"Then what is it?" Zheng asked. "Where are they headed?"

Keyes had astronomy data up on his screen with possible paths of the

Kestrel mapped out. "There's a gas giant, farther out. It's called Hesiod."

They followed the

Kestrel as it fell into an orbit trailing far, far behind the gas giant, but slowly catching up to it.

"There we go," Keyes said, upping the magnification on the view ahead of them.

"Asteroids?" Zheng said.

"Trojan asteroids," Keyes said. "Most gas giants have asteroids sitting just ahead and behind their orbit in stable L4 and L5 positions."

"Makes a good hideout," Rai Li spoke up from weapons. "The rebels at Eridani used the asteroid belt there and it made it hard to hunt them down."

The

Kestrel slowed as it slipped into the cloud of rock.

There was something wrong, Keyes thought. Dirtsiders heard the term "asteroid field" and thought of a large collection of rocks floating near each other.

The truth was that asteroids lay millions of miles from each other. A slow-moving ship could thread through them easily enough on their way through a system.

But this collection of asteroids looked just like a layperson's idea of an asteroid field. Hundreds of asteroids had been moved within a mile of each other.

Keyes magnified the image even more, putting it up on a wall screen the whole bridge could look at. The hundreds of irregularly shaped rocks jumped into view.

"Looks like some of them are built up," Dante Kirtley said. "Plus, I'm starting to get a lot of direct-line comms chatter. They're trying to keep it focused and quiet, but I'm hearing it. Looks like we got ourselves an Insurrectionist hiding hole. And behind Covenant lines, no less."

But something glinted between them. Keyes upped the magnification even further, and everyone on the bridge gasped.

The glints were long, silver lines. As Keyes jumped the magnification up again, the gossamer lines resolved themselves into tubes.

"They're all connected," Li said. "With docking tubes."

"If each of those asteroids is fully inhabited, this isn't just an Insurrectionist hiding hole," Zheng said. "It's a floating metropolis ... behind enemy lines."

They coasted in closer, staring at the spectacle of an asteroid field towed in closer, connected together, and hollowed out. Ships moved in between the rocks, and occasionally a burst of flame from a guidance rocket adjusted an asteroid, presumably so that it didn't break one of the tubes.

"Freeze that," Li suddenly snapped. Keyes stopped the drift on the image. "Zoom."

He saw it too, now.

"Is that a Jackal ship?" Kirtley asked.

"That's Jackal," Li confirmed. She tapped her console and put a window up next to their live image of a Jackal ship taken from the combat camera of a Navy ship. Unlike the usual Covenant-made ships, the Jackal-made ships looked like last-minute scrap yard projects -- girders, rockets, and capsules haphazardly joined together around a core unit. These ships were not made to even kiss an atmosphere, but remain in space.

Zheng cracked his knuckles and stared at the screen. "Bring the crew up to ready, ops. Weapons, unlock missiles and arm a nuke. Comms, make sure you're scanning and getting everything that's going on."

Li, Kirtley, Keyes, and Campbell got to work.

"Lieutenant Campbell, set up preparations to destroy our navigation charts, as per the Cole Protocol."

Campbell paused, considered something, and then spoke up. "Sir, does it make sense? The

Kestrel obviously has charts, and I'd bet other ships in this ... complex have charts as well. We're not making it any harder for Covenant here to find charts, are we?"

Zheng looked at the screen. "You're right, Lieutenant. That thing out there, that's just one giant Cole Protocol violation, isn't it? But orders are orders.

Ready the purge. Just in case."

"Yessir."

"Okay, Keyes, bring her in nice and easy. We just want to swing nearby, nice and quiet, and see what intel we can pick up to bring back with us. But if things get hairy, be ready to get us the hell out."

"Aye, sir," Keyes responded. Then he spotted movement. "They have patrols, it looks like. Moving around the perimeter."

"Let's see how stealthy this frigate really is, Keyes." Zheng leaned forward in his chair.

The

Midsummer Night moved closer to the tangle of docking tubes, asteroids, ships, dust, and debris trailing the massive orb of Hesiod.

