Halo: Introductions

0900 Hours, November 3rd, 2560

New Khiva, Tashkent Conglomerate

Chashma, 32 Minoris System

Standoff, Elias Olson decided, was not at all what he expected. Truth be told, he hadn’t known exactly what to expect of the man---a spook, a war criminal, a bone fide mad scientist. Still, whatever he had been anticipating, it certainly wasn’t this.

MONTAGUE, Olson’s handler, had never been very free with information. Despite the fact that Olson and his squad, Fireteam Granite, had been working side-by-side with the Spartan Spook for over a year and a half---including on two direct action missions against Codename: EGOR, otherwise known as Leonid-144, a Section Zero SPARTAN-II who was likely one of the most dangerous individuals in the galaxy---MONTAGUE never let up with the stonewalling. Finding out anything other than the most basic mission details was like pulling teeth.

Four months ago, Olson had walked into their ship’s galley to find three strangers eating and had nearly pulled a gun on them. In retrospect, it was a good thing he hadn’t: the trio were the SPARTAN-II Class III operatives of Gold Team, and everything equal, they were a hell of a lot quicker than Olson. MONTAGUE had transferred the three SPARTANs to the ship without bothering to tell anyone in Granite, and it was an easy example of the Spook’s frustrating tendency of submerging everything in secrecy simply for secrecy’s sake.

The last week or so, however, had been one hell of a different story. Ever since Colonel Griffin Standoff---a name Elias had first heard a little less than a month ago, and now seemed to be dominating the entire mission---had contacted MONTAGUE offering up Leonid’s location, the Spartan Spook hadn’t shut up. At first, it was indignant fuming that Standoff, a disgraced ONI agent complicit in the oversight of a vaguely illegal SPARTAN program, was trying to sell them military data. Before long, that had turned to angry ramblings as Standoff rolled out demands for the handover of the intel. The old bastard apparently had reasons of his own for wanting Leonid captured, and stubbornly refused to settle for anything as easy as credits.

Olson had learned plenty just by listening to MONTAGUE complain. Standoff had been conscripted by some especially dark elements of the already shady Office of Naval Intelligence to run a SPARTAN program---specifically, to train a third class of SPARTAN-II super soldiers. With the original class of biochemical and cybernetically enhanced soldiers forming the only real resistance against the efforts of the Covenant and other efforts to duplicate their success via different training methods and augmentation procedures failing, Standoff was brought on to train this third class exactly as their predecessors had, then augment them with the same extremely dangerous but extremely powerful enhancements.

It wasn’t lost on Olson that this meant Standoff had trained his three Gold Team shipmates, but he’d steered clear of asking them about their former commander. Gold were all unusually friendly and normalized for SPARTANs of the generation that had been trained from childhood, and the looks they had shot MONTAGUE during his tirades convinced Elias that discussing Standoff was a box of worms he’d rather not open with them.

It hardly mattered anyway, since MONTAGUE told him plenty as it was. Over the past year and a half, Granite had come to suspect that the Spartan Spook was in fact a former ONI Spook---specifically, Section Zero, the feared internal affairs division. Spartan Branch was new and still making a name for itself in the military hierarchy, attempting to recruit the very best­­-of­-the-best from throughout the military to form a force the likes of which had never been seen. This had seen some very mixed results; enlisting special forces operators from the rest of the military to field expert combat forces had been relatively easy, but intelligence agencies were much stingier about giving up their best people.

Spartan Intel was still in it’s infancy, heavily overshadowed by ONI and always struggling to field competent operatives. Without outside recruits, it simply didn’t have the experience base to train high level intel agents from scratch. MONTAGUE seemed to be cut from an entirely different cloth; he was too damn good to be a Spartan Spook, simple as that. He worked like an ONI Spook, not a blunt Spartan Intel man, and seemed far to familiar with the in’s and out’s of Section Zero than anyone possibly could be without firsthand experience.

