Battle Born Read online

  Dorian was almost to the main street heading into town when he heard it: an immense mechanical shuddering. In the sky above Brume-sur-Mer, a shape boiled through the clouds, tinged in a purple glow. The shape was too vast to discern its form clearly, but it loomed overhead like an impossibly large sea creature.

  All the air went out of Dorian’s body, and he swayed in place, sickness roiling around inside his stomach. The shape stopped, its engines thrumming deep in his chest, and for a moment, all the light was leached out of the world, and Dorian was back on Tomas’s ship, crawling through the muck on the deck of the boat, plasma bolts streaking through the air above him.

  He leaned over and threw up in the sand. Nothing but stomach bile—he hadn’t eaten in hours. Then he stumbled a few meters backward and collapsed, his head spinning. The comforting daydream of everyone waiting for him at home was shattered by sudden flashes of broken bodies, bloody limbs, slack faces.

  The Covenant hadn’t gone to Aagen. They were hanging over Brume-sur-Mer.

  Dorian peered up at the roiling clouds through the damp strands of his hair, following the vessel’s silhouette. The ship was long and had a narrow neck with a large, wider body that fanned out, ending in a set of luminous engines. Immediately under the front of the ship were fin-like prongs that made the entire vessel look like a bottom feeder. A dizzying panic seized at his chest, and he remembered the video he had watched on one of the comm channels, a shaky, distant recording of a Covenant ship unloading a torrent of plasma onto some far-off world, blasting it with a heat so intense it turned to glass.

  But this ship was just—sitting there, churning up the clouds. If they were going to glass the colony, wouldn’t they want to get it over with?

  Dorian stumbled forward, his thoughts numb. He wanted to charge into town and grab Remy and Uncle Max and get them out of there. He made it a couple of meters before he stopped, shaking. What did he think he was going to do? He was lucky he’d gotten off that damn boat, that he hadn’t been shot by one of the aliens or drowned in the ocean. Now he wanted to run up to a Covenant ship? The town was probably crawling with ground troops by now—wasn’t that how they worked? That was what they had done last night.

  He didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t even have his full strength. He was sore and rain-soaked, and he felt a kind of madness creeping at the edge of his thoughts. He turned around and stared down the stretch of beach he’d just walked. His footsteps were already melting in the rain.

  The houses along that way had all been empty and abandoned. He might as well keep going, see if he could get a better sense of what was happening in the town. It’d be useful when he tried to contact—someone. UNSC? He had no idea. Salome might know, if he could patch into her.

  So he kept walking, more cautiously than he had before, skirting close to the overgrowth of the forest. There was a strip of trees between the beach and the town proper, but he figured it would be better to be closer to a potential scout than strolling along out in the open, where they could pick him off.

  Like they did with the people on the boat.

  He shook the thought off and focused on the shadows in the forest, looking for unfamiliar movements. Nothing. The rain slacked off, although the sky stayed that steely gray, the clouds shot through with purple. The light’s quality shifted the beach and forest where Dorian had grown up, and everything was now as alien as that ship hovering over his hometown.

  Something snapped off in the strip of woods between town and beach. Dorian froze, head tilted, listening. The constant rush of the ocean made it harder to hear, but he was able to pick out voices, the first he’d heard since last night. They were not speaking English. Or French, or pidgin.

  He held his breath, not daring to move. The voices rose and fell with the wind, the language lilting in a strange rhythm. He had heard it before: in videos on the comm channels, in recordings at school. It was not a human language.

  The voices moved closer, wreathed by the crackle of broken branches and snapped leaves. Dorian caught the gleam of something sleek and metallic amid the greenery of the forest, and his adrenaline finally overtook him.

  He ran.

  He ran down the beach, his feet kicking up arcs of sand, his muscles screaming in pain, his lungs tight and constricted. Each thud of his footfall echoed the thud of his heart. He bolted past the turnoff into town and kept going, past beachfront hotels and bars, their windows barred shut for the rainy season. He ran until his legs gave out under him and he collapsed face-first into the sand.

