User:RelentlessRecusant/Halo: Vector/Chapter Four

 VECTOR iv   By RelentlessRecusant 

One year before the present day

MARCH 2570 UNSC M99 FORAY “KILO TANGO NINE” INBOUND VECTOR, NEW MONMOUTH ATMOSPHERE

“This is Kilo Tango Nine to Flight Operations, requesting take-off permission.”

“Flight Control to Kilo. You’re all clear.”

With a calamitous shudder, the behemoth clamshell claws that shielded the Meridian Rays’s forward hangar bay from external space opened, and the final flight checks commenced aboard the UNSCSOCOM gunship.

“Weapons all green.” “Sensors lit.” “Navigations online.” “We are a go on comms.” “Reserve power’s online.”

And with a whir and a sheen of cyan color across its aft thrusters, M99 Foray “Kilo Tango Nine” gently disembarked from the colossal bulk of the towering Meridian Rays, a nimble avian compared to the carrier’s kiloton displacement, and then its efflux trail fully unfurled, and the UNSC gunship angled sharply away from the carrier, and then faded against the velvet black of interstellar space, its stealth measures engaged.

There was an electronic warbling as the gunship’s texture buffers and miragers kicked in, physically stealthing the Foray, and then the interior lights shone on—brilliantly intense halogen lighting. From a vacuum-sealed viewport, Delta-Three could see the rapidly-diminishing profile of the UNSC Meridian Rays, and before them, the colossal orb that was New Monmouth swelled in proportions.

“Weapons check.”

That was Delta-One’s voice, assuming the cold steel of authoritative command.

Delta-Three’s attention flitted to his BR55HBSR Battle Rifle, and with decisive, practiced motions, he screwed on the detachable flash / sound suppressor, notching the accoutrement to the corrugated receiver port. Similar motions attached the ACOG high-magnification scope and the infrared targeting enhancement module, as well as the barrel-mounted laser sight on the barrel’s underside. He played over the M7 submachine gun in his hands, confirming the security of the integral suppressor and the red dot sight on its surface, and then slung it back over his shoulder again, assured that it was safed.

He glanced at four small diodes in the left peripheral border of his helmet—that ensured that communications, power, suit integrity, and secure oxygen supply were nominal. The CUIRASS special missions tactical gear, replete with an integrated helmet, a load-bearing tactical vest, and armored boots and shin guards, was not nearly advanced as the SPARTAN-III SPI field camouflage suit, but it ensured N/B/C protection—protection against most kinds of biological and chemical warfare weapons and limited exposure to radiation, and also featured a powered cryogenics circulation that killed his infrared profile as well as temperature control and visor defogging. It was a low-maintenance, highly-reliable suit featured by UNSCSOCOM’s elite field teams.

There was other movement in the Foray’s tight confines—it was the Echo operators. Delta-Three had contemptuously met them minutes before, in the final preparations before takeoff. Despite Gibson’s presence and Hayes’s orders, all their mannerisms marked them as a green, fresh, untested special operator detachment. Their weapons were unworn, gleaming with the fine black finish that several hundred hours of field operations would turn to dirt-crusted grime. Their equipment—bulky armored vests, stocky padded pants, and shinguards with the trademark grey-white digitized camouflage favored by the UNSC’s urban warfare groups, marked them as junior. They would soon learn from field experience about the impracticality of their equipment, instead dressing with lighter armor that would favor mobility, knee pads and elbow guards to prevent the scratches of vigorous room-to-room clearing and fighting. Even their current heavy armored vests wouldn’t abrogate the immense penetrative power of an S2 anti-materiel sniper rifle or the direct impact of an M9 fragmentation grenade.

Three and Four exchanged dark looks. They were embarking on a sensitive counterinsurgency operation with a squad of amateur soldiers.

And even more darkly humorous, the ten-man-strong squad was identical. They were carbon copies of each other, all bearing the same helmets, vests, boots, and gear… It was disconcerting. He had never met a special-operator unit like this ever before. A special forces group was highly heterogeneous―each operator had specialized weaponry, preferable gear and equipment, idiosyncratic style. And now…a full squad of soldiers. Exactly the same. They differed only in the assault weapons they individually carried and the blood type taped to their boots.

In his peripheral vision, Delta-Four firmly shook his head in arrogant disapproval.

Three looked at the trooper before him—the name emblazoned on his vest was PATTERSON, and he carried the three chevrons of a sergeant. His face, while carefully composed, pre-mission jitters showed through in the darting quality of his eyes. Delta-Three snorted lightly.

“Reaching the dark side of the planet now.”

That was Bonus, in the cockpit, piloting the Foray. Three turned to the viewport to see the planet before them change its colors from starlit mountains and broad planes, rather to the dark side of the planet, where it was still dawn—it was a carpet of black. No planetary details were visible on close inspection.

As the Foray angled sharply again, now bringing the gunship from low orbit into their controlled stealthed descent through the atmosphere, Delta-Three’s HUD tagged a curiosity to him—a SEAGULL THREE reconnaissance satellite, in geosynchronous stationkeeping position. It had to be the ONI flying eye that would be watching over them, allowing Hayes to call the shots from the safety of the Meridian Rays.

Delta-One was dressed in his typical attire—upon his obsidian vest were two pins, one the Aegis Shield, for the defense of Earth under Covenant and Brute occupation, the second the New Hope decoration for the assault on the Ark, the classified Forerunner space installation. Delta-One had earned his station through merit and distinction, fighting in the two pivotal battles that would turn the tide on the Covenant for once and for all.

Delta-Two, as customary, had spare fashionables, but today, the tactical helmet was replaced by a wide-brimmed boonie, a leftover from his days in the UNSC Marine Corps Sharpshooter Academy, and also the darkened carbide-tipped knife slipped against the armor over his left breast—the decoration of graduating from ONI Special Warfare School with highest honors. And Delta-Four, matching with his roguish personality, had three ragged brushes of crimson war paint over his tactical helmet, emblematic of a claw’s slash marks, and a skull was painted in white against his onyx left boot.