Olson figured this internal affairs background probably contributed to MONTAGUE’s uncharacteristic ire. In what Elias felt was a particularly low move, Standoff had stolen funds from an array of government programs and projects, civilian and military---even his own apparent backer, Admiral Ned Rich, had been fleeced---in order to finance the training of his illegal SPARTANs. After whetting his appetite on that bit of fraud, Standoff had gone on to commit a half dozen other crimes; hiding the theft of a multi-billion set of experimental MJOLNIR powered armor, conspiring to sabotage a number of ONI operations, stealing technological research from the ONI Chief Scientist, and much more. He’d been a hidden thorn in ONI’s side for years, apparently, but had somehow---probably with help from friends in high places---escaped actual prosecution, though he’d been booted from ONI at least.

Based on all this, Olson had been half expecting some pudgy, balding man in a suit---his own mental image of a burnt out ONI clerk---and half expecting a fiery, grizzled drill Sergeant like his own Spartan instructor. Standoff was neither, not completely. He was settled heavily into a plush leather chair that screamed civilian opulence, but his straight backed posture didn’t quite fit the image. Well muscled for such an old man, he looked wiry and quick in an old pair of fatigues, his shoulder holster prominently displaying an M6D Magnum, and one eye hidden behind a simple black patch. He looked grizzled, alright, but something about him was simply…off.

There was a deadness in his eye, a tautness in his body, like the muscles would have liked nothing better than to collapse beneath some great weight. His rigid shoulders gave the impression of someone whose mind and soul were caught in a deep, painful clash, ingrained iron discipline struggling to maintain a façade of well being and not quite cutting it. In a picture, he could have easily passed for a drill instructor, but the fire was missing. His eye examined Olson with simultaneous apathy and calculation. The sense that something about him was missing ran deep and left Elias feeling a little empty himself. Olson kept his face straight and posture tight, wishing for a helmet to hide his expression and praying silently MONTAGUE would hurry up and come inside. Even standing seven feet tall, armored in his white-green set of MJOLNIR---something that usually left Olson feeling confident and powerful---he didn’t like being in the room alone with Standoff. The man radiated something deeply unsettling. Elias struggled to remain stone faced while contemplating what the old bastard had endured to end up like this.

An eternity passed before MONTAGUE entered. The door at the other end of the interview room slid open with a muted hiss Olson would have missed if not for augmented hearing. MONTAGUE liked to make noise, thumping in in his black-and-gold set of standard armor. It struck Olson just how calculated every aspect of the entrance was. MONTAGUE liked to make a show of appearing unthreatening, even while acting as if he was trying to intimidate. Elias had seen the man move deadly silent, both in armor and out of it.

Clanking around clumsily---that was all for effect. So was the armor choice, for that matter. After years of UNSC propaganda during the war about the mythical abilities of the famed SPARTAN-II’s, their Spartan Four successors had inherited a civilian populace that treated them like life-sized action heroes. Anyone who watched the news or surfed the nets could tell plainly that the black-and-gold recruit variation was the standard issue, the stuff given to the rank and file. The real badasses, the heroes above heroes, wore special suits, custom gear, and were allowed to decorate their armor how they saw fit. Standoff would have been particularly aware, no doubt. MONTAGUE combined everything nicely to give the subtle impression of someone trying to look tough, who lacked real grit. He certainly didn’t look like a man who slit throats as casually as a normal person took a sip of water.

“Colonel Standoff,” MONTAGUE put on a nice, unthreatening, nervous-but-trying-hard-not-to-show it, tone. “Thanks for being so patient. Spartan Olson was good company I hope?”

“Suitably quiet.” growled Standoff, “If you plan on making me sit around for a half hour again, at least leave Gold here. They’ve got proper manners.”

“Gold is busy.” MONTAGUE replied blankly.

“Right, extremely busy.” MONTAGUE opened his mouth to speak but the Colonel cut him off before he was able. “Don’t waste my time, Mr. Miller. I know Matt, Jacky, and Mason are in the next room over, watching a feed of this, so that after this meeting is over, you can ask them later what I was lying about.”

He paused. “Actually, scratch that, by this point they’re probably laughing at you.”

“You know all this for sure,” MONTAGUE held a neutral tone, but Olson had been around him a long time. He knew the Spook was already pissed. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, jackass.” Standoff didn’t hide his anger. “I always keep an eye on my kids.”

