El Protocolo Cole

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Halo6
The Cole Protocol
Tobias S. Buckell
Prologue
THE RUBBLE, COVENANT OCCUPIED SYSTEM, 23 LIBRAE
Ignatio Delgado ducked behind a bulkhead next to a set of cargo containers, the red paint peeling off their ribbed metal surfaces, just as a burst of
plasma hit.
The dull metal he hid behind glowed -- hot tiny molten gobs dripping then spitting as they hit the cold deck nearhis feet.
"Melko?" he called out over the acrid sizzling.
The answer came after a worrying pause: "Still here."
His copilot made it behind the container. But that didn't change the problem coming right down their throats.
The hold stretched up all around them -- the core of a mile-long asteroid, slowly spun up to provide gravity, and recently hollowed out. Delgado and
Melko stood on theinside wall of the rocky cylinder. The cargo area's metal walls sunk into the rock and it was crammed with spare supplies from
other asteroids.
Delgado pulled out his pistol and pressed the heavily engraved and personalized grip up to his cheek. His uncle had replaced the weapon's stock with
some very rare oak back on Madrigal, and created a piece of art out of this standard-issue M6.
That wasbefore the Covenant forces had glassed Madrigal. Before humans had fled to the safety of the asteroids trailing the gas giant Hesiod that the
Insurrectionists who had been hiding there called "the Rubble."
Delgado kissed the scrollwork.
Firing around the corner of the bulkhead, he leapt for the safety of the next stack of cargo containers.
He caught a brief glimpse of his attackers -- awkwardlytall, birdlike aliens with plasma pistols gripped strong in their talonlike hands. Their beady
eyes stared right at him.
The spiny quilled mohawks on their skulls twitched. The sound of plasma shots hit the other side of the container and reverberated through the hold.
"Jackals," Delgado said with a wince. That was what most humans called these aliens, though they called themselves the
Kig-Yar.They were just one of the alien races of the so-called Covenant. The ones who'd discovered humans hiding out near Hesiod in the Rubble after the
destruction of Madrigal and, for some reason, chose not to wipe them out.
They were as greedy for spoils as their human nickname suggested. Ruthless piracy raids from rogue Kig-Yar weren't uncommon in the Rubble.
Melko Hollister leaned against the oldcontainer, his gray reservist's uniform specked with blood. "How many?"
"Three." Delgado looked at his old friend, worried. They'd flown their way around the Rubble's nooks and crannies together and helped each other
stagger back from late night binges for years. They were close enough people often mistook them for brothers. "What happened to you? Looks like
something ran you over."
"ThinkI'm in bad shape?" Melko coughed. "Should see the other guy."
Delgado kept his back to the container, gun aimed at the edge. "You killed one of them?"
"We turned the corner at the same time." Melko stepped back, chancing a glance around the other side of the container. He held his handgun in his
right hand while his left clenched his stomach. "I fired first. I fired second. I fired the thirdtime, too."
"Where'd the blood come from?"

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"One of the other Jackals fired fourth."
Delgado shook his head. This had gotten out of control. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the instigator of all their troubles: a tiny chip, lying in
the heart of a toughened case just smaller than histhumb.
The information inside never used to be all that special, back when the planet Madrigal was a thriving Outer Colony world. Back before the Covenant
destroyed it, and the survivors fled to the drifting rocks of the Rubble. Back before the United Nations Space Command abandoned them all. And back
before Delgado ended up here.
The location of Earth had been commonplace, buried in the heart...