Halo: Oversight

Plot Summary
''The year is 2558. An uneasy peace has settled over Human space after decades of war with the Covenant, though there has been no end to bouts of sporadic fighting across the colonies as hostile forces seek to gain power and influence. At the forefront of this unending battle are the UNSC's SPARTAN supersoldiers and the highly-trained agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence, striking at threats on multiple worlds to save lives and sustain power.''

''Nearly a year after a shocking Forerunner attack on Earth, two operatives find themselves embroiled in a shadowy conspiracy within their own organisation as they are pursued by multiple factions, desperately searching for the truth behind it all. Meanwhile, a veteran SPARTAN-II team conducting its own investigation stumbles upon a dark secret from their own past, and must race to bring a shadowy figure to justice.''

Halo: Oversight

Standard Operating Procedure
It was a beautiful night for a mission.

Perched on the edge of the Grand Duke Hotel's rooftop like a metallic gargoyle, Violet-B039 took the time to take in Bulgan's skyline as she affixed a length of steel rope to a nearby pillar. With long, twenty-nine hours days, Erdenet's night cycle was particularly long, and its inhabitants seemed to keep things running around the clock. Tiny pinpricks of light drifted along a distant highway, most heading out of the planet's capital city and towards the sprawling suburbs. Seven towering skyscrapers loomed around the hotel; dark, empty monoliths that dwarfed most of the cityscape. After the war's end, corporations had flocked to the rebuilding colonies like vultures, picking over what remained and setting up massive offices on numerous worlds.

"Two minutes." a voice hissed in Violet's ear.

Violet gave a short whistle in acknowledgement, sighing wistfully as she dragged her attention away from Bulgan's rooftops. She couldn't afford to let her mind wander while on a mission. Clad in a grey suit of DECIMATOR-class MJOLNIR armour and standing at roughly seven feet tall, Violet was still able to retain a low profile as she carefully stepped towards the building's edge, drawing a suppressed BR85 rifle. In the corner of her helmet's heads-up display, a tiny screen flashed up, feeding Violet information from the tiny drone currently hovering several metres away from the westernmost room on the fifteenth floor. Tapping a button on her wrist-mounted TACPAD, Violet cycled through several modes of observation before settling on the infared camera.

''Nine Insurrectionists. Seven male. Two female. Armed.''

The Spartan clicked her tongue - an involuntary tic she'd acquired - when she was finally satisfied with how she would deal with these targets, and glanced towards the tenth person in the room: her partner, Jill. Just as planned, she'd activated the minuscule IFF marker hidden in one of her shirt buttons so the drone would pick it up, and had hidden herself in the room furthest away from Violet's entry point. After five months of working together, she had become rather fond of the ONI assassin, in her own little way. Watching Jill pace around her empty room, anticipating the sudden attack, Violet couldn't help but smirk as she recognised the woman's agitation, even as a heat outline. When she felt she could prolong Jill's suffering no longer, Violet activated TEAMCOM and gave a terse statment.

"I'm coming down."

Violet signalled for the drone to return to base - a command vehicle and surveillance van disguised as a frozen goods truck several blocks away - and moved towards the rooftop's precipice, tugging at the rope in her right hand to ensure its tautness. She took a slow, deep breath, steeled her nerves, and stepped over the edge. In her two-ton suit of armour, Violet fell like a brick, using the rope to slow her ascent as she tried to avoid accidentally kicking through any windows. As she reached the seventeenth floor, the Spartan managed to halt her freefall, steadying herself against her balcony as she prepared for entry. Turning around, Violet thumbed her BR85's safety off and switched from burst-fire to fully automatic, aware that in the hotel room's tight quarters precision was not a particularly massive priority.

Bending her knees, Violet snatched another glimpse of the city's light-streaked skyline before kicking off as hard as she could, cracking the stone beneath her boots as she allowed several feet of steel rope to slip through her fingers. In barely a moment, she found herself facing the brightly-lit hotel room, and activated her armour's rear thrusters as she surged towards a wide picture window. Inside, a man in dark overalls stood before it, cupping his hands over his mouth as he lit a cigarette. He barely had time to register the Spartan flying at him before Violet smashed through feet first, planting a boot in his chest that sent him careening into a nearby wall. Releasing the rope, she plastered the walls with the brains of a second Insurrectionist who had been snoozing in a chair by the fireplace with a few shots from her rifle before spinning around to face four very surprised targets across the hotel room.

In some small way, Violet pitied the rebels as they screamed, ran, or tried to return fire at the supersoldier standing in their room. Still firing one-handed, she took down two more with a sweeping rain of gunfire and caught a third in the neck as she dove towards the entrance door. Violet unholstered her sidearm - a 'Gunfighter' variant of the standard-issue M6H pistol - and finished off the wounded girl with two successive headshots before advancing into the adjacent kitchen. One rebel, who had dashed in there as Violet slaughtered his companions, let loose a hail of bullets with a machine pistol that missed or pinged harmlessly off her energy shields before another burst put him down. Pausing for a fraction of a second as she approached the hallway door, Violet emptied the rest of her magazine into the wooden counter, perforating two more as they cowered for their lives. Upon hearing their dying gasps and catching sight of dark blood seeping across the tiles, Violet nodded in approval and moved on.

