As an expedition to Netherop is prepared in the wake of news that it may hold a Guardian-killing weapon, Spartan Olympia Vale and Professor Keely Iyuska head to the independent world of Gao.

There, they seek to recruit somebody who knows Netherop well—a former castoff who grew up while stranded on the so-called “world of death.” Rosa Fuertes, formerly known as Roselle, escaped Netherop with the help of the Master Chief and Blue Team at the start of the Covenant War, but the freedom of the castoffs was secured only by leaving others behind...

2559. Formerly one of the Covenant's greatest and most fearsome warriors, Arbiter Thel 'Vadam is now allied with his former human enemies while deeply entrenched in leading the Sangheili people to a new era of unification. But his aspirations are under constant threat, whether by the dangerous, warring factions of rival Sangheili keeps, or the relentless shadow of oppression spread by the renegade artificial intelligence Cortana.

An opportunity to break Cortana's chains has suddenly presented itself through the rumored existence of an ancient artifact located on the hostile world of Netherop. Spartan Olympia Vale, trained with the skills to live and thrive among the Sangheili, also recognizes this alien prize as an essential means to aid humanity in reaching the same goal of freedom. But behind the scenes, both 'Vadam and Vale are being manipulated by a mysterious figure with their own agenda. And to make matters worse, all involved are unknowingly placing themselves at perilous odds with forces beyond their comprehension.

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Halo: Outcasts releases August 8 and is available in trade paperback, ebook, and unabridged audiobook formats.

CHAPTER 5

As the hired pipistrelle VTOL dropped into the jungle, Olympia Vale kept her eyes fixed on the village below and her medical bag trapped on the deck between her feet. She was supposed to be an off-world research nurse visiting Gao to help her colleague collect tissue samples from the victims of a new form of brain-wasting prion disease, so she had traded her Mjolnir armor for blue scrubs. She carried her sidearm tucked inside the medical bag.

Keely Iyuska sat on the other side of the passenger cabin, similarly attired and peering down into the dirt plaza where they were about to land. Her voice was audible through the cabin headset system, dictating environmental observations into her datapad. Vale did not know whether her friend was making the notes out of academic habit or in an attempt to support their cover, but at least it kept her focused on something other than the thrill of operating under an assumed identity.

“.  .  .  village is located on a mountain bench deep in the remote jungle.” Iyuska was nearly shouting into her datapad so the microphone would capture her voice over the pipistrelle’s thumping rotors. “The only ground access appears to be a single road, dead-ending at the village itself. There are two vehicles visible from the air, both antiquated trucks parked at the entrance to the central square. The buildings are dry-stacked stone with thatched roofs, the largest two stories . . .”

Iyuska let her sentence trail off, then spoke again in alarm. “There are men down there with guns!”

“I can see that.” Vale did not have to look to know that Iyuska had turned toward her. “Six of them, with Insurrection-era MA3A and MA5B assault rifles. It’s okay. They’re only trying to intimidate us.”

“You sound sure of that, ma’am,” the pilot said, also speaking through the headset system. “I hope you’re right.”

“It only makes sense.” Vale resisted the temptation to point out that the sentries carried no extra ammunition and stood clustered in easily targeted groups—a civilian nurse would not have noticed such things. “If they intended to ambush us, wouldn’t they be hiding?”

“That’s what you and I would do,” replied the pilot. A thick-waisted man with curly black hair and a three-day growth of beard, Arturo Ramus was a “dark hire” VTOL owner/operator and card-carrying member of the Committee to Preserve Gao Independence. He would have been devastated to learn that he was listed in three different ONI databases, all describing him as a top-notch pilot and highly reliable transport contractor. “But these people here have their own ways.”

“Just put us on the ground,” Vale said. “You can loiter at a safe altitude until we wave you down.”

“I can only do that for thirty minutes. Any longer, and we won’t have the fuel to return—”

“Thirty minutes will be plenty of time,” Vale said. “Either they’re willing to let us take samples or they’re not.”