Kids? Gold all had to be at least twenty five, twenty six years old. True, they were younger than every member of Granite---well, with the exception of Mark-G253, Granite’s resident SPARTAN-III and perpetual fish out of water---but Spartan Fours trended towards the older side; experienced special forces operators, they’d been picked because they had years of excellent service under their belt. Gold, Olson had learned, fought for three years in the Great War. They were damn near as good as original SPARTAN-II’s, and original SPARTAN-II’s were practically death incarnate.

“I’ve read a lot about you, Colonel.” MONTAGUE changed tack. “You call Gold Team your, ‘kids’, but I know you gave the order to initiate their abductions. The order to have them undergo augmentation. You’re nothing but another Halsey.”

“Catherine Halsey,” he said, voice dripping with venom “Was a self-centered, egomaniacal, unethical, bitch. She developed her damned project and because someone decided they needed to copy it, they chose me. I did my fucking best, with a shitty situation and ONI screwing me at every turn.”

“You followed illegal orders.” MONTAGUE growled. The Section Zero was shining through now. “Unethical orders.”

“Like you never did?” Standoff stood up abruptly. Olson’s hand shot to his sidearm automatically, but Standoff showed no sign of making for his shoulder holster. Elias kept a hand on the hilt of the pistol regardless.

“Codename: MONTAGUE.” Standoff drawled, lone eye boring into the Spook. “Spartan Jared Miller. The one who ran away. I did my homework, you ass. I know who you are. MONTAGUE isn’t some codename Spartan gave you when you started hunting Leonid. You went by a codename long before Olson here was fighting Covenant, long before my kids were forced out there onto the killing fields. You spent years killing people. Not Covenant, humans. Not even rebels. UNSC. Our fucking own.”

Any hint of the pushover façade MONTAGUE had been putting on vanished as his expression turned icy. “My past isn’t relevant here. You should be facing a court martial just for the crimes I know you committed to even get a hold of that info.”

“A court martial?” Standoff asked quietly, “You cling to those laws of yours an awful lot for someone whose broken them so much. I don’t think lying to your CO is legal in the military’s eyes. And if we’re going to talk ethics…maybe we’d better not. We don’t want to get into the ethics of what you’ve done, Zero.”

“Rich,” retorted MONTAGUE, “Coming from the man who let thirty children die on an augmentation table.”

“You fucking son of a bitch!” Standoff lunged forward, but Olson was already there. Crashing into a wall of metal and ceramic plates did nothing to stem his fury, however. “You’ve got no right. No fucking right. I fought for them every second and every breath. I was battling a goddamn bureaucratic nightmare that didn’t give on single shit whether my kids lived or died, and what were you doing? Shoving a gun barrel in the back of some officers skull!”

He beat against Olson’s should plating with more power than his frame should have been able to manage. He drew back, shouting, still not going for his gun but point at stolid MONTEGUE with every sentence, words stabbing at the Spook like daggers.

“You killed plenty of people unethically, MONTEGUE. You think it makes a difference whether it was legal? I don’t. You ran away, because even you, after seventeen years of killing, couldn’t turn a blind eye anymore. I stole to keep my kids safe. You stole shuttles to save your own ass.”

MONTEGUE seemed to visibly deflate, and Standoff stepped back, looking more grim than satisfied. This wasn’t how the meeting had been supposed to go. Olson felt more and more uncomfortable, standing between the two men. He’d already guessed that MONTEGUE was a bit of a shady character, but guesses still left open the option to suspend disbelief when needed. Knowing for a fact---and the earnest rage in Standoff’s voice made him sure it was indeed fact---didn’t allow for such situational skepticism. Olson knew he’d never quite look at the Spook the same way.

“I guess you really did do your homework, huh?” When Olson had first met MONTEGUE, he’d thought the Spook sounded too happy for a proper intelligence agent. Now, for the first time ever, Olson heard guilt creep into his voice. “But that, Colonel, means you must know exactly why I chose Spartan and got myself put on this mission. You know my stake.”

Olson marveled at Standoff’s cataclysmic ability to get MONTEGUE so free tongued. In his own year and a half with the Spook, Olson had never seen any sign of personal involvement by MONTEGUE. He’d never seen the guy show real emotion. This was dangerous, uncharted ground.

