Mal nodded. “We’l pass that on.”

“He’s told me to offer you help with repairs.”

“Pipe,” Devereaux said instantly. “Ask him for a couple of meters of solvent-proof flexible tubing, about fifty-mil imeter diameter, and any composite solder he can find.”

“Forze, have you got any fuel line?” Mal asked. He held his fingers apart. “This wide. And composite solder.”

Forze rol ed his head and walked back to the Phantom in silence, Raia ‘Mdama trailing behind him and occasional y looking back at the dropship. He came down the ramp again with a snake’s wedding of pipes and wire coiled in his arms and walked right up to Tart-Cart to dump them in a heap on the ground.

“I know little of mechanics,” Forze said. “We had Engineers for that . This is al I could find.”

“Thanks.” Mal gave him a thumbs-up and Forze walked off, apparently confident that Vaz wouldn’t shoot him in the back. Devereaux appeared from under the wing and began sorting through the pile.

“Great,” she said, whipping out a pocket gauge and measuring the diameters. “If I ever get back to the mess, I’l tel this story and I’l never have to buy another beer as long as I live.”

“Does any of it fit?” Vaz asked.

“This bit might.”

While they waited, the Phantom’s drives started up and the ship lifted off. Naomi watched it out of sight and then climbed back into the crew bay.

Vaz fol owed her inside and sat down between her and Phil ips.

“She doesn’t know where her husband is,” Phil ips said. “Doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead. That’s my fault.”

Naomi folded her arms. “I did it, actual y. So you can stop beating yourself up about it.”

“Yeah, they’d have glassed Sydney and everything else if they’d had a chance,” Vaz said.

“And the females and children at Nes’alun. What the hel happened to them? I just abandoned them.”

“Prof, it’s hinge-head on hinge-head violence. None of your business.” Vaz tried to bite down on his temper. Here they were, marooned in a damaged ship behind enemy lines, and Phil ips was worrying about Elites who would have used him for target practice without a second thought.

“We didn’t start it and we won’t finish it. Usyok? ”

It was rude, and even if Phil ips didn’t speak Russian he could understand the tone. He shut up. Vaz suddenly felt guilty for snarling at him. The guy was just a civvie. He’d done pretty damn wel for someone who didn’t know how to use a weapon or carry out recons. Vaz reached over and slapped his back to make amends, embarrassed.

“Sorry, Prof,” he said. “You must have been scared shitless. You did a great job. You even grabbed a souvenir. Not that we needed any more plasma pistols with a hold ful of them, but they say provenance adds value.”

“I didn’t know you were coming for me,” Phil ips said meekly. “I thought I was supposed to try to escape.”

“We never leave our people behind. Not even the annoying ones.”

Vaz debated whether to lance a few more boils and raise the topic of BB’s fragmentation issues, but it didn’t feel like the right time. BB didn’t seem to be joining in the conversation at al ; he didn’t even manifest himself. Vaz watched the time tick by in his HUD, then took off his helmet and went outside to pass the time, watching creatures that could have been birds or even disturbingly big insects wheeling around overhead on the thermals.

“Vultures,” Vaz said.

Mal didn’t blink. “Bluebirds of happiness.”

Naomi squeezed past them and jumped out to stalk around the edge of the wing. “Someone’s got to secure the ship,” she said. “Just in case.”

“Okay,” said Mal, “a paranoid, a depressive, and an incurable optimist walk into a bar, and—”

Devereaux cut in on the radio. “Someone get off their ass and give me a hand with this, please.”

“Coming, dear.” Mal pushed the door gun over to Vaz and trotted off. “You want a big strong man to do it for you?”

“Yeah. Find me one, wil you?”

The hinge-heads could come back at any time so Vaz didn’t plan to relax. He put his helmet back on to check the feed from the drone cams, most of which seemed to be focused on Vadam. It was hard to square the memory of Manny Barakat and al the other ODSTs who hadn’t made it home from glassed, murdered colony worlds with a hinge-head like Forze helping out with spare parts, or the mother Elite defending her kids to the death. Gray areas were interesting, but Vaz couldn’t live his life in them. There was one side, and there was the other, and he knew which one was his.

