"I don't," Diego said. "But it's irresponsible to not have a backup plan."

"I'll tell you what's irresponsible. Irresponsible is promising the Kig-Yar Slipspace engines, taking their payments of nifty little weapons and shipping them back to the colonies, but then pretending to warehouse those engines until you've got them all gathered up. When you never intended to hand them over."

"Damn it, Bonifacio," Diego shouted, "the council voted to proceed with the Exodus Project. It's a backup plan. Once we have enough Slipspace engines installed, then we'll hand the rest of them over."

"The Kig-Yar know what you've been doing anyway," Bonifacio said dismissively.

"What?" Diego stared at Bonifacio.

"You can't take an asteroid habitat as big as the Exodus Project and hang it way back off the Rubble, and not expect them to miss it. Plus, they really want their engines. They haven't believed your official excuses for not getting as many delivered to them as promised -- not in the slightest. They are our allies, our business partners. We stand a chance to live on. Let the Covenant and UNSC fight, while we make money and trade instead."

Delgado stared at both men. "The Exodus Project is a giant habitat?"

"He's pretty much told you what it is," Diego said, annoyed. "The largest rock in the Rubble was held back from the beginning. The surface was coated to try and stealth it. Back at the start, it was an emergency in-system retreat: get as many civilians in it if the Covenant came back in force and try to sneak out to the Oort cloud far on the edges of the system where no one ventures.

"Now the Exodus Project is being outfitted with Slipspace drives. A lot of them. The idea is not to hide in the system, but to head out away from the UNSC, and the Covenant. Just get into the stream and keep going until we're well away from all of this."

"That's audacious," Delgado said. "How many citizens can it hold?"

"It's big," Diego said. "Big enough for a million citizens."

"And you've hidden it away, all this time?" Delgado couldn't believe it. In the Rubble, where everything was voted on, the Security Council had pulled off something significant: a major secret.

The tug fired a series of thruster bursts and slammed into a docking collar.

Bonifacio grabbed Diego by the shoulders. "Look, Diego. I know you and I don't exactly agree on everything. But I'm a Council member, just like you. I want to see the Rubble continue and prosper. I'm not your enemy. You know that, right?"

"I know that," Diego said. "I'm sorry."

"I want that data on Exodus protected, but not out here in the Rubble where people are attacking it -- whoever the hell it is that's doing that.

Understand?"

Diego nodded.

"Good." Bonifacio pulled Diego tighter. "Now tell Delgado here to let us onto his ship so we can get it and do our duty." Diego looked at Delgado.

"Give him what he needs."

Delgado bit his lip. "You sure about this?"

"Yeah." Diego sounded subdued. "It'll be okay. And we'll need to talk to you about the Exodus Project. You can't repeat any of that to anyone."

"I can keep a secret," Delgado said, as the airlock doors opened.

Diego laughed. "I know. And after this, we'll make everything right for you. You took shots for us. They can't forget that."

They trudged out from Bonifacio's tug down an access tube to a set of quiet docks that Delgado had chosen. The rock ceilings sloped fifteen feet overhead, and only four or five docking collars led into this small chamber, as it was an old mining depot.

Delgado crossed the silent chamber to the airlock where

Distancia was docked. They all crowded into the airlock and cycled through and in.

Delgado took a deep breath, pulling in the smell of metal, oil, and sweat.

Distancia had once hauled miners out from Madrigal orbit across the system to the Rubble. Now she ferried cargo in and around the Rubble, from one end to another. Quicker than tube cars, as he didn't have to route through each habitat, pausing for traffic.

It felt good to be back aboard.

Maybe if Bonifacio was telling the truth, and he was really just a maverick Security Council member, then Delgado could just go back to ferrying things about the Rubble. Like before Diego had called, talking about the disappearing navigation data, asking him if he'd take on hiding it for the council, as he knew the Rubble the best. And he was the only person Diego personally trusted.

Going back to ferrying sounded good, Delgado thought, as he walked the small group over to the safe hidden under the floor grates of the tiny kitchen on the ship, halfway toward the cockpit.

It opened on his fingerprint, and Delgado pulled the oval container of hard plastic that held the chip out. He offered it to Diego.