"Di, what're you-"

Violet was halfway down the hallway when she heard two shots cut off a man's shouts mid-sentence. She holstered her empty rifle, not bothering to reload, and kept her Magnum raised as she reached the main bedroom. The door had been hurriedly shut and locked tight, but a swift kick sent it flying off its hinges. Slumped against the half-open balcony door was a middle-aged man in formal wear, his white shirt soaked in blood and his eyes wide open in terror. Standing a few feet away and leaning against a dresser was BRUTUS infiltration agent Jill Urbach, looking very pleased with herself as the Spartan lowered her weapon.

"Almost missed one," Jill inclined her head towards the corpse.

"He wouldn't have gotten far."

"True, but you know how command is about keeping down the carnage. A trashed hotel room is one thing, but scraping splatted Innie off the sidewalk is a little more noticeable."

Violet conceded with a hum and knelt beside the body, closing the dead man's eyes before rifling through his pockets. She held no respect for Insurrectionists, alive or dead, but it was distracting to work with a corpse staring at you. After fishing a datapad out of his suit jacket, Violet pulled his head forward and set her eyes on a tattoo of a four-pointed star on the back of the rebel's neck.

"Yep, this is Dai Lạc all right," she muttered, standing up. "I'm surprised he turned up here."

"So was I," Jill said, stifling a yawn.

"Tired?"

"They had me on two shifts of guard duty and another four hours of surveillance in a single day, Vi. I'm beat."

"Poor baby," Violet cooed. "When were they going to make the hit?"

"In about an hour's time. Lạc was going to meet with one of his contacts from Aleria, but dropped by to wish us luck beforehand."

"Good thing we closed the book on this when we did, then."

For the past month, Jill had been working to infiltrate the Colonial People's Independence Movement, an upstart secessionist group with some alarming cultish elements that had sprung up on Erdenet and a few other planets in the last two years. As with many would-be Insurrectionist movements, the CPIM had mostly been a nuisance, distributing leaflets and propaganda about fighting the 'Imperialist UNSC' across ChatterNet and even some Waypoint networks while ONI monitored it from afar. It was only after the violent murder of an opposing electoral candidate in early 2557 and a subsequent spate of attacks against both civilian and military targets that they were officially declared a terrorist group and action taken against them. Particularly fervent members of the group had taken to tattooing their logo - a four-pointed star - onto their necks, which invariably got most of them caught by the authorities, though hardliners like Dai Lạc wore theirs with pride.

While direct action kept most of the CPIM underground, it wasn't long before ONI needed an infiltrator to destabilise the group from within, and had enlisted the aid of the BRUTUS division. True to their name, BRUTUS specialised in the deployment of assassins who worked to befriend, seduce or intimidate their way into dangerous Insurrectionist factions, sometimes remaining undercover for years at a time before bringing down the entire organisation in one fell swoop. With the creation of new identities as hardened criminals or wanted terrorists, an agent could ideally play any role necessary for their new allies, and often left no survivors to recognise them later on. With the background of 'Diana Miller', a neo-Koslovic extremist whose violent brush with ONI agents had prompted her departure from the Sol System, Jill Urbach had quickly found herself accepted into the group and due to the dire straits their Erdenet cell was in, had found herself as one of their key fighters in preparation for an attack on the local UEG administrative building.

Of course, said attack had never taken place. Once all the members of the CPIM on Erdenet had gathered together, she had discreetly alerted Violet, her partner, and prepared to slaughter the others. As far as the rest of the group knew, Diana Miller had died with their comrades in this hotel room. It was time to go.

***

"So," Jill spoke up as they entered the hotel elevator. "Aside from being my eye in the sky for the past month, any news?"

"Command's planning something for us on Aleria next, actually. They're still trying to work out the logistics of it, considering the planet's state, but word is that the URF might be making moves there."

"The URF?" Violet's partner raised an eyebrow as they stepped into the elevator. "Pretty small-fry these days, from what I've heard."

"Compared to the NCA, sure, but they've still got some pull with the old-timers and a few serious heavy-hitters. Back in Spartan Ops I tried asking about it, but everything's real hush-hush when it comes to the URF these days."

Before Jill and Violet had been partnered up late last year, the SPARTAN-III had spent most of her time as part of their secretive Headhunter force while her BRUTUS counterpart worked alone as 'Agent 121' to sabotage a major militia group on Forseti. Somewhere along the line, she'd been discovered as a spy and jailed - an incredible stroke of luck considering that most rebel groups did to captured ONI agents. When rescue had arrived in response to Jill's emergency hail, she was amazed to see that her saviour was a SPARTAN supersoldier: Violet-B039. As it turned out, the head of BRUTUS had recently struck a deal with Spartan Operations to begin the 'Defender Initiative', which matched up the raw strength and combat skills of a Spartan with the guile and infiltrator tactics of a BRUTUS agent. Since then, Jill and Violet had become an incredibly formidable duo in the field.