He stil felt worse about not shooting Halsey than leaving a bunch of hinge-heads to fight for their lives.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE PROBLEM FOR AN AI ISN’T DOING A THOUSAND THINGS AT ONCE. IT’S SLOWING DOWN AND IMPARTING ALL THAT INFORMATION TO HUMANS. I LOVE YOU ALL TO BITS, BUT YOU’RE SOMETHING OF A BOTTLENECK IN MY PROCESSES.

(ONI SPECIAL OPERATIONS AI BLACK-BOX, EXPLAINING IMPATIENCE TO HIS ORGANIC COLLEAGUES)

UNSC PORT STANLEY: HANGAR BAY

“The first thing I’m going to do is to put Adj and Leaks to work on upgrading the comms,” BB said. He realized he’d missed the Huragok touch around the place. “Then the drives. Then they can work on the drones.”

Osman fastened the col ar of her jacket as if Parangosky’s arrival was an admiralty inspection. The Pelican settled in Stanley’s hangar bay and the outer doors sealed, accompanied by the hiss of repressurization and flashing vacuum hazard lights.

“Aren’t you even going to offer them a cup of nutrient sludge first?” she asked. “They’re ship’s company now. Besides, we can’t afford the downtime at the moment.”

“They’l take minutes. Okay, an hour, perhaps. We’ve got plenty of material they can use.”

“You’re a slave driver.” She snapped to attention. “Admiral on deck. Look sharp.”

The hazard lights stopped and the inner doors parted. BB put al thoughts of his damaged fragment out of his mind and positioned his avatar to one side of the ramp, honor guard style, with his box edges extra-defined in lieu of standing to attention.

If the two Huragok were going to be a permanent addition to the crew, he’d have to find a way of firewal ing his more sensitive sectors. The creatures were just too thorough for his liking. Adj had behaved himself on his last stay and heeded warnings to stay away from certain things, so perhaps BB could get around the problem by just giving both Huragok a stiff talking-to. If that didn’t work, he’d have to add partitions to his matrix.

The thought of them poking around in his code and knowing his most private processes was rather … creepy.

Hoist by my own petard. Now I know how the crew feels.

The ramp lowered and Parangosky stood at the top, clutching a smal candy-striped bag. Somehow arriving with gifts did nothing to make her seem less fearsome. She made her way down the deck and placed the bag in Osman’s hand. Ginger. It had to be crystal ized ginger. There were things that even BB didn’t know.

“Just a very quick visit, Serin.” She used Osman’s first name more often now, as if the captain was making the transition from protégé to peer.

“Ginger. Let me know when you run out.” Parangosky turned around and looked back at the open door. “Come on, don’t be shy, Adj. You know Captain Osman.”

Adj drifted out of the dropship, leading another Huragok by one of its tentacles. It was quite touching: they looked like refugees. They drifted to a halt in front of Osman and gazed around the hangar, probably working out what to completely rebuild first.

“The other one’s cal ed Leaks Repaired,” Parangosky whispered, as if they wouldn’t hear her. “They’ve both consolidated the Forerunner knowledge from Onyx, so you can safely let them loose on BB’s translation project now.”

“Welcome back, Adj,” Osman said, holding out her hand. Adj wrapped a tentacle around it but didn’t quite manage to shake it. Stil , it was the thought that counted. “Hel o, Leaks. This is BB. He can do Huragok sign language.”

BB extruded a set of holographic tentacles. < Don’t you dare touch anything until I brief you. If you think Infinity ’s classified, she’s an open book compared to Stanley . > “There, everyone’s made friends now.” Osman seemed to think it was a greeting. “What’s the plan?”

“Hood’s making contact with the Arbiter about now,” Parangosky said, checking her watch. “It’s al going to be about timing. The more rebels who show up at Vadam, the easier it is to give them a MAC surprise, so we need to work out how and when to tip off ‘Telcam. We’l be in BB’s capable hands for comms monitoring.”

“Infinity too?”

“Aine’s not a combat AI, let alone spec ops or intel.”

“But she’s going to have to manage the firing solutions, surely.”

“She has dumb AI capability for that. She won’t mind BB carrying out the intel igence functions.”