Bonifacio reached out a hand, and Diego shook his head. "I think I'll be the one who keeps it on his person until we get it to the Exodus."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Bonifacio said.

Delgado turned around, eye to eye with the barrel of a very large pistol in Bonifacio's hand. "Hand it over to me,

Delgado."

Diego swore, and was hit in the ribs by one of Bonifacio's men.

"Thank you," Bonifacio took the navigation data away from him. "Thank you very much, Delgado. I'd hoped to just take it and promise to meet you two aboard the Exodus and never show, but Diego had second thoughts. You're rubbing off on him. Either way, Reth is really, really going to appreciate this."

Chapter THIRTY-FOUR

METISETTE ORBIT, 23 LIBRAE

The Kig-Yar named Reth screamed, a primal roar of pain and horror that echoed throughout the corridors of the ship, all the way up to the cockpit, where Thel sat poring over Kig-Yar estimates of human strength in the Rubble.

Zhar stood up, but Thel held up a hand. "I ordered Saal not to do this. I will go."

For a moment Zhar remained up, then he folded back down into his chair. "What -- "

"That is my concern, Zhar." Thel walked out of the cockpit, past the Unggoy clustered in the halls. They chattered nervously and cleared a path as Thel strode by.

Thel walked to Reth's cell. The Kig-Yar had been strapped to the wall, his arms and legs splayed out in a large X by strong straps.

On the other side of the energy bars, Saal stood in front of the Kig-Yar. As he leaned forward, the horrendous screams began again. "Why are you really here in this system?" Saal bellowed. "What is it you seek to gain?"

Reth spit purple blood and screamed.

Thel shut off the containment system, and stepped into the alcove. "Has he said anything new to justify continuing this interrogation? Maybe something different?" Thel asked softly.

Saal spun around, turning off his energy sword. Purple blood stained the hilt in his hand and dripped from his fingers. "No, honor. He has not. He's still sticking to his story. That a Hierarch commands him to have done all this."

"Have you forgotten your orders, then?" Thel stared Saal straight in the eye, neck bared, as if daring Saal to try for it.

Saal backed away from the implicit challenge of confidence, moving closer to a wall. Reth gurgled in the background.

"I wanted to break him of his heresies," Saal said. "What he's saying cannot be true."

"It is a poor soldier who insists on seeing things not as they are, but as he wants them to be. One day reality hits, and his illusions fail him, and he dies stupidly. What honor is there in that?" Thel stepped closer to Saal, cornering him, dominating his space.

Saal straightened. "But if the Kig-Yar is right, then one Prophet ordered him to come here and do this, and another ordered us to come here and -- "

"It is not up to us to pick apart what the Prophets may or may not have ordered, Saal. It is also not up to you to decide what orders of mine to follow."

Thel patted his waist, where his own energy sword was clipped, and kept his eyes locked on Saal, who finally looked toward the ground.

"I have failed you, honor," Saal said.

"You have." Thel sighed.

"I have lost nobility. I will do what is right." Saal's energy sword flared into being.

"You will not take your life," Thel said. "You will scar your forearms with the mark of disobedience."

Saal closed his eyes and shivered. "Please ..."

"It is an order," Thel stood up straight and high over Saal. "Now leave."

Saal walked out of the cell with his head low from shame. Thel walked over to the slab of a bed and sat on it, facing Reth.

"Sangheili are insane," Reth hissed. "What is the mark of disobedience?"

"He will use his energy sword to burn marks into the skin of his arms. Crossing lines all up and down, where all can see and know him for what he is.

It is shameful. Death is preferred. But for now, I need all my fighters. He can kill himself later, and we will destroy the body so that his lineage will not suffer. If he performs well in battle."

Reth shook his head. "Sangheili ..."

"We are strong, Kig-Yar. That is why we sit at the right hand of the Prophets."

Reth laughed. "One day that shall pass."

"Not as long as we remain strong." Thel stood. "But Saal's worries do trouble me. You still claim that it is the Prophet of Truth who sent you here?"

Again Reth laughed. "You should worry. I speak the truth. And it was Truth who sent me here. He doesn't believe that the Prophet of Regret has come even close to the human home-world."

