33

Jacen went against his immediate tendency to call bull scat and terminate the conversation. If this was some type of stunt to test his loyalty again, then she would have to use a better alternative than the Covenant. Was it the truth, a possible fabrication to cloak something worse, or just a falsehood to get him to drop his guard? He hated having to process it, to gauge the legitimacy of what she said and in the way that she said it. It was so much easier when he didn't have to view her through the scope as an enemy.

"You know I can't just believe you, right? There is such a thing called an explanation. Details. Facts. You tell me the Covenant is here and that we're in danger and I'm supposed to just run away with you with some plan to escape this place?"

Jasmine shifted the foodstuff aside with her forearm, hands in fists, and leaning forward from her seat. "This isn't a game. You act like I'm lying to you."

"Are you? Your situation isn't exactly ideal. Rey has Ken, you're a prisoner, and you're alone. Hell, if I were you, I'd buy enough time as I could before making my move."

An expression of absolute disgust draped over her face like she'd tasted something rotten. "Name one time that I've ever lied to you. Not ever. I can go to my grave knowing that."

"Then convince me," he said. "How do you know the Covenant is here?"

Jasmine covered her face with her hands before running them over her hair. She could feel him looking at her, his consistent stare that was a medium between curiosity and carnal intimidation. What the hell, she thought.

"After exile, Quinn and I made it to West Camp in Selk. We stopped at the depot in Afekan to stock up after we killed the others for their oxygen. There was a Mongoose there, iced up and empty. It took days to thaw the bastard. We hooked a makeshift trailer to the thing with extra supplies and drove to the camp. We stayed there for months before everything went to hell.

"It just happened so fast. They hit us hard, during the night cycle. We didn't even know what was going on until it was too late. I forget her name, but the captain of the camp scrambled all the soldiers to defend, but it didn't matter. We couldn't save anyone. They cut through us so damn easy."

"You fought?"

"I tried, but it didn't make a difference. I maybe shot one of them, and the beast didn't even flinch. I'd never seen one that looked like it before. It was big, fully armored. Like an ape. They had jackals with them too, but even they looked different. More feral, a little bigger. They killed everyone, Jacen. Young. Old. Women. Kids. You think you've seen everything until you've seen an alien use the body of a child as a weapon to kill other people."

"How'd you make it out?"

Jasmine thought it was a dumb question. She was sitting in front of him, alive and breathing. Wasn't that the answer in itself?

"I bucked," she said. "It was a losing fight, to begin with. I barely made it to their vehicles. I took a 'Hog and drove the hell outta there without stopping until I got back to the depot. Refueled there and decided to come back here. I knew it was a risk, but it was better than being torn in half. And then your bloodhound found me, so here I am."

"I get it, but how does that explain you knowing how to get outta here?"

"The captain there. She's in--was--in the same position as we were. A little better condition, but diminishing resources. Except she's willing to do something about it, instead of waiting like Rey." She sat forward, pointing her finger at the table. "There's an ONI black site here, decommissioned, but with a fully-operational Pelican there with a high frequency-grade transponder. The captain planned to find this black site, get the Pelican into orbit, and spam every UNSC frequency until we get an answer."

"And she willingly provided this information to you, despite her only knowing you a few months?"

Jasmine slammed the table with her palm. "Yes, she friggin' told me! I pulled my weight; I became an asset, so yeah, I gained her trust enough for her to tell me."

Jacen didn't flinch. He folded his arms across his chest and seemed to look down into his lap with a twisted mouth. The guard wouldn't be unconscious for much longer. "Fine. Let's say all of this is true. How do we find this black site without the west camp captain? It doesn't seem like she knew to begin with."

"Their AI does, but there's a problem. She shut the AI down, put it to sleep. I guess she didn't want the Covenant finding it, which is ludicrous. They're already in the inner colonies, so Earth shouldn't be too hard to find from there. But if we can go back to the camp, get the AI, access it, then maybe we can know where the site is."

"We gotta tell Rey," Jacen said after a long pause.

"You seriously didn't just say that? That defeats the entire purpose of us getting out of here! Not them. Us!"

"And you seriously think the four of us can hike back into that camp that's controlled by the Covenant, fight our way through, and get to that AI that we can't possibly wake up on our own?"

"We don't need them, Jacen."

Jacen stood up and walked around to where she was sitting. He sat on the edge of the table, gently taking her hand into his. They felt warm, her palms a little rougher than he remembered. He placed his other hand underneath her chin, tilting her face up to his.