“Yes,” Standoff replied. The single word seemed weighed down heavy with meaning. “And if you’ve used your Section Zero clearance codes, I’m sure you know why I---”

“I don’t have them anymore.” MONTEGUE cut Standoff off. “I lost them when I broke away.”

Standoff looked shocked; then his expression flattened, the fire in his eyes dimmed a little, and a hint of deadness appeared. It was as if he was the opposite of competitive: being at an advantage made him weaken. It was oddly resonant with Olson.

“No wonder you haven’t been able to kill him yet.” Olson almost didn’t notice Standoff substituting “find” for “kill”, the inclusion was sounded so natural. “I’m amazed you’ve managed two runs at him with nothing but Spartan assets to go off of.”

“Hunting people down isn’t a skill you forget.” MONTEGUE spoke without a hint of pride or satisfaction in his voice. “But even then, we’ve been one step behind him most of the time. To slow to do much but react.”

“That’s where I come in.” Standoff took a step back again, business talk calming him, and Olson stepped to the side, trusting him not to act out again. In armor, he could get in front of Standoff before the Colonel could try anything anyway.

“You honestly think you can do what dozens of Spartan operatives couldn’t?” MONTEGUE sounded skeptical but…open. Less formal than usual---but still just as damn vague. “I have no assurances your information is accurate. I don’t even know your methodology or sources.”

“You’ll get your assurances when I do, Mr. Miller.” As Standoff answered, something shifted, some subtle momentum of the conversation altering. Olson realized he had an opening. By himself, he hadn’t the momentum to break MONTEGUE’s institutionalized secrecy---but something made him feel like Standoff might back him up. “And I’ve gotten more attacks than assurances since---”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Olson interjected, “But speaking for the non-spook in this room and any others that might be listening…can we just speak plainly?”

Standoff turned, appraising Elias, and for the first time, seemed like he actually looked at him. A hint of a smile almost seemed to crease his lips. A face as stubbornly grim as Standoff’s lit up brightly, even at such a little bit of pleasure.

“I really have missed soldiers.” he said, “Alright, Spartan; I’m game. Ask away.”

Put on the spot, all the pressing questions that’d been buzzing through Olson’s mind vanished. Elias felt like he’d been transported back to grade school, doing one of those damned oral presentations in Mrs. Buckmeir’s class.

“Alright,” he started hesitantly. “I don’t know what MONTEGUE knows compared to us, but we rank and file are in the dark. We know we’re hunting EGOR, we know he’s dangerous as hell, and we know we’re going after him because Spartan brass has a lot of questions for him. But we don’t know why you want to help us, we don’t know what you can even do to help us, and we definitely don’t know where an ex-training officer gets the resources and clout to attach himself to Spartan’s premier special forces mission.”

Olson took a breath. The questions had come to him easy enough after all.

“If you want to know why I’m doing all this, you can go ask Gold.” Olson felt a flicker of anger at the vague answer, but there seemed like some sort of personal pain behind it. He let it slide. “But as for your other questions, I’ve got information you can use to finally bring that bastard Leonid in. That’s what I can do to help you, Spartan. You’ve been a step to slow each time, haven’t you? I don’t need your handler to tell me that, Spartan. I’ve been following your investigation before you were even a part of it.”

“Following us?” asked Olson, “Figuratively…?”

“For the most part.” Standoff’s almost-joke spoke to how much more comfortable he was getting, talking plainly. “I’ve been looking for Leonid even longer than you. I’ve got certain skills an old…friend…taught me that have made it easy enough to piggy back on all sorts of different efforts to track him down. But your group has been one of the best. You’ve had two shots at him, and even if those missed, that’s two more than anyone else. Between your squad and Gold, you’ve got a team that I think stands a solid chance of getting to Leonid---be it taking him in, or taking him down. If you’ve got the right intel. If you’re a step ahead instead of a step behind. If you’ve got me telling you the location of Leonid’s hit one month from now.”