This was the pre-mission—there should have been mutters of chatter, some the reasoned cajoling of veteran soldiers, perhaps idle chatter about the mission or UNSCSOCOM. There was none.

The air was cold to the touch, despite the Foray’s internal temperature control, the light oddly faint, distant. A shadow more profound than the black of interstellar space blotted out the warmth and light—a cosmic singularity that was an unmistakable, irrevocable well in spacetime that drew in and suffocated the light, the warmth, the goodwill.

The shadow was still, a chthonic archangel upon a throne of obsidian black. Her silence was an edict, one that governed over the entire troop bay, a null void that quelled and neutralized the conversation and humor. She was a corporeal creature more of shadow than flesh and marrow, and against the Foray’s metallic wall, Delta-Three could see her more clearly, how chiaroscuro her pale frame was against the grey metal. Her face was pale, almost unnaturally white, and there was a cold luster to her skin. Her black hair, once falling gently upon her shoulders, was gathered in a tight ponytail that swayed slightly with the Foray’s every undulation. She was suited in a skintight jumpsuit that emphasized her slender build and athletic physique. The skin was drawn taut over delicate cheekbones, and there was a pinched expression to her face, some unnatural intensity. And from the darkness, her verdant eyes scythed out. They smoldered with a lust, some fleshy hunger.

Three, for reasons he could not begin to fathom, feared her. And that fear was a delicious feeling.

A cold, hard silence fell upon the Foray.

The hollow void was only filled as they flitted closer towards the insertion point.

“Kilo Tango Nine to Meridian Rays. We are approaching waypoint five and are two minutes to HALO.”

“Understood, Nine. Maintain your current trajectory.”

That was the cue.

Deliberately averting his eyes from the light-bending shadow, Delta-One turned to the soldiers. “Delta, Echo—final checks.”

Delta-Two obligingly turned his back to him, and Delta-Three’s gloved hands swept over his armor, ensuring the tightness of the neck seal, the assault weapons clipped to his pack, the security of his parachute assembly. Behind him, Delta-Four was performing a similarly surgical check on his own suit.

When the Echo operators had completed similar checks, albeit far more sluggishly and with unnecessary attention to trivialities, Delta-Two—the jumpmaster—stood.

“All rise. Form ranks.”

They assembled into two ragged lines at the rear of the troop bay, and Delta-Two circled all of them, sighting them once, a glancing visual check. For the benefit of the junior Echoes, he snapped in hard tones, “Open your chutes at eleven hundred feet. Don’t forget that.” Airborne deployments were technically-challenging deployments for special warfare trainees.

Three grimaced slightly at the almost unperceivable motions of the Echoes— the adrenaline-driven shuffles, the jitters fed by excessive energy. This was a green squad. If there was a snag, there would undoubtedly be UNSC casualties.

There was an electronic whine, and then the insidious gurgles of hydraulics, and the aft door swung open, revealing the wispy contrails of clouds, and beneath the Foray, a seamless meld of black and green, a boundless expanse nature being outpaced with such speed that it was a blur.

Then, there was a flash of green light on the wall.

“GO!”

And then with a step, Delta-Three stepped into the dawn, lost in the wind of night.

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The landing was abrupt—for a moment, Patterson was suspended in the air, and in the next infinitesimal beat, he was against the ground. His masseter clenched fiercely as he felt the blow across his frame, but when he peeled away from the black ground, there were no acute, lancing spikes of agony—nothing permanent.

That meant he could handle it.

His tremoring hands seized one of the injectors, slammed down the receiver. There was a pneumatic hiss, and he bit down on his lip as the pain was suddenly magnified, the shock hitting him head-on now. A silent cry rustled past his bitter lips.

Already, the encrypted frequency was lit. “This is Delta-One. All callsigns, report on status.”

“Delta-Two, intact.” “Delta-Three is operational.” “Delta-Four is good to go.” “Echo One reports full readiness—”

His vision swam, became aqueous for a moment as the alien elixir infused his brain, and he gasped slightly as the pain bubbled and swelled in his lungs, and he missed a step, falling hard against the ground.

“—Echo Five, this is Delta-One. Echo Five, this is Delta-One. Do you read me, over? Echo Five?”

Through numbed lips, Patterson managed the words, “Affirmative.”

“Report on your personal status.”

He thought of the only acceptable answer. “Operational, sir.”

“Understood. Echo Six, continue with status check.”

As the rest of Echo Squad Four radioed their affirmatives, a phantom lance of light grew in his HUD—the holographic image of the new rally point, projected by his electronically-integrated visor.

“All callsigns regroup on Delta-One.”

The small text underneath the beacon read the distance; three kilometers to the rally point. Patterson tightened his lips against the glancing pain, and then gathered himself for the slow jog.

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Delta-One waved in the air with his black gloved-hand. “Delta-Four and Echo Ten, you’re on sentry duty. Establish the perimeter.”

The two commandos glided away in the pre-dawn black, and then Delta-One surveilled his soldiers, their forms in tones of starlit green and white instead of their black garments—there was too little ambient light to see with, but NVG goggles amplified that light a millionfold to allow for aided nocturnal vision.

Delta-One pressed his left index finger against his right thumb, and with a synapsing of semiconducting circuits, a shimmering blue topographic map of the immediate sector was drawn before each soldier’s helmet.

With abbreviated, swift motions, the commando leader indicated the operational plan. A broadly-set, heavy scarlet line worked its way across the corrugated plane. “This is the intended trajectory of Shaver’s convoy.” He indicated two points on the map with his finger, and two splotches of color appeared, one close to the convoy’s path, another more removed. Delta-One indicated the first point. “Delta will set up at Position Alpha and will ambush the convoy.”

He tapped the second point. “This is Position Bravo; it’s five kilometers distant, on the crest of a small hill. Echo and—”

The lieutenant’s eyes subtly shifted to the left and right, attempting to survey the tight knot of soldiers for the girl.

Behind him, the shadow spoke.

“Here.”