She met his eyes that appeared softer now, the familiar action feeling somewhat foreign. It slowed her heartbeat back to normal, the adrenaline ebbing.

"Whether you think so or not, we do." Jacen took out his knife, slipping the cold blade between her wrist, and jerked upwards. The zip tie around Jasmine's wrist snapped free. He eased off the table, took a knee, and did the same with the restraints around her ankles.

Jasmine sat there for a moment, massaging her reddened wrists as she gave Jacen a sidelong look with her mouth. Her body was shifted away from him. She felt her heart rate increasing again.

Jacen sheathed the knife back into his boot before giving her a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. "C'mon, let's take a walk."

Astrid hadn't been outside in two years. When the realization sunk in that the UNSC might not come for them, it seemed like an unnecessary endeavor. There was never a fascination, just kilometers of wasteland and silence. She listened to her boots crunching over the dirt, the O percentage and biometrics only blurry smudges in her peripheral. Rey was somewhere behind her, tending to the Mongoose he'd parked a few meters back.

The Pelican crash was ahead of her. It always gave her angst to see it, a monument to destroyed opportunities. The harsh cold wasn't enough to ice over the blackened scorch marks from the plasma burst that grounded it. Burned-out engines and a smashed cockpit were a poetic combination of an irreversible failure.

As much as she wanted to curse the wreckage and wish to never see it again, it wasn't done with her yet. As beadie as their eyes were, the little Grunts had impeccable aim when they shot it down when flying over their compound. How the pilot was able to keep the bird airborne for so long was a miracle before it crashed here, only for him to be needlessly gunned down in a coup years later.

There was a part of Astrid hoping Jasmine was lying, that her entire explanation was scheiße and could put a bullet in her. Then again, that was frontier justice. Undeserved due process, she called it. Maybe she would make something of the second chance she was given, however long that would last.

What acute hope Astrid had was instantly vaporized when she rounded the starboard side of the Pelican and looked into the open troop bay. Bodies, five of them, lay across the bay floor. Their corpses were frozen, the suits that once regulated their body temperatures long drained of their functions. And then there was the blood. Each body had its dark crimson pool, consistent with what she expected for a person to have their throats cut.

She weaved her steps between them, crouching down on her haunches for a closer inspection. Some of them had additional stab wounds in the upper torso, just under the rib cage. Lungs. It was her handiwork. Clean and efficient. The others had more blood splatter with random entry wounds all over the torso. That must've been Quinn. Aggressive yet sloppy, uncoordinated, and impulsive.

What else are you going to tell us, Ms. Lang? Astrid stood back up with an acute grimace. Her knees were becoming unforgiving.

"What a mess."

Astrid turned to see Rey standing at the mouth of the troop bay. She didn't know how long he was standing there, but she could agree that his words were accurate.

"Indeed," she said, "but this only proves one facet of her story. She still hasn't told us about Quinn, whether he's alive or not. Wouldn't be surprised if she killed him, too."

"Then she did us a favor," Rey observed the bodies himself, eyeing the frozen, expressionless faces of the dead. Their corneas were frozen and their mouths parted open as they once took in a final, gurgling breath. He felt no pity for them, no empathy. They chose this for themselves.

"If she made it to the camp in Selk, who would volunteer that type of information to a stranger?" Astrid asked. "I forget the name of the west camp captain, but I find it hard to believe she would do that."

"Melissa Ross," Rey said.

"Then if Captain Ross knew of an alternative to leaving the moon, why inform a stranger and not dispatch some of her people to tell us?"

There were a lot of angles to her question, Rey thought. He never knew Melissa to be gullible, but he also knew how crafty Jasmine was. She could've easily formulated a story that allowed the captain to drop her guard. Even still, no combination of words from someone he'd never met would make him comfortable enough to divulge UNSC secrets. There had to be more.

"We'll know more when we question her later. Let's get back. We've seen enough here."

Rey pulled the sliding door to his quarters open for Astrid to walk in, closing it behind him before he unlaced his boots for a pair of slip-on shoes. He didn't want to think about the bodies again, viewing them as a mental checkmark down a long list of unknowns when it came to Jasmine. He accepted the cup of black tea that Astrid had made, sipping the earthy-flavored beverage with reluctance. Why in God's name didn't he ration the coffee when they got here?