  He lay still, gasping for breath, straining for the sound of footsteps or plasma rifles. But there was only the constant roar of the ocean. Eventually, he sat up, shook the sand from his skin. The beach was empty. He squinted out at the forest, trying to orient himself. He was nowhere near Uncle Max’s house, that was for sure—it was around on the other side of the cove. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been out this far on his odd jobs.

  Might be a good sign. If he was far enough out, the UNSC might have set up somewhere. Especially since the Covenant had seen fit to invade Brume-sur-Mer, of all places.

  Dorian stood up and took a deep breath, trying to slow his heart. He’d panicked back there and was lucky the Covenant hadn’t seen him. Panicking wasn’t going to do him any good from here on out.

  He had to think.

  If the UNSC were going to establish a camp, they’d want to be on a separate power grid from the town. They might just bring in their own equipment and set up in the woods, but it would be easier for them if they patched into one of those fancy houses on the edge of town, which ran separately from Brume-sur-Mer. So that was where Dorian needed to go. Over to the mansions.

  He headed out, scanning the beach for landmarks. After half an hour, he spotted a boardwalk, jutting out of the woods. It was in good shape, the steel polished and glossy. It looked like it ought to belong to some expensive resort. Perfect.

  He took the steps and began following the boardwalk. It led into the woods, tree branches drooping with rain weight. With each step, the branches trembled and showered him with old, green-scented rain. He moved cautiously, keeping his eye on the shadows. He saw nothing.

  Then the woods ended abruptly, revealing an enormous iron wall, some kind of military-grade enclosure. Mounted guns perched on the top like wasps. He felt a surge of excitement—just like he thought. The UNSC had set up shop.

  Except this didn’t look like any normal UNSC base he’d seen from vids. The guns were unmanned, there was no interface or checkpoint as far as he could tell, and would the UNSC even be able to build a wall like that overnight, in the middle of battle?

  His thoughts snapped into place then: the weapons manufacturer. Nazari. Dorian had seen his daughter around school. She never talked to anyone as far as Dorian could tell. And no one ever talked to her. A rich girl like that, in a town like Brume-sur-Mer? Dorian remembered when they’d moved in. Uncle Max had snorted at the news. “Tourists,” he’d grudged. “Overstaying their welcome.”

  The memory sent a pain shooting through Dorian’s core.

  He jumped off the boardwalk and kicked around in the yard until he found a good-sized rock. Then he hurled it at the wall. It arced tall and wide and slammed into the steel without leaving a dent. He immediately realized the potential mistake of chucking a rock at a heavily armed fortification, but the guns didn’t stir at all.

  Dorian wondered if anyone was in there. A weapons manufacturer would have weapons lying around, wouldn’t he? And Dorian could use some weapons, if he was going to go back into town.

  He took a chance and cautiously moved across the perimeter, stopping a few meters away from the wall. “Hey!” he shouted. “Anybody home?”

  The house stayed silent. Dorian threw another rock. He’d worked on smaller security systems, stuff like the SaRos array, but nothing this elaborate. He realized that he’d never be able to break in, but he also knew that with a security system this complex, someone must be monitoring it. Whoever they wer
e, he hoped they were friendly.

  Still, he found himself walking along the edge, looking for the gate. It would be worth a shot. Not that he found anything but the smooth, endless wall.

  Then he heard a sudden, sharp slam. A gunshot? He froze and glanced slowly over his shoulder. He strained to hear the chatter of Covenant voices, but there was only the dripping of rainwater off the tree leaves.

  Then, with a hiss of energy, a screen materialized on the security wall.

  Dorian jumped in surprise. Saskia Nazari was on the screen. Saskia, looking exhausted and terrified. At least she didn’t have a weapon.

  “Hey!” he said. “Think you can let me in?”

  She blinked at him, didn’t otherwise answer.