Delta-One snapped around, his eyes finding the ONI attaché. His expression was a displeased scowl; this was the preparatory phase of the operation, not a time for intimidatory posturing. Now in the absence of Hayes or any other officers, his stare brewed with vehemence, and his voice was imperious, every year of his twenty-five years of special operations drawn into that cold voice of command. “You and Echo will establish yourselves at Position Bravo. Keep your weapons safed, and do not interfere unless we indicate Omega Signal. Do you understand?”

Three blankly stared at the two leaders, waiting for shadow to combust in towering rage.

The shadow’s striking viridian eyes glittered, but wordlessly, she melded with the darkness in a fast trot, the Echo operators falling in behind her, weapons in hand.

It was Delta-Four, returning from perimeter patrol, that was naïve enough to question the team commander about his orders. “Sir, with respect—Echo might have been able to support us, given a higher observation point on the ambush site—”

One’s voice was firm and decisive, ending all quells of disagreement. “No. Echo is green, inexperienced. They are an unknown quantity, and thus are a liability, not an asset. We will not uselessly waste away the lives of fellow soldiers in a situation that we have completely covered.”

He made no mention of the girl, the ONI field observer, and a silence drew itself on the Deltas as Delta-One set a punishing pace towards the ambush point.

The dawn was quiet.

FEBRUARY 2554 ASPHODEL MEADOWS SPECIAL WARFARE CENTER CONTAINMENT PARTITION “SKY NINE”

They came six hours later, this time a doctor in clean sterile robes brandishing an opaque, and a cluster of half a dozen black soldiers with weapons.

Suddenly, Alexandria felt herself pressed tightly against her mother’s body, and her embrace became forced, cold. She heard her mother speak. “What do you want? You already took my family—”

With contemptuous ease, one of the soldiers slammed the butt of his rifle against her, and with a small cry, she limply fell against the floor. When Alexandria rose to leap into a half-practiced fighting crouch that she’d been practicing for the last day in case of this eventuality, it was already over—they were in a semicircle, thinly spaced to maximize coverage, weapons levelly aimed at her. Her body was crossed with the tracks of unwavering laser sights.

Against her indomitable will, her muscles petrified, and a vice clenched around her heart as she felt the rage surge through her, that she wanted to kill—

Without her conscious intent, she leapt forward. Her first kick solidly landed upon a black shinguard, as the soldier toppled, she fell upon him, raining blows against his armored chest, every blow an infinity, waiting for the inevitable bullets to lance out—

They never came. An armored boot lanced against her forehead, and with a scream, she was dispatched, limbs splayed across the floor, a rill of blood running down from the crown of her onyx hair.

She had learned one thing, however. They’d hadn’t shot her, even when she’d attacked one of their soldiers. What had begun as a flash of adrenaline had now translated into useful information. She was valuable.

She had been taken from Beryl for a reason. Were they hostages? She doubted that they were that useful to anyone—

The soldier she’d fell rose, and the goggles did not disguise the burning of his pale blue eyes, the tightness of his gloves clamping down on his rifle. A second commando made a subtle hand movement, and the soldier stilled slightly as the doctor walked forward. Now in his hand was the unsheathed, glittering proboscis of a hypodermic syringe, its angular profile almost smoldering with desire to plunge itself into her flesh, to rip her apart.

This was a curious form of assassination.

The man said quietly, “Cooperate, and this will be quick and painless. We will do it either way, and the only difference it matters is how much pain we must inflict.”

Her shimmering eyes carefully eyed the approaching man, the syringe angled like a dagger in his hand. She felt her throat choke with despair, with helplessness. Their entire family had been wiped out in less than minute; shot, the life ripped from their mortal shells, and now she and her mother were now prisoners in some clandestine prison, with no hope of survival, surrounded by soldiers that were willing to beat her until—

-Yet despite the wicked blade of the injector, she sensed no malice in the doctor’s eyes.

He ordered stiffly, “Turn around.”

The soldiers’ weapons slightly lowered, the laser sights falling to the floor instead of lancing across her body.

She hesitated for a moment.

The laser sights had her sighted again.

Ensuring to communicate her wellspring of untamed hate in every movement, she slowly backed around, and the coolness of her skin ensured her that at least some of the soldiers had lifted away their weapons. Then, with complete suddenness, the tender silk of the nape of her back was plunged into ice, it instantly numbed.

The doctor said mildly, “A topical anesthetic pad with rapid temporal kinetics and suffusion. I’m not here to it more painful for you. Bend over, please.”

Alexandria complied, and she felt the doctor’s hand—a tender, cautious, almost experimental touch across her back, and then felt the fabric of her gown being peeled away from her sweat-infused back. Her cheeks were inflamed with anger as she realized that the soldiers had to be staring at her naked back, and her jaw bunched.

Then a moment later, with an extremely small pinch, it was done. She turned around, and her viridian eyes were ablaze with anger.

“What did you just do?”

The doctor merely discarded the tip of the syringe into a scarlet cartridge and from somewhere on his belt, withdrew another of the fine-tipped injectors, and drew up a small volume of clear fluid from a vial. The vial was unmarked.

She snapped furiously, “What the fuck did you just do?” Alex felt the heat of her shimmering rage rise to her cheeks again.

The doctor snorted. “I never knew that the effects would be so rapid.”

“What?”

The soldiers leveled their weapons again, but she remained undaunted, the tears flowing freely, cascading across her cheeks. She had never been so ashamed before, so humiliated. So naked. So helpless.

The doctor stalked over the unconscious figure of her crumpled mother, angled a finger against her temple, checking for a pulse, and then, with several brief motions, planted the syringe against her back and thumbed the injector, and the viscous substance flowed into her veins. He dispensed with the injector, and waved at the soldiers. They filed out, leaving Alexandria and her unconscious mother. And there in the corner, Alexandria prostrated on her knees, her free tears and broken heart spotting her mother’s gown.

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“That’s the last of them. They’ve been through the first two steps.”

From his desk, Colonel Cooke, illuminated by the sallow light of his office, looked up distractedly. “Good.”

“There was a small problem. One of the assets assaulted one of the NAVSPECWAR guards when they were trying to administer the second round.”

“Make sure she’s summarily punished. We will not waste any more additional resources to bring the assets in line.”