He began listening to Astrid talk about the next line of questions to ask Jasmine, his focus drifting in and out with the multitude of other situations around the camp. Had Mathinson gotten the sickness under control? Was everyone getting enough to eat with the cutbacks? And how much longer could Kipp keep that busted generator running?

"We need to talk."

Astrid nearly spilled her tea, holding her hand over the mouth of the cup as her heart accelerated in her chest. She looked over to see Jacen sitting on the foot of the bed in the corner.

Rey stood and walked around to where Astrid was standing, taken aback and unable to speak.

"How long were you sitting there?" Astrid held her hand over her chest. "A little creepy, don't you think?"

"Or at least strap some bells to you," Rey added, his jowls tense.

"I'm not an elf." Jacen stood up from the edge of the bed, setting a paperback novel on the shelf next to him. "Interesting read. I never took you as a fan of medieval fantasy. Bit of a bore. No dragons."

"I'd rather know why you're in my quarters than my taste in literature. Not a fan of surprise visits."

"Neither am I," Jacen said. He kept his hands where Rey could see them, seeing the UNSC captain with his hands on his hips where his revolver was close by. "I wanted to ask you about our guest."

Rey glanced at Astrid before looking back at Jacen. "No surprise that you know. I'm afraid that information is privileged at the moment. If there is anything substantial to report, we'll call a meeting."

"Right. I'd do the same." Jacen folded his right arm around his torso as he pinched his chin with his thumb and index fingers. "Although… is it substantial information that she possibly knows how to leave this moon?"

Rey cleared the space between himself and Jacen in an instant, standing so close that he could smell the twang from his breath. "And you heard that from whom? Imaginary friends? You're misinformed."

"Then why don't we ask her ourselves?" Jacen shrugged."It couldn't hurt."

"You're just a glutton for punishment, aren't you? Going forward, only myself, Astrid, and Damon have contact with her. This is UNSC territory now. Know your place."

"Y'know, maybe we got off on the wrong foot." Jacen reached up and patted the sides of Rey's shoulders before he took a few steps back. "I think she can speak for herself."

Jacen pulled back the curtain that encircled the bed, revealing Jasmine sitting near the head.

She gave an awkward wave, quickly putting her hand down as Rey's incensed glare marked her. "In my defense, I told him this was a bad idea."

Astrid dropped her cup, the dark tea splattering across the floor.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" Rey had his hands around Jacen's collar before he was aware of it. "You bring her here, out from where we kept her. If someone had seen her, it would start a damn panic!"

"Or maybe worse!" Astrid felt manic, having nothing to do with her hands that went from her hair to her face, and her hips before reversing. "Seriously, Jacen, what the hell?"

Jacen held his hands up at head height. "You need to listen to what she told me. If you don't buy it, then, by all means, exile or shoot me; but I'm betting you won't after you hear what she has to say."

"I don't have to hear a word." Rey let go of Jacen with a shove against his collar. "You've got a lotta nerve for this. You're close, Pearce. You're this close to being locked up with her. What lies did she put in your head? Take her back. NOW!"

Jacen straightened out his shirt. He took a breath. "Gladly, but listen first."

"We're wasting time," Jasmine muttered.

Jacen snapped around. "Oh, like you have somewhere to be."

Astrid let out a fingerless whistle so loud that the others winced with hunched shoulders. "Enough! Ruhig! My God, it's like your adolescents. All of us will come to an understanding. Jacen, your actions could've resulted in great harm. We had her secure down there for a reason. You had no right to talk to her without our knowledge. It's unacceptable."

"And holding her brother as leverage, that's acceptable?"

"Damn right."

"Reymond, please!" Astrid brushed a strain of her hair aside and clasped her hands in front of her. She exhaled. "While extreme, we stand by that decision. Let's not behave as if our moral compasses all point true north. We are comfortable releasing the child back to you, Jasmine, but the both of you will remain in confinement. Those are the terms. Is that reasonable?"

Jacen turned back to look at Jasmine. Her face was still flushed red. She gave a wordless nod of her head.

"Very well. Then what is this new information? We verified the bodies in the Pelican, so you've earned some latitude."

Jasmine grumbled, scratching her scalp that desperately needed a wash. If for nothing else, it was for Ken. She told them everything, from the trek to the camp in Selk, her time there among them, the ONI black site, how the camp captain formulated a plan to find it, and lastly the sudden Covenant attack that she barely escaped from.

The room was silent.