User:RelentlessRecusant/Halo: Vector/Chapter One

 VECTOR i   By RelentlessRecusant  "Our earth is wounded. Her oceans and lakes are sick; her rivers are like running sores; The air is filled with subtle posions. And the oily smoke of countless hellish fires blackens the sun. Men and women, scattered from homeland, family, friends, wander desolate and uncertain, scorched by a toxic sun... In this desert of frightened, blind uncertainty, some take refuge in the pursuit of power. Some become manipulators of illusion and deceit."

- The Warrior Song of King Gezar

Eighteen years before the present day

DECEMBER 2553 AZURE MERCANTILES HEADQUARTERS ASPHODEL MEADOWS, 47 URSAE MAJORIS SYSTEM

The man sitting before him was framed by the severe alpine beauty of the desolating tempest of snow and ice beyond that was characteristic of Asphodel Meadows at this silent time of year. His complexion was harrowed, with thinned cheekbones framed by graying hair at his temples, with brooding eyes that betrayed that they’d seen too much for a lifetime.

His name was Gibson. He was the Director of Section Three, UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence.

The man facing Gibson was of a different mannerism and occupation. He still held the vestiges of a patrician air, of a lost lineage of high class, long lost, distant. His face was placid, vacant, expressionless, as if carved by an artist to human proportions, but that the craftsman had forgotten to add in the humanity. His own eyes were absent, mirrors that reflected the outside world, and his skin was gaunt, morbidly pale, his lips albino, matching the palette of the storm raging outside.

This one’s name was Beah. Beah Schore.

On the burnished metal table that separated the two figures were two untouched cups of steamy cappuccino.

It was almost some removed, harlequin, dream-like scenario. Two of the most influential men of the trillions of mankind, sitting over coffee on a desolate world removed almost thirty-light years from the nearest UNSC colonies—a vagrant, outlying colony of minimal importance. And there they sat, silently biding each other’s time, with a pained interest at the snowy zephyr storming outside.

Finally, Gibson was roused. With a stir and a silent vexative sigh, he turned to face Beah. His fingers drummed against the aluminum table.

Gibson himself, and for that matter, all his subordinates, were all interesting curiosities. While Gibson maintained the position of a two-star Rear Admiral of the UNSC Defense Force and a senior officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence, his name was absent for the Admiralty’s List. All the members of Section Three had similarly obfuscated paper trails, drawing their pays not as Intelligence specialists, but rather custodians, quartermasters, morale officers. The building they were in had the name of “Azure Mercantiles” emblazoned on its side, and at all times, between three to six civilians strolling innocuously past it.

These civilians were, in actuality, close-quarters combat specialists of UNSC Naval Special Warfare, and their parkas and jackets concealed folding-stock suppressed M7 submachine guns, and garrote wire tucked in their boots. On the surrounding roofs were half a dozen sniper-spotter teams, and nearby was a reaction force of several Marine companies backed with VTOL air support and heavy-weapons squads.

Gibson tossed a casual glance at Beah, his internal battle won.

At last, he said, “Good to see you.”

Beah’s lips twisted into a cruel, demeaning, tight smile. “And you too, Director. How’s Marge?”

The reference was to Margaret O. Parangosky, the former chief of Section Three, who’d taken over ONI after the War’s end, a gracious nod from the UNSC brass for her efforts during the war. Gibson reciprocated Beah’s smile. “She’s a dead end. Heart attack. She was old.”

The two both knew well that Parangosky sustained her body despite her age because of various biotechnology accoutrements she acquired by careful ONI investments. Beah knew with an almost absolute certainty that this heart attack was induced by … the man canted his head slightly in thought. Yes, a special-operator team—SPARTAN-IIIs? Suppressed dart projectile rifle, tipped with high-load epinephrine and a dissolving injector tip. Induced cardiac tachycardia.

Beah waved away the distracting thoughts. These were useful intellectual exercises, but now was the time to business. It had taken him a significant amount of effort to slip away from Acumen’s executive offices in Earth orbit to this desolate hellhole for a cloak-and-dagger codicil with Gibson. “So, to business, Director?”

The ONI officer’s eyes flashed dimly for a moment—perhaps with a touch of danger? Gibson’s tone was careful, controlled. “I’ve been able to arrange the package for you.”

Beah allowed himself a small smile, but Gibson chose the moment to pounce. His voice hardened, and outside the room, Beah could hear the Section Three guards shuffling uneasily. The ONI flag officer said sharply, voice abruptly hard “Let’s make this very clear, Doctor. We give you the primary source—everything you learn and develop from it comes to us first, not the market. Understood?” Gibson’s eyes were intense, his expression set in a cold determination.

Beah’s eyes twinkled slightly as his mental gaze shifted to the thousands of biomedical research ethics protocols that were being eviscerated with this covert meeting. His colleagues at Harvard and Howard Hughes Medical Institute … so distant, unaware, removed of what it took—

He remembered that an admiral of the UNSC Defense Force was speaking to him. Beah nodded stoically at the ONI officer. “Of course, Director. I wouldn’t betray our confidence.”

Gibson’s lips curled with thinly-veiled contempt. This decision to proceed had evidently been a difficult one for him too.

“Walk carefully, Doctor Schore.”