Commander Tay paused for a moment, and Cooke looked up irascibly from his desk. “Yes?”

“That guard is out of commission for a few days, the medics say.”

Cooke held Tay in his regard, and his stare was bereft of all humor. His eyes glittered dangerously. “What?”

“When they were doing the injections, there was some resistance from a second subject. One of the commandos knocked her out cold and the asset jumped him, beating him hard enough to dislocate his knee and do some damage to his ribcage.”

The colonel’s eyes burned. “Are you telling me that a tactical team of NAVSPECWAR operators managed to let a civilian beat the shit out of our of our shooters?”

Tay now stood painfully erect, at attention. “Negative, sir. Under your orders, when the subject went hostile, they did not fire. However, she managed to beat one of the NAVSPECWAR operators badly in a few moments before they had her subdued.”

Cooke stared, and the commander attempted not to flinch under the ex-Marine’s scathing look.

Finally, Cooke asked, “What’s her number?”

“Three-eight-two-nine, sir.”

The colonel thumbed a small directory, and read the name. “Alexandria Clarissa Blackburn, age seventeen.”

Cooke looked distantly, at the lights, as if calling forth a gauzy memory into his consciousness. “I remember this one. I killed her father and her sibling in front of her. I don’t think appreciated that.” Tay maintained his face in a carefully-composed mask of hardened muscle and attention. The colonel said slowly, “And you’re telling me this girl managed to beat one our guards into submission for a few days.”

“I didn’t believe the report myself either, sir.”

Cooke looked dismissively, and made a notation by numeral three-eight-two-nine on the checkbook. “Keep her in mind for the advanced protocol. Her rage might make her useful.”

He looked up again with interest. “Actually, out of a lingering curiosity, Commander, I need you to do something for me.”

FEBRUARY 2554 PELICAN DROPSHIP “OSCAR X-RAY THREE” INBOUND VECTOR TO NAZARETH COLONY BERYL, CARINAE-2179 SYSTEM

The two Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODSTs) were gesticulating with great enthusiasm aboard the undulating bulk of Oscar X-Ray Three.

The first, wearing the embossed chevrons of a Staff Sergeant, began, “So I was at Mombasa, Africa, right?”

The second, this one with the chevrons of a Corporal and the graduations patch from the ONI Special Warfare School, reciprocated, “I read you, man.”

“So we’re trying to take back the city, right, the Covvies have it locked down from here all the way to Tripoli with their fucking walkers.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re pinned down by snipers, and me and my team are circling around to counter-snipe the shit out of them.”

“Yeah.”

“And we’re trying to save a platoon of Marines in this building that were pinned down. No one shoots for awhile, and I’m trying to reposition to try to recce out their long-rifles.”

“Mhm.”

“And one of the Marines in the building is like ‘Man! No one’s shooting anymore!’ And he runs outside, and gets his ass shot off by one of the Covvie snipers. And I’m just there with my team, laughing our asses off.”

The two black-armored commandoes burst into gales of laughter, enraptured with hysterics, and Private August Plummer (UNSC Marine Corps, 3rd Expeditionary Corps) tried to not wince—or lash out and strike—the ODSTs. One of his squad mates, a private by the name of Kenny, knocked him on his armored shoulder, and his voice, thick with disgust and contempt, said bitterly, “Don’t mind the ODSTs, man. They act like they’re always high. You’ll get used to them.”

It was Plummer’s first field operation—he was training in the African Marine base code-named “Crow’s Nest” in the earliest days of boot camp when the Covenant attack struck in late 2552 and the Defense of Earth. It was then that Plummer had been shamed. All the trainees had been ordered to the evacuation ships, instead of battling on the front lines with their brothers and sisters, watching their brethren burn in Covenant plasma while they escaped to the awaiting Pelicans and Albatrosses.

August would never forget that day. He would always remember that his life had been bought with Marine blood.

That day, they’d escaped—alongside the legendary Miranda Keyes, no less—but by the time they’d relocated a second forward ops base, Keyes had been whisked away on a classified black operation; after the War, Plummer had learned that this was the covert UNSC / Elite assault on the highly fortified Ark theater of operations, and that there, Keyes would lose her life in the line of fire.

Plummer unclenched his hand, which had balled into fists of rage from the ODSTs’ jocular and demeaning black comedy, and every time he opened his hand, he could only see red blood. Scarlet blood.

Human blood.

Of course, after the covert operation to the Ark, miraculously, ONI had won the war again. The operational records about what had happened still remained classified, but many rumored that an ONI special operations team had laid some apocalyptic weapon of mass destruction (WMD) that had incinerated the Brute armada—at the expense of SPARTAN-117’s life.

One life balanced against the salvation of the trillions of humanity.

August wondered one day if he’d ever have to make that change. If he could die and save the world. Save mankind.

It was ironic now that Basic was over and that he’d completed Airborne that the War was over, and now his first actual field deployment—the first one that didn’t involve flag-waving, hand-holding toddlers, and saving beleaguered felines from the top of trees—was one of death. Human blood.

The UNSC Cyclopean, a UNSC Colonization Authority colony ship that was colonizing and terraforming the remote UNSC paradise world of Beryl, had reported two weeks ago that all contact had been lost with the town of Nazareth on the sparsely-inhabited colony world, and that all alpha checks had gone unanswered. It had taken time for UNSC FLEETCOM and STRATCOM to assemble a battle group of the fastest light carriers, destroyers, frigates, and reconnaissance prowlers, and to dispatch them to Beryl, hundreds of thousands of light-years distant from familiar Earth.

And now they had been sent to “investigate”.

Plummer knew it was only a matter of time before he died. Perhaps this operation, Operation: SHOEMAKER, would be his first and last stop.

“All combatant elements, this is Clairvoyance. Forward provincial reconnaissance established.”

“Command to prowler Clairvoyance, affirmative. Maintain orbital station and report as needed.”

“Understood. ONI Recon Eight-Seventeen out.”

The small exchange of transmissions ended with metallic fuzz, and beside him, Kenny turned to the squad leader, Sgt. Lager. “What’re you thinking, Sarge? Princess or dragon?”