“The next hit?” Olson’s mind reeled. That kind of info, just like Standoff had said, was exactly what they needed. They could be waiting for him when he got there, with intelligence networks already in place and mission parameters planned in advance rather than on the fly. It was an opportunity that seemed to good to be true. “How could you know where the next hit is?”

“He couldn’t.” MONTEGUE snapped. “No one but Section Zero knows that. Not ONI, not the military, not the government.”

“Your mistake.” Standoff said quietly. “Is approaching the entire world from the perspective of a good guy.”

“Just five minutes ago you called me an unethical murderer.” retorted MONTEGUE. It struck Olson as oddly…petty.

“And I damn well meant it.” Standoff fiddled absentmindedly with his eye patch. “But my point is, you’ve been thinking is too orthodox. You’ve been looking in all the usual places. The military, the government. Official channels. Sometimes unofficial lines, yes, but to government sources. Thinking like a good guy.”

“Alright,” Olson took a step forward and looked Standoff in the eye. “So then how do you think like a bad guy?”

“It’s simple. ONI could never pull it off, much less Spartan branch, but a civilian like me…” Standoff paced behind his chair, hands furling and unfurling. “…I’ve got contacts. In the criminal world. Mercenaries, weapons smugglers, money launderers, black market merchants. Not many, but a few very, very good ones.”

Standoff turned and gave Olson a passing glance, but settled into a hard stare, looking towards MONTEGUE.

“You’ll never find Leonid coming at this from a prosecutors view. You can’t ever get past the layers of deceit in time to catch up with him. But on the side of the prosecuted, it’s a different story.”

“Someone tipped you off.” MONTEGUE matched Standoff’s stare. “Some criminal scum did something bad, stole some guns from a military armory or something, and Section Zero is after them. They think they‘re about to get a hit from EGOR.”

“You think too mundane.” Standoff laughed, but it was a mirthless sound. “That’s the sort of job they’d send a high tier shooter on, actually. Maybe someone like you, maybe not. But Leonid is reserved for more important hits.”

“You assume a lot about an agency you have no experience with.”

“I’ve spent eight years after him.” Standoff replied icily, “I did my homework on you, didn’t I? Leonid is being deployed to kill the planetary governor of an outer colony.”

“What?” MONTEGUE didn’t seem to have been expecting that. “Why?”

“The man is a character.” Standoff sounded uninterested. “He wanted more control than the UNSC would give him, so he staged an uprising. Some of the locals supported it. A lot didn’t. They turned up in protest and when they did, he used orbital assets to flatten them. He ran the show for a little bit using some private militia groups, but when the fleet showed up, he came right back into line. Trouble is, Section Zero wants him dead anyway. Elections are happening next month, then a few weeks after that, when he’s out of power and the government is nice and stable, our mutual friend Leonid will show up.”

“How do you know about all this?” Olson’s mind spun. Killing a planetary governor was big, even if he was voted out. So was putting down a colonial rebellion, for that matter. He hadn’t heard a peep about it at all, though. Could that have really slipped his radar?

“One of my contacts received a job offer.” Standoff read the look of confused skepticism on MONTEGUE and Olson’s faces. “My most reliable contact, specifically. He’d done work for the governor before and was asked to head up a security detail.”

“He turned it down?” asked Olson

“Of course he did.” Standoff sounded like he wanted to slap Olson for asking a stupid question. “He’s smart and took one look at the job and knew it was trouble. Decided it would be beneficial for his health not to take it.”

“Who is he?” Olson didn’t like how vague Standoff was getting. A name would go a long way to reassuring him. How do you know we can trust his intel?”

“Because he saved my life.” Olson swore he could almost hear Standoff’s voice crack. “Anything else, take up with Gold.”

There it was again. Standoff retreating behind Gold over a point. It didn’t strike Olson as deliberately trying to be secretive. More like…private; close to his heart. Olson wondered about the relationship between the Colonel and the SPARTANs he had trained, if he included them in a such a personal place. There’d been no sense of familiarity or closeness between him and his Spartan Four drill instructor. Standoff spoke about Gold as if they were family. Elias realized abruptly he was no longer thinking of the Colonel anything like he had ten minutes prior. He wasn’t picturing someone exploiting his trainees. He seemed…paternal. The image of Matthew-363, Gold Team’s leader, shooting a dark look towards MONTEGUE passed through his mind. It suddenly made more sense.