“Or they’re willing to rob and murder you.” As Ramus spoke, the pipistrelle descended into the square. “And if they are, there will be nothing I can do to help. The Ministry of Protection doesn’t come this far into the jungle.”

“Understood,” Vale said. “But no worries. We’re not carrying anything worth shooting us over.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re safe. Don’t mistake the value you place on your lives for the value they do.” The pipistrelle touched down, but didn’t settle onto its landing struts. “I will be watching for your signal. If there’s trouble, go to where the road crosses the mountain’s shoulder.”

“That must be five kilometers away . . . uphill,” Iyuska noted.

“More like seven,” Ramus said. “It’s the closest place I can land outside the village.”

“It won’t come to that.” Vale unbuckled her crash harness and reached for the side-door latch handle. “But it’s always good to have a backup plan.”

Vale slid the door open, shouldered her medical bag, and dropped onto the ground. The square was barely large enough for the pipistrelle, no more than fifteen meters across, and the sentries were up against the houses, ducking their heads and shielding their eyes from the blowing dirt. Vale squeezed her own eyes into slits and turned toward a stocky man standing in front of the largest building. Dressed a little better than the other sentries, in military boots and clean utilities, he had chin-length blond hair tucked behind his ears and a red, weathered face with deep lines at the corners of his mouth. He looked to be in his mid-forties, old enough to be a potential candidate for the consultant Iyuska wanted to hire.

Before asking her superiors to send an expedition to the outer edge of the colonized galaxy, Vale had spent a day reviewing everything she could find about Netherop and quickly recognized the wisdom of Iyuska’s suggestion. In June of 2526, none other than the Spartans of Blue Team had inserted onto the planet and encountered the Castoffs, a band of young castaways whose pirate ancestors had been marooned on the sweltering world many generations earlier. Desperate to escape the deadly environment, the band struck a bargain to help Blue Team in exchange for being rescued. Despite some dispute about the terms of the agreement, the Castoffs were extracted with Blue Team, then quietly slipped onto the semi-insurrectionist world of Gao to make a new home for themselves.

That had been thirty-three years ago, ten years before Vale was born. The Castoffs had been between seven and twenty years old at the time, and they had used their resettlement funds to purchase a small patch of jungle and establish the village where Vale and Iyuska had just landed.

So it seemed fairly likely that the stocky man whom Vale was now striding toward had actually been born on Netherop. By the time the pipistrelle ascended and the rotor wash subsided, she was standing face-to-face with him. Taking such an assertive posture would open a crack in her cover, but it would not be unusual for a traveling medical team to have a security specialist—and with six armed men clearly trying to intimidate them, security came first.

“Is that an MA3A assault rifle?” As Vale spoke, she smiled and casually reached toward the barrel, so she could prevent him from swinging the muzzle in her direction. “I’ve never actually seen one in the field. May I?”

She grabbed the weapon’s handguard and looked down into the man’s surprised eyes, giving him a chance to gracefully acquiesce.

He was a head and a half shorter than Vale, at least twenty kilograms lighter, and neither strong enough nor skilled enough to keep her from simply taking the weapon.

When he appeared reluctant to let go, Vale flexed her wrist just enough to tip the muzzle down toward his foot. “I’m asking nicely. But we both know you won’t be pointing this thing anywhere I don’t want you to. Let’s keep this polite.”

“You call this polite?”

“Well, it isn’t rude. You want to see rude?”

The man sighed. “I don’t think so.” He released the weapon, then glanced to his right and gave a quick shake of his head, signaling the other sentries to stand down. “Go ahead, have a look.”

“Thank you.” Vale took the rifle, then pointed the barrel at the ground, ejected the magazine, and cleared the chamber. “I’ve heard that these things are impossible to ruin.” She pulled the rear takedown pin, removed the charging handle and bolt carrier, then separated the upper and lower receivers and made a show of inspecting the interior. “That must be true, because this weapon looks like it’s had fifty thousand rounds through it.”

“Not since I have had it. We have no need for that much shooting in Paraiso. There aren’t many visitors.”

“Paraiso?” Iyuska asked, joining them. “Really? That’s what you call this place?”