No one needed to remember that the Human-Covenant War had started out exactly like this, with anomalous transmissions cessation that had transformed into an uncountable horde of xenophobic aggressors that had slaughtered trillions, quadrillions, raining fire, breaking families.

Lager was too experienced to bother with an answer. “Refrain from personal comments, Five.”

Plummer bitterly turned towards the ODSTs, who were still ruefully chuckling over how they watched a UNSC Marine get sniped and killed in front of them. What bothered him was UNSC Special Operations Command (UNSCSOCOM) and all its field units—NAVSPECWAR, FORCE RECON, FARSIGHT, and even the ODSTs—were all unaccountable, above all chains of command instead of themselves. Rogues, the whole of them. Despite their treasonable comments, the whole squad of Marines could only simmer in rage at the pair of black-armored special forces operators.

The neophyte Marine hefted his assault weapon—a bulky BR55HB SR Battle Rifle, with a high-magnification ACOG scope and a detachable 40mm underslung grenade launcher. That at least was assuring. Sighting through those familiar black crosshairs, he’d fired tens of thousands of rounds from weapons of this class, and had been rated as one of the more proficient marksmen in his platoon. With some work, he was assured to get designated marksman in a few years, if not sooner.

That was his reassurance. Despite the insubordinate ODST jokers, he still had his insurance.

The Pelican banked steeply, and he knew these were final course corrections to the target as the dropship’s internal avionics aligned to the planet’s mottled topography beneath, the iridescent vegetative blooms, the contrails of the UNSC vessels marring untouched plains racing below.

“Tactical to Oscar X-Ray Three. Alpha check.”

“Formation integrity nominal, Tactical. ETA is three minutes, threat boards clear.”

“Affirmative. Maintain your current trajectory.”

The Pelican skewed deeply, and despite the scaling accelerations and vectors, Plummer braced himself against the dropship’s plushly-netted crash seats.

Three minutes until hell.

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From the security of the anchored snow and granite from the gently-sloping footsteps to the mountainous ridge that banked against Nazareth’s borders, from an enclosed cove several hundred meters above the ground, two human figures were secluded against the snow, their organic outlines nigh impercievable by the melding of their white-grey digital snow camouflage against the crystalline shards of ice and snow underneath the midday distant starlight of Carinae-2179, its alien blue light filtering through amber clouds.

One of the figures, Second Lieutenant (O-1) Keating Appel, the metal studs of the Aegis Shield and New Hope campaign decorations against his camouflaged armored breast, subtly adjusted the sight of the S2 anti-materiel sniper rifle. The world collapsed into black and whites, then again into the full spectrum of a planet abloom.

“Rifle Six-One to Tactical.”

“Come in, Force Recon. We’re receiving you.”

“Six-One reports no movement on the northeast-east perimeter of the operations area. No hostile contacts.”

“Understood, Tactical.”

From above them scythed the metallic hulks of half a dozen Pelican dropships, their contrails rustling the snow besides them.

7 -  7  -  7 “Force Recon reports no hostiles!”

The Marine sergeant’s shout was hoarse over the fray of the Pelican’s accelerating engines as they angled in closer to the homestead, outpacing the alpine mountains behind them, closing on a small plain of studded grey and blue structures—

And now, the ODST staff sergeant was the non-commissioned officer his uniform made him out to be. His voice was steady. “That doesn’t you can be careless, Marines. Cover the angles, watch the approaches.”

The second ODST reassuringly slapped a cartridge into the receiver port on his S2 AM SRS99C sniper rifle, and it hit home, coaxing a metallic affirmative from the weapon.

“Fuck this shit, man!”

With a whine, Battle Management initialized the electronic integrative interfaces on the faceplates of all the UNSC forces aboard the dropship’s troop bay—instantly, phantom text was scrolled in midair by an invisible hand.

CORPORAL ELSEWORTH, K.A. (UNSCSOCOM/ODST; 18K / E-2)

Parsed, the text meant that the second ODST, the sniper, was trained as a designated marksman, and held the rank of Corporal (E-2) in the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Corps.

His eyes turned to the first ODST, and next text appeared over the staff sergeant’s pulsating biosigns.

STAFF SERGEANT CHEN, P.D. (UNSCSOCOM/ODST; 18A / E-4)

Staff Sergeant Chen, a rifleman of the regular infantry, and a special forces operator of UNSC Special Operations Command’s ODST detachment.

And then, by then, the dropship was already decelerating, and beyond the troop hatch, a textured plain of buildings blurred—

A green light flared on. “Go, go!”

The Pelican Dropship exploded in a storm of high-tension fast-rope lines and armored soldiers. His break-handling technique was clumsy, but even as he felt the heat and seared skin underneath his gloves, the dropship had already broken away, in the clouds. Around him, Marines raised their weapons.

Chen twirled a finger. “Form up on me.”

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Rifle Six-Two looked up from his portable high-power communications array, a field-sized communications package designed for deep reconnaissance troops to report their reconnaissance intelligence despite long ranges and even potentially enemy COM wave jamming. Six-Two said stiffly, “Sir, the Marines are on the ground.”

Appel nodded curtly. “Keep your eyes on your scope, Six-Two.”

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They swept from room to room, footwork careful as they navigated tight confines, maneuvered around desks, bookshelves, tables. August’s finger was heavily set against the BR55HB’s trigger assembly, ready to snap down hard on it if there was a blur in anything besides Marine green or ODST black—

Finally, something. His eyes were palpable with fear as he turned one-eighty, rifle level—

It was Elseworth, the ODST sniper. He was pointing to the floor with a black-gloved finger. There were two bodies, their flesh shredded by hypervelocity rounds. One wore the insignia of an Administrator of the UNSC Colonization Authority. The other had the rumpled cloak of an academician. Both were long dead, deep branding sears in their skin where vultures had torn away human flesh.

August couldn’t at the corpses without revulsion thundering in his throat.

Lager, with a breath, raised the communication to his lips. “Squad Oscar Three to Tactical. We have two civilian casualties, no hostiles.”