  Dorian sighed. “Can you hear me?” He took a deep breath and yelled, hoping his voice would carry over the wall. “I’m Dorian. We go to school—”

  “I know.” Saskia’s voice crackled out of an unseen speaker. “I can hear you fine. They wanted me to make sure it was really you.”

  Dorian laughed bitterly. “Yeah, it’s really me.” Then: “Who else is with you? Your parents?”

  Saskia shook her head, and the screen blinked out.

  “Hey!” Dorian yelled. “Where’d you go?”

  As if in response, an opening melted out of the wall, revealing a sprawling house on the other side, with a huge porch where Saskia stood, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “Hurry,” Saskia called out. “I don’t want to leave the door open for long.”

  Dorian jogged over beside her, and she tapped at a keypad mounted on the column beside her and the wall’s opening turned solid again.

  “Pretty nice setup,” Dorian said.

  “It’s a prototype. My parents put it in.” She looked at him, and her eyes widened. “What happened to you?”

  “Just noticed, huh?” Dorian grinned. “I escaped the Covenant attack, that’s what happened to me.”

  “Oh my god, really? What do you know? Where are they? What’s going on?”

  Dorian held up both his hands. Her questions made his head spin. “Maybe we could get inside,” he said. “And if you have some water, that would be great. And food.”

  “Oh, of course.” She bounded over to the front door, hanging open to reveal a huge foyer. Dorian’s footsteps echoed on the tile. Suddenly, all he wanted was to sleep.

  Someone stepped out of the hallway, some girl Dorian didn’t recognize. She was followed a moment later by Victor Gallardo.

  “Whoa,” Dorian said. It felt like a million years had passed since he’d asked Victor to record their show in the shelter. “Are you okay, man?”

  “Are you?” Victor laughed nervously. “You look like you almost died or something.”

  Dorian shrugged. He had almost died—from a plasma bolt, from drowning, from exhaustion. And frankly, the girl next to Victor didn’t look so great either. Her face and bare limbs were crisscrossed with tiny red scratches.

  “He escaped the Covenant,” Saskia said. “He’s going to tell us what he knows, right, Dorian? Here, let’s go into the living room. I’ll bring you some water.”

  They shuffled down the hallway, into a cavernous room with big picture windows that revealed only that enormous wall. Saskia disappeared out a door on the other side of the living room and Dorian collapsed onto the brocade sofa in the middle of the room, not caring that he was smearing it with sand and mud and sea salt. He sank into the cushions and didn’t think he’d ever be able to get up again.

  “Do you know Evie?” Victor said, gesturing at the girl.

  Dorian shook his head. Evie raised one hand in greeting. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.”

  “I liked watching your band the other night.”

  For a moment Dorian thought she meant last night, out on the water, when the Covenant attacked. How’d you get back? Do you know what happened to the rest of the band? But then he realized she meant the show at the shelter.

  “Thanks,” he said, and she smiled at him. The whole thing felt like awkward introductions at a party, not survivors meeting on the edge of a war zone.

  Saskia breezed back in with a glass of water and a plate of cheese and crackers. Dorian grabbed the water and gulped it down. When he finished, he leaned back against the couch and looked up at the ceiling. “Thanks,” he said.

  “What’s happened?” Victor asked.

  Dorian closed his eyes, and then he told them, in short, sharp bursts. He stared at the ceiling the entire time, his stomach knotting from drinking the water too quickly.

  “They’re in the town,” he said when he finished. “The Covenant. The ship is anchored overhead and they’ve got guards on the periphery.”

  One of the girls gasped. Dorian dropped his head. The three of them stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  “They are dead,” Evie whispered. “Just like I was afraid—”

  “No.” Victor spat the word out. “No way. We have the shelter. Salome would have made sure everyone got to them in time.”

  “The comm channels are dead!” shouted Evie. “How could Salome tell people to get to safety?”

  Dorian’s head buzzed. “The channels are down?”