Was this relationship something all the inducted SPARTANs felt? Olson had spent time with Mark-G253 as time had passed and the mission had dragged on an one. He was their lone SPARTAN-III, barely more than a kid. He was a fish out of water among the elder Spartan Fours, not just from age, but from perspective. He’d lost his parents when he was six and spent six years after that training to be a super soldier, recruited by ONI straight out of his orphanage. He was decidedly not normal. Experiences Elias and the others took for granted---high school, girlfriends, their first beer, moms and dads to tuck them in at night---simply did not exist for him. In Granite, he was alone. No fellow Gamma Company members to reminisce about training with, just these strange, utterly alien adults.

So when he talked about his past, Olson listened. There was always a vague disease, hearing about the ugly things his government had done during the war, but he pushed that aside for Mark’s sake. And when he spoke, so often he’d go back to stories of Kurt Ambrose, the SPARTAN-II who’d trained him. Always with a tone of reverence. Kurt had sacrificed himself to stall the Covenant at Onyx, saving Mark and a dozen of his friend’s lives, and Elias had always connected that respect and veneration with just the sacrifice. But was it more? Gamma Company, Mark’s training class, was well over three hundred candidates, huge compared to the fifty that Standoff had trained. If Mark felt that sort of connection to Kurt, as one of three hundred, Olson could only guess at the loyalty Standoff’s Class III’s had for him.

MONTEGUE had put Gold in the other room to observe, but Olson realized they’d always been in Standoff’s corner, no matter what the rules said otherwise.

“If, by chance, your intel is good, we need to discuss compensation. You were vague before, but given this…” MONTEGUE shot a look at Olson. “…candid atmosphere, maybe you can tell us exactly what you want in exchange.”

“Simple.” Standoff dropped his bombshell. “I want on the pursuit team.”

Olson was taken aback, choking out a cough of surprise. Standoff looked sixty, easy, and his eye patch had to make it tough for him even to just aim a rifle. Did he really think he could keep up with Spartans? It was absurd.

“That’s a big demand.” MONTEGUE didn’t bat an eye, at odds with Elias. Had he expected that? “Your civilian, and ONI before that.”

“So instate me in Spartan as an advisor for your mission.” Standoff looked like he’d argued this in his head a dozen times. “I’ve got experience hunting down Leonid, you can say. Your new, aren’t you? Not yet mired down in the bureaucracy. Use it.”

MONTEGUE stared into Standoff’s eye, clean cut and cheery face at odds with his hard set jaw. Olson realized he’d just become irrelevant. He’d done his part, stirring things up earlier. This was a battle of wills now, and he was no more than an observer.

“You could advise on the pursuit.” MONTEGUE said at last. “The ground work will be Spartans.”

“No.” Standoff sensed an opening. “I’m on the ground when we get him.”

“This mission isn’t a place to settle personal scores.”

“Oh really? Why are you doing it then, instead of running ops on Infinity, like we both know you want to be?”

“Your not a Spartan,” MONTEGUE dodged. “Leonid would tear you apart.”

“He’d take a four apart almost as easy as me. That’s why we’re going in with nine guys.” Standoff removed his eye patch and stared at MONTEGUE with a mangled, scarred red eye socket and a cold glare. “It’s my life to live. My intel, my decision.”

“We could do it without you.” MONTEGUE scowled. “You’ve told us plenty. We could find the planet easy enough with all you’ve mentioned.”

“And then be back to your old tricks, trying to track Leonid as he moved.” Standoff held his gaze. “I didn’t tell you where the Governor has gone to ground. You’d be doing the same things you’ve done the last two missions. And we both know how those turned out.”

A normal military outfit would have rejected the entire affair out of hand. Shut Standoff down without a second thought. Civilians didn’t dictate how a mission would be run to the officer leading it. Didn’t roll with teams on the ground. Even Spartan, new and eager to break the traditional military mold, didn’t operate like this. But this mission had a life of it’s own. And that life had just broken MONTEGUE’s resistance.