There was a stab of static, and then the controller reported, “Affirmative, Oscar Three. Other field teams are reporting corroborating reconnaissance data. We’re sending a medevac for the fatalities—hold tight, secure the area.”

7 -  7  -  7

In the sheltered alcove, Appel breathed hard as the filtered words report from the sterile metallic matrix of the deep-recon COM package.

It was a woman’s voice, and the soft rustling of burning material were faint in the background. A metallic rustle—someone had to be toeing something with a boot.

“We have no infrared signatures. Everyone’s dead here. All the major structures are bombed out. Nothing’s left.”

Now, a man’s voice. “Squad Bravo Five here. We have something.”

“Come in, Bravo Five.”

“We’re at the Acumen research outpost. Everything’s sacked; nothing left. Computers, storage room, nothing.”

“Understood. We’re dispatching ONI and Judiciary Committee officers to your location. Maintain perimeter security.”

“Bravo Five out.”

7 -  7  -  7

The words were sterilized, cleansed of any identifying inflections or intonation by repeated compression / decompression and ONI filters.

“—perimeter security.”

“Bravo Five out.”

Gibson looked up at Schore’s figure, which had become oddly quiet as they listened to the latter part of the UNSC Marine transmissions from Beryl, captured from the transmission to FLEETCOM Sydney and diverted through ONI data channels to Asphodel Meadows.

“Satisfied, Doctor?” The Director of Special Intelligence raised a sheaf of papers from his desk. “I just got the written up conclusions from ONI Legal. They’re calling the attack of Nazareth as corporate sabotage against Acumen.”

If Schore’s stare had been made of energy, the sheer venom in his eyes could have incinerated a planet, scoured it clean.

He said nothing.

Montgomery shared a glance with Gibson, and none of the men gathered in the admiral’s office said a word. Beah was radiating with anger that pulsed with every heart beat, each rush of blood through is veins inflaming him with anger.

The scientist-physician stalked out with a barely-composed external calm. The door slammed shut behind him, the hardwood mahogany thudding with unnecessary kinetic force against the black metal frame.

Gibson, Montgomery, and Cooke shared another glance, but that was interrupted by the colonel, who raised a thermal printout in his hand.

Gibson looked at him. “Yes, colonel?”

Cooke produced the printout. “We’ve begun genotyping of the assets.”

“An unnecessary expenditure of effort”, murmured Rear Admiral Montgomery.

The ONI Section Three chief brought the printout to his eyes, parsed it. He handed it to Montgomery, and then looked at Cooke. “And what is this supposed to mean, colonel?”

“One of the assets has an uncommon genetic profile.”

Before Gibson could pour the brunt of his wrath before the taciturn colonel, Montgomery raised a hand. “Director, please. What the colonel means to say is that one of the subjects has an exceptional constitution. If you recall Dr. Halsey’s—”

Gibson was now a decade younger, in the shoes and uniform of a junior ONI officer, the two silver bars of a captain on his breast instead of the two stars of a Rear Admiral, in a shielded conference room aboard the UNSC Point of No Return—

Gibson acerbically spat. “Catherine.”

Montgomery nodded mildly. “If you remember Catherine’s microarray profiling used to screen the Outer Colonies target population for S-II selection—the DNA microarray, the siRNA profile, the kinome architecture—”

“I do recall, Admiral.”

“—one of our assets has a surprisingly high, statistically-relevant correlation to Catherine’s S-II selection profile. The predisposing markers for strength, intelligence, the lack of predisposing genes to disease susceptibility.” Cooke cleared his throat. “What Admiral Montgomery means to say, Director, is that if this subject was in Catherine’s hands three decades ago instead of here, she’d make an excellent SPARTAN-II. In fact, one of the best ones, if genetic markers are reliable.”

Gibson’s eyes widened slightly in realization. “I see. That means that—”

Cooke’s cruel lips curved into an eviscerating smile. “This will be interesting. First of its kind.”

“I imagine so”, said Montgomery, his eyes distant, with a touch of disinterested.

The ONI chief looked towards the colonel. “They’ve been induced and primed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep me informed, Admiral, Colonel. Dismissed.”

One year before the present day

MARCH 2570 UNSCSOCOM SECURE OPS AREA NEW MONMOUTH, ALPHA OSIRIONIS SYSTEM

He saw it in their eyes, yes, with every condescending movement, every condemning breath.

Simply said, the pretentious Deltas of Counterterrorism Activity Warfare Section had assumed that they were neophytes, kid soldiers, as green as the flowing grasses that covered New Monmouth’s industrious “bread basket” plains. And it was insufferable, absolutely intolerable, sitting here on a small hill five kilometers away from the point of action, weapons safed, staring through binoculars while the black-armored Deltas deftly and decisively arranged their artistic trap.

Patterson was no rookie, a Marine who’d never killed someone in cold blood or taken off a body part at five hundred feet with an ACOG scope. He was a seasoned killer, a former member of UNSC Naval Special Warfare (NAVSPECWAR)—much like the background of most the operators of Delta Team before they’d been appointed to their new posts in CAWS.

Although, admittedly, despite the one hundred and thirty years of combined field experience in Echo Squad Four, the Deltas, one-on-one, were superlative warfighters compared to most of the Echos.

Or at least, in their former selves.

Echo had studied the mission recordings of the Deltas with academic precision, dissecting every movement, every order, every shot fired that had killed a human being. They were practiced killers, with an almost coldly beautiful grace as they maneuvered and killed on the field, moving with assuredness, killing with surgical precision. They danced with a speed and flowingness unmatched by any other soldier in UNSCSOCOM, the elite, the highest tier. Few outside of UNSCSOCOM’s and ONI’s flag officer ranks knew the CAWS was merely an illusion—an umbrella for UNSCSOCOM’s and ONI’s best pooled killers and assassins, the nondescript “normal” special operations forces group whose shell hid black operations darker than the inky black of an interstellar black hole.

CAWS was hand-picked by the most seasoned of UNSCSOCOM’s and ONI’s senior operations staff, a small and select group of the right hands of those two organizations, the specific commandos that the brass knew they could call on to get the job done, and then they’d pooled them all together to get the best soldiers in the UNSC.