ONI COVERT OPERATIONS STAGING HANGAR 3-C ASPHODEL MEADOWS, 47 URSAE MAJORIS SYSTEM

Beah, a lone, frostbitten man in a heavy parka, stalked into ONI bay where Gibson had deposited the package of interest. He saw two terse hand motions in his peripheral vision—that would be Gibson’s special forces operators, soldiers from UNSC Naval Special Warfare (NAVSPECWAR), the backup sentries for the secure ops zone.

A man in similar attire, his expression innocuous, was standing in the center of the bay. He nodded stiffly towards Beah as he approached. It was Barr, Beah’s personal security chief, and his executor for times such as this. Spread on the floor, under the careful watch of the ONI soldiers, were several dozen obsidian caskets. Electronic diodes winked on their polished surfaces. On one of the ovoid canisters, he caught a small bit of stray text printed—PROJECT: SUBTANK.

Beah looked at Barr. “Are they all in there?”

Barr nodded evenly. “As far as I can determine, Doctor.”

Schore knelt down towards one of the oblong objects, his fingers playing over the chilled nigrous metal. It was hyperborean to the touch, even more bitterly arctic to the snowstorm outside. He briefly eyed the LEDs with an innate fascination—he was a scientist-doctor, an MD/PhD. Such biological samples captured his interest, enthralled him. It was why he was doing what he was, the chief scientific officer of Acumen, and a department head and institute director in the biotechnology / paramilitary firm.

“Cryogenics?”

Barr gave another terse nod.

Beah flicked a glance to the NAVSPECWAR team leader, whose eyes were unusually tight, his gloved fingers close to the catch of his BR55HB SR Battle Rifle. Around the hangar bay, the other commandoes were similarly terse with their weapons, their laser sights not quite lancing across the caskets. The academician said quietly, “Thank you, Commander. Please give my thanks to the Director.”

The seasoned commando looked at his men, and wordlessly, they filed out of the hangar.

Barr gave his superior a searching look.

Beah shook his head adamantly. “It’s the only way. Load them onto the yacht. We leave in thirty.”

Thirty minutes later, an Acumen Science private yacht arced from the ONI hangar, its piscine prow angled for the distant stars. From the Azure Mercantiles building, Gibson and a knot of his officers observed the rapidly-diminishing spacecraft.

One of his advisors whispered, his eyes still tracking Beah’s yacht, “Are you sure, sir?”

Perhaps it was a testament to Gibson’s deflated demeanor that the flag officer didn’t challenge his subordinate. Wordlessly, the director walked back into the building’s confines, his mind somewhere else.

SECURE STAGED RESEARCH FACILITY MAGI SIX ACUMEN SCIENCE TECHNOLOGIES UNSPECIFIED SUBTERRANEAN LOCATION, EARTH

When Beah staged his elaborate entrance into the surreptitious high-containment Acumen biological research hot labs under Earth’s surface, he was flanked by a number of high-tier advisors and administrators from Acumen’s orbital headquarters, and he was reciprocatingly well-recieved by a number of MAGI SIX’s division heads. After the requisite formalities, Beah was left alone with Thoreau, one of the molecular biology principal investigators at MAGI SIX, one of the members of Beah’s Department of Experimental Biology.

Thoreau didn’t mince words or time. As soon as the last of the officials had been politely ushered away, he looked at his departmental head. “Doctor, we’ve received them. All seventy-three. They are all in good condition.”

“Are they secure?”

“They are at cryogenic hibernation, sir.”

“What is the probability of reanimation or recombination?”

“Impossible, Doctor. Proteome and kinome activity is dependent on external temperature and kinetic activity—”

“Spare me the lecture, Thoreau. What are the contingency plans?”

“We have each corpse in an individual explosive rigged container, with fail-safe radiation charges that will neutralize all genetic material. Any movement more than a millimeter by the corpses will trigger the utter destruction of the corpse and the containing capsule. There will be no traces.”

“Excellent. What are your plans for the bodies?”

“We are beginning a low pH phenol / chloroform DNA prep to extract nanogram-scale genetic material. We will use single-copy PCR to amplify the DNA and build a unified library. Afterwards, we can begin.”

Beah’s look was distant.

“Doctor?”

Beah flicked a brief, passing glance at his subordinate. “Good work. Keep me informed.”

He stalked away, his voluminous robes enfolding him as he faded away in the pristine corridor.

Thirteen years before the present day

SEPTEMBER 2558 AZURE MERCANTILES HEADQUARTERS ASPHODEL MEADOWS, 47 URSAE MAJORIS SYSTEM

Two men amiably meet over steaming cups of coffee in a desolate building battered by an aggrieved snowstorm. One man’s face is haunted, framed by the pristine blanket lovely white of the slew of storm and hail that brews outside. The other’s man face is cold, sunken. Both faces are animated with energy.

In the timespan of four years, ONI has devised seventeen novel biological warfare programs and eleven biotechnological augumentations and Acumen has received over two thousand new patents, and its stock has increased by over a thousand points.

Beah, however, will remember where the genesis of this all was—three years ago, at a covert ops hangar on Asphodel Meadows, at a high-security research laboratory underneath Earth’s crust. What they’d done.

Gibson smiles. “Good work, Doctor.”

Perhaps it is a rare insight to Beah’s conscience and troubled mind that he doesn’t bother to reciprocate the ONI division chief, his mind elsewhere.

Finally, he turns to look at the admiral.

Beah murmurs softly, eyes unfocused and his expression vacant, “Yes, good work indeed.”