Halo: Indelible Past/Chapter Thirty-Five

"I have made all the arrangements," Deno's hologram announced. Projected above the Incumbent Wrath's command deck, the spymaster tapped a small datapad. "The call condemning Mordred for the incident on Beta-14 was rescinded by the council just a few moments ago. Thel 'Vadam himself presided over the proceedings."
"That was easier than I thought it would be," Autel commented from just below the projector. "The council isn't normally so quick to back down on matters concerning the Path Walkers."
Deno clicked his mandibles. "My agents may have hurried the process along somewhat," he admitted. "A few blowhards needed more persuading than others, but the important thing is that it is done."
"Yes," Autel agreed. "Good work." He wasn't sure how comfortable he was with the idea of Deno being able to manipulate Sanghelios's government, but at least the spymaster's efforts were well-intentioned.
"One other thing," Deno told him. "The computer data you took from the human facilities..."
"All of it is encrypted," Autel said. "But I don't doubt your agents will be able to glean some useful information from it. A Phantom has already been dispatched to bring it all to you."
"Many thanks." Deno gave him a low bow. "I will ensure whatever we find is put to good use."
His hologram flickered and vanished. Beside Autel, Fira shook his head. "So much trouble for a worm like Mordred. You should have let me handle it myself. His kind are beneath you."
"You made that bargain while fighting under my command," Autel reminded him. "It was my duty to see it done."
"As long as you are bringing humans aboard my ship, it is courteous of you to ensure that at least some aren't wanted criminals." Sona 'Demal, shipmaster of the Incumbent Wrath and Fira's cousin, crossed the command deck to stand with them. "Now we just have to make sure I don't have to preside over an inter-species incident."
"Don't worry about that, Shipmaster." Autel had always known Felix-116 to be a formidable warrior, but he had still been impressed to see the Spartan up and walking after the injuries he had sustained. "I've been making some calls of my own. It won't be as fast as what you managed, but ONI's willing to play ball here as well."
"I have known you to be many things," Autel informed his human friend. "But a manipulator of militaries is not one of them. What exactly do you have planned for Mordred?"
Felix shook his head. "I can't say for certain. Not yet. But it would be a waste to kill someone who has so much experience dealing with both our species. Whatever happens with him, I plan to make sure that both humans and Sangheili benefit."
Fira grunted. "And what makes you think he deserves this chance?"
"A lot of things," Felix told him. "And not just the things Cassandra told me. That's all I can really say right now."
Sona stepped forward. "There is another matter we can settle here," he told the injured Spartan. "I currently have two other humans sealed away in holding cells, and something tells me you don't plan to offer them any deals."
"David Kahn has committed crimes all over Interspecies Union space," Felix admitted. "But my superiors want to keep this within ONI. They also want to know more about the girl who was with him. As far as I know, she hasn't killed any of your people."
"Take them," Sona said immediately. "Blame for Beta-14 fell on this Mordred; my superiors have little interest in bringing in someone else to pin it on. Besides, the assassin was your battle. You defeated him. It is only fitting that you claim him."
"Shipmaster." A thin young warrior in the colors of a Minor approached them. "Forgive the intrusion, but Major 'Urden wanted me to bring you these data files..."
Sona turned to deal with his subordinate while Fira and Autel escorted Felix from the bridge. Several officers nodded to them as they passed, though Felix garnered more than a few curious stares. The door guards let them pass and they stepped out into the corridor.
"Your subordinates are free to bear weapons and move about the ship," Autel told Felix. "I trust they won't disrupt the workings of the ship."
"They'll keep themselves in line," Felix promised. "Ralph is already complaining about how bored he is. But there's one more thing I need to ask you for."
Autel clicked his mandibles. Felix had helped save his infant children during the Fallen insurrection. There was very little he would even consider refusing to do for him in payment of that debt. "Whatever you need. Within reason, of course."
"I need access to the holding cells. Before I deal with G294, I want to talk to Kahn."
**
The Sangheili did not afford the same respect to prisoners that UNSC laws did, and as such their brigs left much to be desired in terms of comfort. David Kahn's cell was devoid of any features save for the generators that kept up its containment field. The interior was smooth and lacked even a cot for its occupant to lie on.
The austere nature of his prison didn't seem to have fazed Kahn in the slightest. His hands bound by lightly glowing energy bonds, the mercenary was sitting upright against the back of the cell as Felix approached. Aside from a few cuts, bruises, and the bandages that could be seen from under his jumpsuit, he looked as confident--and deadly--as ever.