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

PINEAPPLE HABITAT, THE RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

Thel 'Vadamee and his bridge crew sat on the far end of a large cell. It was a crude thing: a hole dug out of the rocky interior wall of a hollowed out asteroid, with bars of metal over the front, some of which were hinged.

Thel had seen medieval keeps with similarly built jails back on Sanghelios. In museums.

He'd woken up with a horrific headache pounding the side of his temple where he'd struck the bulkhead. Not an honorable battle wound, or a way to end a fight, Thel thought miserably as he looked out through the bars.

The Kig-Yar had combed the remains of the ship, carrion sniffers that they were, and found the bridge crew alive. The rest of the crew had fought to the death, destroying the ship in the process.

Thel sincerely wished they'd just left him for dead on his destroyed ship. But the Kig-Yar had some plan in mind for them, using the Sangheili as hostages.

Jora crept his way over. "I am beyond shame, my shipmaster."

Thel had been told Jora rushed the Kig-Yar with no weapon, and they'd shot him several times in the leg. Now Jora was dragging the useless limb

behind him on the cell floor.

"I have snapped one of the legs off those useless cots made for humans."

He handed it to Thel, who tested the sharp end with a finger. Jora had worked hard to get the long piece of metal sharp.

"Please," Jora begged. "I have no honor left. I am crippled. I cannot face my keep."

If the Sangheili masters found out that they'd been captured by a lesser race like the Kig-Yar, or that they'd failed so horribly in a holy mission handed to them directly by a Hierarch, there would be dire consequences.

Jora's entire bloodline could be killed off. They'd hunt down his nephews and behead them. The genetic proclivities of failures, the planetary heads of Sangheilios thought, could not be allowed to continue on.

But if Jora did the right thing, and killed himself before the Kig-Yar could get any use out of him, or further sully his name and by extension, his line ...

well, his keep might fall in stature, but at least the line could try to struggle back up from its loss of honor.

"Please," Jora whispered. "You have been like a cousin to me. Please do me one last favor. I have not the strength to do it myself."

"Come and kneel," Thel said.

The other zealots in the cell faced away. It was embarrassing to see that Jora could not even dispatch himself, but needed the hand of another.

But Thel remembered how Jora had thrown himself against the Kig-Yar. That had to count for something, he thought, as he stepped behind Jora.

"May the Great Journey await you, may your enemies writhe in hell, and your line continue forward, and gain honor," Thel said to his boldest fighter.

And then he slammed the spike into the back of Jora's head.

Jora slowly toppled forward with a sigh.

"May your scattered body go," Veer murmured, turning back around, "beyond the limits of your mind...."

"Beyond the limits of our worlds," Saal said the next line of the death benediction.

"To the places our ancestors dream and sang of," Zhar sang.

"And the Prophets speak of," Thel finished. The survivors clasped forearms. "You all remain alive -- why?"

"We want to study how to destroy the humans hiding here," Saal said. "The Kig-Yar spoke of ransoming us to our keeps. But Thel, you are kaidon of your keep now. Would you pay for one of your own captured like this?"

Thel snorted. "I would sooner bleed on the ground than do it. You know this."

"Exactly," Zhar said. Thel could see his tactical mind working. This was good. Set Zhar on a problem and he was like a warrior -- he'd tussle with it to his last breath.

Saal laughed. "The Kig-Yar are idiots who pay no attention to us. They should have known to kill us where we lay; no Sangheili in his right mind would pay a ransom. That is a Kig-Yar game."

Zhar turned to him. "And that is how we will destroy them. They are too far away to find this out so quickly. And our suspicions were right; we have heard Kig-Yar say as much. The Jiralhanae who betrayed us are returning with the Shipmistress to

High Charity where they can claim this find for themselves."

"And find favor with the Prophets," Veer said. "But how is it that we're in a human cell here?"

Thel understood what he was getting at. "The prophets will not like it."

"Humans and Kig-Yar, working together," Veer mused. "There were humans here talking to the Kig-Yar who dragged us in."

"They called the one human Bonifacio," Saal said. "You could smell his fear of us in the air."