Jill sighed. "I suppose I'll miss Erdenet. It's no Earth, but I would've loved to see the sights more."

"Relax," Violet patted her on the shoulder. "They'll give you some time off after this."

"Yeah, right. Just you wait, we'll be on a transport ship to that sandy shithole within a day or two, you mark- oh."

As the elevator doors slid open, Violet and Jill found themselves facing five men in black, unadorned uniforms. Had the Spartan not identified their leader, she would have immediately opened fire.

"One-Two-One, Spartan," a lean, sallow-faced man with pale eyes nodded towards them. "Excellent work up there. We'll handle things from here."

Jill returned his nod with a polite smile. "Thank you, Rettinger. Sorry about the mess."

"I think we'll manage somehow. Now, if you don't mind?"

Violet and Jill exited the elevator and stood back as Rettinger and his team moved inside, carrying heavy equipment cases. ONI's cleanup squads were known for their punctuality, but their quick appearance here was downright supernatural. Rettinger ran a hand over his shaved scalp and waved at Jill as the doors slid shut, leaving the pair in the building's empty lobby. Any staff working here had already been quietly ushered out, paid off, or were otherwise preoccupied to allow for their quiet departure.

"Creep," Violet muttered, already making her way towards the front doors.

"I wouldn't want his job."

"I'm just surprised he got here so fast. I don't usually see cleanup."

"They probably had their own drone watching the hotel room. C'mon, let's get out of here."

Stepping out onto the deserted street, the two women were surprised to find their command vehicle parked right outside, its side door already open. Rettinger's team had evidently brought it over for them. Without another word, Violet and Jill boarded the truck and set off, setting its automatic controls to seek a spot by the city's spaceport for them to stay overnight. In the morning, they would likely be contacted by Command with further orders. As the truck slowly made its way down Erdenet's quiet business district, away from the bustling marketplaces and nightlife of the ever-awake sudden district, Violent finally removed her helmet and wiped a smear of blood from the silver-faced visor before clambering into the truck's lone Brokkr Armor Mechanism. The machine hummed to life, whirring and buzzing as it steadily removed her armour. Normally one would require several technicians to oversee such a device, but Violet and Jill could easily operate it alone. As Violet shed her outer shell, Jill sat back in a nearby desk, slowly spinning round and gazing at the roof in quiet contemplation before at last she spoke up.

"Actually, maybe someplace like Aleria is exactly what I need."

Violet, stuck at a horizontal angle as the machine removed her boots, glanced over. "Oh?"

"Yeah, all this city stuff's starting to get to me, Vi. I'm getting nostalgic."

"For what?"

"Home. Earth, I mean. You grow up in a big place like Frankfurt and even when you're out here in the sticks you get reminders of things you saw growing up. Know what I mean?"

"No, not really."

"Oh right, sorry. The Spartan thing."

While details of the SPARTAN-III program were still classified as top-secret even within ONI, Jill had garnered enough in the last five months to realise that her partner's history - particularly her presence in several battles of the Human-Covenant War - meant that she had been recruited into the military at a sickeningly early age. While she'd tossed the ethics of it around internally for a while, Jill knew she was in no position to judge, considering the blatant illegality of her own organisation's actions and the threat of extinction during the war likely lead to some regrettable decisions further down the line.

"Well, all I'm saying is that it might be nice to take on a tougher mission. Somewhere a little tougher than frigging Erdenet. I dunno, maybe it's the thrill of it."

To her surprise, Violet let out a genuine laugh at that. As her last armour piece was placed on an adjacent table, she stepped out of the machine, now clad only in the back techsuit all Spartans needed to don their suits. While still a very imposing woman, Violet looked like slightly less of a killing machine now. While slightly younger than Jill, her face bore the scars of war; an old wound across her upper brow, and a deep, jagged cut running from her left cheek and down across her lips.

"You might've made for a good Spartan, Jill."

"You think?"

"Yeah." This was high praise coming from the likes of Violet. "And I'm not talking about a Four. They're good soldiers in a Spartan's armour, but that's that. You'd have been good in Beta Company."

"Well, thanks Vi."

The Spartan turned away for a moment and stretched, smiling weakly. "Of course, then you would've probably died on that godforsaken rock with the rest of them."

There was an awkward pause as Jill stared at Violet's back, unsure of what to say. After a few moments, the Spartan walked out and into the truck's cab to monitor the rest of the journey. Standing on the threshold, she turned her head towards her partner.

"Oh, and get some damn sleep. We'll talk about that next mission in the morning."

"Yeah," Jill stood up and cast a longing look towards the metal bunk bed built into the side of the MCV's rather cramped living quarters. "That sounds great."