User:RelentlessRecusant/Halo: Vector/Fall Upon Storm

UNSC SPEED OF SOUND COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER OUTBOUND VECTOR, 47 URSAE MAJORIS SYSTEM

Clipped footsteps, and the deluge of the Speed of Sound’s tactical officers emptied from the vessel’s combat information center (CIC), the pressure doors irising close with a resonant clamor, the electronic countermeasures field arising with a dissonant whine. The spacious chamber was under a veil of perfect silence, peals of overhead highlighting unmanned stations, silent consoles. Amber light streamed from above, gently brushing against her pale cheek, her raven black hair.

It was an oasis of stillness. In an ill-lighted corner, a second figure leaned forward with interest, a pool of the light skimming his icy features. His eyes were a pale blue, his figure riveted with an unusual intensity, stray photons making his irises glitter with starlight. The argent single star of a commodore glimmered in the darkness, against the black fabric of the dress uniform of the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence.

“The forecast says there’s a storm.”

The forecast says there’s a storm.

Those were the words. Those six words.

There was a resigned finality, a sense of the end. This was it.

She said simply, “Sir.”

He stood.

“Walk with me.”

They stood, and they walked.

There was a small room, with a table and two chairs. There was a man in a crumpled cloak sitting in one of the chairs.

The commodore indicated the man. “That is Admiral Schore. He would like a word with you.”

She looked at the man. “Sir.”

Cooke and Schore stared at each wordlessly, and after awhile, Cooke left, and closed the door. And Schore and Talon sat across the table, in silence.

She examined his face. It was olden and elderly, the strength slipping from its muscles. His forehead was glossed with pepper platinum hair, the black fading from the follicles. His face was weathered, thin and gaunt. Yet, despite his physical atrophy, his eyes held a particular discernment that she hadn’t seen before.

He was weak, easy to kill. His withered, beaten flesh cried to be bled and shred.

His voice was soft, quiet. “Do you remember me?”

Her olive eyes were dull, expressionless, without any light of curiosity. “No, sir.”

His harrowed face became pained, despondent.

“I am Beah Schore, chief scientific officer of Acumen Science Laboratories and a rear admiral of the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence. I am the director of the PATRIOT program.”

His name was an unfamiliar name, and she did not care. “Sir.”

“And you would be?”

She paused momentarily before answering. He had, however, provided the code word, had been introduced by the commodore, and was a flag officer, a representative of the UNSC Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Chief Petty Officer Talon, UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence Section Three.”

“No”. His word was forceful, definitive. “Your name is Kimberly Ivy Blackburn.”

He let the words hang in the dead, stilled air, and she said nothing, and his heart broke. He held her in his regard for a long time, his eyes canvassing her inert form, the viridian eyes, the strong jaw, the cant of her cheekbones, how her ornate hair fell to her breasts. Trying to remember. Trying to see. He gripped her hand tightly, feeling her fingers, larger than his own, shudder in revulsion at his human touch. He looked into her eyes, and when Schore spoke again, his voice was almost a plea.

“Kimberly, I knew your real mother; your eyes, so much like hers…my sister, she knew your father best, perhaps the only one he ever trusted...”

His voice fell off in the placid, hushening air, and his gaze, defeated, fell to the floor. When he looked at her again, he said docilely, “Your mother was Alexandria Clarissa Blackburn. She was a beautiful woman, from Beryl. Will you accept that?”

Her voice was severe. “No. I never had a family. My family was the Office; I was born to serve.”

“Your name is Kimberly. Will you accept even that?”

She said nothing, and his face was in pain, as if crippled.

There was a rap on the door. It was Cooke.

Schore didn’t look her in the eyes.

“Go.”

When she was in the hallway, Cooke glanced curiously at the innards of the room, at Schore’s sunken form as the door closed, and then back at her. He walked away, and she followed him, leaving behind a vanquished, elderly man in a seat, his gaze devoid, his heart abandoned.

7 -  7  -  7

UNSC SPEED OF SOUND DECISION SUPPORT CENTER

The two walked in silence into the voiceless, dim auditorium of the Speed of Sound’s Decision Support Center. Clustered together in the center of the seats were a dozen officers in formal dress uniforms, their faces ambiguous in the dark. A cone of intense white scythed through the darkness, illuminating a projector screen, and besides that, a dais. As the pair transversed the gently sloping stairs that lead to the podium, Cooke indicated a seat by the knot of silent officers. “Please, be seated.”

She wordlessly ensconced as Cooke descended the stairs, assuming a position at the podium. Talon’s gaze flickered across the officers beside her, and she saw the seven golden chevrons and the globe, eagle, and anchor; the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps; his silver foil identified him as LEWIS. Nearby was another Marine with the burnished seven chevrons and the circular device of a Master Gunnery Sergeant, carrying the name tag of WIMBLETON. The other officers were in the dress blacks of the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence. All of them were of command rank or higher.

She said nothing, and the atmosphere was morose, almost sickening, some unseen oppressing hand commanding a dismal silence over the cluster of flag officers, none even daring to look at the diminutive young female chief petty officer in their company.

Cooke assumed the dias, but there was a crackle over the intercom and a tremor. A moment later, a female voice reported, “Commodore, this is the bridge. We’ve just made the first jump in the randomized series, and are twelve hours away.”

He said lightly, looking up at the metallic grid of the speakers, “Thank you, Captain Hall. Keep me updated. Decision Support out.”