"All we need to do is get out of this cell," Zhar said.

Saal walked over to Jora's body and pulled the spike free from his head. "I have yet to see anything spying on us. This all looks like it was recently welded together on short notice to contain us."

Thel snorted in appreciation. "Roll Jora's body onto a cot and cover it. Eventually they will want to know why he doesn't move. Make sure the covers they gave us drape over where the metal leg used to be."

They had a weapon now. And a plan. Of sorts.

Four Sangheili free would be a force to reckon with.

And Thel did not, one way or another, intend to be recaptured.

Now all they needed was an opportunity.

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

HABITAT EL CUIDAD, INNER RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

Ignatio Delgado pulled at the handcuffs attached to the long chain until he was at the very end, and got a drink of water from a sink.

It was a long drink. He used his body as a shield as he picked at a cotter pin holding one of the taps in place. He palmed it and stood up.

He was being held inside a dingy factory. The dust seemed to cling to everything. Even the light beams from the windows seemed to ride in on floating clouds of dust.

Bonifacio's five pet heavies sat at a table with a deck of cards that fizzled and popped and lit up their little corner of the warehouse.

The card game paused as he watched. The men gathered the cards up quickly, all five rushing to get things cleared off. , One of the men stood up and trotted over as Delgado finished drinking water out of his hands.

"What's going on?" Delgado asked.

The men had ignored him. Bonifacio had yet to return. He'd had no food, but he could drink out of the sink and use a bucket they'd left for him.

"Your time is up," one of them grunted. "The

Kestrel's back."

That meant Bonifacio had no reason left to leave him alive when he got back from wherever he was.

The question was, since he was handcuffed here under

Council's orders, how was Bonifacio going to properly get rid of him?

"The thing is," another heavy added. "She's got company."

Delgado looked around. "Company?"

"A UNSC stealthed frigate. Some new design. It's poking around the edges of the Rubble."

"How do you know?" asked Delgado.

"Same way we know anything about them. We have someone aboard. They've been using a tight-beam laser to cast out messages to us, like where the ship is, what it's up to. They're getting ready to help us take care of the problem.

"Once we know that's solved and the

Kestrel is safely at Mr. Bonifacio's private dock, then we take you back to the Council." The man grinned.

Delgado did not believe what he said for a second. Delgado imagined they'd be on their way to take him back, and hand him over, but somehow there'd be a terrible tube car accident. Or airlock accident. That's how people like Bonifacio worked.

Four of the men were called away, leaving one heavy to sit by himself and forlornly guard Delgado.

The lone guard only lasted about three minutes before he unfolded a small screen and started watching something on it. The sounds of tinny gunfire and screams from the movie echoed in the empty factory walls.

Delgado retrieved the cotter pin he'd been hiding. He started using it to fiddle with the lock on the cuffs. The guard stared intently at the screen.

Chapter TWENTY-SIX

OUTER RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

There was an art to deciphering patterns, Keyes thought, looking at all the contacts the ship's radar was showing him on a screen. And despite all the training he gave in his life he felt it wasn't something you could analyze. Seeing patterns came to those with intuition. You looked for the gaps and cracks that opened up.

The

Midsummer Night had slipped deep into the Insurrectionist structure. He couldn't help but be amazed by it all.

All these asteroids, all these connections. What a tremendous achievement.

"Say what you will about them, this is a pretty slick operation," Lt. Dante Kirtley muttered from comms. He was bent over, looking for stray chatter.

"They've routed most of their communications through physical lines, there's almost no wireless leakage. Makes all of this pretty quiet out here, Commander."

Commander Zheng checked the information they were all sending him. "The Jackal ship, Lieutenant. Don't forget about the ship. These Insurrectionists are probably working with the Covenant -- that's how they've managed to achieve all this. I'm not inclined to be as charitable."

The radar contacts Keyes was following shifted with the ship, as if orbiting it, but from a very long distance.

Keyes puffed the thrusters, gently moving them along a random line. The bulk of the cloud of freighters, personal ships, drones and other small contacts all shifted slightly.

A slight sense of claustrophobia washed over Keyes, but it was quickly quenched.