“It is a paradise to us.” The man switched his gaze to Iyuska. “What do you want here, and who are you?”

“We’re looking for a woman named Rosa Fuertes,” Vale said, not allowing Iyuska to respond. They were coming to an inflection point where they would either need to reveal their true identities or attempt to recruit their consultant under false pretenses, and Vale wanted to keep their options open until she had a read on which strategy was more likely to succeed. “We understand she has the new prion disease emerging in this part of the jungle.”

“How do you know about that?”

“She was diagnosed at the Hospital de Neiva,” Vale said, again avoiding a direct answer. The residents of Paraiso were probably well aware that ONI had been keeping close tabs on them for the last thirty-three years, but nothing would be gained by showing her hand just yet. “We’d like to speak with her.”

“You’re doing a lot of talking, not much answering.”

“There are some things we can only discuss with the patient,” Vale said. “Whether you join us will be her choice.”

“And whether you see her will be mine. So far, I say no.”

“Why is that?”

The man fixed his gaze on the half-disassembled assault rifle in Vale’s hand. “Because you don’t seem like a real traveling nurse.”

“I hear that a lot. I was a medic in the service.”

“Which branch? ONI?”

Vale stared at him and did not reply. The safest thing for the mission would be to recruit the consultant Iyuska wanted without breaking their cover as medical researchers. But the man’s suspicious attitude had clearly brought the feasibility of that tactic into doubt.

The man exhaled loudly. “I thought so. What do you want?”

“Let’s talk inside.”

Vale reassembled the empty assault rifle and pressed it against his chest, but before she could push him through the door behind him, a shutter banged open above their heads. Vale looked up to see the weather-lined face of a woman in her mid-fifties peering down. She had a square jaw, broad cheeks, and eyes so sunken it was difficult to see her pale green irises.

“That wasn’t the deal.” The woman was the right age to be Rosa Fuertes, who had called herself simply Roselle when she helped lead the Castoffs on Netherop. In a futile attempt to evade ONI surveillance, she and the entire band of former castaways had changed their names when they settled on Gao. “We were promised the UNSC would leave us alone, as long as we didn’t talk about the Spartans.”

“We’re not breaking the deal,” Vale said. “We’re here to offer you another one.”

“It could be very lucrative.” Iyuska made a point of looking across the square toward the old trucks, then directed her gaze back to the man standing in front of her. “Lucrative enough to buy new trucks.”

The man’s eyes lit, but he managed to avoid glancing toward the trucks. “Not interested. The UNSC makes a lot of promises. It doesn’t keep them all.”

“But I’m not the UNSC.” Iyuska swung her medical bag off her shoulder and began to open the top. “I’m independent.”

Vale saw the man lick his lips and knew Iyuska had set the hook. Vale put her free hand on top of the bag. “Wait.”

But the man’s gaze was already locked on the knapsack. “You have the money in there?”

“Let’s talk about that inside,” Vale said. She pushed the man into the plank door behind him until it snapped its latch and swung open. He gave a shrill whistle as he stumbled backward, and boots began to thump across the dirt square toward them. Then Vale and the man were inside a large room with wooden tables and a ceiling so low she had to hunch over to keep from hitting her head on the beams supporting the floor above. A stairway at the back of the room led upstairs. Vale pulled Iyuska in behind her, kicked the door shut, and shoved the man onto the nearest bench.

“You’re not thinking of trying to rob us, right?”

“I just want to see the money.” As he spoke, he looked not at Vale, but at the door behind her. “It’s the smart thing when you are dealing with the UNSC.”

Vale heard the hinge squeal and spun around to see the door swinging open. She slammed her palm into it and felt the blow connect and send someone flying back into the square, then jammed the empty assault rifle under the latch to wedge it closed.

The muffled voice of a young male called, “Arnaldo?”

“Back them off. Now.” Vale let her medical bag slip into the crook of her elbow, then opened it and reached inside. “I didn’t come here to hurt anyone.”

“So give us the money,” said the man who was presumably Arnaldo. “And nobody will get hurt.”

“That’s not what I was thinking.” Vale pulled her M6H sidearm from the medical bag. “Last chance.”