“When we drop in, you move with Granite, not Gold.” MONTEGUE’s shoulders sagged. “I won’t tolerate you going rogue. I’ll arrange for SPI to be transferred to the ship.”

“Good.” Standoff sat back on the chair. The deadness seemed to have faded and transferred to MONTEGUE. “We’ve got about three days before we have to ship out, given how fast your ship can move. Leonid is striking Loren Curtis, Whitefall’s governor.”

“I’ll make the necessary arrangements. I do need to know your contact’s name.” MONTEGUE’s tone made it clear this was non-negotiable. “Our assurance that this is all in good faith. And a necessary evil for the paperwork.”

“Roger Jacobs.” Standoff said it with a sigh, but some of his trepidation from earlier had eased with his victory.

Olson searched his brain, puzzled. He’d heard the name before but…where? He searched through his memories of stray intel reports and documents.

It clicked like the imaginary light bulb flashing on. Roger Jacobs, the mercenary. The former SPARTAN mercenary. Granite had nearly been tapped to conduct surveillance of Jacobs after the disastrous first mission to capture EGOR. It had been a ploy on MONTEGUE’s part, keeping Granite busy to keep them intact and from being sent back to Infinity and their original teams, while he maneuvered to revive the mission. Just because it was a cover, however, didn’t make it unimportant.

Jacobs was another SPARTAN-II Class III---they seemed to pop up everywhere these days---who’d lost his team late in the war and simply quit, forming a mercenary band with some oddball, renegade Sangheili. He’d even gotten his hands on an outdated suit of MJOLNIR---no one knew from where---and had been making a name for himself in the Outer Colonies. There were a host of political intricacies, all of which had gone over Olson’s head, related to the whole thing, but he’d understood the bottom line just fine. Jacobs was dangerous as hell.

“Well I can’t question his criminal pedigree.” MONTEGUE sounded less bothered by the revelation that Olson had expected. “If this intel is wrong, you’re gone. Understand that, Colonel.”

“It’s not wrong.” Standoff stood up, neatly pinned his eye patch into place, and waltzed past Olson and MONTEGUE without so much as a sideway glance. He paused at the door as it hissed open. “Understand this, Mr. Miller. Whatever doubts you have, MONTEGUE, whatever bullshit paranoia you make up inside your head to make you scared of me ripping you off, realize this: however much you want Leonid caught, however badly you feel you need to redeem yourself in the eyes of your chosen home, I want him more.”

He walked out, the hiss of the door punctuating his last. Just like that, the meeting was over. The mission was taking on new life. Olson decided to reserve judgment on whether or not it was for better or worse.

Two days later, Elias stepped off the unloading ramp of a Pelican onto the deck plating of the Nox, the ship MONTEGUE and them had been operating out of for the past year. The ship, as always, felt empty---built for a crew of over two hundred, small by modern UNSC standards, the Nox was still practically a ghost ship with just their small team. Still, it was nice to be home. Most of the Fours, Olson included, were so used to shipboard life that it was difficult to relax on the ground. The continuous cycle, year after year, of transit, planet side deployment, and return to ship spoiled them on the surface. A hull equaled safety. The ground was permanently rife with danger.

Olson let the force amplifying, powered circuits of his armor carry him across the bay, hefting a ninety kilogram equipment case under each arm. One nice thing about practically living in a suit of powered armor was that it transformed him into a walking tank, and hauling gear was a damn sight easier as a tank. Stacking the creates into a neat pile, he stalked back towards the Pelican, whistling a tune under his breath. MONTEGUE appeared at the top of the dropship’s ramp, stripped down to his armor’s matte black undersuit and poring over something on his data pad. He motioned wordlessly to the next stack of crates as Elias passed, but made no move to help. His mind was elsewhere.

Then again, so was Olson’s really. He’d spent nearly every moment since the meeting with Standoff following MONTEGUE around, tending to errands or just plain waiting around. Gold had been shuttled back to the ship right after Standoff left---and the rest of Granite had never even been dirtside in the first place---but Elias had annoyingly been kept on as a bagman. Olson would have been very frustrated, had his suspicion not outweighed it. Gold had been sent up before he’d had a chance to get their take on the meeting---deliberately, he was sure. MONTEGUE was up to something as always.