  Saskia nodded. “We only got an emergency broadcast last night. But it was after the ship passed overhead.” She put an arm on Evie’s shoulder. Evie’s eyes glimmered, and she wiped at her face. Was she crying? Dorian couldn’t tell. “If the Covenant are in the town, they would have cut the comm channels. But only after they arrived, right?”

  “Or while they were heading that way!” Evie snapped. “It’s not like you have to be on the ground to interfere with comm channels.”

  “Well, no,” Saskia said hopelessly. “But if people saw what was happening, and they would have, I’m sure of it—I bet most people got to the shelter.”

  “The system is decades old.” Evie shook her head, her hair flying into her face. “There’s no way—”

  “Look, why don’t we just ask Salome?” Dorian snapped.

  All three of them turned to him. He felt suddenly very tired.

  “The comm system’s down,” Victor said.

  Dorian rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but if we can get to one of the town computers, we won’t need the comm system to talk to her. She’ll be able to give us a better idea of what’s going on.”

  Evie blinked at him. “That could work,” she said. “Assuming the Covenant haven’t destroyed all the computers.”

  Dorian shook his head. “Those things are well hidden, especially the older ones. I did maintenance on them with my uncle. There’s one over on the east side, near the old tourist houses. No one ever uses it.”

  “The tourist houses?” Victor said. “You want us to go into town?”

  “We have to,” Dorian said, glaring at him. “We can’t do anything until we know what’s going on.”

  “The tourist houses are on the edge of town anyway,” Evie said. “Talking to Salome is our best bet at finding out what’s going on.” She turned to Victor. “Don’t you want to make sure your family is safe?”

  Remy’s grinning face flashed into Dorian’s mind.

  “We might find out they’re dead,” Victor muttered.

  “Don’t talk like that.” Evie looked over at Dorian. “Are you sure you can access the old computers?”

  “Yeah.” Dorian laughed. “I’m sure.”

  “You said guards were patrolling,” Saskia said, her voice small. Everyone turned to look at her. She had drifted away from the group, her arms crossed over her chest. “How are we going to get past them?”

  “We’ll fight them?” Dorian threw up his hands. “Don’t you have weapons?”

  The others looked at her expectantly, but Saskia only shook her head with a quick jerk. “There’s the rifle I used last night. But other than that …” She shrugged.

  “So we have a rifle,” Dorian said. He leaned forward, forced himself to ignore the pain in his muscles. “That’s something.”


  “Are we really going to do this?” Victor asked.

  “I think we should,” Evie said.

  Saskia said nothing.

  They decided to go on foot. Victor’s idea—he figured scouts would be watching the roads more closely. Evie and Dorian agreed, although Dorian did so begrudgingly, digging his palms into his eyes and moaning, “Not more walking.”

  “Maybe we should wait,” Saskia had said. Of the three of them, she was the one most reticent about going into town.

  But Dorian shook his head. “No. I’ll be fine.”

  They set out after a lunch of hot sandwiches from the food squirreled away in Saskia’s refrigerator. She let Dorian take the rifle since he’d said he had used one like it before—it was some kind of hunting rifle, not like the military weaponry Victor’s sister used. Saskia didn’t say anything during their preparations—Victor couldn’t shake the sense that she didn’t want to go. Maybe she was scared, even though she had marched out into the woods and saved Evie. He wanted to tell her it would be fine, that they would stay together, that the afternoon storms would give them cover. But every time he tried, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. Mostly because he wasn’t sure he believed any of it himself.

  The afternoon storms were actually the reason Victor had convinced them to go after lunch. It was a trick Maria had told him about during one of her visits home. “We always learn the local terrain,” she’d said. “Study it. Use it to our advantage.” It had been dry season and they’d been sitting out on the beach in the sun. She’d squinted out at the water and said, “If the Covenant invade here, you better hope they do it during the rainy season. That would give you an advantage. Rain hides things, and you’re more used to it than they are.”