Again, the muffled voice sounded through the door. “Arnaldo? Should we come in? Is Rosa safe?”

Footsteps, light and slow, descended the stairway at the back of the room. Arnaldo glanced toward the sound, then looked back to Vale and smirked. “Last chance for you. You’re outnumbered five to one, and you have nothing but a pistol? You might get me, but I don’t think you and your contractor will leave here alive.”

The old-woman voice sounded from the stairs: “Arnaldo, stop being a fool.” The woman stepped into the room and started toward Arnaldo, one finger jabbing toward the door. “Call them off before you get us all killed.”

“Us?” Arnaldo pointed toward Iyuska. “That one is not even armed, Rosa. I doubt she can even shoot.”

“She won’t need to.” Rosa Fuertes extended her hand toward Vale, gesturing up the length of her body. “Look at her size. Do you think they can’t fight just because they aren’t wearing their armor?”

Arnaldo’s eyes widened. “You’re a Spartan?”

“Among other things,” Vale said. “Does that make you want to reevaluate your options?”

“Arnaldo!” The voice outside was growing impatient. “We’re coming—”

“No!” Arnaldo gave a loud three-note whistle that drew a chorus of alarmed whispers, then yelled, “Do it now!”

Vale pointed her pistol toward the door, but instead of anyone trying to charge through, all she heard was the receding thump of fleeing boots.

Fuertes turned to Arnaldo and flicked her fingers toward the door. “You too. Leave us, Arnaldo. I will handle this.”

When Arnaldo scowled and made no move to rise, Vale slipped her sidearm into her waistband, then said, “Don’t worry—she’ll be fine. We really are here to make a deal. We just need to hire a consultant.”

Fuertes nodded. “You see? Go on. The others will need to know that everything is okay while I negotiate.”

Arnaldo’s brow rose. “Negotiate? You’re in no condition—”

“I am the one who will be going. I am the one who will negotiate.”

“Wait a minute,” Vale said. “This consulting will be off-world, probably under rugged conditions, and—”

“You think I’ve forgotten what Netherop is like?” Fuertes asked.

“You’re obviously a smart woman,” Vale said, not even attempting to deny that Netherop was their destination. As soon as Fuertes had heard the word consultant and recognized Vale as a Spartan, she had probably known the UNSC was going back to Netherop. “So you know hiring you is not something we’ll be interested in.”

“Too bad. Because I am not going to allow anyone else to go—unless you would like to hire Samson. I don’t doubt ONI has been keeping track of him too.”

“They have,” Vale said. The latest intelligence reports had tagged Samson, who had been Roselle’s mate and co-leader on Netherop, running off with a Gao woman shortly after the Castoffs settled here. “He’s been incarcerated since 2556, and the UNSC is hardly in a position to ask the Gao Ministry of Justice for an early release.”

“That’s too bad. He is the only one I hate enough to send back with you. It will have to be me . . . or nobody. Which can you afford less?”

Vale turned to Iyuska. “How much do we need her?”

Iyuska shrugged. “Well, she did spend half her life using the same protogenic technology we’ll be investigating . . . and living in the ruins of a culture nobody else has even heard of.”

Fuertes smiled and pointed to the table. “You can leave the money there.”

Iyuska cocked her brow at Vale. Vale sighed and said to Fuertes, “Okay then—some ground rules. You understand that nobody can know we were here?” She pointed to herself and Iyuska. “I mean nobody. Or that you’re gone. The whole village has to keep this secret.”

“Oh, we are very good at keeping secrets. We kept the secret of the Spartans far longer than the UNSC did.”

“Fair enough,” Vale said. “But that includes comm units and other electronics. No one can mention any of this near a microphone.”

Fuertes smirked. “That will not be a problem. There are no longer microphones in Paraiso. They made it too easy for ONI to eavesdrop on us.”

“It’s not ONI I’m worried about. One last question.” Vale took a breath. “How sick are you?”

Fuertes paused. “It won’t kill me before I serve your purpose.” She sank down on a bench. “I won’t let it . . . that I promise you.