary.”

“It is necessary if you expect me to cooperate,” Fred said. “Blue Team reports to Commander Nelson, not to you or Major Halal.”

Wendell remained silent nearly a half second, then said, “As you wish, Lieutenant. Major Halal needs access to the crime scene ahead of Inspector Lopis and her team.”

Fred did not care for the explanation at all. “That’s a bad idea,” he said. “These GMoP people aren’t stupid. They’ll know if Major Halal tries to hide something.”

Fred was surprised to hear the major join the conversation directly—no doubt patched in by Wendell. “I have no intention of tampering with evidence, Lieutenant. But I am here to make certain Inspector Lopis and her team don’t malign us unfairly.”

Fred glanced back toward the main cavern and saw the major ambling past the vent area, pretending to work the tacpad strapped to his wrist as he spoke into its microphone. There were no Gaos within thirty feet of him.

“To do that,” Halal continued, “I need to document the crime scene before the Ministry of Protection inspectors have an opportunity to plant false evidence. Does that meet with your approval, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, yes, it does,” Fred said. A normal lieutenant would have been intimidated by Halal’s tone, but the day a Spartan let himself be cowed by a key-tapper was the day that Spartan needed to turn in his Mjolnir armor. “Thanks for asking.”

Halal stopped and looked in Fred’s direction. “I didn’t know Spartans came equipped with a sense of humor. Does that cost extra?”

“No, sir,” Fred said. “It’s more of an operational bug.”

“Then let’s hope it’s the only one you have,” Halal said. “Now, you will do as requested. Yes?”

“Affirmative,” Fred said. “What about the rest of the crime scene tours?”

“The special inspector is obviously someone who prefers to draw her own conclusions,” Halal said. “But I gave her an encrypted datapad with a copy of my full report and current notes. I believe she left it on the Weasel. Anything else?”

“No, sir. That covers it,” Fred said. “Linda, before Hayes leaves with the major, make sure you get a map of their route.”

Linda’s status light flashed green on Fred’s HUD. He turned back to the passage, where Veta Lopis’s people had finished zipping the corpse into its body bag and were now carefully hauling it toward the entrance. Given the tight quarters, all Fred could see of the operation were the grimy soles and backside of the trace evidence specialist.

Still standing next to Fred, Lopis turned and looked back into the main cavern. “Where is Major Halal going?”

“We’ve been down here a long time, ma’am,” Fred said. “He probably needs to use the restroom.”

“Does he always consult you first?” Lopis asked. “I saw you looking back toward him. It seemed like you were in communication.”

“This cavern is considered a conflict zone,” Fred said. “And Major Halal was unfamiliar with the protocol.”

“You have a protocol for peeing in caves?” Lopis asked.

“The UNSC has protocols for everything, ma’am,” Fred said. “How much longer are we going to be down here?”

“Why? You have someplace else to be?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Fred said. “I have a mission to complete.”

“And that would be?”

“Classified, ma’am.” It had not escaped Fred’s notice that Lopis was peppering him with mostly innocuous questions, just to get him in the habit of answering. “With all due respect.”

“Sorry,” Lopis said, looking completely unapologetic. “I wouldn’t want you to give away any UNSC secrets.”

“I appreciate your concern, ma’am,” Fred said. “Now, about that time estimate?”

“It depends on the victim.” Lopis looked back into the crawlway, which remained obscured by the trace evidence specialist’s rear end. She paused a moment, then said, “I hope you don’t mind another question, Spartan, but it’s pretty clear you couldn’t fit inside that little passage—at least not in your armor. So, if something were to happen, how exactly would you protect my people?”

“I probably couldn’t,” Fred admitted. “But if something were to happen, you can be sure I wouldn’t let it happen to anyone else.”

Lopis raised her brow. “So this something … it’s that dangerous?”

Fred hesitated, realizing that he had just walked into a verbal ambush. He couldn’t admit that he was protecting Lopis and her team from Forerunner Sentinels without telling her about the ancilla that controlled them, and any mention of either Forerunners or the ancilla was strictly prohibited under directive Foxtrot Tango Angel 7012. According to the mission briefing, the people of Gao—like most humans—knew just enough about the Forerunners to understand that the Covenant’s worship of them had been a driving force behind the war on humanity. But few civilians understood just how advanced the Forerunners had been, how miraculous and powerful their technology really was, and the Office of Naval Intelligence was determined to keep it that way—at least until the UNSC had cornered the market on Forerunner artifacts.

“Come now, Lieutenant,” Lopis pressed. “You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something dangerous to deal with. If there’s any chance it could be who we’re after—”

“Then this would officially be a military matter,” Fred said, “and you wouldn’t be here at all.”

“And you expect me to just accept that?”

“I don’t have any expectations about what you accept or don’t accept, ma’am,” Fred said. “I’m simply stating the situation. Anything I’m here to protect you from doesn’t kill with close-range brute force. That’s all I can tell you. Don’t ask again.”

Lopis narrowed her eyes. “Or what … Fred?”