“Trust me, Captain.” BB drifted off after the Huragok, who’d started exploring the hangar. “She won’t even know I’ve been in her underwear drawer. Now come along, you two.” He signed flamboyantly. < Don’t touch. Plenty to do later. > Parangosky took out her datapad and scribbled. “Handy.”

“Believe it or not, Kilo-Five ran into Raia ‘Mdama,” Osman said. “She was with Forze, looking for Jul.”

“My, my. Stand by your hinge-head. I’l pass that to Trevelyan.”

“How’s Magnusson doing with him?”

“She got the bioweapons team to modify the proteins and saccharides in some of their staple foods and tried them out on him. And on some Sangheili livestock.”

“That was fast. What happened?”

“It made the grain indigestible. The livestock are dying, and he was as sick as the proverbial dog until she cal ed a halt. She wants to introduce the modified seed to Sanghelios to starve them out. But I’m not too keen. I don’t want to risk accidental contamination of similar crops when we recolonize.”

Osman didn’t even flinch. BB had to admire that detachment in the face of plans for global extinction. “Wel , at least we have it in reserve if al else fails.”

“Indeed. Look, I have to be getting back now, Serin, but when we’ve finished mopping up and things are less fraught, come over and take a look at Infinity.”

“I wil , ma’am. Good hunting.”

BB tried to herd Adj and Leaks toward the compartment he’d set aside for them. There was no point locking them in, because they’d just rebuild the locks. He’d learned that as long as he explained everything to them and made his instructions explicit then they did as they were told. They didn’t have time to defy him and they didn’t get offended. Life for them was about fixing and building and improving anything from equipment to injured organic tissue. It was al they wanted to do.

He barred the Huragok’s way and held up virtual tentacles. < I want you to look around, but don’t access any of my systems or modify anything yet. > Adj signed back. < We’ll wait. Where are the marines? > < They’ll be here soon. Show Leaks the galley. Mal left a container of nutrient in the freezer. > < Mal feeds us. > Adj seemed to be explaining that to Leaks. < BB is impatient but clear-thinking. The Spartan does not allow access to her armor. Vaz is fast enough to catch you and trap you. Osman and Devereaux don’t interfere with your work. Phillips will try to engage you in long conversations. > It was always sobering to see yourself through the eyes of others. BB was about to explain how ultra-fast processing inevitably made an AI impatient, but Adj was simply stating facts to the new kid, not passing judgment. Osman overtook BB, chewing contentedly and trailing a haze of zingerone and a few other fascinating volatile oils. He could smel the ginger via the ship’s chemhaz monitoring.

“You realize most officers would be too scared to eat anything Parangosky gave them,” he said. “Like accepting mushrooms from Agrippina.”

“The mushrooms are a great tip. Thanks.” She settled into her seat and held her finger just above the comms link. “Okay, BB, we’re fighting this ship alone. Ready?”

“Of course I am,” he said. “I have ful tactical capability in case the crew’s incapacitated. But I know you like to feel useful.”

“It’s been a long time since I fired a shot in anger.”

“Oh, it’s like riding a bike. You never forget. And al you have to do is set objectives and I’l achieve them for you.”

“Okay. See if you can get hold of ‘Telcam.”

BB could maintain monitoring on as many situations as he needed to, as long as he could establish a link with the relevant system. But as far as he was concerned he was actual y present in al of them simultaneously. Tart-Cart was stil grounded, and he was down there with Devereaux checking the diagnostic feedback; he was in Infinity scrutinizing targets around Vadam, using her imaging and dodging around Aine, just as he was wandering around Bravo-6 keeping an eye on Hogarth and Harriet, spying on Halsey out of sheer fascinated horror, and—intermittently— lurking in the makeshift rebel command center south of Vadam keep.

He could see al , be everywhere, and, if human beings acted as his hands, he could also do everything. But this was the humans’ war: they had to be the ones to take action and give one another information, not him. It was more than courtesy that made him leave Osman to tel Parangosky about Raia. Once he started driving those decisions himself, it became his war, and if a war was left to AIs, then he suspected it would only last seconds before they al decided it wasn’t worth the effort and went home to raid databases and play with fascinating theorems.