"Felix," he said warmly. "Nice of you to drop by."
Felix's shattered arm throbbed at the sight of the man who had come so close to killing him, but the Spartan refused to give the prisoner the satisfaction of seeing his pain. "You keep talking like you know me," he said coldly. "I want to know why."
Kahn raised an eyebrow. "Damn, you really weren't faking back there, were you? You really don't remember me."
"David Kahn was an insurrectionist information broker who died at the end of the twenty-fifth century." Felix told the mercenary, grateful for the mission briefs that had filled him in on the early ORION data that his amnesia had cost him. "Something tells me you aren't him."
"Unless I've got something of whatever's kept you so spry after all this time," Kahn noted drily. "Care to share that little secret?"
"It's classified." Felix was the one asking the questions here, and he intended to keep it that way. "Answer me this: are you Hector Thornhill?"
The confident half-smile on Kahn's lips didn't waver, but Felix could practically feel the man's gaze hardening. He had struck on something here, and he was going to keep digging until he'd squeezed out whatever it was about his past that Kahn knew about.
Kahn shrugged. "Never heard of him."
"You're awfully confident for a man who's about to spend the rest of his life in prison."
The mercenary's crooked smile actually widened at that remark. "Prison, huh? Well, I have been thinking about a vacation recently. A few months behind bars might be just the thing I need. Before I break out, of course."
"You're that confident?" Felix demanded.
"I've done it before. And from what I hear, they really don't make triple-max security prisons like they used to."
"That's assuming you get off with just a life sentence," Felix told him. "You're the most wanted individual in the colonies."
"Oh, I've got a pretty decent nest egg stowed away." Kahn crossed his legs and rested his shackled hands behind his head. "Good enough to buy me a pretty good legal council. Do you even have a case against me? Evidence? Witnesses?"
"You killed over fifty UNSC personnel on New Madrigal alone." The man's flippant tone was starting to get under Felix's skin. "Not to mention attacking me."
"It could have been a clone on New Madrigal," Kahn pointed out. "They're all the rage these days, I hear. And as for back on Sanghelios, that was just a misunderstanding between a UNSC strike team and a private citizen trying to bring a violent terrorist to justice. Nothing too serious."
"You're assuming you'll even get a trial." Felix regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth. Kahn gave him a genuine grin.
"And there we have it," he said. "Glad to see naive little Felix Martel finally wised up to how ONI really works. If I hadn't taken Rosch out during our little scrap, I doubt I'd be sitting here right now."
Kahn was evading the question, Felix realized. He shook his head, his hands balling into fists. "I'll ask again: how the hell do you know me?"
With a sigh, the mercenary shifted position and brought his knees back down to the floor. His posture was all casual resignation, but Felix noticed the same calculating look in Kahn's eyes that he'd seen during their fight. This wasn't a man to be taken lightly, even when he was firmly and completely in custody.
"Well, I don't see how this will hurt so much," Kahn said. "Yeah, I was Hector Thornhill once. A very long time ago. We trained together, you and I, back in Project ORION."
"Hector Thornhill died on Taradia." Felix remembered that much, even if his specific recollections were shot to hell. "ONI listed him as KIA."
"Of course they did. Hector Thornhill did die on Taradia. That was the whole point of the operation. Assassinating David Kahn was never the point of sending us in. ONI had to fool everyone, even its own operatives, into thinking that Hector Thornhill died and David Kahn escaped."
The truth hit Felix like a ton of bricks. "You," he breathed. "They wanted you to impersonate him. To get closer to the insurrection."
Kahn smiled up at him. "I knew you'd figure it out fast enough. It only took you a good sixty years."
"Then why did you betray the UNSC?" Felix demanded. "Why did you become... this?" He waved his prosthetic arm at Kahn's cuts and bandages.
Kahn shrugged. "I played the double agent stooge for ONI for long enough. They just started asking for more than I was willing to give."
"Like what?"
"Enough about me," Kahn said dismissively. "Let's talk about you. The arm, that armor, your damn face... you sure have grown up. Or not."
He let out an abrupt bark of laughter. "I remember the training ring back in ORIONL, all the sparring matches we'd run there. No one could beat me, especially now. Until yesterday, that is."
"I didn't beat you." Felix didn't know why he said it, but it was something that had been gnawing at the corner of his mind since he'd woken up. "A week before that, you were a wreck on New Madrigal. If you'd been fresh, things would have gone differently."