Even now, five kilometers distant, they performed their tasks with diligent, with deft hands and sure feet.

This was supposed to be a test, an examination. Their crowning achievement of insufferable torture, of unspeakable abysses of fiery anger and dark energy that had transfigured life as a NAVSPECWAR soldier into an abysmal hell. And now, they were sitting on the sidelines, watching four contemptuous commandos prepare for battle while a squad of perhaps the salutorians of UNSCSOCOM—the second-best—watched their ‘elders’ ready.

The tremors, the tremors—

Echo Five toggled off the helmet mic, leaned to Echo Six, and in his eyes was an unspoken question. Six raised his faceplate, and nodded tersely. Five examined Six’s face. No palpitations.

Patterson raised a thumb in affirmation.

Six pointed at his own visor release, and Five lifted his faceplate for a moment while Six’s eyes panned his face. After a moment, he gave his own affirmation.

They were in the clear. For now.

7 -  7  -  7

Delta-Three’s hands gingerly wove through the underbrush, with each movement dissocating leaves, twigs, and with practiced movements but also an acute caution, he wove and threaded the foliage into the black of his CUIRASS battle suit, and with a diligent third of an hour’s investment of work, the black shade that had inhabited the pre-dawn umbra was now an impercievable haze of green and brown against the forest in the early morning light.

New Monmouth’s fair morning air was tinged with a sickening pallor of red—as Betelgeuse’s rays, the color of arterial red, flitting through the atmosphere— Delta-Three slightly tremored, and he clenched and unclenched his fist. There was no blood.

A viridian light flared in his peripheral vision—it was Delta-Four’s acknowledgement light. The charges had been set.

Two other lights flared on in rapid succession minutes later. That was Delta-One and Delta-Two. The trap was set, the teeth bared, the lid sealed vacuum-tight.

The successful counterinsurgency trap had several integral components. The first was dangling, irresistible bait. In this case, a UNSC HAVOK nuclear mine cache, in the wilderness, its existence only “recently declassified”. The second was foreknowledge on the anticipated enemy response. This came in the form of human intelligence (HUMINT) for the New Monmouth operation—an ONI well-placed deep cover within the PLA ranks. This alarming report would undoubtedly trigger a small-scale but formidable convoy being dispatched from the nearest PLA outpost to investigate these believed thermonuclear weapons, with the convoy led by the regional PLA commander, Shaver. Hayes had commed them several minutes ago confirming that the ONI deep cover had seen Shaver’s attack convoy leaving the compound towards their position.

And the third part of the good counterinsurgent trap was an unbreakable seal and a preferably powerful force to completely asphyxiate and extinguish the hostiles after they’d been lured in. Namely, a field team of UNSC Special Operations Command’s most experienced warfighters and covert action soldiers.

There was a rustle of static, the type that preceded an orbit-to-planetary transmission. The voice was carefully electronically doctored, scrubbed clean of any identificable voice features—an accent, inflections, intonations, emphasis—and instead was an anonymous heavily masculine and androgenized voice. “Delta Leader to Delta-One. Report on tactical status.”

Delta-One, still standing in the midst of the unruly dirt road, flicked an eye towards Delta-Three’s ghillied form in the forest line. “Native camouflage established. Tactical situation is under control.”

Hayes notably paused. “And the observer?”

“At a non-combatant stand-off position five kilometers away.”

“What is her exact position, check?”

Delta-One’s voice was careful as he recounted the coordinates for Position Bravo. He kept his voice level, neutral. Some higher power was afoot here, and Delta-Three’s mind could not help but to calculate the tactical contingencies; Admiral Gibson’s personal presence aboard the Meridian Rays, that—

The thick tension was further pronounced as the commander continued, his voice level, too; “What is the tactical plan, Delta-One?” Delta-Two and Delta-Four exchanged glances, and Three knew that this was definitely a deviation from standard protocol. Remote observers should have never asked for how One planned to neutralize the situation; adhering to a specific battle protocol inevitably didn’t cover all the corners—better for a mission layout to be plastic, malleable to the specific conditions of the engagement.

“Filed as engagement protocol SUMMER FIFTEEN in the tactical book, Lead.”

There was a notable pause. The background static from Hayes’s mic was absent. He had turned it off momentarily, and Three could not help but feel that they were being monitored, their every action being controlled by some distant power—

—and the unusual formality in Delta-One’s voice, that practiced, brittle voice of formal command. The seasoned, relaxed UNSCSOCOM field commander’s voice was careful now, attentive, with painful military formality. Delta-One too knew that this conversation had to be on the record.

Finally, Hayes returned, and the mic came live again. “SUMMER FIFTEEN is approved for rendition, Delta-One. SEAGULL THREE orbital reconnaissance reports that OpFor contingent includes five irregular technicals, one double-A M12 LRV, and one MBT, please confirm.”

“Understood.”

“Good hunting, One.”

“Over and out.”

UNSC MERIDIAN RAYS COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER NEW MONMOUTH, HIGH ORBIT

The Combat Information Center (CIC) of the UNSC Meridian Rays, an accommodating compartment installed with a number of widescreen displays, communications equipment, tracking consoles and vacated by dozens of officers and COM operators, the air replete with tactical chatter and UNSC secure ciphers, was bathed in a shallow silence. A single halogen light was lit in the corner, and a cone of phosphoric light illuminated a single console. The rest of the room was plunged in darkness, as if someone had pulled the plug.

In the light was Commander Hayes, the centerpoint of the illumination. He donned the black dress uniform of the UNSC Special Operations Command, with the brazen leaf of Commander (O-5) on his lapel, with the whole complement of his campaign ribbons on military decorations upon his chest, as if he’d worn his CSV on his sleeve for all to see.

In this room now, actually, there were more flag officers of command rank than other personnel, for seated at the fringes of the circumscribed line of light were a pair of two-star admirals of the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence.

