Halo: Contact Harvest by Joseph Staten Read Free Book Online

Avery said, raising his head from his chest. “Check it.”
The Lieutenant straightened his soldiers. He wasn’t used to taking orders from a noncommissioned officer.
Avery belched. “I’m AWOL. Seventy-two hours.”
That got Downs’ attention. He cracked his briefcase in the crook of his elbow and withdrew his COM pad. “Give me that one more time,” he asked, inputting Avery’s slowly repeated serial number with swift stabs of his index finger.
A few seconds later Avery’s service record appeared on the pad. The Lieutenant’s eyes widened as a long string of meritorious citations and battlefield commendations cascaded down the monochromatic screen. ORION, KALEIDOSCOPE, TANGLE-WOOD, TREBUCHET. Dozens of programs and operations, most of which Downs had never even heard of. Attached to Avery’s file was a priority message from FLEETCOM, the Navy and Marine Corps headquarters on Reach.
“If you’re AWOL, no one seems to mind.” Downs placed his COM pad back into his briefcase. “In fact, I’m pleased to inform you that your request for transfer has been approved.”
For a moment, Avery’s tired eyes flashed with suspicion. He hadn’t requested a transfer. But in his current groggy state, anything sounded better than being shipped back to Epsilon Eridanus. His eyes darkened once more. “Where?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Long as it’s quiet,” Avery muttered. He let his head fall back against the recruitment center door—right between the legs of a marine in full battle dress on a poster taped to the inside of the door that read: STAND. FIGHT. SERVE. Avery closed his eyes.
“Hey!” Downs said gruffly. “You can’t sleep here, Marine.” But Avery was already snoring. The Lieutenant grimaced, hefted one of Avery’s arms over his shoulder, and carried him to the backseat of his sedan.
As Downs pulled out of the mall’s parking lot into thick, noontime traffic, he wondered if catching a single AWOL war hero was as good as booking five raw recruits—if it would be enough to keep his CO happy. “Great Lakes Spaceport,” he barked at his sedan. “Quickest route.” As a holographic map materialized on the inner surface of the sedan’s curved windshield, Downs shook his head. If only I could be so lucky.

CHAPTER
    THREE

COVENANT MISSIONARY ALLOTMENT,
NEAR EPSILON INDI SYSTEM,
23RD AGE OF DOUBT

Staring at the alien vessel’s stacked containers of ripe fruit, Dadab began to salivate. He rarely saw such delicacies, let alone got a chance to eat them. In the Covenant, the union of species to which Dadab belonged, his kind, the Unggoy, ranked low in the pecking order. They were used to scrambling for scraps. But they were not alone.
Near the base of one of the stacks, three Kig-Yar were squabbling over a jumble of particularly juicy melons. Dadab tried to trundle past the screeching reptilian creatures unnoticed. Even though he held the rank of Deacon on the Kig-Yar’s ship, Minor Transgression, he was an unwelcome addition to its crew. Under the best of circumstances the two species were uneasy allies. But after a long voyage with dwindling supplies—had they not happened upon the alien vessel when they did—Dadab only half-humorously feared the Kig-Yar might have made a meal of him instead.
A melon wedge tumbled through the air and hit the side of Dadab’s blue-grey head with a syrupy thwack, spraying juice on his orange tunic. Like the rest of his body, the Unggoy’s head was covered with a stiff exoskeleton, and the blow didn’t hurt him in the least. But the three Kig-Yar erupted in shrill laughter all the same.
“An offering for his holiness!” one of them sneered through dagger-sharp teeth. This was Zhar, the leader of the crewmen’s little clique—easily differentiated from the other two by the length and deep pink color of the long flexible spines that crested the back of his narrow skull.
Without breaking stride Dadab loosed a powerful snort, dislodging bits of rind that had lodged in