There was a terse whir as the auditorium’s communications lines were cut off from the central trunk, and the recording devices deactivated. The projector screen assumed definitive shapes as the white light hardened and assumed colors. The image of a Sangheili garbed in a military vest and the golden colors and symbolic device of a Ship Master of the Covenant Navy solidified.

Cooke began without preface, “This is Sesta ‘Laramee, a senior Ship Master of the Covenant Remnant. We met him in the Manheim Resistance during the San’Shyuum-Sangheili politicomilitary fracture. ‘Laramee, a commander of Covenant forces stationed at Manheim, authorized the destruction of all Jiralhanae and Covenant Loyalist forces in the theater, saving the lives of SPARTAN-091 and other UNSC guerillas on the planet. He was responsible for the ferrying of Sierra Oh Nine One back to Earth in time for the Defense of Earth, and later participated in REJUVENATION with Oh Nine One and Grey.”

There was no comment. Every single individual in the audience had Top Secret clearance above Top Secret Umbra and Top Secret Patriot. They were familiar with all the special operations executed even by Special Warfare Group SPARTAN, including the actions on Manheim and those of REJUVENATION, both of which had involved Forerunner technology.

“Ship Master ‘Laramee, originally trained in social psychology prior to military service, was and still remains a social and political visionary of the Covenant. His military rank in the War was suppressed because he was seen as a ‘troublemaker’ by Covenant brass, speaking widely that a chasm between the Sangheili and the Jiralhanae was inevitable. He turned out to be right, and he has enjoyed popular support from the Sangheili populace, and he currently serves as a military officer as well as a governmental advisor to the Covenant civilian government.”

Cooke paused briefly, perhaps collecting himself, more likely attempting to let his next words fall on more placid ears.

“After meeting Oh Nine One and the UNSC, his reviews and opinions on society and government have extended to mankind. Recently, he has been jeopardizing the truce accords between the UNSC and the Covenant. He is disseminating that the UNSC remains a military dictatorship long after the conflict has ended, that mankind is being ruled by a hostile imperium, and that a conflict between our two governments is inevitable. Despite repeated overtures, he has insisted on continuing preaching an inevitable second war, and is gaining the support of much of the civilian populace.”

There was a terse silence, of instantaneous understanding. The Master Gunnery Sergeant—Wimbleton, Talon remembered his name was—raised a hand. “And Covenant Intelligence?”

Cooke said simply, “They understand.”

The matter was concluded. No one in the audience showed any dissent; it didn’t matter if it was necessary. None questioned too closely the foundations of the facts that Cooke presented. It was better for the conscience not to know many parts fiction and how many parts truth the briefing was.

What mattered was that it would be done.

The projector changed slides. There was a new image, this of two spheres superimposed against a blanket of vivid tangerine light.

The commodore indicated the background. “This is Tau Capricorni, a K3III-type Hertzsprung-Russell main sequence giant, approximately eight hundred and forty light years from Earth, at the fringes of Covenant territory.”

He then motioned at the two punctuate dark shapes. “Tau Capricorni is host to a seven-membered planetary system. In the foreground is Tau Capricorni. Our interest is in Tau Capricorni B, a terrestrial world colonized by the Covenant as the colony world of ‘Absolution Court’. It is host to a developing biosystem, and possesses a methane-ammonia atmosphere with traces of oxygen, evidence of progressive evolution of lifeforms. The planet is carpeted with photosynthetic bacteria and flora that are continually terraforming the planet, introducing oxygen and allowing for the evolution of more complex life. While severe geological and meteorological events occur frequently, the Covenant has established a small number of well-established founder colonies on the planet, including a number of biological research stations to investigate the evolution of life hands-on.”

“However, the planet’s extreme weather has drawn a large number of religious zealots, who believe that the weather represents the wrath of the gods; they believe that migrating to the planet and abasing themselves before the weather will lead to the cleansing of their sins.”

“The Ship Master and a small company of bodyguards and religious devotees are making the trip to Absolution Court for this zealous religious cleansing. The planet’s weather is a convenient shield for pirate groups; ‘Laramee will be lost in the fray of a particularly violent storm. The Intelligence Service will find it difficult to conduct a thorough investigation into how he was lost.”

He turned to Talon.

“In twelve hours, the Speed of Sound will rendezvous at the Observatory with the Behind in Twilight. We’ll transfer onboard, and establish our support. We render by means of orbit-to-surface, and then the Chief will prosecute it solo.”

There was no need for comment.

CALYPSO MOUNTAINS ASPHODEL MEADOWS, 47 URSAE MAJORIS SYSTEM

He heard the habitual caterwaul of the Pelican, the vapor contrails it brushed across the wispy edge of the incoming grey storm front, as if by an artist’s tender hand. He heard the soft rustle of footsteps against silicon rock, the lonely cadence of the foot falls against the dull, painful silence.

He found him on an outcropping of rock, staring vacantly at the broad river plains, the rustling waters becoming still underneath the advancing shadow of the steadily-forthcoming tempest, his expression blank, the brown pearls of his eyes inscrutable, the mirrored edge of his longitudinal facial scar deflecting the distant gathering clouds. The anonymous olive green helmet was doffed to the side.

Jared saw him approach in his peripheral vision, said nothing, his gaze lingering upon the yonder plains, as if attempting to discern some cosmic truth from their muted colors, his mind elsewhere, nowhere, lifeless, desolate.