Thel leaned closer. "But this here is not the human home-world."

Reth blinked, focusing his memories. "When that Kig-Yar ship took back recordings of these humans begging to trade for their lives, Truth realized he had found a way to easily find the core of their infestation."

"These heretical weapons," Thel said.

"Humans have rebels among them. Something Truth wants to use. The weapons are traceable. We could map the entire human population if we got these rebels to smuggle back enough of them. Sadly, the humans have a new directive that has killed this opportunity."

"They destroy data on their ships before they are captured, yes," Thel said.

"But we still have a chance to get the location of their home-world from them here. There are opportunists who will sell it to us. Once we have it, these habitats are ours to keep, the

Prophet promised us. The Kig-Yar will hold a special place then, Truth has promised us."

Thel shook his head. "The Sangheili will remain by the side of the Prophets."

"You are too arrogant," Reth spat. "The Jiralhanae betrayed you. We are given this special mission by the Prophet of Truth. Both seek to minimize your kind. You have dominated things far too long."

"We are in the midst of a holy war with the humans," Thel hissed. "That is not the time for such things."

"But it is," Reth said. "We will use our Unggoy army from Metisette to destroy the humans here once we have the data that leads us to their homeworld. And we will be favored in the Prophets' eyes. Not you, Sangheili."

"You are an obnoxious creature." Thel broke the straps around the Kig-Yar and freed him.

"When we hand over the humans, we will be honored. The Prophets will look kindly on us in the final journey." Reth staggered over to the bunk and lay down. "We will be holier and more blessed than you, Sangheili. You will see. You will see."

Thel walked away, back to the cockpit, where Zhar looked up. He'd overheard their whole exchange.

"Do you believe him?" Zhar asked.

"I think Reth believes what Reth is saying." Thel sat down, suddenly tired.

"What games are we caught in the middle of?" Zhar asked.

"I do not know," Thel said. He toyed with the image of the Kig-Yar ship on his screen. It was the closest thing the Kig-Yar had to a true fleet ship, similar to the designs of refitted Kig-Yar raiders that had fought the Covenant from asteroid belts before the Kig-Yar were granted a place within the Covenant.

He wondered if the Kig-Yar had managed to put a Slipspace drive on it.

It looked likely, though Thel wondered if the cobbled-together affair would make it through. It certainly didn't look like it.

But it had weapons. Thel made a decision.

"We will take that Kig-Yar ship. We will use it to destroy all this heresy. If the Prophet of Truth shows up and tells me to stop, then I will do so. Tell the others to prepare, and tell these Unggoy to ready themselves to be useful."

Until the Prophet of Truth himself showed up here, Thel had to follow the orders he was given. And since the Jiralhanae would be back with the High Prophet of Regret soon, Thel wanted his actions to show that he had done his duty.

Yes. The human habitats here would burn, just as their world Charybdis IX had burned.

Chapter THIRTY-FIVE

HABITAT EL CUIDAD, INNER RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

Delgado didn't even think twice -- he grabbed the gun and kicked Bonifacio in the stomach. But in that split second Bonifacio's three men piled onto him, trying to yank the gun away as they smashed his ribs.

As he gasped from the pain, Bonifacio shouted, "Shoot them both and throw them out the damn airlock!"

But Delgado had the gun up and pointed at Bonifacio despite the pain of getting pummeled by the bodyguards. "Get away from me. Or he dies."

The three overly muscled men backed away, their guns now out and trained on Delgado.

Bonifacio smiled and held his hands up. "Now, easy, Delgado. Come on. We can work something out here."

"Screw you, Bonifacio." Delgado wasn't in the mood for his bullshit now.

"Give me a gun," Bonifacio snapped. The nearest heavy tossed him one. Delgado hesitated, not really wanting to fire a gun inside his own ship. That hesitation cost him, because now Bonifacio had a gun of his own pointed at Diego. "I'm going to shoot Diego if you don't hand that over."

Delgado thought about it for a second. Giving away the data would certainly endanger the Rubble. Bonifacio, it was now obvious, would not be taking this data to the Exodus Project. No, he was going to sell it to the Kig-Yar. All signs pointed to it. Delgado shook his head.