“Or you’ll be wasting your time.” Fred liked her nerve. She was about half his height and a third his mass even without armor, with high cheekbones and large, dark eyes that made her look more like a fashion model than a homicide investigator. And yet here she was, trying to intimidate a Spartan. “Ma’am.”

“My time is my own to waste, Fred,” Lopis said. Interesting that she was now referring to him by his first name, and not Spartan. “And, until Commander Nelson says otherwise, so is yours. Are we clear?”

“Clear enough.” Fred glanced back toward the primary crime scene, where two pale figures in hooded coveralls were crossing the cavern floor in a grid search. “Does that mean I should have someone prepare a defensible bivouac position?”

Lopis studied the evidence search for a moment, then shook her head. “No. They should be finished in a couple of hours.”

“They?” Fred asked. “You aren’t staying?”

“My medical examiner will want to start on this body as soon as possible, and I want to see how Commander Nelson is coming along with our facilities. I have a feeling we’re going to need a good-size morgue.”

“Very well.” Fred was just relieved that it would not be necessary to think up another explanation for Halal’s absence. “The Tunnel Weasel can return us to the lift.”

“You don’t need to come,” Lopis said. “I’m sure the Weasel driver can find the way on his own.”

“I’m not worried about you losing your way,” Fred said. “FLEETCOM would have my armor if I let someone take out the GMoP lead investigator.”

Lopis’s eyes flashed with anger. “I can take care of myself, Lieutenant.”

“I’m sure you can, against threats you understand,” Fred said. When Lopis’s expression showed no sign of softening, he added, “Look at it this way, Inspector. On the way back, you’ll have plenty of time to rule me out as a suspect.”

“What makes you think you’re a suspect?” Lopis asked.

“The assignment briefing,” Fred replied. “The first thing Major Halal said was ‘everyone will be a suspect.’ ”

This drew a wry grin from Lopis. “Okay, but no dodging questions. I ask, you give an honest answer. Deal?”

“Affirmative,” Fred said. “And you don’t even have to advise me of my rights.”

“This is Gao, Fred. You have no rights.” Lopis looked toward the darkness at the far end of the gallery, where Linda stood watching for the enemy. “Let’s start with Major Halal. Where did he go?”

“I’m under orders not to reveal that, ma’am.” Fred dipped his helmet toward her. “And that is an honest answer.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the third car had been unhitched from the Tunnel Weasel and left behind so the investigative team would have access to its equipment while the tram was away. The bagged body was riding alone in the second car, and Veta and Fred were riding separately on the tractor unit’s two passenger benches, Fred keeping watch while Veta studied Halal’s report on the military datapad he had left for her.

The major’s work was good, if preliminary. He had created a timeline of confirmed deaths, including who had discovered the bodies and when the victims had been found, last seen alive, and expected to return. He had carefully noted each victim’s injuries, highlighting those that suggested a pattern. And he had started a table of suspects, with columns for means, motive, and opportunity. It was basic stuff, but the foundation of any good murder investigation.

Atop the list of suspects was UNKNOWN GAO RADICAL(S). Veta thought the motive listed—apply political pressure—was probably sound, but the means seemed unlikely. Because the victims had suffered tremendous physical trauma, Halal had entered INDUSTRIAL EXOSKELETON? PNEUMATIC TOOLS? Veta couldn’t rule out either possibility until she inspected the access routes to the murder scenes, but it seemed a bit far-fetched to think anyone could sneak such heavy equipment into the cavern without being noticed or leaving an obvious trail of impression evidence.

Next on Halal’s list was UNKNOWN UNSC PERSONNEL. The entries were similar to those for an unknown Gao radical, except the motive was listed as possible psychological problems, with a note to have Wendell check the battalion’s personnel files. Veta suspected a soldier might have access to a weapon or piece of equipment capable of crushing femurs and disjoining limbs, but again there would be the problem of sneaking it into the cavern unnoticed—and common marines were seldom granted the amount of privacy it would have taken to stalk and kill so many victims in less than two weeks. It would bear checking into, but Veta would need an additional reason to make this a high priority.

Halal’s most detailed notes were for the SPARTAN-IIS: FRED-104, LINDA-058, and KELLY-087. Clearly, the major felt—as Veta did—that with their Mjolnir power-armor, the three Spartan-IIs had the most convenient means to commit the murders. But he had asked Wendell to cross-reference each of their known locations with the timeline of the killings, and while there was quite a bit of play in some of the estimated times of death, it was clear that no single Spartan-II had the opportunity to commit every murder. They had all been accounted for at the time of at least two deaths.

The last item read simply REDACTED. Opportunity and means were both listed as question marks, and motive read DIVERSION?

Veta reached over the back of her seat and showed the datapad to Fred, placing a finger beneath the redacted entry. “Can you tell me what that would be, Lieutenant?”

“Certainly, ma’am,” Fred replied. “Classified.”

Veta scowled. “That answer is starting to get old, Fred.”