Kahn just shook his head. "You should give yourself more credit. I went out on a job as I was, and it cost me. Now that I've actually lost, I'll have to admit that it isn't so bad. Shouldn't let it turn into a habit, though."
"The girl who was with you..."
At once, Kahn had his guard back up. He narrowed his eyes, all traces of mirth gone. "Where is she?"
"I'm the one asking the questions," Felix reminded him. "Who is she?"
"I'm not answering any questions until you tell me where she is," Kahn insisted.
"You risked getting captured to save her on New Madrigal," Felix pressed on. "She did the same for you. Is she your daughter?"
"My daughter," Kahn mused, staring off into the distance. "I guess you could call her that. I didn't make her, not in the traditional sense. Venter's techs squirted her out. A test tube baby, back when that stupid bastard was having delusions of grandeur. Wanted to replicate the Spartan program, if you can believe it."
He paused, a thought occurring to him. "What happened to Venter, anyway?"
"He's dead," Felix admitted grudgingly. "Mordred killed him."
Kahn shook his head. "So the kid finally got his own back, huh? Well, at least my contract's taken care of. It was Venter who gave Nimue to me. She was six when I got her."
Nimue. A strange name, but it fit with the idea that Venter had genetically modified test tube babies for his own twisted purposes. Looking down at Kahn, he saw that the mercenary's eyes were shining with something akin to pride. He thought of the girl's youth, her skills, her comprehensive fighting style, and the rest sorted itself on its own.
"You trained her," he realized aloud, trying to fight back the bile rising in his throat. "A child. You turned her into one of us."
"More than that," Kahn said. "I turned her into me."
"Why?" Felix demanded. "You took away her future, made her a killer, and for what? The Hector Thornhill I remember wouldn't dream of anything like that."
"You never knew the real Hector Thornhill." Kahn's voice was hard and cold. "The real Hector Thornhill murdered his own father in exchange for a commission in the navy. The real Hector Thornhill betrayed and murdered dozens of insurrectionists because ONI told him to. You're very good at missing out on the truth, Felix, even when it's staring you right in the face.
"I didn't steal a future from Nimue. There was no future to steal. She wouldn't have existed without Venter's experiments, and even then all she ever would have been was some terrorist killing machine. I gave her the what she needed to be something better than that."
"A killer," Felix said angrily. "A killer, just like you."
Kahn's stone cold gaze cut into Felix through the containment field. "We're both killers, Felix. The only difference between you and me is that you have a prettier flag to hide behind."
"I have a cause. There's a reason I fight. The only thing you care about is your next paycheck."
"You have a cause," Kahn said with a nod. "And so did every insurrectionist and Covenant you've ever killed. Was it the cause that made you better, or was it the fact that you had a bigger gun and a better body?"
Felix's mouth opened, then closed. He was at a complete loss for words. Kahn leaned back and shook his head. "When I left ONI, I tried to settle down, find a new way to live. But you said it best: I'm a killer. That's what I do best. But I'm getting old, Felix. Nimue is more than just my daughter or my apprentice. She's my legacy."
A legacy. Felix thought of Kahn's determination to know whether or not Nimue was alive, and then of his own children. He'd put so much of himself into making sure they just survived to live a normal life. But Nimue...
"So you don't really care about her," he found himself saying. "All she is to you is a reflection of your own ego."
"She is every life I've ever taken," Kahn snapped. "Every contract I ever fulfilled. You're right about one thing, Felix, I am an egomaniac. If I'd been in my prime I'd have killed you back in that facility, because I'm the best killer humanity has ever produced. And Nimue won't just replace me, she'll surpass me. And when she does..."
He smiled. "I know her better than anyone. She'll follow in my footsteps for a while, but one day she'll move on to bigger things then contract killing. And then the Syndicate, the insurrection, and all the rest of the scum your friends in ONI haven't been able to stomp out, they'll be gone. That's my legacy: to finish the mission ORION gave me in the first place."
Felix shook his head. "You're insane. You're nothing but a murdering criminal, and all you've done here is ruin another person's life."
"Think what you want." Kahn leaned back against the wall again and closed his eyes. "You can take her back to ONI, I guess. They'll just dissect her to see how much of the super-soldier formula Venter got right, but you seem to have gotten pretty good at pretending things like that don't happen."
Felix turned and walked away. Kahn didn't say another word, but the whole way to the brig door Felix could hear the man's mocking words ringing in his ears.
Category:Actene