Olson was finishing up his fourth and final trip, hauling a lone ammo crate that he decided had to be filled with bricks rather than bullets, when the hatch across the hangar floor opened and someone came marching up. He glanced up. It was Matthew, strolling across the deck with a curious look on his face. Elias had a whimsical moment of silly disappointment, wishing it was Jacky-359. Some of her ridiculous antics sounded particularly nice after days alone with MONTEGUE.

“What’s all this?” Matthew picked up a case as easily as Olson could in armor. The augments Gold and their Class III brethren had undergone had killed forty percent of them, but those who’d survived exhibited the same incredible strength, speed, reflexes, and durability as the original SPARTAN-II’s. It showed.

“Standoff’s gear.” MONTEGUE descended the ramp, stowing his data pad. “SPI armor and some tracking tech he requested. He wanted familiar gear.”

“Standoff’s gear.” Matthew repeated the words like MONTEGUE had been talking nonsense. “Since when does the Colonel need gear to monitor our op from the ship?”

“Change of plans.” MONTEGUE brushed a flick of dropship bay dust off his shoulder. “Standoff will be groundside with Elias here and the rest of Granite.”

“Change of plans?” Matthew bristled. “This wasn’t part of the deal, sir.”

Part of the deal? What exactly had Olson missed this time?

“The deal had to change.”

“And when,” Matthew dropped the case to the floor. It landed with an echoing crash. “Was that? You told me you were obtaining the intel and in exchange the Colonel would get to watch over us during the mission. You said you were going to keep him off the ground like we asked, sir.”

Problems jumped out of Matthew’s story like a slap to the face.

“Wait,” said Olson, “Told you? I thought you were listening in the observation room?”

“We were.” MONTEGUE opened his mouth to speak but Matthew was quicker. “After the Colonel mentioned the timetable his intel would give us, we got the order to return to the ship.”

Olson turned and took a long look at MONTEGUE, trying to read him, trying to figure out what this was possibly all about. As always, his jovial expression betrayed nothing. After a moment, Elias sighed and gave up. It was more of MONTEGUE’s usual bullshit secrecy, but the reasoning seemed even less clear than before. What was the point of lying about that to Matthew if the truth was just going to come out in a couple days anyway? None of the reasons Olson could conjure up explained it.

“Standoff made it clear that he was either on the ground, or he’d be keeping the intel.” MONTEGUE ignored Olson and Matthew’s side conversation like he hadn’t heard it.

“Right, and I bet you fought that demand real, real hard, sir.” Matthew kept his tone unnaturally even, too measured to sync up properly with his confrontational words. He sounded like he’d had experience respectfully disagreeing with officers. “I passed this along with an assurance you would keep the Colonel off the field.”

“And I seem to remember, Spartan Matthew,” MONTEGUE was eerie, cheerful and pure ice all at once. “You being unwilling to give a reason why you felt so strongly about keeping him on the ship. Standoff has adequate skills to accompany us in a rear role, and nothing I’ve seen sets him apart as any sort of…unpredictable risk.”

“Of course, it seems to me you must have a reason for not wanting him with us beyond the usual concerns of his lack of augments.” MONTEGUE took a step towards Matthew. It would have been more intimidating had he not been four inches shorter. “That reason wouldn’t be related to your, still unexplained, personal request for this assignment, would it?”

“No sir.” Matthew’s expression darkened. “Just concerned for the Colonel’s safety, as always.”

“Then it seems we’ve reached an agreement.” MONTEGUE clapped Matthew on the shoulder, smiling his very widest smile. “Standoff will be here in a few hours. I’m sure Elias would appreciate a hand organizing these supplies. Why don’t the two of you get that finished then grab something from the mess? I’ll go update your teammates on the…change of plans.”

Matthew stared, caught between a rock and a hard place. Olson squirmed as he watched the younger man’s eyes follow MONTEGUE out of the room. The bullshit meter was at max, as usual, but this was something else. Olson could tell it was a good deal more important than the usual petty power scuffles. Matthew had lost this battle, and it was about to cost him the whole war.

MONTEGUE was whistling a tune as the hangar door closed behind him.