“My apologies, Inspector,” Fred said. “I’ll try to think of a more entertaining way to say it.”

Veta sighed in frustration. “Not necessary,” she said. “But whatever this redacted thing is—”

“We could designate it ‘Target Alpha,’ ” Fred suggested. “That way we can be clear what we aren’t talking about.”

“Fine,” Veta said. “What is Target Alpha?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“What would Target Alpha gain by causing a diversion?”

“You’d have to ask Target Alpha,” Fred said. “Or Major Halal. He’s the one who made the note.”

“But this Target Alpha, redacted, whatever it is, could be responsible for these killings?”

“Major Halal seems to think it’s a possibility.” Fred paused, clearly thinking it over, then said, “And I can’t say for sure that it isn’t.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Veta decided to keep pushing. “But?”

“But it doesn’t make sense. The last thing Target Alpha wants is to draw attention with this murder spree.” Fred moved his finger to the top of the list and tapped the UNKNOWN GAO RADICAL entry. “That’s who we’re looking for.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s not complicated,” Fred said. “They’re the ones with the most to gain from this mess.”

“That’s not evidence.”

Fred shrugged. “You’ll find the evidence,” he said. “That’s what you do.”

“It is, but what if the evidence doesn’t point to a radical?” Veta asked. “What if it points to a Spartan?”

Fred pointed at the datapad. “It looks to me like Major Halal has ruled out the Spartans.”

“I’m not the major,” Veta said. “But let’s talk about the rest of the battalion first. How large is it?”

“About nine hundred people.”

“Nine hundred? You’re kidding me.”

“No, ma’am,” Fred said. “Three combat companies, the scientific units, a security company, and a couple of support companies.”

“And what about equipment?” Veta asked. “Is there anything someone could use to crush bones this way and tear off limbs?”

“Probably,” Fred said. “Nothing special springs to mind, except maybe a cargo walker or a munitions loader. But it would be tough to get any of that equipment down here without being seen.”

“How big is it?” Veta asked. “Would any of it leave tracks?”

“They’re powered exoskeletons,” Fred said. “About three meters tall and probably two wide. The cargo walker has legs and pads; it would be fine on the concrete, but if you stepped into the mud or rocks, you’d be in trouble. The loader has tracks. It could probably go anywhere—but you would know it had been there. The trail would be obvious.”

Veta nodded. It was about what she had expected, but she would assign someone to check out the rest of the battalion’s equipment. “What about weaponry?” Veta asked. “Any close-quarters stuff that could cause what we’re seeing?”

“No, ma’am,” Fred said. “Any battalion has plenty of weaponry that can tear a person apart. But our weapons are designed to kill quickly, efficiently, and usually from a distance. Anything designed to cause a slow death like that … well, you won’t find that in a marine armory.”

Veta paused, then said, “Then I guess that leaves your own Mjolnir armor. How many Spartans are assigned to the battalion?”

Fred did not answer at once.

Veta let her breath out. “Please don’t tell me that’s classified, too.”

“It is,” Fred said. “But I have clearance to share personnel information with you. There are eight Spartans attached to the 717th.”

“Eight?” Veta checked Halal’s list of suspects again. “Halal only lists three—you, Kelly-087, and Linda-058.”

“Probably because we’re the only three who wear Mjolnir,” Fred explained. “The other five wear SPI.”

“SPI?”

“Semi-Powered Infiltration armor,” Fred said. “It doesn’t significantly enhance strength or agility, so I assume the major saw no need to create a separate category for the Spartan-IIIs.”

“Why not?” Veta asked. The Ministry of Protection had shared their intelligence on Spartans, so she knew that there were different kinds, and that both Spartan-IIs and IIIs were unimaginably strong, quick, and deadly. Unfortunately, that had been about the extent of the Ministry’s intelligence. The file had speculated on the possibility of special selection criteria and biological enhancement, but otherwise seemed to have no explanation at all for their prowess. “From what I understand, both Spartan-IIs and Spartan-IIIs have superhuman strength even without powered armor.”

“That’s beside the point,” Fred said. “None of us has the strength to crush femurs or rip arms off with our bare hands.”

Veta considered Fred’s reply, trying to figure out how she could check the claim, then finally realized she couldn’t. Unless she found documented proof of a Spartan performing a similar feat in the past, she simply had no way to prove or disprove the lieutenant’s assertion.

“You’re sure about that?” Veta asked. “You’ve seen what even normal people can do when their adrenaline gets going.”

“Inspector Lopis, I’m sure.” Fred’s tone grew stern. “Spartans may be superhuman … but they’re not serial killers.”

The Tunnel Weasel entered an immense chamber filled with the sound of roaring water, then followed a gentle curve toward a well-lit loading zone in front of the glass-walled passenger lift. Fifty meters ahead, just beyond a stone-paved seating area filled with tables, benches, and a now-closed concession stand, a huge waterfall lit by golden spotlights plummeted out of the cavern ceiling and disappeared through the floor to a pool somewhere far below.