Hayes knew well the face of the first, the man with the face engraved from ice, his manner acerbic as the bitter northern lights, his manner withdrawing warmth, chilling the ambient temperature by the force of his carriage. He was Rear Admiral Gibson, the Chief of ONI Section Three.

He was Hayes’s test.

His controllers—senior operations staffers of the highest echelons in UNSCSOCOM said that this was the deciding moment of his career. From every moment beyond this single afternoon, his very stature was dependent and solely contingent upon this. Success now, in front of the eyes of the Director of Special Intelligence, was in paper his guarantee to eventual ascension to flag rank.

The other admiral similarly wore the affiliation pin of the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence, though he carried an uncommon identifier. This one was the chimera, the hybrid of man and beast of Greek lore, the pennant of the UNSC Department of Biological Warfare, ONI Section Three.

And there the two flag officers sat, adhered to their seats, as if the occurrence of two ONI senior commanders at the same time aboard the same compartment of a UNSC carrier was not uncommon, the latter at uneasy idlesness, the former fixed with rapt attention. And in the corner lurked a darker shadow, distinguishable against the lightless void by the virtue that he seemed to the darker than the blackness, and from that shadowy figure, two bright blue eyes knifed out, and the single star of a commodore glittered. That third man was a fire-eater, Hayes knew.

Hayes returned to the console, now displaying the live-feed from the SEAGULL THREE in orbit over Delta’s and Echo’s secure operations zone. He watched the still, unmoving feed with painful alertness, not willing to look into the eyes of the fire-eater—

Gibson’s voice was admonishing, tempered from wintery steel. “Commander, this is a most unpleasant—”

Hayes flinched slightly. A rebuke from the Director of Special Intelligence was not a morale event. Forcing himself to overcome his tentative lack of inertia, he said, his voice coming to a poor second to Gibson’s own weathering voice, “With all due respect, Admiral, Delta-One is acting only as per typical field protocols. They are unaccustomed with joint operations with—”

The third one, the fire-breather, angled in, detecting vulnerable flesh and blood to be keened. “Then, Commander, I suggest you remedy this problem. All three of us have not travelled at considerable expense to this ship to watch our assets go untested.”

Hayes breathed heavily, inhaling the frosting cold of the CIC’s unwarmed air. The breath scalded his lungs, and his bronchioles seized, paralyzed by fear as his heart skipped a staccato beat.

The next heartbeat thundered, resonated, and his body rung with a finality. There was no alternative, no myriad course of action. These three men, all flag officers; they were the incarnation of the will of the UNSC Joint Chiefs of Staff, the authority of the UNSC Defense Force upon every rasp of their lips and breaths.

“Control to Deep Cover—”

Nine years before the present day

FEBRUARY 2562 ASPHODEL MEADOWS SPECIAL WARFARE CENTER TRAINING GROUND ALEPH

“Who the fuck are you, asshole?”

Her heart raged with fury, and the bile choked against the back of her throat as she felt the rage swell, throbbing against her eyes and ears, the pulse quicken with angry, thick blood—

Her voice was hoarse with anger. “Who the fuck are you, motherfucker?” Her trained eyes flicked across the diminutive boy’s figure, hazarded the black skin and the burning eyes lit with fury, and she knew she could kill him easily.

“No, you look like the rebels who killed my family”, she declared with sudden certainty. She didn’t know how the realization came to her trembling figure, but she knew it, that it was the truth.

He screamed, his voice climbing registers in madness with every flick of spittle flying from his lips, “You’re an innie, bitch! Come here, hoe! Bring it on!”

She lunged forward, a blur of melded flesh and muscle, and she angled in close, tight. The first blow landed against his left shin, and the rebel terrorist screamed loudly as the calcified bone gave way, as spindles formed upon the grey. He lunged, lashing out blindly with his fists, but she contemptuously swove around his unfocused bluster, and her leg swept in an arc across his own legs, and it swept below his left leg, and with a scream, his legs gave away, and he dropped to the floor, the impact sending a bolus of pain radiating from his left leg that infused him with madness, a psychotic bloodlust.

There wasn’t the faintest of windows for his rage to surge up. She closed on his sprawled figure, and even as the wiry insurgent tried to pick himself up with one shattered, mangle tatter of a leg, she straddled his chest, her naked, strong thighs closing over his chest and pinning his arms, grunting and rills of sweat and blood running down across her face as she exerted, wanting to snap his chestbone, hear the satisfying report and crunch. Her own heart threatened to explode, and she felt it swell against her own ribcage, and the blood pressure compressed her vision, and the world began to blur and blacken as the pressure made the vessels running along her eyes burn red, and then the world became crimson as well. Her heart was about to explode in depthless rage, in incinerating anger that she’d pent up for too long.

The terrorist struggled underneath her grip, trying to worm away his taut body, but her hands knived towards his throat, and she compressed her hands, gripping his neck and her hands and squeezing, as if wringing water from a spent towel. His movements became more agitated, and his breaths were wheezy, with an inhumane pain as the life was wrested from his skeleton, and her chest heaved with madness, every breath inhaled inflaming her rage.

And she screamed. She screamed, the pain, the rage. The whole blackness of her soul, the darkness of the world. She screamed and screamed and screamed until there was no breath left, when nothing was left. And she was alone again.

The terrorist didn’t breath anymore. His last breath had been long ago, his face a grisly hash of red where she had pulled at the flesh, ripping out internal parts and clawing them onto the floor.

She collapsed on her back, sprawled, the fight left from her body, her chest still heaving as her world rolled in black and red.

They came a short time later, like they always did. She didn’t fear the men in black with their guns. She could smell the fear radiating from them, how pathetic they were with their weakness. She could kill them, yes, laugh and scream as the life blood flowed freely from their broken bodies. Her hands clenched with every breath, and she felt the oily slick of the dead terrorist’s blood, sharded cartilage, and the shredded flesh on her palms.

The men in black did something with her, and she felt a sharp pinch in the numbness of her left arm. The alien fluid flowed through her veins, and then the world cleared, a sharp, distinctly-defined realm of color instead of a heaving throb of red blood.

Two of the soldiers led her away while more attended to the still, bloodied child on the floor.